Category: media-and-expression

Cooking for Geeks, Ctrl+Alt+Chicken

Ctrl Alt Chicken is a new form of cooking show… one in which the chefs don't know how to cook! In the first episode your hosts Alex Albrecht and Heather Stewart tackle all that is Chicken Cordon Bleu.

Honestly this is fantastic viewing. Its a couple of geeks trying to cook and getting it wrong. Not that I could have done much better but its really good to see Geek media breaking out of the usual genres. Can I also say its good to see a couple on geek media for once. I don't know if Alex and Heather are together or not but they make a good couple in the kitchen.

The really nice thing about Geek media and specially ctrl+alt+chicken is how simple it is to do. It kind of makes you want to do something simlar, or is it just me? Obviously me and Sarah have been doing our podcasts together for a while now, but I think there's some other things I want to try out too. I now have access to a camera and have had the editing ability for quite sometime. So look out for some videocasts in the near future. Oh and trust me its not going to be me peering down a lens, expect something a lot more interesting.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number six – semantic what?

My and Sarah's sixth podcast is now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it.

This time we reflect on a few blog posts from me and Sarah's personal blogs. And I attempt to do a short introducation to the semantic web and tagging vs categories.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number five – Tesco too big for its boots?

My and Sarah's five podcasts now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it.

This time we talk about joint/partner websites, Sarah says sorry to Blojsom creator and how Tesco is becoming Walmart in the UK and it would seem trying to beat Walmart at its only game in America with Tesco Metro's (starbucks style?).

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Desmonds, only available on Bit Torrent

One of the best features of Bit Torrent and UK nova is when it pulls up gems from TV's past. Someone posted up the first season of Desmonds which is a classic Channel4 TV programme from the late 80's. Its amazing to watch now and I can't believe I had all but forgot about it till last weekend. Sarah's having a hard time understanding the mixture of accents on the show but finds it funny watching me crack up. The poster wrote this about the posting.

It was as late as 1989 that a British sitcom which focussed on the life of a black British family finally became mainstream viewing. It was worth the wait. Desmond's was not tokenism: this was a funny and warm show, with a strong cast and all the traditional sitcom ingredients, but with a solid anchor in the lives of those it portrayed.

Unlike The Cosby Show (to which Desmond's is often compared), St Lucia-born writer Trix Worrell set the series in a working class area of South London's Peckham. Desmond and wife Shirley are first generation migrants from Guyana who have set up their own barber's shop. They live upstairs, along with two of their teenaged children, Sean and Gloria and spend their days serving customers and enjoying the company of the regulars, including Ram John Holder as Porkpie, Christopher Asante as eternal student Matthew and their BUPPY son, Michael.

Watch for a young Domonic Keating, who is introduced later in the first series, now famous for his role as Malcolm Reed in Star Trek – Enterprise. He wasn't particularly natural in Desmond's (and isn't in Enterprise either), but he does possess a lovely pair of cheekbones.

The show ended after the sixth series, with the untimely death of Norman Beaton. With quality writing and lovingly observed characters, you'll enjoy the warm, fuzzy glow that the show imparts.

What ever your view of Bit torrent, this has got to be seen a really good example of that long tail. So far its been downloaded almost 170 times and there are currently 44 seeders and about 3 leechers. Sharing Desmonds with a community of people means it will never be lost or locked up in a valut somewhere. Showing Sarah Desmonds was a interesting experience.But its also certainly something I would love to share with my kids when there old enough. And if CD/DVD doesn't pack up I should be able to still play back un-drm'ed media from 2006. If worst comes to worst and CD/DVD does pack up, I'm sure the 170+ people who have nabbed it will be happy to share it in the future.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number four – Mum its about the White boxes

My and Sarah's four podcasts now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it.

British geek and his American geekhag wife talk about geeky stuff like explaining podcasting to your mum, online identity, owning your personal online data, Blojsom for dummies, folksonomy.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number three – Dark side of the mobile

Me and Sarah's third podcast is now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it. This time we slide from topic to topic and get interupted by a few people at 1am in the morning. If I need to tie this podcast down to something, I would say its about the dark side of the mobile phone. Bluetooth, Toothing, Happy Slapping and now Happy Shagging. Luckly we never got into this which is terriable to even think about.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number two – the wife acceptance factor

Me and Sarah's second podcast is now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it. The gist of the conversation is about me and Sarah talking about why we should get a Xbox 360 and LCD TV. And how the wife acceptance factor is important.

