My favourite podcasts

Podcasts I love. I listen to four audio podcasts regularly that I thought I should let you know about. The first two are Escape Pod and PodCastle, both from the same "group". They're weekly science fiction and fantasy stories, respectively, and usually run about the length of my daily commute, 40 minutes, though PodCastle very frequently goes over an hour and occasionally lets loose with "giant" episodes over 90 minutes. In balance with that time sink is Toasted Cake by Tina Connolly running at about 10 minutes per week, featuring fantasy flash fiction. I use them as filler when Escape Pod or PodCastle runs under 30 minutes. Finally, there's I Should Be Writing, an irregular advice podcast for "wannabe fiction writers" like me. Genuine, down-to-earth advice on how to keep writing and what to do with it when you're done, published by Mur Lafferty. She records when she's good and ready, and the lengths can vary a lot, so sometimes I have to pad this out with Toasted Cake too.

Also worth mentioning is TED, a video lecture series on a wide range of topics from science to charity and politics, under the broad heading of "Ideas Worth Sharing". I only watch some of them, if the topic grabs me, because I have a lot of other things to watch too.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Escape Pod and PodCastle have a third "sister" called Pseudopod, too.
PPS - I don't listen to that one, though, because horror isn't really my thing, and also I only have so many minutes in my day.

Wil Wheaton and Cory Doctorow

I am not a fan of every new thing that comes along. I never got into Game of Thrones, I don't even know why we care about the Kardashians, and even World of Warcraft made no impact on my life. But I do seem to be a fan of Wil Wheaton and Cory Doctorow, and I started wondering why. Yes, they do things that I like, but I've seen a lot of things I like on YouTube and I have never subscribed to a channel before. Liking something doesn't mean I'll keep following the author or creator.

So what makes Wheaton and Doctorow stand out? It's quite likely that part of the appeal is that they're geeks, but part must be that they're very easy to follow. They each have blogs (Doctorow posts to BoingBoing with many others) and they each have a lot of their work online where it's easy to get at and easy to share. I know if I want to recommend Wil Wheaton's TableTop to a friend, I can go and get the link and just email it on. The same goes for Cory Doctorow's books. They're free to share like that and free to experience.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - My stuff is just as free and available as theirs.
PPS - Just not nearly as awesome. Or varied.

It's cool to hate vuvuzelas

Vuvuzelas, those long, atonal trumpets played by thousands of soccer fans, are not getting a good reputation at the moment. So much so that there is a guide going around on how to silence them from FIFA World Cup broadcasts. It's a clever idea, and one I'm sure a few people will implement for themselves. A better idea, however, would be to implement it at the broadcast end, so the sound never gets to your TV in the first place.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If you're of the polar opposite opinion on vuvuzelas, you may like to fantasize about Vuvuzela Hero.
PPS - I'd actually expect Vuvuzela Hero to look more like SingStar than Guitar Hero.

Denialism paranoia

In the middle of this article about "denialism" lies this tasty tidbit:

It is tempting to wonder if activists sympathetic to climate and evolution denial might be grasping opportunities to discredit science in general by spreading vaccine and HIV denialism.

So, having described how these "denialist" movements set themselves up as underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in conspiracy, the author gets a touch of paranoia and conspiracy theory himself. Look out, everyone: denialist movements are all part of a big conspiracy to weaken the public's trust in all-powerful Science! Aiee!

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The statement may be made ironically.
PPS - I still prefer my interpretation.

Privacy falsehoods

I read an article called "I've Got Nothing To Hide and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy" by Daniel J. Solove. It's interesting stuff, especially how he dissects the misconceptions behind the assertion that "if you've got nothing to hide [from government surveillance] then you've got nothing to fear".

He has to present a taxonomy of privacy failures as a way of talking about the actual problems we face, because, as he says, privacy is such a slippery concept to define that we run the risk of being too narrow or too broad in our definitions, and either miss something or lose coherence in the process. His taxonomy is based on the idea that privacy is not one concept, but a related family of concepts, the whole of which is not reducible to a single essential common kernel.

That got me thinking that, rather than one kernel, there must be several, not all of which are necessarily present in every case. That would be the bottom-up equivalent of the taxonomy, defining the essential bits that are present in many privacy concerns, and combining them in different ways to construct privacy scenarios.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I haven't figured out what those aspects are.
PPS - Probably they contain Control and Anonymity.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Birthday Cake

This Zombie Girl birthday cake was made by an anonymous mother for her 8-year-old daughter's birthday party. Must have taken ages.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The brain and zombie parts are made from "rice cereal treat" and chocolate fondant.
PPS - Plus apparently some wooden dowels for structural support.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Plants vs Zombies lawn ornaments

Some guy called Moose Gueydan created some Plants vs Zombies lawn ornaments that are pretty decent. If I had a lawn, I'd love to have some of these.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't know whether the pea-shooter pots were bought or painted that colour.
PPS - For all I know, Moose may be a potter who made these items himself.

Chatroulette

Have you tried chatroulette.com? I have. I haven't provided the link just in case you click without knowing what you're getting into. The site connects you with strangers for video chat. It's okay, except for a few things. I think it would be improved if you could specify up front whether you are male or female and who you'd like to chat with. I suspect I was disconnected from a lot of my random strangers because they were young males looking for females. Of course you'd also need to be able to flag people as liars in that regard, and marking people as inappropriate would help too. The only words I exchanged were to gratefully receive a compliment on my beard.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't think there's any way to make the site kid-safe, as hysterical current affairs shows have noticed.
PPS - Fortunately, if you don't like what you see, you just hit "Next" and it goes away.

