Listen to internet radio with DrakeBailey on BlogTalkRadio
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/drakebailey/2013/07/31/politics-and-sociology
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Show Tonight, July 31, 2013! And some housekeeping!
by Tanaath on 07/31/13
That's right! Show tonight! Apparently we are farther along
in getting ready for shows than I thought, which is a pleasant surprise.
We are still working on a lot of the behind the scenes infrastructure;
we don't have a chat yet, for instance (but don't worry, we had all the
questions collected up until the end of the show last show, so those 24
pages of questions... we still have it!). Thomas Williams (who is also
heading the transcription team) is our host, and will be reading the
questions.
The show will be at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/drakebailey/2013/07/31/politics-and-sociology at 7pm EST (that's the same time as before, 6 pm CST). We will have three hours of show, and I don't know about overtime. There is a call in number at 646-649-1142; today it will be for listening ONLY, as we aren't yet organized enough to take call-in questions. But hey, at least we have a show. We have limited call-in lines right now, so if you have a Skype subscription that allows you to call in, and a few friends who listen to the show with you on Skype, you can save lines by adding them to your call in. As long as they have a headset (microphone not necessary), or speakers, they'll be able to hear you. This might be something people might want to take the initiative to organize on the dreaded Facebook page - group call ins to save lines.
Now, here is a bit of unfortunate news. Blogtalk removes old archives when a show is cancelled. In preparation for this, the archives were downloaded and put onto an external hard drive. Two cats knocked this over and destroyed it. We can't stay mad at cats. They are cats, after all. But this means that we don't have archives of the show. So if anyone has kept recordings of the show privately (particularly the last TWO wednesday night shows), please get into contact with us via Facebook or email, and we can see about getting together as complete a collection as possible and finding some way to host these for sharing.
The show will be at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/drakebailey/2013/07/31/politics-and-sociology at 7pm EST (that's the same time as before, 6 pm CST). We will have three hours of show, and I don't know about overtime. There is a call in number at 646-649-1142; today it will be for listening ONLY, as we aren't yet organized enough to take call-in questions. But hey, at least we have a show. We have limited call-in lines right now, so if you have a Skype subscription that allows you to call in, and a few friends who listen to the show with you on Skype, you can save lines by adding them to your call in. As long as they have a headset (microphone not necessary), or speakers, they'll be able to hear you. This might be something people might want to take the initiative to organize on the dreaded Facebook page - group call ins to save lines.
Now, here is a bit of unfortunate news. Blogtalk removes old archives when a show is cancelled. In preparation for this, the archives were downloaded and put onto an external hard drive. Two cats knocked this over and destroyed it. We can't stay mad at cats. They are cats, after all. But this means that we don't have archives of the show. So if anyone has kept recordings of the show privately (particularly the last TWO wednesday night shows), please get into contact with us via Facebook or email, and we can see about getting together as complete a collection as possible and finding some way to host these for sharing.
Now, on to the next subject, which is pertinent to the previous subjects. Donations. Several people have expressed a desire for some apparatus for donations. I have been very very leery of accepting donations as part of this work, as any form of donation apparatus, subscription, or other monetarization of this kind of work becomes immediate fodder for shill attacks. I've already seen this in action, some shill running around trying to discredit me because I said that I would discuss donations in one line on my website (not even that I took donations, I don't even have an apparatus set up to do so). It wouldn't matter to these people that we would definitely not be making anything like a living off of this, what matters to them is that money is involved and they can attack this. It's also hard to justify accepting money for this when so many people are in such dire straits financially. So if you want to be a donor, please only do this if it doesn't harm you or your family to do so! Consider also the need of your own communities, where time and resources are needed to help one another there. I don't want to 'steal' from other efforts.
If we do decide to take donations, I want to make it clear what these will be used for. They will be used to get premium versions of the show (more time, more lines, etc.), pay for redundant third party storage of archives (it will make it more difficult for cats to strike again), and pay for transcription software and foot pedals to make the lives of our transcribers a little less hellish. No, this is not dictation software, dictation software cannot handle multiple speakers. We're still doing this all by hand. But it's far far easier to use transcription software and a foot pedal than to try to use a .wav or .mp3 with no slowing and a text file. I have spent many hours transcribing professionally, and I know that dedicated transcription software makes your life a whole lot easier. To give people an idea of the ratio of time it takes to transcribe show time recorded, the average transcriber runs a ratio of about 1 unit of show to 3-4 units of transcribing. That's right, that means that a 1 hour show will often take about 3-4 hours to transcribe... and our marathon 3-4 hour shows take 9-16 hours to transcribe! This ratio becomes worse when you don't have transcribing software. Transcribing software lets you transcribe and control the speed of a recording, back up or fast forward, mark time spots - all without having to switch windows or programs. It speed things up a heck of a lot and cuts down on the tedium. We're working with some free versions of software now, but foot pedals still cost money, and if the free versions don't have the functionality we need, there's a few good paid versions out there. I've worked with NCH Scribe before, and we're considering using it, although F4 is also under consideration. These two are the cheapest and have good functionality.
This is another place where we might accept donations, but we'd have to talk to you about it first - if you are an experience transcriber or translator, we could probably use your time and effort. One problem with universalizing this information is that it is currently only available in English, a language which only a small percentage of the world speaks fluently. Transcription and text versions of interviews help get past the barriers for those who have hearing problems or who don't process audio well. If we can get transcripts translated into as many languages as possible, this allows people to at least read in their native tongue. The thing with that, though, is we need to make sure that all translations are as accurate as we can make them. We can't pay for professional translation services. The amount of content we generate would cost thousands of dollars per language. Instead, what we can do is have all work checked by another fluent speaker of that language for accuracy.
So yes, if you have some time and skill and want to contribute, we could probably use you. Get into contact with me - I'm going to have to find some way to organize what is turning out to be a huge amount of work. :) And this is with all my current family and other obligations too, whew!
Speaking of which, I need to get to sanding so I can paint.
See you all tonight!
Update: Emergency family stuff! I just got notified of some last-minute family stuff that's going on tonight... don't worry, it's not a tragedy or a negative emergency, it's related to my little brother's very very immanent wedding. But it does mean that Sunfire and Drake will be doing the show without me. Any questions that they can't answer without me, we'll pass along to next week. Don't worry, I should be there next week!
-Tanaath
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