Title is pretty straightforward I think.

Trying to get my Podcast listening off of Spotify because I just hate their player and UX lately. Also, no ability to add feeds by RSS link.

My daily drivers I spend most of my time on are my iPhone and Macbook Pro. After that, maybe I would listen on my iPad, or my PC that is running both Linux and Windows.

Hello all. I feel like our US election upset (or victory depending on viewpoint) has really run wild on Tildes. I appreciate all the solidarity and encouragement from the non-US folks. I know for better or worse it affects many of you as well.

While knowing these are special circumstances, I was thinking maybe folks feel a little left out or overshadowed by our drama.

Back before I had to go on a podcast diet, I really enjoyed the weekly updates from American Prestige because they would discuss important or interesting political/social developments and explain their implications.

So what's something happening where you are? How do you feel about it? What do you wish more people knew about it? It can be big or small. It does not have to be something political, just something important to you.

In search of an app where I can pay for pro features once and get a fully featured application. Is it even possible these days?

Ok, now begin rant.

I don't understand - these services are aggregators of other people's content and let's be honest, only have to build a competent media player one time.

Why the subscription? While I fully understand that Adobe kicked off this new evil timeline of permanent rentals, I don't fully understand how this applies for something as simple as a media player.

Anyone have recommendations for good true crime podcasts? The format I'm most interested in would be something documentary-style, similar to Darknet Diaries (easily one of my top 3 podcasts in general), but covering a broader range of crime instead of just technology/internet-based ones. I've given a few podcasts a try, but there are so many true crime podcasts I don't really know where to start. Here are some I've already given a shot and why I like or don't like them:

• My Favorite Murder - I could stomach it OK in the early episodes, but once they started dong all the live shows and I had to listen to crowds laughing and cheering at what I thought were wholly inappropriate and disturbing moments it really turned me off. I don't mind approaching crime with a bit of humor (we laugh so we don't cry), this one takes it a bit too far for me at times.

• Crime in Sports and Small Town Murder - Lumping these together since they're by the same guys. It's another one where they take the comedy a bit too far for my taste at times. I originally learned about these guys from the Timesuck podcast (which I'm enjoying as I'm listening through older episodes and does sometimes cover crimes).

• Predators I've Caught - I actually kinda like this one. I watched and enjoyed all the TCAP stuff with Chris Hansen way back in the day, and even though I've come to realize that a lot of it is kind of problematic I can look past most of that for the purposes of entertainment. My biggest issue with this podcast and why I don't bother with it anymore is the insufferable number of ads they slot into each episode (and no option like patreon to get an ad-free feed). It's basically unlistenable.

• I did listen to Serial while it was actively airing, and it's great, but I'm more interested in one that covers something new each episode as opposed to longer multi-episode arcs.

• I Met My Murderer Online - This one scratched the itch pretty well, but it seems to be done now (no new episodes for over a year and the website doesn't seem to be up anymore). It had decent production value and covered a lot of interesting subjects.

I usually listen to podcasts in chronological order, so I'm totally open to recommendations of podcasts that are no longer producing new episodes if there's a decent backlog to go through.

I'm looking for some interesting artists/songwriters/writers/coders/inventors that try to make as many things in their discipline to "git gud". (for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI71c2GTLPs) Videos are good, but articles and podcasts are good too!

I’m interested in everyday applications like noticing bias in commercial media as well as word-of-mouth and social media. Are there any principles or methods you know of that you’d consider especially important?

I’m also interested in any recommendations for online training.

Edit: Wow! Since there are some great suggestions in the comments, I'd like to summarise them here:

