EnfranchisedMind Podcast

Podcast Sample: Raleigh.rb

Robert Fischer — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:21:17 +0000

Thanks to Matt Bass, the Ruby community in Raleigh, North Carolina, has an excellent podcast of their meetings. Meeting topics have included Ruby ROI, PDF generation with Prawn, JavaScript testing with Blue Ridge, and the topic included here, alternative databases. The presentations are generally pretty good, and it’s worth listening to them again even if you’ve attended and even if you aren’t particularly interested in Ruby.

For more on Raleigh.rb, check out http://RaleighRB.com. The podcast feed is at http://feeds.feedburner.com/raleighrb.

This post was by Robert Fischer, written on January 1, 2010.
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This article was a post on the EnfranchisedMind blog. EnfranchisedMind Blog by Robert Fischer, Brian Hurt, and Other Authors is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

“That’s Great. Now What?” (The 7 Minute Sermon)

Robert Fischer — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:39:02 +0000

While home for the holidays, I preached a sermon at Plymouth Presbyterian Church, the church where I grew up and where my parents still attend. The sermon title is “That’s Great. Now What?”, and it’s about the Christian experience of being given revelation and left to sort out the details for ourselves. It was the Sunday after Christmas, and I chose Deuteronomy 34 and Mark 16:1-8 as my Bible passages. Through providence or luck (depending on how you reckon such things), the Deuteronomy passage was where a church Bible study had reached, so that worked out well for them.

My mother told me that I had to keep it to 7 minutes, and those who know me from the No Fluff tour know that I barely clear my throat in 7 minutes, so I was moving at a good clip. There’s also a couple of major gaffes where I was thinking a bit ahead of what I was speaking. Instead of editting around those, though, I decided to just leave it au natural. All in all, I’m rather proud of it.

This post was by Robert Fischer, written on December 29, 2009.
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Podcast Sample: Chillin’ with Lovespirals

Robert Fischer — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:12:27 +0000

Although my teenage-angst, KMFDM/PIG-idolizing self would hate to hear it, I’ve become quite a fan of downtempo and chillout music. Although I’m a big fan of Raleigh/Durham’s The Grooveblaster and Permanent4, undoubtedly my favorite artist is Lovespirals, so I was crazy excited when their new album Future Past was released. You can see my review here.

One of the things that Lovespirals do is release an informal but very interesting podcast called Chillin’ with Lovespirals. It’s like hanging out with the band for half an hour or better. The episode I’m sharing has them talking about releasing an album in the global social media context. It’s fascinating from a music fan’s standpoint, but moreover from a social media/cultural pundit standpoint. Definitely worth a listen, which is why I’m sharing it here!

Other “Chillin’ with Lovespirals” episodes talked about guitar technology, retrofitting a house to be more environmentally friendly, and all kinds of stuff. Good stuff. You should subscribe: podcast feed.

BTW, here’s the unboxing video they refer to in the podcast.

This post was by Robert Fischer, written on December 1, 2009.
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Podcast Sample: WebDev Radio (featuring CouchDB!)

Robert Fischer — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:01:48 +0000

This sample podcast would have been recommended earlier, but I have trouble remembering that everyone isn’t already listening to this gem. The podcast is the WebDev Radio podcast, hosted by Michael Kimsal (who is also the primary host on WebDev Geekly, which I’ve been on). Every now-and-again, Michael Kimsal presents an interview or a bit of commentary on up-and-coming technologies in the web development sphere, and so it’s worth subscribing just to keep up-to-date.

The sample episode provided on the EnfranchisedMind podcast is Michael’s interview with Jan Lenhardt and Chris Anderson of CouchDB. It’s one of the best presentations of CouchDB because it gets into the philosophy and goals of couch more than technical details about its map/reduce mojo or its ease of replication: it’s the first presentation of CouchDB which really made it obvious to me why I should care about CouchDB. The episode is Episode 64 (show notes through this link).

NOTE: I’m very aware that I already linked to WebDev Radio re: my new book announcement, but the CouchDB episode of WebDev Radio is just that good.

Comments

November 1, 2009, Jan wrote: Hi Robert, thanks a lot for the very kind review ;) Cheers Jan -- PS: with an "a" :D
November 1, 2009, Michael Kimsal wrote: Thanks! Wow - I hadn't realized it made that much of an impression. I want to be doing more of these - I've got one with an MS evangelist planned soon, but life and scheduling get in the way (as you well know!). Thanks again :)

This post was by Robert Fischer, written on November 1, 2009.
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Podcast Sample: Idyllic Music

Robert Fischer — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:01:06 +0000

Like the Dave’s Lounge podcast that kicked off the Enfranchised Mind podcast feed, the Idyllic Music Podcast is a great podcast for coding tunes (even if the intro music does bass-out my headphones). It’s shorter than most other music podcasts, but the whole backlog is available, which is nice.

The episode featured in the Enfranchised Mind feed is a Podcaster’s Special episode, which features music from people who are both musicians and podcasters in the same vein as Idyllic. So it’s really a gateway episode into the world of downtempo/idyllic/chill/electolounge/whatever podcasting.

You can subscribe to the Idyllic Music podcast at http://feeds.feedburner.com/IdyllicMusic.

This post was by Robert Fischer, written on October 1, 2009.
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Podcast Sample: Wil Wheaton and Penny Arcade playing Dungeons & Dragons

Robert Fischer — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:01:39 +0000

[Administrivia: I'm going to formalize the process a bit and place out sample podcasts once a month on the 1st. The the normal podcast feed will carry all the podcasts, including the samples. If your soul is wracked with suffering because of podcast samples, you can subscribe to this feed, which will only give you non-sample podcasts. You can also subscribe to this feed, which is only for original podcasts (those podcasts not featured anywhere else—in addition to samples, that feed also skips my interviews on other podcasts).]

