Cubicgarden.com
With the 50th edition of the ever-so popular (Popular with 2 or 3 people at least) #Techgrumps podcast coming up, and it being the holiday season, we will be recording two or three special editions with as many new ranters as we can think of. Like YOU! If you have nothing much to say, but can whine on a bit under the influence of too much caffeine, you too can join this most illustrious cast. And yes, that is Comic Sans in the speech bubble. Angry now? Rant with us!Remember, techgrumps is a family (Family of feral polecats) show, so use age appropriate language…
Let us know which dates & times works for you (add your twitter name to the doodle) and we’ll be in touch…
We (me, josh and nathan rae) did our first live Techgrumps on Sunday 20th November… Live from VivID Lounge…
Its also a Manchester only affair, as you’d expect with it being LIVE… Ian,Josh and guest Nathan eat breakfast while waxing lyrical… about exploring Sci-Fi elitism and a concept to replace the Royal Mail with UAVs all live on Sunday 20th November…
You can download it in Mpeg3 or Ogg Vorbis
Michela Ledwidge asks the question, and we racked our brains and did a lot of searching. I think it might be, but I can't say for sure. If thats not a first, using blip.tv is certainly a first. And to be honest, if it wasn't for the ability to…
- Set the license (creative commons attribution 2.5 in this case)
- Pipe content to Archive.org for permanent storage and to the benefit of generations to come
We would have never have consider it. Maybe we've been drinking too much of Lessig's kool aid. Although I was a little worried about the Blip.tv EULA. But Mike at Blip says,
As far as the EULA, we don't own all the rights. Don't want them. We need to find a way to make that even clearer. When you upload you give us the rights to create derivative works (for thumbnails and transcoding) and to distribute (i.e. make available for download). Those rights go away when you delete the content from blip.
Another reason why the archive.org angle is very important. If Blip.tv ever pulled a Yahoo/Flickr thing on its users. You could pipe them all to Archive.org and remove them from Blip. Metadata and all..
The first ever BBC Backstage podcast has caused a quite a stir. Some of it negative and some of it positive.
Generally the reaction to the podcast is positive but Ben did say he felt Backstage shouldn't be hosting such a debate. Its bigger that Backstage and should be taking place somewhere else. Fair enough, but till then backstage is where it will stay for now.
Before coming to Cory's thoughts on the BBC and DRM, I thought I'd better cover some of the other points from others first. Upyourego loves the podcast too and makes a good point about the lack of RSS like Tom Morris. Adam, Brian, Superfly
picked it up and so does Euan Semple, who is surprisingly quiet about it. But some of the comments left are interesting, including one from Cory. Weird Cory didn't post any comments to mine or Ben's
blogs entries.
Corys post to BoingBoing is over the top. I love Cory but he took a few points from the podcast and went to town on them. He threw out most of the other stuff which made it a much more balanced debate. For example,
Well yes there was something in the air but we're positive about making things right and turning things around. Open DRM is one of many things discussed but Cory doesn't mention this. Tom has a comment which I don't quite get, but I'll ask him tomorrow.
Arstechnica does a much better job at reporting a more balanced view of the podcast. Although the title is misleading – BBC explains decision to go with Microsoft DRM.
The brouhaha surrounding iPlayer makes for some good reading, but more interesting is the podcast. The BBC engineers on the show come off as intelligent, affable folks who don't like content restrictions any more than consumers do. They're also fully aware of recent technologies like Ogg Vorbis, BitTorrent, and SlingBox. For those curious how DRM and rights decisions are made behind the scenes at a major public broadcaster, this is definitely worth a listen.
A couple of good comments follow too.
That's an amazingly insightful podcast! Thanks!
Which company has used DRM longer, the BBC or Apple? Just because Jobs uses DRM and then says “but we shouldn't” doesn't mean a thing. Well, depending on how gullible you are. It's about as meaningful as Google's “do no harm”. Actions speak louder than words.
Currently Digg and Slashdot have yet to pick up the podcast or its reactions. Oh it looks like we'll be uploading the video this week.
The first ever BBC Backstage podcast kicked off in fine style on Wednesday 7th February.
We invited some of the most vocal backstagers in the long running debate over DRM, to come and join us at the BBC to discuss face to face what they felt about DRM and the BBC. The hour long discussion around DRM and the BBC included,
- Tom Loosemore
- Brian Butterworth
- Ian Forrester
- Michael Sparks
- Dave Crossland
- James Cridland
- Michela Ledwidge
- Miles Metcalfe
- Matthew Cashmore
You can listen with the built in player below, or you can download and remix the MPeg3 file or the Ogg Vorbis file. Both are licensed under creative commons attribution. So as long as you credit backstage.bbc.co.uk, your good to go. Don't forget to check out some great action shots from the debate…
Recently I've been doing more podcasts, and finally not cringing when I hear my deep voice. Me and Tom Morris have started a podcast in the vain of the pretty dead Gillmor Gang. The MP3 file is on Archive.org and you can subscribe to the feed here.
Between all the outages and bad quality of my voice, there is a pretty good discussion about a whole host of things including RDF/A vs Microformats, XHTML vs HTML5, the semantic web vs The Semantic Web. Tom is working on some clever notes system which I assume uses RDF or OPML to clever effect.
Finally I got around to setting up another blog for Geek and Geekhag podcast.
http://www.cubicgarden.com/blojsom/blog/geekandgeekhag/ or http://www.geekandgeekhag.com/
There is also a RSS 2.0 feed which you can stick in your Podcatcher clients such as Jucie, iPodderX, and yuck iTunes.
