Episode: 2480
Title: HPR2480: What's In My Podcatcher 1
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2480/hpr2480.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 03:53:12

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This is HPR episode 2004 180 entitled What's in my podcast at 1 and is part of the series
podcast recommendations. It is hosted by a hoker and in about 18 minutes long and carry
my clean flag. The summary is a current report with descriptions of the podcasts I enjoy.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com. Get 15% discount on all shared hosting
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Hello Hacker Public Radio of People. This is a hukka welcoming you to another exciting episode
of Hacker Public Radio and this is something that Ken had actually asked me to do.
And what was that? Well, there was a Hacker Public Radio community news a few months back
and I had posted a comment to I think Dave Morris because he had talked about a podcast that he
liked to listen to and I said, oh, yep, excellent. And you know, here's another one that I think you
might like. And that's when Ken jumped in and said, I want to show about what's in your podcast
and my my pod catcher, I guess. And I thought, well, I've done that, but it was a few years ago.
And the thing is that what's in there changes over time. So I decided what the heck let's let's
do some more. And I listen to a lot of podcasts. So it's entirely possible that this is going to
end up being a two-parter. I'm going to assume that Ken will forgive that. And rather than just,
you know, read a list of them, I want to talk a little bit about at least a few of these,
probably most of them, just to give you a sense of what they're like. So you would know from
the description is that something that you might want to check out. And of course, I will put links
in the show notes for all of these, which will undoubtedly keep me busy. So what you're going
to see going through this is that there are a few areas where I just have a very strong interest.
And so you'll see certain themes come out of all of this. So the first one I'm going to mention
is a podcast called Alpha Beatical. Now, this has an interesting concept behind it. It's four guys
who get together, and usually it's about twice a week, maybe three times occasionally. And what
they do is that they record shows in which they take specific Beatles songs and discuss them.
And the way they do it is by putting them in alphabetical order. So you combine those,
and you get the podcast title, Alpha Beatical. So it starts off with 12-bar blues and goes all
the way up to your mother should know at the other end of the alphabet. These are nice. They're not
terribly long. They're probably each one of these is about 15 minutes in length. And
if you're a Beatles fan, you would probably enjoy the discussion a little bit. And if you're not
a Beatles fan, then obviously this isn't for you. I happen to be a big Beatles fan.
Now, the next one I'm going to mention is the Alton Brown cast. And as you might start to figure
out, I'm going through this in alphabetical order myself because that's on my pod catcher works.
So Alton Brown is well known as a food network celebrity. He's also been going around the
country doing shows. My wife and I went to his show last year in Detroit. And we love,
we had a great time. Absolutely hilarious. And I think it was something called Eat Your Science.
So his stick was looking at science and cooking together. Now, this particular podcast is
highly infrequent. He recorded all of two shows in 2017. And I assume after that, he was like
back on the road or doing one of his food network things. But you know, he will stop recording
and then all of a sudden pop up again for six or eight shows. So I just leave it in my pod catcher.
No harm, no foul. And then see what comes up. So I'm sort of hoping that, you know, maybe the next
month or two, some things will pop up. Now, the next one I want to mention is something called
Astronomy Cast. And I think this is this is when the Dave also enjoys. Now, Astronomy cast,
there's two people. One of them is Dr. Pamela Gay, who is, you know, a PhD, astronomy scientist.
And the other is Frazier Kane. Now, Frazier Kane also has a YouTube channel where he does things
that are astronomy related. And I would highly recommend, if you're into that sort of thing,
that you subscribe to that YouTube channel. So it's FrA, SCR, and then Kane is CAIN. And check
that out. But this, this is an audio podcast that the two of them do, although I think they may also
do it on YouTube and what have you. But this comes out every week. And this usually explanation of
some thing that is going on in astronomy or just some topic that they decide they want to get
into. So some of the things, you know, modeling the weather. And, you know, obviously we use satellites
to do things like that. Simulations for science and fun. Another one, exploiting, interfering
light. And so, you know, we use interference as a way of imaging things in space and so on. So,
you know, it's an example of some of the things that they like to do. So now, another one I want to
mention is something called Ben Franklin's World. And this is an American history podcast. And it
really covers topics in colonial history up through probably early 19th century, you know. I don't
think they actually get into the Civil War. So it would be pre going up through the pre-war period.
But I think they have done some things that maybe talk a little bit about how the Civil War,
some of the things that might have led up to it. And this is a podcast where the host,
who has a doctorate in history, also calls, and it's basically telephone interviews with professional
historians, people who are on faculty of major universities. And frequently there's a book that
they've written. And that becomes a topic of discussion. You know, historians do tend to
specialize in particular topics. So what they will do is they'll have, and typically it's about an
hour long podcast that gets into all of that. Now another one I want to mention is the Big Finish
podcast. And Big Finish is a company in England. And they do a lot of audio dramas. And in
particular, they made a big aspect of what they have done is Dr. Who. And during the period when
Dr. Who was not on television, it was sort of like the only place you would get some new material.
