Freyburg

In what is either the penultimate or last Radio Free Skaro of 2006, steven and Warren review the two most recent episodes of Torchwood, then delve into some new clips from the Runaway Bride that have recently surfaced. We also discuss the veritable tsunami of Who on its way at the end of the year, with the aforementioned Bride, the two-part season finale of Torchwood, and the premiere of the Sarah Jane Adventures. And we round out the podcast with some terrible Dalek-themed Xmas music from the ’60’s. W00t!(feed, web, direct download)

Today is the tenth anniversary of scientist and author Carl Sagan’s death, and his son Nick Sagan is holding a blog-a-thon so the Internet can reflect on his life and career.

When I was about 10 years old, I read Cosmos, the book based on the television series that brought Sagan much of his fame. That book is probably the one thing most responsible for my initial and continued interest in science, astronomy and history. Sagan also wrote other books, including a sci-fi tome called Contact that was later made into a phenomenal film.

But Sagan’s greatest gift was taking arcane scientific concepts and making them accessible to the public. In a big way he’s indirectly responsible for things like the Discovery Channel, Bill Nye, and other programs that take science out of the lab and into the public.

So, fellow nerds, how did Sagan’s work affect you? Comment away.

Time gathered several authors of recent books about the war in Iraq (recurring theme: unmitigated disaster) and had them hash out their thoughts on the Mess O’ Potemia in a roundtable. Interesting stuff.

I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff, but here’s a compilation of some of the worst album covers of all time. My personal favorite? Colonel Sanders’ Tijuana Picnic.

Nothing much to this post, I just wanted to share that phrase, uttered by a friend at my birthday party last night. “Can I google the internet?” Heh.

Gawker, the masters of New York snark, have compiled a list of cliched blog tropes that have outstayed their welcome and should be purged from the lexicon immediately. I agree with most of their choices, though I hold a special affection for PWNED.

Bruce Sterling, noted author and big thinker, has a thoughtful piece about the end of futurism for his last column in Wired Magazine. He points out that the Internet isn’t the utopian panacea it’s made out to be, or the end of the world as we know it…it’s just a game changer.

I’d go further and say it’s an enabler. Because of the Internet, I can get a lot more done than I used to, in a lot less time. I can also keep in contact with a bunch of people that would have fallen by the wayside…my entire crew of university nerd buddies and I have kept in touch for almost 15 years thanks to a combination of mailing lists, IM, and video games. When one of them steps off a plane, it’s like we saw each other yesterday. And we’re a bunch of codgers; to today’s teen, the Internet is just another extension of their life, as normal as TV was for us (a point Sterling make much more eloquently in his column.)

We’ve found with these Torchwood episodes that we get a better show if we review two at a time. There’s also a bit of a dearth of news from the world of Who, but in a few short weeks that’ll all change as Torchwood reaches its season finale, The Sarah Jane Adventures premiere (which I have my doubts about, but never mind…), and best of all, the Runaway Bride brings back the Doctor for Christmas Day. But the upshot of all this is that we’re going to wait until early next week to record our next episode. Stick with us, loyal fans!

Dan Gillmor, the pioneering journalist who pulled up stakes and moved onto the net before just anyone else, is predicting the end of the photojournalist and videographer as a profession. His argument is that in an age of digital cameras and Youtube, proximity and speed is going to trump experience and skill. Probably true, and I wouldn’t be surprised if blogs replace the foreign correspondent (if they haven’t already). It’s sort of sad to see the quasi-romantic era of the globetrotting reporter come to an end….but on the other hand it was bound to happen eventually.

It dawned on me today that it’s been five years since I was unceremoniously shunted from the halls of Movie Central. Those who know me know the details that followed, both good and bad. But the larger point is that if I hadn’t gotten a metaphorical ass-booting at that time, there’s a good chance I’d still be in Edmonton, working at a television station and miserable beyond words.

In the last five years, I’ve been to Japan twice and Thailand once, gone to school again, ridden the Vancouver real-estate market’s strange wave upward, been a newspaper reporter in small towns in Alberta and British Columbia, returned to Vancouver, made new friends, worked at a trade paper, moved into PR and taken pictures of Cylons. And I met a wonderful woman who’s just about the funniest, coolest, and ladynerdiest catch ever.

And, partly because of this blog, I actually became a professional writer. None of this would have happened if TV hadn’t chewed me up and spit me out. Recently my coworkers felt the icy sting of the unemployment boot, as the entire station packed up and headed to Toronto. I can only hope they see this development not as a setback, but a blessing. It sure worked out that way for me.