• Primary sources and secondary sources (fefellama)
• Engagement (BeanBurrito)
• Under The Influence by Terry O'Reilly [podcast] (chocobean)
• Influence, marketing, motivation, bias, dark patterns, corruption, phrasing and choice of words (chocobean)
• Multiple sources. Verbalise your thought process / question yourself (hobofarmer)
• Advanced Placement English. Ethos, pathos, logos (Wisix)
• Learning how to hold and study concepts without internalizing them. Not becoming emotionally dependent on “being right”. (bet)
• Flaws in perception and processing. The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef: "the motivation to see things as they are, not as you wish they were" (Landhund)
• Fact checking, exercises such as mock trials (chizcurl)
• Not assuming that critical thinking transfers across domains (daywalker)
• Falsifiability, scientific psychology, psychological bias, cognition / emotion / behaviour (daywalker)
• 'Very Short Introductions' series by Oxford Press (daywalker)
• Many ways to conceptualise "critical thinking". Appreciating the humanity of other people. (mieum)
• Self reflection and acknowledgement of diversity (mieum)
• The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science [book] (gaywallet)
• Being Wrong: Adventures on the Margin of Error [book] (boxer_dogs_dance)
• Be curious and ask questions (Markpelly)
• Empathy facilitates understanding and tempers reactivity (Aerrol)
• Nobel disease or Nobelitis (saturnV)

I am wanting to setup a personal podcast server but I am not really sure how to go about that.

I have my own server at home with docker and I am not sure if there are any well-known FOSS (preferable dockerized) podcast server applications that I can spin up and load some podcast episodes into so that I can create my own custom podcast feed that only I would subscribe to?

and I want to be able to support video podcasts.

I find myself scrolling through YT hoping to see something to play in the background, occasionally checking things like TechLinked or MichaelMJD with occasional PointCrow and Dougdoug. But really just wasting time doing nothing, just scrolling.
So I want to cut it off but I want to fill in that time with something else.
Anyone else has tried to cut off YT(Or at least minimize) YT from their life? I’m probably using YT the wrong way.
I would like some RSS feeds or podcast to make me go on YT less. Or thoughts/opinions/experiences from other people that used to have YT on almost all the time but minimized the time on YT.

Hey all, I'm trying to get into reading historical books - I have a broad range of interests and would be open to trying anything. The only thing that bothers me is when the author is very clearly pushing an agenda. For example, last year I read Band of Brothers which I really enjoyed, but I felt there was quite a bit of American propaganda mixed in which detracted from the historical aspect.

I typically read more fantasy/scifi novels:

Examples of some of my favorite fiction series:

• Dune
• Mistborn Trilogy by Sanderson
• Cradle series by Will Wight
• progression fantasy in general
• LOTR
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

I'm interested in more historical novels because i've listened to a handful of excellent history podcasts and think I would enjoy getting closer to the source, but I've been struggling to pick a book because I'm afraid of choosing one that is too dry.

Podcasts I enjoyed:

• History of Rome by Mike Duncan
• Revolutions by Mike Duncan
• Hardcore History by Dan carlin

Please give me some recommendations!

I have for the last few years been preoccupied with creating a kind of audio-based social media, a call-in radio-show if you will without any call-screening, and the occasional piece of music to rest the ears after too many words. By now this has resulted in a pretty solid community of dedicated listeners capable of discussing a wide range of topics and so far no heckling or trolling even though we never had a call-screener. Two listeners even met through the show and are now dating <3 <4

The relative success of this radio format has made me ponder how a community comparable to tildes would behave if it had an audio or podcast layer to it. Like a spoken forum/Reddit thread with moderators arranging audio messages from users/listeners into threads that make up rotating topical sections in an ongoing audio transmission. If you could listen to a curated spoken feed of tildes. A community-based audio forum live radio social media hybrid.

Drop some references if you know of any media experiments it might be worth for me to know about while I brainstorm with myself!

One example I know of is the US-based 100% listener-sponsored radio station WFMU. Full weekly schedule, absolutely unrelenting top programming by hosts who have full autonomy to explore their broad musical interests. There is never this modern smarmyness of some podcasts hosts. No ads. Fully listener sponsored. Your attention is taken for granted. Nobody's trying to get you hooked. Your attention is rewarded. They have a written chat-roll during most broadcasts the host will sometimes include into their speak, but not often. It's freeform radio with a digital layer as an add-on. It's fantastic for what it is. https://wfmu.org

Do you know of any experimental/hybrid social media where the users/listeners provide the spoken input in the style of call-in radio? Please drop some references, books, anything that connects to experiences gleaned from this type of experiment. Also interested in your ideas for how to make this work in real life.

It's not supposed to be the best and most streamlined brains-off entertainment ever. Just a stab at a technologically modern and democratic way of enabling discourse and the identification that seems a unique feature of audio-based media. When you can't see the person talking, it's a pseudonymous stranger ... you fill in the blanks with projections, guesses about the person. Always loved this kind of interaction. Which is why I'm here on tildes too!

