While the SF Chronicle may have gone through the stages of Google grief, it appears the LA Times is still very much in the denial stage. In fact, it's such extreme denial, that it's reaching near-satire levels. Robert Niles at OJR points us to an editorial in the LA Times saying that "many publishers" believe that Google and the internet are "a greater threat... than Osama bin Laden." Niles does a good job walking through how ridiculous that statement is, including pointing out that the LA Times refuses to name a single publisher who actually believes that. However, as has been pointed out many, many times, Google is not a threat to newspapers. It's only helping them. It's funny that, on the rest of the internet, tremendous money is spent on "search engine marketing" and "search engine optimization" to get better ranked in Google. Yet, when Google ranks newspapers well, suddenly, it's worse than terrorists. You would think that a newspaper with professional reporters would actually bother to get the facts and understand this -- but apparently that's too much to ask. The editorial goes on to complain about Google's new news commenting feature, because how dare Google actually provide people involved in a story a chance to tell their side? Apparently, all information needs to be guarded by some gatekeepers who don't even seem to understand how Google works. Of course, since the LA Times wants to keep those in the story quiet, you can't comment on the article. However, if I were Google, I'd add a response to this... on Google News, to demonstrate why that comment feature makes so much sense.

Xeni Jardin:

(Images: Ivan Castro)

Click on the embedded audio below, and you'll hear a 10-minute chunk of ambient sound I taped one night in the old colonial city of La Antigua (literally, "The Old"), Guatemala: centuries-old church bells, popping firecrackers, rumbling mopeds, and a Kakchikel Maya family walking home on ancient cobblestone streets.

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[Browser-compatibility note -- The audio link in this post appears as embedded Flash, and is brought to you by our sponsor: HP's iPaq 510 Voice Messenger. If your web reader doesn't allow you to access Flash, here's a direct MP3 Link. ]

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I taped this outside my bedroom window there in November, 2006, while in the country working on a series of reports for NPR News. I'd been out in the field all day taping interviews, and was sun-fried, road-weary, way tired, hunched over a Marantz digital audio recorder and backing up what I'd taped that day to portable hard drives, ipods, and CDs for redundant safekeeping.

I heard a bunch of loud explosions -- pulled off my headphones for a sec -- sounded like bombs or guns going off, pop pop pop, again and again, and the churchbells ringing nonstop. WTF? Now, firecrackers are familiar sounds there, lit for any and every birthday or saint's day, any excuse it seems. But the bells were just going and going and going this time. Some big Catholic holiday? An emergency? War? Couldn't figure it out, and neither could the family in whose home I was staying.

Anyway, my editors and producers at NPR always told me, tape first, ask questions later. So I stuck my mic out the window and hit record.

Never did figure out exactly what was going on.

When I listen to this recording now, though, it transports me back. I keep this file in my iTunes playlist and fall asleep to it sometimes. I remember the things that filled my senses, while falling asleep there: warm tortillas cooking over wood fires; copal resin burning in the church next door; cool breezes from nearby pine forests; diesel fumes from overburdened trucks; and the volcan de fuego puffing ash and intermittent red sparks off in the distance.

I hope you enjoy it. I love this old place like you might love a person. This sound reminds me of that.

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PHOTOGRAPHS in this post ganked from the flickr stream of Ivan Castro, a prolific and (obviously) very talented photographer based in Guatemala.

a_skripko suggests this easy step-by-step procedure for adding third-party applications to an Apple iPhone. While the article claims "this procedure can be performed by the average user," it might at least have to be an average user with no fear of the command line.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's funny every time we hear someone say that the music industry is in trouble. There's very little evidence that's true. More music is being produced today than ever before -- and plenty of people are still making a ton of music in the music business. What's actually in trouble is the traditional recording industry, which is quite different than the music industry. When we point out business models for musicians, we seem to get a lot of pushback, but there's more and more evidence that artists are successfully embracing the model we've put forth -- and they're raking in the cash doing so. Forbes just came out with a report about how much money the top hip hop artists are making, and they're doing quite well. However, it's not because of just the music, but how they've used the music to sell all sorts of other things.

