If you haven’t been following the New Humanist advent podcast, where each day someone picks a scientist/philosopher they’d like to see honored for the holidays, you’ve missed Robin Ince (he likes Carl Sagan), Christina Martin (a Russian father of soil science, or several others), Alexei Sayle (Albert Ellis), Dave Gorman (Paul Erdos), and Natalie Hynes (Seneca). You’d better go catch up.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Anything else piling up lately? Say, since August? :)
Good to see Alexei Sayle’s still around! (Loved him in The Young Ones, where he played the Bilofski family.)
Already listened to them all.
Robin Ince is great! He’s the comedian who explained the history of creationism with “Magic Man done it!”
You’re out of date already! The latest one by Simon Singh (he chose Galileo) was up before you posted.
Wait, is that actually Alexei Sayle from the Young Ones? I can’t find any others…
Wait, is that actually Alexei Sayle from the Young Ones? I can’t find any others…
Yes, it is that Alexei Sayle. Since The Young Ones he’s done a solo comedy series that I know of, and recently some more thoughtful stuff, as well as appearances on discussion programs. The man is actually surprisingly sensible, compared to the characters he played.
Christina Martin is quite funny. “Really just to see how this would pan out…the cards, the songs…Would anyone join in with a soil-based celebration?”
Ed Brayton’s starting a podcast too (though it’s a radio show that’s being turned into a podcast). All of this stuff is going to crash my computer. Oh well, I have insurance.
SC, how subtle. One could think that you are campaigning to get your prize.
(Damn the written word, it takes away the fact I am not saying this in a mean way. And I HATE emoticons.)
I had to turn off the Alexei Sayle one as I could barely understand a word he was saying (from what little I could hear, this may have been a good thing).
Actually, I’m more frustrated that I haven’t been able to vote for people like Wowbagger and Emmet for subsequent months. The whole thing’s just thrown off.
(And I know you were just teasing.)
Thanks for the tip. I enjoy finding good progressive voices on the web because Jackson Miss radio/media is totally free of anything other than rightwing hooey.
Would it be rude to comment that on a superb science website like this that the commenting system is serious lacking? It would be nice if we had a way to follow our comments so as to reply to folks who see and respond to them without wading through an interminable sea of same.
Enjoy.
Janine of the many names said:
Did I miss something?
Ah well, English in all its wonderful forms. Two countries divided by a common language and all that. I think he’s Iranian by birth but grew up in Liverpool.
She was referring to my ever-so-subtle comment @ #1. :)
From Wikipedia:
Hey,what do you expect,the man is a Professor,arent they meant to be scattered and forgetful??
LOL
It may have been some of that, but I think it was more that he has a very deep voice and kept pulling back from the mic. I didn’t have any trouble understanding the others. I often have a hard time understanding men with deeper voices. My hearing overall is excellent, but I may have some sort of nerve deafness. That, or a lot of people mumble.
Tell me about it! I was a week off on the last day of classes (my students had to email me to let me know). Needless to say, this threw off my end-of-the-semester lesson plan! I don’t think I’ll ever change.
Posted by: SC | December 8, 2008 11:32 AM
I often have a hard time understanding men with deeper voices.
It must have been hell listening to Barry White.
‘And the snarking continues!’
One word: Ritalin !
Its what your students take…:-)
Never had trouble understanding him. I would speculate that this may be because people trained in singing and theater enunciate and project better, but I assume Sayle had such training, too, so I don’t know.
Barry White’s interesting. I remember a quotation from him (inside a CD cover, perhaps?) in which he talked about how he saw disco as his/an art form. I thought that was pretty cool. And to the best of my knowledge, he, like the Dead, never appeared on a single episode of Square Pegs.
Indeed.
By the way, I just learned yesterday that Odetta died earlier this week. A great loss.
psssst, SC…new post is up…congrats are in order!
Thus spake SC, OM:
Awww, shucks.
Actually, it’s a bit of a pain in the hole when they stack up like that because you waste a vote on someone who’s won the previous month when there are actually quite a few deserving candidates — having just removed Nick Gotts, SC, and Patricia from my list, I still have 11 people who I wouldn’t mind seeing get one.
Posted by: SC | December 8, 2008
…like the Dead…
Now it is getting personal!
HA!
Speaking of podcasts, did anyone else have a problem with the Atheists Talk podcast this week? I thought I’d successfully downloaded it, but when I tried to listen to it, I only had 23 seconds. ‘sup wi’ dat?
Thanks for pointing me to it, Sven. Funny thing – I just saw your comment here, but was originally led to the Molly thread by clicking on your post under “Recent Comments,” as I do whenever I see your name there. :)
I see that others picked up the Alexei Sayle/Young Ones connection before I could comment.
I’ll still say, that bit alone makes me want to subscribe to the podcast.
I thought for a minute I might have found a distant relation, but Natalie’s last name is Haynes, not Hynes.