Absolutely go and listen to Pseudopod #771 right now

Readers of this blog (if there are any, considering the paucity of posts recently) will be aware that I have narrated for three of the Escape Artists short fiction podcasts for many years. My British voice has been in demand for fantasy (I narrated the very first story for PodCastle — the fantasy fiction podcast) and for horror, at Pseudopod — the horror fiction podcast. Apparently I'm scary enough to impart the desired fright to stories of the night — and I'm glad to do so.

This blogpost, however, is not to tout the latest of my appearances, but to draw your attention to an episode of Pseudopod that I found truly wonderful. As a listener to Escape Pod, PodCastle, and Pseudopod, I've had my issues with some of the stories, with some of the narrations, and with some of the audio productions (as in, is it really that difficult to ensure that audio levels of the host and the narrator actually match?) — but today I'm here to tell you that Episode 771 of Pseudopod, "The Human Chair" by Allen Zhang and Edogawa Ranpo, narrated by Ron Jon is absolutely wonderful in every respect and you absolutely must go and listen to it right now. Absolutely.

Fitbit goes woo

As a Fitbit user I regularly get notifications to 'go Premium', which I ignore as I have no reason to pay for features I don't need. But if anything is likely to make me consider going in the opposite direction — that is, ditching Fitbit altogether — it's their latest embrace of arch-pseudoscientist Deepak Chopra.

And when it comes to the mind-body connection, there’s no one more knowledgeable than the pioneer of integrative medicine, Deepak Chopra. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce Deepak Chopra’s Mindful Method for Fitbit, our new partnership with the world-renowned well-being expert and founder of the Chopra Foundation, exclusively for Fitbit Premium members.

Fitbit Premium? No thanks. Deepak Chopra? Definitely not. 

Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0/Wikimedia/Mitchell Aidelbaum