WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Sony's Deteriorating DRM Mess: One Month Later

It's been one month since details of Sony's invasive Digital Rights Management rootkit malware came to light.  (See my earlier articles: Nov. 1, Nov. 3, and Nov. 7.)

About 9,777 blogs now mention "Sony rootkit", while a web search for Sony rootkit malware yields 13 million results.  Here's a messy update on this mess:

Sony hired First 4 Internet (one of whose corporate directors spent 12 years as a Sony director) to build the intrusive digital restrictions management software "XCP", which has been quietly installing itself on about half a million computers over the past year, including military and government sites.  Many more Sony CD's install spyware DRM called "MediaMax", made by another Sony-related company, SunnComm.

Some of the bad things the XCP and MediaMax DRM malware do:

• Modifies your OS to hide and embed itself (and helps other malware hide itself).  It masquerades as a real Windows service, to make it harder to notice that something bad is running.
• Interferes with your computer's ability to read the audio on that CD, not letting you use your own audio player.
• Silently interferes with any CD-ripping software you might use, even with non-Sony CD's, adding random noise to your copies.
• Secretly "phones home" to send information about you and your listening habits back to Sony (although Sony originally denied this).
• Runs all the time and slows your computer down.
• Can crash your computer, while being difficult to diagnose and repair due to its self-hiding methods.
• Using advanced tools to try to uninstall the software can render your computer's CD drives completely useless.

Some bad things Sony (and friends) appear to have done:

• Snuck the XCP software onto people's computers, providing nothing but a legal jargon license that never actually explained what the software would do, while claiming it could be uninstalled without providing an uninstall mechanism.
• The MediaMax software may install even if the user clicks "Decline."

The Power of the Floor Compels You

College students at MIT finally got it together and constructed a modern-day version of the disco dancefloor from Saturday Night Fever.

Space out to the bright lights and flashing colors. (avi, 5MB)

Geek out to the construction design and planning schematics.

Check out the followers.

via Pixelsumo

A Fatal Exception

Relax.  Relax.  Have a chicory.

MP3 by Jim

Aluminum Helmets Found To Aid Fed's Access To Brains

Sensible people have long accepted that the best way to prevent the government men from sending secret signals into your brain is by protecting your cranium with an aluminum hat. But now, four researchers at MIT have looked into the matter and have found that wearing an aluminum hat actually enhances the government's ability to access your brain's electrical system, by amplifying key frequencies which are reserved for government use.

The only sane conclusion is that the aluminum-hat theory was actually promulgated by the government itself! This means that the aluminum hats worn so prominently by Joachim Phoenix in the movie Signs amount to government-funded product placement. Article and research here. Thanks, listener Kevin!

Lawsuits against Sony for sneaky DRM, and refuted denials from malware author

Lawsuits, incompetence, and denial: Some news in the case of Sony's music CD's installing nasty hidden software on people's computers. (Prior articles: Sony CD's caught... & Sony releases PR "patch"...)

Declan McCullagh writes in CNET about a class action lawsuit being prepared against Sony, and the possible reverse lawsuit that could occur from Sony against those who dare to remove the malware from their own machines:

Now the lawyers are taking aim, too. Robert Green, a partner at the San Francisco firm of Green Welling, says he's readying a class action lawsuit against Sony.
[...] In a bizarre twist, though, it's not only Sony that could be facing a legal migraine. So could anyone who tries to rid their computer of Sony's hidden anticopying program. That's because of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bans the "circumvention" of anticopying technology.

An Italian group (ALCEI: Electronic Frontiers Italy, which is the "Association for the Freedom in the Interactive Communication Electronic" using a bad translating program) is pursuing a suit against Sony. (Here's the suit announcement, badly translated from Italian.)

Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals receives a response from First 4 Internet, author of Sony's DRM malware, denying all wrongdoing.  Russinovich refutes all their denials:

[...] Their claim that the communication is "one way" from Sony's web site is false, however, since Sony can make a record of each time their player is used to play a CD, which CD is played, and what computer is playing the CD.
[...] Sony's patch is dangerous because the way that it removes the cloak could crash Windows.
[...] Besides demonstrating the ineptitude of the First 4 Internet programmers, this flaw highlights my message that rootkits create reliability risks in addition to security risks.
[...] The comment does not explain why Sony won't simply make the uninstaller available as a freely accessible download like they do the patch, nor why users have to submit two requests for the uninstaller and then wait for further instructions to be emailed (I still have not received the uninstaller). The only motivation I can see for this is that Sony hopes you'll give up somewhere in the process and leave their DRM software on your system.
[...] Instead of admitting fault for installing a rootkit and installing it without proper disclosure, both Sony and First 4 Internet claim innocence. By not coming clean they are making clear to any potential customers that they are not only technically incompetent, but also dishonest.

