Wednesday, January 30, 2008

msb-0254 Still here? Yep!

msb-0254 Still Here? Yep!

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

Its quiet... Almost too quiet... [whistling wind]

Oh, I did get something from "PatientsLikeMe.com" [ http://www.PatientsLikeMe.com ]

They currently have 3,000 MSers who belong to their community.

Seems that they're trying to reach for 7,000 MSers in their community.

Do you belong to PatientsLikeMe?

If you don't, maybe you should. [ mailto:support@patientslikeme.com ](Tell them you heard about it here. )

Unlike me, they are more serious and don't just feature tunes wrapped around some talk (or should that be talk wrapped around some tunes? :-)

----

Today's music come from my distant and some might say misspent youth.

To those squares I say: "Like stay kool man. Stay kool, daddy-o..." (Nahh, wrong decade. That dialog belongs to the days of "Lord Buckley" [ http://www.lordbuckley.com/ ] his "Hip Semantics" and "Swinging Verbiage" [What "did" we used to say 'round that time that didn't involve sex, drugs and rock and roll? Uh... Nothing! Rock on... :-])

---- "Jefferson Airplane - Somebody To Love" by: "Monterey International Pop Festival" http://www.razorandtie.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Otis Redding - Shake" by: "Monterey International Pop Festival" http://www.razorandtie.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Buffalo Springfield - For What Its Worth" by: "Monterey International Pop Festival" http://www.razorandtie.com/

"Thesis:"

So who would advertise on this show anyway?

I mean, its a nothing 'cast, with almost no audience, about a nothing disease.

It only hits one in twelve hundred.

That makes it too friggin' rare, right?

"Arrgh!"

That's the kind of thinking that gets people down in the dumps.

That's "not" the kind of thinking our parents and grandparents engaged in when the great depression and both world wars happened to them.

---- "The Who - My Generation" by: "Monterey International Pop Festival" http://www.razorandtie.com/

"Synthesis:"

Well, lets see... Who "would" pay to advertise on this podcast? Hmm?

First and foremost are the drug companies who are supposed to help keep you from needing any of the other stuff were going to list. (I would feel better about giving them some 'cast time and some server space if I didn't feel [Hell, if I didn't "know" from painful personal experience,] that it was "necessary". [But, shit happens...])

There's about eighty (80) drugs made specifically for MS or that have applications for MS. And there are more coming all the time. (I could have used some myself; if only I had "known" about them.)

Next come all of the things that "don't" come across the counter at the pharmacy. That means all of the other equipment and paraphernalia. Stuff like: vehicle modification services, wheelchairs, walkers, canes, special shoes, clothing, cooling packs. (Basically anything that can be shipped to your door, or stuff that doesn't require you to leave your house.)

Then come all of the things you have to go for yourself: Stuff like specialized medical clinics, rehab clinics, doctors, nurses and medical assistants, personal assistants, salons equipped for specialized clientèle. Everywhere where they have equipment that either too specialized or too expensive to be found in the home, (any home.)

Then comes everybody else, from para-transpo to cabbies, to hair-dressers to handymen to sex-aid workers in Nevada, to priests for last rites or weddings. (Weddings are a lot more fun. [And there's usually food and booze involved. {Strippers... Not so much... :-}])

For this last category, I still recommend using the phone book, (even if you have to keep an old one handy or steal-slash-borrow one from your neighbor's.)


---- "The Mamas and The Papas - California Dreamin" by: "Monterey International Pop Festival" http://www.razorandtie.com/

"Conclusion:"

You can't sell anything if nobody knows you exist.

But even if and when they know you exist, they have to be in the market.

And if someone isn't in the market, then we have to fall back to shouting and hoping somebody, (anybody) is listening and in the right frame of mind. (Or that we can craft an ad so funny that it can run for years, but not so funny that people forget the name of the product. [Remember all those Volkswagen Beetle ads in the sixties? {Now the only place left where you can buy the original beetle is in Brazil and Mexico.}])

What you want to do is to build a relationship with your customer. (And the absence of the plural is not an omission. "Every" customer is unique and ever customer is important. [If you don't think so, you're probably employable {and given the tanking economy, you're probably unemployed.}])

I have just realized that its going to be time for an entertaining little history lesson on the "Wonderful World of ... Work...".work".urk".rk"

And now I'd like to switch from this "
blast from my past" with somebody else I found on the PMN (the Podsafe Music Network).

---- "Seans Song" by: "National Product" http://www.foamcd.com/

I've started "The Brain That Changes Itself" by "Norman Doidge, MD" (ISBN 978-0-140311310-2).

More coming later.

Outro

Monday, January 28, 2008

msb-0253 Coping With Disappointment

msb-0253 Coping With Disappointment

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

Trickle Up

Guess who I just heard from?

Herrad Ford, the Dutch MSer, who just told me about a blogger who's site she likes. (And the poster of that site [ http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/ ] talks about food deliciously.)

----

It occurred to me that I'd better tell all of you web downloaders once again about getting iTunes, (its free for download at Apple [http://www.apple.com/itunes ],) going to the MSBpodcast page [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] and subscribing to this podcast (which is also free and is always going to remain free.)

It makes things so much easier.

No to mention that using iTunes allows you take full advantage of the images, illustrations pictures and hot links to the websites and mail addresses rather than having to fish them out of the show notes.

And if you've got an iPod or other MP3 player... So much the better.

We're hearing from "Aaron English" again because my wifes really likes him and I figure its a way to get her to listen to my 'cast. :-)

---- "The Lullaby of Loneliness" by: "Aaron English" http://www.aaronenglish.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Animals Like Us" by: "Aaron English" http://www.aaronenglish.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Like Smoke" by: "Aaron English" http://www.aaronenglish.com/

"Thesis:"

We end up spending so much of our lives waiting for "syzygy", for that one instant when the stars are all lined up, that we end up feeling unbalanced when the stars finally do their inexorable dance through the sky.

It seems almost anti-climactic. (Sort of like the news reports about this or that wonder drug or treatment which should yeld miracles ... "some day" ... [I basically ignore those; "some day" means "not now" and I have MS "right now". {"Some day" does nothing for me "right now". (I mean, its nice to know, but its also useless.)}])

Its always been a question of coping with disappointment.