Another offering is up for those subscribed to the podcast feed (details here): a sampling from a recorded Dungeons&Dragons session starring Wil Wheaton and Penny Arcade.

There are links to the first (Wil Wheaton-less) series of Penny Arcade playing D&D on Wil’s blog. I can’t find a consolidated list of links to the second series, so my suggestion is to subscribe to the D&D podcast (and thereby nab all the D&D session goodness) by clicking here, but only if you have iTunes installed. You can then peg off the ones you’re interested in and let the rest go.

If a third series ever surfaces, you’ll hear about it here.

This post was by Robert Fischer, written on September 1, 2009.
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Podcast Sample: Alan Watts Podcast

Robert Fischer — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:01:29 +0000

Alan Watts is a fascinating figure, and on the short list of role models for my aspiring career as an academic¹. He groks the eastern sensibility of religion, but comes from a decidedly western context. Combining that with an apparently natural ease of conversation, he really makes the wider field of comparative religion accessible, engaging, and practical—an impressive trick!

The Alan Watts podcast (accessible via a link at http://alanwatts.com/) is a nice presentation of some of his talks intermixed with some nice chill music to give you time to digest what you just heard. It’s a pretty innovative way of presenting the material, and it really, really works. The podcast is free for the current issues, but costs for the archives, so start pulling them down while the getting is good!

For those subscribed to the EnfranchisedMind podcast feed, you just picked up an episode entitled “The Coincidence of Opposites (Part 1)”. It’s very cool if you’re even remotely interested in soul hacking. More on “soul hacking” later in this blog (here).

Also, I’m going to be standardizing the whole Sample Podcasts thing in the near future. Stay tuned for how.

¹ Profs. WNK, Tim Polk, Michael Nagler, Ben Witherington, and Bart Ehrman flesh out the remainder of the list. Oh, and my homeboy, Knuth.

Comments

August 16, 2009, Soul Hacking | Enfranchised Mind wrote: [...] now, some self-indulgent navel-gazing on the heels of the Alan Watts podcast sample. You’ve been [...]

This post was by Robert Fischer, written on August 15, 2009.
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BarCamp RDU 2009 Grid Time Lapse

Robert Fischer — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:01:28 +0000

This is just so cool I had to share it: check out this awesome time-lapse of the grid by Tanner Lovelace. Those keeping up on the podcast will know Tanner as one of the two unwitting hosts of “What is a BarCamp?” (he’s the “resident juggler” one).

I’m the guy in the khaki slacks looking at the grid quizzically at about 40 seconds in: I was trying to figure out how to move things around so that everyone got what they needed and a room that was big enough. The guy in the gray shirt who owns the lower-left corner throughout the end is my friend Jeff Cohen (aka Digital Papercuts). The woman in bright blue shirt and khakis near the beginning is my wife, Alicia Weller. And everyone else in the video is awesome, too. :)

More links about BarCampRDU 2009 over at Dave Johnson’s blog.

Comments

August 14, 2009, Nancy wrote: This is great! Thanks!
August 14, 2009, Tanner Lovelace wrote: I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Jeff eating the donut ended up really put the cherry on top of it too. :-) Did you happen to notice the one frame near the end just before the grid came down where my friends Roberta and Kevin are pretending to start a martial arts fight? http://www.flickr.com/photos/clubjuggler/3819064057/ It goes by rather quickly...

This post was by Robert Fischer, written on August 13, 2009.
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“What is a BarCamp?”, Featuring BarCampRDU 2009

Robert Fischer — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:49:51 +0000

The newest podcast episode: an introduction to BarCamps.

This podcast explains what a BarCamp-style conference is and how it works (at least, how BarCampRDU works), and then goes through the sessions that were pitched. There was a lot of feedback from BarCampRDU that centered around nervousness or confusion about pitches: people thought they had to do something ahead of time or have a pre-rehearsed presentation or be an expert in the field in order to make a pitch. And some people just didn’t get it until it was too late. I really hate hearing, “I would have made a pitch, but I wasn’t sure how to.”

So I created this podcast, which goes through BarCampRDU’s pitch process and then runs through the pitches that were made at BarCampRDU 2009. It features Matt Frye and Tanner Lovelace as unwitting co-hosts, and background music from Durham’s own Permanent4 (a.k.a. Dave of Dave’s Lounge, which I love).

Hopefully this helps people make sense of what’s going on and gets more people involved next year.

Comments

August 14, 2009, BarCamp RDU 2009 Grid Time Lapse | Enfranchised Mind wrote: [...] This is just so cool I had to share it: check out this awesome time-lapse of the grid by Tanner Lovelace. Tanner is one of the two unwitting hosts of “What is a BarCamp?”. [...]

This post was by Robert Fischer, written on August 11, 2009.
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Podcast Sample: Berkeley course — PACS 164A

Robert Fischer — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:39:27 +0000

Berkeley podcasts/webcasts a lot of things (see here), including their classes. A life-changing podcast I picked up was PACS 164A: Introduction to Nonviolence. It was taught by Professor Michael Nagler, and goes over the theory and practice behind nonviolence. This podcast kicked off my interest in the Nonviolent Peaceforce, because it demonstrated a way to think and act very practically and pragmatically.

Those subscribed to the podcast feed (details here) now have the first day of class in their podcast receivers.

This post was by Robert Fischer, written on July 22, 2009.
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