Podcast Central

[falafel]

Serial - Season 2 was released today. This season focuses on Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/bu...ssey.html?_r=1

[Northwestcoug]

Serial - Season 2 was released today. This season focuses on Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/bu...ssey.html?_r=1

Just started it. Seems like an interesting story. Should be good!

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I bet she comes to the conclusion he's not guilty.

[cougjunkie]

Podcasts are still a thing?

[All-American]

Podcasts are still a thing?

More so than ever, it seems.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Podcasts are still a thing?

I show what podcast I'm listening to on my snapstory.

[Northwestcoug]

I bet she comes to the conclusion he's not guilty.

Hey! I just started listening!

[falafel]

I bet she comes to the conclusion he's not guilty.

Not guilty of abandoning his post? I don't think he's even disputing that.

[Clark Addison]

I was not a big fan of the Invisibilia episode that was hosted on Radiolab a few weeks back. Based on it, I declined to give it a try. "I think this one will get better with time" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, either, so I think I will still refrain

If a month or two down the road you are still on board, let us know, and maybe I will give it another shot.

I am starting to think that the Radiolab guys know how to put out a great podcast, but have terrible taste in other people's. As I said in this post, the "Invisibilia" one they hosted got a solid "meh" from me. Yesterday, I listened to "The Cathedral", which was from the "Reply All" podcast. Frankly, I kind of hated it.

[Northwestcoug]

I am starting to think that the Radiolab guys know how to put out a great podcast, but have terrible taste in other people's. As I said in this post, the "Invisibilia" one they hosted got a solid "meh" from me. Yesterday, I listened to "The Cathedral", which was from the "Reply All" podcast. Frankly, I kind of hated it.

I'm curious. What did you hate about it? I thought it was pretty moving. I'm even contemplating buying that computer game, just to support the family.

[falafel]

I'm curious. What did you hate about it? I thought it was pretty moving. I'm even contemplating buying that computer game, just to support the family.

Is that the game where you get to play the parents of a kid that dies from cancer? I heard a brief NPR story about it and thought "why in the hell would anyone ever play that game?"

[Northwestcoug]

Is that the game where you get to play the parents of a kid that dies from cancer? I heard a brief NPR story about it and thought "why in the hell would anyone ever play that game?"

Yes. If I bought it I don't think I'd ever play. But it's something like 17 bucks, and I was moved enough by his story to support the cause.

[old_gregg]

Serial - Season 2 was released today. This season focuses on Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/bu...ssey.html?_r=1

so turns out at least the first two episodes of this are pretty boring. i don't get what the mystery is here

[Clark Addison]

I'm curious. What did you hate about it? I thought it was pretty moving. I'm even contemplating buying that computer game, just to support the family.

Probably is mostly to do with me being a cold, hard-hearted cynic, and you being a nice guy, but other than that, I would list the reasons as follows. I will say that some of my dislike was based on assumptions and guesses that may be wrong on my part.

1. This may sound weird coming from an active Mormon, but I really disliked a lot of the religious aspects. I think that religion can be a great comfort when facing mortality, but everything about their religious experience seemed to me the opposite. From the woman at their church who "prophesied" that their son had great things to do in his life, to the prayer meeting they had, to their belief that their son would be raised from the dead. All of it seemed to be based on denial and the supernatural than in trying to understand life and death. The mother even admitted that a lot of this stuff left them unprepared for his death. In the end, I really had a SeattleUte-type of reaction to their church. I will return to this point a couple of times.

2. When he first started talking about the video game, it was around "what if you created a game where all of your choices are bad". I thought that was interesting initial concept that could be explored. What if you did create a game with no right answers? But he didn't really explore that. He just basically told the story of his son's battle with cancer. I think he had an interesting concept that he failed to explore.

