Download Coulton Alert for December 11, 2006 (1:09, 814 KB) (by-sa 2.5)

Coulton Alert System Special Update for December 11, 2006. Visit jonathancoulton.com for detailed information.

Download Coulton Alert for December 6, 2006 (2:55, 2.0 MB) (by-sa 2.5)

Coulton Alert System Bulletin for December 6, 2006. Visit jonathancoulton.com for detailed information. We are pleased to announce that by popular demand the coverage area for the Coulton Alert System has been expanded to include all of Planet Earth and its moon, L4, L5, and the International Space Station. We regret that due to the continued heavy censorship of all communications, service for Chiron Beta Prime is not possible at this time.

Download Illudium Podcast 004 (42:06, 48 MB) Compilation License: by-nc 2.5. See the music listing for the licenses of individual songs. Comments of Hugh Brackett are by-nc 2.5.

This show has been a long time in the making. It was originally going to be Illudium 003 and I've had to start over twice due to disk failures. I hope it's worth the wait. This show includes tracks from The Podsafe Music Network. The podcast is assembled without decoding and re-encoding the tracks (except voice-overs and "Believe" which was 22 Khz MPEG2 Mono). See the show notes for Illudium Podcast 003 for details.

Music
Please support the artists by buying their music. Need a gift for someone who always returns stuff? Get them a CD from an artist's web site!

Bill Wolford's Head - Bikinis, Miniskirts, Divorce (used by permission of artist)
Be sure to see the video of Bikinis, Miniskirts, Divorce

James Connolly - House of the Rising Sun (PMN)
People Like Us - If Someone Touches You (sampling+ 1.0)
Bubble - Master Head Case (PMN)
Cadallaca - Firetrap (PMN)
Johnny Casino's Easy Action - Katrina, Katrina (PMN)
T-Minus 10 - The Robot (PMN)
Edison Rocket Train - Yes, Yes, Yes (PMN)
The Silencers - Girl in 604 (PMN)
Collin Raye - Hurricane Jane (PMN)
Y the Band - Believe (PMN)

Promos
ADD Cast
Geek Fu Action Grip

If you're in Northern Virginia, this important notice of Coulton activity concerns you:

Heavy Coulton activity is expected in your area commencing at 8:00 p.m. Sunday August 6. The affected area is Jammin Java in Vienna, VA. Citizens are advised to monitor jonathancoulton.com for news and updates.

Download JC PSA (00:40) License: Public Domain

My apologies if you've had trouble accessing the site. Dreamhost has been having some problems with their domain name mapping. I hope it's all sorted out now. I'll be keeping a closer eye on it for a few days.

I start a new job on Monday. Many thanks to the folks who put my name in, and congratulations to one of my long-time listeners who will be getting a referral bonus.

This show's theme is about me needing a new job. The song selection highlights various aspects of my situation. Perhaps you can improve your own financial situation by referring me for a job at your company.

Download Illudium Podcast #003 (34 minutes, 43 MB) Compilation License: by-nc 2.5. See the music listing for the licenses of individual songs.

Here's the link to download my resume License: by-nd 2.5

This show, like Illudium Christmas I and show #2, were produced without re-encoding the songs, except for the voice-overs. "But wait", you say, "I subscribe to Thing of the Week. Code Monkey isn't VBR!" Excellent observation, grasshopper. I ran all of the files through MP3Packer before joining them with MP3 Merger and tweaking with MP3DirectCut. MP3Packer converts CBR files to the smallest VBR file that can contain the data. It can also convert VBR to CBR, which is useful for devices that don't handle VBR. The VBR conversion serves two purposes: First, for technical reasons, VBR is better for direct editing. Second, it allows for a correct VBR header so your time display is correct. MP3 Merger joins the files together. It seems to be abandonware, and I'd like to find an open-source replacement for it. I use MP3DirectCut to remove unwanted sounds, adjust pauses, and tweak the level of the songs. MP3DirectCut also fixes any sync errors and supplies an accurate VBR header.

