Dude! Techmology! I'm running Windows and I'm streaming music to my stereo from Real Rhapsody, through iTunes, through the Airport Express. Real Rhapsody, with a monthly subscription, has oodles of music available on demand. So, at least when I'm at home, I can listen to just about anything for a flat fee. Awesome.

I followed the instructions here (copied below). You can stream any source, I think. And I think Yahoo! has a service similar to Rhapsody, but for substantially less money. Time to check it out.

Downloaded and installed the latest free versions of SimpleCast (spacialaudio.com), Icecast 2 (icecast.org), and of course ITunes.

Then:

- Start Icecast.

- Click Configuration->Edit Configuration. That brings up an xml file that shows the configuration of your Icecast server. Dont change anything! Just note that the hostname is "Localhost", the port is 8000, and the logon password is "hackme".

- Start the server by clicking the "start server" button.

- Start Simplecast.

- Click on the encoders button.

- Click the "+" and set up an MP3 encoder.

- On the "converter" tab in the MP3 encoder setup, you can select the level of compression that the encoder will use. I went with "MP3Pro 96kbps, 44.1 khz Stereo".

- Click on "server details" and select Icecast.

- Select Icecast 2, and type in "hackme" in the password field.

- The other fields default to the default setup of icecast.

- Unselect "List on public station listing".

- Note that the mount field says "/live".

- Hit OK.

- Close the encoders window.

- On the Simplecast main screen, click "config".

- In the "general" section, selected the sound source that Simplecast will use as a source.

(note: in my setup i have 2 different audio cards. This allows me to direct my music player output to one sound card, and regular windows system sounds to another. Obviously, you want to set simplcast to stream from the sound card that the music is playing on. If you only have one card, windows sounds will be broadcast as well... so dont get any error boxes while you're playing music... or you'll hear "BING" at high volume.)

- On the encoders screen, start the encoder.

- If the encoder status says "Encoding" so far so good. If not, go back and make sure you've followed the directions to the letter.

- Close the encoders screen.

- Click "start" on the Simplecast screen.

- If working, the start button changes to "stop"... and the "stream time" starts counting. So far so good!

- Check the IceCast window. In the "Server status" tab under "sources" it should say "1". In the "source level stats" tab there should be "/live" in the source window.

- Select "/live" and some info about that source should show in the other window.

- Note the "listenurl" field has the url you'll "tune" ITunes to.

If so, you're now broadcasting! Of course, at this point you're broadcasting nothing.

- Now, start your music player. Play some music, and watch the simplecast window. The L and R channel level meters should start bouncing. If not, retrace your steps til the bars are bouncing. Now you're broadcasting music!

Last part:

- In Itunes, select "Open Stream" (dont remember which menu its under, but its one of the right-most drop downs). The address you enter will be the address listed in icecast under the "listenurl" field. If everything is still default it'll be "http://localhost:8000/live".

- Itunes will add an entry to your catalog for this "radio station"... and should connect to it... and start playing the music that your music player is playing... with a bit of a lag of course.

- Now, have Itunes use the Airport as its output device.

The workaround is now complete.

**********************

Some people were having problems with the stream picking up ambient noise (problems I, Ogged, also had), so there were further instructions, which worked.

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1. Go to start->accessories->entertainment->volume control

2. select options->properties

3. in the "adjust volume for" box click "Recording"

4. Check all of the boxes that appear (e.g. "CD Player", "Microphone", etc.)

5. Click OK.

In my case, i just wanted the wav output to be broadcast... so i clicked the "select" box under "Wave Out Mix"... and viola!... the bars started jumping.

I'll bet you that your "line in" or "mic" box is "selected".

Note to very muscular man at the pool: If you warm up by doing the butterfly, you are a big annoying poser. Also, I'm faster than you, bitch.

Hey, did I just swim head-first into the wall because I was checking out the hot woman in the lane next to me? Memory's hazy, but it's a distinct possibility. I would have appreciated a "That's my handsome and perfectly nice-seeming boyfriend three lanes over; save yourself the skull-crunching, chump."

If you are seeing this, you're at the site's new home. You should be able to comment. (Unless you got here by entering the IP address and your DNS server hasn't updated yet. Then, the comment link will go nowhere for you.)

