Boing Boing » radio

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere as a BBC radio play

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 07:34:21 +0000

Dan sez, "The BBC have produced a radio play of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere with a host of great British actors. Sounds exactly like you want it to sound."

Great economics/storytelling podcast

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 23:40:39 +0000

Tim Harford (Undercover Economist, guest blogger, statistical superhero) has a new show on BBC Radio 4, called Pop Up Economics: well-told tales about the dismal science. The inaugural episode (MP3) is a beautiful parable about innovation and invention.

We (probably) found the Higgs Boson. Now what?

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:39:36 +0000

I got to join in on a great conversation this morning on Minnesota Public Radio's "The Daily Circuit", all about the Higgs Boson and what it means for the future of physics.

This is a fascinating issue. Finding the Higgs Boson (if that is, indeed, what scientists have done) means that all the particles predicted by the Standard Model of physics have now been found. But that's not necessarily good news for physicists. For one thing, it would have been a lot more interesting to break the Standard Model than to uphold it. For another, we're now left with a model for the Universe that mostly works but still has some awkward holes — holes that it might be hard to get the funding to fill.

Daily Circuit host Kerry Miller, Harvard physics chair Melissa Franklin, and I spent 45 minutes talking about what is simultaneously a beautiful dream and a waking nightmare for the physics world. And I got to make a "Half Baked" reference in a conversation about particle physics, so you know it's a good time, too.

Listen to the whole conversation at Minnesota Public Radio's website.

Another way to enjoy meteor showers: HAM radio

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:15:41 +0000

Tonight we should see the peak of this year's Geminid meteor shower. I wrote about the weird scientific mystery surrounding this particular meteor shower yesterday, and Miles O'Brien wrote a great feature on it for us today.

In the comments on my post yesterday, reader Clayton Yarbrough mentioned that meteors have an effect on radio signals, and I wanted to follow up on that, because it's a pretty cool phenomenon. Basically, meteors can allow you to send radio signals farther than is normally possible. In the video above, you can watch 7th grader Jeffrey Kelly interview a ham radio operator who explains how this works. But first a little background.

Radio waves travel through the air. You are, of course, aware of this. But there's also a limit to how far they can travel. Partly, this is because the radio waves move in what could be characterized as a straight line, but the planet Earth curves. To get around that bend in the horizon, ham operators frequently bounce their signals off a part of Earth's upper atmosphere, called the ionosphere. What makes the ionosphere special? It's ionized, meaning the particles it's made of are electrically charged. That should give you all the background you need to follow along with the video.

Read more on skywave communications (bouncing signals off the ionosphere), and meteor scatter communications.

Tallest possible Lego tower height calculated

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 16:00:25 +0000

The good folks on the most-excellent BBC Radio/Open University statistical literacy programme More or Less decided to answer a year-old Reddit argument about how many Lego bricks can be vertically stacked before the bottom one collapses.

They got the OU's Dr Ian Johnston to stress-test a 2X2 Lego in a hydraulic testing machine, increasing the pressure to some 4,000 Newtons, at which point the brick basically melted. Based on this, they calculated the maximum weight a 2X2 brick could bear, and thus the maximum height of a Lego tower:

The average maximum force the bricks can stand is 4,240N. That's equivalent to a mass of 432kg (950lbs). If you divide that by the mass of a single brick, which is 1.152g, then you get the grand total of bricks a single piece of Lego could support: 375,000.
So, 375,000 bricks towering 3.5km (2.17 miles) high is what it would take to break a Lego brick.
"That's taller than the highest mountain in Spain. It's significantly higher than Mount Olympus [tallest mountain in Greece], and it's the typical height at which people ski in the Alps," Ian Johnston says.
"So if the Greek gods wanted to build a new temple on Mount Olympus, and Mount Olympus wasn't available, they could just - but no more - do it with Lego bricks. As long as they don't jump up and down too much."

How tall can a Lego tower get?

