msb-0103 Collaboration Is Key.

msb-0103 Collaboration Is Key.

Feedback comes first, so...

I held a test interview with Allison Reynolds (for the link disabled, that's at http://www.netxperiment.com/ ) to make sure that our equipment was compatible, that software at my end was entirely functional (Audio Hijack Pro [for the link disabled, that's at http://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/ ] is one sophisticated but incredibly easy-to-use piece of software!) and after dealing with some technical issues, we're getting something happening.

Look for that in an upcoming episode. She was charming and gracious.

I'm not going to bug him about it but MDMHvonPA should be working on his roundup of the blog-o-sphere. (I go there myself, but not as often as I'd like. This podcast eats up a lot of my time, and I've got a lot of other things on my plate, like finding another client [or another job, which I'd rather not do,] all of which takes a lot of schmoozing and face time)

I'm carrying on a debate, nay an intellectual exercise, with a guy who's pissed off at ebay. (There's nothing as sobering as the realization that I may be an ass-hole. Then again, maybe not... :-)

---- One Day In New York City by: Atomica

Feedforward comes next, so ...

First, I've discovered Jooly's Joint, (for the non-iTunes link disabled, that's at http://www.mswebpals.org/ ,) courtesy of the BBC Ouch! Podcast, (again for the non-iTunes link disabled, that's at http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch ).

Its a British web site, (though it has some, heck, a lot of, Americans in there.) Its sub-titled "People With MS Supporting Each Other."

I've reached out to Jooly by email to see if she'd like to do an interview about why she started the site, its successes (and maybe its failures, [uh, strike that. Like in project management and job interviews, there are "no failures", only "learning opportunities".])

Next is "Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything." by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, ISBN: 978-1-59184-138-8, is a phenomenal book.

It explained what I was doing that seemed to work and what I had done that was just not getting any traction.

What was impressive was that I was able to "grok" why some things worked and some things just wont ... ever.

Its not that my goal was entirely wrong but my timing and approach weren't going to work until I had the right "people pool" to swim in.

It explained things about how people are using technology to reinvent the web, the work place and themselves from the bottom up and finding way to get things accomplished in the face of reality.

Being a technophile myself. I'm doing pretty well. Some of this stuff has been around for years (wikis for one, podcasts for another, blogs for yet another,) and I've been lucky to be an early adopter for a lot of it.

People who aren't technophiles are doing what they need to to accomplish things.

The book provides lots of examples, and the reasons why the adoption of simple data manipulation tools are working in ways never anticipated by the tools creators.

The book gives examples of small humble beginnings that led to great things. (Like ebay, Yahoo, Google, Amazon, Linux, (the LAMP stack,) IBM's changes over the past decade, wikis, open APIs, Sun Microsystems, yaddah, yaddah.)

For all its shortness, its only a few hundred pages, it manages to cover a lot of ground and convey a lot of information.

---- New York is Burning by: Camelia Ashbach

Right now the content producers on this train wreck of a podcast are MDMHvonPA with the Roundup, Allison Reynolds with an interview, and "moi" with my blathering.

I will be sending them a part of my revenue (when I finally get some,) for the number of times the episode featuring them gets downloaded.

The expenditure part of podcasting, as an enterprise, is based a remunerative model to thank them for being on the show and telling me what's happening in their respective bailiwick. And if any of "you" have something to contribute, you'll get the same remuneration. As MSBPodcast grows, so do the opportunities.)

The revenue part of podcasting, as an enterprise, comes from the number of times a particular "commercial" gets downloaded.

Since its a "pull model," instead of the current, "in-your-face, eating-up-the-clock, push model" of advertising, my rates are going to seem outrageous to the unconnected.

I figure $3.00 per download of the ad and $0.03 per "reminder" per download of an episode.

Because of the focus of this podcast, it compare quite favorably to what other things are out there for the advertisers.

---- New York Winter by: Dorian Spencer

MDMHvonPA is an MSer. He's great with blogging and I should support his efforts in the blog-o-sphere, instead of pestering him about doing a 'cast with me. (And if I ever see a dime off of this insane venture, he should [will, will, I gotta keep a proper, positive mental attitude] uh, will see some of that dime.)

Allison Reynolds is another MSer. She had Skype and didn't mind doing an interview using it. But she's into raising her million bucks and I won't repeat the pestering I did with MDMH. Not to mention that she's in a radically different time zone, like seven hours ago, tomorrow.

---- A German in New York by: Monika Herzig

I am putting together:

• a rate sheet (plan ahead, you can always change it later,) for carrying the episodes (their ads) on my server and
• a rate sheet for carrying "remiders" on my casts to the ad episodes.

Because the show content stays "evergreen", we can keep ads around forever and the "reminders" can stick around around forever too.

Every download of an "ad" episode, whenever it happens, brings MSBPodcast $3.00. Every download of a "reminder" in an episode brings MSBPodcast $0.03.

By measuring the difference in downloads stats from one month to the next, I can bill the companies for the number of "ad" downloads for that month. (The relationship is "one-to-one", meaning that every download went to every person who asked for it.)

By measuring the difference in download stats from one month to the next, I can bill the companies for the number of "reminder" downloads for that month, where they were featured on one of my episodes. (The relationship is "many-to-many" meaning many shows can feature many reminders.)

This beats the heck out of the broadcast advertising model which merely pushes ad content at a possible audience, who are quite possibly not interested, not paying attention, or in the crapper or doing their toes at that very moment. (And, in broadcasting, if you're not there, you missed it, [and the ad missed you.])

---- I Heart New York by: Sudden Death

Because no plan ever survives contact with reality, I'm hoping you are willing to help me test something out.

The following link is to a five minute test episode, MSB-0046, (for the non-iTunes link disabled, that's at "http://media.libsyn.com/media/msb/msb-0046_Berlex_trial_balloon.m4v" ) and see if you can download it and play it.

Then email me what happened. Please.

Its important that you all do.

msb-0102 Paraphrasing Lord Tyrell ...

msb-0102 Paraphrasing Lord Tyrell ...

"We take pride in observing that there is not a single episode that deals with the burning issues of the hour."

And that's something to be "proud" of? What a [expletives deleted]!

Feedback comes first, so ...

I'm running my promo once again because I'm so friggin' thrilled with it.

---- MSBPodcast promo by: Don Lafontaine

I've sent it out to a few of fellow podcasters, too:

Josh Jacobson of "The Just Joshin" Podcast,
C.C. Chapman of "Accident Hash", (he's run it already! :-)
Keyz of "The Awful Show", (he's run it already! :-)
Travis Goss of the "UnRadio show",
Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff of the "PacificCoastHellway," (he's run it already! :-)
and, of course, my first and my main inspiration for taking up the gauntlet of podcasting in the first place, Adam Curry of the "Daily Source Code" (he's run it already! :-)

I am going to send it to Mat Frazer at the "BBC Ouch Podcast," maybe to P.W. Fenton at "Digital Flotsam" and I'm going down the list of the podcasts I'm subscribed to seeing if there is, or might be, any interest.

Its not everyday that you get a podcast promo done by Don Lafontaine.

It sounds great doesn't it?

I took a quick look at my download stats and I am holding steady, slowly climbing, dipping a little now and then climbing back again.

Its still "day one" so, I'm a bit hopeful.

My name becoming known, and I'm achieving fame, not notoriety.

I seem to be keeping some people happy, which keeps me happy.

---- California by: Barb Carbon

Feedforward come next.

Two discoveries this podcast.

The first comes from "Can You Hear Me Now?" (for the link disabled, that's at http://donna.innereyes.com/).

In her blog entry for 2007/01/15, here's a link to an MS Disability Simulator. (For the link disabled, that's at http://www.ms-gateway.com/understanding-ms/ms-simulator-53.htm )

It gives you a real feeling of what I go through when I have an exacerbation. If I have one complaint its that you aren't experiencing the "noise" (its the only way to describe it, even though I get noisy "skin".)

Of course, none of these sites and tests can give you an appreciation of how it actually "feels" to be , uh, mobility challenged, nah, make that schlepping around with a cane.

The second, I'm in fact going to reserve apart from giving you the title and ISBN:
It deserves its own show and I'm going to return to the topic next episode because it deserves its own episode.

"Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything." by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, ISBN: 978-1-59184-138-8.

This book is fuckin' "brilliant".

