Escape Artists

Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Russell Nash on November 23, 2007, 10:53:32 AM

Title: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Russell Nash on November 23, 2007, 10:53:32 AM
EP133: Other People’s Money (http://escapepod.org/2007/11/22/ep133-other-peoples-money/)

By Cory Doctorow (http://www.craphound.com/).
Read by Amanda Fitzwater
First appeared in Forbes Magazine (http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/13/cory-doctorow-fiction-tech-future07-cx_cd_1015money.html), October 2007.

Which is why she was hoping that the venture capitalist would just leave her alone. He wasn’t a paying customer, he wasn’t a fellow artist — he wanted to buy her, and he was thirty years too late.

“You know, I pitched you guys in 1999. On Sand Hill Road. One of the founding partners. Kleiner, I think. The guy ate a salad all through my slide-deck. When I was done, he wiped his mouth, looked over my shoulder, and told me he didn’t think I’d scale. That was it. He didn’t even pick up my business card. When I looked back as I was going out the door, I saw his sweep it into the trash with the wrapper from his sandwich.”

The VC — young, with the waxy, sweaty look of someone who ate a lot of GM yogurt to try to patch his biochemistry — shook his head. “That wasn’t us. We’re a franchise — based here in LA. I just opened up the Inglewood branch. But I can see how that would have soured you on us. Did you ever get your VC?”


Rated G. Contains Byzantine finance and potentially disturbing art.


(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif)
Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://escapepod.org/podpress_trac/web/253/0/EP133_OtherPeoplesMoney.mp3)
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: darth_schmoo on November 23, 2007, 11:25:32 AM
Great story selection.  I always love Doctorow's stuff.  But I found the reader too difficult to understand.  Half way through, I gave up and found the story at (that venerable science fiction publication) Forbes.com.

http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/13/cory-doctorow-fiction-tech-future07-cx_cd_1015money.html (http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/13/cory-doctorow-fiction-tech-future07-cx_cd_1015money.html), if anyone is interested.

What do we call this, the DIYpocalypse?
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Russell Nash on November 23, 2007, 11:39:48 AM
Half way through, I gave up and found the story at (that venerable science fiction publication) Forbes.com.

http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/13/cory-doctorow-fiction-tech-future07-cx_cd_1015money.html (http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/13/cory-doctorow-fiction-tech-future07-cx_cd_1015money.html), if anyone is interested.

Or you can just click on the link in the Episode post.  If the story is available at the website of the original publisher, we include it in the post that begins each episode thread.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: DeGem on November 23, 2007, 01:28:34 PM
I rather liiked the reader.  there was a lot of charater in her voice.

it had that feel to it that suggested that "yep, been there done that, so what.  Life is what you make of it.  And you know she was going to make life do what she wanted it to do."

btw I am not a Kiwi, just a crazy Canuck

As was pointed out at the end of the podcast by Mr E.  there were a lot of complex thoughts going on in the story.  I suspect I will have to listen to it again to get all the detail that was laid out in it.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: TechNoir on November 23, 2007, 02:41:59 PM
I am torn on whether I liked the story or not. Cory Doctorow likes to do the idea piece. This is an idea piece. He expounds upon it and brings it to light eloquently. The problem is as a story it lacks. The characters are just mouth pieces and seem to not have much more than that. I certainly could not find anything in them to make me have an interest in the characters themselves. They seemed to exist to present the idea alone. Kind of like a commercial.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Darwinist on November 23, 2007, 04:05:52 PM

I thought the story was just OK.  I'll probably give the text version a read because I felt like I missed some things and I didn't go back and re-listen.  I liked the reader's accent. 
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: sirana on November 23, 2007, 04:06:33 PM
The reader made me skip it three minutes into the story. Accents are good and fine, but not only was this an extremly anoying one, I understood only about every third word.
Fortunally I've read this story when it was posted on the Forbe's website.
I agree with TechNoir that this was a story where ideas trump plot (in other words a typical Doctorow ;-)

I don't mind that when the ideas are strong enough to hold story on their own, but in this one I found them too weak to make me forget the missing plot. One of Doctorow's weaker pieces (especially when you compare it with jewels like  Power Punctuation  part 1  (http://craphound.com/?p=1713) <a href="http://craphound.com/?p=1715" > part 2 [/url] <a href="http://craphound.com/?p=1721" > part 3 [/url] )
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Grahamimal on November 23, 2007, 04:10:02 PM
But I found the reader too difficult to understand. 

