Jan van den Berg

j11g.com

Category: Podcasts

  • Podcast: Donald Knuth Lectures on Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About

    I recently read ‘Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About’ by Donald Knuth from 2001. Recommended reading if you like reading about how a world-renowned computer scientist wrote a book about how he wrote a book that deals with another book! Sounds recursive 😏

    That last book is of course the bible and the book Knuth wrote about it is ‘3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated ‘ — published in 1991. And in 1999 Knuth gave a series of lectures at MIT ‘on the general subject of relations between faith and science’. In these lectures he explains how he went about writing this book and the thought process involved. So the lectures make for an enjoyable deep dive on creating such a book and how Knuth’s brain works, paired with discussions and insights on religion and things like eternity and finiteness.

    And it is this series of lectures that are bundled together in ‘Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About’ — almost verbatim. But, the lectures have also always been available as audio files (sadly no visuals) on Knuth’s homepage. And I listened to those a few years back, and as I read this book I was reminded that I had created a RSS feed for these files, effectively creating a Knuth podcast!

    This is a later picture of Donald Knuth and not from the 1999 lectures. I added the text, of course in the only possible font.
    (I have no copyright on this picture and couldn’t find out who did actually. Feel free to drop me a line if I can accredit you, or if you want it changed.)

    I mostly created the file for myself to have the convenience of listening to the lectures in a podcast player. But I have also dropped the link to the XML file here and there over the years, and I noticed 607 unique IP addresses hit this link this month alone! There are only six lectures and one panel discussion and never any new content, so I am not sure what these numbers mean, if they mean anything at all.

    But I also remembered I had never blogged about this, until now. So without further ado here is the link:

    https://j11g.com/knuth.xml

    You can add this to your favorite podcast player. I have added the feed to Overcast myself so it looks like this which is nice.

    Having the audiofiles available in a podcast player enables you to track progress, speed up/down parts and have an enhanced audio experience.

    I do remember writing an email (no hyphen) to Knuth’s office and I received a nice reply that they thought it was ‘a great idea’, and they were actually also thinking of starting their own podcast ‘based on these materials’. However I haven’t found any link to this yet, so for now it is just this.

    If you are more into video, here is a great conversation Donald Knuth had with Lex Fridman last year. Published exactly a year ago to this day. The video is not embeddable but you can click the image to go there. Recommended.

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  • Volume 1: From Savoy Stompers to Clock Rockers – Andrew Hickey

    One of my favorite podcasts is “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs”. I’ve written about it before, it’s an absolutely terrific podcast.

    But this post is not about the podcast but about the book!

    After the first 50 episodes creator Andrew Hickey bundled the adapted episode transcripts into the first volume of a book series. And, of course, I had to get it, as an unmissable reference and to support the podcast.

    Volume 1: From Savoy Stompers to Clock Rockers – Andrew Hickey (2019) – 551 pages

    Here are some thoughts on the book’s look and feel as it arrived in the mail this morning. So this is not a book review!

    • I’ll start with what I don’t like (and what can’t be the author’s fault at all). This book is printed-on-demand , and your mileage may vary, but on my particular copy the cover has been cut off prematurely. So the letter “c” from the word “Music” is right on the edge of the cover. It bothers me a bit and it’s a shame that such a wonderful book has to suffer this fate.
    • It’s quite a meaty book (I like that!). But I ordered the paperback and the postal service wasn’t too careful with it, so there are already some dents on the book. So you might want to get the hardcover.
    This is a shame.
    • I was FULLY expecting the spine to have “Volume 1” or a at least a number on it, but that is not the case. I say this because I intend to buy every copy and imagined the series, identifiable by their consecutive numbers, would look majestically encyclopedic on my bookshelf.
    The spine (and flappy cover)
    • I love the black and white cover. It’s classy and timeless.
    • As stated, it is a meaty book. I love holding it, it has a very nice feel to it. And the paper is pleasant, not too bright or hard.
    • For a reference book the font is well chosen. I believe it’s Chord Symbol, which is fitting when you think about it. But more so, this font makes it easy to quickly skim and scan parts, which makes sense for a reference book (my intended use).
    • The “Contents” (chapters) section only has the song titles, not the artists. I can think of a few reasons: especially in the early days, some songs were often done by multiple people (even at the same time). And after all it is a podcast about SONGS. But still, the podcast does have artist names. So I don’t quite understand this distinction.
    • The chapters also have no numbers. Which is not a problem. But it seems the reference / link to the podcast has (deliberately?) been cut. The chapters seem to have no link to the podcast episodes.
    • The absolute best parts of this book are the song index and the regular index. These are indispensable. I absolutely love them and they will often be my starting point when I want to look up something. They are very well done and look exhaustive.
    • The page numbers are on the top of the page on the outside. Which is how I like it, this makes thumbing back and forth to the index easy.
    • I thought I couldn’t love Andrew Hickey’s work more than I already did, but then I read his acknowledgement to Donald Knuth! I cannot state how much I adore this. (Knuth holds a special place in my heart, and I even host a podcast RSS feed for a couple of his lectures).
    ❤

    Conclusion

    My wish for this podcast is that it will become so famous that Andrew Hickey will get a regular book deal, and the nuisances that come with print-on-demand will become a thing of the past. Nonetheless, this book is already a spectacular body of work by someone truly passionate and gifted, and a book that will look good on any bookshelf.

