The Economist in New Hampshire

Christopher Hitchens pondered on the American caucus in KQED forum (I blogged about this yesterday). He argued as follows: the system in Iowa works such that there is a tendency towards the extreme. That is how Huckabee could win there. For New Hampshire he predicted a more moderate result, implying what nobody expected: Hillary Clinton would win for the Democrats.

The Economist's blog and podcast Democracy in America put a podcast this morning in the feed where the New Hampshire independet voters were interviewed. No indication for a win in any direction. Maybe it was clear that Huckabee was not going to be a factor, but that was to be expected. The Republican leaning voter was in doubt between McCain and Ron Paul. The one to vote for a Democrat was undecided between Obama and Clinton. I detected a slight preference for Clinton, I must say.

I wonder why The Economist didn't wait yet another couple of hours with that podcast. What news agent would deliver before the dead line? Who'd be interested in the cast now? However, between you and me, the interviews were fascinating and possibly representative for more Americans - this is not necessarily about New Hampshire alone. I'd say, listen anyway.

More from the Economist and about the 2008 elections:
A biography for Barack Obama and one for Hillary Clinton,
The Economist podcast,
Bush - Clinton - Bush - Clinton (UC Podcast),
Religiousness of American Presidents (UC Podcast).

Philosophy Bites on Wittgenstein

I love philosophy and at the same time, very frequently, when I read or hear philosophers or about them, I seriously lose track. When I wrote my masters and finished a good deal of the work, my mentor threw a book at me about the effect of Wittgensteinian thought on sociology. See if I could incorporate that in my thesis, to top it off. I couldn't. Wittgenstein had me baffled and I obtained my masters without him.

So Wittgenstein has become the symbol of where I feel I need philosophy, but fail to wrap my mind around it. Hence, with a mixed sense of urgency and intimidation, I set out to listen to the latest Philosophy Bites podcast. Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds speak with Barry Smith about Wittgenstein.

Early Wittgenstein is briefly discussed. Already Wittgenstein is heavily interested in language, but still uses what is named a picture theory of language; our language in one way or another tries to picture our world. This is the approach that investigates how we can improve the accuracy of language in order to picture the world more effectively. Wittgenstein takes it to logic: how logic will allow us to analyze the arguments (essentially the pictures of the world) and thus find the limits of what could be. What is logically incorrect cannot be. What is correct could - though need not be.

By 1929 he returns to England and sets out to radically alter this approach. No matter how inaccurate our language is, we seem to do well with it. What is more, we cannot start thinking, unless we have language, hence language is not the instrument to picture the world, but rather what ties us to it. This makes it very difficult to catch the essence of language. Here is where we are not even half way the podcast and I am in my third run of listening to it. Very fascinating and catching, but unbelievably hard to really deeply dig into.

More Philosophy Bites:
Friendship,
Egalitarianism,
Skepticism ,
Thought experiments (and Avicenna).

How to optimally record a Skype conversation

Podcast listeners like myself will witness many podcasters struggle with audio that represents a conversation conducted over the phone. As far as content is concerned, these sections give some of the greatest input, but the audio quality can seriously ruin the product. At the same time I know of several podcasts (for example The Word Nerds and the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe) that manage tremendously well. Most podcasters use Skype, but among those, quality still varies.

Recently I came across the below presentation from on the Conversations Network, that seems to offer a very complete and effective guide to make the recording succeed as best as it can. So here is the show...

| View | Upload your own

For more info and discussion, visit The Conversations Network’s forums.

Faith based diplomacy - SOF

From a Western perspective, keeping religion and state separated seems like the healthiest paradigm. Not only do we have bloody memories, of religion inspiring wars among ourselves. The contentious nature of religion, especially with regard to our relationship with Islam of late, seems to indicate how right the separation is. Consequently, diplomatic speech must be ripped of religious content, so it seems.

Speaking of Faith reran a program with Douglas Johnston of the ICRD (International Center for Religion and Diplomacy) who turns this centerpiece of what he calls 'realpolitik' on its head and reveals a very successful diplomatic practice with religion involved. His work has brought him to Pakistan, Sudan and Iran and he relates some remarkable and inspiring stories of achievement. In Pakistan he is involved in reforming the religious schools. In the Sudan he was part of interfaith reconciliation talks and in Iran in a similar program tying all the faith representatives in communicating with each other. He explains the rationale in pretty straightforward and practical terms.

He finds that outside the western world, since religion represents the highest standard of people, adopting a religious tone and incorporating religion into diplomacy is an act of ultimate reverence. It is much less perceived as double talk and rife with hidden agendas than businesslike speech that is cleansed of the holy. In addition, he makes an effort to understand his opponent's religion and make references to his tradition and thus pays ultimate respect and manages to reach out very effectively.

More Speaking of Faith:
Rachel Naomi Remen,
Rumi,
New Evangelicals,
V. V. Raman,
Reinold Niebuhr.

Christopher Hitchens - KQED Forum

Open Culture's post about KQED forum podcast in which Christopher Hitchens was interviewed, brought me to listen to it as well. I had not met KQED before and though I had heard of Hitchens, I had never read him or listened to him. It won't have to happen again. (KQED forum feed)

I may roughly agree with Hitchens on a couple of major points, but the style and eventual stand puts me off. As far as the interview is concerned, be warned also about a not so ideal voice: his diction could improve. It makes for rather tiring listening.

