Saturday, February 24, 2007

Amarok for Ubuntu Linux

Amarok - Rediscover Your Music - Amarok is the music player for Linux and Unix with an intuitive interface. Amarok makes playing the music you love easier than ever before - and looks good doing it.

Amarok - rediscover your music


You know, for a long time I thought that the music support in Linux was awful.  There were no applications, most of them didn't support aac, specifically Apple's wierd m4a file extention.    But that was a few weeks ago, before I found Amarok.  This program does everything that iTunes should do.  The music suggestion system is sweet, and the integration with last.fm is great to say the least.  I was worried when I switched from Windows that I would miss a lot, but actually I'm finding new stuff that has always been out there, but that I just didn't know was there thanks to Ubuntu linux.

The best thing about Amarok is that it is so easy to set up and get going through Ubuntu, but if you want to get into more deep stuff it is right there.  Furthermore, the integration with Wikipedia is genius.  All in all, this music player is truly a 10 / 10!


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Friday, February 16, 2007

Who will get the "black" vote... There is no such thing

"Can he get any white votes?" That's the usual question asked when a black American files for a major public office like governor, senator or president. In the case of Barack Obama, a Washington Post/ABC News poll has turned that question on its head. The poll shows Hillary Clinton beating Obama among African-American voters by an astonishing 60 percent to 20 percent. When Jesse Jackson ran in 1984 and '88, his proportion of the black vote in the primaries was 80 to 90 percent. So, why the difference with Obama? The dominant theory is that, as the son of a white Kansas mother and a black Kenyon father raised mostly in the white community, Obama is not sufficiently black. We're not talking about skin color here; we're talking about a black identity. Many black Americans, such as columnist Stanley Crouch, don't consider Obama as one of their own. Said Crouch, "When black Americans refer to Obama as 'one of us,' I don't know what they're talking about."

Who will get blacks' vote? | IndyStar.com

OK, this is political and not related to technology, yet I had to say something. I think the original premise is faulty, that there is no such thing as a "black" vote. The question of whether or not Barack Obama can get "white" votes is also faulty. Just as there is no real "white" voting block, there is no real "black" voting block. African-Americans are intellegent enough, integrated enough, and diverse enough to vote for a candidate along the issues that most pertain to them. Just like European-Americans are savvy enough to vote for whichever candidate they feel voices their concerns.

Race is important, but I don't think it plays as centrally as it used to. I am an African-American who has spent equal time living in the north, south, and western United States. I have seen all types of people, and most people don't vote as a block. Ask the Republicans, they have become experts at this. If you look at 2004 and 2000, it wasn't race at all that enabled the Republicans to take total control of the governement, it was religion.

I resent that fact that political analysts still believe that they can stereotype "blacks" or "whites," or "latinos." What it really boils down to is that this is still a melting pot. When people come here, after a couple of generations, they are American. Racism does exist, but so does every other -ism you can think of. Ignorant people are always going to behave ignorantly. Even if we all were blue, the ignoramuses among us would find differences in the "blueness" of each other.

Speaking to this whole idea that Obama isn't "black" enough. That is purely ridiculous, and Hillary Clinton leading among the African-American voting segment is no suprise to me. Obama is speaking to a different class than many minorities find themselves in. This has absolutely nothing to do with race in and of itself, it has to do with access to opportunity. Hillary Clinton frequently speaks about equalizing this access to opportunity, Obama does not.

Really, the idea that someone can be blacker than someone else is insane. No one in America, unless your family has come straight from Africa, can really say that they are African. Maybe deep in your genes are some material shared with a common African ancestor, but African no. Obama is just as "black" as I am, and my family has slaves on both sides. But culturally we both have grown up with the same disadvantages, being that ignorant people would want to stereotype us, he probably more so than me. Ultimately we are both American, culturally, and that is what is important. Everyone who is "black" in America right now, except Africans, who aren't really culturally "black," is American. "Black" culture is American mainstream culture now. As soon as we all realize that we can't separate and we are stuck with each other we will be better off. There won't be a "black" nation, there won't be a "white" nation, and there won't be a "latino" nation here in America. We are all too equally represented, and too equally culturally indoctrinated.

What the real gist of the issue here is, is that we have become a rigidly stratafied class-based society; an anathema to American values. Obama represents one class, Clinton represents another class. The Republican candidates will represent yet other classes. People shouldn't buy into the "race-is-everything" myth. Classism in the U.S. is a lot more prevalent than Racisim. I'd bet that if you observed an African-American woman from the "upper-class" as she walked past a thugged out European-American on the street. She'd clutch her purse just as we are taught to belive the converse. Don't believe the hype.

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Digg leading to a more narrow world view?

Surveys show that people are not really spending more time with news. Data from the Pew Project for the People and the Press in 2006 showed that the amount of time Americans spend with news is essentially flat - even online. That's not to say that some people won't go out of their way to put together a particular news diet, but the number of people who will do that will probably be few.And maybe that's for the best. Social networking news sites such as Digg are fun to visit, but it is easy to imagine how they could quickly lead to a view of the world just as insular as that of the MSM, and maybe more so - either stuck within the preferences of the Digg crowd or the preferences of a select few Digg members whose list of "diggs" one regularly checks.It's not that there's anything wrong with that, but if your concern is being trapped by the worldview of the MSM editors, how is the worldview of the crowd on one website really better?

