onfocus

Welcome to a very special edition of Podcast Saturday. In the focuslight today is Jesse Thorn's flagship pop culture podcast on his Maximum Fun network. Yesterday Jesse traveled from his southern California home to the wilds of Portland, Oregon to entertain us with a live recording of Bullseye. I've been a fan since Jesse's show was The Sound of Young America and it was a treat to see his rapport with guests in person. Jesse has a great way of teasing the humor and emotional highlights out of someone's story during his interviews. Much like my desert island favorite Judge John Hodgman, the podcast isn't just about the surface content. The content here is meeting artists and hearing about their creative process. Its hidden message is about being a decent, curious, earnest person which makes it a subversive podcast indeed.

I also really like this video series (?) Jesse is working on called I Work Here that features artists giving tours of their workspaces. Last night he showed: I Work Here: Inside the Work Space of 'Wondermark' Creator David Malki!

Update: Forgot to link to this great interview in Willamette Week: Bullseye’s Jesse Thorn on the Early Days of Podcasting...

Josh made a beautiful thing and shared the process. This is inspiring to read, and if you haven't seen Josh's geometric paintings you should take a look. Also fun seeing discussion of this pop up on Hacker News and MetaFilter (of course).

"Trying to get some work done with an internet-enabled device is like trying to diet when there’s a mini-fridge full of beer and ice cream sitting on your desk, always within arm’s reach." Here’s yet another fascinating digital-habit-changing story. I like the connection he makes with economic psychology. I do think we're all working with the Endowment effect and Escalation of commitment as we consider the value of digitizing every aspect of our lives.

"...email has stayed, and has largely stayed decentralized, and from that — its ubiquity and lack of central authority — email has become one of the most boringly powerful publishing platforms around." Newsletters, amirite?! I agree that it feels like an exciting time for email and I really need to get back to posting my favorites. Are you thinking about starting your own newsletter? There's a guide for that: Newsletter Guide. And here's the obligatory Simpsons reference.

I agree with this. Repeating a frame or an idea—even to mock it—distributes and strengthens that idea. I love Colbert but I stopped watching a long time ago. Laughing wasn't enough to make up for the disturbing source material. It reminds me again that the old Internet cliché don't feed the trolls is something the media hasn't adopted yet. See also the great way Jay Smooth put it: Don't Link to the Line Steppers.

"Figuring out how to fix those blurry image quizzes quickly takes you into philosophical territory: what is the universal human quality that can be demonstrated to a machine, but that no machine can mimic? What is it to be human?" Yeah, this. But also: DAMMIT THESE ARE BROKEN AND ANNOYING AND ON EVERYTHING.

Speaking of digital habits, Cal Newport has a new book called Digital Minimalism. This GQ interview has some great gems on the rise of social media, like this: "It took this careful attention engineering, and cultural engineering, to try to make this seem innovative, and high-tech, and like you had to be doing this. If that falls apart, the whole thing goes." Ezra Klein also recently had him on his podcast: Cal Newport has an answer for digital burnout.

I never get tired of these stories where people change their digital habits. This piece by Kashmir Hill is an extreme example, but also a good illustration of how ubiquitous the major tech companies are. Understanding the often hidden architecture of our tech environment helps us make mindful decisions. A couple other posts in this genre I've enjoyed lately: Bye, Bye, Google by Bogdan Popa and Pulling the plug on Facebook by Drupal founder Dries Buytaert.

Great news for Gimlet, especially for my favorite show Reply All. Congrats! Troubling aspect: could this signal the end of open web distribution of podcasts? Moving away from RSS to walled gardens would be a total buzzkill.

Update (2/6): It is so, Audio-First.