The build up is almost never worth the wait.

Its usually a slog.

---- "Ghost is Broken" by: "Aaron English" http://www.aaronenglish.com/

"Synthesis:"

I bought a book from Amazon ("The Mind & The Brain" by "Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley" ISBN: 978-0-06-098847-0 ) about, well, about OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,) specious misapplications and misunderstandings of quantum mechanics, and some mystical force called "attention" (as if attention was ever mystical, [too bloody rare, sure, but its not the mysterious and transformative force he surmises it to be,]) [attention] is applied like in the old cartoons on project management where a complex CPM/PERT chart was drawn on a white-board from both ends only to both join in a cloud labeled "Something wonderful happens."

What it had been advertised as was by its sub-title : "Neuroplasticity and the Power Mental Force".

By the way, I am "not" disparaging this book, its authors or their quite brilliant work with the behavioral expression of the structural/functional brain disease known as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD.)

The development of the four steps: "Relabel, Re-attribute, Refocus and Revalue" is a work as deep as it is simple. (OCD is a fairly simple disease with a well focused cause. The behavioral effects may be extremely variable but that's in "response" to the disease: "the itches we can come up with to scratch when we don't know what itches".)

Likewise, their description of the development of the fetal brain "in utero" makes for a fascinating read. (This is a very good book. [I'm not sure that it was what I was looking for..])

Little did I know that the mechanisms of neuroplasticity were not going to be discussed in terms that I would be able to easily grasp, those being through the use of illustration of the architecture and the mutability of the brain being like that of a mobile bound in the physics but not in the functionality of the physically bound mobile.

They're describing things from the outside in, which makes all kinds of assumptions on the culture of the describers and the described, and further assuming that the states they are describing are indeed the ones felt at the moment. Their approach works because of the cooperation of the patient (and it may not work due to factors entirely out of the patient's control, [the patient may not be able!])

Sigh... Suppositions on subjective phenomena. (On a map, there would be a large "cartouche" wrapped around some mythical sea beast warning sailors: "There be drivel, uh, dragons".)

I am dealing with a fact about which there is nothing subjective. (And neither is the mind, which is a collective term for nested "Matryoshka Dolls" (homunculi) and networks of focii ("Society of Mind" by "Marvin Minsky: ISBN: 978-0671657130) each contributing their own to the non-physical thing we call consciousness. [That's why there is no documented proof of psychokinesis or of telepathy. Consciousness arises and exists entirely "within" our brain.])

----

There are bloody great sclera on my nervous system.

I should be able to even detect the location of these sclera in my brain and on my CNS by learning how to read the MRIs.

I might even be able to detect the effects of the sclera on the sensor and motor homunculi (and lets not forget that there are several of these nested like "Matryoshka dolls", from the cortex to the medulla oblongata,) by their effects on what I can perceive (like my eternally cold, wet feet) and what I can affect (like the "shakiness" of my motion, balance, and a whole lot of crap I'm not too happy about...)

And there are probably effects on my CNS as well, way below what I can reason with. (I know there's ambiguity in that last sentence but I'm committed to using "English". [Reason is both a verb and a noun.])

Other people with MS will have different symptoms both on their sensor and motor homunculi because the scarring is entirely individual and idiosyncratic.

But the disease is the same and any approach I find will work when adapted to the individual's
circumstances.

Now, lets see if there is any information out there concerning finding ways to reroute nerve impulses.

(Actually, I can see developing a new form of "Tai Chi" based on the quiet contemplation of one's inner state, augmented by MRIs to know what damage has to be routed around and to "not" focus on trying to use the same pathways but instead use neuroplasticity to get other connections to develop and grow. [A more dangerous approach would be to later use the body's own clean up crew to cut up sclerotic nerve fibers and cart away the garbage. {While that works fine for muscle and fat cells I'm rather leery of trying to replace the "spokes on the wagon wheel while the coach is rolling across the Great Salt Flats". That strikes me as imprudent in the utmost.}])

---- "Thin Ice" by: "Aaron English" http://www.aaronenglish.com/

"Conclusion:"

I'll keep my disappointment to myself and keep on trying.

Since it seems that neuroplasticity is the default process by which we construct our homunculi to begin with, and how we integrate our body's experience throughout our lives, I suspect that the homuncular constructs are "default states", a representation of the body to the brain/mind through which it will process nerve signals for sensation and for volition.

It would seem that neuroplasticity will make my job harder (since there is no fixed brain address for nerve x to correspond with) while making it easier (I shouldn't have to worry about re-establishing such a correspondence.)

In effect, I will have to do again what I had to do after my first (undiagnosed at the time,) MS episode: I learned to play the guitar (and became damn good at it too.)

This time, I will have to explore the functioning my body with an eye towards recovering everything I know it can do being of intact musculature.

The sclera are likely to give me problems, but not insurmountable ones.

After all, what else can I do?

Its not in my nature to give up.

Makes me a prick to live with and a real prick to work with. I'm always right except when I'm wrong (I pay attention to which!) When I'm wrong, I'm quick to abandon whatever I was wrong about and to fix it.

I've never minded switching sides and tossing aside years of hard work. If something fails to work now, throw it away and start from scratch. (Actually, it seems to be part of my "genetic make up" [ http://www.tfot.info/news/1094/some-people-never-learn.html ][Some people never learn, and some people "do".])

Think your ass off so you don't have to work your ass off.

----

As for the arguments advanced that the mind must be "something else," separate from the brain.

They don't interest me in the least.

Since my train of thought can be derailed by a sensation, the mind is a '"top level" construct which can and does arise from higher and higher levels of abstraction. (Please note: I didn't say "merely" a top level construct because it is quite astonishing that it exists at all.)

Think of "mind" as a verb and think of "brain" as a noun. ("Entia non sunt preater necessitatem")

Living lies at the intersection of both.

The noun leaves a cadaver to be disposed of.

The verb leaves friends to grieve a bit, to hoist a glass to your memory, with longer and longer lapses in between thoughts and to eventually forget.

