Blog
It doesn't get much better…
than a hotel room with your wife, a 2 person hot tub, all cable TV channels, and free broadband access. Oh, and a water park… but my son wasn’t joining us on this trip. 
EFF Hat Update
Hat came. It’s perfect.
I need to get a firepit. Good time at Kento’s tonight. And god knows I have plenty of wood to get rid of. 
Quote of the Day – Unemployment
“‘With 30,000 more jobs lost last month on President Bush’s watch, more than three million Americans have been thrown out of work in less than three years,'” said Democratic presidential hopeful Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. “‘I think everyone knows that the only person in this country who deserves to be laid off is George W. Bush.'” – Sen. John Kerry, July 2003
EFF Hat
So I’ve been wanting to join the for quite a while. The only catch was I wanted to donate $100 and get the EFF Swat Hat. However, I haven’t really had the money to do that (well, I probably do, but my better half disagrees).
So last month the EFF started up a store, and sure enough, And free shipping! So now I’ve found a way to support the EFF that’s a little more in my price range. Hope it comes soon…
V: The Second Generation
One of my favorite miniseries from when I was a kid, V: The Original Miniseries has been in the news. Kenneth Johnson, the original writer / director has struck a deal with NBC to make a new 3 hour movie bringing V back.
Taking place 20 years in the future, mankind is still fighting the Visitors when a new ally shows up to help the humans win.
Too bad it’s not a mini-series. I bought V and V:Final Battle when they came out on DVD last year. Of course it wasn’t as good as I remembered it, but considering the first one was in 1983, it’s suprising how well it did hold up. I more than enjoyed watching it on DVD, especially without commercials, and the quality was really good.
We’ll see how good the new one is. 
On this one, I'm with Colin Powell
Last Thursday, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran an article saying Sen. Mark Dayton, with Sen. Coleman, would support the Amendment to ban flag-burning.
I am absolutely outraged that Sen. Dayton, would change his mind on this topic.
So Sen. Mark Dayton has hopped on the flag-burning-amendment bandwagon (Star Tribune, May 30).
Ben Seymour, in a letter to the editor in the Star Tribune, put it best:
Dayton is echoing the rhetoric used to stifle criticism of our government. “There’s something in this country that ought to be above government and all the debates in the parties,” he says.
In a democracy, no idea with broad support is above debate. We should question the motives of these politicians.
It’s pathetic when they return from their dead soldier pilgrimages with “patriotic” epiphanies, which in reality are ill-reasoned, American-ideal-desecrating attempts at popularity boosting, at best.
As you can see here on the ACLU’s page against this amendment, even Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff, agrees with me on this one:
“The First Amendment exists to insure that freedom of speech and expression applies not just to that with which we agree or disagree, but also that which we find outrageous,” he said. “I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away.”
Cuba jails dissidents over flag desecration. Is this what we have sunk to in the name of “patriotism”?
Email, fax, or write your members in Congress.
Radio Follow-up
So today was the big vote on relaxing media ownership rules at the FCC. As you can see from this link, the FCC voted party lines, with the Republican majority approving the relaxation of how much any media company can own in a given market. Here’s the highlights from an AP article:
The FCC said a single company can now own TV stations that reach 45 percent of U.S. households instead of 35 percent. The major networks wanted the cap eliminated, while smaller broadcasters said a higher cap would allow the networks to gobble up stations and take away local control of programming.
The FCC largely ended a ban on joint ownership of a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city. The provision lifts all “cross-ownership” restrictions in markets with nine or more TV stations. Smaller markets would face some limits and cross-ownership would be banned in markets with three or fewer TV stations.
The agency also eased rules governing local TV ownership so one company can own two television stations in more markets and three stations in the largest cities such as New York and Los Angeles.
The FCC kept a ban on mergers among the four major TV networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.
“The more you dig into this order the worse things get,” said Michael Copps, one of the commission’s Democrats. He said the changes empowers “a new media elite” to control news and entertainment.
Fellow Democrat Jonathan Adelstein said the changes are “likely to damage the media landscape for decades to come.”
The Democrats said the new rules mean a single company can own in one city up to three TV stations, eight radio stations, the cable TV system, cable TV stations and the only daily newspaper.
Slashdot has been covering this for the last week or so, with a great article that covers many links, including a fantastic piece at the Washington Post: More on Media Consolidation/Deregulation; a follow-up piece covering the history of copyright: Media Monopoly: Thomas Edison to Hillary Rosen , and today’s followup with over 700 user comments.
