Wednesday, April 05, 2006

I was driving back to my parent's house in NY last week and happened to turn on the radio and caught the tail end of Chris Lydon's nightly show which is carried by WNYC. When it snuck up on me like that, I was really impressed with how unusually good Chris is. He and I used to have long intense and interesting conversations driving to campaign events in New Hampshire and at dinners in Cambridge in 2003 and 2004. I used to think how strange it was to have a private conversation with NPR. It was only until I heard the Open Source program when I wasn't expecting it that I realized how unusually good he is. So many of today's NPR radio shows are patterened after his work, Chris is the original.  

I'll be back in NYC next week, the 13th through the 18th, for Passover and family stuff.  

Not sure what to make of Apple's new beta Boot Camp tool that lets you install Windows on the Intel Macs. I've read most of the commentary on it, and I don't see too many other people really excited about it. If they let you run Windows apps alongside Mac apps, I could see buying a Mac laptop to run Windows software, otherwise you can get a better deal from Dell, IBM or Sony. I don't like the Apple hype about this, where they sell against malware aimed at Windows users. Someday they're going to be fighting that battle too, and it's really poor taste to market to victims users that way. But I've never really liked Apple's arrogance, even though I use Macs, today. 

The trailer for the upcoming film United 93 has become a controversy and has been pulled a theater in New York. 

Wired: Podcasting Roils NPR Fund Raising. 

Seems like NPR is learning the fundamental law of Making Money on the Internet. "The more you send them away the more they come back." For our part, if you listen to NPR podcasts, send them money, and make sure they know you're sending it to them because they're giving you the shows you want in the form you want them.  

Scott Rosenberg patiently gives some shit to NY Times editor Bill Keller for not reading blogs, but he understands why he doesn't. As I said in December, Scott is "one smart mofo." 

Markoff: "Mr Ozzie's statement was remarkable for a chief technical officer whose company has just spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars investing in a proprietary alternative referred to as .Net." 

Two years ago today: "Before movies, records, radio and television, every town had a best singer." 

Five years ago: "I don't want to invalidate anyone's feeling of disempowerment, but there's a router error if you think I'm the Dept of Complaints for the NYC subway system."