Today I’m launching initial support for both Ko-Fi and for Buy Me A Coffee as alternative support pathways. All the same tiers and levels are exactly the same as Patreon with all the same benefits, as supported by their respective platforms. Ko-Fi does not have an app yet for Android or for iOS however audio content can be played back via their website. Buy Me A Coffee supports web playback but they also have an iOS app that allows background playback of Audio.

Neither site has the same Podcast RSS feeds that Patreon supports nor the integration out of the box that Apple Podcasts does, so you might be wondering why I’m doing this.

There are two reasons. Firstly my understanding of what show supporters are looking for has evolved. Based on nearly ten years of interaction with paid supporters the vast majority don’t care about the RSS feeds in Patreon and that’s not why they support me via Patreon at all. Yes it’s a perk…it’s just one that don’t need or really want. Those that want a seamless integration tend to support via Apple Podcasts and I’ve had many people start on Patreon and then shift to Apple Podcasts simply because it’s cleaner and simpler for them.

Secondly I’m aware that there’s a segment of supporters that really, really don’t like Apple and also have issues with Patreon as a company. Namely how they have treated some creators in the past, some creators that they’ve allowed on their platform and how much they skim off the top as the person-in-the-middle. Absolutely understand.

Whatever your concerns, you now have two more options if you want to support my work and don’t want Apple or Patreon in the middle of it. I’ve summarised the current options below in this hopefully handy table:

Because I’m starting out by back-porting episodes and content progressively into both platforms, you’ll notice that some of the older posts from Patreon haven’t be ported. For example: I’m not re-posting publicly available posts and the Raw Notes I used to post in the early days of Causality, but otherwise they’ll all be there when I’m finished. Since neither platform supports back-dating of posts they’ll appear in the correct order of publishing but not have their original published date. Please keep in mind that back-porting is a time-consuming manual task that I’m chipping away at so hopefully in a few weeks time it will be at parity with Patreon and Apple Podcasts.

Ultimately however you choose to support my work it’s all greatly appreciated and without that support I’d likely just pack it in. So as always, thank you so much and take care.

In short, I do not use AI tools for anything on this website, its text content, images for chapters, people or places. A very small number of logos were developed by AI tools and these have been flagged as such. The only circumstance I’ve used it has been during search-engine results where it is becoming increasingly difficult not to get caught-out by AI-biased links when researching, and then I always confirm the source of information. Otherwise you could argue that LLMs (a form of AI) are used to initially generate episode Transcripts however I never simply upload them to the RSS feed unless I’ve verified them word for word.

Whether this matters to anyone yet, I’m not really sure but I know that it matters to me.

Lucky for us, Patreon FINALLY came to the party and two months ago introduced individual, separate feeds for podcasts hosted on Patreon! YAY! Unfortunately it took a reasonable amount of effort to go back over every episode (several hundred) and update them to associate them with an individual show. Once that effort was completed, we could finally create and synchronise the most relevant ones to Spotify as well!

Unlike previously now there’s a great article on Patreon about how to find the RSS Feed URLs for your show of choice. If it’s been posted as Audio or Video content on Patreon, it now has its own RSS Feed you can access on ANY podcast player. Patreon’s system now includes video, sorta, insofar as it will extract the Audio from the Video and add it to the feed. Hence for Video-first podcasts you can only get the Audio in the RSS Feed via this method. The only other ways to get a Video ahead of public release is to subscribe via YouTube (can’t be integrated with Patreon), or to view the Videos within Patreon’s Website or their app.

We’ve chosen to synchronise actively produced shows with Spotify for those that prefer to subscribe via Spotify. Remembering that this requires you to link your Spotify account to your Patreon account, but once you’ve done this they’ll all play just fine. There is now a separate feed for non-show TEN Bonus material: things like Q&A, Patron updates and so on.

To Summarise what is where:

Note: Pragmatic only exists in Patreon from Episode 80 onward.

The RSS Links are Private RSS Links and should not be shared. I’m told Patreon have an algorithm they use to attempt to detect re-shared links that can lead to your Patreon account being disabled, so please don’t share your Private RSS Audio links publicly.

