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Now that I live in Canada, I care about these things

It’d be even better if some one was uber super awesome cool and scored us both some of these sweet things.

Apple has cut the prices of the fifth-generation iPod sold in Canada. The 30GB iPod video, which was CAD$379, is now $30 less at $349, while the 60GB iPod video model is now $459, a $40 cut from the original $499 price tag. The newly updated special edition U2 iPod, also based on the fifth-generation design, sells for $379. According to iLounge, the price drop is an apparent response to changes in international currency exchange rates. The report notes that the iPod nano and iPod shuffle pricing remain unchanged.  [macnn]

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Hillary Rosen and life after the RIAA

If there was anyone I disliked more during my days at KRUI, it was Hillary Rosen[wiki]. Just a short time after we had established the station’s first webcast in history, I learned all about the DMCA[wiki], the RIAA[wiki], and Hillary Rosen. We were so proud to have our tiny little station getting people to listen from all over the world, only to fear the pursuit of charging incredible, per song, per person fees for our streams.

We fought where we could, contacted our representitives in congress, and staged our own “protests” like good college students do(it even got me on TV news). We just wanted to have out radio station on the web. That’s all. Play our music and be happy. And if the RIAA would have had their way, we would have been low on their radar, but the fees would have caught up sooner or later.

Today, Hillary Rosen is no longer the head of the RIAA, leaving the organization in 2003. She’s picked up blogging for the Huffington Post, and one of her latest posts offers a very intriguing view about the RIAA’s actions regarding individual lawsuits against copyright violators through file sharing networks.

But for the record, I do share a concern that the lawsuits have outlived most of their usefulness and that the record companies need to work harder to implemnt a strategy that legitimizes more p2p sites and expands the download and subscription pool by working harder with the tech community to get devices and music services to work better together. That is how their business will expand most quickly. [huffingtonpost]

Hello, music industry? Are you getting this???

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Taking on the PodPress

I just completed an upgrade of PodPress from version 4.4 to 5.8 for my podcast. I should always know better that anytime I have it in my head that something will be pretty easy, it won’t. It took me a while to hammer out all the kinks, but the upgrade completely killed my RSS feed. And for those of you who don’t know, that’s your pipe for getting these little audio buggers out to the world.

With that said, I like what they’ve done in this version. This WordPress plugin is constantly under development, so be on the careful lookout for updates. Read the FAQ’s, visit the support forums, and be confident in your editing skills. This plugin is great once you get it installed. It’s the upgrades that will catch you by surprise.

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RadioZoom Episode #95

Recorded today and ready for downloading, I give you episode #95.

NewsBits, numbers stations, and hockey, oh my! A gorgeous day in Vancouver, B.C., this episode takes a look at a couple of Canadian news items relating back to life on the west coast. I also make good on a promise I made on my blog about highlighting the phenomenon known as “number stations”. We’ll wrap up this episode with some brief HockeyTalk, followed by another installment of Learning Hockey. [radiozoom]

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Another season, another year

ZambranoNot everything has been dismal this season, but it hasn’t been that great either.  Wood and Prior are back on the mend, but I swear I’ve heard that story before.  Our big man, Lee, gets hurt just as the weight of the team tosses itself on his shoulders.  Pierre was the answer to our Patterson prayers only to have a weak start to the season.  And we bid farewell to a usually solid Harriston Jr., bringing in a bigger bat from Texas the hopes that the offense can be stronger.  I know for a fact that I’ve heard that story more than a few times.

All isn’t lost just yet.  The road to a respectable season is totally there, but the playoffs are turning into a crapshoot.  Sure, the all-star break hasn’t even gone by, but the way this year is panning out, it’s not looking very hopefull.  I’m not giving up, and you can bet that I am completely prepared to eat my words.

Lots of teams have risen to the challenge, battling their way back into contension.  How many times have we looked at this team only to think that there is no way we can’t have a great season this year?  And then, they start getting picked off one by one.  Injuries, slumps, and so on.  It’s the heartbreak of being a Cubs fan.  I wouldn’t want to be anything else.

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The numbers have me

I have to give more credit to The Reverend for telling me about numbers stations[wiki] some months ago, but recently they have been moving from the airwaves to VoIP telephone numbers.

For decades, intelligence agencies have been sending secret messages to their agents in the field using shortwave numbers stations broadcasting encrypted messages for all to hear and puzzle over. Now someone is putting numbers stations on VoIP telephone numbers for anyone to call, and posting messages to Craigslist to alert the recipients to the existence of their messages. One of them went up last month and now a second one has appeared. Will there be a third? Who’s behind them? And can you crack the code? [slashdot]

They’re very strange to listen to, and this method of sending secret messages is as old as wireless communication has been in existance. I plan on using this as a topic in an upcoming episode of the podcast. You’ll be able to hear examples of numbers stations there.

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Ready for a good finish

Who do I want to win the Stanley Cup? I get so torn when I think about it, but you know that this is going to be a good battle as we head to the finish. The Oilers have fought with everything they have to make it to this point. Carolina is one of the few teams that have lived up to the talk and worked hard all season to be the success that they’ve been.

