Buzz Out Loud Podcast

EPISODE 732

Why Friday audio sucked

What we just learned about Windows 7
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9952067-56.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9951638-56.html

First pictures from Mars Phoenix lander
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/26/1231236

YouTube law fight ‘threatens net’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7420955.stm

Facebook heading for the open (source) road?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9952311-36.html

Borders opens online store; won't 'out-Amazon' former partner
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/ 419-borders-opens-online-store-admits-it-wont-out-amazon-former-partner/

Amusement park bans PDAs and smartphones
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/25/1726257
http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/BAaf/~3/299169317/ 20080527-theme-park-pda-ban-says-time-and-a-place-for-everything.html

Ready-made Apple TV hack should help non-geeks play DivX (Thanks, boxtech)
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/05/27/ ready-made-apple-tv-hack-should-help-non-geeks-play-divx/

Brazilian beetles hold key to faster computers (Thanks, rafacst)
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/05/ photonic_beetle

VOICE MAIL

Good use for geolocation

Paul from Denver
Why the Orange Box might not sell in stores.

E-MAIL

Royalties for games

Hey Buzzcrew,

I’m an actor and have actor friends that get royalties. ( I’m graduating from RADA this July.) They receive money for DVDs sold, broadcasts, and bits of their work used for promotion out of contract.

Is this a precedent? I think so, because games companies can record exactly how many units are sold (as with DVD), and so would be able to pay him 5 cents per copy (or something).

Paris Arrowsmith the actor
London, U.K.

***********************

GTA voice royalties

Dear Buzz crew,
Just in regards to episode 730 where you talked about the main voice actor for GTA 4 not getting royalties per unit sold, I don’t see where he is entitled to any of the 600 million dollars made from game sales. It is not like TV writers or music artists. They write the script or the song. They don’t get paid $20 an hour while they write. It is their intellectual property, the lyrics, the script, they receive royalties for, not their voice.

The actor was paid approx. $100,000 for the hours' work he did, and now is no longer working so gets paid nothing more. Tough, find another job and work for the money.

Love the show,
Dane Lewis

************************

ChaCha (Thanks, Molly)

Hi all,
I want to thank Molly for getting me my summer job. You mentioned ChaCha human powered search on the show a few weks ago. I thought i would check it out for some extra summer cash. It only pays 20 cents an answer, but I was just going to sit in front of my computer anyway. Might as well make some money.

I got to tell you, its odd, though. Most of the questions are just random. Like “what should I do tonight?” or “should i marry mr.X?” Literally, just random questions that I can answer with my own opinion. Maybe 25 percent are normal/fact-based questions like “why is the sky blue?” or “what's the current score of a game?” or “what are the movie times for movie x at my local theater?”

So not to advertise, but listeners, you have to try it. Ask anything and we will come up with some kind of answer. Or join us as a guide for a cool, very easy summer job.

Love the show,

Thurman Jamison
Brooklyn, New York

************************

Hell, Michigan

Hello Tom, Molly, and Jason,

I was listening to Episode 731 today as I was driving between Dexter, Michigan and Pinckney, Michigan, when Tom mentioned casually that “there is a Hell, Michigan.” I was only about two miles from Hell, so I took a little detour over to Hell and snapped a few pictures for Buzztown.

You can see the pictures on my Web gallery at

http://gallery.mac.com/mwaldyke#100034

As you can see, it’s basically a little tourist trap, though a good dinner can be had at the Dam Site Inn. It’s also a good place to mail your tax returns–they cancel the stamp with a large red stamp proclaiming “Taxes from Hell!” Across the street from the buildings it’s very green this time of year, and not very hellish.

Love the show.

Mike (the chemist) from Michigan

***********************

Google and HIPAA

Molly, Tom, and Jason,

OK, I listened with interest about HIPAA not covering Google's Medical Record's system. Believe it or not, this isn't unusual. I am a medical software developer and an EMT, so I have a pretty good understanding of HIPAA from both angles.

Here is the deal: HIPAA specifies something called a covered entity. These are doctors, hospitals, labs, EMTs and paramedics and the like, as well as insurance companies. Not everyone who deals with your healthcare information is a covered entity. My company (again we write medical software) is not a covered entity, but we must have something called a Business Agreement with any covered entity that is going to give us Protected Health Information (or use our software). Believe it or not, many of the doctors that you see when you're sick use a third-party company that handles billing and insurance submissions, and I don't believe they are covered entities in and of themselves, but they do have business agreements with the doctor's offices they bill for. That means that while we and they are not specifically covered by HIPAA, this business agreement requires that we act like we are. I am not sure if Google has such agreements in place (I imagine they would if they are getting information directly from a hospital or doctor's office), but I don't know for sure.

Now, if you as a person are providing your medical data to Google for storage, HIPAA doesn't apply, as it basically only covers healthcare providers and payors (insurance companies). So if they don't have a privacy policy as stringent as HIPAA and with the financial penalties for failure to follow their policy, my advice is don't offer up your information.

Just some food for thought.

Thanks and "Love the show."

Branden
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

************************

Why cell phones in public places piss us off

Buzz crew,

Reference show #729

Here is the abstract (not going to pay for the full article) about why a cell phone conversation (or any one-sided conversation) seems more annoying than it is actually. Basically you cannot stop yourself from listening, but the fact that you cannot hear the other side is what annoys you. The fact that the conversation is mostly banal crap is controlled for in the experiment.

Love the show!

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~ content=a713820212~db=all~order=page
Abstract
Mobile (cell) phone conversations are commonly perceived as annoying when conducted in a public space. An experiment is described that demonstrates one factor contributing to this phenomenon: hearing only one side of a conversation makes it more noticeable and intrusive. Two actors repeatedly staged the same conversation under three conditions: cell phone; normal, co-present both audible, and co-present only one audible. After the staged conversation, which took place on a train, a third person obtained verbal ratings from members of the travelling public. As in a previous experiment published in this journal, the cell phone conversation was rated as more noticeable and intrusive than the normal co-present both audible conversation. Critically, a new experimental condition, co-present one-audible, in which both actors were present but only one side of the conversation was heard, produced ratings equivalent to the cell phone condition. This ‘need-to-listen’ effect is discussed with regard to implications for design and theories of language use.

