The Power of the A.M.
What cheap dependable technology has been around for over a century and still influences our culture? Good old A.M. Radio.
Their Electronic Base
A.M. Radio is the home of the political talkers; you’d need to be in a media blackout to not know who Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity are. Maybe you have heard George Noory’s late night supernatural talk. Many of these commentators have crossed over to cable television, but their base remains the place they all started, A.M. Radio.
Critical Content Scheduled
AM delivers bread and butter content, news, traffic, weather and sports. If you’re late for work, the traffic and weather is critical content. Every eighth minute update.
The Young think AM is boring, talk only and bad fidelity for music. If young folks are listening to AM, it’s because they learn to use traffic and weather to get to work on time.
For the old folks, AM is a way to connect with those that think like them, a audio water cooler where political opinion forms the emotions of the gullible / governable. If so-and-so says the sky is green, the sky is green.
Plus, some folks get a rush out of yelling their opinion out through the national magic talkin’ box.
Magic Randomness(r) of late night dial twiddling -
The First Surfing Device
A.M. Radios were the first widely available media surfing device. Even a cheap A.M. Radio can receive stations from thousands of miles away. Sitting around the kitchen table late at night twirling the dial slowly to hear stations from another state or maybe even another continent. Lying in bed with a portable radio tuned to a station 500 miles away like it’s next door. Foreign languages, time shifted syndicated programming, and of course the distant / local traffic, weather and sports. Space compressed through atmospheric interference.
Real Cheap and Real Good
A.M. is perhaps the cheapest electronic communication technology you can buy, with battery operated (barely) radios available at cut-rate stores. A functional A.M. Radio can be had for less than five dollars. There is a large variation of builds, for the cheapest portable to a fine install in a new car. Powered by small batteries, AC or handcrank. Ubiquitous, functional and informative.
Christmas Photo #4 – Styrofoam Snowman
South Carolina Aquarium, Charleston, South Carolina, December 2009
Marked Trees in the Middle of the Woods
A collection of trees in the middle of the woods are wrapped with plastic tape – sequential numbers designate a few trees in the midst of hundreds of specimens. This area is adjacent to Wetland Delineation BR-26 which is a U of R research project. What is surprising about these trees is their remoteness, no real paths lead here, bushwacking is required.
Map Battle: Verizon vs. AT&T near Storage B?
The Coverage Map controversy between AT&T and Verizon is interesting. AT&T charged in court recently that Verizon was misrepresenting their reach. The court found in favor of Verizon, as their advertisements state this is a map of AT&T’s 3G coverage, not their overall slower network.
(AT&T Drops Fight Over Maps in Verizon Ads By SAUL HANSELL @ NYT).
AT&T has responded in the media with their postcard flipping advertisements. I’m sure some folks don’t realize that Verizon is only comparing 3G coverage, but maybe it’s more than I think…
Both companies are expanding their service areas, and will continue to do so. But Verizon and AT&T shouldn’t forget that we also need our devices to work in the stone and metal buildings most of us work in.
We expect connectivity along interstates, airports and stadiums, but what about when we’re in the basement visiting our friends near Storage B?
Online Security and Photographic Privacy
Privacy and Technology; two words when mixed invoke fervor in some. As technology advances, and our use of the online medium becomes expected, we are distributing tiny bits of our traits outside our physical relations. If you carry a mobile device’ we are never truly offline. Does your phone go with you everywhere? Just in case… Your location, via GPS may be broadcast. Just in case…
Google CEO Eric Schmidt mentioned December 3 that we should have no expectation of privacy when we are online. Soon we may not expect privacy not just online, but offline as well. If we are moving with a mobile device – offline never exists.
A recent California law directed at paparazzi who chase celebrities for gossip video / photographs amends the expectation of privacy persons have in a public space. The new law states a person may have a ”reasonable expectation of privacy” or they may sue the photographer and the distributor of the illegal images.
Previously when a media outlet published an image, the outlet had no liability towards how the image was acquired. A paparazzi may have trespassed to get the photograph. The new law removes the First Amendment defense from the paparazzi and publishers who break the law to acquire content.
For nearly twelve thousand dollars, you can purchase a telephoto lens that will provide incredible magnification power.
Check out a cool Canon focal Length Comparison here, to see the effect of zoom and telephoto lenses.
If a paparazzi rents a room in a skyscraper hotel near a Celeb hotel and point the lens out the window is this trespassing – by law yes, as the Celeb would have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their luxury hotel. But the technology exists that a photographer could do this, easily.
I wonder when the gossip media empires will own their own surveillance satellite, zooming in on the rich and famous of the future from orbit?