It gives examples of collaboration which I can directly relate to my own efforts (As it turns out, I am not too far wrong. The phenomena that are Linux, Yahoo!, Flicker, Google, PodShow and a host of other sites were created by reaching a certain a tipping point of acceptance.

Everything depends on reaching "critical mass" of MSers and others wo work in health care (the real thing, not health "don't" care.)

Seeing as, until things improve, ten percent of the world population is disabled, that's six hundred million people, twice the entire population of the United States, we can take that as a base line for the size of the market.

---- California by: Lost In Rome

We, screw it, "I" have no real competition in this space because the ads for "Viagra" and "Cymbalta" (and all of the fuckin' spam I'm getting for "Viagara") that clog our airways are aimed at ailments, real or imagined, that aren't "disabling".

The costs per person are over four buck four direct mail, per single packet.

The costs are up $15,000 a page for something that only appears once every couple of months in specialized newsletters ( < 500,000 issues") and those publications are usually couched in such esoteric terms, (read jargon a.k.a. "med school speech",) or hold out hope, (but not for "you", they're selling 'someday",) that they might as well be written in "Arameic" or some other dead language.

The costs on this podcast are so low that I am able to do it myself, with the help of fellow MSers like MDMHvonPA and Allison Reynolds. (co-content producers.)

Look for an interview, by me, with her as a shameless act of self promotion on her part.

And why not?

We're both trying to raise some visibility for MS.

In her case, she's also being ambitious and trying to raise a million bucks for MS research.

Its better that sitting down and shutting up, so MS doesn't notice and rain down its wrath upon us for getting "above ourselves."

Screw that!

I am a Québecois and we put up with that crap for 300 years, fighting "La Guerre des Berceaux" (The war of the Cradles) until we'd screwed enough to screw up the demographics in Canada.

Say it now and say it loud!

We got hit by a bus with the license plate MS and we're still proud!

And if we have to drag the pharma cos and other goods and services providers by the hair, kicking and screaming into the internet enabled and enabling twenty first century, then they'd better all watch their scalps, 'cause I'm reaching and I'm just the first.

---- California by: Ryan Smith

So how are you all doing? (Email me charles (at) MSBPodcast.com)

We're putting the 'heck" in hectic, 'round the ole homestead.

As I said, I'm getting some traction with the promo recorded by Don Lafontaine.

I'm so happy with that.

Now if only I could speak like that instead of this nasal squeak. I can do somethings with a console but it can't correct the basic fact that I don't have a voice.

We've started a new year. We're counting down the weeks until the next one.
A year of challenges and hopes.

A year of whines and mopes.

A year of stumbles and lopes.

A year of crimes and lousy rhymes.

I'm still looking for a contract, a customer, a bill payer.

What can you do? Life is tough.

If it wasn't, everybody'd be doing it, uh, that didn't come out right... [sigh]

---- california FEAT Jackson Browne w/p-tac by: pc muno

As is my want, I was listening back at my filler episodes. (I had recorded the episodes but I hadn't really had the time to really hear them because I was taking off the next day and had to put three shows on the server "fast".)

Damn. "The Muggs'" "White Boy Blues" really rocked on X-Mas Filler 02 - "White" (msb-0096.)

Actually all of the bands I played on those shows were stellar.

I'm a bit depressed about that actually.

It seem the less I talk, the more rushed I am and the less I can sculpt a show around a theme, the better it sounds.

Maybe I'll do that some more and give you a rest from me.

---- Stop writing songs about California by: gentlemens gun club

I have been thinking of advertising.

I got the rates for "Inside MS" and its about many more times than I though. ($1,333 for one of those of those marketplace ads, for 6 ads. Do the math. That $8.000 for a year. That's a lot of money.)

Now apart from the fact that my significant other, Lee, gave me a l-o-n-g talk about why we can't go about wasting money when my employment is so uncertain, I've decided that I just cant afford it (unless I discover a rock sitting a huge pile of cash, of course.)

Damn mass media. I can't buy a TV ad because the rate of return would be too small and I can't afford a print media ad in a specialized magazine because, despite the fact that these bozos only come out six times a year and focus on other things than I do, their rates must be utterly outrageous.

Not to mention that this would place certain other constraints on me.

While I could cope with even twice the number of actual questions I'm getting and would be delighted with having a slow and controlled growth of my audience, the problems of barely controlled growth is that it would require me to change.

Unplanned change, organic change, paced change is a great deal easier for me, and for us all, to cope with that the quantum jump that the kind change that advertising in that magazine would impose.

----

That's for me this episode.

msb-0100 ADD is a serious ... ooo ... shiny!

msb-0100 ADD is a serious ... ooo ... shiny!

feedback comes first ...

There isn't any ... yet ...

I'm still awaiting word from MDMHvonPA on his Roundup of the Haupertonian MS Cabal.

I want to thank Brian [name withheld by request] of the procrasticast ( http://procrasticast.com/ for the link disabled,) for the donation.

You can find him on the iTunes Music Store as "Audio Attitude" and subscribe that way.

I've downloaded what I could (#27 on,) and I'm still forming an opinion. I think I like the show.

I just heard from, and talked to, somebody with the New Jersey chapter about podcasting their annual "Race For MS" and possibly doing some web-casting for some other events. (There is a difference. Podasting is still perceived mobile and having zero interaction, while web-casting is still perceived as podcasting with no possibility of capture [and any hacker worthy of the name {and I know quite a few} will tell you that's like waiving a red flag in front of a bull.])

The biggest changes are to the server software, not to the content or to the process. I've downloaded NiceCast from RogueAmoeba (that's http://www.rogueamoeba.com/ for the link disabled,) as an experiment.

I'll see what they made as their business case and for what.

I've been in touch with Allison Reynolds of the NetXPeriment.com about doing an interview with her. (Poor dear, I don't think she realizes how complicated it gets. If you're just talking its sounds simple, but doing an actual interview is quite a process. [Just to get interviewed on the five o'clock news for a bit about being a witness to something involves a lot. Imagine being the driving force behind a campaign to raise a million dollars.])

But I've just downloaded Audio Hijack Pro, also from Rogue Amoeba (thats still http://www.rogueamoeba.com/ for the link disabled,) for my iMac and I'm figuring out how to work it with Skype so the interview can be recorded to an MP3, pulled into GarageBand and made into a show for podcast. (If we use the video parts of Skype, you will be able to 'sit in' on a webcast with our shining faces beaming out at you. [Ugh! I think we'll stick to audio. My office is a shameful mess.])

---- Making Me Nervous by Brad Sucks http://bradsucks.net

Since none of you gave me any suggestions about any favorites from the thousand or so songs I've played for you so far,

(except for "Making me nervous" by Brad Sucks, a repeat of that song which was actually requested, once, a long time ago, by a member of the audience in Everet WA, USA.

[Yo! DasGimp, how are you doing? Drop an email.]

[you just know I played it first on this episode {notice, I said episode, not rotation. This ain't radio and I don't share a friggin' playlist with other DJs.}]

[Oh, that's at http://www.bradsucks.net/ for the link disabled, non iTunes using segment of the audience,

{don't feel bad ... about half of you listening who pick the show off the wire with nothing more than a browser.}])

You know who you are, on my all too sparsely populated Frapper Map; the link's on the page folks, look down the left hand side ... go and add yourselves. :-)

I'm now going to play the first tunes that I find interesting off of the PMN (the Podsafe Music Network,)

---- ?? by: ?? http://??

I'm starting a new section called "Feed Forward" which will feature my recent discoveries or "kewl!" moments that I wish to share with you;

This last discovery is a book titled "An Egg Is Quiet" by Dianna Aston and Sylvia Long (ISBN: 10-0-8118-4428-5 and/or ISBN: 13-978-0-8118-4428-4)

I don't really remember what brought the book to my attention, I must been fascinated by the authoresses description of the process of creating this work, but I'm so glad I got onto Amazon.com and ordered it.

Its very inexpensive, very thin and the illustrations it contains are absolutely precious.

Its absolutely delightful in its oviparous illustrations.

Its a children's book that's just too pretty to hand over to a three year old.

Between the eggs and the creatures that lay them, its a wonderfully illustrated little book.

---- ?? by: ?? http://??

The title of this episode implies short attention spans and the cognitive dissonance associated with the easily distracted mind. (Yes, I know that I'm not supposed to dispense medical advice, and I'm not going to, apart from pestering you to ask a health care professional about your specific conditions.)

