Tom Merritt's Blog, page 1140

East Meets West 307 – Press record dummy

Tom gets tricked into not recording a great episode, so you get this one instead.

Get the episode at this link: http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.m...

Tech News Today 710: RIP Google Reader

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell

Google’s Really Simple Stupidity, Twitter coming with music app, how to raise $2 million on Kickstarter, and more.

Guest: Martin Giles

Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/tnt.

Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com.

Check out the full show notes for today’s episode.

We invite you to read, add to, and amend the wiki entry for this episode at wiki.twit.tv.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time:: 0:49:06

Season One of S&L Video coming to an end!

​The S&L studio team does jazz hands.

As many of you may know from the most recent audio podcast, the video edition of S&L is coming to an end (for now). Huge thanks to Geek & Sundry for making the whole thing possible, for our friends at Pixel Corps for the production and post-production services (and for being awesome in general), and to Fonco Creative for bringing our set (and Lem) to life!​

Tom and I are looking into new ways to keep the show alive going forward, so don’t fret! We have our hands full right now will getting the anthology off the ground, but we promise you we’re working on it. ​

Episodes of the video show will continue through the end of March, and you can always keep up with the book club on Goodreads and the audio podcast!

Thanks for watching!​

Tech History Today – March 14, 2013

In 1839, Sir John Herschel presented his ‘Note on the Art of Photography, or the application of the Chemical Rays of Light to the purposes of Pictorial Representation’ to the Royal Society, likely the first use of the word ‘photography’.

In 1879 – Albert Einstein was born in Ulm in Württemberg, Germany. He would grow up to work in the Swiss patent office. And reinvent physics.

In 1994 – Linus Torvalds posted to comp.os.linux.announce that Linux kernel release 1.0. had arrived.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

Tech News Today 709: To The Moon, Rubin!

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell

Does anyone care if Apple maps is getting better? Dell’s 18-inch tablet, Netflix gets all Facebooky, and more.

Guest: Dan Patterson

Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/tnt.

Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com.

Check out the full show notes for today’s episode.

We invite you to read, add to, and amend the wiki entry for this episode at wiki.twit.tv.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time:: 0:50:35

Tech History Today – March 13, 2013

In 1781 – English astronomer William Herschel observed what he initially thought was a comet but turned out to be the planet Uranus. It was the first planet to be discovered using a telescope.

In 1882 – At the Royal Institution, Eadweard J. Muybridge demonstrated his zoopraxiscope, an optical apparatus that exhibited photographs of moving animals. It is sometimes considered the first movie projector.

In 1969 – Apollo 9 returned safely to Earth after orbital testing of the first crewed Lunar Module.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

This Week in Geek Interview

Had a great time chatting with Steve Saylor on the “This Week in Geek” podcast. Fun guy to talk to.

Get the episode here.

The BIBLIO-MAT is not people!

Podcast listener Jacob wanted to let us know that there aren’t actually people passing out the books from within the Biblio-Mat in Toronto. It’s actually… automated! With mechanisms!​ And such!

Tech News Today 708: Sugar Daddy for Blackberry

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell

Cord-cutters rising, Lenovo might buy BlackBerry, app that saves you gas money, and more.

Guest: Jeff Cannata

Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/tnt.

Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com.

Check out the full show notes for today’s episode.

We invite you to read, add to, and amend the wiki entry for this episode at wiki.twit.tv.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time:: 0:46:57

TenState: A Comic Book Project by Tom Merritt & Len Peralta

TenState is a comic book series about a fictional TV reality show called “The Ten” that goes terribly wrong. It will be told in ten separate 10 page black and white installments. We are asking for money to fund the first three issues of the series. If we make the initial goal, we will add stretch goals for five issues and finally, the whole 10 issue season. Len and I have sketched out a basic story arc for season one, but we have ideas for at least four seasons. We are treating this comic as an episodic television series in the vein of Lost, The X-Files and The Walking Dead, but with the bite-sized presentation of a webseries.

Get a free 8-page teaser of the book and help fund our Kickstarter here.