This Episode

This past weekend I stumbled on an App.net converastion about podcast, what people listen to, how many subscriptions they have, etc.

I have gone back and forth, listening to more podcasts that I can handle and then parring way back. Having to comb through multiple hour-plus long podcasts doesn’t leave me much time to find great content. As an example, I love the 5by5 network, but the volume of their output is greater than the amount I can have input.

In the discussion, the service HuffDuffer was mentioned for saving “one off” episodes. I enjoy HuffDuffer, but ended up rolling my own. Mostly though, I was left wondering how do people find good “one off” podcasts? How do they know if they are listening to the best episode?

This left me thinking and formulating, and after a few hours I decided and setup This Episode. It is a blog. It is a podcast. It is a curated list of the best individual episodes of any podcast.

The slugline “Time is short, listen to the best episodes.” is the guiding focus of the site. In my many hours of listening, I would hear about once a week Dan Benjamin asking people who were listening at double speed to just stop listening. I used to be bothered by him saying this, but now it makes sense. Why rush through such delicious audio? Because your playlist is overrun with long episodes and you are worried that you might miss the best one?

The real slugline is a little longer and not quite as catchy: “Time is short, listen to the best episodes[ such great content doesn’t deserve to be listened to at 2x speed. Seriously].”

The idea behind This Episode is that listeners can have their standard fare of listening, but if they was excellent content without all of the listening and searching they can subscribe to one place and get a variety of fantastically produced shows. It is not a “best of” of a particular podcast, but the “best of” of all podcasting.

It is going to be a lot of listening to a lot of podcasts, but I am willing to listen to any suggestions. Send them to me at http://this-episode.net/suggest.

Picking up the phone

My daughter, age four–almost five, called me at work today and just wanted to talk. She spent the night at her grandmother’s house, and we talked out what we had for breakfast, if we slept good, the weather. Just her and me. Something worth dropping everything for.

I just hope she remembers our little conversations when she is a decade older.

Swimming

Last Saturday, I went swimming with my kids. We walked to the pool and they were excited to get in, so in my haste to get them in the water, I managed to take my phone swimming too. I realized about 5 minutes after getting in the water that there was something heavy in my left pocket. “Shit.” I said in my head. I calmly got out of the pool, set the phone in our stuff and tried to not let my frustration with myself show.

Luckily, I am able to send my phone to Apple for repair or swap out at a cost that is significatnly less than a new phone, but that is not really the important thing. In the 5 days with out my phone, I have learned two things.

  1. We, more specifically I, have an unhealthy relationship with my phone.
  2. It is amazing how much more connected and disconnected I have felt simultaneously without having a cellphone.

On the first item learned, it is amazing the sense of loss I felt after swimming with my phone. Instinctively, I would reach for my pocket. I still am, even after five days, but not as much. It was like losing a limb. It is sickening to feel that way about an electronic device. Until a few years ago, I never needed access to all information instantly. I never needed to check in with people who I will most likely only know online. I never needed to have a camera/ipod/web browser/rss reader with me. I did just fine. Now it is a total addiction.

The second thing learned is actually the more important lesson. The other night, I caught fireflies with my kids. It was amazing. We sat on the back porch, watched the fireflies come out and then decided to catch one to try and keep as a night light. Last night, a colleague of my wife came over for dinner bringing her family along and I had a great time, all without a screen. No disctractions, no interruptions. It was great.

Sure, there are some conveniences that I am missing, like calendar alerts telling me to get going to a meeting, having to plan relentlessly to make sure I meet up with my wife and capturing the color and formula of the paints in our new house, but for the most part, this has been a humbling and liberating experience.

Digital Sabbaths have always been something I have wanted to embrace and this forced one has helped me to understand my addiction. Maybe I should go swimming more often, without my phone in my pocket.