Polenta and Potting Material

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Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at Pizza Antica.

The show starts out with a story about the first integrated circuit on Sept 12th in 1958. Al Bernay secured his own circuits by using potting material. NASA MARS image anomalies are probably based on image scale. Mark has a theory about UFO's. Have you ever played the 'integrated circuits around you' game? Wes claims he has an integrated circuit... down there... Mark is now using another blue-tooth headset for his 3G iPhone. Can the 1st gen iTouch use the microphone imbedded in the headset for the 2nd gen iTouch? The heating lamp debacle ends up getting solved by upper management. Analog TV signal going digital, but if you live in the boonies, you may not get the new digital signal anyway... Did you even see the Esquire Digital Ink Cover Magazine?

Sites of Interest:

• 50th anniversary of the integrated circuit.
  
  
• NASA photographs of Mars that look like forests and trees, and something that looks like a piece of wood.
  
  
• People think they are abducted by flying saucers.
  
  
• The Globe is a good newspaper for articles about flying saucers.
  
  
• The Blue Ant V1 bluetooth headset with speech recognition and voice response.
  
  
• Mark impresses Wes and the waiter with the iLightr app for the iPhone.
  
  
• Mark used to like the Zivio Bluetooth headset, returned it, but might someday buy it again.
  
  
• Transition of over-the-air TV from analog to digital; one town started early as a test.
  
  
• Esquire magazine with electronic ink on the cover.
  

Wes' iTouch Applications of the week:

• Pocket Money
  
• The Line Rider app is based on an online game. (Mark gave the wrong URL; he thought it was Line Writer.)
  

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

• EarthScape
• Name In Lights

My 'Ding-Ding' Machine

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Mark & Wes, in Rheem, CA at Tamamis

This show was recorded using Mark's lapel microphones. For whatever reason, you can hear us eat and chew and slurp in high detail. In the show, Mark and Wes ramble a lot about Apple's new updates to certain products, iTunes 8.0, 2.1 firmware iTouch & iPhone update, Nano's potential 508 compliance for sight-impaired users. Mark explains how 'location over Wi-Fi' works, and how people have to drive all over the place to map the Wi-Fi locations. Wes thinks he caused his Wi-Fi to be added by doing something to trigger the location on his iTouch, but Mark is skeptical. What is the deal with the Genius feature of iTunes? Wes can't tell if it actually finds matching songs, and Mark isn't very interested in the feature unless it works with banjo and pipe organ music. Wes has a good way to look for new applications for your iPhone or iTouch, and explains how to do this. Did the 2.1 firmware fix your application crashing problems?

Sites of Interest:

• The Homebrew Computer Club.
  
  
• Apple's announcements of September 9, 2008. (Mark is happy, the new 2.1 firmware did fix his problems with iPhone applications.)
  
  
• Rockbox has alternative firmware for iPods and other MP3 players.
  
  
• The new iPod Nano's have speech for blind users.
  
  
• The new iPod Touch models don't have a microphone, but the headset port now supports headsets with a microphone.
  
  
• Microsoft Location Finder tries to locate your PC using the Wi-Fi access points near you.
  
  
• Skyhook Wireless also has a browser-based location service using Wi-Fi.
  
  
• Navizon is yet another Wi-Fi location service, but pays Windows Mobile users to help them build their database. Mark's information was old; they now pay the big points only if you find cell towers and access points not already reported by other users.
  
  
• The iPaq H4355, Wes' old Pocket PC, could use the Internet through Wi-Fi.
  
  
• The Pool-Playing Robot.
  
  
• New Xbox 360 prices, and they will act as a Netflix player. But after reading those complex instructions, Mark changed his mind and likes the simplicity of the original Roku Netflix Player because it hooks up to your TV and Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection and works standalone without needing a PC, Media Center, or anything like that.
  
  
• Walter T. Shaw wrote a book and is planning a movie to honor his father Walter L. Shaw, the telephony inventor. Walter T. was a master jewel thief and teaches you how to do it.
  
  
• The free tip calculator app for iPhone/iTouch has been fixed and no longer makes big mistakes when you ask it to round up the amounts.
  
  
• Mark has a Star Trek Credit Card and Wes doesn't.
  
  
• Years ago Mark had an Elvis Presley credit card, but the company eliminated them. In trying to find a picture of one for this podcast, he found that site showing they are available again! But the application form doesn't appear to be working at this time so maybe they aren't available after all.
  

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

• Beat Creator

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

• Face Melter

Kips cooks with Gas

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Mark & Wes, in Berkeley, CA at Kips

This show was recorded in a noisy area of Kips in Berkeley. Wes complains about his bubble drink and how it wasn't blended. Mark talks about Walter/Wendy Carlos and Switched on Bach. He has a pic of what looks like a Moog analog system, but there is a possibility that it is just an analog computer. What is it!? Who is the guy? They talk about the first MP3 player and what it looked like in 1998. Wes talks a bit about the unit that Apple examined before the iPod was created. Also his drink is not blended like it should be. Mark suspects that Google created Chrome in order to have something for Android, as well as a way to halt the payments for revenue to the Mozilla Foundation. He also believes their goal is to get people away from being concerned about applications for specific Operating Systems. Wes agrees and talks a bit about Google Docs. Some people think the earth is only 5000 years old and that we never went to the moon. What's next from Apple? New iPhone? iTouch Nano?

Sites of Interest:

• Mark found this picture on a website with unrelated miscellaneous photos, with only the legend: "Moog Synthesizer in the 1970s (a pioneering era of Jean Michel Jarre compositions)".  The gentleman in the picture is probably a young Mr. Jarre.
  
  
• Official Bob Moog website run by his family; website of his company which still makes new music products; and a YouTube channel with videos of him.
  
  
• Walter Carlos turns into Wendy Carlos.
  
  
• The first MP3 player from 1998.
  
  
• But wait, Kane Kramer invented a portable digital music player in 1979!

• The Diamond Rio 300 made portable MP3 players practical.
  
  
• Diamond MultiMedia, makers of the Rio, but more famous now for graphics & sound cards.
  
  
• Mark's first iPod was the Apple iPod Mini.
  
  
• Google releases Chrome, it's own web browser.  People speculate on why: as an application platform, as a mobile browser for Android, or to save money by cutting down Google's payments to Mozilla?

• The Spore Creature Creator is available now, and the game should be available soon.


• How to make a replica of the Apollo guidance computer.
  
  
• Example of a website claiming the Earth is only 5,000 years old.
  
  
• NASA website debunking moon-landing-skeptics.
  
  
• MythBusters episode busting these skeptics..


• Share your purchased iTunes apps with a friend!  This works, but warnings: It might not be legal, and Mark's iPhone app problems started several days after he tried this, but it's probably coincidence because a lot of people have the identical problem.