EDIT: As of March 26, 2008 the Linux Reality podcast had its 100th and final episode. The series is really great and any user new to Linux will enjoy nearly every episode in the series. The IRC Channel (#linuxreality on irc.freenode.net) and the forums are still quite active. Cheers Chess, you were great and it’s great to chat with you on the IRC!

A great podcast show for those interested in Linux topics. The production quality is good and Chess Griffin is a talented host. Many of the topics are geared towards half-newbies, though some are more in depth. There’s a very large library of prior podcasts discussing a large variety of topics and some very interesting interviews, so there’s plenty to load up on your mp3 or ogg player of choice to enjoy.

There is this myth that Silicon Valley was all orchards when the chip companies arrived, but it’s not true. It had been building, building for a long time,” said Christophe Lécuyer, a Stanford-trained historian who turned his dissertation into a book, “Making Silicon Valley.”

Lécuyer, now an economic analyst with the University of California system, said the region’s technological awakening began almost a century ago when, not long after the great quake of 1906, the Bay Area – and particularly the Peninsula – began innovating with the then-hot technology of radio.

“The San Francisco Bay Area was a natural place for interest in radio because it was a seagoing region,” said Timothy Sturgeon, an industrial researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who described this radio period in a paper, “How Silicon Valley Came to Be.”

Click here for the full article, and images.

—

Related: Standford’s oral history of semiconductor technology, complete with audio interviews (Real Audio format).

From Amazon: The Fairchild Chronicles and The Microprocessor Chronicles: The History of the Microprocessor.

Also: The original Stanford press release from 2005.

While I thought the movie was just “ok”, I really do enjoy the radio show and I thought it’d be worth making a blog entry. I’ve always enjoyed NPR programming and a Prairie Home Companion offers a calming, warm, well . . . prairie-feeling, if there ever was such a thing. Garrison Keillor’s voice is soothing (just like Bob Ross‘ voice from The Joy of Painting) and his shows are equally so. The shows themselves are very entertaining, witty and hearkens to the time of classic radio performances.

I often think we’ve lost something in the art of the good radio show, while certainly TV and Movies are a great medium, it ‘s the effort our imagination offers that often makes an experience much more enjoyable (and longer lasting). Just like a good book meshes your mind’s eye with the text, a good radio program can bring together your personal memories and imagination for a more enjoyable experience. While a full blown movie can be entertaining and exicting, it’s more of a spectator sport. A good book or radio performance allows an audience to pariticpate.

I’ve recently noticed that the Prairie Home Companion’s News from Lake Wobegon and the Writer’s Almanac have both become podcasts! I applaud Garrison Keillor’s creativity, he’s a master storyteller and I enjoy his work thoroughly, especially the News from Lake Wobegon segments.

Again, those who think they got an accurate measure of the Prairie Home Companion from the movie are missing out (not once does the movie even mention Lake Wobegon!), I encourage you to check out their performances.

]]> http://www.lylebackenroth.com/blog/2007/08/21/38/feed/ 0 http://www.lylebackenroth.com/blog/2007/07/22/receiva-listen-to-radio-stations-from-all-over-the-world/ http://www.lylebackenroth.com/blog/2007/07/22/receiva-listen-to-radio-stations-from-all-over-the-world/#comments Sun, 22 Jul 2007 08:31:48 +0000 lyle http://www.lylebackenroth.com/blog/2007/07/22/receiva-listen-to-radio-stations-from-all-over-the-world/

Reciva brings the world of Internet radio into your home. They provide access to an extremely diverse range of Internet radio stations from around the world, with broadcasts from nearly every country on the planet. The radio stations are indexed and can be searched by genre or country. They also provide live and on-demand (“listen again”) content. It’s great for getting perspective on current events and getting exposure to content you might not otherwise ever hear about.

They also sell very quaint WiFi radios which allow you have access to the same huge variety of radio stations without the need of a PC or Laptop.

I thoroughly enjoy NPR and all its programming. It’s a cut above most of the media out there. A relatively new program called Radio Lab delves into the kinds of topics that mystify all of us: Time, Sleep, Death, Morality, Music, Space, etc. I’m often at work or asleep or otherwise busy when the program airs, but luckily they offer MP3′s of the programs to download and listen to later.