UPDATE: Sony's Deteriorating DRM Mess: One Month Later (Dec. 1, 2005)

Sony releases PR "patch" for its DRM malware that doesn't address the problems

After a flurry of thousands of blog postings (those pesky bloggers!) exposing the nasty malware Sony CD's had been hiding on people's computers (here's my original discussion of the situation), Sony has, predictably, made an (empty) Public Relations move.

Sony has released a "patch" which the mainstream media is covering with misleading headlines like "Sony Music issues fix to anti-piracy program." But all this "patch" does is make some of the internal files associated with their nasty program appear less hidden.  It doesn't do a thing to address the majority of the problems with the malware.  It doesn't remove the sneaky DRM.  And, rumor has it that this patch will reinfect a machine that was previously cleansed of the malware.  (Read Sony's spin here)

Here's the original list of issues from my previous article:

• 1. The hidden software is poorly written, and hogs computer resources at all times, even when CD's aren't being played.
• 2. Its hiding techniques could inadvertently make it easy for others to hide software on the machine.
• 3. It takes actions that could result in a system crash.
• 4. It disguises itself as a legitimate Windows service.
• 5. It doesn't provide a way to remove the software.
• 6. Upon manual removal of the software, the CD drive can be rendered useless.

The new Sony patch only addresses issue #2.  It totally ignores the rest of them, and of course ignores the broader issue that Digital Rights Management is bad for everyone.  If the movie- and music-industry owned politicians have their way, "forget, realistically, that your computer will ever be under your control again."

Here's a longer article on this subject: Sony DRM is worse than you might think.

By the way, Universal Music uses the same DRM malware.  UPDATE 11/29/05: Since First 4 Internet has removed all their pages that admit to this, read the excerpts on Google's search results page instead.

My previous article for more background on this subject: Sony CD's caught installing extremely well-hidden and sketchy DRM software

UPDATE: Lawsuits against Sony for sneaky DRM, and refuted denials from malware author (Nov. 7, 2005)
UPDATE: Sony's Deteriorating DRM Mess: One Month Later (Dec. 1, 2005)

Help Chris T. To Not Feel Like A Fraud

As mentioned in the recent Blast O' Hot Air, WFMU has a new Web-Only morning lineup from 6 AM - 9 AM: WFMU Unshackled! My podcast, Communication Breakdown, heard Friday mornings - morphed into a three-hour no-holds barred music and talk show (a podcast version is no longer available - ask the lawyers why), with much more music than I'd like. It's been years since I faked being a DJ (which doesn't stand for Dumb Jerk, as some people think...) and doing two music-crammed programs (the third show never happened due to technical problems) has me feeling like the biggest fake this side of our President.

Listeners have praised my programming when I do the occassional fill-in - and I certainly feel I have good taste in music - but that's not NEAR enough to be called a WFMU DJ, not IMHO (or even IHOP). Around here it's like saying you have good balance and then trying to join a trapeze act. WFMU DJs have mad skills. Okay, some of them are technically inept but these are people with massive record collections, who listen to a ton of new music and who are forever on the hunt for interesting slabs to lay on you, dear listener. Me? I haven't bought a new CD in years. With my two jobs and other responsibilities, I almost never get to hear WFMU in real-time. I cram my iPod with podcasts and other MP3s and swear I'll get to them someday - but - as John Fogerty once wrote - "someday never comes". But it's okay. I long ago came to the realization that my role at WFMU is as talkshow host. I've even become so sensitive to using the proper label that I've corrected people who refer to me as a DJ vis a vis WFMU. It's not that I'm trying to be a snob - it's just that I have too much respect for what WFMU DJs actually do. I'm not in that pantheon. I run my mouth. I make my opinion known. I rant. I rave. I take calls. And the problem - so far - with the new Unshackled Communication Breakdown is that the calls just ain't coming in. This is partly because the thing is so new - I understand that. People have to discover it, know it's there, get used to the idea of a completely FCC-Free zone. Then they have to pick up the phone and call 201-536-WFMU (9368). But part of it - a BIG part - is the cost involved with calling from other parts of the country and the world. That's why I'm thrilled to report yet another step forward, technologically-wise, for WFMU that will allow you to call Communication Breakdown from anywhere FREE OF CHARGE. It's called Skype - you've heard about it recently because eBay just bought the company. Their basic software is free and allows you to use your Mac or PC as an Internet telephone. All you need is a decent internet connection and some kind of microphone hooked up to your computer.

