Podcasting from Space

An anonymous reader writes "Podcasting has officially made it into orbit! According to a Geekzone article, Mission Specialist Steve Robinson delivered a short monologue off the southeast tip of Indonesia in which he described the morale of the Discovery crew at the end of their well-publicized mission: 'It's been a fantastic mission up here, absolutely amazing. Some of the hardest work that any of us have ever done. We haven't had a whole lot of sleep, and we've been extremely busy and really happy.' A transcript of the podcast as well as the MP3 itself can be found at Nasa's site."

Comments

Podcasting?

[Andorion]

You mean he recorded a message?

Re:Podcasting?

[Fizzlewhiff]

Why the Apple tag? Apple didn't invent podcasting, they just embraced and extended it.

Re:Podcasting?

[springbox]

You mean he recorded a message?

Podcast: Someone had the revolutionary idea of taking a compressed audio file and putting it online.
Basically.

Re:Podcasting?

[ajax142]

...and see no evidence of humans anywhere

Yes, because that robotic arm, the space suit your wearing, and the GIANT Space Shuttle and Space Station in front of you were not made by humans, they just grew up from the ground.

Okay, I give up.

[xerxesVII]

What the hell makes a podcast so different from an MP3 that it deserves its own word? I'm honestly not trolling here, it's just that the word is driving me nuts.

Re:Okay, I give up.

[sp5]

A Podcast has a RSS feed (or Atom feed, whatever) that you can subscribe to to tell you when there's a new mp3. That's it. That's the difference.

Which would make this not a podcast. It would make it an "audio recording".

Well.... strictly speaking the definition of a podcast doesn't even qualify as a "cast".

Since you are pulling the RSS file and checking it for updates, and then choosing to downloading the audio file if you're interested it can't be considering casting since everything is pull and not push.

Re:Okay, I give up.

[timster]

Yeah, but it works in a sort of pushy way. Some of us old folk (i.e. over 20 years old) will remember that during the Netscape vs. Internet Explorer days, there was a brief fascination with the idea of "push" content. So when there was new content, you wouldn't have to go get it -- it would be "pushed" right to your desktop through a "channel"!

Once "Push" was implemented, it turned out to be a "reload this Web page every 5 minutes" feature. Alas, though, the eventual simplification of the concept did not save us from years of disabling "Active Desktop" and looking at dozens of Win98 machines running an unconfigured and useless "Channel Screen Saver".

So lemme get this straight...

[fimbulvetr]

1. Nasa publishes an MP3.
2. Someone finds the link to it.
3. Someone realizes they can listen to it on their portable media device.
4. This automagically turns into "podcasting".
5. Someone submits it to Slashdot under Apple using "Ipod" in the summary, solidifying it's chances of making it to the front page.
6. ???

Re:Change the name...

[GuitarNeophyte]

Once the beast is in the wild, it's pretty hard to bring it back. Like "Hacker". It's out there for good.

But at least it's like Kleenex. Just because it's earned itself a business-related name doesn't mean that you can't use the technology.

"Goody Goody for our side!", as my grandmother used to say.

Luke
----
Send your boss to ChristianNerds.com, the Computer Encyclopedia that speaks in an easy enough language that even they could understand it.

Re:Change the name...

[Rude Turnip]

Apple didn't invent podcasting and has no control over it. It is named after the most popular audio player out there so that the masses will immediately get a general idea of what it's about.

Re:A haiku.

[PriceIke]

That's hilarious.
Only on Slashdot can one
find such subtlety.

Re:Podcasting is the new blog

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an adjective.

Really. Stop being afraid of words people.