Podcasts

My commute runs about ninety minutes round-trip, which works out to a lot of hours in the ear. Here is what fills them, grouped by category, with a quick word on each. History The Age of Napoleon Podcast — Monumental work on Napoleon’s life, his ascent to the throne, the Napoleonic wars, and his incredible influence on world history. History That Doesn’t Suck — A somewhat jingoistic retelling of American history. It does the “awesome to awesome” thing with a generous helping of American exceptionalism, which grates. I’m an ancient-history guy, so I find American history narrow and a little boring — but it’s well told and diverting enough. ...

Since moving 45 minutes north of Austin in 2020, I drive at least 90 minutes every work-day. Some days (especially if it’s raining), that can total 2 hours. This year mark’s Amazon’s return to 5 Days per week in-office so that will be 10 hours a week on the road, 50 or so weeks a year. To maintain sanity, I did two things: I traded-in my 2018 Honda Civic 6MT for a fancy toyota (A used Lexus ES300h). Let’s be honest: It’s a couch on wheels and a quiet place to be for those 90 minutes. Look for details on that coming later. I’ve gotten very acquainted with podcasts and audiobooks. I’ve loved podcasts for a long time. Here’s my list from 2012 They’re the soundtrack to me doing things: Yardwork, ranchwork, driving, travel. In general they ease the loneliness that is modern life–Someone’s voice in your ear, helping you learn or laugh. ...

So, Buzz Out Loud ended this past week, which sucks considering I only discovered it last month when I started using Doggcatcher as my go-to podcast reader (I’m aware of the term ‘podcatcher’ and its symmetry with ‘podcaster,’ I just think it’s a terrible word.) So, I had to go in and remove BoL from my subscription list. While I was in there, I the following subscriptions for the following reasons: Mintcast – This is actually a really good Linux podcast; they do news around new Linux distros, the latest in the Gnome/Cinnamon schism from the Linux Mint team, and general sys-admin-y stuff. Nothing wrong with the cast itself, other than it’s middle age sys-admin guys talking about linux Linux Outlaws – This one hurt. I’ve listened to Linux Outlaws for almost a year now–started right after I got my Atrix. The issue I have is the main creative force behind the show–Fabian Scherchel–has moved on. He’s acting like he hasn’t, but he’s really been phoning-in the podcasts lately. His co-host, Dan Lynch, is the ever-present straight-man and I still subscribe to his RatholeRadio podcast, but LO is don’t for me. NPR Culturtopia – Once I discovered that Pop Culture Happy Hour had its own podcast link, random stories from Netta Ulabe (sp?) became superfluous. PCHH is my favorite podcast–bar none–and it’s a welcome change from my normal diet of tech, tech, programming, nerd, tech stuff. Current subscriptions remaining: ...