More or Less: Opinion polling, Kevin Pietersen, and stacking Lego 30 Nov 2012 [MP3]

World's oldest hacker radio show under threat

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:57:13 +0000

2600's Emmanuel Goldstein writes,

In the midst of the biggest natural disaster to hit the New York metropolitan area in modern times, most of the staff of community radio station WBAI was prevented from broadcasting - not because of a power outage, but due to management decisions that put prerecorded programming over the airwaves instead of the usual live broadcasts. The hacker/technology program "Off The Hook" has been kept off the air for an unprecedented three weeks, making it impossible to help listeners deal with the technological challenges of losing communications and connectivity throughout the crisis. While a small group of broadcasters was allowed to put live programs on the air during daylight hours, a 6 pm on-air curfew was imposed, effectively locking out the majority of the station staff, including "Off The Hook." This has led the members of the world's longest running hacker radio program to start searching for another broadcast outlet, as it doesn't seem that technology-based programming is taken seriously or considered a priority, based on these actions.

AN OPEN LETTER TO OUR LISTENERS FROM THE STAFF OF "OFF THE HOOK" (Thanks, Emmanuel!)

Radio documentary on elections and America's energy future: The Power of One, with Alex Chadwick

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 12:28:37 +0000

BURN: An Energy Journal, the radio documentary series hosted by former NPR journalist Alex Chadwick, has a 2-hour election special out. It's the most powerful piece of radio journalism I've listened to since—well, since the last episode they put out. You really must do yourself a favor and set aside some time this weekend to listen to “The Power of One.”

Energy policy, defining how we use energy to power our economy and our lives, is among the most pressing issues for the next four years. In this special two-hour edition of BURN, stories about the power of one: how, in this election season, a single person, place, policy or idea can — with a boost from science — affect the nation’s search for greater energy independence.

The documentary examines how "individuals, new scientific ideas, grassroots initiatives and potentially game-changing inventions are informing the energy debate in this Presidential Election year, and redefining America’s quest for greater energy independence." It was completed and hit the air before Hurricane Sandy, but the energy issues illuminated by that disaster (blackouts, gas shortage, grid failure, backup power failure at hospitals) further underscore the urgency.

Chadwick and a team of reporters do this through a series of "intimate, human-scale stories," traveling to the energy frontier of the Arctic Ocean, to Pennsylvania’s natural gas-rich “Marcellus Shale” region where the national “fracking” controversy runs deep, and a university lab in Colorado where a female scientist is building a battery that aspires to be the “Holy Grail of green technology.”

“Energy and climate are such big stories – there is a reason that both campaigns often talk about the economy, jobs and energy all tied together,” says Alex. “It’s easy to get overwhelmed by how big these topics are. What BURN tries to do is tell smaller stories that provide insight into how people’s lives are changed by the energy choices they and others around them make. ‘The Power of One’ is about how individuals can make a difference, even in something so globally immense as energy.”

The website for the series is here, and includes all sorts of compelling side stories, like this photo-essay about a mobile home community torn apart by a shale gas project: the Riverdale mobile home park, which once sat on the banks of the Susquehanna River in north-central Pennsylvania.

"Earlier this year, all the Riverdale trailer families were evicted to make room for a pump station and pipeline that would move Susquehanna water to fracking sites elsewhere in the state."

Alex visited Riverdale with freelance photographer and Pennsylvania resident Lynn Johnson, who works on assignment for National Geographic. Two of Lynn's images, below.

Deb Eck, with her twin daughters, works long hours managing a retail store. She became a reluctant movement leader. (Lynn Johnson)

The new owners erected chain link fencing around what was becoming adisputed construction zone. The fence separated residents who remained from those who had become their advocates. (Lynn Johnson)

Images at top of post, L-R: Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Getty Images; A burn-off from a fracking site illuminates the Pennsylvania sky, photo by Les Stone; part of a wind farm in Gratiot County, Michigan, photo by Scott Carrier.