It's exactly the model we described (though, many could probably do even better if they further embraced freeing their music). The music itself is an infinite good and can be used to the musician's advantage to make scarce goods much more valuable. As Lea Goldman, the associate editor at Forbes who put together the story notes: "they are smart enough to know that it's not just about selling albums. That'll keep you going for maybe two, three years tops. It's about building an empire and plowing those earnings into lasting businesses that will generate income long after the music stops selling." For some artists, that means branching out into totally different businesses. When people attack the business model we've described, they snicker at "selling t-shirts." However, the article notes that hip hop artists are creating full lines of clothing that sell well and sell for a premium because of their association with the artist. Also, the successful hiphop stars all seem to recognize one of the key "scarce" resources they can sell: an association with themselves. Many of these musicians took in millions by doing sponsorships, by producing other musicians albums or simply by appearing on other musicians' recordings. So, can we now set aside the myth that the music industry is in trouble? It's only in trouble if you're solely in the business of selling plastic discs -- and that's because those discs are increasingly obsolete.

Xeni Jardin:

Scott Beale blogs,

Till Nowak has created a masterpiece “Salad”, a fantastic digital image of Alien made out of vegetables. His tribute to HR Giger and Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Link

Mark Frauenfelder: Andrew Keen, notorious spammer, failed Web 1.0 entrepreneur, blog-hating blogger, and luddite troll author of Cult of the Amateur, appeared on the Colbert Report last evening. It's well worth watching.

(Slightly paraphrased transcript:)

Colbert: I thought the Internets was building our culture.

Keen: No, it's destroying our culture.

Colbert: I can go on the Internet and find pictures of any old art I want. That's culture, isn't it?

Keen: That's stealing our culture.

Colbert: But it's still culture. The Nazis stole culture, but it was still culture.

Keen: It's worse than that... Even the Nazis didn't put artists out of work.

Its gets even better from there. Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Andrew Keen compliments Boing Boing in WSJ
• The internet is impurifying our precious bodily fluids, Mandrake
• Shirky explains why Keen is a Luddite
• Clay Shirky defends the Internet
• Andrew Keen, luddite troll author, and now -- spammer

jamie caught a breaking news story this evening: the secret FISA Court has ordered the Bush administration to respond by August 31 to an ACLU request for orders and legal papers discussing the scope of the government's authority to engage in the secret wiretapping of Americans. The ACLU's press release calls it an "unprecedented order."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Frauenfelder: On July 4, Nicole and Jeffery Rank attended President Bush's speech at the West Virginia State Capitol. They were handcuffed, arrested and charged with trespassing for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts. They sued the federal government. Yesterday they settled their suit for $80,000.

The front of their homemade T-shirts had a picture of Bush and the international "no" symbol over his face. The back of Nicole's shirt read "Love America, Hate Bush." The back of Jeffery Rank's T-shirt read "Regime Change Starts at Home."

"This settlement is a real victory not only for our clients but for the First Amendment," said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of West Virginia. "As a result of the Ranks' courageous stand, public officials will think twice before they eject peaceful protesters from public events for exercising their right to dissent."

Link (Thanks, Virtual Tours Guy!)

It's no secret that Apple's new iPhone is quite popular across the nation, with competitors everywhere trying to figure out how to respond. There certainly have been some complaints about some of the limitations imposed by the iPhone, but people everywhere are trying to find workarounds. Tech.Blorge alerts us to the fact that a bunch of iPhone users in Vermont have had to go virtually underground to get and use iPhones. The problem, apparently, is that since AT&T has an exclusive deal to offer the iPhone, they don't want people using it primarily on roaming networks. Right now, you cannot get AT&T wireless service in Vermont -- and AT&T's contract threatens to cut off anyone who buys or uses an iPhone there. Of course, that's not going to stop some people, who are ordering iPhones from elsewhere and even setting up P.O. Boxes out of state where the 300 page iPhone bills can be sent. They know that they're risking being cut off but they just can't help it. For their part, AT&T insists that they will cut off anyone they find who lives in an area not served by AT&T wireless (which is actually a fairly large area), or anyone who uses more than 40% of their iPhone time on roaming networks. This, of course, is a bit ridiculous. These people want to pay money. They're happy customers or both Apple and AT&T -- and the company wants to cut them off. If expense is the problem, they should just charge them more for roaming, but cutting them off completely in the name of an exclusivity contract doesn't make any sense. It makes the iPhone and wireless service from AT&T less valuable, which is exactly the opposite of what the exclusivity clause was supposed to do.

