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This brief post is inspired by Wonderduck
Mr Wonderduck has pointed out in comments to a previous post that he does not have broadband. This makes me sad, as it has totally changed my internet experience. I think I have had it for roughly 5 years now, and I just can’t imagine being without. Actually I can, I remember all the time before, and the shock of using dial-up very occasionally at other friends houses. It isn’t perfect yet, could be far far faster and cheaper, but tonight when I get home I am going to kiss my cable modem and be thankful for what I have got.
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Podcasts – Year Two
Well I was thinking on the bus into work today, I’ve been listening to podcasts on my iPod for nearly a year now, and was wondering what I have stuck with. I’ve tried a lot of different ones, but there are only a few that I have really been taken with.
A Formula One podcast made by two rapid F1 fans from the states. These guys really know their stuff, but present it in a really amusing and laid-back fashion.
The podfather. It isn’t to everyone’s tastes, but it is a nice cross between proper radio show and audio blog, and keeps you up to date on the podcast community and tech stuff as a whole. And he is a good presenter.
Very odd and highly idiosyncratic pair of podcasts from a team of New York geeks. They are both shows that originate on Public Broadcast Radio, and have quite a loose feel to them. The former is essentially from a team of old school phone hackers, that have moved onto bigger and greater things. The latter is almost an audio blog for Emmanuel Bernstein, who is part of the Off the Hook show, and follows his interests and travels. Both shows have an admirable attitude to the rights of the individual, and the dangers of the encroachment of big business and government on those rights. Whilst they are clearly very American in some ways, their beliefs and attitudes are much more global, and they are often refreshing voices of sanity to hear with an American accent.
A simple podcast of a BBC Radio 5 show, but one of the funniest sports shows in existence. Not on every week of the year, which is a crying shame.
Webtalk Radio
Quite the geekcast, a small round table discussion of current web stories. Goes into a hell of a lot of depth, whilst not being overly complicated.
A good place to start looking, other than iTunes (which I have to admit is a sod to navigate for podcasts) is Indiepodder.org. Now I am told, and am going to try this tonight, you can drag the link for an rss feed containing podcasts directly into iTunes. Will report on this later.
EDIT: You can, it works really well.
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Working on stuff
Trying to create an RSS feed for the site at the moment. If you subscribe to this site using a feed reader (I know at least two people do, and one of them isn’t me), it is using Atom rather than RSS. This is more practice for myself in such dark arts. I’ll chuck up an RSS logo once it is sorted.
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Not a bad weekend
Saw some mates for a good drink on Friday night, then a quiet one in with mrsfb on Saturday. We caught up on the end of Lost (The first series) which was great and unsatisfying all at once. Then again not finding things out is part of the joy of Lost. Also watched some Shameless, and taped the movie Ping Pong, which I have heard good things about.
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My threat to you, the reader
Be afraid. Be very afraid. I have figured out how to get my digital camera doing respectable video clips. There just may be something coming soon. Fear the flotsky.
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Focused
Still sharp. In fact, really do feel my brain is engaged at the moment, getting a lot done and sorted. One tiny little thing that has helped with this is whiteboard.com. It is a collaborative space where several people can edit the same webpage easily. I just use it as a place to write a list, that I can access from any computer. Makes life lovely and simple, and replaces the endless pieces of paper that end up in my pocket. It is nice and straightforwards to set up and use too.
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Somewhat Chipper
Have rested well this weekend, feel much more lively. Had to take a half day on Friday, went home and fell asleep almost straight away. Much better on Saturday. Managed a nice little walk into the countryside with mrsfb. Very invigorating.
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Can’t sleep
at all, so am staying up, going into work a little early, and planning on drinking a whole shedload of coffee the rest of the day. Guess I’m going to be having an early Friday night then.
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Xbox 360 Innovation
So Bill Gates is giving his keynotes speech at CES 2006, and finishes up with the X360. Talks about sales for a bit, then demos a new game, Fight Night Round 3 (okay, when I say demos, I mean he actually plays against Steve Ballmer on stage). Fair enough. However, when they have finished, he casually mentions that Xbox 360 owners can download the demo right this second. Nice. It isn’t a massive technical innovation, it is simply a marketing one, but a beautiful one. I’m hoping we will start to see more of this at conferences like E3, or even in TV adverts for games.
Slowly getting my head into the working new year, starting to figure out what I am up to. Lots of small tasks to be getting on with now, but it is quite good in that they are all new things, rather than things that have hung around from last year.