I'm going to change hosting providers. With two blogs set up on the domain, I need something more reliable. So things will be strange, probably through the weekend (that means that comments you leave will probably be lost). As soon as I have a stable address for the site on the new host, I'll post an update here; after a few days unfogged.com will work as before.

That was fast: The stable address of the site's new home is http://66.29.14.82/. That will always work (there's nothing there right now, of course). After a day or two, Unfogged.com should take you there.

One prepubescent boy to another:

"Dude, your phone is a piece of poo! No reception? Come ON!"

1. As hard as this might be for you, if you cold call me and leave a message, I ought not be able to hear the weight of all the calls you've made, and have yet to make, in your voice. That depresses me; it doesn't make me want to try or buy your service.

2. No matter how sweetly you say "good-bye," if the connection goes dead before the last vibration has hit my ear, what I'll think of is your finger hovering over the button while you were talking to me.

Chet?

Has the site been screwy lately? Slow? Down? Timing out?

A nice piece in Slate about the difficulty of learning Arabic.

I am not one of those people who dreads the thought of learning a foreign language. While everyone else was partying in high school, I was learning the Spanish past subjunctive and loving it. I studied German, French, and Portuguese in college. I speak decent Russian and have taught myself some half-decent rudimentary Japanese. Languages are usually fun. But Arabic is really killing me.

Lots of entertaining details for all the language mavens in these here parts.

First Profgrrrrl says that I have "friendly eyes," then today while I'm standing in line, some little girl leaves her mother and Foomp! latches onto my leg. What's next, Mr. Congeniality? I count on the fact that I look unapproachable, if not downright menacing. Lately I'm feeling like 150 pounds of Not Fooling Anyone. Look, I suffer from human frailty too: it's not all bad to be liked and likable, but it's really not what I'm aiming for. Does this stuff happen to everyone? What non-drastic measures can I take to look meaner?

Did you know that tiny ponies were used as seeing-eye animals? I did not.

A really great post from hilzoy at Obsidian Wings. (That's probably redundant.) I agree completely. A brief excerpt:

...we are squandering the freedoms and the ideals that we inherited from those who have gone before us, and that have made this country great. This administration actually argued in court that the President has the right to decide that any citizen is an enemy combatant, and that if he so decides, he can detain that citizen without charges, access to counsel, or trial, simply on his say-so. Their arguments did not prevail, but the administration that sought to deprive its citizens of some of our most basic rights -- the right to be imprisoned only on specific charges, to be tried on those charges, and to be represented by counsel -- has never been held to account for doing so. To most Americans, as far as I can tell, the fact that George W. Bush sought to strip us of a right that has been upheld since the Magna Carta has not even registered.

Tell it, sister.

Designing web pages really sucks. Ok?

Somehow I missed Diane Sawyer's interview with Brad Pitt, but the cutest cheap critic in the world sums it, and much more, right up.

Among other things, the hour was a study in how deeply uncomfortable—how humiliating, really—it must be to be that famous. Despite his protestations that he had had "a shake-up year … a blossoming year," Pitt seemed resigned, even depressed, as he sipped ice water and squirmed in visible dread at Sawyer's invasive and demeaning questions about his breakup with Jennifer Aniston ("It's reported everywhere that you wanted babies and she did not"). Every so often, he took a moment to point out, in essence, that anyone tuning in to the show to learn about his personal life was one sick puppy: "It's a strange focus, isn't it? That my relationships or relationship mishaps takes precedent over something like that [the situation in Africa] … I understand it's about entertainment, but man, it's misguided a bit, isn't it?"

Vox clamantis in deserto, dude. It would be hard to find anyone who would openly disagree with Pitt's assertion that the mass suffering of a continent should rank higher on the list of global priorities than the love triangles of movie stars; certainly Diane Sawyer, nodding with her usual expression of chocolaty compassion, seemed convinced of the rightness of Brad's path. But what was most interesting was the way in which last night's broadcast co-opted that very sentiment—the deep-down knowledge that we should feel guilty for caring about this crap—and made it part of the publicity machine accompanying the rollout of Pitt's new film.