I guess I can now get back to reading "Eisenhower" (by "John Wukovits" ISBN: 978-1-4039-7137-10).

---- "Weeping Wind" by: "Aaron English" http://www.aaronenglish.com/

Nope. Now I've got to read "The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers..." by "Norman Doidge" (ISBN-13: 978-0143113102 )

I believe in getting as many points of view as possible before I have to "get off the pot" :-)

Who knows? It might lad to an informed decision.

Outro

Friday, January 25, 2008

msb-0252 Honesty is the Easiest Policy

msb-0252 Honesty is the Easiest Policy

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

You're safe, there isn't any.

But my downloads numbers are still doing well.

I "know" you're out there.

---- "Nothing Is Easy" by: "Francis Collete" http://www.myspace.com/fcbandnj

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Easy" by: "Life Has Teeth" http://www.myspace.com/lifehasteeth

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "If It Don't Come Easy" by: "Sylvie Lewis" http://www.myspace.com/sylvielewis

"Thesis:"

Mother said, amongst many other aphorisms, that honesty is the "easiest" policy.

She didn't say that it was the best or the wisest.

Its just the easiest.

After all, you don't have to account for discrepancies in your story.

When you lie, you have to worry about getting caught in the lie.

When you lie to yourself, you may have to face much more dire consequences.

"Nicolae Ceauşescu" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C5%9Fescu ] was telling himself that his people loved him even as the executioners were drawing a bead.

"Sadam Hussein" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein ] was shocked at the temerity and arrogance of his executioners as they put a noose around his neck.

You probably don't have to face consequences as dire as those, unless you like to juggle vials of nitroglycerin in your trembling hands.

---- "Easy Come Easy Go" by: "Teresa James and The Rhythm Tramps" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

"Synthesis:"

It gets us back to denial.

I do go on about it because it too friggin' easy to slip back into denial.

After all, when you have an episodic disease, specially if you've got a relapsing/remitting form of MS, it all to easy to, uh, forget, (omit from your reality, [commit to the darkest corners of oblivion,]) that you've got it.

The urge to do so is in part motivated by a very natural reticence towards the unknown: "dread".

But more and more is becoming known about MS and disease in general every minute of every hour of every day of every week or every month of every year.

There is less and less to be afraid of, less and less to dread.

As for feeling any shame about being sick (and you know that some people do that,) get over yourselves.

Having MS nothing to be ashamed about.

Its not even a venereal disease that you could at least brag about at the neighborhood bar when you're in your cups.

You were in the wrong place at the wrong time and got blind-sided by a bus with the license plate "MS".

---- "easy" by: "impossible songs" http://impossiblesongs.blogspot.com/

"Conclusion:"

Mother was right.

Honesty "is" the easiest policy. Its not necessarily the "best" policy because we can end up looking pretty petty but is the easiest policy because we can keep the story straight.

The more all of us know, the less some of us dread.

Now we just have to come to grips with the oxymoron of medicine for profit. (I don't have too ambitious an agenda, do I? :-)

---- "Easy Groove" by: "The Blue Mile" http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?AID=491193&T=2726

Outro

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

msb-0251 So Where's the Payback?

msb-0251 So Where's the Payback?

..

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

You're safe, there isn't any.

But my downloads numbers are doing well. I "know" you're out there.

---- "I Sold My Soul To Pay the Rent" by: "The Jet Set" http://www.myspace.com/theejetset

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

I'm not bothering asking for any reviews anymore. I got one and it was great. It told me that I was on the right track.

Four fifths of you are coming at these episodes as MP3 webcasts, and have nothing to do with iTunes. (Which means that most of you "aren't" getting the band pictures and other graphics along with the songs and you're missing out on all the hot linking capabilities of iTunes. [So be it... {That's why I'm putting all the URLs in the show notes along with the links. (You're working harder than you need to, [but that's your decision. ;-])}])

----

Disaboom has a report [ http://www.disaboom.com/Health/Articles/recentnews/new-way-to-block-destructive-rush-of-immune-cells-found.aspx ] about some therapy which should take care of most of my objections about the immunosuppressant therapies out there (which is that I resent their heavy handed approach.)

Now if only they could do something about the delivery mechanism. (Inhalation makes far more sense than injection. [There are "no" 'site' reaction to any therapies. There "are" 'site' reaction to the injections.])

---- "Pay For This" by: "Maria Daines" http://www.maria-daines.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Pay The Price" by: "Scotty Meyer Band" http://www.scottymeyerband.com/

"Thesis:"

Mother said, amongst many other aphorisms, that honesty was the "easiest" policy.

I have always been honest with my audience, even when it would have made me look better or more popular than I am, because 'you're" worth it.

I'm not lying to you when I say that MSBPodcast is "not" going to be any sort of path to fame and fortune

It would be nice if MSBPodcast paid its way, but it doesn't. (Well not yet anyway.)

So I'm doing this podcast as a tax deduction. (Yeah... I know... Screw you too. [Hey ... I gotta feed my self, my wife and my cat, and keep us out of the snow and rain. {Transportation's also a good thing.}] If I ever manage to attract some advertisers, I'll consider the mission of this podcast complete success and be ready, willing and, most all, be "able" to hand the reins over to whoever wants them.)

But the "concepts" behind this podcast, the idea behind it, the internet reach of it, the non-scary, populist message behind it are all widely applicable.

That's why I'm branching out to other diseases, other podcasts.

However, I don't have any "bona fides" with other diseases.

Apart from having survived episodes of MS, I'm remarkably, perhaps enviably, healthy.

But if you're afflicted with another chronic condition, from "abdominal problems" to issues with abnormal development of "Zygotes", (after all, as living along the "Gatineau Hills" of "Québec" has taught me, lightning "does" strike the same spot a lot more than twice,) or if you know someone else who's condition is being utterly ignored by the media, I'd be interested in providing a voice for them.

---- "Can I Pay You With Sunshine?" by: "Andy Swan" http://www.myspace.com/andyswanmusic

"Synthesis:"

As someone once said: "Payback's a bitch; a stone cold bitch!"

So what kind of payback am I expecting for seeing the obvious?

