Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Podcasts - Including Me
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2014 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
I've been listening to podcasts recently. The ones that come to mind:
- I love programming/sysadmin case studies, I love women's perspectives, and I'm swinging back into listening to podcasts. Christie Koehler's and Kevin Purdy's discussions and interviews on In Beta entertain and edify me. I especially liked the spring episode in which Koehler described how her WordPress site got taken down by a big burst of traffic, and what specific steps she took to bring it back up, and what lessons she's learned for the future. I learned about how WordPress works and I now finally understand what "swap" is, which makes me really happy.
Thus I asked for recommendations for more podcasts in which women narrate these kinds of technical case studies from their own experiences. Go check that Ask MetaFilter thread for more suggestions by me and others.
- As a child, I enjoyed The X-Files, A Prairie Home Companion, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, so you'd think I would like Welcome to Night Vale. I've tried a few episodes and it doesn't compel me. I'm sorry! I do like "A Story About You" as everyone does.
I have a note to myself here saying "Scully & Mulder" but I can no longer recall why.
- 99% Invisible has taken over my cohort the way Radiolab did five years ago. It is in fact very good. I particularly enjoyed the one-hour "The Sound of Sports" episode. 99pi also introduced me to:
- Hrishikesh Hirway's Song Exploder, which reminds me of the late, great Schickele Mix. "A podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made." Like "The Sound of Sports," Song Exploder goes well with my current reading, Greg Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music.
- The Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Podcast. I listened to the most recent episode twice, it's so funny. Ashok and Hari Kondabolu and their occasional guests have genuinely funny and insightful conversations about growing up nonwhite in the US, culture, family, comedy, complicity, fame, and whatnot. I deeply recommend this to any other members of the South Asian diaspora who grew up in the US.
- The conversation I had with Moss and Julia before and after watching the season premiere of Doctor Who in August. 32 minutes, and the most substantive fanwork I have contributed to since the 638-word Babysitters Club fanfic I wrote last year. Incidentally, here's the Who-related rap I mention in the podcast; upon re-watch, Brett Domino does not resemble Edward Snowden quite as much as I'd thought.
