Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With tech stuff from how stuff Works dot com. Hither everyone. My name is Chris polettam an editor here at How Stuff Works, And as usual I have sitting next to me senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Chris, is just me? Or does this seem like a crazy week to you? Oh? It's a very crazy week, But then again they're all crazy. Yeah.
They pretty much all are here at How Stuff Works, and so there are certain things that that all of us do, um that help keep us from going absolutely bunkers while we're here at work. Uh. It's a very intense process writing and editing for How Stuff Works, because we really throw ourselves fully into these topics, and occasionally we need to take little breaks and divert ourselves just so that we don't go nuts and you know, run
around the office cackling madly. Sometimes it involves lasers, pointy hats, and cottage cheese, but more likely than not, we're sort of on our own with our own little gimmicks and gadgets and things that kind of help us take the edge off. Yeah, yeah, we there, there's an interesting array of toys and devices and UH and favorite websites here in how Stuff Works, and we thought we'd talk a little bit about some of ours. And this is this is really you know, Chris's favorites, my favorites that we
can't really speak for the rest of the office. That's true, that's true. And I know that I've got a couple on here, right Jonathan probably already has listed. I'll just chime in if you've got one that I've got as well, and why do the same. I'm I'd even be willing to bet that you have this at the top of your list has the very first one on my list. UM.
Streaming music, you know, it's a it's a really good thing. UM. Sometimes it can be very difficult to listen to things with words in it while you're trying to write or edit an article, right, but it's very useful for things like we we also gather art and edit art and UH, and often I will crank Pandora up while I'm doing that because it's you know, I don't have to formulate sentences while I'm doing while I'm doing artwork, so that helps. UM.
And of course Pandora, you know it. It's this great little service where you put in a band name or or a song name, and then it starts grabbing other music that has some sort of similar aspect to the song you originally identified and builds a radio station based off of that, and then you can tell it if you like a song or if you don't like a song, and you kind of build up an entire radio station.
It's really really cool. Yeah. As a matter of fact, they have people that listen to different tracks and identify themes or instrumentation or vocal style. Vocal yeah, vocaling, yeah, that's great. Vocal styles, yes, And there are all sorts of things, which is which is unlike a lot of the other music services. But I do not use Pandora exclusively. UM. I also like UM. I have a whole list, and we'll run through last FM, which actually uses user tags
UM to sort of group different stations together. UM a O L Radio. UM sort of works with CBS to UH to program some different stations and they have some really good stuff. It's one of the nice things about all these different services is that they have all kinds of styles, so you know, you're not listening to simply Top forty radio or you know, have a choice of
country or pop or you know classical. You actually have a lot of control over different kind UM fine Tune which actually lets you put together a playlist with specific songs, which is pretty cool. But they let they limit you to the number of songs you can add from a particular artist or a particular album on a playlist, so you might have to create two or three playlists to get it just right. But if you're looking for that particular song you find too may have the answer because
not all of them let you do that. UM. Django is also pretty cool. Let you do different genre stations and uh, all of them are are really groovy as far as being able to let you, you know, have that personal touch on there. And of course if you are a longtime listening you probably know that I am a serious XM radio subscriber, UM, and I listened to XM a lot. You mean as a non humorous right, Well, you know since the name change they have that has
I'm sure cause some interesting conversations. UM. And then one dark horse in the race, uh Stitcher, which is really cool. I discovered it actually as a UM little program for the iPod, Touch and iPhone. Um, but it is a website too, and it puts together essentially talk radio stations. That's what I've used it for mostly. And I can't do this while I'm actually editing or writing, but you can if you're interested in the tech news of the day.
