Jeremy Cherfas

It makes me sad to think that so many of us come to see this kind of food paradise as something threatening, full of foods we mustn’t eat and joys to be avoided. Me too

Repurpose that incubator! Turning raw seasoned meat into sausages is both science and food.

Further to my note about a new #podcast about #indieweb things, I listened to Marty McGuire’s rendering of This Week in the Indieweb. I really enjoyed it, even though I had read the text version. Production and audio were top notch, and it was very clear. My only quibbles concern the pace and the audience. Even as a native English speaker, and despite Marty’s very clear diction, it seemed a bit speedy to me. I wonder whether less fluent listeners manage to get it all.A second, similar point, about the audience. In my estimate, as a newcomer to indieweb and a less than expert person, some of the stuff whizzed right by me. But if I were familiar with it all, I’d probably be keeping up with the IRC channels and the indieweb.org pages and so I’m not too sure why I’d need an audio version. But that’s just a matter of choice.The slightly bigger question is, would there be an audience for a more discursive podcast about the indieweb? Marty would be in favour. So would Chris Aldrich, who started this ball rolling for me. There’s a fair bit of audio tagged indieweb at huff duffer, but nothing, apparently, dedicated to the topic.We certainly have the technology to produce something that captures the history, what’s happening now and how things might develop. There’s no way I could do that on my own – not least because I don’t know enough to ask intelligent questions – but with a co-host or two it would be a really interesting project.

Good piece pointing out that science writers are not doing the job some people think they ought to be doing. But maybe they’re doing precisely the job their editors want them to do? This is nothing new, but it is good to be reminded from time to time. Does anyone upbraid movie critics for parroting a studio’s hype?

Ooh. A new podcast to listen to, which also fits with my growing enthusiasm for #indieweb. And wouldn’t it be fun, as @chrisalrich almost suggests, to make a podcast about indieweb. If there’s space …

Has it really been a year since 10Cv4 hit the ground? @matigo is right: time does fly when you’re having fun. And the way the service has developed is nothing short of miraculous, given that it rests on a single individual. Sometimes I wish he’d slow down and consolidate, but mostly I’m just grateful 10C exists.

Further to this morning’s minirant about blocking Instapaper, I’ve now discovered that some sites – I’m looking at you, HuffPo – don’t want me to be able to speed read, which I’m doing with a nifty little thing called Spritz. Or maybe they’re just unaware there’s a problem. The good news is that HuffPo does not appear to block Instapaper, so in the fullness of time, I will read the piece anyway. It looks really interesting.

You mention SoundCloud, which a lot of people, including podcasters, are using. Fine, for them, but more than a silo, SoundCloud is a locked room. I use Huffduffer.com a lot to sample audio and – even more – to share what I’m sampling and to see what other people are sharing. A sort of recommendation engine, if you like, though not a very powerful one, I admit. And SoundCloud deliberately makes it hard to share. There are ways around that barrier, of course, but not everyone will want to use them. And so, as ever, by hosting on SoundCloud you may be denying yourself listeners. #indieweb

Sad that an increasing number of sites seem to block Instapaper. That little bit of friction – I have to copy the URL, go to Instapaper and add the link by hand – but so far it always works – might mean I won’t ready your piece. Is that really worth it?