I've been friends with someone for 18 months that seems to be taking the friendship in an inappropriate direction. Well, it started inappropriate as well.

At my last job we all sat in cubicles. One day, having just led my ornithologist brother on a small bird tour of the area, I described the trip to a co-worker. Someone I'd never noticed before popped up from behind a cube wall and started asking questions. She introduced herself and for the next few days continued to strike up conversations with me.

After a certain amount of this I wondered if this was a romantic interest from her. I was already counting the days until I would quit the job so saw little reason not to ask her out for a drink. When I proposed the idea she gave me a devious smile and we quietly headed out. Afterwards, in the settling of the tab, I Venmo'd her for a beer and noticed her Venmo account had a different last name than she has at work and asked about that. She's Chinese and I wasn't sure if sometimes Chinese people might have an anglicized last name in addition to their first name. "Oh, sometimes I use one, sometimes the other" was all I got. Nothing physical occurred or was initiated.

A week later after texting and going to a company workout class together she tells me that she is married. I'm absolutely shocked and feel like I've been used as part of someone's adulterous fantasy. The style of our conversations seemed identical to the getting-to-know-you type of stuff you cover on first dates. But I wasn't sure. Maybe I misread the situation. I tell her I'm not comfortable with the situation and we stop talking for a week. But I'd already joined the group workout class on her recommendation and would see her there anyway. I decided that I didn't really know what her intentions were and would give her the benefit of the doubt. She seemed to be interested in us having a friendship.

But I really wanted to know... what did happen? One of my favorite podcasts is Heavyweight. In it, Jonathan Goldstein plays the role of a social detective. People come to him with relationship issues from their past and he, without the restraint most people feel, badgers people for answers with his journalistic skills. I suspect I am mildly autistic, so for me many mundane social interactions carry mystery. To have Goldstein take relatable life experiences and crack them open for all to see is powerful. It's like we can finally get some goddamn answers to people's closest kept secrets.

So as time went on I got integrated into her group of friends, met her husband, her dog. Her husband seems like a great guy. But my friend would give indications of unhappiness in her marriage, often in groups when he was not around, occasionally over text message to me. I never engaged.

She had some hard-to-get permits for a backpacking trip. It would be a trip of four. Her husband was not interested so she invited three friends including myself. I went on the trip, made a new friend who just moved to my city, and had a great time. Immediately afterwards we started planning a new trip.

At some point my female friend did initiate a conversation on what she was thinking when we went out for a drink and what happened during the days after before she told me she was married. It boiled down to her wanting my friendship but not wanting to change my behavior. In my interpretation she wanted the attention of being dated. I honestly wasn't sure how much I believed this explanation - and even on its face it didn't sound super great.

So we just got back from another backpacking trip - myself, my female friend, and a male friend of hers who is married. During the trip I ended up discussing my sexuality with the two of them. I consider myself to be on the spectrum of asexuality. I described, as best I could, what makes me attracted to people (an emotional connection, their personality and intelligence, etc.) and the short list of people I had found myself strongly attracted to. I didn't list my female friend - I had lost most of my interest with that initial feeling of being used a year and a half ago. And a couple weeks isn't quite enough time for me to really get things revved up. Visibly I could see she was very confused but I didn't acknowledge her reaction. "Wasn't there one more ... the married one?" I dodged the question.

On the drive back her male friend brought up the topic of my sexuality again. I answered his questions. My female friend seemed to again want to know if I was attracted to her. "Do you ever find your friends attractive?" "Are you attracted to older women?" (she's older than me)

On my side of things, this friendship has been predicated on the idea that as long as I didn't engage with anything I consider to be unethical there couldn't be any harm done. But now I'm not so sure. And what's worse - I'm finding myself attracted to her again because of her interest.

I've been thinking about having a conversation about how she's making me uncomfortable. I think it's past the point where there's any chance nothing's going on. I really do not get the impression she's trying to leave her husband. I just feel played with.

Edit: Okay, the friend in question is away for a few weeks but I'll have a conversation with them when they get back to figure this out.

What media representation resonated with you personally?

