Listen to podcasts long enough and you are bound to develop tastes. After 15-some years, mine are these: conversations over stories, with minimal to no editing, and lasting no longer than a couple of hours per episode. Even within these constraints, the list of podcasts I could listen to is near-infinite. Yet these are the few to which I keep returning:

1. Omnibus, which survived John Roderick’s attempted cancelation to continue providing two poorly-researched topics per week. Highlights of 2021: Mobile Jubilees, The Bottle Conjuror, Officials General, Merkins (yes, those), and The Phantom of New Guinea in which the curious popularity of an obscure Canadian detective show in Serbia makes an appearance.
2. EconTalk, which continues to be the best general-interest interview show for people who’d rather avoid snake oil salesmen. Highlights of 2021: Dana Giola on poetry (which is in fact the best episode of 2021), Julia Galef on her book Scout Mindset (which I am yet to read, but oh well), Anja Shortland on lost art, Bret Devereaux on ancient Greece and Rome, and Johann Hari on lost connections (which reminded me of a particularly sad episode from my tenure as a heme/onc attending).
3. Healthcare Unfiltered is the first new healthcare-related podcast I’ve started listening in years. Chadi Nabhan is a good interviewer with an even better access to relevant guests, particularly when he attempts to bring together both sides of a twitter-heated medical debate. Highlights of 2021: Bishal Gyawali on clinical trial design, Aaron Goodman and Matt Wilson on CNS prophylaxis for DLBCL, Barbara Pro and Mehdi Hamadani on PTCL, Mikkael Sekeres and David Steensma on mid-career transition, and Aaron Goodman versus the world, supposedly about randomized clinical trials.
4. Plenary Session was back on my playlist this year, and mostly Covid-free. Highlights of 2021: Chris Booth, Adam Cifu, Manni Mohyuddin, Bapu Jena, and again Aaron Goodman (who should really start his own podcast instead of squatting in other people’s).
5. The VPZD Show is the one about Covid. Prasad and Damania have their hearts in the right place and fairly sharp minds; they can evaluate evidence on merits and are willing to admit past mistakes. Without mourning days past when these characteristics were more common — because in fact they weren’t — I’ll just note that in times like these, they are essential. Highlights of 2021 include the entirety of the show, which has only just started.

Previous editions: 2021 — 2020 — 2019 — 2018 — The one where I took a break from podcasts — The very first one

I, for one, am glad that blogs are making a comeback. Here are a few I’ve been reading for at least a few months, many of them for years, some for decades.

Applied philosophers

The only true philosophers of our time.

• Mathflaneur (by Nassim Taleb)
• Ribbonfarm (by Venkatesh Rao, who also has a newsletter of half-baked ideas he calls Ribbonfarm Studio)

The new scientists

People without major academic credentials who have interesting ideas about science.

• Alexey Guzey (also see Guzey’s Best of Twitter, and also see New Science)
• Applied Divinity Studies
• Astral Codex Ten (former Slate Star Codex)
• Fantastic Anachronism
• Gwern
• Nintil

The old scientists

People with major academic credentials and interesting ideas, something to teach, or both.

• I am Intramural (from the NIH Intramural Research Program)
• Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science by Andew Gelman
• Statistical Thinking by Frank Harrell
• Stephen Wolfram Writings
• The Mathematical Oncology Blog (see also This week in Mathematical Oncology)

The ludites

People against modernity of one sort or another.

• Axiom of Chance (Simon DeDeo, who does not seem to have a Twitter account)
• Patrick Rhone (who does have a Twitter account)
• Study Hacks (by Cal Newport, whose Twitter account, if real, has been abandoned years ago)
• Wrath of Gnon (who is in fact — and sadly — all Twitter)

People doing their own thing

Unclassifiable but exhilarating.

• Craig Mod (and on Twitter) who walks, makes books, and takes photos.
• Garden of Forking Paths (by Abe Callard, who watches movies)
• Rands in Repose (by Michael Lopp, who manages people)
• The Sephist (by Linus, who makes his own software tools)
• Thought Asylum (by Stephen Millard, who makes other people’s software tools more usable)

Apple enthusiasts

Some tips, a few tricks, many opinions.

• And now it’s all this
• Brett Terpstra (if you have a Mac and use it for more than just browsing the internet and answering email — not that there is anything wrong with that — Terpstra’s tools will save you days of work; he could easily have been slotted in the category above, but the Apple tag predates all and he is an Apple lifer)
• Daring Fireball (by John Gruber)
• Hypercritical (a sadly neglected blog by John Siracusa although what you should really check out is the podcast of the same name which has been out of production for years but still fun and relevant)
• Macdrifter
• Marco.org (by Marco Arment)

Finance-adjacent

Economists and investors, for the most part.