Must-listen radio: "Nuclear Power After Fukushima," documentary ...

HOWTO follow FDNY radio scanners in an emergency

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 14:00:53 +0000

Shutterstock

During last night's storm emergency, I monitored the FDNY scanners to try and follow fast-moving and difficult-to-obtain details about what was happening where in NYC. For future reference, radioreference.com is an excellent way to do that (provided you have power and internet access). Along with that, you'll want to have two browser tabs open, for a cheat sheet on the codes the first responders use: Box Codes (find the location of the fire alarm boxes people use to get an FDNY response in an emergency), and FDNY 10 codes (shorthand developed in 1937 for common communication among first responders).

One good thing to keep in mind: not everything you hear on the scanner is confirmed fact. By definition, the first responders are often working with incomplete and unconfirmed calls for help, and chaotic situations. That, combined with the fact that it can be hard to understand what they're saying, make careful listening and sharing essential.

BBC radio documentary on same-sex couple coping with cancer and mortality

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:24:14 +0000

BB reader Jane Lowers sends along this beautiful BBC Radio documentary about two men in California who have been together for decades, now facing one's terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis. "I know both of them; Eric was a columnist at a radiology magazine I used to work for," says Jane. "Their house is every inch as insane as described. But the story -- trying to decide how to deal with a diagnosis, how to use the time you have, and how it can affect relationships -- was very well-described, I thought."

India's in the dark, are we next?

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:52:37 +0000

670 million people—roughly half of India's population—has been without electricity for two days, following a massive blackout. The United States has a much more modern grid, but only nine years ago a blackout in the Northeast of this country cut power to 45 million. How does a huge blackout like that happen? What are we doing to prevent another one? I'll be on Southern California Public Radio's Madeline Brand Show this morning to talk about how America's electric grid works ... and doesn't work. The show starts at 9:00 Pacific time and I'll be on around the top of the hour.

Radiolab marathon all day today

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 17:38:20 +0000

Minnesota Public Radio is playing a marathon of the NPR show Radiolab all day today. Hours of good, science-filled, story telling wonderfulness. Right now, at 12:32 central, they're doing a show about epidemiologists tracing the origin of AIDS back to the 1920s. Definitely worth listening to. You can listen to the entire marathon on MPR's live stream from anywhere in the world.

Catcopter artist explains all

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 01:08:27 +0000

In the event that you were wondering about the motives of the Dutch artist Bart Jansen, who attained notoriety by taxiderming his dead cat and retrofitting its corpse to serve as a quadcopter, wonder no more. The CBC's As It Happens recorded an interview with Mr Jansen, and it is one of the strangest, finest interviews in that show's august history. The producers were kind enough to provide us with an MP3 for your listening pleasure.

Geoengineering and the Fight against Climate Change: Maggie on "To the Point" radio show (audio)

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:15:00 +0000

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Two of my favorite people talk about one of my favorite topics, all on the same radio program. Our very own Maggie Koerth-Baker was interviewed by my friend (and former NPR colleague) Alex Chadwick on KCRW's daily show "To the Point" today, to talk about "Geoengineering and the fight against climate change."

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything; and when people repeat that witticism, they make it sound as though someone should. Now, someone may. Geoengineering. Guest host Alex Chadwick explores whether we could use technology to alter the atmosphere and cool the warming planet. What could go wrong with that? There are scientists who think we should start trying to research exactly these questions.

Direct MP3 link, or you can play the program in your web browser here.

Alex has been doing a lot of interesting journalism around energy issues lately, most notably with BURN: An Energy Journal. He was sitting in for host Warren Olney today.

