East Meets West – Podcast

Hey everyone, it's good to be back. I'm really busy at the moment, but I wanted to say how glad I am about the compliments Jon and I've received in regards to the theme. Tom: I'm very glad you're satisfied with the results, or as it is said in spanish: "Me alegro que su merced esta satisfecho con los resultdos" :-).

Mr. Chang (the real one, not the CGI composite version): what's your feedback?

Tom!

I see you're doing a GPS show next week for CNET Live. Would you be so kind to be sure to cover GPSes from a pedestrian angle as well? Nobody ever seems to give much thought to that part of it. I want a GPS that has a good pedestrian mode, gives voice prompts in pedestiran mode, and generally doesn't suck.

I submitted this as a question to DL.TV once, but it wasn't ever answered. I just assumed that they tasked Roger with reading the e-mails. Since he doesn't exist, all those questions that do make it to the show must be made up as well.

I want to see the iPhone host a DL.TV block too.

Thanks, and keep up the great podcasts.

yeah im working on the 'about' page issue, i sent tom a new header php file with the fixes.

p.s. good to be back in emw btw!

When I click about it goes to a 404 error on Baseball Prospects Blog. Like the new deisgn otherwise.

New theme looks great!

First off, love the podcast.

Kind of off topic from the rest of the comments, but I was listening to some of the old episodes of EMW. I enjoyed listening to the viewership increase, one viewer at a time. It made me wonder, in the 65 or so episodes since you got your first listener, how many are actually listening now?

I PLEAD you to PLEASE remove the extra episodes 74 and 73 from the feed, it's bugging me to no end when I see three different copies of the same podcast in Democracy. Please for my sanity?

Going to a ball game later today, if Bonds hits 4 home runs the San Franciscans will miss his record :P

The Reds stink.

How to sum up EMW? How about "2 guys riffing. ...more or less" more or less leaves room for guest cameos & remotes from the ballpark. It's the fact that you do it to amuse yourselves that makes it what it is. The moment you start second guessing yourselves to pander to what you think 'the audience' wants is when you start down the slippery slope to banal mediocrity. We already have plenty if that. (Are we a mediocracy?)
Stay true to your instincts. It's what separates art from commerce, and the world needs both. :)
Hope you had a happy indie-day. Fireworks are illegal here, so I'll be celebrating with dietcoke & mentos :P

It ended just when they were talking about the BlackBerry too. I smell conspiracy...

Oh, happy 4th of July :)

A little backgound: The district I live in -- that I just graduated from -- is in southwestern Ohio, very close to Cincinnati, but far enough away to not have any sort of Black population. In my graduating class of 243 there were literally 5 black students, additionally there ware about 10 asian students. Our community isn't racist nor are we out in the middles of nowhere.

Integration can be cool but I don't know that bussing is the answer. What if a family moves into a certain part of a large urban school district because its sub-district has the highest performance rating? Their house is very expensive but both work hard and long so they can live in the area and know their kids are going to a good school. Then the district decides to bus students to desegregate areas of the community like the one the family moved in, and in a lottery their kids names come up and are bussed across the city to the school in the bottom 25% of the districts performance. Is that fair? I don't think so. I think its a slippery slope bacuase of all the lurking vaiables that come into play.

I'm not really sure what I just said (it's 4am and I can't sleep) or if it has anything to do with the podcast since I've forgotten what it was about.

Happy Independece Day!!!!!111

Re: The Supreme Court Decision on Desegregation. Back in the late 1990s, I was on staff at an elementary school in a school district that was under a federal order. Everything measure the district did looked at the schools in terms of black and non-black population. The problem with that was my school was only 20% African American. What the formula did not take into account was that it was 50% hispanic (compared to probably 1 to 2 percent at the time of the order) and probably 90% of low socio-economic status. The political and court systems simply didn't keep up with the reality of the demographic changes.

Speaking of sitars...

Here's two of my most favorite sitar hits!

http://tinyurl.com/2zflnr and
http://tinyurl.com/2yjhob

I'm very sorry to report to you that your donation will be slightly delayed since I maxed out my credit card buying both of these cool tracks! :-(

Yeah um, Blaze. I seem to have the same issue about that cut off. My download cut off about the time they mention money.... Funny that! :-)

Seriously, I only have a $5,000 limit and my credit card, Tom and Roger. I figured you would not be interested in me making such a trivial donation. I didn't want to waste you time of insult you by donation anything less! My Bad!

I totally enjoy the show!!

Opinions about Mr. Christopher Hitchens? Columnist at Slate.com and Vanity Fair. Noted polemicist who wrote 'god is not Great: how religion poisons everything' - which I am about to start reading, after reading his much earlier 'Letters to a Young Contrarian'.

That ending was a bit unexpected. You guys paying homage to the Sopranos finale? Or were you too busy counting your 2 million dollars to continue?

At any rate, I loved the comments on the shoe-lacing and knot-tying. I recently ran across these sites thanks to User Friendly's Link of the Day (LOTD).

Shoe laces - http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/lacingmethods.htm
Knots - http://animatedknots.com/index.php

While definitely cool, the shoe-lacing methods seem more about appearance than actual function in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, I definitely appreciated the animated knots website. I have had several encounters in my life (whether it be camping, pulling a sled, or putting up curtains) when I've needed a good knot but lacked the know-how to do so simply. I usually ended up making huge, unnecessarily complicated knots to get the job done. Hopefully this will save some time and space in the future.

James
Vineland, NJ

I'd just like to say thanks for a great podcast, I found you a couple of weeks ago and I am now working my through the EMW Archives.
The focussed, yet random nature of your conversations is very refreshing, is the podcast still in Beta or Gamma? Surely Delta status cannot be far away?
Eagerly awaiting the start of the Tour de France - in London.
Rich

What's up with the "Sopranos" ending? Did Roger get wacked ?

Which books are Tom & Roger reading right now? Any reading recommendations? (Have you read Assault on Reason yet?)

It seemed like it cut off at the end! It was talking about its phone.