Kaushik's Blog

Podcast Reviews

Here are some thoughts on things I've listened to recently.

The Big Dig was a fantastic podcast. The show was centered on the Central Artery project in Boston that took decades and significant cost overruns to complete. It had great explanations of how things can go wrong in large infrastructure projects, as well as how things can go right - the ways in which people can think of great solutions to challenging problems and effect real change on their surroundings.

EconTalk has had a really strong run of episodes recently. These two recent ones deserve special mention:

  1. Living with the Constitution (with A.J. Jacobs) - what a strange and interesting project. He spent a whole year living like he was in the 1700s to write a book about the constitution. The quirks of the American system were decisions that could've easily gone a different way, but are now treated as gospel. Jacobs even tried to get a Letter of Marque to sail into the Taiwan Sea as a private emissary of the US 😂
  2. Rituals Without Religion (with Michael Norton) - this was excellent. So many things we do are rituals or ritualistic, and they help and serve us in a variety of ways: bringing us closer to others, getting ourselves in the right frame of mind to take on challenges or to start a new day. Interesting idea of funerals before the person dies (although Curb Your Enthusiasm already did that).

I really enjoyed The Economics of Everyday Things when it started out, like the episodes on pizza boxes and houseplants. But some of the recent episodes, like the one on weather forecasting, have very few interesting or new insights. Sorta hit or miss for me.

Grand Tamasha - Milan Vaishnav's podcast can be very wonkish at times, but there's always interesting things to learn from his guests. A couple of really good episodes were India and the Emerging Chip Race and How India's Economy Can Break the Mold.

Hardcore History - I only got around to listening to the second part of Twilight of the Aesir, which came out last year. Dan's an excellent storyteller, but this series on the Vikings was a miss for me. It was quite jumbled and there was no clear thread connecting all the various incidents. I'm excited about the new Alexander episode, it's in my queue.

Acquired - I've only listened to their LVMH episode, but it was phenomenal. I had no knowledge about the luxury conglomerate or the luxury industry as a whole. They demystified all of it. I especially liked the distinction between premium and luxury - premium products offer a superior quality or experience while luxury products derive their added worth solely from brand value. Acquired is definitely a part of my subscriptions now.

I've been really enjoying the 99% Invisible Breakdown of The Power Broker as a companion to reading the book. Only episode 2 was a letdown, since the guest had not actually read the book and did not have any pertinent insights to add. Episode 1 with Robert Caro and 5 with Brandy Zadrozny were especially good ones.

Last but certainly not least, the perennial fount of complete nonsense and drivel that is The Bugle. The audio newspaper for a visual world recently crossed 600 episodes and Andy Zaltzman shows no signs of slowing down. Absolutely love this show.