Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: Your Favorite Podcasts? And Why?
Are podcasts finally starting to go mainstream? Are they the future of radio? Who knows. Over the weekend, a reader asked us if we listen to podcasts -- and if yes, which ones? I started listening to podcasts five years ago, and I try to listen to one podcast every day. Here are some of the podcasts I have subscribed to (though I rarely manage to listen to all of them, each week): The New York Times' new podcast The Daily, Bloomberg's Decrypted, WSJ's Media Mix, The Information's 411, The Economist's The Week Ahead, The Economist's Babbage, Financial Times' Tech Tonic, NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, The New Yorker's Radio Hour, The Accidental Tech Podcast, John Gruber's The Talk Show, Slate's Audio Book Club, and Kara Swisher's Recode Decode. What are your favorite podcasts and why? Also, when do you listen to them -- at work /during commute / before bed / weekend or some other time?
I walk around a lot, so I've started listening to podcasts a little bit more. I've been listening to Leo Laporte for the last decade or so, TWiT and his various podcasts like Security Now with Steve Gibson are sometimes educational and entertaining. Outside of the tech genre I've been listening to a lot of Harmontown, the podcast by Community and Rick + Morty creator Dan Harmon. It's a feel good kind of show, which I definitely need these days. I'd like to listen to more tech/security oriented podcasts, but having to subscribe to them is a pain in the ass and eats away at my limited space on the iPhone 6S.
640k ought to be enough for anyone.
sysadministrivia.com it's weird
For me they've pretty consistently brought the funny for years.
Something to be careful of, people rarely know the reason they had success and will often give too much credit to themselves.
Podcats are too annoying, I have to listen to them at the speed of whomever is talking.
So speed it up. There's plenty of podcast app that do a good job of speeding up the playback, even cutting down on the silence within the podcast. For most podcasts I don't even notice the speedup in people's voices/speech (the app I use usually does a variable speedup to about 1.4x speed.)
AC comments get piped to
Embedded, Space Welders, The Ezra Klein Show, Federalist Radio Hour, Internet of Things Podcast, The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast, O' Reilly [Bots | Data | Design | Hardware | Radar] Podcast, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Vox's The Weeds. The why is because they're interesting and introduce me to developments and topics that I haven't previously encountered.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day!
Rogan is funny and good, he has many interesting guests: recently had a former scientologist. Also, sam harris's waking up (philosophy) and very bad wizards (philosophy)
I listen to the following every week:
Security Now
Windows Weekly
This week in Tech
This American Life
99% Invisible
Radiolab
On the Media
BrainStuff
TED Radio Hour
The Bugle
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Freakonomics podcast is awesome:
http://freakonomics.com/archiv...
Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is also quite funny (although the Trump jokes are getting old at this point):
http://www.npr.org/podcasts/34...
The two I listen to most are Marketplace and NPR News. Following that: Science Friday; Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me; BBC News; Planet Money. I've been listening to some of these podcasts for 6 or more years now. I'm also subscribed to a bunch of Youtube channels. My favorite at the moment is EEVblog.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Once a week BBC4 panel discussion with multiple academics on ludicrously wide-ranging topics, aimed at a literate lay audience. One week you're learning about gravity, the next week the Han Dynasty, and the next week a classic 17th century painting. Smart and fast.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...
For sure RadioLab. I listen to The Daily Tech News Show for some extended commentary on the day's tech news. I'm a board gamer and listen to The Dice Tower and The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast. If you're interested in hearing about the business of board games, Board Games Insider is a great resource.
Honorable mention to This American Life. If you haven't listened to the "Squirrel Cop" episode, here ya go, and you're welcome!
https://www.thisamericanlife.o...
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Wonderfully weird, amazingly inventive storytelling, been going strong for years now.
I've had to pare down my podcast listening since I don't drive as much as I used to and usually don't get into listening at home. I have a few categories that I listen to a couple of podcasts each in. These should all be easily found in any podcast directory.
Comics:
War Rocket Ajax
Jay and Miles X-plain the X-Men
I also used to listen to Life Leave Me Alone but their feed address changed and I haven't gotten around to catching back up yet.
