Roderick on the Line: Ep. 153: "The Time Buffalo"

May 7, 2015 3:58 PM

The Problem: John keeps ideating.

Merlin says "On reflection, I think this week's is one of my favorite "serious" episodes of Roderick on the Line." I agree, this is a top-tier show.

John and Merlin cover all sorts of topics, including design and engineering, a great iPhone tip, writing books, an amazing idea John had for a TV and/or youtube series, and things John is discovering and learning as he runs for City Council.

posted by jazon (2 comments total)

I know it was tough for him to talk about, but I really appreciated Merlin's reflection here about the book project and how that went wrong, and how it still affects him today. I've been following him since the mid-2000s (MacBreak days) and I remember hearing that come and go and wondering exactly what the deal had been, since he talked about the unraveling so sparingly (understandably). Honestly, though, the sort of thing I've followed him for is less the work on productivity that he was known for then and more the sort of insight he has always displayed pretty readily on both this show and Back to Work.

Every time I see one of these threads it occurs to me that I have no idea how to describe this podcast to people, and I wish I did, because it's one of my favorite things out there. I recently made a huge cut to my podcast subscriptions to get rid of a lot of the "1.5 - 2.5 hours of people talking" shows--hosted mostly by the small universe of people in the tech world that Merlin is friends or at least associated with--because as much as I enjoyed the content it was really stressing me out to always have this backlog going back a week or more, and our entertainment, of all things, shouldn't be stressing us out. This one, however, stayed on the list.

Also, I would watch every single episode of John's hypothetical show.
posted by Kosh at 8:41 PM on May 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

i really want john to talk about making music. merlin brought it up a few episodes ago, and he sort of dodged it. his new years resolution was to finish the album, but with the city council thing in play i wonder if he's abandoned that idea? i can't say i blame him, the last few shows have been excellent and have sort of convinced me that this may be what john "should" be doing. but if there's no music on the way, i would like to at least know.
posted by JimBennett at 9:42 PM on May 7, 2015