Buzz Out Loud Podcast

Natali opens with some rage against Verizon Fios over a billing problem after she canceled the service. She feels somehow, well...Jason explains it best in the show. We also get a Molly rant over Ireland's new content filtering on the Internet and TechCrunch's reporting that Last.FM was giving data to the RIAA. Which it was not.

EPISODE 916

Microsoft asks for severance back from laid off employees
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10169119-75.html

Workers ’stealing company data’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7902989.stm

Xbox Live denial of service attacks
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/02/microsoft-responds-to-xbox-live-denial-of-service-attack.ars

Wisconsin digital-download tax
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/40012437.html
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/21/1724230
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gfQBey_1cAAmZx3lArC6B8aNmfnA

New Zealand delays copyright amendment
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/New-Zealand-delays-copyright-amendment/0,130061791,339295130,00.htm

Ireland blocks music-sharing sites
http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS-qqqs=news-qqqid=39782-qqqx=1.asp

Stolen Microsoft device remotely wiped
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/02/23/stolen-windows-mobile-65-htc-diamond-wiped-remotely/

Palm Pre handled, handed out to celebrities?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/23/palm-pre-handled-handed-out-to-celebrities/

Pirate Bay says 80 percent of torrents are legal
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/pirate-bay-survey-says-that-80-of-our-torrents-are-legal.ars

CBS says it did not hand over user info to the RIAA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/feb/23/digitalmusic-piracy

We are all from Twitteronia
http://sesquipedalis.blogspot.com/2009/02/finally-use-for-twitter.html

UFO Hotspots mapped
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/22/ufo-hotspots-mapped/

VOICEMAIL
Anonymous
About the military robots

Zan
I propose a new holiday

E-MAIL
Hey BOL
I work for the Forest Service and we just got a few new re-imaged computers back and as i was poking around in the new image i found there is a bittorrent client install and configured to fetch updates from an internal RSS feed and download, distribute, and delete automatically… pretty cool stuff and very useful for our slightly limited bandwidth… Love the show!

Eric *not a ranger* Forest Service guy

**********

On Friday you had a caller mention that Sprint has changed its Pre informational website so that tethering wasn't available, however in looking at the actual palm.com/pre website you’ll notice that “phone as laptop modem” is still a feature that's listed…here’s a direct link: http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/#tab2
If that link doesn’t work, you can go to http://www.palm.com/pre and click on “details.” Not sure what to make of this..
Kinda sorta love the show…. Just kiddin’
Stephen
Charlotte, North Carolina, United States of America

**********

Hey Buzzcrew,

I was listening to episode 914 on my way to class, and I found the part about the woman e-mailing in her sleep quite interesting. My girlfriend has at times text me in her sleep, and I am not talking of just a couple random sentences, it was a full blown paragraph, grammatically correct, but that did not seem to make much sense. When I met up with her later that day and asked her about it, she was shocked. I showed her the message, she first though I had somehow gone to some lengths to fabricate the message on my phone, so I told her to open up her phone to check her outbox, and sure enough there it was. Although not a very common occurrence, I have gotten a few laughs from the few other random sleep texts she has sent. Love the show.

Jerry
(The Rocket Scientist in Training)
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana

**********

Mo god bebo is awesome.
This new direction they’re taking is great, AOL FTW.
Now they can pull your info from youtube, twitter, myspace, facebook, del.ico.us (i know it’s delicious now, but i MUCH preffered del.ico.us ) and flickr!

I mean one social network pulling all your stuff from all the other social networks? that’s genius!

Xadacka.

**********

Hey, mea culpa for not getting back to you sooner, but I've been elbow-deep in autopsies all week!

For the record, we docs use regular old Wikipedia ALL THE TIME. Yea it's crowd-sourced info, but we use it as a refresher, not as a primary learning source.

Also, oxytocin does a lot of things, what they teach you in med school is that stimulates milk production after you give birth. So, actually, excessive social networking is more likely to make you lactate, not get cancer... a way more comical outcome IMHO. LOL.

-dr. karl

PS: Natalie, you are only pregnant if the purple on your feet is in the shape of a plus sign. Also, if I *cuddle* with my *netbook* does that make me less of man? What if I spoon with my macbook? jk.

Once again we find something that Natali can't cook: mummies. But she does suggest they be used as jerky. Don't worry, we also have lots of thoughts about the Kindle 2 and Psystar's suit against Apple. Plus, somebody owns the name Netbook. Is that allowed?

