Had a minor heart-attack today (not literally) as my iPod froze up and nothing I could do -- clicking the wheel in various combinations, plugging it into my iBook or the wall charger, tapping it on the desk, slapping it with the flat of my hand -- would bring it back to life.

I have all the music stored on it backed up on an external hard drive, but it would be a huge pain in the ass, not to mention an unexpected expense, to replace the iPod with a new model (even though the new models are shiny shiny, and have more storage capacity, and a color screen, and play videos; mine is the 40GB version to the right). Plus, I don't need another paperweight; I'd rather listen to the music inside.

Thankfully, after searching through Apple.com, I found a support page on how to reset the damn thing when it freezes up. I performed the magical sequence of button-pushing and switch-toggling while dancing on one foot and wearing nothing but a strategically-placed sock (not literally; there was no sock), and wonder of wonders, the iPod springeth back to life.

Whew.

Breaking radio silence briefly to relate some weird connectivity issues that maybe other Mac users out there have had.

We recently upgraded our wireless router to a Linksys Wireless-N so that we could increase security and have a faster internet connection within the house. Janet got it all set up, but my iBook wouldn't connect no matter what she did. She tried an PSK password, then a WEP password, and then no password at all, but nada. The error I got was non-specific, and no matter what I tried, it wouldn't connect. Mine is the only Mac in a house full of PC laptops, which could all get on the network with no problem.

So for a while, I plugged in directly with an ethernet cable, but that involved wheeling across the room and holding the iBook on my lap, which became very warm very fast. I only connected long enough to check email and briefly scan the f-list, but that was it. It felt extremely strange not having that instant and immediate access to teh internets, but it also forced me to focus on my writing without any of the usual distractions. And it worked: I finished two stories, "Strange Mammals" and "Air is Water is Air," 3300 words and 3800 words respectively, and they're cooling on the sill for a bit before I think about submitting them. I also got some good work done on a new novelette yesterday at Mr Tea, writing by hand in a Moleskine. Haven't touched the novel yet, but I expect to soon.

However, the weird thing is, a couple of days ago after turning on the iBook, Airport (the wireless card) asked if I wanted to join the network that Janet set up. For some reason I thought what the hell, and clicked yes. And connected. And have been connected ever since.

There weren't any updates on the iBook that I'm aware of, but the problem seems to have worked itself out. Very strange.

Okay, going back into my hole now...

1. "The Great Plastic Bag Plague" by Tara Lohan at AlterNet. We are drowning in a sea of plastic bags, and some of the statistics here are just mindboggling: "The Algalita Marine Research Foundation learned that 'broken, degraded plastic pieces outweigh surface zooplankton in the central North Pacific by a factor of 6-1. That means six pounds of plastic for every single pound of zooplankton.' Which means, when birds and sea animals or looking for food -- more often, they are finding plastic."

2. the_flea_king introduces us to Dr. Julius T. Roundbottom at the exquisite new site Clockpunk.com (syndicated at dr_roundbottom). Jeremy has outdone himself once again with the presentation and content here, whish is just amazing, and pushes all of my geeksquee buttons.

3. "It's capitalism or a habitable planet - you can't have both" by Robert Newman at Guardian Unlimited (via willshetterly). This opinion piece is over a year old, but still an interesting and timely read. You'll have to decide for yourself if he's right.

4. MonkeyBrain Books is having a September two-for-one sale. "Buy any book direct from us through www.monkeybrainbooks.com at the regular price, and receive another book of equal or lesser value free of charge." And they take PayPal. The new Hal Duncan novella, Escape From Hell! is looking mighty tempting...

5. Keepon, the squashy yellow dancing robot, dances to Spoon's "Don't You Evah." Awesome. Cute dancing robots and music by Spoon; what more do you need?

A question for those Mac-inclined of you out there:

I've just started using iCal since I'm now needing to actually write down events again, and want to be able to sync the calendar with my iPod so that I can refer to it on the go. Does anyone know if using iSync to move the information over will delete any of my music on the iPod? I have much more music on the iPod than the iBook (and have turned off the automatic syncing between the two in iTunes) because the iPod has a much bigger storage capacity, but I don't want to lose my tunes if I use iSync.

