Posted October 26th, 2008, in: Ideas, Observations, Opinions, Rants Etc

Please continue corresponding with me through my new site.  
andrew a peterson dot com

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Posted October 22nd, 2008, in: Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Intellectual Property| Marketing/Advertising In The Cloud| Music Industry| New Media| Technology| Web 2.0

The Open Rights Group is out there. I have no idea what they aim to do.  There are a bunch of new projects that have sprouted up online for various goals having to do with Intellectual Property in the digital realm, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Creative Commons, and more recently, the Featured Artist’s Coalition…  

My question is, is the O.R.G. a friend or a foe?  

I’m a child of digital media, and I’m also an artist.  I’m also a creator of other forms of content like this blog. 

The Open Rights Group’s site is so confusing and not-clear in its mission at first glance.  For all I can tell it’s a front for a major publisher effort.  

Really, the site is terribly unclear.  Maybe I was supposed to spend a bunch of time digging for the agenda there.  

Please, you guys, make it clear!

I can help if you want, but damn.  I can’t even tell what you stand for.

It needs to be completely clear to anyone visiting the site, as soon as they get there, me thinks.

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Posted October 16th, 2008, in: Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Videos

Well shit, I don’t know what to say.  Martha Stewart is teaching her fans to blog.  OK.  That’s cool.  Seems kinds weird.  But hey!  Let’s do this!  

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52z7iOdmXNE]

I watched this while I typed this crap.  

Wow.  Martha has an aggregation of bloggers on her site.  …And it’s not the whole episode.  Well crap.  Oh well.  I did my job.

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Posted October 15th, 2008, in: New Media| Technology

Boxee team, I’m a blogger, obviously, and I get a good amount of traffic and I want to try Boxee really bad.  I have OSX, Win XP and Ubuntu, although I try to avoid using windows.

Please let me try it.  I will send feedback.  I’m a power user and very techno-socially connected.

I’m really interested in Socially curated Media, the Future of Media in general, and other related topics.  Please.

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Posted October 13th, 2008, in: New Media| Technology| Web 2.0

(I’m linking to pages in the Wikipedia that don’t necessarily exist yet.  These guys are surely famous enough, so I assume the pages will come soon)

The geniuses behind the Engadget Podcast, Peter Rojas and Ryan Block are podcasting again!!!!!  

gdgt.com has arrived! (iTunes Link HERE)

When I first started to get into Social Media, Podcasting/RSS, The Blogosphere and Technology (in-general, as a broad area of interest), back in 2005, the Engadget podcast quickly became a key part of my media intake.  

Staying on top of what’s going on in the realm of consumer-facing hardware really helps you to see the bigger picture of what’s going on in Tech. Actually, if you’re not looking broadly at Technology, you’re really not seeing Tech at all.  

There are so many aspects of technology that bridge across market sectors.  Handsets, GPS Devices, Media Players, NetBooks, Laptops, Gaming Consoles…  You get the idea.  It’s all just computing, but seeing how innovations are coming to market, how they compare with what already exists, and what technologies are relevent in multiple areas of the market is absolutely crucial if you want to be able to see what’s coming next.  And having total gadgetphiles analyse it all for you is so helpful. 

When it comes to a consumer technology product reviews, I really believe there’s no other source on Earth as valuable as what’s created when these two guys record themselves in conversation.

I don’t know what happened with Engadget or WeblogsInc, but I don’t really care.  I stopped making it a point to read Engadget around the same time I stopped trying to stay on top of Digg.com’s technology feed (too much clutter/BS)

More importantly, if you think you’re staying in the loop of what’s going on in the “Tech Space” by merely reading Wired Magazine or by subscribing to TechCrunch and ArsTechnica, you are so, so, so wrong.  I urge you, listen to Peter Rojas and Ryan Block talk about every last fucking device that comes to market for a week or two.  I bet you’ll never stop. I hope they never stop again.