Yep.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Biscuit on November 23, 2007, 06:59:09 PM
But I found the reader too difficult to understand. 

Yep.

Hmm. Is this like with "Cinderella Suicide"? The High Concept mixed with a non-American accent made things challenging?
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: dakiwiboid on November 23, 2007, 07:23:20 PM
But I found the reader too difficult to understand. 

Yep.

Hmm. Is this like with "Cinderella Suicide"? The High Concept mixed with a non-American accent made things challenging?

My screen name may be a bit of a handicap here, since many people assume I'm a New Zealander myself.  I'm not.  I've simply been called "Kiwi" for more than 15 years because of a domestic joke, and have always used it as a screen name.

Back to the actual topic.  I usually have no problem with non-American accents, however Ms. Fitzwater's is so thick and heavy that I found it hard to follow the story with any enjoyment. I don't want to have to DECODE what I'm listening to. I've seen a lot of movies and plays and listened to a lot of radio dramas where some of the characters had very heavy non-American accents, and I've talked to a lot of people with heavy accents in real life, however it's very disconcerting to listen to unalloyed for 20 minutes.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: dakiwiboid on November 23, 2007, 07:25:34 PM
Let me add that I have no problem whatsoever with "BBC English".  I can listen to the BBC World Service for hours without feeling like a cryptographer.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: bolddeceiver on November 24, 2007, 02:35:03 AM
I didn't mind the reading, but the story didn't seem to have anything going for it but onanistic futurism.  I do find it interesting to extrapolate current trends to the future, but I like stories that have a little more, well, story.  Also, the exposition was a little heavy handed.  It seems unlikely that the characters would say (in the dialogue) or think (in the narration) so many things which are taken for granted.  It felt like a contemporary story going on a tangent into the invention of the automobile when one drives by.  It's tough in a story that has to carry so much "historical" content in such short length, but I wonder if it could have been more naturally absorbed into the story.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: goatkeeper on November 24, 2007, 03:27:00 AM
I also had a hard time with the accent
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: eytanz on November 24, 2007, 04:46:10 AM
Let me add myself to the list of people who had trouble with the reading - I don't know if it was just the accent (I just moved to the North of England from the USA, after all, and I have no trouble with either the media or people on the street), but I think there was some issue with the quality of the recording. The voice felt like it was filtered or otherwise somewhat unnatural - for the first few sentences I thought I was listening to the synthetic voice that reads out the episode titles.

In any case, I just couldn't make out the words, and gave up on the episode after about a minute.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Grayven on November 24, 2007, 05:40:55 AM
Craphound was great. What the hell was this...just more garbage lovin'? Except for a possible walking ipod monster (which would be sweet), this was a very dull story.

I also had a lot of trouble with the accent. Accents are nice when the material is not challenging.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Biscuit on November 25, 2007, 08:55:15 PM
Alright, I'm going to come out from under the rug and proclaim that yes, it is I, the perpertrator of this week's read :)

Let me state that the conversation has not been damaging to my ego - more, it has been very interesting, and quite what I expected, knowing the high standards EP listeners hold.

Problem: Technical quality. I apologize. In my rush, excitement and nervousness (I'm reading for Escape Pod, wheee!) I set the compression wrong. It wiped all the bass from my voice, made me sound metallic and topsy. I'm usually not such a dunce when recording for work. My apologies to the greatness and high standards that is Steve Ely.

