Episode 12 - Robin Hates Clouds (but loves net neutrality!)

Cloud computing was the topic: connecting all kinds of computers together and seeing what happens. Terms were defined, examples given and discussion ensued. Ken mentioned Evergreen, the new computing system we're going to install to organize the library; Dave talked about time sharing on a VAX computer back in his undergrad days. General discussion about online storage and applications in the cloud developed into a musings about the cost to develop and run software in an organization, and how cloud based computing can challenge that model. Then Robin freaked out.

Robin who was well into celebrating his first paycheck in a long time with a bottle of Jameson's went off on a drunken rant about net neutrality. FOR THE RECORD: Robin is an ardent supporter of net neutrality. He was just thinking about unfair bandwidth allocation practices in a far away place. Feeling rather passionate about this far away place and prodded on by the bottle, he shot his mouth off in every direction and forgot utterly that we were talking, in general, about Canada. Robin and Dave sparred over the issue of net neutrality, Dave supporting, Robin dissenting. Robin then went on to attack Web 2.0 and then Yahoo! Mail. Bottom line, Robin has promised never to bring Jameson's to a taping again.

The issue of autonomous action (ie. working without a connection to your boss via email etc.) was discussed as well as the notion of information as stimulant, by Ken. Captian Kirk was mentioned. Dave did his Sean Connery/Captain Marco Ramius, impression and we passed the bottle, pondering Star Trek and submarine movies.

Dave and Robin sparred (again) over Web 2.0. Robin - really drunk - over simplified things a whee bit and went right off the rails with a defensive rant about people calling the IT help desk and being an IT guy in general. Dave and Ken developed and discussed conclusions: the good the bad and the ugly of the cloud.

Closing music:
"The Letter" by Dan Brodbeck and Corey Thompson, you will see why when you listen to they lyrics...

Enjoy episode 12.

Episode 11 - The Authors Guild Is Mad at the Amazon

Amazon.com that is.

With the release of the Kindle 2, the Authors Guild of the USA came out against the text to speech capability of the new kindle. Their "reasoning" is that this capability violates copyright. Yeah, that's right, a computer type voice will stop the sales of audio books. Odd that Amazon would do such a thing, what with them owning audible.com. There is an alternate hypothesis, and that is that it will help the sale of audio books, and that getting content available to people, say oh like blind people (like me) might actually be a good thing. Oh those crazy authors...

We officially welcomed Robin Isard to the show as our third TCer. Both Robin and Ken went to library school and are librarians here at Algoma University, they actually quite like books. (Note the understatement). They got all excited about handling medieval manuscripts, which I would too if I had ever done it.

We talked about the death of paper, and books, and how on Star Trek the captains always seem to like actual books. That led us into a series of Shakespeare references in Star Trek which Isabelle and Madeleine thought quite funny and (hopefully) cute.

We also talked about self publishing, such as Tom Merrit's Boiling Point (which is a really good book) and my friend Dave's book on getting in to grad school.

Welcome Robin, and we welcome your comments. Oh and thanks to Craig and Christian for the Scotch.

Enjoy episode 11.

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 9 - 1 2 3 4 I Declare A Digital TV Format War

We sat down with a lovely bottle of gin and discussed the upcoming (or completed, depending on your country) Digital TV transition. Now of course Ken and I are well aware that it is not really a format war, but this transition has some of the hallmarks of so many other format wars.

People are going to wake up one day and find out their stuff does not work, or does not work the way they expected, the public education campaigns notwithstanding. It would be like it I had a few crates of old records and found out I had nothing to play them on, wait, that happened to me...

The digital divide comes up here. Indeed, the poor, the old (and the old poor I guess...) will probably be most negatively affected by the transition. This reminded me of an episode of Sliders, I beleive I was the only person ever to watch Sliders... Cable companies have jumped on this bandwagon as well, they seem to be subtly or none too subtly telling people they need digital cable. Of course you do not.

Ken mocked me for not having enough HDMI ports on my TV. I have 2 TVs with HDMI ports though, so I think I win.

One wonders how much all of this will affect people once the TV becomes more of just a place to show content, no matter where it comes from, rather than something for receiving just TV signals. This is happening now with TVs, you know, streaming from your xbox, that sort of thing. Isabelle then brought up a great point, the CRTC and the FCC for example, do NOT control the net. This may be a huge change, especially here in Canada where Canadian content rules are strictly enforced.

This led us to discuss 3D TV which we think is stupid, but hey what about the holodeck? The holodeck is cool, and really is not that dissimilar to what people today call serious games.

Special thanks to Tom Merritt of CNET for all of the recent plugs, and welcome to all the new listeners.

Enjoy episode 9.

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

Episode 7 - Olymtech

Well, the 2008 Summer showcase for a totalitarian country, err, the Olympics start in moments from when I post this, so we thought this would be a good topic. The tech, the history and the sci fi of the Olympics. I think, BTW, theat this is fair use of the word Olympics, they are pretty bad about suing people...

We recorded in Ken and Christine's back yard while Jonathan and Carys ran around. Christine joined in for a bit as well. Oh yeah, so did K and C's dogs... Before we got into it we talked a bit about Podcasters Across Borders 2008 which Ken and I attended back in June. This was a great event, Ken called it the best conference he had ever been to. Ken is off to discuss an implementation of Evergreen open ILS in Ontario Universities next week. Yeah we know, it has been a long time...

So what of the games? How much are they like the original Olympics? Did guys back then cheat? How would you cheat back then, Olive oil laced with HGH? The tech angle here is really huge actually, the steroids, the possibility of genetic engineering, blood doping, all of that stuff. In Sci Fi there are a lot of examples of such things, of competitions, like the Gamesters of Trisdellion, that Buck Rogers episode with the Olympics games, hell even Rollerball.

(Note: this episode had a really nasty sound in the background, the neighbours' pool filter. I did my best to filter that sound out. Oh and there is a little break in the middle where I inserted Shotgun Loudmouth by Battery Life).

Enjoy episode 7.

Episode 6 - So Say We Four

We recorded this episode on April 4, 2008, the night of the launch of season 4 of Battlestar Galactica. So warning, there are a few spoilers here, as we recorded before, and then after the show. We also had two of our regular guests, Isabelle and Christine join us on the show. We celebrated by drinking Caprica 6 martinis which are an oz and a half of lemon vodka, an ounce of Triple Sec and an oz of blueberry-pomegranate juice.

The topic, the uses and misuses of science fiction. OK, so it is not a tech story, but too bad, it is a geek story, we are branching out. Basically Ken thought of this idea when comparing say BSG to more fantasy type stuff. In other words, explosions vs. story. Isabelle says the worst Science Fiction movie ever is Highlander 3 and she also hates Tron. This took Dave and Ken aback.

Starship Troopers is an example of a great sci fi book that turned into a bad sci fi movie. We wondered aloud if Gulliver's Travels is Sci Fi and came to a bit of a consensus that the genre was invented by Jules Verne.

We even delved a bit into comics and superheroes. It was a great time, thanks to Christine and Isabelle, oh and the black Shure SM 45.....

Enjoy episode 6.