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You can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Medianews digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Unlock work internet or risk losing staff: Microsoft (Greg Williams) 2. Help! I See Somebody Help! Not Just Anybody (George Antunes) 3. Solid rocket booster tests could be ordered (Greg Williams) 4. Researcher throws in towel after animal rights groups harrass him and his family (Greg Williams) 5. Fugitive exec nabbed after Skype call (Monty Solomon) 6. Launch Delayed Until Tuesday (Duane Whittingham) 7. College Texts Free On-Line, With Ads (George Antunes) 8. Some DVD fans live for the binge (George Antunes) 9. Ship lines get on board with cellphone and Wi-Fi (George Antunes) 10. 'Gilligan's Island' boat up for sale (Greg Williams) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 00:56:43 -0400 From: Greg Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Medianews] Unlock work internet or risk losing staff: Microsoft To: Media News <medianews@twiar.org> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed http://bink.nu/Article8176.bink Jobseekers will think twice about employers who lock down work internet access, a senior Microsoft executive said today. ?These kids are saying: forget it! I don?t want to work with you. I don?t want to work at a place where I can?t be freely online during the day,? said Anne Kirah, Microsoft Senior Design Anthropologist. ?People that I meet are saying this to me every day, all over the world.? Kirah made the comments during the keynote at the opening of Microsoft?s annual developer love-in, Tech.Ed, in Sydney. ?Companies all over the world are saying, oh, you can?t be on the internet while you?re at work. You can?t be on instant messaging at work?? she said. ?These are digital immigrant ideas.? Kirah defines ?digital immigrants? as people who were not born into the digital lifestyle and view it as a distraction rather than an integral part of life. The younger generation of workers have been using computers and mobile phones since birth and she calls them ?digital natives?. Kirah cited a Norwegian psychologist who claimed that young people were now so reliant on digital communication that ?taking a mobile phone away from a teenage girl is the same as child abuse.? ?Digital communication is part of people?s lives now. Their friends online are the people they identify with.? Microsoft Australia Group Manager of Technical Communities Frank Arrigo said people were so frustrated with limited internet access at work that they were finding their own workarounds anyway. People were increasingly making use of anonymous proxies that couldn?t be easily blocked by corporate firewalls, bringing in their own wireless broadband services for use with a personal laptop or with a work PC or accessing instant messaging via mobile phones and PDAs. -- Greg Williams K4HSM [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.twiar.org http://www.etskywarn.net ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 00:31:12 -0500 From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Medianews] Help! I See Somebody Help! Not Just Anybody To: medianews@twiar.org Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-4FD6542C http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fg-briefs26.1aug26,1,5924706.story?coll=la-headlines-technology Help! I See Somebody Help! Not Just Anybody From LA Times Wire Reports August 26, 2006 An American helped foil a burglary in northern Britain while watching a Beatles-related webcam over the Internet, police said. The Dallas man was using a live camera link to look at Mathew Street, an area of Liverpool synonymous with the Beatles and home to the Cavern Club, where the band regularly played. He saw intruders apparently breaking into a sporting goods store and called Merseyside police. Officers were dispatched and arrested three suspects. ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 04:16:04 -0400 From: Greg Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Medianews] Solid rocket booster tests could be ordered To: Media News <medianews@twiar.org> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Solid rocket booster tests could be ordered BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts115/060826srbtest/ Posted: August 26, 2006; Updated at 2 a.m. Aug. 27 following MMT meeting NASA's Mission Management Team decided early Sunday to continue testing and analysis to assess the possible effects of a launch pad lightning strike Friday on the shuttle Atlantis' solid-fuel booster and self-destruct systems. A Monday launch attempt remains feasible for now, sources said, but only if the community agrees time-consuming tests to verify the health of booster and range safety pyrotechnic systems are not needed. If the tests are required, launch likely would slip to mid week or later. The Mission Management Team plans to meet again at 6 p.m. Sunday to discuss the progress of the analysis and to make a decision on how to proceed. The lightning bolt hit Friday, pumping some 100,000 amps of current through the launch pad's lightning protection system. Lightning strikes typically generate 5,000 to 20,000 