Tag Archives: interview

Is America a Free Speech Zone?

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Apparently not.

I just read an article on Wired.com, “NYPD Intellligence Op Targets Dot-Matrix Graffiti Bike.” The article provides background information about a bicycle built by Joshua Kinberg which uses computer technology to spray dot-matrix characters in water-soluable chalk on pavement as he rides. This same bicycle was featured on a number of popular Web sites, as well as Popular Science magazine.

Kinberg, a proponent of our First Amendment right to free speech, had planned to use the bike to spray messages around the streets of New York during the 2004 Republican National Convention. As reported in the article:

Though they’d never seen him use the bike, the police arrested Kinberg on criminal mischief charges prior to the convention start, during an interview on Broadway Avenue [sic] with MSNBC’s Ron Reagan. The arrest took place on a spot where, two days earlier, Kinberg had printed out the water-soluble message, “America is a free speech zone” during an interview with MSNBC’s Countdown With Keith Olbermann.

The article goes on to provide information about how the NYPD had been collecting information about Kinberg and his bicycle long before the arrest was made, thus proving a “premeditated desire” to prevent his project.

It’s been more than a year since the arrest. Although Kinberg has gotten his computer and cell phone back — both of which were part of the bicycle’s equipment — the police still have the bicycle. In addition, the NYPD will not release Kinberg’s file, so he has no idea what kind of “information” has been collected about him. (Sounds a bit like Big Brother style secrets to me.)

You can learn more about Kinberg’s efforts on his Web site, Bikes Against Bush.

Bill Gates on the Daily Show

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I have to add my two cents.

Although I haven’t seen a single word from the blogosphere yet this morning, I know what everyone’s probably typing (or has typed): Bill Gates is a dork.

I’m not writing this to make fun of Bill Gates. I’m just writing this as a statement of opinion based on observations during last night’s Daily Show interview.

Okay, so he’s not really a dork. After all, he’s the richest man in the world. How can the richest man be a dork?

But he certainly comes off as a dork on television. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t do many television appearances. He certainly did not look comfortable sitting in the chair opposite Jon Stewart.

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit for System Builders - 3 pack [DVD]Stewart was kind to him. He joked around with him and did a little gentle teasing about Microsoft and Windows, but he certainly didn’t stick the knife in or zero in on the man’s dorkiness. And Bill Gates joked back — at least a little. There’s definitely a good brain lurking inside that dorky exterior. But I laughed out loud when he pushed his glasses up on his nose. (I’ve been using a Mac long enough to remember the Bill Gates screen saver, which showed a cartoon character of Gates on a window-washing scaffold cleaning the screen. One of the configuration options was to set the “neurotic” level; the more neurotic, the more he’d push up his glasses.)

The interview took up two of the show’s three segments. There was more comedy than actual information — which is what you’d expect from The Daily Show. I still don’t quite understand why Gates appeared on that show and not something more mainstream. It certainly increases my respect for him. Anyone who appears on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report has guts. Stewart and (especially) Colbert can make a guest’s head spin when they want to. (Colbert is famous for making politicians look incredibly stupid in an interview.)

Anyway, I’m sure there’s much better analysis of the interview out on the blogosphere. I’ll probably find a bunch of good links later on today and add them to a links list entry.

I do want to add one note. As Bill Gates walked on stage during The Daily Show last night, he reminded me of someone. (Mind you, I haven’t seen any live-action footage of Gates in years and my brain isn’t wired well to recognize faces.) My mind started searching for the identity of the person he reminded me of. Kind of chunky, short hair, glasses. And dorky, of course. Who?

John Hodgman. The PC.

The Lost Painting

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History that reads like a novel.

Book CoverI saw The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr in a copy of Bookmarks, a magazine full of book reviews. I added it to my Amazon.com wish list.

The Taking of ChristThe book is an account of the finding of a painting by Caravaggio, a 17th century Italian artist. The painting, called The Taking of Christ, was found in the 1990s by a restorer.

