Tangential Convergence

We got together before Caprica to talk about location based apps. You know like Foursquare and Gowalla. This came about because I bought a new iPhone, and found out that the pics you take get geotagged automatically. This was a bit of a surprise, but also maybe a tad creepy. Robin was pretty sure it was creepy, and said that he would never use it. Ken said it was not that different from sending a letter with a return address on it. We talked a lot about the historical and science fiction aspects of location too. We did our best to improve the audio this time, hope it helps. Direct download link.

The whole Google vs. China in an out and out war of err, something or other inspired this episode. I made the point that this was Google, in essence, acting like a state level actor and this seemed somewhat novel. Well, both Ken and Robin pointed out that say the British East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company were in essence states within states, even having their own armed forces. I said this was different because Google does not have a royal charter or anything. This of course lead us into a discussion of Corporatism, which is in a way a lot like medieval guilds, and well, a lot like the fascism of Italy or Portugal. Corporations taking over the world eh, how about Rollerball! Robin also gave us his most recent views on google wave and I talked about my most recent appearances on Fourcast with Tom Merritt and Scott Johnson. Direct download link