MaisonBisson

I’ve posted a number of stories and links related to the music industry and P2P and such. Here’s a short summary of them.

First was a story about how music swappers actually buy more music. Then came a story about the decline of the album format, and why it’s a good thing for listeners. I followed that up with something about copying is theft, and other legal myths. And just now I posted a story about the real reasons for the decline in the music biz.

Fortunately, these aren’t so much stories as they are annotated links to other people’s insightful comments on the matter. Nobody should have to read my drivel.

It’s probably due to my color blindness, but I have the darndest time seeing streetlights (the red/yellow/green things at controlled intersections) at night. I’ve had to explain it a million times, but nobody seems to understand. Finally I’ve discovered a sympathetic friend, sort of. Michael Darnell writes about his complaints with street lights and other things that don’t work well or aren’t designed well.

I found myself waiting. A CD quietly burned in the combo-drive, a computer slowly reboot after a system update, and a large file was drifting across the ether[net] between my laptop and sever. Clearly this was the time to surf over to ilovebacon.com and waste some time.

I was in luck right away. Ask Snoop isn’t quite as funny as old unix jive, but it’s good for some quick laughs.

On the other hand, I’m not sure what to think of A Vagina for Christmas.

I just added ArsTechnica to the list of websites I check daily. I’ve been reading technical articles there for years, but two articles today clinched it: “the social complexities of the f-word” and “your cheating heart’s been clickin’ her buttons. Both are well worth reading for anybody who cares about the social aspects of technology. Well, the first one doesn’t really have anything to do with technology, it’s just funny.

So I’d like to get this old USB video capture device working in OS X, but the vendor has quit the business and no OS X drivers are around for it. A little searching on the web netted the following how-to on making one vendor’s USB device drivers work with another vendor’s products. The details relate to USB WiFi adapters, but we can generalize.

With the tips in that story in mind, we can face down the next question: are there any drivers that might be made to work with my USB device? Its a Global Village VideoFX, and it appears to be based on Nogatech’s USBVision (VideoFX USB details here). I think XLR8’s InterView was based on the same hardware, and drivers are available from EchoFX.

[UPDATE]: EchoFX has released a new version of their application/driver package that supports a number of USB capture devices. I’ll have to download the demo version and try ’em out.

OS X Server is great, but it doesn’t respond well when you change its IP number. The resulting fiasco will make you think working a fast food job is worth it. Here are some links that won’t make it easier but will at least give you a bootable machine:

A little how-to

Support discussion

More discussion

Even more discussion

Update August 15, 2003: Apple has finally done something, just a little something, to address this problem. They’ve released a script to change the IP address on OS X server: “The IPAddressChange script, which you may download from this document, allows you to change the IP address of a computer using Mac OS X Server versions 10.2 to 10.2 “

I don’t watch much TV and I don’t own a TiVo, but I love the idea. So I’m glad to read about open source folks building their own DVRs.

The Apollo Archive boasts a wealth of content covering the moon landing. Good stuff.

Google has been raved about since it first appeared on the search engine scene four years ago. Now that it’s trounced all the other, however, people are getting concerned about the effects of the monopoly. Google-Watch is leading the charge. Their claim? They say that Google’s PageRank means only that the rich get richer, and they’re concerned about close ties between Google and government snoops.

Hmmm.

I found a collection of three books by The Disinformation Company on a shelf in City Lights. I’d already picked out my book (Toothpicks & Logos) when I saw Abuse Your Illusions, Everything You Know Is Wrong, and You Are Being Lied To lined up and beckoning to me.

I’ll have to take another look at them, but at least the publisher has an interesting story.

It’s a pleasure to read the many pages of Molotov Cocktail for the Soul.

Elaine Allard and I will be presenting on Library Portal Integration at the IUG 2003 in San Jose, CA. Two sessions have been scheduled for Sunday, April 28th: 9am and 4:30pm.

Our description, in the program guide:

Like many colleges, Plymouth State College is working to consolidate its online resources inside a portal. Within this single point of service students can register for classes and check their grades, faculty can review their rosters and post grades, and staff can review benefits and vacation time. This presentation describes how the PSC’s Lamson Library became part of the portal party so that patrons can view their record and access WAM-protected databases — all inside the portal. The presentation will include technical aspects of integration between our portal (Campus Pipeline), student information system (POISE, moving to BANNER), and library system (Innovative, of course), as well as some brief discussion of the politics and philosophy of this integration.

At the IUG 2003 Site: Library Portal Integration. More information at the Plymouth State University site: Library Portal Integration.

While reading up on the SLiMP3 network MP3 player I came across some mention of Dallas Semiconductor and their line of wonderfully hackable TINI ICs. These little things have ethernet interfaces, Java runtime engines, and webservers built-in, and are ideal for making non-networked devices internet ready. As if we don’t now have enough internet connected light switches and soda machines.

A nice overview of TINI is available.

Pornorchestra:

The PornOrchestra is an attempt to radically reinterpret the soundtrack to pornographic film. This complicated genre has taken its share of scorn: from adult film producers who refuse to pay it any mind to legions of consumers who instinctively snap the sound off after pressing Play.

Performing live improvised and composed scores to pornographic film, the PornOrchestra invigorates the mysterious experience of the Voyeur-cum-Auditeur. The equivalent of a circus band with its collective eye on the trapeze artist: the PornOrchestra teases out the thrill, amplifying the collective gasp at pornographic triumph — and tragedy — using the most eclectic and creative musical minds working in the Bay Area today.

The argument about soundtracks, and something completely un-sexy

The website that brought all of this to my attention. And, no, I can’t really recall how I found that one in the first place.

Wired has a story about the effect of wireless on agriculture, theme parks, health care, and conferences.

So speaketh O’Reilly’s Rael Dornfest about a recent conference with ubiquitous WiFi access:

“people weren’t disappearing back to their rooms to check email between sessions. They’d just sit down in one of the common areas and log on. Because everyone was gathering in the same place, there was a lot more spontaneous discussion. Also, the sessions themselves became more interactive.”

It’s all part of Wired’s special feature about wireless which covers everything from getting connected to where it’s going. Also really interesting is a story about the ‘supposed’ death of 3G and convergence of WiFi with telecomm.

Font Diner offers some darn cool fonts. Go visit their site for freebies too.