I recently rediscovered a National Public Radio (NPR) article that addressed a 2014 study by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on ‘Public Attitudes and Understanding’ of ‘Science and Technology’ in which only 74% of those surveyed thought that the Earth orbits the Sun. To rephrase and reframe that statement, that’s approximately 26% of the population of the United […]
Author Archive | Helen Yamamoto
NPR will more closely manage website comments (hooray!)
NPR has announced the use of a new comment filtration process in an article innocently dubbed “The Right Chord With Less Discord.” Comments left by new website users will temporarily undergo review from a “community manager,” a process that NPR predicts will take less than 15 minutes: The vast, vast majority of our community members […]
NPR apologizes for incorrectly reporting WikiLeaks data
NPR has apologized for misreporting the number of State Department diplomatic cables actually released by WikiLeaks. Although WikiLeaks allegedly possesses 251,287, only 1,947 were available as of December 30, 20. Yet, prior to this date, NPR (on multiple occasions) reported that WikiLeaks had released “thousands” of documents, a mistake that San Francisco listener Henry Norr […]
“‘Happy Holidays’… is what terrorists say.”
I’d like to thank 30 Rock for the title of this article. Their brief mention of the differences between “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” through a Christmas card being sent by an ultra-conservative couple stating “‘Happy Holidays’… is what terrorists say. Merry Christmas!” is really quite perfect. Nina Totenberg, a legal correspondent for NPR, has […]
Hate groups. How should NPR handle them?
Some NPR listeners were clearly offended after a 48-second spot by Barbara Hagerty about the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. The group is composed of roughly 70 members and boasts a website with the not-so-charming URL of www.GodHatesFags.com. Primarily known for their protests of soldiers’ funerals, displaying signs such as “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” […]
Firing Juan Williams: Did NPR act appropriately?
NPR News recently announced the termination of news analyst Juan Williams based on some comments made during his October 21st appearance on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. When asked to comment on the current situation between the United States and the Muslim community, Williams publicly stated, Look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the […]
Gender and age preferences on Last.fm: What should you be listening to?
Joachim Van Herwegen, an intern at Last.fm, recently decided to compile a number of plots of musical preferences based on listener ages and genders. The results are quite fascinating! Herwegen’s first plot depicts the most common artists as a function of age (x-axis) and gender (y-axis). A quick glance will tell you that most users […]
Slacker Radio: A rising alternative to Last.fm and Pandora
Getting bored with Last.fm or Pandora? Interested in exploring other internet radio options? Check out Slacker Radio. Recently featured in several commercials for Verizon’s Droid, Slacker Radio serves as another fantastic means for discovering new music and enjoying radio. For example, I was pleasantly surprised to have Ril0 Kiley and Rogue Wave pop up in […]
In search of better scrobbling: Some recent improvements to Last.fm
After announcing some changes to their “scrobbler API” last week, the developers at Last.fm have decided to pay closer attention to user feedback on their blog, various discussion forums, and “elsewhere.” As a result, Last.fm recently announced a series of improvements to their website in an article titled “The artist feedback loop” on the blog […]
Facebook's undiscovered radio apps
There are Facebook applications for practically everything these days, so I thought I’d check out what the possibilities were for streaming radio. But after running a search for the term “radio” in Facebook Applications section, I was surprised by the relatively small number allowing for music streaming. One of the best results that I could […]