All Things Podcast

Enjoying “■■■■■■■■ with the door open” w/ Harley Breen and his best mate. Basically about parenting. But not really.

(Censored word rhymes with fitting)

listening now on your recommendation. 1:30 in and I’m already loling in the office.

It’s a good time.
I listen to a lot of poddiez which feature Melbourne scene comedians.

“Something for the drive home” with Bart Freebairn and Nick Cody was great too. Basically as offensive as it gets, in every way imaginable.

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Yeah, I used to a big fan of that.

Nick Cody is farkin funny.

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Just started on The History of Byzantium. Up to Episode 3. I tend to listen when I go out for a walk, from which I have just returned…about 40 seconds before it started raining.

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I’ve just started the history of Rome podcast. Started the history of Byzantium podcast but figured the Rome one would be the logical start.

I might hit that up later but I’m reasonably au fait with Rome. Doing 6 years of Latin helps, including stuff like Caesar’s Invasion of Britain, in the original Latin.

Might go over the last 200 years.

Spoiler alert…I’m reasonably informed that the Romans didn’t target and execute Christians for simply for being Christian, but rather for refusing to give tribute to Rome, i.e. pay their taxes. I’ll be interested in this guy’s take on that.

Even then, in the Byzantium one, he mentioned how tangled up early Christian theologians got over the place of Jesus in the scheme of things.

It’s now “Holy Scripture” and cannot be argued…cough…cough.

Hardcore history on Caesar’s conquest of Gaul was awesome. Having never studied that, I had no idea of the immense impact the guy had. Has made me very interested about this Rome podcast.

You ain’t heard nothin’ yet about that then. A lot of trouble caused by monophysites, iconoclasts (the real ones), iconophiles, Arianists, etc etc.

Plus he has two very interesting new angles on the rise of Islam that I had never heard before.

Recommend you read Caesar’s Commentaries of the Gallic War, would make an amazing movie

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It’s pretty straightforward Latin…not like poets like Virgil. He’s much harder to read, although we did do Orpheus and Eurydice and his efforts to bring her back from the dead/underworld, plus a treatise on bee-keeping.

With regard to the History of Byzantium, what’s the go with the paid episodes. Do people pony up, or just ignore those eps?

I’ve also got to go back and find eps 31-45. Only up to ep 6 myself though. Intersperse with Melvin Bragg’s In Our Time, although they do cover subject I’m simply not interested in.

I’ve given this episode a go, having no idea who Sam Harris is and never listened to a Russell Brand podcast before. I’m about an hour and 10 minutes in.

Sam comes across as a very intelligent, eloquent and thought provoking speaker. He gets his point across in a very calm and rational way. Russell brand comes across as Russell Brand. Very excitable, when he disagrees he goes off on tangents rather than speaking to the actual issue at hand. He disagrees with Sam but can’t really describe why.

Russell Brand also has the Dermie disease. Take a simple idea and spend 5 minutes over explaining it using big words to make yourself seem more intelligent.

Having said that, I have found the discussion fascinating, and it has challenged some of my own ideas.

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Yeah, I’m not generally a fan of Russell Brand, but I liked him here. He was substantially out of his depth intellectually, but most people are with Sam, and Russell didn’t pretend otherwise.

What Sam has in intellect, he lacks in empathy and human emotion (he’s almost like a friggin robot sometimes) so Brand kind of balanced that out.

I thought it was great discussion.

Dermie has Hepatitis?

Doesn’t sound all that far-fetched.

For those wondering about what SJW’s (Social Justice Warriors) represent, and why they’re often held in utter contempt (including by me), a recent episode of This American Life might explain. In my opinion, they’re a part of the reason Trump got elected. Just mindless stupidity which attracts the ire of lots of reasonable people, but mostly the deplorables.

So often, it seems to be about meaningless distinctions.

Act 1 is what I’m really alluding to. Act 2 is yet another horrifying American story about a Louisiana congresswoman, whose neck is incredibly red, as red as Barnaby Joyce’s face who arouses the ire of people with even redder necks, yet not necessarily the NRA.

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The Forward Podcast - (Lance Armstrong) is pretty good, interviews with people whop have ■■■■■■ up and then made their way back,

I finally got around to that Sam Harris/Russell Brand yesterday, after I found myself with an open afternoon and some shelves to build.

It was a great chat. I think Brand himself is not sure what his point is at times and often got lost tangentially, but provided a good counterpoint mostly. I liked Harris’ clear and gentle manner, it was like listening to Chomsky rationalise. Plenty to chew on, I may even give it another spin as I know I blanked at times. The shelves came out great though.

I gave it another listen / watch, but watched it on YouTube.

It’s exactly as you would picture it. Brand is waving his arms around everywhere with huge over-the-top facial expressions. Sam on the other hand… shoulders straight, looks like he still has the coat hanger in his jacket, and hardly changes expression at all.

I’m a big Sam Harris fan, but he does seem to lack basic human emotion sometimes, and say what you will about Brand… He’s not lacking emotion.