Hey there. I’ve finally managed to get everything set up and, aside from a little shuffling and fine-tuning, everything should be in order.
It’s good to be back using WordPress. Blogger was nice (and definitely worth the price of admission), but the content management tools and extensibility of WordPress are better. Plus, now that I’m hosted with Dreamhost, I have full control over the data and all that stuff.
Anyway, check back sometime. I’ll usually have something new posted up here — you be the judge of its relative value.
Being a fan of Internet radio from way back, I’m constantly disappointed (though not surprised) by the music industry’s effort to crush an exciting medium that promises continued growth and distribution of new music. It seems like the industry would be doing all it can to foster the development of a potentially huge new income area. Instead, they’re hording all their chips and, in predictably myopic fashion, refusing to look beyond what has worked in the past. Their latest attempts are especially disturbing:
On March 2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, increased Internet radio’s royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent and thereby jeopardized the industry’s future.
At the request of the Recording Industry Association of America, the CRB ignored the fact that Internet radio royalties were already double what satellite radio pays, and multiplied the royalties even further. The 2005 royalty rate was 7/100 of a penny per song streamed; the 2010 rate will be 19/100 of a penny per song streamed. And for small webcasters that were able to calculate royalties as a percentage of revenue in 2005 – that option was quashed by the CRB, so small webcasters’ royalties will grow exponentially!
It’s the little guys who are out there promoting new and established acts in their online broadcasts. And they are already paying for the ability to do so; few make a profit and many are paying out of their own pockets for nothing more than the enjoyment of contributing to the global music community.
We have the opportunity to squawk here. You can voice your disapproval of these draconian new rates by calling or writing your elected official and telling them what a steaming pile of dung this whole thing is.
Check out SaveNetRadio.org for more information.
Whilst perusing the entries in this humble blog, you may notice a recurring theme when it comes to the images that are displayed: they are all of, shall we say, “interesting” composition and quality. Let it now be known that 90% of the photos displayed here are taken with my trusty Treo 650: a wondrous machine that does so many things well, we can forgive it the unfortunate quality of its internal camera.
The thing is, in a word: crappy. It takes pictures at a resolution of 640×480 and, unless paired with absolutely perfect lighting conditions and the steady hands of surgeon, produces results that are… well… what you see on this site.
So, why do I use it, you ask? Because it is always handy, I answer.
While I carry my Canon around with me on vacations and special occassions, I rarely have anything else to capture a moment when, say, we go to pick up our wayward dog at the pound. It’s just there, ready to use. So there you have it.
Thanks for your patience, and thanks for looking in the first place.
