Podcasts you like

[celedhring]

Been listening to Philosophize This! A history of philosophy podcast. It starts pretty plainly, but as it happens with many of those podcasts the guy grows confident as time goes on and he ends finding his niche and pushing you quite a bit, he's pretty good at observing the environment philosophers lived and how it possibly molded their ideas, plus their place in the continuum of human culture and thought. If you're interested in philosophy, it's a great listen.

[The Minsky Moment]

Open courses as podcasts are a thing of the past.

Why is that?  Lots of good material from the ones that were released.

[Oexmelin]

Yep. But it's become a brand management thing for elite universities, and can't be monetized properly for starving state schools. The boondoggle of online education has moved to coursera for state schools, and has been fought with increased success by faculty in other institutions.

You'll still get great podcasts, but they will be produced explicitly as outreach programs by rich institutions, or as individual faculty initiatives, not as courses.

[crazy canuck]

A podcast I recently found has become my addiction. https://literatureandhistory.com/

This is the lit prof you wish you had in university.  He places the literature in its historical context and gives an excellent synopsis of the literature he is examining in that episode.  He also finishes each episode with a humorous song.  If you love history you will love this podcast - with the added advantage that you will learn about the literature that has influenced our cultural development.

Can't recommend this highly enough.

The literature and history podcast put me onto a new one - Mirror of Antiquity http://www.mirrorofantiquity.com/

Profs from Vasser discussing modern events and what classical literature has to teach us about them.  Perfect for the discerning Languishite.

[mongers]

The literature and history podcast put me onto a new one - Mirror of Antiquity http://www.mirrorofantiquity.com/

Profs from Vasser discussing modern events and what classical literature has to teach us about them.  Perfect for the discerning Languishite.

Thanks CC, that sounds like an interesting one. 

edit:
Not strictly a podcast download yet, but Radio 4 are doing an interesting 10 part series of 15minute programmes about aspects of the new age of capitalism, worth a listen here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bkfml9/episodes/player

[crazy canuck]

When Diplomacy Fails is starting a series on the negotiations which occurred after Armistice Day. 

[11B4V]

Joe Rogan

[Savonarola]

Another insight from "Life in the Universe":  The moon is tidal locked with the earth, which means that its revolution and rotation periods are the same.  Consequently there is an earth facing side of the moon and a non-earth facing side; but there is no Dark Side of the Moon.   



Certain exo-planets (we think) are tidal locked with their stars, so they would have a dark side and a light side.

The lectures were recorded in 2012 (I'm really not sure how many of the students would have gotten the Pink Floyd reference.  My college roommate had a prof who made a joke that a resolver was the name of a Beatles album and no one else got the joke.)  At the time there were about 750 known exoplanets.  Today the number is nearly 4000.  The first exoplanet was discovered in 1995; what a time to be an astrophysicist or astronomer.

[Savonarola]

I also heard an episode of the nerd podcast "Fallo de Sistema" in which they interviewed Sandy Petersen; the man who wrote the original "Call of Cthulhu" game.  He explained that the primary challenge of the game was that the monsters in the game were fundamentally different from Dungeons and Dragons.  Other game systems would have made Cthulhu the boss monster; he had to create a system which presented Cthulhu for what he is.  At which point I thought; "Why can't we just accept Cthulhu for what he is?"   



He went on to do design work on Doom and Quake, which is why the monsters have a Cthulhuesque design.  He also did some work on Sid Meier's Civilization; which did come close to driving me insane in the early 90s.

[Berkut]

Waking up has a great episode for our times, and I think a LOT of Languishites could appreciate.

https://samharris.org/podcasts/142-addiction-depression-meaningful-life/

[Savonarola]

I also heard an episode of the nerd podcast "Fallo de Sistema" in which they interviewed Sandy Petersen; the man who wrote the original "Call of Cthulhu" game.  He explained that the primary challenge of the game was that the monsters in the game were fundamentally different from Dungeons and Dragons.  Other game systems would have made Cthulhu the boss monster; he had to create a system which presented Cthulhu for what he is.  At which point I thought; "Why can't we just accept Cthulhu for what he is?"   



