mediageek

Author: Paul

  • Homelessness Marathon Starts Tuesday at 7 PM EST

    I’ve been completely remiss in not posting about the 10th annual Homelessness Marathon, airing on community radio stations across the continent beginning Tuesday, Feb. 20 at 7 PM EST, ending at 9 AM the following morning. The marathon highlights the problem of homelessness and gives people who are homeless an opportunity to participate and speak…

  • Does the American “Market” Abhor Competition?

    Mergers, mergers, mergers. There’s been talk for quite some time about the nation’s two direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers–DirecTV and Dish Network–merging. More recently the talk has been about the nation’s only two satellite radio providers merging. Today, there’s a leak from the companies that a merger between XM and Sirius may be announced soon,…

  • Show notes for Feb. 16 radioshow: FCC makes LPFM exceptions; SFLR has its day in court

    John Anderson from DIYmedia.net was my guest for the Feb. 16 edition of the mediageek radioshow [listen now]. We talked about a couple of exceptions the FCC has made with regard to issuing low-power FM licenses. First, the FCC has given “special temporary authority” to a former FM pirate in Goldfield, Nevada — read articles…

  • More Free Video Editing

    The Camcorderinfo blog has posted a round-up of video editing apps for “non-video folks” and a couple more free video editing apps. I haven’t tried most of the apps listed, except iMovie, so I can’t vouch. Using a free app (whether it’s free as in beer, or free as in speech) is a good way…

  • Illinois’ Racist Mascot Has One Foot in the Grave

    Today the University of Illinois Board of Trustees and Administration announced that it is halting use of “Chief Illiniwek” effective Feb. 21. Ostensibly this is so Illinois can get out of sanctions imposed by the NCAA against schools using racist imagery and mascots. It’s taken some twenty years of pressure from students, Native American groups…

  • Can Data Storage Media Ever Be Retro-Cool?

    It must be retro-goodness week. While I’m musing about cassettes, Aj files a Requiem for the Floppy. I actually backed up all my old 3.5″ PC floppies onto CD-R (two copies each, of course) this past spring. Less than 10% of them were bad, but because I’m kind of obsessive about backing up, it seemed…

  • News Headlines from the Feb. 9 Mediageek Radioshow

    Next FCC Public Hearing In Harrisburg, PA As the FCC’s media ownership rules revision process rolls on, the Commission has announced that it will hold its third official public hearing on February 23 in Harrisburg, PA. The first two were in Los Angeles and Nashvile. The entire commission should be in tow for this one,…

  • San Francisco Liberation Radio To Deliver a Valentine to the FCC (in Court)

    Unlicensed San Francisco Liberation Radio, which was shut down by the FCC in October, 2003, will be challenging the Commission face-to-face in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this Wednesday, Valentine’s Day. This is the same court that heard the famous Free Radio Berkeley case that ended nearly nine years ago. In the…

  • Next Big Retro Thing: The Cassette Revival

    I’m not known for my trend-watching skills. I won’t be selling my consulting services to corporate America in order to peek into the mind of youth culture or what’s hot with generation Z. But occasionally my antennae are sensitive enough to pick up a low-level lame-geek trend. It occurred to me today that there has…

  • The Pirate Max Headroom

    Nearly ten years ago, on Nov. 22, 1987, Chicago television viewers experienced the strange visage of a DIY Max Headroom interrupting the WGN evening news and Doctor Who. This wasn’t the first time a pirate TV operator had taken over a licensed signal in the US, but it was the last time, and the pirate…