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The Mediaburn Radio Weblog
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Thursday, June 30, 2005 |
ALL-AMERICAN ACOUSTIC STORM - JULY 3RD
The 4th of July is just about here, so this weekend The Acoustic Storm will be featuring acoustic-rock from American-born artists like The Doors, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, and of course, the acoustic version of "Born in the USA" from Bruce Springsteen. Plus, we'll spotlight San Francisco's Grateful Dead in words and music in The Eye of The Storm.
Have a safe and happy 4th, and join us this weekend for The All-American Acoustic Storm!
Acoustic Storm radio affiliates in your area: http://www.acousticstorm.com/stations.php - and live streaming on the web.
7:14:14 AM 
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Wednesday, June 29, 2005 |
'En Route to Cairo'
Film chronicles Jesus in Egypt.
Titled "Jesus in Egypt," the film is based on a book of the same name
by Arizona author Paul Perry...
The meeting will be held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, according
to Hawass.
...the film focuses on the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt from Israel
after King Herod threatened to "destroy" the boy Jesus, as St. Matthew wrote
in the New Testament (2:13).
It was prepared by a team led by Perry that includes Indialantic archaeologist
John de Bry, 61...
Film chronicles Jesus in Egypt, Florida Today, Florida, USA, June
27, 2005. By Mark Morgan. [Egyptology Blog]
6:39:18 PM
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Island
Island. Island by Aldous Huxley (1962). Sticking with the tropical island theme of Cat's Cradle, this was another reread from my teens. And, wow, I barely remembered a thing -- this must have really gone over my head, in one ear and out the other. A cynical journalist washes ashore on a Southeast Asian island which has managed to create a common sense utopian system -- though shadowed by the imminent threat of a militaristic, expansionist neighbor nation and global oil companies drooling to sink in the pumps. The setup allows Huxley to run through a series of concepts for a saner way of life, with just enough characterization and story to keep it from becoming didactic. Some good food for thought, and like Brave New World, still scarily relevant.
[Irregular Orbit]
6:28:21 PM
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Tuesday, June 28, 2005 |
The FeedBurner Weblog
Podcasting Made Easy: FeedBurner support for iTunes, Odeo, and Yahoo Media RSS. With today's release of Apple iTunes 4.9 and its podcasting directory coupled with the recent beta launch of Odeo, podcasting is set to build on its already tremendous growth. Both iTunes and Odeo provide additional information about podcasts above and beyond what's included in a basic podcasting feed. For the more than 7,000 podcasts currently running through FeedBurner, we will very soon (really soon) provide the ability to enter additional podcast description data via our SmartCast service, which we will ensure gets delivered with the appropriate RSS extensions to iTunes, Odeo, and others. What does this mean? It means that your podcasts will have complete descriptive data in all the various directories and subscriber services without having to manage that data in each location. It means that all podcasters are on equal footing, regardless of whether or not you have the ability to edit your podcast's RSS feed to add the various different RSS extension tags. As we already provide integrated Yahoo Media RSS support, and we anticipate other podcasting services with additional descriptive extensions will emerge, FeedBurner will continue to provide a one-stop shop for podcasters who just want to record, publicize, and go. Simply run your podcast through us, and we'll get your categories, photo links, and other descriptive information distributed and publicized to the right services. This will be a free enhancement to the free SmartCast service.  [Burn This! - The FeedBurner Weblog]
6:05:00 PM
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Sunday, June 26, 2005 |
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Saturday, June 25, 2005 |
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Thursday, June 23, 2005 |
New Egyptian Museum
Design for New Egyptian Museum Unveiled.
A giant museum with a glowing alabaster facade and a roof in alignment
with the nearby pyramids will house King Tut's mummy and treasures along
with thousands of other artifacts, according to a design unveiled Wednesday.
Wednesday's design was the latest step in the government's ambitious
$500 million project for the Grand Museum of Egypt, which is intended to
gather in one spot at the foot of the pyramids some 100,000 artifacts, many
of which have been sitting in warehouses for decades with no room to display
them.
Egypt is negotiating with the Japanese Bank for International Development
for a loan for the project and plans its own fund-raising drive.
