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Ask HN: What's your favourite podcast?
16 points by kevt on Dec 22, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 22 comments
Hey guys, I'll be driving down from Toronto to San Jose next week and I'm prepping my podcast list for my trip. So far my list includes ECorner, This Week in Startups, The Startup Success, Mixergy, and Startup Story Radio. Would love to hear what you guys find interesting/education/enlightening. Thanks!


I've having a lot of fun with WNYC's RadioLab podcast. It's more of an experience when you listen to them, you feel like you're in the world they're describing. Every episode is really well done, and the guys put a lot of effort into it. http://www.radiolab.org/


I definitely second The History of Rome. I haven't kept up with it lately, but I loved it when I listened to it.

My favorite programming podcast is se-radio ( http://www.se-radio.net/ ) I especially like this one for getting a general overview of a variety of coding related categories and practices. Being self-taught, it's been been an invaluable source for broadening my basic understanding of the field. The guys that run the podcast definitely strike me as being more involved in the corporate space, but the topics are relevant to just about every topic in software construction, from episodes on embedded real-time systems, an interview on the internals of the gcc compiler, clojure, and tons of others.

I listen to This American Life frequently. The stories are always fascinating and well-produced.

Stuff You Should Know has always been one of my favorites. It's like spastically browsing the internet in audio form. You learn all kinds of super-interesting things, but never really learn much about any one subject. I'd suggest this for long car-trips when you're not trying to accomplish anything, heh. Love it, though.

howstuffworks.com has a lot of interesting ones outside of Stuff You Should Know, but I'd hit that one first.

those are my favorites, off the top of my head

History of Rome, Software Engineering Radio, This American Life, Stuff You Should Know


+1 for Software Engineering Radio, I listen to it on a regular basis and like it a lot.

For other software-related podcasts, I recommend FLOSS Weekly (http://twit.tv/FLOSS). They cover interesting open source projects and interview their creators, as well as other influential people of the open source world.


For those along the lines of "History of Rome," I would recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History (which has a 3 part series on the Fall of the Roman Empire (which goes back several hundred years). He also has a 4 part series on the Eastern Front of WWII, "Toughness" in generations in History, and many other interesting podcasts.

He is very engaging and informed (he was / is an investigative journalist and a history buff, taking from multiple sources and citing biases or clashes with alternative sources.) http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive

He has a separate podcast "Common Sense" for politics.

Phil Windley (of Kynetx, local to UT) has diverse tech podcasts: http://www.windley.com/


Mysterious Universe (Plus+) for a healthy dose of paranormal entertainment. The hosts are (most of the time) aware of the fact that alot of the things they cover are pretty dumb, and they do laugh of it. It's one of the more professional podcasts I've ever listened to, sound quality is excellent, the music is good, and the hosts are really funny. Check it out!

Also, to feed my hunger for gadgetery, "The 404" and "Buzz out loud" from cNet.

And if you're into history Dan Carlin has two podcasts, "Common sense", about US politics, and "Hardcore History" on history. Good shows by a smart host.

Drive safely, and merry christmas!


Econtalk - deeply interesting interviews/conversations about economics

Radiolab - unique stories (often science-based) and great production values


Red centre @ fxguide if you are interested in digital video (they have expanded well past the Red Camera).

Know Tech is basically a geek conversation, but is biased towards Mac and video.

Independent Misinterpretations is the new podcast by James Robertson formerly of Cincom about Smalltalk and episodes about other dynamic languages.


Security Now - with Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm

A nice weekly round-up of current security issues. As well as some in-depth explanation of some aspect of security - like the inner workings of ssl certificates.


Someone make software to turn these podcasts into lovely readable texts for me. /hearingimpairmentsucks


This American Life; this is how an audio programme should be! (and I am not even an American :) )


This has nothing to do with startups or tech, but Dan Savage's Savage Love podcast is excellent. Anyone who is in a relationship or wants to be in one should listen to it and save themselves a lot of stress and heartache learning things the hard way.


I've been enjoying the 'A minute with Brendan Eich' podcasts. They're short, insightful, and always about very recent technology topics surrounding JavaScript.

http://www.aminutewithbrendan.com


The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is fascinating, and you can trust that the information you hear is valid. http://www.theskepticsguide.org/


The History of Rome. By far my favorite non-startup/tech podcast. I have a long held fascination with ancient Roman history, but even others who don't seem to really enjoy it.


NPR's Planet Money. The Moth.

I also +1'd This American Life, and Radio Lab.

At some point I liked You Look Nice Today -- it is really funny, but intellectually vacuous.

Econtalk is quite good, but a bit dry.


Techzing hands down. 2 guys just talking about startups and trying to make it. The guest are fantastic and they always drill down into topics.


NPR Fresh Air with Terry Gross


B.S. Report by Bill Simmons


Mixergy.


Hey you wanna car pool? I'm going from Toronto to mountainview!

Email is karan.bhangui@gmail.com


My favourites are:

Decoder Ring Theatre at http://www.decoderringtheatre.com/ Bells in the batfry at http://thebatfry.com/.

Both are low frequency (DRT is twice a month, and batfry is when ever john bell feels like doing it), but I think they will remain my favourites.


ThisWeekInScience:

http://www.twis.org/

Science, humor and World Robot Domination.




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