Help? Anyone?

I'm not sure how long this has been on the Apple website, but Steve Jobs has written and posted a detailed report on the company's environmental practices, called "A Greener Apple." He talks about removing toxic chemicals from the various electronics and housings that make up Apple's products, as well as their aggressive recycling efforts. He also compares Apple's practices with Dell and HP, making it seem as if Apple comes out on top.

I haven't done the legwork, but I am curious about non-biased research into this. I'd heard previously that Apple was actually on the low end of corporate electronic environmental practices, and so this information is a pleasant surprise (if true).

Although I have to say that when my iBook battery was recalled earlier this year (because of heat issues), I went to the Apple store at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh, and it took several minutes to explain to the clerk why I was returning the old battery to be recycled, and another several minutes to confirm that they actually did such a thing. He was surprised that I would want to recycle the battery, since I'd gotten a replacement in the mail, and I wondered afterward if it was actually recycled or if he decided not to bother with all the paperwork and effort and just throw it in the bin.

Just an anecdotal example, but if what Jobs says is true, Apple also needs to educate their store employees about this as well.

Rolling Stone reports that Nine Inch Nails has initiated an unusual way to promote their new science-fictional concept album Year Zero:

It is no longer 2007. According to Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero mania sweeping the internation, we’re almost three months into -15 BA (Born Again). In the semi-terrifying world of Trent Reznor’s new future-based concept album, the year 2022 is Year Zero, the year we were “Born Again.” Every 12 months prior to Year Zero is denoted by negatives, thus 2007 is -15 BA. If this confuses you, give up now.

In what has to be the most innovative promotion scheme since the leaked sex tape, NIN have treated their fans to a sort of Where’s Waldo game that includes tour merchandising, a dizzying network of websites and, umm, bathrooms in European concert halls. We’d be lying if we said we weren’t checking echoingthesound, the main fan checkpoint, every hour to see what the latest update is.

In case you’ve been living under a rock (without internet), let us catch you up:

It all started with a NIN tour T-shirt. An overeager fan realized that the bolded letters on the back formed a phrase: iamtryingtobelieve, which if you add a .com to the end of it, takes us to the first piece of the puzzle. Here, we learn about the drug Parepin, which has been added to the water supplies of Orlando as protection against similar acts of bio-terrorism against Los Angeles and Anaheim in 2009 (or -13 BA…try to keep up). This site speculates whether Parepin is a medium for the government to control the minds of its citizens.

[...]

Throughout NIN’s European tour, members of whatever all-star marketing squad is behind all this have been leaving USB drives in random concert venues. The drives are filled with new NIN songs (”My Violent Heart” and “Me, I’m Not”), cryptic mp3s and pictures visible only via spectrographs. These files if deciphered correctly also provide us playing the game with the next clue/website.

Want to know if your bathroom is going to be raided? Those ingenious posters at echoingthesound have discovered that every time a pixel blob appears next to one of the songs listed here, you should hit the toilets early for a chance of grabbing one of these drives.

This reminds me a lot of the Alternate Reality Games that Sean Stewart was involved with to promote the film A.I. and the video game Halo 2. I wonder if he has a hand in this as well.

Cory Doctorow has contributed a new piece to Salon, called Steve Jobs' iTunes dance, in which he discusses the horribly crippling DRM that Apple applies to its products:

If you rip your own CDs and load them onto your iPod, you'll notice something curious. The iPod is a roach motel: Songs check in, but they don't check out. Once you put music on your iPod, you can't get it off again with Apple's software. No recovering your music collection off your iPod if your hard drive crashes. What's more, Apple prevents copying indiscriminately. You can't copy any music off your iPod. Apple even applies the no-copying measure to audio released under a Creative Commons license (for example, my own podcasts), which prohibits adding DRM. The Creative Commons situation is inexcusable; because Creative Commons licenses are machine-readable, iTunes could automatically find the C.C.-licensed works and make them available for copying back to your computer.