The $40 million that Egypt hopes to raise from a current tour of King Tutankhamun
artifacts in the United Sates will go toward the project...
Design for New Egyptian Museum Unveiled, AP via San Francisco Chronicle,
California, USA, June 22, 2005.
cf. New museum to house King Tut's mummy, AP via Redlands Daily Facts,
California, USA, June 22, 2005.
cf. King Tut getting a new home in Egypt, AP via MSNBC, USA, June 22,
2005. By Mark Morgan. [Egyptology Blog]
7:29:37 AM
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Wednesday, June 22, 2005 |
Zombies Revisited
Zombies on the web. There are actually three different kinds of zombies. All of them are like humans in some ways, and all of them are lacking something crucial (something different in each case).
Hollywood zombies. These are found in zombie B-movies...
Haitian zombies. These are found in the voodoo (or vodou) tradition in Haiti...
Philosophical zombies. These are found in philosophical articles on consciousness...
Zombies on the web [MetaFilter]
8:21:27 AM
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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 |
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Monday, June 20, 2005 |
From Irregular Orbit
Cat's Cradle. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1963). Another one from the reread stack. I haven't read Vonnegut since my mid-teens in the 70s, and so I tend to think of him as a writer for teens. For embryonic wanna-be hipster teens at least, Vonnegut was a reading list staple... back in the early 70s. So I was curious how his work would come off to me at the present. I have a bad feeling that some of his books might come off as goofily indulgent now, but Cat's Cradle is pretty darned tight, clever and mordantly pessimistic. And threaded throughout its apocalyptic comedy of errors is the philosphy of Bokononism, the jury-rigged religion of the tiny (and imaginary) Caribbean island of San Lorenzo -- often expressed in the form of calypsos. Some of these Bokononist concepts are really pretty interesting, like the karass: the groups that people fall into, without being aware of it, connected together by random fate to carry out destiny's whims. Without even realizing it. Not to be confused with a granfalloon: a false karass, such as political groups, social clubs, corporations or "any nation, anytime, anywhere." The book is structured in very brief chapters with clever titles -- that was kind of the thing, back then. Now it feels a bit choppy. But definitely worth the reread. [Irregular Orbit]
10:18:19 PM
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Sunday, June 19, 2005 |
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Saturday, June 18, 2005 |
Dave Winer and the New Instant Outlining
Sending good wishes to Dave Winer and his new Outlining project. I've made my appreciation of Winer's work known on numerous occasions.
An XML / OPML directory was cooked up at Mediaburn.net back in 2003: http://radio.outliners.com/directory/119
I've updated it a few times using the Radio Userland program.
In all honesty, I can't say I recommend the outliner in Radio Userland. I hope Dave Winer's new project has great success and a better run than Radio Userland, which has languished. The truth is, it's not too late to invest and do something solid with Radio Userland. Dreams may have been lost but there is still a pulse.
Early on, I understood the potential of OPML as a great way of using the internet. My suggestion and hope is that Dave Winer gets some good management and commercial horsepower.
Take it somewhere.
- GS
2:35:10 PM
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Friday, June 17, 2005 |
Repercussions
Rained in.
Pas de match pour le DBFC jeudi soir. ... Rained in.
Pas de match pour le DBFC jeudi soir. Trop de pluie. Prochain match mardi prochain face à Big Foot.
À chaque mois, je reçois un courriel d'Hydro-Québec qui m'informe que "Vous venez tout juste de recevoir votre dernière facture d'électricité." J'ai hâte qu'ils tiennent parole.
Rencontre plutôt tranquille pour Poligraf mardi soir. Après avoir révisé rapidement le répertoire actuel, nous nous sommes attaqués brièvement à Lepufology 101 avant de terminer la soirée par une séance d'improvisation. Suite la semaine prochaine.
Le formulaire d'inscription à l'outil d'administration est fonctionnel, et il ne reste que des détails à régler avant que je puisse enfin inviter les premiers artistes. Malheureusement, une fois rendu à destination, on découvre toujours plus de détails que prévu. Bref, encore quelques jours de travail avant le jour j.
