The LNN Experimental Feed

Network Mast

LISNews Netcast Network — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:50:34 -0500

Program	Feed Reader/Podcatcher Target	E-mail Subscription Option	One-Click iTunes Target
Hyperlinked History Presented by Great Western Dragon/The Faceless Historian	Link on Feedburner	E-mail service provided by Feedburner	iTunes Music Store
LISTen: An LISNews.org Podcast Presented by Stephen Michael Kellat	Link on Feedburner	E-mail service provided by Feedburner	iTunes Music Store
Tech for Techies Presented by Michael J. Kellat	Link on Feedburner	E-mail service provided by Feedburner	iTunes Music Store
All Network Programs	Link on Feedburner	E-mail service provided by Feedburner	iTunes Music Store

LISTen: An LISNews.org Podcast -- Episode #94

LISNews Netcast Network — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:29:33 -0500

Some weeks are slow for news. We would be remiss, though, if we did not note that LISNews crossed the 10th anniversary threshold last week. A zeitgeist review and a miscellany of stories are presented this week.

Preparatory Compliance Statement -- 7 November 2009

LISNews Netcast Network — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:38:12 -0500

Preparatory to 1 December 2009 when new scrutiny will be paid by the Federal Trade Commission to new media outlets, it is necessary and proper to discuss where the promotional ads and other such material airing presently on LISTen originate. This relates to anti-payola measures that the federal government is taking. As the program is produced within the territory of the United States of America, Federal Trade Commission jurisdiction is certain.

As a matter of habit the first promotional item aired each week is a segment from Profile America. Profile America is an audio segment produced by the United States Department of Commerce through its Census Bureau. Profile America highlights facts from American history and is distributed without cost or payment to radio stations across the United States. Not only does Erie Looking Productions receive no compensation for airing Profile America as part of LISTen, the LISNews Netcast Network and LISHost additionally receive no compensation. Pieces from Profile America are aired as they highlight matters of national pride and national history from the United States of America where the primary air staff holds citizenship.

From time to time, a promotional piece from the Linux Outlaws is also aired. As with Profile America, nobody within any of the applicable chains of command receives compensation for airing that piece. The promotional piece by Dan Lynch and Fabian Scherschel, citizens of European Union member states, is aired by choice of the air staff to highlight a new media production that they think does good work that the audience of LISTen might also be interested in.

Other promotional materials from agencies and instrumentalities of the United States Government are also aired from time to time without compensation or cost. Such pieces are chosen typically based upon either current events or to highlight bad examples of public relations that should not be emulated by librarians. Many of these are presented as continuing examples so that librarians can have models from which to build their own public service announcements.

Questions or comments in regards to this can be directed to the Head of Business & Finance at Erie Looking Productions at erielookingproductions@gmail.com.

Preparatory Compliance Statement -- 7 November 2009 by Stephen Michael Kellat is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at erielookingproductions.info.

LISTen: An LISNews.org Podcast -- Episode #93

LISNews Netcast Network — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:29:23 -0500

This week's episode of LISTen features an interview with the CEO of the Openmoko Team, Sean Moss-Pultz, about their WikiReader off-line portable device project. A brief discussion of the SirsiDynix-WikiLeaks matter also arises.

24 Months of LISTen

LISNews Netcast Network — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:14:50 -0500

In 2007 in early November, the idea behind LISTen: An LISNews.org Podcast was proposed and approved. Over the course of November 2007 preparations were made for what has become a program that has spanned over ninety episodes. LISTen's third year of operations begins on 7 December 2009 when Pearl Harbor is also commemorated.

It has been an interesting run including a shift in operating base across the continent of North America. This was caused by the split into two parts of the operating base of Erie Looking Productions. Staff are now split between southern Nevada and northeast Ohio until June 2010 at the earliest.

Nobody knows what tomorrow may bring. Let's go forth boldly and make some history!

24 Months of LISTen by Stephen Michael Kellat is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at erielookingproductions.info.

Intermingling Issues

LISNews Netcast Network — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:37:41 -0400

The American Library Association's President issued a statement on the new FCC net neutrality proceeding. The text is available from the FCC web site in PDF form relative to what the Commission is proposing.

