phyllostachys 48: Minute Tech 33 show notes

33 - What is Nunavut?

Good morning, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Saturday & Sunday, November 17th & 18th, 2007

We take a few minutes to talk about technology
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This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 33 - What is Nunavut?

Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:

Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Wu Style Taiji - 9:30 every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA.
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.

Also by:

Ravelings, by Carol. Pittsburgh-region classes in needle-craft - encompassing crochet, embroidery, knitting, & tatting, as well as an associated lace collection. For more information, contact Carol at carolb207@alltel.net.

Tech items:

As usual, when a company brings out a decent product which sells well, people begin bandying about the M word. That's M for Monopoly. Journalists have been after Apple for being a monopoly in the music distribution arena. Do you think Apple is a monopoly? I don't - you can get your music online through iTunes, you can go to a local music store and buy CD's, you can join a CD music club, and you can visit any number of second-hand music stores. Now, is Apple a monopoly because they have the only decent music player? SanDisk, Creative and Microsoft each make very useable music players...and very affordable, perhaps more-so than Apple's range of iPods. So...what makes Apple a monopoly? Are then bullying other music distributors? Are they forcing others out of business using methods other than the rule of feet (consumers can choose which store to walk into)? Let me know what you think.

Tech Question:

What is Nunavut?

Christopher S. Penn, on his self-named blog, asks whether America and the UE will respect Canada's assertion that the Arctic Circle shipping route over the North Pole belongs to Canada, as it's within the territory designated by Canada in 1999 as Nunavut. Mr. Penn suggests that America's track record in respecting other's sovereign territories over the past several years has not been stellar, and that perhaps this behavior will move on to use of the "Northwest Passage", a holy grail of shipping industry.

For Europe, the shipping will be far easier with a bigger or permanent shipping route through the North. The Northwest passage from Europe to San Francisco is shorter than via the Panama canal, and the Northern Sea Route, formerly known as the Northeast Passage is far shorter than traversing the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, Indian Ocean, South China Sea and western Pacific to reach Yokohama, Japan.

Nunavut is a land of just over 29,000 inhabitants, spread over an area equal to the size of Greenland, but with half the population. Nunavut has been continuously inhabited for roughly 4000 years, with first contact by Europeans being by Norse sailors in the 8th or 9th century, and the English, specifically Martin Frobisher, in 1576. The anthropological understanding is that the North American and South American peoples may have crossed from northern Asia some 20,000 years ago via a so-called land-bridge formed at the site of the Bering Straits in Alaska. I want to be careful here, though - go to www.native-languages.org forward slash bering.htm and check out the discussion on the "Bering Strait Theory". Native Americans certainly have a right to not have a migration theory forced upon them....suffice it to say that if you look far enough back in history, we all emigrated from somewhere...and are native to wherever we were born.

But I digress. Is the Northwest or Northeast passage going to be a bone of contention? Again, Check out Christopher S. Penn's blog post. Who knows where this global warming trend with take us?

podcasting/blogging tidbit:

If you follow @pistachio on Twitter, you may have seen that she is currently in India, far from her Boston home, but also with family there, doing speaking tours on what she knows best. check out www.pistachioconsulting.com.

Chris Brogan of podcamp fame has moved on from Pulvermedia to work with CrossTechMedia, the producers of the ITEC conference and Exhibition, which will be in 18 locations in the US and Canada during 2008. Chris, good luck on your new venture!

Have you checked out the MacBreak video shows on iTunes? Their recent shows in the studio discussed "Multicam Editing Essentials", that is the use of cameras from multiple angles to highlight whatever you're shooting, and "Droplets and Compression Templates in Compressor".

Finally, one of my favorite podcasts is back after a brief hiatus: VentureCast, with David Hornik and Craig Syverson..and they're back to their two-week schedule. VentureCast 27 dealt partially with an un-advertised conference titled Out of the Lobby, where tech and VC types got together in Hawaii to discuss...well, whatever they discussed.

Do you have a favorite podcast or blog? Let me know...or go to pghbloggers.org to see Pittsburgh Region blogs.

Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com

"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"

- Apple’s monopolistic tendencies?
- What is Nunavut?
- Pistachio, Brogan, MacBreak and VentureCast.

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