In addition to regular calls, I'll be taking Skype calls Friday morning at my brand new Skype contact name - CommBreak - but be aware: you'll need to lower your computer's volume when I put you on the "air" - or SCREECHING FEEDBACK will occur (how I look forward to yelling, "TURN YOUR COMPUTER DOWN!" the first time THAT happens). CommBreak is also set up with voice-mail, so download Skype and leave me a message - and let's keep marching into the 21st century together!

Sony CD's caught installing extremely well-hidden and sketchy DRM software

Yesterday, Windows innards guru Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals wrote of his disturbing discovery regarding one of those newfangled "copy-protected CD's."

(These are music CD's that self-install software on your computer, and then prevent you from doing some of the things you might want to do -- like copy a song for a mix CD.  Some artists have spoken out against this freedom-reducing scheme that has been used on their CD's without their consent -- although major record labels working against the interests of artists is nothing new.)

Russinovich discovered that this CD had installed its software in an extremely well hidden way, via something called a "rootkit," which basically interferes with the operating system kernal so that it becomes extremely difficult to detect its presence, or to remove it.

His findings included:

• This hidden software appeared to be poorly written, and was hogging up some of his computer's resources at all times, even when he wasn't playing the CD.
• Its hiding techniques would also have inadvertently made it easy for others to hide software on his machine.
• It took actions that could have resulted in a system crash.
• It tried to disguise itself as a legitimate Windows service.
• It didn't provide a way to remove the software.
• Upon his own manual removal of the software, his CD drive was rendered useless.

These are exactly the techniques commonly used by the most insidious malware (viruses, worms, spyware, etc.), the ones that are so difficult to remove from Windows machines.

And he found that this software had been installed by the CD he'd gotten from Sony.

The End User License Agreement (EULA) from Sony went into none of these details, merely saying that "a small proprietary software program" would be installed on his machine.  The EULA actually mentioned removal of the software, even though there was no means provided to remove what he had found.

This is a big deal, and one might expect a lawsuit (class action?) to evolve out of this (putting aside the "Waiver of Trial by Jury" clause in the EULA).

Here's Russinovich's article: "Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far" (which is quite thorough and very technical).

The wise and careful (who of course already avoid DRM, by not buying protected CD's, or protected audio from the iTunes Store) who scan their machines for malware (with free tools such as Spybot-Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware) might consider adding the free Sysinternals RootkitRevealer tool to their arsenal.

Here's Cory Doctorow of EFF on Why DRM is bad everyone (and here's another critique of his).

Finally, Richard Stallman of The Free Software Foundation: Can You Trust Your Computer?

UPDATE: Sony releases PR "patch" for its DRM malware that doesn't address the problems (Nov. 3, 2005)
UPDATE: Lawsuits against Sony for sneaky DRM, and refuted denials from malware author (Nov. 7, 2005)
UPDATE: Sony's Deteriorating DRM Mess: One Month Later (Dec. 1, 2005)

Decorate your Desktop with WFMU Wallpaper

Now you too can decorate your computer desktop the way the Movie Stars do, with our amazing WFMU Wallpaper!  To take advantage of this fabulous offer, simply click the link below for your desired selection, and once it loads, right click over the image and choose "Set as Wallpaper".  Or, if your computer doesn't have that option, you can right click on the image (once it loads) and choose to "Save Image As.." and then set the wallpaper via your computer's control panel settings.  This site has more information on how to set your wallpaper up, or you can drop me a line if you are still stuck. 

Now, on to the fabulousness.  Today's selections include artwork from WFMU T-shirts past:

Making the End Times Happy Times
1024x768, 269k.
800x600, 176k.
Bruno Nadalin designed this happy-calyptic image for a WFMU T-shirt a few years back.   Perfect for the computer user who rarely leaves home.

Jim Flora Kiddie Ensemble
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800x600, 60k
Inspired by the artwork of Jim Flora, designed by Dave Cunningham for the 2003 T-shirt.  Download this one and imagine that the mad little children are responsible for all that music in your head. 

Investigate Fish Farm
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800x600, 233k
Steven Keene created this lovely design for WFMU's Marathon 2000 T-shirt.

Powered By Love
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800x600, 215k
Forget Dell.  Power your desktop with Love.  Danny Hellman designed this super-cute image for the first-ever WFMU Iron-On back in 2003.

Learn Radio
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800x600, 445k
Impress your friends and family with this Chris Ware creation in which Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, teaches us about the wonders of Radio.

Enjoy!  And, if you would care to decorate your body with any of these designs, take a stroll over to our Olde Time Internet Emporium to take a look at our fine t-shirts, bumper stickers, and more.

Bronwyn's iPod Shuffle

Hello, Everybody—nsya.

