From area code 78666 in San Marcos, to the divided Hell-Way of Austin …
Passing just east of the residences of David Koresh and George Bush …
Then past the city that Debbie Did and another that got blown up …
All the way up to the haven of public radio and collapsing bridges …
May the holy power of US Interstate 35 grand you peace and joy this Christmas Season.
[Herein I am linking numerous podcasts to their iTunes page. iTunes does a good job with podcasts and everyone seems to use it. If you want something else, it's much easier to google a show's website than if I did this the other way around.]
Since I started walking a dog every day (and he’s an energetic little bastard; four miles barely wears him out) I have been listening to various podcasts on my iPhone. It’s handy to have only one thing in my pocket aside from the doggy bags.
And my handgun, since this is Texas. (kidding!) (or am I?)
I remember working at Apple when iTunes 5 came out. Now, with Podcasts! We all made jokes. What’s a podcast? Only two years later have I learned the error of my ways.
Now that I have some favorite podcasts, I’m tempted to jump the gun and listen as soon as they’re published, instead of waiting for the next long dog walk.
I might listen to CarTalk on Saturday afternoon in the car or washing dishes or doing anything. Holland has a penchant for Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me so we might hear that together on a Sunday night. Before the writers’ strike, Bill Maher showed up sometime on the weekend too. If there’s ever another The Talk Show I might listen to it straight away. And since John Siracusa’s appearance, I like MacBreak Weekly but only for the articles guests. Andy Ihnatko is on frequently. We don’t have a radio in the house and a podcast makes things so much more flexible (hell you can listen to live radio on an iMac anyway). But I might feel obligated to be a member of KUT if only they didn’t play music so much. Maybe if they got more money they could broadcast more stations with talk and music. (btw yeah that’s a radio station with only a 3 letter callsign; I’m not cutting corners)
All this jumping the gun leaves me in a bad situation; when I do walk the dog, all the good Podcasts are already gone. I’m left with old depressing episodes of This American Life that I have avoided because they’re about murdered family members or political corruption (am I right, listeners?). There might be a few leftover Radio Lab episodes about Sleep and Stress that will only stress me out more. That and 3-week old Marketplace episodes, and something called This Week In Law, which is very spirited but I think I forgot the names of the plaintiffs when Tobin lunged at that biker.
After I heard MacBreak Weekly, I was on to Leo Laporte’s thousands of podcasts and those of his ilk. Some of them are an okay diversion and I even listen to Windows Weekly just to see what’s going on over there (answer: not much … Paul Thurott is as dumb as I thought). But I get tired of Leo’s spineless pandering to whatever guests he is hosting, especially if those guests are random Appalachian rednecks. I don’t know which I hate more: Security Now or The Tech Guy. One is some jackass stammering about passwords for an hour, and the other is hill-folk asking for computer help (or now, mostly HDTV help). I actually prefer the Windows questions because the Mac ones are so ignorant in both their inquiry and answer I want to throttle a passing hobo. I have done so only on several occasions.
The Tech Guy ruins the illusion of podcasts since it’s clearly an XM call-in show with way too much airtime. Leo regrets the small amount of callers he can address, but he spends the first 15 minutes of every show musing how cell phones are computers too, these days! Man!
Leo Laporte, master of podcasts, will take every side of a position surprisingly quickly, then see which one gets picked up by another speaker. To an extent, this is remarkable and admirable since it makes him a successful host. To another extent it makes him a whore. His strength is attracting the interesting guests on his shows. He’s even branching out from computers with a MunchCast.
I haven’t gotten to my Potato Chips episode yet so no spoilers!
I like what he does generally, and This Week In Tech is Leo’s cornerstone, but he does become tiresome after a while.
Well, my friends, I have found salvation.
Forget CrankyGeeks, how about The Skeptic’s Guide To The Universe?
This thing is awesome.
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/
I subscribed some time ago on a tip I read. But I have never listened until tonight. To be honest, I got it confused with another podcast that was only 5 minutes per episode. I don’t like short podcasts since the iPhone won’t play them back-to-back.
But The Skeptic’s Guide To The Universe has two things going for it.
The first benefit is it provides all 123 episodes to your Podcast client. Most podcasts advertise only the last several (2-10) episodes to save on bandwidth. If you click “Get All” then it’s a bit daunting to receive 144 hours worth of audio skepticism (after some downloading), but if one is worth listening to, then it’s all worth listening to. Eventually. I assume. Perhaps I should be more skeptical…
The second benefit is this is a genuinely interesting and intelligent, longer (more than 10 minutes), and different sort of podcast than I’m used to. It’s essentially a bunch of very smart and eloquent people debunking the latest bunk. Actually it’s just what I’m used to, but in a different field than computers. And in the esoteric realm of science and math, their powers hold much more sway over me.
I think there are some repeating segments of puzzles and such (reminding me of another recent favorite, NPR’s Sunday Puzzle).
All in all it’s a surprisingly enjoyable listen, and it passes the podcast test where I can’t follow it at all if I’m doing anything aside from navigating an environment or sitting and staring while listening. It demands attention. And with two and a half years of back-episodes just up for the having, I will be sitting and staring for some time to come.
That was a good ending, but I happened to listen to an episode that discussed a Nova documentary on the Dover, PA Evolution vs. Intelligent Design trial. I remember hearing about this on the radio but whatever conclusion there was didn’t make an impact on me. The PBS Nova program about it is a really good show.
