One Canuck's Radio Weblog

< 2:37:52 AM >

Billy Collins, one of the most well-known poets in the U.S., and one of his more obscure colleagues, the acclaimed but little known poet Samuel Menashe, have won the first annual Pegasus Awards, poetry prizes worth a total of $75,000 US. FULL STORY [CBC Arts News]

< 2:36:18 AM >

On Tuesday, its first day of release, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 sold roughly two million units on DVD and VHS. FULL STORY [CBC Arts News]

< 2:35:30 AM >

Surround sound is everywhere, from motion pictures through digital television to high-impact soundtracks for games. But there is one missing element - a ready source of 5.1-channel music tracks for movie trailers, television promos and game audio. Now, 5 Alarm Music, a leading supplier of innovative music libraries, has responded with CinemaSounds, a collection of 24 cuts produced specifically for use in high-energy trailers, TV promos and games. ...Read More » [Digital Pro Sound News]

< 2:33:05 AM >

The first Bush-Kerry debate marked the moment that the savvy Bush-Cheney machine lost its once-invincible grip on the all-important TV game. [New York Times: Arts] [T]he thoroughness with which Mr. Baker's offstage maneuvers set his guy up for disaster on Sept. 30 may tell us more about the state of play in the campaign than the much-dissected style and substance of the debaters' onstage performance.

It was Mr. Baker's job to negotiate the 32-page debate agreement with Vernon Jordan, representing the Kerry camp, and by all accounts, the Bush campaign got almost everything it wanted. Yet as we now know, every Bush stipulation backfired, from the identically sized podiums that made the 5-foot-11 president look as if he needed a booster stool, to the flashing "Time's up!" lights that emphasized Mr. Kerry's uncharacteristic brevity and Mr. Bush's need to run out the clock by repeating stock phrases ad infinitum and ad absurdum.

The most revealing Baker error, though, was to insist that the first debate be about the president's purported strong suit, foreign affairs, instead of domestic policy. Did no one anticipate the likelihood that Iraq might once again explode that day, as it has on so many recent others? Insurgent attacks have gone from a daily average of 6 in May 2003 to as high as 87 in August. And so, as Adam Nagourney of The Times reported, "In the hours leading up to the debate, television images of aides to Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry were mixed with images of corpses and bloody children from Baghdad," on a day when some 35 Iraqi children were slaughtered by car bombs.'

< 2:31:57 AM >

PCWorld has published the results of its latest survey of online and retail technology stores, naming Apple the "clear winner" overall. Anne Kandra writes in the article accompanying the news that "63 percent of survey respondents who had visited the [brick-and-mortar] Apple Store rated the overall quality of its buying advice a 6 or 7." She goes on to say that almost 70 percent gave it the same score for ease of locating buying advice and over 70 percent felt the same way about the information it provided for making buying decisions. While visiting one of the stores, Kandra noted that "in contrast to the cluttered warehouse feel of many tech superstores, The Apple Store had a Zen-like simplicity." [MacCentral]

< 2:24:18 AM >

Apple Computer is set to finally unveil its rumored high-end photo-savvy iPod.

Apple news and rum... [AppleInsider]

< 2:23:37 AM >

John Lennon would have been 64 on Saturday, so Yoko Ono is celebrating with "When I'm Sixty-Four," an exhibition of drawings, caricatures and sketches by Lennon. [New York Times: Arts]

< 2:22:38 AM >

The Poetry Foundation plans a series of projects to make use of an enormous donation it received two years ago. [New York Times: Arts]

< 12:45:52 AM >

My "day job" is I'm a producer for CBC Radio -- as part of that, I do a weekly national technology column. As a special bonus to the podcast and blog community, I'm posting an advance copy of my radio report about podcasting. It will air on afternoon shows across Canada next week. But you can listen to it now . Some podcast links are on my CBC site at http://cbc.ca/nerd/ and my own new podcast is called Egg McMaffin: Your Audio Sidedish to the World's Best Radio.
(Special thanks to the great folks at Blogware, Steven Garrity, Eric Rice, Dawn and Drew, Adam Curry, and Dave Winer.)
[I Love Radio .org]

An easily digested introduction to podcasting from a real live broadcaster.

