Month: June 2016

Pay Up Sucker

A long time ago when I had cable TV (and I had to walk uphill in the snow without shoes) I saw an episode of Monster Garage where Jesse James went to get yet another tattoo. This one, however, was quite interesting both for what it said and its location. There was a vendor or a customer that didn’t pay up, so James got the “Pay Up $ Sucker” (tattoo picture below courtesy of http://www.inkedcelebrity.com/jessejames3.html ). Now I’m not sure if James did it to make the show more sensational, but that doesn’t matter. The thing is that message of this tattoo stuck with me way beyond the show.

In this somewhat questionable post, I clear my conscience by acknowledging some podcasts that I really love and donating them a bit of money which I should have done a while back.

It’s time to pay up to some podcasts

I’ve been listening to tons of podcasts but my absolute favorites are:

• The Changelog
• Note to Self
• 99% Invisible

I’ve started to feel guilty listening to these shows, and I’ve realized that my conscience has been presenting a mental “Pay Up $ Sucker” on an almost daily basis. So I’ve become a member…finally.

Why The Changelog is my favorite tech podcast

This podcast is full of non-stop tech goodness. It’s one of the few shows where I have to stop frequently and record a particular time mark that has an amazing piece of information.

You want to hear an interview with the designer of a popular programming language that’s been around for 23 years – no problem. What about an interview with a blind programmer or open source community builder that is dying. The list of shows is amazing in terms of breadth of topics and depth of information.

At its core – Adam and Jarod are sincerely trying to help open source projects and you can hear their sincerity in their interviews through all of the episodes. What else can I ask for beyond sincerity and great tech info?

Why the Note to Self IS at the intersection of technology and being human

I accidentally came across Note to Self while listening to the Freakonomics podcast which referred to the (somewhat terribly annoying) Question of the Day podcast that happened to have Manoush Zomorodi as a guest.

Why is the show great? It’s very short, and it’s very human. Manoush’s slightly sarcastic self-deprecating humor is just the right kind of narration for the vast amount of topics that the show covers. For someone neck deep in tech it’s a refreshing breath of fresh air (no – not the NPR fresh air…but you know – the real fresh air).

Why 99% Invisible rocks

I’m not sure how I found out about 99% Invisible. My guess is that one of my eclectic liberal arts co-workers recommended it. The show description says it all – it’s about all the invisible things, the unnoticeable things that are in front of our face which we never really see. It’s a very short show but it’s amazing in the variety of its topics. Where else can you discover about an oddly terrible bus station/depot in Tel Aviv, the odd journey of voice encryption, and the giftschrank?

Roman Mars has amazing voice presence beside having a unique name (part of me can’t help but feel that it’s a showbiz name – doesn’t it seem like a showbiz name if all the shows were about greek and roman literature?).

Conclusion

I have no conclusion. If you like any form of talk shows (like NPR on your car radio), then you should listen to podcasts. If you have an iPhone/iPad then I have the perfect free podcast client – Overcast. Just install it and click the little + symbol on the upper right side. Then search for the above shows or any others. And if you like the shows, if you really really really like them then don’t forget to Pay Up $ Sucker or Jesse James will be at your door showing you his palm :-).