Wednesday, October 31, 2007

msb-0218 COBRA: A Snake in the Grass

msb-0218 COBRA: A Snake in the Grass

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I'm still waiting to hear from anybody on whether I should up the frequency on these shows.

My shows are up over 33,000 downloads and I am just about to see my ad in this quarter's "Momentum".

We'll see if I get any uptake in MSer membership/visitors over the next few months. (And maybe some MS advertisers too. That would be nice. :-)

Here some feedback on the last show, "msb-0217 Genetics and MS ... Who knows?":

"Hello [name omitted for privacy],

the problem is that while the data collection is extremely simple, (just long sequences of four letters: A, C, T & G, [very LONG sequences of letters,]) the manipulation required is of super computer caliber.

That's why it will have to occur in phases.

We have to start at the beginning, with the collection of people's genomic information.

While it doesn't have to hurt, a mouth swab will do, it results in the collection of five or so million DNA records, (one per MS sufferer on the planet) each of which is about, well, according to Wikipedia, its about "5,000 300 page volumes (the equivalent to 800 bibles long)" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome )

That works out to about 4,500,000,000 bytes per record with some compression.

That's way bigger than any other medical database and I suspect would bust almost any budget you would care to set up with almost any institution, including most governments.

While that might sound impossible, its is quite do-able is we break up the problem into five or so million sequencing acts, do the individual data collection on our own, letting the genomic sequencing facilities put the collected sequences on CD-ROM.

Then we need to compare each sequence to each other to find points of structural commonality, which express themselves in common ways to cause an exacerbation. (Which means that, to really be complete, we'd really want to have two samples, one taken 'at rest' and one taken during the exacerbation. [Its just two mouth swabs, so don't get excited, it doesn't hurt, {unlike some tests for MS, (like evoked potential.)}])

It might seem like an enormous pain-in-the-ass to go and collect all this data essentially for the benefit of somebody else, but some researcher out there WILL use it to look for a cure simply because we have the data.

Let me repeat this last point:"Simply because we have the data!"

No data, no discoveries.

Got data? You stand an infinitely greater chance of cracking the mysteries of MS at the genetic level.

Lets get the data... We can worry about somebody else putting it to use later.

-Charles-A."

---- "i believe" by: "simian mobile disco" http://www.wichita-recordings.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Believe in me" by: "Tommy Brown" http://tsuprecord.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "I Believe" by: "Tremolo" http://www.tremolomusic.net/

"Thesis:"

I am sitting here looking at the COBRA forms.

Holy crap!

Could it be more cornfoozelating?

Or come at a worse time?

---- "I Believe" by: "miggs" http://www.miggsband.com/

"Synthesis:"

COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) is supposed to give health coverage for "all" terminated employees who can qualify. (But if you were "let go" for some criminal activity, well, you shouldn't have got caught before being fired. [But on the positive side, you do get some health benefits in prison. {Just don't "drop the soap".}])

It looks more complicated than it really is because anybody can apply under one of the myriad options.

The bitch is retracing the path that your now ex-employer took so that you can take the same path to keep some semblance of similar coverage.

I took a swipe at the forms, followed by my wife and, after going through them a second time each, we finally decided to opt, sorry to "elect", for the coverage.

(Yeah. Great going USA. Take a guy who's living off of his savings and saddle "him" with the health-care bills.

[Keeryst... If ever there was a reason for a single payer system in this God-forsaken country, being unemployed is it. I paid into the system for years and now that I need it, I'm looking up the gummints cloaca.

{Paying for health care should be the gummint's job, not blowing up some crap in some foreign sand.

(Why do you think everybody else is whooping our butts in trade. We saddle our employers with paying for all this shit and we end up paying the "maximum" that a hundred, nay a couple of thousand individual markets will allow

[instead of saying: "No more pricing games... This costs X everywhere now because there only "one" buyer: the gummint."

{I'm the medical profession's and their suppliers worst nightmare: somebody who's wise to their tricks.}])}])

---- "Believe" by: "Bill Janovitz & Crown Victoria" http://www.qdivision.com/janovitz/index.html

"Conclusion:"

COBRA comes at an unfortunate time, (you just got "let go",) to unfortunate people, ("MSers" who have to "take up arms" with confounded bodies, unresponsive nervous systems, little hope of getting better and even less hope of finding gainful employment "ever again." [Ain't being diseased wonderful? You get to watch everything you've managed to build up drain away like water on a beach... {I don't mind the capital gains "death tax" as much as I mind being alive and having to watch it all "go."}])

COBRA then cornfoozzles them with a stated need for information which comes from a source which is no longer available to them, their ex-employer.

I also love the fact that I am not expected to live longer than 18 months; that's when COBRA coverage dries up like the shriveled leaves of un-watered seedlings by a dry-wash in the desert.

I hope like hell that podcasting takes off before then, otherwise I going to go back to Canada where the have a single-payer system.

I can podcast from there just as well as here in the 'States.

---- "I Believe" by: "Peter Searcy" http://www.petersearcy.net/

Outro

Monday, October 29, 2007

msb-0217 Genetics and MS ... Who knows?

msb-0217 Genetics and MS ... Who knows?

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I'm still waiting to hear from anybody on whether I should up the frequency on these shows.

