Scotty Is Dead

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James Doohan died today. Didn't know this bit from the CNN article:

At 19, James escaped the turmoil at home by joining the Canadian army, becoming a lieutenant in artillery. He was among the Canadian forces that landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. "The sea was rough," he recalled. "We were more afraid of drowning than the Germans."

The Canadians crossed a minefield laid for tanks; the soldiers weren't heavy enough to detonate the bombs. At 11:30 that night, he was machine-gunned, taking six hits: one that took off his middle right finger (he managed to hide the missing finger on screen), four in his leg and one in the chest. The chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case.

Wow.

I am reminded of a bit from MAD Magazine when I was a kid:

Q. In which episode of Star Trek did Scotty make miracle repairs on the Enterprise to save the crew from certain doom?

A. All of them

Podcast Update

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Well, we didn't get around to making our podcast last night, which is kind of unfortunate. But I know the rig works and we've tentatively scheduled some time next Tuesday to do a sort of trial run. And hopefully this will yield some good audio content. What I want to get a sense of with the trial run is the following:

1) If we talk on the subject matter for 30-45 minutes, how much usable content will that yield? How much time would we have to spend in order to get 30 minutes of usable material?

2) How long will it take to edit the content using Audacity? How long will it take to add intro loops, cut out awkward silences and compress the audio into an MP3 that will yield adequate sound quality without breaking the bandwidth bank?

3) With four participants, how likely is it that each participant's voice is distinctive enough for listeners to be able to figure out who is speaking?

That's mainly what I want to find out. Then I can get a gauge on how much time will be needed each week to produce a podcast that will develop a healthy listener base.