definitely interested.

Posts Tagged ‘radio’

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A World of Opportunities

In Stating the Obvious, learning, linux on August 28, 2009 at 3:47 pm

I’ve been kicking around the right way to announce a thing I announced to my colleagues a week ago. That thing being that I’m leaving Gotham Gazette. The reasons are both simple and complex, but the simplest is that the publication really, really needs someone to evaluate web analytics tools not someone to tackle the big, fun, challenging question of why New Yorkers aren’t more interested in public policy. Well, I think they do need the latter, but fundamental scarcity of resources means that the former is winning out.

These are good questions, though. The civic engagement ones, I mean. Is it because we think policy is impenetrable and our legislators are all bought? Is it because we don’t notice that land use decisions matter until developers are breaking ground on a sky rise across the street? That we think the game is won already? I’m not sure, but I think changing the way people think about local policy is a really interesting part of our project here.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Two Things I Didn’t Know

In various on March 9, 2009 at 2:57 am

In a story about a kid caught up in a sentencing scandal (judges taking kick-backs from private juvenile detention facility operators was never on my list of reasons private jails are wrong) I learned that parents pay some part ($110 bi-weekly, in this case) of the cost of a child’s detention. They just kind of slipped it into the story, listing these payments as one of the costs of this judicial corruption. So that was one: paying for your kid’s jail-house boarding.

And, a few weeks ago now, another one that I just can’t shake. An NPR piece about a peculiar NIH funding controversy–should venture capitalists be eligible to apply for funds earmarked for small businesses. This is the debate the story covers. What was apparently no type of noteworthy is that the NIH is funneling money to private business at all. Public funding supports private research? Do venture capitalists get involved in research that doesn’t come with the shining light of patents at the far end of the tunnel?

I didn’t know this. I maybe should have, but it never occurred to me that parents could be forced to pay for their children’s detention or that public funds would be used to support research the public will never own.

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I Can Has Radio Lab

In various on November 20, 2008 at 6:20 pm

On dkg’s advice, I picked out an iAudio 7 for my birthday present (N. had solicited said advice and provided it in a birthday card) and I’m hoping to get all my podcasts onto in advance of my transcontinental flight home so I can listen to Radio Lab and that famous TAL episode about the economy.

That is all I wanted by the way — something for travel, to plug headphones into and wrap myself in on long train trips and bus trips. So far so good: it launched rhythmbox when I plugged it in. Now to sync it …

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Hearing Voices (do this)

In various on August 27, 2008 at 5:28 pm

VOICES OF AMERICA
Aug. 25, 2008 – Nov. 5, 2008

free103point9 is pleased to host, Voices of America, a participatory Internet radio project that reflects on the media spectacle of the 2008 US Presidential Election through the lens of the Voice of America Radio Network, a US government broadcasting service intended for an international audience. The new site and custom application will launch in late August, 2008. Here’s how it will work:

* RECORD up to one minute samples of election coverage on an over-the-air Voice of America station
* UPLOAD and TAG your recordings
* DOWNLOAD from the searchable pool of available recordings
* REMIX the broadcasts and UPLOAD them back to the website
* LISTEN to the recordings and remixes online anytime or to the radio broadcast at the Audacity of Desperation exhibition at the Sea and Space Gallery in Los Angeles on Election Day

Voices of America (VoA) is created by Lee Azzarello and Sarah Kanouse. VoA is happy to be a participant in The UnConvention, a project of Art Through Technical Alternatives, Carleton College, Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, University of Minnesota Institute for New Media Studies, and the Walker Art Center.

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A Sloppy Wet Kiss and a Line Break, too.

In various on June 5, 2008 at 1:07 am

Here is what happened: I worked too late for no good reason. I looked over at the clock as I was turning on the radio and thought to my self, “crap. It is 8:03. I have an entire hour before Fair Game is over. It really is only on when I want to listen to the news. Grumble grumble grumble.” I turned on the radio anyway and was pleasantly surprised to find On Point on the air instead. It isn’t my very favorite show ever, but I like it enough and when I’m home from work and ready to make some food or play scrabulous and listen to substantive news coverage, I definitely prefer Tom Ashbrook to Faith Salie. It looks from the WNYC schedule like a permanent change.

So whoever did this for me, I give to you a too tight hug and a giant kiss.

