Tangential Convergence
35 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 year ago - ★★★★ - 3 ratingsHomepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Episode 60 - Limited Brutality is Still Brutality
February 25, 2023 20:34It's been a year since Putin started his illegal invasion of Ukraine. We here at TC are staunchly pro democracy and pro Ukraine. I wonder how people feel about this in Russia? We could ask Russian. So we did. Daniil also told us the story of his leaving Russia in March of 22. Give to the Red Cross. Give to the UNHRC. mp3 download
Episode 59 - Unrepresentative Yahoos
December 01, 2022 05:01 - 43.4 MBIt's Canadian National Day of Podcasting! It's also me and Ken. Hey, remember the occupation of Ottawa? Remember the Emergencies Act? Well the EA requires a commission be struck to look into the use of the EA, and well, that was our jumping off point. We talked Ottawa, the October Crisis, the Conscription Crises, Jan 6 and democracies voting themselves out of existence. We also talked DS9 and Babylon 5. Enjoy episode 59
Episode 58 - For the Glory of the Empire
October 23, 2022 21:02 - 50.4 MBWe're back. Well, Ken was for a bit, then there was a LIBRARY EMERGENCY!! Gee, what'll we talk about? How about Putin's war of choice in Ukraine? Putin knows little of the operational. art. Deception is key. This got us thinking about a lot of things, Babylon 5, DS9, Operation Mincemeat, Romans, Barbarians, the Gulf War, General Patton etc. Oh right, it was a Russia episode, so Daniil joined us again, thanks man! Please give to the Red Cross or the UNHCR to help the people of Ukraine...
Episode 57 - Gorby, We Hardly Knew Ye
September 11, 2022 19:56 - 56.2 MBIt's been a heck of a few days. The Queen died. The Russians are rushin' away (sorry...) But a couple of weeks ago Mikhail Gorbachev died. Hey wait, now that's TC material. You know what else? I KNOW AN ACTUAL RUSSIAN!! His name is Daniil, and he escaped Putin's totalitarian nightmare with his family six months ago. He now lives in Vancouver. So why not get an actual Russian on here to talk about Goby? OK, so we did. Give to the UNHCR. Give to the Red Cross. mp3 download
Episode 56 - This Book Represents a Weapon
April 24, 2022 21:38 - 52.4 MBIt's another in our ongoing coverage of Putin's war in Ukraine. Lots of weapons are coming in. Lots of war crimes are happening. We talked a bit about the history of war crimes. How can you get someone to do something evil? I talked a little Asch Line Experiment. Ken has lots of books. These show notes are getting lame. We stand for democracy, we stand with Ukraine. mp3 download
Episode 55 - The Ken and Dave Greater Co Prosperity Sphere
March 19, 2022 22:26 - 42.7 MBThis one is all about propaganda. Of course we've been both thinking about the topic ever since Russia invaded Ukraine. Does Putin actually believe his own propaganda? Are we swayed by propaganda (of course we are). I've. got a lot of problems with Noam Chomsky. Oh yeah, this one was recorded live and in person. mp3 download
Episode 54 - Слава Україні! Героям слава!
February 27, 2022 21:38 - 58.8 MBHey it's us! Gee, what's been in the news? Maybe the Soviet Russian invasion of Ukraine? Is this a reboot of 1918 or 1938? (With credit to @docpinko). We think it's more like 1918. What is Russia's end game? We don't know, what the hell do we know about anything? Will this lead to the end for Putin? We can only hope. Putin has put his nukes on alert, it might be the only thing he has. The Russians are the Cardassians, not the Romulans. The book of Boba Fett makes an appearance, ...
Episode 53 - Decision 2020 Pre Game Show or Whatever
November 04, 2020 01:26 - 50.4 MBWe recorded this one at around 7pm EST. Some polls are closed, some are open, some people are still in line. I conducted a completely (scientifically) useless twitter poll. Many of our US friends voted in advance. Many of them didn't have lines. That said, my twitter following probably skews kinda white. Still, it was nice of people to respond. The lineups are a sign of a fragile democracy. That said, a lot of people voted by mail. or in advance some other way. This got us talkin...
Episode 52 - The All New Honda Freebee
June 04, 2020 01:53 - 52.5 MBOriginally Ken and I were going to hop on Skype and talk about reopening economies. Then, the murder of George Floyd happened. So, we couldn't not talk about that. So we did. Though, really, we agree that white people ought to be doing a lot more listening and a lot less talking right now. We of course both agree that Black Lives Matter. This of course is all happening during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, is this 1968? Canada is doing something like a UBI that people thought about a lot ...