Evidently, many paintings from that time were lost — they’d be sold by the artist or a dealer to a wealthy patron or art collector to be hung in a home. Over the years, the paintings would be moved around, handed down to descendants, sold, and resold. The records regarding these paintings were not always complete, so paintings would disappear from the records and thus “disappear” from the art world. In some cases, a painting’s value would be understated and the painting, aged, dirty, and possibly damaged would simply be discarded by an owner. Many masterpieces were lost this way.

The book tells the story of how two art history students stumbled upon some evidence that the painting had been sold to a Scotsman in 1802, who believed the painting was done by a different artist. The painting was then traced to an auction house where the trail went cold. Had it been sold? No one knew. And no one knew what had become of it.

The book is written like a novel, complete with dialog and some characterization. But all the characters are real people, many of whom were interviewed by the author during his research. This keeps the book from being a dry history tome. Instead, it has life and is quite interesting to the average reader.

The book was listed on the New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of the Year for 2006. The edition I read included an epilogue by the author which covers the discovery of another version of the same painting.

I recommend the book to anyone interested in art, history, art history, or the process of searching for lost artwork.

Question the Media!

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“Critical thinking” is the antidote for “truthiness” in our public life.

As the quality of our local newspaper here in Wickenburg declines to the point that it’s not worth spending the ten minutes it takes to read each week, I found “Skepticism: The antidote to ‘truthiness’ in American government and media” by Roy Peter Clark on Poytner Online a very interesting read. In preparing for an appearance on Oprah, he made a few notes, including this one:

4. Join with others in your community to analyze how you are being served or disserved by your local news media. As famed editor Gene Roberts said about one newspaper: “You can throw it up in the air and read it before it hits the ground.” What does your community need in the form of coverage that it is not getting? Who owns the news companies in your community? Are they in the news business to serve the public or to maximize their profits?

Or push the agendas of certain special interests?

Okay, so I added that last bit. But the point is, a newspaper should provide the news. All the news that matters to the public. Every side of every issue.

The current situation in Wickenburg’s local newspaper affects me directly: for the past three weeks, I’ve been mentioned in articles in the paper, but I have yet to be interviewed by a “reporter.” Tell me: how can a serious journalist write about a topic without speaking to the people who are making it newsworthy?

I’ll tell you how. When it isn’t in their best interest or the interest of their publication to objectively report all sides of an issue.

(A side note here: Lately, a large number of people in Wickenburg are outraged by the one-sidedness of the local newspaper. It’s gotten to the point that many people have cancelled their subscriptions. (Bravo! My husband and I did this well over a year ago and the only thing I miss is the regular supply of newsprint for the bottom of my parrot’s cage. I especially miss seeing his random bird droppings on photos of particular people here in town.) Some of them have even gone so far as to write letters to the publisher explaining why they are canceling. (I doubt that those letters will appear in the Letters to the Editor pages, which are the most popular pages in the paper.) Others have pledged to let their subscriptions lapse or simply stop picking it up on newsstands. Will this revolt by the people help? Probably not. If their finances begin to feel the pain of lost subscriptions, I’m sure one of the special interests they support will step up with a bailout. Quietly, of course. That’s how most Good Old Boy transactions are handled in this town.)

Mr. Clark adds this little bit of wisdom:

5. Look for role models of candor and accountability, people in public life who have proven to be reliable over time. Look for folks within a movement or political party who have the courage to speak, on occasion, against the interests of their own party.

Or against their government or town?

Frankly, Mr. Clark’s article has a lot of good advice — especially these days, when the media is spending more time manipulating public opinion than objectively reporting what’s important in the world around us. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Podcast Stuff

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Maria Speaks Episode 31: Podcast Stuff.

This episode marks my return to Maria Speaks after a two-month break. It covers my change in podcasting technique, a new video podcast I just created for Flying M Air, and the podcasts I subscribe to.

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Maria Langer. Welcome to Episode 31 of Maria Speaks: Podcast Stuff.

I just spent the past three hours redoing the Maria Speaks podcast. I used to publish it with Blogger and FeedBurner. Now, since my personal Web site is blog-based using WordPress, I cut Blogger out of the picture. It took me three hours to create or modify blog entries to embed my thirty existing podcast entries on this site. Well, twenty-nine. One of them covered an eBook I no longer distribute, so it didn’t link to it.