EPISODE 907

Live blog: Amazon unveils Kindle 2
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10159334-1.html
http://cnettv.cnet.com/2001-1_53-50005200.html
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/09/amazon-kindle-2-announced-359-on-feburary-24/

Google Sync for iPhone, WinMo, SyncML
http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/02/google-sync-beta-for-iphone-winmo-and.html

Mac clone maker wins legal round against Apple
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9127579&intsrc=hm_list

Congressman Twitters secret trip to Iraq
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10159054-2.html

Warner Music Group artist has her own videos taken off YouTube by WMG
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/08/warner-music-group-a.html

Retailers may run out of DTV converter boxes soon
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/retailers-may-run-out-of-dtv-converter-boxes-soon.ars

Netbook name in jeopardy
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/09/netbook-term-removed-from-google-ads/

Tune your TV into a GPS
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/02/tune-your-tv-into-gps.ars

CBS hosts ad-funded, online, TV series, including original Star Trek
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/09/0047237

HD TV beats depression, claims HD TV company
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/02/09/sky_tv_effects_report/

Wozniak waltzes onto Dancing With The Stars
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-10159282-235.html

30 mummies found!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-02-09-egypt-mummies_N.htm?csp=34

VOICEMAIL

Anonymous Darwinist
Another mod story

Anonymous Nothingest
Linux FTW

E-MAIL
Greeting JaNaTo!

For all of you geekie-types: We are approaching another milestone in time, or should I say, Unix time, as detailed in the following article.

http://www.unixpronews.com/unixpronews-49-20090206UniqueMomentInUnixTimeApproaching.html

Love the show!

**********

Hey Buzz Crew,

I think that if the ISPs are going to implement caps on data downloads
they should do it like the cell phone companies.
Meter the amount of data each user downloads between, say 7AM and 9PM,
then stop metering outside of those hours.
It saves the ISP no money if the network is idle after hours. This may
push the heavy hitters like the bit torrent downloaders
to non-metered hours which may relieve congestion during normal hours.
Of course the ISPs are only doing this so they
don’t have to invest in their infrastructure which will bite us all in
the future.

Love the show

Clay the computer geek
St. Louis

**********

Hey JaMoTo-

On Episode 905 you guys brought up P.W. Singer’s presentation at the TED conference on his upcoming book about military robots. I heard an interview with this dude on Democracy Now on Friday morning and while the entire subject was pretty fascinating, here’s the best part:

The U.S. military’s top Predator drone pilot (remember, these things don’t fly themselves, there’s a human operator controlling each one) is a 19-year-old high school dropout whose prior piloting experience was exclusively done on an XBox. Singer claims that this kid is so good, he’s been brought back to the States to train other drone operators, so now he’s basically Tom Skerritt in Top Gun. I wonder what it’s like for the guys in his class to get schooled by an enlisted man whose call sign is probably DronePwn69.

[Insert Bo's Message]

-Reid of the Catskills

**********

Hey JaNaToX or whatever were calling you now,

AdamJonny from the chat room here, I thought we could get a call for action from the buzz brigade (I like buzz mulish better)! Turns out the President Oboma wants to know what we think about delaying the digital television transition before he signs the bill! Voice your opinion before it is to late, I gave my 2 cents, or maybe a whole dollar! This is the responsibility of the buzz mulish and the American people!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing_room/dtv_delay_act/

**********

Hey Buzz Crew,

I just can’t resist Natali’s insistence on having a turtle named
JaNaTo. So to welcome Natalie to the Buzz Out Loud team, meet JaNaTo…

http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?tag_id=89073

JaNaTo is a Gabonese leatherback sea turtle, just like JaMoTo, and was
tagged in December. She is a little bit special, and I think perfect
for Natali. She is one of only a few turtles sporting a new GPS
satellite tag. This tag is giving us much higher resolution data of
her movements than we would get from a normal satellite tag. So now we
can track turtles just as effectively as google tracks us.

Privacy concerns aside, I have been putting the new Google Earth
through it’s paces pretty heavily and have yet to see a crash. It has
been stable so far and I encourage anyone interested to try it out.

Love the show.

Michael
the sea turtle guy

It looks like Wii Fit will outsell Grand Theft Auto IV this year, Apple's already sold 10 million iPhones, people are lining up for the T-Mobile G1 Android phone (much to our surprise), and just when we started to think the economy might be turning around after all, we got the news about Yahoo laying off some 1,400-plus people. Ouch.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 836

T-Mobile delivers the G1 (aka Android) phone
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10072545-94.html
http://news.cnet.com/2300-1039_3-6247193-1.html

Google’s open-source Android now actually open
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10071093-92.html

Yahoo profit drops; at least 1,430 to lose jobs
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10071637-93.html

Wii Fit on track to outsell GTA IV this year
http://gigaom.com/2008/10/21/wii-fit-on-track-to-outsell-gta-iv-this-year/

