Listening News

I listen to up to ten hours a day to a wide variety of podcasts. The UC Berkeley podcasts on science and history are technically sound, and the lectures are highly educational. Berkeley Groks is a science radio show done in magazine style, that I have enjoyed in the past. Dr. Charles Lee and Dr. Frank Ling are knowedgeable and can inteligently discuss a wide range of topics. Unfortunately the May 9th episode failed horribly. the show was hosted by three people i assume werestudents. The students silly, often giggly delivery of the science news set my teeth on edge. There seemed to have been more filler music, which could be considered a blessing. There was a report about pigeons navigating ability being linked to iron crystals in ther beaks. This compass like effect was erroneously equated to GPS, then when asked, the student could not provide the source. They also discussed the Nor’Easter; “…I was delayed by that storm…Oh! that’s terrible…How do you get to work?…Wow…I think a nor’easter happens like this..”  The discussion then degerated into weather anecdotes. The interview was with Tyson Mao who discussed solving the Rubik’s Cube. He admitted that there was no math in his method, just rote techniques and a lot of practice. They also discussed his reality tv career. To be honest, I am writing this rant a couple of days later, from hastily scribbled notes. I may have garbled a point or two, but i could not bear to listen again to nail down the details.

 My second rant is about what I call ‘girl robot’ voices. Remember the CitiBank identity theft campaign? somewhere out there on th web is an evil site that hosts a devil-spawned female voice emulator that some geeks just can’t resist. Too many podcasts use it for titles and episode numbers and one serialized novel actualy uses it for three ‘girl robot’ characters. If you must use a voice emulator, I beg of you, find one that sounds better than my late 80’s Amiga.