Problem: My accent. Ok, kiwis tend to talk a little fast and slur words (we have a terrible dark L, which makes us sound like we swallow words like Mall). Apologies if my regional ambiguities came through. Again, I was excited and nervous. However, I'd like to clarify I am a professional - I have a degree in broadcasting, I work for an advertising production company, I'm a freelance voice locally, and I do a lot of voice acting. I guess even Shakespeare had his off days ;) If you guys can see past a Virigin Hiccup, I'd love to have another go at entertaining you.

I'd like to quote "Stan!" from the comments on the EP site: "I think the problem was exacerbated by the fact that the prose was tight to the point of being terse, and it contained lots of quick, almost throw-away references that were meant to give meaning to the top level conversation, context to the world, and nod & wink to today’s global economic shenanigans. That’s A LOT to parse all at once, and even more so when the pronunciation is so regional."

When I got the story, I knew it was going to be a challenge. My first thought was "Wow, this scans like Cinderalla Suicide. The listeners are going to rip me apart." However, I am not one to back down from a challenge.

I wanted to see if a Kiwi accent was acceptable on the market. There is being professional, and then there is changing the essence of who you are. I know there are some technical issues I could change in a read, but I'd hate to change who I am/my accent.

To that regard, I think I understand what Steve was trying to imply by matching a non-American accent to an allegory about globalization - we shouldn't let the normalization of a capitalistic society overwhelm the character of other cultures.

Thanks all
Amanda
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: mjn9 on November 25, 2007, 09:12:22 PM
I would like to hear a variety of accents in these stories.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: eytanz on November 25, 2007, 11:59:52 PM
First, I should point out that the compression issue was a far bigger problem for me than the accent itself. Overall, a combination of factors led to my not being able to understand this story - the metalic nature of the voice being the major one, but the accent and difficulty of the text didn't help. Nor did the fact that my hearing was never particularly good for a person of my age.

But one thing I'd like to throw into consideration here is listeners for whom English is not a native language. Growing up in a non-English speaking country, I have many friends for whom understanding English does not come naturally. They can follow English dialogue if it's in a familiar accent - either NE or SW america, or BBC British. Even I, having grown up in an English speaking household and having lived in English speaking countries for over five years now, find it harder to understand some accents than people who grew up in an English speaking environment.

So as far as globalization goes, using a New Zealand (or Australian, Welsh, South African, Minnesotan or anything else that it not heavily represented in international media) accent means more representation for different dialects of English, at the cost of adding a complication for non-English speakers.

Anyway, my point isn't that Biscuit should change her accent (certainly not, I'd never change mine if I were reading a story, and it probably would be a lot harder for people to understand). Nor am I arguing against using narrators with non-American accents. I just want people to remember that the mainstream isn't just about excluding those who don't conform, but that it also can be used as a tool to facilitiate inclusion of others. So there's a balance here that's worth thinking of.

As for the story itself, I guess I'll just find the text on Doctorow's site and read it someday. I have tried re-listening to the podcast, and have found that I can understand the words, but only if I spend enough active attention on making individual out that I'm not also able to actually follow the sentences.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Biscuit on November 26, 2007, 01:14:07 AM
I just want people to remember that the mainstream isn't just about excluding those who don't conform, but that it also can be used as a tool to facilitiate inclusion of others.

Understood. As I said there ARE technical issues I could have changed, and that includes the pacing and pronunciation.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: eytanz on November 26, 2007, 01:48:50 AM
I just want people to remember that the mainstream isn't just about excluding those who don't conform, but that it also can be used as a tool to facilitiate inclusion of others.

Understood. As I said there ARE technical issues I could have changed, and that includes the pacing and pronunciation.

The comment you're quoting wasn't really directed at you or Steve nor was it a response to the particular choices (and arguable missteps) made with this episode - though some of the rest of my post is - but it was more directed at the sentiment expressed by mjn9. Not that there is anything wrong with mjn9's post - far from it - but I figured it's worth chiming in with my take on the general issue.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Ocicat on November 26, 2007, 08:24:58 PM
The story left me cold.  Didn't like it, didn't hate it.  And yes, I had problems with the reading too... somewhat the accent, but mostly the recording problems and the sheer speed.  Since the story threw so many ideas out there, it was easy to just get lost.  And I didn't find most the ideas interesting, really.  Of course, I work in the internet market, and so the past history stuff was all well known to me.  And then it got into future history, and really that was just as boring.  None of the ideas really grabbed me, and there was no story to make up for it.  By the end the narrator's personality started to come through, but I was long past caring.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: darusha on November 26, 2007, 09:31:30 PM
I had already read this story on the Forbes site, and thought it was merely okay.  My impression didn't change after listening to the audio.

