Saturday, June 04, 2005

Joan Baez-esque cover of NWA's Straight Outta Compton Nina Gordon, late of Veruca Salt, has recorded a mind-blowing cover of NWA's Straight Outta Compton, in the style of a Baezesque guitar folksinger. It's funny at first, then it's beautiful, then it's both. 5.5 MB MP3 Link, Nina Gordon music download page (Thanks, Ben!) Daily Show torrents Jeff sez, "CommonBits, the progressive media directory, has links to torrents of new Daily Show clips:" Crimes Tom DeLay Hasn't Committed Stephen Colbert on Deep Throat Bush-Cheney on Amnesty International (we know a gulag when we see one) Will Arlen Specter live long enough to see Bush veto his stem cell research legislation? Jon Stewart interviews Gerald Posner author of Secrets of the Kingdom Rob Cordry on Gas Prices Sunday Justice with Stephen Colbert Jon Stewart interviews Floyd Abrams author of Speak Freely Link (Thanks, Jeff!) Best of Slashdot as a podcast Andrew sez, "SlashdotReview is a daily (except Saturday) 10 minute podcast summary of recent items from Slashdot, plus a single non-RIAA music track. Daily comments from the show are blogged at the site." Link (Thanks, Andrew!) Play video on an iPod under GNU/Linux Once you install GNU/Linux on your iPod, you can play videos on it! Link (via MAKE Blog) Cory: Listen to the authorities and die The people in the Twin Towers who ignored the instructions from the cops to stay put survived. The ones who paid attention to them died. Gary Wolf's tantalizing piece in this month's Wired concludes that the future of American security lies in ignoring the Department of Homeland Security, with its "rainbow of doom," its magic airport involuntary nudity machines, and its suspension of the Constitution and relying instead on common sense and democratic fundamentals. After both buildings were burning, many calls to 911 resulted in advice to stay put and wait for rescue. Also, occupants of the towers had been trained to use the stairs, not the elevators, in case of evacuation. Fortunately, this advice was mostly ignored. According to the engineers, use of elevators in the early phase of the evacuation, along with the decision to not stay put, saved roughly 2,500 lives. This disobedience had nothing to do with panic. The report documents how evacuees stopped to help the injured and assist the mobility-impaired, even to give emotional comfort. Not panic but what disaster experts call reasoned flight ruled the day. In fact, the people inside the towers were better informed and far more knowledgeable than emergency operators far from the scene. While walking down the stairs, they answered their cell phones and glanced at their BlackBerries, learning from friends that there had been a terrorist attack and that the Pentagon had also been hit. News of what was happening passed by word of mouth, and fellow workers pressed hesitating colleagues to continue their exit. Link (thanks, Cory!) 10:43:03 PM    comment []

How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat' [Washington Post: Top News] 10:30:40 PM    comment []

The Old College Try. Solve eight puzzles to answer this question: Why is a university like a sudden flash of understanding? [NYT > Opinion] 1. Business 2. Music 3. Philosophy 4. Political Science 5. Mathematics 6. Computer Science 7. Linguistics Final Exam Complete Puzzle Answers will be published next Sunday. (Links all to PDFs) 10:22:14 PM    comment []

Is Persuasion Dead?. Is it possible in America today to convince anyone of anything he doesn't already believe? By MATT MILLER. [NYT > Opinion] 7:32:34 PM    comment []

Solar Powered Community Radio, Niger. A solar powered community radio project in NIger has proven to be viable. The Ruranet project "...runs on solar energy..." and is accessed by villagers who use "...solarpowered or wind-up radio receivers that require no batteries..." [Smart Mobs] 6:29:02 PM    comment []

Hunger for Energy Transforms How India Operates. Fed by a decade-long economic boom, India's ever-growing appetite for energy is quietly influencing foreign policy. By SOMINI SENGUPTA. [NYT > International] 6:28:50 PM    comment []

Two from BNA News: RECORD LABELS SHUT SPANISH SONG SITE One of the oldest Web sites offering inexpensive music downloads has closed, after years of legal battles with record labels. Weblisten.com, which has operated in Spain since 1997, offered subscribers the ability to download an unlimited number of songs for about $40 a month. It also offered shorter, cheaper windows of time that lasted a week or a weekend. INDEPENDENT MUSIC LABELS SEE BENEFITS OF FILE SHARING While the major entertainment conglomerates argue that popular file-sharing networks have no "commercially significant" use, numerous other independent artists, labels and filmmakers are trying to sell their digital wares amid the profusion of bootlegged goods. To many independent labels, the main goal is simply to introduce music fans around the globe to little-known artists who have no chance of being played on commercial radio stations. The payoff they hope for in the long term is greater CD sales; any downloads they sell on the networks are icing on the cake. 1:46:30 AM    comment []