Nothing and Some More

I went to the NYC Grassroots Media Conference this saturday and attended a few workshops.

Speaking to the (mainstream) media workshop is the most quotable, mostly because in a few bullet points, the speaker, Nan Rubin, explains why the media is so frustrating to read:

News reporting is largely ahistorical. Media loves sensationalism and conflict. Theatre makes news. Reporters are overworked and under deadline. They rarely have time for detailed research. Their story is about people, not movements. And they will be looking for a local angle

Another interesting session was on microradios and how they can be used for various grassroots events.

In one word, building a radio is EASY.

The website DIY Media has all the info, and more, distilled during the workshop. It has also an excellent Audio/Video Library with mp3 and film to follow the history of free radio.

There was the mandatory Pump Up the Volume reference: the yellow FCC trucks do NOT exist!!!

In These Times: Can Blogs Revolutionize Progressive Politics?

[Matt Stoller, a blogger at the popular Web site MyDD.com] does not think that it’s important for blogs to reach a less-affluent audience: “Not everybody has to be part of that conversation. If someone wants to have access to those discussions, they should be able to do that. But for the most part, people—like that person working two shifts—will go on with their lives knowing that good people are making good decisions and policies on their behalf.” Bloggers like [Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the founder and primary voice of Daily Kos] — who is equally unconcerned that his blog will never reach “someone working at the DMV” — are likely betting that the cadre of activists they reach will be able to form connections across those differences within their community.

Ask Slashdot: [ChunKing] works for a small community broadcasting organization, with a limited streaming media facility for a number of not-for-profit webcasters. It has always been an issue to optimize our streaming media infrastructure to most benefit our users. They can't afford Akamai so they are looking for Low Cost Webcast Optimizations .

First answer: BitTorrent adapted to streaming. Except the code does not exist yet... But there are commercial companies offering a similar solution : Abacast, Red/Swoosh, Nine Systems

Answer two: stop streaming, just make mp3 / xvid available through P2P. Except that P2P and Torrents are not grand ma' compliant yet, (point proven by the craze around podcasting, i.e. automatic download of whatever is enclosed in the background, so it is there "instantaneously"). Luckily Opera 9 is showing the path with its BitTorrent integration, so Firefox2 and IE9.5 will also include a BitTorrent client.

Answer three: outsource it to a bigger website

The last and the most correct answer is multicasting (MBone where are thou)

Prodigem is a content hosting service that uses Bit Torrent to distribute large media files at a low cost.

BeeHive has a validated list of public trackers.

Battle the Podcast Bandwidth Beast with Bittorrent, a win32 guide.

OASIS (Overlay Anycast Service InfraStructure) is a DNS service for replicated Internet services; it directs clients to the server closest to them, using BGP routing info.(via Hack The Planet)

Sherman Alexie: When the Story Stolen Is Your Own

Of course, after reading Nasdijj's essay and book, I suspected that he was a literary thief and a liar. As a Native American writer and multiculturalist, I worried that Nasdijj was a talented and angry white man who was writing as a Native American in order to mock multicultural literature.

Complementary links: L.A. Weekly: Navaoax, or Did a struggling white writer of gay erotica become one of multicultural literature’s most celebrated memoirists — by passing himself off as Native American? and a week later, Nasdijj Admits He's Tim Barrus

The Book Standard: Agent Confirms Author Nasdijj and Gay-Erotica Writer Timothy Barrus Are Same Person

Tim Barrus is also the author of Andy Kaufman Lives

Welcome to Andy Kaufman Lives.com my name is Timothy P. Barrus and I am a native American.

Google censorship comparator (via Embruns)

六四 (liù sì): june 4th. 1989. The day of the massacre of Tienanmen.

OpenNet is funded by Open Society Institute , a Soros Foundation Network

Hear Pinyin String. Done in Python, no source that I can find. (via the February MichiPUG wrapup)

Transcript: U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Holds a Hearing on Wartime Executive Power and the NSA's Surveillance Authority (via the Colbert report). The CSPAN video is available at Crooks and Liars

[U.S. SENATOR CHARLES E. GRASSLEY (R-IA)]: I think that as the American public hears examples of how Democrat presidents and Republican presidents alike have done similar things, they may begin to see this program in a different light, particularly in regard to the president's over 225 years' use of the exercise of the power of commander in chief.
[ALBERTO GONZALES, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL]: I gave in my opening statement, Senator, examples where President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance of the enemy on a far broader scale -- far broader -- without any kind of probable cause standard, all communications in and out of the country.

What he said in his opening statement was:

General Washington, for example, instructed his army to intercept letters between British operatives, copy them and allow those communications to go on their way.
President Lincoln used the warrantless wiretapping of telegraph messages during the Civil War to discern the movements and intentions of opposing troops.
President Wilson, in World War I, authorized the military to intercept each and every cable, telephone and telegraph communication going into or out of the United States.
During World War II, President Roosevelt instructed the government to use listening devices to learn the plans of spies in the United States. He also gave the military the authority to review, without warrant, all telecommunications, quote, "passing between the United States and any foreign country."

BBC French kiss transmits Meningococcal disease according to a study published in the February 2006 issue of the British Medical Journal.

The study: Risk and protective factors for meningococcal disease in adolescents: matched cohort study

LeMonde Le modèle français privé de sa cohérence

LeMonde La France inerte, le capital en grève

LeMonde Regards d'étudiants étrangers sur le "modèle" français