Episode 51 - Chock Full of Plagues
April 10, 2020 01:42 - 51.7 MBActual t shirt that I'm wearing as I type this We're back, and better than ever. Oh and there's a plague and we're all working from home. Also, Ken is now in entirely different city, so we're doing this over Skype for the first time. So of course we're talking COVID, we're talking bubonic plague and other stuff. Other stuff being the 1918 Influenza epidemic for example, and AIDS in the 1980s. Babylon 5 is full of plagues. Star Trek, every Star Trek series, is really chock full of pla...
Episode 50 - Timely, Topical, Terrifying and Tom
July 07, 2019 13:01 - 28.1 MBLive from MMPR 2019, it's Tangential Convergence! Yeah, so I'm typing this up on the Sunday before we all meetup for the goodbye breakfast of MMPR. It was good fun. It was Ken's first TC, and Tom's as well. We talked about the history of military parades, what with the oddness of the recent July 4 parade. The audio is ok, there was some music playing in the background, and it was a little loud. Apparently also the audience couldn't hear us..... We hope you enjoy the episode. mp3 dow...
Episode 49 - I Can't Even Throw Away Paint
May 28, 2019 02:12 - 63 MBHey look, it's us! Also, we streamed this one live. Sorta cool right? Of course we peaked at three listeners, still... Evil Bond villain Elon Musk launched a bunch of satellites. It's pretty crazy. SpaceX is like the British East India Company, or the Company of a Hundred Associates. Elon Musk may be odd, but, he never ran the Congo or anything. Oh these satellites might change our night sky. mp3 download
Episode 48 - You Need Three People For Propaganda
April 09, 2019 02:30 - 63.8 MBOK, we're back after a long hiatus. Ken has merged with a new kidney, and he's doing much better thank you. We started out by talking about the SNC Lavalin affair here in Canada at the request of friend of the show, Tom Merritt. We gave our impressions on the affair. This got us to talking about fake news, and the recent BuzzFeed News Article about how the olds share more fake news. Then we got to Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica. mp3 download
Episode 47 - Ward Cleaver Was Really Into Cock Fighting
September 18, 2018 02:01 - 36.9 MBHey, we're back! If anything gets us back to talking it is overreach by a company with a bit of copyright! I'm using too many exclamation points! So, a guy who had bought a movie from Apple went to re download his purchase, and it turns out, he didn't really buy the movie. He bought a license to download it, depending on its availability in the iTunes store. Plus, the EU is going all crazy again..... We talked Dr. Johnson, dystopias, the future of newspapers and the Peninsular Wars. En...
Episode 46 - A Warehouse Full of Minitel Terminals
July 20, 2018 02:15 - 34.9 MBYup, we're back. Don't worry, we just took a little break. So, today is Isabelle's birthday, so there's that. Our topic though, is not birthdays, but, the recent fine the European Union has slapped on Google. The deal here is, that if you make an Android phone, and you want to use the google play store, you can't fork Android. I mean, you CAN, but then you don't get the play store. The EU doesn't like this much. This brought me in mind of the unequal treaties imposed on China, Japan an...
Episode 45 - Sending Your Scribe to John Grisham's Place
June 29, 2018 01:52 - 37.1 MBEveryone sing along. It's Tom Merritt's birthday. Today, or tonight really, we're tackling a topic we've spoken of before, cloud computing. Yeah, that was back in episode 12, that file is long gone.... Today at work there was a presentation about G Suite for education. Hey the university gets google tools for free! Also, no ads, and no data collected. So that's cool, and that's why we're talking about this tonight. What's the deal on those things that Picard signs? Is he accepting TO...
Episode 44 - Churchill as a Service
June 22, 2018 02:24 - 31.9 MBLook, another episode! Look, another episode about copyrights! Look, the EU is being silly again! Is it censorship? I dunno. I'm sure Ken will know much more about this than I, because of his librarianosity. What if you could make copies of people's consciousness? Would you? What about renting out someone's 'soul' to be used as, oh say, a university administrator. Oh, Ken's daughter graduated from grade 8, congrats to her. We hope you enjoy our ramblings. mp3 download
Episode 43 - The Small Pencil Manufacturing Trade Association Has a Grievance
June 08, 2018 02:07 - 36.8 MBDo you have it? Can you feel it? Election fever has gripped Ontario! OK, look, I'm not so sure I have election fever, it might just be some bad clams. As I write this it looks like it'll be four years of bad clams. Oh for the first time we had voting machines! The company that made them is Canadian and has no ties to Russia, that we know of.... However, elections are a great podcast topic. So, that's what we did. Ancient Greece, Rome, the Polish monarchy, the Galactic Senate, me qu...