On the job front, I am discovering a lot of information about usability and disability through Section 508 [ http://www.section508.gov/ ] from their great website.

I'm also discovering what the federal government is doing to make life more "rational" for the 45,000,000 people who are disabled in some respect in this country (makes the estimated 250 to 400,000 US MSers seem like the demographic, 1 in 1200, 0.0833% fraction of the population that it is.)

There were a lot of great links to follow on the JobEnable.com website.[ http://www.jobenable.com/ ]

I definitely want to interview Matt and Rob.

Incidentally, I am now at 33,000 downloads. We'll see if I can build on that with the upcoming ad in "Momentum".

---- "Butterfly Disease" by: "undadogg" http://www.myspace.com/undadogg

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Disease" by: "Allison Crowe" http://www.allisoncrowe.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Disease" by: "Smeer" http://www.smeer.com/

"Thesis:"

I heard on a podcast called "On The Media" [ http://www.onthemedia.org/ ] about a couple of companies out there, "23 and me" [ http://23andme.com/ ] and "Navigenics", [ http://www.navigenics.com/ ] that are offering a genetic screening service which can take samples from individuals like me and thee and test about a couple of dozen genetic markers to tell people who submitted their genetic sample whether or not they are at risk for some diseases.

I wonder if they might be able to tell us whether we MSers have any point of genetic commonality.

Since the incidence of MS seems to be pretty evenly spread amongst the population, (it seems to make no difference to a person chance of contracting MS whether a person is male or female, nor does it strike any racial group, ) it seems to me that, given a wide enough sample, these companies could be doing research into finding or eliminating the presence of a genetic marker for MS.

It could be privately funded by we MSers ourselves. (And we would find out about any possible association with any other genetic disease along the way.)

---- "Jungle Disease" by: "The Joneses" http://www.fullbreach77.com/kicks/s_joneses.html

"Synthesis:"

The presence of MS amongst a population seems to be pretty independent of gross genetic factors such as gender (which immediately cuts some of the area of test since there is one leg of a chromosome that can be eliminated right away,) or race.

Statistics might seem to be boring and dry, (that is their saving grace as far as I'm concerned, we can be dispassionate about numbers,) but they are essential.

We MSers are already behind the eight ball when it comes to beating the odds.

We have a disease that already falls below the media radar in numbers. Only one in twelve hundred people, or 0.0833% of the population seems to get MS. (That's still millions of people world wide, but the world has other bigger problems, like coloring their hair blond, or finding the best deodorant.)

This is something that we "could" do, as long as it doesn't cost too much, for any and all of us to get our genetic profile spat out onto a CD-ROM. (The costs for raw sequencing are dropping all the time.)

We could then upload the lot to a central database, without any data identifying us individually so there's no privacy concerns, and let Google index the lot.

Researchers can then take all of the data and use statistical techniques to look for points of commonality.

They can then narrow these down to a specific gene or series of genes expressing themselves in the sample of MSer data.

Maybe there is some and maybe there isn't.

If there is that would give the general population a predictive diagnostic tool. They can then take precautions and have special MS related tests run first, instead of waiting for years and several repeated attacks and misdiagnoses and more atacks and more misdiagnoses before finally settling on a diagnosis after the damage may have become irreparable.

---- "Disease" by: "The Meshes" http://themeshes.com/

"Conclusion:"

The incidence of MS seems to be pretty evenly spread amongst the population, (it seems to make no difference to a person chance of contracting MS whether a person is male or female, nor does it strike any racial group.)

It seems to me that, given a wide enough sample, these companies could be doing research into finding or eliminating the presence of a genetic marker for MS.

It could be privately funded by we MSers ourselves. (And we would find out about any possible association with any other genetic disease along the way.)

It might be one area of research that all of us MSers could investigate on our own and, while not immediately useful, it would give us a pool of data for further investigation. (Statistics may be about the mere manipulation of numbers, but the numbers actually mean something.)

Maybe there "is" a marker out there.

If it could be identified, we could warn the susceptible potential MSers out there to not wait for a catastrophic attack before the clinical process of recovery can begin.

The therapy can be started as soon as the early symptoms are detected.

---- "Butterfly Disease Sassa Le Remix" by: "undadogg" http://www.myspace.com/undadogg

Outro

Friday, October 26, 2007

msb-0216 A change in tempo?

msb-0216 A change in tempo?

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

While I'm still unemployed, I'm just wondering if I should move up the show frequency from 3 to 5 times a week...

I'm just saying this because its Thursday "last week" as I write this, as opposed to the earliest you could hear this, and I've already finished writing the script and picking the music.

The creative part, (read: the hard part,) is already over.

Now the only thing left to do will take me about an hour putting everything into GarageBand, recording my voice, uploading the merged 'cast, updating various web sites and doing a test download to make sure everything's okay.

What do you think?

Do I go daily?

Send me an mail: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

(I know the message recorder gadget down the left hand side of the page is currently down. I'm working on it...)

----

This is a special "shout-out" and a thank you to "Jeso" [ http://www.jeso.nl/ ]

----

I've already planned a special show for when mother finally goes.

Hopefully I wont have to use it soon, but its going to be some of her favorite music and while it will definitely not be podsafe, I think she deserves a proper send off, and she'll damn well get one.

It'll be the music to the soundtrack of my young life.