amps of current and the bolt Friday is one of the strongest on record at the Kennedy Space Center. Telemetry showed a very small "spike" in one of the shuttle's electrical buses and a larger surge in the circuity associated with a launch pad pyrotechnic device used to disconnect a hydrogen vent arm from the shuttle's external tank. Concern that induced currents could have affected other sensitive electrical systems on the pad or in the shuttle, Mission Management Team Chairman LeRoy Cain on Saturday ordered Atlantis' launch delayed for at least 24 hours, from Sunday to Monday at 4:04 p.m., to give engineers a chance to assess their systems. Later Saturday, representatives of the shuttle booster program and the range safety system raised concerns that prompted a late night meeting of the Mission Management Team. Atlantis was powered up when the lightning struck and an analysis of the powered systems shows no problems. But the boosters were not powered and engineers have no data to assess the health of critical components. At issue is whether the strike might have affected circuity that fires explosive charges used during booster ignition and separation. Similar concerns were raised by Air Force range safety officers about the shuttle's self-destruct system. To test those circuits and their pyrotechnic initiator controllers, or PICs, engineers would first have to drain liquid oxygen and hydrogen from the shuttle's fuel cell system and open the ship's aft compartment. Ordnance would have to be disconnected and then reconnected as part of the verification process. Then engineers would have to close out the aft and reload the shuttle's fuel cell supplies to ready the ship for launch. If such tests are ordered, sources said early today, launch likely would be delayed to late this week. But it may be possible to clear the PIC systems without disconnecting the ordnance based on more detailed analysis of shuttle grounding and response to electrical transients. If that turns out to be the case, NASA could, in theory, press ahead with launching Atlantis Monday. But as of this writing, it is not clear when a decision to pick up the countdown would have to be made. Updates will be posted as warranted. -- Greg Williams K4HSM [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.twiar.org http://www.etskywarn.net ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 04:20:37 -0400 From: Greg Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Medianews] Researcher throws in towel after animal rights groups harrass him and his family To: Media News <medianews@twiar.org> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Throwing in the Towel http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/08/22/animal The constant calls, the people frightening his children, and the demonstrations in front of his home apparently became a little too much. Dario Ringach, an associate neurobiology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, decided this month to give up his research on primates because of pressure put on him, his neighborhood, and his family by the UCLA Primate Freedom Project, which seeks to stop research that harms animals. Anti-animal research groups are trumpeting Ringach?s move as a victory, while some researchers are worried that it could embolden such groups to use more extreme tactics. Ringach?s name and home phone number are posted on the Primate Freedom Project?s Web site, and colleagues and UCLA officials said that Ringach was harassed by phone ? his office phone number is no longer active ? and e-mail, as well as through demonstrations in front of his home. In an e-mail this month to several anti-animal research groups, Ringach wrote that ?you win,? and asked that the groups ?please don?t bother my family anymore.? The North American Animal Liberation Press Office, a resource for the media on ?animal liberation actions,? according to the group?s Web site, posted a news release from the Animal Liberation Front, a separate group that sometimes engages in illegal activities, about Ringach?s decision. The press release describes Ringach?s research as torturous and ?a far cry from life saving research.? UCLA officials said that groups like ALF often misconstrue information, and that, in the interest of researchers? safety, the university is not releasing detailed information about projects being attacked by such groups. Colleagues suggested that Ringach, who did not return e-mails seeking comment, was spooked by an attack on a colleague. In June, the Animal Liberation Front took credit for trying to put a Molotov cocktail on the doorstep of Lynn Fairbanks, another UCLA researcher who does experimentation on animals. The explosive was accidentally placed on the doorstep of Fairbanks?s elderly neighbor?s house, and did not detonate. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently investigating the incident. Fairbanks said in an e-mail that the ?protests against me are based on complete fabrications that, unfortunately, are believed by many of their followers.? She added that she is sad that Ringach is giving up his work, because he ?was making new and important advances in our knowledge about how the brain processes information.? Upon Ringach?s decision to stop his research, UCLA issued a statement saying that ?we all suffer when animal rights activists attempt to intimidate researchers by physically threatening and harassing them and their families, including young children.? The statement added that ?to be so extreme as to use violent tactics aimed at halting animal research is to take away hope from millions of people with cancer, AIDS, heart disease and hundreds of other diseases.? Jerry Vlasak, a practicing physician, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Press Office, and a former animal researcher, said that ?obviously the roughly 30 non-human primates [Ringach] was killing every year would be ecstatic? with his decision to halt his work. Vlasak said that when he was an animal researcher, he published papers on his work, but didn?t feel that he contributed anything important to society. As to the Molotov cocktail, Vlasak said that ?force is a poor second choice, but if that?s the only thing that will work ? there?s certainly moral justification for that.? Leo T. Furcht, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, said that extreme anti-animal research tactics have a longer tradition in Britain, where he said some of his colleagues gave up their cars rather than having them searched for bombs every day. Still, Furcht said, he doesn?t think ?that these acts of extremism are going to deter the broad class of researchers.? Furcht, who is head of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, said that, a few years ago, some people let a bunch of birds and mice out of their cages in Minnesota labs. Furcht added that, because it was winter, the animals ?undoubtedly died. It?s really a form of terrorism.? ALF claimed responsibility for a similar action at the University of Iowa, where animals were released and equipment damaged. Furcht, and other experts who follow the issue, said that extreme actions are on the rise in the United States, partly because organizing and disseminating a target?s personal information has become very easy using the Web. Mary Hanley, executive vice president of the National Association for Biomedical Research, said that actions against pharmaceutical companies have definitely been on the rise. Hanley said that the association is hopeful about legislation that has been introduced in both the House and the Senate. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act would make it a federal crime to harass or cause ?economic disruption? to animal researchers, suppliers, and even people who might be tangentially associated with a researcher, like, for instance, a researcher?s babysitter. Hanley said that the legislation would make it a crime not only to carry out such ?economic disruption,? like bombarding someone with non-stop phone calls, but also to organize such a campaign, ?so they can?t say, ?well, I didn?t do it,?? Hanley said. The House bill has 36 sponsors, six of whom are Democrats, and the Senate bill has five Republican sponsors. -- Greg Williams K4HSM [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.twiar.org http://www.etskywarn.net ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 14:56:00 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Medianews] Fugitive exec nabbed after Skype call To: undisclosed-recipient:; Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Fugitive exec nabbed after Skype call 8/24/2006 11:25:54 AM, by Eric Bangeman Kobi Alexander, the founder of Comverse, was nabbed in Negombo, Sri Lanka yesterday by a private investigator. He is wanted by the US government in connection with financial fraud charges. He is accused of profiting from some very shady stock-option deals, to the detriment of Comverse shareholders. Once the deals became public and he was indicted, he resigned as CEO and fled the US. Alexander was traced to the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo after he placed a one-minute call using Skype. That was enough to alert authorities to his presence and hunt him down. The fugitive former CEO may have been convinced that using Skype made him safe from tracking, but he-and everyone else that believes VoIP is inherently more secure than a landline-was wrong. Tracking anonymous peer-to-peer VoIP traffic over the Internet is possible (PDF). In fact, it can be done even if the parties have taken some steps to disguise the traffic. ... http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060824-7582.html Tracking Anonymous PeertoPeer VoIP Calls on the Internet http://ise.gmu.edu/~xwangc/Publications/CCS05-VoIPTracking.pdf ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 14:08:14 -0500 From: Duane Whittingham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Medianews] Launch Delayed Until Tuesday To: Medianews@twiar.org Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Launch Delayed Until Tuesday Mission managers have determined Shuttle Atlantis will not launch before Tuesday, Aug. 29. This delay is as a result of the lightning strike at the pad on Friday and the need for additional time for further analysis of the shuttle and ground systems. No damage to the vehicle or pad has been found at this time, but more time for analysis requires an additional launch delay. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Duane Whittingham (N9SSN) - Producer Tom and Darryl Radio Shows Heard on C-Band Analog Satellite (W0KIE) - Telstar 6 (IA6) Ch 1 6.2/6.8 mHz Also on WTND-LP Macomb 106.3 FM, WQNA 88.3 FM, WBCQ 7415 kHz & the Internet. Heard Fridays 9pm ET, Sundays 12am ET and Tues 2am ET (Folk) An Independent Freeform Eclectic Radio Show. http://www.tomanddarryl.org http://www.wtnd.us ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 15:29:22 -0500 From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Medianews] College Texts Free On-Line, With Ads To: medianews@twiar.org Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-4FD6542C August 27, 2006 Words of Wisdom vs. Words From Our Sponsor By RANDALL STROSS NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/business/yourmoney/27digi.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=print WHO will stand up to eulogize the fat tome of learning, the college textbook? Writers have written lovingly of the tactile pleasures provided by printed books and newspapers, but no one has paid particular tribute to the voluptuous four-color, four-pound textbook. Now being replaced by weightless electronic versions, the bound artifact remains forlorn and unloved. In any ceremony marking its demise, college students may want to throw a fusillade of stones at its coffin. Expensive texts, after all, have broken many student budgets. A $4 billion-a-year business cannot change fundamentally overnight; the shift from printed to electronic textbook will take years. In the meantime, a small publisher of college textbooks, Freeload Press of St. Paul, seeks to take advantage of this flux with a new concept: providing free e-textbooks to students. The catch? Ads are inserted within the text. It has been 16 years since Channel One?s advertising-supported news broadcasts first slipped into the commercial-free space of middle schools and high schools; today, its in-class advertising, it says, reaches seven million students. Channel One was able to parachute in televisions and satellite systems like relief supplies to school systems short of cash. Having secured the acquiescence of central administrators, the company never had to fight its way into each classroom, stepping over teachers who objected to the intrusion of commercials into their realm. Higher education has not been so easy to crack. For the most part, instructors are free to choose whichever textbook they think best suits the needs of their classes, an arrangement that periodically upsets advisory commissions that would like to transplant the one-size-fits-all approach of secondary education to colleges. Universities will accept gifts from prominent business executives ? Stanford students, for example, stand a good chance of guessing who provided the lead gift for the Gates Computer Science Building ? and corporate benefactors can expect credit on a plaque for donations of money and equipment. But the core of the university, its intellectual autonomy, is protected by a faculty unbeholden to outside interests. Textbooks used in the classroom are, like the instructors themselves, extensions of a university?s autonomy and no more likely to be considered an appropriate place for corporate ads than the classroom lectern (or the instructor?s forehead). Freeload Press seems unlikely to be the company that will succeed in adding commercial messages to the typical college textbook. Its problems begin with that unfortunate name, which conjures an image of party crashers cadging free beer, not a publishing concern striving for the highest intellectual standards. It was founded two years ago and has found the going slow. Excluding study aids, it offers 15 textbook titles, most of them in math and business, and relies on an even smaller base of authors who contribute to multiple books. This summer, the company announced that the University of Michigan was the 100th college to assign one of its textbooks, but this number exaggerates the popularity because it includes those that have tried it once and have not opted for a second trial. The number of universities that will be using any of its free textbooks as a required text this fall is only 38. Without a full range of outstanding textbooks, Freeload will remain nothing more than a concept with dubious prospects. It can?t sign up the authors it needs to expand its offerings because professors balk at the juxtaposition of ?Solution to Demonstration Problem? on one page and an ad for a double bacon cheeseburger and fries on the next. The example is not hypothetical. Randal E. Bryant, dean of Carnegie Mellon?s School of Computer Science, did not have any kind words about the quality of the Freeload titles that he reviewed. His summary: ?They?re closer to Schaum?s notes than to university-level course textbooks.? He predicted that Freeload would continue to find it hard to recruit top authors because of the mingling of advertising and supposedly disinterested teaching. ?The idea will be too much of a cultural leap for some,? the company says on its Web site about resistant faculty members. It matter-of-factly aims at professors willing to choose a textbook based on ?the price/value consideration alone.? Asked to select a textbook on the basis of price over quality, professors will resist, as they properly should. Professors, however, are not blind to the shocking prices of new textbooks. Nor are they deaf to the complaining voices of their students. They know that students increasingly buy used textbooks, and that this in turn affects the prices on new texts that sit unsold on the shelves. J. Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education at the Association of American Publishers, said publishers report that sales of a new textbook edition evaporate almost completely after one year, when used copies flood the market. Authors say that this drives publishers to shorten the intervals between revisions and to raise prices to try to recoup development costs from a shrinking base of new-book buyers ? then the cycle repeats. The system is broken. Its replacement, however, should not entail a hasty embrace of advertising and substandard contents, but rather adoption of electronic versions of the best textbooks in their field, at much-reduced prices and free of advertising. When I spoke last week with Jefferson P. Williams, a lecturer of accounting at the University of Michigan, whose summer school course placed his university at the top of Freeload?s celebratory news release, he did not assert that the Freeload textbook was equal in quality to better-known texts. He had selected the financial accounting textbook for a class of 20 non-accounting majors mainly on the basis of price and adequate coverage. It is noteworthy that he found that many students ended up paying after all. Most class members found reading the dense pages on the computer monitor to be a strain and resorted to buying a softbound printed version of the book ? free of ads ? from Freeload Press for $35. The reading difficulty is created by Freeload?s use of PDF images, which retain the printed page?s layout without reformatting. Navigating around a single superwide, supertall page requires lots of clicking and zooming and patience. The company will soon use improved software that can automatically adjust the text so it is more legible, said Tom Duran, a founder of Freeload Press and its chief executive. Also planned are what Mr. Duran calls a ?payload version? of the print edition, one with ads embedded in the text. His company likens its textbook advertising to that accepted by newspapers and magazines. But this defense ignores the main reason that the advertising in textbooks is objectionable. It?s not the fear of direct tampering with content but the idea that select interests shouldn?t be able to rent the attention of a captive student audience. When soliciting advertisers, Freeload unapologetically calls attention to its own readership?s lack of choice: ?Your Marketing Message works overtime in textbooks? because ?grades provide motivated readers; quizzes, tests and finals drive traffic back and forth throughout the medium.? Most faculty members do not wish to have their teaching associated with specific sponsors. Mr. Hildebrand, of the Association of American Publishers, said, ?Faculty want their instruction material to be neutral.? Last year, a Canadian subsidiary of McGraw-Hill began to solicit advertisements for a printed textbook, but an uproar of objections caught the attention of the home office, which promptly shut down the initiative. A spokeswoman for McGraw-Hill, Mary Skafidas, reiterated last week that the company did not place ads in its textbooks. ?We never have, and we never will,? she said. THE major publishers are introducing e-textbooks at reduced prices. McGraw-Hill offers 2,000 of its textbook titles in electronic format in addition to print; Pearson has 800 electronic titles. Less expensive to produce for obvious reasons, both publishers? e-textbooks are priced at half as much as the printed versions. The software used by these publishers automatically resizes the e-book?s pages, reducing the pain of reading on-screen. These e-textbooks are not books in the customary sense. Sandi Kirshner, chief marketing officer for Pearson?s higher-education group, says the e-textbook is offered only on a ?subscription basis,? which means that a student buys access for a defined period, like a semester, and cannot resell access to the book to others. A real-world Solution to Demonstration Problem: hold the double bacon cheeseburger and fries. ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 15:32:01 -0500 From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Medianews] Some DVD fans live for the binge To: medianews@twiar.org Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-4FD6542C http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-ca-binge27aug27,1,7400955.story?coll=la-headlines-technology TV, straight up Some DVD fans live for the binge, and the industry seems to like their choices. By Melissa Pamer LA Times Staff Writer August 27, 2006 IS a populist cabal of remote-control-wielding, DVD-obsessed fans controlling the Emmys? OK, not quite. But heading into tonight's ceremony, it's indisputable that "24" ? the fifth season of which earned 12 Emmy nominations, more than any other series ? owes much to viewers like Starlee Kine who consume entire seasons in a few short days. "That show is like crack," she said. "I don't know how you watch that show and not binge." It didn't start out that way. Back at the end of its first season on Fox, "24" ranked as one of the most expensive shows on television and was a critical and cult favorite ? but it was only a moderate ratings success. To recoup some of its costs, 20th Century Fox Television ditched the traditional four-year wait and released the series on DVD in September 2002, six weeks before the second season premiered. The results were unexpected: Not only has the first-season set sold 1.7 million units, but the return of the series averaged 3 million more viewers than the previous year. "That seems to be the way people find the show," said "24" executive producer Howard Gordon of the DVD success. "It's been a great enhancement." The trail-blazing DVD release boosted the number of Jack Bauer-worshipping viewers and ? along with the show's cardiac-arrest-inducing cliffhanger endings ? contributed to a new phenomenon: binge-watching. Serialized narratives such as "24" are tailor-made for such back-to-back-to-back episode viewing ? and their release on DVD has altered the way we watch TV by giving consumers the freedom to view shows on their own schedules, all at the flick of a fingertip. Just a few of the binge-watchers' favorites: HBO's "Six Feet Under" and ABC's "Lost" (which netted nine Emmy nominations each), as well as lighter fare such as HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Entourage" (five nods apiece) and Fox's "Arrested Development" (four nominations). Clearly no one's going to raise a silver disc overhead during tonight's acceptance speeches at the Shrine Auditorium. But it's impossible to look at these series' showings this year without noting the intersection between the Hollywood awards culture and this evolving consumer behavior. * An obsessive compulsion IN addition to feeding her "24" addiction, Kine, a New York-based writer, has binged on another nouveau classic: the BBC version of "The Office." She recalls placing the first season of Ricky Gervais' droll English comedy into her DVD player and settling down with her boyfriend on an air mattress with a slow leak. After it was over, she said, "we looked at each other and it was a silent agreement." Season 2 went into the player. "We were like junkies," Kine, 31, recalled, and then chided herself: "It's not good to watch that much TV." Another binger, Jessamay Kroth of Chicago, calls herself a "recent addict." Kroth, 30, didn't watch much TV growing up, but now she finds herself obsessively consuming a broad variety of serials on DVD. Like many bingers, one of her earliest forays came with "24," and she too speaks of it in terms of a drug. "I was so hooked," said Kroth, who recently completed a master's degree at the University of Chicago. Initially, Kroth relied on Netflix for her series fixes. Now, like some of her more obsessive fellow bingers, she makes sure to keep track of DVD release dates so she can be among the first to rent or buy entire seasons of her favorite shows. (That crowd is eagerly awaiting Sept. 5, the day the second season of "Lost" is released on DVD. "It's going to be huge," said Dan Vancini, DVD editor at Amazon.com, where the season ranks as the most popular DVD.) Kine and Kroth are a new kind of couch potato. This variety of 21st century television watcher might not subscribe to premium cable, or even basic cable. Some don't even own a TV ? holy Homer Simpson! ? instead viewing shows on their laptops or PCs. Yet this new group has the devotion of the recently converted. And movers and shakers in the television industry can't help but take notice. "It is kind of a new behavior," said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer at Netflix Inc., which supplies many television DVD junkies with their product. About 20% of the 1.4 million discs Netflix ships daily to some of its 5.2 million subscribers are television-content DVDs, he said. Sarandos too has succumbed to binge-watching, especially with "Entourage." "Without this kind of watching, 'Entourage' would have been off my radar," he said. Judith McCourt, director of research at Santa Ana-based Home Media Retailing, has been tracking the TV/DVD market since the first television shows were released on DVD in 1997 (among them "Beavis and Butt-head") and the first-season sets came out in 2000 ("The X-Files," followed by "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos"). She said the sale of TV shows on DVD continues to show double-digit-percentage rate growth ? and will approach $3 billion this year ? even as the DVD market as a whole has flattened. "Because series are available on DVD, people can go back and devour them," McCourt said. Viewers "can get everything they want all at once. They can indulge themselves." And indulge they do, especially those who've shied away from TV in the past or have been reluctant to jump into the middle of a complicated plotline. (More of those types of narratives are on the way: Many of the most talked-about new shows this fall will carry the