• Global Inequality (by Branko Milanović)
• Marginal Revolution (by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok who also wrote an excellent textbook in economics which I plan on reading some day, likely in retirement)
• Pseudoerasmus (the last post was in 2017 so I’m not holding out any hope, though he is on Twitter)
• The Rational Walk (see also Rational Reflections and the Twitter account)
• 10-K diver (as close to a blog that a Twitter account can get)

Journalist-cum-substackers

Former or current journalists who now earn some or all of their living by writing newsletters via Substack, which is slowly reinventing blogs (in the sense of reinventing the wheel, not actually making them better and in fact in many was making them much worse).

• Everything Studies (by John Nerst)
• Galaxy Brain (by Charlie Warzel)
• Insight (by Zeynep Tufekci, who is hands down the best journalist currently writing)
• Slow Boring (by Matthew Yglesias)

Company blogs

For when I really want to know when the next update is coming.

• Devonian Times, from the makers of my note-collecting tool of choice, DEVONthink
• The Omni Group, makers of OmniFocus (and OmniGraffle, which I don’t use often enough for it to be essential but which is fairly
• Wolfram Blog, from the makers of Mathematica

• The Americans
• The Mandalorian
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
• Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels
• Peter Thiel’s Zero to One
• Sam Harris’s Waking Up app
• Steven Wolfram’s Mathematica
• The following Mac “productivity” apps: Omnifocus, Omnigraffle, DevonThink Pro, Tinderbox
• Zettelkasten
• Apple hardware
• Electric bicycles
• Birdwatching

Obviously, I recommend all of the above.

See also: Things I used to like but now wonder what in the world I was thinking.

• Social media
• Gmail
• Richard Dawkins and his “New Atheism”
• Ayn Rand’s two books

There must be more, but I am good at suppressing.

See also: Things I heard were good but was holding out for reasons unknown then wondered why I haven’t tried them sooner.

• Reading: VAV1 mutations contribute to development of T-cell neoplasms in mice, in addition to the two books I hope to finish this month.
• Watching: A master contortionist.
• Playing: The Dead South, a kids' favorite.
• Feeling: Quite well actually, considering.

• Reading: T follicular helper phenotype predicts response to histone deacetylase inhibitors in relapsed/refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma
• Watching: Democracy in action, and freedom of speech. Both are good, no? OK, maybe not
• Playing: Just One which is the perfect game to play with a precocious 8-year-old
• Feeling: Feverish. Let’s hope it’s just the vaccine.

• Reading: The Peripheral T-Cell Lymphomas: an Unusual Path to Cure
• Watching: Vitalik Buterin talks to Tyler Cowen. I don’t understand why this only has 2k views
• Playing: Season 2 of The Americans, and also its most excellent soundtrack
• Feeling: Good about today. Tomorrow, not so much.

• Reading: Edward Tufte’s website, in preparation for his new book which I will also read at some point this year, I hope
• Watching: These Tinderbox video tutorials are an excellent introduction to a powerful application
• Playing: Running with the Wolves at bedtime, on repeat. Don’t ask.
• Feeling: Thankful that my parenting skills aren’t a trending topic on Twitter.

• Reading: TCR and TCL1A collaboration in T-PLL, an article from late last year about T prolymphocytic leukemia, sometimes called T-CLL, both being misnomers.
• Watching: Video of a hawk (or is it a falcon?) picking on a rat carcass on top of a traffic light in DC, courtesy of my wife. I’ll spare you the gory details.
• Playing: Hunt a Killer, which is a birthday present I may finally get to since we are now 2 for 3 in rainy days this year.
• Thinking: If I am typing this on the phone is it still considered writing?

• Reading: My Name is Red and A Pattern Language, still. The beginning few chapters of the latter give the best explanation for why McMansions are a waste of space, with square foot upon square foot of single-use (or no-use!) space.
• Watching: Season 1 of The Americans soon to be completed. Tough stuff.
• Playing: Dark Souls III (or rather I will attempt to do so… the Elder Signs game went fine yesterday until the youngest decided sucking on monster tokens is great use of his time)
• Eating: black beans (like most cooking websites this one too has SEO’d itself into parody, but it is a good recipe)
• Thinking: Does birdwatching count as playing? Because with the gorgeous weather outside a walk in the woods will be in order.