"J'm'en Fous Pas Mal" by "Edith Piaf",
"Piano Sonata No.14 in C sharp minor, Op.27 No.2 [Moonlight sonata]" by "Beethoven",
"What A Wonderful World" by "Louis Armstrong",
"The Fiddler (Soittoniekka)" by "Sibelius",
"La Foule" by "Edith Piaf"
"Nutcracker Suite: March" by "Tchaikovsky",
"Mood Indigo/Sophisticated Lady" or maybe "Caravan" by "Duke Ellington" and I intend to close with
"Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major" by "J.S. Bach."

I won't say a word...

I'll just let this poor selection of mother's favorites say goodbye for me.

---- "Plans for the day" by: "Maria Daines" http://www.maria-daines.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Plan For Conquest" by: "Ken Dirschl" http://www.planforconquest.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Best Laid Plans" by"Moses Guest" http://www.mosesguest.com/

"Thesis:"

Well my depression didn't last long. It never does.

While I may be back to my upbeat self, I know a few people who aren't.

That's the one thing I can report from going to the group/community meetings.

On the plus side, my "Tai Chi" instructor is back at teaching and I'm back at "Tai Chi"-ing.

Its important to keep your self going, motivated and strong with MS. "Tai Chi" helps.

Actually, I suspect that its probably that way for any chronic disease, but I know that, with MS, is imperative that you keep your chin up.

---- "A Better Plan" by: "SharashkA" http://www.myspace.com/sharashkamusic

"Synthesis:"

Maintaining a positive attitude is key in dealing with any chronic disease.

Thomas Carlyle said, “Our great business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

The problem is that we have to be looking at the world with several pairs of eyes.

Yes, we have to focus on the tasks at hand. But we also need to kep an eye on an ultimate goal so we can tell if we're moving forward or just going around in circles, passing the same milestone over and over.

There are three kinds of planning [ http://www.morebusiness.com/running_your_business/businessbits/ah_3typesplan.brc ]:
  • Strategic,
  • Tactical and
  • Logistical or contingency.
The role of strategic planning, often called "Big Picture" planning, or "Blue Sky" thinking, is to guide and suggest the direction of our lives. (e.g.: "We want to discover a marvelous cure for MS.")

The role of tactical planning takes what was decided in the strategic planning and map out how to achieve the strategic plan and turn it into reality. (e.g. "We'll have to conduct research and track all of the approaches towards finding the said marvelous cure".)

The role of logistical or contingency planning concerns itself with the mundane reality of taking a tactic for success and dealing with the reality of contracts, deals, cash flow, production scheduling and of just getting from A to B. (e.g. "We'll have to get income and pay for salaries, material, physical plant, compliance with ..." You get the idea...)

Well, that's fine for a drug manufacturer, but how does it apply to anything?

Its different, but its also the same, for you and your life.

I had a blinding flash, a vision of what could be, when I was taking a business course at MCNY (Metropolitan College of New York) and like "Paul of Tarsus" it set me on this path.

I would open up a channel of communication for the disabled so that they would be able to be entertained while getting news on what was happening as regards their disease; what drugs therapies, goods and services were evolving to meet their needs.

Since I just happen to have MS, I decided to stick with what I know: writing, music, computers, the internet, music, RSS, podcasting ... and MS.

Now almost two years and 216 'casts later, I have a small but growing audience and if you have found this podcast, I can assume that you have some interest in music, as a listener, and some interest in MS.

Maybe you have MS, maybe you just care for or about somebody with MS. (You should give me some feedback about where you fit into the spectrum of interest.)

But you're listening to me as I fill your ears with some tunes, the occasional news you won't ever find on channels 1 to 1000, and I want to get some advertisers from the makers of MS related products, goods and services, so I gain some legitimacy for the orphan diseases of the world.

---- "Big Plans -DEMO" by: "Second Saturday" http://www.myspace.com/secondsaturday

"Conclusion:"

My watch phrase has always been "Illegitimi non carborundum" ("Don't let the bastards grind you down") and its kept me going for decades with this disease.

I suspect that its probably imperative to maintain a positive attitude for any chronic disease, but I know that, with MS, you still have to strive to achieve.


---- "Plannin' An Accident" by: "theHipnotics" http://thehipnotics.net/

Outro

Further into the job front, I'm investigating "Section 508" which seems to be a whole lot more comprehensive than I would have thought.

In fact the Federal spending universe seems to be a whole lot more aware than their vendors out there. They NEED the kind of thinking shown in msb-0195 "Rovira Diagrams" as a kind of organizing and documenting principle.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

msb-0215 I gots da bluz

msb-0215 I gots da bluz

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I got da bluz. Damn I feel low.

We all gots days when, like, we're just 'No Show'.

Damn bluz got me bad.

I'm feeling old, crippled and sad.

Ain't no pot o' gold, at the end of this rainbow.

---- "Walkin While I Bleed" by: "Doug Macleod" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "The Sun Shine Down My Way" by: "Doug Macleod" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Bad Magic" by: "Doug Macleod" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

"Thesis:"

I'm having a low time, so I'm playin' da bluz. (I would pick up up my guitar but what shit my playing has sunk to is even more depressin' than listening to Doug MacLeod music.)

But depression must be common to everybody with a chronic disease.

So what can be done to deal with it?