< 12:38:40 AM >

Random Bytes: "Adam Curry and his band of merry hackers have unlocked major value for any device that wishes to "listen" to the new message that the internet has to deliver. This is innovation of the highest degree and has the potential to radically change the entire content delivery landscape."

< 12:31:18 AM >

A service that allows consumers to search the content of books online could shift the balance of power between companies that produce books and those that sell them. [New York Times: Technology]

Friday, 8 October 2004 .< 6:53:34 PM > Build your own radio station On October 28, dozens of radio stations will launch on 97.7 FM in Minneapolis. Yes, dozens. All using the same frequency. The Walker Art Center is giving workshops this month to people interested in building their own mini-transmitters out of supplied kits (and encased, oddly, in household objects). The transmitters are milliwatt, meaning they can only go a city block or so. And on October 28, about 30 people will broadcast from parked cars along Lake Street, a major thoroughfare in Minneapolis. If all goes as planned, drivers tuning their radios to 97.7 FM will be able to hear independent talk radio and music stations fading in and out as they travel along the 6-mile stretch of road. It's part of the Radio Re-Volt project and coincides with a community radio conference the following day. Related: The Prometheus Radio Project [I Love Radio .org] .< 1:39:45 PM > Satradio, podcasting, and digital radio News.com has a good summary article online called Building a 21st Century Radio that covers all the emerging radio trends: satellite radio, new distribution models like podcasting and AudioFeast, and the state of digital radio. Worth a read if you want to glimpse into the future of radio. [I Love Radio .org] .< 1:31:36 PM > PreFab UI Browser 1.3 PreFab Software: PreFab UI Browser helps you “explore, control and monitor the user interface of most Mac OS X applications. It lets you navigate the user interface hierarchy then generate useful AppleScript statements with a single click.” [Ranchero.com] .< 1:29:29 PM > How to move Radio to another computer Sometimes, when you are having difficulty with Radio, you need to resort to a fresh install. Or, you may have purchased a new computer and want to move Radio over. How to move Radio to another computer steps you through the process so you have a positive experience. [Donovan Watts: Radio: The Missing Manual] Flagging this again as I will soon (next week?) be moving to a new machine. .< 1:20:42 PM > Indie label rejects DRM Cory Doctorow: David sez, "A European indie music label [!K7] is taking an unusual approach to the issue of CD copy protection - it is branding all its releases with a sticker proclaiming the absence of any such control measure.... 'Copy protection kills customer relationships,' the label says on its website. 'That's why, from now on, !K7 releases will carry a new logo: 'NO copy protection - respect the music.'... The company believes it's all a matter of trust. 'Only those to whom respect is given show respect themselves,' it notes. In other words, treat your customers as potential pirates and they'll soon tell you to f**k off and not buy your product.'" Link (Thanks, David!) [Boing Boing] .< 1:18:11 PM > Engadget : "Besides playing MP3s, Auvi's new... Engadget: "Besides playing MP3s, Auvi's new 256MB USB-style flash memory has an FM tuner, a built-in voice recorder, and can record MP3s from radio broadcasts." [Scripting News] .< 1:10:49 PM > Loonie hits 80 cents US The Canadian dollar broke through the 80-cent US level on Friday for the first time in more than 11 years, fuelled by solid job creation numbers in Canada and weaker numbers in the United States. FULL STORY [CBC News] .< 1:09:24 PM > Hostage Bigley murdered in Iraq Hostage Kenneth Bigley's brother confirms he is killed in Iraq a video claiming to show his death is released. [BBC News | World | UK Edition] .< 12:32:07 PM > Deal means Liberal minority survives, for now A last-minute deal has ended speculation that the new Liberal government might fall. FULL STORY [CBC News] .< 12:30:17 PM > Poor jobs data a blow for Bush Business: The US government has released worse-than-expected unemployment figures, piling pressure on George Bush ahead of tonight's presidential debate. [Guardian Unlimited] Perfect .< 11:08:15 AM > 2004 Gramophone Awards announced October... 2004 Gramophone Awards announced Classical music’s top honours presented at central London ceremony