Putting all stats and history aside, I still go back and forth about who to really cheer for. The fact that the Hurricanes used to be the team once known as the Hartford Whalers[wiki] makes me want them to take it in a very Jason Lee from Mallrats[imdb] sort of way. The other part of me loves the fact that Ryan Smith of the Oilers wants the cup so bad that losing three teeth couldn’t keep him out of the same match he setup the game winning goal to against San Jose. There’s the idea of wanting a Canadian team to take the cup, and the fact that I’m drawn to goalies makes me very impressed with Ward’s perfomance in the net for the Canes.

I don’t know. I’m sure once things get underway tonight, I’ll start to dig in on one side. Rebecca tells me that as a Canucks fan, one shouldn’t cheer for Edmonton, but I don’t have that life long history of a grudge against them, or whatever reason it is that I’m missing that tells myself that I shouldn’t be pulling for the Oilers. I can say that about Calgary, but I digress. I think take my enjoyment of sports at too much of a leisure for some. Just give me a good series that can hold me over until this fall.

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Luring In Illegal Immigrants Via Email

News coming out of Iowa.

When a lawyer for Estephanie Izaquirre, a parentless teenager from Honduras, received an e-mail from an immigration official in Des Moines saying the girl should come downtown and “complete the paperwork” Thursday, he thought that meant she was about to get her green card.

Instead, a deportation officer arrested Izaquirre, five days after she graduated from East High School in Des Moines.  [desmoinesregister.com]

Both sides of the issue present arguments that are understandable, but the fact is that this girl is fresh from graduating high school.  That is hardly a  high crime compared to some of the other immigrants staying in the U.S. illegally.  More so, “at age 17 (she) was granted special immigrant juvenile status as an abandoned, abused child with nowhere else to go.”  She moved beyond that status and became illegal when turning eighteen.  I would like to think that immigration officials would consider that history prior to arresting her just a few days after her eighteenth birthday, having it translate over to an approved status as an adult.

The more you consider all the elements of this situation, the less it seems to make sense.  Immigration being the hot topic in the news right now, authorities are doing everything they can to show that they are doing their job.  This might be evidence that they are doing too much in certain areas.  Lori Chasser has it right by saying, “What are we going after juveniles for? I mean, can’t we concentrate on drug traffickers and human traffickers? I don’t understand where we’re going with this enforcement.”

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A Reason To Fly JetBlue?

In addition to having some of the lowest fares for flying, JetBlue[wiki] hopes that WiFi on their planes will make their airline even more appealing.

JetBlue Airways Corp. won a wireless license to offer high-speed Internet and other communications services on commercial aircraft in a U.S. Federal Communications Commission auction that ended on Friday. [reuters.com]

It seems like there are two types of people when it comes to JetBlue; those that think it’s the worst airline and those that think it’s one of the best. Their record doesn’t help them too much either, but this is a boost for those business travelers out there.

Among 19 carriers reporting to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, JetBlue had the lowest on-time arrival rates in January, according to the Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report for that month. The popular upstart airline landed on schedule just 70.6 percent of the time. Hawaiian Airlines was best, with a rate of 95.9 percent, and other airlines arrived promptly 78.8 percent of the time.

The report is more bad news for JetBlue, which lost $42.4 million during the fourth quarter due to fuel costs, and it plans to raise fares to improve profits. But it did have one of the lowest rates of canceled flights, at 0.2 percent, which could be tied to its many delays. Other airlines would rather cancel a flight than hurt their arrival rates. [abcnews.com]

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Russia On the Download

Wired.com is running an article about Russian websites where you can download music in mp3 format at rock bottom prices. More so, the concern about it is coming from “U.S. trade and music industry officials” stating that continued operation of the site is a direct obstacle for Russia joining the WTO.

“The United States is seriously concerned about the growth of internet piracy on Russian websites such as AllofMP3.com … the world’s largest server-based pirate website,” Neena Moorjani, chief spokeswoman for the Office of the United States Trade Representative, said Friday.

“Russia’s legal framework for intellectual property rights protection must meet WTO requirements…. In that context, we continue to call on Russia to shut down websites that offer pirate music, software and films for downloading,” she said. [wired.com]

You would think that this would be about oil, or something more precious to daily survival, and not piracy of music. That’s all it takes to stop your country from being apart of the WTO club. I would imagine that the pressure from the U.S. government is heavily influenced by lobbyists for the music industry, working the playground method of a little bullying to keep them from hanging out with the rest of the cool kids. The argument makes sense for both parties, but I keep coming back to this feeling that the music industry needs to stop fighting this and start to undermine these things to take advantage of it in some way.

This also made me curous about another Russian download site, mp3search.ru. The site appears to still be up and running. I gave that a shot and experimentally dropped twenty bucks on the site to see what it had to offer. For the most part, it’s good source with some reservation, but this was just over a year ago that I last did anything with it The selection was still growing, and bit rates of the mp3’s averaged around 192k. However, sometimes you would download a bad rip of an album that had lots of gross errors in the audio. At nearly $.10 a song, you get what you pay for.