I'm still developing podcast websites with transcripts[^0] while maintaining a part-time job.
This thread made me realize I've made no progress in acquiring new clients since posting about this 6 months ago. However, my part-time job ends in May, which will allow me to focus exclusively on Fanfare. It's somewhat intimidating, but I'm also looking forward to it; the prospect of resolving this uncertain situation (either through success or failure) feels liberating.
Yep, I do this in a tmux session. But sometimes I'm on a call and forget and the ROBOT VOICE says "DATABASE DUMP IS COMPLETE" and I jump out of my skin.
I'm building a service for podcast websites with transcripts[^0]. I have paying customers, including Volts[^1], and I'm genuinely passionate about serving them.
What's holding me back from scaling is primarily my own resistance to marketing, plus some pending improvements to the ChatGPT-based transcript editing system. Once I finish optimizing the LLM integration, I'll have no more excuses to avoid sales outreach. One thread I want to pursue is a magazine of podcast transcripts that I inherited: https://podread.org
I'd appreciate advice on authentic outreach strategies for reaching knowledge-focused podcasters. If anyone here has experience in this space or wants to collaborate, I'm open to connecting.
It's definitely impressive. However, natural gas outages do happen. For example Winter Storm Uri in Texas led to gas outages.
Sadly, the outages and possible the loss of life connected to it could have been prevented if the gas companies hadn't fought back against stricter weatherization rules[^0].
> they made recommendations to the Railroad Commission to implement weatherization rules on the natural gas supply chain because there had been water coming up from the formations — it's called produced water, it's naturally occurring — and it was freezing at the top of the wellheads and restricting gas flow both at the wellheads and in pipelines.
And yes, the Railroad Commission is not in charge of trains, but oil and gas in Texas.
Also, a contributing factor to gas compressor station outages in Texas during Winter Storm Uri was ERCOT (Texas' electric grid operator) load shedding without knowing they were shedding gas compressor loads. This led to reduced gas supply available for generation.
> When load is being shed involuntarily, customers designated as “critical load” can be exempted. Critical
load is typically demand from entities, such as hospitals, for whom a power interruption could be
extremely costly. To be deemed as critical, the customer must first file paperwork. The winter storm
revealed that certain parts of the natural gas supply chain – such as natural gas compressor stations –
were not designated as critical load. In consequence, their power was cut, thereby reducing flows of
natural gas along the state’s pipeline network and contributing to partial and complete derates at
multiple natural gas power generation units. The loss of their output in turn necessitated further load
shedding, potentially creating an unstable feedback loop. This represented a single point of failure in
the energy supply system.
every hospital I’m familiar with has its own backup power generation. Sometimes diesel so they can fully island off the grid for a while (but unsure about water & heat source). And with roll-up generator hookups+contracts if that fails.
Those should be the first requirements before being able to be deemed critical.
Heck, I’m familiar with some orgs that sell their backup generator capacity to be on-call to the grid in the event of supply shortage. To them it’s a profitable load test that reduces the risk of outage.
My local hospital gets a deal from the local power company that they kick on their generators at peak demand times, and the power company pays them handsomely for it. The hospital gets to test their Emergency power works as expected, and the power company reduces their load by a few Megawatts for a few hours.
> Those should be the first requirements before being able to be deemed critical.
Strong agree; however, it would be highly unusual to find that any facility that knows to file critical load paperwork has neglected this, so I'm not sure that it would actually do much other than inconvenience the process.
Previously, I co-founded and led a company developing ML solutions for TV stations and TV measurement companies, with projects like automated goal detection in ice hockey and a system for processing daily TV ratings in Switzerland. Currently, I am fully focused on my solo venture, https://www.withfanfare.com/, which provides transcripts for knowledge-dense podcasts. I'm seeking work to extend my runway and to keep learning and improving.
I think the assumption is that North Korea already knows who he his: He didn't make a big deal of hiding who he was when he hacked them in the first place. Some people within the scene quickly figured out it was him, so it's fair to assume that North Korea figured it out too.
this ^^^^. You nailed it spot on. They knew and have known for a couple of years. Coming out actually makes me a bit safer from them because now everyone knows i’m ACTUALLY affiliated heavily with the IC and DoD. Try murdering someone like that… well that person might have contingencies in place so that things just start to randomly burn down in your country……………
Not to mention any official action of murdering YET ANOTHER US citizen (see the Warmbier case) but this time with very real military connections. May make them think twice.
I’m far more afraid of our own government than theirs to be frank. Though i didn’t break any laws that i know of. I attacked a “country” that we don’t even recognize as a country but a terrorist state! So are they gonna prosecute me for attacking terrorists with a pretty minor attack in the grand scheme of things? I hope not and i don’t think so…. but FBI is gonna FBI.
I fear that you’re setting yourself up for danger by thinking your DoD contacts can save you from assassination… North Korea have assassinated more important people in airports of all places…
> Try murdering someone like that… well that person might have contingencies in place so that things just start to randomly burn down in your country……………
I don't even know where to start with this. The article portrayed your interaction with the DoD to giving them a Powerpoint presentation and making various attempts to catch their attention. Which you've portrayed here as a 'heavy affiliation'... so heavy that the state conducts special operation behind enemy lines to avenge you.
- A serious SSH backdoor was discovered in the xz Linux compression library, allowing attackers to compromise SSH servers.
- The backdoor was discovered by Andres Freund, a Postgres developer, who noticed suspicious CPU usage and login attempts on his systems.
- The xz backdoor allowed attackers to bypass authentication and gain root access on compromised systems.
- Microsoft faced significant criticism from the CSRB (Cybersecurity Review Board) for a cascade of errors related to a China-based hack.
- Ukraine was able to leverage an old WinRAR vulnerability to hack into Russian systems as part of the ongoing conflict.
- There have been recent "MFA bombing" attacks targeting Apple users, combining push notifications and social engineering.
- A ransomware gang leaked stolen Scottish healthcare patient data as part of an extortion attempt.
- Renowned security expert and author Ross Anderson passed away.
- The episode features a discussion with Andres Freund about his discovery of the xz backdoor.
- The podcast sponsor, Island, discusses how enterprises are moving away from VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) towards security-focused enterprise browsers.
I can highly recommend "A City on Mars"[^0], which I recently read.
The authors go into fascinating detail about what it takes to build planetary settlements, and they not only focus on the engineering questions but make a point to talk about the legal aspects of space settlement as well.
> The victims even included several survivors of the Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 402 crash. (Note: A plane that crashed the day prior, with only 8 out of 72 people on board surviving)
> Several booked passengers cancelled their tickets at the last moment to see a ninja demonstration. These passengers, Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman, Ken Adam, Lewis Gilbert, and Freddie Young, were in Japan scouting locations for the fifth James Bond film, You Only Live Twice (1967).
Coincidences like this are of course bound to happen with large enough numbers of people traveling, but I still find this interesting.
This thread made me realize I've made no progress in acquiring new clients since posting about this 6 months ago. However, my part-time job ends in May, which will allow me to focus exclusively on Fanfare. It's somewhat intimidating, but I'm also looking forward to it; the prospect of resolving this uncertain situation (either through success or failure) feels liberating.
[^0]: https://www.withfanfare.com/