Pod: self-contained unit

Cast: to throw something (so as to cause it to spread over an area)

Over the past two years, I guess I’ve become a podcast junkie. Though I’m a consumer and not a producer of them, podcasts have connected me to the world, so I feel a little less like a self-contained unit. I rely on them: to educate and entertain me; to broaden my horizons by introducing new ideas; to make me think (for a change, right?).

Whenever I wander around town — on the mountain, to the grocery store, to a friend’s house — I listen, not to music but to these portable audio gems. Some may say I should experience and explore my immediate world rather than disconnecting from it, wandering zombie-like with headphones blocking out the traffic, the wind and the bird calls. I do that sometimes. I do pull the earbuds from my ears and hear the same sounds as before, except now they are subtly different. Because I’ve changed.

In the past month I’ve stretched my brain around Alberto Manguel’s wonderful words, and his passionate ideas about words, in the 2007 Massey Lectures (on CBC’s Best of Ideas podcast). Last week, on the BBC’s own Arts and Ideas podcast, I nodded (in agreement, not doziness!) listening to director Mike Figgis speak apocalyptically about the end of culture, and why it’s a bad thing that art (captured for a digital “eternity”) no longer deteriorates.

I heard from an amazing man who helped draft the progressive South African constitution. Later, I was introduced to the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy (incredibly, I hadn’t heard of it before!). Then I met a ninety-year-old who has just published his first novel, with McSweeney’s. (Mind you, he’s been writing all his life; 60 years ago he helped create Mr. Magoo.)

I listened to the brilliant Mark Kermode verbally spar with Simon Mayo, all while poking fun where fun ought to be poked (i.e. at some Hollywood tripe like Good Luck Chuck). Then I synced my steps to the smooth world groove mixes of Canyella (forgiving the fact that she pronounces her chosen Catalan “DJ name” incorrectly). Speaking of Spain (y hablando en español), I continued to hone my Spanish, thanks to Ben and Marina’s prolific Notes in Spanish series, which I’ve subscribed to since (before) it began. I enjoy the occasional photography podcast. And, of course, the daily nonsense of the Onion Radio News. Yes, it’s all a lot to get through each week, but since I only listen out of the house, while walking, it forces me to do a lot of walking!

My two favourite podcasts are actually radio shows that interview authors: CBC’s Words at Large with Eleanor Wachtel, and KCRW’s Bookworm with Michael Silverblatt. I have enjoyed more authors, and discovered more books, on these two programs than I can count. (Actually, so that’s a wee exaggeration since I can count pretty high, but you get the idea…) Ideas, too, is an inspiration.

So, a huge thank you to all those out there making witty, intelligent podcasts (and to those organizations providing their quality radio shows for download on the internet).

Google Maps keep getting better. Now they’ve released yet another new feature: topo views. Of course, it’s better in the ol’ U.S. of A. Not as high resolution in Canada, Europe, or South America…or anywhere else. But check out the Grand Canyon, below; how “fractally” cool is that?

View Larger Map

Of course, there are “Mapplets” that let you show contour lines, that let you determine altitude at a selected map point, etc. But all the better if Google keeps on building this stuff in…

I came across a fun bit of research — from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland — into perception of faces. Thanks to GregG for pointing me that way! They have a little applet called “Face Transformer” which you can use to generate all kinds of variations on faces.

Here are a few select faces, then: two which predict how I might look thirty years down the road; three which imagine how I might have looked if painted by El Greco (I really like the “Don Quixote” one!); one which looks back to my infancy (to be honest, I didn’t have a goatee back then…still, good try ;-). I also had fun seeing how I’d look if I were Asian, African, or if I were a woman. You’ve got to keep an open mind about these things.

So without further ado…here are a few variations on the theme of “El Jardinero”:

I am trying out (as you may have noticed) gVisit as an alternative to ClustrMaps. ClustrMaps may have some quirks but so far it seems much better than gVisit…at least when it comes to geocoding IP addresses. I know I’ve received several hits from Spain, for example, since I set up gVisit. And yet none of these hits has shown up on the map.

My own hits, I believe, are appearing to come from St. Catharines, Ontario (probably because wacky Bell is hard to track — though I think ClustrMaps may also get this one wrong, judging from the big red blob on the map around Toronto). But come on, St. Catharines is 520 km away! Saskatoon caught me by surprise (could be poorly-tracked visitors that I might expect from Alberta, or Manitoba). Victoria is plausible (hello!), San Jose is pretty close (only off by 70 km from where I “know” that hit came from) — Montreal is probably those lovely people who connect to the net using Videotron and check my blog almost every day. Bless them and their high-speed cable…

I should really do my own tracking, but the IP lookup services are either inaccurate, or expensive (I’d probably go with these guys if I were serious about it). It would be fun to mash up my own Google Maps thing — something I might play with in the future if I feel so inspired.

