Best line from that episode: “the republicans weren’t afraid of looking like hypocrites. They were afraid of losing.”
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100%. This is why they always win.
Any listeners to Cal Newport and his deep questions?
This is the guy who wrote deep work and digital minimalism
I’m about 8 in, but there’s 200 here. I’m not sure how he’s going to sustain for close to 200 hours, but I’m open to it.
Decent so far.
I’ve been meaning to check it out, I’ve read both deep work and digital minimalism, not really fully bought in but he’s definitely interesting
I found him a bit weird when reading deep work. He comes across much better in audio format!
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3rd boot in his premerge tribe, imo
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Listened to the On The Media episode regarding the Darien Gap a few days ago and I’m still thinking about it and getting pissed off.
That so many people like the Somali guy want to come to America has always been America’s strongest asset. Imagine if Somalis had been able to get on ships in the 1990s and come to America the way Irish and Italians and Jews and every other White American’s ancestors did. They are here anyway but often via refugee camps or crossing the border.
Also reminded me of Abdi and the Golden Ticket
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Bump.
I’ve been listening to this podcast called Heavyweight. It’s hosted by a guy called Jonathon Goldstein, who has a tone I would describe as “dry Jewish humor”. The idea is that every week he finds someone who has some question from their past which has been weighing on them for years and tries to help them resolve it. Hence the name. It’s little vignettes, a slice of life thing, some of the problems are petty, some are more serious. Sometimes it’s depressing (fair warning), other times funny, other times life-affirming.
The first one I listened to was #10 Rose. Rose joined a sorority in college and after having been in it for quite some time, she was held behind after a meeting and told she had to resign. She was like “huh?” and they were like “YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID” but wouldn’t tell her what it was. It was a good ep, so that’s a reasonable starting point.(She… sort of found out what she did, it was complicated, but the ending was satisfying enough).
I pretty much started from the beginning after that. Other eps I recommend are #2 Gregor (although the ending was a bit anticlimactic), #3 Tara, #11 Christina, #14 Isabel and #18 Sven. I just listened to that last one today and it intersects with politics in a way most of them don’t.
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It’s an all time great podcast. Sadly it’s no longer running.
i forget who said theo von had a good podcast and i also forget which thread we were talking about it in so i can’t tip my cap, but i listened to some today and i’ll go into the archives going forward bc it’s entertaining.
talked to bernie mostly about healthcare and asked some really good questions and didn’t seem out of his depth. policy questions from a working class perspective.
then i listened to tommy lee and, man, he’s really fucking funny.
anyway, 
to theo von.
I am one of the few Nate Silver defenders here but whoa boy lol on the recent Slate Money he ranked large language models on the scale of technological importance just ahead of cool ranch Doritos and about the same as the vcr.
That will be in the running at the end of the year for dumbest thing uttered by a human and this is a year where Trump will speak like a Million public words.
Pure pundit brain. Why does Nate feel he has any kind of expertise on something like this? Back when his whole thing was aggregating polls and modeling elections he could claim he knew what he was doing, but he doesn’t know jack about large language models.
Thanks for this, I just listened to the first episode and thought it was wonderful. Having known many grudge-holding old Jews in my family it felt pretty close to my lived experience. I love how much the host lets the story just unfold and hope that continues - I hate when podcast hosts go off on tangents (“And before we hear the rest of that story, let me first explain the history of Jews in Canada” or whatever). I am definitely wary of heavier upcoming episodes. I usually binge podcasts but I don’t think this is one I want to listen to back-to-back-to-back.
It’s in my top ten all time best podcasts. There are many elite episodes.
The episode that was a really serious bummer was #7 Julia. I think its a quality ep, but it is relentlessly dark and depressing. I wouldnt describe any of the others as depressing. I did quit #4 because it was boring and skipped some others though so I dont have a complete picture.
What other great podcasts are you keeping secret in your clovis noggin btw
I won’t post all the well known stuff but here are a few less known I really like
Longform: just ended but archives still around and has some great interviews. Focussed on media.
Normal gossip: each episode focusses on some gossip from normal people. Some episodes are meh but several are truly great.
Ongoing history of new music: best music history podcast and it’s not close.
Search engine: sort of like heavyweight. Some elite episodes.
Dead eyes: an entire podcast series of a B level actor exploring why he got fired by Tom Hanks from band of brothers. Sounds dumb. Is elite.
Gamblers: over now but each ep is a great gambling history story.
An older one that folks have missed was Running From COPS - it’s about the Cops tv show and the bad it did.
Popped in my head as the guy who hosted that show recently released a new one called Hysterical that I’ve enjoyed - don’t want to spoil it so here’s the synopsis:
Hysterical investigates a mysterious illness that spreads among a group of high school girls in upstate New York. What is causing their sudden, often violent symptoms? Is there something in the water or inside the school? Or is it “all in their head?” The series examines the outbreak in LeRoy, NY, believed by some to be the most severe case of mass hysteria since the Salem Witch Trials.
Memory Palace is the GOAT if you haven’t gone through that catalog. Short historical stories, most eps are 15 minutes. That show has made me smile and cry more than any other. Dude’s a genius.
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Search Engine is great. The host, PJ Vogt, was the co-host of Reply All before they had some drama and got canceled. Reply All was also a fantastic podcast and worth checking out if you haven’t. Their Indian scammer two part episode was awesome.
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