New Spotify Links for all Patreon-Feed Shows:

• Causality
• Whisky Whiskey
• Pragmatic
• Analytical
• TEN Bonus

For those supporters that are only interested in Pragmatic…you can now just subscribe to the Pragmatic feed without it being clogged up with Analytical, Bonus Materials and so on. If you’re a big Causality fan but don’t care about Whisky, or falling a-Sleep, you can now just subscribe to the Causality feed.

One more detail is that the previous “The Engineered Network Patreon” feed has been updated to include everything that is now flagged as a “Podcast” which now includes Whisky Whiskey and Pragmatic Electric and is a true representation of everything available in one feed.

It’s great that Patreon finally caught up. This has been top of the list from the periodic Patron Creator survey they send around every year or two and I’m pretty confident that some of TEN’s Patrons will be very grateful for it.

As always, thank you everyone for your continued support and I hope you enjoy the improved flexibility in listening to our shows.

Unless there’s a refocus by the community then this is unlikely to return, or if it does it will be in another form.

Thank you to all of those that supported the shows via this pathway in the past, it was greatly appreciated. Thank you as always, for listening and/or watching.

In March of 2020 during the start of lockdowns due to COVID19 in Australia, the Sleep podcast was born moreso out of a dare than any actual plan. Having been told “I have a beautiful voice…” and “Listening to your voice makes me relax and helps me get to sleep…” I decided to start recording a show that was just me…talking gently about anything in creative commons.

The show has a significant amount of downloads with the vast majority from talking cylinders where I imagine people just say “play a podcast that helps me sleep” or something similar, and out pops “Sleep”. Irrespective the last time I recorded an episode was September 2022 and I think it’s time to admit the experiment has ended.

Archiving Neutrium

When TEN launched in October 2015, two other Australian Engineers took the plunge with me and launched their own show on the Network called Neutrium. It was a hit almost immediately and was quite popular however both Trevor and Matt were busy engineers and their show, rather like Pragmatic and Causality, took a LOT of their time to produce. Ultimately they decided to refocus and stepped back from podcasting and the show finished with only four episodes.

Even though it’s been 9 years since the last episode, I’ve left it on the homepage as it was quite popular and in keeping with the original intention of the network. Having said that, it’s time to archive Neutrium as well at this point. Both shows have moved to the Archived section of the site and their feed URLs have been updated to reflect this. They will continue to be hosted, just won’t appear on the main landing page of TEN.

Adjusting Focus

With more of an admission of reality than any real change to the shows on TEN, I’ve updated the About Page to better reflect the reality of what TEN has been for the past 7 or 8 years at least: “…a group of shows about my passions in life…”

I will always be an engineer and see the world through that lens but it’s not the only thing that interests me. Many topics I’ve covered on Pragmatic over the past decade are examples including Photography, Renewable Energy, Electric Cars, Whisky amongst other things.

In coming months I’ll be exploring video further and continuing to produce Causality and Whisky Whiskey, with Pragmatic and Analytical as well.

Thanks again so much to everyone for their continued support and thank you as always, for listening and/or watching as well.

Whilst that may be an option in future I decided to try my hand at an incident in video form, that had no real physical location: CrowdStrike. I’ve tried to leverage more of the possibilities in video production but, and this will come as no surprise to anyone that’s done both audio and video production, video is a LOT more effort.

So for now this is somewhat of an experiment. It will be posted like Pragmatic Electric and Whisky Whiskey, as a 720p version on my own infrastructure and linked with a truly independent RSS feed but it will also be cross-posted to Patreon as an early release for Premium and above supporters and on YouTube early for Members on YouTube, and publicly for those that aren’t.

Unfortunately there is currently no way to upload a video for early access using Apple Podcasts platform and having been highly disappointed with my Spotify experiment a few years ago, I will not be posting it on Spotify. There are just too many silos at this point to feasibly keep in sync and maintain.

Causality Video and Audio are recorded independently, and presented in both forms but the spoken content is the same. Note that this means I record the episode twice to ensure the best possible audio result. I did initially attempt to strip the audio from the video recording and edit it, but I didn’t want to compromise on the quality of audio in the Causality podcast.