I developed this new method of podcasting — new to me, I should say — to reduce the amount of work required to publish a podcast and keep all podcast information together. I used to use a WordPress plugin called podPress, but I removed all references to it and disabled it today. Keep it simple — that’s what I decided. And the technique I worked out is relatively simple, utilizing an existing WordPress blog and FeedBurner. I wrote about it in an article to be published soon by Informit.com. When it comes out, I’ll link to it on the Aritcles page of my Web site and create a podcast based on its content.

For some reason, my “Maria Speaks” podcast has more subscribers than ever. That makes me wonder, since I haven’t released a podcast episode since September, and that episode was a bit more commercial than I like. This time last year, I was releasing one or two episodes per week. I ran out of steam last December and have been releasing them far less frequently. Still, my subscriber numbers have been climbing steadily. It doesn’t make sense to me, but it did convince me to release more content. The way I see it, when all these new subscribers start getting the new content, they’ll either like it and stick around or not like it and leave.

In the meantime, I started a new video podcast in October for my helicopter charter company, Flying M Air. I have literally thousands of photographs taken throughout the southwest, in places I fly to. I also have photos taken by my husband and by professional photographer and Bigfoot Hunter, Richard Noll.

Rick accompanied me on a test run of Flying M Air’s Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure. The deal we struck was that in return for all all-expense paid trip, he’d let me share copyright on all the video and still images he took. While he has the ability to sell these images as stock photos or use them in other projects, I have the ability to use them in marketing material to help sell the excursions and in articles I plan to write for publication about the trip. It was a win-win deal. Richard took lots of pictures from the air, which is something I simply can’t do while I’m flying. He also took video images with something a few clicks better than the little Canon digital video cameras I have. I’m still going through the over 1,000 still images and 3 to 4 hours of video he left on my MacBook Pro’s hard disk before departing back to the Seattle area.

I decided to turn my library of photos into video brochures for Flying M Air’s tours, charters, and excursions. The result is “Come Fly With Us!” (subscribe), which currently has three episodes. Another episode will be released Monday. (That’s one of the good things about my new podcast publishing technique; I can schedule a publication date and time. This makes it possible to record several podcast episodes at once and release them periodically over time.)

Part of the learning experience for creating this new podcast was finding legal music to play while the images were showing. I wasted a lot of time looking. Some sites promoting “royalty-free” music for podcasts required that you buy the songs to use them. That wouldn’t have been so bad if the songs were sold at iTunes prices or even a few bucks, but they were asking for $25 or $39 dollars per song. I use each song on just one video podcast episode and plan to release new titles once a week until I run out of material. That music was simply over my budget.

The much hyped GarageBand.com promised royalty-free, free downloads music. But the vast majority of artists didn’t allow free downloads of their songs. And since I was looking for relatively mellow instrumentals — you know, mood music — I had trouble finding what I wanted there in the first place.

I finally wound up on MagnaTune.com. I heard about it during an interview with the site’s founder, John Buckman, that Miraz had referred me to. MagnaTune predates iTunes by about two weeks. Although it has a limited number of artists on board, it offers very reasonable licensing of its music for podcast use. I’ve been getting tunes for my “Come Fly with Us!” podcasts from MagnaTunes since then and giving credit to the artists at the end of each video. I hope they sell some music.

Speaking of music, if you’ve been listening to Maria Speaks for a while now, you may have noticed that I changed the “theme song” for this podcast. The reason: I had a one-year licensing agreement with FreePlay Music for the old tune, Floater. Last year, when I bought that license, it cost $25/year, which I thought was reasonable. When I went to renew, the price had gone up to $100/year. I guess they decided to cash in when podcasting took off. That’s above my budget for a free podcast that doesn’t even earn any advertising revenue, so I decided to find a new tune. The new tune is is a segment from a nameless bit that I got off a public domain music CD I acquired back in 1996. I spent about an hour yesterday going through the one thousand plus songs on that CD set to pick this one. I’m not sure how much I really like it, but I do need something for my opening and closing credits.