SMS weather warning service

I recently discovered and signed up to The Early Warning Network, which is an Australian weather alert system that operates over SMS. Since the storm I had often thought to myself that weather warnings need to come to my mobile phone, not over the radio or TV. I usually don't have either of those devices on, but my phone is always with me. If I'd had an SMS warning about that storm, I might have gone back and closed the windows. Next time, I will have that warning.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's a free service based on the Bureau of Meteorology weather warnings.
PPS - And given all that, I don't see why you wouldn't sign up.

Re-learning to tie my shoes

Every now and then on Lifehacker I come across an article like this one: Ditch the Granny Knot to Tie Your Shoes More Efficiently. I'm not sure how much more "efficient" it is, but it does make more sense and looks nicer to tie a reef knot on my shoes. The only change I have to make is going over the loop rather than under it, but it's surprising how hard it is to fight the muscle memory of years of shoe tying.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've been doing this for maybe a week now.
PPS - It does seem to work better.

Samurai sword umbrella

I want the samurai sword umbrella from ThinkGeek. It's a shame the "scabbard" is just a nylon sheath, but it does have a strap, and since this means the umbrella can be worn across the back, I'm willing to put up with it. I would predict about five minutes before someone calls the police about a sword-wielding commuter, though.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I realise this is the second low-content post for the week.
PPS - I also realise this is the second Thinkgeek umbrella I've linked to.

How to get from Brisbane to Brisbane

If you go to Google Maps and ask for directions from Brisbane, California to Brisbane, Queensland, you will be told to "kayak across the Pacific Ocean". When I first discovered this, I hadn't seen this particular Google Maps Easter egg listed anywhere else, though I am familiar with the older USA-to-UK version that asks you to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. If you search Google for "kayak across the Pacific Ocean", you'll find the other references.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Following the directions, you'll go via Hawaii and Japan.
PPS - You could easily add a stopover in Papua New Guinea too.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome exercises

I've found some new stretches to do that are specifically focused on tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. The video says I should expect to see some improvement in two days, and to keep doing the exercises every hour. It's a lot, but when it's that or the other options that haven't worked (anti-inflammatory meds, strapping and my own stretches) I'll take the one that hasn't been proven ineffective yet.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I haven't been doing them nearly as often as I should.
PPS - At one point I think I had more pain than before, rather than less.

Friday Zombie Blogging - Corporate Zombie shirt

Spotted on Threadless, a Corporate Zombie shirt. He's hungry for dollars.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Aren't we all?
PPS - The plodding, handout-assisted banks of the US are being called "zombie banks", too.

The Periodic Table of Awesoments

A single story involving everything on the Periodic Table of Awesoments would be off-the-charts amazing. Pirates, ninjas, zombies, jedi, tanks, bombs, kung fu, battle axes and bacon, plus Batman, Chuck Norris and William Shatner, to name just a few.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The name "Awesoments" seems a bit awkward, though.
PPS - I can live with that.

Star Wars: Retold

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) is hilarious. I linked to it in my "news" section a while ago, but since then I've been showing it to just about everyone, so I thought I might as well make a feature of it here.

I'd love to see someone do a whole series of these for cult movies. I guess it would be hard to give someone just enough information to get the story right enough to recognise but wrong enough to be funny.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - For extra fun, here's a Star Wars-related LEGO animation.
PPS - It is not related to the LEGO Star Wars video games.

Nappies for Russia

Before Sunday I didn't know there was any such thing as a "nappy nerd". Apparently, though, there are women who gather on the web to talk about their preferences and experiences with various nappy brands and types, their own practices when changing nappies and so on. When these women (and possibly some men, I don't personally know) heard about poor baby hygiene conditions in Russia, they got the word out and did something about it. They got companies involved to donate goods and services, provided many cloth nappies themselves, and are currently shipping them to Russia under the straightforward charity name of "Nappies for Russia". Chances are good that the word will spread further and other mothers in need around the world will benefit from this nascent charity.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This is what happens when a passion collides with a need.
PPS - For those who speak US English, "nappy" = "diaper".

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

It won't be up for much longer (free, anyway) but if you have the time and bandwidth for it, go now to watch Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog:

It's pretty funny stuff, but after a few more hours you'll have to pay to download or wait for the DVD.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Dr Horrible is an aspiring evil genius.
PPS - With a crush on the girl at the laundromat.

Danny Boy, Muppet Style

Via BoingBoing, I've been laughing at this Muppets clip recently. Enjoy!


Mokalus of Borg

PS - BoingBoing posted this for St Patrick's Day.
PPS - I know, it's a pretty lazy post.

A fascination

One of the things that is simultaneously fascinating and depressing about the internet is that you can always find someone who has taken that passing interest of yours and run with it much further than any sane person would. For instance, you have probably at some stage seen someone else's discarded shopping list and thought "I wonder what that person is like". Chances are, however, that you did not go around looking for more discarded shopping lists, write fiction in the guise of your imagination of the owner or dress up as that character and have photographs taken.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Artists are weird.
PPS - You probably already know this.