The Pod Piper

1. On the Media - Ghosts As a society, we do not often reflect upon how we memorialize a person or event - the importance thing is to have reverence and to keep the subject in our collective memory. This week, as President Obama travels to Japan to NOT apologize for dropping the bomb on Nagasaki, OTM dissects how and why we remember the past. 2. Hidden Brain - Your Brain On Uber (#31) Even as someone who has only ever taken one Uber ride, this week's episode of Hidden Brain titilated me with the interpretations of the massive data set culled from this ride sharing giant. Similar to data from wearable tech, Uber is collecting information that may allow them to fill in narratives about your life.  Business analytics sometimes seem really interesting, but the thought of working as a "businessman" still sounds awful. 3. Reply All - On The Inside Part III (#66) This third installment of 'On The Inside' is little less suspenseful than Part II, but when you hav...

1. Reply All -  On the Inside Part II (#65) "On the Inside Part II" takes us even deeper into the world of a man whose innocence grows more complex by the minute.  The story falls under the jurisdiction of Reply All since Paul Madrowski, convicted murderer, published a blog from prison for several years.  I was intrigued by the first part in the series, but this week delved into Paul's life before prison and the events that lead to incarceration.  Is he guilty of a crime, or just guilty of making the wrong kind of friends and being too sincere for his own good? Fans of true crime/mystery will surely find much to revel in, and general podcast connoisseurs should rejoice in the masterful interviewing and story telling on display. 2. Flash Forward -  Expiration Date Flash Forward usually examines a hypothetical situation within some sort of semi-realistic projections from experts in existing fields. This week, however, the episode is even more theoreti...

1. Internet Explorer -  Blackness and the Meme Cycle Modes of transmitting media are evolving very quickly, and media itself is changing as a result. Cultural commodities like Vine videos or Snapchat stories would have been laughable a generation ago, but like it or not these are both things that permeate the zeitgeist.  While consumers do not necessarily exchange capital for these products, the creators are often compensated by promotional deals.  But, much in the way black musicians had their music appropriated by white musicians in the middle of the last century (and I'm guessing there are a lot of other examples of this as well), there seems to be some kind of misappropriation emerging where black content creators have their material repackaged and resold by white creators without consent. Internet Explorer tones back its typically vulgar style to examine this issue, and it has piqued my interest in hearing more about this. Oh, and it provides the best dissecti...

1. The Cracked Podcast - American Customs The Rest Of The World Thinks Are Weird America's place in the hypothetical ranks of the world's best countries is often polarizing. While some have a patriotic blind spot for anything that would challenge a "we're number 1" mentality, others are seemingly determined to ignore the liberty that comes with citizenship. I try to apply the appropriate amount of nuance to my own view and land somewhere in between, but the fundamental thing most people seem to miss is America's oddness in the context of the rest of the world.  This week, Cracked interviewed people from other countries who live in the US and recorded their observations. Amongst other things, Americans smile an abnormal amount, don't understand the point in pursuing purely platonic male-female relationships, and inappropriately idolize their country's founding fathers. Listen and begin wondering whether your every gesture and preconception of reality i...

1. Startup -  Pirate Needs Pirate Startup fascinates me because it delves into a world I don't understand and do not intersect on a daily basis.  Usually this is a world where big money is at stake or when a company explodes to become wildly popular and valuable by whatever combination of hard work and folly constitutes our modern business environment. This episode, however, takes us inside the semi-criminal operation of a transnational grocery re-seller, the story of a man named Mike who has struggled a great deal to make his business succeed.  But Mike's drive to press on is not motivated by a desire for money, fame or to change a given industry, but rather his own competitive stubbornness and desire not to fail.  Life is sometimes shaped around the traditional structure of a story, yet we neglect to revel in the complex truth of absurd stagnation that can just as easily define our sense of self.  In Mike, we see that all-too-common struggle of an ambitious ev...

A note on formatting: It struck me the other day that the table format for these posts maybe not translate into the best reading experience.  Also, I think I like the aesthetic of this layout.  That is all. 1. What's The Point -  Every Song Ever (#43) I often find appeal in this Jody Avrigan-helmed 538 podcast as it strives to overlay data on every day topics, but this week struck a special chord with me. Ben Ratliff, music critic from the New York Times, discusses ideas from his new book about the way we listen to music as the means of distribution shift.  I loved the idea that we must have uncomfortable music listening experiences to authentically situate our taste. As much as we strive for automation across many facets of life, our lives do not have a predetermined score as you would expect from a movie of TV show. It's up to us to struggle and fight and discover that soundtrack for ourselves!  Ratliff makes the point that listening to a sad song in ...

Rank Podcast Episode Lowdown 1 The Memory Palace Finishing Hold (#85) I've long admired "The Memory Palace," but each episode, however short, often seems to lose me somewhere along the way. This may be due to host Nate Dimeo's soft voice humming warmly with little in the way of verve. It could also be attributed to the scripted prose being rather rich in expository scene setting and low in traditional character driven story arcs. Whatever the reason, I've listened consistently for about a year despite never having been blown away by any one episode...until this week. The episode follows a man's journey from doctor to convicted murderer to, eventually, professional wrestler. The subject holds an inherent sense of drama, but ultimately Dimeo strung the narrative together in a way that allowed the story to blossom without meandering. 2 The New Yorker Radio Hour Ballad of a Trump Fan (#25) I enjoy reading The New Yorker as much as any suppose...