December 30, 2025
Voices in my head, 2025
Behold the survivors of my November podcast purge:
Lindy
The Talk Show With John Gruber is, I think, the first podcast I ever downloaded, at a time when a white 1st generation iPod Nano was the only Apple product I owned. I haven’t missed a single episode since, though I am still waiting for one that matches its November 2016 peak.
Accidental Tech Podcast is one that I have listened to since the very beginning, when it was the after show of the host trio’s short-lived car podcast Neutral. I did drop it at some point but am now back to being a supporter, if for nothing else then to continue listening to John Siracusa kvetch about various topics. Though that, too, is yet to reach levels of his first and now retired podcast Hypercritical
Dithering is the only one I actually pay for. Like the two above it is about mostly about (Apple) technology, this one with a tinge of sports and geopolitics that Ben Thompson brings to the table.
Maybe
New Creative Era got me interested because of its second season, which is about the Internet as a dark forest. The whole Metalabel enterprise is worth checking out, though it’s too late to browse it for Christmas presents. Unless, of course, your church’s December 25th falls on January 7, in which case I am willing to bet your “Christmas” gifts are exchanged on New Year’s Day and you may still have some time.
Old School with Shilo Brooks brings a new celebrity each episode to talk about a book that changed their lives. Although a part of The Free Press, it has no politics and much nostalgia. I don’t care much for the host, but where else would I be able to hear Nick Cave talk about Pinocchio?
Cortex has lost my favorite YouTuber as a co-host, but in its stead has a series of Internet personalities talk about their daily routines and productivity. Yes, please.
Will try them out, one of these days
Hard Drugs started off great, with the first two episodes being under 20 minutes and about topics that are essential for drug development (proteins and the development of insulin). The streak didn’t last: episodes 4, 5 and 6 are 54, 60 and 274 (yes, really) minutes long respectively. The young people who made it clearly had time on their hands; sadly, I don’t.
Statecraft, a podcast about American domestic and foreign policy, I will take a moment here to note that Serbian and the adjacent langages — “naš” or “our” language in modern parlance — use the same word for both policy and politics, which is politika. Much evil has come from this confusion in terms. goes out of its way not to be about politics, focusing on the successes and lessons learned from the recent history. This is why I am on the fence about listening to any of it: maybe a podcast about the domestic policy of the late 1800s would be more applicable to the present day.
In Our Time is, on the other hand, a timeless podcast which I plan on listening well into my retirement. Not having retired yet, this year I only had time for Italo Calvino and Slime Moulds
And here are years past: 2024 — 2023 — 2022 — 2021 — 2020 — 2019 — 2018 — 2017 — The one where I took a break from podcasts — The very first one
December 29, 2025
Our favorite Smithsonian museum(s) continue to surprise and delight. Tucked away on the third and fourth floors of SAAM is the storage center you can actually visit, featuring one impressive sculpture. The parallel space in the National Portrait Gallery is as impressive, though currently empty.