In teaching, we talk about kids’ need to access diverse literature in the framing of “mirrors” and “windows”. A mirror is a character that the child can see themselves in; a window is a character that is different and requires perspective-taking.

A gay child seeing a gay character in a story might see that character as a mirror of themselves, while straight readers might see the character as a window instead, offering some perspective into what it’s like to be gay.

No mirror or window is a perfect match, of course, and people can still identify with characters who don’t exactly align with their identities (which is what makes fiction such a powerful tool for empathy!).

Share some of the characters and people that have resonated with you (whether as windows or mirrors) across any media types (books, movies, television, music, comics, anime, podcasts, etc.).

They can be people who helped you understand yourself better, or people who gave you insight into others' experiences (or both!).

Addenda:

• They do not need to be fictional characters. Real-world people can be windows and mirrors too!

• You don’t have to specify whether someone’s a "window" or a "mirror" for you unless you want to. It’s a simple shorthand way of helping kids understand the concept, but it can feel a little limiting and boxy for adults to use it, since people and characters are complex individuals.

Event Guidelines

Everyone is welcome to participate. This includes allies! You do not need to identify as LGBT in order to join in the topics.

I will use "queer" and "LGBT" interchangeably as umbrella terms to refer to all minority sexualities and gender identities. These are intended to be explicitly inclusive.

Be kind; be gracious; listen to others; love lots.

Schedule

I won't reveal everything upfront, but with each post I will give a teaser for what's next:

June 1st: Introductions and Playlist
June 4th: Who is a historical LGBT advocate that you admire?
June 7th: What positive changes have you seen in your lifetime?
June 10th: What's something you wish more people understood?
June 13th: Ask almost anything
June 16th: What media representation resonated with you personally?
June 19th: (teaser: a check-in on those close, or maybe not so close, to us)
June 22nd:
June 25th:
June 28th:

If for whatever reason you would not like to see these topics in your feed, add pride month at tildes to your personal tag filters.

Alright, so one of my favorite things to do at night is throw on a great audiobook and play a video game...but it has to be a very specific type of video game. No meaningful dialogue or plot, no math or strategizing, and lots of hyper addictive gameplay that you can almost do subconsciously.

Here are the games I've found like this so far:

1. Trials Rising (and it's predecessors). I've actually made some global leaderboards in this game. It seems so simple when you start the campaign mode, then you learn about ninja mode and it's suddenly a different game.

2. Olli Olli world

3. Skater XL, Session, Skate series, Tony Hawk series

4. Lonely Mountains Downhill

5. Descenders

6. Any multiplayer shooter (COD, Fortnite, etc.)

7. Trackmania - not my thing but it definitely scratches this itch for a lot of people.

8. Mudrunner and Snowrunner series.

Here are some that did not work for me.

1. Sekiro - I just get too into it. Can't multitask.

2. Vampire Survivors - just not into it.

3. Rogue likes - never enjoyed them.

4. No Man's Sky - amazing game but I prefer to play it co-op. Already conquered it anyway.

Any other suggestions?

I have a KZ ZSN Pro IEM and it's been going strong for 4+ years.

I also have a cheap Bluetooth QCY IEM that I use for podcasts and when I don't want wires tangling me.

Whenever I change from the Bluetooth QCY to the wired KZ I am in awe. The KZ ZSN Pro is a blast to listen to. Specially metal. The definition, the sound of the bass drums, everything is clear and powerful.

So I decided to try some entry level open back headphones and bought the SHP9500 that was cheap on Aliexpress recently. I thought I would find it even better since a lot of people sang it's praise for the price, but I am underwhelmed.

I find my KZ to have way more definition and power.

Also I need to up the volume of my smartphone quite a bit compared to the IEMs. It is near max volume.

Of course they are different beasts and the IEMs are literally inside my head. I don't really know what I expected.

I'm sure beyerdinamic or other more expensive brands might be better, but I don't feel like going down that path.

I'm going to keep the SHP9500 for a week more to see if I like it for different situations, but for now I am not amused.

I noticed that Tildes has had no previous discussion of Andrew Hickey's wonderful music podcast A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. So I thought I'd write a little about it, in case it might bring as much joy to someone here as it has brought me. It's easily my favourite podcast, and it might actually be my favourite work on music history in any medium. It's really that good.