At the moment we only have the 2007 episodes posts up, but we'll add the other older ones soon. Me and Sarah will be posting all future ones there and maybe only once in a while pointing to them from our own blogs. Subscribe and enjoy the weekly podcasts.
This time we're upstairs in the computer room with our new microphones and a lightly longer podcast for your listening pleasure. We talk about what we did on Friday night, TV generations, RFID misconceptions, Calendaring update and TV.com vs Tape it off the internet.com. We also have a update on the mouse and some music perceptions which puzzles me. Enjoy… and leave us a comment.
This time we're armed with decent microphones and an extended podcast for your listening pleasure. The main part includes me trying to explain why I don't think the iPhone is not revolutionary, how Matthew lost a bet and what I'll be doing for kicks next Friday night. While the extended
podcast (part 2.5) includes me and Sarah shouting about mice and discussing alterative content management systems.
Please do drop us a comment if you think the quality is better and what else we should be doing.
As my wife says,
Our podcasts are back for 2007, somewhat streamlined (only about a half hour instead of full hour). I have no idea what number we're on anymore. This time we talk about New Year's resolutions,Twitter, Xbox 360 being hacked, TV, and Christmas presents (new laptops for the both of us!).
Its number 16 by my count and yes shamed by other partner podcasts, we've decided to pick up the pace and shorten it down. You listen to it directly on Blip.tv or if your using my feed with a podcasting client, you should already have it. Enjoy… and leave a comment if you enjoy the new style.
My friend Paul Crowley has created a flipping awesome podcast for his and Gareth Cole's exclusively online music lablel Flicker Tracks.Yes Flicker with an E not without the E. Anyway his just launched a new EP called Minimus and decided the 30secs preview you get from the Apple iTunes store wasn't enough for slow building arrangements which you find in a lot of house and trance music. And he's very right, there's tracks which sound nothing like the first 2 mins because thats your build up period (or mix period) then the track comes alive with something amazing which suprises the listener. Paul says it much better that myself
We decided that it is important that anyone interested in our material can hear significantly more than the 30 seconds currently afforded by iTunes. This is particularly important with club focussed music, where lengthy intros facilitate equally lengthy and seamless DJ mixes. Slow-build arrangements don’t necessarily reveal the true nature of the track in the opening bars, or in fact, in any given 30 second sample.
It’s always been true that the medium has dictated the format and length of mass produced music (from wax cylinders through to compact discs) but in this instance, the promotional method is creating an artificial limitation – the medium is not at fault. It is as if when writing material, you should now produce the musical equivilent of the elevator pitch to have the greatest chance of commercial success.
Were we to write and arrange our material so that the first 30 seconds gives the casual listener a more representative sample of what’s to come, we would then risk rendering the material less appropriate for the intended context – a club (which of course is creating another restriction on form, but one that we choose intentionally). Anyway, all this technology is supposed to be about creativity and freedom of expression, right?
Your damm right Paul. I've added the podcast to this entry which I hope will give it even more visability and I don't think Paul will mind. It would be easier for others to do the same if there was a creative commons licence like Attribution-NoDerivs License attached to the podcast. Then people could play it, copy it and even play it on a commercial radio station. I would also add – it would be great to have included a little tracklist (maybe linked to the direct track on itunes) in the blog post. But it was great to hear louise's voice over the music, very professional sounding.
So about the actual tracks.
1st track minimus – is damm fat and heavy, I like it and might have to get it for net Saturday's Bash.
2nd track bring you too – is a nice rich leader track. Something I would use to bring the crowd to a new place. This is certainly what I think of when thinking progressive or tech house.
3rd and 4th tracks are not quite my style but sound like something I would dance to in a house club.
5th track skidmark – is another fatty track perfect for playing in a bar, warm and smooth, perfect for a slightly upbeat lounge club. Saturday is calling its name.
So Paul it worked, your elevator pitch of a podcast has made me considered buying some of your tracks. Now if it wasn't in itunes encrypted mpeg4 audio (AAC) I could use it in a DJ set next weekend. Oh well…
There are rumours flying around about the Gillmor Gang – the whole thing may be wrapping up, or that the show might leave PodShow. Who knows? In Steveland, nothing is constant. Truth is dead! The Gang is dead! Links are dead! Ding dong!
I loved the Gillmor Gang when the likes of Jon Udell were on it. But in the last year its been a mess of ego busting natter. Steve Gillmor seems to be trolling people, while Jason Calacanis seems to suck it all in and blow it back again. Dan Farber and Dana Gardner tend to be very monotone while Mike Arrington and specially Doc Searls sometimes say something of interest. But generally its not enough and its gotten worst recently.
The last straw for me is the crazyness which is going on with the RSS feed. I looked this morning and it had downloaded 600 meg of old Gillmor gang podcasts. I gave up on Gillmor daily ages ago. When I get online again, I'm removing them both from my subscriptions.
Me and Sarah did a podcast last night, number 14 (really 13 but lets not go there). This time we discuss Second Life, Myspace and Youtube, Feast of Fools and Sarah's new (non-hand me down) phone. The other good news is that Sarah has agreed to do the podcast every week now. So expect more geek and geekhag next week.
Me and Sarah did a podcast last night about some comments on her blog recently.The post was about race and interracial stereotypes and centres around a piece in the guardian over a year ago (march 2005). Now someones called werdz has decided to write a comment and get back at Sarahs comments on the original guardian article. Sarah felt it best to reply by a podcast.
