Shrink Rap Radio - 200 great podcasts

Shrink Rap Radio is by all standards one of the very best podcasts around. Not only is this the most varied and accessible podcast about psychology, it has such a good atmosphere, it is a treat for also anyone who is not directly interested in psychology. Furthermore, this podcast is a great example for other podcasters.

There is a lot podcasters can learn from host Dr. David van Nuys. First of all, Van Nuys is an excellent interviewer. He manages to make the interviews sound like natural conversations, yet he manages to keep the talk ordered and within the range of 30-45 minutes. In this respect he is frequently better than professionals. In addition, Dr. Dave has been very successful at building a faithful audience, by adding a warm personal atmosphere to the show and a lot of attention to listener input. I am sure this has enhanced his following. Last but not least, Shrink Rap Radio has great quality promo's, slogans and musical additions. This podcast is as complete as it can be.

Shrink Rap Radio exists since 2005 and has produced 200 episodes of pretty persistent quality so far. The whole archive is available for free. Shrink Rap Radio is a must listen for everybody.

More Shrink Rap Radio:
Technology and The Evolving Brain,
Nova Spivack,
Relationships and the brain,
Psychologist writer,
Dana Houck, Prison Psychologist.

Diamond rain and other phenomena - Ran Levi

How I love the typical Israeli jokes on the podcast Making History with Ran Levi (עושים היסטוריה! עם רן לוי). In the last issue he kicked off with one and closed with it again, but let's first look at the subject.

In this series of history of science, we were taken through the solar system to look at the weather conditions on other planets and their moons. Obviously, the most violent of atmosphere is Jupiter with its profound red spot, the storm that is visible from down here. But what about Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, that has such a high pressure and low temperatures that the methane rains are pressed to drops of diamonds. A fascinating journey that makes you appreciate our own climate.

So where is the joke? You could easily do without, but just for the heck of it, Ran Levi takes us in his tale on a spaceship through the system. And the spaceship, of course, is a leasing vehicle, so that we can take it on the long bumpy trip without bother. And when we return we shrug at the קצין הרכב who points out the numerous scratches on the damn thing. This is another version of the Israeli joke: "You knew they have invented a low budget, medium size off the road car? It's called leasing." But maybe this is universal after all.

More Making History:
Blood,
Myths and pseudo-knowledge,
What goes up, must come down,
Douglas Adams,
Sophie Germain.

Intellectual Property and the common interest - RSA

Here is one of the most interesting and exciting lectures I have heard in the past months. Speaker James Boyle, who spoke on the same subject on Thinking Allowed earlier this month, made an impressive argument for radically relaxing our concepts and rules about intellectual property, for the benefit of science, culture and economy.

Boyle spoke at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (podcast: RSA Current Events), after his book The Public Domain. He argues that the current rules for intellectual property, that, in the process of international harmonization, are getting more and more rigid are actually harming cultural, scientific and economic life. The rules are shutting too much valuable material out from the common use and thus harms the common interest.

The paradoxical thing is that with the emergence of the internet we are in fact experiencing the wonderful, counterintuitive blessings of openness and common use in open-source software, bottom-up knowledge (wikipedia) and speedy disclosure of information (a.o. with Google), while at the same time raising the thresholds of intellectual property. The internet that originally was set-up to serve science actually stumbles over IP rights and finds scientific material barred, leaving the common use with none, dated or second rate material. Boyle pleads to adapt the open character of the internet to much more material today in order to fully enjoy the wealth of intellectual sources that exist.

More RSA:
Israel and Palestine,
Terror and Martyrdom,
Keynes.

More Thinking Allowed:
Substance and Sociology,
Hole in the Wall,
Moral relativism,
Male Immaturity.

Colmar von der Goltz - veertien achttien

Bij elke biografie in de podcast Veertien Achttien moet je je afvragen welk aspect van de Eerste Wereldoorlog hier belicht wordt. In de episode over Colmar von der Goltz is dat wellicht het vanzelfsprekende, al te ver doorgevoerde, nationalisme.

Onze verteller, Tom Tacken, begint het verhaal met een weergave van een van de aangeklaagde Nazis in de Neurenberg processen. Zoals zoveel excessen van de Eerste Wereldoorlog, is ook het nationalisme nog verder en nog ellendiger doorgevoerd in de Tweede. Maar juist dit citaat geeft aanwijzing dat het nationalisme geen monopolie van de Duitsers is. En daarmee gaan we kijken naar Colmar von der Goltz.

Wat Von der Goltz begreep en ook neerschreef, was dat in de moderne verhoudingen oorlog een zaak van de gehele staat was geworden. Nationalisme was een gevoel dat het gehele volk moest bijgebracht worden, voor het moment dat het onder de wapenen moest worden geroepen. De tragiek van deze oorlog is wellicht dat deze boodschap wat al te goed begrepen is en al te grondig doorgevoerd werd. En zo konden de soldaten in loopgraven geofferd blijven voor vier jaar lang.

Meer Veertien Achttien:
Sir Ian Hamilton,
H.H. Asquith,
Anton Kröller,
Rosa Luxemburg,
Marie Curie.

NYT - World View podcast

Erno Mijland of the blog Alles kan altijd beter reminded me of the assorted podcasts by the New York Times. Among these is the podcast World View (feed) which is delivered by the international staff of the newspaper.

This is a weekly podcast of around ten minutes that each time takes on one subject and has one or several experts give brief answers to the most important questions. For example, last week's issue was about drones, unmanned aircraft that are being used in modern warfare. The week before that, delved into Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and his recent efforts to take a leading role in Africa and to revalue the country's status in the west. Of the old podcasts, only four are kept in the feed, so it is not a fit podcast to pick and choose subjects. It is more of the kind to stay subscribed and get quickly informed on whatever the editors choose to deliver.

Once you find a subject you want to delve into some more, the UChannel Podcast offers the length and backlog that allows for pick and choose. Taking one of the above examples, UChannel has a full length lecture about robotics in war (which is about more than just Drones). NYT gives the quick update and if their choice of subjects meets your interest, it works like a newspaper indeed. It helps you to stay generally informed. A pity this doesn't come out daily.

More NYT:
The Ethicist,
Times Talks.

Anne is a Man in the week of March 23

Here is a schedule of reviews I am planning to write this week (Monday-Thursday)

-The New York Times podcast World View with among others talk about drones in war.

-The Dutch podcast about World War I, veertien achttien delivered a biography of Colmar von der Goltz

-BBC's Thinking Allowed discusses research in social sciences and by chance also a joke about a horse named Eric.

-Making History with Ran Levi took us on a journey through our solar system, observing the weather on other planets.

-The fabulous psychology podcast Shrink Rap Radio has delivered its 200th episode.

-Ontario TV's Big Ideas ventures into crime.

-A lecture at the RSA spoke about the Public Domain or The Commons of the Mind

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