99% Invisible
99% Invisible
Great episode of 99pi about the origins of the postal service and how it promoted infrastructure and literacy.
podcasts
Ride the EPM Podcast Waves
Tonight I'm making a very special non-automated link post to let you know that the Election Profit Makers podcast is the only island of sanity left in this ocean of troubled times. I know I've said it before, but this time I mean it.
RIYL: debates about skylines, obscure gen-x cultural references, and commiserating about politics.
RIYL: debates about skylines, obscure gen-x cultural references, and commiserating about politics.
Apple Podcasts
Apple PodcastsSpeaking of Ezra Klein (we were!) this is a great interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. It gets pretty deep on the nature of the State at one point and Coates has some optimism about *gestures around at everything* somehow.
Update: Here's a better link with a transcript: Why Ta-Nehisi Coates is hopeful.
Update: Here's a better link with a transcript: Why Ta-Nehisi Coates is hopeful.
Gimlet Media
Speaking of podcasts, PJ Vogt just dived into 30-50 feral hogs and it was pretty great. I would subscribe to his feral hogs newsletter. Also, can we talk about the reply-all cover which is a space rave cube in a gradient mountain for some reason? I blame Spotify.
ourfakehistory.comThe Our Fake History podcast tells the true stories behind untrue things we believe about history. I really enjoyed this episode about the absurdist secret society The Clampers and a hoax they accidentally (?) perpetrated involving an artifact Sir Francis Drake left in California in 1579.
johnaugust.com 
In this podcast episode screenwriter Craig Mazin of Chernobyl fame explains how he approaches writing scripts. His idea about having the main character push backwards on the theme until believing the truth of the theme is a great way to understand how character arcs work. You might expect high drama examples but Mazin uses Finding Nemo as the prime example throughout.
Relay FM
I really enjoyed this conversation between Jeff Veen and Mike Monteiro discussing Ruined by Design. There's nothing like hearing from two Internet Olds™ who watched the Web appear and had their idealism about it crushed in many ways. (And I say that affectionately as an Internet Old who has had crushed idealism.) They also discussed Chris Wetherell's remorse about automating retweets. There has been a lot of regret floating around lately. Tim Carmody called it The Builder's Remorse:
"This is the builder’s remorse. Not that you invented a thing, not that the consequences were unforeseen. It’s that you gave the thing to a power structure where things were overwhelmingly likely to end in ruin."Web development as punk rock was a lot of fun for certain segments of the population. Now it's time to nurse our hangovers, clean up the garbage, and turn it into a profession. Mike Monteiro says it much better than that though which is why you should get his book if you haven't yet.
Freakonomics
“We understand prices. But in a community, many of these transactions are not priced. You may do more favors than you get. You may not even get greater status as a result of something you do.”This Freakonomics Radio interview with economist Raghuram Rajan is fantastic. He talks about the value of communities and the difficulty economists have quantifying their value. Local communities are also one of the primary ways we find meaning in our personal lives. There's a lot to think about there.
thisiscriminal.com
Intermittent Podcast Saturday™ continues with Criminal. Phoebe Judge produces stories that are related to some form of criminal activity. She has a fantastic classic NPR style and I say that as a sincere compliment! The contrast between her composed tone and the often chaotic stories is what makes this show amazing. Her latest episode about misplaced online vigilantes was absolutley chilling with its just the facts delivery. But keep in mind they aren't all meant to be chilling. Often the episodes are moving or highlight a particular time and place in history. She brings them to life with research and typically one in-depth interview. (Here's the episode list if you want to get a sense of the material.) I have always found it worth the time to listen.
Maximum Fun
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...
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...
99pi Planchette
Recode
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.
Update (2/6): It is so, Audio-First.