Carlos RodrigoFather · Husband · Data specialist

Two podcasts and why I read/listen to biographies

While listening to the How to Take Over the World episode of Rasputin, one of the plugs was for another similar podcast that delves into fictional biographies, it’s called Becoming the main character.

Both podcasts, synthesize books on real or fictional characters, to find the hows and whys people became great.

This led me to think about why I read biographies (mainly audiobook format), such as Teddy Roosevelt’s, Churchill’s, Napoleon’s, Hawkings’s, Feynman’s, Von Neumann’s and Gordon Brown’s…

I concluded that I look for alternatives that have not crossed my mind and special ingredients that these people may have that took them to a higher level in history.

We are all made of the same stuff, we all have the same 24 hours/day and roughly the same 30000 days/life, though some people achieve greatness, as per historical standards, and others just whiz by without a trace…

Please listen to these podcasts, I am currently listening to the Paul Atreides episode which is very interesting.

Dune Part 2

I enjoyed part one of the recent films of DUNE, honestly, I have not seen the old ones, so I can’t compare. I don’t like how old films represented the future (except Star Wars) though they made the best out of the available tools.

In the first film, I was amazed at how they managed to create such incredible recreations of the different great houses, how well it was filmed, how great the technologies (ornithopters, protective shields…) are, the story…

Of course, the second film still is great in all those regards, but it seems they tried cramming too much of the story in a single film (which is understandable) and there’s no “wow factor”, but that may just be me. I was getting used to amazing things and they no longer have such the impact that they used to have.

All in all, I give it a 4/5.