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Hacker News Hacker NewsMy complaint with In Our Time is that BBC started inserting the "this program is supported by ads outside of the U.K." ads in the middle of the discussions. The ads start and end with an extremely annoying loud chime that just blows out the speakers if I have the volume turned up to understand a guest that's speaking in a more soft voice.
I'm curious if anyone here has any particular favourites?
I remember really enjoying the Plankton episode because it took me the classic IOT route of "That doesn't sound interesting, but I'll give it a listen" to looking up all the reading list.
In Our Time represents the best of the form, and the BBC, and that's significantly down to the excellence of Bragg.
The archive (you may need a VPN outside the UK):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/episodes/player
Some curated lists:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2Dw1c7rxs6DmyK0pMR...
Brilliant series, can't recommend highly enough to anyone who's not encountered it.
I was watching the first episode of the new-ish BBC TV series Human last night and, although there was some interesting information in there, it was unbearably slow and overwrought - 20 minutes of interesting content stretched out to 60 minutes by overly dramatic speech and pointless visual interstitials with soaring music. Such a stark contrast in terms of information density if you watch the original big BBC documentary series like Life On Earth or Civilisation.
People might also enjoy "This Cultural Life" https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010fl4 More than 100 episodes already with some of the world's leading artists and creatives.
The show has long and consistently had this weird tic where they must announce every analogy, or even non-analogy with 'as it were'.
"He was over the moon, as it were".
"He was very excited, as it were".
We know what analogies are! No disclaimer needed! And when it isn't one, even bloody more so!
Forgive my affectionate grumble. I've enjoyed the show for many years. Bragg is a unique talent, and will be hard to follow.
My weekly dose of highbrow-ness from the UK:
1. In Our Time
2. University Challenge
I highly recommend the back catalog In Our Time if you want some good brain fodder on an amazingly wide range of subjects.
I'm still working through the back catalogue, been at it for years, I've listened to every episode from the start until about mid 2012. I'll finish it eventually!
https://www.braggoscope.com/explore
(Outside the UK, the "Listen" link doesn't work except for the most recent ~350 episodes. You'll need to get the program page link instead which is in the footer.)
Boffinphobia is where an otherwise interesting scientific topic gets downplayed by a programme or news presenter as being too difficult for them to understand, and in particular said in a dismissive jokey way.
Bragg was particularly susceptible to this! In almost every episode* that touches on cosmology he would resort to a whimsical “gosh these numbers are too big for me!” or a “wow that’s going over my head!”. There’s one notorious episode on computer science** where he’s downright rude to the guests regarding complexity. Contrast with how he can barely contain himself when showing how much he knows about Horace or Napoleon or Brahms. (I contend that the virtue signalling exhibited by claiming “maths is too hard, leave it to the boffins!” is the opposite side of the same coin to showing off how much poetry and history one has memorized.)
Basicism is where, for example, black hole discussions always talk about spaghettification and then run out of steam before the interesting stuff. Any discussion of a complex topic will touch on the first handful of spectacular introductory facts and never get any further, all on the assumption that the listener has never encountered the topic before in their lives. I know the pigeon story about cosmic microwave background already: please elaborate on the latest anisotropy findings!
In Our Time is a fantastic listen, but brace yourself for a bit of eye-rolling at — and forgive me for paraphrasing Lord Bragg’s tone a little, here — the “omg stahp, nerd stuff makes my brain hurt!” schtick.
* Bragg seems to take things more seriously when Simon Schaffer is there. Carolin Crawford is part of the dream team as well. Both are exceptional science communicators.
** Another commenter points out this is the P vs NP episode: https://www.braggoscope.com/2015/11/05/p-v-np.html
Frankly, I believe that instead of finding a new presenter, the BBC could be retire the whole series and its legend. Let the new presenter start a new series, even if the set-up remains the same (including having further discussions with a cup of tea after the radio time limit has ended)
At the end of each podcast there's the outro when they ask if Melvyn and his guests would like tea of coffee.
This keeps throwing me back to the bit at the end of episodes of Bod, when the Frog conductor is asked which flavour milk shake he'd like.
Once having itemised all of the contents of Thunderbird 4's pods over time, I have had an inkling to use some Machine learning system to gather the drinks options from each In Our Time.
Water has cropped up?
Perhaps I place too close attention to it.
This podcast chose its listeners and kept it real. Thanks to everyone who makes it possible. Hope they get a fitting replacement for Melvyn and keep it going!
Related note: The Empire podcast w/ Anita Anand and William Dalrymple has been my latest favorite history podcast.
I interpret this as some kind of cute little power play by Melvin. Even if so, he definitely earned it, and if were the producer I would serve with pride.