meta-roj

24hdc, the dotcom startup sold on ebay closed earlier at US$2, 026.00.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that they needed $1000 to break even, so congratulations on the profitable adventure.

it’s always noteworthy when we have first-hand material to share on controversial subjects – first-hand stories from the ground where bombs are falling makes war a little less abstract and video-game-like. twice, in the past few days, we’ve had important messages sitting here at the meta-roj blog addressed by the persons that they refer to. william cooper came forward with a comment on june 10th, and today, carlo oddo apparently added his two cents to a post on the sons of 97 radio. it’s taken quite a long time (150+ days), but better late than never, i suppose. maybe it’s the tail end of the honesty outbreak?

of course, it’s impossible to verify that these are actually the people they claim to be, but for the sake of argument, we can let that slide for now….

something that john foxworthy points out in a follow-up comment, is that this reads like a prepared statement – in fact, it looks like the same statement that rolling stone got when they ran with the story.

in any case, carlo oddo didn’t pick up the whole collection of 97 radio material available here – he hasn’t (at least not from that ip this week) read the original post (with it’s 70-ish collection of comments), nor did he read the bit about it breaking into the tv news over here, so it’s hard to give the guy credit for really engaging the subject in the space provided.

if you’re here looking for information on 97 radio, carlo oddo, talent 2k, cigmusic, alternativespin, rapvibe or any of the other potential faces of this operation, you can read carlo’s response in the comments here.

i think it’s important and valuable to make the platform available for rebuttal [different story]. the 97 radio story here at the meta-roj blog has turned into a huge [relative to this dark corner of the net, anyway] phenomenon. by april the story had generated over 1200 “direct hits” from people looking for information on the subject. today, that score is up to over 2800. (i’m defining “direct hits” as reading the individual-entry page – it’s impossible to get an accurate count, because the same material appears on the front page of the blog for a while, and in the music business archive, so at least this many people saw the material. i also don’t know how many of them bothered to read everything.

we broke this story at the meta-roj blog on january 11, 2004.

[queries with less than 5 total aren’t presented here]

something worth noting is that the queries a few months ago were mostly for the names and players in the story. since then the words “scam” and “fraud” have creeped into the vocabulary more and more. this suggests something to me.

it’s a good thing to bring attention to the people that would take advantage of others – and i’m happy to provide that platform – but i’m also very concerned with the positive things that people do, so i thought i’d draw your attention there while i had you here.

i should also apologize – i haven’t really followed up on the cig music/alternative spin/rapvibe post. i suppose i should try to do that someday.

king of the alps

the tapeworm collective seems to be vaguely similar to re:combo, but obviously, i didn’t run into it back then.

looks like a bit more than 25 artist-collaborators in the mix here, with a 24-track $9.99 cd available, plus a webcast.

[via metafilter]

downhill battle and p2pnet have joined forces to put together movies for music.

with what seems to be a bit of a nod to bush in 30 seconds, movies for music is an effort to tell the story of the business of music and get it out to the public.

if anyone wants to do a film adaptation of the music business archive here, i’m game. let’s go 🙂

get the filming on… contest is only open until july 21.

a few days ago (june 11), the new york times and cnn (and many others, of course) ran a story from the associated press under the headline “League of Women Voters Is Split on Paperless Computer Voting Systems.” that story included the quote:

The group has “no reason to believe” computer terminals would “steal your vote,” the league said officially.

…

Ms. Maxwell said that the league could reverse its stance, but that it was unlikely, particularly before November.

“We’ll continue to look at this issue and others and take our stances based on where we think the facts lead us, not being concerned about anything else except being as honest as we can be,” Maxwell said.

today, the league of women voters apprently reversed their stance:

League of Women Voters drops support of e-vote machines [usa today, june 14, 2004]

The League of Women Voters rescinded its support of paperless voting machines on Monday after hundreds of angry members voiced concern that paper ballots were the only way to safeguard elections from fraud, hackers or computer malfunctions.

i guess it doesn’t take too long to make a convincing argument on this subject.

if it worked once, maybe it’ll work again.

every generation has to disparage the music that the next generation creates, but c’mon kids… this is just silly.

just to put it on the record 🙂

AT, as in “where it’s AT” – the technologies that succeed in being worthy of human attention.

beyond it (“information technology”). beyond ict (“information and communication technology”), it’s at – “attention technology” and it is your future.

remasterer

following the british and an american effort, another group of retired ambassadors and military officers have picked up the pen in an effort to effect “regime change” here in america.

the group is not technically backing kerry, but this is on the record:

Former Officials to Criticize Bush Foreign Policy [reuters, june 13, 2004]

Harrop said the group was not aligned with Bush’s Democratic challenger in the November election, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. “But we want an alternative and that’s the alternative,” Harrop said.

the official release is wednesday at the national press club –

Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change to Hold Press Conference June 16 in Washington [us newswire, june 7, 2004]

The topic will be “The Need for Change in U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy.”

The group includes former ambassadors Jeffrey Davidow, William DePree, Charles Freeman Jr., William Harrop, Arthur Hartman, H. Allen Holmes, Samuel Lewis, Princeton Lyman, Jack Matlock Jr., Donald McHenry, Richard Murphy, David Newsom, Phyllis Oakley, John Reinhardt, Ronald Spiers, Nicholas Veliotes and Alexander Watson; and Adm. William Crowe, Gen. Joseph Hoar and Adm. Stansfield Turner.

links are mine, since you probably don’t know these people that well… i’ll try to come back and fill in the blanks later…