WAF is online speak meaning “Wife Acceptance Factor“. WAF represents the approval that the female in a stable couple has to bestow in order for a decision to be effectively adopted, typically when that decision refers to things in the domestic scope

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The Chronicles of Narnia… not the film

A very refreshing change to the usual mainstream rap. The Chronicles of Narnia Rap and its west coast response Narnia rap battle. Slate covers what makes this somewhat interesting. Saturday night live and race aside, rapping about everyday things is hardly new but I've never seen it like this before. I can imagine other videos will be coming online soon.

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Going nuts for certain tunes while paying 200 pounds for the privilage?

dj's de laptop

I just had a quick look at my audioscrobbler/last fm rss and noticed i'm listening to the same 3 tunes over and over again. Its not a mistake, its actually me loving these tunes which I stayed up to 2am searching for the other day. I've had them all of 2 days I believe and can not wait to do a mix with these new tunes. What are the tunes, you maybe asking?

  • FB Featuring Edun – Who's Knocking (Ferry Corsten Rmx)
  • Gabriel and Dresden feat. Molly – Tracking Treasure Down
  • Kosmas Epsilon – Innocent Thoughts

.

They've been on my list for quite some time but finally went actively searching for them on Trancetraffic and found them all there in 320kps Lame encoded Mp3 format. Mighty impressive quality and great tunes which could not be found on iTunes and Allmp3.com.

I simply will not buy music which is DRM'ed, practially Fairplay DRM (what a joke for a name) does not play on my ipaq, mobile phone and certainly not in my Dj application Virtual DJ. I mean why the heck would I buy music from the iTunes store and put up with the fact that I could not mix with it? Insane I tell you. So much for the mix in Apple's Rip Mix and Burn tagline from years ago.

Anyhow talking about Insanity, dance music and mixing. I saw this Digital DJs Unaware of Copyright Law on Slashdot recently.

The BBC reports that if you're a DJ, playing your digital copies of files off a laptop or mp3 player is illegal. The UK royalty collection agency, PPL, demands that such DJs pay £200 for a license in order to do so. From the article, 'Many DJs are still unwittingly breaking the law by playing unlicensed digital copies of tracks months after a new permit scheme began, the BBC has found. This includes legally-purchased downloads, which are normally licensed only for personal use, as well as copies of tracks from records or CDs.

What the heck? Geez this is the kind of thing I hear about in America not in the UK. Going through the comments it seems this headline grabbing story may not be all its craacked up to be. The first informative comment goes like this…

I think the article summary is a touch misleading. My reading was that the public performance of songs whose copyright the DJ doesn't hold is what's illegal, and the £200 is for a licsence that remedies the situation. Nobody is telling anybody they can't play music on their laptops, and I'm sure the submitter didn't intend this, but I think it's important to point out that this only relates to public performance. Additionally, DJs do not need to pay the liscence if they are playing from CD or vinyl.

So this still applies to someone like me it would seem? I don't get it why because its digital I have to pay a license fee on top of all the music I'm playing on my laptop? As someone said, its a specific license tax on just those who utilize digital delivery systems. Some comments which sum up better than myself.

So a DJ can play a CD, but if she plays the same track ripped to an MP3, she has to pay an extra 200 pounds for a license? Where's the sense in that? The US compulsory license scheme actually seems sane by comparison.

Hey you thief, don't you dare be playing my tracks where lots of young impressionable kids will get to listen to them and then afterwards possibly go out to their local DJ shop and buy my records/CDs! Well unless you give me 200 big ones!

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I watched brokeback mountain, and enjoyed it

Brokeback mountain

I'm sorry but any man who can not sit there in a cinema and watch Brokeback mountain and not feel something for the characters in the film, has no heart. I've been hearing people saying, oh no could not go to a movie about gay cowboys. Sorry you what? Who gives a rats ass! Quoting Alex from Diggnation. Its got like 1 min of man on man action out of 130+ minutes. And even if it had more, who would give a crap? I just can not understand the narrow mindedness of people who wouldn't even see a film simply because its got a few gay kisses and is about 2 men who actually love each other. I just dont see what the problem is. Actually tell a lie I do see where the problem is, its with little minded people. I mean do they think going to see a movie about 2 men who love each other will turn them gay or something? Do they think people coming out of the cinema will be flying rainbow flags? Geez, get a grip people.

