Episode 47 - Ward Cleaver Was Really Into Cock Fighting

Hey, we're back!

If anything gets us back to talking it is overreach by a company with a bit of copyright!

I'm using too many exclamation points!

So, a guy who had bought a movie from Apple went to re download his purchase, and it turns out, he didn't really buy the movie.  He bought a license to download it, depending on its availability in the iTunes store.

Plus, the EU is going all crazy again.....

We talked Dr. Johnson, dystopias, the future of newspapers and the Peninsular Wars.

Enjoy.



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Episode 46 - A Warehouse Full of Minitel Terminals

Yup, we're back.  Don't worry, we just took a little break.

So, today is Isabelle's birthday, so there's that.

Our topic though, is not birthdays, but, the recent fine the European Union has slapped on Google.  The deal here is, that if you make an Android phone, and you want to use the google play store, you can't fork Android.  I mean, you CAN, but then you don't get the play store.  The EU doesn't like this much.

This brought me in mind of the unequal treaties imposed on China, Japan and Korea (by Japan no less).

Mercantilism, Autarky, and even the future!

Oh yeah, the singularity is silly.



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Episode 45 - Sending Your Scribe to John Grisham's Place

Everyone sing along.  It's Tom Merritt's birthday.

Today, or tonight really, we're tackling a topic we've spoken of before, cloud computing.  Yeah, that was back in episode 12, that file is long gone....

Today at work there was a presentation about G Suite for education.  Hey the university gets google tools for free!  Also, no ads, and no data collected.  So that's cool, and that's why we're talking about this tonight.

What's the deal on those things that Picard signs?  Is he accepting TOSs?  Hey, wait, in TOS Kirk was always signing things!

We like the cloud stuff, and we're pretty excited about the whole thing coming to the university.  We also talked a bit about Luba Goy and Billy Van.

Hey, Isabelle took pictures of us!



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Episode 44 - Churchill as a Service

Look, another episode!

Look, another episode about copyrights!

Look, the EU is being silly again!  Is it censorship?  I dunno.  I'm sure Ken will know much more about this than I, because of his librarianosity.

What if you could make copies of people's consciousness?  Would you?  What about renting out someone's 'soul' to be used as, oh say, a university administrator.

Oh, Ken's daughter graduated from grade 8, congrats to her.

We hope you enjoy our ramblings.



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Episode 43 - The Small Pencil Manufacturing Trade Association Has a Grievance

Do you have it?

Can you feel it?

Election fever has gripped Ontario!  OK, look, I'm not so sure I have election fever, it might just be some bad clams.  As I write this it looks like it'll be four years of bad clams.

Oh for the first time we had voting machines!  The company that made them is Canadian and has no ties to Russia, that we know of....

However, elections are a great podcast topic.  So, that's what we did.  Ancient Greece, Rome, the Polish monarchy, the Galactic Senate, me quitting as AU Senate speaker, the Federation, the Klingon High Council, all great stuff.  OK, when I quit as senate speaker it might not have been my finest hour.


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Episode 42 - Quarter Poundor

Another week, another episode of The Expanse, and, another TC.

Oh remember, you heard it here first that the Expanse was going to be picked up by Amazon.

Speaking of Amazon, this article on Engadget caught our eyes.  FAKES!  Apparently there's a lot of stuff on Amazon that is fake.  I remember eBay dealing with that a lot when I was a seller back in the late 90s and early 2000s.

I promised my Russian friend Dan that I'd mention him, and The Warlock in Spite of Himself series.  I have now fulfilled my contractual obligation.

I bet we talk about Altered Carbon.  It's just a guess, but I bet we do.

Visit Elne France, those poor people.

The theme is too loud this week, sorry about that....



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Episode 41- Parking Tickets For Their Shuttlepods

I just announced on twitter that I'm currently writing this post, so I guess I ought to get to it.

So, how about that Trump/Kim summit?  Yeah, no, that's not happening.  I don't know about you, but it strikes me that this was Kim's plan all along.  Try for ridiculous concessions (US troops out of South Korea) then when that doesn't happen, embarrass Trump!  Who knew a reality TV star could get pwned by a guy who, while evil, has been training for this role his whole life?

This lead us into some fine discussions about summits in general.  Klingons and the Federation for example.  Oh you've got your 'peace in our time' summit too, that one worked out well.  Of course, B5 came up.

Also, North Korea, it's got a vaguely 1984 feeling.  By vaguely, I mean EXACTLY LIKE 1984.



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Episode 40 - My Suit Wouldn't Be Pressed As Well Without RADAR

Hey we've hit 40!  Now the podcast will buy a Corvette and think about a career change or something.  At this rate we'll hit 100 before the next Olympics!

