Another great find today for those bored at work and able to don headphones. Drown out your colleagues, ringing phones and background office noise with tales from Fort Laramie, Gunsmoke and Lightning Jim by listening to Old Time Radio Network’s Western Stories.
It’s amazing to think that once upon a time (and not that long ago) families would have gathered religiously around a radio to listen to shows like this as their main source of entertainment.
Thus one of the benefits of internet technology to celebrate is the possibility to jump back through time to simpler days and listen to The Adventures of Lightning Jim and other stories from the comfort of your own desk.
It reminds me of that popular DAB radio channel available in the UK, Birdsong. Once we would have heard nature all around us - now you can even chill out to the sound of finches and swallows at your desk. The possibilities for relaxing at work are endless!
Is there room for two cattle-related technology stories in one month? Well, if you found the GPS-based logic behind the Ear-A-Round intriguing then take a look at the BBC News story on the surprising news that herds of grazing animals all face the same way.
I always knew Google Earth had a purpose beyond checking out what your house looks like from above. The only shame is researchers now have less of a reason to leave the office and get out into the wild just as office workers are using video conferencing instead of enjoying overseas trips.
Regular readers will spot a new feature appearing above Wild West Land blog posts from today - the ‘listen now’ button is provided courtesy of Odiogo.com, a clever and free service that takes written content and transforms it into audio files.
I’m hoping it serves two purposes:
- It makes my blog more accessible to those visitors using assistive technology - they should be able to hear the individual postings read out in a fairly realistic machine voice; and
- It means I’ve entered the world of podcasting without putting the wind up people by forcing them to listen to my own dulcet tones.
Amazingly the link on the right column means you can even subscribe to Wild West Land audio updates using iTunes and listen to future posts on your iPod. Web 2.0 or what.
So, time for a test - the buttons work OK for me. The voice is a little tinny and struggles with pronunciation on some words but are there any glaring bugs? It takes a few hours to transform the latest post into an mp3 file but let me know if you come across other problems.
To test - whilst staying with the Western theme - listen to what kind of spirit Odiogo brings to Dr. Brewster M. Higley’s ‘unofficial anthem of the American West’:
Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.
Chorus
Home, home on the range,
Where the deer and the antelope play;
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.
A casual interest in all things GPS-related led me to stumble across a great story on CNN about “Old West cattle herding with a 21st century twist”. Boffins from the USDA and MIT have combined to create the Ear-A-Round:
The wireless headset… has stereo earphones that transmit sounds directly into the cow’s ears to guide its movement. Powered by a small solar energy panel, the unit contains a GPS device to monitor a cow’s location and movement… Researchers hope the device will give ranchers and farmers the ability to herd cattle from afar
Now, while this may sound comical - lazy ranchers directing their cows from the comfort of air conditioned offices like air traffic controllers watching dots dancing on green screens - and a possible threat to the future of old-fashioned cowboys, the story has one real nugget: “Another potential benefit would be eye-friendly vistas that have no fences.”
My knowledge of the end of the Old West era centres on the fencing in of the prairies, the widespread adoption of barbed wire - ‘The Devil’s Rope’ - and the bloody period known as ‘The Fence Cutter Wars‘. Inventors like Joseph Glidden made a fortune, the invention changed cattle country beyond recognition and radically reduced the need for armies of line-riders.
Barbed wire fences are such a part of Western history there’s even a museum dedicated to the preservation of antique barbs in McLean, Texas.
Imagine then if technology conquers the need for fences and the west returns to a wide open space, unhindered by man-made barriers? ‘Virtual paddocks’ replace ranch fencing and the Open Range is open again.