Also, I’m monkeying with this blasted postgres create statement that won’t translate properly to mysql, and to make things just that much trickier it has some kind of monkey business with the line breaks. The line breaks look just fine to the naked vim eye, but mysql was giving me errors with line numbers off. So for instance, this table definition (those are line numbers),

123 DROP TABLE IF EXISTS share_types;
124 CREATE TABLE share_types (
125 id serial not null primary key,
126 csa_id integer not null
127 CONSTRAINT share_type_csa_id_fk
128 REFERENCES csas(id)
129 ON UPDATE cascade
130 ON DELETE cascade,
131 share_type varchar(50) not null,
132 account_id integer not null
133 CONSTRAINT share_types_account_fk
134 REFERENCES accounts(id),
135 notes text,
136 updated_at timestamp not null default current_timestamp,
137 created_at timestamp DEFAULT 0,
138 position int,
139 CONSTRAINT share_type_csa_id_unq unique (csa_id, share_type)
140 )ENGINE=InnoDB;

Would generate an error like …

ERROR 1064 (42000) at line 124: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'CONSTRAINT share_type_csa_id_fk
REFERENCES csas(id)
' at line 4

Why line 124 when the problem is at line 128? There were other signs, too. So I did this:

:%s/\n/^M/g

and now the line breaks are good. Whew!

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Art Radio

In various on August 8, 2007 at 5:21 pm

For the first time in a decade, the FCC is opening up an application window to distribute much of the remaining Full Power FM spectrum to non-profit groups, but Free 103 is thinking about applying for a license, which is truly exciting stuff:

In October, the Federal Communications Commission will allow applications for full-power educational radio stations. free103point9 has been working with a few national non-profit groups to see if there is room on the dial in upstate New York for such a station.

We recently got back a preliminary engineering study that shows that there is room for such a station covering almost all of Greene County, and about half of Columbia County, and the very south part of Albany County. The signal reaches very close to Ulster County, especially near I-87 and the Hudson River. The cities of Cairo, Hudson, Catskill and Coxsackie are all well-covered, and the area extends all the way to Chatham and the Taconic Parkway.

That’s all the good news. The bad news is we have very little time, and need to raise a good deal of money quickly to apply for the frequency. To apply, you need to have a full-fledged engineering report done, and you need a broadcast lawyer to fill out the application (the FCC throws out applications if even one line is filled out incorrectly). This costs between $5000 and $8000.

So we are asking you to pledge whatever you can to help bring an art radio station to upstate New York. Anyone pledging money will be in on the first decisions that will shape the station. You want to do a show? No problem. You want to help decide what shows are on, and what direction the station takes, then donate now.

free103point9 will make our new Study Center in Acra, New York the studio for the station, and we want to make sure it is an important voice for local artists of all types, as well as meeting educational, journalistic and musical needs in the community.

Please e-mail Tom Roe at tr @ free103point9.org to make a pledge for whatever amount you can promise. We will only collect on the pledges if we raise enough money to pay for the engineering study and the broadcast lawyer. There’s no guarantee we will get the station just by applying — a church group or a public radio giant could be stiff competition — but we think we have a good chance and the payoff is worth the risk.

We will hold an organizational meeting for anyone interested, this Thursday, Aug. 9, at 7 p.m. at free103point9′s Wave Farm, in the Study Center, for anyone interested in helping organize these efforts. We will stream the meeting on the internet if you cannot attend in person, at www.free103point9.org.

Basically, by Aug. 15 we need to have the money raised, and get the engineers and lawyers working to meet the October deadline.

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Help Wanted

In various on April 17, 2007 at 12:49 am

Here is my suffering, laid bare for you to witness. WNYC has gone and replaced whatever moderately acceptable talkshow they had on at 8:00 PM, my cooking hour when I’m lucky enough to be home in time to cook coincident with there being groceries suitable to cook with, with the worst *(^@@#$! show ever. Seriously, I can’t imagine how Fair Game or Faith Salie could possibly suck more, unless maybe she had Howard Stern as a co-host. Faith is vapid, vacuous. She flirts ridiculously with every male guest, not just “tee hee, you’re cute” flirting but “after the show we can get butt naked and I’ll rub you up and down with some kind of sexy oil” flirting. I don’t want to hear that while I’m washing dishes, thank you all the same.

She had Kathy Sierra on last week–the woman is famous for getting death threats on her blog. Unlike Faith Salie, she is a pretty interesting person who I was sort of interested to hear from, but Faith managed to avoid asking her a single substantive question. Not one.

So for the love of my sanity, fleeting though it may be, I need your help finding me something else worth listening to at 8 PM. News, if you please.

[tags]radio,whining[/tags]

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AIRtime

In various on December 21, 2006 at 9:44 pm

How much would I love to head to the Wave Farm?

