Category: Notes From The Electronic Cottage

Producer/Host:  Jim Campbell

This program was first broadcast less than a week after the  9-11 attacks on the world trade center and the pentagon. Within days of those attacks, sweeping new so-called anti-terrorism laws were proposed and passed that dramatically reduced Americans civil liberties. Several provisions of one, the PATRIOT Act, are up for extension right now. One allows junior FBI officials, with no court order, to demand to see what books you’ve read, who you’ve written checks to, who the customers of your small business are, what ailments you’ve been treated for – and, by the way, no one is allowed to tell you this is going on?   And that is only one of the provisions up for grabs between now and the end of December.   As was the case back in 2001, if you have any thoughts on these PATRIOT Act provisions, now is the time to make them known to your congress people, and to your neighbors.

Although the specific bills mentioned in this re-broadcast did not pass exactly as initially proposed, all of the details mentioned in this broadcast have been implemented since then, and we are still living with them today.

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

On this Thanksgiving day, we turn our attention to what we have to be thankful for in our personal and family lives, and certainly electronic technology has created many things that make our lives easier, more comfortable, and allow us to do things that our parents could not even imagine a generation ago. Some of those things are great, some are not so great and today, we recall in this episode of the Electronic Cottage from back in February, 2001 – even before 9-11 – that technology, while it offers us some great new capabilities in our lives, also creates capabilities which aren’t so great if we happen to appreciate and believe in the U.S. Bill of Rights. One of those is biometric surveillance.

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

The Internet, as we all know now, is a rich source of information. Some of that information is great, some questionable, some downright wrong, and some– well, let’s just say it’s a bit funky. That’s the case with this piece from December of 2002, one of the early pieces we’re re-playing as a lead up to the Electronic Cottage’s 10th anniversary in January, 2010. You can tell this episode is seven years old because there is a reference to floppy disks which, of course, are now pretty much historical artifacts. Otherwise, it’s all as true today as it was in those days of yore.

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Back in July of 2004, in response to some listener requests, we took a look at a couple of books that are both good reads and very helpful in leading to a better understanding of the electronic world we live in. Those books are just as relevant today as the Electronic Cottage approaches it’s tenth anniversary as they were back in the summer of 2004.

“Linked” by Albert Lazlo-Barabasi
“Code” by Larry Lessig (an updated version, “Code 2.0” is available in bookstores or as a free download at http://codev2.cc)

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Another rebroadcast from the first ten years of the Electronic Cottage.

If you fly from time to time, you are by now familiar with the security drill – take of your coat, take off your shoes, everything metal out of your pockets, and so forth. Some of these particular procedures are new but they are a continuation of additional screening initiatives that began in the wake of 9-11. This “sky is falling” rhetoric and new regulations and erosion of traditional privacy rights began very soon after September 2001 as this rebroadcast from February of 2002 indicates, and they’re still with us today.

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

GPS is a wonderful thing but like all technology, it can have many different uses. Today, let’s recall an issue that GPS makes possible. It isn’t on the front pages at the moment but that you can bet you will be hearing about again. As people drive less and use more fuel efficient cars, the proceeds from gas taxes shrink and legislators all over the country, including here in Maine, are now floating trial balloons on the very same new kind of tax we first discussed back in 2003 when this edition was first broadcast, a tax that could enable the state to track where you go and when.

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Another episode from our tenth anniversary series, this one focused on the alphabet soup of Internet terms we use every day, often without being conscious of what they mean.

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Today, as we move toward the Electronic Cottage’s 10th anniversary, we re-listen to an edition from 2000, this one on how to tune a color TV- with a brief digression on the difference between additive and subtractive color.
Back then, all television sets used analog technology so that is what this old program describes. But even though today’s flat screen TVs no longer have color guns, and even though, if you have a flat screen TV, you probably adjust color using an on-screen menu, the principles of how color works on a television, and the types of controls you have to deal with are still the same.