Deserves Another Round of Eyeball Time

Sure, it's a year or so old, but it still kicks over the smirkbox:

From xkcd.  permalink

Slate: Don't Count AM/FM Out Yet

Link to article.

Haven't even finished reading it yet, but (a) I've got to get to work, and (b) everyone else interested in radio is linking to it, so I might as well too.  Will comment on its contents later.
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Later comment:  Here's the key quote from the article:

"... we still made more money before lunch today than Pandora has made in its entire history.”

Yes, that does sum things up nicely.  Now if the terrestrial radio industry will start working on improving content, they'll do fine.  It does kind of whiff of the U.S. auto industry circa 1971 though.  Things are still profitable, and there's time and capital to turn this ship around, but they'd better get their butts to work.

Weekend in the Woods

... camping with the ham club.  Didn't bring a bike, had lots of help setting things up.  You ever go camping one-handed?  Everything has an extra little chore component to it, but it's still fun.  Managed not to impede further healing of the collarbone and the fresh air did me a lot of good.

More later.  Soon.

(Sorta) New Buffett Album

"Songs from St. Somewhere" – meandering songs about surfing physicists, a rock-out duet with Toby Keith about being too drunk to karaoke, another tune about Katrina insurance money....  If it's not precisely my life, it does at least scoop up some friends and acquaintances along the way.

Good stuff, recommended.

But it's been out for a year and a half.  How did I miss this?  Just been too busy breaking things, I guess.

Two New Books

The cover pages show their obvious appeal:

The plonking sound you hear is these two firmly landing in my Amazon cart.  Expect more commentary on them here next month, however in the meantime you can read an interview with the author over at Bicycle Times.

As for the bacon diet, while I'm not exactly sure of what's in the book, I suspect that it's similar to what I've been doing since late August, which has me down by 16 lbs to date and has pretty well cured my asthma.  Still, I'm going to get and read it.  If for no better reason, it just looks like a fun read.

Finding Good, Cheap Food in The Atlantic

The magazine, not the ocean.  This isn't an article on seafood.  Anyway, here's the article, written by an economist, on how to maximize your return on restaurant-spent dollars.  Interesting bag of tricks.

BTW, hat tip to the Darling Daughter for sending this and the article blogged on Saturday about the benefits of coffee.

Digital Broadcast Radio Sample

Here's the sample page, from Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM).  Most of the stations on the displayed map have two buttons, one for ordinary AM and one for DRM.  Of particular interest is the pair in the lower right hand corner, showing what is possible at a very low bit rate over a very noisy propagation path.  Go over there and click around for a few minutes.

Some comments...

(1) When are we in the U.S. going to push this non-functional withering-on-the-vine IBOC hybrid standard overboard and get serious about digital signals on the current AM broadcast band?

(2) We're so far off the back on in this field that even Pakistan is years ahead of us.

(3) Back to the DRM demo page, in particular that lower-right sample, it's pretty remarkable what can be done with such a low data rate.  That sample was transmitted at 16 kbits/s, and punched through a noisy path that would make ordinary AM nearly unlistenable for spoken voice, let alone enjoyable for music.  (More details about the relationship between bit rate and noise can be found at the article on the Shannon-Hartley theorem at Wikipedia.)

(4) Digital Radio Mondiale ≠ Digital Rights Management.  Calling this open digital radio standard "DRM"  in the U.S. is a sure kiss of death with anybody under 35, or for that matter anybody else who's been paying attention.  Say "DRM" in front of most tech-savvy folks and the next thing you'll hear is "Oh great.  How much will we have to pay Microsoft this time?"  When in fact, Digital Radio Mondial is an open standard that has nothing to do with fees and software lock-in.  But remember: If you have to explain don't bother.  Call it "DRW" or something else in the U.S., or it's DOA.

OK, thus ends the rant, now begins the wait.  Waiting for what, you ask?  Waiting for the AM broadcast band to completely crash in this country, clearing the business space for a full-on digital rebirth.  Waiting to pick up spectrum allocation and possibly hardware at fire sale prices.  Waiting for this investment opportunity.  I predict five to ten years.

ps:  One more item for the list:
(5) Content, Content, Content.  If there's nothing worth listening to, it doesn't matter how clear the signal comes in.