The Podcast Review

I may not know a lot about cars, but I do recognise a good podcast.  This show has been running weekly for about 3 years now, and has just passed the 150 episode mark,  Shows are 90 minutes long, and the basic format is a group of guys talking about the latest car news of the week – this podcast being an adjunct of the main news site – Autoblog.

the show works because of the chemistry of the guys.  They are unabashed fans of all things large, chromy and shiny, and it doesn’t matter if the cars are cheap or pricey – they’ll have their say about it.

one of the beauties about podcasting is that it can get you interested in things that you previously had no concern in.  The voice of passion over-rides all the jargon and specific information – all you hear is the fire in the voice, the argued opinion.  It leads one into a field of knowledge, and before you know it, you’ve become an amateur aficionado yourself.  A rather scary process, but therein lies the power of the podcast – it’s educational power.

as I listen and learn to all manner of things, I can’t help but feel my mind expanding.  That’s why I’m such a true believer is this format.

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The ABC is Australia’s national broadcaster (publicly funded) and Radio National is the flagship radio network; producing original, serious content that has wide applicability.  About half of the following programs are very Aussie-centric, but the other half can apply to almost any listener.  There’s plenty here to discover and explore -

360: radio documentaries (rss feed / itunes page)
All in the Mind: consciousness and mental malfunction (rss feed / itunes link)
Artworks: summary of the week’s high art news (rss feed / itunes link)

Australia Talks: daily talk back and call-in show (rss feed / itunes link)
Away!: aboriginal affairs (rss feed / itunes page)
Background Briefing: big ticket current affairs, weekly (rss feed / itunes page)

Big Ideas: lecture series from prominent people (rss feed / itunes page)
CounterPoint: counterviews to the current thinking (rss feed / itunes link)
Edpod: educational news and views (rss feed / itunes link)

Encounter: the clash of morality and modern life (rss feed / itunes page)
Health Report: medical science, weekly (rss feed / itunes link)
Hindsight: looking back at Australian history (rss feed / itunes link)

Late Night Live: lively political discussion (rss feed / itunes link)
Law Report: applied and practical legal matters (rss feed / itunes page)
Life Matters: daily interviews on lifestyle matters (rss feed / itunes link)

Music Show: weekly overview of the professional music scene (rss feed / itunes link)
Science Show: weekly magazine of interesting research from around the world (rss feed / itunes link)
Spirit of Things: earnest questioning of the spiritual path and modernity (rss feed / itunes page)

Verbatim: lengthy interviews with long-lived Aussies (rss feed / itunes link)

shows have a 4 week archive, before the mp3’s disappear into the ABC website.  This is a generous allowance, and strikes a fine balance between accessibility and having to maintain an extended bandwidth presence via the iTunes store.  Very fair.

many of these shows were my mainstays before I discovered the world of podcasting, and I have so many fond memories of a small transistor radio and headphones plugged into my mind.  Many ideas, many worlds opened up via these presenters and guests.  So much to be grateful for.  Hope you can find some joy here.

the ABC Program Site for Radio National

these two guys (Jett Loe and Gareth Higgins) are onto a winning formula.  Too often, film podcasts devolve into an endless stream of tangents and side-stories, minutiae that would bore the legs off a spider.  Well … no more!

The Film Talk presents to you a weekly podcast of TWO of the latest theatrical releases.  Packaged in half an hour, this is purely the films themselves, and nothing else.

Jett (on the left) hails from Nashville, and his sparring partner, Gareth, is from Ireland.  They bring a transatlantic approach to the discussion.  One might think American / European, or maybe just a mere clash of personalities.  Actually, despite what they claim, Jett and Gareth don’t argue, or get inflamed, they just provide alternative views.

The podcast has been running on 3 years now, and is just about to ring up it’s 100th episode.  The guys are on a fundraising drive, and keen to bring on any new listeners.  I definitely appreciate these guys’ up front approach; it makes a marked contrast to what else is out there.

Professional, intelligent, engaging, sometimes abrupt.  Heartily recommended.

