I wrote up this list for a friend yesterday and I figured maybe it was worth sharing with the world at large. While a number of these are video podcasts, I usually listen to these while riding a crowded bus into and home from work each day, so even the video ones often get consumed in audio-only mode from my pocket.
- Buzz Out Loud – A daily tech discussion show. A great way to stay up to date with current topics in tech. Usually pretty easily digestible at around 45 minutes. Website & iTunes direct-link
- Co-op – A weekly gaming review video podcast. Really good, but not very audio-only friendly (lots of video clips from the games they’re reviewing), so skip this one if you’re looking for something to listen to while driving. Website & iTunes direct-link
- The Totally Rad Show – A weekly video podcast. Three dudes talk about movies, video games, tv shows, comics, pop-culture, etc. The kind of show I wish I was hosting. Works pretty well in audio-only format as well. Website & iTunes direct-link
- Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show – A weekly video podcast. Kevin Pollak interviewing people in entertainment. Each episode runs pretty long (1.5-2hrs) but they’re almost always interesting and often really funny. Also works great in audio-only format. Website (don’t bother with the website though, it’s terrible) & iTunes direct-link
- ROFL – A weekly video podcast. Standup comedy cut down to one joke (presumably the best of the set?) from comedians all over the US. Also works great in audio-only mode. Website & iTunes direct-link
I’ve got more… but these will do for now. Do you subscribe to any podcasts? If so, which ones? And if not, why not?
Art & Media, Blogathyant Recommends, Op-Ed
ipod, podcasts, public transit
I use Twitter. I enjoy using Twitter. I created a Twitter account because it was constantly being discussed and dissected on several podcasts to which I am subscribed (I’m looking at you This Week In Tech). I’ve noticed, though, that my Twitter experience differs from both the experiences discussed on these shows, and what I can observe following various people.
The differentiating factor appears to be notoriety. Twitterers who have some level of notoriety, often due to some level of fame (even in a niche community like some podcasts) have a much easier time gaining followers on the service. The more followers you obtain the more the service changes from a micro-blog to a social experience.
The stories that intrigued me the most about Twitter were about instant-gatherings (where one Twitterer might post “I’m going to such-and-such a place, anyone else want to go?”), or the ability to get responses to questions almost instantaneously (John Hodgman, @hodgman, often throws questions out to what he has come to refer as the “Hive Mind“). These experiences simply aren’t possible without a high number of followers, and often even more than that, a high number of followers within geographic proximity (for questions like “Where’s the best X in Y“).
My approach to following people on Twitter is to be selective rather than promiscuous. I don’t want to just blindly follow every user I find in the hopes of getting a follow-back from the user and increasing the number of followers I have. I only want to follow the tweets of people of which I have some common interest. Furthermore, very very few people I know in person or at work use the service (less than 5 people so far). So for me, of little notoriety, my rate of follower count increase will be quite low.
All this being said, I return to my second statement: I enjoy using Twitter. Its just that what I’m getting out of Twitter doesn’t match what some of it’s biggest proponents describe.
Thoughts?
Op-Ed
social-networking, twitter
The internet to the rescue…
The [Canadian do-not-call] registry is scheduled to take effect in mid-2008, yet many Canadians may be disappointed to learn about the exemption of a wide range of organizations (registered charities, business with prior relationships, political parties, survey companies, and newspapers)… However, organizations must remove numbers from their lists if specifically requested to do so… iOptOut [allows] Canadians to create and manage a personal do-not-call list… where you can opt-out of further contact from exempt organizations… [by sending] an email notification to each organization on your behalf requesting that your name, email address and phone number(s) be removed from their active marketing lists.
Link: iOptOut.ca
Politics
Wow. Just a couple weeks after the movie industry strong-armed Canada into introducing an act to crack down on movie recording with camcorders (which similar laws, incidentally, haven’t stopped the US from becoming the largest source of camcorded movies), comes this…
Don Bell, a Liberal MP, yesterday introduced Bill C-453, the Canadian Motion Picture Secretariat Act. The bill would create a new government-backed secretariat, comprised of industry officials, to provide the House of Commons with reports every six months on potential legislative reforms to support the industry.
Read More (michaelgeist.ca)
Update: Just to be clear, the Brent in the comments section of the above link is not me.
Art & Media, Politics
A Brantford, Ont., man who says he has never worked or lived in Alberta received a cheque from the Alberta government as part of its prosperity payout.
