The gang here at Freethoughtblogs is going to try to do a regular podcast sort of thing — we’re not sure what to call it, so right now it’s the Podish-Sortacast. We’ll be going live on Sunday, 5 September, so join in the fun. We’d also like to hear from you: what kinds of things do you think an FtB podcast should talk about? What do you think of when you hear about our group?
Also, it’s going to be a surprise which of the many bloggers here makes an appearance. We might have a rotating cast, who knows?
If you want to invest more time on podcasts, maybe you could have some interactions with groups like The Scathing Atheist?
If there is some unusually ignorant meme about biology excreted by the usual suspects, you might help TSA unpack the different levels of Stupid.
(-For instance the claim that a fetus is “in” a woman, but not “of” a woman is used by the anti-abortionists, and when that comes up it would be useful to have someone who knows stuff about embryology around)
Is it going to be distributed as audio (however that happens) to the major podcast hubs (Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Libsyn, Podbean, iHeart, etc)? Or just Youtube? For listening in the car over sketchy connections the audio streaming may work better than Youtube per bandwidth. I never download, but stream which can suck in dead zones.
And I heard transcripts are good for accessibility and maybe being found in search engines (but don’t hold me to that last one). The accessibility thing is important, but even those not hearing disabled can benefit from text (vaguely heard words, searchability, quotability…). I think Youtube captions though those can be unintentionally comical.
I saw a tutorial video about all the ins and outs of podcasting. Glad I’m a consumer and not producer. I appreciate now what a PITA it can be. Good luck.
My first response when I hear about any “The (Adjective) Atheist” is great trepidation…
GAS, as a cognomen, for sure. But, you know, PZ is a Happy Atheist.
If you and those who participate have time to debunk various lies floating around along current events in ‘Merica that would be great. There is a near infinite need for debunking, but I realise it would not leave time for anything else…
Also, too much about current events would make for very depressing content.
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Fortunately the commentariat is full of people with good ideas, I look forward to more uplifting topics. And arachnids.
I’d like to see some of the FtBloggers who live outside the U.S., particularly the Affinity folks and Andreas Avester. I understand that time differences might be a problem.
Five pm in Morris may be midnight in Sweden, if I got the time zones right.
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BTW, researchers have located the genes that allow ‘daddy longlegs’ * to curl up the tip of their limbs thus getting a grip of sorts.
*Yes, I know they are not ‘real’ spiders.
@7: The image in PZ’s post says 3:00pm (MDT), 11:00pm (CEST). The U.S. mountain daylight time is UTC−6; Central European summer time is UTC+2. That’s a difference of eight hours, so the image seems to be correct.
It would be midnight for Andreas Avester (Eastern European summer time, UTC+3) and 5:00am the next day for Rhiannon since Taiwan observes UTC+8 year-round.
Since these podcasts happen on weekends, maybe some time around mid morning in the U.S. would be better for everybody.
But note that Morris is on central daylight time, UTC−5. Will the podcast really happen at 4:00pm, not 3:00pm, PZ’s time? If the image should have said CDT instead of MDT then, yes, midnight in Sweden, 1:00am in Latvia, and 6:00am in Taiwan.
(I’m a geek. What can I say?)
The beauty of podcasts is in listening at your leisure after an episode makes the queue. Time zones shouldn’t matter.
@9: time zones matter to participants. For example, if the podcast is being created when Rhiannon is heading off to work on Monday, then she won’t be one of the creators. (There could be other reasons as well, but that one seems sufficient.)
@10- Oops sorry. My bad.
I suffer from insomnia so nighttime podcasts are not new to me. Other europeans will likely insist on more convenient times. Really far East, it will be morning. Sonewhere between will be a zone where it is really difficult to find a time for a podcast that makes everyone happy.
If the podcast is just (or mostly) a bunch of talking heads — i.e., “no” real-time interaction with any audience or (all) the other talking heads, and not presented in real-time — then it need not be recorded all in one go, or at one time. Separately-recorded segments can be edited together to form the broadcast.