Blogocentric Formulations

Positive Thing #6

POSITIVE THING #6

Podcasts. Generally speaking, I think the phenomenon of podcasts is fantastic for someone like me, who has a lot of varied interests, but maybe not the attention span time to read an entire book or watch an entire documentary about each individual topic. And the great thing is that there are podcasts for just about any topic at this point, which means it shouldn't be too hard for anyone to find something that interests them.

Some of my favorite podcasts this year are:

Freakonomics. Stephen Dubner (co-author of the bestselling Freakonomics books) hosts a weekly look at applying economics theories and investigation to everyday topics like why we still use cash, why Uber is an economist's dream, what causes gender barriers, why there are so many mattress stores around when people purchase them so infrequently, etc. For someone like me who adores random knowledge and useless bits of trivia, it's fascinating to look at a lot of these topics.

My Dad Wrote A Porno. Easily the funniest new podcast I've discovered this year. A guy realized that his dad has been writing incredibly bad erotica under a pen name... so naturally, he and two of his best friends figured it would be a good idea to read a chapter a week to an audience and discuss it book-club style.

NPR Planet Money. Like, Freakonomics, Planet Money looks at the financial and economic underpinnings of an assortment of topics. They really find some cool stories to present... recent topics have included how Venezuela's economy imploded despite having everything seemingly going for it, why self checkout machines at the store always have problems, and how Subaru became very successful by marketing specifically to lesbians.

Slate Political Gabfest. A former editor-in-chief of Slate, an legal expert on the Supreme Court, and a longtime White House correspondent turned TV news host cover three topics in politics from the previous week. While it's obviously election-heavy coverage this year, most weeks involve them talking in depth and very insightfully about things like Supreme Court decisions, Congressional actions, or foreign affairs. By the time I've finished listening each week, I feel like I've got a better grasp on the state of affairs in the world, even if I haven't been paying attention to the daily news.

TED Radio Hour. This podcast explores a general topic (the big data revolution, failure, the case for optimism, how things spread, the seven deadly sins, etc.) and pulls together three or more TED talks about the subject. I've always found TED talks fascinating, and I love the fact that I don't have to listen to separate entire talks on their own, but rather can have someone pull the highlights centered around a common topic together and presenting everything in a digest format.

There are a lot more that I listen to regularly, but those are some of my favorites from so far this year. If you don't already listen to podcasts, I highly recommend checking a few out. Ranging from about 10 minutes to a couple hours per episode (and again, on a variety of topics), I have no doubt there's something for everyone.