Part of the problem with MS and its brain lesions, is that, coming as it does from the inside of our perceptions, denial comes as part of the package.

Not only do we not see with our own eyes what seems obvious to others (I hate walking in to the clinic with a sniffle and asking "How sick am I, doc?" because the answer might be a whole lot longer and more complicated than: "You have a cold. Take a couple of these and call me if it doesn't clear up",) but we have an additional barrier in that that we may not recognize or understand what we see.

I'm using "denial" as a generic "catch-all" term here for three conditions, so let me clear that up right now.

Denial the first, as in "I don't have this disease see ... I can get around fine, see ... (trips over a "gravity warp" in the floor, crashes into an umbrella stand, slips and falls flat on face,)" is one thing.

It is the willful act of saying "No! It ain't so!" It may be the stupid, stubborn, destructive to the self and to others, act of the terrified child in all of us, but its quite natural and it can be dealt with. Not easily, but it can be "dealt" with.

Denial the second, as in "Uh, no I don't do that ... do I?" is not a willful act. It may not even be a conscious act. This is specially pernicious because, as this disease progresses, it affects what we can affect.

Our out-going apparatus, our effector nerves, get full of cruft as sclera accumulate and interfere with the signals our mind sends to our body. (This wonderful syndrome manifests itself as spasticity; knocked over drink glasses, a lack of hand-eye coordination, bad gait, difficulty rising out of chairs, etcetera.)

Our in-coming appparatus, out sensory nerves, also get full of cruft as sclera accumulate and interfere with the signals our body sends to our mind. (This wonderful syndrome manifests itself as "phantom pain"; the itch that can't be scratched because it isn't real, or reported in some place than where its supposed to be. Phantom pain can be a whole lot more distressing than that and it can hurt a whole lot worse than an itch.)

Denial, the third, is what this show is actually about. It is the cognitive dissonance between our actual bodies and our "soma", or perceived selves.

This one's a bit of a bitch because, everything we do and everything we are, as well as everything we think we do and everything we think we are, are caught up in a jumbled, scarred mess of sensation that is the result of the jumbled, scarred mess of our neural network.

(Thank [insert name of deity here] that I don't do that kind of work, cognitive science, for a living. Its get awfully hard to keep things straight.)

One saving grace of the processing of sensation from a physical reaction into a cognitive one is that, if you take a figurative step back, you can distance your self from your soma and begin to live in the half second separation between the actual sensation, (this is itchy or this hurts, or I'm twisting wrong, or she looks good,) and the perception, (which kicks off a reaction, a scratch, or an ouch, or a readjustment of position, or something you might have to, uh, cope with. :-)

I've covered the "half second delay" way back in "MSB-0011 Its not a free pass, dummy" (Don't bother looking for a podcast. Its gone... I expunged it from the servers.)

Dylan William, in a short, 8 page paper called "The half-second delay: what follows?" for Kings College London School of Education says that there is an enormous disparity betwen our sensory data, which he estimates is processed by the unconscious mind at about 11 million bits per second and our conscious mind which he estimates only handles about 50 bits per second.

In that episode I talked about the disparity between our senses (visual, auditory and tactile [regardless of the actual bandwidth consumption,]) are our conscious reaction to whatever has been presented to them.

---- ?? by: ?? http://??

Actually, I think about how I think a great deal.

What are the mechanisms of thought?

What do we connect with?

How do we formulate a thought?

What neural pathways are there between an idea, the electrical resonance of the idea, and the meat-me that thought up the idea. (Told ya, on several occasions, that I was weird!)

---- ?? by: ?? http://??

I think I'll just shut up and end here.

msb-0099 There's others out there.

msb-0099 There's others out there.

Feedback come first so...

I got some from afar that kept me up late into the night last Tuesday/Wednesday.

Allison Reynolds started the site:

• www.NetXperiment.com

and keeps a blog at:

• www.NetXperiment.com/wordpress

She is an ambitious MSer who is trying to use the power of the internet to raise a million dollars for MS research.

Of course, I don't know if that's in

• Australian dollars,
• Bahamian dollars,
• Belize dollars,
• Brunei dollars,
• Canadian dollars,
• Cayman Island dollars,
• East Caribbean dollars,
• Fiji dollars,
• Guyanese dollars,
• Hong Kong dollars,
• Jamaican dollars,
• Liberian dollars,
• Namibian dollars,
• New Zealand dollars,
• Singapore dollars,
• Solomon Island dollars,
• Suriname dollars,
• Taiwan dollars,
• Trinidad/Tobago dollars,
• US dollars or
• Zimbabwe dollars.

Believe me, it makes a significant difference. :-)

Actually, she replied in my blog:

"The displayed amount and target amount [are] in Australian dollars, but everyone donates in US Dollars. The difference in exchange rates means the PayPal fees are covered" *taps side of the nose*

If there are any people of means, or who just mean well, who happen to check out her site, make a donation to help out our Australian brethren and fellow MSers.

Then again you might want to help her make her total real fast and pay her a million in Turkish Lira. (Hint: 1,000,000 TRL is about $0.71 USD. :-)

I'm also trying to work out an interview with her or to give her an episode on my podcast.

I can stay up late on a Friday while she gets up early on a Saturday (There's a lot of time zones between New South Wales and New Jersey,) and I can use Skype so it doesn't cost me too much.

Or if she wants to she can record her own show on her Sony cam.

---- Mercury Poisoning by: izzie Voodoo

I can't help but be reminded of my own MS symptoms from that song.

I got some feedback from a band, "Dead Leaf Echo," and I'm going to review a song by them.

The instruments are well played, the band is technically competent, the music is paced at a tempo that is a little slow and the leads singer is a bit too emo for my tastes.

But lets see what "you" think of them.

---- Poison Lips by Dead Leaf Eco

I discovered a, new to me, blog: The Idiotprogrammer .

There was an entry which was definitely worth the read: Caterpillar in the Pudding (for the link disabled its http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/?p=83398410 )

I love language and I love what people do with it. Things like:

kindernetzi: One who believes in and advocates the notion that all public net content should be family friendly. Specifically, one who believes that the realities of sex and drugs need to be kept hidden from kids for as long as possible.

or

Mule eating briars: A guilty person trying to look not guilty.
Example: He did it. He looks like a mule eating briars!

One of my favorites is:

one shy of a turkey: When somebody asks how you feel and you’re not too good you can say, One shy of a turkey.
Comes from bowling, where a turkey is three strikes in a row.
If you get two strikes and on the third you leave one pin standing you are one shy of a turkey and you don’t feel so hot afterwards.
Example: Q: How you feelin’ morning?
A: Oh, one shy of a turkey.

or how about:

rocks-for-jocks: Geology 101 in any undergraduate program.
Thought to be the easiest the science requirements.
Example: He’s unable to count his fingers without giving himself a hemorrhage, so he took rocks-for-jocks as his science.

I laughed so hard at "unable to count his fingers without giving himself a hemorrhage" that I got an "ice cream headache".

Its a whole l-o-n-g list of expressions that had me ROTF, LMAO.

---- Poison Like Your Own by: Rookie Of The Year (Is that emo enuf fir yaw?)

We're sneaking up on a century mark.

I have absolutely no idea of what I'm going to do to highlight the occasion.

I know its not a full calendar year yet.

Episode 0001 of this train wreck of a podcast started on February 2nd, 2006, (That's Imbolc for any Wiccan's in the audience. [I don't believe in any religion, but that's because I know so many.] :-)

Heck, why don't I ask you?

Send me some suggestions to Charles (at) MSBPodcast.com.

I've probably played over a thousand songs since I started.

Is there anything you want to hear again? (I know, how 'bout "Lars Need Women"? I hear a shouted "NO!" from a certain member of the audience. :-)

---- POISON by: lockdown

That last piece of ear candy was just something eurotrashy that I just loved.

It brought back fond memories of the early seventies. Those magical hormonally hyper-charged pre-aids days of my youth.

I was a boy with a reputation.

Once one girl had had enough, she passed me onto her friends with a warning (or was that a recommendation?) "He's all hands, and other things... Enjoy!"

It didn't make for stable relationships but I did get laid, a lot, unlike the nerds, bad boys in trench coats and the school jocks who were all talk and very little action.