Brent Quick

NOTE: The audio for today's episode was lost because of a technical glitch in the studio control room. As a result, the audio for this podcast was pulled from our live-stream camera. Don't expect anything mindblowingly awesome. This episode is for the true, hardcore BOL fan. Be warned!

EPISODE 731

iPhone shortage hits NYC
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9950713-1.html
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/22/ iphone-line-forms-at-apples-flagship-for-absolutely-no-reason/

NASA Phoenix mission to mars: An out-of-this-world content management challenge
http://www.cio.com/article/print/365763

Delving into Google Health’s privacy concerns
http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/05/23/0520223.shtml

Microsoft embraces ‘Bring Your Own Laptop’ model
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9950662-56.html

Linking to movies leads to $4 million in fines
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080523-linking-to-movies-leads-to-4-million-in-fines.html

OZ 3G iPhone to be fastest in the world
http://www.channelnews.com.au/Portable_Devices/ Music_Download_Sites/U2E5C8A3

GameStop to stop Zune sales
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/ hardware/10418052.html

Photos: Itty-bitty minigun still a lethal weapon
http://news.cnet.com/2300-7348_3-6233303.html

‘Tunnel’ links New York to London
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7415911.stm
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Telectroscope_ Invention_Links_New_York_To_London_17983.html

Funeral for DRM in Cambridge, Mass., this Saturday
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/22/ funeral-for-drm-in-c.html

Smart and funny use of Google Adwords
http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=298

VOICE MAIL

Roy Honolulu
About GoogleSites

Mike Sonoma
The survey about $1,000 PCs.

E-MAIL

Patent terms and other minutiae

Hey guys, how are things? At work during the podcast so I can’t listen live…oh well…

Anyway, terms of various IP rights

Patents: 20 years from the date of filing (pretty much the same around the world, with some exceptions, like the Middle East where some countries use the Islamic calendar)

Trademarks: Infinitely renewable, provided you show continuous use and always enforce your rights (If you don’t you lost the trademark; think elevator).

Copyrights: Life of the author plus some ungodly number of years (I think it’s 50, it might be 75, but in reality, whenever Steamboat Willy expires, it is whatever Disney thinks is appropriate).

Trade secrets: Forever, provided you keep it secret. Think Coca Cola.

Great show, keep it up. My day is not complete unless I hear your voices. And I get a good Molly-rant at least once a week. Provided she doesn’t rant against patents, then not so much love.

Cheers,
Bob “The Patent Lawyer”

*****************

Totally unofficial Twitter contest

OK here is probably your first entry:
http://www.blurbem.com/

This is what I wrote in one night so it is still a work in progress but it has basic microblogging and RSS features. Hopefully I’ll have the search done by the BOL podcast today. Anyway it is not much to look at yet but it solves the scalability problem. How, one may ask? I used Google App Engine so it is pretty much infinitely scalable.
Unfortunately for now, since Google App Engine is in an alpha stage, my account will be limited, so that may limit the site if you guys advertise it to the world for me If that happens, then I’m sure they’d give me more CPU time if Molly had a super scalable rant.

Anyways have fun with it! And if you have any suggestions, bugs, or feature requests, be sure to log them at:
http://bugs.blurbem.com/

If people like the service, I definitely plan on making it better quick; such as making it prettier and doing stuff like SMS updates. And sorry up front for the ads, but code monkey has to make some money for bananas.

Happy blurbing!
Paul Bailey

*****************

I still love standard-def TV!

Hey Buzz crew,

I finally received my Government DTV voucher in the mail. The first thing I did was run out to Radio Shack and buy the Digital Stream Digital to Analog Converter. I got it home let it run its channel scan, then in seconds I went from two over-the-air channels to six.

What amazed me even more was that I had been used to watching the same content on my parents’ cable system. Their system yielded a somewhat over compressed, pixelated image. I thought “well I guess that’s what I have to look forward to”. I was completely wrong, everything is crystal clear. Apparently (and I should have known) that cable companies will downgrade content quality to accommodate bandwidth requirements.

I’ve considered going to Craiglist and buying someone’s outdated 46-inch SD TV to replace my 20-inch for maybe $150 then calling it a day. I’m also considering buying an outside multidirectional antenna to pull in the Central Texas and Oklahoma stations. Owning an HDTV is great, but if you can’t afford it why worry? My box allows for letter boxed 16:9 or the standard 4:3 images. This may not allow me to count Conan O’Brien’s eyebrow hair strands, but it will let me see the entire HD field. A lot of syndicated content is and probably will continue to remain in SD for quite some time. I’ve seen actual HD content. It look’s great, but I can still sleep at night not having it for now.

Love the show

-Thomas from Texas

***********************

Netflix streaming

Tom, Molly, Jason,
I’ve been listening for a few hundred episodes, but this is my first e-mail. In Episode 730 you mentioned that on a media center box the only way to view “instant” movies is in the IE browser with a keyboard and mouse. Well actually their are three Media Center plug-ins that add the capability to the “10 foot” interface. My favorite (My Netflix) uses the IE plug-in but does so in the background so there is no problem doing it with just a remote control.

Love the show.

Mike (Navy Officer in Virginia)

*********************

Tom’s a pervert

I don’t know if you planned it this way, but the title of Episode 730 forced me to sit in my car at work in the parking lot to wait to see why Tom is a pervert. Every story that came up had me listening intently for some reason for his perversion (like statements about “Oregon”). Putting it at the very end was quite a sly trick to keep your listeners focused, but passers-by probably thought it strange that I was just sitting there in my car.