Episode numbering of Causality TV will start from episode 1 and will loosely cross-link to it’s matching Causality Audio episode in the show notes only.

I hope you enjoy this new chapter in the evolution of Causality.

As we don’t sell “Commerce” items through Patreon (we use Spring and Cotton Bureau directly) this had no impact to TEN, however with the impending change over to Apples internal app-subscription method I wanted to quickly state my position and advice for fans of TEN moving forward.

Existing Patrons Have No Impact

These changes ONLY apply to NEW Patrons, and only to those new Patrons that sign up to support WITHIN the Patreon iOS App on an iOS device.

Patreon iOS App Pricing Adjustment

Unlike Apple Podcasts’ when subscribing through Apples own system, there is no mention or call out to say Apple are skimming 30% off the top, nor will there ever be unless there’s government regulation making Apple tell the customer that. Patreon on the other hand are doing this:

Apple Are Just Being Consistent

Whilst many people are upset about this move the truth is that rightly or wrongly, Apple are just being consistent. There are no real positives I’m aware of where the Patreon iOS app is a huge advantage over the website (especially considering the content TEN produces), so I’ll hold on the anti-Apple tirade. Is it merely the nature of this beast.

Avoid Signing Up via the Patreon iOS App if Possible

How this will work following the change (according to a Discord Q&A Patreon have been hosting for the past few days now) is that people that sign up on the Website will still be able to log into the Patreon iOS app if they want to and get access to all of the Patron benefits. It’s worth noting however that the Private RSS Audio Feed URL is still available from the website and the Web-app for Patreon has most of the features of the native app. My advice is to simply avoid the Patreon iOS App unless you have a compelling reason to use it.

Thank you all!

I’m grateful to each and every person that supports TEN, via whatever means suits them the most. Thank you for your ongoing support and as always, thank you for listening.

This feature has been requested by several fans of the network and as such I’ve turned that feature on today. Once logged in to Spotify, navigate to The Engineered Network Patreon and then you will have the option to link to your Patreon account. After this the audio files will play through Spotify. All 168 Patron-only audio files are available in a common feed as per the Patreon Podcast feed.

Previously Causality was also offered on Anchor as “Causality Premium” at a discounted rate for those that only wanted to support Causality. After two years and a few months, only one person chose to support via this pathway and they shifted over to Patreon after a few months anyhow. Therefore as of today I have disabled memberships via the Causality Premium on Spotify feed and will be removing that in coming months permanently.

As always, thank you everyone for your continued support and I hope you enjoy the additional flexibility in supporting and listening to Causality.

It’s been a challenging first half of 2023 for myself personally but despite this, we made it to 50 episodes and Causality continues to grow in popularity slowly but surely, despite the somewhat irregular schedule. Many, many more episodes to come.

A massive thank you to everyone that is already a supporter via Patreon, via Apple Podcasts or via Streaming Sats, for all of your support both for this show and for the other shows on TEN.

Thank you EVERYONE!!

As of April, 2023 Causality episodes in the back-catalogue have been scrubbed of Ads, both on the website and in the episode audio. Whilst I’ve been in there, I’ve tweaked a few things like noise suppression, normalising levels, transitions and of course, adjusted the timestamps for the transcripts (where they existed).

I will not be extending this to other shows at this time though I may reconsider scrubbing back-catalogues some day in the future as a separate exercise.

What it means for Supporters

If there are no ads, then what does a supporter get now? Well for those supporters already at Premium or above, you will still get the higher-quality audio version, posted before the public version is released. Not only that, Premium and above will still get bonus content I don’t publish publicly.

I’m still both shocked and humbled and so very grateful for all of the support via whichever medium you’re comfortable with. It’s been 7 years since TEN launched and back then, I never thought it would be possible to reach this point.

Another massive thank you to everyone that is already a supporter via Patreon, via Apple Podcasts or via Streaming Sats, for all of your support in making this a reality!