Parlant de jour j, Bequit et Méli emménagent dans leur première maison demain. Félicitations aux heureux propriétaires ! Bequit, tu nous fais un p'tit blogue pour documenter les joies de la vie d'opérateur de bungalow ? ;o)
Omelette aux poivrons rouges et cheddar :
Les répercussions, selon Robert :
Everything we do generates repercussions. If our actions are necessary, we can handle the repercussions. If our actions are a result of us doing-what-we-want-to-do, then we may be overwhelmed. If our actions are a result of arbitrary impulses, we will be swept away...
- poligraf
More at [The Daily Poligraf]
5:45:18 PM
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Northwest Noise on FOX, From 'The OC' to 'The Loop'
The Loop. The Loop - Series Info - Yahoo! TV: "As we reach our early 20s and face the daunting challenges of real life, there are those who choose to embark on a career path and those who'd rather goof off with pals. And then, every so often, there's someone who sets out to do both. Set in Chicago, 'The Loop' is the story of Sam, the youngest executive at the corporate headquarters of a major airline, and the first of his friends to get a real job. He must find a way to straddle his serious career and the serious social demands of his roommates. One roommate, Sully, is Sam's older and rowdier brother -- whose casual attempts to hold down a series of odd jobs are eclipsed by his attempts to land women. The other roommate, Piper, is a medical student, Sam's college pal and -- unbeknownst to her -- his longtime crush. As Sam strives to meet the relentless demands of his boss Russ, dodge the nonstop advances of his colleague Meryl, and turn his best-friendship with Piper into romance, he is, by turns, ambitious, exhausted and inspired."
(Via Yahoo! TV.)
My friend from high school, Bret Harrison, has scored the leading role in an upcoming TV show on Fox!
Congrats Bret! Bret is also planning to star in the upcoming movie In the Land of Women. He stars as Adam Brody's character's best friend. According to IMDB, Bret and Adam Brody are roommates in LA. Kick ass.
Portland has become the city of young Hollywood actors: let's see, there's John Robinson, who's starred in Elephant and Lords of Dogtown. Second, there's Michael Cassidy, who guest stars in The OC as Zach Stevens. [Northwest Noise]
8:50:21 AM
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Wednesday, June 15, 2005 |
Laguna Beach Film Society Presents 'Step Into Liquid' - Free and Completely Recommended
Awarding Winning Surf Film
Outdoor Heisler Park Screening
Cliff Drive at Entrance to Rockpile
Saturday, June 25th, 8 PM
Meet Director Dana Brown, Rich Wilson Producer and other surfers in the film
Free to The Community
Bring your beach chairs and picnic dinners * Sit under the stars overlooking the ocean * Enjoy the visual tale of how the love of the ocean adds life, passion and fulfillment to people all over the world as they step into liquid.
The Laguna Beach Film Society is sponsored by the Laguna Art Museum. Supporting sponsors are the Festival of the Arts, The Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce, The Laguna Beach Independent, and the Exchange Club. Additional support has been provided by: David Ohman Design, X Arts and Fashion, and Such a Great Party.
Special thanks to Red Bull, Penta Water and EmergenC
For more info please call 949-494-5827 ex 201
http://www.lagunaartmuseum.com
9:13:33 PM
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Tuesday, June 14, 2005 |
Simple Delicious Hot Dog Stand in Gilbert, Arizona
Another Roadside Attraction.
For those who love Tom Robbins, meet Cynthia Garcia, formerly in high tech sales in Phoenix. Cynthia left the stressful life of pushing large mainframes, turned entrepreneur and is serving up the BEST all beef Red Hot Chicago Hot Dogs from her Simple Delicious Hot Dog Stand. Cynthia said, "In the hot dog business you meet a wide variety of customers, who know what they want and just come. And By (Tery Spataro). [Daily Eats - Food Blog]
10:16:12 PM
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Source: Burn This! - The FeedBurner Weblog
Ciao, FeedBurner. Let's say you decide you want to stop using FeedBurner. You loved the services, you loved the customer support, you loved everything about FeedBurner, but let's face it: you're going crazy with all the delightful services, and you've decided you can't take it anymore. You want out. You've always been able to do this if you run your own server: just like you redirect your feed traffic to FeedBurner, you can redirect your traffic away from FeedBurner. No problem.