It grabs all the podcasts from places like CNN, Money and Bloomberg and things like that and knits them together into a coherent station, so you go from podcast to podcast without actually having to go pick them up yourself, which is which is pretty cool. Um. I didn't know anybody was was doing that, so that's pretty cool. So the streaming music stations and radio as was my first contrast big one. That's yeah. Um, I've got another one
that's that's along the same lines. Hulu. It's just streaming video. Hulu is something that I've you know, take a lunch break set at my desk and uh eat lunch and watch a episode of the Office or The Simpsons, you know, on Hulu. It's a it's a nice little break from the middle of let's say, like I'm writing about the large Hadron collider. It's nice to take a break from particle physics and watch um people be crazy in a goofy sitcom. Well, that's sort of like watching everyone else
here at the office. Yeah, no, it really is. Yeah. And and my contribution to the particular segment will probably be the slingbox, um, which allows me to basically take over my DVR at home and it's connected to the internet, so I can watch what's on my DVR or my TV tuner from the office. Not that I have ever done that, but when I need that. Prices right, fixed in Chief is listening, right, because we know he does listen occasionally. Probably not this one, right, I hope not.
Um so, uh, we will don't know. Yeah, So streaming video, streaming audio, those are those are two pretty pretty obvious ones. Um and and Chris and I haven't really talked about what was going to go on on this podcast, so from this point on, I think it's pretty much going to be a surprise. Um. Well, I guess I could
go ahead and throw in my iPod as well. That's also that's one of those tech stuff toys that if I didn't have it, I'd really would go nuts because that's that's got all the podcasts I subscribed to on it. And uh, that's how I keep up to date with tech news. When you know, when you're in the middle of researching a very specific topic, you can't necessarily stay right on top of the latest breaking news unless you're you know, got your eyes peeled on Twitter or something
along those lines. So, um, yeah, that's I guess we can move on from the audio and video into other stuff unless you've got something else that fits that category. Well, just my iPod Touch, which allows me to watch the video podcasts, you know, lunchtime too, which I have done and uh, you know, the little games and stuff like that for two minute brain palette cleanser if you will. Yeah, okay,
all right, Well I've got another category, web comics. There are two specific web comics that I check on a regular basis, and then there are a lot of other ones that i'll kind of I'll let slide for a while and then I'll just catch up in a batch. Um, but x K C D is one of the ones I love. I actually sent one to Chris this morning. Um, and it's not always you know, it's sort of an
s FW. You know, I guess we should have we should preface this by saying some of the stuff we'll talk about here is probably not appropriate for all ages necessarily or all work environments we happen to work in. One that's a little uh, it's it's it's a nice relaxed working environment. From that kind of standpoint, I mean, we're working really hard. At least it was until they heard us and right, yeah, and then yeah, might know
if some of these some of my favorite sites are blocked. Well, the other one was p v P Scott kurt Yeah, Scott Kurtz is uh web comic again another one that as questionable content from time to time. Nothing too bad, but there are a lot of you know, kind of
sophomoric jokes on there. Um, but those are those are things that you know, again like I'll have a a break, or you know, if if I finish an article, there's a there's a moment of elation, um of relief when I yeah, when the when the light comes down from the heavens and the angelic choir strikes up, or when you finish an article and you're about to hand it over to your editor, Um, I assume I'm not alone in this and during that moment, the last thing you
want to think about is, hey, I need to start on my next article, so you need to take a little moment to appreciate that time and take a short break before diving right back into the research. So that's when I'll check up on my web comics. That or if I hit like writer's block in the middle of a page, which does sometimes happen. I have a joke there, but I'm not gonna make it. Okay, Well, do you
have another one you can share with us? I was going to suggest for my part Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited Wow, which to which I have a subscription and bought right before I started graduate school and became unable to use. So Wednesdays are big, big days for you. Huh, Well, they actually have. They actually put up several new issues
a day. They digitize their comics and it's uh, it's got a pretty cool comics reader, uh that allows you to zoom in on panels or you know, flip from page to page, so you can actually get a pretty good look at what what the art is there. Um, and it's got access to a lot of stuff that's you know, so far out of print that it's ridiculous. So it's um and growing every week. It's very impressive. Um. You know, I don't usually check that out of work, but I have on at lunchtime a couple of times.