The podcast started something like six years ago, and like its name suggests, it presents a history of rock music. But not just the "four white guys and some guitars" rock music of the 1970s and beyond, but a far more in-depth exploration of where the genre came from and how it has evolved. This is not one of those podcasts where a host or hosts have chosen a topic, done some light resarch and then talk about what comes to their mind. Instead, each episode is thoroughly researched, pre-written and edited. It is a high quality audio lecture delivered by an excellent and witty storyteller who knows what he is talking about.

The first episode was on "Flying Home" by the Benny Goodman Sextet, a jazz and jump blues track released in 1939, and therefore naturally not really a rock song, but something that works as a good starting point in the wider discussion of the genre's evolution. From there, episode by episode, Hickey has told us about the (or rather "a") history of rock music chronologically, taking us through the 40s and 50s, and currently heading towards the end of the 60s. He has indicated that just as 1939 was a somewhat arbitrary starting point, his 500-song history will end with a song that was released in 1999. Looking at his current pace, it may be a while until we get there.

The latest episode is song #174, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine", first released in 1967. It's part one of a two-part narration, with the current episode concentrating on the song's early history and its writers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, while the upcoming episode two will look at Marvin Gaye's version and career at that point.

Hickey has in fact recently started to split some songs into multiple episodes, and he did it also with the previous song, song #173, Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower", first released in 1967. That one had Part 1 that concentrated on Dylan's version, and then Part 2 that covered Jimi Hendrix's version. Although, when I say that those episodes concentrate on Dylan's and Hendrix's versions of the song, that's not exactly true. It would be more accurate to say that Part 1 concentrates on Dylan's career in the late 60s, as well some related subjects and artists from the era, while Part 2 looked at Hendrix's career at the time, as well as subjects and artists related to him around that time.

And this is actually an important point to make. While the episodes certainly tell you a lot about the song that they are discussing, they are not solely about the song in question, and they never really aim to give you a subjective interpretation of the song or anything like that. Instead, you are given plenty of historical facts, you hear a lot of interesting stories, and you find out how the song and the people who were involved with it fit into a larger narrative of rock music. And you also get to hear excerpts of some really good music along the way. Hickey is very much an expert in the topic, a great storyteller, and seems like someone who knows how to do his research.

The podcast's early episodes were shorter, about half an hour or so, while some of the more recent episodes have become much longer, some reaching over four hours, which is the reason why Hickey has started to split some episodes into multiple parts. In addition to the main podcast, there are also Patreon bonus episodes which are not part of the main narrative, but which I can highly recommend. They function as companion pieces to the main story, and typically last between 10 to 30 minutes; for instance, the bonus episode for the first "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" episode was on the song "Bend Me, Shape Me" by Amen Corner. And so, although he is officially just at song #174, Hickey has probably covered well over three hundred songs so far.

The podcasts are free of ads and fully community supported. You should be able to find the podcast on all the main podcast providers, and it has a dedicated website at 500songs.com. If you don't know where to start, the double episode on "All Along the Watchtower" that I mentioned earlier could be a good way to check if the podcast is for you. Or, if you have some favourite artists or songs from the 40s, 50s or 60s, check out the tags on the website to see if he has made episodes on them. Or you can of course just start from the beginning, like I did.

Last year, Hickey was also a guest on Rick Rubin's podcast, and that interview could also be a good introduction to Hickey and his work.

the Israel-Palestine war has not been good to my mental health and the coverage and the treatment of the campus protests oddly is what did me in.

Now one approach could be to just not watch the coverage but I have come around to the point of view that not watching meaning not knowing what's happening and you need to know what is happening if only for the hope to be more informed about the politics of the government you live in.

So I guess I am trying to understand what is a responsible way to digest news about something that enrages you? Or is there no such thing? Cause I don't do social media (aside from occasional reddit and just the frontpage when I do that once in a while) and I refuse to watch any 24/7 news networks. I only do an hour of CBC and like 1-3 daily news podcasts which each do like 10-20 min daily updates.

Cause the Israel-Palestine war doubled with the terrible way the campus protests are being treated has really shaken my faith and trust in institutions and I won't go into how cause I don't want to invite infighting on tildes and potential Islamophobia and antisemitism after what happened in that macklemore thread.

