atlantic

China keeps information in, not just out, with Internet filtering

James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic and a blogging resident of Beijing's Chaoyang District, has written a good outline of how China's online filtering apparatus works: "The Connection Has Been Reset."

Aside from the fact that The Atlantic has made the lovely choice of freeing its content, the news to me was that China's filtering system is working in reverse:

Xiao Qiang, an expert on Chinese media at the University of California at Berkeley journalism school, told me that the authorities have recently begun applying this kind of filtering in reverse. As Chinese-speaking people … Read more

Audio Shopper's Guide: What do you want--sound or style?

Samsung's brand spanking new HT-BD2 home theater in a box put me through some changes. It's the world's first Blu-ray HTIB, so sure, it's got picture quality to die for, and even boasts state of the art Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio surround 7.1 channel processing. The HT-BD2 also looks pretty hot, the Blu-ray player/A/V receiver's curvaceous, high gloss style is drop-dead gorgeous, and the super-model thin tower speakers and chunky subwoofer are likewise designed for eye appeal.

But just that, the HT-BD2's sonic splendors are in short supply, or … Read more

"Rock On" skewers the recording industry

I picked this book up while traveling yesterday, read a few pages in the bookstore, bought it, and have blazed through the first 150 pages in little more than a day. It's one of the funniest and most entertaining books about music, culture, and business that I've ever read.

Like a lot of suburban white boys of a certain age, Dan Kennedy dreamed about being a rock star in his youth, but reality eventually intervened and he got a corporate gig. Only in this case, the corporation was Atlantic Records--Led Zeppelin's record label, as he points out. … Read more

Led Zeppelin to play London concert on November 26

The New York Times reported today that three of the four original members of Led Zeppelin--Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones--will play a charity concert in London on November 26. Jason Bonham, son of Zep's original drummer John Bonham, who died in 1980, will fill in for his father.

The show will be a tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records. Zeppelin sold 100,000,000 plus records on Atlantic, so it's kinda nice the guys are showing respect for the man who believed in them from the start. The single performance show also includes … Read more