    I love that this fantastic podcast, is now available in a format that can be picked up a 100 years from now and still be instantly accessible. Go buy it!

  • A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs

    This year I’ve listened to 519 podcasts and 36 of those were episodes of A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs.

    But it’s safe to say that A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs is my favorite new podcast that I discovered this year and it deserves more attention and praise!

    500 Songs

    ‘500 Songs’ is a mammoth project where Andrew Hickey sets out — over a period of ten years — to transcribe the history of rock music with one song per episode for a total of 500 songs. With 50 episodes per year, one per week, and the first year just wrapped.

    Which 500 songs are on the list are not known, but it is not a popularity contest. Every song has to fit the narrative. It’s about the history and how everything is related and one thing is built on top of another. So he doesn’t just pick songs because they are popular. Which is not to say there are many episodes about well known songs.

    I know nothing about Andrew Hickey, he is not a famous podcaster (yet!) or a celebrity turned podcaster. But I do know that there are very few people on the planet that know or care more about music than he does.

    I’ve heard some people describe his monotone voice as off-putting (yes, I try to push this podcast a lot to people), but what I hear is someone who is ultimately knowledgeable and passionate about music history.

    All episodes are also available as a transcript, I think he writes out episodes and reads them ‘on air’. And the first 50 episodes are bundled in a book. There will be more books, and I suspect because of their completeness they can all be added to the definite canon of rock ‘n roll music.

    Information density

    If you think you know or understand even a little bit about pop or rock music. Think again, because you don’t. Or, at least I’m speaking for myself here. I thought I knew a little bit, until I discovered this podcast.

    The information density is absolutely mind boggling, and every episode I come away thinking: how does he know all this?! (Fortunately he also has a couple of delightful informative episodes answering that question). And it is just loaded with a kinds of fun and mind-blowing details:

    Did you know this? Life imitating art

    There are a few general observations that return again and again through most of the early 50’s rock music scene. Here are a few that stand out:

    • It seems like there is almost no original work in the early days. Every song is borrowed, stolen or riffed of something that was already well known and sometimes existed for decades. The concept of creating new or original music seemed to be novel. Just listen to the Hound Dog episode to get an idea of this. Everything is connected and grown out of something else (which is still the case nowadays, but more obvious and the norm back then). This goes for a lot of songs.
    • How things came to be is almost always chaotic and messy and more often than you would think the result of serendipity. So there are very few straight lines to be drawn. Not only did people borrow or steal songs, they also have different versions of “the truth”. This is also what makes the podcast a mammoth undertaking. Try figuring out how certain records came to be 60 years after the fact.
    • Some things stay hidden or unexplored but they just leave you thinking “excuse me?!”. Like this tidbit:
    The Colonel.
    • Some of the music we still listen to were generation or genre defining songs. But to the creators they were sometimes nothing more than a quick way to make a buck. Music was (and is?) ethereal, and the concept that songs would still be played years and years later was not something most artists thought about. So there are many stories of artists selling the rights for a 100 dollars or so to a records that sold millions.
    • The first 50 episodes focus mostly on the 1950s and there are some brilliant episodes. The Little Richard one is an absolute standout episode, so are the Elvis and Johnny Cash ones. Actually: from episode 33 to 39 is the best podcast streak I have ever heard. It’s a completely different time, so I am always amazed some of the folks discussed are still alive. E.g. Jerry Lee Lewis (The Killer) and Little Richard are still among us.

    ‘500 Songs’ is not only the story of rock music it is also a story of America coming off age. The story of cities swallowing up rural areas, of changing landscapes, of changing lives. And of radiowaves and records connecting a vast country and cementing something that we now know as ‘popular culture’.

    It’s an absolutely wonderful and riveting story and you should give this podcast a listen!

  • 500 podcasts later

    I keep track of the podcasts I listen to in a Google spreadsheet. This week I entered the 500th one. I started to keep track in november 2015, after a few months of listening. And I probably even forgot to add a few, but you get the picture: I love listening to podcasts!

    So, here are some stats: I have listened to 57 different podcasts for a total of 505 episodes. However there are 28 podcasts I’ve only listened to once. So about half I listen to regularly.

    Here is a kind of useless pie chart (click or open in new window for larger version):

    I love graphs.