I’m so glad they’re back.  It was traumatic for me when they put the Engadget Podcast on “Hiatus…”

For all practical purposes, it’s back.  THANK YOU, Ryan and Peter!  You guys are such super heroes of tech!

This is pure gold!

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Posted October 13th, 2008, in: Computer Problems and Fixes

After a few weeks of thinking there was something wrong with my little iPod Shuffle, I found out that in shuffle-mode, the iPod Shuffle can’t/wont play back certain kinds of audio files.

Just change it back to non-shuffle and the Podcasts will play fine!

From support.apple.com:

When iPod shuffle is set to shuffle songs it will play all the audio files on iPod shuffle that are not audiobooks. Podcasts of type .m4b or AAC will not play on iPod shuffle when it is in shuffle mode, which is the intended behavior, although a podcast of type .mp3 or .wav may play while in shuffle mode. To play an audiobook or podcast that is on iPod shuffle, set the switch on iPod shuffle to play in order.

Wow. All this heartache over one tiny little switch switched to the wrong position.

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Posted October 6th, 2008, in: Intellectual Property| Music Industry| New Media

The FAC is a new organisation for advocacy of music artists’ rights in the digital distribution space.  Among the Artists already onboard are Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead and Billy Bragg.  One interesting thing about their “charter” is that they are advocating for artists to retain ultimate rights to their work, which in case you didn’t know, isn’t how it normally works in the major-label system.  

“…We speak with one voice to help artists strike a new bargain with record companies, digital distributors and others…”

As long as this organisation doesn’t become a new RIAA, by suing the pants off music lovers, or advocating network filtering by ISP’s, I’m all for this.  Labels get too much for too little while screwing over the fans and artists at almost every turn.  

If you’re listening, FAC, please don’t become another RIAA.  OK?  

Some quotes from the Press Release (pdf HERE):

 
ARTISTS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN FOR NEW DIGITAL RIGHTS

The Verve, Radiohead, Jools Holland, Kaiser Chiefs, Kate Nash, Robbie Williams and Billy Bragg are among dozens of musicians and performers calling for changes to the law and record industry

[...]

The new organisation will campaign for specific changes to the laws governing the music industry and how business is conducted, so that:

 
[...]
The new organisation will campaign for specific changes to the laws governing the music industry and how business is conducted, so that:

• artists always retain ultimate ownership of their music
• all agreements between artists and others are conducted in a fair and transparent manner
• rights’ holders have a duty of care to the originator of those rights, and must always explain how any agreement may affect how their work is exploited.

[...]
The Coalition will begin by focusing on six areas where it is seeking change: 

1. An agreement by the music industry that artists should receive fair compensation whenever their business partners receive an economic return from the exploitation of the artists’ work.
2. All transfers of copyright should be by license rather than by assignment, and limited to 35 years.
3. The making available right should be monetized on behalf of featured artistes and all other performers.
4. Copyright owners to be obliged to follow a ‘use it or lose it’ approach to the copyrights they control.
5. The rights for performers should be the same as those for authors (songwriters, lyricists and composers).
6. A change to UK copyright law which will end the commercial exploitation of unlicensed music purporting to be used in conjunction with ‘critical reviews’.

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Posted October 6th, 2008, in: Scam Email Mashups| Spam and Scams

I find this one interesting because it doesn’t actually promise any money.  Instead it offers an opportunity to help build a church in Africa, and accuses the reader of needing redemption, being a sinner (who isn’t, right?) etc…

From: david@teceng.net

I am Prophet David Johnson, I went for a prayer mission in HAITI and the Lord revealed so many things about you to me.

I see things and I reveal to people, something terrible which I have seen will happen to you, I just have to tell you, you will lose two important people you love very much, and evil will visit you personally, troubles and problems will leave with you, the things you never never believe that can happen to you, will happen. It has been dated when it will start very soon, sooner than you think.