Drama:
Welcome to Night Vale
Thrilling Adventure Hour
Role Playing:
Campaign (Getting into this last year is the reason I'm behind on everything else except for WRA and Jay and Miles)
One-shot
Adventure Zone (just starting this one, seems good and I hear it gets better)
Making (I'm way behind on both of these, hopefully they're still updating):
Making It
Darbin Orvar
Misc: My Brother, My Brother, and Me
Much prefer a blog to a vlog. I hate video or audio for getting information. It takes so much longer than just reading.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
http://www.noagendashow.com/
Adam Curry and John C Dvorak. They take no advertising so no paid biases. Deconstruction of the spin from MSM.
In the morning!
Anybody want a peanut?
Hardcore History is one of the most entertaining podcasts around (but there is usually a 5 month gap between episodes). His 6 part series on WW1, Blueprint for Armageddon is a masterpiece.
Common Sense is also pretty good. Dan is the master of context so he takes the current social policital environment and places it in a historical context.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is just awesome.
Dan Carlin's Common Sense suffers for the amount of effort that goes into Hardcore History. It takes him months to research and put out HH.
I keep up with EconTalk, ContraKrugman, Freakanomics and Security Now every week.
If you like Freakanomics give EconTalk a try.
I have a list of podcasts called 'On The Road' which is for when I have guests / gf in the car. This has:
Selected Shorts
Wait Wait Don't Tell Me
This American Life
Serial
Random others:
The Dice Tower
Test and Code
Talk Python to Me
Podcast.__init__
Science Friday
StarTalk Tadio
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
Some things lend themselves to videos. Often these are things where it involves moving your body (sport, martial arts, dancing) or part of it (arts & crafts, DIY, using tools). Some mathematical things work well too.
Some things are awful on video. Anything that involves making settings on a computer is an utter PITA as you miss what you're doing, rewind back, try to jump forward, jump forward too far, rewind back again. That'd be better served by text. Even screenshots aren't absolutely necessary, though I quite like them.
Horses for courses, innit? The start of being a craftsman is knowing what tool to use - and which *not* to use.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Current:
AMPed New Music Weekly - currently on hiatus
Android Central
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
Scott Sigler - serialized episodes of his novels, most of his earlier stuff is on podiobooks
Serial
Whistlestop - presidential politics history
The Way I Heard It - Mike Rowe
Used to listen to but either got bored with or the show canceled:
How to brew it - Homebrewing
The Jamiel Show - Homebrewing
TWiT
The Dog Watch Social Club - Cigar reviews
Whiskey cast
I am almost entirely caught up on my current list, except for "The Way I Heard It" which I just added last week. I'll use this slashdot article to select some new ones.
Well, I quit listening to radio ages ago, and have moved on to the following podcasts for my daily commute and listening throughout the day:
Stuff You Should Know
99% invisible
Aks Me Another
Common Sense with Dan Carlin
Hardcore History also with Dan Carlin
Judge John Hodgman
Stuff They Don't Want You to Kow
You Are Not So Smart
Criminal
Good Job, Brain
Hidden Brain
Invisibilia
Radiolab
Surprisingly Awesome
The Sporkful
Stuff You Missed in History Class
Podcasts to me are like a DVR for my radio. I can listen when and where I want and pause when I need to divert my attention elsewhere without missing anything.
I generally listen to podcasts on my commute.
My top 3:
Nerdist - long format interviews with celebrities. Not one to listen to with the kids.
Planet Money - "pop economics". Generally entertainment and informative. Generally OK with the kids in the car.
99 Percent Invisible - Roman Mars has such a smooth radio voice I could listen to him talk about making a bowl of cereal. Podcast concentrates on architecture and design.
Other mentions have already been listed:
Mike Duncan's History of Rome and Revolutions podcasts are very good.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore HIstory and Common Sense make you think.
Gretchen Rubin's Happier has some interesting ideas about happiness.
Freakonomics continues where the books leave off.
The Way I Heard It by Mike Rowe is a homage to "The Rest of the Story". Another great voice to listen to talk about just about anything.
