Episode 23 - Zuck you...

We got together before the Stargate Universe season finale to discuss facebook and Mark Zuckerberg's awesome performance at the D8 conference (you have to watch the video, seriously).

Overall we pretty much agreed that there is little privacy on facebook, but Isabelle and I had less problem with that than Ken and Robin did, indeed, I always figured I would only put stuff up there that I would say to someone's face, and Isabelle seems to be of the opinion that we live in a post privacy world. Robin, on the other hand, would like to live as some sort of hermit...

We discusses a bit of stuff about 1984 and A Brave New World as well, which of course make sense considers how the state in those dystopias knew everything about you.

Ken and I will be at Podcasters Across Borders 2010 on a panel with Tom Merritt of TWiT.tv and the Scarborough Dude called "What If My Boss Find Out" so if you are in Ottawa in June, look us up!



Enjoy episode 23.

Episode 10 - Another CENSORED Episode So Quickly?

Clever title eh?

Ken and I got together before BSG to discuss net censorship and censorship in general. This was originally Isabelle's idea, and you can hear a bit of Isa and a bit of Madeleine during the show.

Censorship is one of those hot button issues. There are times, maybe when it is ok. You know the whole yelling fire in a crowded theatre thing. That said, it is pretty hard to censor the net, as it is distributed, and it is also technically hard, even if you want to stop people from seeing the Scorpions (though that may be a laudable goal...)

We talked about both positive and negative censorship. Negative censorship is when you are told not what to print, whereas positive censorship is when you are told you must print certain things. The positive variety is one of the hallmarks of a totalitarian society. It turns out both Ken and I took the history of totalitarianism with the same prof at Western.

This brought us around to talking about dystopias like 1984 and We. We is probably the first of the dystopia genre. I think it is also the best.

As usual I talked a bit about a Canticle for Liebowitz because, well, because it is a cool book...

Enjoy episode 10.

Episode 8 - Between Democracy and Dystopia

For Episode 8 we invited along Guest Hosts Robin and Christine to comment on the elections in Canada and the United States. We discussed election processes from a historical perspective as well as introducing some well worn speculative fiction memes about corporate and/or technological dystopias. We had at least one Ingsoc reference and Huxley got dragged in. Robin brought his experiences as Canadian librarian working in The Republic of The Gambia [for propaganda click here] [for the BBC's take click here] in the IT/ISP/networking sector; Christine had some pungent comments about the Liberal Party in Canada. Dave asked us all for election predictions in both countries; the Psychology PhD amazed the two history guys when he gave precise numbers in his predictions; Ken had a chance to rag on voting machines while asking why we trust the humans who are the "machine" now to do it – before completely his voice entirely to laryngitis.

All hail Lieutenant President Yahya Jemmah!

Enjoy episode 8