Monthly Archives: June 2005

Friday Ark

This entry was posted in Friday Ark on by

Cats, Dogs, Spiders and ? every Friday.
We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals as I see them (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles).
Leave a comment or trackback to this post or email Modulator and we’ll add yours to the list. Check back regularly for updates throughout the day on Fridays and somewhat less frequently over the weekend.
Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings.
Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and will be hosted this week by Blog d’Elison.
And, check out Laurence’s fine graphical analysis of Friday Ark boardings.
Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.
Cats

InvertebratesDogsBirdsOther VertebratesDidn’t Make ItExceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Nielson Media

This entry was posted in Marketing Television on by

The Modulator family received a card today from Nielsen Media Research telling us

…that your household has been chosen to be a “Nielsen Family” …for a one week TV survey.

Cool. We’ll probably do this. We appreciate that they contacted in advance and, of course, their positive response rate is probably much higher than if they did not send the card.
For instance, I did not respond well to the outfit that called a couple weeks ago asking me to participate in a survey about current issues. They called while we were eating dinner and wanted to ask 80 questions. Yea, I’m going to sit there and answer 80 questions for a complete stranger and they didn’t even offer any compensation for my time.
I’m not going to ask Nielsen to pay for our time. However, their customers are not going to be real happy when our TV viewing habits are projected nationally. In the past week TV has garned 5 hours of my time and 2.5 of those were watching the PBS showing of The Grateful Dead movie a couple nights ago, .5 for the Canadian version of Antique Roadshow, 1 for 2 editions of Jeopardy and the rest for portions of the NBA finals. By the time we get set up for their survey the NBA will be done and, well, we probably won’t watch much.
On the other hand the Tour de France will have started and we’ll watch a couple hours/day.

The Company You Keep

This entry was posted in War on Terrorism on by

Often your actions do a better job of displaying your true character than your words. The same can be said for the company you keep. So if this is an accurate description of one of your allies:

…your great ally, the wonderful President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan is a weak, woman-hating, dreadful coward of a man, a friend of those who would rape to humiliate and scorn, and pillage for power and perversion.

…then what does it say about you?
Via Jaquandor.
Update: Tom Watson has current information on Mukhtaran Bibi here.

They Are All Awry

This entry was posted in Capitalism Domestic Terrorism Drug Laws Law Enforcement Libertarianism on by

The drug terrorists in action again:

Lawndale residents were on edge and Chicago police on alert Tuesday afternoon after a police officer shot a 17-year-old youth in what authorities described as an undercover drug bust gone awry.
As dozens of uniformed officers and detectives combed the crime scene in the 1800 block of South Harding Avenue, more than 75 people gathered around, many angrily protesting the shooting and shouting obscenities.
The shooting unfolded around 11:40 a.m., when an undercover officer, a member of the narcotics and gang division, attempted to make a drug buy from an unidentified 17-year-old male, Chicago police spokesman Pat Camden said.
The teen and another male signaled to the police officer that a deal would be made, Camden said. The pair led the officer to a narrow vacant lot between two houses on South Harding.
Before the transaction could be made, the youth allegedly displayed a handgun and told the officer to turn over his money, Camden said. The officer obliged, Camden said, and handed over a series of bills that had been marked by police.

Sure, the kid may have deserved being taken down for the alleged attempted theft. However, the undercover officer terrorist was attempting to entrap the victim in order to enforce unjust and immoral legislation. When those who are charged with protecting us interfer in the non-fraudulant exchange of goods and services amongst free people it time to hire someone else.

CD Copy Protection

This entry was posted in Intellectual Property Music on by

My first reaction when I read the subtitle of this San Jose Mercury News article (R)?

MAJOR LABELS TO COPY-PROTECT ALL CDS SOLD IN THE U.S.

Well, I won’t be buying any of those CDs.
Then I read the article.
It looks like the schema being proposed will allow what I consider to be plenty of copies for typical fair use requirements. We do, in the Modulator family, make mix CDs and backup copies for the car and other places with high risk of theft. As long as I can make 3-4 copies I really don’t care whether I can make 7, 8 or more copies of a CD or for that matter whether I can put a song on an IPOD (yea, I know lots of you like IPODs).
Oh, and has anyone run across any betting lines on how long before the most onerous of the copy protection schemes will be breached? If one really wants to some of the approaches appear to be rather trivial to get around.