Sexuality is not simply black and white, its a spectrum of grey like most things in life. Do not be put off by the fact this movie is nicknamed the gay cowboy movie. Its a good movie and full credit to Ang Lee for pulling off something which the ignorent few still can't get there head around. I mean come on this is what film is all about right, Storytelling? Just because I watched Crash does not mean I'm into the sexual thrills of car crashes. Just as watching American Psycho does not mean i'm interested in killing people. Storytelling can be powerful and open your eyes to a whole world which you've never seen or thought to deeply about. Take another film I watched on the weekend. Memoris of a Geisha. Really interesting and well told even if not true to the book on which its based. Real eye opener and made you realise how highly regarded Geisha's were. It really put another view on the usual story of abuse which these women recieved and lived with for beauty and some would say vanity. Yeah storytelling is good and should never stop short of some of the most alarming things we can imagine as long as there told in a way that does not alieniate the watcher. Another great example comes to mind. Lolita. Another conversial movie but only for its subject not its actual substance. Good movie by the way, really gets under your skin and makes you realise how dangerious love can be. Go see all the movies I've mentioned…

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If the mainstream media do not get it, we’ll do our own media

Mobuzz TV

Watching a load of Iptv stuff from my geek download folder today, I've come to the conclusion that there is more than enough content out there to easily watch just this and nothing else. I mean between Rocketboom, MobuzzTV, Geek Entertainment, Diggnation, Twit, NerdTV, DigitallifeTV, The Scene, Hak.5, etc. There's hardly anytime to watch much else, and honestly who would want to when you look at what was on TV last night.

8pm – Just came in from work quite late for one reason or another. Whats on? Well Football (not interested), The Bill (no thanks), 10 years younger special (what the heck?), What not to wear special (no thanks), Natrual world (not quite me). Ok to be fair I've just picked on the 5 standard analogue channels on English TV but none of those are of any interest to myself.
9pm – Cooked and eaten. Would like to watch something while I do a little online socialising. Whats on? Rome, more football, life in the undergrowth, british comedy awards and space cadets. Its actually not till 10pm when Lost and the BBC news is on till I'm tempted to even bother turning on the Digital TV box. And even then, Lost I've already seen because I'm watching series 2 like most people I know and I can consume the news a lot better by visiting my mainstream media folder on my rss aggregator. If I go as far as visiting the BBC website I can even watch AV content from my laptop or even on my Xbox using a nice little BBC news Python script on Xbox media centre.

Not only is podcasts changing what I'm hearing day in day out. I'm also changing my habits in regards to what I watch and download. At the moment I would say by pure megabyes, I'm downloading more legal geek TV stuff than shady American and UK TV. Thats quite a large shift from a year ago when I was only downloading bits of the broken and from the shadows now and then. Niche and genuine content is the name of the game now (insert Longtail business model here if you like). I mean even Sarah likes Diggnation and Rocketboom. Some of the mainstream media will catch on and start going straight to the consumer like ABC and NBC with there Apple store content. Some will use it as a lost leader like in the case of NBA.com, but at the moment its all about the genuine voices and cleverly niche topics and if you feel your under served? Go out and do something about it. The equipment is affordable and barrer to entry much lower than its ever been. The revolution my friends started a long time ago, go get some. I wont go into details, but I'm certainlly looking into doing something myself.

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Go Digital Special Tim O’Reilly Podcast

Tim describes his joy of being at the BBC

Quoted from a internal email sent to quite a few people in the BBC World Service after Tim's invite to the BBC and his interview on Go Digital

Last week we delivered an extra edition of Go Digital through it's podcast stream, and the email response it's generated has been huge! In our last programme we featured an interview with CEO of O'Reilly Publishing and Open Source guru Tim O'Reilly and we decided to put out a tidied up 'full length' interview (17 mins) in addition to the main programme.

The response has been overwhelming, and over the weekend the programme has received around 10 times it's normal weekly email bag, without exception every response in favour of the extra content.

This demonstrates one of the real benefits of the podcast medium, that instead of simply regurgitating radio programmes for Podcast, being able to deliver something different that adds value to our regular broadcasts is something I think our audience will really appreciate.

