Questing for Happiness - Shrink Rap Radio

For some time I had not been listening to Shrink Rap Radio, the psychology interview podcast by Dr. David van Nuys. The benefit turned out to be, I could choose from the backlog and chose to listen to an interview with the promising title The Happiness Hypothesis.

Guest in this program is Jonathan Haidt, who has done a lengthy literature analysis in which he compared the wisdom of a wide range of cultural traditions on what they had to say about morality, human feeling and happiness. Out of this research he has distilled a 'happiness hypothesis', an idea of how one could effectively quest for happiness. In the interview he systematically reveals his study, his steps and his conclusions. I was surprised to find Haidt managed to find something beyond the teachings of Buddhism, which is the most psychological of traditions and has - in my experience - the most effective handle on inner well-being. Somehow I always feel though, there is some element missing. There is too much detachment in Buddhism to my taste. The construction of Haidt looks very promising and inspiring. What a ravishing interview.

Needless to say, no such great interview could have been achieved without the incomparable host of Shrink Rap Radio, Dr. Dave. In addition to being a great podcaster, blessed with a voice naturally fit for broadcast and the necessary knowledge in the field, Dr. Dave is impeccable as an interviewer. Always keeping the natural atmosphere of free conversation, yet managing to guide the process to sufficient depth and to satisfying conclusion within the arch of 30-45 minutes. Surely one of the best podcasts around and not only great for listeners interested in psychology.

More Shrink Rap Radio on this blog:
Sign language for babies,
Doll Work and what with the brain,
Confronting Death (and more),
Process Work,
Authoritarianism.

The story of Mad Jack

As I wrote before about Your History Podcast, this podcast attempts to tell history by means of stories. The podcast has started only recently , but also in the latest edition we can see it remains true to this approach. As far as history is concerned, I wonder how much you can learn from this, unless you know exactly in what context to place the story. However, the story as such is delivered as a narrative that works very well.

The latest episode is about a nobleman named John Mytton, but who is better known as Mad Jack. Your History Podcast's host Dan Brown very aptly tells the story. He succeeds in taking the listener in and pass the narrative on in a way that is both informative and entertaining. For me, as a non-native English speaker, it takes a little bit of getting used to Dan's accent and diction, but apart from that his performance is very effective and professional. (transcript)

I can recommend this podcast to everyone who loves funny, illustrious and charming stories that take place in the past. Assuming that nearly everybody is sensitive to a good story, this means the podcast is fit for all audience. In addition I could say, that the stories, since they dig into one specific set of data, will serve as an illustration more than an explanation of history.

Previously on Your History Podcast:
The story of Spring Heeled Jack

A new year, a new style

Dear Readers,

I started my blog a year ago and when in November, I restyled for the first time, I decided I was not going to take on such a painful effort again before the end of the first year. Now that the end is near, I took it upon me to leave the standard templates Google offers with Blogspot and choose one from the - allegedly - better templates on the web. It is good I have set up a development environment, because with all the rewriting and rebuilding I had to do, I have come to appreciate the standard templates a lot more. Not because they are especially good, but because they work and they merge into the customizations done in the previous template.

Nevertheless, the advantage of having a development environment and the advantage of having started in time (a month ahead of the migration), has allowed me to get acquainted with what templates looked fit and adapt them to the requirements I have. Now I really believe I am heading to a design that looks much more professional and will be much easier to use - for you. So take a look.

Blog 1
This was the first template I liked and for a long time, I felt it was my favorite. It has stopped being the favorite because of a number of problems, some of which you can witness yourself. For one, the right hand side of the page will disappear with a combination of FireFox 1.5 and a small screen. With a large screen, on the other hand, the blog title will not outline along the text block, but rather, way to the left. What you do not see, is that I struggled with very unexpected behavior upon editing. Whole sections would go lost, with totally unrelated changes in the code. So this style is probably going to be discarded.


Blog 2
Another template I liked from the start was this colorful lay-out. Just as with the previous one, the code turns out to be not very robust and the behavior is unpredictable in some browsers (for example: the about sections turns invisible in some IE configurations). Over time, the bright colors began to put me off. The attention is drawn to the bright red middle of the screen and not to the content (either the text or the relevant items in the sidebars).


Blog 3
I don't recall why I started developing this template at all. I wanted a 3 column look in the first place and a search button and this one had neither. Somehow the fresh simplicity made me keep it and by now I have figured a way to add a search and have also come to understand the disadvantages of three columns, basically this has turned from the worst to the best candidate for the final design since it turned out to be easily changeable as well.


Blog 4
The last design appealed to me for its professional look. Though I had to thoroughly strip it from advertisements. Once that was done,what remained is a very good look. If I can repair the scripting errors and easily adapt colors and such, it is the best competitor for blog 3.