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intelligence gathering is a feature of any organised society.  One has to know what the others around you are doing or thinking.  It helps inform your plans for warfare, diplomacy, trade, and treaties.  To KNOW, is a deep yearning for the human species; for we are fundamentally bound by Limited Knowledge.

intelligence agencies have grown with the size of the Society.  Just witness with CIA in the US, or the KGB in the USSR.  This is a NEED TO KNOW what the other side is doing.

The SpyCast is a monthly offering by the International Spy Museum, based in Washington DC.  The Museum itself was founded in 2002, and houses 600 artifacts from the world of espionage, going all the way back to the Greek and Roman times.  The podcast itself is a 20 minute offering, featuring a talk on a highly focussed subject – whether it be cyberthreats, the changing face of al-qaeda or u.s. navel intelligence in the second world war.

one has to keep an open mind re the information being presented (is it the whole story? is there an agenda being pushed?  misinformation?) but the talks themselves are direct and well presented.  This is well made podcast that could act as a template for other cultural institutions aiming to put themselves out there.  A fine outreach effort.

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it has been my consistent view that Information Technology fundamentally shifts the nature of the human experience; for so many centuries and millenia, information and knowledge was gated down certain pipes; you had to be in the know to ‘know’.  It was a constraint of physics (overhearing a conversation) and technology (parchment, and printing press).  Knowledge was constrained.  Decisions were made with limited data.

with the advent of the computer, and more recently, mass adoption of high speed internet, this limitation has, essentially, been removed.  Knowledge is, for all intents and purposes, a shared space with the likes of google and twitter search.  You have a directed tap into whatever field or real time conversation that your mind aims towards.  It is powerful, and heady.

yet knowledge is not everything.  There is a higher level that exists, and I would posit that it encompasses the world of ‘Understanding‘ and ‘Wisdom‘.  So while we have knowledge and technique on tap, we have to be aware that there is a different game in town; something else being played out.   That’s why, although I have a keen interest in tech and its developments, I remain shy of becoming an uber-geek, and giving myself over to a technocentric world.  I fear there is a trap at the end of the tunnel of funneled electrons.

Supernova – is a blogtalk radio show all about the Network Age.  It investigates the consequences of having an always on, always conencted society.  It’s main approach is from that of the provider – ie, the company and corporation – those that deliver the services that we all rely on.  For example, here is a show on Google Wave, and one on Modern Coding.   But there are also more humanist approaches, asking the questions of how to Digitally Disconnect, and what Twitter Truly Means for us.  Topics are broad and engaging.

The shows themselves go for an hour, but could have done with some editing.  Although the show is recorded live via blogtalk, there are options to upload your own mp3’s, and I feel a better product could have been delivered with some careful curation.  There are some stretches where the conversation lags, and basically, there is a lot of dead, empty air.  This is a shame, because the ideas presented are wide-ranging and deep.  A bit of fast forwarding will aid you in getting the most out of this podcast.

in short, the Ideas are powerful, but the presentation is a little off.   Enough gold to glitter for the seeking eye.

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BusinessWeek remains one of the mainstays of print culture.  As a nexus point of money, companies, innovation, and lifestyle, it says a lot about who we are – how we spend our working lives, and how the general economy is oiled.  Through money we perceive into the heart of man.

BusinessWeek gives over its front cover to one main story each issue.  It is a big ticket item, designed to entice and draw in the casual audience.  As such, it has wide applicability, a flavor of scandal, and an intriguing title.  As such, it is a manufactured beast.

this podcast – BusinessWeek – Behind the Cover – exposes the making of this cover story.  What instigated it, who wrote it, how it panned out, and what was exposed.  In a neat 15 minutes you get the story behind the story.

this is a great podcast that has been running for 4 years now; a true mainstay.

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all BusinessWeek podcasts

how is tv changing?  very quickly would be my answer.  From what was once a three channel analogue broadcasting format, tv today is now a digital, orgy of channels, news infested medium.  TV is radically different from what it was 20 years ago.

The internet has sped up this shift.  Shows now have official dedicated fan webpages; where forums, news, and podcasts extend the experience of the show.  Battlestar Galactica streamed 5 minute ‘webisodes’ between seasons to maintain the interest and intrigue for that entertainment venture.  It was massively successful.

and so where is the current state of the tv box?  fragmented, fractured, and consumable via plasma, mobile, and hulu.  It is a wildly exploding format.  Just witness how American Idol has wedded itunes music, mobile voting, and the live show.  Attack on all fronts.

