Tuesday, 7 January, 2003

Lucas vs. Les Miserables My nephew Lucas saw the musical Les Miserables a little while ago and has developed views upon it. I should say at the outset that Lucas is only just eight years, and therefore has only a shallow crucible available for those topics he chooses to reduce. I for my part have never seen Les Miserables or read the book for that matter. I gather; however, from what has been related to me with some explicatory matter provided by my brother in law, that at least one plot thread closes the play with virtually everyone dieing upon the barricades of Paris. This has exasperated my nephew to no end. He has fixed his eye on the plucky though doomed students as the problem. "They're Dimbells", he declares, "Dimbells!" A wonderful neologism that, capturing at once the clanging noisomeness of the students as well as their - well - non brightness. The problem is: the musical creates the impression that they didn't win, why then undertake the venture if catastrophic failure was possible? Why not lay in what allies and technology might be needed to, at least, prevent outright defeat? Stupid stupid, only stupid. The youth that favors the nobility of righteous, though lost, causes is a later youth. The truly young are very practical people even inclined towards a native skepticism. It might cheer my nephew to learn, as nearly as I can tell, that the cause was ultimately successful. The regime of Charles X growing increasingly reactionary over the years and more under the sway of the Ultra[royalist]s had lurched into the year 1830 on the back of several misguided policies and political endeavors culminating in the July Proclamations which ended freedom of the press and dissolved the elected legislature. Now the sentiment of the people was radically ignited and an insurgent Paris took to the streets and by the end of July held the city and the nation. Louis Philippe Duke of Orleans was named the peoples King of a New constitutional monarchy that lasted nearly twenty years. Perhaps the problem lay with the tragedy that came to Victor Hugo when he first started to work on the story that eventually became Les Miserables, picking up a newspaper one day he read the news that his grown daughter and her husband had accidently drowned in the river Seine a few days earlier. As sense of the inescapability of loss may have colored a originally nostalgic view of the July revolution, leading him to underscore that rarely is anything gained without sacrifice. 11:05:20 PM    comment []; Digital Radio: A Mediocre Alternative Chosen by the FCC. Digital Radio, also called DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast), provides a superior alternative to its analog counterpart - the good, old AM/FM radio broadcast which has been the standard for the past 100 years or so. The services offered on digital radio make it possible to receive data (including pictures, text, and even video), right along with a crystal-clear, near-CD quality audio signal. Using an enhanced receiver, the digital radio listener can experience a completely new and satisfying form of entertainment, albeit dependent on the standard used for the broadcast. Early last October, the FCC approved something called In Band On Channel (IBOC) as the new digital radio broadcasting standard for the US. That decision is now being contested for several reasons, including the alleged failure to consider alternative DAB techniques, as well as the eventual impact which IBOC DAB may have on low-power stations. Some critics are even calling the decision a sellout by the FCC. IBOC purports to enable DAB for a broadcaster without radical changes, but digital radio is radically different from old radio, and we should consider carefully the choices which are about to be made for the US radio audience. As we've seen with mobile telephony, it's not hard to get started on the wrong foot. [kuro5hin.org] >> This was the most interesting thing I read all day. You hear a fair amount about digital tv and a lot less about digital radio - broadcast radio that is, not streaming web radio. Radio has been a big part of my life I can name the call signs of every radio station I ever listened to. I can tell you about the dj's and the format changes. Two things about the FCC's current and particular transition plan (IBOC DAB)stand out. First, that broadcast radio will continue to exist as a cultural and information/entertainment medium, but (second) at the "accidental" cost of increased corporate consolidation and apparaent winnowing of competion. As former college radio dj (WMUC-FM, college park 10 watts) its hard to see schemes like this take root. Despite the vague talk of reallocating unused resources to smaller sations in return for redistributiing their bandwidth, its as likely as not that many smaller stations will simply be shaken off the airwaves by this. They won't have the resources to stay with any lenthy engineering or administrative process. Existing broadcasters have never liked low-power stations and have never made any secret of this. They have been unpleased with the FCC for allowing them to exist, but they never had any sufficient or compelling reason to eliminate them. Now, it seems that progress will do that for them. 9:44:29 AM    comment [];

© Copyright 2003 Paul Bushmiller. Last update: 2/07/03; 18:39:28.