The Author – Bart Busschots
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May
4
Science Podcast Recommendations
Filed Under Science & Astronomy on May 4, 2017 | 1 Comment
I promised a colleague in work that I’d send him on a list of the science podcasts I recommend, but as I was composing the email I realised this might be of value to others, so I’ve compiled my list as a blog post instead. These are all podcasts I listen to religiously, and in most cases, podcasts I have been listening to for many years.
- Astronomy Cast
- The show’s tagline is “not just what we know, but how we know what we know”, and what could be more scientific than that? The show doesn’t just aspire to that tag line, it lives up to it, and that’s the main reason I’ve been a happy subscriber for many years. The episodes are about 30 minutes long on average, and come out about once a week. Details at www.astronomycast.com.
- Big Picture Science
- This show is produced by the SETI institute, but it’s a general science show, not a show focused only on SETI or even astronomy. This show is syndicated across many radio stations in the US, so it’s no surprise that what you get is a professionally scripted, presented, and edited show with amazing guests. The fact that the hosts are friendly and have a good report with each other is the icing on the cake. Details at radio.seti.org.
- Gastropod
- This is not a pure science show, but there’s a lot of science in it, and it’s definitely a show that does its best to separate fact from fiction. The show’s tag-line is “Food with a side of science and history”, and that sums things up pretty well. This is not a show where you go to learn how to cook, or to pick up interesting recipes. Instead, it’s the kind of show where you learn things like how you can turn the same basic ingredient, milk, into so many and such varied cheeses. This is a professionally scripted and produced show, and it’s released in seasons, so you often have to wait a while for new episodes to come out. I’ve always found it to be worth the wait though! Details at gastropod.com.
- The Jodcast
- This is a hard-core astronomy show produced by postgraduate students at the University of Manchester and the Jodrell Bank radio telescope. They do a main monthly show, and most months, you also get a bonus extra show about half way through the month. If you’re into Astronomy I think you’ll love the Jodcast, but if you’re not, this show is probably not for you. Details at www.jodcast.net.
- The Naked Scientists
- A professionally produced weekly podcast covering general science. The show is produced in the UK, and its original incarnation was as a BBC radio show. The show is about an hour long, and always very well researched and paced. One of the things I love about the show is that they put a big focus on interviewing the actual scientists who wrote the papers that are making the scientific news the show covers. Press releases and news reports can’t describe the context and significance of a result nearly as well as the people who actually did the work! Details at www.thenakedscientists.com.
- Naked Astronomy
- This is an astronomy-focused spin-off from The Naked Scientists. Episodes tend to be about half an hour long, and are obviously completely astronomy focused. If you enjoy the style of The Naked Scientists, and you like Astronomy, then you should enjoy Naked Astronomy. Details at www.thenakedscientists.com/podcasts/astronomy.
- Science Vs
- I only discovered this show recently, but it’s so good I listened to every show in the archive within the first week of discovering it. The idea is very simple – each episode the show takes on a controversial topic, and looks at it from a purely scientific perspective. Does immigration drive up crime? Do specific gun controls actually reduce deaths? Does removing guns from a society increase crime rates? Does having an abortion increase a woman’s chances of getting breast cancer? The show doesn’t shy away from any of today’s hot topics, but it’s totally apolitical – it’s about the science of these topics, not the politics, and I find that very refreshing. While the show has no problem tackling the big issues, there are also more light-hearted episodes like one which asks the vitally important question – are wine and chocolate good for us or not? Details at gimletmedia.com/science-vs.
- Star Talk Radio
- This is astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s ever-growing network of shows. While there’s often an astronomical focus, these are definitely general science shows, and they tend to be a nice mix of informative and fun. The format always involves a mix of scientists and comedians, which might sound odd, but it really works – it keeps you laughing and learning. The comedians play the role of the everyman perfectly, asking all the “dumb” (no such thing) questions you’re probably shouting at your phone as you listen. Details at www.startalkradio.net.
Mar
30
Spectacle – Another Mac Window Tiler
Filed Under Computers & Tech on March 30, 2017 | 1 Comment
Earlier this week I posted a review of the Mac window tiling app Magnet which is currently on sale in the Mac App Store for €0.99. @DriesDeRoeck replied on Twitter to point me nice free and open source alternative – Spectacle.
Mar
28
Magnet – A Mac Window Tiler
Filed Under Computers & Tech on March 28, 2017 | 2 Comments
Magnet is the first Mac app I discovered organically on the front page of the Mac App Store. I wasn’t looking for anything, I just opened the Mac App Store app to run some updates, and there, on the front page, Apple were featuring Magnet, and it caught my eye and then my interest enough to hand over €0.99 to there an then!
What does Magnet do? It’s a macOS app that allows you to quickly and easily re-size and re-position windows to a number of useful presets so you can easily lay out your windows. You can instantly adjust any given window so it takes up the left half of the screen, the bottom-right quarter, and so on. The app is clearly inspired by the built-in feature that has shipped with the last few versions of Microsoft Windows that allows you to snap windows into a few pre-defined arrangements by bouncing them off one of the edges of the screen, but Magnet takes that idea farther than Microsoft have, and it does so in a very Mac-friendly way.
