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Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2022?

94 points by hnu0847 ↗ HN
What were your favorite podcast episodes of 2022?

Mine were:

Hardcore History Blitz 68 - Human Resources (https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-68-blitz-human-resources/) - discusses the history of the Atlantic slave trade

Fall of Civilizations 16: https://fallofcivilizationspodcast.com/ - discusses the rise and fall of the Bagan Empire of Myanmar

Lex Fridman #309 - John Carmack (https://lexfridman.com/john-carmack/)

The Missing Cryptoqueen 11: Operation Satellite (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07nkd84/episodes/downloads) - this is the latest episode in an ongoing BBC series that investigates the whereabouts of Ruja Ignatova, founder of the OneCoin cryptocurrency scam. I recommend starting from episode 1 if you're not familiar with the story.

45 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 92.1 ms ] thread
TotoHorner
How do you compare Fall of Civilizations to Hardcore History?

Big fan of hardcore history (listened to all of the multi-part series several times), but never heard of Fall of Civilizations.

kranke155
Pretty sure r/AskHistorians considers Hardcore History to be really innacurate.

BBC’s In Our Time podcast is a far superior counterpart, where academics from leading universities discuss a chose topic. It’s well moderated and beautifully informative.

flappyeagle
Thank you for this! Exactly what I needed
meheleventyone
Yeah I'd second In Our Time, it's a long running Radio show and covers culture, science, religion, philosophy and history. Really great nuggets on loads of topics. Plus they provide a full reading list for each show.
TotoHorner
source?
bennysonething
It's on Spotify. And on BBC sounds. And I think it's on iTunes. You might just be able to download it for free too. It used to be available like that years ago.
TotoHorner
Nah I meant kranke155's claim that AskHistorians says Hardcore History is inaccurate.

That's not true.

However, I would agree that Hardcore History leans more towards the entertainment side, so while the overall picture is inline with what historians say (Cyrus the Great as a leader vs Darius or the effects of the Gracchi brothers), the specific stories that Dan Carlin says may have other interpretations or other versions.

Obviously, it would interrupt the flow to say "Oh but XYZ disagrees and says this specific story actually happened 5 years earlier", so Dan prefaces it by saying that it's one interpretation.

Saying that "AskHistorians thinks Hardcore History is really innacurate" is completely false.

kranke155
Maybe I got this wrong but my feeling is they don’t like it over there. I’d have to check on why exactly.
opo
A couple of years ago, there was a discussion thread in AskHistorians of "How do you feel about Dan Carlin, accuracy-wise?": https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/k6jyx7/how_d...

>...Saying that "AskHistorians thinks Hardcore History is really innacurate" is completely false.

I think the overall opinion is quite a bit more nuanced than that and in general historians appreciate anyone who helps get people more interested in history. Though, in terms of accuracy, as one commenter wrote:

>...Not only doesn't Carlin do sufficient research with the appropriate sources, but he tends to approach his episodes with an endpoint in mind, and then focuses on ensuring his research fits that narrative rather than building a narrative from the research.

yoaviram
I love hard core history, but I recently discovered The Rest is History and it takes the number one spot for me.
aato
The John Carmack interview with Lex Friedman - it reminded me that becoming a specialized IC can be a viable terminal career state; that moving into management needn’t be the ultimate goal.
solardev
How so? Didn't he move to Meta to manage/lead their VR efforts, then left that for his own startup?

That doesn't mean he never gets to code anymore, but he's not really just an IC anymore, is he?

rahimnathwani
I don't know the specifics of this case, but someone can be a technical leader with significant impact, without having a large number of direct or indirect reports.
solardev
> someone can be a technical leader with significant impact, without having a large number of direct or indirect reports.

Can you explain what you mean by this?

In my (limited) knowledge of Carmack, he is both a craftsman and a businessperson... he founded several companies and was the CTO of Oculus for a while. Hard to imagine there not being direct or indirect reports in that case.

