Stepping beyond my comfort zone

Many of the people who know me know me as something of the backup singer in a conversation. I am an active participant in a group conversation but am generally not the guy to want to hold the focus for long. I just chime in long enough to back up another’s point or to provide a quick counterpoint. So when Mark Blevis asked me to do a 5 minute “Jolt” for Podcasters Across Borders to talk about collaborative podcasting and the Talking Stick Podcast, my first instinct was to say no freaking way. But instead, I mulled it over, and the idea grew on me. By the time I got to PAB and had seen a few presentations, I really started to get into it.

Still, up until then, my only semi-public speaking to date has been being the tech guy who talks for a min or two here and there at sales presentations at work to a room of no more than 5-10 people. So the idea of facing a room of 100ish folks was very daunting. And like the nervous groom before his wedding, I started drinking at lunchtime – in my case my poison was coffee. And by the time my presentation came up, I was probably approaching the LD50 for caffeine. And like the proverbial drunken groom, looking back, I think were I to do it again, I would have shut myself off a few coffees earlier. Still, I’m pleased with the reception it got and I feel quite pleased with myself for doing something *so* out of character for me – but that is a step in the direction of who I would like to be.

Anyway, while I could only watch a tiny bit of it (I still have trouble listening or watching myself and have ever since I was 12 and rambled on channel 31 news in Vermont about my feelings on nuclear proliferation), the whole presentation is here for the curious:

Another less self-centred post about PAB will likely come soon – I’m still digesting the info and am also at home in Toronto for the first time in a while. Paul will likely be awake soon and we’ll be hanging out.

Create your own pirate podcast

Pirate radio has been around for years. However, it occurred to me yesterday that it wouldn’t be that difficult for someone who wanted to create their own pirate podcast to do it pretty much anonymously. The method would be fairly simple though, of course the standard disclaimer applies: I’m only mentioning to present the theory not to suggest that anyone do it. After all, copyright is sacred and must be respected in order to ensure that the creators of content be properly compensated. However, it might also work really well for dissidents in places where free speech in the media is presented. Disclaimer # 2 is that I have no idea how well this will work in practice. If you do it and get caught don’t blame me.

The feed itself would be hosted through feedburner or a similar place. This would allow the feed to remain consistent even if the hosting site had to move due to a shutdown.

WordPress.com is likely a good choice for hosting for a while. There’s a 5GB storage limit so you could put a fair bit of content up here.

To maintain your anonymity, a free webmail address would be a good choice for communication. To keep your privacy, use either the tor proxy or a service that provides an anonymous IP such as this one.

After that, what remains would be to protect your identity to the level you feel comfortable – disguise your voice, keep your windows closed if you have noise out. Obviously how far you go with this depends on the risk of what you’re broadcasting – if you’re a dissident in China facing potential execution, you would probably be more careful than someone putting out non-podsafe mixes.

Again, depending on how much risk your content brings to you you might also want to encrypt your hard drive – or at least the part with your audio. I’ve been using truecrypt to keep my personal files on my USB drive safe and have been pretty happy with that.

So has anyone seen or heard of people actually putting this into practice?

Overcoming Obstacles to Cycling

Bike Snob NYC has a great article on how to overcome some of the common obstacles to cycling. I particularly like this point:

“But what about the cars?,” you may ask. “Surely I should fear the cars.” Well, you should be aware of the cars, and you should know that many of them are driven by people so stupid they can barely operate them, but you should not fear them. Rather, you should know them and understand them. You’re at a distinct advantage because, being stupid, most drivers are easy to figure out. It won’t take you long to anticipate their stupid behavior in the same way you can usually figure out what your dog is about to do next. Oh, and don’t let them bully you. Ignore the beeping. A driver honks to express one of three things: 1) I want you to get out of my way; 2) I want you to go faster; 3) I just don’t like you. The correct response to all of these is, “I don’t give a fuck.” Drivers don’t honk when they’re about to kill you because when they kill you it’s because they didn’t see you.

Full article may be found here.

Happy Patriarchy Day

Let’s all celebrate and buy some gifts!

I think I’m voting Republican now

This sure has convinced me:

Bike Commute Tips Blog

So a little while back in a spur of adding cool bikey blogs to my current reading, I added the Bike Commute Tips blog. Ironically, in the past few days, I have yet to find any tips to apply to my commute. But I’m not disappointed in the least. There have been many, many posts highlighting the shift that is taking place away from the car. It seems that at least once a day if not more, I’m seeing inspiring, encouraging articles from all over the US about yet another city that is making the shift away from cars. Today was a fantastic profile of a nonagenarian who still rides his 56 year old bike.

For his 80th birthday he rode to Oxnard, Calif.–some 380 miles. For his 90th birthday he went for a 40-mile bike ride to Friant Dam and back. He hasn’t made plans yet for his next birthday bicycle ride in October, but Friant is in the running because he likes to have lunch at the Dam Diner…His typical out-and-about ride is 14 miles.

How inspiring. Not only inspiring for the fact that he’s still riding like crazy at his age, but also for the fact that he’s still riding the same bike after all these years. I need to take a lesson from him, having already purchased two bikes and drooled and fantasized over countless others.

Thanks to Paul Dorn for a great blog!

The rise and fall of the SUV

None of this article is really particularly newsworthy. It doesn’t really tell me anything I can’t really see just looking on the street. However, it is all made worth it by this quote.

As noted in a 2004 New Yorker examination of SUV’s inferior safety record compared to minivans and even sports cars, Malcolm Gladwell cited the work of SUV aficionado Keith Bradsher, author of High and Mighty, who summarized the focus groups he attended as identifying the typical SUV buyer as “insecure, vain, self-centred and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills.”

You mean I was right in my stereotyping?

On the Log Podcast Interview

Last week I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by John Meadows for his excellent podcast, On The Log where I talk about bicycle commuting. Go have a listen. And when you’re done listening, subscribe and go back through the archives – you won’t regret it!

Chill out – It’s just a ride

Basil Preston Office Bag

Last weekend I bought the very pretty Basil Preston Office Bag. It appeared to be a very professional looking laptop bag that conveniently attached to the rear rack as a pannier as well. As I’d been using simple panniers (and really needed something more professional for client visits) I picked one up.

Well folks, it lasted all of 3 days. Day one it went flying off the rack when I hit a pothole, narrowly missing throwing itself under a car. Day two, using the combination lock/cable, I locked it to the rear rack and it worked just fine. On the third morning I rode in with it, both of the plastic hooks it uses to attach to the rack sheared off completely, leaving it hanging by the thin cable and lock. I jury-rigged an attachment method with the U-lock and got to work.

I’m very disappointed – it seems that all of the effort was put into making these look very stylish and none was put into making these actually usable. On the way home I stopped at Museovelo and picked up another bag. It isn’t quite as fashionable but appears to be designed to actually stand up to being used. Frankly I just couldn’t afford to spend $90 every three days for a bag no matter how good it looked. And so, while this bag was $185, the system it uses to secure itself to the rack is much more robust and I have high hopes for it.

So if you’re thinking of the Basil office bag, maybe you want to think again – unless you’re riding on very smooth roads, at slow speed and aren’t the least bit concerned about the health of your laptop.

As a postscript, I find it very strange that the store I bought it from considers it the most well-built bag they’ve seen. Unless “well built” means stylish only, this company needs to look a little further. They might also want to try answering their complaint emails once in a while…