Episode 42 - Quarter Poundor
June 01, 2018 02:22 - 37.3 MBAnother week, another episode of The Expanse, and, another TC. Oh remember, you heard it here first that the Expanse was going to be picked up by Amazon. Speaking of Amazon, this article on Engadget caught our eyes. FAKES! Apparently there's a lot of stuff on Amazon that is fake. I remember eBay dealing with that a lot when I was a seller back in the late 90s and early 2000s. I promised my Russian friend Dan that I'd mention him, and The Warlock in Spite of Himself series. I have now ...
Episode 41- Parking Tickets For Their Shuttlepods
May 25, 2018 02:47 - 35.3 MBI just announced on twitter that I'm currently writing this post, so I guess I ought to get to it. So, how about that Trump/Kim summit? Yeah, no, that's not happening. I don't know about you, but it strikes me that this was Kim's plan all along. Try for ridiculous concessions (US troops out of South Korea) then when that doesn't happen, embarrass Trump! Who knew a reality TV star could get pwned by a guy who, while evil, has been training for this role his whole life? This lead us int...
Episode 40 - My Suit Wouldn't Be Pressed As Well Without RADAR
May 18, 2018 02:27 - 34.5 MBHey we've hit 40! Now the podcast will buy a Corvette and think about a career change or something. At this rate we'll hit 100 before the next Olympics! Ken and I got into it tonight about the recent tests (that failed in Quebec, and maybe got a C- in Ontario) of the Alert Ready system. As a very rough rule, it seems that people on Rogers and Shaw or MVNOs of theirs got the alerts whereas people on Bell and Telus did not. (It isn't quite that simple, but hey, who reads these things anywa...
Episode 39 - It's The Future, Which One of These Knobs Do I Have To Blow?
May 04, 2018 02:19 - 39.6 MBFollow us again dear listener as we converge tangentially. Well, we're going to watch last night's Expanse, and before it, who knows, we might record a thing! First off I'd like to thank both @acedtect and @alkebob for posting a picture of the two of them from Vegas where there was a meet up. Great pic, which they entitled 'two thirds of the Tangential Convergence audience'. So, Tesla has an idea for an electric transport truck. Cool. Then Nicola Motors (yeah we get it) has decided to ...
Episode 38 - Five O'Clock Nigel
April 27, 2018 02:25 - 31.3 MBAs I do with Broken Area, I'm writing these show notes before we actually do a show. Who knows if we are tonight. That said, I do know that Baron von Hernden is coming over tonight to watch the Expanse. I honestly have no idea why I just called him Baron von Hernden. He's really more of a Lord. The Lord of the Library. So, money, cash specifically. Are we heading towards a cashless society? This article from CNet makes the case. Canada is the most cashless country out there according...
Episode 37 - Suitably Chagrined
April 20, 2018 02:21 - 34.5 MBAs I do over at Broken Area, I'm typing this before even recording. Hell, I'm not even sure we're recording tonight. Anyway, it is another Thursday, another Expanse night, and another week of work. Hey! We did record, we talked about the twitter shitstorm after Barbara Bush's death. This lead to a discussion of tenure, of yellow journalism, of social media, of Star Trek, of Babylon 5 and post scarcity economies. mp3 download
Episode 36 - Do You Have Change For a Krugerrand?
April 13, 2018 02:24 - 33.7 MBWelcome to our Expanse pre show. Well not really, but we will be watching last night's premiere after talking about Cambridge Analytica! I don't know why that exclamation point is there. Maybe they could use data mining to tell me. Oh, as an aside, some yim yam friend of mine used 'This is Your Digital Life' and some of my info was shared with these weenies as you can see from the accompanying screenshot. I'm typing most of this out before Ken even comes over, but I just thought I'd drop...
Episode 35 - Harry Hopkins is My Barman
March 09, 2018 02:34 - 40.7 MBYup, two times in a one week span. Tonight, before Altered Carbon we talked a bit about the story of how Alexa is maniacally laughing at users. As an aside, they've got a fix out. As an aside aside, the New York Times talked about the whole thing, 21 years ago. This got us in to talking about AI, Siri, Hal, and even Kay Summersby. FDR, Steve Jobs, Harry Hopkins et al also came up. What would you do if your digital assistant actually had a real personality? (n.b. there's a weird audio ...
