It’s the last Saturday of the year, and thus this is the last serving of News Chum Stew for 2014. Let’s hope it is somewhat tasty:
- The Podcast Renaissance. I’ve written before about the rebirth of podcasts, exemplified by Serial. Here’s another article in the same vein. I like this article because it gives some insight as to why podcasts are seeing a rebirth, especially when you don’t see “pods” anymore. The answer is that the podcast is basically the radio version of VOD — you don’t have to listen to the talk radio stations with all their commercials — you can listen to well-produced material, streamed to your car either directly or from your phone (no downloading required), when you want. I think this should be a wake-up call to the previous generation podcasts, such as Born Ready (a Bay-Area theatre podcast) — you need to up your game and produce something that sounds better; two guys sitting around a microphone chatting on a subject doesn’t fly these days.
- How Chicken Changed The World. Little things have big impacts. We often realize this, but then don’t think about the little things. Consider the humble chicken. According to one man, Chicken has powered human civilization. It has not only provided a cheap (cheep) and easy protein source, but had medicinal uses, and helped build communities.
- The Death of Voice Mail. If you’re like me, you hate voice mail. You would rather send an email or a text than sit and listen to backed up voice mail. Slashdot has some interesting commentary on an article about Coca-Cola disconnecting the voicemail at its headquarters. It views this as yet another salvo in the war against voicemail, which is rapidly being won.
- Pronounciation Errors that Shaped English. If you like history or language, you’ll enjoy this link (which I think came from Andrew Ducker): 8 ways that pronounciation errors shaped the English language.
- Christmas Lights for Celiac Research. Slashdot recently reported that this year is the last year of Alex’s Internet Controlled Christmas Lights for Celiac Research. Now, to me, the interesting fact here is not the Internet control — in this era of computer-connected everything, Christmas lights aren’t that far fetched — but that this was for Celiac research and I never heard of it.