hmccabe writes "YouTube is currently taking submissions for their next debate, in which the Republican candidates will answer questions. This seems like a good opportunity to challenge those candidates who say they do not believe in evolution. But since I am not an expert in the subject, I would be interested in how you all feel the question should be presented. For my own part, I think it is important to present the overwhelming body of evidence on the subject as incontrovertible fact, much the same way DNA evidence is presented during a criminal trial, and ask why the candidate feels they can pick and choose what facts they believe in. Moreover, I am wary of coming across like Christopher Hitchins, so vitriolic the candidate will defend themselves rather than answer the question. Perhaps the most important aspect of posing the question is to inform the viewers who watch the debate that this is really not a matter of opinion, but of science. So my question is: 'Hey geneticists, have you considered addressing evolution in the YouTube debates? Can you do it in 30 seconds?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

David Pescovitz: My friend Chris Noessel found this fantastic piece of "tupperware" at a $1 store in San Francisco's Mission District. It's very plain except for the little flower motif and the words "Nice design." Follow the link to the full picture. Chris writes:

I'd like to think this was some snarky designer, but the actual design counterindicates. But even if it was a practical joke, how did it get past the fabricators? Did no one in the delivery chain speak English? What directive was given to the designer? Was it simply, "We need a nice design for the product," and the designer a literalist?

Link (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

LA Times editorial on Google's new feature that allows people mentioned in a news article to respond. Google's new program is a very rough approximation of what truly open media provides, something the newspapers themselves should be doing.

It seems journalism is the new Catholic Church. Without the savior.

Imho, the pros are right to be worried. It's the last quarter of a game they're losing, and the opposing team is deep in their territory. They need to get the ball back and then connect on a few Hail Marys to even be in the game. Yet all they do is weakly protest that "this isn't journalism." We need information. To say it's not journalism now is like a priest saying it's not Catholic to a bunch of agnostics. You're answering a question no one is asking.

A news story should summarize points of view that are available in full on the newspaper website. The newspapers should try to host the blogs of the people they quote. Instead they cling to the fiction that they have the exclusive wisdom to decide which soundbites and points of view are relevant, and the reader needs nothing more than what they provide. This is wrong, the world is too complicated, and the resources of news organizations are shrinking and our appetite for information is exploding (and the tools for creating and using news are getting better all the time).

If a reader wants to find out what's really going on they have to search thoroughly for many views of the same event and try to piece it together. The first news organization that embraces that view wins. Google is taking first steps to be that news organization.

Yesterday at Mozilla, I urged them to get aggressive with powerful RSS support in the browser. Like the news organizations, if they wait much longer, Google Reader will have too much of a lead to catch. It may already be too late. In their case, much of their funding comes from Google, and if Google is smart (they are) somewhere on their vast campus, which surrounds the tiny Mozilla building, in a corner of Google-land in Mountain View, they are working on their own fork of the Mozilla codebase, one designed perfectly to run their apps (mail, spreadsheet, calendar, maps, search, widgets, wp, etc). Mozilla is in the same place as the rest of us, about to be swamped by the Google juggernaut.

I'm beginning to think it's already too late. Too many people rooted too deeply in the past to take a chance on the obvious future. Oh well. Happy Friday!