Maybe you should copyright this format.

Dr. Rob

http://distractible.org.
PS: I am over 36, too. Dang, my cover is blown.

********************

What the hell?!

I got a non-tech-related “What the Hell” subject, but What the Hell, I guess having a bitchfest (b***hfest?) about ancient stuff might stir up some more viewers.

I hate oh so much that there are so many different standards for mechanical pencils. I have two of theses in my hands, and they are completely “incompatible”: different lead sizes, AND different ERASER SIZES! Now, I understand lead, it’s for the picky people who need their marks to be oh so thin or oh so thick, but ERASERS? Seriously, the erasers are different widths, so if one pencil loses its eraser, I cant just swap them. This seems like a minor problem, but it’s worth killing people over.

Thanks,

Niko

********************

Ta la

Dear Tom, Molly, and Jason

Ta la is thank you directed at a person, and la can be used instead of the word mate, we do have a lot of unique phrases that everybody else in the world simply don't get.
For Instance "laughin" and "sound" are terms for the word good or great.
Simon was on the ball then he dropped it with my name.
If I was to talk in full flow Scouse most people would get lost except my fellow Scouse Buzz Out Loudians.
Thus ends the Scouse 101 lesson.
I'm only 30 so I'm not of pervert age yet, which is nice.

Gully (Not Skully)
Liverpool
Uk

****************

Voice actors getting paid

Hey there Molly, Tom, and Jason,

As for the actor in GTA IV who did not get paid residual income, the developers, the actual programmers don’t get paid residual income either. Only the big boys at the top are the ones getting residual income. Prior to this guy getting paid, I think the developers, who are actual employees of Rockstar, should get their residuals first, as they do produce the lion’s share of the effort that goes into the game.

Love the show.
Joseph from Atlanta

*****************

Indeterminate length determined

Hello Buzzers,

As a numbers nerd, the “Indeterminate Length” of your podcast has always struck me as something that needed some determining. I analyzed episodes 523 through 722 and can happily report that your podcast is 38 ±10.6 minutes long (to ~95 percent accuracy).

I posted my work and scripts on the BOL Wiki under the Topic “Indeterminate Length Explored” if anyone wants to improve or extend my work.

Thanks, and keep up the good work!

http://buzzoutloud.wikia.com/wiki/Intederminate_Length_Explored

Brian Trapp
Pougheepsie, N.Y.

EPISODE 730

Sony to distribute ‘live’ shows to theaters
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/ SB121142408161613141-lMyQjAxMDI4MTIxMjQyMjI0Wj.html

Twitter reportedly closes $15 million funding round
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9950170-36.html
http://blog.twitter.com/2008/05/ i-have-this-graph-up-on-my-screen-all.html

One guitar for Rock Band and Guitar Hero
http://gizmodo.com/392699/ ant-commandos-double-range-guitar-one-guitar-to-rule-them-all

PC World: 'GTA IV' earns $600M to voice actor’s $100K; time for a street fight?
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007000.html
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/22/125233

Google Sites for everyone: GeoCities 2.0?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9950147-36.html
http://sites.google.com/site/subbrilliant-tv/Home

Musopen puts classical recordings, scores in public domain
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080521-musopen-puts-classical-recordings-scores-in-public-domain.html

Sites ready to sue Oregon for right to publish laws online
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080521-sites-sue-oregon-for-right-to-publish-its-laws-online.html

Genetic discrimination by insurers, employers becomes a crime
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/the-genetic-inf.html

Bacteria can be turned into living computers (Thanks royterp!)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml? view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/05/20/scibacteria120.xml

The secret history of 'Star Wars'
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/21/2250231

VOICE MAIL

The Baird
How Netflix works.

--Tom in Florida
Rebates from search engines.

--Ted Teacher in Marin, Calif.
New name for semantic Web.

E-MAIL

The iShoe

Thought you might like to know that on Ellen today (5/21 she made an iShoe joke. The premise was the same as a caller suggested a couple weeks ago. Supposedly an Apple promotion for the movie Get Smart. They had two models mocked-up, an iPhone attached to the bottom of a Chuck Taylor and a Nano attached to the bottom of a baby shoe.

Maybe Ellen has been listening to BOL for material.

--Nancy

P.S. I swear I never watch Ellen, but I just got home from vacation and had the TV while I was unpacking and there is nothing on at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday.

Ellen part 2

OK, I’ll admit it, I’m still watching Ellen.

But now I know why there is a Wii shortage. She just gave everyone in the audience a Wii and a Wii Fit.

Molly and Tom called it

ID-protection ads come back to bite pitchman

Todd Davis has dared criminals for two years to try stealing his identity: Ads for his fraud-prevention company, LifeLock, even offer his Social Security number next to his smiling mug.

Now, LifeLock customers in Maryland, New Jerse,y and West Virginia are suing Davis, claiming his service didn’t work as promised and he knew it wouldn’t, because the service had failed even him.

The story at : http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080522/ap_on_hi_te/ identity_fraud_flap

--John

You can buy albums on Napster

Hey guys,

I thought I’d respond to the e-mail from episode 729 stating that you can’t buy an album on Napster. This isn’t entirely true. Last night I took a look at Napster to see what was available. I used to use Napster before Amazon’s store came around, and I’m now thinking about repurchasing some WMA albums I bought through Napster in non-DRM MP3 form.

I noticed that one of the albums I had previously purchased as WMAs was not fully available as MP3s. The tracks from this album was ala cart; however, the other album I checked had all the tracks available as MP3s was purchasable as a full album. I’m certain of this because I did a price comparison between Napster and Amazon on this album. Amazon was cheaper by a few cents, by the way. Anyway, I definitely had the option to buy the full album.

So, it appears that if an album is not fully available in MP3, then you can’t buy the album. But, you can buy a full album (with the inherent discount) if all the tracks are available as MP3s. I’m hoping that this is one of those growing pains that always seems to happen when music services come online or make major changes.

