In this episode of the Skinny White Boy Kastpod I say a lot about the FCC. For people outside of the US that is the Federal Communications Commission. It feels rather dated now. The idea back in 2005 was that the FCC was going to try and regulate podcasts because we fancied ourselves the death knell to radio… which of course, in hindsight, is a bit of a delusion of grandeur, but hey… It did give us something to rally behind. I am downplaying the significance of podcasting a bit here, which I really shouldn’t.  Grassroots podcasting grew into something way bigger than the sum of its parts. So this one, I dubbed the FCC episode. It was originally released on August the 9th of 2005. Enjoy!

(IN ENGLISH) This is what it sounds like when I don’t do interviews or podcasts and instead just yap in between songs. You can hear me every Sunday from noon (that’s local time by the way) on https://997fm.com.au – Just a short clip, but now you know!

HALF DUTCH / HALF ENGLISH – After World War II the Netherlands made it easier for their citizens to move to other countries. This was done to battle the poor economic prospects caused by the occupation of the Nazis. Especially Canada and Australia became popular destinations for Dutch immigrants. A lot of these expats got together and formed clubs. One such club, Neerlandia, celebrates it’s 70th anniversary in a few days. I spoke with the current president of the club who came to Australia with his parents in the 1950’s when he was 12, but didn’t discover the Dutch club until some 15 years ago… Gerry Smolders talks about his memories of the Netherlands, coming to Australia on the first passenger ship to travel the newly established Suez Canal and the ‘requirements’ to join the Dutch club.

TULSA 66

In this long overdue repost of another episode of the award-winning Tulsa Police Street Stories (originally published on May 24th, 2007) officer Jay waxes philosophically, lyrically almost  about coming together, as a police squad, as a community, as concerned citizens. He describes a particularly rewarding day in his policing career. More information will follow at the end of this podcast. But now, let’s join the officers of the Tulsa Police Department for…. Street Stories. BOOM!

IF YOU SPEAK ENGLISH YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THIS! (well most of it, anyway) Former ballet dancer Iris van Herpen graduated as a fashion designer in 2006 and quickly became one of the world’s most sought after creators. This Dutch darling of the international fashion industry delights celebrities and royalty alike. Jenifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and even Dutch Queen Maxima have all worn her dresses… and that’s just a tiny grab from the long, long list. A retrospective of her work, that’s much more than just an exhibition was six years in the making and after its run in Paris moved to Brisbane… And guess who lives there?  Yours truly. a few days before the opening of Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses, I spoke with the curator of the exhibition, French architect, Cloe Pitiot.

Shuffler?

I just noticed that another Aussie card retailer has seemingly gone out of business. The web site that previously lived here: https://shuffler.com.au/ is now dead. Yay…

WHAT TOOK YA?

Seriously! In a previous post, some eons ago, I hinted that sometimes I 3D print jewelry. Not only did it take me said eons to finally sit down and start a blog post about this, the whole process of designing and 3D printing bracelets itself is also something of which the Dutch would say, “you can’t go over one night of ice” Although… It should be noted that in general the Dutch don’t use English for their proverbs and that most Dutch understand that Dutch proverbs translated to English don’t make a whole lot of sense. But I digress…

A few years ago now I saw a video on YouTube about using a 3D printer to create hinges that were “print in place” (or PIP as it is sometimes called). It’s a term used to describe 3D prints that are a moveable, or flexible mechanism that doesn’t require any assembly after printing. They can be used straight from the printer. This is a rather unique manufacturing technique that can only be accomplished with additive manufacturing techniques. I quickly realized that you can make chains this way. So I set out to do just that. I won’t make you sit through all the boring details, but this is harder than you think… At least, I found it much harder than I had hoped it would be. However, I am nothing if not stubborn and after a few months of tinkering in a CAD program and printing a bag full of prototypes that failed in various (sometimes spectacularly hilarious) ways… Let’s just say I learned a lot! 

I had to overcome plastic fatigue, printer artifacts, size constraints and a slew of other boring crap. But these days I am happy to report I can reliably print a rather sturdy, reasonably decent looking and completely cost-ineffective bracelet. I have done this in various configurations and the design I ended up with means that I can even print multi-color versions even though I don’t own a printer that can print in more than one color.

 

IT’S A KASTPOD-AVERSARY! 

I am going a bit slow with reposting these old episodes of the Skinny White Boy Kastpod, but I assure you, it’s not worth the wait… Did I I say that? I mean it is! This is Episode 10 – A milestone of some proportion. This episode was right after the fictitious band Cruisebox released “On a podcast”, so there is a lot of that in this ep. I say fictitious, because of course they were real musos and all, but they never were a band… This was all cooked up in the studio. made up of bandleader (and sax and guitar player) Chris Hicks… Who used to tour with Reba I might add,,, and singer extraordinaire Josh Cruise (Go check out the Groove Merchants or Cruise and McMasters) with some session players thrown in.

There is also historical sounds… and more music and a comedian doing (not in that way) George W. Bush This aired, or hit the megabits shall we say, on August 1 in the year of our good Lord 2005 ENJOY!

THIS ONE IS IN DUTCH – It wasn’t the easiest win of her career, but it was a win nonetheless. Dutch wheelchair tennis player Diede de Groot won her, record breaking  21st singles grand slam title this Saturday at the Australian Open in Melbourne. I guess she isn’t the world #1 for nothing… I got to talk to her, only hours after her massive win on the Japanese Yui Kamiji. We talked about how come Dutch wheelchair tennis players are so unbelievable strong, why all of them seem to come from the small town of Woerden, and if there is even still a challenge left after all this winning…

IN DUTCH – Sinds 1987 wordt er om het jaar een race georganiseerd om te zien wie er het snelste van Darwin naar Adelaide kan rijden in een voertuig volledig aangedreven door zonne-energie. De teams, dit jaar zijn het er 38, komen uit alle delen van de wereld. Ik sprak met de drie Nederlandse teams uit Delft, Groningen en Twente, die met hun uiterst futuristische voertuigen de 3000 kilometer lange tocht zullen afleggen.