Thursday, January 8, 2009

Podcasts are Rope

Snow day today so I took the kids snowboarding. Now I'm sitting in the cozy ski lodge by a huge fireplace drinking coffee and surfing (well I could be surfing) while the kids are outside in the blizzard collecting bruises. Too bad I can't join them ... but it was just too expensive for an adult lift ticket ... so I must suffer here by the warm fire with my electronic peripherals (laptop, iPod Touch, Kindle) and WiFi. Such sacrifices I make for my kids. I hope they remember this when I'm old and need to move in with one of them so they can feed me and change my diapers.

Anyway, I have recently discovered the wonderful world of podcasts. I am a complete addict. Now I am more or less constantly found with earphones on blissfully soaking in the latest bit of electronic wisdom. Some of my favorites are Scientific American's Science Talk, Coverville, Car Talk, and This American Life. Even though I barely have time to keep up with these and others I like, I still search for more like a fat man at the Pizza Hut lunch buffet.

I am currently in the process of evaluating some of the top science related podcasts. I hope to use the best of these to keep me updated on the latest and greatest discoveries. This will help me sound smart and bolster my reputation as an uber jenius. I have always found reading about findings in fields unrelated to my research stimulates creativity and problem solving in my own work. I used to religiously read Science, Nature, Scientific American and C&E News for just this reason but have fallen out of the habit partly due to the fact that I don't have my own subscriptions to these journals anymore (as I did when I was a pampered industrial scientist) and partly due to being busy with other things. I am hoping that these science podcasts can fill the science news void for me and increase my jeniosity by five orders of magnitude (that's 100,000 X for all you non-jeniuses).

In a future blog, I plan to post my evaluation and ranked list of the best science podcasts. I know you all can't wait.

1 comment:

  1. First of all, let me say I feel attacked with the snow mention. Send some to Alabama please. Thanks. Second, and it pains me to say this as I know Allains are prone to getting big heads (case in point: rhett and his blog), but you really are a good writer. I'm jealous of your skills--and the snow.

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