Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Episode 14 Blackbirds

Episode 14, Blackbirds, Common Blackbird, and SR71 spy plane :)



Episode 14, Blackbirds



Hey guys, welcome to episode 14 of Jay Wont dart's podcast, where I talk about things that interest me, and maybe you'll find interesting as well.

This episode is about Blackbirds, first the Bird happens to be Black, and then the Area 51 spy plane.

The intro for this episode was the second episode of Auto Tune The News, search for it on youtube. I asked permission from the stars to be featuring it as my intro. I'll include the link in shownotes as always, that you seen in the lyrics mode of your iPod etc, but its easier to just search "auto tune the news" on youtube. Auto Tune The News works by using a green screen to put extra people into news footage, its quite cool to see how they hide the extra people in behind podiums and other items in the news video. Make sure you watch the full video, and see other Auto Tune The News episodes that have been made.

I've also decided to do a new outro format, I'll stop throwing the same song on, Cant Say No To A Soldier, and instead do another No Agenda clip for the end, so hopefully each episode will have a shiny new intro, and outro for you to listen to, start to finish.

The Common Blackbird,latin name Turdus Merula (meaning thrush, and blackbird), is found worldwide. There are many different types of the actual Black-Bird, and thats excluding every other animal thats both a bird, and black. Interesting fact, only male blackbirds are actually black, the female is a dull brown, probably better for camouflage. Males start off fairly dark brown, and they eventually turn black, with a bright orange beak, and orange ring around each eye.


According to Wikipedia, Shakespeare wrote about the Blackbird, calling it a "woosell". Not sure if Im saying that right. , "The Woosell cocke, so blacke of hew, With Orenge-tawny bill" Apparently Woosell was a popular name for the Blackbird up until the 17th century or so.

Blackbirds have long been my favourite common bird, I like how shiny and black they are, as well as the colour around their eye and on their beak, that bright orange. Blackbirds eat a lot of insects, which makes me sad, but they do like berries and other fruit too. So theres hope that I could have a whole bunch of Vegan Blackbirds, they eat any seeds or bread you leave out for them.

They normally over 20 centimetres long, and weigh between about 80 and 120 grams. My iPhone weighs about 130 grams in comparison, its fairly solid for a cellphone, so that gives you an idea. Lets say that a Blackbird weighs the same as the average cellphone. Birds all have hollow bones, to make them light enough to fly.

Apparently Blackbirds can mimic other birds, they can hear other birds singing, telephones ringing and things like that, and impersonate them. Its meant to be fairly rare for people to hear it though, not sure why. I think thats pretty impressive, I know that people who have caged birds often find them mimicking people and the telephone, its probably because they are so bored and lonely in the cage they are trying to have exercise.

Here is some of the Blackbirds song, they sound similar to other thrushes, like those light brown and white speckled birds, that look almost the same as Blackbirds if not for colour.




Did you recognise that?

I also like Blackbird nests, they are round and quite smooth, the brown, female Blackbird makes the nest, from twigs, sticks, thin scraps of plastic and other long and thin materials she can find. Mud is used to stick everything together, I've never watched birds making a nest from scratch, must be pretty impressive. Inside the nest, 4 eggs are normally laid, they are a light green colour, like light green/blue chewing gum, with red spots on it. Overseas , other birds like Cuckoos try and sneak their eggs in to the Blackbirds nest, thats where the term "cuckold" (cuck-old) comes from, it means a stupid husband doesnt know that the children in his house arnt his, his wife cheated on him, and hes raising some other mans kids, like Cuckoos try and pawn off their eggs to other birds, for others to raise. New Zealand doesnt have any cuckoos that try and do this to Blackbirds, but overseas there are plenty, and the Blackbirds there know how to spot the difference between the eggs, I think they throw the other eggs out of the Blackbird nest when they find them.

Blackbirds are monogamous, like most birds, they stay with their partner for their entire lives. Very sweet. Daddy Blackbird also helps feed the chicks. Wikipedia says most Blackbirds in the wild live for just over 2 years, doesnt sound very long to me. The oldest recorded individual was over 21 years old.

A clip from Wikipedia about the song,



A sad fact about Blackbirds, they often have parasites. They pick them up from all the time they spend in long grass, they get ticks, and internal parasites. Especially rural birds in the country, 74% of French countryside birds were found to have parasites, only 2% from urban areas had the parasites, according to a French survey.

One more clip from Wikipedia.



