Commentary: HuffDuffer.com – podcasting MP3 files from around the web

SFFaudio Commentary

HuffDuffer.comPersistent subscribers will have noticed me talking up a service called HuffDuffer.com. For those unaware, and before you get all concerned that it’s a site for kitten harmers don’t worry no kittens are harmed by huff-duffing. See the verb “to huff-duff” derives from the technique called H.igh F.requency D.irection F.inding. typically “known by its acronym HF/DF, pronounced Huff-Duff. This has become the common name for this type of radio direction finder, and was coined during World War II.”

Here’s the way Jeremy Keith, the guy behind HuffDuffer.com, describes his site:

  • You find an MP3 that you’d like to share with the world.
  • Use the handy “huffduff it” button directly on the site.
  • That file is now added to your podcast.
  • Tag it

    When you are huffduffing an audio file, you can “tag” it with key words or phrases. Separate tags with spaces or commas; whichever you prefer. Tagging files like this makes it easier to find related files that other people have huffduffed.

    A separate podcast is created for every tag you use.

    Discover it

    Tags are also a useful way of finding interesting stuff that other people have huffduffed.

    Jeremy has built some features into HuffDuffer to give it the potential as a new social networking site – but you needn’t be a social networker to use the service.

    I got Scott Danielson and Julie Davis HuffDuffing. So why aren’t you?

    Posted by Jesse Willis

    LibriVox: Gulliver Of Mars by Edwin L. Arnold

    SFFaudio Online Audio

    LibriVoxFirst published as Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, in 1905, this novel is a precursor to, and the likely inspiration for, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s classic A Princess of Mars (1911). Despite my not having heard of it before now the novel has a long history of adaptation. Ace Books reprinted Arnold’s novel in paperback in 1964, retitling it Gulliver of Mars [sic]. A more recent Bison Books paperbook edition (from 2003) called it Gullivar of Mars.

    Arnold’s novel bears a number of striking similarities to Burroughs’s. Both Gullivar and Burroughs’s protagonists are American servicemen who arrive on an inhabited planet Mars by apparently magical means.

    A 2007 paperbook sequel exists: In Edgar Allan Poe on Mars: The Further adventures of Gullivar Jones Gullivar Jones appears alongside a young Edgar Allan Poe (in a series of two linked stories).

    Marvel Comics adapted the character for the comic book feature “Gullivar Jones, Warrior of Mars” in issues #16-21 of Creatures on the Loose (March 1972 – Jan. 1973). The story was written by Conan comics scribe Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, and SF novelist George Alec Effinger. The series then moved to Marvel’s black and white magazine, Monsters Unleashed #4 and #8 (1974). Marvel’s version modernized the setting, recast Gullivar as a Vietnam War veteran (think Heinlein’s Glory Road).

    Did I mention I just picked up the first volume of Alan Moore’s League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Apparently the next volume includes cameos by both Gullivar and John Carter!

    I love LibriVox!

    LibriVox Fantasy - Gulliver Of Mars by Edwin L. ArnoldGulliver Of Mars
    By Edwin L. Arnold; Read by James Christopher
    20 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
    Publisher: LibriVox.org
    Published: May 3rd 2009
    This escapist novel first published in 1905 as Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation follows the exploits of American Navy Lieutenant Gulliver Jones, a bold, if slightly hapless, hero who is magically transported to Mars; where he almost outwits his enemies, almost gets the girl, and almost saves the day. Somewhat of a literary and chronological bridge between H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jones’ adventures provide an evocative mix of satire and sword-and-planet adventure.

    Podcast feed:

    http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/gulliver-of-mars-by-edwin-l-arnold.xml

    iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

    Posted by Jesse Willis

    FREE novel @ Audible: The Merchant of Death by D. J. MacHale

    SFFaudio Online Audio

    Audible.com is giving away (to those folks with accounts) the first book in D.J. MacHale’s “Pendragon” series…

    Audible - The Merchant of Death: Pendragon by D.J. MacHaleThe Merchant of Death, Pendragon, Book 1
    By D.J. MacHale; Read by William Dufris
    Audible Download – 12 Hours 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
    Publisher: Brilliance Audio / Audible.com
    Published: May 2009
    Bobby Pendragon is a seemingly normal 14-year-old boy. He has a family, a home, and even Marley, his beloved dog. But there is something very special about Bobby: he is going to save the world. And not just Earth as we know it. Bobby is slowly starting to realize that life in the cosmos isn’t quite what he thought it was. And before he can object, he is swept off to an alternate dimension known as Denduron, a territory inhabited by strange beings, ruled by a magical tyrant, and plagued by dangerous revolution. If Bobby wants to see his family again, he’s going to have to accept his role as savior and accept it wholeheartedly. Because, as he is about to discover, Denduron is only the beginning.