My friend Eugene had something to say about that once at a Linux group meeting. :-) "You have all merely existed. But this man has lived!"

---- Am I Not Poisoned? by: Sonic Deviant

Okay. Stick a fork in me, 'cause I'm done for this episode.

msb-0098 What's wrong with advertising?

msb-0098 What's wrong with advertising?

Feedback come first, so...

the stats from my little show are looking:

• worse
• the same

or

• better

Pick one. (Hint, hint, its the last one. :-)

Apart from that, its been mostly about, and taken care of on, the various blogs I try to visit (Got a blog to add to my list? Email me: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com )

I'm hoping that I might have picked up a few new listeners from the exposure I got from being (or is that going to get from today's appearance) on Sirius Radio. (If you came on board from the promo show, and I figure some of you must have because the numbers are definitely up, won't you let me know by sending me an email: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com.)

I'm over 5,000 downloads. After only 11 months. With a really special audience. Who'd a thunk it. :-)


---- "Snakes on a Plane The Official Unofficial Theme Song" by: "Former Fat Boys"

Things are pretty dead at this time of year.

Specially at the Dallas Fort Worth airport.

The tornadoes that blew through the area last Friday killed some people as well as our scheduled flight, and my wife's plans for our return.

The weather was really, really bad. Our plane was delayed getting in so that it couldn't take off again.

All of Sunday the 31th of December 2006 was spent in noisy airports and in steel cylinders pretending to be buses and birds before finally landing in the dark back home in Joysee.

Kudos to Continental airlines for having wheel chairs waiting at the gates and for making sure that our luggage didn't end up in Fiji, or somewhere else I'd rather be than in Joysee. :-)

Exhausted, my wife and I finally made our way back to our condo after enjoying over a week off in the wilds of Texas somewhere in between Dallas and Fort Worth.

(Being driven everywhere since I had to give up the car is warping my sense of geography.

I didn't give up on driving directly because of MS but I just didn't want to pay the parking tickets anymore when I couldn't make it down in time to shift to the alternate side or have to park far away and then walk to and from...

Having a car in Manhattan definitely detracts from your mobility.)

I came back to a heap-load of phone messages.

No kudos to [leave name of carrier out to avoid a law suit].

My friggin' phone didn't ring once while I was away and meanwhile people were leaving me all sorts of messages.

That was the whole point of having a cell phone, so people could reach me.

I am looking for a contract so I can get some income, uh, incoming

When I checked I found out that it wasn't working. Grrr...

---- "Roadless Traveler" by: "Anduze"

So ... Apart from the deliberately ambiguous phrasing of the question of this post, I'm going to play some tunes that I just happen to like. (I hope I won't get in trouble with any of you. My tastes are pretty eclectic. But, don't worry "Miss Chris", there's no Country and Western music. :-)

---- "I Dont Like To Travel" by: "Byther Smith"

The phrasing, the accents we place and the weight we give to each syllable, in the title of this podcast was deliberately ambiguous because we have a lot to discuss.

Lets take it as "What's "wrong" with advertising?"; meaning: "What's broken with the advertising model."

Every one of us, as a consumer, hates advertising.

Its intrusive, distracting, obtrusive and interfering. Its in our face and we don't want it there. We'd rather watch what we'd thought the show was about.

Getting fewer minutes of "Friends" doesn't seem fair when we wanted to watch the whole episode. Instead we're getting less content depending on "Friends" popularity.

The very act of liking something means that we get less and less of it because our eyeballs and ears are so fuckin' precious to the channels that carry both ads and content, and unfortunately content is not paying the freight.

Product placement was supposed to alleviate some of this problem by placing a selection of competing products, and the selection would be based on who had the bigger advertising budget.

All that's happened is that there was even more money involved and getting in the way of the content.

---- "Future Travel" by: "Dreamline"

Lets now take as"What's "wrong" with advertising?"

It makes many things available to us, of course.

I could take that as meaning what is broken with the advertisers.

The problem is the clock. In broadcasting that clock is the tyrant. In podcasting, it isn't.

In broadcasting every second that streams by is gone. (Even though TiVO and other catching/time shifting device help in that respect by putting you in control of when you watch, you're still limited by the broadcaster's clock and the ingrained blockbuster mentality.)

This means that every second that your eyes, ears and attention aren't focused on whatever media presentation device they are using is not a good thing. You are required to sit there and passively consume.

They are totally focused on selling access to your senses and they figure that you'll take what ever they're giving for what ever content they trade off for the 86,400 seconds of your time. (Think about that: access to your senses. )

And since they don't make any money delivering you content, the less of their precious 86,400 seconds that content uses, the more money that can make, and you know its all about the Benjamins, baby. Its all about the Benjamins.

In podcasting, you control when you watch, but you have access to so many more possible things to catch, things that couldn't possibly interest enough of an audience (things like a model railroading channel, say, or a special channel for a disease, like this one for MS.)

---- "travelling radio" by: "jr"

Last, lets take is as "What's wrong with advertising?"

The answer is that there's nothing wrong with advertising, if the advertising is relevant and not interrupting the flow of a show.

This is where podcasting can really shine.

Relevance is guaranteed by the narrow focus of this and other podcasts and ads can work if they're discreet.

You won't find car ads and other mass market goods or services here. I don't put them up because they are already successfully done in other media.

And since odcasts are not fighting with every other ad for your attention for that one precious minute, they can really be effective.

msb-0097 X-Mas Filler 03

msb-0097 X-Mas Filler 03

Feedback comes first so...

There an MSer out there with as wicked a sense of humor as I got. (Yeah, "come down from outer space and molest your cattle" is a great line; specially with my attempt at an earnest delivery. I can't believe I came up with it.)

While I am still waiting for your emails, and pining to get home before I send some replies, I can report that my audience seems to have grown a bit and that my old episodes are being accessed. People are picking up the old shows. Kewl.

(Its always a bit weird to see that. I just hope I didn't embarrass myself too badly on some old episode. :-)

On the employment front, maybe the original client department is through with me but some other department within the same umbrella wants to see/meet me. (That's a big hooray!)

I am cautiously optimistic.

This episode, the theme is Blue, but I'm not... :-)

msb-0097 X-Mas Filler 03

Theme and 'incidental music' from:
"msb_theme",
by: "Guy David",
http://www.guydavid.com/
no album,
via personal contract

Song list:

"Green Roots Blues"
by: "Alex Lehrhoff"
http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=35cf2d10114b20621441a1da99450583
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"Mixing all the Blues"
by: "Angry Red Planet"
http://www.theangryredplanet.com/
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"Dark Blue"
by: "Allison Crowe"
http://www.allisoncrowe.com/
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"Blue Fog"
by: "Jen Elliott and Bluestruck"
http://www.jenelliott.com
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"Ocean of blue"
by: "Marie Crehan"
http://www.myspace.com/MarieCrehan
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"Chelsea's Blues"
by: "Pat Zelenka"
http://www.patzelenka.com/
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"I'm A Blues Man"
by: "Smokehouse Ramblers"
http://www.smokehouseramblers.com/
album: "Can't Get Used To It"
via http://music.podshow.com/

----

Photo Credits:

All images, synchronized with the songs, are of the artists and come via music.podshow.com except when they aren't. :-) Those come from Google.

----

Books:

----

Links:

Guy David - intro & theme
http://www.guydavid.com

iTunes
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

iPodder
http://www.ipodder.org/directory/4/ipodderSoftware

iTunes link to download this show
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170

Multiple Sclerosis Blog
http://multiplesclerosisblog.blogspot.com/

This podcast:
http://www.MSBPodcast.com/

----

You can leave me comments of the episode at //multiplesclerosisblog.blogspot.com/ or

email me at charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

msb-0096 X-Mas Filler 02

msb-0096 X-Mas Filler 02

Feelback comes first and there is some.

I got a donation via PayPal. Woohoo...

I can't record in audio but this blog and the podcast's blog are going to definitely note the fact that I received $20 from a fellow podcaster, Brian [name withheld by request] of the procrasticast. I sent him an email at procrasticast@gmail.com thanking him :-) . That was my first contribution. Yay!