Crimetown
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History -- This one is good for long car trips, as the podcasts are huge
Freaknomics
Heavyweight
Homecoming
How I Built This -- NPR's version of Startup
Planet Money
Reply All
Serial
StartUp
Surprisingly Awesome
TED Radio Hour
This American Life -- Ira Glass probably introduced me to half of the other podcasts on this list
and This Week In Computer Hardware
I am a big fan of audio drama, which means that the podcasting format is great for my kind of entertainment.
Here are my audio drama podcasts:
I also listen to Dan Carlin's podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History) for a pretty balanced view on history and politics.
Also, as I'm studying and training to do voice work, I also subscribe to a number of voice-over feeds.
In addition to the general voice-over stuff, I find that podcasts about podcasting (meta, anyone?) are also useful sources of knowledge.
I know there's a lot here, so I hope you find something of interest.
The Penguin Producer
Try Retronauts http://www.retronauts.com/
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
An example of something that benefits from video would be a video game walkthrough; by showing the action on-screen, the viewer will be able to see the sequence of events, both the actions of the player, and the reaction of the game engine and AIs.
That's also an example of something that is horrific on video.
If am interested in finding the secrets as I play through a game the one thing I absolutely do not want is to watch someone else play the level from start to finish, every monster shown, every cutscene revealed, every puzzle solved. Might as well not play the game now.
I VASTLY prefer a simple list, "as you enter the subway station, first door on your left, behind the plant in the blue pot". After you kill the boss, jump down into the sewers and follow the wall to the right past the waterfall, its behind the stack of 4 boxes. That's ALL I want. Maybe links to screenshots that i can click on if I still just can't find it. Because i still want to 'find' it. And a couple sentences of description is a bit like orienteering... i have the information needed to get there without having the whole experience completely ruined by watching someone else do it from start to finish before I play.
Walkthrus also benefit from the seek and index features of text.
If I played the game through and found most of the secrets, and am doing a 2nd playthrough to be completionist; and i know i am missing the '4th secret' on the 3rd level then again I can quickly jump to the list of secrets for the 3rd level, and then to the 4th secret, without clicking around trying to find it in a big long video stream.
Same with boss fights; if im having serious trouble with a fight-- e.g. after 30 minutes in a single battle the boss has only revealed its vulnerable spot to me once and I can't figure out how to trigger it... i might look up the fight. I don't want a play by play every attack it can make, every counter to the attacks, and to watch some one do it. I just want to know that I need to shoot the eggs to get it angry enough to charge, and that after it charges while its recovering if you hit it with an explosive it'll scream in rage and expose its vulnerable spot so you can damage it. That one sentence is usually ALL i want.
My favorite podcasts and/or video channels: None. Because I prefer to read. So far, the written word, often combined with still images, is better than any non-static information source such as a podcast or a video at getting complex information across.
This is because the written word allows for any degree of pause-and-contempate and/or immediate re-start / reference back. It is information I am primarily interested in, as opposed to entertainment. At best, even when video is called for, for instance a visual of a dynamic process or event, it should be an adjunct to the written word, not a replacement for it.
Yes, videos can be pretty, and you can do other things when you listen to a podcast as opposed to reading something... but I like to learn, and my entertainment is more about what I do than anything involving a passive listener / watcher role. Learning, I have found, is best done with the written word.
Then we get into issues where responding to a presentation that is written, where you can easily, even trivially, quote any portion of the presentation you need to in your response, whereas with a video or a podcast... much more difficult. That, by the way, is why I have always argued that if one posts a video which carries speech or links to a podcast, ideally one should also post a transcript of same. This raises these presentations from poor cousins of the written word to full peers.
Consider data rate: If the information is trivial, as it is in almost all podcasts and videos, I can almost certainly read it faster than it can be said. If it isn't trivial, then it needs to be written anyway consequent to the ability to review and retrench as I mentioned above.
Lastly, even moderate care when writing results in an agreeable lack of uh, eh, ah, er, pregnant pauses, stuttering, laughter, and so forth, other than as intentional emphasis. Which I find most pleasing. I don't want to be crowbarred into thinking about what a lousy speaker a person is. I just want to learn.
Anyone who disagrees, by all means, feel free to quote the parts of this post you disagree with in your response. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.