I often wanted a pet bird when I was growing up, when I was very little my parents hand lovebirds, they are nice, green and red coloured little birds, like budgies. But its very mean to have birds in cages, since Birds naturally fly long distances each and every day, and have whole social communities, with different songs that get memorised by different "blackbird tribes". If I could have a little Blackbird friend, I'd call him Winston Peepers, like Winston Peters the infamous New Zealand politician, but with Peepers for the 'peep peep' noise baby birds are meant to make. I'd teach him to raise hell, my little fighter squadron of Blackbirds would knock spinsters, ha, only old ones, not pretty Vegan ladies who could have any man they want, down steps, to get their handbags. Or, maybe I could teach them to have just one on the footpath, with a note in its beak, it would beckon the old lady onward, she'd take the note from its beak, and read "give me all your money", when she failed to do that, then my black cloud would descent from the rooftops and peck her to an inch away from death, and THEN take the handbag.

I've always thought Blackbirds looked very nice and gentle, but theres something kinda "evil" about them, not sure why. Its not the colour black, I think its the orange band around the eye, its like a bandit's mask or something.

I figure, even if for some reason my song birds didnt want to murder the elderly, they could always just fly around town and find shiny coins on the street, im sure birds can notice those very well, they will have great eye sight, and notice shiny things. But, up until now, birds wont have understood the concept of money. I'll change that, I'll get my little friends to pay for their own keep, finding money in return for Budget brand canned corn, worth about a buck at Pak n Save.


----------

I started off talking about the Blackbird, now I'll talk about THE Blackbird, the SR71 Blackbird, officially the fastest millitary plane EVER. This baby did over 3500 kilometres per hour, to put that in perspective, the largest commercial planes do about 900 kilometres an hour, the SR71 was heading close to 4 times that. Most fighter jets now have been stuck at about 2000 kilometres per hour, none do 3000, at least no known fighter jets can. Its a matter of balance, its either bigger, thirstier, heavy engines, or a tradeoff to get excellent maneuverability, to be agile as well as fast.

The Concorde, that lovely supersonic commercial plane, it could to 2000 kilometres per hour, and was very, very hard for fighter jets to keep up with. But the SR71 would breeze past it. A way to measure speed is the time it takes to go from London to New York, a Boeing 747 takes a little over 6 hours to do the trip one way, Concorde could do it just under 3 hours, so thats twice as fast, 6 hours, down to 3, the SR71 did it slightly under 2 hours.

You know that Austin Powers bit, where they see all the weird things, and call out rude words? One part has Dr Evils spaceship showing up on radar as part of a man, well the SR71 pretty much looks like that in reality, its very beautiful, but kinda obscene too. Its very long looking, it looks black, but Im told its actually a very, very dark blue, made out of titanium for strength and light weight, with two large engine pods , one on each side.

The SR71 is the only successful version of its A12 precursor, which was actually very slightly faster, by a tiny bit, and could also fly very slightly higher, because it was lighter than the SR71.

Other versions of the A12 include the YF12, an interceptor, basically all the A12/Y12/SR71 planes looked pretty much the same, 90%, and flew over Mach 3, they were just for different roles. SR71 and A12 were for recon, spying, with their cameras and sensors, the YF12 was for taking out bomber planes. Officials decided that the YF12 Mach 3 interceptor wasnt needed, no bombers went near that speed, and so it was never created in large numbers. 32 SR71s were made, 13 A12s, and just 3 YF12 interceptors.

I'll focus on the SR71 again, it could barely take off, it leaked its ultra expensive fuel on the ground, needed help from starter carts on the ground, which had big american car engines in them, these spun the engines up to speed until they could run themselves, the plane limped off the runway, and had to dive, point down to break the sound barrier, Mach 1. But, once it got up to that speed, it rapidly accelerated to Mach 3. The engines themselves are rumoured to have handled mach 4 and a half, about 5000 kilometres per hour, but the rest of the plane couldnt handle the heat. The SR71 was made out of Titanium almost entirely. The Titanium had to be smuggled in from the Soviet Union, it had to be hidden, because the US was in the Cold War against the Soviet Union at the time of course.

Politicians were often against the SR71, who didnt understand it, and saw it as expensive and un needed. The Air Force was also not very fond of it. The SR71 was taken out of use in late 1989. It had survived prior attempts at retirement. But, it was actually reinstated, and used again, the first Blackbird took to the sky again in 1995. The Blackbird was permanently retired in 1998. President Bill Clinton had cancelled funding for the plane in 1997, it was in 1998 that it was finally put into its grave.