This episode, it the songs are White. :-)

msb-0096 X-Mas Filler 02

Theme and 'incidental music' from:
"msb_theme",
by: "Guy David",
http://www.guydavid.com/
no album,
via personal contract

Song list:

"Lily White with Hazel Eyes"
by: "Architect Fails"
http://www.supertoadrecords.com/
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"White Boy Blues"
by: "the Muggs"
http://www.themuggs.com/
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"White Hotel"
by: "Torchomatic"
http://www.torchomatic.net/
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"White Bread"
by: "Liquid Floor"
http://www.kilkennygallery.com/
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"Red on White"
by: "Michael Joseph"
http://www.mjosephu.com/
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"Waving the White Flag"
by: "Smile Smile"
http://www.smilesmilemusic.com/
album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

"Revolution Is Moot"
by: "Lady White Noise"

album: "none"
via http://music.podshow.com/

----

Photo Credits:

All images, synchronized with the songs, are of the artists and come via music.podshow.com except when they aren't. :-) Those come from Google.

----

Books:

----

Links:

Guy David - intro & theme
http://www.guydavid.com
Dr. Bill Code
http://shop.drbillcode.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1

iTunes
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

iPodder
http://www.ipodder.org/directory/4/ipodderSoftware

iTunes link to download this show
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170

Multiple Sclerosis Blog
http://multiplesclerosisblog.blogspot.com/

This podcast:
http://www.MSBPodcast.com/

----

You can leave me comments of the episode at //multiplesclerosisblog.blogspot.com/ or

email me at charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

msb-0095 X-Mas Filler 01

msb-0095 X-Mas Filler 01

There's going to be three shows, including this one, filled with music only, while I'm gone to my sister's, brother-in-law's, niece's, grand-nephew's and all of the assorted relations.

I'm reading this extremely interesting book called "This Is Your Brain on Music. The Science of a Human Obsession" by "Daniel J. Levitin". I'll have a report on it and the science behind it when we resume our (ir-)regularly schedule.

I'm also working on something large concerning advertising, our collective relation with it, our specific relationship with it and my relationship with it. I figure this will break up three upcoming shows with my banter and blather.

Feedback and MDMHvonPA's Roundups will have to wait until the new year.

Until then, I'll be pushing for the ol' "Red White and Blue".

This episode, its Red. :-)

msb-0094 I got da Blues, I got da Blues.

msb-0094I got da Blues, I got da Blues.

Feedback come first, but there is really any.

Not directly anyway.

I got a new page hit counter back in November and its reporting that 80% of my visitors are first timers.

Either that's an anomaly caused by the fact that the page counter just doesn't have historic page load yet, or its really right and there is a lot more curiosity about this disease, or this podcast, than I had thought. (Nah. Its gotta be the stats.)

----

Well ... it finally happened.

My last client is no longer a client.

They were very, very good.

No, I'm not going to name them, but they know who there were.

I wish I could have done more for them, but there were corporate and corporate culture changes, and the presence of consultants was no longer required.

----

On the plus side, I've just applied to a Gummint Relations Committee (as described in the Winter newsletter of the Greater North New Jersey chapter of the National MS Society.)

We'll see if I get accepted. It would be a chance to get to influence and make a difference on the life of MSers in New Jersey and potentially beyond.

----

Its always a bit of a downer to be let go around this time of year...

Good luck finding anybody who's going to make a decision about hiring anyone at this time of year.

To quote that prolific writer, "Anon.":

"I'm sorry but we don't see any openings until May or June.

Oh and Merry Christmas to you and your family."

and not to forget:

"Recession is when the other fella loses his job.

Depression is when you lose your's."

(I think that last one is actually by "Will Rogers", [it certainly has that laconic pace and "mordant"wit,] but Google can't find it and political humor isn't my library's "forté".)

So I'm doing some ravelling reveilees, without any comment, for the next few episodes
except to remind you all of the upcoming crip invasion of the "Pacific Coast Hellway"'s "Serius Stars 102" time slot on January 2nd, 2007.

"Ya-a-a-ay!"

That'll be a thrill. An MSer on the air. ("Fuck Corporate Radio"), as "C.C. Chapman" likes to put it. ( http://www.fuckcorporateradio.com is another URL to get you to http://www.accidenthash.com/ )

I'm really sorry I didn't get to go to a couple of events where he was but with MS I really couldn't go.

We'll just see what that brings as far as new listeners.

----

No, I'm not bringing my mobile studio with me because I really don't trust the airline security staff to not screw with it, and me, and I can't afford to FedEx it.

In the past, you know I would have done it, taken my stuff down there, but now, with all the travel and personal baggage restrictions, "no fuckin' way!"

I'll just read from and write to you guys on the blogs until I get back. (Then again I may bring my Samson mike and record the shows with CastBlaster on my brother-in-law's computer.)

I'm putting four shows in the can (well up on the server anyway, :-) and I'll be releasing then on the days when they would go out anyway. But they just won't be the same.

MDMHvonPA's Roundups will have to wait until I get back to the studio/home office. (Unless of course he got some equipment for Christmas with which to record his own dulcet tones. :-)

----

I'm sorry to be so boring but I'm been reading a book which is definitely "not" boring, so my excuse is that I've been in "absorption mode".

The book is "This Is Your Brain on Music" by "Daniel J. Levitin" (ISBN: 0-525-94969-0).

Its a fascinating, heavy slog, forcing me to learn new terminology for things that I thought I knew, and explaining certain things to me that I had wondered about since taking music classes at Dawson College in Montréal in the early seventies.

Cognitive science has made some real advances and some real discoveries with the development of PET scans and other MRI techniques.

I won't go into it with you but suffice it to say that the processing of music and the mapping of the audio processing in our brains is a lot more distributed than I'd ever suspected;

enough so for me to know that Mullah Omar and his ban on music was fundamentally doomed to faillure because our fundamental physiology, the very core of our beings, is dedicated to the processing of music; and as we evolve, it's only becoming more so.

I'm going to read this book twice at least and will likely revisit it through the years like I did "Systemantics" by "John Gall".

-----

Note to serving president Bush, or his successor: read "The Prince" by "Niccolò Machiavelli" (ISBN: 0-226-50044-6).

It explains exactly what needs to be done to conquer Iraq (or anywhere else for that matter.)

You won't win until and unless you "move there" and properly occupy it.

The insurgents/rebels don't respect what they, rightly or wrongly, currently perceive as an absentee landlord. Neither does the populace. (And neither do "we".)

Prepare to move the seat of the "American Empire" to Iraq, or prepare to write it, and the billions of dollars expended and the thousands of lives lost, off as an unfortunate adventure.

But move into Saddam's Palaces and you've won. Its that simple ... and that complex.

msb-0092 Uh, I won... Holy crap I won!

msb-0092 Uh, I won... Holy crap ... I won!

Feedback comes first so...

Thank you Miss Chris for your sentiments on the last episode: "msb-0091 Serious Sirius Christmas Fantasy". (Go to the blog and read the comments if you want to know. But, yah! I am da man! :-)

Brain Cheese seems to be under the weather, as does Friday's Child, or at least her partner, so go over and drop them a note of encouragement.

MDMHvonPA will shortly be regaling us with his roundup of the blog-o-sphere.

I gotta tell ya, it takes me a long time to record those because I'm always cracking up at some point or other.

The expressions and "tour de phrase" he uses are priceless. Sometimes I'm trying to read his stuff for the tenth time, and I'm still guffawing.

----

Onto other news:

The "Your big break! Be a Sirius DJ For a Day - For Charity" contest didn't quite turn out the way my life usually does.

Uh, I won... I won! I won? :-)

I'm still waiting on Mark Yashimoto Nemcoff to get in touch with me regarding the money (My credit card paymentwon't go through? Should I send a cheque?)

I'm also hoping to get an MP3 that I can actually use from "Don Lafontaine" (The man who's done all those "In a world where ..." movie, tv shows, tv ads (Geico is the most memorable one,) and radio promos. [ http://www.donlafontaine.com/ ] :-)

"In a world where disability strikes 10 per cent of the population,
only one man has the guts to take on the powers that be,
and raise his voice in a challenge to media demagoguery
and the tyranny of the mass market.

That man is Charles Rovira and he can be heard at MSBPodcast.com."

That would be "sweet". (I'm also dying to find out what is that mike is that he uses [the picture is on his site] :-)

But I'm going to "Be a Sirius DJ For a Day" this January. Yay!

Sirius have about 6 million listeners.

After doing some math, like who's listening at specifically that time, I figure that works out to maybe 50 MSers who might catch the show, maybe. Maybe I'll be able to pick some of those up.