Ken and I got into it tonight about the recent tests (that failed in Quebec, and maybe got a C- in Ontario) of the Alert Ready system.  As a very rough rule, it seems that people on Rogers and Shaw or MVNOs of theirs got the alerts whereas people on Bell and Telus did not.  (It isn't quite that simple, but hey, who reads these things anyway?)  Now, it must be said that later in the week, maybe Monday of this week, there was an Amber Alert sent out via Alert Ready and it worked.a

This led us (I think, look, I'm writing this before Ken comes over, hell, maybe we won't record tonight, or maybe he won't even come over, you just never know, it is a crap shoot really, but I like to live on the edge) to talk about warning for things like Pearl Harbour, and apocraphyl stories about 9/11 and Coventry.

Really, warning signals are a big thing, we talked the DEW line, The Battle of Britain and eventually got to my dentist.

Enjoy!



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Episode 39 - It's The Future, Which One of These Knobs Do I Have To Blow?

Follow us again dear listener as we converge tangentially.

Well, we're going to watch last night's Expanse, and before it, who knows, we might record a thing!

First off I'd like to thank both @acedtect and @alkebob for posting a picture of the two of them from Vegas where there was a meet up.  Great pic, which they entitled 'two thirds of the Tangential Convergence audience'.

So, Tesla has an idea for an electric transport truck.  Cool.  Then Nicola Motors (yeah we get it) has decided to sue Tesla for two billion dollars.  Seems legit.  This seems to me to be as sensible as, oh, say TWIT suing Twitter.  (That's happening by the way).  Damn, I should be careful, maybe I'll get sued for mentioning all of this stuff.

This got us all into lots of stuff, look, I'm a shitty writer and that's what I've got.  I'm a shitty writer, but, the library at the university has to pay for y shitty writing.....

Oh yeah, two things, I forgot to use Tom Merritt's excellent line about how Edison Motors should sue Tesla, and, Go Hounds Go!


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Episode 38 - Five O'Clock Nigel

As I do with Broken Area, I'm writing these show notes before we actually do a show.  Who knows if we are tonight.  That said, I do know that Baron von Hernden is coming over tonight to watch the Expanse.  I honestly have no idea why I just called him Baron von Hernden.  He's really more of a Lord.  The Lord of the Library.

So, money, cash specifically.  Are we heading towards a cashless society?  This article from CNet makes the case.  Canada is the most cashless country out there according to this report.  We beat our Sweden, the USA and Russia on that list.  So it is sort of like hockey.  Well I mean we beat out everyone, but Sweden was second, so I guess that's where this hockey angle is coming from.

Star Trek, B5, The Expanse, what's the deal on their money?  We don't get how it works in Star Trek. Nobody does.


Enjoy

Episode 37 - Suitably Chagrined

As I do over at Broken Area, I'm typing this before even recording.  Hell, I'm not even sure we're recording tonight.  Anyway, it is another Thursday, another Expanse night, and another week of work.

Hey!  We did record, we talked about the twitter shitstorm after Barbara Bush's death.
This lead to a discussion of tenure, of yellow journalism, of social media, of Star Trek, of Babylon 5 and post scarcity economies.



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Episode 36 - Do You Have Change For a Krugerrand?

Welcome to our Expanse pre show.

Well not really, but we will be watching last night's premiere after talking about Cambridge Analytica!  I don't know why that exclamation point is there.  Maybe they could use data mining to tell me.  Oh, as an aside, some yim yam friend of mine used 'This is Your Digital Life' and some of my info was shared with these weenies as you can see from the accompanying screenshot.

I'm typing most of this out before Ken even comes over, but I just thought I'd drop in that I got back from MAGA land last week.  Reports are true, it's great again.....

We talked propaganda, we talked Operation Mincemeat, we even talked a bit of Star Trek The Animated Series.

Enjoy.



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Episode 35 - Harry Hopkins is My Barman

Yup, two times in a one week span.

Tonight, before Altered Carbon we talked a bit about the story of how Alexa is maniacally laughing at users.  As an aside, they've got a fix out.  As an aside aside, the New York Times talked about the whole thing, 21 years ago.

This got us in to talking about AI, Siri, Hal, and even Kay Summersby.

FDR, Steve Jobs, Harry Hopkins et al also came up.

What would you do if your digital assistant actually had a real personality?

(n.b. there's a weird audio artefact in this recording, sounds like RF interference of some sort, will investigate)


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Episode 34 - Darth Putin

HOLY SHIT WE'RE RECORDING.

You know, Ken has been coming over to my place every Thursday for a few years now, we talk a lot then we watch a show.  Man in the High Castle, the Expanse, Manhattan, and now, Altered Carbon.  The thing is before every show we talk about politics and technology and history.  Sound familiar?

So, we recorded tonight.

It was inspired by Putin's lovely speech today where he decided to show a cool video of Florida being nuked.

This got us into the Korean War, Trump, anarchists, false flag operations and of course that led into the mirror universe and our impressions of ST:Disco (A Disco. Control. Panel.)

We ended talking a bit about a strange thing that happened on wikipedia a few years back.  This reminded Ken of a thing archivists do.  Who knew?  Now you do.



We hope you like episode 34