Author Topic: EP133: Other People’s Money  (Read 29880 times)

gelee

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Reply #25 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.



Loz

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Reply #26 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'.



Faldor

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Reply #27 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.




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Reply #28 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.

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Reply #29 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.

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contra

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Reply #30 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.

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Mike---Glasgow.  Scotland.-->


swdragoon

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Reply #31 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 .

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Reply #32 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.



Thaurismunths

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Reply #33 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. ;)

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Reply #34 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!



Czhorat

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Reply #35 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.

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Listener

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Reply #36 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.

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timprov

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Reply #37 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.

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DKT

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Reply #38 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.


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Reply #39 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, 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.

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goatkeeper

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Reply #40 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)
« Last Edit: December 04, 2007, 07:52:39 PM by Russell Nash »



Kaa

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Reply #41 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. :)

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Biscuit

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Reply #42 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)?


goatkeeper

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Reply #43 on: December 05, 2007, 01:56:06 AM
More low end, aside from that I didn't notice much else.



greenpix

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Reply #44 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 .



MacMuse

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Reply #45 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.



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Reply #46 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.



greenpix

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Reply #47 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.



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Reply #48 on: December 06, 2007, 11:04:14 PM
... a pair of god headphones

I need a set of those.



greenpix

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Reply #49 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)