Monthly Archives: July 2006

Bittorrent test for the debate 6

This entry was posted in Announcements [A] technology Ypsilanti ypsivotes on by

I am going to be recording and then posting audio and video of the Ypsilanti Mayoral debate tomorrow. In order maximize availability and conserve bandwidth (video is large especially when you are talking about a 90 minute debate) I’m going to make it available by as many channels as possible. This includes ourmedia.org, google and bittorrent. If you are not familiar with bittorrent it is a peer to peer file sharing technology that works extremely well for very large files. It is perfectly legal and ideally suited to distributing something like this. This will be my first attempt at hosting a torrent tracker. When you use bittorrent you download a small torrent file that points to a tracker site. It then gets the information about the file to download and starts getting pieces of the file. As more people download pieces they also share those pieces. The more people who are downloading and seeding a file the faster everyone can get it. I would like to request your help in testing my setup.

If you are already setup to use bittorrent then please download this torrent file for Azureus, a very good bittorrent client. The file is only 7.6 MB. If it downloads OK please let me know.

If you are not setup for bittorrent and you are running windows, and you want to get the debate this way, please download this setup file for Azureus, install it and then download the torrent file and test the setup. If you are not running windows you can find Mac and Linux versions of Azureus here

Please let me know if this works or if you have any problems. Once I post the video and audio files I’ll put the links here. thanks

Ypsi Mayoral Debate 2

This entry was posted in ypsivotes on by

You may have noticed the little banner in the top left corner, about the debate for the Ypsilanti Mayoral candidates this Thursday at McKenny Union at EMU. My friend Mark Maynard is the instigator. I will be recording and videotaping the event and putting it on line after the event. I am planning on putting the audio up here on this blog as a podcast. If you listen to podcasts already, you can just subscribe to my RSS feed (the orange icon) over on the left sidebar and as soon as I post the audio it will show up in your podcatching software (iTunes, Doppler, Juice, etc.). I’ll put up the link to the video as soon as it’s ready.

Happy birthday

This entry was posted in this and that on by

Twelve months and 300+ posts later this blog is one year old today. On this day one year ago I put up my first piece about Tim Burton and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I’ve had fun doing this and actually been able to make contact with some interesting new people over the past year. As long as I have something to say about anything and this medium is available I’ll probably keep at it. Thanks for reading my ramblings (and I know I do ramble sometimes, but that is just the way I communicate) hopefully you’ll keep coming back for more.

The Mid-East

This entry was posted in politics religion on by

According to Webster’s Dictionary:

Main Entry: Sem·ite
Pronunciation: ‘se-“mIt, especially British ‘sE-“mIt
Function: noun
Etymology: French sémite, from Semitic Shem, from Late Latin, from Greek SEm, from Hebrew ShEm
1 a : a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs b : a descendant of these peoples
2 : a member of a modern people speaking a Semitic language

Based on my father originally being from Jordan, I am a semite and not anti-semitic. I have now and in the past have had friends who are Jewish. I am not prejudiced against anyone. However, having said that it doesn’t mean that I can’t be opposed to the policies of various governments (including the United States, Great Britain, Israel, Syria and Iran as well as many others) regarding the situation in the Middle East. All of these governments have behaved in a consistently stupid way for the last six decades. One look at the misery and suffering of the people on all sides in the Middle East should be all the evidence that someone needs that politics and religion should not ever be mixed. I have not written much recently about the current war in Lebanon because every time I think about it, I find myself getting sad and angry and feeling helpless.

I am still trying to organize my thoughts and figure out how to articulate my feelings. I will be writing more on this in the coming days. But for now I am afraid that the Bush administration will be providing no positive leadership on this conflict. In fact they are providing negative reinforcement by encouraging the Israelis to continue. Bush and his Christian extremist supporters believe that this is all part of the “inevitable” end-times and they want this to happen. Until someone moves into the White House who actually believes in the Constitution this will not change. Unfortunately the Syrians and Hezbollah and Hamas are not doing anything to help the situation either. As long as there have been governments that see themselves as defenders of a faith, whether it be Christianity, Judaism, Islam or any other, they have also been oppressors of the “other”. Governments MUST be secular, in order to for people to be treated fairly, freely and with justice.

