On this episode of Spark:
- Jackie Sharkey explains internet use in Nunavut
- Spark listeners do their best dial-up impressions
- Contest: How much did that cost at the Northern?
- Nora introduces Spark Lite, our low-bandwidth podcast
- Nora mentions a new Ipsos-Reid poll about how men and women use mobile devices
- Laurence Ashworth explains marketing electronics to women (full interview)
- Ying Cheng develops technology for women, and started the No More Pink Phone movement
- Nora tries out the GenderAnalyzer
- Merlin Mann encourages bloggers to get better (all of Merlin’s segments)
This episode features Creative Commons music and sound effects:
- “Wadidyusay?” by Zap Mama
- “Ambient-M (2003)” by Antony Raijekov
- “Trampoline Girl” and “Catscratch” by Windom Earle
- “simple synths” by mb74
- “Relaxation Spa Treatment” by Dan the Automator
Play audio:
You can download this episode as an MP3, or receive Spark automatically by subscribing to any of our totally free podcast feeds:
- Free weekly podcast (Subscribe in iTunes)
- Free weekly podcast + additional blog-only content (Subscribe in iTunes)
- Free weekly podcast (low bandwidth version)
For more information (and instructions) visit cbc.ca/podcasting
[Original image by ralphbijker]
OK I’ve said it before, but D/L Spark in 11 min, please I’d love that. I’m 15 min NW of London and it would take over an hour. Yep I don’t have anything but Dial Up! Check GMail? Cross your fingers, it may not load proper!
@Bill,
I’d love it if you’d check out our Spark Lite and let us know if it helps at all…or if it’s still too time consuming for dial up.
Dial-up or high speed, we’re all in this together. It’s time there was a museum of communication — a place to keep track of evolving technologies and their impact on our daily lives and society as a whole over time. So, what would be the top 3 things you’d want to see or themes you’d want to explore in such a place?
@JN,
1. Telephones: From one phone per community to (sometimes) more than one per person. How phones evolved into being a necessity at home, and then cell phones became items gadget geeks could drool over.
2. The Internet: Bringing the world together, one modem at a time.
3. Newspapers: How even today, in a world driven by the internet, the top headline on a physical newspaper can mold how we view the world for that day.
I was very moved by the Jackie Sharky piece about Internet access in Nunavut. It’s a great example of how people adapt to technology’s limits yet, at the same time, it still makes their lives easier.
Funny thing is, there are still quite a few places in “Southern Canada” (i.e. parts of the Maritimes) which only recently got some form of high speed Internet access. I did not have high speed Internet access in my home until I moved six miles to come live in a community of 5,000. It’s only been during the past two years that the area in which I used to live gained a form of higher speed access comparable to what they now have in Nunavut (not sure about the bandwidth caps, however). The problem is still out there in many different parts of the country.
Merlin and Nora delivered another fine piece: I agree wholeheartedly with Merlin’s advice about editing skills. I’m currently working on a mini-project where I’m taking a short blog post (under 800 words at the moment) and I’m going to force it through multiple drafts (perhaps as many as 15) to make it as smooth and polished as possible. It’s just an experiment – most days I’m lucky if I get one draft done before I post!
When I download the episode in the Spark (Enhanced) feed in iTunes, I get an episode that is only 3 minutes and 19 seconds long. And it’s only 2.1 MB in size.
I listened to it and it’s only a song.
I re-downloaded again in iTunes and I get the same 3 minute long episode.
I did download the MP3 file from this webpage and added it manually to iTunes and it’s 12.5 MB and contains the complete episode.
Thanks,
Denis
Well the “lite” version took 26min to download at home. Don’t have a time for the full from here but… Better then the “full” version as far as time to download, obviously, but you can tell it’s stripped down.
If I had no other option I’d probably grab that version, but I’ll keep taking my laptop to work and get the “full” version for now!
11 min for a 25 min show isn’t bad! You can stream it with little lag, and I can’t do that here!
@Denis. I had the same problem with the 3 min version. I will have try the manual way tomorrow. Its like having dead batteries in the remote and getting up to change channels.
