Looking Sideways: 10 Things
This week's starters-for-ten.
1. There’s still time to enter this year’s International Women’s Podcast Awards (taking place this year on June 19th), although entries close on Tuesday 2nd April. All details here, including info on the IWPA Bursary Fund.
2. I’ve never listened to Hubermann or Steven Bartlett, but I find the wild popularity of his pop-science life-hack protocol schtick (and that whole expertly-marketed-at-middle-aged-men ‘advice-from-the-Stoics’ grift, come to think of it) completely fascinating.
This New York Magazine piece is a proper hatchet job on Hubermann, but it is an interesting read nonetheless. Slate and UnHerd followed up, on either side of the culture way, as you might expect.
I’ve already had some really interesting feedback from my reader/listener survey. Click the button below to take part, and help me shape the future of Looking Sideways:
3. Anti Hero in the UK. ‘Nuff said.
4. RIP the Spring Classic Festival and Wavelength Media - including Wavelength itself, the UK’s longest-running surf magazine, by the sounds of it.
One question on this I’ve had from quite a few readers and listeners now - will this have any impact on the Blue Earth Summit, which is owned and run by the same group?
5. Congrats to my pal and Looking Sideways alumnus Dave Mailman on the launch of his No Fall Zone Freeride World Tour podcast. Listen above.
6. Predictably, I’ve been very much enjoying the Louis Theroux podcast, especially this episode with Nick Cave on grief and the arc of an artist’s life. Listen above.
7. Cody Townsend calls time on The Fifty. Or does he?
8. This tale about running journalist Kate Carter falsifying her times was always a proper ‘too much time on the internet’ story (not least the discovery that there are very angry randoms who spending their spare time exhaustively investigating this stuff). More here.
9. This is such an interesting story - the male Slopestyle riders at Crankworx refusing to ride in over the issues of ‘safety and participation costs’. There are plenty of layers to this one, as the comments on the Pink Bike post (above), or ex-organiser Mark Taylor’s ‘rant’ reveal.
10. Related: this Tortoise Media podcast looks into Red Bull’s history of sponsorship and asks: what duty-of-care responsibilities do brands have when their athletes and ambassadors risk their lives? (See also: incredibly high profile people like Tom Lowe having to do a GoFundMe whip-round to pay for his medical costs). Definitely worth a listen.
Bonus - I have free UK Shipping this weekend on all Looking Sideways merch! Yes, including my ever popular mugs. Click here to get involved.
Bonus part 2 - ICYMI HKC Discount Club is live! Click here to find out more and score exclusive discounts from Db Journey, Goodrays and Vivobarefoot, with more to come.
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Regarding .4 Wavelength media
Firstly, it’s sad to see Wavelength, Magazine end there’s a lot of great people that have worked at that Magazine done, fantastic articles taking wonderful photos and it’s a shame for us to have one less outlet.
I’m not gonna lie, I’ve definitely spent the last year, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together with the likes of Wavelength media and the blue Earth summit. Ultimately run by the same people but evidently looks like two different limited companies. And this is a bit of a tangent, but what concerns me about this summit and numerous others around the world is I couldn’t find anything regarding where the money that’s made during this blue earth Summit goes
Maybe I’m just some sort of raging idealist, but surely if you’re having a conference the ultimately focus is on the ocean and climate change and solutions that part if not all of the profits could go towards funding projects, research et cetera
Or am I just completely off?
The ticket price at £300 and then the buy in for corporate sponsors, can be in the region of £32,000 . Seems like this is a massive money generating exercise.
On there defence, I have heard some great work is being done by some of the people that attend conference.
Another slight tangent regarding that is also they had the audacity to ask people to talk for free at this conference.
I’m sitting here poking from the side, but I’m doing it with ultimately mother earth in my mind.
What peoples thoughts?
I really wanted to like Andrew Huberman because so much of scientific research is inaccessible (and he's a skater), but I started noticing the issues that the Slate article pointed out about oversimplification and cherry-picking of research. The Intelligencer piece reminds me of some professors I've encountered who are brilliant in what they do but never learned (or cared to learn) how to treat people decently.