Theres many places in America where you can see the SR71 Blackbird, I'd like to visit a lot of the air museums and see one for myself. One of the coolest ones is in New York, the Intrepid Sea Air and Space museum. Its a giant retired aircraft carrier, moored near a highway, and has a whole bunch of famous planes on deck, including an F16, and an A12, the precursor to the SR71. Next to it, theres a retired Concorde, wow, and a nuclear submarine. Just amazing! To think they are all in the same place, and anyone can see these treasures.

Thank you for listening to my Blackbird episode.

Time for my new outro, the clip is from a porn star award show! Its worth hearing!

If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.

Have a super happy day, bye.



Sources:
------------

Auto Tune the News episode 2, used for intro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBb4cjjj1gI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Blackbird

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird

http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/

Outro, Porn star show No Agenda clip from episode 92

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Episode 13 Crackpot

Episode 13, Crackpot.

A sampler of clips from the No Agenda podcast, focusing on Adam Curry, aka Crackpot.

Wacky, crazy, zany conspiracy theories are the order of the day :)

Make sure you listen to the earlier "The Buzzkill episode" for the other half of No Agenda, John C Dvorak, The Buzzkill

Friday, April 24, 2009

Episode 12 and The Buzzkill

Episode 12, and The Buzzkill

A clip show extravaganza! I've taken a fairly random sampling of the No Agenda podcast, focusing on John C Dvorak AKA "The Buzzkill". Listen as Dvorak talks about honey, hummingbirds, Soy Milk, oh, and flu shot conspiracies, evil business, false presidential elections.......

Coming soon, Episode 13, Crackpot, focusing more on Adam Curry's side of No Agenda :)

Thank you to the No Agenda podcast makers, Adam Curry, and John C Dvorak, for letting me use clips from their amazing podcast, my favourite podcast, excluding that VEGAN podcast for New Zealanders :P

Monday, April 13, 2009

Episode 11 Richard Nixon

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Episode 10 Podcasts

Episode 10, Podcasts

Hello and welcome to the tenth episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast.

This episode is about Podcasts themselves, a brief history of podcasting, some of my favourite podcasts, and how I make my podcasts. Perhaps you'll like some of the podcasts I mention, or even decide to make a podcast of your own.

Podcasting started as a way to have subscriptions to audio shows. It sort of evolved from RSS feeds, which stand for Really Simple Syndication. RSS feeds are like a website address that gets used by a program, such as an internet browser like Firefox, or a media program for podcasts such as Apple's iTunes. Using the podcast example, the RSS feed is subscribed to, checked for updates, and if they're available, iTunes will then download the latest episode.

Focussing on iTunes and podcasting again, Apple added a Podcast feature to iTunes in June 2005, with a podcast directory that had 3000 podcasts linked to. Within two days, one million podcast subscriptions were reported.

To give you a little idea about how useful podcasts can be, I'll include a short episode from ABC news, interviewing Apple CEO Steve Jobs when podcast features were released into iTunes.




One of the most famous podcasters is Adam Curry, who makes the "No Agenda" podcast that I love. Curry is known as "The Podfather", for being a celebrity who embraced the podcast medium early on. He didnt invent the idea of podcasts, but grabbed the idea while it was small, and held on.

Another famous podcaster is Leo Laporte, who broadcasts some thirty hours of audio a week, he has his own company TWiT, This Week in Tech, which has about 10 podcasts about Apple computers, Windows running PC's, security, bio tech and general computer news.

Most major news organizations also put out podcasts, I subscribe to the 60 Minutes podcast, its awesome, its actually only 40 something minutes long, you miss 20 whole minutes of ads from the tv version! Its also the full american version, in New Zealand we get a rehashed version for NZ, with a New Zealand host, and a couple of normally lame New Zealand stories each episode. The American show focuses on much larger issues normally like war, A list celebrity interviews, health breakthroughs etc. The stupid New Zealand issues are normally slapped in for some kiwi content, things about young mothers in Auckland, or P users in Christchurch. Not only do I miss out on 20 minutes of ads, but I also get to hear major stories a week or two before they are on the NZ show. I dont ever watch the televised NZ 60 minutes now, just listen to the podcast that comes out monday my time, probably released sometime sunday American time.

I also get Time podcasts, from Time magazine, documentaries from the BBC and audio from NPR, which is an american public radio station, we know them best from parodies on The Simpsons and Grand Theft Auto games where they have really boring content, and constantly beg for listener donations every 2 minutes.

