Steve and I are about to leave for Chile but I’ve got three Chit Chat Across the Pond recorded and in the queue for you, and Bart and Allister are going to take the reins while we’re gone. I’ve got two stories about recorders, the Zoom iQ7 and the Zoom H4n Pro that have very different endings. And you’ll get to hear from an actual anatomy professor named Terry Austin on whether those horns growing on the backs of our heads could actually be happening and be caused by our bent necks looking at our phones!
Ther’s no live show for the next couple of weeks, but I hope to see you in the chat rooom on July 14th.
Hi, this is Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast Apple Podcast, hosted at Podfeet.com, a technology geek podcast with an EVER so slight Apple bias. Today is Sunday, June 23, 2019, and this is show number 737. No, not 737 MAX, just plain old 737.
Steve and I are gearing up for our trip to Chile on Tuesday to see another total eclipse. I think when you go to your third one, you’re officially eclipse chasers. We saw one on the Mac Mania cruise between Australia and New Caledonia, and then we went to Oregon to see one with Jean MacDonald. This time we’re traveling with a group from UCLA who bring their very own personal astrophysicist! Get this, his name is Jean Luc! Won’t forget that name any time soon.
Other than seeing an eclipse, we’re going to have some super nerdy fun going to telescopes. We’ll be going to ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter array. You may have actually heard of ALMA, as it was one of the 6 sets of telescopes that was used to photograph the black hole that came out back in April. We’ll also be going to the Paranal Observatory home of the “Very Large Telescope”. That’s not a description, it’s the actual name. They even abbreviate it with the acronym VLT. In any case, it’s bound to be a fun nerdy trip. Plus, Chilean Malbec wine, am I right?
We will be leaving you in capable hands though, Bart Busschots will be hosting the show this coming week, and Allister Jenks from New Zealand will be hosting the following week. It’s a great treat for me to get to hear their shows and I’m forever indebted to them for doing this.
There will be NO LIVE SHOW WHILE WE’RE GONE. We will return to your regularly scheduled live show on Sunday, July 14th. Please pass the word!
Chit Chat Across the Pond
I love that Chit Chat this week was called “Lite”, because in our world, this is light compared to Programming By Stealth. But it wasn’t what normal people would think of as lite. I interviewed Dr. Devon Polaschek of the University of Waikato about her work rehabilitating violent criminal psychopaths. Now I’m sure many of you scoffed at the very concept, but that’s what makes Devon’s work so fascinating. Through the techniques developed, in New Zealand, they have actually reduced the rate of recidivism, which is the re-incarceration rate. She’s got a delightful sense of humor and a fabulous voice and accent, as she tells us about working with such terrifying people. Remember, it’s “Lite”!
You can find this episode in your podcatcher of choice under Chit Chat Across the Pond, or Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, and of course you can find it over at Podfeet.com under CCATP #599 — Dr. Devon Polaschek on Psychopaths.
Chit Chat While We’re Gone
While we’re gone, Chit Chat Across the Pond will still go on because I pre-recorded two more episodes. The second week we’ll have the very first Programming By Stealth Supplemental episode. It’s not with Bart, but instead, I interview the awesome Dorothy Rendon about her work to bring all students the Programming By Stealth Index. First we nerd out on how she created the original index using Excel, CSV files, a perl script and HTML. Then she explains how after she learned a lot more in Programming By Stealth, she was able to vastly simplify things by putting the data into a JSON file and creating the web page using Bootstrap and Mustaches. It’s super nerdy fun, and Bart will post that one while I’m gone in both the PBS and full Chit Chat Across the Pond feed.
Then for the last week, I have another treat for you. The self-proclaimed Crusher of Dreams, Dr. Maryanne Garry, also of the University of Waikato in New Zealand comes back to the show, this time to explain to us how science is broken. It’s a fascinating look at what’s been happening to scientific journals and how the changes are affecting the science that gets funded. So pretty much more dream crushing.
There’s a lot to look forward to in Chit Chat Across the Pond!
MAMP WordPress on ScreenCastsOnline
A few months ago, I created a video tutorial for ScreenCastsOnline on my favorite blogging software, MarsEdit. To illustrate MarsEdit, I needed a place to post fake blog posts and pages publishing from MarsEdit to WordPress. I didn’t want to clutter up podfeet.com, so instead, I decided to install WordPress on my Mac. But to install WordPress, you need a web server, a database, and a programming language. But that’s easy enough, you just install MAMP which gives you Apache as a web server, MySQL as a database and php as a programming language. It worked great for the tutorial.
