On a much more serious note, I highly recommend How Comcast Blocks Your Internet Traffic, a post on Machinist, Salon’s tech blog. You have to watch a brief commercial to access Salon’s content, but this really is important, and it’s not just Comcast—or if it is, it probably won’t be for long.

The post is a fairly long but clear explanation of how Comcast, in the name of traffic management, secretly listens in to your Internet communications. If it wants to shut you down, it has software that steps in and essentially tells your machine and the machines you are communicating with that your connection has been lost. You have no way of knowing otherwise, and it is fairly surprising Comcast even got caught doing this.

Comcast at the moment appears to use it on peer-to-peer file transfers, which admittedly can cause surges in network traffic. And sure, some of those file transfers are illegal music downloads or whatever, but many are perfectly legal. As Machinist says,

If the company feels justified doing this on peer-to-peer connections, what's to say it wouldn't feel similarly justified shutting down or slowing down your communication with Amazon.com, or NYTimes.com, or YouTube or any other online service (whether because it doesn't like the content, or because it's got an economic incentive, or because it's just mean) -- and all without telling us?

Just one more reason Congress needs to move, and move soon, on Net Neutrality.

Posted by pat at 09:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow—who knew?

Posted by pat at 09:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Speaking of Howard Iceberg & the Titanics, we’re playing a free street party in the Crossroads Arts District this coming Saturday. It’s in front of The Dolphin art gallery at 19th and Baltimore, a memorial (as I understand it) to Howard’s poker-playing buddy John Puschek (sp?), who was a barbecue fanatic.

We did this same party last year, and it was lots of fun, with great food, amazing barbecue, Boulevard Beer on tap, and live music. All you have to do is walk in—apparently John was a generous guy, or anyway his friends certainly are. I think it starts about 5:00; we play from 6 to 7 (and then I have to run off to another gig), and the Original Sinners play after us, though I’m not sure what time.

I’d worry about posting this, except there are only about six people who read this blog and most of them are out of town. So I probably don’t have to worry about causing massive party-crashing. Really, come on down.

Update: Howard Iceberg & the Titanics are now scheduled to play from 4:30 to 5:30. The Original Sinners (yes, it’s my understanding they are the same guys who have been Exene Cervenka’s backup band the last couple years) go on at 8:00. In between will be a performance by local keyboard legend Rich Hill. So, I’m telling you, it’s a party!

Posted by pat at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

After an absence of six or seven years, Howard Iceberg & the Titanics has a web presence again. Well, a MySpace page, anyway. But at least you can hear and download some of his songs; hopefully Howard will keep rotating new songs through the maximum four at any time. He’s got plenty to choose from: seven full-length albums on his own indie label, another album completed two years ago but still awaiting mastering, nearly 90 songs in various stages of completion, and maybe another 50 which are just quick solo demos.

I’ll admit Howard’s voice is an acquired taste, but listen to the songs—they’re really good. Full disclosure: I’ve worked with Howard for over 15 years, and I recorded most of those songs. I recently started playing in his live band as well, though he only plays every once in a while.

Posted by pat at 09:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

An update to my earlier mention of Seymour Hersh—you can see him in an extensive (maybe 30 minute) video interview with New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick. Hersh can be frustrating in interviews because his mind skips around to so many different topics that it can be difficult to get him to finish his point. Remnick does as good a job as any human could of trying to keep him on topic, though it’s a struggle. I don’t really mind, though—the breadth of Hersh’s knowledge is pretty astounding, and he is a lot more casual about speaking his mind than he could ever be in print. Well worth a look, I’d say.

There’s been a lot of hue and cry among Democrats about right-wing attacks upon a 12-year-old boy who spoke in favor of the SCHIP children’s insurance bill which President Bush vetoed. As it happened, the critics got nearly all the facts wrong, though to this day some still refuse to back down. Paul Krugman has a clear and concise roundup of the facts and figures, and if after reading that you still want to take the Frost family to task, then I’m afraid there’s just no reasoning with you. I’m sorry, the concept of government aid does not require that you be naked on the street with running sores before you qualify for help.

To my mind, though, the last word on the subject comes from the blog of “reasonable conservative” Jon Swift in his post titled “Fair Game.” I swear, sometimes I think this guy is Stephen Colbert blogging under a different name (not really, but you get the idea), and this is just a brilliant post.

I don’t want to slip back into lurk mode without mentioning one other great column from Paul Krugman. I, too, have often been puzzled by the vitriol that the mere mention of Al Gore seems to bring out in certain people. Krugman calls it Gore Derangement Syndrome, and makes a pretty compelling case as to “what is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane?”

Is it just me, or is the entire right wing rising to a lunatic pitch of stridency? I’d like to hope that it’s because they’re starting to realize that fewer and fewer people are listening. But hope is pretty hard to come by these days. We’ll have to wait and see.

Posted by pat at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Talking on the phone to a guitar player I used to work with, though now we’re in different bands. It turns out we had both played a certain club for the first time recently; his band one weekend and our band the next.

“You know,” he said. “That bar just needs one thing: a great big flush handle on the outside wall.”

Uh huh.

Posted by pat at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, since I’m obviously not going to get any more work done before my recording session tonight, I’ll throw out some links that have been lying around.

First, this is hilarious, incomprehensible, and more than a little disturbing. Not exactly work-safe, btw.

Remember the leak last week of an Osama bin Laden video to news outlets, thus damaging the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the anti-terrorist group who obtained it? The White House denies having anything to do with it, though according to one account I read, the file was being downloaded by news organizations within nine minutes of the time it was given to the president’s legal counsel. As Joan Walsh at Salon asked, “Can you imagine the outrage if, say, Democratic leaders leaked intelligence information and cost counter-terror experts a valuable way into terror operations? Sure you can.”

If you aren’t depressed enough after that, you can read Seymour Hersh’s latest in The New Yorker, on how the administration is attempting to redefine the war in Iraq as a strategic struggle with Iran. He also did a 20-minute interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air. It is utter madness to even consider attacking Iran, but there can be little doubt that Cheney and other hard-core hawks are planning exactly that.

Posted by pat at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I just found this Mac OS X feature I hadn’t known about before. In an email from a client was an FTP link to my client’s website. Normally, of course, when you click on a link in an email it opens up in your web browser, so I was expecting Safari to open a window with a list of files on the web server. Instead, I got a new Finder window displaying the website’s contents as icons. The home directory of the website showed up as a volume on all my Finder windows, so I can drag and drop files to and from my computer and the server just like they were windows on my home network. Cool! Yet another reason to love Mac OS.

NOTE: This method of accessing web servers is no more secure than typing an address in your web browser in the form “ftp://username:password@yourdomain.com” (which then shows the list of web files in your browser window). The username and password are sent in the clear, while most times when you log in to a website your info will be sent using the more secure POST method. But still, if security isn’t an issue—like, maybe an anonymous FTP site—being able to drag and drop in the Finder is pretty damn convenient.

Posted by pat at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I suppose it depends on your point of view.

Posted by pat at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)