Energy and geo-engineering: Maggie on the radio

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:45:05 +0000

I'm going to be on the radio a couple of times today, talking about my book, Before the Lights Go Out, and the future of energy and climate. At 1:00 Eastern/Noon Central, you can listen to an hour-long interview with me on Minnesota Public Radio's Bright Ideas. You don't have to be in Minnesota to listen. It's streaming online. Then, about 2:10 Eastern/1:10 Central, I'll be on "To the Point", talking about climate, energy, and geo-engineering. Climate scientist Ken Caldiera will also be on that show and he's a great speaker. That will be online, as well.

In Guatemala, pirate Mayan radio connects marginalized indigenous communities

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:59:11 +0000

I missed this great read published a few months back by photojournalist Connor Boals in Columbia Journalism Review, but it's worth revisiting now: a story about the indigenous pirate radio stations that connect poor rural Mayan communities throughout Guatemala.

I've traveled in the region off and on for years, and am familiar with the sort of risks these operators face, and the benefit their efforts provide. Connor's story focuses on one station in the Kaqchikel Maya pueblo of Sumpango, in the central highlands. Here, Radio Ixchel (named after the jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine) operates on the downlow. No sign on the door, housed in what looks like a home, with chickens and geese bustling around. That, for a reason: The Guatemalan government considers the project a criminal operation.

Snip:

Angélica Cubur Sul opens the door to the studio, clad in a traditional Mayan multicolored blouse. She’s a “locutora” here at the station. You could call her a DJ, but she does much more. Inside, another woman runs the mixer as a Mayan herbalist provides instructions in Kaqchikel, the local dialect, on what local flora listeners can use to treat indigestion. The door is thin and the goose is still honking outside. Sul taps out a script on an ancient PC for her top-of-the-hour newscast.
Guatemala still bears scars from the civil war that gripped the country for more than thirty years, ending finally in 1996. The government mainly relied on terror to suppress indigenous populations from supporting the leftist guerrillas. The Guatemalan Archbishop’s Office for Human Rights estimates that the Guatemalan military and paramilitary forces committed over 90 percent of the atrocities. Indigenous people were almost always the target. Mass graves are still being unearthed.
“Radio has been important in Guatemala for decades,” says Mark Camp, director of the Guatemala Radio Project for Cultural Survival, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of indigenous groups. “During the civil war, radio played a really important part for the guerrillas to get their message out to the people.”

Read more: Pirate Radio, Mayan Style, and there are more wonderful photos at Connor's site. (CJR, via Renata Avila; photo by Connor Boals)

Hunger-striking Bahraini dissident Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja near death; Formula One president still plans to run races in Bahrain

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:00:11 +0000

Tuesday night's As It Happens program on CBC radio featured a segment on the terrible human rights situation in Bahrain, opening with an archive interview with Zainab Al-Khawaja, daughter of the dissident Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, who was snatched, beaten and indefinitely detained by Bahraini police a year ago. Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja is now on a hunger-strike and may die soon. As It Happens then interviews his daughter again about her father's situation and the human rights situation in Bahrain. Zainab Al-Khawaja explains that her father is risking his life to draw international attention to Bahrain's awful human rights situation, the hundreds of dissidents rotting in jail, some as young as 12 years old, facing torture and inhumane conditions.

As It Happens then interviewed Bernie Ecclestone, president of Formula One, whose big annual race is to be held in Bahrain this year. Ecclestone is the perfect picture of denial and callousness, as he blithely asserts that Bahrain is a perfectly nice place where protest is tolerated. He's smug about his race for expensive cars in a totalitarian police-state, and blames the media for any negative impression the world may have gotten about Bahrain.

Here's a recent CNN article on the Al-Khawajas, here's Murtaza Hussain on Salon on the same subject, and here's Democracy Now!'s archive of pieces on the family. Zainab Al-Khawaja tweets as @angryarabiya.

As It Happens's producers were kind enough to supply an MP3 of the segment for us to host (linked below). As It Happens is my favorite news magazine program. I download the previous night's episode every day and listen to it on my waterproof MP3 player on my daily swim.

