EGC Clambake for November 8, 2005

Here is the Bittorrent link and direct MP3 download for the EGC clambake for November 8, 2005.

I talk about the talk at the Portable Media Expo; I play a remix of uplifting quotes with the Thievery Corporation; I play the best interview question I have ever heard; I talk about my semi-secret project; I play a song from the Dresden Dolls appearance on Radio Open Source; I’m on my way.

This episode is sponsored in part by the fine folks at iPod Observer and Reel Reviews! Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. For the month of November, $25 of your purchase goes to the Mercy Corps.

This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0.

Links mentioned in this episode:

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$40 a day

We’re watching this show with Rachel Ray, “$40 a Day” on the Food Network. I’ve heard about this show and seen her recently on Letterman but never actually seen it before today. We watched the one about Charleston since we’re close and will be visiting there sooner or later. Now we are watching the one about Atlanta to see places that we are familiar with. I can tell you this, she is so incredibly annoying that I think two episodes are the most I’ll ever be able to take. This is one of those cases where everyone seems to love her, but the charms are lost on me.

The Human Touch

As a reminder, I’ll be doing my talk at Podcast and Portable Media Expo this Saturday around noon time. That’s a little bit of bad luck, since my talk will be the thing between the people in the room and lunch but we’ll suck it up. If you’ll be at the expo, come to my talk and participate. I’m going to try to thread the needle by making this both the standard “authoritative person at the front of the room expounds” style and the open Bloggercon “the people in the chairs have most of the knowledge” style.

As a reminder, if you have thought about sending me the photo of your face and you haven’t done it, do it right now. Much later and you’ll miss the cutoff.

As another reminder, I’ll have stuff packages with me. I won’t be explicitly pimping them but if you come up to me and want one, I’ll sell you one on the spot.

Seeing and Hearing

A couple things that I have particularly liked:

Steve Garfield did a great interview with my man Tony Kahn. I’d like to think that if my work of say, the last year, has been influenced by anyone predominantly it is Tony. Once things were up and rolling, his challenge to reach for something deeper that can be done with the medium is a challenge I take seriously and is always in my mind when I flip on the record button.

The newest episode of Security Now has more information on the Sony DRM rootkit (no permalink for the show, naughty Steve Gibson). Some of what I was assuming was wrong, but there is a bunch of good information in here. It set my ass straight and quick. I urge anyone that cares to give this a listen.

Ghost Walk

In a little bit, we are heading out for the Conway “Ghost Walk.” Verrrrry scarrrrrry! It’s weird happening 5 days after Halloween rather than 2 before, but that’s how they played it this year. We wanted to go last year but didn’t realize it was such a big deal here that tickets sell out weeks in advance. I love living in this town!

EGC Clambake for November 4, 2005

Here is the Bittorrent link and direct MP3 download for the EGC clambake for November 4, 2005.

This episode is almost entirely an interview with Clayton Cubitt about his experiences with the Operation Eden weblog and taking photographs of the hurricane survivors of the Gulf Coast region; I play a song from the Caesar Brothers and that’s it.

This episode is sponsored in part by the fine folks at iPod Observer and Reel Reviews! Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. For the month of November, $25 of your purchase goes to the Mercy Corps.

This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0.

Links mentioned in this episode:

PlayPlay

Boycott Sony

This doesn’t affect me, because I have been on a de facto boycott of RIAA labels for years now and I don’t use a Windows machine in any significant way but now Sony Music has really crossed the line. By installing rootkits on your PC when you insert their music CDs that then corrupt your PC if you try to remove it, they have really and truly screwed the pooch. As I understand it from reading online, their rootkit that is there to ensure you aren’t playing their music without permission does not identify itself as such. If, like any good listener of recent episodes of Security Now, you try to remove this as the malware that it is, it will screw up your machine. You have no way of knowing ahead of time this will happen (unless you are reading blog posts about it), and no redress after the fact. Also, any savvy author of rootkit malware that currently can be removed will probably be buying a copy of the Van Zant Brothers CD and decompiling their rootkit to figure out that technique, increasing the state of the art of rootkit authors everywhere. Thanks Sony.

The line has been crossed. People of conscience should cease today buying Sony Music products of all kinds. Sony obviously doesn’t care about you if they are willing to put your PCs, all your personal or business data at risk in order to prevent you from playing an MP3. Who needs them? Give them what they want, don’t ever play their pirated MP3s but also don’t ever buy their CDs either. There are one million songs out there released free and clear by artists who want your attention and are not going to destroy your computer for listening to them.

As of today, if you buy Sony Music products you are supporting criminal activity.

Addenda: If you look at the original post where this came to light, one of the commentors notes that in the long run, Sony has made it more reasonable for you to download illegal MP3s of their music than buy it, because you don’t put yourself at risk that way. The most basic rule of all business and life for that matter is “incent the behavior you want to happen.” When you screw people for paying you money, you screw yourself in the long run.

Mercy

For the month of November I’m doing another stuff package fundraiser. For every package sold this month, I’ll donate $25 to the Mercy Corps for relief in the Kashmir earthquake. I haven’t yet found a match to bounce this one off of but I will try to get the same kind of giving efficiency that we had in the Katrina relief drive. It’s getting cold in Pakistan and millions of people are uprooted, so if you’ve been thinking about buying the stuff and haven’t yet, please do. Thanks.

Boomtime

About this time last year a whole lot of naysayers were saying that podcasting was a fad that would be gone in a year. I tried to get some of them to make a bet on that, and no one ever did. I wish they had, I’d be sending out thugs to collect right now and laughing as I put their money in my pocket.

Here’s some signs that the movement continues to grow. One is that a show I’ve never heard of won podcast of the year at the Portable Media Expo awards. The methodology for selecting it was being “chosen by an anonymous committee of podcasters, journalists and opinion leaders” which is shaky to me and you’ll never convince me that there is any value in giving such an award. Still, the idea that the field is now so big that you can be immersed in it and still not know about things other people think is the best one is telling.

Another sign is that just published was what I believe is the first book on podcasting written completely by someone who doesn’t actually podcast. Considering how easy it is to do, I wonder why this guy doesn’t. If he does, why isn’t that in any of his bios?