Take Back the Day

Take Back the Day

By Sam Beckbessinger & Simon DingleSociety & CultureBusinessEntrepreneurshipTechnologyPhilosophy
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Take Back the Day episodes

  • Friction

    Sam overviews her recent problem solving endeavours including poop spatulas and pods for your ears. While deliberating on friction in our lives and how to remove it, we mention...

    • The incredible Shōgun miniseries.
    • Temu. They really don't need us to link to them.
    • Various Apple products. They, too, seem to be doing fine without our links.
    • The Station Eleven miniseries.
      • • Red Dead Redemption 2
      • The Untitled Goose Game
      49 min
    • Oceans

      Our intrepid explorers consider the world's many overlooked and dissapearing organisms, and how to think about changing environments while making more of what is already around us. Along the way, Sam and Simon mention:

      • The Cape Silverside, or "Sukkelvis" fish.
      • Else Bostelmann
      • The Schmidt Ocean Institute
      • Godzilla x Kong
      • Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams
      • Cave of Forgotten Dreams
      • Survive the Century
      • The How to Save a Planet podcast.
      • All We Can Save
      • Palworld
      • Love on the Spectrum
      • Saunas and their associated cold-water shenanigans. You don't need a link.
      • The Boy and the Heron
      • Vengeance
      • The Book with No Pictures
        • 46 min
      • Games

        Games are fun. Work... not so much. Sam and Simon reconnect after many aeons spent not speaking on the internet to talk about games, and why they're fun and important in a way that work isn't and is. Along with other stuff. Things mentioned in this episode:

        • Hearthstone (don't you dare click that link).
        • Rabble - for tricking adults in the UK into exercising.
        • The Oatmeal and Matthew's awesome games, including:
        • Poetry for Neanderthals.
        • Honey Heist - be a goddamn bear.
        • FU - The Freeform Universal RPG system.
        • Bouldering.
        • Go - games don't get much gamesier than that.
        • Smallworld - especially the digital versions on Steam and elsewhere.
        • The story of Monopoly and American capitalism
        • The amazing Dr Nechama Brodie
        • Microsoft Excel World Championship
        • The Future by Naomi Alderman
        • Girls of Little Hope by Sam Beckbessinger and Dale Halvorsen
        • Radiolab's mind-blowing podcast on The Interstitium
        • Acquired, Cautionary Tales, Search Engine, S-town, and other favourite podcasts of Simon's.
          • 54 min
        • Next

          Sam and Simon are together in a room, for a change, and discuss the impact of artificial intelligence, existential crises, and a range of other topics. Along the way they mention:

          • The Cope Zine (instructions on how to fold it below)
          • ChatGPT again.
          • Nick Cave's The Red Hand Files on ChatGPT
          • Francis Fukuyama and his theories on the progress of civilisation.
          • Irresistible the movie (one of the many things Simon could not remember).
          • Also Triangle of Sadness.
          • The incredible art of Fanie Buys.
          • Many games. Including World of Warcraft, Don't Starve Together, Mario Kart, Stardew Valley, League of Legends, and other candidates for Sam and Simon to play together.
          • Wingspan.

            • How to fold a zine:

            58 min
          • Uncanny

            From trippy breath work to commanding a robot army, Sam and Simon are getting ready for a super weird future with its various perils. While discussing their battle strategy they mention:

            • The Wim Hof breathing method
            • ChatGPT, of course.
            • Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less by James Hamblin
            • Building A Virtual Machine inside ChatGPT by Jonas Degrave
            • Midjourney
            • Botto the autonomous artist.

              • (Thanks for the album art, DALL·E 2)

              59 min
            • Loop

              Simon reads Sam a poem and our intrepid duo considers the best ways in which to treat our future selves, the tensions that keep life balanced, pros and cons of social media, and myriad other thingies. Along the way they mention:

              • Swan by Mary Oliver
              • Twitter's impending doom
              • No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
              • Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
              • Replay by Ken Grimwood
              • Stutz
              • Breath:The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
                • 55 min
              • Rewilding

                Sam and Simon explore identity, how we change ourselves for each other, and what it means to push for making things better while appreciating the way things are. It's complicated. Along the way they mention:

                • Adventure Time!
                • Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond
                • Morning Pages
                • Ann Patchett
                • Clarkson's Farm
                • Wilding by Isabella Tree
                • The Jamison Valley
                • How Wolves Change Rivers
                  • 54 min
                • Endure

                  Sam's robotic brain and Simon's tin heart contemplate practices such as writing, running, meditating - or antyhing else that curiously calls you to do it for its own sake - and what these commitments mean and ask from us as they curiously make their way into the other parts of our lives. Along the way they mention:

                  • Return to Oz
                  • Google Keep
                  • Obsidian
                  • Notion
                  • Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
                  • Jim Rogers
                  • Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
                  • Eat and Run by Scott Jurek, Steve Friedman
                  • The Hardrock 100
                  • The Dreamachine
                  • DeepDream
                  • Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond
                  • Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
                    • 51 min
                  • Garbage

                    What gives things value, and how much should we be worried about that? Sam and Simon discover that everything is rubbish, and along the way mention:

                    • Veblen goods
                    • A lot of garbage things that don't deserve extra attention here
                    • Cryptotrunks
                    • Cryptokitties
                    • Sir Digby
                    • Vaccines: A Measured Response
                    • Google Keep
                    • Semiphemeral
                    • 📼
                    • Bo Burnam
                      • 47 min
                    • Together

                      Prolific heat-thieves Sam and Simon talk about keeping shit together on this sixtieth episode of Take Back the Day. Things mentioned in this episode:

                      • Radiolab's Kleptotherms podcast.
                      • The Overstory by Richard Powers.
                      • Sam's crazy productivity system (subscribe to her newsletter too).
                      • Simon's silly ZARP website.
                      • Survive the Century climate-change game.
                      • The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel.
                      • Moss and their crypto carbon credits.
                        • 43 min

                      About Take Back the Day

                      From the publisher's feed

                      Sam and Simon talk about everything, but mostly how to do the things you have to do so you can make more time for what you want.