School Library Journal ran a piece in the matter. The story included extraneous issues that are not being dealt with in the net neutrality proceeding by the FCC but in other dockets. For those participating in FCC proceedings, the Commission normally rebukes commenters who raise extraneous issues outside a particular docket's scope unless there is good cause for the matter to come up. The hub for speed issues but not net neutrality issues is at Broadband.gov.

LISTen, one of the LISNews podcasts, talked about the net neutrality proceeding in its most recent episode. While the discussion is brief it does discuss what was not an FCC decision but rather the start of a process.

LISTen: An LISNews.org Podcast -- Episode #92

LISNews Netcast Network — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:27:49 -0400

This week's episode talks about two proceedings before the Federal Communications Commission that librarians have an interest in. Other notable headlines are also discussed.

LISTen: An LISNews.org Podcast -- Episode #91

LISNews Netcast Network — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:36:15 -0400

This week's episode contains an interview with web celeb Cali Lewis about blogging today and recent rumblings from the Federal Trade Commission about disclosures bloggers must make.

LISTen: An LISNews.org Podcast -- Episode #90

LISNews Netcast Network — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:48:03 -0400

This week the podcast originates from our Ohio team. First up is a miniature installment of Tech for Techies where we discuss why you should not take LISTen #89 as a blueprint for your own endeavors. After that there is discussion of Google Books, Google Groups, and "Institutional Attention Deficit Disorder". The episode wraps up with a multi-faceted business statement.

An Ill Wind Blows

LISNews Netcast Network — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:46:37 -0400

7 October 2009

There is a film titled "A Mighty Wind". It is a great film in the genre of the mockumentary. Unfortunately this piece is not about that film. Instead we get to talk about mighty winds.

Overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, northeast Ohio was battered with high-velocity winds. Wind gusts were estimated at points around forty-five miles per hour. Rain was scattered. Branches were felled by this mighty wind. This was something that would lead into something worse.

I was already woke up once by the whistling winds outside my bedroom windows. After I caught another two hours of sleep, I woke up to find a lack of power. The first priority, though, was to secure down the facility in light of the winds. This meant running around locking up the barn, checking on the corn crib that doubles as the "cat house" and more. The barn cats were no dummies and seemed to fly inside as soon as a door was opened.

After waiting a while in case the power outage was transient, we departed for somewhere with power. This part of Ohio has two seasons: "snow" and "not snow". It was getting cold and when we called the outage in to First Energy we were not even given an estimated time of restoration.

The outage pointed out some problems. First and foremost, my battery-operated transistor radio worked fine. I could hear WWOW's morning program just fine. The time signal on shortwave from WWV was still audible. Computers in the house were fancy-looking door stops. Laptop batteries have a particular mean time between failure and unfortunately some batteries were miserable failures. Desktops could not be fired up without electricity. The Apple portable media player had a decent battery charge but it was preserved for as long as possible.

While we went driving, we saw what looked to be part of the problem. Kingsville Township Volunteer Fire Department was out responding to a downed electrical line. The line was sparking and the field it was being buffeted around in due to the high winds bore scorch marks from the fires it started. This felt all too reminiscent of the huge outage in 2003 that covered a significant chunk of the northeastern United States as well as the Canadian province of Ontario. In that case a tree that fell started a cascade that wiped out power to many.

For librarians, this presents some interesting points. While the data cloud might be proposed to be a great tool, it would have been a miserable failure in the face of a power outage. If a Kindle were possessed on the farm it would have been useless for downloading as Sprint has no coverage at the farm. Although news was just released that AT&T will be eventually providing data coverage for Kindles, that would still not help here. Power had to be shepherded in battery operated devices as there was no way to know when service would be restored. That would wipe out any hope of mobile broadband or similar backstops for accessing the cloud. Thankfully the backup power supplies at the cell towers were intact long enough to call in outage reports but I would not have pushed my luck in seeking data through those means.

This was a case where books won out. Candlelight or the light from a hurricane lamp would be sufficient provided I could find my glasses. Analog tools like that did not need power to operate and would have carried through.

Fortunately the outage only lasted a few hours and service was restored for us by the early evening. Not everybody in northeast Ohio affected by this have seen service restored yet. This does leave an issue for librarians to ponder. While issues like irregular power are normally thought of as things happening to the poor abroad, what happens when the homeland does not seem as impervious to such problems? How do you plan effective information access over digital means in light of such?

An Ill Wind Blows by Stephen Michael Kellat is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.