Let's Find Some Good Podcasts

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I've been laid low all day with a cold. To entertain myself while unable to read, I've listened to podcasts, and when I ran out of shows I subscribe to I started checking out Podcast Alley's top-10. Unfortunately, most people being morons after all, the top-10 aren't any good. Take it from me: you needn't really bother with Keith and the Girl, Red Bar Radio or Nobody Likes Onions.

So, Dear Reader, you clearly aren't a moron: in aggregate, Aard's readers should be a much better authority than the unwashed masses when it comes to podcasts. Please tell me your favourite podcasts with a sentence or two explaining what they're about, and I'll list them here. I'll start off with my own favourites.

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A week ago I complained that I couldn't find any good podcasts, and you guys responded with a wealth of recommendations. More to my surprise, a number of irate fans of the popular Nobody Likes Onions podcast showed up. They left a bunch of nasty comments to the effect that I am a stuck-up faggot…
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Awesome! I was just headed off to the gym and had already listened to every podcast on my MP3 player. Their "cardio-media" is conservative talk shows and movies too bad to be good, but not bad enough to be funny.

Hope you feel better soon.

You already hit Escape Pod, which may be the best of the science fiction podcasts. But, there are a couple of other good postcasts of various genres out there:

Variant Frequencies: http://www.variantfrequencies.com/
Similar in many ways to Escape Pod - science fiction stories read out loud, often with multiple voice actors

Logically Critical: http://www.logicallycritical.net/Welcome.html
A series of verbal essays on various topics in skeptical thinking. Note that new 'casts are not being produced, but the existing archive is quite good.

CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks: http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/
The venerable radio program in Canada podcasts their episodes, too. Science news and interviews, primarily from a Canadian perspective but plenty of international news and interviews.

Savage Love: http://podcasts.thestranger.com/savagelove/
Dan Savage, sex-advice-columnist, takes calls from people and discusses all things sexual. Who knew listening to other people describe odd fetishes could be so enlightening?

The Economist: http://audiovideo.economist.com/
World news, primarily from a business / economics perspective, but it's the best source I've found for political news about parts of the world I've never visited.

Science and Nature do podcasts, too, usually covering prominent stories in recent issues of those journals:
http://www.sciencemag.org/about/podcast.dtl
http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/

Democracy Now! podcasts are great:

(http://www.democracynow.org/podcasting)

Also known as the War and Peace Report, and as "the largest community media collaboration in the US". Features a special report on the life and legacy of M.L. King Jr. at the moment, due to the sad anniversary of his assassination.

Of course to a Swede, DN will sound like normal news, not the left wing socialist moonbat radio program that it is considered to be by many in the US.... ;-)

Hope you feel better soon!

Thanks for giving Skepticality a mention! Oh, and for a cool side note, the JREF gang, INCLUDING James Randi are call coming to Dragon*Con this year. I am the director for the new Skeptic track at the con, and we have quite an impressive line up this year! :)

Have you come across Stone Pages Archeo News? If you can access iTunes, it's fun surfing the links other listeners of the podcast subscribed to since they don't depend on popularity with the masses.

By more of a tech guy (not verified) on 05 Apr 2008 #permalink

Other people have already suggested several good ones.

Slate's Explainer Podcast is an incredibly informative 3 minutes on specific current issues.

http://www.slate.com/podcast/id/2129874/

A lot of the SALT talks about long term thinking are fascinating. From the blurb:

SALT - Seminars About Long Term Thinking
The series looks from many angles and backgrounds at the subject of long term thinking and responsibility. Examples of speakers in the series range from musician Brian Eno, author Bruce Sterling, anthropologist Jared Diamond, technologist Ray Kurzweil, and game creator Will Wright...
http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/SALT.xml

By Ben_Wraith (not verified) on 05 Apr 2008 #permalink

It's not a podcast, but if you like science fiction audio, go to the Internet Archive and download more episodes of X Minus One than you can handle. (Seriously, there's 134 half-hour episodes there -- you could listen for three days straight.)

This was an American radio drama that aired back in the 1950s. Full-scale, big-budget dramatizations of stories straight from the pages of Galaxy Magazine. Big-name actors, full orchestral score, and real classic golden-age SF -- Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Pohl, Bester, etc. -- it's not the usual space opera and bug-eyed monsters you associate with 50s sci-fi movies. Many stories were dramatized before the magazine even hit the newsstand.

As far as music podcasts go, I'm a big fan of Vegas Vic's Tiki Lounge (your choice of feeds at the link), but I have notoriously unusual taste in music. Vic podcasts a bit infrequently these days, but you should be able to pilfer his archives as well.

I like The Presiflager's Podcast and its sister the Quackcast brought to you by Pusware LLC. lol

Also don't forget Ben Goldacre!

By Bob Calder (not verified) on 05 Apr 2008 #permalink

Skeptics Guide to the Universe

Skepticality

Skeptoid aka "evil skeptoid debunkatron"

Atheist Experience

Atheist Viewpoint

Non-Prophets

This Week in Science

NPR's Science Friday shorts

Scientific American podcast

Nature podcast

Humanist Network News

Reasonable Doubts

Reason Driven Podcast

Point of Inquiry

Infidel Guy

Rational Response Squad

Sex is Fun from greatsexgames.com, very gabby

Feast of Fools (Gay Fun Show). gabby and hilarious.