In either case, he's definitely better known as a thought leader and rockstar developer rather than an effective executive, I suppose. I think he left Meta in part because he couldn't really get past all the red tape and move the company where he thought Oculus needed to go.

rahimnathwani
"In either case, he's definitely better known as a thought leader and rockstar developer rather than an effective executive, I suppose"

Yes, this is what I mean.

birdymcbird
Hard to pick specific episodes but all in and this week in tech were my favorite podcasts.

Lex Friedman interviews with Robin Hanson on “grabby aliens” and Carmack were also really god

thorin
The first one I thought of was John Carmack. Also the broken record podcast of rick rubin doing interviews of all of the red hot chili peppers had some fantastic stories.

Edit, the lex episode with Jack Barsky too ( spy)

youniverse
Darknet Diaries is wonderful podcast overall and very entertaining to me.

The latest two part episodes of Gollumfun #128 and #129 were great. He interviews 'Gollumfun' who was one of the biggest players in the online underground. His story is just wild!

theturtletalks
The stuxnet one blew my mind. All these US departments coming together secretly to knee-cap Iran’s nuclear program. And the irony being that the worm was so good, it leaked into the outside world and wreaked havoc. Only when a malware specialist looked at the code, did he see the sophistication and the multiple zero-days exploits used. The journalist who uncovered all of this rightfully won the Pulitzer.
youniverse
Truly amazing event and it makes me wonder what cyber-warfare occurs these days or was not made public in the past.
sedawk
Darknet Diaries: XBox Underground. It was very fascinating, nothing short of a thriller movie, the way it plays out from simple desire to hack into the realm of criminal seems almost unreal.
gmassman
Anaka Harris on Lex’s podcast was fascinating. I loved hearing her perspective on consciousness and the limits of scientific inquiry. Second to that was the John Carmack interview which lots of folks on HN seemed to enjoy!
mushbino
Blowback seasons 2 & 3 were both great. If you're into history at all.
srge
What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health by Huberman Lab
xyzwave
Also the cannabis episode.

Sobering (no pun intended) look at just how detrimental cannabis can be to the brain. Covers everything from grey matter volume reductions, to tonal shifts in speech and memory loss.

I would have liked to have seen more coverage of CBD, as all signs point to it being a buffer against THC’s negative effects, but the recent science paints a fairly grim portrait of THC’s affect on cognition.

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jolancer
I will check out Missing Cryptoqueen right now.

I can't remember if it came out this year or last year but the Exit Scam series about Gerald Cotten, the bitcoin guy that everyone thought faked his death in India, is my all time fav. https://www.exitscam.show/

nicbou
Martyrmade. I knew nothing about the history of Israel.

If you like Hardcore History, you'll like Martyrmade too.

adamredwoods
Sewage Sleuths:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/aug/15/sewage-sl...

Two professors noticed their streams in England and Wales had less fish, and through their persistence and interesting detective work, uncovered a massive private wastewater fraud, and government inadequacies. Was really good to listen to for both the detective work and navigating politics.

hardwaresofton
Shameless plug, if you’re looking to download any of these, try podcastsaver.com (I built it).

It does what it sounds like — make it easy to download podcasts

pablo24602
Very cool and useful- how does it work? Does the podcast index allow you to download episodes through their api? Didn't know such a website was possible
hardwaresofton
Thanks - I know I’ve found it quite useful just listening to my own stuff.

Well it’s possible because RSS is so open and accessible! The podcast index provides an initial trove and I look through, filter and prune.

schwartzworld
Podcasts are powered by RSS feeds. You can parse the feed and download the file quite easily.
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kyriakos
Hot Money by Financial Times

Think of it as a brief history of online adult content industry. Not the best execution but reveals some good information.

ParadisoShlee
Every episode of Trash Future has given me more insight than fud.
Philipp0205
Not episodes but Podcasts:

Hunting Warhead: Follows a journalist and police on a global mission to expose the darkest corners of the internet.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/387-hunting-warhead

Death in ice valley: Podcast investigating a mystery about a dead women in Norway unsolved for almost half a century.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttp4

The Outlaw Ocean: A seven-part series that explores a gritty and lawless realm rarely seen, populated by traffickers and smugglers, pirates etc.

https://www.theoutlawocean.com/the-outlaw-ocean-podcast/