Slashdot Mirror

For podcast books there's Podiobooks which has a number of books on offer, both new and public domain.

For comedy sketch and short story, there's Firesign Theatre where you can browse the comedy albums (they've been making them for 40 years) and from each album download sample tracks. They also have a podcast.

For podcast short story and essay, there's The Seanachai. Patrick Mclean comes from advertising, I think, so he has some good writing chops. He has a series called "How to Succeed in Evil without really Trying." It's very funny.

And, pants down, the best monologist in the business is Joe Frank. A free membership on his site allows you to stream a number of full-length shows.

There's also Transom.org where hopeful producers submit stuff for NPR-type program directors to peruse. Much of it is downloadable, and it includes fiction.

Lastly, I shamelessy plug myself. Of course, if I could actually shamelessly plug myself and record it on podcast, I would have a lot more listeners. Pferdzwackur's Tin Man is exactly what the original post was asking for. Original serial fiction, with bells and whistles attached.

The Jean Shepherd Archive has hundreds of hours of unrestricted downloadable audio collected by fans over the years:
http://shep-archives.com/

Some other sources of unrestricted material:

Transom public radio workshop/showcase:
http://www.transom.org/

Archive.org has some good audio.
http://www.archive.org/

Benjamin Walker's site:
http://toeradio.org/

Cook'd and Bomb'd - Chris Morris site. Hunt around for mirrors that have archived radio programs. (The Blue Jam series is my personal favorite.)
http://chilled.cream.org/

If you don't mind downloading material that's not supposed to be available for download (most easily done using mplayer, I find), then there are plenty of radio offerings. I'm a public radio junkie, and usually stock up on a few dozen shows before taking a long trip. Among my favorites:

Joe Frank. The greatest radio artist in the history of, well, radio artistry. (Subscription costs $10/mo, but is well worth it.)
http://joefrank.com/

This American Life. (free)
http://thislife.org/

Fresh Air. (free, but a pain in the ass to navigate)
http://freshair.npr.org/

I download tons of realaudio, convert it to mp3 and play it on my portables. This American Life is always the first thing I listen to. Simply the best radio show in existence, though I don't much like the David Sedaris segments.
Joe Frank is good too.

http://www.joefrank.com/shows.html

Our computers will be built by bacteria? The magic nanobots will amaze and dazzle us. Excellent.

Maybe humans will be able to enhance themselves so they can work 24 hours per day without care or complaint. Wouldn't that be great? Nanotechnology can be used to build anything! Why eat an apple grown the old fashioned way. That's not cool. Surely ADM will just assemble one for you.

In all seriousness, we must be extremely cautious of the new biomolecular and nanotechnologies. Even if you don't heed the words of Bill Joy, with his dire warnings about self replicating nanotechnology, consider the type of world the Them have in mind for the rest of us once control of nanotechnology is achieved. Should private tyrannies, the same corporations that are responsible for the horrific state of the planet, be trusted with what amounts to the power of creation?

Technology is being used to harness our productive and creative energies for the exclusive benefit of an increasingly adept and devious elite. The more advanced technology becomes, the lower wages (and higher taxes) go. Why? Because technology allows the Them to stick it to us in an ever increasing number of ways. Simple. Beautiful. Diabolical. Graph it, in terms of individual buying power, if you doubt what I'm saying. This race to the bottom is a byproduct of technological advancement in the hands of psychopaths. Twenty first century technology, under the command and control of an elite with 19th century attitudes, will almost definitely lead to the destruction of most life on this planet. Interestingly enough, technology is not the problem. The intent of the user is the problem.

Yeah, yeah, Kevin. We know all of that. This has been the case since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. So what, in the name of God, are you on about?

This is the point: Technology is being used to enslave us. If you doubt that, you aren't taking an objective look at modern society. But we are now entering a phase where the technologies under development are more dangerous than anything we have ever dabbled with; and they have lower barriers to entry than, say, nuclear weapons. Humans have only possessed the capability of destroying life on this planet for about the last sixty years. Whether or not we make it another 60 years depends on our ability to show restraint and to reflect on our previous mistakes. Blindly adopting new technology that has the capacity to enslave or extinguish all life on this planet is the height of folly, yet this is standard operating procedure.

What's the difference, really, between primates and humans? Humans can write things in books, create websites and launch rockets into space, but both species basically look to a silverback for guidance and fling their feces when agitated. If you want to get an idea of how successful humans will be with nanotechnology and genetic engineering, place a crate full of hand grenades into a habitat containing several apes or gorillas and watch what happens.

And before you accuse me of being a continual downer, listen to Joe Frank's, An Enterprising Man (RealAudio stream) . Joe Frank's site. This makes me laugh so damn hard I almost forget it's The End.

I use Total Recorder to capture the audio, which is the only method I've found. Unfortunately, quality is lost in the conversion, and its one of the few programs that keeps me booting windows. Here's hoping someone uses the recently release realaudio source to come up with a better Linux solution.

All these shows take up a lot of space though. The Bantam BA350 holds 128mb + a 128mb flash card. Recharges from the USB port and works well. My favorite MP3 player to date, though it has a windows only interface.

It is Good Shit(tm), though. Not only do you get these deep (and often dark) stories, but some of these shows have some of the best fscking beats. The soundtracks behind this show are really beautiful to this perl hacker's ears.