03.13.09
Help The Economy By Addressing The High Cost Of College / Student Loan Debt In America
With college costs continuing to soar and more college graduates struggling to make their student loan payments, the Reduce The Rate Petition is urging lawmakers to extend the benefits of the federal bailout to students.
Rev. Jesse Jackson has launched a new website to bring attention to the Student Loan Crisis in America.
He also recently appeared on Democracy Now! alongside Alan Collinge, author of the book The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt In U.S. History And How We Can Fight Back.
If you have student loans or have a family member with student loans, here’s how YOU can learn about this issue and help:
1. Visit Jackson’s new website ReduceTheRate.org, which advocates reducing the interest rate on student loans to 1%.
2. Visit StudentLoanJustice.org, which advocates restoring standard consumer protections to student loans.
3. Watch Rev. Jackson and Alan Collinge on Democracy Now! for full details.
4. Read The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt In U.S. History And How We Can Fight Back by Alan Collinge.
5. Listen to Alan Collinge interviewed on the Michael Savage Radio Show.
02.09.09
The Future of Voice Email?
Email is great for business, short notes, attachments, and links.
But it’s incredibly bad for detailed personal communications. More than about five sentences and no one has time.
I keep finding myself in the same situation: I want to send a nice update to family overseas, but don’t have time to write a long email. Or someone sends me a long email — the kind of thing that would have been a telephone conversation in the old days — and I don’t have time to respond to everything in a way that I would like without taking forever to reply or responding with another long email.
When faced with this situation, most online etiquette advice I’ve read says, “Just pick up the phone.” But what if your family and friends live in another time zone? Isn’t there a way to send a personal message without having to type out a long email or wait until you are awake in the middle of the night– and they are available too — to Skype?
An idea hit me the other day: Voice Email. Of course I had already heard that term years ago. For some reason, it hadn’t seemed that great an idea then. But these days, considering I’m a podcast addict and listen to recordings of people speaking all the time, it suddenly seemed to be a pretty natural thing to try. Why not just record my “update” to MP3 and email that? The recipient of the email could just listen at their convenience. Not only can I speak faster than I can write, but the recipient can probably listen a lot faster than they could wade through a long, formidable email.
01.05.09
Podcast We Love: “Sound Opinions”
Spiddlement discovered Sound Opinions podcast the other day by accident, and we’re addicted.
It looks like this show has been around for a while on Chicago Public Radio, but it’s news to us. Not only do we love the show, we also love the way it is so easy to download the MP3 files directly and listen as a podcast. [Are you paying attention here, NPR?]
“Take two nationally respected rock critics, the latest music news, personal commentary, and exclusive interviews and performances, add a huge pile of records old and new, and the result is Sound Opinions, the world’s only rock and roll talk show.
Based in Chicago, Sound Opinions is hosted by Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot, two of the finest and best-recognized pop music writers in the nation. In addition, they are the top music critics and dedicated competitors at Chicago’s two daily newspapers, the Chicago Sun-Times (Jim) and the Chicago Tribune (Greg).”
In just the past few days, we’ve listened to an interview with Laurie Anderson, an exclusive live performance by The Fiery Furnaces, a dissection of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison album, and a detailed review of Prince’s Planet Earth — just to name a few goodies — and we’re just getting started with their extensive show archives online.
If you like rock and pop music, you truly can’t go wrong with this podcast.
Rating: Five Stars (out of five possible)
We review podcasts … email us a link to your show or leave it in the comments section here.
05.27.08
Is Being A Night Owl Normal?
Are you a night owl? Me too.
Though I’ve spent the majority of my life fighting my nocturnal instincts, I’ve ALWAYS been a night person, even as a child. Day people, or larks, just don’t get it. It’s not that night owls *like* to stay up late… it’s just the most natural sleep rhythm for us.
Although I currently have an early morning job, I feel much more rested on the weekends when I can “sleep in”, and always seem to be at my mental peak well after “normal hours”.
Some people consider being a night owl a medical disorder (and I guess it could be, if it interferes with normal life activities). A few months ago, I was reading about “Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome”:
“Delayed sleep-phase syndrome (DSPS), also known as delayed sleep-phase disorder (DSPD) or delayed sleep-phase type (DSPT), is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder, a chronic disorder of the timing of sleep, peak period of alertness, core body temperature, hormonal and other daily rhythms relative to societal norms. People with DSPS tend to fall asleep well after midnight and have difficulty waking up in the morning.”
But, based on the number of people I know who are VERY productive during the wee hours of the morning and who have no actual “problems sleeping”, I’ve always wondered if maybe being a night owl was normal, at least for a certain percentage of the population.
So I was DELIGHTED to hear a recent interview with Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules on the excellent Brain Science Podcast. Here’s Dr. Medina, from the interview:
“20% [of people] are what we call ‘Late Chronotypes‘, or owls. These are people that don’t want to go to bed much before 3 o’clock in the morning, and don’t want to wake up much before noon. And they report that their best, most productive times, are in the evening and at night.