---- "Aint No Cure" by: "Doug Macleod" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

"Synthesis:"

Yeah, its not all sunshine and flowers round the house this evening.

I'm depressed and I feel shitty.

Hell, we all do at times.

Sometimes its the condition of being.

An existential "being shitty."

I'm unemployed and its getting me down.

I'm scared of failing at this podcast and letting us all down.

C'mon man... Buck up.

Ain't "nobody" getting out of here alive...

Depression and how to deal with it is fundamental to living with a chronic disease.

It requires the ability to self motivate.

To pick yourself up by your boot straps, wipe the dust, snot and shit off and keep going.

Just keep on truckin' man. Keep on truckin'...

The grim reaper will be along soon enough and I've still got things to accomplish before getting clogged on the head and tipped into his wagon.

Things like grabbing the world by the scruff of the next and pick it up to haul its fat, lazy, stupid, ignorant ass over to the light to take a good look at my face and tell me that because I'm a 15%er, one of those "disabled" wretches, my life isn't worth living.

There are lots of thing that the depressed can do, besides reaching for a bar of soap and a razor blade.

Speak to somebody, a mentor, a spouse, a family member, a friend, a pastor, in some cases, a therapist, and get somebody else's perspective.

Most depression is caused by being alone and feeling it.

Don't be alone, even when you don't feel like it.

Hell specially when you don't feel like it.

You might feel like curling up in a corner, licking your wounds, licking even your wounded pride, but that's not the best policy.

---- "The Devil Is Beating His Wife" by: "Doug Macleod" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

"Conclusion:"

I was going to say: "As long as you've got your health," but on second thought, I don't want to go there.

Fact is that we don't "got our health" except in dribs and drabs, grabs and snatches.

So fuck tomorrow because it could get worse, and for most of us MSers, it almost surely will.

But that doesn't mean we should just lie down and die.

As long as there's life, there's hope, and tomorrow will be better for many and research "will" improve life for all of us.

---- "A Little Sin" by: "Doug Macleod" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

Outro

Follow the link to black-'n-tan and hunt the man down, 'cause he's got soul to his bluz.

"Doug MacLeod"

----

On the career and employment track, I have just found out about JobEnable.com.[ http://www.jobenable.com/ ] Their tag line is "connecting disabled employees with employers."

(I wonder.... How about "connecting disabled employers with employees"? Like them finding somebody who could do voice overs of me [like "George Hrab", I hate my voice] or join me in a much more dynamic rendition of the show through their own presence.)

Now "this" is interesting.

They got in touch with me after reading my blog. I immediately reached out to them about doing an interview (in, uh, blog-type or, better yet, via skype.)

In fact, I'd like to do two interviews.

Number one would be just Matt and/or Rob and I doing the initial work and number two could be Mat and/or Rob answering any questions that come from our audience (and there is no such thing as a stupid question except the one that wasn't asked because you're too shy to type me an email to charles (at) MSBPodcast.com.)

They're just starting this up and we'll be coming back to the topic of disability and employment again and again over the coming months. (Hmm. Maybe I should offer them the opportunity to podcast their own shows...)

Monday, October 22, 2007

msb-0214 Auditory hallucinations

msb-0214 Auditory hallucinations

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I am still unemployed and looking for anything that will pay the freight... (Some advertisers would be nice. [Think of everything you use in your day to help you cope with your MS. Now think of everything somebody else uses. I seriously doubt that there's a 100% overlap. MS expresses itself as a very individualistic disease. {And if you're the manufacturer of some good, drug or therapy, how do you solicit feed back effectively, and how do you get the word out that you've got a new good, drug or therapy to MSers?}])

Since people are people, and new listeners are likely to hear this after their initial hearing of an episode later on. when they go back and pickup my old shows, welcome to anyone whose reached this podcast "after" November first.

My ad will be running in "Momentum" in a few weeks, (my new listeners have probably seen it,) and I hope to grow a bit because of it.

---- "Pornographer's Dream" by: "Suzanne Vega" http://www.suzannevega.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Betty" by: "Miles Partridge" http://www.milespartridge.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Betty Betty Ride That Hog" by: "Nathan Wiley" http://nathanwiley.com/

"Thesis:"

I woke up this morning to the strains of "Khachaturian's" "Saber Dance" ringing faintly and distantly in my ears.

Turned out to be just an air conditioner's fan across the building's courtyard making some ringing noise, but it got me thinking about hallucinations.

How are these generated somatically?

---- "Betty" by: "new maximumdonkey" http://newmaximumdonkey.com/

"Synthesis:"

Hallucinations are things perceived but not felt.

They don't have a trigger sensation based on a physical reality.

They are internally generated, like phantom pain, a kind of which is experienced by some MSers, if not most of us.

The definition of phantom anything is usually concerned with sensations reported by missing or amputated limbs or other body parts, but we MSers can report many kinds of these which have nothing to do with amputation.

Its worse than plain old itching as this is usually a reaction to some irritant which may or may not be related to a dermatological insult.

Not to mention it usually doesn't respond to any sort of scratching, specially if its a song that we can't wipe from our consciousness or not quite make out.

These kinds of phantoms are a whole lot subtler and can manifest themselves in a whole lot of very tenuous ways.

This is the incoming side of the equation, as opposed to spasticity, which is what happens when we use the same frayed cables called our nervous system in the other direction, to effect motion.