    The download comes in to parts. This audiobook will only be free until May 12th 2009.

    Posted by Jesse Willis

    CBC cancels its most popular podcast

    SFFaudio News

    CBC Radio - Search EngineCBC Radio has canceled its most popular podcast. CBC had previously, in an unprecedented move, exiled Search Engine from the actual radio broadcasts and had the staff reduced to just the host (Jesse Brown). Despite these hurdles the show was still breaking important news and doing terrific interviews on a nearly weekly basis. In fact Search Engine was CBC’s:

    “…most downloaded audio podcast. It’s won an international radio award and has been on iTunes’ .Best Podcasts of The Year List’ for each year that it’s been around.

    It also happened to be the CBC podcast I most looked forward to each week.

    CBC still produces some amazing programs. But the new trend seems to be produce retarded decisions…

    Cancel Intelligence. Cancel radio drama. Cancel Search Engine.

    What the fuck CBC?

    The folks making these decisions have got to be boneheaded techno-fogies who don’t read their own stats.

    TV0 - Search EngineThe good news is there appear to be some smarter managers over on TVO (TVOntario) who’ve decided to pick up Search Engine. CBC doesn’t want listeners?

    TVO here we all come. For more on this story read what TVO’s Search Engine has planned for Summer 2009.

    Here’s the new podcast feed:

    http://feeds.tvo.org/tvo/searchengine

    By the way this is Heritage Minister James Moore‘s portfolio (Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam). I would hope he is very shamefaced by this CBC gaff under his ministry. He comes from radio. Prior to being a politician he was a broadcaster on CKST.

    Posted by Jesse Willis

    P.S. Another boneheaded decision by CBC. It still hasn’t released the J. Michael Straczynski radio drama The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al!

    Between The Covers Podcast – Memory Book: A Benny Cooperman Mystery

    Aural Noir: Online Audio

    CBC Radio One - Between  The Covers podcastThere’s always a ton of Canadian fiction airing on CBC Radio One’s terrific Between The Covers Podcast. Sadly too little of it is Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. The good news is they occasionally throw us another kind of bone in the form of a solid mystery story.

    Do you know old cliche about the p.i. who get’s conked on the head at least once per investigation as a plot point? Ya, I knew you would. Well, in the newest book in the BTC feed that well worn chestnut finally faces reality: A blow to the head can cause more than a quick dip into a black velvet pillow -it can cause a brain injury!

    When Benny Cooperman, an Ontario private detective, wakes up in the hospital, he has no idea how or why he got there. The real mystery then is who hit him and why? But solving the case aint going to be easy as the medical professionals inform him he’s got partial amnesia, memory loss and his ability to read (but not write). It seems he’s suffering from alexia sine agraphia. This novel was inspired by the same thing happening to Howard Engel (but from a stroke not a blow to the head). The paperbook of this novel includes an afterword by Oliver W. Sacks.

    Between The Covers Audio Books - Memory Book: A Benny Cooperman Mystery by Howard EngelMemory Book: A Benny Cooperman Mystery
    By Howard Engel; Read by Ron Halder and Donna White
    3 CDs – 3.5 Hours [ABRIDGED]
    Publisher: BTC Audiobooks
    Published: October 6, 2006
    ISBN: 0864924704

    The first two episodes, read by a terrific pair of narrators, are already in the feed: Episode 1 |MP3| Episode 2 |MP3|. I suggest you subscribe now so as not to forget.

    Podcast feed:

    http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/betweenthecovers.xml

    iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

    Posted by Jesse Willis

    P.S. Hey CBC! Don’t think we’ve forgotten about the J. Michael Straczynski radio drama series you’re still sitting on.