Truth Driven Thinking

Quackcast

LSAT logic in every day life

Logically Critical

TED Talks

Swingercast

Polyamory Weekly

SGU 5x5

Addicted to Race

RH Reality Check

Evolution 101

Richard Carrier **

PodCastle

FreethoughtRadio's constant stream and it's now segmented podcast

Naked Scientists

60 Second Science

First Amendment Minute **

Bertrand Russel **

American Freethought

I also listened to all the podcasts coming from freethoughtmedia.com, which included the biblical errancy show, "coffee, freethought & gnosis", and "sex with silkyshrew"

** several of these podcasts are either on hiatus or no longer in production.

Like Pär, I'm also a fan of Spanarna. I also listen to På minuten and Vetandets värld from Swedish radio.

On the Amnerican side, I listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and PRI's This American Life.

Public Lecture Podcast: These podcasts from the University of Bath's public lecture series feature leading names from the worlds of science, humanities and engineering talking about the latest research in their field.

http://www.bath.ac.uk/podcast/

Some of my favorites are:
General Sir Rupert Smith: The utility of force
Professor Allan Kellehear: The history of death and dying
Steve Jones: Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right
Lord Desai: Why is poverty persistent?
Professor Jacque Lynn Foltyn: Dead sexy: The corpse is the new "porn star" of pop culture

Get a sense of humor you fu**ing douche. Nobody likes onions is probably the funniest radio/pod-show ever. Stuck up people like you is what is ruining our beloved Sweden.

Ãt en pÃ¥se skit

"I started checking out Podcast Alley's top-10. Unfortunately, most people being morons after all, the top-10 aren't any good. Take it from me: you needn't really bother with Keith and the Girl, Red Bar Radio or Nobody Likes Onions."

Most people who listen to podcasts use the directory in iTunes, due to the fact that iTunes is the primary podcatching software of most people. Most people being idiots, you can find This American Life along with 3-4 other podcasts, The Economist podcast, National Geographic podcast, Discovery Channel podcast, and more on the list.

I listen to SGU, Skepticality, Skeptoid, LSAT Logic, This American Life, Life of a Law Student, The Word Nerds, and Nobody Likes Onions.

You, Sir, may be quite intelligent, but have whatsoever no sense of humour. I wish you many hours of great pain.

Relax a little more on your uptight social views, And relisten to Nobody Likes Onions.
It will be worth it.

sorry the great humor of NLO and RBR isn't good enough for the humorless constipated population of sweden.

Oh, man, I wish I could be as deep, cool, intellectual, free-thinking, any-other-smug-self-satisfied-adjective as you! It must be so great (not to mention easy) to be able to buy totally into the mainstream, prevailing philosophies/trends of our time. You don't even have to think for yourself anymore! Super-cool. Darn, I totally know I didn't reach your standard for snide, ironic humor! I so fail at life; why don't I just kill myself now? If anything that strays outside of your preordained standards of "cool, witty, comedy" strikes ME as funny, then I deserve to be ostracized as the loser I am. Oh, God...I must be one of those morons that you say most people are (not you, of course--NEVER you)!

By Lord Byron (not verified) on 11 Apr 2008 #permalink

Uh, hey moron. NLO is not your average cup of tea. Just because it's not your fancy, DRINK PISS. Congrats for all of your achievements, very admirable. Great! You're not better than anyone. You'll die just like me and everyone else. Since you had enough initiative to make bad comments about NLO, then tune in to episode 296 to hear their rebuttal. I'd rather listen to them than your boring shit. Go fuck a shaved goat you science jock. Enjoy your BORING LIFE ffffaaaaaggggoooot! FUCK YOUR MOTHER AND DRINK SWEDISH CAT URINE!

By THE MEXICAN (not verified) on 11 Apr 2008 #permalink

OH, I forgot to ask if they have hair plugs in Sweden you balding fagggggoooot! Do they? Why don't you devote your boring studies to balding. Maybe you can find a cure and help men across the world. (Including myself) Then you wouldn't be so bitter about your hairless dome and wouldn't bash good podcasts. HA! Go figure! SKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADOOOOOOOOOOOO NIGGAAAAAAAAAA!

By THE MEXICAN (not verified) on 11 Apr 2008 #permalink

Now, that last comment was just moronic.

I invite you tto reconsider NLO do, it is quite humorous.

I likey the Onions.

Kita kita!

I've got some listed here:
http://thedispersalofdarwin.blogspot.com/2007/12/history-of-science-pod…

BBC's In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg
California Academy of Science's Science in Action
CBC's How to Think About Science
Distillations (Chemistry)
The DNA Files
Exploring Environmental History
Faraday Institute Lectures
medicalhistory
Museum Detective
NMSR's Science Watch
NPR's Krulwich on Science
NPR's Science Friday
The Royal Society
Sorting Out Science

Cnet.com has some good and entertaining podcasts if you're into tech. My particular favorite is Buzz Out Loud.

By stands2reason (not verified) on 01 May 2008 #permalink