Podcasting: The medium and the massage was right after all.

This man predicted Facebook before there were networked computers.
Also, he just looks *awesome* doesn't he!

Many years ago, when I was young and full of hope, I studied many of the softer sciences, such as memetics and sociology. During my misty eyed time as an activist I procured a book , widely and rightly regarded as seminal : "The Medium is the Massage: An inventory of effects" words by Marshall Mcluhan , design by Quentin Fiore. It still has pride of place on my shelves as a visionary and prescient work...almost everything it predicts came to pass, including the "global village" and the "world of ends".

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.

What about toy soldiers you lefty nut?


Now, what has this to do with toy soldiers I hear you cry? Well, wargaming is currently in its second golden age by anyone's account, and there has never been a better time to play with toy soldiers. One of the best apsects of our current media age, mature as it is now, is the fact that we are all content producers as well as consumers, and each man's opinion shouts as loud as the next one...fair enough,that's a bad thing as well really.

Podcasting is the surprise hit of web 2.0, the poster child that sent traditional media into a spiral of pricing models and panic production, and amongst that noise, there rose the sound of dice on wood, of dropped rulebooks and echoing halls...and of the half baked opinions of everyone vain enough to write a blog or produce a show!

Whilst I was lost on MMO's podcasts and audio books were my constant companion through raids, grinds and farming, and I got quite addicted to them in all honesty.  When I turned my gaze back on wargaming, my second port of call after Google was the iTunes store, and there is a wealth of podcasts/vidcasts out there now that really do the trick when painting a unit or two.

To that end, I think I'll start a little side project of collating sources for the things that get me through my gaming day :)

http://www.thed6generation.com/

The D6 Generation, hosted by Reaf Granger, Russ Wakelin and Greg Gallant(possibly not his name...its what it sounds like though :P ), is usually a longer show, is PG rated, and covers boardgames, wargames, card games, and general "geek" culture in a friendly approachable way.  They avoid in-jokes and clique references, and actually inform you!  The conversational style of reviews is a fantastic way to actually get information about products, as 9/10 times one of the hosts will ask that stupid question that was in your head.  The only downside is I rarely get to listen to a whole episode at once.  As for the price, we'll its free! So there's no harm in trying it out.