One Canuck's Radio Weblog

  Friday, 12 December 2003

.< 3:57:03 PM >
Canada deems P2P downloading legal

In the same ruling, Canadian copyright regulators also impose a $25 fee on iPod-like MP3 players and say uploading is prohibited. [CNET News.com]

A much more thorough article than the CBC's. I may have jumped the gun when I said the increase was not too much. The amount is added to the wholesale price. CNET does not note that the amounts are in Canadian dollars. All in all it looks as though Canadian laws are in a muddle.

< 3:47:21 PM >

CBC: MP3 players hit with copyright levy. The cost of MP3 players is going up after the Copyright Board of Canada slapped a levy on the sale of digital audio recorders on Friday. However, the board turned down a request from a music group called the Canadian Private Copying Collective to impose levies on blank DVDs, removable memory cards and micro hard drives. [Tomalak's Realm]

This is stupid but it could have been much, much worse. The fees are not high. But it's the wrong message. Apple is creating a new market with these devices and at that exact moment we impede that market. Does this legalize the copying of music I haven't paid for onto my iPod?

< 3:33:53 PM >

I bought an iBook with OS X 10.3 and upgraded it to 10.3.1. After the upgrade, I could not mount disk images from my hard drive or burn CDs. Apparently this is a common problem after upgrading. I phoned AppleCare and this is ... [macosxhints]

< 3:29:56 PM >

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq [Daypop Top 40] ' [] said a former senior US intelligence official []"It is bonkers, insane. Here we are - we're already being compared to Sharon in the Arab world, and we've just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams."'

< 3:22:17 PM >

"The Onion | Report: Poor People Pretty Much Fucked" [Daypop Top 40]

< 3:19:41 PM >

The Onion A.V. Club | The Least Essential Albums Of 2003 [Daypop Top 40]

< 10:41:26 AM >

A fly with extraordinarily sharp hearing inspires an advance in the technology of hearing aids. [New York Times: Technology] '"In regular mikes, a membrane that vibrates is clamped all around, like a drumhead," he said. But in his microphone, the membrane works by rocking like a seesaw that is hinged on a central pivot.

"It looks like a teeter-totter, only really small," he said. When acoustic waves come past, the sound pressure drives both sides of the teeter-totter. "If sound comes on both sides at exactly the same time and with the same amplitude," he said, the mechanism doesn't move. But if the sound comes to one side before the other, it moves because the two pressures are inequal.

The design ensures that the diaphragm responds to sound from a specific direction. "What you want is a mike that rejects sound from behind or to the side, responding to sound only from the person talking," he said.'

< 10:37:28 AM >

In a feature we haven't done for some time here's a round up of reviews on other sites around the web. Cameras in the spotlight this last month include the Olympus C-5060 Zoom, Minolta DiMAGE A1, Pentax Optio 555, HP Photosmart 945 and the Fujifilm Finepix A310 Zoom among others. Dave Etchells at Imaging-Resource had this to say about the Pentax Optio 555, "Battery life is a good bit longer than average too, so you can bring back more images from each outing. About the only negative... [Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

< 10:35:47 AM >

Climate change, linked by scientists to human emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide from cars and factories, caused 150,000 deaths in 2000, the World Health Organization says, and that number is rising. [Wired News]

< 10:35:10 AM >

A company that collects personal information from voter-registration rolls sells the data to anyone who cares to plunk down the money. A Wired News special report by Kim Zetter. [Wired News]

< 10:34:25 AM >

The battle for dial tones is heating up as traditional phone companies, cable firms and Internet telephony providers roll out rival VoIP, or voice over Internet protocol, services. Look for falling prices ahead. By Mark McClusky. [Wired News]

< 10:28:24 AM >

Chretien steps down to make way for Martin
The Jean Chrétien era of Canadian politics came to a close on Friday morning, as the three-term prime minister made his last official move. F U L L S T O R Y
[CBC News]

Au revoir Jean. Not a brilliant leader but we have lots to thank him for, particularly in the last couple of years: holding firm on the concept of the UN and international organizations and treaties, telling the US Americans to stuff it when it came to the war in Iraq, decriminalization of marijauna, gay marriage . . .

