Podcasts

A couple of years ago when I first got an iPhone I downloaded from iTunes and listened to an aviation podcast. I was not impressed as the speakers were amateur enthusiasts who were clearly not that well informed.

I then started listening to EconTalk, a series of excellent podcasts by economist Russ Roberts from GMU in Virginia (he also blogs at Cafe Hayek). Each week he interviews at length a distinguished economist in a manner that is not overly technical.

For lighter relief I have been listening to the Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4. These generally take the form of a quiz or short monologues focussed on the latest political news from the UK.

More recently, I have been listening to a couple of much more professionally done aviation podcasts.

• Airplane Geeks (@AirplaneGeeks) - from the USA
• Plane Crazy Down Under (@pcdu) - from Victoria, Australia

They have turned out to be excellent with coverage of civil and miltary aviation, including aviation history and technology. I have been listening to older episodes and have even sent off a couple of possible "Grill the Geeks" questions to the USA.

These have all been great listening while walking our two dogs.

Microblogging

Over the last few months I have become a fan of using Twitter (posts should be 140 characters or less and URLs are usually shortened) and some of the web links that I have previously been posting here are now being sent out from @aeropolitics  It is also an excellent method for following other relevant Twitter accounts on the latest developments around the world as they happen. I will, however. be making an effort to catch up on my weblog posting.

I have also started helping the New Zealand Division of the Royal Aeronautical Society (I am a Council member) with tweets focussed on New Zealand aviation news using the brand name @aerospacenz

And I am still using @macilree for short messages of a more personal nature.

As this can often be done from my "old" iPhone it is generally a much quicker way of providing links to information that may be of interest to others.

To assist I am using Tweetdeck both on our PC and my smartphone.