Escape Pod and Wikimedia
I’ve recently subscribed to a great sci-fi podcast – Escape Pod. There are lots of things I like about it – it’s released under a Creative Commons license, it still manages to pay its authors – but mostly the fiction is really good. The RSS feed is here and there’s an archive at escapearchive.org. Some of the episodes I’ve enjoyed most are Robots Don’t Cry, Kallakak’s Cousins, Elites and The 43 Antarean Dynasties. None are particularly long – up to an hour, no more – and some, the flash fiction podcasts, are very much shorter, on the order of a couple of hundred words.
As an aside, Escape Pod was set up by one Steve Eley. Although I understand that Eley is a Christian, he is one of the creators of the Invisible Pink Unicorn:
“Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can’t see them.”
Onto the second part of this post. Eley asked people, for the month of December, to, instead of donating to Escape Pod, donate to a ‘good cause’. I use Wikipedia a lot – for information, links, references and enjoyment – so I’ve answered Jimmy Wales’ call for support. Wikimedia don’t just do Wikipedia; there’s also Wikimedia Commons, a media repository containing more than 3,400,000 freely usable images, videos, and sound files, Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikiversity, an interactive learning platformm, Wikiquote, a collection of quotations and Wikispecies, a directory of life. It’s all freely accessible – that’s free as in beer and free as in speech.
Do have a listen to Escape Pod and consider giving a little towards Wikimedia.
xD.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:30 pm
It still manages to pay its authors.
Pretty vital aspect, I should ahve thought. Happy New Year, Dave.
December 31st, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Actually, I’m not a Christian; more like “friendly agnostic.” I have a lot of respect for all religions as long as they help create decent people.
Great choice of charity, too. Although I’ve had my tiffs with some of the hardcore Wikipedia community, I still think it’s one of the best examples of the Internet doing good in ways that weren’t possible before. Thanks for answering the call, and promoting good stuff!