Podcast Roundup Week #37

This week I listened to a total of 50 episodes. 

I don't think I've talked much about Hello Internet on the blog before. Two YouTube creators, CGP Grey and Brady Haran, co-host a podcast about things that are interesting to them. This covers a wide range of things, including, but certainly not limited to, technology, YouTube, Grey's neuroticism social anxiety, and Brady's obsession with plane crashes and animals at zoos and wildlife parks.  It's two dudes talking and generally it's interesting. I will fast forward anytime Grey starts talking about education because he's an ignoramus in this are who refuses to acknowledge his lack of credible information and I don't always like it when Brady starts nattering on about rugby, but I know a lot more about NASA, Elon Musk, and Apple products than I did before I started listening.

The episode called "Project Cyclops" had a bit about how Grey feels like his addiction to technology is impacting his memory and concentration. He's essentially stripping out unnecessary information  and tech use from his life until the end of the year. I don't know if I'm going on as strict a detox as he is, but I took off a bunch of apps from my phone (Reddit and Facebook are the main two) and I'm trying hard to reach for a book instead of my phone when I have five minutes before the next thing starts.  We'll see. Hopefully I'll read more!

I've definitely talked about my love of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text before. The two hosts, Vanessa and Casper, go through the Harry Potter books chapter by chapter, looking at the text as if it is sacred.  It's spiritual in some ways, but in some ways it's just intellectually rigorous. I am an atheist who sees this podcast as part of my own spiritual development (inasmuch as my development is to be a kind, thoughtful person). Anyway, in the recent episode about the second chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, "Frustration: A Peck of Owls," there is a discussion about how brave a minor character in the series is and how much she should be admired. The character is a batty old woman, Mrs. Figg, who used to babysit Harry Potter in the Muggle world, but it turns out she was born to magical parents, but doesn't have any magical ability and she was really watching over Harry.  This discussion about Mrs. Figg, who is frequently played for laughs in a superficial reading of the text, opened my eyes to a new interpretation of the text.  I'm all on board with this podcast and I hope the fact that their podcast network is ending its creation of shows doesn't stop the podcast from continuing to the end of the series.

Another Panoply podcast I'm worried about because of its shuttering its new content is By the Book. In this podcast two friends live by the rules of various self-help books for two weeks and then report the results. This is a new find for me, so I've only listened to the first three books they've covered (The Secret, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and French Women Don't Get Fat) and I've been impressed by their gameness to do stupid things, their humor, and their honesty. In The Secret episode, they had to make image boards and write themselves a check for what they thought they were worth and the fact that they did this in a self-aware fashion, but still tried to get into the spirit of it was admirable.  Anyway, if you haven't heard of this podcast, it's certainly something I'd recommend. As a super skeptic of self-help myself, this podcast did a good job of representing my side of the argument about self-help, but also helping me to understand who these types of books might help.

I hesitate to put this here, but I did spend a lot of time listening to Ponzi Supernova, an Audible original podcast that tells the story of Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme in six half-hour long episodes. I thought it overpromised and underdelivered. I still don't know why Madooff did what he did or how much other people knew or should be held responsible. It did reinforce to me that government watch dog organizations are important, but need competent people to work them.  I don't know. Maybe listen? Or maybe don't.  It wasn't the most riveting thing in the world, even to someone like me who has an advanced degree in a social science field.