All in Listening

For a little while, I've been following Horace Dediu's blog, asymco.com, and listening to the podcast he does with Dan Benjamin, The Critical Path. I do find that it takes me a while to digest what he says about tech markets, not because he isn't clear, but because the concepts sound simple but feel like the tip of the iceberg. I think a lot of what he's been saying is starting to click into place for me, in large because of a recent Critical Path episode. This post is different than all the others on this blog, and is pretty rambling. I still have lots of unformed thoughts about the topic, but find it fascinating enough to share, however incomplete my knowledge.

If you like expanding your musical horizons beyond what's on the radio or want to learn new connections between various songs and artists, the iTunes Weekly Rewind is a great podcast. Every week they take a look at some of the songs which have been playing on the radio, on TV, in movies, even in ad spots. But more than just giving a name and artist to a song you heard just fleetingly, they also use songs, artists, or events as springboards to not only go into depth, but to point out both what influenced an artist and whom that artist influenced. There are a lot of music geeks out there, and these guys rate right up there. As they should, since they're on the team which compiles the iTunes Essentials collections.

There are many great science shows around, NPR's Science Friday being one of them. However, I find WNYC's Radiolab to be more of a must-listen because of they way they are able to find an over-arching story from seemingly disparate interview clips or even show segments, for the extra content they inject into the podcast, and how they are willing to go beyond science towards topics such as art.

If you enjoy science fiction and aren't listening to Escape Pod, you really should. It's a weekly short story anthology with a wide variety of themes and styles. The host, Steve Eley, reads many of the stories in addition to providing intros and commentary, but guest readers are not uncommon. It was Steve's blog entry about going on hiatus for a few weeks which prompted me to write about Escape Pod. I noticed last week that a new story hadn't gone up, so I went to check if something was up, and indeed there is.

I consider myself a grammar geek because I like to take at least a little time to make my writing grammatically correct while not sounding stiff. I obviously have my good days and bad days, but either way, it's something I enjoy doing. I sometimes find myself re-reading email over a half dozen times before sending, moving a phrase here, selecting another word there, going between looking at the overall structure and scrutinizing individual clauses. After doing all that and sending the message, I notice that paragraph I forgot to delete which contains just a single unfinished sentence fragment.

I wrote about Mac OS Ken in my work blog, kicking off entries about tech-related podcasts. As far as non-tech podcasts go, Coverville is easily one of my favorites. Brian Ibbott releases episodes several times a week chock-full of cover song goodness. Other than becoming more refined over the years, the show has stayed true to its roots. I may not always enjoy all the music, but even my least favorite shows are interesting enough for me to listen through.