The TV of Tomorrow podcast is a weekly interview discussion with Tracy Swedlow.  It is a blogtalk radio show, and the delivery via itunes or rss is clear, simple, and fuss free.  Downloads are quick, and trouble free, which is a marked improvement on many podcasts out there.  The shows themselves run for about 40 minutes, and are interruption free – just the questions and expert answers from those involved in pioneering the television experience of the future.  The industry guests are the big-guns – with folks from Comcast, Google, and Think Analytics making an appearance.  Talk crosses platforms and goes into flash, mobile, and marketing.  Fascinating grist.

lots of insight, although the show could be a bit livelier. Tracy manages the discussion well, but a little energy is lacking from the presentation.  Valuable content proves the winner though in the end.  Add to your listening list.

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MP3 Insider is a weekly CNET podcast devoted to the portable music player – whether that be iPod, Zune, Walkman, or something else. They discuss all the latest info on headphones, upcoming hardware releases, and price changes. Donald Bell provides a hard ‘nerdy’ look at things, while Jasmine France is keenly interested in usability issues and functionality. They form a good duo.

Podcasts are around the half hour mark, and the discussion stays on topic. There is an audio feed available, but I recommend subscribing to the video version; you need to see these mp3 players and headphones to get a true grasp of what’s being discussed.

the show has been very consistent now (over 150 episodes) and the information is always breaking and relevant. This scoop on the Zune HD at the time is a prime example of that.

if you take your portable audio seriously, this is well worth subscribing to.

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MP3 Insider Blog

there was a time when recording was hard.  Before the age of cheap photocopiers, unlimited digital camera shots, terabytes of hard drive space.  We are talking about the eighties here, and the infancy of info tech.  And who can imagine the time before computers.  How did they survive such limitations on their knowledge and communications?  well, they did, and they did a remarkable job.  Sometimes extreme deprivations (here of connectivity to one’s fellow man, and access to their memories and experience) can lead to extreme deductive reasoning.  Sometimes one is forced to go down other routes to obtain insight; such as the use of psychedelic drugs.  Such were the times of the 60’s when visionaries abounded, and the world seemed to be a place of infinite potentials.  Such was the wonder in their eyes.

and so when we come to know and look back on those that forged the culture at the time, we remark: how the heck did they do what they did?  come up with the imaginative artifacts that still act as landmarks for us of a later age?  the likes of McKenna, Leary, R.A. Wilson … Sheldrake …

but luckily, these men were prolific talkers.  And many of their talks were recorded for posterity.  Often on some sub-standard walkman cassette tape, full of room noise, the audience as audible as the speaker, but recorded none the less.  The man known as Lorenzo undertook the task of releasing these talks in podcast format about 4 years ago.  So far, about 200 such episodes each an hour long have been set into the wild.  They are a body of learning.  They are also very funny.  These guys knew how to entertain and tell stories, and they are by no means shy.  Insights abound and dance in the crackling air.  Such a variety of thought-leaders are represented too.

you may not do grass or any other mind warping substances, but everyone has something to learn from those that have gone before.  Be humble.  Listen.  Tune in.   Tune out.

Wondrous.

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true art is hard to make; so too is genuine, probing analysis.  It takes a particular mindset to be able to evaluate and gauge a work; place it in a historical context, and compare it to its peers or non-peers.  A wide-ranging mind, an open-ness of opinion, a pursuit of some truthful ideal are all requisite to this quest for Analysis.

so we come to this podcast.  Left Field Cinema is a spoken word presentation by Mike Dawson.  He prepares essays of reviews, hidden masterpieces, and misunderstood classics, and then, well, reads then aloud.  Not your typical film podcast, but a thoroughly immersive and intellectual experience.  Episodes average around the 15 minute mark, and the podcast has been running for about 2 years.  It forms an impressive archive.

I find the spoken word essays literate and challenging.  They are infused with perception and critique.  If you are looking for a smart film podcast, this is the one for you.  Film IQ.

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ps. this analysis of the film Dune is just astonishing