Comments on: Ricky Gervais takes his podcast on a commercial exercise

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 00:55:09 +0000

let me try that link again –

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070184/

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 00:54:14 +0000

Shall do . It doesn’t look as though this movie will be coming out on DVD, but they might know where I can get a tape version of it . It’s not available in Australia, but maybe one of their listeners might know something .
Hmmmm …. I just had an idea …. I’ll give it a try on The Trading Post …. maybe somebody in Canberra has a copy they want to sell .
Here’s a link to a the movie –http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070184/

By: Samuel

Samuel — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 05:19:29 +0000

The problem is ….. the movie doesn’t seem to be available ANYWHERE

On Sunday morning at 12:30 (yes, half past midnight) John Kerr has a “Flicks and Things” segment with Dale & Simon (whose last names I’ve forgotten). These two know just about everything you could ever want to know about movies, you could ask them about the movie! I’m sure John Kerr would be happy to hear from you again too.

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 00:14:22 +0000

Hmmmmm ….. not bad ! ……. better than the REAL Traudle Junge (one of Hitler’s secretaries ).

By: Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:29:33 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Traudle.jpg

this one is one the left

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 14:37:02 +0000

Yep…..I’d say so. And in addition to that , Australia’s own Diane Cilento plays Hitler’s pilot, Hannah Reitsch — see here –
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/reitsch.html

The problem is ….. the movie doesn’t seem to be available ANYWHERE ….. not even on DVD ! It was made in 1973.

By: Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 12:54:35 +0000

Is it worth watching? Is Sir Alec’s secretary as hot as Ganz’s Bavarian looker?

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 12:35:43 +0000

Yeah, Bruno Ganz was pretty good actually . I think “Hitler: The Last Ten Days” with Alec Guiness as Hitler, inspired that 2004 movie .

By: Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 10:18:53 +0000

Bruno Ganz plays an even better Hitler than Chaplin.

“Der Untergang – Hitler und das Ende des Dritten Reichs” (“The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich”), 2004.

A very authentic movie.

Robert Carlyle was not much chop in the Hitler telemovie though.

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 09:52:46 +0000

Hmmmm ….. even Alec Guiness looked more convincing as Hitler in the movie “Hitler-The Last Ten Days” than THAT poor imitation in the photo .

By: Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 08:41:07 +0000

I think this photo will further illustrate your point John.

http://rickygervais.com/images/hitlerchurchill01_sm.jpg

By: Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 08:31:51 +0000

Are you talking about the popularity of the Holocaust?

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 05:14:35 +0000

This is just one example of the absurdity of what is, and what isn’t “popular” .

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 04:00:49 +0000

Of course nobody can prove or disprove whether Hitler actually said that to Speer … and speaking of David Irving , the “Holocaust Denier” , it’s interesting to note that in Speer’s book (and at the Nuremberg Trials), Speer denied any knowledge of The Holocaust , which I’m inclined NOT to believe………so..if he lied about THAT…. it’s possible that he lied about what Hitler allegedly said ‘off the record’ … It’s obvious that Hitler enjoyed being “popular” , and only at the very end did he rail against his own people for being “too weak” and “not deserving” of a great leader such as himself , but this didn’t happen until the Soviets were only a stone’s throw away from the Fuhrerbunker.

By: Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 02:53:49 +0000

Architects are renowned for being pompous and egotistic. The famed Dane Jorn Utzon epitomised this when he stole all that money from the NSW government and took off without finishing the Opera House.

Walter Burley Griffin preceeded this when he was trying to divert funds from the war effort to fund his grand plan for Canberra. He stated:

“I have planned a city that is not like any other in the world. I have planned it not in a way that I expected any government authorities in the world would accept. I have planned an ideal city – a city that meets my ideal of the city of the future.”

Because of Speer’s grandios plans for Germany he diverted Hitler’s attention away from winning the war. Speer hoped he could start from a clean slate but the Russian architect Volstek ruined this because of his plans for a huge wall seperating east and west.

Hitler would have never called his people stupid. Einstein is proof of that. If it weren’t for meddling conceited architects, we may have a Third Reich today. ‘Hey Dad’ would have never have been made.

Architects are the problem with this world. Look at Federation Square in Melbourne. Is it an architecural wonderland? Or a self indulgent nightmare?

I bet it was an architect who got Professor David Irving locked up.

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:54:24 +0000

According to Albert Speer’s book “Inside the Third Reich” (1970), Hitler spoke to him on a number of occasions about the “stupidity of the masses” ….. not only at the Berghof on the Obersalzberg, but also in Munich, and once at the “Zeppelin Field ” in Nuremberg, where Speer (an architect ) had been awarded a contract to ‘refurbish’ the Zeppelin Field for Party Rallies from late 1933 onwards.

By: Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:30:08 +0000

I agree Samuel. It could only work for established podcasts that download on a mass scale. Nobody would donate to these ones. I do agree with your idea of donations for smaller ones.

I understand what you are saying John B1_B5. Hitler and Mr Gervais do have a lot in common. I would go even further and borrow a line from Karl Marx and say that ‘The Ricky Gervais Show is the opiate of the masses.’

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 22:44:34 +0000

And I won’t give you that corny old line of what Hitler said about the “masses” ( behind their back of course, to Albert Speer one night at the Berghof ) …… however…. I do believe I saw a similar ‘line’ on “The Spin” regarding the “stupidity of the masses” …….

By: John B1_B5

John B1_B5 — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:44:51 +0000

Yes well …when it comes to the word “popular” ( in ANY field ) I usually go in the opposite direction, because I make up my OWN mind what is ‘popular’ with ME.
I really don’t give ‘ two hoots’ what the ‘masses’ think .

By: Samuel

Samuel — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 16:53:08 +0000

alright, if he announced it at the start, then fine, at least everyone knew what they were in for. I still don’t like the idea, but then again I’m willing to listen to ads.

You’re right Chuck in that podcasts as popular as Ricky’s do have large costs associated with them, hosting and bandwidth in particular. I have 250GB of bandwidth per month to play with here, so I don’t have anything to worry about at this stage, but (I know I keep referring to it, but I have some actual data I can use with this one) This Week in Tech for example average 280,000-290,000 downloads per week, which is small compared to Ricky’s 400,000 per week, but none the less would cost a small fortune.

Let me calculate my last episode’s high quality version (39,609,710 bytes) downloaded 400,000 times in full each week for four weeks. That would be 63,375,536,000,000 bytes, or just over 63.375 TERABYTES, which is of course just over 63,375 GB.

My webhost charges USD$0.50 for each GB or part thereof over my quota, which would be a 63,126 GB charge, which is USD$31,563.00

So yes, it would cost an awful lot to run a podcast with that many downloads, the only reason TWiT survives is that AOL have given them bandwidth in exchange for one mention of AOL Radio per episode, and the rights to replay TWiT on AOL Radio’s podcast channel forever and ever.

Still, pay-per-download podcasting is something which will only ever work for established and popular podcasts, especially if they have some free episodes. There is no way, on this planet at least, that new podcasts will be able to work on a pay-per-download basis, although I’m sure someone is going to try it now…probably someone with 2 visitors per day on their blog.