Tangential Convergence

Rifles Make Ready Episode 2 - Sharpe's Eagle

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Mon, 1 Dec 2025 00:01:00 -0500

Now that we've established who Sharpe is we can get him into all kinds of fun.

Fun like dealing with Sir Henry Simmerson.

Simmerson is played expertly by Michael Cochrane. As an aside, Michael Cochrane usually plays posh people of course, but in Wings (the 1977 show about WW1, not the Cheersverse show) he played a REALLY NICE post pilot.

It's the Battle of Talavera! I think Ken knows a lot about this. Certainly more than I do anyway.

You have to love Major Hogan. Hell, you have to love Arthur Wellesley.

Wellesley becomes Wellington in this one.

Wait, is one of those dumb young lieutenants Daniel Craig? Yup!

As always, the chosen men are amazing, plus we get some Dan Hagman singing.

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Rifles Make Ready - Episode 1 - Sharpe's Rifles

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:11:00 -0400

Yes, I know on 200 a Day, and Six Million and Black Sheep I try to come up with a clever title. It's harder here... They're all named 'Sharpe's something or other'...

'Eyes down'.

The fact that the Chosen Men are basically a collection of war movie tropes is fine by me.

'Dan Hagman, poacher'.

This food is a little Papist for my tastes.

If you don't love the Sgt. Harper and Lt Sharpe relationship I don't know what to tell you.

Brian Cox as Major Hogan, man does it get any better?

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Rifles Make Ready! - Episode 0, You Know Who I am, My Name is Sharpe

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 14:41:00 -0400

Ken and I are taking a break from our usual tech/history/sci fi ben and doing a deep dive into the historical fiction tv series Sharpe.

We're going to watch all 18 episodes and talk about them, you know, like if they were Mad Men or Rockford or Baa Baa Black Sheep or the Six Million Dollar Man...

Ken did his undergrad thesis on the Peninsular War, so we have that going for us us.

We talked about lots of stuff, including realizing tv is not reality (or even history), and the differences between how armies are organized today vs in the time of the show.

Next time we'll be doing 'Sharpe's Rifles' so, if you have the DVDs or Britbox, watch along!

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Episode 60 - Limited Brutality is Still Brutality

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 15:34:00 -0500

It's been a year since Putin started his illegal invasion of Ukraine.

We here at TC are staunchly pro democracy and pro Ukraine.

I wonder how people feel about this in Russia?

We could ask Russian. So we did.

Daniil also told us the story of his leaving Russia in March of 22.

Give to the Red Cross.

Give to the UNHRC.

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Episode 59 - Unrepresentative Yahoos

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:01:00 -0500

It's Canadian National Day of Podcasting!

It's also me and Ken.

Hey, remember the occupation of Ottawa? Remember the Emergencies Act? Well the EA requires a commission be struck to look into the use of the EA, and well, that was our jumping off point.

We talked Ottawa, the October Crisis, the Conscription Crises, Jan 6 and democracies voting themselves out of existence.

We also talked DS9 and Babylon 5.

Enjoy episode 59

Episode 58 - For the Glory of the Empire

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Sun, 23 Oct 2022 17:02:00 -0400

We're back.

Well, Ken was for a bit, then there was a LIBRARY EMERGENCY!!

Gee, what'll we talk about? How about Putin's war of choice in Ukraine?

Putin knows little of the operational. art.

Deception is key.

This got us thinking about a lot of things, Babylon 5, DS9, Operation Mincemeat, Romans, Barbarians, the Gulf War, General Patton etc.

Oh right, it was a Russia episode, so Daniil joined us again, thanks man!

Please give to the Red Cross or the UNHCR to help the people of Ukraine.

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Episode 57 - Gorby, We Hardly Knew Ye

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 15:56:00 -0400

It's been a heck of a few days.

The Queen died.

The Russians are rushin' away (sorry...)

But a couple of weeks ago Mikhail Gorbachev died.

Hey wait, now that's TC material. You know what else? I KNOW AN ACTUAL RUSSIAN!! His name is Daniil, and he escaped Putin's totalitarian nightmare with his family six months ago. He now lives in Vancouver. So why not get an actual Russian on here to talk about Goby?

OK, so we did.

Give to the UNHCR. Give to the Red Cross.

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Episode 56 - This Book Represents a Weapon

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 17:38:00 -0400

It's another in our ongoing coverage of Putin's war in Ukraine.

Lots of weapons are coming in.

Lots of war crimes are happening.

We talked a bit about the history of war crimes.

How can you get someone to do something evil?

I talked a little Asch Line Experiment.

Ken has lots of books.

These show notes are getting lame.

We stand for democracy, we stand with Ukraine.

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Episode 55 - The Ken and Dave Greater Co Prosperity Sphere

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 18:26:00 -0400

This one is all about propaganda.

Of course we've been both thinking about the topic ever since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Does Putin actually believe his own propaganda?

Are we swayed by propaganda (of course we are).

I've. got a lot of problems with Noam Chomsky.

