Don’t Vote
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Danish Kings Poster
My great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great (or so) grandfather is the Danish King, Gorm the Old. I’ve done the math and figured out that the current queen is my 23rd Cousin (our common ancestor is one of the Valdemars, around 23 generations back). Most of this is silly because at these sheer distances, it’s meaningless. The number of people who have to die before I can take the throne is astronomical. And, of course, there’s that problem of me not being a Danish citizen. I have a much bigger claim to fame on Jens Christian Hostrup, a Danish playwright of some renown who is my GGG Grandfather (Maybe GGGG? I don’t have my genealogy software open to check).
What does any of this have to do with anything? Well, growing up I had this wonderful poster on my wall. It showed all of the Danish kings. Denmark is the only western nation (as far as I know) that has had a single royal family since before 1000 A.D. and I loved that I was a part of it, in my own small way. The poster is long gone and I bought a postcard version from a Danish museum on a trip there in 1984 but otherwise have not seen the poster in decades.
My mother sent me a print she had (a copy) of the poster (an old copy, it doesn’t have the current Queen on it and she began her reign in 1972) and I got all nostalgic and wanted to get the poster for Jack. Maybe he’ll love it as I once did? So, I went a-googling and found it! It’ll cost me over $50 to buy and ship it, but I think I just found one of those off-beat, interesting Christmas presents that he will love. At least, I hope he will. If not, there’s a spot next to my desk where it would look fantastic…
Honor and Integrity
I’ve been keeping quiet here about the upcoming election. This is largely due to the fact that I’ve been so focused on getting the book done and I’ve been spending a lot of time planning the curriculum for my Bear Cub Scout Den for this year. And, before two days ago when I moved this blog over to WordPress, it was a major project to post anything to this (I’ll go on an extended rant on why I am so disappointed in RapidWeaver another time).
Excuses out of the way, I am not going to say all that much in large part because plenty of others are saying quite enough and my main interest this fall is action at a more local level. I want to focus my writing on other subjects and not turn this into another political blog.
And so, I am only going to throw out a few links I’ve read today which really resonated with me and I think are important reads. I do not like at all what I am seeing. The McCain campaign is essentially lying and plenty of people are falling for it. It amazes me that they do given how blatant some of these lies are, but they are. These articles I read today do an excellent job of summarizing some of the key points. Do with them what you will, but I think they all deserve some consideration. I know that many Republicans stand behind McCain because of who he once was (and I think a lot of people don’t realize just how much he has changed from that man over the last four or so years) and I understand that. The man he was (prior to his sudden turn-around endorsement of Bush in 2004) was someone I could grudgingly get behind. I felt he was a Republican I could respect. But that changed and his latest actions over the last ten or so days have left me feeling a lot of trepidation. So, here are the articles:
- Conservative Blogger Andrew Sullivan sums it up best in “McCain’s Integrity“
- Author Christopher Moore blogs on “Experience and Imagination“
It is easy to get swept up in poltical rhetoric at this time of year and it is also easy to get personal and mean with people who don’t agree with us. If you look at this election purely on the issues, there is a simple dividing line and I would never judge someone who is voting based on what they believe is the right way to run this country, even if I don’t agree with it. There are basic differences of opinion and part of being in a Democracy is accepting that. We can argue about it, but at the end of the day, we all believe what we believe for good or ill. What I do not like is the fact that McCain’s campaign is trying to distract us from the issues and make this about personal attacks, pointless (and intentional) misunderstandings (”lipstick on a pig” was about the McCain economic plan, not his running mate), and outright lies (the sex education commercial). I believe both candidates should say what they believe and what they will do and let the voters decide which person has the better plan. What McCain is doing is dishonest and dishonorable.
Some closing links of articles I read earlier in the week and liked:
- John Scalzi reprimands Democrats for being so defeatist in “A Previous Message Repeated, Slightly More Forcefully“
- DailyKos diarist, Plutonium Page, writes about his experience at the DNC in “‘This is a Fight for the Future’“
WireTap Anywhere Records from Multiple Sources
My latest article for TidBITS has gone live on their site: “WireTap Anywhere Records from Multiple Sources” — I wrote the initial draft of this article at 11:30PM in my hotel room in Las Vegas after the end of the New Media Expo. The guys at the Ambrosia booth were very accommodating as I kept coming back with more questions every day of the show. It’s an impressive product and I’m very happy to have reviewed it. You’ll note that my only complaints are more about GarageBand being a resource hog (OK, that’s not entirely fair… when I compare it to Audio Hijack Pro I am talking recording 4 channels versus 2 so it’s not so much that GarageBand is a resource hog so much as it is trying to do more than Audio Hijack Pro is in the same situation — as I describe in the article).
It is an expensive tool but for the people who need it, an excellent one.