Theres many types of online only content released as podcasts too, my Time magazine podcasts are only available as podcasts of course, you cant have audio in the magazine edition, so actual audio from interviews is released as podcasts, whereas in the magazine you just get edited text from the conversations.

Some of the best content only released as podcasts that I listen to include Stephen Fry's PODGRAMS, Stephen Fry is perhaps the smartest man in the world, Tank Riot, which is kind of my inspiration for my own podcasts, a bunch of friends talking about topics they like, and the many Vegan podcasts I like listening to, the most enjoyable is NZ Vegan Podcast. Until theres a Vegan Channel on TV, the internet and podcasting in particular is indispensable for Vegan shows.

Podcasts can be anything from some weird guy talking into a microphone in his bedroom, ahem, to professionally produced shows like the NZ Vegan Podcast. An interesting interview trick in podcasts is people using Skype to call people, and recording the audio from the call, there might as well be two people in a recording booth recording the show together, when they can be anywhere in the world thanks to Skype.


I'll quickly list the podcasts I subscribe to, all 36 of them :) I'll make it quick.

Adam Currys Daily Source Code, where Adam Curry talks about conspiracies,


Cranky Geeks, John C Dvoraks main show, I listen to the audio only version , its about 15MB per show compared to 100+ for the video , a computer news show,

The Debate Hour Podcast, debating for, you guessed it, an hour about gun control, abortion etc,

BBC Documentaries, stories about The Beetles and the Soviet union among others,

Great Speeches in History, where I've got a speeches from Nixon and Reagan, Martin Luther king and Nelson Mandela.

I Cringely, Cringely is a tech writer who also records his articles and puts podcast editions up, its very cool to choose between reading and listening, both for free, it takes me a minute or two to read the story, or about 10 minutes normally to listen to it read.

Borats Bits was a one off podcast, an australian interview with Borat, a character by Sacha Baron Cohen,

Next is my podcast,

The Kojima productions podcast, video game news,

The Laporte Report, The Tech Guy and Mac Break Weekly, all Leo Laportes technology podcasts,

Macintosh Folklore Radio, stories about the 1984 Macintosh development read out,

Marcus Lush, a Radio Live podcast that NEVER seems to get updated, its the highlights from his morning radio show,

Meat Free Media Podcast, a New Zealand Vegetarian/Vegan podcast,

Motown 50, Motown is celebrating a look back at their long history, this includes interviews with stars such as Stevie Wonder,

No Agenda, one of my favourite podcasts talking about random things mostly, life experiences, politics, real news, conspiracies and how Vegans are to blame for everything.


Bored yet? Almost over.

Intelligence Squared, and NPR Memorable moments 2007, thats from the american public radio station I mentioned , Intelligence Squared is some very good debates held in New York, and Memorable Moments is highlights from 2007 that were on the radio.

NZ Vegan podcast, my personal favourite podcast, and thats saying something, I listen to podcasts for over an hour a day, and NZ Vegan is by far my favourite.

The Onion Radio News, one minute fake news clips, very funny.

Peta's Podcast, talking about animal rights ,

The Secret Diary of Steve Ballmer, a joke podcast with articles from the fake ballmer blog read by Alex, the mac voice I also use. Hasnt been updated for awhile now.

A Meet the Author Episode, Meet The Author is an Apple podcast featuring book writers talking about their books for an hour or so, I have the Stephen Fry episode, he talks about his history with Apple computers.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at D5, a tech conference with Bill Gates from Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple talking with Walt Mossberg, a famous tech journalist.

Tank Riot, talking about mostly nerdy topics like sci fi movies and scientists, a very good podcast.

Tech 5 comes out during week days, its an american podcast by John C Dvorak who also is on Cranky Geeks and No Agenda,

This WEEK in TECH, Leo Laportes main podast that comes out weekly of course,

Thrillercast, people talking about how great black Michael Jackson was, to do with the release of Thriller 25, the greatest selling album of all time,

Three Time magazine podcasts, Entertainment, Politics and 10 Questions, where you hear full interviews.

Vegan Freak Radio, a podcast for Vegans,

and finally the 60 minutes show.

Right now I have 9GB of podcasts, 11.1 days worth according to iTunes. I have 36 different podcasts.

To end, I'll tell you, dear listener, how I make my podcast.