As It Happens Bahrain dissident segment (MP3, 11 mins, 11MB)

Will the FAA stop prohibiting electronic devices on commercial flights?

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:50:23 +0000

As I noted in a Boing Boing post yesterday, there's news of a possible change ahead for in-flight gadget rules in the US.

The Federal Aviation Administration currently prohibits passengers from using electronic devices on commercial flights when the plane is below 10,000 feet in altitude. But the FAA announced this week that after widespread demands to modify restrictions, there may be new efforts to review whether devices like the iPad or phones in "airplane mode" can be permitted safely during takeoff and landing.

Aviation journalist and pilot Miles O'Brien, who uses his iPad for navigation while flying his own plane, joined KPCC's Patt Morrison show today to discuss the news. Here's a direct MP3 link to the radio segment. It's a good listen.

Great Squanderland Roof: funny BBC radio drama about austerity

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:01:07 +0000

Julian Gough sez, "I get the feeling you and some of your readers are, um, not entirely unconvinced by austerity as an economic strategy. So you might like the BBC's free Drama of the Week podcast. It's a satire on Eurozone austerity economics called The Great Squanderland Roof, by, er, me. It's free, downloadable worldwide till Friday, and it stars some great actors, like Dermot Crowley who was in Fr. Ted and, er, Return of the Jedi. What can we do but laugh? Hope you like it. Here's the official BBC blurb on it:"

Jude lives in a henhouse with no roof, in the bankrupt Republic of Squanderland. Purchased for ten million euro at the height of the credit bubble, his henhouse has been rated the asset in Europe most likely to default. To solve this small but symbolic problem and restore confidence in the markets, Europe's leaders need a plan. Sadly, putting a roof on Jude's henhouse quickly escalates out of control. Soon they are committed to building a roof over the entire country, half a mile above the startled voters... But what happens when a structure that's too big to fail finally fails? To the horror of Europe's bankers and politicians, Jude comes up with a dramatic (and rather romantic) solution to the Eurozone crisis... 'The Great Squanderland Roof' stars Rory Keenan as the hapless Jude (whose recent credits include 'The Kitchen' at the National, 'A Dublin Carol' at the Donmar and 'Birdsong' on BBC TV) in his debut BBC Radio role, Dermot Crowley as a banker turned government minister, and Stephanie Flanders, the BBC's Economics Editor.

The Great Squanderland Roof 2 Mar 12 (Thanks, Julian!)

Gay porn soundtrack played over Jazz FM broadcast

Rob Beschizza — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:56:41 +0000

Listeners tuning into Jazz FM's "Funky Sensations" show were treated Saturday to soft moans, fleshy slapping noises, and the incomparable sax of Sonny Rollins. The station apologized. The mix was recorded for posterity by Radio Fail.

Skeptical take on the Green Revolution

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:19:24 +0000

CBC's long-form/big think radio program Ideas recently featured a lecture called "Feeding Ten Billion" from Raj Patel, an Africa development scholar formerly with the World Bank, and author of The Value of Nothing. Patel's perspective on global agriculture and social justice is incisive and contrarian. I've never heard anyone talk about the demerits of the "Green Revolution" in agriculture like this, and it was an eye-opener. A perfect hour-long listen for the weekend's chores. MP3 link

Was American arrested for spying in Iran producing "propaganda games" for CIA?

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:15:51 +0000

Dominic Girard from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sez,

It's one thing for Iran to arrest an American and sentence him to death for being a spy. It's a whole other thing when you say the spy made video games as propaganda for the CIA. Yet that's precisely one of the charges Iranian-American Amir Hekmati confessed to on Iranian television in December. (Let's remember that Iran routinely accuses foreigners of being spies, and there's no way of knowing exactly what methods were used to get Hekmati to read out his confession).
Hekmati did once worked with Kuma Games - a New York based game developer. Iran believes Kuma Games are CIA propagandists, that the company makes video games to disseminate a pro-USA message internationally. Some of Kuma Games' offerings are playable scenarios of real-world events. You can be a rebel trying to track down Gadhafi in Libya. You can join Team Six and kill Osama bin Laden. You can also be a soldier inserted in Iran, trying to sabotage their nuclear weapons program. But does that necessarily mean they're a CIA front? This short CBC Radio documentary tries to sort out if the CIA would ever consider such an idea, and if it would even be worth the effort.

