Presented by Shawn Klein
Airs The 4th Friday of the month at 17:30 UTC, repeated Saturday at 06:30 UTC and Monday at 16:30 UTC
A half-hour monthly show featuring interesting things and curiosities Shawn has found on the Internet, touching on a variety of subjects. Humanity’s first recordings of its own voice in the 1850s, the US government bouncing shortwave signals off the moon, an old world-war II era film about the use of radio during the war, auditory illusions, alternate musical scales, what noise does an ostrich make? And other unusual and rare sounds, These and much more are fair game on Odds and Sods.
On this month’s show it's Part 2 of What Does the Fish Say, with new material this time. We ask the question what does the fish say? The Oceans aren’t a silent world, even if that’s what Jacques Cousteau titled his book. There are plenty of Purrs, Grunts, Hums, farts, clicks, scrapes and Hoots to be heard, and we’re going to hear some, lots of new ones we didn't hear last month, including a full on fish chorus from an Indonesian reef, and a menagerie of fishy sounds from Australia, California and British Colombia in Canada. Videos from PBS, the BBC, Guardian News, national geographic, and some other Youtubers will be heard from. So dive in, put your head under water, and open your ears.
This month's show is a replay of Odds and Sods from March 23, 2018. On this month’s show we ask the question what does the fish say? The Oceans aren’t a silent world, even if that’s what Jacques Cousteau titled his book. There are plenty of Purrs, Grunts, Hums, farts, clicks, scrapes and Hoots to be heard, and we’re going to hear some. We’ll even hear excerpts from a 1955 phonograph of bioacoustics recordings from the early 50s. But that’s not all! Hook some electrodes in the water to an audio amplifier, and you can tune into the electric world of electric fish. We’ll learn how electric fish produce electricity, what they use it for, and we’ll listen to an electric eel named Mr. Unagi as he hunts down goldfish in his tank. Buz’z’z’z’z’z’z? Next month I'll have a brand new show chock full of new Youtube fishy noises fun and knowledge about the undersea world of fish sounds.
This month, bouncy physics you can hear. Weird metal that's also glass is insanely bouncy. Then we'll hear about a weird way to hack someone's password by recording the typing sounds. Hacking your Password Using the sound of your keys.
This month in this season of Christmas bells and holiday music, we're talking about some weird and wonderful percussion that'll make you say, wow! They didn't need electronic synths for that? The last part of the show will be a meditative listen to 9 singing bowls made of 9 different metals from aluminum to nyobium, iron to silver.
External links:
WORLD DRUM CLUB Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/@WORLDDRUMCLUB
Brett Jones Percussion Youtube channel
https://m.youtube.com/@brettjonespercussion
Helisepp's Youtube channel lots of bells and gongs.
https://www.youtube.com/@Helisepp
This month is a repeat of Odds and Sods 2018 Thanksgiving show. The first Thanksgiving song that everyone thinks is a Christmas song, dances from the Wampanoag nation who greeted the pilgrims in 1620, and hacking the rebel yell. How recordings of old American civil war vets made in the 1930s clued some 21st century historians and reenacters in to what it really sounded like.
This month we're going back in time to my October 2017 episode all about scientifically explaining what makes scary sounds scary to us humans. The episode finishes with a 7 minute binaural visit to a mock sanatorium, in Spanish. But don't worry, the dialogue is pretty limited and I tell you what everyone says first. A scream in Spanish is just as spooky!
This month it's all about echolocation. Bats do it, dolphins do it, Daredevil does it, but so can you. human echolocation that is... So be sure to put on your headphones. For the first 3rd of the show we'll take a whimsical look at the subject from the standpoint of how our native echolocation ability compares with our depictions of it in scifi and superhero fiction, but you know me, in this show I make your ears multitask, so at the same time we'll be hearing real echoes from slowed down bats and a section of a walk from The Sound Traveler through Hitler's bunker, and virtual echoes created by my modification of the voices of the influencers we're hearing, done with Goldwave and VST plugins. If you didn't know you could sense echoes as a pressure-like feeling that people used to call facial vision before, you will when I'm through with the first part of the show. The last two thirds of the show will be a true real world lesson in echolocation as Youtuber Tym Maiara and his binaural rig takes us for a virtual echolocation lesson. Even I learned a few things, and I've been doing it passively and actively all my life.
External links.
Tym Miara's Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@tymmiara5967
Because Science on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@Nerdist
What Hitler's Bunker Sounds Like - The Sound Traveler full video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpiSUYNka0A
Feel the power of the dark side! This month: we're going back to the moon to touch the dark side! with part 3 of Dave ülman's Hear and There podcast from 2011 that I participated in where we discussed NASA's book Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters, which used thermoform technology to provide raised 2 and a half d depictions of the moon's surface, both the side you can see from Earth, and the back side, often referred to as the dark side of the moon. See May's show description for more resources.
This month we're going back to the moon with part 2 of Dave ülman's Hear and There podcast from 2011 that I participated in where we discussed NASA's book Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters, which used thermoform technology to provide raised 2 and a half d depictions of the moon's surface, both the side you can see from Earth, and the back side, often referred to as the dark side of the moon. See May's show description for more resources.
This month I'm replaying the show from June 2019 about the scientific usefulness or lack there of of sonification. Does it have any scientific value, or just an artistic conceit?
This month we're going back to 2011 to talk about a book that, as far as I know, you can still get your hands on, though it may be only available at a library near you. Back in 2011 I was part of a 3 eppisode series of my friend Dave ülman's Hear and There podcast as the totally blind reviewer of NASA's book Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters, which used thermoform technology to provide raised 2 and a half d depictions of the moon's surface, both the side you can see from Earth, and the back side, often referred to as the dark side of the moon. At an Easter celebration at a neighbor's I showed the book to the host and several guests, which included the astronomy professor at Benedictine College here in Atchison Kansas. That gave me the idea to reair that podcast from 2011 for the next few months on Odds and Sods. Here are some resources so you can try to get your hands on this fascinating little book, either for yourself, or for or at your library.
According to the official site from NASA, the first few reprintings of this publication have run out. Here you can download the text-only version or audio file of the book.:
https://lunarscience.nasa.gov/tactile/
NASA@ My Library | Science Mission Directorate:
https://science.nasa.gov/science-activation-team/nasa-at-my-library
NASA@ My Library | Tools, Publications & Resources:
https://www.ala.org/tools/programming/nasalibraries
To the Moon with Hear and There VisionAware blog post:
https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/publications/moon-book.php
This month is literally a hodgepodge of odds and sods. We talk about the hot chocolate effect caused by bubbles rising to the surface after you stir. As you tap the side of the cup, the density and speed of sound changes in the liquid, and the tone gets higher and higher. We'll also learn the art of shifting gears on a manual transmission by sound alone, something I was taught to do at the age of 3 in the mid 70s. Finally, why do cats meow? And, yes, you too can meow convincingly! Consistently, maybe not. I personally demonstrate 3 meowing modes.