tingilinde

pre-ipod

An strange hat from the late 40s. With tubes it would be self heating in the Winter.

project selection

Tools exist to make stop-motion animation fairly easy ... at least some of the technical aspects of the sport.

We've mentioned iStopMotion for OS X. I used it for a small project shortly after getting an iSight camera for my Mac. I tried a few tests with the current version yesterday and can report it is greatly improved.

A friend spends about half his time at a remote company location. The place has become very boring to him and he decided to make stop motion videos using his PowerBook, iSight and iStopMotion. He has a plywood board that is used as a stage, mounted lights and a camera mount that slides around the board. Some of his work is remarkable ... not at the level of Aardman Studios, but much better than Gumby.

A great tool for being creative and learning the ropes of something that few do. If you become skilled there are higher end versions to support dSLRs.

pors - radio dazed

Plain Old Radio Service

This article has been widely circulated ... basically commercial radio isn't growing (at least ad revenues - real listened minutes are shrinking in many segments).

The profit margins are still remarkable - something like 45% of revenus. The executives at Viacom probably feel this sort of margin has been established by god. It is very similar to the chats we had with the record majors in the late 90s .. sky high margins and that was justified by the "value" provided to the customers.

I'm sure much of satellite radio's allure is related to programming. Most of commercial radio is a wasteland and the big conglomerates, out of greed and a misunderstanding of their consumers, merely cloned stations to cut costs.

Most of the players must be tooling podcasting strategies - even if it means discounting the possibility of a service. Barriers to entry and transmission costs are small compared to satellite or fm radio, so there should be real choice for consumers. I'm betting the early winning players will be satellite radio (it would be easy for them to offer podcasts of their shows on the net) and NPR. Apple probably has some interesting ideas, but I can't imagine direct programming from them - one can imagine updates to iTunes to make this very easy - it will be a way for them to extend their lock on the market (aacplus seems make for the purpose with regular aac for higher quality when necessary). The big commercial radio networks are probably in denial - they probably can't figure out how to get 45% margins from the business.

Putting together interesting radio programs takes real effort and some talent. There may be some long tail effect, but the middle part of the tail is going to be much more interesting.

In the meantime, strap in for an interesting ride as Wall Street realizes PORS networks have grossly inflated valuations.

homemade radio documentaries

Greg pointed out a wonderful This American Life piece (real audio). Listen to the whole show as it will give you a sense of how the pros make it seem effortless. The Superman episode is wonderful and qualifies as art.

You can (and probably should) create family interviews and, with the surging interesting in podcasting, it might be fun to offer a real program.

Here are some high level recommendations. Lots of people use mini discs, lots of people use DAT. A few of the hard disk mp3 players have audio in, but most of them would need a good (adjustable) preamp and a monitor out to be useful.

A more entertaining and thorough guide is available through TAL in comicbook format. Outstanding and recommended.

It is much cheaper than video and can be easily as creative.

steaming on with the bbc

Most of my radio consumption is now over the Net ... mostly using streaming mp3 stations.

The BBC is an exception as it is RealAudio based and doesn't integrate into iTunes. I've been using Steam to get schedules and to invoke hte Real Player.

Recommended! You can even get Radio Cymru and Radio Gaidheal for texture.

I can't imagine missing BBC, CBC or NPR news - but then again I'm something of a radio junkie.

how smart is your radio?

People have been talking and mis-talking about smart radio techology recent (a few rather embarrassing reports have been printed in magazines and newspapers).

I've been looking for a good non-technical paper to recommend and this one (pdf) by Kevin Werbach and the New America Foundation and Public Knowledge is one of the best. I have no idea who the foundation is...

notes on the recording of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

I spent the better part of a day digitizing my old tapes of the BBC Radiophonic performance of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy recently. This sort of duty can be quite wonderful as it gives you another opportunity to sit down and seriously listen to an old friend (I highly recommend slowly digitizing your old collections for this reason).

The BBC radio version is my favorite of the work - I prefer it to the book, the straight reading of the book and the TV adaptation. A bit of searching turned up a note on the performance.

my toes were numb and the fajitas were too spicy

The View from Mrs. Sundberg's Window - a blog of sorts - has turned up on the Prairie Home Companion website.

Lots of revamping. I tend to listen to PHC with the periodic still images. Periodic images seem to help - they give you a sense of connection and are sufficiently rare to allow your mind to work out the imagery in the story telling sessions.