In online forums I use far too many punctuation marks. I especially use dashes - to separate clauses that don't need a dash (and sometimes I'll add brackets like this because, well, I dunno). And sometimes I'll start a sentence with "and" when it doesn't need to be there. My comma use is wild and uncontrolled, but I feel it's a bit more controlled than these other marks.

Importantly: I do not care how other people use punctuation.

But I would like to try to fix, or perhaps just improve, my punctuation use. Like the way I just start a new paragraph at random.

I feel like my posts are the same as those flyers that use 7 different fonts, with bolds and underlines and italics (and combinations of them), and with some words in red and some in green and some in black and there's no rhyme or reason to it.

I do like a casual tone but I feel that I go far too far in the informal direction. English is my first, and my only, language. (I love Europe, but I am a bad European. "Please look after our star" we said, and most of us said it in English because most of us who said it don't know other European languages)

Do you have any advice? I'd be interested to hear about books, or videos, or courses, or podcasts, or anything at all that can help. I'd even pay for this. But not Eats Shoots and Leaves please

I started listening to podcasts in June of 2017 after having heard about them being great for years but never getting around to listening to them. I preferred music at the time and would put on a playlist or an album if I had a long drive, walk, etc. Once I started listening to podcasts I was hooked. The amount of time I spent listening to music plummetted and since I started I've spent 4% of my time listening to podcasts, I've used the same app since I started which makes keeping track of that easy.

I mainly listen to mine whenever I have some tedious or when I don't need too hard about what I'm doing. Walking the dog, driving, all of the housework, and some video games when I have time to play one and just want to zone out a bit and do something. Its made me enjoy cleaning more which my wife has appreciated a lot.

I was curious when other people listen to podcasts, how you fit them into your schedule, and if you're keen on sharing what your favorites are. I have way too many podcasts bookmarked in my app to listen to but its fun to add more to the ever growing list.

I just started watching Taskmaster after finding most TV right now pretty boring. I do like the silly challenges (and dry British humor in general lol). I never really watched game shows growing up, I'm aware of the bigger ones of course, (Jeopardy, Millionaire, etcetc.) but I wonder what I've missed in the meantime. I feel like sometimes game shows bleed into Reality shows a bit, which kinda turned me off from the genre until now. I do love trivia and seeing people solve problems in interesting ways though!

To throw in some of my favorites,
Game Changer on Dropout - My favorite at the moment, just because the cast is great and the tasks are great. Sam Reich is a great host too of course, and I just love the things they come up with.

The Mole on Netflix - Even though I don't loveeee reality shows for some reason this one got me. The players were super dumb but it was kinda interesting. I watched it a while ago though so my opinion might be different now.

Lateral (Podcast) - Tom Scott's trivia/gameshow podcast. It's really chill and I really enjoy the trivia I learn while walking my dog. The guests are (mostly) fun and interesting people too! The questions themselves are super "thinky" and playing along is fun.

It's not something I've thought about much until I had a conversation with someone who sets up their RSS reader, and uses it, completely differently to me.

I self-host FreshRSS, and typically just use the Web UI provided by that - sometimes I use Android RSS apps to consume from that, but I've never found one I like that much. But I just categorize my RSS feeds by broad theme, e.g. computing & tech, local news, programming, tech news, gaming, business and so on...

For the most part, I just browse through my main feed a few times per day and see if anything catches my eye. The only exception to this is that I have a few feeds in the 'Important' feed. One example is the forum related to a university project, where I need to know about entries pretty quickly.

The person I was discussing with never subscribes to anything noisy. No BBC, no Ars Technica, and really nothing that posts more than once per day. They split their feeds into "Important", "Casual", "Videos", "Podcasts" (I never thought to add Podcasts, as I use a separate map) and "Comics". They have it set up with the intention of reading everything that comes through.

I respect the curation effort that it must take to have an RSS feed where everything is interesting enough that you'd want to read it all. But for me, RSS is a method of discovering content. I don't need it too clean or overly curated. For the most part, I'm just going to skim it for interesting titles and subjects. The most curation I do is removing feeds after a while, if I notice I'm never interested in their content.

I'm very keen to hear how you use RSS.