As I see it, the work is now down to resizing and recoloring. Wherever the resizing works out best and is easiest to be done;that is the template that will remain.

Please let me know what you think. Especially if you run into some issues viewing the blogs - I must know what to fix. Comment on this post or write me a mail (Anne Frid de Vries -in one word- at yahoo dot co dot uk). Thanks in advance.

Anne

This weekend on Anne is a Man!

While I am working on the new design, I have figured out how to add a search box to the blog. I felt this was much needed, even though the Blogger strip on top delivers the same functionality. The standard search, however, is easily overlooked, and so I have put it right over the posting area.

Tomorrow:
An update about the development of the new designs. The four candidates are getting into shape. No decision has been taken which one is going to be the future design. Your feedback is still very much appreciated.



Previously about the designs:
Anne is a Man! will be having a face lift

Friday till Sunday:
- The Missing Link Podcast (What is it with Popper?)
- Shrink Rap Radio (Long time no see)
- The Writing Show (Getting published with ... )
- Your History Podcast (An eccentric appearance)

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You can let your preferences (I'd love get new podcast recommendations) know by commenting on the blog or sending mail to The Man Called Anne at: Anne Frid de Vries (in one word) AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk

Existentialism - Philosophy 7

A long time ago, one of the readers of this blog alerted me to a 2006 course on Berkeley in existentialism (Phil 7). Hubert Dreyfus speaks about Existentialism in Literature and Film, touches on Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. As many would, I was expecting Sartre and I was not so keen on getting Kierkegaard. Not that I knew much of Kierkegaard, but I had him pegged as a Romanticist sufferer with a heavy, heavy Christian inclination.

I took the introduction lecture and even though I recognized it as a good lecture, it didn't connect. This semester the course has returned (now called Philosophy 7), but that was not what triggered me to try again. It was BBC's In Our Time. A university course sometimes needs some preparation, some previous disclosure of the subject field, in order to make one feel comfortable with the somewhat detached position of listening in on the lectures through podcast. You could take it up really seriously and read along with the students, but who has time for that? Besides, you do not have to pass the exam. The question is whether, with some general knowledge, listening in is going to deliver some education and entertainment.

It does. Actually existentialism is really fit for that. It is much more about experience and much less dry theory and abstraction as philosophy tends to be. Still I needed some entry. After having heard In Our Time's issue about Kierkegaard, I had a sufficient grip on him (and less objection) and suddenly Philosophy 7 opened up for me.

Unlike the university courses, In Our Time hardly has any entry level and thus it served as a great preparation and I would recommend this to everybody. First take Kierkegaard in In Our Time and then proceed to Huber Dreyfus's course at Berkeley.

More Berkeley:
The Making of Europe,
Shakespeare,
Non Violence,
Berkeley Spring 2008 has kicked off,
US History - from Civil War to Present.

More philosophy:
Philosophy Bites,
Wittgenstein,
The Popperian Pathway,
Socrates,
Introduction to Philosophy - cuny podcast.

More In Our Time:
Kierkegaard,
The Fisher King,
Albert Camus,
Guilt,
Victorian Pessimism.

In Our Time

BBC's podcast In Our Time releases on a weekly basis panel discussions on a wide variety of subjects exploring the history of ideas (or the history of thought as it was termed in previous seasons). Each and every issue is very much worthwhile listening to. Host Melvyn Bragg does an absolutely superb job of leading the discussion and the program makes sure he is always accompanied by three of the best academicians in the relevant fields.

Recent episodes paid attention to Kierkegaard, portraying the philosopher and giving an excellent overview over his thinking laying the foundation to existentialism. To the Dissolution of the Monasteries, bringing us close to the era when Henry VIII disconnected the Church of England from Rome and as a part of that process managed to dismantle hundreds of monasteries all over the land, thus removing an element of the culture which was so important until the end of the Middle Ages and needed to be replaced afterwards. Lastly to Newton's Laws of Motion; how Sir Isaac took an original approach in natural philosophy while he actually wanted to engage in theology and lay the basis for physics that still serves today.

In Our Time is regularly reviewed on this blog. It can be tracked with the label In Our Time. The podcast is one of the best that is around and fit to almost all audiences. Here is a list of past reviews:

General podcast review,
King Lear,
Ada Lovelace,
The Social Contract,
Plate Tectonics,
The Fisher King,
The Charge of the Light Brigade,
Albert Camus,
The Nicene Creed,
Four humor medicine,
The Sassanian Empire,
Mutations,
The Fibonacci Sequence,
The Prelude,
Oxygen,
Avicenna,
Guilt,
Taste,
Arabian Nights,
The Divine Right of Kings,
Antimatter,
Socrates,
Mass Extinction,
Common Sense,
Astrology,
Siegfried Sassoon,
William of Ockham,
Joan of Arc,
Gravitational Waves,
Victorian Pessimism.