I did think that people would have a hard time with the reader's accent - my maternal family is from NZ, so I'm really familiar with the accent & I had trouble.  I think it was mostly the speed in this case, but I've found that NZ accents are particularly impenetrable to the North American ear.

That being said, I thought the voice went with the character really well.  Ah, the trade offs.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Roney on November 26, 2007, 11:19:02 PM
I liked the reading.  I thought it brought out the character in a very dry, dense story.  It took a couple of minutes to get my ear in for the accent, but it was no more difficult to follow than some of the American readings on previous Escape Pod episodes.  I actually quite like having to concentrate on the words -- my mind has a tendency to pick up on an interesting idea and start exploring it instead of keeping up with the story, and it helps to be forced to pay attention.

As to the story itself, I liked the fact that it didn't try to tack on a standard plot just for the sake of having a plot.  It had a few ideas about alternative business models, it played with them a bit, then it stopped.  On the other hand, the characters and setting themselves seemed tacked onto something that could just as easily have been a blog post.  Turning it into a story could have illustrated the ideas more vividly... if the characters had been demonstrating them instead of mostly just talking about them.

So, nice ideas, some nice images, a good reading, but not much of a story.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: FrodosDad on November 27, 2007, 12:13:47 AM
I'm with the crew who had a hard time with the accent.  I think I could have dealt with it if it wasn't read so fast.  I didn't have time to care about the story because I felt like I was always trying to catch up.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Chodon on November 27, 2007, 05:06:04 PM
I found the first minute or two a little difficult to understand, but I stuck with the story and found it easier to understand as it went on.  I don't know if it was because I was getting used to the accent or if I just got my headphone seated properly at that point.  The reading was very good, Biscuit.  I think you put some good personality into the character.  Don't change a thing (except the sound quality...that was rough).

The story itself was a little weak.  I enjoy following the market and financial information, but this story just didn't get me going.  First of all, it was confusing to me because of some of the terminology used.  It wasn't clearly defined and acronyms were thrown all over.  Also, I think this story fell flat because finance and economics are dull as hell, but people study them because there is a lot of money to be made.  When it's all speculation and fiction what's the point?
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: gelee on November 27, 2007, 06:21:19 PM
Like most of the Yanks, it took me a couple of minutes to get the hang of the accent.  I have the same problem with the first five minutes of Henry V.  I did notice some of the technical issues, but I think the reading was fine on the whole, and I look forward to hearing more from Biscuit.
I won't beat a dead horse, but I was disappointed with this story itself.  I think bolddeceiver makes this point really well.  The language was well crafted, clean, and tight.  I normally appreciate terse, dense prose, but this story didn't have much else.  I enjoy spec-fic, but this seemed to have too much spec and not enough fic.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Loz on November 28, 2007, 01:59:05 AM
I didn't have any real problem with the pronunciation of the story itself, it's just that I didn't care about it. Thinking back some twelve hour later and I can't remember anything that happened in it, I think it was some woman talking about global economics but otherwise, not a clue. I had the same problem listening to a podcast of 'Down and Out in the Magical Kingdom', I'm not sure how long I lasted before I gave up. I think I may have enjoyed this more as a straight essay, rather than 'faction'.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Faldor on November 28, 2007, 03:14:44 AM
first time posting, I've been listening since 'Results'

this story went over my head for the most part, I didnt quite follow what the character had been doing, but I did enjoy some of the ideas it presented. I thought Biscuit did a fantastic job reading this, those who had trouble with her accent need to get out more ;)

she really gave a depth and soul to the protagonist so that even if I missed a couple of plot points I still enjoyed what I heard.

