The National Public Radio’s podcasting experiment has local affiliates biting their finger nails. ‘’If you thought that the newspaper people were in the grips of a siege mentality, you should come and see the public radio and TV people,” says Rafat Ali of PaidContent.

NPR podcasts make me happy. They made me finally get into this whole podcasting thing (not that I have a 'pod yet), because this is what I really wanted. I wanted TiVo for radio; not for the music, of course, but for the shows I listen to.

I give very generously to my local NPR station, because it is appropriate for the amount I use it, and because I support the overall mission of NPR. I'd probably split that with the podcast division if that was an option, now. And when I finish installing my wifi mp3 player in my car, even more of that would go toward NPR/podcast. Should my local affiliate be threatened -- yes. For my money, I want the NPR content, and for the local station's demographic/history/moneymaking it is about music. I gave money to WVPR when I could receive it, because in the primetime hours I was driving, they were playing Fresh Air not Jazz. I believe in the NPR model so far as I believe in public support of content... let me be selective and heck yeah the locals are in trouble. Adapt or die, and terrestrial broadcast is a dying industry.

NPR’s Podcast Problems | The Daily Om

When you search on “fred wilson” or “vc” on Yahoo! or Google, this blog is the first result on both for those search terms. I have always thought that was because those keywords appear high up on the front page of my blog (vc is in the title) and because of the large number of inbound and outbound links that this blog has accumulated in the 2 � years that I have been blogging.

But when you search on “fred Wilson” or “vc” on Ask.com, you get a whole bunch of other results. It’s basically what those search terms returned on Google or Yahoo! back in 2003 before I started blogging. So that means to me that Ask.com doesn’t seem to care much about link rank.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Because when you are searching for Fred Wilson, there is as good a chance you want the artist, chess master, or rock n roll band, as you want this blog. When you search on “vc” on Google or Yahoo!, your first link is this blog. Is that the best result for vc? I doubt it.

Text search works well enough to be useful, but it doesn’t work well.

A VC: In Search of a Better Algorithm

In getting to know Prototype a little better, I decided to go through the latest version of the Prototype library (1.5.0_pre0) and detail every method and property that was available. In doing so, I got a much better understanding of how the code works. Here are the files in a 1280x960 and a widescreen 1440x900 version.

Prototype Dissected - snook.ca

A Trading Standards officer in a town in the UK contacted the Mozilla foundation to assure it that she'd caught the icky pirates who were copying Firefox without permission. When the Mozzers explained free software and copyleft, the officer lost it -- "I can't believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case? If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted."

Boing Boing: UK anti-piracy officer assures Firefox she'll catch the pirates who copy it

It's so weird how a small black book and a nice pen can change things. Since graduating from college I have increasingly gone "all digital". No more paper, vacuum tubes, tapes etc etc. However, in this process I have tried to cram the needs of my life into a set of rather restrictive tools, at least when compared to paper. While Getting Things Done has really helped me to manage my life using digital tools, I feel that I've arbitrarily limited my own success because I never even allowed myself to consider paper as a tool for helping me. Kind of short sighted looking back.

shahine.com/omar/ - How the Moleskine Rocked My World

DAEMON Tools is a virtual cd/dvd-rom emulator. It is able to emulate nearly all known copy protections on the market today. !! THIS VERSION SUPPORTS 32BIT OS (Windows XP, Windows2003, Windows 2000, VISTA) ONLY !! This version has an option to install client-side software applications (DAEMON Tools Searchbar and Save Now) that deliver a limited number of behaviorally targeted and contextually relevant coupons, ads and comparative shopping results directly to consumers desktops - without compromising the privacy, security or smooth functioning of peoples computers! No URL hijacking or redirects! In order to support FREE distribution of DAEMON Tools we highly encourage you at least to try out this optional software! (you can remove it anytime later when you wish: via Control Panel-> Add/Remove Programs)

Most of the blurb is at least dedicated to the included Adware. At least they're honest. And apparently it is a very comprehensive tool. For a closed source solution.

- THE DAEMONS HOME

You don’t really understand the importance of backups until your hard drive crashes. With most backups, you’ll need to reinstall the operating system and then restore all of your data. OS X comes with a handy tool that will let you create a live copy of your hard drive that can be started up and run just like it is your computer.

www.digital501.com » Keeping a Hot Backup of Your Mac Hard Drive

"Fit to Command", Garrison Keillor

The way to put military service back in the picture is to pass a constitutional amendment requiring that a candidate for president have at least two years of full-time military service. It would be a boon to the country, to the military and to the young. It would confirm the importance of service. The 42-year-old governor who discovers that he wants to be president would need to go down to the recruiting office and enlist. It'd be a big moment, like when Elvis went off to basic training. Think of Newt Gingrich climbing on a bus and going off to have his head shaved and his individuality taken away and rebuilt.

The Constitution requires the president to be at least 35 and a native-born American. The current president certainly casts doubt on the worth of that native-born requirement, but never mind -- amend the Constitution and let the boys and girls of Harvard and Stanford and Yale ponder their future. You will see the Army become more representative of the country, more middle-class and educated, and when it is, it will not likely be sent so casually off to war as the blue-collar Army has been.

Salon.com | Fit to command

"I believe what will really determine the success or failure of commercial firms purchasing open source vendors is the extent to which they can keep the key developers," says Barry Strasnick, CIO at CitiStreet, a benefits management company in Quincy, Mass. "One of the main reasons that CitiStreet likes to deal with vendors such as JBoss is that our senior technical staff can deal with their technical staff, instead of having to deal with useless layers in between," he says. "We don't buy software because of fancy brochures or well-dressed sales staff. We buy software to gain benefit from great programmers."

Will major vendors dilute open source?

SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. (AP) - The sheriff said Friday he will no longer allow detectives to receive sexual services while investigating suspected prostitution after they spent $1,200 at massage parlors last month and sparked a public outcry.

Spotsylvania County Sheriff Howard Smith defended the practice as necessary to obtain a conviction but told his department he was suspending it.

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