For everybody else, however, when you start directing subscribers to FeedBurner, you may, in the future (way way way in the future) change your mind and want those subscribers pointing back to your original feed. You would probably also like this to happen automatically, and you would probably like some fallbacks for subscribers who don't get redirected for some reason. To date, there has been no simple way to do this. Steve Gillmor first raised this point with us during an interview late last year, and it has also been discussed more recently. We think we have the best feed management service, we think that providing publishers with the ability to do whatever they want is always the right answer, and most importantly, we think your subscribers are your subscribers, not ours or anybody else's.
So, beginning today, we're providing a detailed service for publishers who choose to leave FeedBurner. When you delete your FeedBurner feed, we have added an option to redirect your feed. If you select this, we begin a one month process of transitioning your subscribers back to your source feed. This is the interesting part; because of the very different capabilities of the different feed readers, we have to take a few different approaches.
Day 1-10: Any requests for the FeedBurner feed are sent an HTTP 301 "Permanent Redirect" response back to your source feed. This will cause most feed readers to forget the FeedBurner URL and use the new URL from that point on. Your subscribers don't feel a thing.
Day 11-20: If your FeedBurner feed is still getting requests at this point, it probably means that your feed reader is treating that "Permanent Redirect" as a "Temporary Redirect". That's actually pretty common, so now we enter "Phase 2". Now, any requests for your FeedBurner feed will receive a "redirect document". What is a redirect document? Dave Winer displayed foresight by anticipating this need back in 2002 and provided this specification so that a publisher could keep control of their feed location. We strongly encourage more feed readers to support this specification, and we are going to be widely campaigning for this capability.
Day 21-30: You're still here? Well, at this point we return a valid feed that contains a single item that says "This feed has moved to (feed URL here)". So even though all of the transparent mechanisms to redirect the subscription have failed, there's still a trail for your subscribers to follow.
After 30 days, your feed is permanently removed and any requests will receive a "Feed Not Found" response.
Here are some other things that happen during this redirect transition phase: - Any item clickthrough requests are sent a permanent redirect (301) to the original link instead of a temp redirect.
- Headline animator requests get a blank image
- Any existing ads associated with the feed are disabled and result in a blank image
- Subscriber stats remain active throughout the redirect period so that publishers can see if anyone is still subscribed
Two points to highlight. We are only going to redirect back to the original feed (for example, if you had routed people from mysite.blogs.com to us, we will reroute everybody back to mysite.blogs.com). The potential support nightmare involved in trying to track down issues for sites we have nothing to do with, never poll, or have no ability to investigate is not something we can offer as part of a free service.
Secondly, we will enthusiastically promote feed readers to support Dave Winer's feed redirect specification. While, in a perfect world, a 301 permanent redirect would be the "one true answer", the reality is quite different. Providing a redirect document is a much more explicit intention and gives publishers the freedom to move their feeds at will. This mechanism currently works with NetNewsWire and some other readers, and we strongly encourage other feed readers to support this specification.
If you're leaving, we'll miss you. To our French publishers, au revoir. To our Italian publishers, arrivederci. To our Japanese publishers, we know how to say it, but we don't have the right keyboard. Everybody else stick around, and we have a lot more great features and enhancements coming. As always, hop into our publisher forums if you have other ideas for improving the service. [Burn This! - The FeedBurner Weblog]
9:57:13 PM
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Monday, June 13, 2005 |
James Allen
As a Man Thinketh.  James Allen wrote in 1904: The
aphorism, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he," not only
embraces the whole of a man's being, but is so comprehensive as to
reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is
literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all
his thoughts. As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the
seed, so every
act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not
have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called
"spontaneous" and "unpremeditated" as to those which are deliberately
executed. Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its
fruits;
thus does a man garner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own
husbandry. ... Man is a growth by law, and not a creation by artifice,
and cause and effect is as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm
of thought as in the world of visible and material things. A noble and
Godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural
result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of
long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and
bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued
harboring of groveling thoughts. Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armory of thought he forges
the weapons by which he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools
with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength
and peace. By the right choice and true application of thought, man
ascends to the Divine Perfection; by the abuse and wrong application of
thought, he descends below the level of the beast. Between these two
extremes are all the grades of character, and man is their maker and
master.
Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been
restored and brought to light in this age, none is more gladdening or
fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this - that man is the
master of thought, the molder of character, and maker and shaper of
condition, environment, and destiny. (06/13/05) [Synergic Earth News]
6:41:00 AM
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Sunday, June 12, 2005 |
Re: Firefox Web Browser
FireFox: inch by inch....  InfoWorld: Top News notes that Firefox keeps chipping away at IE's share. The Mozilla Foundation's Firefox managed to slightly increase its usage share in the Web browser market in May, as it continues to compete against the market's Goliath: Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE).
Firefox's market share reached 8 percent in May, up from 7.38 percent in April, while IE's slice of the pie shrunk a bit to 87.23 percent, down 0.77 percent, according to a statement released Wednesday by NetApplications.com, an Aliso Viejo, California, maker of applications for monitoring and measuring Web site usage.
Although IE's share is colossal, Firefox is consistently increasing its share by between 0.5 percent and 1 percent from month to month. [Ted's Radio Weblog]
6:34:56 PM
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Saturday, June 11, 2005 |
Restoring Rosettta - Egyptology Blog
Restoring Rosetta.
By Hassan Saadallah
Rosetta lies in the western Delta and gained its worldwide fame from being the town in which the Rosetta Stone - a black basalt slab that enabled the deciphering of hieroglyphics - was found. But that is not all Rosetta holds, embracing also Egypt's largest number of Islamic structures outside of Cairo.
Rosetta houses a unique collection of twenty historic mansions, ten mosques, a public bath, a mill, a citadel, a gate and remains of an old wall. These all date back to the Ottoman age with the exception of the citadel and the gate which belong to the Memluk age. These structures are built from a kind of brick which as of yet the experts have failed to understand how it was produced.
Although several of these structures have undergone restoration projects, a much more comprehensive project is still needed owing to their dilapidated condition. Most of the mansions have large wall fissures with disintegrated floors.
Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of the SCA, said that a plan is soon to be administered which will restore the architectural and ornamental aspects of Rosetta's Islamic treasure. This will include replacing some of the buildings' existing wooden ceilings with new ceilings of the same pattern.
From the inside, the painting used will be the same as the original material in order to convey the same impression of age. Rust will be also removed from the ironware in houses which will then be coated with Vaseline to protect them.
The mansions of Rosetta reflect the architectural boom in the city during the Ottoman age. They display excellence both in carpentry work and architecture.
Among the houses to be restored is a three-story building constructed in 1808 and named after its owner, Osman Al Amasyli, who was a soldier in the Turkish army. The mill is named after its owner Abu Shahin and belongs to the 9th Century. The mill built by Osman Agha was powered by horses.
The house of Al Maizouni, built in 1740, belonged to the father of Zbeida, the wife of Mino, the third commander of the French expedition in Egypt. The four-storey mansion of Arab Killy, built by the governor of Rosetta in the first half of the 18th Century, is also part of the restoration plan.
The Bath of Azuz is over 100 years old and comprises two wings. The first wing, the reception wing, leads to a corridor with a marble fountain in the centre. At the end of the corridor lies a wooden compartment where the master of the place would sit to receive people. The second wing was flanked by bathing rooms and had a marble floor ornamented by another fountain. The ceilings of both wings were domes with glass windows to allow adequate lighting. Annexed to the bath building was a small house used as a residence for the bath owner and its workers.
The mosques of Ali Al Mahali and Al Abbas, constructed in 1721 and 1809 respectively, are two of the city's mosques included in the restoration plan.
Reports show that the Qaitbay citadel of Rosetta is in dire need of restoration as parts of it have collapsed. But before embarking upon the project, a barrier is to be built around the citadel to prevent water leakage within. The citadel resembles in design the interior fortress of Alexandria citadel, which also bears the name of Qaitbay. It was in the citadel of Rosetta that an officer of the French expedition found the Rosetta stone in 1799.
