Sunday, October 30, 2005

The legal case against I. Lewis Libby: how strong?. What the judge allows the jury to hear will be critical to the outcome of the case, legal analysts say. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories] 9:48:02 PM    comment []

Drilling Down: D.J.'s Pack It in, and So Does the Audience. On June 3, the beloved New York oldies station WCBS switched to a format called Jack, involving large playlists drawn from the last three decades, surprising juxtapositions of songs and little or no D.J. chatter. By ALEX MINDLIN. [NYT > Business] 9:44:12 PM    comment []

Stanford on iTunes. This one's an early indicator of something, but I'm still not quite certain what. Stanford University has begun to make recordings of select lectures, speeches, interviews and events available on the iTunes Music Store, for free. The material currently available includes a number of WorldChanging-related topics: talks by Lawrence Lessig, Geoff Davis on Microfinance, Paul Erlich on Population and Sustainability, and over 50 presentations on Health and Medicine. A restricted access section provides course-related materials for students and instructors, as well. You'll notice that I haven't linked to any of the recordings. That's because they're only available through iTunes Music Store, which is accessed through the iTunes application. This means that people on older machines, or non-Windows/Macintosh computers, are out of luck. The files are in the non-protected AAC format (.m4a), so more recent non-iPod players should be able to play them. (Adding to the complexity, the Stanford iTunes part of the ITMS is only accessible via the Stanford iTunes webpage -- you can't get to it by navigating through the iTunes application.) On the one hand, Stanford has put out for public consumption a collection (which is intended to grow) of generally very good lectures and discussions, and has done so in a non-protected way; moreover, by using the iTunes store, they're piggybacking upon a system that already has a large following and seamless integration with the most common digital music player. On the other hand, by using the iTunes store, they're limiting the audience to people with relatively recent mainstream computers -- Simputers, Linux boxes, and the like need not apply. Because of the way the ITMS works, they may also be limiting the audience to people in the United States or North America. (Could some of our non-US readers with iTunes check it out? Thanks.) In general, I'm all for universities putting their material out on the net for broad consumption; it's all the better when it's free. I'm more hesitant about the Stanford iTunes program largely because of the ITMS requirement, but again, there's a reasonable case to be made that, by using ITMS, Stanford is taking advantage of the popular familiarity of the system. I'm open to persuasion either way. What do you think? [WorldChanging: Another World Is Here] 8:04:52 AM    comment []

Evolution vs. Unintelligent Design. Steve Post welcomes a return visit by Richard Milner, whose one-man show was featured on The NO SHOW some months ago. This time, Milner discusses the upcoming Darwin & Evolution issue of Natural History Magazine. [WNYC New York Public Radio] 8:04:14 AM    comment []

What Dave Winer said.  (From the NY Times) "I love podcasting because it turns us all into investigative journalists of our own lives." A great story on podcasting being created by real folks (and the equipment they use). Not the cliché story on how podcasting has been taken over by big media companies. Also, it seems to have more outbound links embedded in the story than a typical NYT piece. Speaking of the NY Times, they also have a rather long story about Google and, guess what, Google "wants to dominate Madison Avenue, too." I suggest the NY Times keep that headline handy for any number of future stories: "Google wants to dominate (INSERT WORD HERE), too." [rexblog: Rex Hammock's Weblog] 7:58:33 AM    comment []

Summer in Vienna?. For those of you who like slightly longer than usual conferences, the Vienna Circle runs two week summer institutes every year. Next year's features ANU's own Geoffrey Brennan, along with Hartmut Kliemt, on philosophy and economics. Details here. [Thoughts Arguments and Rants] 7:58:05 AM    comment []

Memo to Tyco: I Won't Back Down. Tyco sells a company and the new owner discovers an environmental mess. By GRETCHEN MORGENSON. [NYT > Business] 7:57:53 AM    comment []