Category Archives: Technology

Podbop: podcasting the future

Technology

I just “posted”:http://labs.evdb.com/archives/2006/02/spotted_in_the_1.html about the new “Podbop”:http://podbop.org service, which uses EVDB data to help people discover new music. A snippet:

bq. Podbop’s mission is to prevent the “shoulda been there” syndrome. You know the story: a friend goes to a concert by a little-known band then tells you, “You gotta hear this!” You discover that they’re awesome, just in time to realize that they won’t visit your town for another year. If ever. “Shoulda been there.”

bq. Rewind a month and try it the Podbop way instead. You go to the Podbop site and find your city’s podcast. (San Diego, for instance) Podbop gives you a steady stream of MP3s for bands that are performing soon in your town. If you like one, follow the link to the Eventful page for details on the concert. Now you’ll be the one to tell your friend, “Gotta hear this band!”

Check it out for your town and see what you think.

tales from the mash pit

Making Stuff, Technology, Travel, Web 2.0

(Author’s note: Chris Messina implored us to blog about Mash Pit. I didn’t want to just parrot other excellent posts, so here’s my demented version of the event.)

Four thirty. A.M., as in oh-dark-thirty. Ben and Karen will be asleep for another three hours. Uh huh. Why am I up this early? Because I have to leave for the airport in an hour. Uh huh. Why is that again? It takes me a moment to focus, to remember. Oh yes. It’s because I go into berserker paroxysms of geeky hyperactivity whenever the triggerword API is spoken, and I don’t stop until some kind soul utters the safeword.

In this case the fiend is Chris Messina, and the cause of the utterance is Mash Pit. It’s the latest bud from the BarCamp bush, a one-day test to see if meatspace interaction can produce cyberspace results. If successful, a number of Mash Pits would follow, each building on the the code and content of the last. It’s in San Francisco, of course. I’m in San Diego, of course. “It’s not that far,” I think, glossing over the realities of security checkpoints, delays and AirBART. “The flight is barely as long as my old commute to Encinitas.” Uh huh.
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falcon 1 launches this friday

Space, Technology

SpaceX announced that Falcon 1, the first privately-developed liquid-fueled rocket designed to reach orbit, will launch this Friday. If successful, it will mean a new era of safe, low-cost access to space; Falcon has both the lowest cost ($7 million) and highest reliability rating of any American launch vehicle. Go Falcon!

UPDATE: The November 26 launch was scrubbed due to technical problems. The next launch attempt is scheduled for December 17th.

beck + qrio = robotastic

Technology

I, for one, welcome our new “robot dance overlords”:http://beck.com/media/video.php?id=00019. (Warning: your choice of crappy Windows Media or crappy Real Media.) Seriously, who knew that one day robots would be dancing like 80s pop stars dancing like robots?