The program consists of roughly two parts. The first in which Hitchens gives his view on the Bhutto assassination (must be Al-Qaeda) and on the war in Iraq (can't retreat now, that would be worse) and the US caucus system (shame for democracy to put such heavy importance on such a small occurrence). In the next section he gets to answer listeners' question who are put through to the show. These questions move his focus to the atheism subject of his. This is where he finds praise with Open Culture:

For Hitchens, if there existed a God who answered prayers and intervened in human affairs, “we would be living under an unalterable celestial dictatorship that could read our thoughts while we were asleep and convict us of thought crime and pursue us after we after are dead, and in the name of which priesthoods and other oligarchies and hierarchies would be set up to enforce God’s law.” Essentially, we’d be living in a supernatural Orwellian world.

Personally, I am not so impressed by this.

Podcasting has yet to break through

From blogger to podcaster

Dutchman Maurice Zondag became a podcaster in 2005 after having seen Adam Curry on Dutch television (2 Vandaag) explain about 'audio blogging'. Maurice had already tried his hand at blogging but felt spoken word and added music would give a much more direct way to his public. When I interview him he explains: "With sound you can carry so much more emotion, at least that is true for me. The written voice is cold, but when I speak the tones come into play. What is more, I have always been interested in music. I always listened a lot and I played in a couple of bands, so the possibility to add music to my blogging was a very essential improvement."


Recording speech sometimes more difficult than music

When he looks back at his early productions he sometimes cringes on the lack of professionalism. "I still had so much to learn. I have no background in radio and television and with my musical career I had done some audio recording, but recording speech, especially with Skype, a whole other technical world comes into play." These days Zondag carries at least 5 podcasts which he produces or participates in, among others Sunday Sundown and F1cast. "I still have a lot to learn, but the quality has much improved and I pride myself in producing better podcasts than many others including main stream media in the Netherlands."


Royalties are outdated

Main stream media have yet to pick up on podcasting and currently there is a reverse tendency: they are backing out a little bit. Some podcasts from radio stations were discontinued, frozen or altered because of huge royalty payments claimed by the representative BUMA/Stemra and NVPI. This is a subject that enrages Zondag. "The royalty system is skewed and outdated. They are not actually benefiting the artists and are taxing the wrong way. For example, if I want to make a promotional podcast for my own band, I have to pay royalties to BUMA/Stemra, over my own music!" This has brought Zondag to focus on podsafe music and his podcast Sunday Sundown is intended to deliver the best easy listening music from the podsafe realm. As more and more artists will understand they rake in their revenues in concerts and accessory sales, they will go over and declare their work podsafe. "It will be a matter of time for this royalty system to become totally obsolete."


Old media do not get it, neither does the audience

What keeps podcasting back is not just main stream media (afraid of the expenses in royalties), but also the public at large. "In fact, podcasts offer the audience advantages they do not have with regular radio, in that you can listen when you like, but the wider audience is so used to radio, podcast has not been discovered yet." I ask him whether he thinks this will happen soon as people, by wider use of the internet, raise the standard to selecting content tailored to their own preferences and needs. "I don't know," he responds, "I am not so sure people want to find their own content. Most are just happy to turn on their middle-of-the-road radio station and have the content picked for them." I suggest it should be technically possible to have an internet site choose podcasts for the listener, based on profile, preferences, previous listening and ratings. "Sure, technically it is all there. And developments, also in TV, go in that direction, but podcasting is still a matter of a small in-crowd. The makers are the listeners. Main stream media should take podcasting ahead. They have the knowledge, the experience and the means, but they don't. Not only TV and radio or newspapers hardly do any podcasting, the major news site Nu.nl has even stopped the podcast they had."


Free CD

"Recently," he relates, "in ICT update (a podcast by Mark Baars in which Maurice Zondag participates - AIAM) we had a news scoop, but no matter how hard we tried to push regular media, nobody would pick up on the story. There is still a lot of work to do." What work this is, is something he shows in his Sunday Sundown. Listeners can order a CD with the best music played on the podcast. "It is a CD anyone can order for free at the website of the show at
www.sundaysundown.com. I did this because I wanted to do something for my listeners, and the artists that supported my program as well. In this way I can get their music to the fans of the show, onto their CD rack, instead of staying on some playlist on iTunes or an mp3 player. People can give it away to friends and family, so it will also get some attention outside the podcast scene, to people that might have never heard about podcasting or independent music. Having my name and the name of the show on there is a bonus too." In other words podcasts need to be promoted and taken beyond the current in-crowd.


Podcasting is ideal for highly specialized content

His F1cast is something he does, 'for the fun of it'. It is a Dutch language podcast about auto sports. "You know what fun it is, after you have seen the race, to chat about it with a friend. Others do that about soccer, I do this about Formula 1 and A1 Grand Prix." This actually shows another strong point of podcast. No TV sports program in the Netherlands could pay so much attention to this branch of sports, but with podcasting, a much wider audience can be reached at a much lower expense which allows for all sorts of niche content that otherwise would not exist. "But it is hard to get the word out. Very very few people know this exists. When I visit a car race and offer my card, nobody knows what I am talking about." In the end new media are to stay. Technically it can offer all regular radio and TV can offer, at a lower cost and with the added advantages of the user choosing when, where and how to listen and what to listen to. Eventually podcasting can be fitted in a viable business model.