KUT out of Austin, Texas, U.S.A. is participating in the day of Internet Radio Silence today. It appears to be another misguided attempt by the RIAA to set up a legally-mandated protection racket benefiting major players in the recording industry while, in effect, restricting the spread of American culture to the international public, no matter the intention of the artists the RIAA claims to represent. According to indiepod.com,
the RIAA’s affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. ‘SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free … So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties.
The future for independent American musicians who want to get international exposure through internet radio? Take off to the great white north, eh?
More information:
Wanting to find a gift for my mom, who’s in the hospital recovering from surgery, my sister suggested Organic Bouquet, which sells organically-grown cut flowers. My mom’s a plant lover and we wanted to get her something that wouldn’t die. Flowerpetal.com sells plants, and contributes to carbonfund.org, providing carbon offsets for all the plants flown around the world. They ship peace lilies, one of the few indoor plants that flowers in low light conditions. It’s also reportedly one of the best plants for indoor air pollution abatement.
While I’m not sure how effective carbon offsets are in mitigating climate change or in reshaping the economy, I can only hope it’s the thought that counts.
The entertainment industry is completely out of control. In a misguided attempt to increase their profit margin, they ruin their own business. They’ve already destroyed the movie-going experience, wasting our time with advertisments for products I boycott on principle. The industry needs to get a clue and take a look at the popularity of Tivo, home theatre, internet video and other homegrown mediums that let consumers take control instead of letting the industry take control away. I don’t buy fewer CDs because I listen to music on the radio, I buy more as I get exposed to new music that I like. As if losing habeus corpus, the right to a free trial, freedom from torture at the hands of the state, and any privacy that once were my American birthright weren’t bad enough, now corporations that I choose to give money to are exercising their monopoly powers to take away what remains of the American freedoms of intellectual consumption, one by one.
I have a Creative Muvo TX FM MP3 player that I’ve been really happy with. It’s cheaper then most iPods (iKidYouNot), uses flash memory (for fewer moving parts), uses a non-proprietary battery (AAA) and has FM radio. I use it a lot to listen to the radio, podcasts, and occasionally even music. Recently, it’s been malfunctioning–turning off inexplicably and locking up when I try to navigate among the MP3s I have stored on it. Consequently, I wanted to upgrade the firmware in an attempt to fix the problem. However, upon visiting Creative’s dysfunctional website (it’s broken for Firefox users), I finally found the firmware upgrade. In reading the fine print, I discovered that they’ve removed the ability to record from FM. Presumably, this is yet another victory by the RIAA against consumers. This feature was prominently advertised. Retroactively removing it is a ripoff. Ultimately, I found an older version of the firmware, version 1.13.03, and was able to install it. It seems to be working better and I’ve just recorded my first FM program, just to make sure it still works. Ironically, I probably wouldn’t have ever used this function without the RIAA’s presumed attempts to take it away. This is old news, also see a post on engadget.com.
Lifehacker.com had a post about sending broken manufactured things back to the manufacturer to get them fixed. When you have to buy new, look for products with lifetime manufacturer’s warranties. You generally have to pay return postage, though some manufacturers provide free return envelopes. For example, after buying and throwing away lots of cheap earphones, I found that KOSS earphones have a lifetime warranty, they’ll replace them for $6, they were reasonably priced and sound a lot better then cheap headphones (i.e. the multiple pairs of $6 headphones I bought new that lasted a few weeks at a time). I’ve always gotten a replacement back and feel better about it because I’m supporting a company that stands behind their product. I can only cross my fingers and hope that they’ll reuse the parts I’ve returned. I doubt it, but from an environmental and consumer standpoint, quality trumps quantity.
We have a sun oven that we love. We’ve had it for a few years, and it works great. It usually gets up to around 275 degrees Fahrenheit (135 Celsius), but tends to sit at 250 F. (121 C.) once it has food in it. In the summer, when eggplant is prolific in central Texas, I really like to eat baba ghanoush, a tasty cold paste that goes great with chips or pita bread. I throw about 5-7 small eggplants into a clear glass dish, close up the sun oven, point it approximately where I think the sun will be about an hour before I want to remove the contents, and walk away for 3 or 4 hours. On the outside, a sun oven is mostly cool to the touch. I would never leave a gas or electric oven in a building unattended, but with the sun oven, I don’t have any worries at all. It makes great baba ghanoush, and you don’t heat up your house making it.
I saw a post on BoingBoing mentioning that Captain Beefheart’s house was for sale. Trout Mask Replica was recorded there. To paraphrase Frank Zappa, it might be hard to listen to, but it’s better for you in the long run. BoingBoing linked to this blog post. Hobo Chang Ba!
Incidentally, Woodland Hills reached an all-time record high of 119 degrees F. July 22nd. You think it’s hot now? Wait until next year. And the year after that…
I harvested 9 lbs of grapes (I believe muscadine) from our arbor today. It probably would have been a bigger harvest had I picked a little earlier. I’m making grape juice. To do this, I added a cup of water to 7 lbs. of grapes in a stainless steel pot, put it on low heat until the whole mess was hot to the touch. Then I used a bean masher to mash the grapes and simmered for another 15 minutes or so. Next, I used a wire mesh strainer to strain out the skins and seeds. I took the remaining juice and strained it through 2 layers of cheesecloth laid in the strainer. The instructions I had said to let it sit for another 24-48 hours and then filter through cheesecloth again to remove sediment which apparently can turn bitter. Optionally, you can simmer and dissolve sweetener in it. Since I’m watching my caloric intake, I may foresake the sweetener. I got more then 2 quarts out of it and it’s grapeilicious!
Here’s a list of tightly interconnected modern ills. Everytime I hear a news story about one of them, I think of the others. I rarely hear the news media, even NPR, making the connections. Americans seem to be trapped in a rut that’s taking the rest of the planet with it. Here’s a list of interrelated global problems that I believe are of great significance in the lives of Americans :
- Global warming and everything that comes with it
- High gas prices
- Obesity in the U.S.
- Heart disease in the U.S.
- The occupation of Iraq by the U.S.
- Instability in the Middle East
- Traffic fatalities (38,253 in 2004 according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)
- Urban Sprawl
Actual fortunes from fortune cookies I’ve gotten recently:
- The greatest danger could be your stupidity.
- You will be successful someday.