same serialized plot structure that has made programs such as "24" so captivating.) * An anytime affair BEFORE it was popular to release a TV series on DVD, watching episodes back to back was possible only if viewers caught a marathon rerun session on-air or, more recently, were willing to pay for TiVo or other DVR services. But drawbacks included endless commercials, teasers and branding that is "turning television into frustration," said Gord Lacey, founder of TVShowsOnDVD.com, a site that tracks new releases and seeks to gauge viewer desire for the DVD release of old shows such as "The Wonder Years." "Watching it on DVD, you get rid of all that. It's a lot better, more enjoyable way of watching television." He added: "You just pop the DVD in and watch just one episode. Or 20 episodes." Some industry observers say this new way of viewing may benefit television, leading to more compelling shows. "The power of that marketplace ? certainly impacted the way we go about our business in terms of developing shows that seem riskier financially," said 20th Century Fox Television President Dana Walden. " '24' prompted the industry as a whole to be much more ambitious." And it shows, critics say. "Everybody I talk to seems to feel like the quality of the good TV shows is so much better than it used to be," said Jason Snell, editor of Teevee.org, a decade-old blog-like site that hosts a variety of TV critics. "Suddenly TV is much more like a book or a movie where it's this discrete thing that can be watched by itself." And that's the way 29-year-old David Morini has consumed shows such as HBO's "Six Feet Under" and "Arrested Development," one of a spate of retiring shows that will live on in the DVD format. The administrative assistant and graduate writing student who lives in Oakland was "anti-TV" from the time he graduated from high school until fairly recently. "I feel like I missed out on a lot of popular culture," he said regretfully. Now he's attempting to make up for that. Thanks to Netflix, Morini said he became "obsessed" with "Six Feet Under," which concluded its final season last August and is a contender tonight. Morini said he frequently watched an entire disc or sometimes two (at three hourlong episodes each), after coming home from school or work. Weekends, he stayed in to watch even more of the show. He's now watched the entire series ? five seasons. "I just finished the last episode on Friday," he said a few weeks ago. "I was going to go out, but I couldn't; I was an emotional mess. I had never cried so much in my life." Next up, Morini said he'll finally get to "24." "I hear it's addictive," he said. ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 15:34:42 -0500 From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Medianews] Ship lines get on board with cellphone and Wi-Fi To: medianews@twiar.org Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-4FD6542C http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-tr-cruise27aug27,1,5517748.column?coll=la-headlines-technology Ship lines get on board with cellphone and Wi-Fi service A few are holdouts, and some set etiquette rules. Wireless offers savings over satellite phones. Mary Lu Abbott LA Times Cruise News August 27, 2006 FOR better or worse, your boss now can reach you on your cellphone or BlackBerry, even when you are vacationing on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. There's no need for a special satellite phone or calling plan because most ships are being equipped to accommodate late-model wireless devices. When you call the boss or check in with the kids at home, the call on your cellphone will cost you less ? sometimes much less ? than dialing from the satellite phone in your cabin. Wireless voice and data communication is the latest high-tech service cruise lines have embraced. Computer centers with Internet access already are common on most ships. Newer Wi-Fi connectivity, allowing vacationers to access the Internet with their own laptops, is spreading from designated hot spots to all parts of the ship, including cabins. About a dozen lines now have wireless service on some ships. Notable holdouts: Cunard, Princess Cruises and Seabourn. Cunard and Princess are considering it. Seabourn has not had "a hue and cry from our guests requesting this service," says Bruce Good, director of public relations. But other cruise lines are promoting cellular service as an amenity that many of today's travelers expect. A July survey of 1,071 adults age 18 and older by International Communications Research for Cingular Wireless showed that a quarter of the respondents used their cellphone when traveling outside the United States. They averaged 10 calls per trip, most of them personal. But not everyone welcomes the idea of hearing those ring tones and the one-way conversations of cellphone users. "I don't think [cellphones] belong on cruise ships," says Cheryl Tokarski of Philadelphia, a member of Cruise Critic, an online network of cruise enthusiasts. "I fear we'll be in the dining room, and everyone's on cells talking, but they have nothing to say: 'Yep, we're on a cruise. We're eating dinner,' " she says. "Once I go on vacation, I'm on vacation." Anne