4 ms·

Side topic: Does anyone know any good podcasts that fit his genre of “Podcasts About Mundane Stuff That Are Actually Fascinating"?

by bduerst 10y ago

samsolomon 10y ago
99 Percent Invisible sounds like exactly what you're looking for. Most of the episodes are related to architecture or design. http://99percentinvisible.org/episodes/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episodes/
- crftr 10y ago
  Somewhat related, Twenty Thousand Hertz. Stories behind interesting sounds. https://www.20k.org/ https://www.20k.org/
Kazooie 10y ago
I only listened to the first few, but that is exactly the premise of Surprisingly Awesome: https://gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/ https://gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/
donum 10y ago
Chaos Radio Express (https://cre.fm/ https://cre.fm/) It's german though.
Rebelgecko 10y ago
Check out 99% Invisible
tbihl 10y ago
Econtalk. Russ Roberts is a fantastic interviewer, with only a few weak performances in his decade of weekly podcasts. He probably skews a bit libertarian for the typical HN'er to agree with, but he gives voice to a lot of points of view, and he brings on good guests. At least half of the podcasts have sufficiently interesting titles that they could be easily voted to HN front page, and the depth of discussion is good for the hour each guests receives.
- eldavido 10y ago
  Unequivocal +1. It's notable that he's getting better over time. I started listening to the more recent ones, then went back and listened to the old ones, and they were quite a lot worse. Off the top of my head, my favorites have included the episode about how the budget gets passed in the US, the one about justice and the prison system, the food bank market where food gets priced for exchange, and the one about medical ethics and the question of "too much information". I'd love to have an "EconTalk meetup" in the bay area.
- e1g 10y ago
  +1 for Econtalk. Despite the name, the podcast is not about the (relatively boring) econ theory, or even the direct application of it. Econtalk uses economics in the same way as "Freakonomics" - as a framing device to talk about incentives, complex systems, and far reaching effects that are not obvious on the first pass. I find Econtalk discussions meaningful and rigorous, in contrast to carefree series like "99% Invisible" / Invisibilia / Startup. The latter are great as a chewing gum for the brain, but they are mostly trivia and I do not recall learning anything useful from them over the years.
- tebuevd 10y ago
  It's pretty good, but sometimes boring. Do you have a few "must-listen" episodes to recommend?
  - branchless 10y ago
    http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/08/odonohoe_on_pot.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/08/odonohoe_on_pot.htm...
- amha 10y ago
  +1, too. EconTalk is amazing. It sounds like I'm listening to a really fascinating conversation between two really smart and really knowledgable people.
sheltron 10y ago
https://gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/ https://gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/
tbihl 10y ago
I had a second podcast occur to me, thought it stays on a narrower track. There's a five year old podcast called Strong Towns done by a guy who runs a non profit by the same name. The recent stuff isn't so good, but if you go back to the beginning and listen to stuff from 4-6 years ago, you get to listen to this pretty smart civil engineer/planner have his epiphany of why infrastructure is so screwed up in most towns in the US. He deconstructs the problems with our car dependency and living patterns primarily from the angle of how it's bankrupting towns and cities. I listened to it over the summer when I was doing a cross country road trip, which turned out to be a great backdrop for it.
cujo 10y ago
Haven't been through the whole catalog, but #3 and #4 were very good. "Lots of things in the world seem ordinary. But when you dig deeper, it turns out, they’re fascinating. Surprisingly Awesome tells those stories." https://gimletmedia.com/show/surprisingly-awesome https://gimletmedia.com/show/surprisingly-awesome

Side topic: Does anyone know any good podcasts that fit his genre of “Podcasts About Mundane Stuff That Are Actually Fascinating"?

by bduerst 10y ago

Side topic: Does anyone know any good podcasts that fit his genre of “Podcasts About Mundane Stuff That Are Actually Fascinating"?

samsolomon 10y ago

99 Percent Invisible sounds like exactly what you're looking for. Most of the episodes are related to architecture or design. http://99percentinvisible.org/episodes/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episodes/

crftr 10y ago
Somewhat related, Twenty Thousand Hertz. Stories behind interesting sounds. https://www.20k.org/ https://www.20k.org/

Kazooie 10y ago

I only listened to the first few, but that is exactly the premise of Surprisingly Awesome: https://gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/ https://gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/

donum 10y ago

Chaos Radio Express (https://cre.fm/ https://cre.fm/) It's german though.

Rebelgecko 10y ago

Check out 99% Invisible

tbihl 10y ago

Econtalk. Russ Roberts is a fantastic interviewer, with only a few weak performances in his decade of weekly podcasts. He probably skews a bit libertarian for the typical HN'er to agree with, but he gives voice to a lot of points of view, and he brings on good guests. At least half of the podcasts have sufficiently interesting titles that they could be easily voted to HN front page, and the depth of discussion is good for the hour each guests receives.

eldavido 10y ago
Unequivocal +1. It's notable that he's getting better over time. I started listening to the more recent ones, then went back and listened to the old ones, and they were quite a lot worse. Off the top of my head, my favorites have included the episode about how the budget gets passed in the US, the one about justice and the prison system, the food bank market where food gets priced for exchange, and the one about medical ethics and the question of "too much information". I'd love to have an "EconTalk meetup" in the bay area.
e1g 10y ago
+1 for Econtalk. Despite the name, the podcast is not about the (relatively boring) econ theory, or even the direct application of it. Econtalk uses economics in the same way as "Freakonomics" - as a framing device to talk about incentives, complex systems, and far reaching effects that are not obvious on the first pass. I find Econtalk discussions meaningful and rigorous, in contrast to carefree series like "99% Invisible" / Invisibilia / Startup. The latter are great as a chewing gum for the brain, but they are mostly trivia and I do not recall learning anything useful from them over the years.
tebuevd 10y ago
It's pretty good, but sometimes boring. Do you have a few "must-listen" episodes to recommend?
- branchless 10y ago
  http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/08/odonohoe_on_pot.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/08/odonohoe_on_pot.htm...
amha 10y ago
+1, too. EconTalk is amazing. It sounds like I'm listening to a really fascinating conversation between two really smart and really knowledgable people.

sheltron 10y ago

https://gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/ https://gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/

tbihl 10y ago

I had a second podcast occur to me, thought it stays on a narrower track. There's a five year old podcast called Strong Towns done by a guy who runs a non profit by the same name. The recent stuff isn't so good, but if you go back to the beginning and listen to stuff from 4-6 years ago, you get to listen to this pretty smart civil engineer/planner have his epiphany of why infrastructure is so screwed up in most towns in the US. He deconstructs the problems with our car dependency and living patterns primarily from the angle of how it's bankrupting towns and cities. I listened to it over the summer when I was doing a cross country road trip, which turned out to be a great backdrop for it.

cujo 10y ago

Haven't been through the whole catalog, but #3 and #4 were very good. "Lots of things in the world seem ordinary. But when you dig deeper, it turns out, they’re fascinating. Surprisingly Awesome tells those stories." https://gimletmedia.com/show/surprisingly-awesome https://gimletmedia.com/show/surprisingly-awesome