(Then again, who knows if there might be some potential advertisers listening.)

We'll see if I actually reach some new MSers with this show.

Woo, hoo...

----

I'm also commissioning a cartoon figure of "Ixy" walking around with a red cane.

"Ixy" will be my stand-in. Complete with my red cane.

I figure it's got to be more appealing, representing us coping with MS, than "Larry the Lesion" representing the disease of MS. (Google for "Larry the Lesion" and you'll get to "Mandatory Rest Period" [http://www.todmaffin.com/blogs/ms/], Tod and Kim Maffin's more medically oriented MS web site and podcast.)

Tod and Kim Maffin tread where I don't want to go. Mostly because I'm am "not" qualified.

What I "am" qualified to do for us MSers is to listen to any and all of us and to put out some entertaining shows, while opening the door to information we do need.

----

Here are some facts about me:

My IQ is in the 150s (Sure, sure. So why do I feel so stoo-pud. :-)

My cholesterol is in the 160s.

My weight is in the 170s.

My height is a meter, 80. (okay, okay. I may be, uh, stretch-ing, it a bit. :-)

And my health, in general, is excellent.

Apart from the sclera affecting my motion, I'm in the absolute pink of health.

So why do I live with a constant, nagging sense of dread?

Why do I keep expecting to hear the other shoe drop?

Its part and parcel of being a realist, I guess.

I always remember that "In to every life a little rain must fall" and, just like buying mutual funds where "past performance is no indication of the future", I have been hit by a shit load of, uh, shit loads.

But that doesn't mean that I'm suddenly due for a turn around.

Life doesn't work that way.

Only Goofie, down at the entrance to "Disney World", sings "Oh, the world owes me a living..." and only a two dimensional cartoon character could possibly believe it.

Lets look at the economics of the situation with a sense of social as well as fiscal responsibility.

According to the W.H.O., the World Health Organization, 10% of the world is disabled. (http://www.who.int/nmh/a5817/en/) (I'm quoting some real world facts so you don't think I'm just pulling numbers of of my ass.)

That's about 600 million people, six hun-dred mill-ion people, of all ages, sexes, races and cultures. (That's twice the population of these United States.)

Right now, we're ignoring that ten percent of the world, for their consumption, and still paying out ginormous sums in health care, which is:

• health insurance, (companies which make sure that they don't pay out because that impacts on their bottom line,) and
• health care providers (also companies which make sure that they don't pay out in drugs and services, because that impacts on their bottom line.)

Meanwhile we, the health care users, are getting the short end of the stick because we're immediately suspected of malingering, and then, to add insult to injury, we are prevented from contributing except as guinea pigs.

That is so stupid, short sighted and wasteful (and I hate wastefulness. I regard it as a personal offense to my sense of parsimony.)

To combat this attitude, I am running this podcast.

It can be a boon for the drug companies and the other paraphernelia and service companies.

But, it can be an even bigger boon to us MSers. We can find out what is out there for us.

----

I went into a kind of denial after my recoveries from my two first episodes...

I lived in blissful ignorance of MS for almost 15 years after my first undiagnosed episode, and then for another 15 years until I had a third relapse and had to learn to cope with walking with a cane, and by then denial was "not" an option.

And the mass media was an unwitting co-conspirator in my eventual disability.

There were no media outlets for information about the disease and the treatments that could have abated it.

It was "far" too easy for me to bury my head in the sand.

If there had been a show like this, one where I could tune into and they weren't depressing my ass off with jargon and terminology, I might have taken better care, appropriate care, and I might have prevented my having to use a cane to "schlep" around, slowly.

What made me attractive to my employers over the years, my brains and my ability to use them, are now hampered by what has happened to my body, and to my central nervous system.
(And once you fall off the radar ... well, you've fallen off the radar, haven't you.)

But I'm no less intelligent (and neither are all the other MSers I've encountered in the blog-o-sphere.)

But human beings rather waste what doesn't fit in, wouldn't we, rather than just "listen" to any ideas from those who no longer fit in.

Well this is "that" show, and hopefully the first of many, where the square pegs start, not just moaning and groaning, bitching and whining but start to contribute to the wider discussion about what can be done about us (beyond Hitler's "final solution",) with us and for us.

10% of this country is not making it and 5% of this country can only make it part of the way, part of the time, because the rest of us, the 85% of this country that are not currently disabled, are not asking what we 10%ers, and what we MSers, 'can' contribute.

We have brains and we have experience and we are 'not' being consulted.

We are rarely seen and we are treated like shit because this country has never known what the Hell to do with anybody who is 'other.'

Yes, we are 'other.'

Stop being scared of our differences.

We aren't Martians.

We won't come down from outer space to molest your cattle.

We aren't a drag on the economy, unless your economy isn't being 'realistic'.

This show is about injecting a little reality into all our lives.

And I'm not going to sit here and preach to the choir.

I'm trying to use the internet and this podcast to promote some efficiency into the commercial reality of our existence.

That's what winning this promo spot means to me.

I have a model, and like all models, it being honed and refined through what I experience.

Its a model of communications in the internet age, far from the tyranny of the numbers; the concept of "the hit show" being shoved down our thoats, when its just a reduction of a whole bunch of focus groups.

Its a way for MSers to take their place and their opportunity to get the information we need out here.

msb-0091 Serious Sirius Christmas Promotion

msb-0091 Serious Sirius Christmas Promotion

vvvv Not in the show vvvv

If you've been listening to Pacific Coast Hellway, you'll no doubt have heard my name, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, "Chuck the Canuk," mentioned on the show concerning my high bid for his charity auction.

This episode is a fantasy piece, because somebody's bound to bid more that I did, but, in the meantime, I've gotten all that free advertising. :-)

Who knows, with millions of listeners, that may translate to a listener or two who might enter the URL in their browser and subscribe to the show.

And to be honest, this is being done for the advertisers ears more than its being done for our ears.

^^^^ Not in the show ^^^^

Welcome to a very special edition of the MSB Podcast. For a moment, we're stars in a portion of the Sirius firmament. (That constellation, "Canis Major," just happens to be one of Orion's hunting dogs. ... Son of a Bitch ...)

Many thanks to Mark Yasimoto Nemcoff and the Pacific Coast Hellway for having run this promotion for the David Foster Foundation (The links are all on the show notes at MSBPodcast.com Or, if you're listening using iTunes, this is an mp4 so they're 'clickable'.)

This episode will be divided into two segments:

• one twenty-four minutes long for the audience who are listening on Sirius Starz 102,
• two for the spill over which will be on the normal podcast at MSBPodcast.com
  

So what's this podcast about?

First and foremost, its about putting some podsafe tunes out there, usually picked around a theme, that people can enjoy. This episode, its all about Christmas.

I'm not a doctor, I'm an MSer. I don't talk about MS. I leave that up to the pros. I talk about how its affecting my life, my perception of life and things related to disabilities in general.

(And if you're driving home right now, watch out where you're going, or you could end up in a different kind of car crash than MSers did, or stepping in front of a bus, or something; so watch your ass.)

Second, it's about providing a specific niche channel for advertisers, the makers of products, goods and providers of services, that people who have this disease need to know about.

I've even got an advertising model that keep me out of their faces by giving a separate show per ad, and keep them out of my face.

Third, its a chance for me to have some fun with all of you, though that sometimes involves me bitching and ranting about things. (Mark Yashimoto Nemcoff definitely does not exclusively own that privilege.)

Lets start this off with a rocking tune: "Not So Silent Night" by "Charlie Crowe"

---- Not So Silent Night by Charlie Crowe

The gummint is an endless source of stories for me.

Between one thing and another they always fascinate with their endless opportunities for fuck-ups, fuck-overs, and general systemantic laws and flaws ( http://generalsystemantics.com/SystemsBible.htm ).

Systemantics color my perception of the entire world.

Its about systems displaying antics, also called systems opposing their own function, or known as semantic anomalies, as described by Alfred Korzybski (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski .)

Like, why did Egypt build the Aswan dam?

To control the annual flooding of the Nile and produce electricity.

And it certainly does that... But!...

So what happened?

Well, in stopping the flooding of the Nile, they found that the soil around it in the delta was becoming very poor.

What did they expect? Its only sand. Silicon dioxide. Useless to carbon based life forms.

The annual flood was the source of nutrients that the plants could use.