Also, Napster’s new interface is kind of confusing, and it’s easy to miss the button to purchase the album as it’s this small button next to the album art that has “MP3″ on it in a small font. So, it’s also possible I just didn’t see the album purchase button on the album that didn’t have all tracks available.

--Stephen

Gully the caller!

Dear Tom, Molly, and Jason,

I am your puzzle from Liverpool, my accent does give a few people quite a number of problems so I'll translate.
I'm with an ISP in the U.K. who has a "fair usage policy" and I do a lot of downloading and have never run into problems, and its fast for only 10 pounds a month which is rather good. I did mess up half way through so the bleh helped me to recover.
I'm also not Golem, but Gully as my surname is Gulliver "as in travels."
I can't afford elocution lessons so I'm afraid I'm stuck with my accent.
Glad I could enlighten you to a strange yet still English way of talking.
It takes a lil getting used to.

Love the show

--Gully in Liverpool, U.K.

Scouse to English translation

Hello Buzz people,

Just listening to episode 729. The dialect of English spoken in Liverpool is called Scouse. Fortunately, I speak fluent Scouse and English, so here’s a transcript in English…

“Hello this is Scully(?) from Liverpool U.K. Erm, the Internet provider I’m with, talk about capping, says they have a fair u-usage poli–bluuur–, if I could actually spit that out, usage policy, but I’ve never run into it and I’ve got quite fast broadband for ten of our English pounds. Love the show, bye.”

FYI, the correct Scouse response to this would be “Tarr Larr”, which translates in English as “Why thank you, my good friend.”

--SEM
(Simon Morris)

Mac OS 10.5.2 a lemon for music

Let's see Apple get the same coverage that Microsoft does for it's flaws

MAC OS 10.5.2 a lemon for music
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1781

Peter Chipman
P.S. If you ever want to see how electronics gets built, come and visit.

2008 EMS Week

Don’t forget to mention Happy 2008 EMS Week to all of the Emergency Services around the world (Fire, EMS, Rescue, Aeromedical, USAR, etc…..From 05-18-08 thur 05-24-08.

Here’s the link to the National ACEP page for more info
http://www.acep.org/practres.aspx?id=30212

Cheers!

--Fire Chief Kevin
Buzztown Fire Department

**Proudly responding to the Buzzards of Buzztown since Episode #242

Faceparty bans people older than 36 in shock ageist move

So in four years it will be assumed I am a pedophile?

“Minor social networking site Faceparty has deleted what it describes as “a huge number of accounts” of its users older than 36 in recent weeks, in a bid to cut down on sex offenders misusing the site.”

Faceparty bans over-36s in shock ageist move

--Jim Lunsford

Yet another milestone for BOL?

Hey Jamoto (BTW, I’ve always thought it was a shame, Jason, that your name wasn’t Jim, cause then your collective handle could be Mojito…
mmmm…. mojito….)

But, the real reason for this e-mail is to congratulate you all on two full years of the best podcast (bar none) on the interwebtubes. Yes, 730 episodes, that’s 365 x 2. And if you want to celebrate twice (with a mojito, perhaps?), then 731 also counts as two years, since this year was a leap year.

Friends, Buzz Out Loud is my desert island podcast. You guys rock.
KUTGW LTS.

--Peter from Montreal, Canada

EPISODE 729

Microsoft offers cash back search
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7413099.stm
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-9949286-60.html

Microsoft demos Zune advertising service
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/146109/ microsoft_demos_zune_advertising_service.html

Copyright fight brewing between TV networks and RedLasso
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9948892-7.html
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/ party_s_over_bloggers_cbs_nbc_fox_sue_redlasso

AT&T offers free Wi-Fi to laptop wireless users
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9948890-7.html

“Phlashing” attacks could render network hardware useless
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080520-phlashing-attacks-could-render-network-hardware-useless.html

Second-generation “$100 Laptop” will be an e-book reader
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/20/1621214
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9948562-1.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080520-olpc-2-0-coming-will-project-survive-to-see-its-launch.html

“If you want your N-Gage games on your new phone, you’ll have to buy them all over again.”
http://www.allaboutngage.com/features/item/Nokia_When_ you_upgrade_to_a_new_phone_you_will_lose_all_your_N-Gage_games.php

FCC may regulate cellphone early-termination fees
http://gizmodo.com/392380/fcc-may-regulate- cellphone-early-termination-fees

Exclusive cell phone deals called into question
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9948904-7.html

Survey: 74 percent of Americans say 'no' to in-flight calling, 'yes' to data
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/21/survey-74-of-us- americans-say-no-to-in-flight-calling-yes-to/

Apple, CBS sued over ‘Mighty Mouse’
http://www.9to5mac.com/mighty_mouse_trademark

VOICE MAIL

G from Liverpool
?

E-MAIL

XO Laptop

Hi Jason, Molly, and Tom.
The new version of the XO laptop version has been unveiled, and it looks like an electronic book.

My problem with this: If you’re giving computers to children to make them computer literate, why would you give them a device that doesn’t work like a regular computer? You’re not making them computer literate. Instead, you’re making them XO literate, which does no good in finding employment or learning computer science in school. Just my 2 cents.

Joe
aka dOgBOi

*************************

Clarification on the broadcast flag stuff

BOL crew:

I’ll refrain from starting this with “Well actually,” mainly because the set of regulations (and non-regulations) that outline the various broadcast flags (plural) is, at its best, byzantine. Let me see if I can help clarify why some of the DRM disasters only affect TiVo and why some only affect Vista Media Center.

There are actually two different broadcast flags.

