|
Also, you can only produce so many shows a year. I don't keep track of how many reruns there are, but TV shows only make about 12-24 episodes a year. I ain't gonna get too mad if radio shows recycle at or near the same rate, but it'd be even better if they got out of the way and something else were aired. Also, Fresh Air can recycle shows every time a celeb dies, or an author, who was interviewed when their book was hardbound, now has the same book out on paperback. Then David Cooly can overpraise a mediocre TV show, and that's a wrap.
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 17:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 05:41 |
|
|
To actually answer your question, I don't think it has been TOO much worse. I think the only things that stand out were the eps that were form other podcasts that TAL was associated with, since there were three of them that launched so close together it felt like a bit much, but they were using their big audience to advertise their own stuff, so it was understandable.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 18:16
|
|
|
bad day posted:For example there's an AMAZING recent episode of Reply All called Why Is Mason Reese Crying - I'll bet you a dollar it winds up as part of a TAL episode sometime in the next 12 months. And that Mason Reese episode was originally a "Wiretap" episode.  Johnathan's Wiretap stuff shows up on TAL all the time though, so yeah you're right that "Why is Mason Reese crying" will pop up on TAL eventually. RE: this week's TAL. The vegan kid was insufferable. I really want an update if he's become normal.  I did like the "hold music" story. The dad reminded me of my dad. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 18:38
|
|
|
bad day posted:I've been listening to This American Life for 10+ years - I have probably listened to every single episode except for that one nobody has. I don't remember such a large proportion of content being taken from other radio shows and podcasts. I definitely remember some episodes that were Planet Money compilations, or featured Radiolab stories, or a short segment from The Moth, but I don't remember them being such a large proportion of TAL's output. If you mean the Mike Daisey one that was later retracted, here it is on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnD_LZPvis TAL was taking stuff from The Moth well before it had its own podcast. Same with Ted Talks. And Mike Birbiglia comedy specials. So many Mike Birbiglia comedy specials.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 19:58
|
|
|
Snuffman posted:And that Mason Reese episode was originally a "Wiretap" episode. Wiretip has been running a lot of reruns lately too, but it's pretty drat great most of the time. Manchild Howard segments are too long, but everytime Johnathan calls up his parents, it's awesome. Buzz Goldstein 
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 20:25
|
|
|
Antifreeze Head posted:This story really highlights the crappiness of the repeats; lack of an update. Is that seven year old still insufferable? Are the parents still quick to kowtow to the demands of a grade schooler as it relates to family meals? Is the young child still skulking around with his dad to enjoy being an omnivore? Or did he pick up on the fact that his parents can't say no and now gets twinkies and chocolate milk for every meal? Christ, would it have been so difficult to make a phone call?. That and Ira's poisoning of the well. "Guys, like everybody judges parents just to be judgy so don't judge and be sure take this undisciplined poo poo very seriously". Rather insulting to the audience as I think of it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 20:41
|
|
|
Solkanar512 posted:But that seven year old was so earnest! How could you not empty out your freezer after hearing his passionate call to save the endangered pandas? I liked the kid from the Bad Seed episode more.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2015 20:44
|
|
|
Antifreeze Head posted:If you mean the Mike Daisey one that was later retracted No, there's a very early episode that isn't in the TAL archives and you can't find it in any of the user-created archives on file-sharing services or YouTube because apparently nobody kept a recording of it. Also, does anybody have the URL that takes you directly to the TAL mp3 files? A few years ago someone sent me a link where you can just add the episode number to the end of the url and listen to/download that specific episode instead of streaming it through their site. I live in China and the TAL portal doesn't work that well here, but the episodes themselves are not blocked by the firewall because they are hosted on a different server.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2015 04:02
|
|
|
bad day posted:No, there's a very early episode that isn't in the TAL archives and you can't find it in any of the user-created archives on file-sharing services or YouTube because apparently nobody kept a recording of it. http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2007/01/new-location-for-this-american-life.html Same one, I don't think they've changed it in forever.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2015 04:27
|
|
|