There’s lots of things I don’t have, money being probably the main thing because if I had some money I might get some of the other things I don’t have now. Then I would have those things, but I wouldn’t have the money any more.

One of the things I don’t have is an iPod Shuffle. But if you go to the web site that explains how to automatically fill up your Shuffle with your favorite corporate listening product, you will see that Bronwyn's device is copying a tune called “Tonight We Fly.” I wanted to hear what that song sounded like, so I googled it and found a reference to a group called Divine Comedy, but I couldn’t find any links to that song or any little samples of it. I did find a record company called Divine Comedy that has lots of stuff I think I’d really like to hear. Maybe we can get them to send some things to Program and Music Director King Brian at WFMU. But even if I did have some money, I don’t think I would trade it for an iPod Shuffle, because if I were listening to real music I might not be able to hear the songs that are always on in my head.

Thanks for reading my irregular blog entry, and MGB.

Phone Home

MP3 download | Fast Matt "sns"

All children of the late 70’s/early 80’s (along with E.T. fans) reserve a special place in their hearts for the Speak & Spell learning appliance (even have-not kids like me). If you're now feeling a burning nostalgic sensation, visit this Speak & Spell simulator site to relive the halcyon days of your youth (minus the skinned knees), or download this poor-quality vintage commercial for Speak & Spell (wmv), starring then-ubiquitous super-dad Bill Cosby.

Inevitably, someone somewhere on the gravy train thought it would be clever to mix up the circuity guts of the S&S, rendering arty noise from the innocent spelling robot's voice; thenceforth the music world was forever changed. Listener Steve alerted me to Fast Matt, a prolific bender (geek name for circuit-shuffler), who sells his glitched-out S&S devices and offers some amazingly scatalogical MP3 audio from his creations.

You can visit this site for more souped-up S&Ss, or go here for some instruction on S&S deconstruction.

And, of course, WFMU has played many a song featuring the sounds of a manipulated Speak & Spell, so take a listen:

Kraftwerk  “Numbers” from an archive of Nickel and Dime Radio
Experimental Audio Research  “Track 2” as heard on Andrew Listfield's show
Komputergurl  “I Love My Speak and Spell” swiped from Pseu Braun's show
Christina Kubisch  “Speak and Spell (excerpt)” from an archive of Strength Through Failure with Fabio

Calling All Web Designers!

WFMU is in search of a new design for our homepage and our On the Download mp3 site. If you've got web design skills and want to throw your hat in the ring with a re-design idea, go to this page for all the details on our newly unveiled Web Design Contest. Submissions (sent as URLs, PDFs, or JPEGs of no more than 1MB) can be emailed to contest (at) wfmu dot org. Deadline is September 1st, and the prize is WFMU-In-A-Box (one copy of each DJ premium from our 2005 marathon). Ready... set...javascript!

OCD Screen Savers

UK design company Nowwashyourhands has got 40 or so great screen savers ready for download. Many of them are obsessive compulsive enough to save even Tony Shalhoub's monitor from burn in. This is especially the case with #20, a looped animation of hand washing. Other good choices include the disturbingly bloody #37, the trouble making ape of #31 (perfect for any Dave the Spazz fan) and the office inspired labyrinth of #19. There is also some slick wallpapers so check it out.

Happy Birthday MP3!!

Billboard Post Play Blog reports that the MP3 turns ten today. The tiny terror was hatched ten years ago today when researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Germany ("Vee have vays of making you stream!") decided to use ".mp3" as the file name extension for their new audio coding technology. Since then, the MP3 has brought the music industry to its wobbly knees as the first modern music configuration not introduced, controlled, and marketed by the industry itself (which hasn't put a halt to the gluttonous and obsolete practice of CD packaging deductions levied on artists and other royalty recipients). Consumers have rejoiced in a drunken downloading frenzy, ditching their broken-hinged jewel cases and clunkola CD Walkmans for iPod mugging bait. And for that, young man - the stripper, the Veuve, and the cake are on us. Just don't tell your mom as she'd probably kick our aged analog ass. Hit, it Marilyn!

"Happy Birthday" by Marilyn Monroe (MP3)

Oh, Joystick

Looks like live symphonic orchestras might be re-defining "Pop" to be more than The Best of John Williams, The Moody Blues and Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber. Fast-fowarding to the end of the 20th century, a collaboration of ahem, Marketing Execs have come up with Video Games Live, a seemingly bloated spectacle that sounds like a step up from Laser Pink Floyd .

Selections from the program include: Mario™, Zelda®, Halo®, Metal Gear Solid®, Warcraft®, Myst®, Castlevania®, Medal of Honor™, God of War™, Kingdom Hearts, Sonic™, Tron, Tomb Raider®, Advent Rising, Headhunter, Beyond Good & Evil™, Tom Clancy Montage (Splinter Cell®, Ghost Recon™, Rainbow Six®) EverQuest® II and a special retro arcade segment that goes from Pong® to Donkey Kong®. The VGL tour is coming to your town soon.

