I am looking for podcasts/articles about the tools people use daily.

November 3, 2024 12:22 AM

I am looking for podcasts or articles in which people detail the tools - hardware, software, kitchen appliances, tools, whatever - that they use in their day to day lives. My platonic ideals for this are Lifehacker's old "How I Work" column and the Cortex podcast "State of the Apps" and "State of the Hardware" episodes. I care less about the specific type of tool being discussed and more about it being an actual lived experience, by a real person, as opposed to simple product review or a top ten list. Ideally, not very old, so the recommendation might still be relevant. Any suggestions? Have already run through ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, without great results. Best ones were The Sweet Setup (but still feels too professional, review-y, desperate to sell me something) and UsesThis.com (which felt like it should have been exactly what I was looking for, but somehow left me cold - I think there's a quantity vs. quality thing going on, I'd prefer one really good interview to 200 just OK ones). Thanks in advance!
posted by LingeringMoon to Technology (9 answers total)

Best answer: Cool Tools has a couple newsletters that may be close:

There is podcast called Cool Tools Show and Tell.
A newsletter called What's in my Now.
A newsletter called Recommendo.
And a newsletter called Gar's Tips and Tools.
posted by stuart_s at 1:41 AM on November 3 [5 favorites]

On the lived experience of tool use - and assuming that you’re open to some deep & challenging German philosophy - you’re going to love all the hammering that goes on in Being and Time by Martin Heidegger.
posted by rd45 at 2:19 AM on November 3

From the world of software testing, here's a fairly rich discussion of risk analysis techniques and tools used by testers on the job.

Also from Ministry of Testing's Club (forum): a detailed account of one tester's favorite approaches to exploratory testing. It's a nice narrative.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 5:29 AM on November 3 [1 favorite]

Gareth Branwyn has something similar to Cool Tools.

Not quite what you're asking for, but this guy does funny, vulgar reviews of tools and related topics on Youtube.
posted by adamrice at 6:51 AM on November 3

Sacha Chua on emacs and some other things

IME, this is an unstable topic for periodicals (podcasts, vids, even blogs) and they keep getting pushed to “new cool things”. You’d THINK that interviewing a series of people would stave this off but apparently not very well.

I go looking for “how I do X” or “how I use Y” instead. Especially the former; this is because I myself want to be concentrating on the doing not the tooling… to quote what seems to be a ham mantra against shopping-instead, “more do dat, less doo dahs”.
posted by clew at 10:36 AM on November 3 [1 favorite]

Searching "shop tour" or "toolbox tour" on YT will return a lot of stuff; they are commonly made videos by handy people if you're into the physical workshop tool stuff. Usually it's someone opening every drawer of their toolbox and explaining why they chose the tools they did and what they use them for. (More or less, quality varies, etc.) here's a representative example
posted by Rhomboid at 12:31 PM on November 3 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks very much for all the replies!
posted by LingeringMoon at 1:20 AM on November 4

Uses This is what you are looking for!
posted by LongDrive at 2:52 AM on November 4 [1 favorite]

Adam Savage, of Myth Busters fame, has a prolific YouTube channel. He covers all sorts of maker projects and includes lots of shop tours. He also has playlists of his favorite things of each year.
posted by bluloo at 8:09 AM on November 4