One was floated by the FCC at the request of big media and was for off-the-air broadcasts (i.e. NBC, ABC, CBS, WB, etc.). That one was never enacted, but all the technology provisions are in place for this flag to be embedded in the program signal from the source. In the case of American Gladiators, NBC apparently set the flag “accidentally.” Vista Media Center respects this flag even though they are not required to. Microsoft has basically volunteered to degrade the experience for their customers.

The second flag is one mandated by CableLabs for any device seeking CableLabs certification (which is required if you want to use CableCards). This flag is set by the cable company at the request of the content owner. The FCC has mandated that rebroadcast of over-the-air channels can have no restrictions. In addition, *only* video-on-demand or pay-per-view can have the "copy never" flag.
Anything else can be set to either "copy freely" or "copy once." In the case of John Adams, the cable company “accidentally” set the "copy never" flag, and TiVo respected it because it is required to do so to keep its certification from CableLabs. TiVo degraded the experience for their customers because the cable cartel mandated it.

Oh, and just to muddle things up a bit more: Most cable company DVRs don’t respect any of the flags. A cable company's own DVR is apparently exempt from the CableLab certification process. So the only folks who got screwed by the mix up with John Adams were folks who own third-party DVRs.

See? Simple.

/kyle

******************************

Violent video games

Hey jamoto,

Can’t remember the episode but it’s the one discussing the effects of violent games.
So I got to thinking, if violent games encourage violent behavior, then surely sporting games should encourage the same? And musical games make you more musical?

Just a thought.

Cheers

Kevin

****************************

Ringback tones

To clarify, from 9-5pm I have the regular ring ring as my ringback tone. After 5pm it’s my ringback tone. If they start complaining that they hate my tone, then I go into my account and set it so that whenever they call me no matter what time they hear it just to annoy them even further because that’s what a good friend does.

Peterjon

****************************

The Ting Tings

The Ting Tings sing “Shut Up and Let Me Go”, the song used in the newest iPod + iTunes commercial, entitled “Gamma”.

**insert love the show noise here**,
Dylan from Missouri

****************************

Napster story

Hey all,

I was very interested in your story on Napster selling its entire catalog of MP3s for 99 cents each. I am in the process of making a playlist for myself of the top 10 songs of the year for radio station 91X 1983-1992 (when I was 11-20 years old and living in San Diego County). About half the songs I already had on CD’s, another 40 percent I was able to get off of Amazon Unbox, and two songs I had to get from ITunes. The rest of the songs I can’t find anywhere legally without buying the entire CD.

I looked on Napster to see if they had a better selection, but the only song I could find that I still need is “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I don’t know what the Amazon Unbox song total is, but in my small unscientific sampling, Napster wasn’t any better.

Also, Napster has one *big* drawback for people that want a whole album.
As far as I could tell, you had to buy each MP3 separately. So if an album has 14 songs, it costs $13.86, while the same album would be $9.99 or less at Amazon Unbox.

If anyone knows how to get legal MP3’s of General Public, Midnight Oil, P.I.L., and Camouflage, please pass me the info!

Brian of Fairfield, California (home of the Jelly Belly factory)

*********************************

YouTomb

Thought this was neat:

MIT’s YouTomb catalogs videos yanked from YouTube
http://youtomb.mit.edu/

Jim Lunsford

EPISODE 727

Microsoft, Yahoo forced into each others’ arms
http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9947185-56.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Microsoft-Yahoo.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7407585.stm

Silicon Valley Rumor: Microsoft to buy Yahoo Search and then Facebook
http://furrier.org/2008/05/19/ silicon-valley-rumor-microsoft-to-buy-yahoo-search-and-then-facebook/

One-fifth of Americans have never used e-mail
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9946706-7.html

Nintendo Wii outsells 360, PS3, PS2, PSP combined in April
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080516-npd.html

Best Buy: FCC has no power to fine us over analog TVs
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080519-best-buy-fcc-has-no-power-to-fine-us-over-analog-tvs.html

Shops track customers via mobile phone
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/ article3945496.ece

Microsoft confirms Windows adheres to broadcast flag
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9946780-7.html

Ars Technica acquired by Conde Nast: The lowdown
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080519-ars-technica-acquired-by-conde-nast-the-low-down.html

First public Firefox 3 candidate shoots out the door
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/19/ firefox_3_candidate_release/

Apple wants more mobile music from labels
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/ apple-wants-more-mobile-music-from-labels/?hp

Zoho Writer search bug exposes private docs
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9947158-7.html

Using magnets to turn off the brain’s speech center
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/18/1253258

Voice mail

Ben Washington
Special delivery.

Anonymous Turk
We got some Powerset search results.

Dan Ohio
More NBC vengeance?

E-mail

BSG and Hulu

Starting with Friday’s episode, new Battlestar Galactica will not appear on hulu.com until over a week after their cable premier. It was particularly nice that they only told us this late Saturday Afternoon, after people had been waiting all day refreshing hulu to see it.

This has caused many people to write into hulu’s forums with pretty angry reactions. Here is mine:

“This seems like a crack dealer approach to dealing with your customers.
Give them a great service for 8 episodes to get them hooked… and then remove it in an attempt to get them to pay a higher cost for your cable channel.

If people do actually watch it on the cable channel, then they probably don’t need come here; so what exactly is the new point of hulu?
Apparently it has none. I thought it was supposed to be an ad supported alternative to watching shows on your tv. Apparently, though, it is just meant to draw new viewers into watching the shows by ordinary means, by trickery. This will of course not work, as most people will probably just get the show by means that are not in SciFi/hulu’s control, and other people, like myself, will just wait the extra week for it to come on hulu but will have a much lower opinion of the service and the SciFi channel.

I will personally wait the extra week and watch the show here; but, as Colbert would say, consider yourself “On Notice” hulu.”

-Jack (Berkeley)

***********************

Violent videogames

Hey guys,

Great podcast! I am actually the guy who is working with Dave (doing the trash talking) on that video game study. Thanks for the shout out. I am thinking that people who are more aggressive just normally play more violent games.