Expect plenty of ™ and ®.

Art Robot Heaven

A robot invasion is scheduled to take over Dublin this weekend. Find out more about the Robot Talent Show, download the ArtBot Theme Song (MP3), and cruise through the links for each participant, as some are quite impressive.

There are a few video clips embedded deep within, perhaps most entertaining are the Altoid robots and the stuffed animal robots arguing in German (wmv file).

And we've got plenty more robot videos available from previous posts.

Microchip art

Geeks with too much time on their hands etch designs into silicon wafers. View the gallery here.

My Commodore 64 Secret Life

I grew up with a Commodore 64 as my best friend. The C64 offered a new world to escape to from the banality of 5th grade. This is a story I always tell and people respond with a blank stare eventually uttering, "What was the point?  That's pretty stupid." So you just shouldn't bother reading this.

When I was ten I acquired a 300 baud modem. Services like Quantum Link (later to become AOL), which were primitive chatroom networks, soon lost appeal after I was repeatedly kicked off for excessive cursing. I started logging on to local BBSs (bulletin board systems) where a SysOp (one lonely guy) set up his computer to receive other users one at a time. The BBS’s featured message boards and download/upload areas. I was still involved in the real world of life, not totally ensconced in the world of computers, but I was looking for a way out, something new that would let me escape the constant ridicule of being fat and weird. Unfortunately these local BBSs were not the answer because they were usually run by old geezer hobbyists and most of the BBS members were from his close circle of friends.  On the message boards they usually talked about RUSH.

Podcasting Just Got A Whole Lot Easier

Welcome to the future. Presuming you already possess a pair of white headphones connected to some sort of digital audio playback device, please continue neglecting the need for human contact in favor of listening to hours of entertaining sounds in the safety of your own personal bubble. Easily indulge in this fantasy through the magic of podcasting.

WFMU is offering up 16 programs for portable playback, and now the new version of iTunes (v 4.9) supports podcasts. Here's a quick lesson on how to get our podcasts pumping through iTunes:

1. In iTunes, go to the Advanced menu and select Subscribe to Podcast
2. Highlight, copy and paste the http...xml links listed below for the program(s) of your choice in the resulting Subscribe to Podcast window and click OK (more help right here)
3. iTunes will now download the most recent show to your computer, and automatically download new shows each week as they are added

All WFMU podcast programs are listed below, just highlight, copy and paste the "http" address into the "Subscribe to Podcast" window of the new version of iTunes (v 4.9):

Music programs
Advanced D&D (breakcore) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/SU/SU.xml
Antique Phonograph Music Program (early recordings, 1890s-1920s) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/AP/AP.xml
Coffee 2 Go (underground hip-hop, podcast-only program) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/CG/CG.xml
Downtown Soulville (soul 45s) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/SV/SV.xml
Sinner's Crossroads (gospel, religious) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/CR/CR.xml
Thomas Edison's Attic (early cylinder recordings) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/TE/TE.xml

Talk Shows
Aerial View (archives, with Chris T.) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/AV/AV.xml
Aircheck (unusual moments in radio) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/AC/AC.xml
Communication Breakdown (with Chris T., not safe for work) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/CO/CO.xml
Dave Emory (anti-fascist researcher) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/DX/DX.xml
Jonesville Station (with Glen Jones) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/JS/JS.xml
Professor Dum Dum's Lab (metal, phone-in) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/DL/DL.xml
Seven Second Delay (with Ken Freedman and Andy Breckman) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/SD/SD.xml
The Speakeasy (with Dorian) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/SE/SE.xml

Sound Collage
Audio Kitchen (found sound) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/AK/AK.xml
Do or DIY with People Like Us (cut-ups, audio artistry) - http://podcast.wfmu.org/PL/PL.xml

Emotional Rescue

Most PC users at one time or another have encountered miscommunication online, whether it be via e-mail, message boards or chat. Hence, the births of the douche-chilling "LOL" and those horrid emoticons.

The Geeks and Shrinks at New Jersey's own Human Markup.org (Bringing Human Qualities Into Information Technologies) feel your pain, literally. Further, they'd like your other communicants to feel it as well. They provide an XML solution using something called Human Physical Characteristics Description Markup Language (HPCDML), which they hope will replenish the accounts of the emotionally bankrupt on-liner. This quick sample (avi), while compelling, still doesn't convey the snarky assholism displayed on some music lists I've seen, but I'm sure Human Markup's working on it.