In its particularly stark association between gossip and guilt—watch these dying kids for a while, and we'll throw you a Pitt/Aniston tidbit for your trouble—the Prime Time encounter exemplified the kind of sadomasochistic push-pull that's constantly at work between the celebrity media and its consumers. For weeks, ABC has been dangling snippets of the upcoming interview that promise some kind of revelation or intimacy; when, as instructed, we tune in to watch, we're upbraided for having been interested, then offered a drop of Jolie juice, then scolded again. How can we even think about such things when children are starving in Africa? But look: Brad and Angelina are so hot together! The dialectic carousel goes round and round, all the way to the bank: Brad Pitt is above all of this media frenzy. Brad Pitt has his priorities in order. Therefore, go see Brad Pitt's new movie.

Amnesty International shouldn't have used the word "Gulag."

...dysphemism is not as bad as euphemism in describing moral horrors but it's still bad; it contributes to a debasing of the currency of moral language. Not every mass murder is a genocide, and it needn't be a genocide in order to be a moral horror; calling it a genocide both diminishes the latter concept and subtly implies that the truth isn't bad enough.

The fact that they used the word "Gulag" is so far from being the most important issue that focusing on it is shameful.

On one hand, we had an organization with a 40-year history of standing up for human rights regardless of borders and ideology, criticizing the United States for holding prisoners without due process and torturing them. Only a fool would deny that this is, in fact, happening. On the other hand, we have an Administration accusing Amnesty International of poor word choice. Your contribution to the debate was a piece criticizing Amnesty for the use of the term "gulag".

If they hadn't used the word "Gulag," it wouldn't have mattered a bit to determined defenders of the administration.

This is a broader pattern on the right -- whenever a right-winger is engaged in some wrong-doing, the important moral fact about the situation is that people are pointing it out. One can always make the argument that a particular criticism or accusation is over- or under-stated or misses the point (by however small a margin). And then, it's just: words, words, words. I get so sick of these right-wing postmodernist elitists who are running things nowadays.

Tonight, those damn questions that sites make you look at before you can submit your help ticket actually got me to solve my problem. I guess I'm an idiot.

And since I started swimming, I want big, wide, crazy flexible feet. Did you know that Ian Thorpe's feet are size 17? That's almost like swimming with these. And scroll down to picture 5 on this page. My foot does not do that.

We've had our share of discussion about the "right" of pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions. Insty, with trademark concision and shiv.

Of course, this only matters because pharmacists enjoy a government-created monopoly on the dispensing of prescription drugs. Just take that away, and the problem disappears, too. In the meantime, like others who enjoy government monopolies, they are forced to make some concessions to public convenience. That doesn't strike me as an overwhelming imposition, but if the pharmacy profession feels otherwise, I'll be the first to support a move to eliminate its privileged position.

Two reasons for posting this: 1) you all hate Glenn and I like to annoy you 2) to point out, again, the possibility of a split in the Republican voting block when foreign policy ceases to be the primary issue.

Awesome story.

I've been a little wary of recommending background reading on Heidegger because so much of it is just wrong, and because even the good stuff tends to be really dense; more an exercise for initiates than an introduction for novices. And I'm also worried about the interpretations of a secondary source blocking interesting readings. But I remember how utterly lost I was when I first started reading, and something that would have just let me know that I was in the ballpark would have been helpful. So here's a PDF of a paper posted on Thomas Sheehan's site that's a very good summary of Heidegger's major themes and terms. Read it through once or twice, and don't worry about "getting" it all, just use it to get a feel for the topic.

I'm hoping that the site will go live sometime next week. How are people doing on getting the book?

Man, am I glad that I'm not Gilberto Marrero.

A surveillance video shows that the partner of a police officer who was shot three times during a car stop last week in Brooklyn ran away and, for several minutes, failed to help the wounded officer, a police official said yesterday.

The actions of the partner, Officer Gilberto T. Marrero, are under investigation...

The officer who was shot, lived. I'm guessing Marrero will soon be wishing he'd been the one shot.

This is the list I have of people who have expressed interest. If you want to participate and aren't on the list, please let me know (and let me know if you're on the list and aren't participating). I have email addresses for everyone except NickS (email me, Nick).

I'll leave this post up top for a while, new posts beneath.

Chopper

washerdreyer

Rob

Austro

Toadmonster

Ben W-lfs-n

Fontana Labs

Tripp

LizardBreath

RIPope

NickS

Anne dotter

Azad

eb

Kriston

mcm

Normally, when someone pretends he doesn't see me and doesn't hold the elevator, I don't make a dash for it, so to save him the embarrassment of riding up with the person he just tried to screw. But I was feeling more frisky today, so when the little 50-ish woman looked at her shoes and made the hard right to get in, I sped up, and made it just in time to stick my hand in the door.

