Tag: NPR

  • Why Car Talk Meant so Much to Me (And why I’m sad it had to go + Tom’s death)

    Until I was in high school, my dad and I didn’t bond over much. I knew he was a caring father and loved me, but we just didn’t have much to share except for one thing: Car Talk. My dad was never one to suffer fools, so when he drove me to school in the…

  • Amarok works with NPR steam now!

    It’s not a surprise that I love Amarok. Take a look at the related posts below. I think nothing beats it as a music program. If the KDE4 for Windows libraries were more robust I’d recommend it for everyone. As is, I think it’s the best on Linux. But, until the most recent updates there…

  • Egypt, Israel, and Palestine

    With the current revolution in Egypt I’ve been hearing a lot of speculation on NPR’s Talk of the Nation about who will come to power when the current government falls.  There’s been a lot of talk about the consequences of a government run by The Muslim Brotherhood.  The fact is that some key figured in…

  • Thinking like the Physically Disabled

    While listening to a recent podcast of This American Life (TAL) it made me realize the troubles that the disabled have to go through in this country.  I don’t mean the way others treat them differently, although that certainly is an issue, but rather the little things we take for granted.  The sad thing is…

  • Maybe it *is* genetic?

    John Waters was on NPR to talk about his new book, Role Models.  In the course of talking to Terry, he mentioned dealing with people with Alzheimer’s.  He asked a friend of his, a nurse who works with Alzheimer’s patients – “People forget who their family is, what they did that day or even five minutes…

  • Podcasts I’m Listening To

    I’ve been listening to podcasts for about two years now.  I got into it because I love listening to some NPR programs, but they are always on when I’m at work or asleep on the weekends.  Eventually, I heard on NPR that they have podcasts of various shows.  I checked it out right away because…

  • Why do donations require special events? (or presents)

    I’ve been wondering about a peculiar aspect of human motivation. Why do we require a present of some sort in exchange for a donation? Let’s take NPR for example. During membership drives a donation will net the donator a hat or tote bag or something like that. But why does there have to be a…

  • Is it Obsolete? NPR Radio Stations

    I am a huge listener of public radio programming, but I no longer listen to my local NPR station. Most of the time I just listen to podcasts of the shows that would otherwise be broadcast on NPR. The basic force behind this is the same as the reason why I loved my MythTV when…

  • The Current Financial Mess – We Never Should have ended up Here

    Today I was listening to Fresh Air on NPR.  They had an economics guy on who’s now a professor at one of the University of Maryland campuses and was involved in Clinton’s economic team.  (Although he didn’t always see eye to eye with Clinton’s treasury secretary)  This guy put the current economic crisis in the…

  • The Untold Rebate Check Story

    As you know, unless you’ve been living under a rock, the US Government (USG) wants to give us all rebate checks to spur the economy along.  All you have to do is file your taxes and you’ll get up to $600 if you’re single or $1200 if you’re married.  What hasn’t really been publicized in…

  • Charitable Donations for 2008

    This year I decided to mainly support technological causes.  I donated to the Free Software Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  I think that rms and the rest over at the FSF are really doing a lot of great work to preserve our freedoms.  I especially like the Defective by Design campaign they’ve been running. …