Just my fair share... (I don't need this year's model car or boat or house, or wife. Some folks seem to need "one or more or all" of these things in an attempt to reach for some feeling of accomplishment.)

I just want to produce some podcasts and keep myself fed, clothed and housed.

Meanwhile, "Big Media" is screwing itself into the ground.

Between the RIAA's customers, (who are cutting the legs out from under it by the way and trying to distance themselves from the "suits" and all those ugly, unpopular law suits,) and the TV and movie studios, (who are screwed by the MPAA and with writers strike,) the cupidity of the media establishment is being compounded by their stupidity in trying to enforce a production model which still depends on an economy of scarcity.

They are royally, well I'm trying to find a sufficiently epic scatological expression to express the reality of their lack of reaction to changing media scape, but I'm friggin' failing.

They are screwed, blued and tattooed.

They are as dead as a "Monty Python" Norwegian Blue. [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H6DSoqZz_s ].

We're witnessing the final twitches of the media giants.

Will I mourn?

Not friggin' likely.

But it not because of some misguided thrill at tweaking their noses or fear of getting some necrophiliac "frissons".

Its because of what they didn't realize was "impossible" under their regime, of their belief of the inevitability of the broadcast medium; of their arrogant, hubristic belief in the eternity of their approach, (which has barely made it past a century old), which left me and people like me discarded, spat out by the way side like some piece of over-chewed gum.

Well guess what?

I'm something new.

Something which would never fit in you demographic bull-shit approach.

Something with its own business model.

Something which offers an end-to-end "connection" where you never even saw a "relationship".

Something which can charge a real premium for that supplier-customer connection to build a relationship on, where all you can offer is CPM guess-timates based on a metric of audience share.

I "deliver" on the promise of CRM.

I "am" the future.

---- "Gimme Your Paycheck" by: "mydols" http://mydols.com/

"Conclusion:"

Yeah, I'm a podcast producer.

I have used having MS, (I'm stuck with it, so why "not" use it,) to hone my skills at something other than what I used to do, and while making my message true and honest.

I like to think that with a few hundred shows and a few of podcasts under my belt, (having kept my original audience pretty much intact while growing the number of new podcast recipients,) I'm a pretty good podcaster.

So, do you need a voice?

Do you know somebody else who needs a voice?

I'm "not" going to speak for you.

But I am going to give you the benefits of the tools and techniques I've learned.

Drop me an email and I'll teach you how you can do it yourselves: charles at MSBPodcast.com

---- "Pay Attention" by: "Maeson" http://cdbaby.com/cd/kawani

Outro

Monday, January 21, 2008

msb-0250 Yeah, yeah. Two hundred and fifty shows.

msb-0250 Yeah, yeah. Two hundred and fifty show.

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

The music in this show is dedicated to Shauna [ http://www.blogger.com/profile/08793047835261862513 ] .

I like blues too.

----

"Feastivals" is now in post-production.

Like June says, if you can make a simple roasted chicken, you can feed it to royalty.

I'll give the URL real soon now... (It was delicious but its taking more time to put together than I's hoped :-)

---- "Fatt Catt" by: "Shelly Niebuhr" http://www.shellyn.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

----

Something I picked up from "A Groundswell" [ http://www.msmaze.com/links/a-groundswell/ ]:

"Jake Crest, writing at BetweenTheBlogs.com, lays out the financial facts of one couple’s (our own) health care conundrum in his post, The Most Important Political Issue. [ http://www.betweentheblogs.com/economy/the-most-important-political-issue/ ] With a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, no access to group coverage, spiraling costs of individual health insurance policies with high deductibles and expensive MS medications, we can honestly claim a “crisis”. Millions of families are caught in this cycle and are rapidly spinning out of control.

Lisa Emrich, blogging at BrassAndIvory.blogspot.com in her post, “The Value of Money or the Value of Health - What Do You See?” [ http://brassandivory.blogspot.com/2008/01/value-of-money-or-value-of-health-what.html ] has posted photographs of $7,000.00 in cash and $7,000.00 worth of MS medication. When you read the details of her story and view the images, you can’t help but be moved."

Damn but the media can be thoughtless and heartless. They can ignore any problem, regardless of the size or urgency, just because it doesn't draw enough eyeballs.

Meanwhile, we get subjected to day long coverage with hourly updates, of some kid falling down a well. (But you can bet your donkey that they aren't sticking around for the coroner's report if the kid died as a result of any injuries. [Same crap that happened to some miners. { http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Sago_Mine_disaster }])

---- "Breakin" by: "Shemekia Copeland" http://www.alligatorrecords.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Get It Back from You" by: "The Sterlinglane Project" http://www.tracisterling.net/

"Thesis:"

Well, here we are.

Two hundred and fifty shows into it.

It feels good...

It feels right...

It feels like the world was stood on its ear tonight...

---- "When the Winds Die Down" by: "Teresa James and The Rhythm Tramps" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

"Synthesis:"

There "is" a reason "why" I'm doing these shows.

I would quite probably "not" be in the shape I'm in if there had been a podcast like mine before my last attack.

I firmly believe that.

If the damned media had not been so blind to human suffering, because we're too small a demographic to make a big enough buck off of, I'd probably still be walking and dancing.

I am angry, "deeply angry", at the attitudes, my own and those of the wider world, that don't give a toss about anyone different, anyone differently abled.

I have been angry, "very angry", since 1997, when I got my last attack and discovered "after", when it was already too frickin' late, that there had been various therapies and drug regimens that had been developed since my first attack and about which I knew "nothing!".

When you're dealing with the economics of scarcity, ignorance is the inevitable human condition.

It is so much easier to remain ignorant than to face up to unpleasant facts.

Specially when there are so many more pleasant alternatives; so many other distractions; pretty tunes, TV shows and movies to take the edge off.

But now broadcasting is becoming focused on just not sucking badly enough to make you turn off the set, (while sucking ever increasing mounds of cash from the pockets of advertisers,) instead of trying to remain informative, varied, or any form of excellence.

Well broadcasting is competing with the internet and with time-shifting media distribution.

