Finally started to listen to Escape Pod

[Moritz]

I am now through with the back catalogue of Podcastle and Pseudopod and have started listening to Escape Pod today, during sports. Woa, it has been 8 years? I started with Pseudopod back in 2008 but had a couple of brakes from listening because of issues with the computer etc.

So far, the first two episodes were quite good, I'll definitely keep listening Just some 400 more episodes in front of me...

[DKT]

When you start listening to a show like this and intend to go all the way through, do you start from the beginning of the show, and plow forward? Or the opposite way? Or something else?

Just curious

[Moritz]

With Pseudopod and Podcastle, I actually began with the current episodes, stopped that to pick up the back catalogue, until I reach the cut of point again. With Escape Pod I actually start at the beginning. I can trace the development of the show, understand when someone is "new" (i.e. the metacasts make sense) and of course in Podcastle, the feedback concerning previous episodes only make sense when you actually listened to the older episodes.

The only bad thing that can happen is that you might miss a current competition, but yes I am already working on something for the Podcastle contest

[Max e^{i pi}]

I am now through with the back catalogue of Podcastle and Pseudopod and have started listening to Escape Pod today, during sports. Woa, it has been 8 years? I started with Pseudopod back in 2008 but had a couple of brakes breaks from listening because of issues with the computer etc.

So far, the first two episodes were quite good, I'll definitely keep listening Just some 400 more episodes in front of me...

Fixed that for you ;P

I started EP at 150ish, never sat down to fill in what I was missing. However, I did start jogging again and am zipping through audiobooks at a fantastic rate (6 km can take a while...). Maybe I will start at 1...

[Moritz]

Yeah, I have a 15 minute walk to work, listen to podcasts while doing housework (when I am alone at home), and I do sports 1-2 times a week on a cross trainer, which is just boring without my dose of Podcasts.

[Moritz]

I'll give some infrequent and unstructured reviews of EP:

Haha, in Episode 13 Mur calls in for a ranty book review. The calls by listeners are really hard to understand because of the sound quality though.

Also I hope they soon switch to more guest readers, Steve Eley's voices for children and women are exactly the same 

[lowky]

Also I hope they soon switch to more guest readers, Steve Eley's voices for children and women are exactly the same 

Does anyone know how Steve is doing?  I miss his reading of stories

[Unblinking]

When you start listening to a show like this and intend to go all the way through, do you start from the beginning of the show, and plow forward? Or the opposite way? Or something else?

Just curious

I realize this question wasn't directed at me, but thought you might be interested in another answer. 

I tend to invent a routine for doing anything I expect to be doing regularly.  Generally, my rational for doing this is that I don't really feel like spending time dithering making choices which my exact choice doesn't matter that much anyway (such as whether I listen to the newest Pseudopod episode or the newest Podcastle episode next).

When I first start a show, I start with the most recent episode so that I can get a sense of what's current there.  Then I listen to the previous 10 episodes or so in reverse order.  Again, to a get a bit of a sense to where the show is now.  Of course, new episodes might air while I'm working through these, in which case I'll listen to the newest one as soon as it's available, and then go back into the routine.

After I've listened to the 10 most recent episodes, then I start from the beginning and listen sequentially until I hit the episodes I've heard before, at which point I have listened to that podcast's entire backlog.

Then I listen to another podcast, following the same procedure, except with one added element. If I listened to Podcast A's backlog first, then B, then C, then if I have a bunch of stories loaded up I always listen to them in order of podcast A, then B, then C.  Usually I load up the iPod once every weekend, so I then spend much of the week working through that week's episode with priority to those I had listened to first, then when I've listened to all of those I listen to the backlog of the one podcast I haven't caught up on yet.

Yes, I'm weird. 

I am pretty sure I'm really a robot in disguise.

The podcasts I'm actively listening to (in order):
Pseudopod
Podcastle
Escape Pod
Drabblecast
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Clarkesworld
Dunesteef
Lightspeed
Cast of Wonders
Journey Into...
Toasted Cake

Podcasts I'm currently catching up on the limited backlog:
Extruding America

Podcasts which I've listened to the backlog, but which don't have new episodes:
Variant Frequencies
Cast Macabre

Podcasts which I have listened to some but which I choose not to listen to:
StarShipSofa (I will rant at length about this at the slightest provocation)
Decoder Ring Theater (I like a lot about this show, great production, but the attempt at writing in a Big Pulp kind of style turned me off eventually though some segments rise above it)

[Moritz]

I am now around episode 60 (!) and I'm enjoying it a lot. One of the last episodes was the introduction to Squonk the Dragon, which I don't really like, but whatever. To be honest, I usually only like about 40% of all episodes (including on the other podcasts), and have only saved about 5 of them to listen to them again, but that's just me being mean I guess.

[flintknapper]

When you start listening to a show like this and intend to go all the way through, do you start from the beginning of the show, and plow forward? Or the opposite way? Or something else?

Just curious

I realize this question wasn't directed at me, but thought you might be interested in another answer. 

I tend to invent a routine for doing anything I expect to be doing regularly.  Generally, my rational for doing this is that I don't really feel like spending time dithering making choices which my exact choice doesn't matter that much anyway (such as whether I listen to the newest Pseudopod episode or the newest Podcastle episode next).

