Some things never change…

I was just listening to the BBC program Thinking Allowed which this week was about the history of “gangs”.

The two main gangs discussed are the Scuttlers – youth gangs around Manchester in the late nineteenth century – and the Hooligans – street gangs around London at the same time.

A contemporary report blames the violence of these youth gangs on the corrupting nature of the Theatre, which showed cheap crowd pleasing plays of murder and mayhem.

Its over a hundred years later, and its now TV and gangsta rap, but the old traditions still live on.

I have always been a fan of podcasts since they first started to come out. They provide an opportunity to not only to listen to programs at a time convenient to you (rather than according to a radio station broadcast schedule), but also to access content you would not otherwise. So, for example, many amateurs are producing podcasts on interesting topics (you can listen to fan podcasts on your favourite TV shows), but more importantly for me, some great radio programs are available from stations such as the BBC, the ABC, and NPR in America.

I have just noticed that iTunes is now listing podcasts from universities in America that provide podcasts related to some of classes. (see picture below). I have just subscribed to Information Science 103: The History of Information from Berkeley University.

Podcasting has been taking off over recent years. It started off with home-made podcasts, but more recently mainstream radio has been moving into podcasting, with Australia’s ABC radio producing a range of programs as podcasts. The major benefit of listening to the radio via podcasts, is that you can listen to them anytime, either on your ipod, or, if your computer or ipod connect to your stereo, over that as well.

A couple of ABC podcasts I listen to are:

ABC NewsRadio Star Stuff: Science and space news.

ABC Radio Tasmania The Spin Doctor: national politics.

ABC Radio Sydney Self-Improvement Wednesday: interesting stories from science, history and philosophy.