A few notes about Bustopia

As many of you know, because it was on this blog before, the former official recording device of Bustopia, the Noobulous' mp3 player, has broken. Or perhaps bwoken. Anyway, Episode 4 was partially recorded on that, and after it broke, recorded on the portable video player (The Archos) that Sqiblet and I share. The mp3 player recorded at the sample rate of 8000hz. The Archos, however, records at the much higher sample rate of 44100hz. The second half of Episode 5 was recorded on my laptop, actually, because I forgot to charge The Archos, but the laptop also records at 44100hz. The point is, for Episode 4, I downsampled the 44100hz audio to 8000hz, so I could mix it with the audio from the mp3 player, but if all my audio is 44100hz it isn't worth the large amount of effort to downsample it all. This means there will be a notable increase in the size of our lossless files. There might be an increase in the size of the VBR mp3s and the ogg vorbis, but the 64kbps mp3s are bitrate-capped (and mp3s are not sample based as far as I know), and those are the ones I link to, so most of you won't notice a thing. (by the way, if you take the filename out of the url, you can access the archive.org project pages, but you can also find those by Googling "Bustopia")

On an unrelated note, I've noticed that there is a misunderstanding about the email system. I am fairly certain we have at least eight listeners, yet we have gotten almost no email. You may have noticed that at the bottom of each episode it says "Send somethingorother to bustopia@gmail.com"? This is not a request. Emailing is mandatory. It is only fair; Bustopia gives you many well-developed thoughts on a regular basis, so if you are going to consume them, you are required to give us at least a few in return. Thank you for your cooperation (which I trust I will be receiving shortly in the form of angry emails promising to never listen to Bustopia again).

Speaking of episodes of Bustopia to not listen to, Episode 5 is ready and will be posted tomorrow morning, because it's uploading now and I'm going to sleep.

More reasons not to trust Noobulous

...I promised Episode 5 yesterday, didn't I?
It's not ready.

Yesterday Qalar and TERRANCE were not on the Bus, and Ferris refused to podcast without them, so it would have been just me and Sqiblet, and Squiblet's boring.

And since there's no school for a week, you don't get anything until the following Monday, if then.

In the meantime, listen to The Original, or listen to a good podcast (which I already know I will get a lot of flak for linking to).

The Original

We have decided to bring you a "Special Behind the Scenes" edition of Bustopia to celebrate the fact that 5 is half of a round number. If releases were years, it would be a fifth anniversary (That's right, Qalar, I said "anniversary"). Anyway, it was originally going to be a normal show but with all the behind-the-scenes action, like me saying "Hey TERRANCE, say something funny." preceding the funny. But then it degenerated into just people talking and me not being allowed to edit it. So basically, it's going to suck. In fact, it reminded me of the original episode of Bustopia I made. I had recorded about 3 hours of Bus audio, and through 8 hours of editing (it literally consumed my entire Saturday), trimmed it down to 2 hours. So for those of you with strong livers and little to do:

Bustopia Episode 0: Rolling Down a Hill

Anyway, Episode 5 will not be as bad because we are actually trying. But it will still be bad, you can count on that. And it will be released on Friday, because I won't have to deal with finding time to edit it like I do for the so-called "not completely stupid" episodes. Prepare yourself.

Bustopia Podcast Episode 4

Yeah, it's episode 4! Sorry it took me so long. I had a campout last weekend and this week I've been swamped with homework.

On the show:
-TERRANCE's Girlfriend Asks Bustopia
-News
-Haiku (That's the plural, right?)
-Japanezu
-Debate on the virtues of Bob Dylan

Send suggestions and questions and stuff to bustopia@gmail.com

Bustopia Episode 4

Episode 4 soon

I finished editing Episode 4 on the bus this morning. I hope that this episode of Bustopia is even more authentic since it was edited on a bus as well as being recorded on a bus. I wasn't able to upload it at school, because FTP is blocked from the wifi. My theory is that Mr. Cutler hates freedom. Anyway, I'm on UT campus now, mooching off somebody's wifi to upload the episode, so you can expect it in a few minutes. Like anybody is going to visit this blog in the next few minutes, most of our listenership is in school.

Scott Adams Dilbert

Scott Adams just wrote on The Dilbert Blog about Google Alerts, which sends him an email anytime somebody mentions his keywords in a blog. So that's what I'm doing. His keywords are "Scott Adams Dilbert." Most likely before you read this, one of the coolest people in the world has read this, and there is a nonzero chance that he will listen to the Bustopia podcast. Too frickin' cool.

By the way, I love the comic.

Episode 4 should be out soon, we have all the audio but the editing's not done. I had a campout last weekend so I need to find time during the week.

No podcast this (last) weekend

I went on a campout, so I never came home on Friday. Had I been not stupid, I would have made this post on Thursday.

We do not have enough audio to release a show, so expect one next weekend.