But people wrote in after watching the MarsEdit tutorial asking me how you actually install MAMP and how you install WordPress into MAMP. So this month my video tutorial for ScreenCastsOnline is all about how to do just that. It’s perhaps a more specialized tutorial than I normally do, but I think it’s pretty nifty that we can do this.
If installing a web server and WordPress onto your Mac is of interest to you, go check it out at screencastsonline.com/…. There’s a free 7-day trial available where you can get all of the back catalog. If you can be patient and wait till the next ScreenCastsOnline Monthly Magazine comes out, you can buy single issues and get a bunch of video tutorials along with written articles by tech luminaries (even me). ScreenCastsOnline Magazine is available on the iPad or iPhone (if you have good eyes) in the App Store.
DTNS
One final plug here. I was on the Daily Tech News Show with Tom Merritt and Sarah Lane and Roger Chang on Friday. In episode 3558, named by popular vote in the live audience, “The First Wrong is Always Right”, we covered several medium topics instead of one main topic. We talked about how AT&T is now the fastest mobile network in America with their fake 5G service (aka 5G evolution, which is not 5G at all). We discussed a recent study of peoples’ perception of the names car companies are giving their self-driving capabilities, like what does Tesla’s Autopilot mean (without knowing it was from Tesla). Can you take your hands off the wheel? We learned about how the gentleman who lead the team to create USB knew all along that this non-reversible connector would make us batty but it would be far too expensive to make it reversible. I had a lot of fun with the DTNS gang as always. You can find Daily Tech News Show in your podcatcher of choice, or go watch the video at dailytechnewsshow.com/…
Blog Posts
MacStadium Interview with Chris Chapman (audio only)
Two weeks ago, I promised an audio interview with Chris Chapman of MacStadium, but then didn’t play it in the show because I ran out of time. But now I will play it for you. I want to set up why I wanted to talk to him first. One of my favorite NosillaCastaways is Caleb Fong, aka geekosupremo. He’s been super active in our Slack Group at podfeet.com/slack. In particular, he seems to find the most interesting programming tools. A while ago he brought up the concept of a Docker container. I asked him to explain and in a few text messages back and forth I still couldn’t figure out what they were.
I saw on the MacStadium brochures that they had something to do with Docker containers, so I waited for a time that his booth wasn’t mobbed and asked Chris if he could explain them to me. I won’t even try to explain them myself, because it took Chris about a half hour to help me understand them just a little bit.
After we got done with that conversation, I thought it would be fun to hear about MacStadium itself. I refer to a video playing in the background, and MacStadium Sr. Director of Product Marketing Heather Robertson was nice enough to give me a copy of the video so you could see it yourself. I’ve embedded it in the shownotes so you can see all of these rack-mounted Macs for yourself. It’s glorious! With all that, let’s listen to Chris.
Is the Zoom iQ7 a Good Add-On Mic for Interviews?
Support the Show
When I post an article that includes hardware you can buy on Amazon, I always link to the Amazon page for the device. I do that for two reasons. One so it’s easy for you to click and buy, and two so that if you do click and buy, a small percentage of the purchase may go back into helping fund the production of the podcast. In this week’s show for example, I talked about the Zoom iQ7 which didn’t turn out that great, but there is an Amazon Affiliate Link to it in the article. Later in the show I’ll be talking about the Zoom H4n Pro which is amazing and there’s an Amazon Affiliate Link to it as well. I’ll be talking about some microphones too and of course, their links will be to Amazon.
Maybe you’re not in the market for audio gear, but out of curiosity, you click on one of the links. While you’re there if you happen to buy some bird seed or toilet paper, those purchases could also go to help fund the show. Every little bit helps so click away!
Professor of Human Anatomy & Physiology Weighs in on “Horns” from Smartphone Use — by Terry Austin
Zoom H4n Pro as a Portable Recorder and Interface
That’s going to wind this up for this week. Don’t forget to send in your Dumb Questions, comments and suggestions by emailing me at [email protected], follow me on twitter @podfeet. Remember, everything good starts with podfeet.com/. podfeet.com/patreon, podfeet.com/facebook, podfeet.com/slack!
Remember, we will not be having a live show until July 14th since we won’t be around. That doesn’t mean you guys can’t still go hang out in the chat room at podfeet.com/chat on Sunday night at 5pm Pacific Time of course. You guys never pay any attention to me anyway, right? In any case, thanks for listening, and stay subscribed.