The Digital Underground, with The Grey Lodge’s Joe Matheny

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The Grey Lodge was an underground private torrent tracker used by millions of people per month in their quest to uncover the esoteric, strange and the downright weird. In this episode we hear from Joe Matheny, one of the founders of the site, about how it kicked off in the very early days of BitTorrent, online culture in the early days of the Internet, proto-copyright trolls, how even weirdos eventually get pursued by the MPAA, and how the demise of indie trackers from Grey Lodge to What.CD mean a net loss for our culture. Coming soon: the second part of this interview, in which Joe discusses his work as an early creator of "this is not a game" ARG experiences and his well-known work Ong's Hat, The Incunabula Papers. We'll be making that available for supporters on the Patreon (and maybe more widely) in due course. In the meantime, if you're curious to take a look at some of Joe's work, he's been kind enough to give us a free pack including Ong's Hat and some samples from his ARG! Enjoy.

Showrunner & Host Jamie King | Editor Riley Byrne Original Music David Triana | Web Production Siraje Amarniss

Presented by TorrentFreak | Sponsored by Private Internet Access

Executive Producers: Mark Zapalac

For sponsorship enquiries, please email info@stealthisshow.com

‘The Cyberpunk Hustle’ – with sci-fi writer, director and games designer Jim Munroe

Podcast: Download | Torrent | Magnet

Jim Munroe is a Canadian science fiction author, film director and games designer. He publishes his work independently under the imprint No Media Kings. Jim was managing editor at the magazine Adbusters in the 1990s, before publishing his debut novel Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask in 1999. The novel was put out by HarperCollins, a major publishing company owned by Rupert Murdoch, and though the book was successful, Munroe so disliked the experience that he launched No Media Kings as a venue for publishing and promoting his own works independently, and a guide to self-publishing for other prospective writers. Join us as we discuss why an ex-Sony exec loves piracy, and if that marks the end of the cool pirate; why Millennials won't pay for content or watch adverts, and how to make them love creators; and how your operating system can be used to operate YOU - and not just by stopping you from pirating. Finally Jim discusses his new interactive fiction creation software Texture (try it! it's free!), and his virtual reality sci-fi series Haphead, and offers some great tips for creators looking to keep their heads in our dirty, digital world.

Showrunner & Host Jamie King | Editor Riley Byrne Original Music David Triana | Web Production Siraje Amarniss

Presented by TorrentFreak | Sponsored by  Private Internet Access

For sponsorship enquires, please email info@stealthisshow.com

 
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