Just a thought, maybe you can set the botnet against those Texas crazy ants…. what’s that ants? The botnet said your queen is very fat?

Thanks,

Rob

**********************

XP SP3 endless reboot on my Dell

Hey guys,

I know I’m a bit behind on the podcasts, but i was listening to episode 723 when you guys were talking about the hp computers being a problem. Well just for the record, i have a dell, and it has an Intel processor in it. So why did i get thrown into this endless reboot cycle? The world my never know.

Love the show,
Nick the high school student

P.S. To get rid of this problem, I had to do a system restore.

**********************

Early DTV adaptation

I was listening to Talk of the Nation earlier and I heard that in Willmington, VA they are gonna switch over to full DTV and shut their analog towers off on September 8th of this year! I guess that’ll be the true test to see if its gonna freak out the masses or pass like a calm fart in the back of the class room. Again, love the podcast

sincerely
evandr from peoria, il

EPISODE 726

Note: We are making a change to our podcast feed system on Monday, May 19. However, you do not need to subscribe to a new feed. One important thing to know: If you have your podcast catcher set to download "all unheard episodes" in a feed, you will probably find a bunch of already heard episodes in your feed on Friday as a result of the changes. To lighten the hit, set your podcast catcher to only download "the latest episode" for the week of May 19-to-23.

Cox, Comcast biggest BitTorrent blockers in the world
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080515-us-isps-biggest-bittorrent-blockers-in-the-world.html
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006967.html

Facebook Disconnects Google Friend Connect
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207800461
http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9945308-2.html

RIAA defendant Jammie Thomas may get new trial
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9945643-38.html

Microsoft, OLPC officially team up
http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9945438-56.html

Details for Guitar Hero 4 released
http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/05/15/216205.shtml

Analyst: Amazon.com’s Kindle to generate $750 million by 2010
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9945112-1.html

TiVo extends lifetime subscription offer
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9944974-7.html

jDome offers unique experience to gamers
http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/05/15/ jdome_offers_unique_experience.html

50 Years of DARPA: 5 Good Inventions, 5 Lousy Ones
http://gizmodo.com/391157/ 50-years-of-darpa-5-good-inventions-5-lousy-ones

VOICE MAIL

Shalin
CBS idea.

Drew Phoenix
Battlestar Spoiler

E-MAIL

Semantic web searching

Not to harp on an old subject, I am behind a few days in my listening. Semantic Web searching caught my ear when you mentioned it in episode 722. I am one of those who thought Jeeves could answer my every question.

Last night my wife and I couldn’t figure out the answer to a factual question and didn’t want to hit the computer at the time. This morning I went to Powerset.com and asked it “What artist wrapped an island in pink?” Thinking a perfect semantic search engine would simply give me the answer. Powerset gave me a bunch of results, the musician Pink, the Pink Panther, but nothing about the artist who has wrapped islands and the German governmental buildings in pink fabric.

I went to Google and pasted in the exact same search criteria and the Artist Christo came up as the 2nd result from a New York Times article.

I went to Christo’s Wiki page, since Powerset only index those pages, and sure enough all my terms: island, wrap, pink, artist were on his Wiki page.

As with Jeeves, Powerset is not quite ready for prime time. Let me know the next time to check Semantic searching again.

P.S. Let’s Go Pens!

--PittCaleb

Cut off in traffic? Get their name and address via SMS

Hello,

For a bit over a year now I have been commuting from Lausanne to Geneva, and reading the free papers while listening to BOL on my iPod.

Today I came across a story that I found a little sinister, and thought you might find interesting. Here is the French version (for Molly to practice):

http://www.lematin.ch/fr/actu/suisse/ a-geneve-le-sms-permet-de-traquer-chauffard-et-belle-fille_9-156371

Here is the Google Translate version (which does an OK job):

http://translate.google.com/translate?u= http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lematin.ch%2Ffr%2Factu%2Fsuisse%2Fa-geneve-le-sms- permet-de-traquer-chauffard-et-belle-fille_9-156371& hl=fr&ie=UTF8&sl=fr&tl=en

Basically, you can SMS the local government a license plate number, and they will send you the name and address of the owner. I can’t even begin to list the reasons that I think is a terrible idea (full points though to one of the people that they vox pop’d in the paper version of the article, who suggested you that could get the address of someone driving an expensive car, and then go a burgle their place).

Of course, I am relatively smug since I don’t own a car, and am completely happy surviving on public transport (which is possible here, unlike most other places I have lived).

Cheers,

--Shaun
The Australian lawyer in Geneva

“Nobody solved it?” Not so fast, Leo

Dear BOL gang:

On BOL 725 when you and Leo Laporte were talking about all the outages of Twitter and similar sites, Leo mentioned offhand that scaling to massive usage is “a tough problem and nobody’s really solved it.” I agree that it’s a tough problem–but that’s why you need good engineers. I, for example, wrote the software behind Wikipedia in 2001 when it was having problems with its earlier software even though there were only a few thousand users then. I redesigned the database carefully, and gave serious thought to the trade-offs between performance and utility of every feature, solving the problem–and I was just a volunteer. Since then, other volunteers from the free software community and Wikipedia employees have scaled it up to its present level and built on to the software to the point that there’s hardly any of my code left–and they did all this while it was up and running.

If I may gloat a bit, this is not the first time the free software community has shown that it can outperform highly paid engineers in real-world applications.

--Lee Daniel Crocker

Fun while it lasted

Hey buzz team,

Just wanted to send my condolences in regards to the recent news of the acquisition. Quick question though, when will you be making the switch-over to the boring, dry news that only targets the elderly?

--Shane

Google Street View

Hey TMJ,

I was so excited yesterday when I drove past a Google Street View car on the highway. I made a few funny faces and gestures and thought that now I’d be forever immortalized as the funny guy with the Cardinals hat (Go Cards!). Then I got home and listened to episode 724 and heard that Google will be blurring faces as a measure to ward off privacy concerns.

