Mondomix’s MP3 service calls it quits

Mondomix


I was crestfallen to tune into my favorite world music streaming service only to be greeted with this message:

Après des années d’intense travail, Mondomix doit abandonner son activité de vente de musique en téléchargement. Nous vous proposons à la place de découvrir nos vidéos, notre webradio et nos articles sur www.mondomix.com.

After years of intense work, Mondomix has to give up its legal music download activity. Instead, come and discover our videos, webradio and articles on www.mondomix.com.

Zut alors! I’ve purchased a lot of music through Mondomix’s service and loved discovering artists I would have never otherwise found through domestic services. It makes me even more determined to pick up the pieces and spread the word about the amazing music being made in the world.

Church, neighbors meet to seek fixes on noise

I was mentioned in today’s Midtown Raleigh News regarding the Glorious Church.

Another neighbor of the church, Mark Turner, said he also has heard noise – while in his house with the windows closed.

Turner, chair of the Raleigh Citizens Advisory Council, offered to act as a mediator to help the two parties find common ground.

As I mentioned before, I didn’t offer to mediate so much as I was recruited to mediate! It’s all good, though, if we get this worked out.

I was asked to set up a meeting with all parties within the next two weeks. Right now I’m looking at Monday, July 9th but it all depends on what works for the parties involved. I was first looking at Wednesday, July 11th but most churches have services on Wednesday nights so that’s not convenient.

Incidentally, I cringed each time the church’s services were called “noise” at last week’s Law and Public Safety meeting. Even Bishop Spain did it. Whatever it’s called, though, I think it’s only fair that if one goes inside one’s home, one no longer hears it.

The ideal solution would be for a Raleigh window company to read this article and offer a deal to the church on new windows. It would be a great way for that window company to do a good deed as well as get some free publicity. I wonder who will step up?

via Church, neighbors meet to seek fixes on noise – Raleigh – MidtownRaleighNews.com.

Record heat wave spawns derecho

Derecho, 29 June 2012


This is day two of a record heat wave in Raleigh and elsewhere in the US. Yesterday, the thermometer here at MT.Net topped out 107.8 degrees, though the real temperature was probably closer to 105 degrees. It was surreal walking onto the porch and feeling this heavy air that didn’t cool you when you moved.
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Zazzle yanks sticker under pressure from Honda

Odyssey transmissions blow chunks. Literally.

It seems Honda took offense to my first bumper sticker, asking Zazzle to pull it from sale. I asked Zazzle to elaborate:

Thanks for the response regarding my rejected bumper sticker content. However, I am still at a loss as to how this sticker infringes on any copyrights, trademarks, and/or libels or defames anyone. Could you please cite the specific content guideline that is of concern?

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Democrats protest Republican grilling of DOT employees

I hope this photo runs on the front page of tomorrow’s News and Observer. Nothing better captures the bullying nature of the North Carolina GOP and its war on women than this excellent shot by Shawn Rocco.

RALEIGH — After Republican senators grilled two Department of Transportation employees and a member of Gov. Bev Perdue’s staff at a committee hearing this morning, Democrats protested that the DOT workers were being hounded unfairly for their involvement in a mistake.

Vicki Stanley, a DOT office manager, and Susan Coward, a DOT deputy secretary, were questioned for a combined 40 minutes about their actions on June 14, when they agreed to issue letters to two legislators over the signature of their boss, Jim Trogdon, DOT’s chief operating officer.

“We have a one-sided cross examination of civil servants, these two ladies who showed up here this morning, … who were just doing their job in this entire process,” Sen. Dan Blue, a Wake County Democrat, said after the hearing.

via Democrats protest Republican grilling of DOT employees over false letters – State – NewsObserver.com.

Ask me about Honda transmissions bumper sticker

Honda transmissions suck


After becoming disgusted with American Honda’s refusal to own up to the problems with the Honda Odyssey transmissions, I decided to create a bumper sticker which will help spread the word about Honda’s shoddy treatment of its customers.

Feel free to share!

Update 1:25 PM: It seems Zazzle has removed my bumper sticker without explanation. My email is down at the moment but when it returns I hope to hear what happened. I certainly hope it isn’t a case of Zazzle getting nervous about me exercising my First Amendment rights. Certainly there’s nothing defamatory about a product that simply reads “ask me about Honda transmissions,” is there?

Wade CAC nominations

It was a busy day! Not only did I attend the Glorious Church meeting but this evening I presided over the second special meeting of the Wade CAC. This meeting was the one where the candidate nominations were taken and nominations closed. It was the first meeting of the Wade CAC in its new meeting room, the aptly-titled “Meeting Room” in the newly renovated Jaycees Community Center on Wade Avenue.

The meeting began with city reports from the police and parks department. Following that, the list of existing candidates was presented and nominations taken from the floor. One new candidate was nominated and things went very, very smoothly.

For new business, two upcoming rezoning cases were mentioned but I didn’t have many details to share as I’d just been told about them at noon today. Also, one member expressed concern about the daytime closing of Dan Allen Drive and wanted some CAC members to study that.

It looks like the difficult stuff is behind us now and I expect next month’s meeting to be a smooth transition to the new officers. I will then happily step back and return to my other endeavors. While I think I’ve served an important purpose for the CAC, I’ve enjoyed getting to know the personalities of the Wade CAC. Perhaps I’ll be back as a visitor someday.

Myth Dispensing: The Whole ‘Spotify Barely Pays Artists’ Story Is Bunk

Listen up, David Lowery.

One of the key talking points that we’ve heard from the "haters" of the new music business models is the claim that Spotify pays next-to-nothing to artists. This is really based on a few stories, taken totally out of context, concerning a few artists who received relatively small checks from Spotify. David Lowery actually used this as a key point in his screed against young music fans and their supposedly "unethical" behavior: to him, even if you are listening to a legal, licensed service like Spotify, you’re "unethical" because he’s heard rumors that Spotify doesn’t pay enough.

However, the more you look, the more you realize that Spotify actually pays out quite a lot. A few months ago, someone at one of the music collection societies told me about an analysis they had done concerning the amount of money paid per listen — comparing Spotify to radio, iTunes and lots of other things. When you knock it down to a per listen basis, it turns out that Spotify pays a hell of a lot more than any of those other sources.

via Myth Dispensing: The Whole 'Spotify Barely Pays Artists' Story Is Bunk | Techdirt.

“Natural leaders”

One thing I keep hearing about our kids is that they’re both “natural leaders.” Next to hearing how considerate they are and how helpful they are, this is some of the highest praise I can hear about our children. We saw this in action at Travis’s engineering camp last week when, in a room full of 150 people Travis fearlessly raised his hand and shared with everyone about a broken bus adventure. Hallie’s equally fearless about holding an opinion and not being afraid to share it. I wonder where they get that?

I’m not sure what professions each will pursue but I’m sure it won’t take them long to establish themselves!