Now the time-shifted media of the internet is able to use search engines and the fibers (or wires [or even wireless,]) to get any kind of content to anyone who is Googling for it..

Its up to "us" to make sure that the message doesn't "suck".

Having MS "does indeed suck!"

However, it doesn't have to be a shameful secret we hide from everybody, even from ourselves.

We just got slammed by a bus with the letters MS written on the license plate.

That's nothing to be ashamed of.

---- "Boot Hill" by: "Johnny Winter" http://www.alligatorrecords.com/

I love that albino boy, Johnny Winter...

"Conclusion:"

The media can't help but "do us wrong."

Now that they're focused on nothing but making money, we've slipped off their money grubbing radar entirely.

McLuhan was fundamentally and deeply right.

But the media was waiting for the internet to grow up before the promise of a liberal, anti-democratic method for conveying its messages.

The media was waiting for the internet to bloom into a voice for the disabled, for the differently abled, for the different.

I have spent my entire "life" being different.

This is where I "belong!"

And I'm "not" going back...

---- "i have no idea" by: "Dr. Mic and the Brain Ninjas" http://www.toptrackmusic.com/

And if you want to see the future of ads on the internet, go to "Fireband.com" [ http://www.firebrand.com/ ]

Who needs some ridiculous, crappy show wrapped around some ridiculous, crappy concept?

At Firebrand.com, the ads "are" the show.

They're on TV, they're on the web, and they're podcast.

TV's looking very much the loser because the web can "interact", with sites, 'casts, email, social media, collaborations via lists, message boards, wikis, maps and its all Google-able.

TV just sits there and does ... absolutely ... nothing. No wonder its going dark February 2009.

Now that we've disintermediated the revenue sources from any context, is there any need for these lousy pseudo-, quasi-, neo-, scriptless- reality shows ... at all ...

Broadcasters are probably staying awake after tossing their offices and feeling totally like they're "not adding any value"; and we all know what that means ... a "dead" industry.

This is going to hurt, plenty, and plenty of people, but it is inevitable.

If you work in the content massaging industries, either you're going to open your eyes and look for the new way, or you're going to get mowed down by the scythe of history.

Outro

Friday, January 18, 2008

msb-0249 O Sweet Static, Part "Deux"

msb-0249 O Sweet Static, Part "Deux"

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

Shauna [ http://www.blogger.com/profile/08793047835261862513 ] feels the same way that I do about noisy skin.

I'm glad that she's a lover of Beethoven (which just happens to be coming out of the speakers on my wife's PC. [The ninth symphony if my memory serves. Nope the seventh...])

She's also listed blues as her musical interests. I'll be glad to oblige in the next 'cast.

----

I did the audio and the photo shoot for "Feastivals." [ http://feastivals.com/ ]

Post-production is progressing nicely.

---- "Anger Management" by: "O Sweet Static" http://www.myspace.com/osweetstatic

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Trippin Along" by: "O Sweet Static" http://www.myspace.com/osweetstatic

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Alcohol" by: "O Sweet Static" http://www.myspace.com/osweetstatic

"Thesis:"

Static leads to MS affecting movement. On the other part of the brain, the primary motor cortex, it may lead to jumbling of volition, the will to move, by scrambling the intent to move.

---- "Mild Concussion" by: "O Sweet Static" http://www.myspace.com/osweetstatic

"Synthesis:"

The scrambling of the maps of our selves, as represented by the "homunculi" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sensory_and_motor_homunculi.jpg ] in our brains, through lesions and sclera, may lead to all kinds of phenomena.

Once, in the Ottawa General Hospital, while I was recovering from my definitive defining and diagnosed attack, my first wife said "Put your arms behind your back..."

So I did and she pulled on one of my fingers. I distinctly felt the pulling but I could not for the life of me say on which finger.

This was mind blowing.

I could not tell her which finger she'd pulled.

(She obviously been listening to the doctors and hitting the library [this is a decade "before" the world wide web kids.])

Now I "know" why I could not.

The sensory homunculus (actually homunculi because there are actually several of there at play, nested like "Russian Matryoshka Dolls" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matryoshka_doll ],) mapping my body had been wiped out and I was having to reteach myself everything. Literally everything.

My cortex had not been damaged by the sclera, after all it was my "medulla" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medulla_oblongata ] which got fried that time, but the absence of signals had done a great deal of non-permanent damage.

I was not so lucky the last time, so now I've got to bust open the MRI scans because I've got to know exactly what was damaged.

Maybe I can use the natural plasticity of my brain to find neural routes around the damage.

---- "Summer Fun" by: "O Sweet Static" http://www.myspace.com/osweetstatic

"Conclusion:"

Since my MS does not seem to have affected my sensory homunculus, (apart from always feeling like I'm standing ankle deep in a puddle of cold water,) I've now got some interesting work ahead of me, reading and understanding the MRIs, and plenty of introspection and examination, to determine where the damaged areas actually are.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and I wasn't born yesterday.

But I am standing better and moving better since reading the book and "groking" it.

---- "Conversation 29" by: "O Sweet Static" http://www.myspace.com/osweetstatic

Outro

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

msb-0248 Years of Static, Part "Un"

msb-0248 Years of Static, Part "Un"

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I'm still trying to find a way to get my mental maps and the physical reality of my poorly coordinated body to jibe.

I'm thinkin'. I'm thinkain...

There has got to be some way to translate this new found knowledge into some regimen to try to restore me to myself, or make that the inner me to the outer me.

Well, that's enough meditation for one day.

I wanna kick some butt and take down some names and I broke my feakin' pencil.

---- "Off In Space" by: "Years Of Static" http://www.myspace.com/yearsofstatic

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

The message that "Jean the MagicBean" left on iTunes tells me that what I'm accomplishing with this podcast is "exactly" what what is required.

---- "Really Wanna Know?" by: "Years Of Static" http://www.myspace.com/yearsofstatic

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "World To Me" by: "Years Of Static" http://www.myspace.com/yearsofstatic

"Thesis:"

Like "Hannibal" from "The A-Team" [ http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=The+A-Team&x=0&y=0 ], "I love it when a plan comes together."

