Techdirt Podcast Episode 107: Changing Government Starts With You

from the where-else? dept

For obvious reasons, politics and government are on just about everyone's mind at the moment, prompting a vast range of reactions and opinions. A lot of people who share a desire for change are divided not only by what form they think that change should take, but by what methods they think should be employed to achieve it. Former Senate staffer and long-time Techdirt friend Jennifer Hoelzer recently wrote a column entitled Your Government Won't Change... Unless You Do and this week she joins us on the podcast to delve further into this idea and what it means for optimists, cynics, pragmatists and everyone else.

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Filed Under: government, jennifer hoelzer, podcast, politics

Techdirt Podcast Episode 106: An Office In A Bag

from the home-is-where-you-plug-in-your-charger dept

After years of working on the go, Mike has the mobile office down to a science — and wherever he sets it up, nearby gadget geeks have plenty of questions and comments (here's a rundown of his set-up). So this week we're joined by Espree Devora, host of the podcasts Women In Tech and We Are L.A. Tech, for a fun discussion about today's high-tech offices-in-bags.

Also: we're getting ready to record our first exclusive patron-only episode for our supporters on Patreon, which means it's time for those who backed us at a level of $5/month or more to submit questions for the Q&A portion. If you're one of those patrons, you can now find a post calling for questions in our Patreon feed and submit yours in the comments. If you're not, but you want to submit a question or just get access to the episode once it's released, now's the time to support the Techdirt Podcast on Patreon. We've only gotten a couple questions so far, but at least one is rich enough for us to do an entire episode in response — still, we want to give others a chance, so we're likely delaying the release of the episode until early next month. If you want to ask a question, don't wait around!

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Filed Under: espree devora, gadgets, podcast, technology

Techdirt Podcast Episode 105: The CES 2017 Post-Mortem

from the let's-do-it-again dept

Last year, we got a lot of positive feedback on our episode taking a look at the Consumer Electronics Show with the help of journalist Rob Pegoraro. So this year, we've brought Rob back for another look at the highs and lows of CES.

Also: we're getting ready to record our first exclusive patron-only episode for our supporters on Patreon, which means it's time for those who backed us at a level of $5/month or more to submit questions for the Q&A portion. If you're one of those patrons, you can now find a post calling for questions in our Patreon feed and submit yours in the comments. If you're not, but you want to submit a question or just get access to the episode once it's released, now's the time to support the Techdirt Podcast on Patreon.

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Filed Under: ces, consumer electronics show, podcast, rob pegoraro

Techdirt Podcast Episode 104: The Pros And Cons Of Pros And Cons

from the butting-heads dept

On the surface, the idea of "pro and con" debates seems like a good way to ensure an issue is fully explored. But is it truly a productive approach? This week, we debate the nature of debates and possible alternatives to the adversarial approach.

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Filed Under: debate, podcast

Techdirt Podcast Episode 103: Is The Internet Of Things The Future, A Total Mess, Or Both?

from the listen-and-learn dept

The internet of things has been taking plenty of flak ever since the first time someone floated the idea of a connected fridge or some-such in the 90s — but despite the knee-jerk instinct to scoff at such things, the truth is there are all sorts of interesting possibilities emerging from all these "pointless" connected devices. Of course, there are also some serious security concerns... This week, we discuss the IoT and what the ever-increasing presence of such devices means for the future.

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Filed Under: internet of things, iot, podcast

Techdirt Podcast Episode 102: Can We Really Colonize Mars?

from the where-no-one-has-gone-before dept

Elon Musk got plenty of attention recently for announcing his plans to colonize Mars. But that's not exactly a new idea -- so we wondered if it was really a different, exciting and realistic plan, or just a reiteration of the standard far-flung dream. To answer that question, we brought in three experts: Amy Shira Teitel (a space and flight historian and creator of YouTube's Vintage Space videos), JPL's Fred Calef (a Mars geologist and "keeper of the maps" for Mars rovers), and the New Space Intiative's Tanya Harrison (who worked on Curiosity and several other Mars missions). The result was a fascinating discussion about Mars and whether or not we're actually headed there any time soon.

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Filed Under: amy shira teitel, elon musk, fred calef, jpl, mars, nasa, podcast, space, tanya harrison
Companies: spacex

Please Support Our Patreon Campaign... And Listen To Our Conversation With Patreon's Founder Jack Conte

from the techdirt-podcast-episode-100 dept

For this week's podcast -- our 100th episode -- we have both a special guest and an announcement. On the podcast, we have Jack Conte, the founder and CEO of Patreon, a fascinating company that we've written about a few times, for providing a really compelling platform for connecting content creators and fans, and giving those fans a way to support the creators. And with that conversation, we're also launching a Techdirt Patreon page and asking for folks to support our continued efforts to make great content. The Patreon campaign is focused on the podcast, but you can use it to support Techdirt as a whole if you'd like. If you don't actually listen to the podcast, there's still a good reason to support it: if we get enough support via Patreon, we'll use it to fund transcripts of the podcasts, so those of you who would prefer to read it can do so.