Last week Twitter continued on its mission to tighten all methods into and out of its website, taking aim now on the third-party API. My app of choice for many years now Tweetbot had it’s API access cut-off without warning by Twitter, followed by my previous favourite Twitterrific.

Whilst I have posted to the TEN Twitter account directly many times, the vast majority were auto-posts delivered via the Twitter API. Whether or not Twitter continues to cut-off use of its API to then retrospectively include auto-posters I’ve decided it doesn’t matter. I will leave on my my terms, not Twitters.

Therefore as of today, there will be no further posting on the @Engineered_Net Twitter account. If there are still those remaining what wish @-mention that account then I will occasionally check it, however due to message spam from the official Twitter account, I will not have notifications on so I may not respond quickly.

All Twitter clients have been removed from my devices and I will be accessing only via the website interface.

But…it’s not all doom and gloom! Quite the contrary! Last week I set up a new Fediverse account that will take the functional place of @Engineered_Net did on Twitter. You can now follow TEN POSTS ONLY here:

@EngNet@engineered.space

It’s the Twitter account…but on the Fediverse.

It’s a shame that it’s come to this, however as was pointed out in Medieval times and is still true today…all good things must come to an end. Bye Twitter.

We covered a lot of ground as we talked through the next steps of applying PC2.0 ideas to the Music industry, breaking down what value actually is, a potential future newsletter tag, how I integrated Value 4 Value into my shows and a bunch of other things. Adam and Dave learned that I prefer to use a calculator (I’m an Engineer not an Accountant) and that according to Adam I have great pipes. (Awww, thanks Adam)

Thanks again so much to Adam and Dave for having me on the show. I had an amazing time!

With recent changes with Twitter and many fans of the show seeking an alternative home, I’ve decided to open up a new Fediverse server that’s separate to the Engineered Space single-user instance.

Introducing the See You on the Fediverse server.

As Mastodon servers are extremely resource hungry, this new Fediverse server runs Pleroma. The server is currently running on a very low-rent VPS. If it proves popular then it may be migrated to something with more resources.

I’m intending to use this new account for more personal posts with the existing account for more TEN-related posts, gradually over coming weeks. Invitations are open to anyone that’s interested. Visit and select Register to sign up. Once your EMail has been verified and I’ve confirmed you’re real, I’ll approve your account.

If you already have an account on the Fediverse you don’t really need another one but if you’re looking to have a try, then feel free to join!

There’s a link here: Podcasters’ RoundTable Round 162: Podcasters Don’t Care About Live Streaming and also on the As a Guest episode list.

We covered a lot of ground and talked about the following:

• Checking expectations with Guests for time limits when you’re recording
• Whether it’s okay to break an episode into multiple separate episodes (e.g. Pragmatic Tesla Ep 82/83)
• Podcast Apps with the most longevity…and why we think that is
• When making a podcast, should we be anywhere and everywhere?
• Are Twitter spaces really podcasting?
• The “art” of Live broadcasting vs heavily post-produced podcasts
• Our experiences with live streaming: Is your show the right kind of show for live?
• Consolidation of Podcast advertising platforms over the past decade
• Difficulty of building a network with professional engineers
• Sponsorship vs Advertising vs Patronage
• Patreon vs iTunes Subscription experiences
• Spotify acquisition of Findaway Voices (Audiobook production)

Thanks again so much to Ray and Dave for having me on the roundtable. I had a blast!

For many fans of The Engineered Network, support via Patreon, BitCoin/Lightning or Apple isn’t feasible or preferable. Many that already subscribe to Spotify Premium actively avoid Apple Music and Apple Podcasts, and after many months of requests I can now offer a Premium version of TENs most popular show, Causality, as Causality Premium via Spotify. In Spotify, search for “Causality Premium” under Podcasts or use this link.

Only Causality

Unfortunately Spotify’s offering is somewhat simplistic compared to Apple’s. It’s clearly aimed at single-casters, not multi-casters like TEN (i.e. Networks need not apply…yet…) and hence there is no equivalent of a “Network Subscription” or a “Channel Subscription” as you have with Patreon and Apple respectively.

