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Emmersive Sci-Fi Podcast “The Leviathan Chronicles”

July 16th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Entertainment, Lifestyle, Technology, Tidbits, books, iTunes

The audio book has long been a literary tradition pretty much since the first years of audio recording. When radio became widespread, serial-format shows were often broadcast in the eveningLeviathan2s after most American families had finished dinner and were settling down.

Now, we listen to broadcasts in all sorts of ways: iPods, streaming audio, the radio, satellite radio, or via a subscription online such as a podcast (which can in turn be played on an iPod or in iTunes or another audio player).

The serial-format radio drama still exists today! A neat one I recently discovered called “The Leviathan Chronicles” is divided up into chapters, available as episodes of a podcast online.

From what I can tell from the first chapter, it appears to be about a Chinese and an American sub that wind up in the same trench at the same time. An accidental firing sets off some sort of an energy pulse below the surface of the ocean. A year later, a government agent is called in to investigate what happened, because the signal from under the ocean was answered… from space.

So far, the presentation is pretty engaging. The background audio sounds like the ocean up against the outside of a sub wall, so you feel like you’re actually listening in inside a submarine. Also, instead of just a straight read-through, there are actors reading the lines of the characters, and a sexy female British voice reading the narration.

Sponsored by Leviathan Chronicles

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The Dark Knight in Theaters Friday

July 14th, 2008 | 3 Comments | Posted in Entertainment, Hollywood, movies

The latest installment of the newest Batman re-telling hits theaters this Friday, July 18th! Heath Ledger is being nominated for a posthumous Oscar for his performance as the Joker, Christian Bale is back as the new Batman, Michael Caine returns as Alfred, and Morgan Freeman makes his short appearance as Gadget Guy (I can’t be bothered with silly things like research).

Several viral marketing sites attempt to bring depth to the new movies, with sites like WhySoSerious.com and IBelieveInHarveyDent.com letting visitors “in” to the Gotham City world.

I don’t know about any of you, but as excited as I was about the new Joker, I’m doubly excited about seeing Aaron Eckhardt as Harvey Dent, aka Two Face! Some photos are “leaked” around the internet of what he looks like post-accident, but I think they’re all photoshopped forgeries. If you pause the Hi-Def version of Trailer 4 on the scene with Harvey Dent holding a gun beside his face, you can see where he’s been burned around the edges, especially near his chin, and his suit is strikingly different on the side that’s barely visible.

My original impression was that we’d meet Harvey Dent in this film, and then see him turn into Two-Face later, but now it looks as though we may see a Two-Face by Friday’s new release!

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American Beer Giant Budweiser Bought By Belgium Company

July 14th, 2008 | 4 Comments | Posted in Beer, Business, Daily Life, Entertainment, Lifestyle, alcohol

Look, I’m not one to drink Budweiser unless there’s just nothing else around. It tastes like pisswater and makes you feel full and bloated. It’s generally not the smoothest thing in the world.

But this morning on both NPR and WNOX Knoxville’s Talker I heard that they were bought in an almost 50 billion dollar deal with InBev, a Belgium-owned beverage company that produces Stella Artois. InBev claims that none of the US breweries will be shut down, and St. Louis, Missouri will still be the headquarters of the North American region of the company.

The big debacle seems to be that Budweiser, or Anheuser-Busch, is perceived as an all-American beer and by selling out to a foreign company, they’re somehow letting America down. This is also on the brink of the news that the SABMiller Corporation and Molson Coors Brewing will be merging their two U.S. corporations. The man on the radio this morning made a good point though - it’s all about doing what’s best for the shareholders. At the end of the day, they don’t care what America thinks about the deal because they’ve already gone home with the big pay check.

Another caller on the WNOX show stated that Budweiser was America, like apple pie or baseball games or Chevy, or beatin’ your kids with a belt, or living in a trailer… you get the point. I think what everyone is missing is that nothing’s really going to change. If you like Budwieser beer, keep drinking it. It’s going to keep on tasting the same. At the end of the day, the brew is still made in America, still made by American people, and still keeps workers in jobs. The big difference is the profits all go to Belgium.

If that bothers you, then stop drinking it. Support local microbreweries by drinking their brews instead. They probably taste better anyway. Or try out Sam Adams - they have a huge selection of flavors to choose from, and they’re as American and patriotic as it gets for big beer business.

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Crack Up with Cracked.com’s Craptions

July 9th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Entertainment, Technology

I know you’re going to curse me even more for this, but if you think LOLCats from ICanHasCheezburger.com are hilarious, you should check out Cracked.com’s “Craptions,” a user-powered humorous captioning site.

Every day, Cracked.com’s team of mentally-screwed up monkeys posts a new odd picture, and the community submits and votes on the most hilarious caption. Every photo also has a link to the “less funny Craptions” so you can see who didn’t win.

I’ve been looking at this site off-and-on for two days now, and I think sites with that kind of “stickiness” are great to bookmark. They have a big selection of archives too, so you can go back and see the previous “Craptions.”

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Bye Bye, DRM - Hello Manageable Music!

Since the legitimate sales of digital music downloads began, record labels and recording artists have been looking for ways to protect their intellectual (ha, if you can call it that) property. Copyright law alone was not enough to enforce rights protection, so before many would let their music be sold online, they required a system to prevent copying and distribution.

That’s where Digital Rights Management (or DRM) came in to play. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or DMCA) was passed in the United States, making the circumvention of any digital or electronic system designed to prevent copy or distribution of works illegal and prosecutable with huge fines. These DRM systems qualified under the DMCA, and that made the RIAA and MPAA very, very happy.

Unfortunately, there was no standard on DRM, and so each online retailer of digital media invented their own proprietary system. This lead to issues with media not being accessible on all PC platforms, mobile devices, or other arguably Fair Use methods of enjoying your purchased content.

As a result, more people turned to illegally downloading content to get higher-quality, DRM-free media that could be played (or at least converted to play) virtually anywhere. Also, the delivery times from Peer2Peer networks was faster, and often lead to movies and music being leaked before their official release.

From a marketing perspective, what was the community at large saying about how it wanted its media? Free is obviously nice, but people know free either means advertising or lack of legality. Some labels and artists and film studios started to realize that customers want media fast, in high-quality, early releases, and they want to be able to enjoy that media on anything that will play it.

iTunes led the way towards the DRM-Free movement with higher-quality iTunes Plus music unencumbered by DRM or other restrictions. They have by no means released the entire iTunes Store in this format, but offer many artists already. Amazon followed up next by making their entire store DRM-Free mp3 format downloads. And just recently, Rhapsody joined the pack by offering DRM-Free downloads on a per-track basis.

Also, Verizon Wireless is jumping on the bandwagon by partnering with Rhapsody, and will soon allow VCast customers to download music from Rhapsody DRM-Free, by way of a $15 / month subscription for the music rental, or a per-track purchase just as you would from Rhapsody’s program on the PC.

Will DRM-Free music turn more “pirates” into legitimate customers? Will you purchase music, video, etc. that you’ve previously downloaded from Peer2Peer networks? What devices do you use to play your media besides your computer? Let me know in the comments.

-The Raging Tech

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