BostonGeek Podcast: Episode 24

Can you smell it? On the Tech Top Three, we take a look at Britannica’s response to Wikipedia comparisons, Vonage and house-fires, and of course, Vista’s delay. On the Gaming Table, we get excited at the thought of even more old-school gaming on the Nintendo Revolution, and look forward to see Videogames Live. On Boston In Brief, two geeky events to look forward to: LinuxWorld Boston, and the Podcasting Academy at Boston University.

Episode 24 (27 MB , 58:47)

Show Notes:

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Email: colin@bostongeek.com or carl@bostongeek.com
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44 Responses to “BostonGeek Podcast: Episode 24”  

  1. 1 jcarreiro

    I

  2. 2 jcarreiro

    Aw, c’mon. Seriously. I can’t type <3? Anyway, I tried to write “I heart Wikipedia!”, but it done died on me.

    Also I am listening to the podcast again — at work, no less. I had stopped for a while, sorry.

    Show notes?

  3. 3 Big Remy

    Death to the Wiki.

  4. 4 Dave

    Yah, it’s funny how a comment form that accepts html would barf on that. Maybe <3 will work?

  5. 5 Dave

    Who’s the man, J?

  6. 6 jcarreiro

    Colin?!? No love for the TurboGrafx16?

    My friend had a TurboGrafx16. Kicked ass. I didn’t like SplatterHouse that much, but Blazing Lazers was good.

    Also, I heard that not every game will be available for the Revolution. Something about how only the “best games” would be, according to Iwata-san’s speech at this year’s GDC.

  7. 7 jcarreiro

    I < Dave.

    As for the comment thing, from a user point of view, having to remember to encode my HTML entities myself … well, it’s not very friendly is it? ;^)

  8. 8 jcarreiro

    awww crap.

    I <3 Dave.

    See how hard that is for me to remember to do right? Freakin’ markdown has corrupted me, I guess.

  9. 9 Colin

    Oh, I guess I was reading too much into it when you said “I < Dave”

  10. 10 Big Remy

    Well, technically Jay is smaller than Dave so the IDave>>Remy

  11. 11 Big Remy

    Whoops change that :-)

    Jay

  12. 12 Big Remy

    Wow, that formatting got messed up.

  13. 13 jcarreiro

    See, Remy got it wrong too. Just like I did. Wait, I’m like Remy? Is that good or bad?

    Anyway, it is true that I < Dave << Remy, strictly in terms of mass of course! :^/

  14. 14 Dave

    Show me a 1, J…show me a 1.

  15. 15 Big Remy

    See that is what I was trying to do and it won’t let me. What’s so hard about putting a 1?

  16. 16 Dave

    Old joke.

    And you need to enter html code for less-than or greater-than signs, since they’re used to mark the start and end of html tags. The full list of characters is over at w3.org as usual.

  17. 17 Colin

    for reference: < = “&lt;” and > = “&gt;”

  18. 18 Big Remy

    Bah. Horse hockey. Tron didn’t have to do stuff like that.

  19. 19 Dave

    Maybe…but Tron was also a nancy boy. You don’t want to be a nancy boy, do you?

  20. 20 Dave

    (listening to the cast again while at work)

    Colin, you are officially banned from any ululation on the cast from now on. I really will come down to your house and mace you if I have to.

  21. 21 Dave

    blah blah blah…britannica is teh evil…blah blah

  22. 22 Dave

    So, seriously, how are you making the jump between “that study claiming that our competitor is as good as us was crap science” to the mpaa and riaa suing the shit out of their customers?

  23. 23 Dave

    wait, didn’t you carry a windows portable device, like a dell or something, for a while? or does that not count because it’s not from palm?

  24. 24 Carl

    Well, I ‘owned’ a pocketPC, which I really only used to play MP3’s and an NES emulator.

  25. 25 Dave

    Dug up some articles talking about 911 service on Vonage, and some of the other VOIP services. Basically, the baby Bells dragged their feet as long as they possibly could in allowing Vonage access to their E911 databases and infrastructure. Shocking, I know. SBC/at&t have been particular dicks, even after Qwest and Verizon signed deals. It was only after the FCC mandate that they even talked to them.

    http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3493996
    http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3502621
    http://www.vonage-forum.com/article1804.html
    http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=397

  26. 26 Dave

    Wow, nice…auto-linky, and it didn’t flag that comment as spam (which is why I left them unlinked).

  27. 27 Dave

    The batphone technique is actually a good idea, it just makes using the existing house wiring with Vonage trickier…

  28. 28 Colin

    While waiting for my telephone number to be ported from AT&T to Vonage, I kept one cordless phone hooked up to the telco. With my wiring setup, it was really easy to do.

  29. 29 Dave

    And yeah, the pronging you get from Verizon is so painful that it’s worth the minor inconveniences you get with Vonage.

    And jesus does Carl sound like the Fox news guys. “BEWARE! 911 WILL FAIL AND YOU WILL DIE!”

  30. 30 Dave

    The one thing I’m worried about is FIOS. The bandwidth and ability to flip Comcast off is enticing, but I just know the fuckers are going to bundle it with their crap phone service.

  31. 31 Dave

    The funny thing is the reason MS delayed home editions of Vista was specifically because they didn’t think they’d be able to meet the deadlines the OEMs had to be able to get the install process put into place in their factories.

  32. 32 Colin

    The one thing I’m worried about is FIOS. The bandwidth and ability to flip Comcast off is enticing, but I just know the fuckers are going to bundle it with their crap phone service.

    With only phone service? We will be lucky if they don’t bundle it with a new tv/cable service as well.

  33. 33 Dave

    Right now cannot get “bare” DSL from Verizon. You have to buy a landline from them in order to buy their DSL. Hell, you can’t even find out for sure if DSL is available unless you (or the previous occupant, if you’re moving) have Verizon phone service. As their absolute cheapest phone plan is $38/mo, that’s a pretty steeply priced prerequisite.

    Comcast goes for the carrot, rather than the stick. You can get bare internet service from them, it’s just like $15/mo more than if you get cable tv as well. They also have 3-play bundles as well. But there’s at least the option of just internet service.

  34. 34 Colin

    Well, Verizon does allow 3rd-party providers to sell their DSL without phone service, just as Comcast does (and not incur the $15 fee).

  35. 35 Dave

    At the moment, it seems bare internet service with FIOS is an option…they’re going for the carrot approach. $5 off for either signing a 1-year contract or having “qualifying voice service”. Not bad.

  36. 36 Dave

    Yeah, but then you’ve inevitably got the degraded service problem, as you’ve got to harass both the reseller and Verizon if you want to get anything fixed.

  37. 37 Dave

    Mmm..Dreamcast games. I mean, MS already stole the controller design… :)

  38. 38 Dave

    Boom. And Carl yet again takes a mildly clever “special pants” joke and ruins it.

  39. 39 Dave

    Why do you lend credence to lone random aberrations? Nearly every Revolution article to date places the price in the $249-299 range. Don’t be that guy, Carl, don’t be that guy who reports on some random crackpot’s rantings as possible fact.

  40. 40 Dave

    Ehm, meh…covers of video game music not really my thang.

  41. 41 Dave

    Why, lord, why would you go to the scary “one time, at podcast camp” place when you could go to the happy “say my name, bitch” allison hannigan place?

    Mmm…allison hannigan.

  42. 42 Dave

    So, let me get this straight. You just finished wetting yourself talking about the podcast class at BU, but now you need to mock LinuxWorld guys as being taped-glass wearing geeks?

  43. 43 Carl

    Yes, yes I do. :)

  44. 44 Dave

    Ass.

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