This news absolutely made my stomach drop. Before selling all my CDs, I ripped them to my iBook, and then transferred them to the iPod; once the number of files started getting huge (over 5,000), I began deleting many of them from the laptop, figuring that if I needed to, I could just copy them back from the iPod (though I did keep some on the iBook, about 400 or so). After reading this, I tried it yesterday, and Cory is absolutely right about his roach motel metaphor: I could move music to the iPod, but I couldn't get it back off. If my iPod gets damaged, or if I ever want to upgrade to a new model, I'm screwed, my songs are stuck there.

And so there needs to be something we can do to pressure Jobs to put his words -- offering to embrace a DRM-free music-sales environment "in a heartbeat," if only the big four music companies would let him -- into action, that it's not just lip service and passing the blame to the music industry (although they have a lot to account for as well). If I had transferred the music as MP3 files (or even as AAC files) via normal file transfer instead of through iTunes, I'd still be able to access them and copy them back if I needed to, and I could kick myself for not knowing about this sooner.

From Nelson's Weblog:

Did you know that for years Google has been keeping a record of every search you do? And did you know they're now associating your search history with your Google login for other services like Gmail, Calendar, and the like? Surprise! It's Search History. And now it's being used to personalize your search results.

I don't like Google aggregating this data about me. It is possible to opt out. You can turn off search history recording in the settings page. You can also edit your history, including removing it entirely.

It's still unclear to me exactly when Google started recording these histories under account names. Six tech savvy friends I asked all found they had some sort of history on Google going back as far as eighteen months. Only half of them remember having turned on some personalization feature that would have resulted in that history being collected. A seventh friend who is scrupulous about cookies and logins had no history. He regrets that his privacy concerns keep him from using Google Reader.

I believe search history defaults on for new accounts, so 99% of Google users will have this feature. Probably 98% of them won't even know that their every search is being recorded, associated with their name.

Spread the word.

All right, I may be making this more complicated than it needs to be, but I have a question for you tech-savvy world travelers out there.

The only electrical equipment I'll be taking to Singapore is my iBook and iPod (which is hard to believe, looking at all the appliances we have now, and which we'll be getting rid of). The problem, of course, is outlet size. In the US, we use 120V plugs, with either two prongs, or two prongs plus a grounding pin. Singapore uses 240V plugs, that uses either of these two plugs:

     

Since I'm not going to be using any other US electrical devices, I don't believe I'll need to shell out for a general purpose voltage converter. Though I may have to go this route if I can't find what I'm looking for.

Apple sells a nifty World Travel Adapter Kit, but it's a bit pricey at US$39, and comes with six plugs, which is five too many. Both the iBook and iPod come with AC adapters that can handle up to 240V (if I'm reading the literature correctly), so if I could find something like what's offered in the travel adapter kit, something that can just slot into my regular AC adapters, that would be the ideal. I've been scouring eBay, craigslist, and the rest of teh internets today, and though I've found chargers with the above plugs solely for the iPod, I've come up empty on a plug for the iBook.

So basically, what I'm looking for is one (or both) of these guys:



Can anyone help?

I'm selling my SEGA CDX console along with 24 video games. If you're interested, marrael set up the eBay auction tonight, with a starting bid of US$25. Here are the relevant details:

SEGA Genesis CDX + over 20 games!
Platform: SEGA Genesis CDX
Condition: Used
Bundled Items: Accessories, Games

You are bidding on a SEGA Genesis CDX game system with accessories and 24 games! Everything in excellent condition. This is a highly sought-after system because of its rarity and collectible value. The CDX can play both SEGA Genesis and SEGA CD games, as well as music CDs. The CDX is in excellent working condition. Included in the auction are all of the accessories included in the original box, as well as a six-button joystick for fighting games.