I was planing on talking about a very common symptom of MS when I happened to come upon a rock band called "Years Of Static".

How fitting I was thinking as I was putting fingertip clumsily to keyboard. (That gets into aspects of the other symptoms, so I'm not going to get into those quite yet.)

"Static" is pretty much how I would describe the scrambling of the signals when there's sclera on the wire.

---- "Cowbell Song" by: "Years Of Static" http://www.myspace.com/yearsofstatic

"Synthesis:"

We are always stuck when making a metaphor about the effects of MS between the "Scilla," the symptoms are electrical, and the "Charibdes", its kind of hard to describe the interference between the generation of a signal and and its reception as suseptible to "bird crap on the wire."

Than obviously doesn't jibe with what we know from everyday experience in the wider world.

When a light bulb blows out, at "God-damn o'clock" in the morning, say, in the bathroom, say, it doesn't gently degrade over the months or years.

When you flick the switch, it sort of flashes blue an instant before some part of the filament evaporates and you're left in the dark; hoping that you can find the medicine cabinet by feel, find the Aspirins by feel, remember exactly where the toilet bowl is, (and that your husband left the seat down. :-)

At different points in the past, I have gone for several months feeling "fuzzy" (There's no other way to describe it: "fuzzy". [I've just realized that the fuzziness might be due to "two"causes:
  1. the nerves are being attacked by the immune system, {sclera on/of the nerves}
  2. the mental maps are being attacked by the immune system. {sclera on/in the brain.}
I'll have to meditate on this.])

The fuzziness was caused by the dissolution of the clear boundaries between self and other.

I wouldn't say it ruined, but it definitely affected my capacity to enjoy being touched and to touch others (I "am" married and touch is an important way to go through and let the other person into our private space.)

(I wonder how it also ruined things, homuncularly speaking, and what got ruined exactly.
[Our brain maps sensation into a sensate "homunculus" [ http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Sensory_and_motor_homunculi.jpg ] a representation in brain real-estate of the "primary touch cortex" which "Dr. Wilder Penfield" mapped as running in sort of a band across the top of your head, from ear to ear. {There is another "homunculus", the "primary motor cortex," right in front of the touch cortex which maps the motor controls.}])

---- "Watch The Sky" by: "Years Of Static" http://www.myspace.com/yearsofstatic

"Conclusion:"

MS is one bitchin' disease because it can not only affect how you feel but it can reshape what you feel "with". (Damn. I'm going to have to reread the friggin' book over at least twice before I can put it down. Sorry Eisenhower. You'll just have to wait some more...)

But I'm on a mission to determine exactly happened to my maps.

Are they intact but scarred over, or are they scrambled?

Do I want them not so much scrambled as moved over to some unscleraed brain real-estate.

---- "On A Mission" by: "Years Of Static" http://www.myspace.com/yearsofstatic

Outro

Monday, January 14, 2008

msb-0247 Wetware

msb-0247 Wetware

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I can tell when I pick up a new listener because my download stats jump up while the new person goes and gets the back episodes.

----

I'm still on about the book "The Body Has a Mind of Its Own" by "Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee" (ISBN:978-1-4000-6469-4).

This book is astonishing in the amount of material covered in its brief two hundred pages. (Yes, I finished it. Now I'm continuing reading a biography of Eisenhower that got interrupted. :-)

I rediscovered mirror neurons (I'd heard about them first on a "Science and the City" [ http://www.nyas.org/snc/podcasts.asp?pager_podcast=2& ] podcast about acting, of all things,) but now I sort of understand the evolutionary reason for them.

I also discovered what "Jaron Lanier" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaron_Lanier ] has been up to since the heyday of "V.R." [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality ] in the 90s and the Early Oughts.

I have got too many insights... Its sort of confusing...

This book will require a lot of digestion, a lot of introspection and a lot of meditation.

----

"Steven Poole" (who you were introduced to at the very end of the last episode,) is an interesting human being.

He has some very interesting ideas roiling the insides of his wetware and a couple of sites dedicated to them: "Unspeak" [ http://unspeak.net/ ] about political language (if you've ever been in a debating society, you'll see what he means by "political language" and how it has changed since, oh, say, fifty years ago) and "TriggerHappy" [ http://stevenpoole.net/trigger-happy/ ] about the state of the art in computer game design.

He has his music up at "Supreme Ultimate Fist" [ http://supremeultimatefist.com/ ].

----

Now I'm in need of some jazz to get the blood flowing 'round in my po'r my brain so I can think.

---- "IS ANYBODY OUT THERE" by" "japerssonband" http://www.japersson.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

----

I just caught a program on PBS "Your Brain: A User's Guide".

Man, talk about topical.

If PBS is not offering the book "The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (James H. Silberman Books) (Paperback) by Norman Doidge ISBN-13: 978-0143113102" as a fund raising grabber, log onto Amazon.com and order it right away.

There is nothing as important as knowing what the effects of MS on your could be on your mind and there is nothing as important as believing what the effects of your "mind" could be on MS.

Motivation is the next most important thing for MS patients.

Its what drives us to get back to ourselves. Without it, we're lost...

---- "The View From Here" by: "Marius Kahan" http://www.jacana.org.uk/djc/djc007.htm

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "Macedonia" by: "Boom Boom Beckett" http://boomboombeckett.blogspot.com/

"Thesis:"

"Wetware" is a term for your brain coined to rhyme with the geeky terms hardware and software.

Its a part of a human tendency, actually its more of a need, to express ourselves with familiar terms. Its part of what's at the root of neologisms.

We wish to reuse not only the idea behind a word but to set up a "de facto" inheritance of the other properties which undergird a word, (or so I've heard. Absurd? A mental turd? Or is it part of running with a herd? How awkward... [Sorry about that. I get these rhyming fits. Its like Tourrets syndrome. {But not quite as baa.a.a.ad.}])

Its part of dealing with the limitations of using a single language to express ideas, concepts, thoughts, observations and facts and then using it again to ask questions of ourselves about those ideas, concepts, observations and facts.

Where am I going with this?

Who knows?