The main topic of this podcast episode was supposed to be a quick discussion of some of the podcasts I listen to regularly. So let me dive into that for a few minutes.

I want to start off by telling you what I don’t listen to. I don’t like podcasts that mix discussion and “Garage Band” music. For example, I used to listen to a podcast about words hosted by two guys who seemed to guess more about word origins than actually research them. They’d pick few words or phrases and do a 40-minute podcast about them. The way they’d stretch out that podcast is by inserting a few Garage Band songs into it. Trouble was, their taste in music was nothing like mine, so I found myself having to fast forward through the music filler to get to the discussion meat. Fast forwarding is not always easy when you’re listening on an iPod and driving in traffic. When I realized that the content I was interested in wasn’t that good to begin with, I dropped the podcast. Ditto for the writing podcast some woman was doing. I wasn’t listening to hear music. I was listening to hear content. If the content was music related, the music would make sense. But it wasn’t and it didn’t.

In general, I don’t listen to music podcasts at all. Finding new music is low on my priority list. So if you you think you might find some tips for new and exciting music podcasts here, you will be disappointed.

What I do like listening to is podcasts that can enlighten me, teach me new things, or make me laugh with intelligent humor. I listen to podcasts primarily when I’m driving or flying, although I do have a i-Fusion speaker thing that makes it easy to listen when I’m working in the kitchen, making dinner or tidying up. So if I can be trapped in a place doing a relatively mindless thing and listen to something that’ll expand my horizons or make me laugh, I’m pretty happy.

That said, here’s a brief summary of some of the podcasts I listen to. You can find links to these podcasts on the transcript for this podcast. Go to www.aneclecticmind.com and click the Podcast link in the navigation bar to find it.

First on the list are a handful National Public Radio (or NPR) podcasts. There are 355 of these podcasts and I’ve tried at least 20 of them. I listen to five of them regularly.

  • NPR: Story of the Day is a daily selection of a story from NPR’s programming. These stories are wide-ranging in topics: business, war, travel, entertainment — you name it.
  • NPR: Business Story of the Day is a daily selection of a business story from NPR’s programming. Stories cover anything business related, from Silicon Valley news bits to global oil production information and lots of stuff in between. It keeps me informed about the business world.
  • NPR: Satire from the Unger Report is a weekly podcast of satire by Brian Unger. It’ll make you laugh — and think.
  • NPR: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! is a weekly radio quiz show about the news. It has a panel of three celebrities (no, not the kind in People magazine) and call-in contestants. The questions and answers lean toward the comical, so the show is extremely entertaining.
  • NPR: Sunday Puzzle is a weekly podcast of word games with an NPR host, Will Shortz (of the New York Times), and a telephone contestant.

I’ve tried other NPR podcasts, but eventually lost interest in them. And as I prepared this list, I noticed a bunch of new ones to try out. So I might report on some additional podcasts from NPR in the future.

I also listen to American Public Media (APM) Future Tense. It’s a great podcast with short episodes about technology topics.

I listen to three PBS podcasts:

  • American Experience is a podcast with short episodes about historical topics. Recent episodes included the Gold Rush and New York.
  • NOVA is a podcast of brief stories from the NOVA science television show.
  • NOW is a podcast of rather lengthy stories form the NOW news television show. Sometimes the stories interest me and I listen to them. Other times, the stories don’t interest me and I just delete them.

I also watch a NOVA video podcast, which I find excellent. It combines science information with video and still images in a 2 to 3 minute podcast. I like some episodes so much that I save them as movies on my iPod so I can show them to others.

Speaking of video podcasts, I also subscribe to a number of others:

  • GARY-PAUL TV is a video podcast of weird stuff published by Gary-Paul Prince of Peachpit Press. My favorite episode, which I’ve saved as a movie for future viewing, is “Drinking and Driving Texas Style.”
  • Comedy Central: Stand-Up is a video podcast of stand up comedy segments. I only like about half of these, but the ones I like arae really good, so I keep checking in.
  • National Geographic Video Shorts are short video segments from National Geographic television shows.