More Dancing Robots

People dancing like robots (WMV). Robots dancing like people.

via Music Thing

Uncyclopedic Knowledge

If you thought Wikipedia was unreliable by allowing my kid sister to rewrite the article on tort reform, drop by the Uncyclopedia for articles so content free they may only pass as sources with like 30% of professors and maybe one or two news sites. Discover the Pope's Discography, liberal leanings at Fox News and why Communists adhere to a strict typographical style which forbids all capitalization, punctuation, and spacing, so that all letters may be brought together as equals.

Remember, since it's a Wiki you can freely edit and expand upon the Uncyclopedia, so who's going to write the WFMU entry?

The Robots of WFMU

Everybody loves a good robot or two. Here at WFMU, we have three of them. Two of them call up our DJs from time to time and say things like "telemetry channel - zero zero." From time to time, you might hear one of our DJs announce on the air that they have to go back to music right away because the robot is calling. It's true. When the robot calls, a bright strobe light goes off in the studio, everybody has a seizure and the DJ is supposed to drop everything and find out what the robot has to say.

Our third robot, I can't tell you what he does. But he lives on Mike Lupica's desk and he has an arm that moves back and forth and does stuff. Dave the Spazz opens his show with a robot. You know the one - Hal, from 2001 A Space Odyssey. The one with the heavy breathing who goes "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?"

Audio Relay

From Chicago art collective Temporary Services comes a traveling portable pirate radio station:

The Audio Relay is an autonomous radio station plus a music and sound archive. It travels from city to city gathering and presenting the work of musicians, sound artists, documentarians, and people whose work can be listened to. The Audio Relay houses a 4 watt FM transmitter, a folding antenna, a 30 watt amplifier, two speakers, two drawers that hold up to 200 cds, a cd player, two solar panels on a detachable cover, one chair and has storage space for posters and other informative material.

The Audio Relay is compact and easy to move around. Its dimensions are 22 1/2 in. x 22 1/2 in. x 9 in. The Audio Relay can be set up  anywhere. The solar panels provide some of the power. The Audio Relay  can run off any international AC power source or, for remote locations, a 12volt car battery.  The battery can be re-charged by the solar panels or by plugging the unit in to a wall outlet.

The Audio Relay can play music for an intimate audience as well as broadcast material in a radius of up to a mile away.

Audio Relay designer, Brennan McGaffey, also constructs other environmental altering projects such as the Utility-intertied Signal Generation & Transfer which transmits an Extremely Low Frequency signal by using and altering the electromagnetic field surrounding the powerline network in localized areas of the city.

link

To boldly go where no Vic-20 has gone before

Five photos of William Shatner in a Commodore Vic-20 commercial.

"Why buy just a video game from Atari or Intellivision? Invest in the wonder computer of the 1980s for under $300, the Commodore Vic-20. Unlike games, it has a real computer keyboard. With a Commodore Vic-20, the whole family can learn computing at home. Plays great games, too. Under $300! The wonder computer of the 1980s, the Commodore Vic-20!"

Not good enough? Then browse through the rest of the current issue of Retrogaming Times Monthly online magazine, or browse through the past 100 issues for all your TI-99, TRS-80 Color Computer, Commodore 64, Timex Sinclair 1000, Colecovision, Odyssey 2, etc. needs. Y'know, game reviews and stuff!

Will That Be 32 or 128?

Aware of my fascination with alimentary simulacra, my friend Todd once gave me a bunch of fake sushi for my birthday.  Unfortunately, they had a storage capacity of 0 Megabytes.  Todd, you dick.

The Multicultural Barking of Dogs

Laughter may be universal, but the the sound that dogs or pigs make is not. According to this site, oink oink turns into buubuu in Japanese. But bzzzpeek explores this concept one better, inviting kids from all over the world to actually record and submit their best animal impersonations. (requires flash)

Audio cassette tapes. Beautiful cassette tapes!

project C-90 is an online museum of images of cassette tapes.  I didn't THINK this would get me so excited, until I stumbled onto images like the one at the right, sending me back to forgotten early childhood memories of making little home radio shows on my portable tape recorder, taking apart and unravelling the cassettes, and marvelling over how  quickly the audio quality deteriorated in such a distinct way.

Enjoy the cassette pr0n!

(Thanks to Soviet listener Andrei for the link)

Get your anti-mind-control software now! (For Linux & Amiga)

MindGuard is a program for Amiga and Linux computers that protects your mind by actively jamming and/or scrambling psychotronic mind-control signals and removing harmful engrammic pollutants from your brain. It also has the ability to scan for and decipher into English specific signals so you can see exactly Who wants to control you and what They are trying to make you think.

