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Tuesday, April 30, 2002
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 From Where I Sit
Dave's mentioned in Scripting today about the USA Today article where many webcasters are going to go silent on Wednesday May 1, 2002, in protest to the Copyright Office's CARP recommendations.
I support them 100%.
For those of you who have been sleeping under a rock, let me bring you up to speed. The Copyright Office has made recommendations, which resembles a Hillary Rosen - RIAA gift list, to set the fees webcasters would pay for playing any recorded music over the internet. These fee would be based upon the number songs played x the of users. Without giving you a lesson in high mathmatics, the short answer is the amount of revenue these fees would require many webcasters to pay would put about 90% of the webcasters out of business in short order.
At a gathering of webcasters at the recent NAB2002, many webcasters expressed deep concerns that if the CARP recommendations were enacted they would not only put most webcasters out of business, but deeply in debt that would never be able to be repaid, because the CARP fees are retroactive.
This was a legislation was supposed to encourage business growth and give a level playing field to the industry not kill it.
According to SaveInternetRadio.org
"Most webcasters are planning the May 1st "Day of Silence" to begin at dawn in their time zone and end in late evening. Some webcasters plan to go entirely silent, while others plan to replace their music streams with periods of silence interspersed with public service announcements on the subject. (Some webcasters also plan to broadcast or direct listeners to an all-day talk show on the issues produced by WOLF FM's Steve Wolf.)
Webcasters that will be participating in the "Day of Silence" include the majority of the top-rated independent webcasters, including AllDanzRadio (various formats), Choice Radio (various formats), ChronixRadio (rock), ClevelandHits.com (CHR), CyberRadio2000 (various formats), Digitally Imported (various forms of electronica), HardRadio (rock), iNetProgramming (bluegrass and other formats), Internet Radio Hawai'i (Hawaiian music), KING-FM/Seattle  (classical), KPIG/Freedom, CA (Americana), M4Radio (indie rock), Mostly Classical (classical), Radio Paradise (AAA), Radioio (AAA) and RAIN Radio (several formats).
Other webcasters planning to participate include SomaFM (electronica), 3WK (alternative), TwangTownUSA (country), Twangcast (country), Ultimate-80s (Eighties), Village Voice Radio (eclectic), WCSB/Cleveland (various), WICB-FM (Ithica College), and WOLF FM (70s-80s-90s).
Webcasters who may not go silent but who plan to support the effort with heavy schedules of PSAs (that will include a moment of silence — e.g., "Here's what Internet radio may sound like on May 22nd...") include Beethoven.com (classical), Live365.com (various formats), ClassicalMusicDetroit (classical), Shoutcast (various formats), Winamp Radio (various formats), and numerous other college and noncommercial webcasters. "
3:24:20 AM 
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Things That Really Count
I have been silent the past couple days because of family obligations and lack of time. Honestly folks my mind has been elsewhere.
Last week my cousin Joyce, who lives back in Illinois had double cardiac bi-pass surgery late last week. This is her second trip into surgery in the past six months. The seven stints they put in last October ended up completely blocked, despite the fact she followed her doctors orders on diet and medication, and been a model patient. "Dick Chaney and I have a similar problem. Hopefully I can get his quality of medical care." She informed me a couple days before the surgery. The four-hour surgery was performed last Thursday and after a few days of recovery they sent her home Sunday. Today when we talked on the phone she was in good spirits having stunned the Visiting Nurse by taking her 3 minute jog around the house with little problems. (Little did the poor nurse know this women used to run a major financial institution, so what's a 3 minute jog?) Her only problem was that she can not use her arms to lift-- anything over one-pound for the next couple weeks. It is been four days after surgery and she is all ready going nuts! No doubt she will figure something out. But this is not a women who will be satisfied watching Oprah and the View for long.
...For some strange reason I get the feeling my phone bill is going to be larger than normal this month.
1:40:21 AM
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LA Times reported on Monday... That EMI and Liquid Audio have started a new CD Music/Burning service called BurnitFirst.com
"EMI and Liquid Audio today are expected to roll out the first online music service from a major record company that trusts consumers not to share the music they buy with pirates."
"The service, called BurnItFirst, has two features unique among major-label offerings online: The songs can be kept permanently, and they all can be recorded onto a CD. Although the songs have electronic locks to deter copying, those locks vanish as soon as the music burns onto a disc."
In the beginning the burnitfirst service will be limited to EMI's Christian Music catalogue and the subscription will be $10 for 20 songs per month.
"Consumers have spoken loudly. They want to have the freedom to burn music," Jay Samit, VP of new media said. "We have no problem with that. We just want to make sure our artists can make a living from music and are compensated for that."
Well imagine that!
12:38:44 AM
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http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/"> Source: The Shifted Librarian; writes...
reports Yiddish Words Found in English.
"I love inserting a little Yiddish-speak now and then. Gretchen pointed to a great site so I can add bobkes to my vocabulary" [meryl's notes]
Ditto! This list even gives context and pronunciation! Mazl-tov!
and... I finally just bought a Visor Prism and...
Hands on with the PDA-killer Sony P800.
 "Although the Treo and the P800 are functionally similar, our first impressions of the new Ericsonny device leave the Treo looking like Dilbert's secret Elbonian recipe for mud (that's soil and water, by the way).
It's far from perfect, but after several years of looking at smartphones, the P800 has the kind of potential to break out of the geek ghetto, and one that leaves us even more convinced that today's PDAs need to evolve dramatically, and fast....
Sony/Ericsson isn't the first phone that grafts PDA functionality into the device without compromising the low mass of a real phone - that goes to last year's Accompli - but it is the richest: a far more capable color device, that just happens to include a camera too....
There's no USB connector, but we're told that the Ericsson texting pad - a tiny Alphanumeric keyboard - will work with the device. A combination bluetooth and infra red port is on the left of the device, along with a rocker wheel, and a thin plectrum of a stylus slots uncomfortably onto the right. This is fiddly and will hopefully be fixed when the device goes on sale in the fall. It's the weakest design feature of the phone. On the right side you'll also find the camera button, and a blue button that "connects you directly to the Internet". Strange for an always-on device: we figure this means that when you're out of range of a GPRS cell, it makes a regular GSM call on your behalf....
It's running on a 320x208 display, which feels cramped compared to PocketPC PDAs but is luxurious compared to PalmOS devices. In terms of UI metaphors, it very closely resembles the Palm UI, applications overlay each other, but with the addition of a tabbed navigation strip at the top of the screen....
It's a triband device, so it will work on US networks, and the camera will allow you to store 200 pictures in VGA format. (The screen supports 4,096 colors).
In conclusion, it's probably the most desirable little piece of technology we've seen for a while. It certainly obliges Handspring and Danger to price their Treo and HipTop smartphones low, as the Ericsson is from the outset a much more capable device. But we hope there's room in the market for all three." [The Register]
I don't count the current HipTop because it doesn't have a color screen, and I'm not sure I'd buy a Treo because of its limited functionality. The interface on the P800 sounds like the best cell phone implementation yet, so apparently my lust for Sony products will continue through the rest of the year.
12:21:29 AM
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You aren't going to believe who I am.... (drumroll please...)
You are a Christopher Locke.
You enjoy writing while stoned to get across your psychedelic dreams
which hopefully insult as many people as possible.
You probably have "fuzknozzle" shaved into the back of your scalp.
Take the What Blogging Archetype Are You test at GAZM.org
No, but if you hum a few bars I might know the tune. ;-)
12:14:23 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Mary Wehmeier.
Last update: 4/30/02; 12:15:44 AM.
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