[Source] The Egyptian Gazette, Egypt, June 09, 2005. By Mark Morgan. [Egyptology Blog]
8:20:37 AM
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Thursday, June 9, 2005 |
More From Ottmar Liebert on Licensing
New License. I discovered Creative Commons a couple of
years ago. At the time the albums on my SSRI-label were manufactured and distributed
by Higher Octave Music/EMI - In the Arms of Love (2002) and The Santa Fe Sessions (2003) - and I was not able to use a CC-license.
In 2004 I switched the manufacturing and distribution of new SSRI albums to 33rd Street Records and discovered that 33rd Street president Morty Wiggins is a supporter of Creative Commons.
Recently I read a wonderful book called Opening the Hand of Thought by Kosho Uchiyama. And while it is my favorite book on Zen practice, it was the title that especially engaged me. You see, I think as a society, a country, even a world, we seem to be making a tight fist right now. We keep looking for greater security. We buy cars that look like tanks. We extend copyright to last much longer than the average lifetime. Safety and security seem to be the main concern. We are willing to give up freedoms, as long as we are assured that we are going to be safer without those freedoms. It seems to me that making our music available with a CC Sampling+/1.0 license means we are opening our hands. The fist turns into an open hand. A gesture. Meaningless perhaps, in view of all that is happening in the world right now, but the biggest gesture we as artists can give.
So, without further ado, we are now happy to announce that all of the music released by SSRI in the form of CDs or downloaded from SSRI's Listening Lounge will as of now be governed by the Sampling+/1.0 license from Creative Commons. All new product will show the Sampling+/1.0 logo. This license will also be in effect retro-actively for all CDs of Ottmar Liebert's La Semana and Jon Gagan's Transit purchased in the past.
The Sampling+/1.0 license cannot be applied to any songs purchased through the iTunes store or any other web-download store. It can also not be applied to any album that was released prior to 2004.
Here are the features of the Sampling+/1.0 license:
Customers are free: - to sample, mash-up, or otherwise creatively transform this work for commercial or noncommercial purposes - to perform, display, and distribute copies of this whole work for noncommercial purposes, e.g. file-sharing or noncommercial webcasting
Under the following conditions: - they must give the original author credit - they may not use this work to advertise or promote anything but the work they created from it - for any reuse or distribution, they must make clear to others the license terms of this work
9:18:37 PM
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Ottmar Liebert News - Listening Lounge
New Listening Lounge. The SSRI Music Downloads Store, called Listening Lounge will enable web visitors to browse an extensive collection of downloadable music for instant credit card purchase. The pricing scheme will be similar to that of the iTunes music store - $1 for a single song, $10 for a whole album, but our customers will have the opportunity to download music at much higher quality, even uncompressed. In addition to that all of our music files will be without DRM or copy-protection. When purchasing certain albums, customers will have the option of downloading a PDF for printing out accompanying liner notes and/or CD jewel case art.
While the store's initial offerings will be limited to music from SSRI's catalog, i.e. Ottmar Liebert and Jon Gagan, the site will be designed so that other artists can be represented as well. The Listening Lounge will also offer an extensive catalog of Live recordings of Ottmar Liebert + Luna Negra concerts.
Features:
- All music available from the Listening Lounge will be sold with a Sampling+/1.0 license from Creative Commons. That means customers are free:
- to sample, mash-up, or otherwise creatively transform this work for commercial (!) or noncommercial purposes
- to perform, display, and distribute copies of this whole work for noncommercial purposes, e.g. file-sharing or noncommercial webcasting/podcasting
Under the following conditions:
- they must give the original author credit
- they may not use this work to advertise or promote anything but the work they created from it
- for any reuse or distribution, they must make clear to others the license terms of this work
We are also asking every person who creates new works using samples/loops/sections of our music to log their use at http://ottmarliebert.com/samplelog. We are sharing our music, and we would love to hear the results. - Visitors can browse the collection, listen to previews of songs, and add songs or albums to the shopping cart before logging in. Music collection can be browsed by album, artist, genre, release date, or song title. - When viewing an album, album art is displayed as well as a link for downloading a PDF for making your own CD liner notes / back. - Visitors can add individual songs to their shopping cart for $1 each, or whole albums for the album price of $10. - Once songs or albums have been purchased they are included in the registrant's music library (downloads) page for at least six months. All songs can be downloaded as 128, 192, 256, or 320 kbps MP3s. Some songs will also have the option to be downloaded as a raw 16-bit 44khz AIFF.
