Archives for January 2008

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If you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, by far the easiest way to get it, click here: This week we featured:

• Kenyan Blogger Daudi Were of Mental Acrobatics spoke to us about the recent violence (the interview is short because of a poor mobile connection - please visit his blog for more information)


• Award winning photographer and multimedia podcaster Marcus Bleasdale tells us about living in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Thanks Graham for the tip)


• Grammy Winning record producer/mixer Charles Dye tells us about the Loudness Wars and why lack of dynamic range is bad for music. Thanks to John Ralston for permission to podcast a clip of his music - which is, we should stress, filled with dynamic range. (Thanks to Vince for the tip!)


• Lilly McElroy an artist who throws herself at men, told us why


• Nathalie of Philobiblon with this week's Brit Blog Roundup (WARNING contains a mildly rude word if that sort of thing upsets you)


• Professor Rob Fergus, part of a team lead by Antonio Torralba that developed the 80 Million Tiny Images site, explained it to us


• And Jamillah Knowles with a report on Second Skin a film about virtual life

As an added treat the video below is by Turn Me Up and very clearly illustrates their side of the "Loudness War".

If you have a suggestion for next week's programme please email podsandblogs [at] bbc.co.uk

You can suscribe to the podcast via iTunes: MyYahoo: Googlereader It's always available in itunes first thing in Tuesday morning. Ideal for the Web2.0 commuter.

NB We hate the fact that our podcasts are only available for 7-days - but those are the rules - so please download early for your later listening pleasure.

Right click this link to download to your computer or the blue arrow to listen.
If you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, by far the easiest way to get it, click here: This week we featured:

• Lost laptops and data security with the Breach Blog


• e-victims.org is a new site for the people who have been victims of internet crime


• Justine Lam eCampaign Director of the Ron Paul Campaign joined us


• The Britblog Roundup with Liberal England


• Maj Andy Olmstead remembered with fellow Obsidian Wings blogger Holzoy


• Jamillah Knowles interviewed Kenyan Blogge Lost White Kenyan

UPDATE: A couple of you have emailed to tell me off for not posting the link to the site that visualizes every noun in the English Language - well here it is - there's a pick too - sorry!

You can suscribe to the podcast via iTunes: MyYahoo: Googlereader It's always available in itunes first thing in Tuesday morning. Ideal for the Web2.0 commuter.

We'll feature an interview with Solana Larsen of Global Voices on Pods and Blogs tonight. We've been luck to feature many Global Voices contributors on the segment in the past. I also shot some web-cam video of the interview which I've posted below. It's very low res and in mp4 format so it's light enough to download pretty much wherever you are, and can be viewed on your iPod.

Right click this link to download to your computer or the blue arrow to listen.
If you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, by far the easiest way to get it, click here: This week we featured:

• Gary Langer Director of Polling at ABC who blogged on the NH poll failures


• Steve Grove Head of News and Politics for YouTube


• Ron Paul with Andrew Rasiej of TechPresident


• A brief mention of this piece in The New Republic and the Paul Campaign Response


• Clark Boyd reports on ushahidi.com which logs conflict in Kenya


• The Great Alvin and the Chipmunks blog "row" mentioned and this site which lifts the lid on IKEA names


• The Britblog Roundup with Devil's Kitchen standing in for Clairwil


• Tara Brabazon with an academic critique of Google


• Seamus McCauley of Virtual Economics and Steve Herrmann of BBC News Online look at popularity quirky stories and what it means for online publishers

You can suscribe to the podcast via iTunes: MyYahoo: Googlereader It's always available in itunes first thing in Tuesday morning. Ideal for the Web2.0 commuter.

I'm going to be on the Naked Scientist podcast (hosted by Up All Night's very own Dr Chris Smith) spending 5 mins or so talking about technology - it's now a regular(ish) monthly thing. If you are in the Cambridge area you can hear it on BBC Radio Cambridge on Sunday, otherwise you can download the show as a podcast.

BTW This week's very belated podcast of Pods and Blogs is available here. It's shorter than usual because of the US Nomination race and as it was orginally broadcast 0230 08/01/08 some of the content is dated.

What do you give the man who has everything for a retirement present? Well perhaps a chance to indulge himself making a fun video speculating about his last day at the office isn't a bad suggestion. Bono, Clooney Hillary, Obama, Gore and a bunch of Microsoft execs make it into the retirement video parody Gates played at CES, the result is better than you might expect.

Prepare for n remixes of this online, where n is a large random number.

I'm a subscriber to Nee Naw a London Ambulance dispatcher's blog: it's highly recommended reading. His perspective on the fire at the Royal Marsden Hospital is fascinating:

The response of callers was an interesting insight into human nature. I must admit I quite liked having a ‘proper’ answer to the ‘why isn’t the ambulance here NOW?’ type questions. Terribly sorry, but we’re having difficulty finding someone to deal with your bellyache because there’s a hospital full of critically ill cancer patients on fire and we’re out SAVING LIVES like we’re meant to. Not everyone knew about the fire, and some people were incredibly apologetic. One woman, a perpetually drunk regular caller, seemed absolutely mortified when I told her, and was silenced for the first time in her entire life. Others were understanding and offered to make their own way to free up ambulances for the fire. Others, on the other hand, made me sick to the core with their selfishness. “I don’t care about the fire, what about me? You have to get here NOW.”

Read the whole thing.

Right click this link to download to your computer or the blue arrow to listen.
If you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, by far the easiest way to get it, click here: This week we featured:

• The Adil Najam of Pakistaniat and Arif Rafiq of the Pakistan Policy Blog discuss the situation in Pakistan


• Stuart of the Policeman's Blog tells us about his 2007. He's moved to Edmonton Canada, where co-incidentally I spent my Christmas too.


• Last-of-Iraqi's closes out 2007 with a moving first person account of violence errupting in his previously safe neighbourhood


• The Chameleon from Redemption Blues gave us an end of year Britblog Round Up. UPDATE The Whiskey Priest mentioned in the round-up has a reply to The Chameleon's take on his post here.


• Adriana Lucas and Seamus McCauley looked back over 2007


• Jess Greenwood of Contagious magazine made some predictions for 2008

You can suscribe to the podcast via iTunes: MyYahoo: Googlereader It's always available in itunes first thing in Tuesday morning. Ideal for the Web2.0 commuter.