The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today.

I'll be in Philadelphia for today and tommorrow. It could be said I live in interesting times.

Sometimes there's nothing like a bit of Edith Piaf to get one up at 5am.

Billionaires for Bush or Gore says its piece more effectively than anything I've seen so far.

The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today.

Ralph Nader made the cover story in this month's village voice.

They also have a guide to the protests going on in Philadelphia during the Republican National convention this week, called 'Raising Hell in Philly'. I'll be there tommorrow, most likely just for the day.

The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today.

Ah, the original page for the Street Performer Protocol. Writer/Artist creates content, sets up a method to pay for it. If px or z people pay (where p is a set percentage, x is the number of downloads, and z is a set dollar amount), then artist creates more content. Only a little different from the Storyteller's Bowl.

There is an interesting idea for voluntary payments for music over at Hack the Planet. It's called "Kill the RIAA".

Or instead of killing them, you could let them know what you think.

There seems to be a campaign of sorts to give the RIAA their music back, so people are sending CD's, old hard drives, and disks with MP3's on them to the RIAA. This guy is playing songs into their voice mail system. The list is pretty funny, imo (scroll down). He also read the entire text of Courtney Love's speech into their voice mail.

There is a really miserable dog next door to where I am staying. It barks all day long. I feel sorry for it, but since I can't do anything about it, it annoys me.

'But beware of commercial radio. Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Dial are they.'

The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today.

My thoughts on mp3's: after noting that most artists make little or no money on record sales, I sincerily hope that the record industry dies - or is at least reduced in size exponentially. After that, there may or may not be a dark age of content. Pop music certainly won't be as lucrative as it is now. If artists need to make money but can't, then the culture of music consumption will have to respond, and pay for what they listen to.. but with two significant differences. First, music will cost less, but much, much more of it will go to the artist. And second, it'll be possible to pay small prices for music so easily that downloading will have to be restricted to those who have already paid, mostly because with so much music on the net, bands can't afford to not give their music away, with a few exceptions.

Think something different will happen? I'd love to hear about it.

Against Intellectual Property.

I've started work on a new issue of subtext. Submissions large and small are welcome, as always.

Yesterday, I went and saw Rififi, a French Film Noir made in 1955. The plot was ridden with sexism, and the subject matter was certainly clicheed to a certain extent, but all that was in the back of my mind, because this was one of the best pieces of cinematography I've ever seen. It made me consider filmmaking as a craft, and realize that while the glamour and special effects have increased, the perfect blending of visual metaphor, transitions, suspense, and other elements has really gone downhill.

How could it be that the film industry's grasp of their own medium has declined so much? It occurred to me that it might be a French thing, as the only other movie that I've seen that has such great cinematography was Cyrano de Bergerac, and attention to the exection of a film (not just the idea or worse, the FX and stars in it) is something that shows up in European films much more than in the Hollywood variety.

From the Rififi page at Film Forum:

"...a legendary 30-minute sequence with neither dialogue nor music - provided a usable blueprint for real-life professionals (causing outright bans in some countries)..."

The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today.

Nous passons de la vie a la mort.

Google redesigned, ever so slightly. Probably the only search engine I've ever seen get simpler over time. Bravo.

TodRadio.com is an interesting new show on CBC radio. They aim to be 'the most interactive radio show in North America'. Listeners can send them instant messages, chat with other listeners, and coolest of all, upload sound clips for the show.

The show is a bit obnoxious at times, but it's worth a listen, if only for the format. (They managed to misquote Mcluhan badly enough to piss me off in the first show that I listened to. )

One thing that annoys me about radio and media in general is that debates never really go anywhere. Most 'debates' that happen are really just a bunch of people saying their opinion - but then, just when it starts getting interesting, it stops, and we move on to the next topic. It would be alot more interesting if the topics stayed the same over time, and the discussion really had a chance to inform people, with thoughtful responses and rich background information.

Instead, we have 'lets whip up some infotainment before 5 o'clock and then move on' business. Even in 'quality' publications, you have to be thoughtful before your deadline, not after. </rant>

Smartertimes offers counterpoints to NYTimes articles that they find to be innaccurate. Kendall over at Monkeyfist has been doing similar analyses of NYTimes and Washington Post articles on protests and the elections. Jeremy at Invisible City was doing something similar with Time magazine, too, but I can't find the link.

Maybe there should be a site that aggregates analytic counterpoint pieces. Hmmmm...

Did I mention that Retrogression is back? Good stuff can be found...

The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today.

Michael Moore says that Ralph Nader doesn't need any democrats to vote for him, because 55% of the voting age population is disillusionned with both parties to do something a little crazy (or uncharacteristically sane) with their vote. So it's the real majority that needs to vote. Good point.

The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today.

Ok, now I'm back in NYC, and getting settled for few weeks (housesitting for friend). I'm looking to check out any New Media/Silicon Alley stuff/events/interestingpeople/places I should check out, or If you want to have lunch, let me know : dojy@mta.ca.

Here's a page with digital versions of hard-to-find essays, short stories, and a novel by Neal Stephenson.

The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today.

Analysts noted today that voting for Al Gore would be taking a vote away from Ralph Nader, thus negating the possibility of any real change occuring in the next four years (see above).

