Entries tagged with npr

Current Mood: amused

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WFNX

Listening to the radio this morning I switched to FNX a few times as NPR was shilling roses for its Valentine's Day fundraiser. I absolutely had to switch when Bob Oakes started coughing and the asshat who runs On Point, Tom Ashbrook, began chortling about how they'd been eating rose petals and Bob had eaten too many too quickly and was how coughing them up. That was incredibly disgusting imagery for me, so I switched stations quickly.

Over on FNX they were advertising their first "Goth Party". Apparently they're having a big party and playing Goth music and hoping everyone dresses for the event. The only reason I remember this is because I was quite amused by their closing statement:

No Sparkle-Vampires will be admitted.

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Movie Reviews

I like listening to the movie reviewer on NPR. I believe his name is Bob Mondello. I like him, not because of anything he says about movies or because he likes or hates what I like or hate, but because of who I think he sounds like.

I think he sounds like Mr. Peabody from the old Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon

This is not a slight, I think the qualities of his voice and the cadance in which he speaks are great for disseminating information and are fun to boot!

Normally he is delivering a review with no interaction, today I heard him being interviewed about the Oscars and was struck by another vocal similarity, he sounded quite a bit like

telepresence! The strangest thing about this is that I don't think

telepresence and Mr. Peabody sound anything alike.

Current Mood: impressed

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Neat tech

This is the first time I've ever been glad I listened to the fund-raising drivel on NPR. One of the enticements they're offering is a nifty little bit of technology.

It is a flash drive with a button and probably a microphone or perhaps just an internal clock. I'm guessing as to how this works because they certainly didn't explain it. If you're listening to NPR and you hear a story you like and want to go back to later, you push the button. When you next to go a computer, insert the flash drive and you get a list of bookmarks that will take you to the stories you wanted to listen to again or read about on-line.

I figure they're managing this in one of two ways.

They're transmitting the url during the story on a frequency you can't hear in computer code and when you press the button it records that bookmark
When you press the button it makes a note of the time and when you go on-line it matches that time to the station log to see what they were playing at the time and gives you the bookmark.

Transmission Method
- Positive
  1. Is more accurate
  2. You don't have to go to their site before you find out what the bookmarks are.
- Negative
  1. There are more technical hurdles
  2. There's more to set up and maintain
  3. Harder to move to other stations in the NPR network
Clock Method
- Positive
  1. Flash drive is simpler
  2. No transmission needed
  3. Easy to pass to other stations
- Negative
  1. More likely to have mismatches if button is pushed at end or beginning of story
  2. Must go to NPR site to see bookmarks

Either way it is a cool bit of technology. I'm hoping it uses the transmission method 'cause I think that's a little cooler.

Current Mood: annoyed

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Stupid radio

I was listening to NPR on my way to get lunch. They were talking about Michael Chrichton, who is dead. I think he was a mostly hack writer who wrote SF adventure stories. They were playing him up as a great writer who popularized science.

One of the babblers they had on, in extolling Chrichton, said "There's a lot of bad Science Fiction out there", this being the first time they're deigned to say the words "Science Fiction" and goes on to give the examples of Volcano and The Core.

I think is says quite a bit about Crichton if that's what you have to resort to to make him look good. Also, the same babbler then said "He demonstrated how dinosaurs could be cloned from ancient DNA, though it couldn't really work that way." So Crichton is just as ridiculous as the Volcano, the biggest flaw of which according to the babbler was that it had a Volcano appear where it couldn't.

I hate when they denigrate SF and extol a "mainstream" author for poorly doing what SF authors do well and hold up movies as typical SF.

Current Mood: hopeful

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Technology

This morning I heard a story on NPR about an ex-Los Alamos employee who quit an became an anti-nuke activist in 1969. In 1980 he opened a store called the Black Hole where he primarily sells surplus Engineering and Scientific equipment from Los Alamos.

Or doesn't sell, really. He runs it like an Army-Navy store and only manages to sell 1% of what he buys at the surplus auctions. He apparently has tons of scientific equipment, in great condition, some like new, sitting in a warehouse and his store. Refractometers, Centerfuges, Vaccum Butterfly valves, Oscilloscopes, Geiger counters, and so on.

I thought "Hey, you know who could use this stuff? Universities! It'd be cheaper than what they normally get and they usually operate under tight budgets."

I then thought "You know who's been telling me he occasionally needs new or replacement equipment?

jeffwik."

I just wanted to mention it in case any of you are connected to science departments at your universities.

Or if any of you wanted to start a business buying this stuff from that guy and selling it to universities.

Current Mood: angry

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One of the many reasons NPR annoys me.

I was listening to NPR this morning for a few minutes before they pissed me off too much by talking about the "tightening race" and "isn't McCain just super?"

One of the quick news bits at the top of the hour was about Palin's interview. By all accounts she was horrible, however what pissed me off this morning was the way the reporter talked about what she said. At one point he said
"Palin stated she believes humans may be contributing to global warming. In the past she's cast doubt on that."

No, she hasn't. She has no credentials, research or analysis of research where she calls anything into question. She's simply stated that SHE doubts it. This is NOT the same as "casting doubt". When it is phrased that way it implies that she's caused people studying the question to rethink their assumptions or to re-examine their data. All she's done is parrot the empty-headed must-make-money-while-destroying-mankind Right Wing. People can't be the cause or I'd have to change my business practices and that might cost me some of my obscene profits! Where am I going to get the money for my second plane and third trophy wife!?

What a load of shit. NPR has fallen off a cliff in the last decade. They've become just another corporate mouthpiece.

Entry tags:

culture,
npr

Lunchy radio

I ran out to grab lunch today and had NPR on the radio. It was that On Point or whatever with the host that has no idea what he's talking about no matter the topic. However, the topic was the increasing acceptance of tattoos in American culture and someone mentioned a statistic that according to polling, 40% of Americans have tattoos.

How many of you have a tattoo? How many considered it? Even just a little?