Tag: Reply All

After the recent Uber/hacking episodes, I’m starting to notice a theme in a subcurrent of Reply All episodes –> start off with an easy villain (Uber, Russian exporters), do your best to paint them in the shadiest light possible, outright accuse them of screwing people over…and then spend the rest of the episode clearing their name, even though their name was really only tarnished because how they chose to begin the episode. For this episode, though, it works must better than the Uber episodes (which spent way too much time playing the Uber-as-villain card before finally and completely clearing them of wrongdoing*).

*BTW, that’s probably Reply All‘s greatest crime of all…making Uber look good.

https://overcast.fm/+DzGVYjuMM

Fun episode on the shortcomings of using an ancient Android smart phone, though I’m not really sure it works as the indictment of our current POTUS’s poor tech habits that it set out to be… (Not that we needed anything else to indict that clown on…)

https://overcast.fm/+DzGW9atdE

The first half of this episode deals with all the signals we earthlings send into space intentionally to try and get the attention of aliens…and whether that might be a very bad idea.

It was interesting and right up my alley.

The second half is — what feels like — their 1 millionth episode dealing with people who return emails for other people. I know it was in honor of Email Debt Forgiveness Day, but it still felt like a repeat…

Also interesting, because these guys are just so good at making these things sound interesting, but I really hope it’s the last of this kind of story we’ll hear from a while on Reply All.

https://overcast.fm/+DzGUDwKcE

They said that after listening to this episode (covering all the ways your computer experience can be compromised by evil doers) YOU’LL NEVER WANT TO USE A COMPUTER AGAIN.

But look at me! I’m using a computer to write this entry! TAKE THAT REPLY ALL!

https://overcast.fm/+DzGW5g4mc

A repeat (with some new follow-up at the end), but one I hadn’t heard before. Nice to get the original story and the follow-up immediately and not have to wait two years.

https://overcast.fm/+DzGVjp5Ug

I jumped onto the Reply All bandwagon mid-stream, so there are a lot of episodes I’m still catching up on (in no particular order). It’s weird listening to this very early one. Even the way PJ Vogt pronounces the name of the show in the intro (over-emphasizing, just a bit) feels a bit different. Or maybe it’s just my ears.

As for content…it’s a pretty straight-forward episode about the guy who inadvertently changed the internet by inventing (quite innocently) the pop-up as. Feels a lot like their old TL:DR podcast.

https://overcast.fm/+DzGUe8pyM

I have mixed feelings about podcast episodes that are just episodes of another podcast.  Sometimes the “fill in” podcast doesn’t feel connected enough to the one you actually subscribe to (either in content or style). Sometimes it feels like you’re just listening to a really long advertisement for something else you wouldn’t otherwise be interested in.

This episode of Reply All — which is really just two episodes of another podcast titled Song Exploder — doesn’t have those problems.  There’s a direct tie-in between Reply All and Song Exploder, the styles of the two podcasts mesh well together, and the makers of Reply All reap no benefit from people who choose to listen to Song Exploder.

That said, did they really need to include TWO different episodes of Song Exploder? The 2nd one felt like gilding the lily a bit, just to fill time. Music lovers will dig it, but sadly, I listen to podcasts mostly because I’m not much of a music guy…