Riley and Casey explore technology and society in rural communities. Today's focus: Arts, Culture & Digital Storytelling.

NEWS ROUNDUP: We break down [NYT Top Stories] ‘Nobody Owns Us’: How Plans for a Google Data Center Divided an Oklahoma Town and [Williams Lake Tribune] Boulder hits semi driver on Highway 1 near Revelstoke, plus 1 more stories, and explore what these developments mean for communities like ours.

RURAL CONNECTIONS: Deep dive on Arts, Culture & Digital Storytelling Topics include: broadband, AI, infrastructure, community ownership, funding.

Hosts: Riley (Tech optimist with an engineering background) and Casey (Community-first skeptic of tech promises).

Sources discussed:

• NYT Top Stories: [NYT Top Stories] ‘Nobody Owns Us’: How Plans for a Google D...
• Williams Lake Tribune: [Williams Lake Tribune] Boulder hits semi driver on Highway ...
• Quesnel Cariboo Observer: [Quesnel Cariboo Observer] Province investigates Kwantlen St...
• ScienceAlert: [ScienceAlert] Sudden Sight Loss Risk Almost 5x Higher With ...
• XDA Developers: [XDA Developers] A used RTX 3090 is still the best GPU for l...
• TechRadar: [TechRadar] This is probably the most powerful external GPU ...
• 100 Mile Free Press: [100 Mile Free Press] CARIBOO OUTDOORS: A brief discussion o...

Additional sources provided:

• ScienceAlert: [ScienceAlert] Study Reveals a 'Turning Point' in US Life Ex...
• XDA Developers: [XDA Developers] This 3D-printed privacy-first security came...
• Hackaday: [Hackaday] Building a Rad Bluetooth Speaker that Didn’t Real...
• ScienceAlert: [ScienceAlert] Each Stressful Person in Your Life May Age Yo...
• ScienceAlert: [ScienceAlert] Major Parkinson's Study Reveals Symptom Diffe...
• XDA Developers: [XDA Developers] I turned a Steam Deck into my living room h...
• Our World in Data: [Our World in Data] Why cheap waste management is key to sto...
• XDA Developers: [XDA Developers] These 3D prints will make Easter gift givin...
• XDA Developers: [XDA Developers] I added a $25 HBA card to my home server an...
• How-To Geek: [How-To Geek] The active NVMe cooling trap: Why SSD fans are...
• NYT Top Stories: [NYT Top Stories] In Ski Towns, a Bad Snow Year Is Worsening...
• XDA Developers: [XDA Developers] Blackwell's path tracing is 10,000x better ...

Credits
Theme Song: Cariboo Signals by Suno
Content Curation & Script: Claude (Anthropic)
TTS Voices: OpenAI TTS API
Cover Art: ChatGPT (OpenAI)
Podcast Coordination: Erich Zirnhelt
© 2026 Erich Zirnhelt. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.