Apple officially surpasses 10 million iPhones sold in 2008
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/10/21/apple-officially-surpasses-10-million-iphones-sold-in-2008

eBay goes pro-elephant, bans ivory sales--after the holidays
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081021-ebay-goes-pro-elephant-bans-ivory-salesafter-the-holidays.html

Boxee adds support for Hulu, CBS video
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10072002-2.html

New media player searches for spoken words in videos
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10069806-2.html

Device answers phone and stops telemarkerters
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7682111.stm

Robotic surgery on a beating heart
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/21/1914255

VOICEMAIL
Anonymous DMCA: Couric clip was about Clinton

Jeff from Nashville: on laws and politicians

E-MAIL

Congratulations on the nomination. If the Buzz Brigade (still not sure I like the moniker) is discouraged, then maybe we should find a show done by one of the community in some obscure category and vote for that show. If only we could think of one.

Chris, the nominated podcaster

**********

Tom mentioned that if you lose purchased content on a PS3 you were pretty much zitty out of luck, and there was no easy way to back it up. If you format an external drive, ( I used a $40 Seagate 120gig FreeAgent Go) FAT32, you can add the needed PS3 directories and copy your content. Of course, you have to use something such as Acronis to do this, as XP and Vista won't do it .
Thanks for the heads up on LaLa, and I really hope you guys are right about the amnesty part of it...Not that I am admitting anything. This e-mail will self destruct in 5...4...3...2.

Mr. Foolish

**********

I love that you complain about the cost of a MacBook Air, but don’t
know how much it costs.

Most computer users do not edit images or video. The MacBook Air is
perfect for any lawyer, banker, stock broker… paper pushers. You
always filter every product through your own usage, which is extreme
and NOT the norm.

Terrie

**********

Hey Jamoto +1,

Here is a pic of a Segway-bound Brazilian I saw in the wild at Burning
Man this year. The woman, with her fabulous pink tutu and umbrella, rented
it for $350 for the week. Due to a lack of rain, the playa dust was
uncharacteristically deep and terrible to bike in, making a Segway an
ideal vehicle this time round. As long as you didn’t run out of juice on
the way out, of course.

http://flickr.com/photos/catlaine/2827716966/in/set-72157607102831140/

Cheers.

Cat

PS <3 the show

On today's show, the world of anonymous chatting gets even more confusing, thanks to the increasing numbers of computers passing the Turing test. Is it a pervert? Is it a computer? Is it both? In other news, Chrome breaks Molly's heart, Sony breaks all the rules and keeps the PS3 prices high, and people keep preordering G1 Android phones. Who knew?

EPISODE 829

Test explores if robots can think
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/7666246.stm
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/10/13/1450205.shtml

Sony rules out PS3 price cuts for holiday season
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c6d283e-988a-11dd-ace3-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

1.5 million G1 Android phones preordered
http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-39701-118.html

Employees, not hackers, cause most corporate data loss
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081012-employees-not-it-responsible-for-most-corporate-data-loss.html

OpenOffice.org overwhelmed by demand for version 3.0
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/13/openoffice_org_download_website_dead/

Google’s Chrome declining in popularity
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/10/13/161238.shtml

FCC says Seattle tests back smutless, free broadband proposal
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081012-fcc-says-seattle-tests-back-smutless-free-broadband-proposal.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10063866-94.html

Microsoft launches PC Advisor Repair Utility. Going after Apple next?
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/microsoft_goes_after_apple_with_pc_advisor_utility

People prefer angry-faced cars
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0631240

YouTube beams up ‘Star Trek’ for long-form video
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10063661-93.html

VOICE MAIL
Remy - Verizon isn’t sleazy.

E-MAIL
Hi Buzz Crew,

What do you guys think of this new way of clogging up those spam bot
servers:
http://www.auditmypc.com/freescan/antispam.html

It’s a different way of getting the spammers: instead of blocking e-mails, it clogs up their servers (as ant trap manufacturers would say, stopping it at the source). The description on the site is pretty good, but essentially it tricks spam bots into opening the Web page– full of useless, yet convincing e-mail addresses–and makes them regenerate it via the link at the bottom, thereby feeding them more useless e-mail addresses, and the cycle continues.

–Jonathan

Hey BuzzCrew (+1),
Just to let you know, if you select a Beatles track (I did Come Together), and ask iTunes to make a Genius playlist, it now does! I’ve been checking after iTunes updates my Genius every week, and after updating last night, it now creates the playlists. I guess it’s finally gathered enough data from users iTunes libraries to make Genius playlists. Either that, or The Beatles have come to iTunes.