In addition, last Thurdsay Kuro5hin posted a great editorial on the Consolidation of American Radio. It’s a great look of how this started to happen – in the 70’s, and even the role computers and advertising played.
It’s another sad chapter in the history of American copyright. Our forefathers specifically granted rights in our Constitution – but never this broad in scope. Not only did they believe in copyright, but they believed in passing that same information into the public domain – not this version of locking everyone out. Now we are surrounded by the loosening of rules regarding the media, so they can continue to tell us what to think in even more ways. Great. Because I like having a lack of choice in how I’m told to think I get my news.
Thankfully, there is the Internet. I’ll leave you with this:
<img src="https://i0.wp.com/www.silwenae.net/images/murdoch-small.jpeg?w=700" align="center"
/Mourn VoodooExtreme
Back when I first really got into gaming a few years back, Slivers had turned me on to VoodooExtreme, as well as a number of websites. Run at the time by Billy Wilson, the site was updated continuously, and Billy’s wry sense of humor had me going back for more.
Well, there was a huge shake-up 2 years ago, and Billy left, and one of his news posters, Apache, who has extensive experience in the gaming website industry, took over. Apparently Billy didn’t have 100% ownership of the site and was forced out (some nasty rumors that I won’t repeat here). Apache had joined the staff about a year earlier, and is an excellent news poster, and very knowledgeable about the industry. Still enjoyed the site, but missed the humor. Their was some kind of squabble over the name, and it went from Voodoo Extreme to VE3D. They had even tried 3dgamingnews.com, but that never caught on. Then Apache even slowly started to fade from VE3D, with occasional posts, and I started to visit less often. (The main guy for the last 6 months sucks – late posts, and way too Euro-focused).
Fast forward to today: This morning VE3D announced they’re now part of the IGN network. Apache’s back, posted this mornings update promising to fix the look of the site, and pushing readers to pay for the IGN insider subscription to not see the obtrusive ads. I understand the business of being on the web is very different today than it was back in the high-flying days of the Internet boom, but IGN? IGN is a watered down, money grabbing internet “news” site that is a jack of all trades, master of none. Their sites cover all the genres, PC games, Console games, movies, and a “For Men” site. I just don’t think hard-core gamers respect IGN, though they can have a few good write-ups every now and then.
It’s really too bad for VE3D, in my opionion, it just shows how the mighty have fallen. I used to visit now only once a week, but I don’t even see that happening. BluesNews and Evil Avatar will continue to be where I get most of news.
Evil Corporations #2: Clear Channel
Fortune has a great article up about Clear Channel radio.
Lowry Mays, the CEO of Clear Channel has clear ideas about what business he’s in. From the article:
“If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn’t be someone from our company,” says Mays, 67. “We’re not in the business of providing news and information. We’re not in the business of providing well-researched music. We’re simply in the business of selling our customers products.”
Personally, I’m extremely disturbed what’s been going on in radio for years. When I left Minnesota in 1994, I left behind my favorite radio station ever- Revolution Radio, Rev105. Founded by one of the Cargill Corp heirs, the station never made money, only breaking even, but they played whatever they wanted. When they said Alternative radio, they meant it. This is the station that introduced me to Semisonic (I won tickets on Rev105 to see Pleasure before they were Semisonic!), Soul Coughing and Ani DiFranco. (Ani DiFranco on the radio. It’s 6 years later and I’ve never heard her on the radio again – though I’ve bought all her CDs).
I moved back to the Twin Cities in January of ’97, and after watching the alternative station in Philadelphia die in ’96, I was subjected to it again. On March 11, ’97, the station flipped over to hard rock – which explains why when I got in my car that night to go home I heard Van Halen playing. Only later was I to find out that ABC / Capital Cities bought out Cargill Communications for $11 million and made them sign a non-compete. Now ABC owns all the rock – classic rock on 92KQ, Alt-rock on 93.7 The Edge, and hard rock / heavy metal on X-105. Through the last 6 years ABC has gone from Hard Rock (X-105), to alt-rock (Zone105), classic alt-rock (Zone105), R&B, and now alt-rock again (Drive105) while turning 93.7 the Edge from alt-rock to heavy metal (93X).
The irony comes in that Drive105 has just started adverstising: Not a Clear Channel radio station! But yet they’re Capital Cities, the #2 radio company in the U.S. Playing popular “alternative” music. To 40 spins a week.
There’s not much left on the web about Rev105, though Google comes up with 4 pages of results, not much works when you follow the links. I’ve found a couple though – here and here. Rev105 will always live in my heart – and my coffee cup! (Which is a Rev105 cup, the only choice for me to drink cofee out of).
