#thing 19

Thing 19 was all about Podcasts. I’m not much of a podcast listener, I tend to watch YouTube videos or if a Youtuber uploads their podcasts I might listen to bits and pieces of it, but on the whole I don’t normally listen to podcasts. Because of this, this Thing provided the perfect opportunity for me to get use to listening to podcasts.

I chose Option 1 which involved listening to, subscribing, rating and reviewing a podcast of my choice. An extensive list of possible podcasts was listed in Thing 19 and I chose ‘Stuff you missed in History class’ - https://www.missedinhistory.com/podcasts. My interest and understanding of history has grown considerably since my school days, (it might also help that I’m not trying to learn an enormous amount of information just to regurgitate it back out onto a page in some awful exam!), and I took the opportunity to listen to podcasts on some fascinating subjects.

 The podcasts on ‘Stuff you missed in History class’ are broken up into useful topics, e.g. by century (15th to 20th centuries), Biographies, Civil Rights, Entertainment, Royalty, Slavery, Women, etc. The co hosts for the site, Tracy V. Wilson and Holly Frey are based in the USA and on the FAO page they state that “the vast majority of topic requests we get from listeners are from the United States and Europe. The overwhelming number of our listeners are from the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, which means our queue of listener requests is overwhelmingly from those nations as well” but that they do also “intentionally choose subjects from the rest of the world, too”.

Four podcasts caught my eye  Death at the Duomo: The Pazzi Conspiracy; Savonarola, the Unarmed Prophet; How Lucrezia Borgia Worked; and How the Dancing Plague of 1518 Worked. I couldn’t decide which one to listen to and review for this Thing so chose all four!

The podcasts were well detailed but not overly so and provided a good introduction and grounding in the topics. The podcasts were manageable times, the ones I listened to ranged roughly from 15 to 25 minutes. Both Tracy and Holly do some on the go thinking and actively question details and events during the podcast; they also ask the audience for advice or additional facts and knowledge on different topics. I really liked when they did this, as to me it showed not only an engagement with their audience and listeners but also that while they may have researched a topic for the podcast they were still very much willing to learn more. Some of the later podcasts were transcribed which was very practical and useful.

If I was to make any critic of the podcasts it was that once or twice I thought that it became a little too colloquial, but this was rare and didn’t effect the overall quality of the podcasts. (As a complete aside and a personal hang-up I did find the ads, even though I know they are necessary, at the start of the podcasts irritating).

I’ve heard of Skype before as a means of “free” phone calls, especially overseas, but with Facetime I don’t see the need to add that to my repertoire.  However, I’ve heard a lot about SnapChat, especially as it is used a lot by teens and young college students and that there are inherent dangers associated with it.

It was easy to download and get started.  I liked the quick tutorial they provided.  It showed things perfectly and made it super easy for me to send a quick snapchat to Gina.  

Reading through some of the links on the 23mt site helped me find some of the more fun things to do to photos, such as adding drawings, changing colors, temperature, etc.

 Spotify is great. I love music, and I love variety. I like to listen to other people's playlists. I like creating one out of sound-a-likes. It's easy, it's social, it's music.

I am a brand new beekeeper. Actually. There are 10,000 bees out in my new hive. I found apps for helping me keep track of my hive.

 Beginner Beekeeping/Hiveapp is helping me out!

I'm sitting here looking at Yahoo Answers, and I am shaking my head.  It is kind of scary to me to see this sea of un-thought-out questions.  "What color should I paint my room?"  "What is the funniest comment you've seen on a Youtube video?"  Don't these people have friends or family they can ask these questions?

I am afraid to engage with this community of users, for fear of getting flamed or made fun of!  Every once and awhile, during a regular Google search on some random topic, I will get a few hits from Yahoo Answers, and they are rarely helpful.  Mostly it seems to be comments belittling the questioner.  The Internet can be a careless place!

Over at Answers.com, things are a little brighter.  I feel safer here, as though my questions might be taken more seriously. "How much does an average African elephant weigh?" "When did the Simpsons first appear on television?"  It almost reminds me of a quiz show.  My curiosity is piqued, and the layout is much more pleasing to the eye.  There are supervisors assigned to each category, which seems to add a level of sanity to what might otherwise become a circus.  

In answer to "When did the Simpsons first appear on television?" there is a succinct answer, which includes dates for their first appearance on the Tracey Ullman Show, and the beginning of their own show in 1989.  I found these answers to be accurate, so I clicked "yes" at the bottom of the page.  I am also given the opportunity to "improve" the answer, but I have nothing to add!