Well, perhaps I have some visitors I didn’t know about! Welcome to the folks (or web-trawlers) from Waco!

…or just “El Jardinero Zurdo” which, of course, I prefer, since that’s my name. I’ll also answer to “EJZ” (pronounced “Edges”). Call me anything, as long as you call me, because I’m getting lonely out here in the garden of Tenuous Connections. TCs grow better with fertile soil — failing that, manure — heaped on them. It’s cold out here in the garden in winter, and there are wolves after me. Watch-wolves (the meaner cousins of watch-dogs) with clocks in their mouths, so when they bark they shoot pointy little hours, minutes and seconds at me. “Bark!” (Ow!) they say, “don’t waste time on this since no one cares…” It’s all the hours that hurt the most, with minutes coming in second. In fact, most minutes do come in bursts of exactly sixty seconds (this helpful tip is for those weirdos on the Swatch beat time system).

Previously, on TC…

I had set up the blog to require users to log in with a username and password in order to post comments. This was an attempt to avoid a deluge of spam-bot postings. However, perhaps I should first have waited to see if I actually got any spam-bot (or spam-human) postings. So, for now, I’ve reversed my policy (so now it’s “ycilop ym”). Post comments at will, kids! (Here, I mean — not literally at Wil.) Let me know what’s on your mind, especially if it’s tenuous and/or connected…to something, anything! (I still reserve the right to moderate your comments: edit them, make them funnier, quote them out of context, delete them, etc.) No real names, though — do what the super-heroes do and use an alter-ego to post your comments. Don’t worry, your email address (though required to post) will not be accessible to readers of the blog!

Why this change of heart? Well, though I’ve had almost 1000 visits to the site since the start of 2006, I’ve only had two (that’s right, TOO, with that first ‘O’ swapped out for a ‘W’) users create accounts and post comments (and those were back in 2005). Pathetic, eh? Well, actually there was a third mystery reader — someone went to the trouble of creating an account but never posted any comments…go figure…perhaps a spam-human?)

I have no idea if what I’m writing is interesting. Surely not, but, without feedback, I even have no idea of what is potentially of interest. More Palabritas del día? More computer stuff (please, no — isn’t there enough of that already on this (beloved/behated) Net of ours)? More hands and caganers? (I suspect not) More Constrained Fictions? A better gallery of nice things? More Montréal stuff? Flamenco? More embedded advertising (I have none)? More pop-ups (none)? More porn (ditto, but I could learn)? You know — all those things that make the Internet the awe-inspiring marvel it is today.

And if you’re still shy about using this “new-fangled” (aaah! — reminds me of the “fangles” on those clock-spewing wolves) technology, how about just sending me an old-fashioned email?

Now, I may be the only person on the block not to have a cell phone, but…

Today, after doing some research into cross-platform audio/video chat applications — and after a friend’s recommendation — I finally decided that Skype actually was a legitimate thing. I tried it for a free Bell-esque trans-Atlantic chat. It worked fantastically well; the sound quality was just fine and it’s “infinitely” cheaper than the 10-10-Yak thing I was previously using for long-distance calls… (Yes, I know Yak now also has software to offer the same functionality as Skype — except they already support video chat on Mac.) Instead of 5 cents per minute within North America (and 6 cents to Spain), I get calls (to non-wired people) for a less than half of that. And of course, online calls to other Skype users are — say it with me — free. (”Free” is relative — you have to pay your $40-50 per month in high-speed charges, but I’m already paying that anyhow!)

Okay, so I know VoIP is not a new thing, and I’m way behind the times…but still, let me have my moment, here. Cool!

Sorry for this potentially boring techie note… But I just upgraded the blog to WordPress 2.0. I put all the custom stuff back in place (I think), so you should see no real differences from before — I’m the lucky one who gets all the benefits with easier management, better post previewing, and so on. You should, of course, continue to see (intentional) changes in the future as this wee beastie continues to evolve, but if you ever see anything that looks unintentional (or just plain wrong), please add a comment or let me know somehow — thanks!

Will this “efficiency gain” mean more frequent, funnier or more intelligent posts? Don’t count on it! (-;

It’s interesting to see how you can hook into the Google Maps API and develop an application hosted on your site that uses the technology. A nice (but currently quite slow example is the MapMyRun site. Here it is shown ready to map out a nice run from “the tam-tams” at the Avenue du Parc side of Mont Royal (a beautiful place to run!).

If you’re interested in this kind of thing, check out the Google Maps Mania blog, where you can find out about all kinds of other uses of Google Maps.

If you’re reading these sites, you might ask yourself: what is a mashup?