I didnt like the fact the story was mostly just a conversation which perhaps would have worked better as a short audio play.

one of the things I like about Escape Pod is that it presents us with all sorts of different sub-genres of science fiction and although I wont like all of them they will atleast give me something new, and even the stories I dont think are great, I find something in them I do like with a very few exceptions.

Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: The Outlaw Kyle on November 28, 2007, 11:13:30 AM
I found the first minute or two a little difficult to understand, but I stuck with the story and found it easier to understand as it went on.  I don't know if it was because I was getting used to the accent or if I just got my headphone seated properly at that point.  The reading was very good, Biscuit.  I think you put some good personality into the character.  Don't change a thing (except the sound quality...that was rough).

I agree.  I thought that there was something off with the recording, and the accent didn't help.  I love accents, and they can add a lot of flavor to a story, but not when you can not under stand them at all.  Example: Falied Cities Monologue and the Russian accent.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Listener on November 28, 2007, 03:07:06 PM
This is the only EP I have ever stopped listening to.  I like Cory Doctorow's writing as a whole, but I could not follow the narrator.  I have nothing against accents (as heard from a US ear), but this one was just too much.  I will go read the story instead.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: contra on November 28, 2007, 11:50:42 PM
I've always picked up voices, for the most part as long as they are speaking English, I'll understand it.  So the technical and accent issues were non existant for me.  I liked the reading; but I like accent. 

So the story.  It was good.  Showing how that buisness is gonig to screw itself over for new and interesting ideas and innovation is always good to go into; as with a lot of the world today if often feels like that is happening now.
Good ideas and interesting thinks take a back seat to what is seen as easy to mass produce.

Take this case
http://steampunkworkshop.com/lcd.shtml
Brilliant idea.  Steampunk style computer.  its fairly in style right now.
Tis cool.

Ok.  Irrelevent.... anyway.
>_>

Paperwork weighs everyone down, endless paper trails of stupidity and people covering their own ass.  Companies asking for the profit and not caring about the route it takes to get there.  Companies joining together to make things with stupid names; and it gets hard to identify what are trying to do.
Take MSNBC
what the hell does that mean?
Microsoft Corperation National Broadcasting Company.
so what are boths goals... what is their aim?  what would they consider a 'win'?  Seperatly... its clearer, make good programs for one and make an operating system etc for the other.  However joined up its more confused and it would appear that one goal would have to overtake the other.  but it doesn't; instead of having a clear direction to get programming to make money, its make money.  Thus the overall quality personality and uniqueness is lost, and a new creature arrives.

So in the end this story is about being dissilusioned about corperations.  Its losing touch with people; and becoming a face.  Its replacing people with computers.  It's taking over a company and stripping it for parts and ideas.  It feels like its what wrong with capitalism (in the world right now at least, though its always been like this really...)

Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick form this story.  But I took from it what I wanted to.  And i've listened to it twice already; and its rare I do that.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: swdragoon on November 29, 2007, 05:22:51 PM
I hate to jump on the band wagon but between the compresion and reader i couldent understand the story that being said. after reading the story i give it a meh .
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: james_007_bond on November 29, 2007, 11:35:02 PM
I'm a long time listener, and for the first time I was compelled to register on this forum to comment about this episode.

I'm not a native English speaker, but I lived in the US and the UK for a total of 12 years. I work with people from South Africa, Texas, Canada (He?), some other from Australia, a Scott, a couple of Irish blokes, and a born and breed Oxford gentleman. I watch the BBC and Hollywood movies without any problems. But I don't understand more than a word out of two of this episode. The narrator speaks fast, with an thick accent and some annoying compression thrown in for good measure. I can't comment on the story, because frankly this episode is inaudible. I tried twice, with excellent in ear headphones in a quiet setting, and I had to stop five minutes into it both times from sheer frustration of not understanding the story.