Ferin alerts us to a story at Slashdot about some new campaign among some websites to block Firefox users. To be honest, it's tough to know how real this is. The actual site is down from the Slashdot Effect, and it certainly hadn't received much attention before. Even if it is real, it seems unlikely that many sites would sign up and take part. Most people just aren't that stupid. However, assuming (big risk here) that the campaign is real and some sites actually are doing this, it's worth explaining why it makes no sense. The complaints are basically that Firefox users "spend less" and sometimes use extensions like ad block to block out ads. Even if true (and it's only a small percentage of people who use ad block), that makes no sense if you understand the bigger picture. First of all, they tell people to go use other browsers -- but if those people aren't going to click on ads anyway, then they're still not going to click on ads from other browsers.

Just like with the full vs. partial RSS debate, people need to get past the idea that every single visitor needs to be monetized. Instead, recognize the indirect benefits of having more users. Even if a Firefox user doesn't buy something or click on an ad, he or she may tell someone else about the site and they may click on an ad or buy something. Word of mouth is an ongoing process -- and even if someone doesn't directly contribute to the revenue of a site, the fact that they potentially could cause others to drive revenue is the key. For example, here at Techdirt, we make our money by connecting companies that need insightful analysis with the experts in the Techdirt Insight Community for collaborative analysis and by providing news and trend analysis to all sorts of companies, large and small. Techdirt, the blog, helps promote those services -- even if the vast majority of our readers never pay for either service. However, they've helped make Techdirt incredibly popular, driving additional brand recognition and helping us sell a lot more from the corporate side of the business. So even though only a tiny percentage of our readers provide revenue, there's tremendous benefit in getting as many others aware of us and reading the blog as possible.

David Pescovitz: Last year, my wife and I went to the second annual Tree Show group show at San Fracnisco's Giant Robot boutique/gallery. We fell in love with Susie Ghahremani's tiny matchbox-size paintings of little forest creatures. We bought three, but I wish we could have collected them all! (At the first Tree Show, some jerk stole several of the pieces.) Susie Ghahremani has a solo show opening this Saturday at the Giant Robot in New York City. The GRNY blog has a preview of some of the pieces in the show, titled Teacher's Pets, and it looks to be a wonderful collection.

From the invitation on Susie's own blog:

Themes of the show include patterns and fine detail, animals and nature, and interior spaces with domesticated wildlife. Ghahremani titled it “Teacher’s Pets” because she takes imaginary animals and teaches them how to do her favorite things: play the piano, make origami, ride a bike, swing in a hammock without falling out. Approximately 200 paintings, soft sculptures, unframed line drawings, framed work, wood pieces, and miniatures will be on display. A reception for Ghahremani will be held from 6:30 to 10:00 on Saturday, August 18.

Link to GRNY, Link to Susie Ghahremani's site (via Juxtapoz)

David Pescovitz: On Flickr, a scan of a an Apple-1 print ad from July 1976. (Click the image for the entire ad.) From the description:

A fast (1 kilobaud) cassette interface is available and includes a tape of Apple Basic. And ... Yes, Folks. Apple Basic is Free!

Link

Previously on BB:
• Steve Wozniak interviewed by Pesco Link
• Apple I clones for sale Link
• Apple I replicas built to order Link
• Woz on the Apple ][ Link

Mark Frauenfelder: Two Indian tribes (neither one recognized by the federal gov't) are selling membership to unregistered immigrants for $50 and up. The federal gov't says it won't stop them from being deported.

In Nebraska, some people reported paying up to $1,200 to join the Kaweah Indian Nation, which became the target of a federal investigation after complaints about the tribe arose in at least five states.

Manuel Urbina, the tribe's high chief, acknowleged his group has sold at least 10,000 tribal memberships to illegal immigrants for about $50 each.

"We are not going against the law, we're with the law," he said, claiming membership papers can help illegal immigrants avoid being detained by authorities if they are asked for documents.

A Florida man has made similar sales pitches to immigrants on behalf of a North Dakota-based tribe.

The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs denied the Kaweah group recognition in 1985 because it was not a real tribe. A Kaweah tribe did exist once, but is unrelated to the one that applied for recognition.