Really Specific Stories

Scott discusses his long history of listening to Apple-centric podcasts and what it has been like to co-host and produce his own podcasts. He also asserts the importance of accessibility and the benefits of listening to (and even being part of) a minority, citing lessons from the podcast Parallel and his childhood experience as an American living in Japan. Last, but not least, he asks us all to be more intentional in our media consumption and turns the tables in this very podcast. This is the final episode of Really Specific Stories to be tied formally to a podcast case study in the PhD project. Podcast case study: Parallel (listener) Find Scott at scottwillsey.com. Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF or in plain text. Links and Show Notes Podcast Voice 00:00:00 Hemispheric Views Jason Burk Andrew Canion Mac Geek Gab Dave Hamilton Pilot Pete Adam Christianson John F. Braun (former co-host) iPod 5th Generation (with Video) The iPod Video was the fifth generation of a product line that is now collectively referred to as the iPod Classic. MacCast Mac (computer) Compact disc (CD) Daily Source Code was a podcast by Adam Curry, which can now be found in the Internet Archive. Podcast Pickle Friends with Brews is the podcast that Scott mentions producing with Peter Nikolaidis. This Week in Tech (TWiT) Grammar Girl Mur Lafferty GarageBand Gaijin Audio Gaijin Kagoshima What the Listener Wants to Hear 00:14:35 Apple Inc. Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) The ‘ATP guys’ are Marco Arment, John Siracusa and Casey Liss. Vermont Boston This Stuff Does Matter to People 00:23:01 Artificial intelligence (AI) Mastodon (social network) Parallel Shelly Brisbin Accessibility and more specifically, computer accessibility and Web accessibility Imposter syndrome Visual impairment (including more precise references to blindness and low vision) Enjoy the Learning Process 00:30:49 Fear of missing out (FOMO) Be Intentional 00:37:24 The ‘1x train’ to which Scott refers is the shared preference of many podcast listeners to listen to audio at its original speed, rather than accelerating it or relying on algorithmic features to save time. AirPods YouTube Turning the Tables 00:45:05 Micro.blog 000: International Mac Nerds is the pilot episode of Hemispheric Views and was originally featured in episode 39 of Lounge Ruminator. Andrew Canion’s guest appearance in episode 28 of Lounge Ruminator, which led to discussions of doing a podcast together Announcing Hemispheric Views on Feld Notes through Micro.blog Credits Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion Contact Website: rsspod.net Email: martin@loungeruminator.net Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld

Andrew is a writer, audio producer, editor and teacher, who, in this episode, reflects on his love for writing and his lifelong journey with audio. This ranges from his experimentation with tape recorders as a child, through to his experience in college radio and his role as host and producer of the arts-and-culture podcast The Organist, working with KCRW in Los Angeles. Andrew then shares the story of how he came to write his first book, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight, and how that has led him to be featured as a guest in various podcasts. Podcast case study: Parallel (guest) Find Andrew at andrewleland.org. Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF or in plain text. Links and Show Notes Left the Lens Cap On 00:00:00 Campus radio Internet radio The Organist KCRW Compact disc (CD) This American Life Camcorder Conversation and Narrative 00:05:48 Desktop publishing Cable television Tape recorder Joe Frank Paraliterature Shotgun microphone Writing 00:14:34 The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight (2023) by Andrew Leland The New Yorker DeafBlind Communities May Be Creating a New Language of Touch by Andrew Leland Accessibility Sprinkles 00:20:59 Visual impairment (including more precise references to blindness and low vision) Screen reader Accessibility and more specifically, computer accessibility and Web accessibility Parallel Shelly Brisbin Find Andrew's guest appearance in #86: An Immigrant in the Country of the Blind. Louis Braille Hacker Braille Extended reality (XR) (including more precise references to augmented, mixed and virtual reality) It Feels Like a Gift 00:29:33 Liminality Ryan Knighton Credits Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion Contact Website: rsspod.net Email: martin@loungeruminator.net Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld

Lynn discusses her background as a designer, CSS developer and illustrator—drawing on her love for technology and her time in art school, where she explored the concept of intermedia. She also reflects on her varied experiences in consuming aural and visual content, such as podcasts, TV shows and movies, along with various side projects that she has maintained over the years. Podcast case study: The Talk Show with John Gruber (listener) Find Lynn at Lynn and Tonic. Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF or in plain text. Links and Show Notes Running Pattern 00:00:00 ‘Dev' = 'developer' or 'development' ShopTalk Easter egg (media) The Weekly Planet GeoCities LiveJournal Myspace HTML CSS Open source View Source Mastodon (social network) Lynn and Tonic WordPress.com Top Chef The Good Place The Food Place The Good Place Lives on, in Menu Form (an interview with Lynn about her site, The Food Place) Megan Amram, producer of The Good Place Nestflix Home Alone Angels with Filthy Souls on Nestflix (Lynn’s listing) Angels with Filthy Souls on YouTube (movie-within-a-movie excerpt) Commentary and Appreciation 09:08 Twitter (now X) Stephanie Eckles Discord Frontend Horse Miriam Suzanne Two Forms of the Same Thing 16:38 Blog Medium (website) Substack RSS The Talk Show with John Gruber Michael Hobbes Maintenance Phase If Books Could Kill Popular science (or ‘popsci’) Patreon I Wanted this Thing to Exist 21:48 Spotify Buy Me a Coffee IATA airport code Lynn’s portfolio archive GitHub Eclectic Weirdo 30:21 Intermedia A Single Div User experience (UX) User interface (UI) Web design Credits Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion Contact Website: rsspod.net Email: martin@loungeruminator.net Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld

Jarrod explains how he discovered the world of podcasting during a long road trip with a friend, going on to enjoy shows about outdoor reaction, news and the Apple fan community. He also elaborates on his experience of starting his own website, HeyDingus, along with listening to various Apple-centric podcasts—making particular reference to 20 Macs for 2020, a show by writer and podcaster Jason Snell, which blended tech podcasting with a narrative journalism format. Podcast case study: 20 Macs for 2020 (listener) Find Jarrod at HeyDingus. Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF or in plain text. Links and Show Notes The Operating System for Me 00:00:00 Apple Inc. iTunes Apple Events video podcast Stevenote Original Apple podcast icon Michigan Michigan Ice Fest: The History of the Oldest Ice Climbing Festival in the US Ice climbing The Dirtbag Diaries Information about Fitz Cahall and others who work on the podcast Talk radio iPod nano Apple’s website in 2006 (courtesy of the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine) Microsoft Windows Mac (computer) and macOS Scouting MacRumors Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) Casey Liss John Siracusa Marco Arment 9to5Mac Six Colors 512 Pixels Ars Technica Entertainment and Production 08:30 Relay FM Clockwise Connected Cortex Mac Power Users Reconcilable Differences Thoroughly Considered Upgrade AppStories Apple News Today The Good News Podcast Core Intuition Dithering Hemispheric Views The Rebound Ruminate The Talk Show with John Gruber Vergecast Your Daily Lex Overcast Pocket Casts Castro RSS RSS reader (or news aggregator) Squarespace HTML CSS Blog Blot Twitter (rebranding to X at the time of this podcast episode’s publication) A Place that I Own 20:56 HeyDingus Virtual assistant Siri Google Assistant Shortcuts (app) Micro.blog Manton Reece (creator of the service) 20 Macs for 2020 24:02 20 Macs for 2020 is a podcast that was delivered in three media (or formats), including an audio-only podcast at Relay FM, a video playlist at 512 Pixels on YouTube and written essays at Six Colors. The podcast creator and host, Jason Snell, can be found at Six Colors or on Mastodon. ’20 Macs for 2020’ (Jarrod’s blog post about the show from January 2021) iMac Macintosh 128K (or the original Macintosh) Power Macintosh Stratechery Accessibility 31:10 Accessibility and more specifically, computer accessibility and Web accessibility Wordle Emoji Federico Viticci Browse