Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Internet Radio: Not dead yet

Apparently passed by the House; it still needs Senate approval and Presidential signature.

BetaNews | Pandora sees relief ahead in net radio fee talks
Pandora's Tim Westergren says he's "more optimistic than ever before" that his webcasting service won't be yanked offstage, as the House passed a bill letting net radio stations extend royalty rate negotiations with labels and artists.

The Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008 would give Congressional blessing for SoundExchange, the music industry's collection service, to work directly with the Digital Media Association, which represents online services such as Pandora, as worked out by an industry agreement last week. The permission to negotiate rates would circumvent rate levels set in 2007 by the Copyright Review Board.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Protester at Senate Banking Hearing - or how to frame a foto


Just about says it all.  As nearly as I can tell, its a real Getty image, probably not shopped.  The Gawker column that re-ran it has a couple of worthy LOL captions in the comments.




Pic Of The Day: Yup, It Really Is "The Greatest Depression." LOL!
A demonstrator behind Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke at this morning's Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee floats the theory that Wall Street killed capitalism for the Lulz.

Monday, September 22, 2008

No more Jerry, brought to you by a Mac



So who wrote the ad campaign contract for bid and forgot to stipulate: "use a PC"?

I'm a PC, Made on a Mac
I don't exactly feel sorry for Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), but the brewing brouhaha over its latest ad -- and a very good ad, if I do say so -- is so funny that it's sad. AppleInsider reports that Mr. Softy's new "I'm a PC" pitches, which substitute for the goofy and ill-fated Bill Gates-Jerry Seinfeld team-ups, appear to have been created using Macs.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Ostriches more ancient than previously thought


A good article on how different types of birds related.







Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted): Ratite Flight: Lost But Not Found
Additionally, if you look closely at the above phylogenetic tree, you will notice that it is the ostriches that are the sister group to all the other ratites, not the tinamous, as originally thought.

Further, these phylogenomic relationships remain unchanged after adding crocodilian DNA (crocodiles are the sister group to birds) and DNA from two additional neognath groups (figure 2);

Jerry, we hardly knew ye


Oh well.  Vista continues to look for a friend.

Microsoft announcement tomorrow: No more Seinfeld ads!
In a phone call, Waggener Edstrom flack Frank Shaw confirms that Microsoft is not going on with Seinfeld, and echoes his underlings' spin that the move was planned.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Big Science via easy-to-understand video

So - real similar to the previous Big Science post - but as they say: a moving picture is worth about 24,000 words a second.

Enjoy.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

What an Epigonion Sounded Like





Computer recreated mp3's based on instrument descriptions.


The ASTRA Project website
Download

+ Epigonion sound recostruction example (generated on the EUMEDCONNECT infrastructure)

o Middle age piece (G. Dufay) played on 4 recostructed Epigonions, wooden resonant structure, plucked and hammered strings

+ Epigonion sound recostruction example (generated on the EUMEDCONNECT infrastructure)

o Excerpt from a XVII Century piece (C. Monteverdi) played on 4 recostructed Epigonions, wooden resonant structure, plucked and hammered strings

Big Science in a Nutshell from Cracked


Don't lose any sleep over this. Because, after all, you are sleeping just fine in spite of global warming.





The 5 Scientific Experiments Most Likely to End the World | Cracked.com
surely in their insatiable curiosity and desire to put knowledge above all things, science would never, say, inadvertently set off a chain of events that lead to some sort of disaster that ended the world. Right?

Well, here's five experiments that may prove us wrong.