The Wonderful World of Podcasting

I recently posted about the many wonderful features of the organizing app Evernote. That’s an app that permits you to collect text, website urls, screenshots, photos, videos, audio-files, and graphics  into notes, folders, and “tag words”.

Evernote grants you access to these digital materials across “multiple platforms”. In my case, it means my Dell Latitude Laptop, iPad, iPhone, and Microsoft Surface Pro 3. I have been playing with it, in conjunction with the “to do list” app, Wunderlist, and cloud storage, DropBox. I can see “my stuff” from all my devices. Cool!

One feature of Evernote is a “poor man’s podcast”, or an audiofile that can be imbedded into a note and posted online, so your Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, or Google + fans, or just people you e-mail, can double click and listen to your message.

Think they will listen to our “t.v. commercial” on what a great lawyer you are, or how y ou will recover “big money” for their “rear ender”? Think again. The content will need to be lively and informative to be heard.

Now to my subject, Podcasts. We all see the folks jogging with ear-buds or power-walking. I assumed they were listening to their favorite tunes, and most probably are, but many may be listening to podcasts.

For example, our recent MBA grad daughter suggested we listen to the podcast series, “Serial”, and we did. It was a cold case investigation by a Baltimore reporter of  a Baltimore murder, at least 15 years old. The victim was a 17 year old female high school student, and the defendant was her boyfriend.

He is still in prison, and his conversations with the Baltimore Reporter were heavily featured.

And it was free! Unless you count the $1000 the iPad costs, the $2000 for the fully equiped Surface, the $800 iPad, or the $150/month phone data service! Yep, FREE!

Serial started a bit slow, became riveting, and ended, for me at least, a bit disappointingly, BUT we listened to 12 hours of on demand radio that was “sourced “in the cloud”.

Recently, I listened to podcasts on marketing for small firm lawyers, technology, and a little story of the confessions of a voyeuristic married women. It is called, “Imaginary World”: http://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/

I PREDICT, that soon we will be listening of podcasts of what we want, when we want, just as I intend to do with a www.Lynda.com course on the Surface Pro 3 tablet computer.

Below is my  Facebook post of this afternoon describing 20 minutes I spent listening to “Imaginary Worlds”, a science, science fiction, fantasy themed  podcast series:

With apologies to my “Dragon app”, I was just blown away by this radio show. During 20 minutes, I learned that Freud was not gay but his primary attraction was to lesbians. where else are you going to learn that?

I learned there is a scientific movement called trans humanism in which scientists attempt to figure out ways that we can genetically mutate and involve

ourselves. I was reminded by the producer of the great Arthur C Clarke science-fiction novel, “Childhood’s End”, in which aliens brought us a utopia by suppressing all violence, aggression, and efforts to change, by human beings, and when we finally reached it, we became electronic orbs that were sucked out into space and floated away.

In other words, if we ever really get an a utopia, creativity and change will be gone and so will we.

I learned that there once was a French fellow named Fournier who took a group of socialists to a small town in Texas to form a perfect commune, and then, because they were so well-educated, they were terrific pioneers and eventually they got bored and kicked Fournier  out and became Dallas Texas!

Again, who knew?

I learned that one of the sources of the trans humanism movement was that same Fournier who believed that we were quickly going to evolve past societies institutions to something better, including growing tails, with eyeballs at the end of our tails.

I have read “Childhood’s End”, and that part the podcast wass accurate, so I have no reason to believe that any of this is made up.

I enjoyed it immensely and intend to add it to my podcast list. Our “big vacation” around the country in 2016 no doubt will be filled with interesting podcasts, on science, space, technology, drama, and self education.

I suggest you buy the iTunes podcast app, and “happy podcasting”!

This post was written by Burton Hunter