Here is a detailed, itemized description of what you are bidding on:

1. SEGA Genesis CDX unit
2. 6-button arcade pad
3. 6-button Fighter Stick SG-6
4. Stereo AV cable
5. AC power adapter
6. 3 bundled SEGA CD games (Ecco the Dolphin, Sonic CD, and SEGA Classics Arcade Collection)
7. 21 separate games, including manuals (see below)

Here is the list of the 9 SEGA Genesis games that are part of this auction:

1. Altered Beast
2. Asterix and the Great Rescue
3. Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble
4. Clay Fighter
5. The Lion King
6. Mortal Kombat
7. Super Street Fighter II
8. Terminator 2
9. Vectorman

Here is the list of the 12 SEGA CD games that are part of this auction:

1. Bram Stoker's Dracula
2. Double Switch
3. Dragon's Lair
4. Earthworm Jim
5. Eternal Champions
6. Lethal Enforcer (with "Justifier" game gun)
7. Microcosm
8. Mortal Kombat
9. Samurai Showdown
10. Space Ace
11. Stellar Fire
12. Time Gal

System, accessories, and all games are in excellent condition!

Comes from a non-smoking home.

There is no reserve for this auction.

US bidders only, please. Shipped from Raleigh, NC.

Paypal is preferred.

Via Bruce Sterling, Gina M. Scott writes about a new technology appropriate for those of us who like to bring our laptops to the coffee shop, in "Sounds Spooky, but Just Might Save Your Data":

You sit down at your favorite coffee shop, take out the trusty laptop and start working. Your mocha is ready up front and you walk over to the counter to pick up your morning joe. When you turn around there is a big empty spot on the table where your laptop was.

Enter the DeadMan's Handle. Though this may sound like a spooky Halloween decoration made to frighten children, it just might save your identity from would-be thieves. A dead man's switch or handle is a failsafe designed for streetcars, trains and subways. In case the train operator becomes incapacitated the switch would cause the train to slow down or stop. Similar switches can be found on some lawnmowers, stopping the blade when let go by the operator. The British company DeadMan's Handle has designed such a failsafe for laptops.

According to John Brazier, director of DeadMan's Handle, more often the not, laptop thieves are after hardware and stumble upon information. DeadMan's Handle is designed to delete secure information in the event a laptop is stolen. If a stolen laptop has the failsafe program the thief will walk away with a working laptop but will have "no idea there was anything of value on it." DeadMan's Handle "not only deletes the data, but also stops the thief from looking for more information - the laptop looks boring, and gets sold," explains Brazier.

Kind of an extreme solution, but an interesting one if you happen to keep sensitive information on your laptop. Me, I just take the iBook up to the counter or into the bathroom with me, but I'm super-paranoid about this kind of stuff.

Another yay for Singapore (via Boing Boing), "Singapore: One nation under Wi-Fi":

By the end of the year, it will be possible to roam almost anywhere in Singapore and get a wireless signal.

As part of its Intelligent Nation 2015 program, the island nation will be able to boast of countrywide Wi-Fi coverage in a few months, Bill Chang, executive vice president of wireless service provider SingTel, said in a recent interview.

"At the end of the year, Singapore will be one mega hot spot," he said. "They are breaking Singapore into three regions and looking at ways to maximize coverage."

The country had a pretty good head start. The official report released with the unfurling of the Intelligent Nation program pointed out that Singapore already had one public hot spot for every square kilometer at the end of last year. Communication between hot spots will be augmented by mesh networking, according to the Intelligent Nation report. Commercial WiMax--a wireless standard that allows signals to travel over longer distances than those using Wi-Fi--will begin in Singapore by the end of the year, said Chang.

The Intelligent Nation program, officially unveiled last year, seeks to make Singapore a global leader in communications technology in a decade. The country doesn't have the large domestic market, manufacturing base or low costs of places like India and China, so the idea is to focus more on industries with a large intellectual property component, similar to what South Korea and Israel are doing. The program is backed by various government subsidies and incentives.

From Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing:

"UN cooking podcast-killing treaty"

The UN's World Intellectual Property Organization has reconvened to discuss a treaty to kill innovative Internet audio/video offerings -- like podcasting, YouTube, Google Video, and Democracy Player -- in order to protect the business models of a few entrenched broadcasters. This is the Broadcast Treaty, and the process -- never pretty -- got uglier than ever today.

The Chairman of this treaty committee has colluded with the US to bring this treaty to the Web, and to be sure that it contains a clause that will give DRM even more mandatory protection than it enjoys today. As the committee reconvened today, the Chairman revealed that he'd gone even further in giving the US what it wants, at the expense of the will of the rest of the world, particularly developing nations like Brazil.

Virtually the entire world has opposed the extension of the broadcast treaty to the Web. Giving people who host Web-based audio/video a 50-year monopoly over the use of the copies they send out is just plain nuts. The Web is full of Creative Commons licensed material, public domain material, and other material that either no one owns, or has been expressly licensed for free re-distribution. The US has carried water for Microsoft and Yahoo, both of whom see a webcasting provision as an easy way of keeping competition from overtaking their video offerings. Even the head of the US Copyright Office agrees that the world hates this idea.

"Worker-owned co-op phone company"

Telekommunisten is a new virtual phone company -- a company that hosts your voicemail, call-forwarding, automated attendant, conference bridges, and provides cheap long-distance rates -- run as a worker-owned co-op by international development activists in Montreal and Berlin. They use the proceeds to fund international development projects like coordinating post-Katrina relief efforts and working with refugees in Europe.

From AlterNet:

"Bush's Nuclear Madness" by Joshua Holland

George W. Bush has a vision for a strong, independent nuclear America. He wants nuclear weapons for everyday use -- deterrence is for Democrats -- and he wants to build dozens of new nuclear energy plants across the United States.

He'll also ship thousands of tons of nuclear waste across the country, first to a huge storage facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev. But that will only contain a little more than what we already have sitting around. We'll need nine more Yuccas by the end of the century if Bush's plans go through.

Filling the one we already have means shipping highly radioactive waste through 44 states -- coming within a half mile of 50 million Americans. The most toxic, deadly substances known to humanity would pass through Boston, Baltimore, Newark and Miami.

"Faking It: How America Lost Politics," an interview with Joe Klein by Onnesha Roychoudhuri

OR: Can you explain the title, Politics Lost?

JK: The politics that's been lost is the spontaneity and humanity that politicians often stumbled into in the past. You don't see that so much anymore. I'm not saying that there was a Golden Age of politics, but there were individual cases of politicians who really had heart like Robert Kennedy and Harry Truman.

OR: Can you give an example of a politician stumbling upon humanity?

JK: When I was a senior in college, Robert Kennedy was just beginning his presidential campaign. Martin Luther King was assassinated, and Kennedy had a rally scheduled in the inner city of Indianapolis that night. When he landed in Indianapolis, the police chief told him not to go in there, and that he wouldn't be protected by the police if he did. His staff told him not to do it, but he did. They handed him talking points, but he rejected them. He wanted to speak from his own heart.

These were the days before cell phones, and the crowd gathered didn't know that Martin Luther King was dead. He has to tell them. He tells them, and when you listen to the recording, you hear the most remarkable sounds of anguish that human beings can muster. Kennedy calms them down, and at the climax of his speech, he quotes Aeschylus to this unbelievably angry, poor, frustrated and undereducated crowd. Seventy-six cities went up in flames in the next few days, but not in Indianapolis.

From MoveOn.org:

Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an iPod? These activities will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law that gives giant corporations more control over the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. Amazon.com doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.

Politicians don't think we are paying attention to this issue. Many of them take campaign checks from big telecom companies and are on the verge of selling out to people like AT&T's CEO, who openly says, "The internet can't be free."

The free and open Internet is under seige--can you sign this petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Network Neutrality? Click here.

A list of all the ways you might be affected by Net Neutrality is located on the bottom of this page.

Thanks!

[JEL: And please pass this message on throughout the blogosphere.]