EGC Clambake for December 15, 2006

Here is the Bittorrent link and direct MP3 download for the EGC clambake for December 15, 2006.

I play a holiday song from Jill Sobule; I talk about the War on XMas; I mention Jon Udell’s new job; I play a goofy math song by the Klein Four Group and call it a day.

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To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5.

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EGC Clambake For June 20, 2006

Here is the Bittorrent link and direct MP3 download for the EGC clambake for June 20, 2006.

A spontaneous show! I play a song by the Decemberists; I play two snippets from the Web 2.0 conference panel on “Future of Entertainment” and throw in my commentary; I play a song by the Magnetic Fields; I discuss Jon Udell and This American Life; I play a piece from The Onion; I rock out to a song by the Famous; tell a story about carnies and call it.

You can subscribe to this feed via RSS.

To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5.

Links mentioned in this episode:

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This American Life Doesn’t Get It

Jon Udell posts this very disappointing exchange between himself and the webmaster at This American Life. In a nutshell, TAL is asserting that Jon is violating their copyright by publishing an RSS feed that points to MP3s that they themselves host. This is exactly the same thing I’m doing with the WREK feeds I host. In my case, I have a close relationship with WREK (they recently put me and several alumni on a plaque honoring our service to the stations) so I can’t see them doing the same thing to me.

I wish WBEZ was still my local affiliate to which I was a donor. I’d write them a note of disappointment as a member. I will still write that note, but with a more tenuous relationship. Public radio wants to be perceived as different than commercial radio. If that’s their desire, getting legal and cease-and-desistish on people for linking back to their own files is the wrong way to do it. It’s absurd on a technical level, and dickheaded on a common sense and moral level. I’m slowly ceasing to think of the organization as “public radio” (in the sense of us all being in it together) and instead thinking them as another form of “corporate radio” (where the corporation is the CPB).

Really, who needs that anymore? I’ve been a deep supporter of and even a participant in public radio as an independent producer in my life, and even I am becoming an antagonist of them. Folks, when you are antagonistic to your supporters you create antagonism. As Colbert says, “You are (this close to being) dead to me.”

Thanks to EGC reader/listener Ken for the heads up on this issue.

Update: Now they’ve even asked him to take down the blog post cited above talking about the takedown notice. To me, that just compounds the cluelessness further and works me into more of a lather than I originally had. When I send them my email, I will post the text as a blog post.

GSD

I’ve been listening to the various “Web 2.0” criticisms for a while now, both of the term and of the idea. I mentioned in my last podcast how I’m getting weary of people criticizing in situations where they could actually do the thing itself with not much more effort than complaining, exposing themselves for being lazy and all talk. These ideas are kind of coming together.

If you break it down to it’s heart, “Web 2.0” is about getting more things built faster for less money and that in turn allows us to actually do more better work. Is getting work done hype? How can it be? It’s about doing rather than talking, which explains why some pundits are turning against it. I’m guessing that the degree to which a pundit backlashes is inversely proportional to the rolled up height of their sleeves. I’ve never heard Jon Udell backlash at all, and his sleeves are rolled up to his neck.

Today I listened to the excerpt of the Bruce Sterling talk from eTech. In it, he said “If no one is accusing you of being all hype, you aren’t talking loud enough.” I like that outlook. I’ll add my corollary – “The best way to stick it to those who accuse you of being all hype is to make yourself indispensable in their lives. That’ll show them.”

From here forward, whenever I used to use “Web 2.0”, I’m going to use my own term: GSD. In analogy to David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”, this stand for “Getting Shit Done.” [Substitute “Stuff” if your gentle constitution requires it.] That’s where my head is at lately. Last fall I decided that rather than spend any more time criticizing the way podcast directories work, I built one that works according to my value system. Living well is the best revenge, and building something better is the best criticism. Less tongue in the air, more ass in the chair.

Those in the Pee Dee section of South Carolina, come join me Saturday for an afternoon of asses in chairs, and we can GSD.