Have you been 'digging' the news lately? - Yahoo! News


I don't know about this.  I do agree that the end result of a site like Digg is that users only see news about what they want to see.  This has interesting implications since, i'd imagine, many Digg users are quite young.  I don't know if that is so terribly important, but there is the possibility that people will grow up completely unaware of what is happening outside their community.  I know that because we watch so much user generated media, such as YouTube, etc..., on the computer my daughter didn't understand why we couldn't just find cartoons on the TV in the same way.  Actually I don't really understand why we can't do that either.


Here's why I don't agree with the christian science monitor's assessment of Digg.  Curiosity.  Plain and simple.  As Digg adds more categories, and gets a broader demographic of users, I'd say that you will indeed end up with what is truly the public's opinion on the front page of Digg.  That could be a very interesting tool for politicians, etc.  It could also help to advance the topics of the lesser heard, at least where I live, right wing.  Not that I particulary want to hear what the right wing has to say.  It usually hurts my ears, but I feel that it is always important to understand both sides of a story, so that you won't end up arguing a point that you don't fully know about.

In many ways, I think that the christian science monitor has a point.  Right now, today, Digg will give you a very tech-heavy, left wing perspective on the news.  For me that isn't a big deal because that is what I want to hear.  However, when the right wing discovers Digg, I'll look forward to reading the comment section on some of those stories!

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Saturday, February 10, 2007

Michelin Pro2 Race Road Bike Tires

Well, I bought a pair of Michelin Pro2 race tires for a 1998/99 Allez road bike I bought from a friend. I was replacing a pair of Vittoria Zaffiros, which I have heard are one of the best suprises out there...

The pro 2 tires look like this:

The Zaffiros were great, but the problem was that they had no tread in the middle. They actually had worn to where they are flat in the middle. From what people have told me the Zaffiros resist punctures and are excellent. Well, at any rate since it was time I bought the Michelins. For one day I was in heaven. The tires had great grip and almost no rolling resistance. Then tragedy struck. I had read on the performance bike site that a heavy rider had some difficulty with the rear tire.

Well, I am heavy, well over 80 kilos. The first issue was that the tires can't be pumped up higher than 116 psi. That was OK, I don't care about a couple PSI. The Zaffiros, while much harder, are more durable and can be filled to 120 PSI. The tragedy was that I happened to roll across a piece of glass about 3/4 inch wide. The front tire, of course, was fine, the rear tire however was slashed to about 3/4 inch across the center of the tread, and the glass went into the inner tube and destroyed it. So now I have a Pro2 tire with what looks like a tiny slash in it, but is really, when pumped up, a wide gash where the tube shows through. I tried to ride it anyway, and of course I lost a innertube.

What I was upset about was that I spent $100 on two tires and one was gone. Fortunately a friend of mine told me about Mr. Tuffy. I got the Mr. Tuffies and a new Vittoria Rubino Pro rear tire. The Rubino is a great tire, it has a much larger PSI capacity at 130, and is supposedly grippier around corners. Well, I'll tell you they are not grippier than the Michelin. In fact the Rubino is downright scary in the rain. The best part is that it is scary in a predictible fashion.

I know when it will break loose. With the Mr Tuffies I felt like I couldn't get a flat. I think I'll stick with the Rubinos, even though they are a little wild in the rain.  It doesn't rain too much where I live, and in the dry they seem excellent.  I got the black on black, but I think I'll try to find the blue ones next time.  They will better match my bike.

All in all, I'd recommend the Pro2 Race tires if you are around, or less than 150 lbs, and you are in a race.  I definately wouldn't recommend them for commuting or if you weigh more than about 160 lbs.  The rear tire just won't hold up.

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Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Google getting into politics?

I know that it is imperative that Google get through to the thick skulls up in D.C. but I have to believe that they are just wasting their time.  These people think the internet is a bunch of tubes.  I don't know that Google really needs to spend their money on buying congressmen.  As soon as a law is passed, ala DMCA, technology figures out a way to skirt the law, or some Scandanavian country refuses to enforce it, thank God for northern Europe.  Without people somewhere who get that the Internet needs to remain as free and open as it can, we wouldn't stand a chance.  Technology is two steps ahead of legislation, and as long as it stays that way, the government doesn't matter.


Washington hasn't been a frequent pit stop for Google executives, but the company is trying to change that as it tangles on more issues requiring some policy savvy. The company has bulked up its lobbying operations and yesterday brought in Schmidt, who spoke before a crowd of 200 for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He held forth about the democratic nature of the Internet and how it is empowering people all over the world. Afterward, he took his message to Capitol Hill, touting Google's position on key Internet policy issues to the new Congress.

Google Still Searching For Recognition in D.C. - washingtonpost.com


However, having said that.  It would be much more helpful to innovation and development if the Government were on board.  If they understood how much greater our economic development would be without ridiculous DRM, and half-baked laws bought by Comcast.


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