Additionally there is no concept of a merged feed from outside their ecosystem, meaning the existing Spotify Causality feed is a native TEN feed, but it can not support adding exclusive/bonus content from inside Spotify (like Apple can), instead they want people to migrate their RSS feed over to Anchor, then add bonus content to that.

Ahem No thank you.

The only way I was prepared to do this was to keep the two feeds separate. Therefore the existing Causality public feed will remain unchanged, however a new Anchor/Spotify feed has now been created with an introduction/trailer publicly available and all other content available on a subscription.

At time of publishing, there are 44 ad-free, high quality episodes of Causality, plus 6 Causality Explored bonus episodes. In future, early releases (when available) will be released to Spotify Subscribers in step with Patreon Premium and Apple Podcasts subscriber early-releases.

Pricing

As previously mentioned the Spotify offering is quite simplistic and billing is no different. There is no option for annual discounts for subscribers and since it’s not possible to group multiple shows into a single subscription it was necessary to split out Causality in terms of several factors relative to other shows on TEN:

• Complexity, time and effort to produce
• Number of recent historical downloads
• Patron, subscriber, fan feedback on episodes

A final twist is that whilst Apple has set monthly levels for each part of the world, they and Patreon are US-centric with a base-level set in USD, which is why Patreon and Apple Podcasts are set in USD. In Spotify you can only set a subscription level in your local currency. With these details all factored in, Causality Premium on Spotify will launch at $4.99 AUD ($3.49 USD) per Month.

Currently there is no option in Spotify to modify your subscription setting, however it’s extremely likely this will come in time. The problem with AUD vs USD is obviously exchange rate and whilst in February, 2012 the Australia Dollar out-valued the US Dollar, that’s an ever-changing situation. The problem comes more with dramatic shifts in the rate over the long term and the induced discrepancy vs other support pathways. So in summary, there’s a limit to how equivalent Spotify permits this to be and whilst it might be near equivalent today, in the future - who really knows?

Preferences

There are some pros and cons though if you want to support TEN, between Patreon, Spotify, Apple and Lightning:

Patreon Benefits:

• A subscriber can support the entire network
• Multiple support tiers gives you more flexibility (Premium is there if you want it)
• Able to get additional benefits beyond audio (Raw Notes, Named Mentions, Q&A/Interaction)
• Bonus audio (whilst in a common/firehose style feed) can be added to ANY podcast client app for listening
• Bonus Audio files are DRM-free

Apple Benefits:

• A subscriber can support the entire network, but can have a different audio feed for each podcast
• Full integration of the podcast bonus audio is seamless with Apples offerings on all platforms (where they’re available)
• Full anonymity (may be considered a benefit for some supporters with privacy concerns)

Spotify Benefits:

• A fan of only Causality, can support just that specific show rather than the entire network
• Full integration of the podcast bonus audio is seamless with Spotifys offerings on all platforms (where they’re available)

In terms of which method delivers the most end value to TEN (least fees) then it’s:

1. Lightning
2. Spotify (Causality Only)
3. Patreon
4. Apple Podcasts

Either way if you’re an existing Patron, Apple Podcasts or BitCoin/Lightning supporter then there’s no reason to shift to a different platform. Then again, if you’re a big fan of Causality and you’re a long-time Spotify eco-system user and you’ve been on the fence for a while, then perhaps this is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for!

As always, thank you everyone for your continued support and I hope you enjoy the additional flexibility in supporting and listening to Causality.

Thank you EVERYONE!!

As of February, 2022 TEN will not seek out any advertising for any of our shows for a trial period of 12 months and if sustainable will be extended indefinitely. Today the last episode of Causality went live with a sponsor, however from this point there will be no further website or episode sponsorships for new episodes for the trial period.

What it means for Ad-Free Episodes

If there are no ads, then what does an ‘Ad-Free’ episode actually mean? (I’m glad you asked) Well for those supporters already at Premium or above, you’ll already know that I don’t just cut out the Ads, I also cut out most of the preamble and postamble (not a word but should be) and the key benefit is I post most new episodes long before the public version is released. Not only that, Premium and above will also get the bonus content I don’t publish publicly.

