I hope everyone’s weekend was good. I spent most of mine over at the Oakland Coliseum watching professional bull riding. I’ll have some fun audio posted in the next day or two. But in the mean time lets celebrate America in a different way. During my travels through the Internet I came across the FBI files for Malcolm X and it’s actually an interesting set of documents to read through. So, if you want to download the files you can visit the link I found HERE.
Or cut and paste this: http://rapidshare.com/users/PUO2VN …
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I just learned that some of the audio I captured with my fiancee’s Iraqi family, currently living in Jordan, has been featured on one of the programs at
www.vocalo.org. The audio is a clip from my interview with my fiancee’s 78-year old aunt. In case you missed that blog entry, she is a retired school teacher who was displaced, under penalty of death, by U.S. Marines from her home in Baghdad. This clip describes what she used to like to do in Iraq and what she does now as a refugee in Jordan.
The clip is featured in the program “Midday Mash-Up” and the direct link is:
http://www.vocalo.org/on-air/playlist/30151 . You will be able to listen to the archived version shortly (if not already). Be sure to vote on it!
Update: It looks like the audio clip is actually featured on several Vocalo.org playlists…cool!
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I’ve completely lost track of what day it is. My time in Cairo has be fun but a little hectic but I chalk that up to the price for being part of a tour group. We just left the ‘poshness’ of the Conrad hotel in Cairo and now we are at the Palestine hotel in Alexandria. It’s a gorgeous place – right on the Mediterranean Sea – but the hotel is a couple of knocks down on the quality pole. Anyway, it seems a bit more sane here in terms of the number of people and we will have more free time to ourselves. So, I hope to get out on my own now. I have more audio and lots more photos that I will post tomorrow…must sleep…Zzzzzzzzz…
p.s. I look forward to getting back home for nothing more than being able to go into a bathroom and not have someone standing over you waiting to, uhhh, wipe your…okay, so I exaggerate but it feels pretty darn close to that here.
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Net Radio gives the average, non-corporate aligned radio people the chance to do business and work in a field almost entirely controlled by a few companies with multi-multi-million dollar budgets. Those big business folks always say that everyone has equal chance in such an arena but that’s an utter lie. Most of us will NEVER have the kinds of funds that are being required to produce and distribute radio. Yet radio has always been considered a public service and the budgets that are being set are only that high because the controlling interests don’t want competition. It is entirely possible to put out very high quality radio without the artificially high costs. Therefore, it is up to you and I to keep pressure on this situation and help make it possible for small groups to compete in a world where private, highly funded interests are declaring who and what can be heard on public “airwaves”.
And thus:
You can help. At least one of your Senators is a Member of the Judiciary Committee and we need their support. Call them today and ask them to support independent artists, small businesses, and the future of Internet radio. You can find their phone number and talking points here: http://www.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/alert_9738601.html. Ask your Senator to support the Brownback Amendment to S. 2913.
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Today’s SF Chronicle has a good story on the demise of the old “Mix Tape”. Those lovingly put together mixes that some of us spent hours listening, recording, listening and recording until the perfect mix was made. As the article points out it was the time, effort and less than perfect technology that helped make these pieces of audio compilation unique and special. Back in the analog days you had to listen to a song as you cued it up and then as it recorded and as we all know, now you can create a play list and burn it without ever really listening or putting much energy into it. Further, back in the “Mix Tape” days most of us used records as our source and like the lines in a person’s face, the clicks, scratches and physical sound of each record is different. Therefore, each tape we made was original and special. Now with digital sound and technology the “mix tape” has become a much more generic offering that doesn’t come with as much character and feeling that those chunks of plastic and magnetic ribbon possessed. Sure, it’s always nice to have someone share some new music with you but the old mix tape was a unique piece that had much more than just the compilation of songs recorded onto it. RIP “The Mix Cassette Tape.”
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Here’s an interesting pysch test you can take to help answer, do you have any racial bias (and how much)? The test records and compares your reaction times when posed with pictures of Black and White men holding either cell phones or hand guns. You have the option to either holster your weapon or use it based on what the person is holding. If you’re like me you won’t be surprised that your reaction time is faster when responding to images of white guys but it’s still a very interesting study and test. The test is available here. Another set of similar tests can be found here.
An article discussing all this can be found here.
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I start my 2008 blog with a topic I recently emailed to some friends inquiring about a relatively new (about 2 years old) music download service called SpiralFrog. The attraction to this service is that it is legal and “free”. Sounds good, eh? Well, free in this case means you must view commercial advertisements in exchange for music downloads (in my book that ain’t free. a person’s time and attention is worth a lot – just look at how much companies pay to advertise to you). What do you get for your time? You get music! Cool, right? Well, the digital music files you are downloading are programmed to expire after 60 days unless you login to the SpiralFrog service and “refresh” the files and spend more time viewing more advertisements. That’s the 21st Century, capitalist definition of free. To further darken the picture, the files you download are not compatible with iPods nor even Microsoft’s Zune player (even thought MS is the creator of the technology that makes these files expire after 60-days). Not compatible seems to mean that once you put the files on an iPod they cannot be “refreshed” and will expire. So, for some these may be acceptable trade offs and so I encourage you to check out the service. But for me? I still go for buying CDs and ripping the files myself…
Here are some relevant links to explore:
Not iPod/Zune compatible
Nice overview of the service and problems associated with it
Personal response from PCworld.com blog
Random summation and opinion from geeksrus.com
…oh, btw, happy new year!
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