3. The speech he made at the video game show was just way too evangelical Christian for me

4. As Falafel said, the more they talked about the game, the more I thought "Who would possibly want to play this?"

5. I admit that I am totally guessing on this one, but the podcast talked about the investors in the game, and how they thought this was some sort of bold new frontier. My hunch throughout hearing about it was that the investors are from some sort of faith-based organization, and their investment is more about proselyting than it is about pushing the boundaries of video games. Feel free to tell me I am full of crap on this one if that is not the case.

6. I was kind of annoyed when I heard Jad and Rob gush about the detail, the graphics, and the visual beauty of the game. Again, this was a guess, but I was thinking that while I was not much of a gamer, I would bet that Jad and Rob have not played video games since their Atari days, and wouldn't know good graphics from terrible ones. I did go and look at the video on the developer's site, and from what I can see it looks like graphics from 5 years ago, nothing special at all.

7. I dislike forced sentimentality, and the scenes from the game they played seemed full of it.

I could probably come up with a few more things, but I probably already sound like an unfeeling curmudgeon. I did have a lot of sympathy for the family, but that didn't stop me from disliking the story.

[Northwestcoug]

Probably is mostly to do with me being a cold, hard-hearted cynic, and you being a nice guy, but other than that, I would list the reasons as follows. I will say that some of my dislike was based on assumptions and guesses that may be wrong on my part.

1. This may sound weird coming from an active Mormon, but I really disliked a lot of the religious aspects. I think that religion can be a great comfort when facing mortality, but everything about their religious experience seemed to me the opposite. From the woman at their church who "prophesied" that their son had great things to do in his life, to the prayer meeting they had, to their belief that their son would be raised from the dead. All of it seemed to be based on denial and the supernatural than in trying to understand life and death. The mother even admitted that a lot of this stuff left them unprepared for his death. In the end, I really had a SeattleUte-type of reaction to their church. I will return to this point a couple of times.

2. When he first started talking about the video game, it was around "what if you created a game where all of your choices are bad". I thought that was interesting initial concept that could be explored. What if you did create a game with no right answers? But he didn't really explore that. He just basically told the story of his son's battle with cancer. I think he had an interesting concept that he failed to explore.

3. The speech he made at the video game show was just way too evangelical Christian for me

4. As Falafel said, the more they talked about the game, the more I thought "Who would possibly want to play this?"

5. I admit that I am totally guessing on this one, but the podcast talked about the investors in the game, and how they thought this was some sort of bold new frontier. My hunch throughout hearing about it was that the investors are from some sort of faith-based organization, and their investment is more about proselyting than it is about pushing the boundaries of video games. Feel free to tell me I am full of crap on this one if that is not the case.

6. I was kind of annoyed when I heard Jad and Rob gush about the detail, the graphics, and the visual beauty of the game. Again, this was a guess, but I was thinking that while I was not much of a gamer, I would bet that Jad and Rob have not played video games since their Atari days, and wouldn't know good graphics from terrible ones. I did go and look at the video on the developer's site, and from what I can see it looks like graphics from 5 years ago, nothing special at all.

7. I dislike forced sentimentality, and the scenes from the game they played seemed full of it.

I could probably come up with a few more things, but I probably already sound like an unfeeling curmudgeon. I did have a lot of sympathy for the family, but that didn't stop me from disliking the story.

I get the dislike of the evangelical Christian aspect of it. I found it off-putting as well. I did mentally shake my head at that weird prayer meeting. I will be honest, when the child began improving, I got a little nervous, wondering if I needed to return to God .

I didn't think about the possibility of the investors being a faith-based organization. But now that you mention it, I was very surprised that anyone wanted financially back a game like that. If that is the case, then yeah, that's lame. I saw some of the scenes from the game as well. I'm too far removed from active gaming, but I thought it just represented the more 'artsy' feel that some games seem to be showcasing. I agree that the graphics were not as awe-inspiring as Jad and Rob made them out to be.

I think that this represented more of just an interesting story to be told. I don't think it was as good as what Radiolab usually puts out, so I agree with you that their track record of showcasing other podcasts is not great. But I still liked(?) listening to it. I wonder if I was more touched because I've been following the tragic story of a certain girl on Facebook lately.