Herculodge

World-Wide Rebellion Against Compressed Music

Paul has apprised us of a growing movement that is rising up against the tin sounds of compressed music. 

Dan Gives Kudos to John Gruber for Getting the Apple-Mike Daisey Story Right

The best commentary I've read regarding the Apple situation is by John Gruber of the website Daring Fireball:

"I caught much shit about this from critics, who posited that my lack of analysis or coverage of Daisey’s claims was proof of my hopeless bias in favor of Apple, no matter the evidence. But the thing is, Daisey’s supposed stories always set off my spidey sense — one guy claiming things that no one else was claiming or reporting, all uncovered during a single six-day trip to China by a man who doesn’t speak Chinese and with no prior investigative reporting experience. Ends up my spidey sense was right: Daisey made it up."

John Gruber is perhaps the leading writer covering Apple. Check out Daring Fireball for more on how this story is developing, lots of good stuff there. Also check out the website Techmeme - it's a kind of news aggregator for the tech industry.

 

Fabrications Compel This American Life to Retract Story about Chinese Workers and Apple Products

This embarrassment for This American Life is a complicated story that the show will address for a full hour this Saturday. 

Why Do Comments Take Forever to Post?

Four readers have pointed out that they either can't post comments or that they have to wait forever for the comment box to show up. I have the latter problem. I don't know the answer to this, but I'm going to inquire over at the kind people at tyepad.

This Is Not a Radio, But . . .

Thanks, Paul:

This is not a radio, but you can download many Android radio apps for it and have your own Internet radio - a full fledged Android smartphone, no contract, for $30!

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Cricket+-+Muve+ZTE+Score+No-Contract+Mobile+Phone+-+Black/3455798.p?id=1218403502117&skuId=3455798

You don't need to activate it. Just buy in store, bring home, and use it as a radio, MP3 player, GPS, camera, ... It runs fine on Wifi. In fact to preserve battery life, put it on Airplane mode, and just turn on the wireless. The touchscreen is capacitive, nice and smooth.

It's very easy to root (gain control of software install/uninstalls/tweaks to the operating system). If interested let me know.

 

Ed Says Wi-Fi Radios Making Headway in Sound Quality

 

 

I have to say that the some of best sounding radios I've heard lately are wi-fi radios, when they are streaming a good signal from a wireless router (wi-fi). It's more a function of the purity of the wi-fi audio stream than the radio's speakers or electronics.

In fact, the sound that comes out of my Amazon Kindle Fire when playing a radio app like Tune-in Radio or I Heart Radio or Pandora or Spotify is just amazing for something the size of a slab of bread! And it uses two tiny built-in speakers, similar to an ipad's.