Episode 34 - Darth Putin
March 02, 2018 03:00 - 42.4 MBHOLY SHIT WE'RE RECORDING. You know, Ken has been coming over to my place every Thursday for a few years now, we talk a lot then we watch a show. Man in the High Castle, the Expanse, Manhattan, and now, Altered Carbon. The thing is before every show we talk about politics and technology and history. Sound familiar? So, we recorded tonight. It was inspired by Putin's lovely speech today where he decided to show a cool video of Florida being nuked. This got us into the Korean War, Trump,...
Episode 33 - Sunny Ways
November 17, 2015 18:54 - 49.3 MBWe're back! You demanded it (I mean like one guy) and we made it happen. Yup, we decided to do an episode about the recent Canadian election. We talked about why the election turned out the way it did, when it turned out the way it did, and of course how it relates to the election of Clement Atlee. Oh, Robin's book is out! Do you want to review it, he'll send you a free one. Just contact him on twitter or Facebook. We know we say this all of the time, but we really are going to do mor...
Episode 32 - Bitcoins for Putin
March 15, 2014 12:27 - 24.8 MBNo, really, we're back. Tonight we decided to talk bitcoin, Bitcoins, Quatloos, beanie babies, tulip bulbs and such. We also talked some about the crisis in the Crimea. I promised to mention Robin's blog, you should read it. You can follow Ken on twitter and me too. Listen here, and enjoy.
Episode 30 - Four More Beers!
March 15, 2014 12:22 - 35.4 MBOK, I know we had a good title in there, but I forgot it and frankly, I don't feel like going through the whole thing to find it.... Four years ago we three got together (for the first time) on episode 8 to talk politics and technology. We also, happily, had a visit from the ever popular Isabelle. We talked about the influence of social media and tech on elections and campaigns, and the current problems in the mid East that seem to have been brought on by a mix of a hateful 'movie' and a...
Episode 31 - Silver is Gold
November 11, 2012 14:49 - 47.6 MBWell, the US election has come and gone, and I for one will miss it. I won't miss the partisan attack ads, I won't miss the superPAC ads, but, I will miss reading fiverthirtyeight.com every day. In episode 31 we tackle the US election, the future of US elections and the unwillingness of some (we're looking at you pundits, and you FOX news) to accept reality. We don't mean on political opinions. We mean you know, like how polls can be accurate and Nate Silver can figure out results, or say...
Episode 29 - I Know Enough Mimbari, and That Is Kind Of Sad...
July 29, 2012 20:23 - 30.2 MBYes, really, we all still exist. Seriously. So much has happened since we got together a little over a year ago. Several countries have new leaders, and Steve Jobs, on of the icons of tech, died. What do these things have in common? Leadership. So yeah, that was our topic. Robin is writing a book on leadership, so he told us about his ideas, they include the notion that leadership is different from managerial ability, and a lot of what we think of as leadership is just being a good mana...
Episode 28 - Jesus is The Flash
July 20, 2011 14:35 - 51 MBOddly, this episode had nothing to do with Jesus or the Flash, but, you will get the reference once you listen in. In fact, we got together for the first backyardcast of the season and talked about Google +. We love the 'circles' idea and figure this might be the thing that puts G+ over the top vs. facebook. We are also all pretty sure both are evil.... Politically this reminded us of the quick rise of parties such as Labour in the UK or the Bloc Quebecois here in Canada. The question is...
Episode 27 - Passwords, Playstations and Politics
May 11, 2011 16:57We three sat down to enjoy a lovely beverage, and discuss the playstation outage, the end of term and the exciting recent Canadian election. Robin blames China, Ken blames the Russian mafia, and, I kept silent on this, so don't bug me... Robin has been burnt by the cloud, but will not give any details. Amazon went down too, which is, frankly most of the cloud. When it went down the whole damned cloud, or much of it, went down. The problem is that there are many services, but they often r...
Episode 26 - Social Media Revolutionaries
February 20, 2011 16:43We had to talk Egypt and the mideast in this recent episode, hell it is on everyone's mind. We are somewhat optimistic about the future, though Ken and I are more optimistic than Robin and Isabelle, who sat in and drew us during the recording. There have, of course, been other revolutions, the colour revolutions and the others that brought down communism in the late 80s and early 90s and of course the ill fated Tiananmen Square protests. We were somewhat taken aback by the lack of peacef...