Music

Please buy music directly from artists whenever possible!

Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey by-nc-sa 2.5
Little Charlie & The Nightcats - Got to Have a Job PMN
Mydols - Gimme Your Paycheck PMN
The Amazing Sensationals - Radio Professor PMN
Professor Armchair - A Signal from Mars by-nc-sa 1.0
Brain Buckit - Rocket Science PMN
Tom Waits - How's It Gonna End PMN

Promos

Geek Fu Action Grip
Storynory
CC:365
Free Culture Chapter 10, Part 1

Comments of Hugh Brackett are by-nc 2.5.

This is a Disembodied Voices Podcast Group podcast.

I was very happy to find Alex King's Fix Greedy Rewrite Category plugin. It's simple and brilliant. Check the PHP if you're into such things and you'll see what i mean. Alex's plugin tames Wordpress 2.0's aggressive URI munching. This is important, because the multiple feeds I keep promising depend on tagging with Ultimate Tag Warrior, and with my permalink scheme Wordpress 2.0 eats URIs like http://illudium.com/tag/pcast:illudium/rss2 which happens to be what you'd subscribe to if you only wanted to get my "Illudium Podcast" and not any book readings. It may seem that there isn't much danger of getting podiobooks in the main feed, but honest, I'm going to start The Mysterious Matter of Mind Real Soon Now(TM).
As soon as I activated Alex's plugin, all of my tag URIs started working again. So thanks to Alex, I'm running out of excuses for podslacking on the books.

I introduce the concept of Podslacking, then procede to lamely attempt to excuse myself. I do some of the song credits in my best NPR voice. I mention that I will soon start offering separate feeds for different types of content. These will mainly be of interest to people who just want to get a particular book or other work I'm reading. Except for Caffeinated Senõr, this show is 100% Creative Commons content.
Download the show (27.2 MB, 30 Min.) Collective work license: by-nc/2.5/.

Download "Podfading-Podslacking" skit (1.0 MB, 44 Sec.) License: by-nc/2.5/

Music - Support the artists by buying directly from them whenever possible!

Coconut Monkeyrocket - Caffeinated Senõr (excerpt) Used by permission of artist.
Jonathan Coulton - Stroller Town by-nc-sa/2.5/
People Like Us - Bonzo Bazooki sampling+/1.0/
The Cheese Band - I Like Cheese Public Domain
The Reluctant Aquanauts - Kung Bao Surf from Surf Guitar 101 Comp by-nc-nd/2.5/
Penmachine - How Tall Jennifer Is by-sa/2.5/
Coconut Monkeyrocket - Caffeinated Senõr Used by permission of artist. (Note: I incorrectly gave the artist as Coconut Monkeyriot in the show. Apparently my own level of caffeination was insufficient.)

Background:
Exploding Whales - Pomme de Terre by-nc-sa/2.5/

Comments of Hugh Brackett are by-nc-sa/2.5/ due to them being overlayed on Pomme de Terre. The comments without the background track are available on request with a by-nc/2.5/ license.

Illudium is now on Dreamhost. They give me an insane 1 TB of bandwidth and 30 GB of storage. It's so much bandwidth that I haven't bothered to route media requests through Coral yet. Here's the interesting part for podcasters: Every week, I get another 160 MB of storage and another 8 GB of bandwidth. Must be expensive, right? Wrong. It's $9.95 a month (paid annually). You can save even more by signing up for two years. But it gets better. I have a discount code for you that will save you $75 on your order. Just use the code ILLUDIUM75 when you place your order (you'll see a box for it in the checkout). Do note that the 1 TB and 30 GB is a special offer that could end at any time. If you're not sure, take advantage of their 97 day money-back offer.
I don't think there could be an easier way to set up your own blog. One click in the control panel installs WordPress. Click the WordPress setup URL, hit the button, and it's done.