Now those sleep cycles, with the homeostatic sleep drive and the circadian arousal system, are probably set near birth. You can certainly see them at five or six years of age.”
There’s much more in the actual podcast, so you should definitely listen to the full interview.
I plan to pick up Medina’s book ASAP, because he also discussed a lot of other good ways to help your brain “survive and thrive at work, home, and school”. For example, I think it’s very interesting that regular physical exercise plays an important role in cognitive function.
The Brain Science Podcast is great in general. The host, Dr. Ginger Campbell, covers many interesting topics about the brain, and does it in language that is easy to understand.
It’s a fun, educational show and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Link (to interview with John Medina, PhD via Brain Science Podcast)
Link (to The Brain Science Podcast)
04.08.08
Q&A with Jennifer Wren Pt. 1
Jennifer Wren is a New York stage and screen actress to watch.
She recently appeared in a Brooklyn production of The Wild Party, and filmed a new commercial for Atari Dragon Ball Z.
Beginning this month, she will host a bi-weekly musical show at The Broadway Baby Piano Lounge in Manhattan.
Jennifer took time out of her busy schedule to answer a few questions for Spiddlement.
What is the coolest trend you’ve seen in NYC lately?
Short boots a la’ 1985. Very dapper hipsters (tuxes as daywear). Spectator shoes on men and women.
What’s the best witty aphorism you’ve heard in 2008?
“Every minute takes time.”
Tell us about your new open mic show that starts on April 24th.
04.04.08
Podcast Review: Speech Bites
The thing we like most about the Speech Bites podcast is its length — while some podcasts last more than 90 minutes, with too many segments, Speech Bites offers short enthusiastic bursts (bite-sized) of commentary on current events, making it the perfect length (“3 to 7 minutes for each bite”) for a short bus ride.
Speech’s Bites’ production values are high — it’s obvious we are listening to someone with pre-podcasting radio experience. The host (“radio name”: Rocky’s Daddy) has a unique and instantly memorable voice — it must be heard rather than described. His intonation goes up and down like a wild roller coaster, pausing in strange places, forcing you to pay attention, making you smile occasionally.
We think that news junkies would like this podcast a lot, especially since it’s updated quite regularly. As far as our personal tastes go, we think the podcast might be better if the host would talk about himself more — from his website, he sounds like an interesting guy, and listeners might enjoy learning more about him.
Of the episodes we heard, our favorite was the March 19 episode about Charles Jenkins (probably because we had been following this news story for a while, and it was fun to hear Rocky’s Daddy’s comments on it).
Link (to Speech Bites podcast site)
Link (to Speech Bites Feed URL)
Spiddlement reviews podcasts… email us a link to your show or leave it in the comments section here.
New Vonnegut Book Out
I was delighted to hear on NPR that there’s a new Kurt Vonnegut book out:
“Armageddon in Retrospect is the first collection of unpublished work by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who died at age 84 in April 2007. The 12 short pieces are Vonnegut’s reflections on peace, war and the human capacity for violence. His son, Mark Vonnegut, wrote the introduction to the book and discusses the posthumous collection.”
There’s a good interview with Mark Vonnegut too — on Talk Of The Nation.
04.01.08
Leave The iPod at Home When Traveling
From Rolf Potts’ blog:
“When I suggest to people that they don’t bring their iPod on a long trip, they often react as if I’ve told them not to bring any underwear. But it’s a perfectly sane suggestion, even for the tech-savvy, music-loving vagabond.”
I like Reason # 5: “Most places already have a built-in soundtrack. Bangkok isn’t Bangkok without its distinct sounds. This holds true for most cities, and rural areas as well. Honking horns, screeching tires, the white noise of people chattering in a foreign language– failing to experience these is failing to experience a place at all.”
Link (via Vagablogging)
03.21.08
Advice For New Podcasters
I often describe myself as a “podcast addict”. I love podcasts and listen almost every day (on the train to work, at home while doing housecleaning, anytime I get a chance). Podcasting is an amazing medium, and I don’t think its full potential has yet been reached.
But a lot of the general public still doesn’t seem to understand what podcasts are. As a listener (not a podcaster), here are my top tips for making your new podcast awesome.
1- Make your podcast available as an MP3 sound file and explain on your page that anyone can listen directly on their computer. (Many people don’t understand RSS feeds. There is no reason you have to make your podcast as “subscription only” just because it’s a podcast.) In other words, make it EASY for anyone to listen.
2- Don’t worry about doing a show every week. If you’ve got something interesting to talk about, just record it and put it up. Podcasts are not radio shows. Some of my favorite podcast do not produce new shows every week, so no worries.
11.07.07
Radiohead Album — Most Didn’t Pay Anything
On MSNBC… A new study says the majority of people who downloaded Radiohead’s In Rainbows didn’t opt to pay anything.
Some 62 percent of the people who downloaded “In Rainbows” in a four-week period last month opted not to pay the British alt-rockers a cent. But the remaining 38 percent voluntarily paid an average of $6, according to the study by comScore Inc.
I know some readers are going to disagree with me, but, honestly, $6 sounds about right for an album these days. Especially if it is just a digital download.
