Podcasts

I have been in to podcasts for a while now. It started right after I got my first iPod about seven years ago to combat workplace boredom. It was not one of those old iPods but one that could store about eight gigabytes of data, so I could listen to all my music, which admittedly is not that much, but also my radio station's content, which was available in podcast format. I listened to The Current, Ideas, Quirks and Quarks and a few other shows that were available. The problem eventually became that I would finish listening to all the content. 

 My first non-CBC podcast was AstronomyCast, I started listening to them, and then I went back and listened to all of their previous shows. And I learned a lot about astronomy. Fraser Cain a Canadian (important for me just a smidgen) and Dr. Pamela Gay host an informal question and answer style show. They try to touch on every topic in astronomy from the history to the most cutting edge of theoretical astrophysics. After I drained them of all their content I had to then wait for them to add more episodes, which they do on a more or less regular period.

The next podcast that I got into was The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe which is a popular skeptic podcast, arguably the most popular. Each episode runs about seventy-five minutes and they release one episode a week. They talk about science news in the week and the newest and most egregious examples of pseudoscience that has hit the media recently. They have a number of regular segments including interviews, sound identification contests, science truth or fiction contest where the lead Dr.Steven Novella presents three or four scientific paper's headlines one of which is fake and the gets his co-hosts to try to guess which one is fake. Very fun and educational podcast. 

 That lead me to look for that kind of podcast and there are a few. I listen to a few of those, like The Reality Check and Science for the People (which used to be called Skeptically Speaking). What is nice about those two podcasts is that they are Canadian, but that was really incidental. The Reality Check hooked me with their theme, they don't have one, but they do parody songs with a skeptic words most recently they did a parody of Wrecking Ball, but they have done Sailor Moon and nearly one hundred others. They will do requests, especially if you start them off with some words. They are really not much more than a few guys who are part of Ottawa Skeptics and they started a podcast. They touch on topics, about three every week, but mostly they are just fun.

Science for the People is different. It is a podcast that is made for a radio broadcast. It is professionally done and they have an interview format. Quality guests every week, returning guests and really thoughtful conversations. Minute for minute it is the best quality podcast that I listen to. To be clear, they have had a change in e past year, they were known as Skeptically Speaking and they had a a really cool theme song with cleaver words set up like a rap and I was disappointed that they changed all that, but their reason was sound; they were no longer a skeptical podcast but a science show. They are based at the University of Edmonton. There are a few themes that are reacquiring, bugs, sex and science. Sex? Really it is the science of sex, sexual attraction and about the parts and I bet even the sex squamish people I know would be interested in that stuff, eh WaifGirl? Notable episodes recently have been the science of food, the history and science of beer. So far they are about 250 podcasts, so there is a lot of choice. One other note is that it is one of the few podcasts whose host is female, two women who interchange regularly, which is double rare, for science and podcasting. I think they did that on purpose. A lot of their guests are also women, proving science is a field for women. 

 Actually before those two I started listening to Skepticality: the Official Podcast of Skeptic Magazine. Which is not as good sat it sounds, it is actually the weakest skeptic podcast, in my opinion, that I listen to regularity, but it is very informative. They do have more segments in it with other contributors. What I do like about this podcast was what it did for me, it empowered me. One of the contributors last year took time off last year due to exhaustion, he was exhausted from constantly being on the go with his various pursuits. His little five minute segment was the tip of what he did, but I found it very informative: This Day in Skeptic History. Along with that segment, is the Wikipedia Project, a talk about taking the fight to the pseudo science on Wikipedia. It is not about trashing pseudo science, but filling in the other side and posting scientific findings. How Likely Is It?, is a segment where people post odd coincidences that have happened in their life and they break them down into their actual probability. The thing is that most one in a million things that happen in your life are not that uncommon once you look closely at them. There is a segment that talks about language too. The rest of the podcast is taken up with interviews. This podcast comes from Atlanta Georgia, so really it is like it is from a completely different country. I live closer to them than I do Edmonton, but they have a Deep Southern accent and it is more difficult to process parts of it. The entire feel of this podcast is that of a magazine, which might be their point. 