Also, who knew that KC would be one of the next cities to be on Street View? It’s not like we’re a tech hub like SF or NYC, the previously available cities. Most of my co-workers don’t know the difference between a PC or Mac, or even which OS they are using. They just say that they use “the computer.” But, it’s still pretty cool.

Love the show!

--Dave the Engineer (or maybe Dave B. in KC, it rhymes after all)

Icahn has Yahoo-Microsoft merger?

Greetings!

I’ve always believed resistance is, in fact, futile, so I was compelled to not resist from making what I believe should be a candidate for best “lolhuman” to date, and no-one will appreciate a tech-related ‘lol’ as much as you.

http://www.lanxon.co.uk/index.php/2008/05/15/icahn-has-yahoo-merger/

In related news, maybe Icahn wanted the existing board to reject the Microsoft bid because he appreciated how much the deal would annoy shareholders, thus reducing share prices, thus making his purchase of millions of them less painful, and he’d get his way at the end of the day anyway. Smart dude, in my opinion.

Warmest,
--Nate

EPISODE 725

**NOTE: We are making a change to our podcast feed system on Monday, May 19. You do not need to subscribe to a new feed, however. One important thing to know: if you have your podcast catcher set to download “all unheard episodes” in a feed, you will probably find a bunch of already heard episodes in your feed on Friday as a result of the changes. To lighten the hit, set your podcast catcher to only download “the latest episode” for the week of May 19-23.

CBS to buy CNET Networks
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9944882-7.html
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/ 419-breaking-cbs-acquiring-cnet-for-18-billion/

Yahoo faces struggle for control
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7401855.stm
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9944488-7.html

Air Force aims for ‘full control’ of ‘any and all’ computers
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/air-force-mater.html

Comcast goes social with Plaxo acquisition
http://www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9944352-80.html

AT&T’s 3G comes out on top in speed tests, will only get faster in 2009
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/15/ atandts-3g-comes-out-on-top-in-speed-tests-will-only-get-faster/

Nintendo ordered to pay $21 million to patent troll
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/15/ nintendo-ordered-to-pay-21-million-to-patent-troll/

Aliph Jawbone 2 (gold) printer-friendly version
http://reviews.cnet.com/headsets/aliph-jawbone-2-gold/ 4514-13831_7-33018887.html

Twit-out: A day-long worldwide Twitter boycott
http://jerseysuburbia.com/?p=30

Swiss man soars above Alps with jet-powered wing (Thanks Russ)
http://www.physorg.com/news130056672.html

Swarming ants destroy electronics in Texas
http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/05/15/129244.shtml

Voicemail

Bob, New Jersey
Semantic Web alternatives

Lori, Houston
XP SP3 breaking.

E-mail

I have an old computer at home that is not being used. Could I download the Air Force botnet virus and be part of the military Botnet reserve?

LTS

Darren
Columbus, Ohio

************************

Hello, Michael the limnologist (and super geek) here. I like the idea of a USAF botnet. Well, sort of. I don’t necessarily trust the government to always do the right thing, but I would bet that if the USAF built this and offered citizens the ability to participate by sharing your computer, many people would do it. This could be a lot like SETI's distributed computing. I'd even contribute one of my computers, providing the system was truly idle when not activated and no personal data would have to be shared. Perhaps the citizen component could sit idle in a sandbox-like environment.
Think of it as national defense. The future of war will be electronic.

Michael

*************************

Boy - I get my first e-mail on the show and I am wrong. How sad is that....

As it turns out the Large Hadron Collider is not going live on May 15and the countdown clock had not been reset when the live date was changed.

On the countdown Web site:
The countdown timer was set to the May 15 because there was no definite time given for the actual activation, recent events show that CERN won't be dividing by zero until much later on in the year, so now the countdown timer will be reset again, and will be continually tweaked to go by the latest info that CERN are releasing.
So, sorry to disappoint you all, but you won't be dying tomorrow.
Sorry L

David A Zirpolo

***************************

Hey guys!

So after listening to Wednesday's BOL (iPod is on other side of room; not going to go check the episode No. could use Web, but won't) and your caller's tip about the Canadian iPhone coming around the “end of this month, beginning of the next,” I found this story on MacRumors. If this rumor — which they themselves have taken with a large grain of salt — is to be believed, the iPhone will be launched in May to make room for the announcement of a brand new device at WWDC. That, of course, would sit with the whole “end of this month/beginning of next month” equivocalities if, in fact, a brand new something will be coming on June 9 @ WWDC.

Although I’m sure that the majority of the attendees of the sold-out WWDC will be less than thrilled to find that they won’t be witnessing the second coming, their anger may be mollified and assuaged if the new device is a more reasonably-priced Macbook Air thingamadoodly. Well, only if they stay out of Steve Jobs’ RealityDistortionField. Otherwise, they won’t care.

~ J-2 in Maryland ~

P.S. Yes, RealityDistortionField (RDF) is one word — in its self-produced alternate reality that is mysteriously auto-emanating…

P.P.S. Molly, I find myself saying “blah-de-blah” and “What the doodly-doo?” a lot now. Um, thanks?

Source:

************************

Hi buzz out loud……
In Tuesdays podcast episode 723 you requested that people who had non-hp machine that experienced the endless reboot problem to let you know.
Well I am letiing you know right now.
I have a Sony Vaio PCG-GRT170 laptop that when ever XP SP3 is installed it goes into that endless reboot thing.
This has happen twice. Once when I downloaded it from a non- micrsoft site, and through windows update.
Just wanted to let you know. Thanks love that show, yada yada yada.
By the way, my laptop has a Intel pentium 4 CPU.
Brian, Royal Oak MI

*****************************

Big potential problems of having your face on Street View:
? Abused wives hiding from their husbands. They may have had to leave town to get away, and if the guy is trying to stalk her, it might put her at risk if he knew where to look ? Witness protection program ? Any target of stalking ? Cheating b@$t@rds who don't want to get caught stepping out ? Closeted homosexuals

All of these groups might take exception to their faces appearing with a location on the interwebs. Just a thought.

