1. Undone (by Gimlet Media) : A one season show about less known historical happenings.
2. The Daily (by NYTimes) : A daily show covering what’s most important in the world on that day.
3. NPR Politics Podcast (by NPR) : Covers the political headlines of the US. They’re all really smart people who really know the ins and outs of politics.
4. FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast (by ESPN) : Mostly news about politics , but from a more data driven approach. Really funny too.
5. Pod Save America (by Crooked Media) : Hilarious talk show from a group of former Obama administration speechwriters. Obviously left and democratic leaning, but absolutely hilarious.
6. Pod Save The World (by Crooked Media) : A more serious show about American Foreign Policy.
7. Civics 101 (by NHPR) - The name says it all, but I want every American citizen to be locked in a chamber and forced to listen to this. Absolutely essential to understanding the basics of how the US government works.
8. The New Yorker Politics Podcast (by WNYC Studios/The New Yorker) : Really well rounded show, a recent episode on Mattis is a must listen.
- Planet Money
- My Dad Wrote a Porno (NSFW, obviously, but wickedly funny)
- Startup
- Radiolab
- Entreprogrammers (original, not the spinoffs)
- The Daily (only when they aren't doing US politics)
No developer podcasts have engaged me enough for them to be must-listens every week though there are lots of good ones such as The Changelog and Developer Tea that I dip into time to time. The typical 1-2 hour interview format does not work for me at all, I need tight editing and some pace and structure around stories.
The People's Pharmacy -- A pharmacologist and a medical anthropologist host an hour long show each week, usually on one medical topic (sometimes, a melange). Their guests are top notch experts, e.g. head of whatever cardiological at the Cleveland Clinic (one of the top cardiovascular centers in the U.S.). They also cover topics/changes sometimes years before they filter into "general knowledge" and reporting. Such as the problems with statins. Or, lately, how "Lyme Disease" is not always a simple diagnosis nor treatment and also the symptomology and sometimes diagnosis is really capturing a variety of infections by a variety of pathogens -- ticks carry many, and individual responses vary.
On the Media -- an hour long show each week. Much of it is "meta", about what is appearing in the media, and what isn't, and why. Helping listeners know and understand "why they are saying that" and "why aren't they talking about this other thing -- hey, there's this other thing!"
I've not been so attentive to it of late, but there's also WBEZ's "Worldview". Extended interviews with experts about world topics. You'll often get information and perspective you won't find anywhere in the mainstream media.
P.S. If you're on Android, the AntennaPod app is a nice, open source podcast app.
Surprised no one has mentioned The Tim Ferris Show. That's my #1 right now. He's got a really eclectic but also well thought out guest list and I learn something useful every episode. His recent episode with Nick Szabo was the crash course on cryptocurrency that I always wanted. Highly recommended.
Talking Machines. It's definitely a bit over my head, but it's a really good podcast about Machine Learning, with heaps of interviews and pretty in depth conversations.
Hardcore History
History of the Crusades
History of the Papacy
Revolutions
The British History Podcast
The Civil War: A History Podcast
The History of Byzantium
The History of Egypt
The History of England
The History if Islam
Maritime history Podcast
When Diplomacy Fails
Video Games:
Gamers with Job Conference Call
Crucible Radio (Destiny)
Giant Bombcast
Idle Weekend
Rebel FM
The Dive LoL Podcast
The Giant Beastcast
The Magic Hour
The Bungie Podcast
Three Moves Ahead
Waypoint Radio
Wild Weasel
Random:
Shift+F1
The Steve Austin Show
I'm sure you can draw some conclusions about my hobbies/interests.
Longform Podcast entertains me with a variety of guests, who is typically a writer, a editor, or a journalist, invited for each episodes. With dialogues about their work and career, it gives a glimpse of a life of those who work in the media industry. The podcast is a oral history of media workers, and it often gives valuable insights to just listen to interviews and see interviewees as they are.
Facing challenges like fake news, Google AMP, FaceBook InstantArticle, and the like, some of you may be interested.
* "Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night; all day!"
* StarTalk Radio Show by Neil deGrasse Tyson
* Adam & Dr. Drew Show
* NPR Up First
* How Stuff Works
* Darn Carlin's Hardcore History
* Michael Blanks' Apartment Investing Podcast
* Reasonable Doubt with Mark Garagos and Adam Carolla
* Weekly Infusion
Trying not to repeat too much popular podcasts everybody already mentioned, I would add:
- Fresh Air (NPR) [various subjects]
- Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill [The Intercept fame]
- Profile (BBC) [profile peoples, mainly Uk]
- Sporting Witness (BBC) [sport related]
- Recode Media with Peter Kafka [interview media people]
- Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter [about media, political]
- State of the Union with Jake Tapper [political]
- The Axe Files with David Axelrod [interview politics]
- The Forward by Lance Armstrong [mostly NOT sport]
- Twenty Thousand Hertz [about sounds]
- Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air [new]
- The Bill Simmons Podcast [mainly sports]
- Inside The Times [nyt related]
- The Internet Podcast History [about Internet golden age]
- War College (Reuters) [military stuffs]
- Grammar Girl
- Whistlestop [politics, history]
- BackStory with the American History [history]
Talking Machines : A podcast where they outline new developments in Machine Learning and interview people in the field. Has a good balance of summarizing the important points without leaving out technical details.