I’m stunned, humbled and so very grateful for all of the support via whichever medium you’re comfortable with. It’s been 6 years since TEN launched and I never thought it would be possible to reach this point.

Another massive thank you to everyone that is already a supporter via Patreon, via Apple Podcasts or via Streaming Sats, for all of your support in making this become a reality! You’re all amazing! (And you know it…)

Pragmatic (Electric Edition) if you will, is intended to be a mixture of Electric-related video episodes of between 3 to 15 minutes long each, on topics relating to those items I listed above. From time to time I’ll also post some video of areas, roads, trips and such from the surroundings of where I live for something a bit different! Videos will be produced sporadically as time permits and will be supplemental to the Pragmatic podcast.

Videos will be listed in a Video-Podcast/RSS Feed like all other material on TEN, however the 4K versions will be available via YouTube and embedded on the website on each episode page as well. There is no immediate intention to put YouTube advertising on these videos as YouTube monetisation is of no interest at this time.

If you enjoy the videos and would like to see more of them, remember to support the show via normal channels.

John’s Minimum Criteria

The following is a short list of the key criteria for a podcast app. Note that some of the following are iOS-specific things (sorry non-iOS users):

• Sync across multiple devices (playback position per episode, listened to episodes in shows)
• Built-in access to the audio output switcher from the playback screen
• Must keep its playback position downloaded or streamed when interrupted for ANY reason (believe it or not, I’ve tried some apps that don’t)
• Skip Silence feature
• Playback speed adjustment (per show)
• Adjustable Skip Ahead/Back in seconds
• Chapter support
• CarPlay support
• Apple Watch support (independent playback nice to have, not essential)
• Background downloading of new episodes
• Push notification for new episodes

Some people rave about automatic levelling, voice boost and playlists, but honestly I don’t really use or care much for any of that. That’s just me though.

Finally for a Podcasting 2.0 app there are a few more:

• Value Tag (Streaming Sats, Boosts, Boost-A-Grams)
• Chapters (2.0 preferred)
• People Search

Castamatic

The app is written by Franco Solerio and comes with iCloud sync and works across multiple devices, including iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads and the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch component is sufficient, however does not support playback without the iPhone. (More on that below)

The app itself is Free to download, and whilst the app store shows an IAP called “Unlock Everything” for $5.99 AUD ($3.99 USD) I couldn’t find anything implemented in the App for that, where to buy it or what it might be for. There is a subscription of $14.99 AUD ($9.99 USD) per year that removes ads which seem to be only self-promotional in my experience. That’s it. It’s $3/year cheaper than Overcast’s subscription however it’s a far newer app so I think that given what it can do, it’s a fair price.

On opening you’re greeted with a suggestion to Import a list of podcasts or to Add one via Search. Once you’ve added your favourite shows, they’ll appear in the main list.

Castamatic

Select the show you want and then the episode you want and away you go. The first example below is for a show that does not support V4V and the second is one that does.

Castamatic Show with No V4V

Castamatic Playing Screen with V4V

The V4V shows have a “Value Bar” under the Skip Back, Play, Skip Forward buttons and the Timer, Like, Audio etc bar along the bottom. It shows the playback status, the streaming sats rate (per minute), then the Boost (with Boost amount), Boost-A-Gram (message bubble) and V4V settings Cog. Selecting the V4V Boost-A-Gram you can set a detailed message, adjust your Boost value, select who you’re boosting (where supported on that show) and whilst the default is anonymous, you can set your name as well.

Castamatic Boost-A-Gram

Finally the Leveller, Gap Zapper and Playback speed setting are also conveniently accessible from the settings icon in the bottom right corner.

Castamatic Levelling

Apple Watch

Whilst Overcast’s Apple Watch app sets the standard for Podcast watch apps (for me at least) with standalone playback and background sync (mostly works) the truth is I’ve been listening to podcasts with my phone around for so long that I’ve stopped using the standalone playback functionality from my Apple Watch. It’s possible this is a side effect of the pandemic with lots of my listening time at home with my phone adjacent, so that may change as the world returns to some semblance of normality, we’ll wait and see.