Day 6 Documentary: Propaganda Games

PIPA sponsor in the hotseat today at 12:00 Eastern

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:55:20 +0000

pziselberger sez, "Senator Lahey, sponsor of PIPA [ed: the Senate version of SOPA], will be on Vermont Public Radio's 'Vermont Edition' January 12 at noon. This is an opportunity to share your outrage over PIPA with the author of the bill."

Occupation in October: beautiful, long-form OWS radio documentary by Alex Chadwick

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:18:38 +0000

I've been wondering when the first great radio documentary about Occupy Wall Street would come out, and when I was driving around in LA yesterday doing errands, I tuned into it by accident on KCRW.

Longtime public radio producer, reporter, documentarian and host Alex Chadwick, with whom I worked at the NPR program "Day to Day," produced a beautiful and evocative audio documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement, after embedding at Zucotti Park to hear the stories of the occupiers there. He ended up witnessing history.

Alex is the greatest at this art, and I was so happy to hear new work from the man behind those great radio expeditions, which he produced with his late wife Carolyn. Those acquainted with his "Interviews 50 Cents" series will hear a familiar chord, too. Alex, man, it is so great to hear you back on the air doing what no one else can. Everyone else? You *must* carve out some undistracted time, and just listen. And then when you're done? Make someone else listen. Someone who doesn't understand what the Occupy movement is all about.

This is the story of how Occupy Wall Street finds itself over three days in October. How it faces down the police, the political powers, and its own demons. This is the moment when Occupy Wall Street won.

"Occupation in October," on the KCRW radio documentary series "Unfictional," produced by Bob Carlson.

Photo: A demonstrator from the Occupy Wall Street campaign stands with a dollar taped over his mouth in Zucotti Park near the financial district of New York. Reuters/Lucas Jackson.

A ride on NASA's flying telescope

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:42:01 +0000

SOFIA—the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy—is a telescope unlike any other. It's not mounted to the Earth's surface. And it's not floating in space. Instead, SOFIA travels the skies, rigged up to a dedicated 747 flying at 40,000 feet.

The idea is to have a telescope that gets a better view than the ones on the ground, but is easier to fix and update than space-based Hubble. It flies twice a week, on overnight trips. Reporter Lauren Sommer, from radio KQED, San Francisco, got to ride along on a recent flight. You can listen to her story, or read about the experience, at the site for KQED's QUEST science and environment series.

The researchers take advantage of the nighttime sky, so we left at dusk for 10-hour tour flying zigzags across the Pacific Ocean. Each leg of the journey is carefully calculated so the telescope can pinpoint a far away star. The plane interior is packed with computers and equipment. It also lacks insulation since much of it was removed to install the telescope, so it's both cold and loud inside.

At four in the morning, the astronomers are still hard at work. If they're as tired as I am, they certainly aren't showing it.

"For me, this is very exciting," says Ian McLean, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles. He usually works on the ground. "All my career has been ground-based astronomy. So, it's only my second flight."
McLean says there's a good reason to do astronomy in the stratosphere. The atmosphere is thinner, which means it's easier for the telescope to see the stars. "It's almost as good as space," says McLean. "Not quite, but almost."

And unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, this telescope lands everyday, which means the scientists can update and fix the equipment. "By the time you get a mission into orbit, the technology you're using is relatively old. Here we can stay state of the art all the time," says McLean. NASA began developing SOFIA in 1997 and almost cancelled the project at one point. It flew its first science mission in November 2010 and now costs about $80 million a year to operate.