LTS,

Jomichael

***************************

Hi guy,

The recent study that you mentioned is fascinating to me as it is in one of my areas of research.

On of my students (Rob the honours student… did his honours thesis with me this year comparing co operative play vs. deathmatch play in Doom 3 on the xbox. We added a new dimension, co operative talk vs. confrontational talk. So the design looked like this:

chat condition

co op confrontational

Co Op 10 people 10 people

game

deathmatch 10 people 10 people

So we had 10 subjects in each group (randomly assigned). The subjects were first year university students. Some were gamers, some were not. They were told that we were interested in their hand eye co ordination.

We found absolutely no difference between the four groups in aggression levels, measured right after 5 minutes of play. We measured aggression with an established situational aggression questionnaire.

Of course after the experiment Rob was sure to debrief people and tell them that he was being mean to them for a reason. (Rob is actually a really nice guy, and he cannot beat his thesis supervisor at NHL 08….)

Now I know this is with a different population (not kids but adults) but it is heartening. We will be presenting the data at FuturePlay, a video game conference that is held annually in Toronto.

Oh, and there was no difference between the gamers and the non gamers on their level of aggression. There were no sex differences either.

Dave (the psychologist)

**************************************

So I guess this is good news (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24643793/) especially those with stock options… Just think of the possibilities: Molly on CSI, Katie on BuzzOutLoud, Tom could do a spinoff of Survivor - Tech Survivor, etc.

Frank,
Blacksburg, VA

*******************************

Hey JaMoTo,

I don’t know if CBS buying CNET is good or bad news for you guys but I want you to know that I’ll remain loyal to you all as a good Buzztown citizen should be, even if it means watching Tom anchoring news on CBS News or Molly presenting showcases on The Price is Right or even Jason showing up on the camera from time to time behind the big sound console on the Late Show with David Letterman. I’ll stay true and faithful and no matter how hard it would be, I will not cheat on you by watching Jeff Probst trying to talk about the semantic Web, botnets, or Twitter. I will remain a BOLer forever!

Love the show (and hope it doesn’t change… too much)

Giorgio
from Montreal, Canada

EPISODE 724

Note: We are making a change to our podcast feed system on Monday, May 19. However, you do not need to subscribe to a new feed. One important thing to know: If you have your podcast catcher set to download "all unheard episodes" in a feed, you will probably find a bunch of already heard episodes in your feed on Friday as a result of the changes. To lighten the hit, set your podcast catcher to only download "the latest episode" for the week of May 19-to-23.

MySpace wins $234 million antispam judgment
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9943756-7.html

GM keeps building cars on XP
http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9943500-56.html

Google begins blurring faces in Street View
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9943140-7.html

Youngsters skip DVR ads less than seniors
http://slashdot.org/articles/08/05/13/2353251.shtml

Funny how Universal Music thinks infringement fines are unconstitutional when it's on the receiving end
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080513/1807491105.shtml

Qtrax signs with last of Big Four music publishers
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/qtrax-signs-wit.html

iPass to add in-flight Wi-Fi roaming
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9943832-7.html

Verizon, Mozilla to join LiMo Foundation
http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9943458-37.html

Semantic travel search engine UpTake launches
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ semantic_travel_search_uptake.php

Philadelphia’s municipal Wi-Fi network to go dark
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080513-philadelphias-municipal-wifi-network-to-go-dark.html

VOICE MAIL

Bill Jersey
Thoughts on human powered search

Lauren Houston
Her experience buying a digital album

Grahame Montreal
I tricked Rogers about the iPhone!

E-MAIL

Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider goes online in less than a day. http://www.lhcountdown.com/

--David A Zirpolo

Hi I’m Jason Howell (editors note: ACK!!!!)

Hello everyone, my name is Jason Howell. I'm a somewhat new listener, I just started listening with show episode 700. I found your podcast after being asked repeatedly, “No way! Are you the Jason Howell!?! From Buzz Out Loud!?!” At first I said “yes I am” but now I know better…

Anyways, I was going to wait until I had something useful to say to send you guys an e-mail, but I got impatient, and I have nothing useful to say at the moment.

Strongly like the show,
--Jason Howell

Antitrust law applicability to Net Neutrality

Antitrust law applicability to net neutrality--Price Discrimination laws (Robinson-Patman Act--which added provisions to Clayton Act) prohibits charging competing customers different prices for like products does not apply in the consumer context. If it did think of the chaos it would cause say for example automobile dealers...nor does it apply to services; and it is not immediately clear whether net bandwidth would be a commodity or a service--electricity has gone gone both ways (AC/DC sort of thing).

--Michael Scott

USAF Botnet

Guys and Gal,

Decades ago I worked in a state security hospital. We never carried weapons for the simple fact that any weapon could be taken away and used against us. This memory leaped to mind when you relayed the news of the Air Force plan to build their own botnet out of unused and obsolete computers.

Think about it. Those who are finally tasked with setting these computers will be told: "Set these up with this software, but somewhere out of our way." So these boxes will be running in an unused cubicle in an open office or in that overflow junk room in the long hallway not many people frequent. It will only take one or two of these boxes to be hacked by someone passing through a no doubt less than high security area and bingo: this supposed US defensive weapon is set to be an offensive weapon--against it’s own supposed masters. Brilliant.

--Tim in Kansas

Searching for “Molly Wood”

Hey BOL Peoples,

I searched “Who is Molly Wood?” on Powerset, and it gave me this interesting result:

“Factz from Wikipedia: we found the following about Molly Wood.

Molly Wood:

• "hosted show and podcast
• discussed subjects
• gave birth"