So that now they need to make fertilizers, which just happens to use up more electricity than the entire damn dam produces.

The net effect of the Aswan dam is a negative.

The Egyptians would have been better off finding some other way of coping with the annual flooding of the Nile; like moving out of the freakin' flood plain and building some levees way the fuck out. (Something that would've helped with Katrina too.)

But not to worry...

The dam, and lake Nasser behind it, is silting up.

The turbines are choking on muck, which may very well dispose of the problem by rendering them useless.

This will eventually make for a swell movie featuring the Aswan damn dam being blown to Hell and back.

Other examples are:

"Health care," which should properly be called "health don't care". Living with it as I do, I know what it really is. And its not pretty.

"Life insurance," which doesn't insure that you'll have one. Just that if you stop breathing before they stop your coverage, (and believe me they work out the odds so that they'll stop your coverage just in time,) your survivors get a consolation prize.

"Disability Insurance" which requires an extremely un-disabled, rugged constitution and almost super human stamina to jump through all the hoops, loops to make it over and past the kooks, to even apply for (and if you really need it, you can't even contemplate doing it.)

Thr really fun part are the tests that they require. By the time they approve the last one, the results from the first are too dated. And meanwhile, you're doing this entirely with out any income.

(Remember, its disability insurance. You can't work. And if you can't work, you'd better have some money put away to live on; which will screw you on the "means" testing; which means that if you can somehow scape enough to live through the entire process, you obviously don't need it. Been there, done that. Fuck 'em all where they breathe. They're moils who use their teeth to circumcise you.)

And so on...

Lets give a listen to something festive: "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" by "Chris B."

---- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Chris B.

As long as I've got the Sirius listeners here, there's something I need to get off of my chest.

It really chaps my ass that subway riders that won't move over to give me the seat nearest the exit doors.

I don't know which is more stupefying, being stared at right in the face by some gum chewing, fat cows' bovine eyes or when these people pretend that I'm invisible.

I've got a cane and its painted red for Christ's sake.

Stand the fuck up. You can afford to lose they weight.

I can't afford to break a hip tripping over the parcels you leave at your feet, in the aisle. (But I have used those parcels as a landing cushion.

"Merry Christmas chil'. Sorry but some cripple fell over an' sat on your dolly's head." :-)

And don't put your fuckin' face down in your paper.

Do you really, suddenly need to look at it as much as you usually stare into your handkerchief, like it was a book of revelations.

Fer Christ' sake, its only "The Post". I'm sure Rupert Murdoch won't mind this once.

Instead, I have to teeter my way to eventually park my ass in the middle of the bench of seats and find some way to turn around and get my heiny down without falling over.

That when there even is a free seat in the middle.

The reason the handicapped need the fuckin' seat is so that we can actually maneuver our asses down while hanging onto the damn pole. And getting up is as much of a bitch too.

Fuck, Al Qaida should feel real safe.

We'll never see a fuckin' terrorist with a knapsack filled with explosives on the subway because we don't look at anybody.

Any more than we look at each other in the elevator.

And to make sure that you're listening to me here's: "Do you hear what I hear" by "Dusty Hughes"

---- Do You Hear What I Hear by Dusty Hughes

But we don't have it all bad.

MS may be an auto-immune disease,
which causes scarring on the myelin sheath around our nerves,
which gives us a noisy nervous system,
but if you play your nerves right
and ride the razors' edge between too little sensation and too much,
modulating the noise, as it were,
the amount thereof can be used to cause absolutely mind blowing,
toe curling,
crawl out of your skin,
stop-the-world-this-is-my-stop,
cascades of orgasms.

You think you know sex?
You don't know diddly.

My sex life is indescribably ... Well words just fail me.

But trust me. I pity you... :-)

So lets listen to: "Just Stockings On'" by "Munk"

---- Just Stockings On by Munk

Again many thanks to Mark Yasimoto Nemcoff and the Pacific Coast Hellway for having run this promotion for the David Foster Foundation.

Say Goodbye Sirius listeners. You're probably never hear from me again, unless you tune into MSBPodcast.com .

Oh! Since, according to the World Health Organization, you're nine time more likely to be healthy than not, next time you park in a disabled parking spot, remember that my cane has a nasty spike on the end of it that is perfect for puncturing the side walls on your tires.

If you're not helping, then stay the fuck out of our way.

---- 24 Minutes are over

Okay gang.

I just want to wish
that you have, or had
(these shows are evergreen so they can be downloaded for simply yonks,)
a Merry Christmas,
or a Happy Hanukah,
or a Happy Kwanza,
or whatever,
and a Happy New Year.

I look forward to being with you, and hopefully, though tragically, with more of you in the coming year.

That's it for this episode..

msb-0090 "Shall we play a game?"

msb-0090 "Shall we play a game?" ... "How about global thermo-nuclear war?"

Feedback come first so...

No I haven't gone nuts and/or emumurate on you. The missing episode numbers on this blog are not caused by my lesions or by gaps in continuity. The whole shmeer, the whole schmegeggy, the whole magillah, is on tap MSBPodcast.com. This is my writing blog.

Its not in here if a podcast episode involves something else or something from somewhere else (like, let say, an ad, [ oh, just let me find a sponsor, just one ... pleeeeze ] :-)

I got an e-mail from Sherry telling me that she wasn't able to enter comments on my site. Hmm. Which site? Was it on MSBPodcast.com, a.k.a. msb.libsyn.com, or was it on multiplesclerosisblog.blogspot.com . I know that blogger was down for a few hours and even I was left waiting for it to come back.

We're about to play a few "Best Of..." shows to tide us over until new years because I'm going to spend time with my sister and the relations. Hoo-freakin'-ray. (I'm probably going to go through DTs from not recording this show for the holidays. I'll miss doing it, like you wouldn't believe.)

----

I just went to the monthly meeting of the MSers' support group. It was a little pre-Christmas bash; a real blow out riot full of booze and babes.

Okay. There was no booze and the babes were all fellow MSers. We were home by 20:30 (8:30 PM) after having some Popeye's chicken, my wifes' salad and some delicious homemade deserts.

Its was a fun little meeting to wrap up the year with.

I got to meet some other MSers who hadn't been at the last meet up. (I discussed this in msb-0077)

----

On Wednesday December 6, 2006, I was sitting in my favorite hang-out when I heard, (well I actually saw it because the sound was off and the transcription of MSNBC was scrolling across the top of the screen,) that some major corporations and the gummint are actually thinking about my idea of having everybody's medical information be web accessible. (Actually, lets be honest, I am on about the $150 laptop for empowering the disabled, and keeping the records straight. It looks like "ol' grinchy" is going to screw us out of the laptop. Fuckin' great!)

This morning new.com.com had an article about it. (Which heans that C-NET will be podcasting it shortly.) The gyst of it is:

Five major companies have joined forces and invested in what appears to be the ultimate personal medical-records database.

Applied Materials, BP America, Intel, Pitney Bowes and Wal-Mart Stores have sunk an undisclosed amount of money into the Omnimedix Institute, a nonprofit organization that developed and will manage the database, called "Dossia." (From: http://news.com.com/Medical+records+mashup+would+span+a+lifetime/2100-1022_3-6141601.html?tag=nefd.top)

If those five companies see the benefits (pardon the pun) of reducing their benefits, you can bet the gummint sees that this would definitely be of, uh, benefit.

Remember what I was on about in msb-0088?

Ri-i-i-ight!

Told you that if we saw any benefits, they would occur as a fringe, uh, benefit, of the need for keeping accurate record keeping. (I know ... I know ... "Wipe that smug grin off your face.")

The HMOs and health care providers are not exactly on board with the idea but they can see some cost reduction benefits, not least of which are the avoidance of duplication of medical records and the clerical errors that creep in with every entry and re-entry and re-re-entry.

They're thinking of creating a secure separate internet (or at least a secure, [viz. encrypted, ] virtual web,) to handle the traffic.

That has some implications for the connection and IP providers and for the thousands of doctors, clinics, hospitals and so on. For one thing, if the records are going to be stored in a secure centralized database, possibly national and possibly international, that will free up the data storage space at the point facilities (and its going to be a great time to invest in data storage hardware makers.)

I'll miss listening to the modem at my GPs practice as he is still in the dial up age... NOT!