    The top 15 looks like this with their respective episode count (in reverse order):

     8 This American Life
 9 Desert Island Discs
 9 Een Podcast over Media
 9 The Ezra Klein Show
 13 Serial
 15 Glitch
 19 De Appels en Peren Show
 24 Freakonomics
 28 The Tim Ferriss Show
 31 Under the Radar
 33 How I Built This
 55 99% Invisible
 61 ATP
 110 Planet Money

    I was a bit surprised by ATP coming in at number 2. I’ve kind of stopped listening to this one a couple of months ago (same goes for Under the Radar). So I wouldn’t have guessed to have listened to 61 episodes which are each around 2 hours. I was not surprised by Planet Money, this NPR podcast it’s usually short and quite fun! So it’s like a ‘snack’.

    I’ve explained before what’s so great about podcasts. It’s an intimate media form and a chance to learn new things. But of course not all episodes are killers. So I have a very sophisticated system of keeping tracks of the ones I would listen to again, or the ones that stood out. Are you ready? Here is my system: I make that entry bold (I am a spreadsheet wizard!). So far I tagged 61 out of 505 podcast as such. So 12% of the podcasts are what I would recommend to others or would listen to again myself. The top 6 looks like this:

     3 Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman
 3 Planet Money
 3 Sterk Water
 7 99% Invisible
 9 The Tim Ferriss Show
 14 How I Built This

    I am not surprised with the number one, I would definitely say How I Built This is my favorite podcast. I am a bit surprised by Sterk Water to be in this top 6.  But then again, it’s a very well produced Dutch podcast with “island life” stories. And I’ve only listened to a few, but they hit hard.

    S-Town is not on this list. It should be, but I listened to it in one go and so I only tagged one episode. But it should be in here because it’s very unique podcast. Also it seems there is a tie for fourth place. But rest assured: this one will be taken by Masters of Scale. This is a brand new podcast, and so far I’ve tagged ALL their episodes! It’s amazing and has a lot of similarities to How I Built This (real-life entrepreneurial stories about starting and struggling and succeeding). I think the success of podcasts like S-Town and Masters of Scale says something about the state of podcasts right now. More and more people are creating podcasts and reaching more and more listeners. Which is great! Yes, the distribution, recommendation and monetization model is not entirely clear for podcasts and maybe it will never be. But if this is it, if this is peak podcast, there are more than enough great podcasts to listen to. At least 500.

    (Personal plug: I also started my own podcast, of course. In Dutch, about arts, music, culture and all that. You should check it out!)

    Here’s what I look like listening to a podcast and when recording a podcast.

     

     

  • WordPress is amazing!🔥

    This blog is powered by WordPress. That means that the content you read was edited in the WordPress administrative interface and that same content is now presented to you by the WordPress engine!

    WordPress powers 24% of the web. And for good reason. It is amazing. It is free, fast and easy!

    When I had to pick a CMS for my first blog in 2005, it was a different world. It seemed that anybody who had read a PHP tutorial had also subsequently written their own CMS. There were just so many! And there was no clear winner, but there was WordPress 1.5.

    WordPress had only been around for 2 years, but it looked very promising already. I don’t remember there being one distinct reason, but I do remember that the clean and straightforward approach was what made it stand out from the others.

    One little bit of proof of this: the WordPress admin backend looks (to me) pretty much the same as it did back in 2005. Which says a lot about someone making the right design choices from the get go (or: making the right incremental improvements without breaking UX).

    Automattic and Matt

    I value the open web. And it is clear to me that the open en free web needs an open and free CMS. This is an integral part of it. And with the presence WordPress now has; it is a vital cornerstone of the open web. But there are and were dozens of CMS, most even older than WordPress, all clawing for the number one spot. Which is great and exactly the freedom the open web provides and thrives on. But it does raise the question what exactly it is that made WordPress take the number one spot? I can only speak from my own experience that using WordPress is a joy, and more people probably have that same experience. And yes, I have used others and still sometimes have to, for various reasons. And every time I do I am reminded just how wonderfully elegant WordPress is. And I don’t want to overanalyze, but I would suggest this elegance has a lot to do with Matt Mullenweg. The creator of WordPress.

    Matt comes across as a very level-headed guy with a clear vision. A vision that has enabled him to grow out this GPL (open en free) product of him into a billion dollar company with over 500 employees (yes, that’s possible!). He is around the same age as that other multi-billion-dollar company guy, but I would think the similarities end there. One guy provides free and open technology to enable people to express themselves, the other provides technology for free (which is quite different) that people use so his company can sell more ads (yes, I am deliberately putting it somewhat bluntly).