Paypal now has one step click to pay functionality. It's not exactly one-click, but it's a step in the right direction.

Still no word from Millicent.

I'm in Chicago now, staying with my friend Natanya... until tommorrow, and then it's back to NYC.

The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today.

National Mobilization to End the Sanctions Against Iraq. Protests in Washington DC, August 5-7.

News: The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today, using bombs and famine. Are you a US citizen? Innocent people are being killed by people who represent you. Bummer.

If anyone's keeping track, I'm now in St. Paul, Minnesota, visiting my best friend from pre-university days.

Is moving a radio station onto the internet really a big deal?

A station that brought the best of the internet to the airwaves would be much cooler, imho. An internet community radio station could be run by a staff of one or two (with volunteers), and play radio shows that produced independently by people people all over the internet. Stuff like off the hook, counterspin, and others could be heard by people without access to the internet.

I'm hoping to do something like this at CHMA next summer (when all the programmers leave), as an experiment.

I think that bringing independent media from the internet to the Real World could have a lot of potential in this and other ways - in the sense that the most interesting stuff from all over the internet could be picked up by people publishing locally. This could be pretty viable if low-power radio becomes a reality.

The same idea could be applied to print - take the best articles published by independent media sites on the net and make a newsletter, augmented with local content, and distributed in a town or neighborhood.

Syndicate globally, publish locally.

News: The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today, using bombs and famine. Are you a US citizen? Innocent people are being killed by people who represent you. Bummer.

Scott McCloud on the promise of digital distribution.

I'm reading Understanding Comics right now, and it rocks. McCloud lays out all the different dimensions of the Comic medium, showing exactly how they affect the reader's perceptions. A very ambitious project that seems to have been completed quite successfully.

I'm working on something that looks at the web in similar fashion, though on different scale. If you're interested, email me.

News: The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today, using bombs and famine. 250 pointless deaths per day!

I'm off to New York, Chicago, St Paul, and other places as of tommorrow morning, so updates will happen now and then. Maybe I'll actually get some writing done now...

Yahoo's Full Coverage has a section on digital music.

Kendall Clark: Anti-protest Propaganda Intensifies.

Matt Johnson of The The is pissed at the record industry, so he's releasing his new album directly onto the internet. Far from being just a rant, Matt's intro has a lot of interesting background information on the record industry.

News: The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today, using bombs and famine. 250 pointless deaths per day!

Back online after almost five days! That's the longest it's been for quite a while, and I'm off travelling again in about three days, so no time for love.

All about Flying Standby

Orrin Hatch threatens to "clarify fair use", and consider legislative action to keep record companies from drowning online music distribution in a sea of litigation. I could think of worse things that could happen to the music industry.

Diane Feinstein says: "If Napster-like services sprung up across the content industry, copyright would become 'null and void.'" I think that would be pretty cool, myself.

News: The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today, using bombs and famine. 250 pointless deaths per day!

Oops! Now I'm off to Cape Breton for a few days. Updates will again be sparse.

News: The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today, using bombs and famine. 250 pointless deaths per day!

I'm back from PEI. Had a great time, saw two great bands: The Rude Mechanicals from Charlottetown, and The Wells, from Montreal.

Brent Simmons has a cool rant about Punk Rock, art, and the two-way web.

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography. Wheeeeeee!

News: The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today, using bombs and famine. 250 pointless deaths per day!

I'm hitchhiking to PEI for a few days. See y'all on Friday.

Kendall Clark lays bare recent criticisms of Ralph Nader in the NYTimes and Washington Times. The NYTimes actually said the following!

"But given the major differences between the prospective Democratic and Republican nominees, there is no driving logic for a third-party candidacy this year, and the public deserves to see the major-party candidates compete on an uncluttered playing field."

Egads! What are they smoking? This reads like an overblown parody of Orwell's 1984. I wonder if any of their readers realize it. :|

Monkeyfist: Best of the Churn

News: The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today, using bombs and famine. 250 pointless deaths per day!

The GoreBot malfunctions, speaking the truth briefly, but the problem is quickly fixed.

Is making a secure format for digital music impossible?

I recently saw Dead Man and Hurlyburly. Both compelling and bizarre in different ways, both recommended.

Liam (the station manager here at CHMA) started a weblog just moments ago.

News: The United States Government killed Iraqi citizens today, using bombs and famine. 250 pointless deaths per day!

(If updates are sporadic now and later, it's because I'm a suffering from a bit of computer burnout, and trying to focus on writing something longer than these little blurbs)

I recently got the latest issue of Wired (they take forever to get to Canadian mailboxes), and they had about ten pages of responses to Bill Joy's Why the Future Doesn't Need Us. The responses ranged from alarm, to rhetoric about the inevitability of technological advancement. A recurring theme was that we can't stop progress of any kind without some kind of totalitarian solution, which is just a bit reductive for my taste.

The other responses were interesting, but Stewart Brand put the issue in perspective very succinctly:

"Everyone agrees there's an iceberg - the question is, will it hit the ship, miss the ship, or replace the ship? Or maybe - unthinkable! - the ship will slow down and study the iceberg for a while."