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Excel Quickie: How long will it take me to catch up on Comedy Bang Bang: The Podcast?

I subscribe to 10 podcasts which i listen to at work.  There are 3 additional podcasts i am NOT subscribed to, because when i start listening to a new podcast, i begin at the beginning!  Comedy Bang Bang (heretofore referred to as CBB) has been around since 2009, and i'm still catching up!
Today i pondered:  when the hell will i be caught up with this damn podcast, so i can start listening to SPONTANEANATION with Paul F. Tompkins!?  Like a good OCDude, i have to listen to my podcasts from oldest to newest.  I'm only up to episode 127 of CBB, which aired October 17, 2011.  Since CBB releases one podcast a week, i can calculate how many more podcasts it'll take me to be caught up.  But i smell an iterative calculation!

It's been 213 weeks since the podcast I'm currently listening to aired, so I'm going to assume I've 213 more podcasts until i catch up.  The 2 podcasts currently on my iPad are 1 hr 14 min and 1 hr 12 min, so I'm going to say the average podcast length is 1.22 hours.  That means i'll have to listen to 268 hours and 52 minutes of podcasts to catch up.
 

But, so that i don't get bored of any one podcast, i never listen to the same one twice in a row.  So between every episode of CBB, i listen to another podcast.  I'm also trying to catch up on The Whorecast, so I'll probably listen to an episode of that between every CBB.  Whorecast episodes average 52 min in length.  That's an additional 191 hours of filler podcasts.

I try to stay at work until 8 hours after I've arrived, but i also usually take about an hour lunch (and by lunch, i mean stroll around Hobby Lobby).  So that's 59.2 work days.  On average, accounting for sick days, holidays, and vacations, i work 4 days a week.  That means it'll be 8.46 weeks until i catch up.  But during that time, more podcasts will be released!

And that's where our iterative calculation comes in!  Excel by default won't calculate a formula that refers to the cell--either directly or indirectly--that contains the formula.  This is called a circular reference and circular references, by default, can iterate indefinitely, leading to errors in worksheets.


The most common way of accommodating formulas with circular references is to change the number of iterations calculated by Excel.  By accessing Options and choosing the Formulas tab, you can check the box labeled Enabled iterative calculation as shown below.  So if we add the Weeks to Catch Up to Podcasts to Catch Up, we get the existing podcasts i have to listen to to catch up, as well as the podcasts that will be released in the intervening weeks!

So I'll be caught up on CBB on the thirteenth of January of next year!  Hooray, math!
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Location: Austin, TX 78750, USA

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