I also used to enjoy a video podcast called CockpitCast, which showed video out the front window of various commuter jets as they landed at airports in western U.S. cities, but there hasn’t been a new release in a long time, so I don’t know if the pilots are still doing it.

Another aviation podcast I enjoy is Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase. Betty is a flight attendant who loves to travel. She brings along her tape recorded and gets stories from other flight attendants, pilots, and people at the places she flies to. The stories are great but the audio quality is pretty bad sometimes. Still, I think it’s worth a listen. My favorite story? The one where a passenger who died of natural causes during a flight was not declared dead until after the flight was more than halfway to its destination.

For tech news and info, I’ve been trying two Wired magazine podcasts:

  • Wired Magazine is a podcast of short pieces from Wired magazine columns.
  • Wired News is a podcast of short news stories from Wired magazine.

I also subscribe to Slate magazine‘s Daily podcast, which includes interviews about Slate’s online pieces as well as audio versions of some of Slate’s online pieces. It gives me a chance to “read” Slate without having to visit the site. Of course, I only get a small portion of the thoughtful gems available online. I used to subscribe to Slate’s Explainer podcast, but have given it up because the topics weren’t all that interesting to me. You might like them, though, so check them and out see for yourself.

I subscribe to the WordPress podcast because of my interest in WordPress software. I admit that I’ve downloaded all episodes and have listened to just three of them. I think the podcast is good, but I have to be in the right frame of mind to listen to them.

The same goes for the Podcasting Underground podcast. Good, informative stuff, but I have to be in the mood to listen to information about podcasting.

For politics, I listen to a pair of real left-wingers. Sorry, but I am not a conservative at all, neo or otherwise.

  • Real Time with Bill Maher is an hour-long podcast of Maher’s HBO television series. He does an interview and then discusses one or more current political topics with a panel of three that usually includes one celebrity entertainer and one political figure. His panels always include someone sitting on the right, so both sides are represented. While I don’t agree with everything I hear, I like to hear the various viewpoints on current political topics. New Rules is a much shorter podcast that includes just the New Rules he lists at the end of his show.
  • MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a collection of Olbermann segments from his MSNBC Countdown television show. Olbermann is a Bush basher — do doubt about it — and it amazes me that he says some of the things he says. It’s a real example of the First Amendment in action — if Olbermann said these kinds of things just once in a place like North Korea or Iran or Iraq under Saddam Hussein, he would have been shot dead for treason. But in our country, we’re allowed to voice all kinds of opinions. Olbermann’s aren’t the kind that’ll ever get on Fox News. My favorite bit? The count of times our president said “Stay the course” after Tony Snow told the press he’d only said it eight times. Classic reporting.

I also started listening to Penn Jillette’s weekday radio show on FreeFM, PennRadio. Penn Jillette is the big, fast-talking guy from the magic duo of Penn and Teller. An atheist (his Nevada license plate is the word “ATHEIST”) and libertarian, he definitely has some non-standard views of politics. But he also covers non-political topics. I don’t enjoy all of Penn’s podcast episodes — I probably delete about half of them without listening to more than a few minutes — but I like enough of them to keep my subscription. One of my favorite episodes was his interview of Phyllis Diller (who I didn’t even know was still alive). Ms. Diller had some fascinating stories to tell and I was especially touched by Penn’s patience when her memory failed her more than once during the interview.

And finally, one of the first podcasts I ever subscribed to, podictionary. This daily podcast, with 2 to 5 minute episodes, discusses the origin of a word or phrase. A weekly digest version is also available. Many, many thanks to Charles Hodgson for his dedication to the subject of word history.

Now you know what I’m listening to. What are you listening to? Share your comments and suggestions with me and other listeners by posting your comments on the transcript for this episode. Go to www.aneclecticmind.com, click the Podcasts link in the navigation bar, and scroll down until you find the “Episode 31: Podcast Stuff” entry. Or just use the Search box to search for the number 31. Then use the Comments link at the bottom of the entry to read other people’s comments and add your own.

And as always, thanks for listening. More later.