Basically, I type out a script, I figure out what I want to talk about in advance, what sound clips I want to use, and get it all prepared. Then I use Garageband, a audio recording program that comes with all Apple computers, part of iLife, I basically open up TextEdit, which is the Word like program with my script in it, I click record in Garageband and Command Plus Tab to switch quickly to the script in front of all the other programs. If I need to pause and correct a mistake or something I can switch back and re-record that flubbed line. To put sound files in , I just drag AAC sound files into Garageband in the place I want them.

Finally, when Im all recorded in Garageband, I export the recording to iTunes, which takes a couple of minutes getting it all mixed right, and convert it from a 900MB odd AIFF type sound file to a 10-40MB AAC sound file, for the final podcast.

I put in the information like author, the name of the podcast episode, and I copy the script I read from into the Lyrics section, or description, so it shows up when you play the sound file back on an iPod or in iTunes itself.

I also add the Album art, a photo I took of a Dragonfly outside of the kitchen here.

When I have the AAC sound file on my Desktop, I upload to archive.org, which saves websites like a museum, they seem to have infinite storage space, they let you upload files for free to their servers.

Then, I copy the actual link to the sound file on the Archive.org server, very important, and paste that as a media link into my Blog. At the Blog, www.jaywontdart.blogspot.com, I also paste the show script in the blog entry. So you could always just read my full podcast episode there without downloading the audio :)

When I update my blogspot blog, my Feedburner RSS feed account picks up the new entry and adds it to my RSS Feed automatically. I also log into Feedburner to update the RSS feed's description for iTunes to pick up, I include the topics of the episode into the description so they also work as keywords on iTunes, if someone searchs for keywords I've used in my podcast topics, it should show in iTunes, if you search for South Invercargill, or Mister Rogers, I should show up.

iTunes just shows the RSS feed, it doesnt do any storage or sending of the podcast itself. The crucial thing in podcasting is the RSS feed, you dont need iTunes to listen to podcasts, its the best thing for podcast management of course, but you dont need it. All you need is the RSS feed address.

So, to sum up, I record my podcast, upload it to archive.org who host for free, I make a blog post with the link to the actual file, my feedburner RSS feed picks up that new blog entry automatically and when iTunes updates RSS feeds, it will notice my new episode and download it automatically to your computer! Simple!

Well, thank you again for listening to this long and boring podcast episode. My next episode topics include some more No Agenda stuff, Im making two seperate episodes, one for Crackpot and one for The Buzzkill, clips from No Agenda to do with each of the main hosts, Crackpot, Adam Curry, with his wacky conspiracies, including the Hydroxy Booster he got a bunch of hippies to cook up and add to his Jaguar, to try and get more out of the fuel he uses.

The Buzzkill, John C Dvorak, the calmer older host, with lots of interesting lifestories. Some of the things he talks about include Hummingbirds, Soy Milk, Honey and the little Black Kids who go door to door in his area trying to get you to buy magazines.


If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.

Have a super happy day, bye.

<--End song You Can't Say No To A Soldier plays-->

Written for: Iceland (1942)
Lyric: Mack Gordon
Music: Harry Warren
Year: 1942
Original publisher: Twentieth Century Music Corporation, rights controlled by
Mayfair Music Corp



Listen, little lady, it's the order of the day,
Issued by the highest of authority;
Fellows in the service simply can't be turned away,
You know that defense must get priority.
So, if you're patriotic'lly inclined,
Heed the call to arms, and keep this thought in mind:


Chorus 1:


You can't say, "No," to a soldier,
A sailor or a handsome marine;
No, you can't say, "No," if he wants to dance,
If he's gonna fight, he's got a right to romance;
So, get out your lipstick and powder,
Be beautiful and dutiful, too.
If he's not your type, then it's still o-kay,
You can always kiss him in a sisterly way,

Oh, you can't say, "No,
No, you gotta give in,
If you want him to win for you.

Chorus 2 (from movie)

You can't say, "No," to a soldier,
A sailor or a handsome marine;
No, you can't say, "No," if he wants to dance,

If he's gonna fight, he's got a right to romance;
So, get out your lipstick and powder,
Be beautiful and dutiful, too.
If he says it's cold on those submarines,
You can knit a sweater, but that's not what he means;
Oh, you can't say, "No,"
No, no, no, no, no, no;
No, they're not made of tin,
So, you better give in

If you want him to win for you.






Sources
------------

Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting

ABC News Podcasting added to iTunes, interview with Steve Jobs from the iTunes store