When I first start a show, I start with the most recent episode so that I can get a sense of what's current there.  Then I listen to the previous 10 episodes or so in reverse order.  Again, to a get a bit of a sense to where the show is now.  Of course, new episodes might air while I'm working through these, in which case I'll listen to the newest one as soon as it's available, and then go back into the routine.

After I've listened to the 10 most recent episodes, then I start from the beginning and listen sequentially until I hit the episodes I've heard before, at which point I have listened to that podcast's entire backlog.

Then I listen to another podcast, following the same procedure, except with one added element. If I listened to Podcast A's backlog first, then B, then C, then if I have a bunch of stories loaded up I always listen to them in order of podcast A, then B, then C.  Usually I load up the iPod once every weekend, so I then spend much of the week working through that week's episode with priority to those I had listened to first, then when I've listened to all of those I listen to the backlog of the one podcast I haven't caught up on yet.

Yes, I'm weird. 

I am pretty sure I'm really a robot in disguise.

The podcasts I'm actively listening to (in order):
Pseudopod
Podcastle
Escape Pod
Drabblecast
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Clarkesworld
Dunesteef
Lightspeed
Cast of Wonders
Journey Into...
Toasted Cake

Podcasts I'm currently catching up on the limited backlog:
Extruding America

Podcasts which I've listened to the backlog, but which don't have new episodes:
Variant Frequencies
Cast Macabre

Podcasts which I have listened to some but which I choose not to listen to:
StarShipSofa (I will rant at length about this at the slightest provocation)
Decoder Ring Theater (I like a lot about this show, great production, but the attempt at writing in a Big Pulp kind of style turned me off eventually though some segments rise above it)

I laugh cause I listen to most of those too. My only surprise is that you do lightspeed, but not nightmare. Any reason for that? I think nightmare magazine is pretty decent.

[Unblinking]

I laugh cause I listen to most of those too. My only surprise is that you do lightspeed, but not nightmare. Any reason for that? I think nightmare magazine is pretty decent.

The only reason is that I like to wait until a few more episodes have accumulated before I start listening.  Why?  Because when I get caught up to the backlog, I like to write up a Best Of list for the podcast.  And it just feels silly to do that if, say, they only have 10 episodes.  Generally I wait until they have 30 episodes.  I think Nightmare is almost there--I think I looked last week and they had something like 27?

Why  30? 
Ah, there's some more of my algorithmic thinking.  Here are some basic rules I use:
--I write a maximum of a top 10 list, with 5 honorable mentions.  This is what happens with very large backlogs.
--I aim for the top ___ list to be at most 10% of the overall story count, and the honorable mention list to be half that.
--But I also want the top ___ list to be at least 5, so if the 10% would be less than 5, than I add the honorable mentions into the top ___ list

30 episodes is the magic number where all of this works out. 
30 * 10% = 3, so a Top 3 list
3 / 2 = 1.5, round up to 2, so 2 honorable mentions.
Since Top 3 is less than 5, the 2 honorable mentions get bumped onto the list, and it ends up with just a Top 5. 
Any less episodes than that, and the math (with usual rounding rules) would only result in a Top 4.

[Fenrix]

Unblinking, you might give someone the impression you're an engineer.

[Max e^{i pi}]

Unblinking, you might give someone the impression you're an engineer.

My sister-in-law once said: "He doesn't have OCD, he just likes things to be well-ordered." She said this about her 3 year old son.

[Moritz]

Episode 83: Ulla
That one is named after my mom, which weirded me out a lot.

[Moritz]

I am past episode 100 now, still another 300 to sweeten my commute* or my training

* well, actually I walk to work. it's a 15 minute walk, so when I include cleaning up after breakfast and getting dressed etc., it's one episode.

[FamilyGuy]

Unblinking, you might give someone the impression you're an engineer.

My sister-in-law once said: "He doesn't have OCD, he just likes things to be well-ordered." She said this about her 3 year old son.

My family refers to it as CDO, thus the acronym is in alphabetical order.

[Max e^{i pi}]

Unblinking, you might give someone the impression you're an engineer.

My sister-in-law once said: "He doesn't have OCD, he just likes things to be well-ordered." She said this about her 3 year old son.

My family refers to it as CDO, thus the acronym is in alphabetical order.

I often refer to it as OCO. Obsessive Compulsive Order.
Because that's what we do.

[Moritz]

I am now just past episode 300!

Since I have been using some episodes as teaching material, I am thinking about how cool it would be to have a fully indexed directory of episodes. You know, like, contains "Japan", "Psychology", "Out of Body Experience", "Aliens", "Traveling". This would mean listening to ALL of them again though... and as you can see it took me well over a year and I am still in 2011...

[Moritz]

Now I'm almost full circle and close to 2013... I have gone through all the downloaded back catalogue and I've reached the episodes in my itunes feed (which makes it more difficult to listen to them because now I can't mix the episodes with music...

... when I am taking a train ride, I usually put some escape pod episodes on the player for the walks and music for the ride, because I will read on the train while drowning out the background noise with music. this doesn't work with the feed in itunes for some weird reason)

Anyways, I am still greatly enjoying all of it and even have difficulties catching up with Podcastle and Pseudopod. While Pseudopod was my first escape artists series, I mostly focus on Podcastle nowadays.

[Moritz]

and... up to Episode 499!

Now I finally feel fit to comment on EP episodes and I can catch up on Podcastle and Pseudopod... which I haven't listened to since March!