It'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...
It'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...
We'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. mp3 downlo...
It'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...
It'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...
This 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...
Hey 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, as does the Flu T...
We 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 talking about democrat...
Originally 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 back then. ...
Actual 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 plagues. Hey wa...
Live 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 download...
Hey 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...
OK, 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...
Hey, 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. Enjoy. mp3...
Yup, 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 and Korea (...
Everyone 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 TOSs? Hey, wai...
Look, 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...
Do 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 quitting as AU ...
Another 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 fulfilled m...
I 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 into some fine...
Hey 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 anyway?) Now...
Follow 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 sue Tesla ...
As 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 to this rep...
As 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...
Welcome 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 in that...