If you republish it without the metallic compression it will probably be okay.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Thaurismunths on December 01, 2007, 02:11:09 AM
I am torn on whether I liked the story or not. Cory Doctorow likes to do the idea piece. This is an idea piece. He expounds upon it and brings it to light eloquently. The problem is as a story it lacks. The characters are just mouth pieces and seem to not have much more than that. I certainly could not find anything in them to make me have an interest in the characters themselves. They seemed to exist to present the idea alone. Kind of like a commercial.
On the story itself, I think you hit the nail square on the head. It was a fun idea, but lacked plot.
It seemed written for an audience who has considerably more interest in the financial world than I do. The weird audio glitches combined with my total unfamiliar with the subject matter mad it VERY difficult to follow. It was almost exactly like Cinderella Suicide in that after I got in to the rhythm I enjoyed the telling very much. I enjoyed the accent and think the reader brought a lot of talent to the piece. Unlike Cinderella Suicide, I was only momentarily interested in the world presented and where the story went. Highlights were the nano-freaks she'd created and... well... perhaps this would have been better received in a publication like Forbes... oh wait. ;)
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: goatkeeper on December 01, 2007, 02:45:11 AM
The problem wasn't the accent- it was my inability to decipher the accent.
I have listened to this story 4 times now- both to understand it and for practice (a kiwi accent could come in handy!)
I can easily understand the story now and enjoyed it very much.
Great job from both the author and narrator!
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Czhorat on December 02, 2007, 12:06:59 PM
Ick. To me this was Cory Doctorow at his didactic worst. At his best moments he illuminates his ideas through at least somewhat interesting characters brought into some form of conflict by their offbeat perspectives (think of stories like "Craphound", for instance). At his worst, you get smart-mouthed showoffs with the authors own ideas knocking around strawmen who think conventionally. In this case we don't even get a strawman - just some guy who's been duped into a system that I can't even make sense out of from the corporation's point of view. He's given huge unwieldly sums of venture capital to invest -- why? Franchise systems usually work by having the franchisee pay into the parent company in return for materials, information, and the parent company's good name. If the product is just money I don't see how it works, unless VC has just become another home for loan sharks. Addint the fact that there's no real conflict, cardboard cutout characters, and no real story, I saw this as a silly and pointless bit of nonsense.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Listener on December 03, 2007, 04:24:02 PM
The problem wasn't the accent- it was my inability to decipher the accent.
I have listened to this story 4 times now- both to understand it and for practice (a kiwi accent could come in handy!)
I can easily understand the story now and enjoyed it very much.
Great job from both the author and narrator!

The problem is that most people don't really have the time to listen to it four times.  I know I don't.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: timprov on December 03, 2007, 06:17:32 PM
I hate to jump on the accent bandwagon but I'm going too, I don't mind accents in most of the stories but it was too thick in this one to understand.  I was on a rather loud train when I listened to it so that might not have helped, but I take that train everyday for work and never had any problems understanding the stories.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: DKT on December 03, 2007, 07:10:14 PM
Hmm. Is this like with "Cinderella Suicide"? The High Concept mixed with a non-American accent made things challenging?

FWIW, Cinderella Suicide is still one of my favorite eps Steve's ever run, accent and all.  I don't know if it was your accent that messed with me on this story, Biscuit.  I think it might have had more to do with the technology issues.  The story itself was interesting, for sure.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: DDog on December 03, 2007, 08:44:17 PM
I just listened to this story today and was really thrown off by the opening blips in the reading. Loved the accent after I was able to filter out the production woes. No problem there.

However, the story was just... I've never read any Cory Doctorow pieces before (and honestly only know of him through xkcd (http://xkcd.com/), that thread on here somewhere about Urusula K. LeGuin, and some things about Creative Commons), so I didn't know what to expect. It didn't feel like a story. It felt like a plot outline that someone tried to make more interesting by putting in a couple of talking heads. It wasn't a lovely vignette into these characters' lives either--admittedly such things are easier when you don't have a ton of spec-history to outline for context. Great what-if concept, and I loved the art pieces. I didn't really understand the whole thing about scaling and turning a hundred dollars into six hundred etc, so it didn't have a great impact on me otherwise.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: goatkeeper on December 04, 2007, 07:33:00 PM
Quote

The problem is that most people don't really have the time to listen to it four times.  I know I don't.

