Podcasts

Podcasts, RSS and the Internet

Tags: GNU/Linux Internet podcast

Podcasts

Podcasts are episodic series of digital audio files that users can download on their device for listening.

I use the AntennaPod app from F-Droid to receive them on my Android device.

Apart from the actual contents of the podcast & Internet, what’s the single best thing that makes users follow their favorite podcasts is RSS.

RSS is RDF Site Summary
RDF is Resource Description Framework from W3C which shares the data models of metadata
W3C is World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for WWW
WWW is the World wide Web and is not synonymous with the Internet. Its an information system where URLs work over the Internet.
URL is Uniform Resource Locator (URL) a.k.a the web address

So it’s RSS(¹) which brings the latest updates to user’s devices. Its the bell icon of the good old Internet without annoyed surveillance capitalism from the big techs.

Back to the podcasts, it’s an another universe which is way different than videos or websites which seek our constant attention. One can play their favorite podcast and still do their work. Eg., drive a car, code or make dishes.

Three podcasts that I would recommend for guys like me are

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History : Its no doubt world’s greatest podcast. I discovered this from another podcast which is next on the list. RSS
Lex Fridman Podcast : which covers conversation about science, technology, history, philosophy and beyond. All popular/unpopular real life heros have been on this podcast. RSS
Freakonomics Radio by Stephen J Dubner : Weekly podcast with the big shots from economics to sleep. RSS

RSS’s Wikipedia page mentions Ramanathan V. Guha for contributing to the basic idea of RSS as early as 1995. Surprised to see that he has done his schooling from Pune; place where I now reside. Today’s free Internet stands on the shoulders of guys like him. ↩

Tags: GNU/Linux Internet podcast
Updated on: 2022-01-22