Technorati Tags: audio, podcasting, article, tidbits, writing
Hello world! (Again)
So, 13 months later and I move my entire blog yet again. Let’s see… a year ago I moved my site from MovableType into RapidWeaver but came to regret that decision. RapidWeaver is incredibly slow on my older, 1.25GHz PowerBook G4 and a huge resource hog. So, it had to go. Now I’m in WordPress because it’s what all the cool kids are using. Or something.
One of these days I’ll import all of the pre-2002 entries.
I’m using a WordPress theme for now. One day soon I will do my own design. Or at least swap out the image above with my own pictures.
Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac, 2nd Edition Released!
The latest edition of my book, Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac, Second Edition, has been released! It took five months and a lot of sweat, but it’s out and I am extremely pleased with how this edition came out. One thing I always wanted to do was cover audio effects and include sample recordings illustrating what they do. This edition includes these as well as coverage of new programs WireTap Studio and Ubercaster. It also updates the other tools for the latest versions and contains substantial rewrites of much of the rest of the book. Finally, it also includes a new section on interviewing techniques.
From the Book’s Web Page:
Beginning a podcast is easier than starting a radio station, but it’s still hard to assemble your hardware and software, and learn the tricks of the trade. You can easily meet that challenge with start-to-finish guidance from long-time podcaster Andy Affleck…
The ebook begins with a look at how to plan a podcast’s topic, format, and polish. Then Andy focuses on choosing the right microphone and audio software, followed by step-by-step instructions for recording using Audio Hijack Pro, GarageBand, Sound Studio, WireTap Studio, and Übercaster, with advice about conducting interviews by phone, iChat, and Skype. Once your audio is in the can, you’ll learn how to use audio plug-ins to make the recording sound better, complete with downloadable sound files to supplement the text. You’ll also find out how to edit out any awkward bits, plug in additional audio, and mix tracks. Finally, the ebook covers how to encode your podcast, add useful tags and chapters, find a publishing tool, and publish your podcast for the world to hear.
Links:
NaNoWriMo True Life Tale
I’m thrilled to announce that my “True Life Tale” appeared on NaNoWriMo’s blog today. I won’t say anything about it here. It speaks for itself.
Podcasting on the Brain
Podcasting has taken over my brain. I’m currently working on three major projects, all podcast-related. The first is an update to my ebook, Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac. I’m updating the book for new versions of the software covered in the book while adding a few new ones and dropping Audacity, which I can no longer in good conscience recommend to beginners or even intermediate podcasters. We’re aiming for an August release to coincide with my second major project.
I am preparing my talk at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas for mid-August. I’ll be sharing the podium with Ed Vawter and we’ll be covering GarageBand ’08 and podcasting and the use of audio filters/plug-ins in podcasting. I have my hotel reservation and plane tickets and even got a ticket to Coverville500 so I can see Doctor Floyd live (Jack’s favorite show) and Jonathan Coulton. I’m very excited. Originally, we were all going to go but we decided to save our pennies to take Jack to Disney World so it’ll be just me attending. Still, I’ve never been to Vegas so I’m excited about this trip.
Finally, I am preparing a new podcast called Our Stories. The premise is that everyone has a good story in them (at least one) and I want to capture and present these stories. This is hardly a new idea. There are shades of This American Life in here but the intent is to simply let people present their stories with only limited prompting from me. This is both fun and very scary as going up to strangers to chat them up for something like this is well outside my comfort zone. And, I must admit, that’s part of my motivation for doing this: to challenge and stretch myself.
Bob Geldof on Liberty
Bob Geldof wrote a fantastic opinion piece in the Telegraph which is worth a read by everyone in the United States. That awful telecom immunity thing has been passed and already signed into law and I find myself incredibly disappointed with Obama for voting for it. But Geldof’s words resonate:
Let us be grand for once, for we talk of great subjects. Ask “what is the point of Britain?” if we so casually give up the liberty which defines this country, its greatest gift to the world.
Still today, 800 years later, Magna Carta resonates: “To no man will we deny, To no man will we delay, Justice and Right.” Is that not grand, worthy of your vote? Is habeas corpus to be traduced in one sad moment of political expediency? Do we not clearly deny and delay Justice and Right when we imprison a person for 42 days without charge?.
What existential threat do we face greater than those of the past 800 years? What great terror exists today that not civil war, not world war, nor recent other terrorisms could make our forefathers change the fundamental basis of this state? What is so dangerous that our oldest statutes could be upended for such a ha’p'orth of momentary panic?.
What terrorises the terrorists is our civilisation. What those unthinking fools of fundamentalism fear most are the freedoms our representatives now strip away. This “war on terror” is against Islamist forces that reject the Enlightenment..
How can we ever succeed, if we side with our opponents in rejecting those ideals? Every moment we are spied on by the invisible watchers, every time we are monitored, every time we are logged on databanks, they win. And every time we accept it, we lose.
Stirring words. Every day our “War on Terror” makes us more like them and less like us. Yet the supporters of these acts claim that this is the only way to protect our liberties and our way of life. They must have no sense of irony. You protect liberty by taking it away? Isn’t that exactly the opposite of what “protect” means?
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