---- "Betty" by: "The Lascivious Biddies" http://www.biddies4ever.com/

"Conclusion:"

Phantom pain, like auditory hallucinations, unintentional "trompe l'oeuil" and occasional synesthesia, are destined to plague the nervous systems of MSers, on and off, but they do provide unintended richness to those people who can appreciate them.

I guess I'm no closer to answering the question as posed, but I've put it out there for some researcher to answer, or try to...

---- "Betty" by: "Derek Clegg" http://www.derekclegg.com/

Outro

Friday, October 19, 2007

msb-0213 Credence

msb-0213 Credence

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I am still unemployed and looking for anything that will pay the rent... (Some advertisers would be nice, really nice.)

My mother's still hanging in there.

I have applied for a handicapped parking spot in front of my apartment building. They aren't going to get around to doing an evaluation of the street until I have furnished them with doctors letters, MRI scans, have had their doctors evaluate them, and me.

[insert name of deity here] help me if I'm having a good day when I'm supposed to go for the medical, or a really bad one.

Then, after all that trouble, expense and "agita", I fully expect that they'll tell me that I can't have one anyway because there are already too many on my street. Or they'll tell me I can have one and proceed to rip up the street and I won't be able to park on the street "at all."

Yeah. Mother's impending death is weighing on me. You can just tell my mood's pretty low.

My wife often says I'm as cute as ever, and I am I guess (Who knows from "cute"?) but I certainly don't feel cute getting up out of a low chair, like the ones in the waiting room at my dentist. Then I feel quite elephantine, pachydermian even, quite clumsy and anything but "cute" as I struggle to my leaden feet.

But there might be some help coming MSers way:

From a /. piece [ http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/18/0242250 ]: "University of Manchester researchers have transformed fat tissue stem cells into nerve cells -- and now plan to develop an artificial nerve that will bring damaged limbs and organs back to life. In a study published in October's Experimental Neurology, Dr Paul Kingham and his team at the UK Centre for Tissue Regeneration (UKCTR) isolated the stem cells from the fat tissue of adult animals and differentiated them into nerve cells to be used for repair and regeneration of injured nerves. They are now about to start a trial extracting stem cells from fat tissue of volunteer adult patients, in order to compare in the laboratory human and animal stem cells."

---- "Bonnie Jean" by: "Artie Traum" http://www.artietraum.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

C'mon folks. I know you're downloading. What do you think of the show?

If its bad, I can improve it, but you've got to let me know. Don't worry about hurting my feelings. I can take it.

I've got MS. I can take anything.

---- "Maple Leaf Rag" by: " Jeanne Backofen Craig" http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeoswvo/jeanne-prof-page.html

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Lost Highway" by: "Gene Loveland" no website

"Thesis:"

Credence in drug and/or therapies requires that those drugs and/or therapies show some believable efficacies.

In plain-speak, credence, or believability, of various drug regimens, therapies and what-not requires the providers to provide proof instead of just anecdotal evidence.

Efficacy requires a causal chain.

---- "If I Knew" by: "Running Home" http://runninghomerecords.com/

"Synthesis:"

Therapies and dugs show differing patterns of usefulness depending on some factors related to the individuals' personal make up.

The problem is that this can be be considered anecdotal evidence, which is clearly not enough to be called clinical research.

What is the difference? If so-and-so had some results using this-or-that shouldn't that be good enough for me?

Well, no. It shouldn't because if that's the evidence you're relying on, you will run into some very real problems at some point when anything goes wrong and you can't fix it. (I'm a firm believer in the old adage of "What ever can go wrong will go wrong." at some point. [I've been working in high-tech for thirty years and I can tell you that it always finds new ways to fu... uh, go wrong.])

Sadly, we're complex biological systems. What worked for so-and-so yesterday may be listed on the coroner's report as so-and-so's cause-of-death today.

Medical knowledge is always evolving, in part because of all those coroner's reports, (a real bummer, [specially if you liked so-and-so, {I don't think so-and-so is in any shape to care anymore,}]) and in part because the medical researchers understand the fluidity of an organism's response and monitor their patients for changes in their condition.

(That's in part part of the problem with health care. If you are an actuary, you deal with statistics, immutable aggregates. People aren't statistics. They are individuals and they are aggravatingly mutable. Just because we MSers usually have the requisite number of appendages doesn't necessarily mean we can rely on them to behave properly, as we rattle around in our somatic cages with our ill defined internal boundaries.)

---- "Moon Over Marin " by: "Dead Kennedys" http://www.deadkennedys.com/

"Conclusion:"

Credence in drug and/or therapies requires that those drugs and/or therapies show some believable efficacies.

In plain-speak, credence, or believability, of various drug regimens, therapies and what-not requires the providers to provide proof instead of just anecdotal evidence.

Efficacy requires a causal chain.

And if you want a long, twisted causal chain, I'm thinking of Christmas already.

---- "Chiron Beta Prime" by: "Jonathan Coulton" http://www.jonathancoulton.com/

Outro

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

msb-0212 I believe ...

msb-0212 I believe ...

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I am still unemployed and looking for anything that will pay the rent... (Some advertisers would be nice.)

My mother's still hanging in there.

My sister and I are still a bit bummed out.

