Comments

Episode-449- Audience Feedback 6-7-10 — 27 Comments

  1. Yeah, a survival group(besides a family) is a bad idea. Too many conflicting interests and human nature is survival of the fittest.

  2. Is your host now throttleing the download speed of audio files? I am getting around 22K/sec download speed. Used to be almost 2M/sec.

  3. I can’t get it to download at all, it sat there forever saying “getting file information” and then it popped up an error message saying “unable to download _file name_ connection to server could not be established.” I tried three times, still can’t do it.

  4. Cannot read file.

    C:\\Users\\Public\\Documents\\Survival Podcast\\epi-00449-feedback-6-7-10.mp3 could not be saved, because the source file could not be read.

    Try again later, or contact the server administrator.

  5. I am aware of the issue and am working to resolve it now, I am sure it has something to do with the upgrade, HostGator is aware and attempting to fix the issue. Further comments about not being able to download are not needed at this time, thank you.

    Jack

  6. Everything should be fine now, this may have been just a plain old typical internet outage, it may have also been related to the new DNS server propagation. Don’t blame HostGator for this I don’t think it is their fault.

    I will say more but Josh Loe today called me and to my satisfaction made the issue right. The gave me a free month of service (even though I made it clear it was not required) he gave me his personal email, he gave me a new set of procedures, he set up trigger alerts from me and did a great job of dealing with my issues.

  7. Okay another update for now slow downloading might be experienced, they are trying to balance out the new account. Again further comments that the show is slow or not downloading at all won’t help matters. Josh is actively working on the issue.

  8. Yet another update they have put in a temp fix but this issue is due to the upload speed of the new box. They are now on a path to upgrade me to an even better class of service that should smoke. They are also doing this for less money than before. Despite the problems on Friday at this point I can only rate the response from Host Gator as the best I have ever experienced.

    Your patience with a few slow spots today is appreciated we should get it worked out soon.

  9. Jack – For the person asking about using the basement as a cooling system. I believe they said they were in the North East. They should be careful and do a test for radon first before venting air up from the basement into the house. I had to have a radon remediation pipe installed and it actually takes the air up from the basement out through the roof.

  10. Just downloaded at around 2 MB/s. The file is only 6.9MB. Is that a new CODEX you are using?

  11. I am remastering the files, ALL OF THEM with a higher compression rate, the audio quality seems to be okay with this. It is certainly still FAR better then my first attempts, far better then in the car, far better then before the new microphone, etc.

    If the compression is bothersome to anyone I apologize but I am in crisis mode at the moment. Right now if I don’t balance this out I am looking at fees in the range of 2K a month just for transfer.

  12. No need to worry about bit rate Jack, they are spoken word audio files. Nobody needs to be able to hear the difference between a D sharp from a violin in the background and a cat’s meow. Your very first car-casts were bloody well good enough, and on my laptop speakers, I can’t tell the difference between today’s file and the last show. In my car, I can barely tell the difference between the latest shows and back when you were in your car.

  13. Jack
    Is this new very low bitrate to stay or only for the duration of the crisis. As a long term fan and a bit of an audio nut I have followed you audio improvements right through to your awesome sound at 44/96 for the last few shows. I think the shows you have done at 22/64 sound great. If you use LAME encoding to mono halves the file size.
    Pwrsonaly I think 16/16 is a bit painfull.
    Mark The Limey

  14. I agree that a survival group is an idea that is popular in APOC fiction(Patriots rears its head again), but has huge risks in real life. I wouldn’t want to not have a resource of water, simply because I trust that my survival group “has it covered”. However, I feel that there are great advantages to incorporating friends into your own personal survival plans. I know you were answering a listener’s question, but I feel that your answer was a bit short and dismissive. Can you consider this as a future topic for a show? I know you could think of some amazing ideas on how you can work with other preppers without leaving yourself vulnerable. great show as always. Thanks Jack!

  15. Jack,

    I listened with just a hint of amusement about your thoughts on having the police teach the elderly lady some proper shooting stances, reloading the revolver, and other gun safety/shooting lessons. You forgot that this lady was probably pretty darn excited/anxious about the whole set of events. I’d wager that anything the police tried to teach her at that time would’ve gone in and out her head like the air.

    If anything, the police could’ve offered to stop by another day to teach her a few basic or talk to a friend at a gun range about giving her a few basic sarter lessons at no charge once she has settled down a bit.

    Still a great show.

    Gene

  16. The audio quality is noticeably lower, although I am no audiophile. It sounds like you are speaking into a tin can, there is a crackle when you inflect, and a bit like AM radio.

  17. I actually didn’t notice any difference in the sound and didn’t realize anything had been changed until I read it on here.

    90% of the time I listen to the podcasts on my cell phone which doesn’t have a very nice speaker so the sound quality would have to get really bad for me to notice a difference.

    Even if the sound quality goes down I’ll still listen… it really wasn’t that bad when you first started (in my humble – non audiophile – opinion).

  18. I had an issue with being able to listen to the show on my mp3 player (Sony Walkman)

    So, I’ve had to convert the mp3 to a m4a to get my walkman to play it. My walkman won’t support mp3 lower than 32bit.

    Figured I’d post this incase anyone else is having the same issue.

    I also agree with Jason and think that you should do a show about survival groups…

  19. Response to your comments about John wanting to cool his house w/ the cool air in basement. In the N/E, it is a standard item to have a whole house fan. Mine is located in the ceiling of the 2d floor. It sits at the top of the stairs. Whole house fans are large enough to draw air from every open window/screen door of the house. I cool my house with it daily. John needs to visit various sites for whole house fans (northern tool; home depot; lowes, and others). They work great. Pete.

  20. With regard to the survival group, my wife and I are planning on taking a bus, along with a bunch of other tea party patriots to the Glenn Beck even in Washington on 8/28. I just ordered 2 of the Survival Podcast tea shirts and we plan on wearing them on the way up. We’ll see if they generate any questions and we’ll go from there on any possible like minded individuals that we could hook up with should TSHTF and it is needed.

    As far as the audio quality, I listen to the podcasts with my iPhone in my car. I did notice a change in sound quality but, it is not a show stopper.

  21. Dropping down to the lower bit rate is noticeable but certainly not unusable. I do prefer higher bit rate mp3s but beggars can’t be choosers. Some of the other survival focused podcasts use similar bit rate levels so you aren’t the only one.

    If possible can you look at providing higher bit rate versions of the podcast to the MSB members?

  22. To the listener with cool air in basement. If you have central AC.
    Turn on your fan to the “on” mode instead of the auto mode.
    Close off all of the discharge vents in the basement and open the discharge vents in the upper most floor.
    Block off all of the return air vents in the above grade portion of your house. You can use plastic and duct tape, or buy big strips of magnetic plastic specifically designed for this. Most return air grills do not have adjustments, just the supply air ones.
    Make certain that the return air vents in the basement are open.
    This moves the cool air from the basement to the upstairs and equalizes the temperatures throughout the house. It will typically cool my house 3 to 5 degrees, if I keep all the windows closed once the outside air temperature is above about 78 degrees.

    BTW in the winter do the opposite for keeping the basement warm and to avoid overheating the upper floors.