"You're not getting away that easily."

Wracked with guilt:

"I figured it was a race: if you made it you made it, if you didn't you didn't."

"I see."

Still wrestling with the guilt:

"But you made it, so you get to start your day on a positive note."

"Actually, I almost lost my arm."

"Have a good day."

"You too."

We've tried to figure out a sensible last name convention before, but I think Kotsko's really got one. Really.

You know how the butterfly looks like it's really hard to do? It is! And did you know that it's almost impossible to describe the proper arm motion in the backstroke? It is!

Tonight, a buff young guy watched the Swede demonstrate one of her impossidrills, turned to me, and said, "Good luck."

I'm sure going to miss her.

The Supreme Court ruled today that the federal government can regulate the private growth and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Without getting into all the legal details, my impression is that the decision relies on stretching the definition of "interstate commerce" very far indeed. Now, as Matt Yglesias says,

Sympathetic as one might be to the defendants in this case [the sick people using the marijuana], a victory for their side could have led to very bad consequences down the road.

One of his commenters explains,

Stevens bends over backward to demonstrate his sympathy for the medical marijuana advocates on a policy level, but he knows that they can't let the Commerce power be pruned back in this manner. Because if you can call this "purely local" activity that is beyond the scope of Congress to reach, then there goes things like Title VII [of the Voting Rights Act] and the ADA, both of which rely solidly on that Commerce Clause power for their validity.

In short, and disconcertingly, while we might be sympathetic to the medical marijuana users and while the law is probably on their side, we, as liberals, should be glad that they lost, because undermining the federal government in this case would also undermine its power to safeguard other rights that we hold dear.

That makes me very nervous. David Bernstein frames the larger issue.

There are essentially two strategies for those who are concerned with civil liberties for limiting the government's ability to abuse the rights of the public. One is the standard ACLU strategy of being a liberal supporter of broad government power, and then insisting that the government respect individual rights, especially constitutional rights, when using that power. The other strategy, followed by libertarians, is to try to limit the government's general power to begin with because the government cannot abuse power it does not have.

That sounds about right, and I've always been a liberal in that scheme, because the alternative entailed leaving too many people behind (eg women in Alabama who want an abortion, blacks in racist counties who want to vote, etc.), and smacked too much of "I've got mine, too bad about yours" and because the government didn't seem to be taking advantage of its powers in ways that struck me as egregious.

But now? With the war on terror, and the public's willingness to endorse torture and indefinite detention without charge...I'm not sure it's still a smart trade-off. Maybe it's time for liberals to revisit their strategy. My uncertainty is genuine: I could be overestimating the risks of government power, underestimating how much the government still has to act as guarantor of basic rights, etc.

Thoughts?

I have finished San Andreas. For those who are wondering, I agree with Hilker: it's easier to do "End of the line" without fireproofing than it is to complete 12 firefighter missions. The fire isn't that big a deal-- there are only three or four places where you have to use the extinguisher, and you have plenty of time to do it. What is frustrating is making it through the burning crackhouse and then screwing up the big chase scene by accidentally turning into someone's driveway.

I will now resume sleeping and eating at regular intervals.

Ben W-lfs-n has created a Greasemonkey script for those of you very annoyed by the fact that the comment window automatically takes you to the last comment. The instructions are these, courtesy of Ben.

First, do no harm.

Then, use Firefox, and install the Greasemonkey extension.

Finally, right-click on the link above and select "install user script", or follow the link itself and select Tools -> Install User Script from the menu.

Uh: It crashed SB's browser, so use at your own risk. W-lfs-n says it works for him.

Now this is quick. Sherry just went to her college reunion.

I snuck into three separate secret societies that I didn't belong to over the weekend, pretending to be an alumna. At Wolf's Head someone got suspicious and demanded that my friend and I "Sing the song! Come on, you remember it, don't you? Are you sure you were a Wolf? Sing the song!" My cell phone started ringing right when we were being accused and we used it as the excuse to make a quick escape. It turned out that my accomplice had dialed my number with his hands in his pockets.

Trying to keep Unfogged and the Unfogged Reading Group straight. Failing. Inebriated. Will have this sorted out soon, I hope.