And you know, we also sometimes have to work at home true, which true occasionally means that we have to take hard at work. When I'm working at home, I'm not taking breaks like that. I even worked through lunch. No, I mean working at home like after work hours. I don't mean like like taking a work day at home. All right, um, which I have done on occasion as well. Um, but okay, well, let's move on to some other ones. I've got a couple of blogs that I like to
check out when I've got a couple of minutes. Um. Actually, here are three in particular that I like, and they have a similar theme. See if you can spot it. Skep Chicks, Bad Astronomy and Skeptic Blog. Well, you know it's pretty obvious that, yeah, I guess. So. I find
it difficult to believe that you are that skeptical. There are times where you look at the world and you think, Wow, it's really flipping crazy, and it's it's websites like skep Chicks and Skeptic Blog and Bad Astronomy that helped me ground myself and think there are some pretty sane critical thinkers out there who don't just immediately jump on anything and and and validate it. They give it some real thought.
So yeah, once in a while I have to touch touch ground there, and that's those are the ones I go to for that, all right. Um. I have every once in a while when I have time, which is not that often these days. UM, I log into a NewsGator, which is an RSS aggregator, and there are just tons and tons of different blogs that I check out, you know, things like um plaid stallions dot com, which is all seventies related pictures from catalogs and things like that. And
of course you've got that weird commercial obsession. Yeah yeah, I have been uh known to visit the Internet archive on occasion and check out some old commercials or YouTube and uh you know, I'm just saying that in my end two and a half hour playlist of game show tunes on my iPod, Chris is a real wild man in the office. Yeah, um, all right, hey, fail blog Fail Blog, and it's counterpart I can ask cheeseburger, right, all right, both of which can occasionally be not safe
for work. Actually I can ask cheeseburgers usually Okay, Well, I mean, if you're going that way and you really need something safe for work, you can always go to uh, you know, Cute Overload or the Chiba you New Puppies can. Fail blog just gives me so much joy. Uh there's some that are literally painful to watch. Like you just if you're like if you're like me, it is because I empathize occasionally with the poor schleps who who have
suffered under fail Blog. There is occasionally a video that will have some really terrible um accident in it, like the guy who was winning the bicycle race and he threw his arms up over his head which caused him to lose his balance and the guy who was right behind him past him because he fell right. Or the soccer game where the guy throws the soccer ball into the field and and it smacks the other soccer players straight in the face and he just crumples like like
a lead weight. That made me laugh so hard. I'm a horrible person. Yeah, I bet you don't watch America's Funniest Own venuos No, I can't stand it. Completely different from watching somebody get hit in the face with a soccer. Yeah. I don't know. I can't. I can't explain it all right, but okay, uh, there's a game I like to play it every now and then, Kingdom of Loathing. Have you heard of it? Yes? I have? Have you played it? Okay? Kingdom of Loathing is like a role playing game, except
it's very very geek oriented. It's got a lot of pop culture references, geek culture references. There are monsters in there that are modeled after they might be giants songs. There's an entire environment that is that takes its inspiration from John Hodgeman's obsession with hoboes. Um that sounds completely unlike you. I am shocked. Well, the nice thing about Kingdom of Loathing is that they put a cap on how many turns you can spend per day playing the game.
So under a single player account, you can only play up to forty turns. All the you can get some items and and other like buffers to boost that number up. I think as high as two, but most people don't. Most people have surround like maybe a hundred or whatever. Anyway, the turns go by very quickly, so it's not like you're going to spend an entire day playing the game
unless you've made multiple accounts. But it's definitely one of those things that keeps me saying because it's just so bizarre and uh, it really does appeal to my sense of humor. I'm really surprised that you haven't mentioned Twitter yet. Yeah, I kind of put that under Digsby said, the Digsby umbrella, which is all the instant messaging, email and Twitter all put together. Well, you know, it does keep me sane.