He went on to do design work on Doom and Quake, which is why the monsters have a Cthulhuesque design.  He also did some work on Sid Meier's Civilization; which did come close to driving me insane in the early 90s.

I was back up in Detroit last week, and met up with some friends.  I was describing this to one of my friends who is a monster Cthulhu fan; his (new) girlfriend said, "Women always wonder what men talk about when they're not around..."

In any event, the newly revamped "Broken Record" podcast is really good so far.  The first two episodes are interviews with Rick Rubin and Niles Rodgers.

[Savonarola]

The School of Advanced Study from the University of London offers a number of online continuing education style lectures in a variety of subjects.  I've started going through the ones put on by the Centre for the History of Arabic Studies in Europe.  The first one I listened to was about Montesquieu's views of Islam.  I had thought that the "Lettres Persanes" were just a criticism of French society; but the lecturer made the case that they also reflected Montesquieu's antipathy towards Islam, which would be much more fully developed in "l'Esprit des Loix".

[Malthus]

I also heard an episode of the nerd podcast "Fallo de Sistema" in which they interviewed Sandy Petersen; the man who wrote the original "Call of Cthulhu" game.  He explained that the primary challenge of the game was that the monsters in the game were fundamentally different from Dungeons and Dragons.  Other game systems would have made Cthulhu the boss monster; he had to create a system which presented Cthulhu for what he is.  At which point I thought; "Why can't we just accept Cthulhu for what he is?"   



He went on to do design work on Doom and Quake, which is why the monsters have a Cthulhuesque design.  He also did some work on Sid Meier's Civilization; which did come close to driving me insane in the early 90s.

I was back up in Detroit last week, and met up with some friends.  I was describing this to one of my friends who is a monster Cthulhu fan; his (new) girlfriend said, "Women always wonder what men talk about when they're not around..."

In any event, the newly revamped "Broken Record" podcast is really good so far.  The first two episodes are interviews with Rick Rubin and Niles Rodgers.

It would be hilarious if that were true - that as soon as menfolk were alone, they all, without exception, discussed Cthulhu. 

[Savonarola]

In the latest episode of "Emperor's of Rome" they were discussing middle republic literature.  They were discussing Ennius; whose works exists only in fragments.  Cicero discusses the dream of Mars; which the commentators said sounded quite modernistic as it's unclear from his quoting if Ennius had written a prophetic dream or an event that occurred.  Another fragment we have of Ennius is that he was Homer reborn with an intermediate life as a peacock; which the commentators found psychedelic.

Of course even professors of classical studies (as these commentators were) view the classical world from the perspective of the early twenty-first century (and being a peacock is certainly no weirder than what's found in "The Golden Ass" or Ovid's "Metamorphosis").  Still "Psychedelic Rome" struck me as amusing. 

[Savonarola]

The School of Advanced Study from the University of London offers a number of online continuing education style lectures in a variety of subjects.  I've started going through the ones put on by the Centre for the History of Arabic Studies in Europe.  The first one I listened to was about Montesquieu's views of Islam.  I had thought that the "Lettres Persanes" were just a criticism of French society; but the lecturer made the case that they also reflected Montesquieu's antipathy towards Islam, which would be much more fully developed in "l'Esprit des Loix".

In another lecturer from this series (this one about the impact of the Koran on western literature) the lecturer read a quote by Jorge Luis Borges: "The lack of camels in the Koran is proof of its authenticity."  ("Authentic" in the sense that it originated in the Middle East; a hoaxer would have loaded the narrative with camels in order to give it local color.)  Unfortunately there are camels mentioned in the Koran (Borges probably misunderstood a line in Gibbons); but it's still a good quote.