As we've discussed a few times recently, the online advertising market has seen the bottom fall out of it. And that means we need to rely on other forms of support much more regularly -- including affiliate sales and direct crowdfunding. Frankly, direct crowdfunding is certainly the most pure of these options. It builds a stronger connection between us and our community and removes any whiff of third party interference in that relationship. In the past, we've done time-limited campaigns, and we may do that again as well, but I've been writing about Patreon since it launched (and Jack Conte since long before that), and have been impressed with how the platform has grown and changed over time -- and am also impressed with Jack's vision for where the company can continue to go (some of which you can hear in the podcast discussion).

Anyway, I hope many of you will agree to support us via Patreon. We have a variety of perks we're offering -- some of which we've offered directly in our Insider Shop for years, but some of which are new and unique to the podcast -- including a special backers' only episode that we'll be releasing in January. We have lots of stuff we'd love to do, with both the podcast and the website, and plenty of great stories to tell, but we need your help to do it. Please support our efforts.

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Filed Under: crowdfunding, jack conte, podcast
Companies: patreon, techdirt

The Techdirt Podcast: Greatest Hits!

from the listen-up dept

We're taking Thanksgiving week off from the podcast, which means our 100th episode is coming next Tuesday — and it includes a special guest and an important announcement, so you won't want to miss it! But in the mean time, we thought it might be fun to revisit some of our post popular episodes from the past year.

Please listen, subscribe, and share with your friends — and if you enjoy the podcast, please leave a rating and/or a review! You can follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via iTunes or Google Play, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

First up in our greatest hits tour, we head all the way back to last December for one of our most popular episodes, in which we posed and discussed a simple-but-not-so-simple question: how much surveillance is acceptable? Though many people have a knee-jerk response of "none", even staunch surveillance critics like us recognize that the issue is a little bit more nuanced than that.

After a few weeks off for the holidays, we came back with another extra-popular episode looking at the tech world's biggest industry show: The CES Post-Mortem. If you want to relive those innocent halcyon days of last January and its fresh crop of new gadgets, give it a listen.

Jump ahead to March, and we've got a hit episode with guest Marvin Ammori, a lawyer and civil liberties advocate, and good friend of the Techdirt community. The discussion was focused on net neutrality and, more specifically, the games like "zero rating" that providers play to get around it.

Next, in April, lots of listeners tuned in for an important and excellent two-part discussion with Justin Peters, author of a book all about the life of Aaron Swartz and his fight for internet freedom. The first part of the discussion focused on the free culture movement and the values that Aaron dedicated his life to:

Then, in part two, the discussion turned to focus on Aaron himself and what he meant to the people that knew him (and plenty that didn't):

Finally, in August, we featured a long discussion full of the sort of insights and details that we are proud to offer but that you won't find too often when other media outlets discuss the story: an interview with Ira Rothkin, the lawyer defending Kim Dotcom and Artem Vaulin. Whatever you may think of Dotcom, the discussion sheds critical light on the many injustices that have been perpetrated in the government's obsessive quest to bring him down at the behest of the entertainment industry.

And that about wraps it up. There are lots of other great episodes to revisit if you need more — otherwise, we hope this tides you over until our special 100th episode announcement next week!

Filed Under: aaron swartz, ces, kim dotcom, podcast, surveillance

Techdirt Podcast Episode 99: Debating The Facebook Filter Bubble, With Mathew Ingram

from the bubble-bursting dept

Though the notion of the Facebook "filter bubble" has been around for a while, it's picked up a huge amount of steam following the election of Donald Trump — perhaps just a little too much steam. While Techdirt has long been of the opinion that pointing fingers at Facebook is misguided, there are plenty of people who disagree. This week, we're joined by one such person — long-time media commentator and senior editor at Fortune Mathew Ingram — for a lively debate about just how much of a problem the filter bubble really is, and how you'd go about solving it.

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Filed Under: fake news, filter bubble, politics
Companies: facebook

Techdirt Podcast Episode 98: Is There A Better Way To Pick A President?

from the election-fever dept

Well, today's the day. By tomorrow there will be a new President of the United States, and a large segment of the population claiming that they were robbed by the system. But immediate anger aside, that system is hardly above criticism: the Electoral College has had all sorts of unanticipated and often undesirable effects on democracy, and a wide variety of alternatives have been proposed. This week we discuss the question: is there a better way to pick the president?

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Filed Under: democracy, donald trump, election, hillary clinton, podcast, potus