Oh yeah, this one was recorded live and in person.

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Episode 54 - Слава Україні! Героям слава!

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Sun, 27 Feb 2022 16:38:00 -0500

Hey it's us!

Gee, what's been in the news? Maybe the ~~Soviet~~ Russian invasion of Ukraine?

Is this a reboot of 1918 or 1938? (With credit to @docpinko). We think it's more like 1918.

What is Russia's end game? We don't know, what the hell do we know about anything?

Will this lead to the end for Putin? We can only hope.

Putin has put his nukes on alert, it might be the only thing he has.

The Russians are the Cardassians, not the Romulans.

The book of Boba Fett makes an appearance, as does the Flu Trux Klan.

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Episode 53 - Decision 2020 Pre Game Show or Whatever

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Tue, 3 Nov 2020 20:26:00 -0500

We recorded this one at around 7pm EST.

Some polls are closed, some are open, some people are still in line. I conducted a completely (scientifically) useless twitter poll. Many of our US friends voted in advance. Many of them didn't have lines. That said, my twitter following probably skews kinda white. Still, it was nice of people to respond.

The lineups are a sign of a fragile democracy. That said, a lot of people voted by mail. or in advance some other way.

This got us talking about democratic norms, transfers of power and all that. Everything from the Algiers Putsch to President Clark in Babylon 5.

Don't screw this up America.

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Episode 52 - The All New Honda Freebee

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Wed, 3 Jun 2020 21:53:00 -0400

Originally Ken and I were going to hop on Skype and talk about reopening economies.

Then, the murder of George Floyd happened.

So, we couldn't not talk about that. So we did. Though, really, we agree that white people ought to be doing a lot more listening and a lot less talking right now. We of course both agree that Black Lives Matter.

This of course is all happening during the COVID-19 pandemic.

So, is this 1968? Canada is doing something like a UBI that people thought about a lot back then. There are people in the streets who are (justifiably) angry. There are even launches of spacecraft.

Of course our usual smattering of Star Trek, The Expanse and other sci fi was in there as well. No tech really this time.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and, if you didn't hear us the first time BLACK LIVES MATTER.

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Episode 51 - Chock Full of Plagues

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Thu, 9 Apr 2020 21:42:00 -0400

Actual t shirt that I'm wearing as I type this

We're back, and better than ever. Oh and there's a plague and we're all working from home.

Also, Ken is now in entirely different city, so we're doing this over Skype for the first time.

So of course we're talking COVID, we're talking bubonic plague and other stuff. Other stuff being the 1918 Influenza epidemic for example, and AIDS in the 1980s.

Babylon 5 is full of plagues. Star Trek, every Star Trek series, is really chock full of plagues.

Hey wait, that's not a bad title, chock full of plagues, I think I might use that.

I don't think anyone is playing The Division currently.

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Episode 50 - Timely, Topical, Terrifying and Tom

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Sun, 7 Jul 2019 09:01:00 -0400

Live from MMPR 2019, it's Tangential Convergence!

Yeah, so I'm typing this up on the Sunday before we all meetup for the goodbye breakfast of MMPR. It was good fun.

It was Ken's first TC, and Tom's as well.

We talked about the history of military parades, what with the oddness of the recent July 4 parade.

The audio is ok, there was some music playing in the background, and it was a little loud. Apparently also the audience couldn't hear us.....

We hope you enjoy the episode.

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Episode 49 - I Can't Even Throw Away Paint

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Mon, 27 May 2019 22:12:00 -0400

Hey look, it's us!

Also, we streamed this one live. Sorta cool right? Of course we peaked at three listeners, still...

Evil Bond villain Elon Musk launched a bunch of satellites. It's pretty crazy.

SpaceX is like the British East India Company, or the Company of a Hundred Associates.

Elon Musk may be odd, but, he never ran the Congo or anything.

Oh these satellites might change our night sky.

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Episode 48 - You Need Three People For Propaganda

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Mon, 8 Apr 2019 22:30:00 -0400

OK, we're back after a long hiatus.

Ken has merged with a new kidney, and he's doing much better thank you.

We started out by talking about the SNC Lavalin affair here in Canada at the request of friend of the show, Tom Merritt. We gave our impressions on the affair.

This got us to talking about fake news, and the recent BuzzFeed News Article about how the olds share more fake news.

Then we got to Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica.

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Episode 47 - Ward Cleaver Was Really Into Cock Fighting

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 22:01:00 -0400

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

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 22:15:00 -0400

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

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 21:52:00 -0400

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

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Thu, 21 Jun 2018 22:24:00 -0400

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

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Thu, 7 Jun 2018 22:07:00 -0400

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

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Thu, 31 May 2018 22:22:00 -0400

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

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Thu, 24 May 2018 22:47:00 -0400

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

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Thu, 17 May 2018 22:27:00 -0400

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?

davebrodbeck@me.com (Dave Brodbeck and Ken Hernden) — Thu, 3 May 2018 22:19:00 -0400

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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