Sunday, March 04, 2007

The System is Broken

The US Copyright Office has released their new set of rates for the payment of royalties by Internet Radio, and they ignored all of the facts presented by webcasters (including RP) and gave the record industry exactly what they asked for: royalty rates so high that they will put RP (Radio Paradise) and every other independent webcaster out of business. See Kurt Hanson’s newsletter for 3/2/07 for the details on how the rates work and what they will mean to stations like RP. You can participate in the discussion about this issue in our Listener Forum.

For some time, we’ve suffered with a system where we pay a large chunk (10%-12%) of our income to the Big 5 record companies - while FM stations and radio conglomerates like Clear Channel pay nothing. Now they want even more. In our case, an amount equal to 125% of our income. Our only hope is to create as much public awareness and outrage about this staggeringly unfair situation as possible. Neither the record industry nor Congress are ready to listen to us at this point. But members of the media may well be, and we need to get their attention.

Radio Paradise

The RIAA and congressional dupes are out of control. But ultimately, these kind of tactics will backfire. The genie is out of the bottle. The RIAA is unbelievably greedy and their tactics would make Putin proud. But this is going to hurt them in the end.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

The Beauty of China

Some real fantastic pictures here.

Signs We’ll Never See

More Here

Crossing the Line

It looks like Putin’s thuggery is crossing our shores. Unbelievable.

Federal and local law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting in Prince George’s County that critically injured a prominent intelligence expert who specializes in the former Soviet Union.

Paul Joyal, 53, was shot Thursday, four days after he alleged in a television broadcast that the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in the fatal poisoning of a former KGB agent in London.

Law enforcement sources and sources close to Joyal, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said the motive for the shooting was unclear. But several sources confirmed that FBI investigators are looking into the incident because of Joyal’s background as an intelligence expert and his comments about the Alexander Litvinenko case.

Murdering his critics in foreign countries, and even shooting them on US shores is really pushing the envelope. I wonder if we’re going to end up in another cold war with Russia. They seem to be asking for it. 

Friday, March 02, 2007

Gore’s Hypocrisy Continued

Boy, this guy is a bigger fake than Jimmy Swaggart. Not that I’m surprised.

RVD2

These guys do the best light sabre battles. Better than Lucas. 

Over!

I’ve been saying rap (hip-hop) is in decline. It’s 30 years old, and I think no where near as inventive as it used to be. There also seems to be a backlash going on.

Was Nas right, when he titled his album “Hip-Hop Is Dead”?

Music sales overall are down, but rap sales in particular have dropped 21 percent from 2005 to 2006. For the first time in 12 years, the top ten best-selling albums of the year did not include a rap album. A poll of black Americans by The Associated Press and AOL-Black Voices last year revealed 50 percent of respondents said hip-hop was a negative force in American society.

It’s always be around, like jazz, disco or metal. Those styles were very popular at one time, then went into decline. But I think the public is in the mood for something else. Something more positive.

One of the big problems with hip-hop is most of it is too negative. And in times like these people want to hear something positive. 

Thursday, March 01, 2007

No Reflection

Very cool.

A team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has created the world’s first material that reflects virtually no light. Reporting in the March issue of Nature Photonics, they describe an optical coating made from the material that enables vastly improved control over the basic properties of light. The research could open the door to much brighter LEDs, more efficient solar cells, and a new class of “smart” light sources that adjust to specific environments, among many other potential applications.

Most surfaces reflect some light — from a puddle of water all the way to a mirror. The new material has almost the same refractive index as air, making it an ideal building block for anti-reflection coatings. It sets a world record by decreasing the reflectivity compared to conventional anti-reflection coatings by an order of magnitude.

Important PSA

Apparently, many people on the internet need to know this information.

It’s the Sun, Stupid

I’ve been saying this or quite some time. The sun is causing recent warming on earth. The proof is on the planet Mars where, there are no humans or SUVs. The only made made vehicles are solar powered.

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet’s recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist’s controversial theory. [It’s only one’ scientists opinion. Typical media spin. Hud]

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

In 2005 data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide “ice caps” near Mars’s south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

“The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars,” he said.