OPEN CALL:

free103point9 AIRtime residency applications due April 1, 2007

Coined by free103point9, “Transmission Arts” is defined as a conceptual umbrella that unites a community of artists and audiences interested in transmission ideas and tools utilizing the electromagnetic spectrum for creative expression. Transmission practices harness, occupy and/or respond to the airwaves that surround us. There is an inherent “liveness” to this work. In a performance-based setting, audience members are newly engaged, becoming
participants rather than passive viewers and listeners. Installation or sculptural transmission works are often dependant on the present, reacting to whatever occupies the surrounding frequencies in a single instance, or changing that information by adding new signals to the spectral environment.

The AIRtime workspace residency program at Wave Farm provides media artists with valuable space, physical and intellectual, to concentrate on new transmission works and conduct important research about the genre using free103point9′s resource library and equipment holdings.

The AIRtime program serves artists by providing space for research and creation with technical support, and audiences through the presentation of works developed during AIRtime in conjunction with free103point9′s exhibition program PETS. Selected artists and projects are invited to install long-term outdoor installations as part of free103point9′s Transmission Sculpture Garden. The
free103point9 Dispatch Series provides distribution for selected projects completed during AIRtime residencies. Artists-in-residence also interact with free103point9 Online Radio, presenting live on-air programming during their stay. free103point9 shares resources regarding preservation and archiving models with our residents. Artists are encouraged to archive recordings and other reproducible media with the free103point9 study collection.

Ten artists (or collectives) are selected from an open application each AIRtime season. Residency durations are flexible based on the schedules of participating artists, but typically last one week. The program is active July – October.
Residents are provided with a stipend of $150. Meals are provided by free103point9 as well as local transportation for supplies. One resident is on-site at a time. Both program directors are available on site during the residencies for technical assistance and critical feedback.

Artists are required to archive completed works related to their residency with the study center research collections. A performance and exhibition program from works made during this residency period will be held at Wave Farm in Oct., 2007.

For a complete list of equipment, resources, and technical support associated with the AIRtime residency program, see:

http://www.free103point9.org/airtime.php

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Listen Up (Radio Beirut)

In various on August 8, 2006 at 3:58 pm

Coming Soon: I heart Beirut stickers. For now see The Lebanon Chronicle. But first, I give you Radio Beirut. From Ziad:

A few weeks ago, prior to the war starting, I was contacted by a german public radio called Zündfunk. This lovely guy ‘Frederik’ told me that Zündfunk is the young radio show of Bayerischer Rundfunk, the Southern branch of German Public Radio (i.e. something like the German version of the BBC).

But allow me to spare you the boring details. He wanted me to prepare a program concerning new young Lebanese bands, from all types and genres, which I managed to finish, despite everything, and sent to them via a friend going to syria then egypt then paris then canada… wow!

And they got it! It will be played tonight, at 7pm germany time… please tune in if you can. the web address is http://www.br-online.de/jugend/zuendfunk/.

Just click on the black box in the middle of the screen and afterwards on “LIVE HÖREN” next to the black box. Then you have to click on the speaker. And that’s it.

much kisses. zi.

It won’t help you put the war in context, but it should be good radio. It might be over, I get confused about when tonight is. I think it is already tonight in Germany, but hopefully it’ll be archived, too?

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Reliquary Radio: Live from the Basement

In various on November 25, 2005 at 3:52 pm

If you aren’t down with the City Reliquary, you should be. They want radio from you:

Radio Pieces Wanted: We would like everyone to consider doing interviews, spoken word and/or music to the tune of: Outrageous Moving Stories, Luggage Tales, Art Moving Experiences, Driving Related Anecdotes, Gentrification Woes, A Few Words About Boxes, A List of Your Favorite Packing Materials, Interviews with people Moving in, Moving out, Moving on, Urban Myths about Craigslist for our upcoming broadcast of the WCRM Radio Show. Live from the Basement of the Reliquary, on http://www.cityreliquary.org. I’d like to have your raw audio files by next Thursday, November 24th. If you are producing your own tracks and doing your own mixing, you have a little more time and can get it to me by that weekend. Nov. 26-27th.

Please drop off CDs at the City Reliquary or email to make special arrangements. Contact Jesse James Arnold, wcrm@cityreliquary.org.
Listen: http://cityreliquary.org/wcrm

Maybe one day they’ll get on the ball about telling me this stuff before the Nonsense List comes out. Noah’s on their board, you’d think I’d get an inside track, but no.