Visually Tabloided

Woof!

Audibly Excited

"D00d, you're getting a Mac!" Will Cox blogs about MacWorld today (new iTunes/iPod support for Audible!).

Stream Analysis

This decision of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania -- which held that royalty exemptions available to offline AM and FM radio broadcasts do not apply "when the same broadcast is transmitted digitally over the internet," and spawned the recent CARP and LOC royalty rate determinations -- is being challenged in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals as of this week, report The New York Times [registration required, via TVC Alert], Reuters [via GrepLaw], and Wired News [via llrx]. The Reuters report (carried by Wired and others) characterizes Monday's filing as both a "motion," and an "appeal;" this case is pending on Howard's home turf, so maybe he can shed some light(?).

Meanwhile, Doc's Linux Journal article today wonders why so many Internet radio stations are still on the air given the newly fixed royalty rates: "Clearly these webcasters have faith in something. Could it be the marketplace?" Doc goes on to highlight a public workshop on digital entertainment and rights management hosted today by the US Department of Commerce Technology Administration, and the public comment invited through e-mail via the workshop site.

WAGBYKT, R?: Episode II, Attack Of The Weblogs

Ok, I've done today's theme into the ground, but that certainly won't stop it from creeping into future posts. My final "weblogs are great" thought of the day actually fits more in the "weblogs are insidious" category -- as in, they demontrably alter your brain waves (see also my Top Ten Signs Of A Microcontent Obsession, and Jeff Cooper's recent thoughts). Mostly in positive ways, I'm convinced; but it may not be, strictly speaking, healthy when the first thing that occurs upon glimpsing a Crushed Ho-Ho on a sunny summer sidewalk is "huh -- cool name for a blog."

WAGBYKT, R?: Episode I, The Phantom Weblog

More from the "weblogs are great" department, and my first opportunity to think blogChalking might turn out to be pretty remarkable. (Dr. Weinberger kindly provides a more eloquent description.) Raymond of Cafe Angst (see comments) Tiger Cafe, a slick collaborative blog, found Bag and Baggage through its blogChalk and offers these comments in keeping with today's theme:

One of the things I love about blogs and journalling is that they have attracted so many types of people into the fold that we can share the thoughts and wisdom of older, more experienced professionals in a wide range of fields. Of people completely opposite to us. I like how they are not just the home of computer geeks or teens or people wandering around searching for themselves. I like how, in one swoop, blogs and the friends you make from them shoot holes through the borders of geography, age, sex, race, religion, social class, physical attractiveness, and personality (like shyness) into which we keep smashing in real life. I like how I don't have to comb my hair before I talk to you. I like how I don't need to care whether someone, who left me a comment, picks his teeth in public. He has an idea and zaps it to me. I welcome it, naked and unfiltered. Blogging is pure broadcasting for the mind. Patrick Henry would have loved it.