@Denis, @Ronald,
Sorry about that. I think the problem was due to my direct linking to the Dan the Automator MP3 in the credits. Should be fixed now.
@Bill,
Thanks for the feedback!
Jackie Sharkey’s piece was very enlightening. It’s nice to learn more about other parts of Canada.
I’d be interested in learning about mobile phone use in northern Canada–perhaps you can have her come back for a sequel in the near future? I can imagine that, much like Internet, mobile phones present both drawbacks and benefits for the average northern inhabitant.
@Ben Babcock
Wow, you must be reading my email! Jackie just pitched another story about mobile use in Nunavut.
Looks like there is an interesting story there too.
Stay Tuned!
I’m halfway through this episode and it’s already got me thinking. Why are bandwidth charges so high in “Northern Canada”?
Is Rogers ripping people off, or is this something more complex? If it is Rogers (or any ISP), what’s being done about it?
I’m from Toronto and now live in Nashville, TN. I’m troubled with the problem with access to the Internet from rural areas. I recently read that 20 million Americans are still on dial-up. That’s crazy!
I think this is turning into a blog post of my own on the topic. Thanks so much Spark for covering such an important topic.
Kudos to you guys for creating the low bandwidth version of Spark! Nice thinking guys. That’s a great solution, but highspeed and access for everyone is a must.
Cheers,
Dave Delaney (Nashville now, Toronto before)
http://www.davemadethat.com
This is not the first time i have heard a story about the poor internet service in the far North. But i have yet to hear a story done on the poor internet service in the South of Canada. Dialup Internet is the only internet available to millions and millions of Canadians in the South, and i am one of them. I think once we eliminate DialUp in the South then we can focus our attention to the North. I think there is a greater need for HighSpeed here in the south than in the North.
I must say that I became quite angry by the comments made by the female tech designer you interviewed in the show. The comments confirmed typical stereotypes about women (e.g. we can’t find anything in our handbags) and then they were used to justify the need to design technology specifically for women. Really what should be happening is that technology should be designed for different tastes, tasks, needs, etc. regardless of gender, race, or other human classifiers.
I should be able to choose any color I like and so should men. It’s quite sad that men are now embarassed to choose pink just because the public perception got transformed in a way that pink is now a color just reserved for women (who according to your show often choose the color to feel more feminine).
BTW, I count myself to the number of women who first of all have pockets in which a small cell phone fits better than a big one, does not lose a phone in her handbag (because I don’t have one), who knows what 5MB/s means (and even knows how to convert that to kb/s or GB/s), and who doesn’t like pink and doesn’t like to feel like she has to just because of gender.
I really enjoyed this episode as well!
Yes, there are STILL digital peasants out there who *gasp* cannot access reasonably priced high speed internet. I won’t even broach the subject of satellite high speed, which is overpriced and flakier than satellite tv during bad weather.
Here are my tips for low bandwidth users:
Text browsing–return with me, to the good ‘ole pre-www days! I use links and lynx on my ubuntu box, there are windows ports of these as well. Handy for sites where you only need text (i.e. weather reports, news, surf forecasts, etc.)
NoScript–handy extension for Firefox users, let’s you decide/control which scripts load. It is surprising how many scripts load on some web pages! Turning off non-essential scripts can dramatically increase page load times.
No images–turn off image downloads by default in your browser, this speeds up page load time as well as bandwidth
Bye bye Gmail–Gmail is horridly slow on dialup! Believe it or not, Facebook is more responsive!?! Try other webmail vendors and see for yourself
Wget–handy *nix utility for downloading files, ftp, mirroring websites. Especially useful is its recovery function for those with crappy/dirty phone line connections. The Downthemall! Firefox extension is also handy…
Patience–Chill out, already! Look out the window, wash some dishes, stoke the fire, etc. while your page is loading. I usually have multiple tabs open, all in various states of loading pages. It’s not ‘faster’, but something is usually ready to view/read
Keep up the good work, love your show!
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