We have never seen a store like this, offering high quality and DRM-free files in conjunction with a CC Sampling license. This is the kind of store we ourselves would love... so we are building it for you. We hope to go online in July. Watch this space for further announcements.
9:10:14 PM
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Wednesday, June 8, 2005 |
Windmills and Birds
Windmills and Birds can Coexist.  BBC Technology and Nature -- Migrating
birds are unlikely to be seriously affected by offshore wind farms,
according to a study. Scientists found that birds simply fly around the
farm, or between the turbines; less than 1% are in danger of colliding
with the giant structures. Writing in the Royal Society's journal
Biology Letters, the researchers say previous estimates of collision
risk have been "over-inflated". However, conservationists warn that
turbines pose other risks to birdlife. The research project involved
one of Denmark's two large offshore wind farms, Nysted in the Baltic
Sea, which contains 72 turbines each measuring 69m to the top of the
nacelle or hub. It started operating in 2003. "This is the first such
study involving a large-scale offshore wind farm," researcher Mark
Desholm, from the Environmental Research Institute in Ronde told the
BBC News website. There has been other data from farms with fewer than
10 turbines, but we thought this issue was so important because the
potential for offshore wind power is so huge." Globally, offshore
projects currently generate around 600 MW, less than 2% of the overall
total for wind. But the potential is huge, because there is less
competition for space at sea, turbines are less visible, and the wind
there is often more reliable. ... David Gibbons, head of conservation
science at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), told
the BBC News website that this study suggested the risks to birds were
smaller than had been feared. "It's a nice, clear picture of research;
there's always been concern about turbines as 'mincers', but this study
is suggesting that the birds fly around or go through. So on the face
of it, this is pretty good news for wind farms; but there are other
issues when you look at the much larger farms which are coming, and
different ways in which they could affect birds. (06/08/05) [Synergic Earth News]
10:30:30 PM
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Stacked Tonight on FOX
Stacked Tonight. Hey there, Long time...no blog....! Sorry, but I've been on the road for the last few weeks. Hey, I wanted to let everyone know that Stacked is airing tonight on FOX at 8:30pm. This will be the last episode to... [Stacked]
12:13:33 PM
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Monday, June 6, 2005 |
Richard MacManus, Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up
Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up, 30 May - 5 June 2005.
This week: RSS Ripoff Merchants summary, Web 2.0 for teachers, Open Source
Radio talks about Web 2.0, EPIC II, search engines with RSS output.
Excerpt:
Open Source Radio on Web 2.0
Chris Lydon's new public radio show, Open
Source, went live this week. The inaugural show was on Web
2.0. The production and hosting by Chris was very professional, so this is going to
be a fantastic radio show to listen to regularly. The discussion of Web 2.0 was a
philosophical introduction to the topic, from a blogging and Two-Way Web perspective (as
opposed to talking tech about APIs, web services and so forth).
More at:  [Read/Write Web]
6:04:33 PM
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Saturday, June 4, 2005 |
Betsy Devine at Lincoln Center
Wynton Marsalis: The gift of blues, the gift of swing.... 
Music is the most abstract of all the arts. There's nothing to see there. Music is nothing but an arrangement of somethings strung out along timelines.
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The arts were born as entertainment....
- Somebody in a cave telling the story of catching a fish *this* big.
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The arts mature as education....
- Words and paintings that describe the thing they're about.
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The arts are reborn as reenactment....
- In a spirit of reverence, re-creating the work of artists you admire.
There are two kinds of music America gave the world. The blues. And swing. And each of these enfolds its own special kind of gift.
