As you might know, I was on Hans Meyer's Situation Awareness radio program this past Saturday talking about Carnival of the Liberals. If you couldn't tune in you can listen to the show on the Free World Radio Network's site or (hopefully if the embedding works) with the widget to the left.

As always, I really enjoy doing these sorts of things, and besides, it got Hans to volunteer to host Carnival of the Liberals! I think I'm becoming more comfortable talking extemporaneonously although I've got to relax more (if only to get rid of that high pitched edge to my voice). Perhaps in the future, if I ever get my act together, I'll start my own skepticism podcast. Although, I've got to say, Brian Dunning's Skeptoid would be hard to beat.

In any case, thanks go to Hans, FWRN, and Blogtalk Radio. I look forward to doing the show again sometime.

tng's blog

I really like to listen to BBC Radio programs. Unfortunately the BBC chooses to make their programs available in Real Audio format which I really dislike. Really, really, really dislike. It also means I can't put the programs on my MP3 player. Well, courtesy of Stuart we have a handy script for quickly and easily saving our favorite BBC Radio programs under Linux.

The only tricky part is extracting the proper RTSP URL. Thankfully Stuart provides us with an easy method to do this as well:

Obtaining the ram file is still pretty easy, in fact using the command line to get it is easier than copying the previous link. So on a Linux command prompt enter:

curl http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/genres/comedy/aod.shtml?radio4/nowshow | grep [.]ram

Where the link is a copy of the link to start playing the file. This should give one line on the console starting something like:

<a href="/radio/aod/shows/rpms/radio4/nowshow.ram">
<img src="/radio/aod/images/ico_realplayer.gif" width="16" height="12" alt="" border="0" align="left" vspace="1" />Listen using stand-alone Real Player</a><br clear="left" />

Put this link to the .ram file into my script ... [and] add the http://www.bbc.co.uk on the front, and this will create an mp3 or ogg file of the show.

I've mirrored Stuart's handy script, which he makes available under the GNU GPL, here just in case it should ever go missing. Use the attachment link at the bottom of this post to download it and rename to listenagain.sh.

tng's blog | 1 attachment

Sundays WaPost had an interesting piece in their editorial section about the experience of two African-American XM radio hosts who were cancelled after a battle over a conspiracy theory popular on African-American radio stations. I thought the other NG readers would find it interesting as well. (the following selections are not in the order they appear in the original). read more »

A 1990 survey by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference found that one-third of black American churchgoers believed that AIDS was a form of genocide. One-third also believed that HIV was produced in a germ-warfare lab, and 40 percent of black college students in Washington, D.C., agreed. An even higher percentage of blacks polled said they thought that crack cocaine was custom-made to be planted in African American communities to keep them crime-ridden and poor and that the government deliberately targeted black elected officials to drive them from office. These beliefs keep some black Americans from having their children vaccinated, from receiving AIDS tests and early medical treatment, and from practicing safe sex or using clean needles, as Patricia A. Turner and Gary Alan Fine note in their book, "Whispers on the Color Line." They also make seeking the truth an uphill battle.

woodrowfan's blog

Save Internet Radio: Call your representatives today.Thousands of internet radio broadcasters are planning a mass protest on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 by going completely silent, or airing the sound of ocean waves or similar, to protest new draconian royalty rates established by the Copyright Royalty Board. The new rates, which are retroactive to January of 2006, are on a per listener basis versus previous per song royalty rates and will double over five years time. Just to give you an idea of how onerous the new rates are, current internet radio royalty rates are already double what sattelite radio broadcasters pay.

This will have the effect of driving most internet radio broadcasters out of business who will not be able to afford the new rates. It's important that artists be reimbursed for their efforts, but many independent artists need internet radio to gain the exposure that they are denied by mainstream broadcast radio. Internet radio serves a vital function in our society by introducing listeners to a variety of artists and viewpoints that are considered unviable by commercial sources. The new royalty structure will effectively kill off this vital medium.read more »

tng's blog