the MacStories Shortcuts Archive. iOS 17 A Hidden Side of Myself 33:53 View the 7 Things category in Jarrod’s blog archive. Notes (Apple) JavaScript Jarrod’s store on Cotton Bureau (This item was not placed in these show notes with any sponsorship arrangement—only to reflect its mention.) Noun Project Pixelmator Ted Lasso I Haven’t Burned Out 41:57 How to download your X archive Importing tweets to Micro.blog RoutineHub Things (app) iBook Jony Ive Jony Ive, Apple designer who started his career at tangerine, to set up his own studio Credits Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion Contact Website: rsspod.net Email: martin@loungeruminator.net Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld A Special Note Jarrod is a paying subscriber of Martin’s One Prime Plus membership program for the shared podcast, Hemispheric Views; this did not influence any of the questions that were asked and did not place any expectations on Jarrod as a participant of this academic podcasting project.

John Gruber, the mind behind Daring Fireball and a seasoned podcaster, shares his journey from early computer fascination to independent content creation. He discusses his passion for writing and the challenges of maintaining authenticity in a corporate landscape, particularly regarding Apple. Gruber reflects on the evolution of audience engagement, from the early days of the internet to today’s social media. He also explores the balance between content accessibility and monetization strategies, highlighting the shift towards subscription models in independent media.

Baldur reflects on his family’s history in radio broadcasting, his path to interactive media and writing books and how he moved away from listening to tech podcasts. Content warning: some coarse language Podcast case study: Accidental Tech Podcast (listener) Find Baldur at baldurbjarnason.com. Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF or in plain text. Links and Show Notes Fourth Generation 00:00:00 RSS Perl Interactive media RÚV is the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service. World War II British invasion of Iceland Allied occupation of Iceland Attack of Pearl Harbor Telegraphy Axis powers Hotel Borg Vox populi (or vox pop) Web development Interactive Media Environments 00:08:13 Software widget Graphical widget COVID-19 pandemic HyperCard Macintosh SE Solitaire Tetris What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) Comparative literature Computer science (or ‘comp sci’) University of the West of England (UWE) Bower Ashton campus map BBC Radio Dot-com bubble (including reference to the dot-com crash) Adobe Flash Sandbox (software development) Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) ebook Amazon Kindle iPhone iPad Defamiliarisation 00:15:43 Artificial intelligence (AI) Cryptocurrency (or ‘crypto’) Popular culture (or ‘pop culture’) The Real World of Technology by Ursula Franklin Recordings of public lectures in the Internet Archive Processor (computing) Musical genre mash-up! Pop-punk Post-punk Neosurrealism Accidental Tech Podcast Jason Snell Defamiliarisation Viktor Shklovsky Bertolt Brecht YouTube Line Goes Up – The Problem with NFTs Defunctland Disney’s FastPass: A Complicated History App Store (iOS/iPadOS) Tom Abba *This is not the future of the book Out of the Software Crisis by Baldur Bjarnason Open source Pick and Choose 00:31:03 Round table Narrative journalism 20 Macs for 2020 was released in multiple formats: a podcast on Relay FM; a series of written blog posts at Six Colors; and a YouTube playlist hosted at 512 Pixels Facebook Twitter (rebranding to X) Revenue sharing Threads (social network) Bluesky Social Mastodon (social network) Algorithm Patreon Whisper (software) Descript Substack Email list Apple Podcasts Spotify du jour = ‘of the day’, e.g. ’soup *du jour’ = soup of the day My Computer Identity 00:44:05 Mac (computer) Macintosh Performa Microsoft Windows macOS (previously referred to as Mac OS X and OS X) Pro Tools Apple Human Interface Guidelines User interface design Apple simplified System Settings for macOS Ventura, moved many items from AppleInsider System Settings (previously named System Preferences) Disk Utility Linux GNOME Safari (web browser) ARM architecture family Amy Hoy User experience (UX) ChromeOS Software bug Netscape Jamie Zawinski (a.k.a. jwz) HAL 9000 Plumbing of the Web 01:01:05 HTML XML Markup language Static websites Flat file Client-side iBook G3 ‘Clamshell’ (or what Baldur’s dad refers to as the ‘toilet-seat iBook’) NetNewsWire OPML Domain name Stacking the Bricks (podcast) Credits Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion Contact Website: rsspod.net Email: martin@loungeruminator.net Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld

Marco tells the story of how he became a Mac enthusiast, indie app developer and tech podcaster, covering his work on Tumblr, Instapaper, Overcast and Accidental Tech Podcast, among other projects. He also explains why he thinks it's so important to maintain the open Web and podcasting through RSS, in the face of more exclusive publishing platforms and audio hosts. Podcast case study: Accidental Tech Podcast (producer) Find Marco at marco.org. Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF or in plain text. Links and Show Notes The Stronghold of Podcasting 00:00:00 This Week in Tech (TWiT) This Week in Tech (podcast) MacBreak Weekly The Word Nerds (Archive) Tumblr You Look Nice Today Ricky Gervais The Ricky Gervais Show Stack Overflow The Stack Overflow Podcast Joel Spolsky Jeff Atwood Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) CD-R MP3 CD player iPod The iPod Video was the fifth generation of a product line that is now collectively referred to as the iPod Classic. iPhone This American Life COVID-19 pandemic Audiobook Cable television Leo Laporte AM broadcasting Talk radio Self-taught 00:09:11 Videocassette recorder (VCR) Microsoft Paint BASIC 3-2-1 Contact Magazine was an American educational television show about science that aired on PBS from 1980 to 1988, with an adjoining children's magazine, and which can now be found in the Internet Archive. Windows 3.1 Disk operating system (DOS) MS-DOS QBasic Visual Basic (classic) C (programming language) Unix Solution stack Sun Microsystems Scalable Processor Architecture (SPARC) SPARCstation Solaris Segmentation fault Mac (computer) IBM PC compatible (now more of a historical term that relates to our current usage of the term ‘Windows PC’) Vivísimo Yippy (originally developed and released as ‘Clusty’) Computer memory Version control Software bug Tumblr 00:20:24 Craigslist Tumblr Software development Indie (disambiguation) West Coast of the United States Amazon (company) Bloomberg L.P. Bloomberg Technology Davidville David Karp PHP Shard (database architecture) Twitter Content management system (CMS) Microblogging (The first micro-blogs were known as ‘tumblelogs’.) Myspace (formerly known as MySpace) Facebook LiveJournal WordPress (content management system) A Great Time to Be a Mac User 00:33:02 Apple, Inc. Desktop computer Windows Update Digital Visual Interface (DVI) Vim (text editor) Terminal emulator Linux Server (computing) Ruby on Rails TextMate MacBook (2006–2012) PowerBook G4 A Better Audience 00:38:13 Web development 5by5 Weblogs, Inc. Engadget Gizmodo Lifehacker RSS News aggregator (or in certain cases or implementations, RSS reader) Digg Reddit Hacker News Dan Benjamin Instapaper iPad Build and Analyze was a weekly news and discussion show about technology by Marco Arment and Dan Benjamin, which can now be found in the Internet Archive. YouTube Overcast (app) Merlin Mann John Siracusa Accidental Tech Podcast 00:49:43 Neutral Casey Liss Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) Membership program Relay FM John Roderick (musician) Overcast 00:58:16 Overcast Overcast (app) (further information) Music (software) (The app to which Marco refers was originally known as the iPod app on iPhones.) Downcast (app) Android (operating system) Pocket Casts Apple Podcasts Stitcher App store App Store (iOS/iPadOS) TikTok Instagram Proxy server How the Internet Is Supposed to Work 01:05:06 World Wide Web Web standards (redirecting from ‘open Web’) Decentralisation Comcast Verizon Communications, Inc. UUNET Internet Protocol (IP) Walmart Monopsony Google Amazon Kindle Spotify Trade magazine Eddy Cue Credits Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion Contact Website: rsspod.net Email: martin@loungeruminator.net Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld A Special Note Martin is a paid subscriber of Marco Arment’s shared membership program for Accidental Tech Podcast; this did not influence any of the questions that were asked and did not place any expectations on Marco as a participant of this academic podcasting project.