< 2:54:09 AM >

Xan Brooks on how the nerds took on the cool people - and won. [Guardian Unlimited]

And then there are the cool nerds . . . Steve Jobs?

< 2:52:19 AM >

A Pentagon audit finds Halliburton may have charged inflated prices for petrol to US troops in Iraq, officials say. [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

Ça commence

< 2:51:19 AM >

Misguided military tactics by US-led forces in Iraq caused hundreds of needless civilian deaths, says a rights group. [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

< 2:48:45 AM >

It's that time again. Time for the Koufax Awards, the best of lefty blogging.

This entry will be kept updated with my nominations.

Best Series: David Neiwert's "Rush, Newspeak, and Fascism"

Best Group Blog: Open Source Politics

Best Commentor: John Isbell

Best Post: Torture, Drugs, and Terror by Jonathan Edelstein; Where We Stand by Prometheus 6; The Political and the Personal by David Neiwert. Obligatory self-nomination is Muslims and anti-semitism.

I'm pretty sure that if the blogger who posted this knew of How to Save the World she'd include it in her list.

< 2:43:27 AM >

In his Mailbox column for the Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg compares Windows and Mac multimedia applications, “In Apple’s iLife suite, the programs share a similar, consistent user interface and they can each easily tap into the others’ library of media files. For instance, the iDVD program can easily locate and use songs, photos and movies that are being managed by, or have been created by, its sister iLife programs — without forcing the user to dig through folders and files on the hard disk. This whole excellent suite comes free on every new Mac. It’s a major selling point for Apple.” [Dec 11] [Apple Hot News]

< 2:42:35 AM >

MacInTouch reports this year’s Reader Choice Poll results, “As soon as we began to review the results for this year’s poll it became clear that there was one standout winner: the iPod and iTunes, along with the revolutionary iTunes Music Store. So many people wrote in saying that these products had ‘changed the way they live’, or they ‘can’t imagine life without them’ that we imagine Apple will use just such a slogan in an upcoming ad campaign.” [Dec 11] [Apple Hot News]

< 2:41:52 AM >

Fortune magazine names the iTunes Music Store the Product of the Year. Peter Lewis writes, “Unlike most rival services, the iTunes Music Store gives customers the freedom to store music indefinitely, burn custom CDs, and transfer songs to the Apple iPod portable player. (The iTunes Music Store is not just about music; it also sells audio books.)...With the success of its iTunes Music Store, Apple is almost single-handedly dragging the music industry, kicking and screaming, toward a better future.” [Dec 11] [Apple Hot News]

< 2:41:04 AM >

Filmmakers looking to add a little pizzazz to their work can check out the six free iMovie tutorials released on Thursday by Stupendous Software. Each tutorial offers step-by-step instructions to achieve certain effects, such as silent film look or textured backdrops, in Apple's popular movie editing software. [MacCentral]

< 2:37:06 AM >

Post House Soundmirror Brings in Genex Audio GX9048 48-Track System
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 11, 2003 -- Genex Audio, developer of multi-format digital recorders and converters, recently supplied a GX9048 48-track Multiformat Digital System to Soundmirror, a fully digital recording and post-production company that specializes in acoustic music and sound-for-picture. Read more [Digital Pro Sound News]

< 2:36:08 AM >

Bertelsmann and Sony are planning to announce a final agreement to combine their music groups, according to executives close to the negotiations. [New York Times: Arts]

And then there were four. This is bad for the industry, the wrong direction to go.

< 2:34:46 AM >

There is an apparent disjunction between the players who toil onstage and the critics and audiences who hear the results of their labors. [New York Times: Arts]

< 2:33:03 AM >

Merci Jacques

< 2:30:11 AM >

< 2:21:50 AM >

Your child is the victim of the law or proportionality . . as opposed to say, an international bully.