#1 - Operation Sandbags At Dawn

In this inaugural episode, David, Luke and Andy conquer technology and eventually manage to talk to each other using a variety of VOIP technologies. David then succeeds in recording the resulting antics.

This bizarre ‘Menage A Trois’ address the thorny issue of naming this podcast and take a light hearted look at recent events on identi.ca, stir up recent flame fests passionate discussions, ponder on the attractions of Minecraft and then pay a fulsome tribute to the best dent of all time as well as a fleeting look at football and politics.

The spontaneous and unexpected interruptions for the fire alarm and room service were not beautifully crafted comedy moments - just a welcome accident of timing.

This broadcast was conducted via freedom hating (and new sponsors) Skype complete in full Dolby stereo. The audio quality is pretty good given Andy was located deep in Osama Bin Laden’s cave with a kettle on his head.

Kudos to David for a sterling job on the incredibly time consuming and tedious task of converting Gigabytes of rambling, stuttering audio from a short 3 minute show with 72 minutes of out-takes into what became episode #1.

The main driver behind this experiment was purely the fun and enjoyment we all get from the discussions and interesting people on identi.ca. Many thanks to all the folk who post there and to Evan and the StatusNet team for creating this open source micro blogging platform which made it all possible.

We’re new to this. We made a few (lots - Ed) mistakes. We’re not professional podcasters. We don’t use studio microphones. We don’t record separate audio streams. We’re unlikely to be able to give up our day jobs.

However, if you have anything to say; constructive, abusive or anything inbetween, please run, don’t walk, to the ‘Feedback’ section.

Episode #1 File: TINAP1.ogg Duration: 1h 12m 24s Size: 17.5 MB

MP3: TINAP1.mp3 Size: 24.6MB

This is not a podcast is not in stereo for all the mono lovers.

00:00 Intro
00:25 Protesting about not being able to protest
01:10 I am probably angry about something
02:17 The Hound of the Baskervilles
04:32 Good moaning Vietnam
05:10 I’m about to carry a bag of sand
06:00 Blinking morse code
06:40 This is not a podcast
07:20 Operation Sandbags At Dawn
07:28 Another Freedom do - Flaming Fab
08:07 Endorsing OggComp and Oracle’s commitment to Freedom
09:25 I believe I was inebriated at the time
10:35 <Skype endorsement>
11:57 Ruby dicks
12:19 Holy nuclear war
13:43 <Skype enforcement>
14:46 Ruby dickheads
15:12 You’re still angry - you’re just worse at it
15:32 RMS
17:10 Twitter migration
18:58 Spam
20:18 !Twitterfree
22:25 Scores on the Doors
24:28 Time travel
25:50 Fire drill
26:08 Where were we?
27:30 #whyidenticarocks
28:57 The new Identica
30:25 StatusNet 1.0 - fork it!
33:53 API - in Evan we trust
35:07 #s Hashtags
35:52 #disturbing
36:54 Popey and Fab have agreed about something
37:23 That is all
37:59 Someone’s gone off to the east!
39:20 Room service
40:22 And suddenly, it’s 4am three weeks later
41:44 #Whinecraft
44:17 Mr & Mrs
45:09 Fuck the system
48:42 We just need another flame war
49:17 And then these fucking horrendous bras arrived
50:33 Lock up your daughters
51:20 Learning how to use Unix systems
52:40 Can anyone remember what I just said?
54:17 For God’s sake, talk to people!
56:05 The British Broadcasting Cunts
58:20 Aberystwyth riots
59:25 Pissed off with the police
1:00:02 Cambridge riots
1:00:50 London riots
1:01:44 <Endorsing acupuncture>
1:02:01 Benefit scrounging scum
1:03:36 I will get it up at some point
1:04:21 Welfare to work
1:05:44 #BigSociety
1:07:14 The Wolfman of Alberquerque
1:08:00 On the way out with Mario Bibotelli
1:10:56 I was not fazed in the slightest
1:11:41 Outtakes

Further reading

We fully appreciate you may not use identi.ca and even if you do, you may not read every single dent posted by every single person so here’s some handy links to the various issues discussed.

If you see a story below and think ‘Hey - they never discussed that’, well we did so turn your computer off, turn the TV/boyfriend/husband/partner off and listen to the entire show again. From the start. Carefully.

  • Simon Phipps’ article on the dangers of Skype which led to this monster thread on identi.ca. Incidentally, this is an excellent example of threaded conversations on identi.ca.
  • Andy’s ill considered blog post chastising Sarah Baskerville.
  • The StatusNet Wiki page with the ‘rationale’ for the 0.9.7 Navigation and UI changes.
  • The legendary ‘I’m about to carry a bag of sand’ dent from James Robertson.
  • Self driven helicopters do actually exist.
  • A tantalising preview of what Status Net 1.0 may look like.
  • Fab gives us a Minecraft tour and doesn’t walk too far to the East.
  • Luke’s interview with RMS who uses the TricklePost utility to automate posting to identi.ca.
  • A penetration tester completes his UK census form.
  • The never ending struggles of Mario Bibotelli.