True.  I was on a long trip and out of other podcasts to listen to.  After the 2nd time I wasn't listening as much as I was imitating (gain some voice variety for my podcast- we have a story set in the land down unda comin up)
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Kaa on December 04, 2007, 08:35:53 PM
While I do have to come down on the side of the accent causing problems with me, I think the other noted technical problems exacerbated it.  As well as me listening while driving in adverse conditions (DWA; Driving While in Atlanta) while trying to listen and the content of the story.

I'll have to read the text of the story to get an idea of exactly what it was that I heard before I have an opinion on that. :)

That being said: some of my favorite stories on EP have been read by "fer'ners" (I'm from Alabama and live in Georgia, which might give ME a "foreign" accent to anyone north of Kentucky).  Do give Amanda more to read because I think the more variation we get in these readings, the better, and with a better recording and a less "dense" story, her accent would be perfectly understandable. :)

Come to think of it, it'd be great to hear more stories written by a more diverse sample of international authors, as well.  Surely there must be some great Sci-fi coming from places like Japan or Brazil or Singapore...that have been translated into English. :)
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Biscuit on December 04, 2007, 09:35:02 PM
I just listened to this story today and was really thrown off by the opening blips in the reading.

Hey guys. Interested to expand on this technical issue - what were you hearing? I can hear my "mouth noises" (wet mouth clicks) but not anything electronic (eg: skipping, hitching). I did however notice some electronic interference later on my copy of the episode.

I'm wondering if we get different electronic noises in different places (variations in download)?
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: goatkeeper on December 05, 2007, 01:56:06 AM
More low end, aside from that I didn't notice much else.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: greenpix on December 05, 2007, 02:08:13 PM
also stopped with the story -  sounds all a bit to highpitched - missing base and the popping and clicking really mees it pretty hard to decipher whilst doing something else.(I mostly concentrated on painting while listening to podcast, and cant really  focus on actively listeing  to the speech)
Maybe just a matter of missing the time to listen to it by itself .
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: MacMuse on December 06, 2007, 02:00:08 AM
Kudos to Amanda for stepping in and graciously addressing comments on this story & narration.

I'm a little behind in my EP listening, and just heard this episode today.  Alas, I must add that I too stopped the story after 5 minutes because I knew I was just missing too much.  I do not have good hearing, I listen in the car, and my iPod to car link is via FM transmitter (busted cassette deck, old car & stereo w/no line-in).  I didn't have a chance of following this plot.  I failed to pick out what were obviously key words & phrases in the narration and quickly lost all sense of connection with the story.  All that, plus a lack of support for most of Cory's political positions and I felt only a small twinge as I moved on to the following story in my queue.

I was startled too see the number of posts echoing my experience.  But given Amanda's comments on the recording issues, I wouldn't skip the story if it appeared again with improved audio.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Russell Nash on December 06, 2007, 09:30:09 AM
I only just listened to the story completely yesterday.

As moderator I bounce into the threads before I have listened to the story to make sure no idiots have come to make trouble.  I glance over the comments, but don't read things about the plot, because I don't want the story spoiled for me.

I read some of the comments about the accent and said, "what a bunch of wimps.  They need thier stories fed to them in Hollywood's fake non-accent accent."  Then I listened to the first thirty seconds using the built-in speakers on my laptop.  I stopped and laughed at myself.

I purposefully avoided listening to this one until I had the chance to really listen.  I got that yesterday waiting for my kids to come out of music class.  After two minutes I didn't need the quiet surroundings and I ended up finishing the story with lots of noises around and I had no problems.  I just needed to get tuned in.

I think the problems were mostly technical and I would love to have Amanda back.  I have an awful weakness for women with accents.

