*UPDATED* RADIO - BBC Radio 4 Nature

On Monday February 14th 2005, Radio 4 aired an episode of "Nature" called Animal Instinct, specifically about how the animals in the Tsunami region acted oddly ahead of the waves striking. The waves did reach Madagascar and Mauritius of course. Full episode synopsis and streamable audio at BBC - Radio 4 - Nature.

To bring shows like this to my car radio in the USA, I use Replay Radio to record the shows to MP3 files, and then I play them on my IRiver MP3 player with my I-Rock FM transmitter.

  

Using this combination I can schedule all sorts of BBC Radio2, Radio4, and BBC7 shows to record to my computer overnight, which I then copy down to my MP3 Player for use the next day. You can record either live feeds or any of the BBC's OnDemand shows. It is working wonderfully for me! Larger capacity MP3 players are available at Amazon of course. So far 256MB has been adequate for my needs, but 512MB or 1GB would have been better I think.

I grew up on Radio 4 comedy so I was enjoying listening to Just A Minute this morning, while riding the train into Philadelphia! Paste the URL of the stream into Replay Radio and off you go! The free demo version works for 7 days, and convinced me that it was a solid product, worthy of purchase!

It will also work nicely when the fourth radio series of "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy" arrives on BBC Radio 4!

EVENT - Steve Meretzky and Michael Bywater in conversation

London - This Thursday, 3rd March 2005, 8pm, Steve Meretzky and Michael Bywater in conversation... all proceeds go to Save The Rhino and The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund

In honour of the BAFTA award nomination for the BBC's new Internet
edition of the classic Infocom computer game, "The Hitchhiker's Guide
To The Galaxy", we present two titans of the text adventure:

STEVE MERETZKY AND MICHAEL BYWATER, IN CONVERSATION
(on interactive fiction, Douglas Adams and other lost worlds)

As well as working with Douglas Adams on the "Hitchhiker's" game in
1985, STEVE MERETZKY is responsible for such other classics of the
genre as "Planetfall", "Leather Goddesses of Phobos" and "Zork Zero".
In 1999 he was named one of the industry's 25 "Game Gods" by PC Gamer
magazine. He currently holds the position of Principal Game Designer
for WorldWinner, Inc.

Veteran writer and broadcaster MICHAEL BYWATER has been involved with interactive storytelling since the eighties, both with Douglas Adams
on Infocom's "Bureaucracy" and the legendary British games company
Magnetic Scrolls. He worked with Adams again in the mid-nineties on
The Digital Village's "Starship Titanic". His third book, "Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost & Where Did It Go?" (a collection of his columns for The Independent On Sunday) is out now.

Date: Thursday 3rd March, 8:00pm
Price: 4 pounds on the door - all proceeds go to Save The Rhino and
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund
Venue: The Brockway Room, Conway Hall
25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
Map: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/
Any questions: yoz_AT_yoz.com

Thanks to David for this notice.

DOUGLAS ADAMS MEMORIAL LECTURES

Reminder, the 3rd Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture takes place on March 10th, 2005. The lecture is entitled "LAST CHANCE TO SEE…JUST A BIT MORE", and will be given by book co-author Mark Carwardine.

And as a nice preview, over on H2G2 you can view video of The First Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture, as given by Richard Dawkins.

KAKAPO PARROTS - Virtual Field Trip November 23-25, 2005

For schools in New Zealand, here's an opportunity to take your class on a "virtual" field trip to see the Kakapo Parrots.

LEARNZ is an online education programme for students in New Zealand state, private and integrated schools.

LEARNZ offers 16 virtual field trip experiences each year - students stay at school but visit places they would never otherwise go to and interact with people they would never meet. Students' participation is supported by online background materials and enabled using live audioconferencing, web board and diaries, images and videos uploaded daily.

Full details about how to register your school for the Kakapo field trip at the LEARNZ site:
  Summary for Kakapo Virtual field trip - November 23-25, 2005

Themes: Adaptations, habitat, gadgets.

Highlights: Fly to Codfish Island, home of the kakapo and land on the beach. Discover the kakapo habitat. Go on a night visit to meet a kakapo. Get to know the people on the island and find out about the gadgets they use to help kakapo.

BLOG - Template V2.0

I thought it was about time I gave the blog a bit of an update, and try and move it away from the basic Blogger template that I started with (and which so many other Bloggers still use). Hope you like "Another Chance To See - Version 2.0"!

Looks OK on Internet Explorer and Firefox as far as I can see. Comments always welcome, especially if it's screwed up in your own favourite browser.

KAKAPO PARROTS - Four Kakapos sitting on eggs

More on this wonderful developing story from New Zealand with these two reports from The Scoop and NZ City.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) has established that four female kakapo on Whenua Hou island in Southland have recently laid eggs. Birds named Flossey and Margaret-Marie are each sitting on a nest of three eggs. Another bird, Sue, has laid two eggs, and a fourth bird laid three eggs but these appear to be infertile.

“The last time kakapo bred was in 2002, so this is hugely significant for the Kakapo Recovery Programme particularly after last year’s tragic loss of three birds to disease,” Chris Carter said.

AUDIO INTERVIEWS with Douglas Adams

Great stuff. Here's a page at Wired For Books with two nice audio interviews with Douglas Adams, the second of which from 1989 has Douglas talking about the plight of the Baiji Dolphin, but also promoting the second Dirk Gently book "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul". Both interviews run around 25 minutes and can be found here: "Douglas Adams interviews by Don Swaim (CBS Radio)". The Last Chance To See part of the interview begins about 11:40 into the 1989 interview.

Replay Radio should serve me well again here...

In a second Douglas Adams interview, he talks with Don Swaim in 1989 about searching for the Yangtze River dolphin in China, promoting the conservation of wildlife, and his novel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.