The gift of the blues is...optimism that is not naive. What's the first thing that happens to a baby when it comes into the world? Smack! But then you go on from there. The gift of the blues is a vaccination against life's pain.
The gift of swing is...embracing a mutual time. When you are playing and swinging, I can tell you the last thing you want is to hold back and think about what rhythms everyone else is playing with you. But you have to do it. The gift of swing is creating a shared time instead of insisting on your own time.
What you see behind Wynton Marsalis and his jazz band is not a backdrop. Those are huge floor-to-ceiling windows looking our over Columbus Circle and Central Park, as night slowly darkens the sky--in the Allen Room at Lincoln Center.
[Betsy Devine: Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar?]
8:50:42 AM
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Thursday, June 2, 2005 |
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Wednesday, June 1, 2005 |
Upcoming Zine Events!
Minnesota Center for Book Arts Zine Trade Fair
Minneapolis, MN
June 11, 2005
http://www.mnbookarts.org/events/20thanniv.html
Allied Media Conference
Bowling Green, OH
June 17-19, 2005
http://www.alliedmediaconference.com/
zine librarians caucus among other attractions...
American Library Association Annual Conference
Chicago, IL
June 25-28 2005
http://www.ala.org/ala/eventsandconferencesb/annual/2005a/home.htm
zine book and zine interest group meetings at
11 & 12, Saturday June 25th. gather at the Counterpoise booth #2745
Radical Reference Meeting, Saturday, June 25th: http://radicalreference.info/ALA
The Secret Lives of Librarians Event
Featuring Jenna Freedman, Travis Fristoe,
Jenn Phillips-Bacher, Keith Helt, and Celia Perez
Monday, June 27th, 7:00PM
Join this group of zine-making librarians as they break away from the
American Library Association Annual Conference to read from their zines to
reveal the inner lives of librarians that give lie to the stereotype of the
repressed bun-wearing, Dewey Decimal obsessed shusher. Jenna Freedman,
editor of the zine Lower East Side Librarian Winter Solstice Shout-Out, is
the Coordinator of Reference Services at Barnard College Library in NYC. She
is a member of the library worker activist group Radical Reference that
supports activists and independent journalists. Travis Fristoe devotes
himself to libraries, amateur protest music and salvaging discarded bikes.
Jenn Phillips-Bacher and Sara Pete published Riot Librarrrian. A
librarian-in-training, Keith Helt publishes Flotation Device and is in the
band the Rories. Celia Perez publishes I Dreamed I Was Assertive and Skate
Tough You Little Girls, a zine about women in skateboarding and is a
reference and instruction librarian at Harold Washington College where she
spends much of her time asking them to turn off their cell phones.
http://quimbys.com/events.php
Quimby's Bookstore
1854 West North Avenue
Chicago IL 60622
773/342-0910
http://www.quimbys.com
Minneapolis Zine Fest
Minneapolis, MN
July 22-24, 2005
http://www.zinefest.org
10:09:54 PM
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Synergic Earth
Remember Birds?.  Reuters News Service -- More than a fifth of the planet's bird species face extinction as humans venture further into their habitats and introduce alien predators, an environmental group said on Wednesday. While there have been some success stories of species that reappeared or recovered, the overall situation of the world's birds is worsening, BirdLife International said in its annual assessment of the feathered fauna. "The total number (of bird species) considered to be threatened with extinction is now 1,212, which when combined with the number of near threatened species gives a total of exactly 2,000 species in trouble -- more than a fifth of the planet's remaining 9,775 species," BirdLife said. Several species from Europe appear in the list for the first time, including the European roller, for which key populations in Turkey and European Russia have declined markedly. BirdLife, a global alliance of conservation groups, said 179 species were categorised as critically endangered, the highest level of threat. They include the Azores bullfinch, one of Europe's rarest songbirds that has fewer than 300 left. ... "Despite the recent rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker, overall more species are currently sliding towards oblivion," said BirdLife communication officer Ed Parnell. "One in five bird species on the planet now faces a risk in the short or medium-term of joining the dodo, great auk and 129 other species that we know have become extinct since 1500." (06/01/05) [Synergic Earth News]
8:18:27 AM
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Happy 