Goyer, a Cruise Critic follower in Sarasota, Fla., says she's drawn to sea travel "to totally escape the hectic pace and constant contact of the real world." She resists using computers aboard ship. "The advent of cellphones on cruise ships, in my opinion, will significantly impact cruising as we know it and certainly not for the better," she said. Cruise lines walk a fine line between passengers who want to disconnect from the real world and those who won't go on a vacation unless they can stay connected to it. "Travelers should have the option of choosing just how connected they'd like to be with the outside world while on vacation," Terry L. Dale, president of the Cruise Lines International Assn., said in a statement. CLIA is a marketing organization for 19 North American lines. "There's clearly an unmet demand," says Leighton Carroll, vice president of Cingular Wireless, which has teamed up with Maritime Telecommunications Network to form Wireless Maritime Services. WMS is equipping the ships of several cruise lines with cellular service technology. Carroll says he often fields questions from people who want to be sure they can use their wireless devices on a specific ship before they book it. WMS and SeaMobile are two major providers of the wireless technology on cruise ships. The service works with most late-model wireless devices. Guests can make and receive calls ? and send pictures or text messages ? as they do on land. But the service works only when a ship is offshore, Carroll says, because the provider companies don't want to interfere with local laws or compete with local shore service. The required distance from a port varies from about a mile in some places in Europe to 20 miles from many ports, Carroll says. Passengers are billed by their home cellular service carrier at international roaming rates and don't have to pay extra to use the phone on board. (Cruise lines share in the revenue with the cellular-service providers.) Costs are $1.99 to $4.99 a minute, according to an association survey. Carroll says Cingular charges $2.49 a minute from anywhere at sea to a U.S. city. Data transmission, such as text messaging, usually is 50 cents a minute. Using a stateroom phone for a ship-to-shore satellite call runs $5 to $25 per minute, CLIA reports. Most major cellular service carriers ? Cingular, T-Mobile U.S., Sprint Wireless and Nextel ? are linked with at-sea service companies, such as WMS and SeaMobile. WMS has agreements with 340 providers, but Verizon is not among them yet. But on ships using SeaMobile, Verizon customers can use their phones. Although some cruise lines, such as Royal Caribbean and Carnival, have no rules about where passengers may use cellphones, other lines have set some guidelines or are considering them. At Regent Seven Seas Cruises, "We do request that guests set their ringers to vibrate, avoid loud conversations and do not use their cellphones in any of the ships' restaurants, bars or lounges," says spokesman Andrew Poulton. Silversea Cruises asks guests not to use their cellphones in public areas, such as the restaurant, spa, shops, library, Internet center, show lounge, bar, casino and outdoor grill, says Brad Ball, director of corporate communications. "We understand that there is a need for some guests to be fully connected at all times, but they must respect the rights of fellow passengers," he says. Norwegian Cruise Line asks people to avoid using cellphones in theaters and restaurants, and Holland America Line restricts use in all entertainment venues. ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 22:02:45 -0400 From: Greg Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Medianews] 'Gilligan's Island' boat up for sale To: Media News <medianews@twiar.org> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed 'Gilligan's Island' boat up for sale http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060827-053546-9688r PARKSVILLE, British Columbia, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- The S.S. Minnow, which gained notoriety for its role on U.S. TV's "Gilligan's Island," is being sold by a Canadian boat broker for just under $100,000. The New York Post said George Schultz is selling the 37-foot boat for $99,000 in British Columbia for its owner Scotty Taylor, who is parting with the large piece of TV memorabilia due to his increased age. Originally built in 1960, the wooden Wheeler Express Cruiser was visible in the popular TV comedy's opening credits starting in 1964 and Taylor, its third owner, has added over $200,000 worth of refurbishments since its TV debut, the Post said. "It's a nice boat," said Schultz of the famous vessel. "A lot of money went into this boat." The newspaper said that ironically the Minnow has been shipwrecked in real life as well, as its second owner sunk it after hitting a reef, prompting Taylor's extravagant refurbishments. -- Greg Williams K4HSM [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.twiar.org http://www.etskywarn.net ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list Medianews@twiar.org http://twiar.org/mailman/listinfo/medianews_twiar.org End of Medianews Digest, Vol 13, Issue 1 ****************************************