The Lord reveal everything to me, and your email address appeared to me, after reading this message, if you believe me keep this message for your self alone do not share it with anybody, but if you don’t believe me delete this message and talk to your family, friends and relatives, tell them about the message so when things start happening to you, they will be informed, everything that will happen to you is spiritual, nobody will understand, when you even tell people what is happening to you they will never believe and understand because it is spiritual.

I have warned you now, we can prevent all this, but only if you believe God, but if you don’t believe God, wait and see what will happen.

Lord has done so much for you, that you have failed to recognize and you have been cheating God, at this time your email address was revealed to me three times, that’s why I am contacting you, do not think this is a joke or just an email because I know what will be going on in your mind, you are free to believe and disbelief this message, but when evil starts happening there is no going back, I warn you it has been destined and dated, it will start sooner than you think.

As you are reading this message I still see doubt in you, but I will stop here. If you want to prevent all this evil that will hit you soon, I will know and I will tell you what to do.

God reveal to me that you have a lot of doubt in your mind that you will doubt this message.

The reason for writing this message, is because of the strong challenge which you must have to follow to prevent all this evil which will surround you sooner, you will not see them and you can never see them, because it is spiritual, when it starts it cannot stop, it will be as if God has giving you to Satan.

Look this is not a joke, this is what I have seeing and the only prevention is for you not to doubt and do what I will tell you to do, for your soul to be covered in God’s harms. We have to take you back from the Satan if you are ready to follow God’s instructions I will tell you what to do.

I can still see even as I’m writing this message that there is plenty of doubt inside your heart and mind, but you can over power your doubt, only if the evil leaving in your heart will allow you, it will be very difficult for you to do what God’s want you to do, but you can do it only if you put doubt aside.

God told me that we will win you back, but it will be difficult because your heart has been eating by doubt, my only advice to you to remove doubt and keep this message to you self, if you don’t take my advice wait and see. This is the only way out for you to avoid this evil, you have to sow a seed in the house of the Lord, there is a church we are building in Africa, and we want you to sow a seed in contributing on that church where your name will be writing as one of the people that contributed to stand the house of the Lord where people will enter everyday and pray for you who contributed to put up the structure.

The only way out of this predicament is you must have to contribute for the building of the church, your name must be writing in the church as one of the sponsors that is where your name will be written in the book of life, the book of joy and the book of happiness things will now turn around, when the church is completed everyday service your name will be announced for the church congregation to pray for you.

So you have to sow that seed that is the only message that will take you out of this evil, you name must be writing in that church before it is completed. There’s no way back we will beg you to do this because this is the only way for the evil to turn around, I’m a prophet I don’t talk too much. But if you fail to do what you have been told now, when the predicament start even if you give all you have to the church at that time it will not work, I am warning and begging don’t ignore this message.

The church will go on 40 days fasting for you starting from the day you sow a seed for the building of the church. Contact Pastor Emmanuel Anderson, tell Pastor Anderson that you want to contribute for the building of the new church, do not tell him about what I told you, just tell him you want to contribute then ask him how you can sow a seed, do this as quick as possible, nothing is too small and nothing is too big for the Lord do not cheat God again, do this I have told you.

Give what you have never giving before, give what you feel your heart tells you, remember nothing  is too small and nothing is too big for the Lord, contact Pastor Emmanuel Anderson on this e-mail (pastoranderson@faithconvenantministry.co.cc) and tell him you want to sow a seed, after you have done that, then wait and see how blessing will rain upon your life each day, how you will swim in the rivers of success and joy.

I have given you the information and message which I was asked to give you, so now it is now left for you to believe it and do what you where told or forget it. I will never write you again or reply you, I have told you what I have to tell you, after reading this message you only have two things to do, either you follow the message or not.

I wish you the best in life.

Have a blessed day.

Regards,

Prophet David Johnson.

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Posted October 2nd, 2008, in: Computer Problems and Fixes| Technology

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