In that context, other than that the key functions are available and easy to navigate on the Watch app. Starting with the podcast list on entry where you can navigate to (but not add new) shows on the phone and select any of them to play.

Apple Watch Podcast List

The playing screen offers digital crown integration for volume control however perhaps unsurprisingly there’s currently no visibility or selectability for V4V related settings. It would be useful to see the current streaming rate and an indication you’re streaming sats, and the current Boost value and a Boost button would be really handy in the future. I think the Boost-A-Grams on a watch-sized interface, even with a Series 7 screen, is probably a bridge too far though.

Apple Watch Playing Screen

From the playing screen you get access to the playback settings from what looks like a shirt “button” (literally a button) in the bottom right corner. From there you have access to effects (Fx), can set a stop timer and can skip by chapter if you want to.

Apple Watch Settings

The Leveller, Gap Zapper and playback speed are all accessible under the Fx menu which is really handy and a nice touch.

Apple Watch Setting Leveller

If your iPhone is out of range…you get a strange error message that isn’t helpful: “Touch Left: no episode loaded”

Apple Watch No Phone Connected

Topping up your Sats

When you first open Castamatic on a new device and play an episode of a Podcasting 2.0 Value 4 Value (V4V) show, along the bottom it will point out to you that there is “No Wallet Available” and you can select “Create Wallet”. Once you do this successfully, it will ask if you want to encrypt your wallet with a password - choose whichever you prefer. Your shiny new Lightning Wallet will of course be empty, so you need to fill it as the app now says “Insufficient Funds” and you can select “Add Funds”. In my case, my Wallet has fallen to a disturbing 49 sats…so it was time to top up my sats.

To do this for existing wallets, select the gear/cog icon in the bottom right of the screen, in the “value bar” to bring up the Value 4 Value screen below.

Castamatic Wallet

Select “Add funds” and then enter the amount. In this example, I’m adding 5000 sats (about $3.30 AUD at time of transaction). Castamatic puts this information with the wallet’s address to create a Lightning Invoice.

Castamatic Add Funds

The invoice then shows up on the screen as a QR code, but also can be exported/copied to the clipboard which is what I want to do, since it’s not possible to use the rear camera of the same phone to take a photo of its own screen! I use Zap to manage my own Lightning node, however ANY lightning wallet application (BlueWallet, Breez etc) will accept the Invoice (provided you have funds available!).

Castamatic Funds Code

Opening Zap, then my Node, then “Send” as I’m sending Sats to my Castamatic wallet, then paste into Zap (note up top, “Zap pasted from Castamatic” appears).

Castamatic Zap Paste Code

Zap decodes the Invoice and summarises the details for you including the expected transaction fee…of 1 sat. Tap “Send” and wait a few seconds (it can take up to a minute but it’s generally less than that).

Castamatic Zap Send Request

Everything went through with a big green tick!

Castamatic Zap Success

Jumping back into Castamatic and the Sats have appeared!

Castamatic Wallet Filled

Yay! Now we can return to streaming and boosting to our hearts content…

Conclusion

For the first time in 7 years I’ve started regularly using a podcasting app other than Overcast. The way I’m managing it now: if it’s V4V I use Castamatic; otherwise I’m sticking with Overcast. Overcast is simply more polished and there’s an element of “it’s just what I’m used to” in there as well, but given that Castamatic is a new entrant in this space, it can only get more polished from here.

If you’re looking to support the shows, or any V4V shows out there today, then Castamatic might be a strong contender to consider.

The error was traced to an incorrect source news article, though normally fact cross-checking against the official report would have found this, for reasons unclear it remained incorrect in the final episode script.

We pride ourselves in attention to detail in the production of Causality and would like to apologise for the error.

If there are any factual errors in any of our episodes please let us know via the contact form. We greatly appreciate true fans of the show that have a similar level of attention to detail that we aspire to achieve consistently, with every episode we produce.

Many thanks to listener “American M.H.” for bringing this to our attention.