Brian Clegg also says he won’t cash the $400 cheque, which he received in the mail on Wednesday, but will hold onto it as a keepsake.
The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation says it’s another reason Albertans would have been better off with a tax cut than the rebate, nicknamed Ralphbucks after Premier Ralph Klein.
Read More (cbc.ca)
Technorati Tags: politics, news
News, Politics
Police departments in several Canadian cities expressed surprise Friday that websites with similar names to their sites are taking people straight to the New Democratic Party’s main website.
“Oh boy, this is not good,” Sgt. Kelly Dennison of the Winnipeg Police Service said after typing www.winnipegpolice.ca into his web browser and getting the NDP site.
The same thing happens if users type www.reginapolice.ca, www.saskatoonpolice.ca, www.edmontonpolice.ca, and www.windsorpolice.ca. All the traffic is directed to www.ndp.ca.
Porn sites and other less reputable internet companies have been using this technique for nearly as long as the web has existed, but the odd turn of events here is that it appears thats it’s not event he NDP party who’s doing it, but rather a BC Resident.
The domain names for reginapolice.ca and the rest are registered to B.C. resident David Bedford.
According to NDP spokesman Ian Capstick, Bedford is an NDP supporter who’s trying to help. The party has asked him to provide a list of domain names that are redirecting traffic to the NDP page, but hasn’t got a response back yet, he said.
Perhaps he was inpsired by Rick Mercer’s handling of jasonkenney.org
Read More: CBC Toronto: Police names send web users on political detour
Politics
Conservative leader, and Canadian Prime Minister hopeful Stephen Harper proposes to cut the GST by 2% over the next two years,
Earlier in the day, Harper announced he would lower the seven per cent goods and services tax by one percentage point immediately and by another point within five years if he becomes prime minister after the Jan. 23 vote. [ CBC News: Economists dump on Harper's GST-lowering plan ]
So what does that mean to Canadian voters? Let’s take a second here to do the math. The Conservatives are describing this tax cut in the following way:
The real choice is between tax relief for some Canadians and tax relief for all: tax relief you can see versus tax relief you never see. “This will be a tax cut that you will see every time you shop, tax relief that you experience, a tax break that no politician will be able to take away without you noticing,” said Mr. Harper. [ Stephen Conservative.ca: Harper to cut the GST to five per cent ]
Let’s take a second here to see what this actually means. The impact has been described as about $400 yearly for a family earning $60,000 a year. Mathematically, 400/60000 is 0.6%. Lets look at this from another angle… $400/12 months = $33.33, $33.33 / 30 days in a month = $1.11/day. That’s right, Stephen Harper is proposing to eliminate $4.5 billion from Government so he can buy you cup of coffee every morning (and not that fancy $2 Second Cup Coffee either, not even $1.35 Tim Hortons (at least in Ontario) coffee).
A cup of coffee a day is not worth more to me than having $4.5 billion with which the Government can use to support health-care, education, etc. See, this is one of those times where math is useful in the ‘real world’.
Op-Ed, Politics
Rick Mercer (previously of This Hour has 22 Minutes and Monday Report, now Rick Mercer’s Report) has apparently started up a blog. So far the entries have been every bit as sharp as his television bits, so this is great. Out of the 5 posts he’s made so far, my favourite is a tie between “Holy crap! They moved me to Tuesdays.” and “Jason Kenney: Marxist Leninist.”
So the show will now be called “The Rick Mercer Report.” I was going to go with “Rick Mercer’s Tuesday Report” but I don’t have the money to order new t-shirts at Christmas when they move us to Wednesday afternoon. Keep The Audience Guessing is our motto.
Read More
Humour, Op-Ed
Tony G is my coworker. He’s got an unspellable last name. He’s also a very good and humourous writer. But no one knows this yet. Check out his blog. Do it. Jerks.
I don’t remember much from the fall, and even less afterward, but here is what I’ve been able to put together:
When I fell, I reached out for something – anything – to brace against, but our shower doesn’t have any soap dishes or towel racks. I grabbed the shower curtain and pulled down with me. As my head ricocheted off the tiles I hit my knee against the lip of the shower, I rotated out onto the floor where I laid, wrapped in a moldy shower curtain, staring at the hallucinated stars on the ceiling.
Op-Ed