Love the show!
Dave,
Melbourne, Australia
aka DaveBinM

The introduction of the G1 phone (the HTC Dream) is very nearly overshadowed by the marketing decision to destroy perfect innocent words in the commercials for it. But we do eventually get around to discussing the features, the delay of Windows Mobile 7, electric cars from Chrysler (for real!), and SanDisk takes a beating.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 815

Live blog: First Google Android phone is unveiled
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10048519-94.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10048538-94.html
http://mossblog.allthingsd.com/20080923/googles-g1-first-impressions/
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/23/t-mobile-g1-site-goes-live-for-real-first-ad-appears/

Each Android phone will include Amazon’s MP3 store
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10048726-17.html

Windows Mobile 7 release delayed
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10048061-56.html

E-mail, photo programs stripped from Windows 7
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10048142-56.html

Chrysler Bombshell: Electric Cars by 2010
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10048704-54.html

eBay to ban checks and money orders in U.S.
http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/09/22/2115217.shtml

Renegade iPhone ‘Podcaster’ developer neutered by Apple, headed to Google’s Android
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/renegade-iphone-podcaster-developer-neutered-by-apple-headed-to-google-s-android

Extinct Galapagos tortoise may be resurrected with genetics
http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/09/23/extinct-galapagos-tortoise-may-be-resurrected-with-genetics

Netflix signs deals with CBS and Disney
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122213209024665825.html

VOICE MAIL
Paul from Verizon: people are ditching their iPods!

E-MAIL

What’s most funny/tragic about SanDisk’s slotMusic fiasco is that the company tried this almost exactly three years ago. Remember “gruvi?” That was music on flash memory, but it was even worse… the music used a proprietary DRM format and cost $40 per card! I’m wondering if it’s less the labels trying to resurrect physical music sales and more SanDisk desperate to foist its memory on us whichever way it can.
These are the folks who sell a whole range of music players with microSD slots, after all.

Much love,

Jon
Ottawa, Canada

JaMo_ _ (Input todays guest host), In reference to episode 814, concerning the new music format you trashed, I hope that I am not the only one defending it, but I feel I need to supply a view for those of us who would support it.

Much like the connection to a Land Line that you were talking about recently, I like the dependability of a physical copy. I like the idea that I paid for this, and even if my hard drive crashes, I still have my music. If I make the mistake of ripping all my music in WMA format, and switch to a Mac, I can put that CD in my MacBook and save it as MP3 (still working on finishing that project). If the computers take over the planet and I have to live in the sub-terrain to avoid the Matrix, I can slap something physical into a music player and listen to it without connecting to ‘the cloud’.

I like the idea of the cloud for many things, but the thought of the time needed to backup all my music makes me shutter, and brings me back to the hard drive crashing idea again. I’ll agree with you that the storage method is a question (I won’t keep them in my pocket), and a Micro SD is too small. I think a standard SD would be perfect. Still very small, but large enough for some album artwork, or artist and title. One CD case could house what, 40-50 SD Cards. But it seems Micro SD’s are more prevalent in Phones now and that may be their reasoning.

I just look forward to the day when we don’t have 100 pounds of CD’s and I can physically store all of my future music in something the size of a Velveeta box. But, let’s be honest, this will disappear faster than Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account.

Go Bobcats!

Jeff
Cleveland

I want the music companies to start making MP3 CDs. I would love to be able to buy the top 100 songs for the year on one CD. It would be totally awesome. I would love to get the CD case with the CD art and maybe a special collector magazine or book to go along with the CD. I do not understand why the music companies have not tried MP3 CDs.

Oh yeah they are scared would drag-and-drop the files onto your computer. Which is totally different than ripping a CD and turning it into MP3 files.

If the morons at the record companies would make MP3 CDs they could fit all of an artists’ greatest hits onto one CD. If they would make a MP3 DVD, they could fit a decade of music onto one disc. Most DVD players also play MP3s, and most people have their DVD player hooked up to surround sound.

The record companies are freakin’ morons.

Gregory

While my wife was on the (shared) laptop this weekend I noticed that she was browsing through my Facebook page! I mean come on! Granted, it’s my fault for saving my password… although it’s probably all Chrome’s fault for displaying my recently viewed pages and tempting her into clicking on Facebook… but anyhow… although there is nothing that I would not want her to see on my Facebook page… she did not seem to understand that it’s just RUDE! I told her to get her own Facebook page and I would think about letting her be my friend… but why would she do that when she can just look at mine.

Am I overreacting?

Love the show…

~ Frustrated Facebooker

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)

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YouTomb

Thought this was neat:

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

Jim Lunsford

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

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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

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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

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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:

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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