    Here is a nice interview with Matt, but I can also highly recommend his several appearances on the Tim Ferriss show (a podcast):

    Static blogs

    So it was a no-brainer when I had to pick a CMS for this blog. However I also like experimenting, and static site generators are all the rage right now and they certainly do have an appeal. And mainly for two reasons: speed and security. But WordPress is fast enough for my needs, so there goes that reason. And also WordPress itself is pretty rock solid. Most security problems are related to third party plugins, not the core. (I 💖 the auto-update feature that WordPress introduced in version 3.7). And lastly there are just so *many* great, free templates available for WordPress, that no static site generator could compete (yet). So, I’ll stick with WordPress, which is amazing!

    So here’s to Matt and Automattic 🥂. Thanks for keeping the web open, free and empowering the people!

  • Best of 2016

    Best-of lists signify another year is coming to a close. People feel a need to sort and order things to make room for what is to come. Or something like that.

    So here is an assorted list of best new things I found in 2016. Things can be anything, as long as it was new to me in 2016. Feel free to share your list in the comments.

    Best new app

    Google Photos turned out to be a real improvement in photo management. It saves space on your phone and, more importantly, you can search trough photos because Google AI indexes them (and every face on it) for you. Picture of that meeting last month? Coming up! Picture of your kid on a swing? Say no more fam, I got you. You should give it a try, it works pretty great. (Be sure to read the T&C if you have privacy doubts).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEK37MBTUPk

    Best new podcast

    I have listened to 316 podcasts this year. I ain’t lying, it was kind of my thing this year, I even started my own podcast with a friend.

    But apart from that, the “How I built this” podcast is hands-down the best new podcast I found this year. Every episode is interesting. No duds so far. It’s always a great story of one or more entrepreneurs on how they got started. And there has been a wonderful selection of guests already. This show is fun and you really learn something every time (but learning is fun ammirite?!).

    Best new music

    Usually I compile a list of best new music discoveries. I might still do that. But for now I’d like to point out one genre, that was newish to me: Dark Wave. Taking new wave a bit further. Not for everyone, I know.

    Best book

    Even though I just started this one and so I haven’t finished it yet, I still think Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike will be my favourite book of 2016. Boy, this is something else. And right up my alley, life-lessons, entrepreneurship, sports, passion. It speaks to me. You learn something, you feel you understand things better after reading. At least so far, I might blog about it after finishing (or you know, podcast about it)

    Best game

    Probably Sniper Elite III. I only played a few games this year, but this one was fun. Sneaking and sniping Nazis in the African desert. Not too much backstory or immersion, just what I like for now.

    Best movie

    The Big Short. A piece of recent real history portrait by great actors. Yes, in a Hollywood fictional sort of way, but that didn’t bother me.

    TV shows are missing from this list, because there just weren’t any that I think I’d like to recommend. But I have seen more episodes of Flip or Flop than you would guess. Probably because we bought a new house ourselves and did some work on it.

     Best article/site

    Not so much an article, as a guy who writes them. I think I must have stumbled on Derek Sivers and his braindump sivers.org a few times already before 2106, but it didn’t stick or I didn’t see the bigger picture. But this year it did, you can really learn a lot from this guy, who built and sold his company and didn’t keep a penny. He writes interesting articles, some have been compiled to read as a book. Highly recommended.

    (That reminds me, I probably also should start tracking favourite quotes.)

    Best video

    I watch and like a lot of YouTube but I have never liked (you know, like-like) a youtube video in my life. So picking one is hard because there is no log.  So this is a placeholder for myself to keep track of this. The same goes for gifs, also moving images. I probably have seen more gifs than videos, and that’s saying something 😉

    Best new gadget

    My Chromebook. I did a blogpost on it. But my Tascam DR-40 and Logitech MX Master are close runners up. Oh and I started driving one of these, which is also a nice piece of technology.

    Best tweet

    For this last one, I’m going to be unapologetically selfish. Yes, with all the political drama this year there were a lot of interesting or funny tweets. But this tweet is mine, non-political and my favourite:

  • My January timeline

    I’ve always loved timelines. Visually seeing where things are in time resonates pretty strongly with me. This love goes back to my earliest memories of the dentists’ office where a huge year-round calendar hung on the wall. It had 12 distinct vertical columns and every day had its own little box. Maybe it’s because of the physical pain that went with those visits, but this calendar is cemented in my mind. It’s what I literally see when I think of ‘a year’.

    For things that span multiple years I also tend to make timelines in my head. I plot everything from music history to computer science history and I make cross-references. So for me, the Beatles broke up around the time Unix and C were being developed. And MIT AI’s lab was getting a PDP-1 when Elvis was serving in the military. So yeah….there’s that.

    And I like to document everything. What I read, play, watch or listen to. Pretty much for the same reasons I think. So why not plot all that data in a nice timeline? So here you go, my timeline for January with 4 categories of things that I read, watched, played or listened to. I.e. books, movies, games and podcasts. Here’s the full screen version.