Technology Podcast 237: An Homage to the Walkman, Andrew Lih and Wikipedia, and Tech Helps Nab Guatemalan Criminals

March 30, 2009

It's an admittedly eclectic line-up for episode 237 of The World's Technology Podcast. But hey, we like eclectic. It gives you interesting things to talk about at boring cocktail parties. Take the humble Sony Walkman, for example. One listener wrote in and told me that his dream was to be the first person to listen to the technology podcast on an old-school cassette player. Now, I was heavy into Walkmans, and I have an attic full of cassettes, most of them featuring hair metal bands from the 80s, like RATT and Twisted Sister. I can't believe I've just admitted that publicly. Anyway, this listener only had 60 minute cassettes, so 30 minutes a side. In respect to the Walkman, I not only provide you an audio montage to start the show, but also keep the length just under 30 minutes, so it will fit on a 60 minute tape. Again, the show is ultimately yours, not mine, and this is just the kind of fan interaction I like.

Moving on to more serious matters, though. WTP 237 also features part one of a podcast exclusive interview with Andrew Lih. He's the author of The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia. In part one, Lih, a new media researcher now living in Beijing, talks about what drew him to Wikipedia (he's also an administrator), and gives a nice litle summation of how Wikipedia is edited. I also shot a little video of some of the interview:

And we end this week with an update on a story that mixes technology and politics. We're sorry if that bothers you, but it's an important story, and one that I've been following for more than a year now. In 2005, officials from the Human Rights Prosecutor's office in Guatemala stumbled across a building on a police barracks in the heart of Guatemala City. The building was full of rats, bats, and an estimated 80 million moldering documents. It was the archive of the old Guatemalan National Police. Since its discovery, Guatemalan officials have been working in conjunction with professional archivists and a non-profit from California called Benetech, to clean, sort, digitize and analyze these documents. I did a television piece on the efforts for Frontline/WORLD a while back.

Now, all that effort is starting to pay off. There have been a couple of arrests in a high-profile disappearance case from the 1980s, and the Archive has just released it's initial report into significant findings from the archive.

Comments

[Michael]

Just a note to say that I like the chapter markers and thumbnails.

[Daniel Weston]

Hi Clark, I listen to your podcast almost every week and have been listening for about 3 months now. I listen to it whilst running. I really enjoyed the piece with Lih; Wiki.
Thank you and keep up the hard work.
Daniel Weston
Wrexham
North Wales
UK