bad day posted:No, there's a very early episode that isn't in the TAL archives and you can't find it in any of the user-created archives on file-sharing services or YouTube because apparently nobody kept a recording of it. That most sounds like episode five. Someone did find a cassette tape with a copy of that show which misses some of the extro acknowledgements but is otherwise complete.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2015 13:25
|
|
|
I wish they'd at least tell us when an episode is a rehash or taken directly from another podcast. Several times I've been listening and then realised ten minutes in I'd heard it before.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2015 11:52
|
|
|
Lady Gaza posted:I wish they'd at least tell us when an episode is a rehash or taken directly from another podcast. Several times I've been listening and then realised ten minutes in I'd heard it before.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2015 19:54
|
|
|
Another repeat, but the boat story is one of my favorites.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2015 22:56
|
|
|
Some interesting stuff on Ira's Twitter about apparent complete fabrication of the data in the study behind the recent episode on changing people's minds.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2015 20:59
|
|
|
That does it - nothing but David Sedaris and "aren't my Brooklynite friends quirky?" stories from now on.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2015 01:43
|
|
|
Oh god. I really liked that episode too.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2015 02:04
|
|
|
hope and vaseline posted:Oh god. I really liked that episode too. Man, TAL just can't get a break. Another redaction episode? This week's episode was pretty good, though. The suicide group with the kids was not happy fun times, got me choked up. Very sad stuff. Next week's sounds interesting too.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2015 05:42
|
|
|
Welp, all sign reall point to fake data. You don't 'accidentally' delete your raw data. This seems to be a pattern in fake science: primary data is lost. Only one of the authors of the paper ever looked at it. The faker claims that the data is real and was collected properly. See the recent case where a Japanese team claimed to be able to turn any cell into a stem cell with a simple acid treatment. That was published in Nature and is now redacted.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2015 07:28
|
|
|
Snuffman posted:Man, TAL just can't get a break. To be fair, this is a bit different. The people TAL were talking to were defrauded by a third party. Still messes up the story, but not TAL's fault. Veering slightly off topic, I'm always puzzled by these cases of high profile scientific fraud. Fraud in the small scale, sure: massage some data, tinker with results, alter a few minor details. No one will notice. But when you claim to have made a superconductor or stem cell, people are going to pay attention. They'll try to repeat your work. You're going to get caught.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2015 09:49
|
|
|
I had a professor who was publicly ousted for mass plagiarism. He'd been on the NYT bestseller list and written many seminal mass-market books on his field. The whole thing seemed very weird and pathological to me, as he could have simply quoted the other authors in his work. He was basically borrowing sentences and short paragraphs from other people, over a period of 20-30 years and got in an early version of an online kerfuffle. Someone looked into his work, publicly disgraced, fired on the spot. What's funny is his books are still good. There was nothing wrong with them in the first place. For some reason he was just fond of attributing work to himself that was directly quoted from other authors, and even though it made up a small portion of his total output it was pretty much omnipresent throughout his academic career. But it's not like these were academic books, even - he wrote stuff published by Penguin and Random House. Anyway the whys and wherefores of phd students is beyond most people - I have known grad students who went completely off the deep end in a wide variety of ways.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2015 10:19
|
|
|
bad day posted:I had a professor who was publicly ousted for mass plagiarism. He'd been on the NYT bestseller list and written many seminal mass-market books on his field. Why'd you out the man? 
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2015 18:03
|
|
|
annapacketstormaya posted:http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2007/01/new-location-for-this-american-life.html Looks like they changed things around around the middle of last year. At least for the episodes I've been testing it with.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2015 18:23
|
|
|
If anyone likes those episodes of TAL where they talk to some small minority of America, you might want to check out State of the Reunion, which sadly just had its last episode. I'm pretty bummed about it, but hopefully someone will like it.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2015 14:39
|
|
|
GrandpaPants posted:If anyone likes those episodes of TAL where they talk to some small minority of America, you might want to check out State of the Reunion, which sadly just had its last episode. I'm pretty bummed about it, but hopefully someone will like it. This looks really neat. Thanks for sharing it!