In the mean time, I expect some "intense" lobbying from the larger drug and medical supply companies to try and kill this and "nip in the bud" any attempts to discover the shenanigans that they are up to, and that have been driving the cost of health care through the stratosphere.

Great! I feel prescient.

Maybe they'll even be forced to discover podcasts like this one, laser focused on their respective market, to use as a far more efficient means of reaching their audience.

(Its yet another systemantic axiom that people don't experiment with anything unless it doesn't cost them anything now, or in the future.

They will "stay the course" at any cost as long as they're not the ones paying it.

But if you want to see them innovate, there's nothing like a huge cost saving, or a prison term, to motivate their stupid, fat, lazy, obstructionist asses. Even then its like watching a demolition derby with steam rollers.)

----

According to an article from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6210068.stm) most of world's disabled webbies are being poorly served by the web.

"The World Health Organization estimates that there are around 600 million disabled people worldwide, which represents about 10% of the world's population. Of these, around 80% are believed to live in developing countries.

That still leaves 120 million people in developed countries, that's us folks, who are being poorly served by sites which are poorly designed.

Its not that they couldn't be designed properly, its just that the website designers are all healthy little pricks who don't even realize that their lovely, flash enabled creations are pains in our collective butts.

They just don't know how to do their jobs.

They need checklists which would guide them in building the darn things. Stuff like "Designing More Usable Web Sites" ( http://trace.wisc.edu/world/web/ )

----

For no particular reason, the title for this episode is from "WarGames" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/) a movie starring Mathew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Ally Sheedy and others, shot back in 1983. (Before a few of you were even born, I'll bet.)

I've been mentioned on the Pacific Coast Hellway, by Mark Yashimoto Nemcoff, because I bid $510 to be the top bidder (a temporary state I can assure you, but for the moment, I'm enjoying a few day's free publicity, :-) on the charity auction for the David Foster Foundation (http://www.davidfosterfoundation.org/) of his time slot for a day.

I sincerely hope that is not the end of the auction, but you know I'm going to do a fantasy show about this next. :-)

----

I've been learning different things about how to get advertisers on board. And my business model keep us out of each other's way.

The trick, if trick it be, is that I have to sell them a relationship. (I'd go on about this but that would be giving things away. :-)

msb-0088 "Dave's Insanity Sauce"

msb-0088 "Dave's Insanity Sauce"

Feedback comes first so...

I seem to have touched a warm and fuzzy spot with the bloggers with my last post. (I don't know if they're responding to my blog or my podcast but since one is virtually the other, it doesn't matter.)

My mail was overwhelmingly positive and proved my point: high-tech equals empowerment over a disability.

Of course "we" know all about that. We're bloggers and, in a couple of cases, podcasters.

But that's just us. We never hear from, or almost never about, those people who aren't plugged in. (If we expected to, that would called a systemantic flaw. [But since I am aware, it just means that I have to use another communication channel.])

That got my wife, Lee, to start on at me about helping people get computers.

There are all kinds of ways to get free or nearly free computers for the disabled.

If you're in the Chicago area, look into helping people who need them by logging onto http://www.jimmullen.com/.

Jim Mullen is a Chicago police officer who was left disabled, paralyzed from the neck down, after getting shot in the line of duty.

There is FreeByte ( http://www.freebyte.com/free_computers/#freecomputers ) which lists resources of all types throughout the world.

The audience from across the pond might have friends who could benefit from this. There are resources for them as well, though this involves Googling around.

The general consensus with all disability groups is that the use of computers, and specially of the use of the web, is very empowering and can make the difference between isolation and a feeling of abandonment and being able to successfully cope with the disease, regardless of what it is.

----

To Joyce:

we're all, uh, concerned about BrainCheese, but she's actually okay.

I laughed out loud at her blog post from Sunday, December 3rd, 2006. "ABC = Already Broadcasting Crap; CBS = Clearly Broadcasting Crap; and NBC = Nicely Broadcasting Crap." A brilliant and succinct summary of the value of modern broadcasting media. :-)

But seriously, maybe we should instigate a "buddy system" of MSers, sort of like having a LoJack for the unwell. (Though if we were all wired, we should be wired to somebody who can actually do something. Concern is touching, but ineffective when you need a tourniquet instead. :-)

About your idea about my idea about giving us all a PC.

I'm just thinking that for $15o, its actually the lowest cost way to ensure a certain minimum of connectivity and since they small and portable, these laptop PCs make a pretty fair base line.

Actually, I'd make one small addition: a port to a SRAM dongle so you're not stuck carrying the whole thing around all the time.

It would be useless waste of money in my case. I already have lots of machines and techie toys.

The MS Society is the wrong vehicle for giving away these PCs. Let the MS Society do what the MS Society does; hold fund raisers and bike-a-thons and walk-a-thons and read-a-thons and what ever else they do. That's their job.

But it would be good for the gummint to give one to every patient, current, and recurrent (I'm not suggesting past and future since that would require them to care or to be prepared and nobody's ever going to accuse the average bureaucrat of prescience,) so that they can have complete records.

We don't matter worth a sh*t to them (or to anybody else.) That's just the way it is. Deal with it!

But the gumming wants to keep their damn records straight. That we would be the recipients of their goodness isn't important here. Its a side effect of getting us to keep our records straight.

(Getting a procedure done or a prescription filled? Let the hospital or doctor or pharmacy or clinic update your records.)

And the hospital or doctor or pharmacy or clinic can have access to the complete records. That would get rid of answering the same stupid questions over and over and over again.

Who knows, we might get it wrong. The gummint wouldn't like that...

----

Oh, by the way, Joyce, you don't need an iPod to listen to my show.

That's only good if you want to carry the show around.

You don't even need iTunes (though you can get it for free at http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ )

But its not the only podcatcher out there. (There's also iPodder at http://www.ipodder.org/directory/4/ipodderSoftware )

Its just extremely convenient to use iTunes.

If you had it, you could just open a web page on my podcast at http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170
) and say yes to all the questions until you see my late, great cat Wiki and then simply subscribe.

Its the easiest way really.

Some people keep going back to MSBPodcast.com time and again when its so much easier to just let iTunes do it and download whatever is new.

---- You don't need a iPod

Onto some other news.

The production schedule of this podcast is about to go through some irregularities (like its regular now? :-) as I have to rewire my home office to integrate a brand spanking new Behringer Xenix 1204FX mixer console. (I "love" buying these swell, geeky toys; there's all these knobs and sliders and cross-connections and plugs and switches and buttons and crap like that. :-)

I'm going to have to learn how to integrate this into my recording work flow (rear: routine) or how to alter the work flow (read: routine) to accommodate the new equipment and capabilities.

I am also going to have to learn how to use the effects properly. Things have changed considerably since my high-school days. (Like, what ever happened to the VU decibel meters that looked so cool as the needle went back and forth with the volume?)

I must confess I have no idea what some of these effects are or what they do to the sound.

Well maybe I do but they may have had different names back then.

It also might be that what I learned about sound playing with a Moog synthesizer no longer applies, (attack, sustain, decay, reverb and echo loops, Doppler phase shifting [the sound you get from a Leslie rotating speaker on a Hammond organ,] and so on.)

This is a chance to play around, get it wrong until I get it right, and learn.

The end result will be a better sounding show with a richer, warmer sound, (I've got these two great XLR AKG C1000S microphones that are just "beg-hing" for me to use them :-)

I also want to work on Skype call integration so I can achieve better technique for recording interviews. Then I'll be able to record shows with a partner (hey podneh?)

As well, I'm going to use the opportunity to start bouncing some of these spam emails; so my email account is going to be out of reach during Christmas. I've cut my limits down to nothing so things will start bouncing back to them like the accounts are dead.

----

What's with the title of this episode?

Am I endorsing "Dave's Insanity Sauce"?

No I am not, but I have to tell you that my wife made some oven baked potato chips with it and they were absolutely delicious.

• Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C).
• Slice a potato into thin slices or slim wedges,
• spray with olive oil (we just got a Misto prayer,)
• sprinkle with "Dave's Insanity Sauce" and
• bake on a cookie sheet for 15 minutes or until they are crisp.

Salt to taste, (since we're both Québecois, we sprinkle some vinegar on them [it cuts the grease]) and "enjoy!"

But watch out how much "insanity sauce" you put on them; your tongue can get numbed and there are, uh, other problems later. (Its got one Hell of an "after burner" caused by a bad case of "flamin' a-hole". :-)