MindGuard works by leveraging your computer's aluminum-based innards to both detect and emit psychotronic energy using advanced quasi-quantum techniques. Once a mind-control signal is identified and analyzed, MindGuard can generate a specially tuned anti-signal that will jam the incoming signal. If MindGuard is unable to properly identify the signal, it will generate psychotronic white noise to ensure the signal's harmful message is scrambled.

If you think protecting your hard drive from viruses is important, but give no thought to the safety of your mind...

Read more and get it here!  http://zapatopi.net/mindguard.html

Android Love

All I wanted to do was alert BoB readers to the new robo-jockeys being used for camel races in Qatar... However, being semi-obsessed about the inevitability of a devolved, post-apocalyptic future made glossing over the subject of robots replacing humans nearly impossible.

First, the battle of humans vs. androids must be accompanied by an appropriate soundtrack: check out this archive of a special episode of Greasy Kid Stuff, Monkey Vs. Robot (Real Audio).

Next, read about the latest in robot research here. Or, find out who won the first robot vs. human arm-wrestling match.

Earlier this month, Station Manager Ken posted a somewhat disturbing video of an interactive teen femme-bot. If that didn’t give you goosebumps, robo-go-go dancers might be more your speed (right-click to download wmv). For more links to robot videos, click here or here.

And if lightning strikes, perhaps this story will have a happy ending, after all.

Medieval Technology In Action: WFMU's New Antenna

March 29th, 2005. A day to ascend to the heavens - despite the fact that The Rapture wasn't scheduled for another six years, two months and three days. The last snow of the year was still on the ground and a light drizzle was falling as WFMU set out to replace it's 91.1 FM antenna. By the end of the day, the sun broke out and WFMU signed back on the air, pumping out a better signal than ever. The technology that made it happen spanned millenia, from ancient and medieval devices like axles, wheels, ropes and winches, to the old fashioned twentieth century art of tower climbing by eccentric tower guys, to the high tech back-seat-of-your-car computer analysis of the whole operation. Not to mention the laser guided hole cutter which carved out the precision entry system for the transmission cable. There's a photo gallery of the day's exciting events, and a batch of avi movie files for your downloading pleasure. Click here for the photo gallery, and here is a list of the movie files for downloading:

Johnny pulls some rope to send the new cable to the top of the tower. Download AVI file here.

Dave and Al hang out up top as the storm breaks up. Download AVI file here.

Johnny uses precision guidance systems to cut the transmission cable. Download AVI file here.

WFMU Chief Engineer John Fog tunes up the new antenna. Download AVI file here.

Another geeky diversion

Go forth and waste away your workday, you nerd.

Spice Up Your Desktop

Admit it, those awful screen captures from the leaked Carrot Top sex video are not an appropriate desktop wallpaper. Don't blame yourself, I too question Microsoft's decision to ship them with XP, but there is hope! Listener Jeff here with some desktop wallpapers that could easily make you the most popular person on your network.

Animals always make adorable desktops, who wouldn't want to store MP3s on this sloth, these grizzlies, a pizza party, or this precious little moment which I should point out is totally unrealistic.

First off, beavers are not friends with squirrels, they're far too smart to be seen with them. Secondly, just for the sake of argument lets say the beaver was “a little slow” or something and decided to befriend a squirrel, they wouldn't value a flower like we do. They are incapable of understanding it’s fragile beauty. That's really what separates the human from the squirrel. Unlike these filthy rodents we've got a little thing called civilization and it doesn’t matter how often they keep me awake all night with there constant scratching and chittering, they ain't never going to be the top dog. You hear that Tufty? NEVER. Maybe if they stopped stuffing their cheeks for a couple minutes they could make something of themselves like their relative the pigeon. That's an animal that had the good sense to quit chittering and do their duty overseas like a true patriot. Countless carrier pigeons lost their lives fighting the Nazi war machine making sure today’s lazy squirrels have the freedom to spend all day jumping from tree to tree, ignorant of the harsh reality of the real world. Notice I didn't mention thieving seeds from bird feeders? That's because incase the name “bird feeder” didn't clue them in, those seeds are FOR BIRDS.

I could go on but in honor of the brave carrier pigeon here are some hyper patriotic wallpapers, which are very hard to find on the internet. We have Lady Liberty/Flag/God, Eagle/Flag/Derby, Flag/Wordy Text and Flag/Bush/Clock/Fear/Lecture. Happy Wallpapering and remember, tiling is so Windows 98.

(Thanks Scary Squirrel World for incriminating information)

CSI: Audio

If you treasure audio like some of us do at WFMU,  you would think Coppola's The Conversation would be the apex of dorkdom rising from the darkest realms of the recording world. But that shit is soo '74.

