Sic transit PolyCast?

[duckstab]

As a longtime PolyCast listener, I couldn't help but notice that there hasn't been a new episode on this site since June. There have been a handful of more recent episodes posted to the companion YouTube channel, but they seem to be raw live streams in a pretty unfinished state. Most of the regular co-hosts haven't been on this site in months.

First off, I sincerely hope this doesn't bode ill for anybody involved in PolyCast's production. I hope everybody is safe and well!

I started listening to PolyCast sometime in 2008. I've continued off and on ever since and have always enjoyed the panelists' take on Civ and related topics. Whatever its current state, it's had a great run and I will definitely miss it if it's been wound down. But my thanks for many years of enjoyment to everyone involved, especially @CanusAlbinus, @TheMeInTeam, @megabearsfan , Makahlua, and @DanQ.

 

[shaglio]

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a new episode released. I vaguely recall them saying they had a bunch of episodes recorded, but they were having technical difficulties on the production side of the process.

 

[The_J]

@CanusAlbinus has mentioned at some point that he was sick, I think.
And I also noticed no new polycasts. I hope everyone is well.

 

[Timothy001]

The weekly multiplayer group that emerged from Turncast is still active. DanQ, Makahlua are regular players. Canus will appear from time to time. I will post this thread into the discord channel, and let them know about this post. Hopefully the will come by and answer some questions.

 

[DanQ]

Glad you have enjoyed the years of listening to PolyCast recurringly, duckstab.

I cannot speak to the current status of the show, however: to those reading this who may not be aware, I have not been its lead co-host (or owner) since 2018, having transferred ownership to CanusAlbinus effective the following year. (I was last a guest in mid-2020.)

 

[Solver]

@DanQ, you deserve so much credit for outlasting so many of us others involved with Civ content, from Apolyton to another decade with Polycast and now your continued, if less public, activities!

 

[DanQ]

@DanQ, you deserve so much credit for outlasting so many of us others involved with Civ content, from Apolyton to another decade with Polycast and now your continued, if less public, activities!

Thank you kindly -- I am humbled. Thinking back to my time at Apolyton, I miss working with you.

 

[megabearsfan]

Hi all. I want to apologize for the radio silence regarding PolyCast, and give you all a brief update. I've been meaning to post about it on the forums and/or social media, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. We do intend to continue doing the show, and have had several topics of discussion queued up for months, but have been on a kind of un-planned hiatus due to a variety of reasons.

Basically, we have all had a lot of personal stuff going on these past few months. I don't want to go into too much detail, or speak for the other co-hosts, but I can share my own story. For me, specifically, I've had a stressful few months at work. We have an end-of-year deadline for a project. The scope of the project, and its milestones were not effectively communicated to me earlier in the year, and that scope turned out to be larger than I expected it to be, so I've been crunching to try to get everything done in time, which has been stressful and draining. In fact, we had recorded an episode back in July or August, but couldn't get the stream to YouTube working due to technical issues between my PC and YouTube. I have the recording saved on my computer, and have been meaning to do the post-production and upload it to our server, but between the work stress and cleaning up after a toddler, I just haven't had the time or energy for it yet.

On top of all that, I am currently suffering from both tendinitis (tennis elbow) and probably carpal tunnel in my right elbow/hand. So I've been trying to limit my recreational computer use and personal projects because typing and using a mouse for extended periods of time is actually physically painful for me at the moment. Thankfully, this injury happened during football season, so I've been using my down time to watch lots of football while trying to give my hands a rest from computers and video games. I've been wearing an elbow and wrist brace for the past week or so, which has helped, but the recovery has still been very slow. My personal blogging and YouTube activity has also slowed down for these same reasons. Hopefully my arm will start to feel better, actual work will slow down again, and I'll get back in the flow of everything soon.

Thank you all for your concern, and again, sorry to have left you hanging for so long. I can't give a specific timeline for a return at this time, but we'll definitely try to do a better job of keeping everyone updated on the status.

 

[Quintillus]

Been there with the repetitive stress injury. It is indeed a slow recovery, and while I don't think there's ever a 100% back to being as carefree with excessive computer use as there was before, at least in my case it did alleviate after I changed some habits, and is now rarely an issue. My top advice would be to switch at least some of your computer mousing to your left hand. It'll feel unnatural at first but so long as you have an ambidextrous mouse, you'll be surprised how easy it is to train the left hand to be just as competent as the right. Still not ideal for WASD games, but for games like Civ, going southpaw works well, and nowadays I can occasionally play a bit of right-handed fast-paced games without pain or discomfort.

Glad to hear you all are okay!

 

[megabearsfan]

Honestly, I think the wrist issues are mostly from work. I use a laptop and trackball mouse for most of my PC gaming, so I can (and do) hold the mouse in different positions and angles. But at work, I'm at a normal desk, using a normal mouse. I bought a mousepad with wrist support and also a wrist brace. Hopefully those will help. The tennis elbow is the bigger problem right now, as it makes it difficult to do a lot of things.

 

[duckstab]

Sorry to hear about your health issues and glad everyone is otherwise OK.

I totally get how debilitating repetitive stress injuries can be. One reason I haven't been around here on CFC is that I'm winding down 3 months of PT to help manage arthritis in both thumbs. I'm sure it's mostly a consequence of 40+ years of hitting the space bar. As a SW engineer I never really thought of how much I really work with my hands. But the PT has made a huge difference.

 

[Corvana]

Ooh, a new to me podcast, and about Civ! Hope your able to effectivley treat your injuries, and hope everythign goes well with the other hosts. And good luck with your big project! I'll have to check out some of the backlog of Polycast and see how I like it.

Hi all. I want to apologize for the radio silence regarding PolyCast, and give you all a brief update. I've been meaning to post about it on the forums and/or social media, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. We do intend to continue doing the show, and have had several topics of discussion queued up for months, but have been on a kind of un-planned hiatus due to a variety of reasons.

Basically, we have all had a lot of personal stuff going on these past few months. I don't want to go into too much detail, or speak for the other co-hosts, but I can share my own story. For me, specifically, I've had a stressful few months at work. We have an end-of-year deadline for a project. The scope of the project, and its milestones were not effectively communicated to me earlier in the year, and that scope turned out to be larger than I expected it to be, so I've been crunching to try to get everything done in time, which has been stressful and draining. In fact, we had recorded an episode back in July or August, but couldn't get the stream to YouTube working due to technical issues between my PC and YouTube. I have the recording saved on my computer, and have been meaning to do the post-production and upload it to our server, but between the work stress and cleaning up after a toddler, I just haven't had the time or energy for it yet.

On top of all that, I am currently suffering from both tendinitis (tennis elbow) and probably carpal tunnel in my right elbow/hand. So I've been trying to limit my recreational computer use and personal projects because typing and using a mouse for extended periods of time is actually physically painful for me at the moment. Thankfully, this injury happened during football season, so I've been using my down time to watch lots of football while trying to give my hands a rest from computers and video games. I've been wearing an elbow and wrist brace for the past week or so, which has helped, but the recovery has still been very slow. My personal blogging and YouTube activity has also slowed down for these same reasons. Hopefully my arm will start to feel better, actual work will slow down again, and I'll get back in the flow of everything soon.

Thank you all for your concern, and again, sorry to have left you hanging for so long. I can't give a specific timeline for a return at this time, but we'll definitely try to do a better job of keeping everyone updated on the status.