StarTalk Radio, is Neil deGrasse Tyson's radio show. He is an astronomer and is e new face of Cosmos, the relaunched science television show. If you listen to him, it is because of the laughs and the interviews. This is a radio show, it plays all over e United States in syndication. The interviews are usually with himself his guest and one or two guest hosts, one or more is a comedian. Some of the interviews are taped but some are with the gang style. I did not at first realize that most of the hosts were Black, but they are. This is not a problem for me, but it is a message to everyone else, science is for everyone and it touches everyone's lives. There are quite a few people who would answer the phone for an interview on a radio show with banality, but for Neil, there are some quite famous people jumping at the bit to join him on his show, or at least get interviewed by him. The other thing is that we, people tend to forget that the Civil Rights Movement was really quite recent. Not while I was alive, but just before I was born. I grew up in a world where the colour of your skin does not matter, who you screwed at night did not matter, thanks Mom and Dad and I hope that universal equality will reign supreme in the near future, but a lot of people were there for that fight and Neil interviews some of them, but also he brings science to the people, all people. 

I listen to the Sandra The SexNerd, because I want to know more about sex. This is about sex, it is also about feminism and sexual deviation or kink; it is about learning what is kink and understanding it, because understanding it is the opposite of hate and there is too much hate in this world. What is age play, what is consent? What is the difference between gay sex and straight sex. What turns people on and what turns them off. The simple answer is everything and everything. What is a fetish? What are you. 

 I listen to a few atheist podcasts because I am an atheist, a proud atheist and a skeptic. Actually, I am a militant Atheist, practiced skeptic and more of a feminist than most women. I don't listen to feminist podcasts, maybe I should. I listen to atheist podcasts because I am skeptical, and in this world there is one fight that most skeptics focus on, that of religion. I have started listening to a few of these. Ask an Atheist is a radio show in the Tacoma Washington area. It is an information broadcast and an interview platform, but they also talk about the things that they have been doing in their real world life. Recently they have been talking about a fight in a local town council where one councilor was trying push his religious views on town council, by falsely quoting the founding principals were Christian based. The podcast is actually more about Humanism than Atheism, Humanism is the belief in humans can solve their own problems.

Another podcast is The Atheist Experience. That is the audio format of their long successful television show. They have a YouTube channel and they have nearly seven hundred shows under their belt. This is a very interesting podcast because it is a call-in show. Lots of theists call in to it the show and try to argue the existence of God. The hosts are varied but all intelligent and have a number of disciplines in their background. A few of them have been religious leaders before they saw the light.

Some more Canadian content, I just started listening to a podcast called the Bible Skeptics, based in Ottawa. This is a reading of the bible, cover to cover by an Atheist and a Christian, both of whom have never read the bible. This is an interesting podcast because no one has really read the Bible and tried to understand it; these two people are. I don't think they are reading a King James version but one different versions, because there were things that they read that we're not in my Bible. I know, you are thinking why does an Atheist have a Bible? Because theist refer to it so often it is good to be able to look up the context of the quote that they are not talking about. What I mean is Theist are the world's first and best quote miners. Anyways I have read the bible once or twice before, but I found it to be very boring each time. Don't believe me, try Deuteronomy and Numbers. So far the Christian is becoming an Atheist, just by reading the bible. 

 Last podcast, The Tolkien Professor. Thank you WaifGirl. This is a university like seminar based podcast. I consider myself a self taught Middle Earth expert. Well I am better than most people, but I have not torn up the books looking for every nuisance of the books and analyzed the crap out of them. I really can't wait until and if he gets to the aspects of JRR Tolkien that I am a little shady on the Unfinished Tales and the great poem of Tolkien. But also the tales that are well known like Turin and Hurin, the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Right now I am at the beginning of this podcast and I have so many weekly updates, and depending on where I am, I can't listen to them all every week. As such there are a few that I listen to first, the Reality Check because it is fun, Science for the people because the quality of the information, the Skeptics Guide, because of the mix of both, Astronomy Cast because it is astronomy. I am behind in Quirks and Quarks and Skepticality, the Sex Nerd, Bible Skeptic and Ask an Atheist, the Tolkien Professor of course.