I'm getting almost 1000 downloads a week. Wow.

I am at 32,000 downloads, with a small, but growing, core audience and every new member/subscriber picking up the old episodes.

I am about to get my ad in Momentum and we'll see if I can pickup 1% in the first quarter.

---- "I Believe" by: "miggs" http://www.miggsband.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "I Believe" by: "Peter Searcy" http://www.petersearcy.net/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "I Believe" by: "The Paint Sisters" http://thepaintsisters.com/

"Thesis:"

I believe, but in what?

---- "I Believe" by: "Tremolo" http://www.tremolomusic.net/

"Synthesis:"

I believe that this was my last job working for anybody who doesn't know me and what I "can" do.

I believe that being visibly disabled tends to turn off potential employers. I do "schlep" around with a cane and there is enough competition for jobs that they'll pick a healthy, able bodied kid long before they pick me. Sad but probably true.

I believe that I will keep on looking and showing up for interviews. There may be one person out there who might hire me.

I believe in podcasting, in the ability to reach to reach a small focused group of people with a show geared to them and by them.

I believe this because people are downloading the shows in accelerating numbers.

I believe that they are downloading many of my old shows because they are interesting and feature some kick-ass music.

---- "I Believe" by: "Detroit Women" http://www.silkcitycd.com/

"Conclusion:"

I believe in me.

I believe in this podcast.

And I believe in you, dear folks, I believe in you.

---- "I believe" by: "simian mobile disco" http://www.wichita-recordings.com/

Outro

Monday, October 15, 2007

msb-0211 A question of faith

msb-0211 A question of faith

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I am still unemployed and looking for anything that will pay the rent...

My mother's still hanging in there.

My sister and I are still a bit bummed out.

I'm going to go to Canada for one last visit.

What the heck?

I've got plenty of time now..

I'm writing the week's worth of shows in one day and releasing it in dribs and drabs over three episodes.

I hope you don't mind.

Last week was all about the RIAA. This week is less structured but I still manage to make it about the things I really believe in.

And what I really believe in in is that we have been getting the short shrift of the attention span of media.

Its like we didn't matter to the wider world. Well, we DO. We are people, perhaps not THE people in the wider sense of the word, but we matter...

These podcasts are my reaction to the tyranny of democracy.

The tyranny that would ignore us (and by us I mean the wider 15% of people who are disabled [the 15% of the population who aren't physically "perfect,"]) and who would be shunted off to die in wretched oblivion.

---- "Crooked Line" by: "Pascale Goodrich-Black" http://www.myspace.com/pascalegoodrichblack

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Leave Me Standing" by: "Pascale Goodrich-Black" http://www.myspace.com/pascalegoodrichblack

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "This Time" by: "Pascale Goodrich-Black" http://www.myspace.com/pascalegoodrichblack

"Thesis:"

Speaking of faith, I've just watched "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" [ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/index_flash.html ] and "Bill Moyers Jounal" [ http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html ] and, you know, I'm sick and tired of hearing about Israel. (Specially from neo-cons who are preaching the rapturous apocalypse to their flocks.)

Ok, if everything in the bible is supposed to be true, how come there is "no" mention of America in the bible?

Not a word.

Not a peep.

Not a whisper.

The most powerful country on the planet in the second millennium, as one creepy calendar has it, and there isn't one mention of that "in any biblical or koranic text."

I think that its because the bible and the koran are made up tales for the gullible.

(If the world is going to end anyway, real soon now, any day almost, why should they bother with any of these disabled people or cripples, or anybody else. [Hey! Over here! I just happen to still be alive. Sorry to put a kink in your plans but I haven't given up on anybody, not even you. Just get your heads in the light, instead of sticking it where the sun don't shine.])

But that's just my private beef with these, uh, people.

The question of faith I have concerns the apparent effectiveness of placebos.

---- "Better" by: "Pascale Goodrich-Black" http://www.myspace.com/pascalegoodrichblack

"Synthesis:"

By definition [ http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=4917 ] a placebo is "a 'sugar pill' or any dummy medication or treatment."

It is inert. Not even latent. It is inert.

Why does it fool the patient into perceiving benefits where none exist?

Of course that is the sixty four thousand question, but the facts are that they can have unintended results (meaning that they worked in spite of being bogus.)

And part of those unintended results is that they can spur the recipient of the placebo into altering some internal state by sheer force of will. (Now I'm not claiming that bones will magically unbreak, or severed limbs suddenly reattach, but for some ailments, ones with some somatic effect, placebos can affect the overall sense of perception.)

Of course this is easily tested by trying a see if placebos work on any other life form. (I think that they "only" work on creatures who are sufficiently self-aware and are sufficiently aware of your intentions. Meaning that if you have a cat that's is currently afflicted with feline leukemia, injecting it with water won't make "Fluffy" 'feel' in the least bit better.)

Placebo effects are therefore squarely in the human province. They depend on the interpolation of some subconscious layer between the physical self and the somatic sense of self.

The human mind is truly a wondrous thing.

Almost as ponderable as the human body.

---- "On The Way Down" by: "Pascale Goodrich-Black" http://www.myspace.com/pascalegoodrichblack

"Conclusion:"

Placebos work despite all scientific facts because something within us believes that it can, so we persevere and overcome, or we think we can (and perhaps, in many circumstances, that's enough.)