Infinite Monkey Cage (sciencey and funny)
Judge John Hodgman (funny)
Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal (financial)
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe (science)
Ones not mentioned enough:
On The Media (media/politics)
Reply All (internet culture)
I don't listen to tech podcasts. Since it's E3 time of year, I've got a bunch of Giant Bombcasts slated for next week. I'm also listening to Kevin Smith do commentary on Frasier episodes...
- Radio Lab
- Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History
- Linear Digressions
- Hidden Brain
- FiveThirtyEight's Hot Takedown
- FiveThirtyEight's Politics
- Freakonomics
- Planet Money
- 99% Invisible
- Neil Tyson's StarTalk
- NYT's The Daily
- Talk Python To Me
- The Changelog
- Hello Internet
There's a few other Machine Learning/Data Science-ish "podcasts", some other NPR ones, and This American Life.
I didn't realize that I spend so much time on this.
I like to listen to podcasts mostly related to outside hobbies and interests to keep my mind, ideas, and thoughts fresh.
Here are my favorites:
- 8-4 Play (bi-weekly)
- Giant Bombcast (Premium) (weekly)
- Giant Beastcast (Premium) (weekly)
- ThirtyTwentyTen (weekly)
- Talking Simpson's (weekly)
- NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour (weekly)
- Slash Filmcast (weekly)
- Axe of the Blood God (weekly; Video Game Japanese RPG podcast by USGamer columnists)
I also pay for Giant Bomb premium (it's cheap) and gives you premium video's and ad free podcasts and supports the site. I also like the hosts and have been following them for years.
I don't know about other people, but I'm constantly overwhelmed by podcast recommendation threads. People recommend podcasts that each have hundreds of episodes. I certainly won't listen to all of them just to catch up.
What I want is a list of must-listen episodes and short series. Does such a thing exist?
When starting a new podcast I normally listen to the newest one. Then it depends on the style. News/current events podcasts, just listen to new ones. Others, browse the history and cherry pick ones that sound interesting or download them all.
Let's say I pick one of these recommendations. What happens next? Where do I start?
Should I listen to all episodes in chronological order? Should I only listen to new episodes? Should I cherry pick episodes based on their description?
I wonder if we could automate this "Ask HN" in a similar manner as "Who's hiring? ($MONTH $YEAR)". It seems to be popping up with about the same regularity.
I've listened to a ton more, but I tend to get tired of some and move onto others. I used to love radiolab and this american life, but find them kind of annoying now.
I also stopped listening to podcasts (after listening to them for years), and wonder why I stopped, and also watch a lot of talks on YouTube. I found that simply learned a LOT more useful information from talks on YouTube than from podcasts. Often podcasts are full of nicely produced and entertaining BS, whereas technical talks on YouTube are full of not-so-well produced but genuinely high quality content. The latter is worth much more to me.
- brain of Britain (halfway between Jeopardy and trivial pursuit)
- econtalk: where else can you hear about someone who hypothesized that sweatshops were good and then proved himself wrong?
- changelog
- the Bernie Sanders show
- on being
- waking up with Sam Harris. Strongly disagree with Harris programmatically, but damn if he's not a good philosopher. "What is technology doing to us" is very good. But his islamophobic rants can be difficult to stomach.
Listening at 1.8x for most of these shows forces me to pay attention, and let's me consume more content. The exception is for The Memory Palace which deserves to be heard exactly as Nate makes it (1x).
I sense a lot of sanctimonious posturing and more-liberal-than-thou attitude when it comes to Sam Harris, and Klein is hardly the first to equivocate over him.
2. The Daily (by NYTimes) : A daily show covering what’s most important in the world on that day.
3. NPR Politics Podcast (by NPR) : Covers the political headlines of the US. They’re all really smart people who really know the ins and outs of politics.
4. FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast (by ESPN) : Mostly news about politics , but from a more data driven approach. Really funny too.
5. Pod Save America (by Crooked Media) : Hilarious talk show from a group of former Obama administration speechwriters. Obviously left and democratic leaning, but absolutely hilarious.
6. Pod Save The World (by Crooked Media) : A more serious show about American Foreign Policy.
7. Civics 101 (by NHPR) - The name says it all, but I want every American citizen to be locked in a chamber and forced to listen to this. Absolutely essential to understanding the basics of how the US government works.
8. The New Yorker Politics Podcast (by WNYC Studios/The New Yorker) : Really well rounded show, a recent episode on Mattis is a must listen.