Downers

#119 – It's just Hao this week! We're gonna really get into it. We're really gonna tear it up. WHALE SONGS. THE NEWS. TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT: DOGS.

#118 – Suki Kim's 2014 book WITHOUT YOU, THERE IS NO US, which documents her 2011 visit to North Korea as an English teacher to its elite students, is the topic of the hour. This episode was released very late because the time slipped away from Hao... but no matter! We talk about the nature of Korea's geopolitics today; we figure out Jack's juice problem; we dive into the sadness of the world today, bravely, like astronauts.

Plugs this week:

• The programming language Smalltalk (Jack)
• Sarah J. Maas's THRONE OF GLASS (Kate)
• Making friends (Hao)

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#117 – Jack and Hao mount a stirring attack on personhood labels. This is something we often allude to on the podcast, the idea of putting people in boxes that often are too big or too small to contain them. Now we devote the entire hour to breaking down exactly what we mean and which labels we abhor the most (husband/wife/partner, man/woman).

WARNING: THIS EPISODE ALSO CONTAINS SIGNIFICANT SPOILERS FOR POKÉMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU (2019)

Plugs this week:

• Pouches by Baggu (Kate)
• Ursula Le Guin's THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST (Hao)
• Kiwis, the fruit (Jack)

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#116 – Beefs! We all have past mistakes that haunt us. In this hour, we squash some of our beefs. Also, in the B-plot, we discuss hygiene. What's up with the shower industry, and the marketing around it? Only on Downers could an episode format this innovative make its way to your ears.

Plugs this week:

• Being unironic (Jack)
• The Park Church Co-op (Hao) in Brooklyn
• Giant inflatable, like, chair bed things (Kate) for the beach

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#115 – This week, we devote the hour to The Washingtonian's article "What Happened After My 13-Year-Old [sic] Son Joined the Alt-Right." We also get a follow-up to Kate's travels to Tokyo, where she experienced a PEDESTRIAN SCRAMBLE. Road safety... toxic internet forums... it's another classic Downers episode!

Plugs this week:

• Leonard Susskind's THE THEORETICAL MINIMUM lectures (Hao)
• Watching a patch of grass (Jack)
• Modded content for THE SIMS (Kate)

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#114 – Downers convenes this week to discuss the important topic of the week: BIOHACKING. What is it??? Should be afraid of it, or should we embrace it wholeheartedly? We also talk along the way about intermittent fasting and the gendering of diet culture and how baby Wikipedia articles become adult Wikipedia articles.

Plugs this week:

• Teochow cuisine, the Bo Ky restaurant on Bayard (Hao)
• The Faber & Faber piano books (Jack)
• Rinse Aid (Kate)

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#113 – We break our rule about current events to talk about places of worship. In light of recent horrific events, we cannot help but feel compelled to say nice things about them. Just Jack and Hao on this episode. Kate will be back next week!

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EPISODE 112 // Julian Assange has been arrested and is facing extradition. WikiLeaks sits at the intersection of technology and policy and naturally makes good fodder for our podcast. Which is why we instead go on a long rambling discussion about the nature of news and sadness! We also talk about Julian's cat. Where is his meow-meow right now?

Plugs this week:

• Hybrid car's plug-in system (Jack)
• Haircuts (Kate)
• Texting a friend you haven't texted in a while (Hao)

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EPISODE 111 // We devote this hour to Jenny Odell's EYEO 2017 keynote talk on doing nothing. How do you do nothing? And what is it like to create art that encourages people to do nothing? We. Find. Out.

Plugs:

• Tokyo Disney Tourist Guide (Kate)
• Coffee grounds with air (Hao)
• Doing nothing (Jack)

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EPISODE 110 // Slack! The unicorn that Silicon Valley fell in love in. We three all use it. If you don't use it, it's the work-chat application that people just can't get enough of. In this episode we critically inspect Slack. Are private channels pernicious? Is giving Slack all your information forever a good move? We. Find. Out.

Plugs this week:

• Raw peas (Jack)
• Grandma's plates (Hao)
• Bon Appetit's April Fool's ASMR video (Kate)

/r/downersradio on reddit | [email protected] | @downersradio on twitter