tl;dr In an alternate universe, #NightVale is a “peacast,” and Apple’s music player is the “iPea.”
But to explain that, I’ll need to point out that Apple’s audio player took its name from a pre -Internet meme: “open the pod bay doors, Hal .”
See, in 1968, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke created a film in which the protagonist asks an artificial intelligence for entrance to the bay of EVA pods, short-range vehicles designed for space flight.
But that’s not where “pod” comes from originally. Before the film 2001 (the book came after the film), astronauts would colloquially refer to their own emergency exit craft as “escape pods.”
But, those pods were named after gunners pods and other compartments that were bolted onto the fuselages of planes.
And those pods were named after legumes, as they resembled peas, which come in pods. In a stroke of good branding, the pilots went with “pod” instead of “pea,” Thus preventing the “iPea” and “peacasting.”