Open source and free software in ypsi

This entry was posted in technology Ypsilanti on by

If anyone in the Ypsi area is interested in learning about some of the free and open source software applications that are available let me know. There are a lot of great free tools available that I think most non-geeks are probably not aware of. If there is enough interest I’ll look into maybe getting a room at the Library or somewhere where I could do a little seminar. You don’t have spend 100’s of $ buy software like MS Office or Photoshop and you don’t have to download such software from file sharing sites. You can use programs like OpenOffice or GimpShop. Even if I don’t get enough interest for a group I’d still be happy to give individual advice if you have any questions about programs to use for various tasks. You know where to find me if you’re reading this.

comment system change

This entry was posted in this and that on by

I made a change in the comment system the other day. I found a wordpress plug-in that does those captcha images for authentication. That’s where it the system does a a stylized text string as a graphical image that can’t generally be read be comment spam bot. So now you don’t have to register and log in anymore. All you need to do is put in your name and e-mail and the code from the captcha. Your e-mail won’t be displayed and won’t ever be sold or seen by anyone except me. Hopefully this will make it easier for people to comment while still keeping spam under control. Let me know id you have any problems with the captcha.

Podsafe music

This entry was posted in podcasting on by

If you aren’t familiar with the term Podsafe Music refers to music that the artists have given permission for podcasters to use free of charge. For the most part podsafe music does not include anything from the major record labels that has sold in any significant numbers. So far the record labels have steadfastly refused to let podcasters play any of their music with out paying outrageous license fees. Considering that the vast majority of podcasters have little or no revenue related to the podcast this quite unreasonable. So podcasters who want to play music such as my 11 year old son Max have taken to discovering new bands to play that actually want to be heard by more people and thus sell more music and and stuff. In the past this could be a really difficult thing to do. In the past couple of years some new on-line services have made this a much easier proposition. First, sites like Garageband.com and Myspace.com made finding music a lot easier, but getting permission was still a pain. You still had to contact each artist individually, to get permission.

About a year ago PodShow rolled out something called the podsafe music network. This was a brilliant move. What they did was create a site where any musician can upload their music, and add a bio, genre, links to band websites, contact info etc. They also give permission for podcasters use the music in podcasts. Anyone who has recorded some music can put up their music. If you have recorded anything that is any good, go ahead and upload it, and if people like it you will get heard. Podcasters can register for the PMN and when they do they can browse the library for music, search for artists, and even search by the artists influences. Podcasters can preview the songs on-line, and then click to add the songs to a playlist they create on the site. When they are ready they can click and download the mp3 files for the songs they want to play. After they are done recording and publishing their show, they go back to the PMN playlist, and click on the “report when played” button. This will send an e-mail to the artist and let them know that a podcast has played their music. The artist’s page then shows a list of what podcasts have played their music. The podcasters can then use this to check out other podcasts that have played the music they like and see what else they are playing. This makes a great way to discover more new music.

Podcast listeners can also use this feature as a way to find new podcasts to listen to as well as new music. If you go to a podcasters page you can see the music they have played and follow the links to the artists page and then to the other podcasters that are playing that music. Max has been using the PMN to find the music he plays on the MewzikCast. It is a great way to discover new music and then spread the word to other listeners. Podshow is slowly rolling out the ability for for artists to make their songs available for sale on the network too. They are selling DRM-free mp3 songs for $0.99. Unlike iTunes where the labels get $0.65 and the musicians only get about $0.04 per song, here the artists get $0.90 which is the whole amount minus the transaction fee taken by the credit card processing company. This is a much better deal for musicians than radio and iTunes or Napster. And podcasters can spread the word about new music they are listening to without having to worry about the wrath of the RIAA. There are thousands of bands on the PMN now. There has been some controversy over some of Podshow’s actions over the past year and a half. I’m not going to get into that here. But one thing that Podshow has definitely done right is the Podsafe Music Network. Great work from Chris Rockwell, Sue Fleming, CC Chapman, Michael Butler and everyone else at the PMN.