---- "Toute Petite Etoile" by: "Pascale Goodrich-Black" http://www.myspace.com/pascalegoodrichblack

Outro

Friday, October 12, 2007

msb-0210 Whose record is this anyway?

msb-0210 Whose record is this anyway?

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I am still unemployed and looking for anything that will pay the rent...

My mother's still hanging in there.

My sister and I are still a bit bummed out.

I've made plans for one last visit.

What the heck? I've got plenty of time now.

And I'm at 31,000 downloads.

---- "Power Ups!" by: " The Calculus" http://thecalculus.net/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Power Drive" by: "Bob Hughes" http://www.bobhughesmusic.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Pussy Cat Power" by: "RHHSII" no web site

"Thesis:"

The main problem with the record industry is the lack of proper provenance, and the solution is to label things properly as to who is actually getting your money, and for what, when you purchase a particular album, and in the appropriate proportion.

---- "Gnawa of Power" by: "Secret Archives of the Vatican" http://www.brokendrumrecords.com/

"Synthesis:"

One of the areas of dissatisfaction on both sides of the music buying fence is that the rights, and therefore the potential money trails from a purchase, are not clearly spelled out.

That means that every CD cover, or MP3 attached image, would be generated by computer "showing the proportion" of who owns how much of whatever you thought you bought.

This would be mandatory and you would know exactly what you bought, who you bought it from, what rights they allow you, what rights they reserve to themselves and what rights you actually have.

Rather than recall all existing records, the information could/should/would be kept on the CDDB, which already keeps all of the track names and album cover art.

No more wondering about it.

You'd know if you were buying an artists album or if your money was going to a bunch of dentists in suburban L.A.

"And" you'd know "exactly" what it was that you'd bought.

I suspect that nobody'd try to pull that P2P, BitTorrent crap on an artists records again if they knew exactly what it was that they'd bought, and from whom.

---- "Power Of A Woman" by: "Elkysia" http://www.elkysia.org/

"Conclusion:"

The main problem with the record industry is the lack of proper provenance, and the solution is to label things properly as to who is actually getting the money for what when you purchase a particular album, in the appropriate proportion.

That means that every CD cover, or MP3 attached image, would be generated by computer "showing the proportion" of who owns how much of whatever you thought you'd bought.
(The actual dollar amounts are not required, so there is no problem of divulging of any financial information.)

Each right (since copyright covers covers a whole list of them,) and who has it would be listed, either on the album cover and/or in a registry like CDDB.

Including "yours".

I think that you'd be surprised at the number of people who are impacted by every dollar you give for that tune.

Not to mention knowing "what your rights as a consumer actually are."

And you might want to turn down the power at this next song, because the bass is awesome but it could rattle your ear bugs right out of your ear canals.

---- "Power Down" by: "Natural Synth" http://numbcast.com/

Outro

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

msb-0209 Its the law. Don't like it? Change it!

msb-0209 Its the law. Don't like it? Change it!

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I am still unemployed and looking for anything that will pay the rent...

My mother's still hanging in there.

My sister and I are still a bit bummed out. I'm making plans for one last visit.

---- "Big Lie" by: "Rai" http://www.rhymetorrents.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "All Lies" by: "(De La Vega) Ivy League" http://www.myspace.com/IvyLeagueRock

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Lie to me" by: "Redrooster-club" http://www.redrooster-club.nl/

"Thesis:"

One problem with what the RIAA is doing (and the MPAA's inevitably going to follow suit unless they change their business model in time,) is that the problems wont go away, unless and until they revise the expectations on both sides.

---- "Whole Lies & Half-truths" by: "Robin Tymm" http://www.myspace.com/robintymm

"Synthesis:"

One of the many problems with the RIAA is that nothing is going to change by their own actions.

The lawsuits and harassment will only continue and every legal judgment that they win will only reinforce the popular opposition to the asymmetric application of the rule of law.

$220,000 for 14 songs when you usually hear them for free on the radio is a capricious application of the law.

Of course, what is getting people up in arms, me included, is that the RIAA's lawyers are attacking the consumers instead of the enablers, the suppliers of peer-to-peer, which are letting consumers make available the content for free, just like radio stations.

The perception is that the music is free since it is put forth for free on the radio stations. Of course its paid for by the advertisers, (okay people are just ignoring the ads anyway, [or, in my case, they would be if I could "get" any advertisers {Hope springs eternal, doesn't it. (That's why I am podcasting and into the new media. :-)}])

There are solutions to the asymmetry of the legal situation, the first is to change the law. Just "tweak" it.

Copyright violation "was" done for profit, usually by some people with access to the means of production.

Its now done by by individuals for free and the punishments should reflect that reality.

However, the DMCA and copyright law were written before the new digital reality. (In the case of copyright law, a long time before.)

The judgments are grossly disproportionate and that is what strikes everyone as grossly unfair. The reason for that (and for the RIAA's settling for pennies on the dollar before it ever gets to court) is that the law "is" grossly unfair.

By attempting to apply the same punitive rules that would apply to a corporation making a profit from the violation to an individual who's put the stuff out there for free, just like it is when they hear it on the radio, the RIAA are definitely "not" making any friends.

Yes, the RIAA is right to use existing copyright law to go after counterfeiters and the current penalties should stay if they make a profit from it.

