Micro.Blog

There are 225 posts filed in Micro.Blog (this is page 3 of 23).

Some thoughts on the end of the Core Intuition podcast

I had seen some recent posts from bloggers I follow that the Core Intuition podcast (hosted by Manton Reece and Daniel Jalkut) was coming to an end after 626 episodes over 16 years. I listened to the final episode this week, and it was a pleasant conversation. They did make a few statements which should be examined, though, in my opinion.

The first was about how they were close to stopping the podcast some time ago, but then started taking ads, and they decided to keep it going. Many podcasts I listen to run ads, and almost without fail, the hosts of those podcasts talk about how the ads “make this podcast possible”. I wish to challenge this statement, especially for a podcast such as this. First, the two people involved own their own software companies (albeit small ones), so hosting should not be a problem (host as part of your company servers). Second, was the income from those ads so motivating? Was it paying for direct costs of the podcast? I mean, this is two guys talking, which could be done via Zoom or other free services with production using Audacity, And, they also had a membership option, where individuals could pay to “support” the podcast, and have access to some extra content. Again, was this revenue “the thing” that kept it going so long? I don’t think so. From this one episode, I got the impression that Manton and Daniel were good friends, and enjoyed talking with each other. I think that, with some recent events involving Manton, he felt like this was an area to “cut back” in his life, and Daniel was happy to “free up the time” as well. In my opinion, many podcasts that run ads are trying to “make it pay”, so that the people producing it feel compensated for their time. They could do that podcast without ads, but they are leaning on that as an excuse for running ads, and trying to convince their listeners that “they could not produce this podcast without these sponsors”. BALONEY!

The second statement that I take issue with is that, by their stopping this podcast, they were “creating some space” for new podcasts to start and take root. Give me a break! This is the Internet, where as Doc Searls righteously says “NEA: Nobody owns it, Everybody can use it and Anybody can improve it.”. And, by the way, the Doc Searls post I just linked to is talking about the openness of PODCASTING! Anyone in the world can create a podcast. I have written about how to use WordPress to host a podcast, and using Audacity to edit a podcast. Thanks to the work of Dave Winer, no one has been able to take over the ability to create and distribute a podcast. Marshall Brain gave a great TEDx talk in May 2015 titled “Getting Over Getting Started”, with its main theme that the only thing stopping people from creating things is their own inertia (tools are not the problem, knowledge is not the problem). So, PLEEEASE, Manton and Daniel, don’t think that your stopping your podcast is going to get someone else to fill your shoes. Enjoy your “extra time”, but it is up to others to decide to get into the podcast game, and your leaving the arena is not “making space” for others – the space has been there from the beginning.

I would like to close with a quote from my post “The Joy of Podcasting“:

To close, I recently listened to a Radio Open Source podcast episode focusing on the life of Hannah Arendt, who lived under authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in the 20th century. One line of her writing stood out to me: “We are free to change the world and start something new in it.”. I think that every podcast is a chance to change the world, and anyone is free to create one and send it out into the world. Thank you, Dave Winer, for making this possible.

from “The Joy of Podcasting”

Yeah!

Playing around again with the Hugo static site generator

Jack Baty converted his eponymous site to Hugo, and I liked the look, and decided to think of a reason to try out his theme. I decided to create two linkblogs, one for personal links and one for liveblogging the Trump administration. In the spirit of “imperfect progress is still progress”, I am declaring the sites live, they need work, but I got something out there, at least one post each – yay!

A short review of the Huffduffer podcast feed service

Recently, I posted some ideas about podcast subscription lists/listening lists, and one of my readers (John Johnston) suggested I look at the Huffduffer podcast feed service. I found out that I already had an account – amazing! Must have forgotten!

I tried it this evening. After I logged in, I clicked on the “Huffduff it!” button at the top of the page. This took me to another page which had text boxes for the audio URL, title, description, and tags. I filled in the fields and saw a file added to the previous file that I had “huffduffed”. I then took the feed URL, and was able to subscribe to it to PocketCasts, and to listen to one of the files. Bing!

This service provides the basic functionality of creating a feed from audio files, and also hosts the feed, so the user does not have to provide any hosting. Nice! In the next few days, I will review some other services that I discovered after Huffduffer. Many thanks to John Johnston for mentioning the Huffduffer service.

The perfect response to Trump’s territorial trolling

Via Brian Beutler, the response from the Mexican President on convicted felon Donald Trump’s idea of changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America:

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested Wednesday that the United States revert to a historic name for the territory, America Mexicana, in a clapback at President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

And on the subject of making Canada the 51st state of the United States, MP Elizabeth May puts forth a proposal for Washington, Oregon, and California to become the 11th province of Canada:

Take that, Mr. Convicted Felon!

Music is a robust language

I sing in a church choir, one which typically sings four-part harmony. For many hymns, we start in unison for verse 1, then add parts in later verses. Sometimes, my fellow tenor and I will try to sing our part, but decide to shift to unison. Sometimes, when I sing, I sing the wrong pitch, or the wrong words. However, the music goes on – in general, the choir continues singing. Even in cases where the director may make a change (going to another verse due to the entrance of the priest not being complete), the choir follows, using their musicality to keep the music going.

In all these instances, the printed music provides the framework for the musical performance. As a counter-point, source code for computer software is a fragile language – one semi-colon out of place and everything stops…