Jack and Dan discuss a brief history of hacking, explain how the NSA captured personal user data from major internet providers, and provide a few essential security tips for the web and mobile on Minnesota’s progressive talk station, AM 950.

Learn more about about the NSA from expert James Bamford, and security from host Steve Gibson.

Thanks for listening to Jack and Dan.

Stay tuned.

Filed under: Audio, Blog, Culture, Episode, Friends, Interviews, Media, News and Politics, News/Commentary, Podcast, Politics, Radio, Regular, Reporting, Tech, Technology Tagged: AM 950, Dan Patterson, Episode, Glenn Greenwald, Hackers, Hacking, Jack Rice, NSA, Podcast, Radio, Snowden, Technology

Source: Dan Patterson
http://danpatterson.com/2014/05/19/hacking-explained-jack-rice-and-dan-patterson-on-progressive-am-950/

Download Audio

From an ad-hoc classroom through the bustling streets of Cairo, Egypt to the Pyramids of Giza, this is an audio journal of stories and  thoughts recorded while working with Small World News to train Sudanese media makers in March of 2014.

Our hotel was located down a busy, dusty ally in downtown Cairo. Each day our team scribbled on charts and whiteboards in a top-floor classroom with windows that opened to the noisy clanking of perpetual construction. For two weeks over coffee and sheesha with our Sudanese colleagues we used Android devices to review the techniques of telling stories that deeply resonate with people.

Our group was remarkable, and individually live fascinating lives in different regions of Sudan. Each day was an opportunity to learn more about family, music, language, and culture. With the help of great translators listened to personal stories, asked questions, and recorded audio. As with my prior trip to Sudan, I also occasionally recorded short audio journal entries of our activity. Far from an official report, this is a narrative that tries to capture the essence of the people of Sudan, as well as the sounds of Egypt.

In this episode you’ll hear a number of captivating stories:

• The story of a mother awake in a storm anxiously awaiting the return of her son.
• The impact of the Egyptian revolution on tourism at the Giza Pyramids.
• The impact of violence and systemic marginalization on language, music, and dance in Kordofan.
• How mobile phones are empowering disenfranchised groups.
• The pop music of Sudan, Egypt, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.

Notes: 

The experiences shared in this story are raw, unvettable, and sometimes shocking. Yet these experiences are shared by thousands of Sudanese  refugees and internally displaced persons. To learn more about systemic marginalization and the wars in Sudan, Kordofan, and Darfur please read Richard Cockett’s Sudan, Darfur, Islamism and the World.

The stories shared in this episode were conducted with a local, untrained translator and recorded on the fly with a Marantz PMD620. I speak Arabic poorly and did my best to keep up with the narrative, but surely much nuance and context was lost in translation. Arabic clarification and edits are welcome.

Thanks for listening.

سلام‎

Learn More:

• The Sudan Project
• Small World News
• StoryMaker

Sudan Stories:

• The Story of M – A Choice
• The Story of N – A Witness
• Language, Guns, & Phones

Filed under: Audio, Blog, Culture, Episode, Interviews, Media, News and Politics, News/Commentary, Podcast, Politics, Post Archive, Reporting Tagged: Audio, Brian Conley, Cairo, Dan Patterson, Egypt, Episode, Guns, Interview, Journalism, Kordofan, Language, Media, Nuba, Phones, Podcast, Reporting, Small World News, Stories, Sudan, Teaching, Training

Source: Dan Patterson
http://danpatterson.com/2014/04/28/sudan-stories-language-guns-phones/

Brooklyn Heights has never felt so fresh.

Just in time for the holidays, the bustling Brooklyn Heights intersection of Clark and Henry is about to smell a whole lot better, thanks to local soap makers Ross Caudill and his fiancé Joanna Maltese. Named after the famed intersection, Clark & Henry recently opened as an online shop with aspirations of retail success selling soap and household objects in Brooklyn Heights.

Their work is collaborative and the soap is a product of love. Both have a background in and passion for creation, Joanna is knowledgable in design and Ross is a multi-discipline artist. Yet at the onset of their soap-making project, neither really understood soap as a product. After months of research, reading, seminars, and experiments, they have honed the process of soap creation and are now packaging soap by hand in their Henry Street apartment.

Over email, Ross detailed the fascinating process:

A solution of sodium hydroxide is prepared separately. At the precise point when this is the same temperature as the oils they must be quickly mixed together to begin the chemical reaction which creates soap. After much blending, the exfoliants and essential oils are added. Finally the batch is cast into the molds. All of the components in the recipe are purposeful and curated for the attributes they bring to the final product. The fragrance is derived from the essential oils. The scrubbiness from the natural exfoliants has to be just right. The soap’s lather must be bubbly and creamy and cleansing, but also leave the skin feeling conditioned.

Joanna peels and prepares local cucumbers as Ross carefully tweaks the chemistry. Together they grind the exfoliant and prepare the casts. The result is a product and a business that avoids the potential pitfalls of artisnal pretense, yet remains charming and sincerely local.

Clark & Henry as an enterprise was in no small part inspired by the couple’s fondness of the neighborhood. Joanna smiles as she recalls returning to Brooklyn Heights after a brief stint in Park Slope, and how the couple’s product is created by hand with a ‘neighbors first’ attitude. “We wanted to make something to make our neighbors smile,” she told me over coffee at Vineapple.

Already considering creating a line of chairs, if the soap is successful the two would like to expand their product offering to include useful household items.

“We always feel a sense of accomplishment when we finish casting a batch of soap,” said Ross, explaining why they chose to start a business in Brooklyn Heights. Regardless of the success of Clark & Henry as a business, Ross and Joanna will continue to craft creative products in Brooklyn Heights for years to come.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/64254