mediageek

Author: Paul

  • One little mystery solved

    I am very pleased that the mediageek radioshow continues to gain in popularity, at least as reflected by the number of downloads each edition receives. The average is now getting closer to 400 per program. But one of the shows, from Oct. 28 of last year, continues to blow all the other ones away, with…

  • Net Neutrality To Be the FCC’s Responsibility? Or Nobody’s Responsibility?

    On Monday Sen. Commerce Comittee Chair Ted Stevens told reporters at a press conference that he’s considering charging the FCC with protecting network neutrality. He was speaking at an event sponsored by CompTel, which represents the smaller telecom companies that compete with the big Bells like Verizon and AT&T. For it’s part, CompTel supports legislating…

  • FCC Chair Says He’s Ready to Eliminate Cross-Ownership Ban

    I missed this one last Friday, but FCC Chair Kevin Martin gave his first press conference as chair and promised to repeal the cross-ownership ban which prevents a company from owning both a newspaper and a television station in the same market. He will have a fighting chance at this when the Senate confirms new…

  • Shocking and Gratuitous: Bono’s F-Word Is Now a Precedent for Two Words Too Bad To Use

    Last week the FCC cleared out part of its indecency queue and I’ve finally had a chance to read the order [link to PDF]. Let me tell you, it is interesting reading, if only to find out that the words “shit” and “fuck” are such fundamentally offensive words that their mere utterance alone makes something…

  • Zine References from the Friday, March 17 Radioshow

    My pal Aj Michel resumed her crown as the mediageek radioshow zine queen on the Friday, March 17 edition, telling us about her favorite independently produced publications from the last year. These are the zines we discussed: Best Zine Ever 2006 Available through Microcosm, Parcell Press (www.parcellpress.com), Atomic Books (www.atomicbooks.com) or send two stamps (or…

  • Universities as Providers of Neutral Networks?

    Andrew at funferal takes up my question about a grassroots effort for network neutrality via constructing neutral networks, and brings up a good point about Universities: Incidentally, if we’re looking for a useful partner for the grassroots, why not look to the Universities. They probably have as much capacity as Google, if not more, with…

  • Minidisc Not Dead Yet

    Like many long-standing minidisc users, I’ve been wondering when Sony will finally kill off this format. I do not live in a fantasy world, so I do realize that the tag-team of iPods, cheap MP3 players and an increasing number of high-quality portable digital audio recorders that use flash memory will spell the eventual end…

  • Crimethinc, and thinking critically about itinerant recovering-middle-class twenty-somethings

    Burningman has written an eloquent and spot-on review of the newest Crimethinc tome, Recipes For Disaster: An anarchist cookbook for Clamor magazine. For those not aware of Crimethinc, it’s an anarchist publishing collective–they call themselves an “Ex-Workers’ Collective”–that puts out radical books and zines that tend to espouse and promote dropping out of mainstream capitalist…

  • Is There Another, Grassroots Way to Network Neutrality?

    I am always a bit uneasy with policy campaigns, especially those in which the only option for positive political action seems to be, basically, “call your Congressperson!” So, as concerned as I am about the real threat that AT&T and Verizon are about to tier off and filter our internet, I am also uncomfortable thinking…

  • Public Radio Podcasts Doing Well, Making Underwriter $$$

    I, for one, am glad that there are podcasts of public radio programs. My local station, WILL-AM, has been podcasting for about eighteen months, and I appreciate being able to catch up on Bob McChesney’s show and some of their other great public affairs programs on my own schedule. I agree with Jack Brighton, who…