Hacking about on AWS Alexa

First AWS Summit.
First Alexa skill.
First Node.js app.

That's a lot of first all at once. In any event, Jeff Blankenburg's workshop inspired me, and Memo Doring's workshop got things moving.

Then I hit the typical 'how the hell do I debug this pile of slag?' roadblock. Thankfully, Nathan Grice already wrote all that down. (the post is a bit out of date at this point, almost a full year after the publication date, but it's a minor bit of mental version translation)

Step-through in VSCode for Alexa Lambda functions. Now it's time to get this thing working!

Frankly, this same general setup probably works for any AWS Lambda function with the right packages; Alexa is just the use case that made me search for the environment setup. And, yes, this post is simply to remind me where to find the instructions later. Here's hoping the link-rot stays away for a while.

SF

According to Neil Gaiman Science Fiction should be call Speculative Fiction.
After listening to the TED Radio Hour 'Spoken and Unspoken' episode I think perhaps Subjunctive Fiction fits better and (with Phuc Tran's talk as background context) evokes more of the power of the genre. SF can express ideas that could not be explored at all without the background fictional conceits used.

Though that also probably sounds too professorial for ordinary use.

I've been asked for a list of my podcasts

Sadly I don't get to listen to as many as I'd like and most of the episodes go un-heard. If you're curious, I use an Android app called Beyondpod to manage subscriptions and the playlist (the Smartplay feature is extremely useful). The names below are whatever is listed in Beyondpod's feed list and may not be exactly the same as what you might find while searching. It'll be close enough to get you there though. It's also important to note that I don't groom this list very often. I'm pretty sure that some of what I'm subscribed to has gone defunct, but I frankly can't be bothered to prune the list.

Without further preamble here they are in no particular order.

• NPR Hourly News Summary
• Planet Money
• StarTalk Radio
• Science Friday Audio Podcast
• APM: Marketplace
• Up First
• APM: Marketplace Tech
• TED Radio Hour
• Snap Judgement
• Hanselminutes
• On Being
• Freakonomics Radio
• Note to Self
• LeVar Burton Reads
• Hidden Brain
• The Infinite Monkey Cage
• Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
• The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe
• CodeNewbie
• Skepticality
• American Museum of Natural History Podcast
• Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates
• Undiscovered
• Astronomy Cast
• Only Human
• The Adaptors

These are some new ones I've added but haven't formed an opinion on. I reserve the right to can them later, but they looked worth investigating.

• The Titanium Physicists Podcast
• Ask a Spaceman!
• KQED Science News
• Hubblecast HD
• Physics World Science Podcast