I love Dr. Who. So that was a good thing. They've since added other things as well.
So this particular podcast is not one of their audio dramas. It's a podcast where they talk about
what they're doing or interview people who are actors or producers or what have you. And so
you know, it's a it's a fan-oriented thing and I'd rather enjoy it. Next one I'm going to mention
is Cadence. Now Cadence I found from a reference from another podcast that I listened to, which we'll
get to later called Inquiring Minds. One of the co-hosts of that podcast is Indray Viscontus. And
Indray is very interesting. She is a PhD neuroscientist and a trained opera singer.
So she decided, you know, let's do a podcast about music and how it affects your brain.
And you know, it's the kind of thing I find fascinating because I've been involved in music
for many, many years and I love science and seeing the two of them interact is just, you know,
how could I not like something like that? So Cadence is a nice one.
Okay, next one is something called the command line. It kind of is sporadic. You know, he'll
record some shows for a while and then, you know, some weeks go by and you won't hear anything.
The fellow who does this command line is sort of a nom the internet. So it's not that it's a podcast
about how to do command line stuff, which if I wanted that I would probably be listening to all
of the stuff that and I do that Dave Morris does. So it's just a guy who goes by the name,
the command line. There's Thomas Gideon, but usually he's talking about some aspect of the fact
that he is a coder and he works in industry and his reflections about all of that. So you know,
he might talk about the, you know, white code review matters and how he does it and things like that.
Next one is something called common sense with Dan Carlin. And this is an interesting
show. Dan is another one of those people that sporadically releases shows. He puts a certain
amount of effort into it and I'm going to get to the hardcore history in a moment, which is the
other podcast of his that I listen to. So common sense is usually his take on what's going on in
current events and it's probably somewhat US centric because that's where Dan is. So
you know, he talks about things from a kind of libertarian perspective, but you know, not
I wouldn't say he follows the party line on all of this stuff. So it's something to think about there.
So it's a nice one and I do enjoy it. Next podcast, completely Beatles. And completely Beatles
is basically a few folks who get together and what they do is they talk and it's kind of like
alphabetical only instead of song by song. It's album by album. And what they do is they took
this from the very first Beatles album that was released. Please please me, you know, all the way up
through Abbey Road and then finally the real love release. So this, you know, they just did
X number of shows, I think 16 back in 2014. And when they were done, they were done. But you know,
if you're into that sort of thing, download the shows and enjoy them. And this gets us to
Dan Carlin's hardcore history. This is just amazing stuff that, you know, you
you wonder how he can pull all this stuff together. So he'll take a topic and dig into it. So for
example, he did a whole series called Blueprint for Armageddon. It was all about World War One.
And that just went on. He did six shows and you know, each show was several hours long.
So it was absolutely wonderful. Now he puts a lot of work into it. So each show
may come out, you know, four months after the previous one because of so much work he put into it.
Then he did a, you know, he followed that up with a series about the
A Kymanid Persian Empire called King of Kings. And that was a three-show series.
If you love history and I do, then this is absolutely fantastic. And I enjoy it tremendously.
Now I'm going to mention Fab Four Free For All. This is an ongoing series.
And they probably are doing lately releasing a show every few weeks, maybe once a month.
There were times when they were doing it weekly. But it's been going on for a number of years.
And it's three guys who are huge hardcore Beatles fans and have radio programs and what
have you. And just get together and talk about, you know, Beatles topics. And I'm a big Beatles
fan, so that is just fabulous. And speaking of Fabulous, another one Fabcast, which is just some
guys sitting around talking about different topics. And so far they've released 15 shows,
the most recent of which was the end of October of 2017. They are highly opinionated.
And, you know, you may not agree with everything they say, but I have fun with it.
And I think this will be the last one for this particular installment. I'm only up to the letter F.
This is 538 Elections. Now, 538 is a site that was put together by Nate Silver.
Nate is very well known as kind of a polling expert. He does election forecasting of various kinds.
He builds models that incorporate poll results. He's done some other things that employ
similar statistical stuff. He's done some sports stuff as well. I have no interest in sports,
so I don't pay any attention to that. But I'm intensely interested in politics,
so I love this. And this, they do generally a weekly show about whatever is going on in politics,
unless something big suddenly happens. And then they'll do what they call an emergency podcast,
because, you know, okay, what's this about? So the most recent one was when the Democrat won the
Senate race in Alabama, so it's like, okay, we got to rush out an emergency podcast for that one.
Then, you know, in addition to their weekly podcast, they sometimes do a series and they're doing one
right now on gerrymandering and looking at what the issues are and what's happening in different parts
of the country. So after an initial intro to what is gerrymandering, they looked at Wisconsin,
North Carolina, Arizona, you know, in each place, there's a, you know, somewhat different take going
on. So that's quite a lot of stuff, I think. And so I'm going to cut it off here. This is Ahuka,
signing off and reminding you as always to support free software. Bye-bye.
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