Well this pretty amazing would you not say? I knew Tim Oreilly was a great speaker but 10x the usual response asking for the longer version or saying how great the interview was. This strikes me as a really compeling reason why podcasts work. There simply not bound to the time limits of radio and they can be super niche or serve the longtail. Actually a few of the emails outlines this perfectly.

Cameron Walker wrote,

Instead of setting the shows up to a set time, like in what your used to on Radio and TV. Podcasts can be from half an hour to an hour to 1.5hrs

Jean-Pierre Morissette from Montreal wrote,

Thank you so much for this idea. The content of this interview was so good that it was a real gift to be able to listen to it all. I call these significant moments.I opens new perspectives, new ways of looking at the world around us to listen to comments like these.

Comment from John Barton in the UK,

Just listened to the exteneded session with Tim O'Reilly.Great use of the technology. The ability to allow the speaker to extend beyond the normal programme time boundary and really get into his topic was well worth the effort. As I use a podcast agregator I got the feed automatically and was able to enjoy this bonus session without any additional work on my part. Looking forward to other extended sessions

Jim Puls from Chicago wrote

Well, I very much enjoyed your interview with Tim OReilly. I found myself stopping the podcast from time to time and backing it up to take some notes. A few months ago I didnt know what a podcast was, and now I find it enriches my life greatly. Its Saturday afternoon in Chicago, and Ive done my chores, and its time to listen to some radio … what I want when I want it. Just before Go Digital I listened to Ockhams Razor from Australia

and added in a email to myself.

As I noted in my email, you and your colleagues are carrying on in the long tradition of informing us all, and deserve our thanks for doing that.

Edwin Boatswain sums the podcast up nicely with,

Thanks for the extra content. It was a nice surpise when this turned up in the feed. I think the edited version of the interview captured his thoughts well, but it was good to hear the whole piece.

NerdTV from PBS do a simlar thing already. They produce 3 different cuts of the same interview. I download the entire show and listen to it while working but now and then glance over at the video running on my laptop. But I have never downloaded the nerdy or juicy parts cuts, i guess its not a big deal when I can simply jump around with the slider myself. Obviously the entire show isnt for everyone and a juicy cut would make a lot more sense if your only generally interested. I wonder how many people listen/watch each version?

Like one of the emails said,

While it's understandable that you have to edit down a given interview to fit into a time slot, it seems like a real shame to have whatever was left on the (virtual) cutting room floor to disappear forever. Personally, I'd very much like to see such material made available in the future (where it's deemed to be of sufficient interest/quality, of course).

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Bit Torrent, as the middle man?

Tape it off the internet

All I can really say is these guys observations of TV are pretty damn sharp…

Interesting story about how Channel 4 in the UK are pushing for more secondary new media rights from their independent programme producers. I've talked about this for ages, but essentially it can't be beyond the wit of programme producers to hire an ad sales team, and go direct to their audience. They are currently missing out on a large slice of the revenue pie, this would enable them to get some of that. In these early days, call it an online exclusive, create a buzz, sell it to a 'traditional' tv network later. You know when your time is up when you get called 'traditional', huh?

The BBC also gets the retouch treatment, which could become a viable solution for the BBC when geoip finally falls apart. Matt's original screenshot and the new updated screenshot.

Theres no douht we need to deliver to the rest of the world and subscription, advertising, drm and geoip are not the solution. Well to be fair advertising works up to a certain point (i'm sure google will be exploring this more in the future).Geoip works for less-savy internet downloaders, but as we know obfuscation (as in security through obfuscation) is a bad idea and its really a problem waiting to happen when you least expect it.

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Did Apple Sabotage the ROKR? Do we really need to ask?

Jobs with Rokr phone

The unofficial Apple blog suggests that Apple may have shock-horror Sabotaged the Motorola Rokr. Wow I thought this was actually well established by now? I remember hearing a interview with some quite high managers at Motorola who explained they did not even know there product had been launched till the actual launch. Then of course Jobs did the usual, look here's the rokr here for one moment but look over here trick. I would be interested how much time the Rokr got on stage compared to the Nano. Anyway, this is all so much more interesting when you read what Microsoft are saying about the Xbox 360 playing Ipod content. Enough said really…

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