---- "My Brain Is Like A Sieve " by: "Thomas Dolby" http://www.thomasdolby.com/

"Synthesis:"

When I was speaking only one language, "French", I basically had no choice but to adopt the points of view espoused by the media in and of that language.

For instance: English has only got one word for "love". That's it! Despite the myriad way we can intend love and express love. That's just sad. Greek has four for Pete's sake.

For another instance: "Free" It is immediately reduced to "gratis", an economic term, as opposed to its sense of "libre". I think it sad that in the land of liberty, the very concept of liberty has no quick expression. "Free" does not equal "libre".

Its a strange limitation, full of subtle traps and potholes in which to trip our tongues.

(Do you ever do this? Try to figure out what makes you "you". [Don't mind me. I'm having a sort of experiential, existential "crie de coeur".])

But it must shape how we think, and to some extent what we can think of.

---- "Danza de la Luna" by: "Ricardo Jay" http://www.ricardojay.com/

"Conclusion:"

Ideas are hard to express. Specially when they're just unformed and nascent.

I've got to do some more thinking 'bout this.

At least, we've got some good jazz to listen to...

---- "Siberian Kathru Blues" by: "Kwyjibo" http://www.acmerecords.com/kwyjibo.php

Outro

Friday, January 11, 2008

msb-0246 The Past

msb-0246 The Past

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

First of all, I'm quoting the New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/sports/othersports/10track.html?hp ] here:
"The Olympic aspirations of Oscar Pistorius, a double-amputee sprinter from South Africa, may end soon. Track and field’s world governing body is expected to announce that he is ineligible to race against able-bodied athletes because his state-of-the-art prosthetics give him an unfair advantage."
What the...?!?

It definitely redefines the boundaries of being disabled doesn't it?

----

Next, I'd just like to say that I had a tune that was perfect for the theme of this show, "Voice from the Past" by Lee Harris and Country Sunshine, but out of deference to "Miss Chris" and her stated objection to C&W and all those "Hurtin Songs", its not in the show.

So to take us off in an entirely different direction:

---- "Remains from the Past" by: "Grigor Iliev" http://www.grigoriliev.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "the past presents the future" by: "her space holiday" http://wichita-recordings.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "The Past" by: "Matt Mays" http://mattmays.com/

"Thesis:"

While the future is an "undiscovered country", [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_VI:_The_Undiscovered_Country ], as filled with dread as with wonder, the past is like a well rutted road.

Our memories tell us where we've been, (or where we "think" we've been, [memories are very unreliable, very subjective things.])

---- "Half Past Love" by: "Freightrain Jones" http://www.soundclick.com/freightrainjones

"Synthesis:"

Memories are the stuff of legends; misremembered epics created by the voices of bards who thought that poetic license should triumph over a bald recounting of facts.

Thus are we subjected to the "Battle of Thermopylae" millenia after it was fought.

Nor do things fare better because they were written down.

We are presented with revisionist histories and conspiracy theories on everything from mobsters to dead presidents. (A look at the listings of the "History Chanel" is as likely to include re-interpretations of the latter as they are to include fabrications of the former.)

---- "Past Life" by: "George Wood" http://promedia.podomatic.com/

"Conclusion:"

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

And to leave off where I started musical theme-wise...

---- "Dreaming of past -piano version-" by: "Musuca" http://musuca.webd.pl/

I have been communicating with Steven Poole [ http://stevenpoole.net ] concerning something I originally found through the New York Times.

In something about the piece, he'd written:
"A movement for string quartet. Demo features robot string players. Please spare a thought for the robots as they saw sadly at their instruments."
I was curious about the quality of the synthetic instrumentation so I played it. It was pretty darn good.

I dropped an email for permission and you're hearing it now. :-)

---- "Zugzwang" by: "Steven Poole" http://www.stevenpoole.net

Outro

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

msb-0245 The Future

msb-0245 The Future

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

You're safe. There isn't any.

No wait...

This just in... (As an "homage" to "Walter Matthau", [ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000527/ ] I'd yell "Stop the presses!" but it wouldn't seem right. This isn't "The Front Page", [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071524/maindetails ] after all.)

I'm starting a collaborative project, getting a friend and condo board co-conspirator, who just happens to be a chef, to podcast.

It would get her some exposure, like a multi-episode cooking podshow, with its long tail, that could bring her business for years.

I'd get some production credits, any equipment I'd buy would be my own, I'd get some experience in video production with something manageable (its at least indoors,) and I'd get some "great" food out of it (she "is" a chef, [her cat is even called "Julia Child Kitty"]) and she'd promote her own web site, she'd get the usual retinue of sponsors that we see on the cooking shows on PBS and get some help promoting her own cooking school, or school of cooking.

Yah! This is a possibility...

Her web site is called "Feastivals.com" [ http://www.Feastivals.com/ ]

Its about to get a "free" audio and a "paid" video podcast of her preparing the "Recipe of the Month" [ http://feastivals.com/cooksch.php#recipe ].

It will be as long as it takes to get the concepts across.

---- "Future Shock" by: "The Hypertonics" http://www.thehypertonics.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "This Future" by: "emma cornwell" http://www.emmacornwell.co.uk/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "The Futures Way" by: "The Rhodes" http://www.myspace.com/therhodeseddierhodes

"Thesis:"

The future is an odd concept.

One of my favorite authors, "William Gibson", once said:
"... the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed."
And as I've often said, "nostalgia isn't what it used to be, and neither is the future."

The Futuramas [ http://morrischia.com/david/portfolio/boozy/research/futurama.html ] of the world are all based on what is known, and they extrapolate from there.

But the future is in fact made up of the solutions to problems we didn't have a clue about solving back then, or even know we had.

---- "Building Our Own Future" by: "Howard Jones" http://www.howardjones.com/

"Synthesis:"

The future as a concept has as many inspirations as there are people to imagine it.

Some people are always "raining on your parade" and trying to get you to not even try.

"Why bother? There are a hundred ways to fail at what ever you try."

Well, it can be frustrating, vexing, irritating, but there are ways to use the negative energy these people generate (like "Al Capp's Joe Btfsplk: [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Btfsplk ] who's always under a dark cloud.")

