#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

I've been using podcasts for a couple of years. My favorite is Escape Pod which is all science fiction short stories. I used to download and listen to them on my ipod before it died. Listening to podcasts on my puter is a bit of a chore because I'm still on dialup. Using Podcast.net I found a few others and put them on bloglines. This: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/EscapePod/~5/185595989/EP132_SparksInAColdWar.mp3 is the one I'm waiting on loading while I'm writing this. The other thing I'm doing lately to keep myself occupied while waiting for things to load is reading an online book from Google Books. I'm forgiving Google Books for all their earlier failings because I've just figured out how to narrow a search to full text only. Without that it useful as an index to monographs and I've found several references to subjects I'm interested in contained in books that I could then borrow to get the full story. It's always been one of the gaps in library services - no comprehensive index of monographs.

I like to keep an eye out for references to a favorite singer. Lots of journals are indexed and I've found plenty of references and kept up on my reading. Since Google Books came along I've found some reference tools, which I probably would have found and they have indexes so I would have found the references. Having an online index is quicker. And the ones that aren't in my own work library I can get on inter-library loans.

The huge advantage is references inside other books, biographies, memoirs, etc. These often don't have indexes. Even if they do there are some I would never have thought to look in because I would never have dreamt there was a connection with my singer. I am now a total convert to Google Books as a reference tool and finally to find a few full text online. Detest the sponsored links: I'm reading "Confucian Feminist: Memoirs of Zeng Baosun (1893-1978)" and the sponsored links are Chinese Girls For Dating and Love with chinese women. And they think they are targeting with their sponsored links. It's like targeting with a lump of 4 by 2. I really wish I could download the book. At this stage reading while I'm waiting to download something is fine, but when I finally get broadband I won't be wanting to read so much. Downloading and reading offline on a laptop maybe on a train on the way to work would be more attractive.

The problem with Google Books is the terrible quality. There are several pages in the book I'm reading that are so bad I have to skip them altogether.