A friend of mine send me a link to a website that lists hundreds of documentaries and links to where you can watch them for free. I’ve tried read “The truth about good and evil” by Friedrich Nietzsche but struggled with reading it. There was a documentary about it here. Well at least I know kind of what he was about now. And all for free.
Bought 20 Acres in the Forest Near Castlemaine
Clare and I are now the proud owners of a 20 acre property with 2 dams, 1 house (with solar) a shed and a tipee near Castlemaine.
Australia to Double Population
Politicians (both labour and opposition) have been talking about immigration policies that would see the Australian population to almost double from 22 to 36million by 2050. Australia currently has the fastest growing population in the world.
The Australian citizens have never been asked about this.
Yesterday I watched a video from Dick Smith that basically debunked most of the widely used reasons for a “Large Australia”. He is campaigning to have the politicians actually consult the the people about the population strategy and come up with a sensible plan.
Intro Video
Long Video
“Dick Smith is one of Australia’s most recognised individuals. After a successful business career in retailing and publishing, Dick has become well known as a restless adventurer, making many pioneering and record breaking flights by helicopter, aeroplane and balloon.” More info and complete text on Dick Smiths full website here.
World Growth
Dick also broaches the subject of world population growth and the predicted increase in population from 6.7 to just over 9 billion by 2050. World food production over the last 9 years has remained flat and is looking likely to decrease as more soil becomes infertile. Concern about food availability in the future is one of the drivers that got me interested in permaculture. To see more about me and permaculture go to my permaculture page.
Podcasting With an iPhone on the Move in 10 Steps
I just published the latest podcast for my band Jimmy Yukka & His Amazing Band. I thought writing a post about how I did it might be useful. For this episode I decided to try to record a podcast whilst walking around a park. Obviously by doing this you do sacrifice sound quality but if this means I can more easily complete regular podcasts then for me its a sacrifice worth taking.
So heres how I did it.
Step 1 – What You Need
Recording
- iPhone
- iPhone headset (earphones / mic)
- 1 headphone foam (from a larger headset headphone)
- 1 paperclip
- Some cool sunglasses
- A little spiral bound notepad
Mixing
- Garageband
Putting on WordPress
- WordPress
- Podpress plugin
Step 2 – Protect Against Wind
After testing walking around the park and recording I realised that although the mic in the iphone headset is pretty good but it does get affected by wind noise in addition when it moves and hits something it made an annoying noise. So the first thing I did was cover the cable mic with a headphone foam and attatched it with a paperclip to the cable. I then wrapped the cable around my sunglasses arm to stop it from banging about. Although it looks quite ridiculous it worked fairly well.
Step 3 – Record Using Some Software
The standard voice recording software on the iphone is a bit annoying. I downloaded italk recorder with italk syncthese are both free and I quite like them. With this software you can change the recording quality and pause the recording. There is a good review of it italk here.
Step 4 – Preparing Podcast notes
I had sketched out what I was going to talk on a paper about the size of a post it pad and then left the house.
Step 5 – Recording a podcast outside
I picked up my iPhone and walked to the park and started to record. I realized that I had to walk reasonably slowly otherwise I would be heavy breathing too much. I also have to slow down by speaking a bit. I recorded the show about 8 times and ended up using the last recording.
Step 6 – Mixing a podcast in Garageband
Some people don’t even do this step. I will have to do a lot more podcasts before I can miss this out. I used to think I was pretty articulate but when I listen to a recording of myself I realised what a blundering dither I am when I speak. So I think I recorded about 25 mins and edited out 10 mins of waffle and errrrrrr and eummmm and ahhhhhh and sneezes and coughs etc. I edited the podcast in Garageband.
- Go to the “control” menu and turn off auto ducking as your podcast will sound horrible with it on.
- I also use the high pass filter to reduce hiss (to find this hit show track info and then do to track details and it is one of the effects. Then go to manual edit and experiment with what effect the filter has on a the speech. You want just enough to take out the nasty noise but not too much as it will make your voice sound nasty.)
Step 7 – Review Podcast and Re-edit
Once I finished editing I then move my recording to itunes so I can review it on my iphone. To do this go to the menu in garageband called “share” and then “send podcast to itunes”. I then synch my iphone and review the podcast making notes if theres anything that needs to change. If it needs re-editing I then re-edited the podcast and repeat.