Grace is a developer and podcast fan, who shares her experience of following various independent shows over the years and in producing her own chatcast, titled Monkey Mind. During the conversation, she also covers her passion for video games and considers the key differences between aural and visual media, drawing on her own study of film and background in video production. Content warning: discussion of clinical depression Podcast case study: Connected at Relay FM (listener) Find Grace at graceteng.me. Read the transcript of the episode as a styled PDF or in plain text. Links and Show Notes How the Habit Started 00:00:00 Major depressive disorder (or clinical depression) The Pen Addict (blog) Relay FM The Pen Addict (podcast) Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) 99% Invisible Planet Money Myke Hurley John Siracusa Merlin Mann 43 Folders Cortex Mac Power Users Ungeniused Playing for Fun Celeste (video game) Analog(ue) Connected The Dynamic 00:09:18 Mac (computer) Casey Liss Parasocial interaction Google Amazon (company) Blog iPhone Early adopter Monkey Mind 00:18:49 Monkey Mind Pokémon Scarlet and Violet COVID-19 pandemic What Sound Can Do 00:26:17 Software engineering Start-up company Multimedia Apple File System (APFS) NPR This American Life Montage (filmmaking) Juxtaposition YouTube Not a Purist 00:36:46 Chatcast = a podcast with a conversational format, rather than a narrative one RSS Adam Savage Adam Savage’s Tested Speedrunning Dear PB Games Done Quick Think Fast! Sly Another Day (video example) Credits Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion Contact Website: rsspod.net Email: martin@loungeruminator.net Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld

Shelly is a writer, editor and podcaster who tirelessly advocates for greater accessibility in digital technology. Joining Really Specific Stories, she shares her journalistic and storytelling experience, explains her audio projects, such as Parallel with Relay FM, and illustrates how far we’ve come (and still have to go) in making hardware, software and media accessible. Podcast case study: Parallel at Relay FM (producer) Find Shelly at brisbin.net. Read the transcript of this episode as a styled PDF or in plain text. Links and Show Notes Mindful of Ethics 00:00:00 RSS Macworld/iWorld Watch the Macworld 2005 keynote in the Internet Archive. Adobe Pagemaker Mac (computer) Desktop publishing Laser printing Linotype machine Macintosh Plus Page layout (with further information about galleys) Rubylith Light table See a scan of the top portion of Supercomputing News (Vol. 1 No. 3) from 1988, which was kindly provided by Shelly because the publication preceded the Web. This was her first editing job! Hydra (operating system) Cray-1 MacUser Apple Inc. Microsoft Windows Go My Own Way 00:07:44 Trade journalism Tech Podcast Network History of podcasting (with references to couplecasting) Accessibility and more specifically, computer accessibility and Web accessibility Diversity (politics) Accessibility in the Mainstream 00:16:36 Disability Assistive technology Google Microsoft Software bug Pro Tools iRiver MP3 iPhone Artificial intelligence (AI) Transcription software Content management system (CMS) iOS Access for All: Your Comprehensive Guide to Accessibility for iPhone and iPad by Shelly Brisbin Jason Snell Use Switch Control on Mac Use Switch Control to navigate your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch iOS Switch Control Demo (YouTube video excerpt of Todd Stabelfeldt's keynote from Apple's WWDC 2017) Parallel and Relay FM 00:35:31 Parallel Relay FM Stephen Hackett Myke Hurley iOS macOS Android (operating system) Twitter Slack (software) Discord Feedback and Engagement 00:45:24 Mastodon (social network) Mention (blogging) Wallflower (people) Aural Inclusivity, Niches and Narratives 00:49:49 Fortune 500 36 Seconds that Changed Everything: How the iPhone Learned to Talk Narrative journalism Radio documentary Credits Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion Contact Website: rsspod.net Email: martin@loungeruminator.net Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld

Jason recounts his personal history as a tech enthusiast and how he built a new life on the Web as an independent writer and podcaster. Along the way, he considers his identity, interaction with fan communities and development of various solo and collaborative projects. Podcast case study: 20 Macs for 2020 at Relay FM (producer) Find Jason at sixcolors.com. Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF or in plain text. Links and Show Notes A Highly-focused Beam 00:00:00 Steve Jobs iTunes Apple announced support for podcasts in iTunes 4.9. Apple Takes Podcasting Mainstream (Apple Newsroom press release from 28 June 2005) Steve Jobs announces switch to Intel & Podcasting WWDC 2005 (Steve Jobs Archive on YouTube, jumps straight to podcast announcement at 00:06:46) For those who enjoy digital spelunking, here’s the full history of iTunes. Macworld Macworld Podcast Mac (computer) Apple Inc. iPod Hypercritical (podcast) Build and Analyze was a weekly news and discussion show about technology by Marco Arment and Dan Benjamin, which can now be found in the Internet Archive. Marco Arment Dan Benjamin Downstream Julia Alexander Parrot Analytics Tim Goodman Articles at The Hollywood Reporter San Francisco Chronicle Twitter The Incomparable InterText Building an Audience 00:10:17 RSS Ricky Gervais The Ricky Gervais Show tv.org (Snapshots are in the Internet Archive.) Usenet FTP server Offset printing GarageBand Substack Accessibility Byline Leo Laporte This Week in Tech (TWiT) MacBreak Weekly Relay FM Myke Hurley Stephen Hackett John Siracusa John’s archive of articles at Ars Technica Community and Persona 00:22:05 Mastodon (social network) New tool ‘Movetodon’ makes it easier to find your Twitter friends on Mastodon (This is one example of the tools that were available to switch networks.) Upgrade MacUser The Rebound Dan Moren Lex Friedman John Moltz Honesty and Care 00:30:51 Anti-fan Star Trek Star Wars Marvel Entertainment Google Pixel Android (operating system) Harry McCracken Andy Ihnatko E-reader AppleScript A Massive Media Transition 00:44:09 20 Macs for 2020 TikTok YouTube Rene Ritchie Jason’s @bleedsixcolors YouTube channel I Have Eight Jobs! 00:53:41 Jason mentions three of his membership programs for podcast fans: Six Colors; The Incomparable; and Upgrade+ (displayed alongside other shows at Relay FM). Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) Airbnb David Sparks John Gruber Credits Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio As an insight into community influence and my own fandom, I use Ferrite Recording Studio with iPad Pro and Apple Pencil because of Jason's early reviews of the app (such as this one) and his comprehensive demo video on YouTube. Just to emphasise the 'iPadness' of this academic/community audio project, you may notice that I left the iPadOS pointer visible in the screenshot above, which Jason also wrote about optimistically back in 2020. Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion Contact Website: rsspod.net Email: martin@loungeruminator.net Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld A Special Note Martin is a paying subscriber of Jason’s Six Colors and Upgrade+ membership programs; this did not influence any of the questions that were asked and did not place any expectations on Jason as a participant of this academic podcasting project.