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2015 17:38
|
|
|
Former TAL producer Starlee Kine has a new podcast up called Mystery Show that seems to be a pretty decompressed version of the kind of stuff she used to do on the show. She sets out, ostensibly to 'solve' a mystery (In Episode 1 it's the sudden closure of a video rental shop in Manhattan) but the story is really more about her meandering around, talking to members of the public, that sort of thing. It's done by Gimlet, a startup founded by the Planet Money people, which a lot of This American Life people apparently jumped to.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2015 02:10
|
|
|
Republican Vampire posted:Former TAL producer Starlee Kine has a new podcast up called Mystery Show that seems to be a pretty decompressed version of the kind of stuff she used to do on the show. She sets out, ostensibly to 'solve' a mystery (In Episode 1 it's the sudden closure of a video rental shop in Manhattan) but the story is really more about her meandering around, talking to members of the public, that sort of thing. It's done by Gimlet, a startup founded by the Planet Money people, which a lot of This American Life people apparently jumped to. It really made me groan because it was the most hokey, This American Life-y crowbar ever, in the middle of a tedious section about some guy watching Fellini films. I think a sad cello even started playing in the background to give it that real extra depth. I'll give the next episode a go, but I'm not interested if every episode tries to turn itself into a philosophical question, I'd genuinely prefer an actual mystery show. Hoops fucked around with this message at 03:00 on May 31, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 31, 2015 02:53
|
|
|
double post
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2015 02:53
|
|
|
It's definitely not an actual mystery show, and it is really hokey. The second episode is kind of dominated by a lengthy section where she talks to a ticketmaster employee about self-esteem and Britney Spears. In both the mystery is really secondary to Kine just talking to normal people 'bout stuff. That's part of why I like it. It harkens back to the kind of directionless, almost ambient stuff that used to make up a decent proportion of their segments.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2015 03:29
|
|
|
Hoops posted:I listened to the first episode today as it was featured on the Start Up podcast (the podcast about the launch of Gimlet, if anyone doesn't know). I was sort of enjoying it as it was billed, solving minor unimportant mysteries in people's lives. Then it took the specific turn where she said (something along the lines of) "so it was then that I realised - the real mystery here wasn't about a video store, the real mystery was why do people do the things that they do?". I think that she's 100% self aware about the weird conceptual turn. It's amazing. Like admitting that sarah koenig, rather than adnan, was the focus of serial all along. The gimlet stuff has been so much more interesting that this American life lately.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2015 04:39
|
|
|
Republican Vampire posted:In both the mystery is really secondary to Kine just talking to normal people 'bout stuff. That's part of why I like it. It harkens back to the kind of directionless, almost ambient stuff that used to make up a decent proportion of their segments. just listened to the first two shows, and it's good old slice of life NPR style. not much substance, but very nice to listen to while doing the dishes or waiting for the subway.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2015 11:19
|
|
|
Republican Vampire posted:It's definitely not an actual mystery show, and it is really hokey. The second episode is kind of dominated by a lengthy section where she talks to a ticketmaster employee about self-esteem and Britney Spears. I love listening to her talk though. So I loved the first episode, and will keep listening.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2015 14:57
|
|
|
I've been trying to google it and haven't had much luck. What was the episode where they interviewed a 30-some programmer that joins the army and goes through boot camp? All I really remember about it is that the guy kept mentioning how after going through it, all he wanted to do was go out and kill someone.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 10:14
|
|
|
DoubleNegative posted:I've been trying to google it and haven't had much luck. What was the episode where they interviewed a 30-some programmer that joins the army and goes through boot camp? This one I think: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/515/good-guys?act=4#play That dude sure seemed like he was weird to begin with, he was super wrapped up in his identity as a modern good-guy liberal who reads slate thinkpieces but then he was also all 'GOTTA KILL THE BROWNS,' right?
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2015 16:09
|
|
|
Was that "Game Face" episode really weak? A group of tourists get stuck on a glacier overnight and have a lovely time. A comedian has a few mediocre shows. It's like they collected all the B-side stories that wouldn't fit anywhere else and shoved them together.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2015 11:50
|
|
|
You shut your mouth, Tig Notaro is a national treasure. OK that wasn't the best piece but still!
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2015 12:20
|
|
|
outlier posted:Was that "Game Face" episode really weak? A group of tourists get stuck on a glacier overnight and have a lovely time. A comedian has a few mediocre shows. It's like they collected all the B-side stories that wouldn't fit anywhere else and shoved them together. The segment about the hockey player was pretty good, and I like it whenever This American Life plays Tig Nitaro. I honestly think this week's episode is kinda weak, especially 21 Chump Street, which is my least favorite segment ever.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2015 12:33
|
|
|
X-Ray Pecs posted:The segment about the hockey player was pretty good, and I like it whenever This American Life plays Tig Nitaro. You haven't listened to enough episodes. In the early days (episodes 30-39) there were no less than three segments devoted to some guy that had a phone line where people could call in and scream. Whole segments of people just screaming as recorded on some answering machine. Or that whole episode about William Burroughs.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2015 15:38
|
|
|
X-Ray Pecs posted:The segment about the hockey player was pretty good, and I like it whenever This American Life plays Tig Nitaro. What?! You're crazy. 21 Chump St is literally one of the best things they've ever done, and the musical version is catchy as poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2015 05:55
|
|
|
Captain's Log (last week's episode, now) felt like a classic TAL episode, complete with a terrible short story that seems to have a grand sweep of themes and symbolism and ultimately says almost nothing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2015 07:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 05:41 |
|
|
They did a repeat of the Super, so I listened to it to see what the deal was. Holy drat  .
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2015 10:52
|
|