I haven't really kept up with how Hollywood has been portraying those in the business of "audio forensics". We hear alot about surveillance nowadays, but that was only part of Harry Caul's (Gene Hackman's character) job in The Conversation. The real meat of his job and of the film came from the decoding of the recorded information.

Now that magnetic recording devices have been relegated to the status of artifact , one wonders if Harry Caul would get as much female action in 2005 without having to roll around on a dusty warehouse floor, wrestling with yards of tape surrounded by tractor wheel sized reels. The audio forensic scientist in this day and age likely has a flat ass and an oversized forearm from sitting in front of a Mac with his digital editing software for hours on end.

A company called Computer Audio Engineering is one of the cutting-edge places out there in the business of decrypting audio for clients like the U.S. Department of Justice, insurance companies and defense lawyers. They perform services like "intelligibility enhancement" and "event sequence analysis", stuff I never would've imagined could be so sensitively disseminated. They also do good old fashioned telephone recording, of course with a digital retrieval system, duh!

Here's descriptions of their services, which I assume represents technology offered by similar firms out there. So if you're a Junior Dick with an ear for the ghosts in the machine you might want to investigate the possibilities in this field.

ADDENDUM-de-dum: Gorge yourself on audio geekdom, including flawed experiments and stupefying mp3s over on The Science of Sound blog!

C64 SID Tunes

If you’ve never experienced the joys of music composed on the Commodore 64 computer, here are a few MP3s that will certainly amp you up. Both are from the Dan Dare video game (click to download Dan Dare Title song or Dan Dare Pause music).

Now that we’re on the same page about the spastic beauty of this music, here are some links for you to mine:

About the C64

SID Player (downloading this player will allow you access to zillions of free .sid downloads of more amazing C64 music, plus the sound is just better)

High Voltage SID (tons of .sid downloads)

C64 MP3s (for those reluctant to use a new audio player, but still need some buzzed out 80’s video game music as a soundtrack for feigning epilepsy)

Remixes (disclaimer: some are good, some resemble rap metal)

Enjoy! Special thanks to Justin Beck (aka Hard Hat Mack), who formerly hosted a program on KDVS featuring music composed on the C64.

Why won't my @#$% iPod record?!

For years I’ve used a Sony Minidisc machine to record stereo audio “in the field”, while hoping and praying some company would make an 'iPod that records”. Yes, I know there are gadgets you can attach to your iPod to turn it into an ersatz recorder - but I’ve heard these add-ons are not really up to the task. I’m looking for something “purpose-built” and it seems my prayers have been answered: two companies – Edirol (formerly Roland) and Marantz  - have just introduced Compact Flash-based handhelds that can record in .wav or MP3 format, at different rates, for direct USB transfer to your computer.

The Edirol R-1 is the smaller of the two but the Marantz PMD660 has XLR microphone inputs and seems a little more “professional”. Both of these machines should begin shipping in March and can be had for around $450 each.

More Goodies From The Bandwidth Fairy

With the installation of our extra bandwidth proceeding swimmingly, we can really start rolling out the goodies for our online listeners.

First off, if you're listening to WFMU's live MP3 streams, the Accuplaylist info will now start appearing in the player itself. This is only true if the DJ at the time is actually doing an Accuplaylist (typing in the names of the songs and artists they play on the air in real time as their show proceeds). There is a page which lists all Accuplaylist DJs here.

In the past, you would've needed a separate web page open to see the song title info. Now you can see it within your player, whether you're using Winamp, iTunes, or Realplayer (and my condolences to you if you're still using Realplayer). The song titling will also appear in other, less popular players.

Moving our streams away from Live365 will also mean that our live MP3 stream will hopefully stop experiencing those outages which had been happening with increasing frequency.

Later this year we are going to experiment with changing the live MP3 stream to a variable bit rate stream, which means that the fidelity will improve for people with good solid broadband connections. Also on the agenda of the Bandwidth Fairy: experimenting with the new format of AAC Plus, which should give improved stream fidelity for all broadband listeners.

WFMU Random Song Generator!

Do you live by the moment? Thrive on spontaneity? Yearn for unpredictability? Well, friends of audio entropy, WFMU has just unleashed a fuzzy new 'net pet for you to play with: check out our Random Song Generator!

With the click of a button, a string of discriminating binary will deliver 10 random songs from various shows in the WFMU archives straight to your computer via Real Audio or MP3. And because you favor chaos, you won't even mind that the start times of songs are a tad, well, random.

Fans of mixin' it up may also enjoy our Random Archive Selector, which arbitrarily selects a WFMU archive from our vaults to throw your way.

Let the audio anarchy begin.