Oh yeah, the story.  I followed all of the financial stuff and didn't see the point of listening to the story.  If I want a lecture on globalization, I'll download a Stanford podcast.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: greenpix on December 06, 2007, 02:42:19 PM
well I finally got  around to listen to it on a pair of god headphones in a silent room and -voila- same experience as Russell I'd say.
The trouble of listening to it was solved but the story didnt really grab my attention  more than some financial times article about the world in 10 years. Allthough I dont think the problem lies in the small jump to the future but rather the overall lack of a real story. Its more a list of things that could very well happen, and as Steve said in the Outro already seem to have happened.
So yeah I dont really care about any of the characters, because they only seem to read some essay for me.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: darusha on December 06, 2007, 11:04:14 PM
... a pair of god headphones

I need a set of those.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: greenpix on December 09, 2007, 02:48:07 PM
they sure are pretty nifty ;)  kinda big though - and god seems pissed not being able to listen to his ipod no more.  8)
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Loz on December 10, 2007, 06:43:03 PM
Oooh, don't make Him angry! You wouldn't like Him when He's angry! ;D
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Russell Nash on December 10, 2007, 07:50:17 PM
Oooh, don't make Him angry! You wouldn't like Him when He's angry! ;D

God turns into the Hulk when he's angry??
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Bunter on December 10, 2007, 10:14:45 PM
Oooh, don't make Him angry! You wouldn't like Him when He's angry! ;D

God turns into the Hulk when he's angry??

How else did he move that rock from in front of the tomb?
 :o
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Russell Nash on December 10, 2007, 10:19:58 PM
Oooh, don't make Him angry! You wouldn't like Him when He's angry! ;D

God turns into the Hulk when he's angry??

How else did he move that rock from in front of the tomb?
 :o

My father-in-law (the theologian) said it was Mary Magdalene commiting grave robbery.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Thaurismunths on December 10, 2007, 10:36:16 PM
Oooh, don't make Him angry! You wouldn't like Him when He's angry! ;D

God turns into the Hulk when he's angry??

How else did he move that rock from in front of the tomb?
 :o

My father-in-law (the theologian) said it was Mary Magdalene commiting grave robbery.

Move it to the zombie thread.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: jamesotron on December 11, 2007, 08:36:16 PM
Hey everyone.

As a native New Zealander even I found the story hard to understand.  There was a lot of popping and clicking and it sounded like there was way too much compressor on the audio.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Planish on December 16, 2007, 01:11:38 AM
I liked the accent. (Hey, I keep watching the Lord of the Rings special features DVDs partly for that.) It's just that there was so much of it for the first third of the reading. It also sounded like there was some swooshy artifacts from noise removal (a multi-band digital noise gate?) and even a few spots where it sounded like some bits were clipped from the track in the middle of phrases.

Once I got a clearer understanding of the setting, I still had no clue what the story was really about, but for some reason I quite listening to it. Maybe it was Amanda's enthusiastic delivery that made up for the initial confusion.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: JoeFitz on December 20, 2007, 02:40:36 AM
I liked the story and the accent. The compression was a bit high, but I have decent headphones, so I managed. I worried story was going to get very shrill and preachy but I was pleasantly surprised.

Thanks again.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: robertmarkbram on January 07, 2008, 07:03:49 PM
I heard there was lots of negative feed back on this story from Ep 138 - In the Late December. I came here just to say a big Bollocks to all that. I thought the production on this ep was fine and Amanda Fitzwater's reading was what I enjoyed most about the story. I listened to it twice in the same day just so I could get more of her voice ... maybe because I couldn't understand a couple of words too, but I won't admit that to you! Personally I thought Amanda's reading was more enjoyable than the story itself - sorry Cory - and I would really enjoy more from Amanda.
Title: Re: EP133: Other People’s Money
Post by: Unblinking on September 22, 2010, 04:12:08 PM
I didn't have too much problem with understanding.  In fact, Amanda Fitzwater's accent was the only reason I tuned in as long as I did.  If I could use her voice for pie filling, I would (whatever that means).

As for the content itself, I can see why Forbes.com bought it, as it seems to be nothing more than an essay on predicted economics.  I can't say I understand why it ended up here, though.  It was like reading a textbook with a glossy science fiction book cover glued on.