At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, "International Chess" was the only widely known chess variant in the West. It had its problems. People
tried to
solve them. Of course, they could just play
xiangqi instead. There's also
janggi,
Makruk, and the granddaddy of them all,
chaturanga. Perhaps the most refined game in the family, however, is Japanese Chess--
shogi.
[more inside]
posted by sonic meat machine
on Feb 15, 2008 -
9 comments
"I've said all along, we are in this together." John Simson, executive director of
SoundExchange - the royalty collecting arm of the RIAA -
extends an olive branch through 2008 that will cap the advance payments internet broadcasters will have to cough up at $2500 per year. This comes in the wake of the
Day of Silence, (it was June 26,
did anyone notice?) spearheaded by Los Angeles-based terrestrial/online radio station
KCRW (home of the brilliant
Morning Becomes Eclectic) and
SaveNetRadio, during which some of the biggest names in online radio - include
Live365, NPR and
Pandora - went dark for 24 hours, airing a
one-hour broadcast twice during that day on the history of flat fees in public broadcasting. [direct .mp3, 38mb] Under the much-maligned changes made by our government's Copyright Royalty Board,
the top six internet radio stations would have had to pay 47 percent of their total revenue (anticipated to be around $37.5 mil.) to the RIAA, starting this July. The Internet Radio Equality Act
[summary, in its entire pdf glory] has been introduced to the House of Representatives, seeking to permanently reverse this decision.
posted by phaedon
on Jul 3, 2007 -
69 comments
One day, a vintage motorcycle restorer gets an idea in his head to tackle a new project, restoring an old-timey
"board-tracker" bike. In and of itself, that's not such a big deal; over the past century, vehicle restoration has become equal parts
hobby,
business, and
spectator sport. The catch with this particular project, however, is that there are no existing examples of the bike he wants to rebuild, the last known extant part remaining is a corroded engine case, and there are only 5 known photographs - all of which happen to show just the right side of the bike.
This is the story (so far) of Paul Brodie's Excelsior OHC. [via]
posted by the painkiller
on Jan 26, 2007 -
14 comments