Step 8 – Output for iTunes
Once I was happy with the recording I then move my recording back to iTunes. Once the recording is in iTunes right, click on the recording in iTunes and select “get info” to setup the information about the podcast episode.
- Go to options a check “remember playback position” failing to do this will mean listeners have to go back to the start each time
- You should setup the artwork for the podcast episode here too.
Step 9 – Post using Podpress
In order to do this you will need add the plugin podpress and setup your podcast. This page here has a good overview on how to setup podpress for your podcast and use it for posting podcasts.
Step 10 – Create a post in WordPress and add the podcast
Podpress (see above) will have installed an extra section in the “add new post” screen that allows you to add your podcast file to the new post (which will be the show notes.)
Final Result
To listen to the final result the podcast “Episode 4” can be listened to or subscribed to from my bands website www.jimmyyukka.com. Earlier podcasts were recorded with myself and Mick using my macbook pro with the integrated mic and recording straight to Garageband.
Get More Advice
- When embarking on this activity I called The podcasting advisor and he responded to my question and featured mobile podcast recording on his show. So if you want to know more, listen to the show on:
- I have more resources and related links to this subject can be found on my page on internet marketing click here.
If anyone reviews this and has any better ideas then please comment below.
Projection Festival – St
Clare and I went to the Projection festival in Melbourne last week. Basically a load of the shops on the street were lit up by projection from sometimes accros the road and in some cases whole buildings were projected on
Clare and the bar in the back was lit up and changed pattern and colour over time
Man to jump off building over from my office
We had someone threatening to throw themselves of the build over from us yesterday. We could see it all from our kitchen window. I watched it unfold for for a bit from our kitchen window on the 31st floor.There were 6 police officers and a negotiator trying to talk him down. Burke St outside our office was shut down. After about 5 mins of nothing really happening I decided that either nothing was going to happen for ages or he would jump. I decided I didn’t really want to see either so I stopped and went back to work. When I went out for lunch there was a huge crowd of onlookers on the street. Above is a picture of my office (its the big grey building on left). The “jumper” was on a building opposite.
Details below
UPDATE 2.25pm: ONLOOKERS cheered as man talked down from a building’s rooftop after CBD streets blocked for more than two hours.
Negotiators brought the incident to an end about 1.20pm today, after tense scenes on the rooftop of the seven-storey building today.
Emergency crews raced to the scene near the corner of Hardware lane just before 11am.
The incident brought traffic to a standstill between Hardware lane and Queen St in both directions, forcing trams, motor traffic and pedestrians to be diverted around the scene.
About five police officers, including negotiators, were seen on the roof of the building as they talked to the man.
At least four police cars blocked the streets at the height of the drama as hundreds of office workers watched the scene with bated breath.
Their relief was obvious as cheers erupted from neighbouring buildings as the man was taken into protective custody.
He is understood to have been treated by paramedics a short time later.
Social networks were buzzing with the incident this afternoon, with office workers taking pictures of the scene, and alerting their colleagues. Source the Herald Sun
Earthworm 3 meters x 2 cms
Just listening to the podcast by the North Carolina University and they are talking about huge earthworms that live in East Gippsland (SE of Melbourne!). Wow ! I could do with a few of them in the garden!
Learning with my ipod (itunesU)
I am currently working my way through Bill Mollesons book “Introduction to permaculture”.
I am currently listening to a free podcast on that I got on itunesU where they video’d all their lectures from North State University Introduction to Permaculture. I am onto lecture 13 out of 36 1 hour lecture series. Amazing what you can get for free nowadays.
Studying on my ipod (itunesU)
I am currently listening to a free podcast on that I got on itunesU where they video’d all their lectures from North State University Introduction to Permaculture
Who Owns the Australian Federal Reserve
Now its out there in public that the Federal Reserve in the US is a private bank. (If this is news to you then you may want to have a look here from Senatar Ron Paul). I decided that I wanted to investigate as to what the status of the Federal Reserve in Australia is.
I came accross this it explains things in more detail – including the Federal Reserve in the US.
Did you know the Federal Reserve in the US is the 6th central bank that they had – the others were removed by the US government of the time. Hmm…
here it is the money masters