Herein you’ll find articles on a very wide variety of topics about technology in the consumer space (mostly) and items of personal interest to me. I have also participated in and created several podcasts most notably Pragmatic and Causality and all of my podcasts can be found at The Engineered Network.
Gruber's Reason for Leaving 5BY5
As I’ve discussed previously both here and here, The Talk Show leaving 5BY5 has caused some commotion within the tech pundit listener circles of the internet (perhaps these are quite small but still it’s a circle I dwell in). To wrap up my final thoughts on this, I would firstly direct the reader to listen to Episode 2 of The (newer) Talk Show and specifically to 29:45 where John Gruber divulges that it was a long-standing business disagreement with Dan Benjamin that ultimately ended their partnership on air.
In typical Gruber fashion it was short and to the point and that is all that he will say about it. Frankly I’m surprised that he said anything at all.
I’ve given the new show a listen (two episodes so far) and can honestly say that the show will not be as popular as it was on the 5BY5 network if the current format continues. Gruber tends to ramble about all sorts of topics that are of interest to him and what Dan Benjamin did was to focus him on what the listeners generally wanted to hear him talk about. With Gruber at the helm the only check and balance are his hand-picked co-hosts, it seems unlikely they will push him on the “right stuff” to talk about.
Grubers ad-reading skills need some work for sponsors (then again I may have been spoiled by Dan’s exemplary work at 5BY5) and he is largely relying on his internet profile to draw in listeners as a ‘directors commentary on Daring Fireball’.
Having said all of that finally I have the epiphany: it isn’t about the success of the show for Gruber anymore - he loves doing the show and loves doing it his way and that’s all that matters to him. It’s unfortunate that that’s not all that matter to us, the listeners.
Dan Speaks About The Talk Show Leaving 5BY5
A few hours ago, Dan Benjamin (founder of the 5BY5 Podcast Network and former co-host of “The Talk Show”) posted a 5BY5 special that ran for approximately four minutes in which he talks about the departure of “The Talk Show” from 5BY5. If you are a big fan of the show then I strongly recommend listening to it.
In it, Dan confirms much of what I had previously suspected in my previous post on the issue and the key point for me is that yes, indeed it was a very rapid series of events and Dan felt disappointed that there was no opportunity to “wrap things up” with a final episode.
I have read a great deal of negativity towards John Gruber regarding the move but anyone that has read Johns work and listened to every episode of “The Talk Show” would know that John chooses his path and forges ahead and he never apologises for his choices - irrespective of the fallout. The recent Readability saga is one example of this. Whether John will enjoy success with the show in a new format by himself or not is for the future to decide and having listened to the first episode now I must reiterate my concerns.
So far as Dan is concerned he hit the nail on the head about one thing in particular: when you listen to a show for as long as you do for many of us there is an emotional reaction when either the format changes or the show is cancelled. In this case it’s a strange combination of both.
Finally one more thing about Dan. He reacted much like the company he loves (Apple), by thinking about how to respond to an issue and then producing a short but direct response for his target audience. Bravo for showing how much he respects the listeners of his shows.
Onwards and upwards 5BY5: we’ll be listening.
If DDoS Attacks are the Atomic Bomb, Watch The Keys People
A recent series of events has been unfolding in the UK where a decision by the high court forced Virgin Media (an Internet Service Provider amongst other things) to block the popular bit-torrent site “The Pirate Bay” (TPB) from its users. In retaliation the hacker group Anonymous started a DDoS attack on Virgin Media. TBP issued a statement on their Facebook page (scroll down to 9th of May, 2012) objecting to the Anonymous DDoS attack on Virgin Media. Within a few days TPB found themselves under a DDoS attack.
For a while it was not clear who was behind this attack however recently someone calling themselves Nyre has claimed responsibility. Their name on Twitter is @anonnyre and this post link currently works. In short Nyres logic or command of English does not make a great deal of sense to me.
What I find interesting in this whole series of events is how vulnerable the design of the internet is to such “attacks”. Truly they are the Atomic Bomb of the Internet - whereby dropping such a bomb wipes out all communication with the intended target site very effectively. There are ways to counter such attacks given time and filtering and then a cat and mouse game ensues and it can drag on for some time - days or even weeks.
Like an Atomic Bomb a DDoS attack requires some advanced knowledge, with software installed (usually in secret and maliciously) on a great number of computers around the world to make it work. The analogy ends when the person with the keys to an Atomic Bomb is not the scientist or engineer but the military - who are very careful who they give the keys to. With a DDoS attack, a brilliant programmer/hacker is unlikely to be as objective or careful who/what their targets are and they - the creator - have the keys to their own bomb. That should worry all of us…
The Talk Show Leaves 5BY5 Network
In somewhat of a shocking move John Gruber of Daring Fireball fame has pulled up stakes from his weekly podcast gig with Dan Benjamin of 5BY5 with “The Talk Show” moving to the “Mule Radio Syndicate” running Grubers own version of the show under the same title.
Neither Gruber nor Benjamin have commented on the reason for the change but it has been swift and unexpected. Updating the 5BY5 Radio app and pulling The Talk Show from 5BY5s schedule happened on the last day or so and no hints were dropped on Twitter or any other blog.
Both Gruber and Benjamin are very private and will very likely give little to nothing away as to the reason for the move so rather than speculate we’ll just look at the fundamental shift between the show formats.
Under 5BY5 “The Talk Show” was hosted by Dan Benjamin and John Gruber whereas under Mule it will be hosted by John Gruber with special guests. Throughout its history The Talk Show always had both Dan and John but for a handful of exceptions and under Mule it seems John will be leading the charge and picking the guests he chooses to have.
Anecdotally The Talk Show has been the highest rating show on the 5BY5 network for nearly two years and was a key component to Dan’s initial success. Now that Dan has secured additional guests such as Andy Ihnatko, Jim Dalrymple and Horace Dediu there is no doubt that 5BY5 will survive just fine without John Gruber.
It’s a sad day for me as I enjoyed listening to the chemistry between Dan and John and this, at least on a regular basis, is now gone. All too often I’ve seen music groups that had a chemistry together split as each member wished to pursue their own gig. One or more people in the group say “I’m the reason we’re successful” and believes they can make it better on their own when it’s really (forgive the cliché) the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Most of the time they individually don’t experience the same level of success than when they were together as a group. Sometimes though they come out of top and only time can tell us that.
I’ll try out the new version of “The Talk Show” however I have my doubts as to whether it will have the same level of success it enjoyed at 5BY5.