You don't give into it; you use the objections they raise to spur you on; knocking those barriers down one by one until you come up with something that is at least well thought out and well reasoned to stand a chance when the "rubber meets the road" and you go from inspiration to, uh, perspiration.

---- "Future World" by: "Gary Hunter" http://www.myspace.com/garyhuntermusic

"Conclusion:"

The future is fundamentally and deeply unknowable.

But that just means that its full of opportunities.

And the book "The Body Has a Mind of Its Own" by "Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee" (ISBN:978-1-4000-6469-4) is taking an ashtonishing amount of my time because its that informative. This book is amazing. I'm going to be meditating on "mental maps and body maps" at Tai Chi for a while.

---- "I Have Seen The Future" by: "Id Guinness" http://www.myspace.com/idguinness

Outro

Monday, January 07, 2008

msb-0244 One in Twelve-hundred

msb-0244 One in Twelve-hundred

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

These podcasts have a very limited audience: MSers. (And who else would be getting a podcast called MSBPodcast unless they were interested in MS? Well the second time anyway...)

I have over 42,500 downloads as of January 2nd 2007.

But if these shows we're using a mass media metric I'd have a much broader audience.

Using metrics on a "tailless" broadcast show that works out to almost 51,000,000 (yup, that's almost 51 million downloads,) for this show, over the same time, almost 2 years, if it was done for a general audience (almost 190,000 people per show. [That's severely flawed, but that's the broadcast model for you.])

But this podcast "has" a long tail, so I don't have the pressures of actually dealing with all of you at once :-)

----

This next part properly belongs in the Feed Forward segment, but not quite yet...

These shows are going to seem short on palaver for the next little while because I'm learning a whole new language about sensation (and language is the fundamental [with the attendant pun about mental,] thing about thinking about anything.

The book "The Body Has a Mind of Its Own" by the mother and son team of "Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee" (ISBN:978-1-4000-6469-4) is providing me with tons of fodder for meditation on the mechanisms of mind body connection and the functions and roles of mental maps, and I'm of couse thinking of how it impacts us MSers.

I am acquiring lots of information on the cognitive dissonances caused by our sclerotic brain maps and how they affect our lives, our somatic sense, both incoming and outgoing.

Its only 200 hundred pages or so thin but it is the most enlightening book I have ever read about the functioning, the real functioning, the mapping of thought and action, about how my body works and how I work my body.

This book should be required reading for everybody whose body is going through changes, regardless of causes, whether hormonal, as a response to training or in response to sclera.

I am "understanding" what my body is going through and how it is being affected by my shifting, changing body images.

---- "The Rainbow Bridge" by: "Maria Daines" http://www.maria-daines.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: "charles at MSBPodcast.com"

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Looking For a Rainbow" by: "Talulah Gosh" http://www.krecs.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: "charles (at) MSBPodcast.com"

---- "RAINBOW" by: "Johhny Danger" http://www.jdsongs.com/

"Thesis:"

MS affects approximately one in twelve hundred, 0.0833% of the population.

That might once have been a devastatingly isolating diagnosis, but the internet and the world wide web are cutting that isolation to ribbons; slashing at and shredding the loneliness we might have felt before to pieces.

(Do the math. That's over five "million" people world-wide. If we all have to spend about a grand a month for medications and services on this disease, that's $60,000,000,000/year! [Yup ... 60 "billion" dollars a year. {Now "that's" economic clout!}])

---- "rainbow" by: "impossible songs" http://impossiblesongs.blogspot.com/

"Synthesis:"

The sense of isolation that we all felt before the internet is "over".

Its over ... but its going to take some time before internet use becomes truly ubiquitous.

It "will" inevitably become ubiquitous in the wider world, and in medicine in particular, (not just to the "practitioners" of medicine, [its already there,] but to the "recipients" of the medical ministrations.)

The internet, which has grown over the years from a purely textual medium to a much richer experience, is still serving its fundamental purpose as a mesh of wired and wireless data pipes which make communication from one point to another possible.

The innovation that this mesh uses, "TCP/IP", [ http://www.yale.edu/pclt/COMM/TCPIP.HTM ] makes the actual routing between the two points moot, since the path can change to route messages around any damage in the fabric of the mesh.

The transmission of information, or even mere data, can now occur between any two points as long as "any" transmission paths exists.

Email was born from these humble origins: communicating through a "cloud".

The stage was set for the current media revolution with the computerization of publishing through the use of desktop publishing; then with the digitization of audio and video and the computerization of the tools used to manipulate these bits.

And now we come to the melding of the internet with the now digital media files and thus was begat the rise of the transmission of content, at what ever speed you can get from an internet service provider, an ISP, "from" anywhere there's a connection "to" anywhere there's a connection.

And here "we" are; taking advantage of the unintended consequences of the military need for a dependable, scalable means of communication, of the rise of personal computing, the digitization of textual, audio and video files, and of the development of tools for the manipulation of these bits.

Now we're waiting for the legal system to catch up (legal comes from a Latin root: "legare" meaning "choose", [and we're just waiting for the industrial machines to realize that we've "made" our choice. {If they don't like it: "TOUGH!" (I'm "not" going back to being silent.)}])

Of course, we've got an advantage. The ubiquity of computing means that it is indispensable to the wider world. (Even the lawyers need it to keep up their billable hours. [No internet means no mansions near the golf courses.])

Meaning we don't ever have to go back to suffering in silence and feeling rejected and lonely because we weren't what we used to be.

---- "Green Rainbow" by: "lunar drive" http://www.lunardrive.com/

"Conclusion:"

Because of the exposure of the internet, MS is no longer a disease that will cause us MSers to fade from the world, consigned to the shadows.

In the nest that we are weaving from shiny glass threads, we can be known; we can be our fragile selves; we can be together, regardless of the miles between us; you're not alone; you're not isolated; you're not doomed to "hanging on in quiet desperation, in the English way". (With apologies to David Thoreau [ http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden1a.html ] or Pink Floyd, [ http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/time-dark-lyrics.html ] take your pick... :-)

Now lets kick this thing into high gear:

---- "Rainbow In The Dark" by: "Shadowside" http://www.shadowside.ws/

Outro