April 12, 2018

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Announcement❗ | Permanently Moved 🔊

Episode 4 has come around quickly. In this episode I address some feedback, moan about the neighbours, make a few announcements, and begin a new (hopefully) recurring segment called tech support. 

Peer to peer web Berlin: https://peer-to-peer-web.com/berlin/2018-05-05

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Tech Support

I do hope this episode sounds alright.

I usually record these things on a Thursday when it’s quiet, but today there are builders outside, and my neighbor—who is a singer, songwriter, and arranger—has been blasting out guitar all day. So I just sat down and thought, I’ll do it anyway.

Our first point of order this week is Mailbag. Gordon White of Rune Soup writes:

“Your brother’s observation from episode two is entirely valid.”

Well, thank you for seconding the feedback—I appreciate it.

You may have noticed that this week’s episode is a little shorter. In fact, looking back, I managed to cut a whole 12 seconds from the intro, from the beginning of the podcast to when I start speaking. I don’t think that’s too bad.

I think I’m going to keep it that way until everyone gets used to the theme tune—and then I’m just going to change it. But that probably won’t be for a while, because I’m lazy.

First announcement: On May 5th, I’ll be speaking at Peer to Peer Web in Berlin, which is billed as an offline hangout about being online better. If you want to RSVP, you can go to peer-to-peer-web.com/berlin.

I’ll be speaking about vertically integrated sensor platforms, Solarpunk, and Lander’s Platform, the project I spoke about in last week’s episode. That’s the same weekend as Republica, so if you’re in town, it’d be great to see you on that Saturday.

Second announcement: I’ve bought some EZY Jeans from Uniqlo.

Don’t know if you’ve heard of them or seen them, but they’re basically just sweatpants that look like jeans. Some of the vloggers and YouTubers I follow have been talking about them. I saw them, so I bought them—and I’m wearing them right now.

Let me tell you, they are awesome. They are literally the perfect working-from-home trousers. You can answer the door when the postman comes, wander around the flat—they have great pockets, they feel like jeans, they look like jeans… but they’re soft, like sweatpants.

It has literally leveled up my working-from-home experience. I am podcasting in comfort right now, and let me tell you—my world has changed.

Third announcement: This podcast should now be available in all your favourite podcatchers. And, probably by Monday, it should be available on iTunes.

So wherever you’re listening to this on the internet, go check it out. You can find it by searching Permanently Moved—with a space between the words.

Which brings me to what will probably become another recurring feature: Tech Support.

Wow. I’ve learned so much in the last four weeks about recording podcasts, setting up Libsyn, and figuring out all the details of publishing and syndicating. It’s been really interesting, and a great learning curve—especially because I’m also starting a Solarpunk podcast.

If you want to sign up for the newsletter and find out when it’s out, the link will be in the description of this episode.

But back to Tech Support.

This week, I found out that not all audio files are treated equally. Some podcatchers round this podcast down to five minutes instead of five minutes and one second. iTunes, on the other hand, has been rounding previous episodes up to five minutes and two seconds.

Which makes me like Apple even less.

It’s all a bit annoying, really, because the entire conceit of this podcast is that I write and record an episode in an hour, and it’s 301 seconds long.

Oh well. Can’t win them all.

I am going to try and make it show up as 301 seconds in iTunes, though, because they’re the biggest platform—and we all need to bow down and worship the vertically integrated technology companies.

Another useful thing I learned this week: if you’re going to be on a live podcast, Google Hangout, or video chat that’s being recorded—and you’re using Google Docs to write your notes—you should increase the font size.

Otherwise, you’ll just see yourself squinting at the screen when you’re trying to read out quotes or look for notes.

I think if I’d made the text bigger, I would have looked a lot less like Hans Moleman in front of the screen.

And my last Tech Support tip for this week: if you’re going to make a podcast like this—and you mention it in the first episode—always carry a mobile phone-compatible shotgun mic with you.

Because you never know who you’re going to be with. You never know when you might get the chance to do a quick interview.

And on Monday this week… I didn’t.

And it was very annoying.

That’s all I have time for this week.

Thank you very much for listening.

This has been episode 1804 of Permanently Moved, a podcast in 301 seconds.