Brain Age

This entry was posted in technology this and that on by (updated 6725 days ago)

I recently got a Nintendo DS Lite for fathers day. ds lite I also got the game Brain Age. Let me first say that I have not traditionally been a big video game player. I have played various games over the years and not found most of them to be particularly compelling. There are certain exceptions, like tetris and sudoku which I could play for hours. What was I just writing about… Oh yeah Brain Age. This game (along with the similar but slightly different Big Brain Academy) has been a huge seller since being released some months ago in Japan and now selling very well in North America. The premise of this game is that you take a daily brain age test. You initially set up an account and provide your birth date information. There are a variety of tests that the game randomly picks three of everyday. You take the test and based on your results the game calculates a brain age for you. As you get older your brain naturally tends to slow down. The calculated brain age can be anywhere from 20-80 years old with 20 being the best. Most people tend toward the higher end of the scale as when they first start taking the tests. As you train and improve mental agility your brain age tends to decrease.

The tests are designed to exercise your brain in various ways. The DS has a microphone and speech recognition built in as well as wifi capabilities. One of the tests is called the Stroop Test. In this test, the words Red, Yellow, Blue and Black are randomly flashed on the screen. However, the text may be in a color that does not correspond to the word. For example Red may come up in yellow text. In this case you have to say yellow. The different visual stimuli are processed in different parts of the brain. Most people’s brains would process the text faster than the color. Another test is the word memorization test. In this one the game shows you a list of 30 random four letter words. You get two minutes to memorize them. This test checks your short term memory…

What the hell was I just going to say?

Oh yeah, you have to memorize the 30 words. Then you get three minutes to write as many of the words as you can remember. As you may have guessed if you have ever spoken to me, my short term memory is probably my worst mental skill. I typically only get about 11-12 words or less. The game can show you a graph of your progress over time on the brain age test as well as all the individual training tests. My overall brain age has been trending downward over the past 5 weeks or so. However, you can always tell from the graph the days that I have gotten a short term memory type test. On those days my brain age tends to spike upward although I am starting to see some improvement. Along with the brain age test, there are a variety of individual training exercises you can each day. The program only lets you do each test once per day. Trust me this game is a lot more addictive than my description makes it sound. The same goes for most of the other DS games I have tried.

One of the cool features of the DS is the built in Wireless networking that allows you to play games against other DS users in the area or over the internet. The Sony PSP also has this, however the DS has an important difference. On the PSP each person must have a copy of the game in order to play. On the DS many of the games allow you send a copy of the game to other users who don’t have it. This is usually a simpler version of the game. This way if one person has a copy of Mario Kart DS up to eight people in an area can play against each other. This is a very cool and money saving way to have fun. Nintendo has done a superb job of creating a new kind of game play experience with the DS. Instead of focusing on powerful processors and fancy graphics like Sony has they worked on ways to make the games innovative and fun to play for all ages. Plus the DS only cost $129 compared to the $250 for the PSP. If the new Nintendo Wii (stupid name but great concept) console works half as well as envisioned, it will be a huge hit.

The downward spiral continues

This entry was posted in politics on by

First we have complete debacle that is the “Operation Enduring Freedom” or whatever the hell they are calling it this week. That is the ongoing war in Iraq, now 3 1/2 years in. Today at least 59 people were killed in a bombing in Kufa, Iraq. That is in addition to the 40+ killed yesterday in Baghdad along with dozens more killed in the day before and the day before that. George Bush and his crew have taken what was a relatively stable autocratic state and turned it into a completely anarchic killing field. In addition we Israel attacking Gaza to the south and bombing Lebanon to the north. They have been bombing the Beirut Airport, blockading the ports and bombing civilian targets. They are also apparently using white phosphorus incendiary bombs. All this over 2 abducted soldiers.

As if all of this wasn’t already bad enough, the one sort of success that they used to be able to claim with the removal of the Taliban regime, in Afghanistan, has been unraveling and returning back to the state it was in 2001. The administration made a big deal of smoking out the Taliban and giving freedom to the women of Afghanistan. Now girls schools are increasingly being torched by the Taliban and women are being forced to put there burkhas back on, particularly outside of Kabul. Now the AP reports that the Taliban have retaken two towns in southern Afghanistan. Even the US installed president Hamid Karzai has now approved the re-establishment of the dreaded Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. These were the guys who walked the streets of Afghan cities and towns during the Taliban period, with clubs and regularly beat and arrested anyone they accused of breaking the rules like not having a long enough beard, or not praying enough. I wonder how long it will be before the Taliban are back in control of the country, and Karzai is either under arrest or back in the US in exile.