Nov
1
Review – Trekz Titanium from AfterShokz
Filed Under Computers & Tech on November 1, 2016 | 4 Comments
A year and a few months ago I bought my first bone conduction headphones – a pair of Damson Headbones. I was initially quite happy with them, but they began to develop some quirks that got worse and worse over time. I recently replaced them with a pair of Trekz Titanium bone conduction bluetooth headphones from AfterShokz, and I’m much happier.
Aug
9
Two Plugins to help turn WordPress into a CMS
Filed Under Computers & Tech on August 9, 2014 | 1 Comment
As described in a post earlier today, I have made some significant changes to this site. The short version is that I’ve started to use WordPress as a CMS (content management system). While the WordPress APIs provide a good range of functions for doing CMS-like things, the web interface is disappointingly lacking in even basic CMS features. Thankfully, WordPress’s plugin architecture has allowed the community to fill in the gaps.
Jan
3
Why Did Steve Choose Walter Isaacson?
Filed Under Computers & Tech on January 3, 2012 | 1 Comment
I finished the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson quite some time ago, but I didn’t bother to blog a review because I didn’t think I had anything to contribute to the discussion that hadn’t already been more eloquently argued by others. But, when listening to John Gruber and Dan Benjamin discuss the book on the Talk Show podcast a few weeks back, they raised a question that piqued my interest, why did Steve choose Walter Isaacson to be his authorised biographer? You have to remember that this biography did not get written because the author was really interested in Steve Jobs and begged and pleaded for cooperation, if anything, the inverse is true. In the introduction to the biography Isaacson explains that it was Steve who asked him to do the book, and that he repeatedly turned Steve down before finally giving in (to the inevitable?). Isaacson specifically mentions that Steve had cited his love of his biography of Albert Einstein as one of his reasons for wanting him as his biographer, so I figured I’d give that a read too, and see if it helped me to understand Steve’s decision to head-hunt Isaacson.
Apr
16
DOS Gaming on the Mac Made Easy
Filed Under Computers & Tech on April 16, 2011 | 5 Comments
I grew up in the 80s, so I’ve always had a soft spot for the old DOS games I grew up with. I just loved the Apogee games, particularly Commander Keen and Secret Agent. We’ve been able to play these games on the Mac for years, but the experience has been a little too authentic. The free and open source DOSBox provides the basic emulation needed to run DOS games on modern PCs and Linux, as well as the Mac, but the experience is far from simple. You have to manually create a configuration file to even get started with DOSBox, and you need to know DOS to get your games installed and to run them. Not a problem for a terminal geek like me, but quite an obstacle for regular folks.
A few weeks ago my Grandfather asked me about running some of his old DOS games on his new Mac, so I looked into DOSBox again, and specifically went hunting for a nice GUI to simplify things. The first three I tried were horrifically poor. The worst kind of ‘by geeks, for geeks’ free software. Then I found Boxer, and I was just blown away. Boxer makes DOS games as easy to use as any other app on your Mac! The whole design of the project is just genius, and it’s been executed wonderfully. Attention to detail and usability are right at Boxer’s core.
Mar
17
What a Difference a Glif Makes
Filed Under Photography on March 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment
When I first got my iPhone 4 I played with the video a bit, but it never quite lived up to my expectations because I just couldn’t hold it still enough to get nice video out of it. This is the kind of thing I was able to get free-hand:
I was able to do a little better by bracing the camera against something solid – like the edge of a bridge, but still – the results were not ideal:
If only I could attach the iPhone to a tripod! Well, this is where the Glif comes in. It’s a small piece of moulded plastic that has a standard tripod screw hole at the bottom, and that grips the iPhone securely. You can use it on a full-size tripod, and it works very well, but it does look quite silly. I find it much more useful to use a mini tripod instead, so I can literally carry me entire video setup in my pocket!
As well as acting as a tripod adapter for the iPhone, the Glif can also function as a handy little iPhone stand, in a surprising number of configurations. If you’re curious about what all the Glif can do, they have a nice little video on their site. The Glif is $20 + shipping, which is quite steep for a simple piece of plastic, but I have to say, I’m very happy with it, and I’m certainly getting good value for money out of it.
Finally – here’s an example of the results I’m getting with it:
Jul
24
Review of Money3 by Jumsoft
Filed Under Computers & Tech on July 24, 2010 | 12 Comments
THe week before last I posted a description of the final stages of my quest for a new personal finance app, and explained how I came to choose Money3 from Jumsoft, what I didn’t do was actually review the product though, so I thought I’d do that now. On the one hand I’ve only been using this product for a week and a half, but on the other I’ve been using it a LOT during that week and a half. In that time I’ve entered all the transactions for 2010 on six accounts covering all my personal and business transactions so far this year. That’s a lot of time using the software, so I think I’ve got a good flavour of what it’s like to really use it.
Jul
15
My Quest for a New Personal Finance App – Part 2
Filed Under Computers & Tech on July 15, 2010 | 7 Comments
A few months ago I started my quest to replace Cha-Ching because of how bad my experience with their 2.0 beta was, and how poor their support response was (I got no response at all). I outlined the choices I’d been considering at that stage in part 1 of this article. Since that post there’s been a few developments, and as of this afternoon, I think my quest is at an end.