It's funny because, uh, you know, I don't know if I'm speaking for Jonathan accurately here, but we joined some of the social networking services partially so we could try them out and talk to you about them, but you know, to do a little uh networking, and then ended up sort of checking out of the people and getting caught up in it. Right at least. I follow a few a few celebrities as well, which I swore I would
not do when I started on Twitter. Um, and some of them aren't really not necessarily big name celebrities, but people that I admire for their work, like Will Wheaton. Yes, I follow Will Wheaton, who has has given me a shout out and turned on his blog, which was very rewarding. It's kind of crazy though. I was like, hey, I've been on yeah who's homepage? But Will Wheaton look, Will
mentioned my large Adrian Collider article. Um Felicia Day from the Guild and Dr Horrible and various other Buffy the Vampire Slayer anyway, follow her as well. And the celebrities. There are a few fake yeah, Stephen Colbert, um, but yeah they're John Hodgman is another one. I follow John Clice. Yeah, there's a ton. And then also I follow a lot of tech journalists to keep up with that as well, so I have a nice balance. But yeah, it's definitely one of those sand D preservation uh toys that I
like to rely on. Interesting. Interesting, And there's you know Gmail Gmail. Uh yeah, Gmail actually keeps me saying just because it it's a very effective filing system for email, so that that's also very helpful. I was gonna say Google Earth. I use Google Earth occasionally just to you know, it's such a neat tool. And just recently they added an ancient Rome you can you can you can explore
Ancient Rome. I think it's three twenty BC Rome, and uh, they have the three D model buildings up so you can actually kind of go through and see what the streets were like back in three twenty BC. That's just cool room if you want to, uh rock lobster. Alright, So, um, I wanted to talk about two that are no longer with us, two toys that we can no longer rely upon to keep us sane. I'm sorry, hands go off, Pounds,
We'll miss you, Pounces. Pounce has gone under. The people who were working on Pounds, which is one of Kevin Rose's projects, are now working on other projects. So hopefully they're you know, still gainfully employed, but the services no more as they have joined the six apart family, which you may know from such hit projects is Movable Type than Movable Type and the former owners of live journal
and well, the other was Valley Wagg. Valleywag was a rumor and gossip site on the tech industry, one of those things that that Chris and I've said, we hope we never make it onto Valley Wag, but we made it. We survived. Yeah, we we we outlived Valley Wag. Now, granted they're the fellow who was in charge of Valley Wag.
He's still blow gugging, but it's no longer under the Valley Wag name exclusively, and there aren't as many updates to that blog now, so um yeah too, too fewer things for us to clutch onto and keep us saying yeah and uh. For for my part, I would have to add all the political sites that I had been surfing over the past few months to find out what was going on and who was saying what and fact check yes and yeah. There were a lot of a
lot of yeah. I went to a lot of political sites to Actually I don't think that those help me keep me sane though opposite effect. So fortunately that the election season is now over, there's an election site whole in my daily routine. I see, So you have to find something. Might I recommend Kingdom of Loathing? Actually, I was thinking at this point, work, that's true, that's true. There's it is a busy time, all right. Well that's a good I think that's a good wrap up of
the toys that keep us saying um. You know. This discussion also reminds me of another podcast that's in our how Stuff Works podcast family. It's called Stuff You Missed in History Class that's hosted by Kendice Gibson and Jane McGrath. They did an episode about presidential salaries, so you want to talk about insane, Yeah, but definitely check that out. If you haven't subscribed to it, you should definitely definitely look at that because it's a great podcast. It's very
educational and very entertaining. So if you'd like to learn more about some of the topics we've talked about today, things like streaming audio and video and Twitter, be sure to check those out at how stuff works dot com, which is also a great site for you to take a look at while you're looking for ways to keep yourself saying at your day job. So thanks for listening and we'll talk to you against you. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camry. It's ready, are you