No, the RIAA is wrong to use existing copyright to go after file sharers because the penalties just can't apply when the person is "not" making a cent from the act of sharing. (The old adage of "Follow the Money" just doesn't work with the various "file sharers" now does it. They're doing it for "free.")

Rather than just throw in the towel on piracy, (which is impossible, even if we wanted to because its against human nature, on both sides of the equation,) we need to pass a law that can differentiate between one kind of violation "for profit" and the other kind of violation "pour rien".

The DMCA is a bad idea and has only been been used in trying to get judgments to "prevent" communication, much "against" its stated aim.

The copyright law as it stands makes it impossible to altruistically "share" information. "Street Buzz" would be impossible because, well, its against the laws.

Both desperately need to be redrafted.

---- "Telling Lies" by: "stellar art wars" http://www.garageband.com/stellarartwars

"Conclusion:"

What the RIAAs doing (and the MPAA's inevitably going to follow suit unless they change their business model in time,) wont go address the problems unless and until they revise the expectations on both sides.

They will be reviled and loathed regardless of what they do because the average lawyer doesn't care about winning any popularity contests.

Now do they care to explain themselves and that's the tragedy (along with the lives they are ruining, while making life long enemies.)

But if the law they are charged with enforcing, which should be the police's job, not the lawyers job, was fair, it would make everybody's life much easier.

I don't give a flying fu.. uh, fart. I am not interested in any music from any of the RIAA's clients' anyway. (They couldn't pay me to listen to "Free Bird" or listen to "Britney" or ... Hey, I don't need to depress myself. )

---- "Women, Whiskey, Weed, & Lies" by: "Straightfork" http://www.myspace.com/straightfork

Outro

Monday, October 08, 2007

msb-0208 Paranoia

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Friday, October 05, 2007

msb-0207 Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought"

msb-0207 Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought"

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I am still unemployed and looking for anything that will pay the rent...

My mother's still hanging there.

I received a book "The Stuff of Thought" by "Steven Pinker", (ISBN: 978-0-670-06327-7) which I am I am reading "voraciously".

Its of course about one of my great obsessions, "words."

---- "Small Bodies" by: "Magnetic Four" http://www.magneticfour.net/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Stay Small " by: "The Receiving End Of Sirens" http://www.merchdirect.net/TripleCrownRecords/CDs/The_Receiving_End_Of_Sirens_The_Earth_Sings_Mi_Fa_Mi_CD?productid=8273

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "When Did You Get So Small?" by: "Todd Lerner" http://www.songforfree.com/

"Thesis:"

Just because I'm unemployed doesn't mean that life has stopped around me, or even in me. (I'm continuing the musical theme of "Small and Insignificant" that I started last episode because I just loved all the music I found on the PMN [the Podsafe Music Network] Its such a trip for me, to browse through the tens of thousands of songs looking for appropriate music [and occasionally being just so blown away by some artist or other that I have to rewrite or recast the theme of the particular episode.])

This episode is going to be a quiet one because Steven Pinker's book is about something that I love, "words" (its also about thought,) and, more specifically, its about "verbs."

---- "Small " by: "Amy Abdou" http://www.amyabdou.com/

"Synthesis:"

Now I am a great friend of "nouns" and "adjectives" but this book is making amply clear to me that I really don't "know" "verbs" as well as I should.

This must be the main difference between my mode of thinking, call it "Martian", and that of the rest of the world, call it "Human".

(Well... It certainly feels that way to me at times. Perhaps that explains why I was so enamored of formal languages and automata while the rest of the class was utterly bored and wondering "When are we ever going to use any of this shit anyway?"

But "Rovira Diagrams", which I shoved your way back in episode msb-0195, were, to me, a natural recasting into graphical form of a formal language that I had developed, way back when I was asked to solve a very real problem: documenting online systems.)

But is everybody else is thinking in terms of "verbs"? (When the use of nouns and a formal grammar and syntax are a much more rational way to describe computer systems.)

Now I wonder "why" people use these linguistic constructs, these "construals" to quote the book, even when these are not the most descriptive or accurate. (I tend to see relationships as discrete objects and I describe them as such using nouns, while the quote "normal way" unquote uses verbs [as in phrases like "Object A has many Objects B" {I use instead "Relationship R links One Object A and many Objects B". (The "links" are instantiated in connections.) (This leaves me with an explicitly defined relationship, which is manipulatable, instead of just something implicitly defined through the initial use of "has", which leaves you wondering why it is, what it is, where it is and what do you do with it?)}])

The difference between the "verbalizing" and my "objectification of the relationships"
may explain much. (The first part of dealing with a situation [in this case, its my extraterrestrial point of view on life, the universe and everything] comes with the language used to describe it.)

---- "Small " by: "adrienne pierce" http://www.adriennepierce.com/

"Conclusion:"

"The Stuff of Thought" by "Steven Pinker", (ISBN: 978-0-670-06327-7) is a book which is providing me with wonderful insight that may be more widely applicable than first meets the eye.

Sorry, but I have to read some more now.

---- "Insignificant" by: "Oscar Trim" http://www.garageband.com/artist/oscartrim

Outro

Yeah, I'm, avoiding things by focusing on minutia rather than seeing "the big picture"; the big picture is pretty freakin' scary.

Can you blame me?