What are y'all listening to on the tech and general interest side?
[1] https://taylor.town/podcasts
99% Invisible
Articles of Interest
Conversations with Tyler
Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
Everything Everywhere Daily
Nice Try!
Radiolab
The Memory Palace
Quanta Science Podcast
Cortex
The Anthropocene Reviewed
S-Town
On the Metal
Hello Internet
EDIT: I can't update my website because cloudflare is down haha
I'll try to update later today.
A lot of my rankings have changed as podcasts often degrade in quality over time
---
EDIT:
Series that I enjoyed at some point in the past:
Against the Rules with Michael Lewis
Akimbo: A Podcast from Seth Godin
American Innovations
Brains
Cautionary Tales
Chemistry for Your Life
Dear Hank & Jon
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
Endless Thread
Everything is Alive
Experimental History
Freakanomics
Harmontown
Hey Riddle Riddle
The Joy of Why
Land by Hand
Monday Morning Podcast with Bill Burr
More Perfect
Patented: History of Inventions
The Permaculture Podcast
The Peter Attia Drive
Planet Money
Reasonably Sound
Reconcilable Differences
Reply All
Revisionist History
The Strong Towns Podcast
Stuff You Should Know
The Tim Ferriss Show
Trailblazers with Walter Isaacson
Twenty Thousand Hertz
devtools.fm
The Changelog
Elm Town
Future of Coding
Hest
Software Unscripted
TODEPOND PODCASTYou may enjoy Search Engine by PJ Vogt[1], it's really well done. Its the quality of the original Gimlet Podcasts and a bit different than his previous show (Reply All).
It's really hard to convince engineers to listen to a podcast about CLOTHING but it's totally worth it.
"Nice Try!" might be a better onramp for most, as it has the same vibe but for everyday objects.
I totally agree, some podcasts start off so good but then they are in there to appeal the masses than to stick with their original theme/style.
And it becomes really difficult to tell others only listen to this, this and this episode but afterwards its alright.
So I am curious how do you rate them(collectively)? Is it just a arbitrary rating system or is there a science/logic behind it? I wish a podcast app could prompt me after each listen to rate the episode and then use that to update the rating of the podcast(as a whole) based on what I personally gave than the public rating system which is very flawed as a recommendation engine.
I think this should be fairly easy to incorporate on ones personal website too, a way to let your listening history be personal recommendation engine than we relying on our memory to recommend/suggest. And if you stop listening to it and as episodes pile on, it can clearly drop in rating for you(?) or just go down the list.
[1] https://taylor.town/2-stars
When I rate podcasts, I try to go based on the last ~1 year of episodes.
I updated the rankings on my website, but unfortunately, cloudflare is not letting me deploy :(
Feel free to email me at hello@taylor.town if you'd like more recs
>I think this should be fairly easy to incorporate on ones personal website too, a way to let your listening history be personal recommendation engine than we relying on our memory to recommend/suggest.
If you look at my past newsletters, I used to do something like this with individual episodes:
[2] https://taylor.town/town-hall-0006
Unfortunately, it's time-consuming, and my readers didn't really care for the granularity much.
I'd be interested in an automated solution though.
For history, the Fall of Civilizations Podcast is also fantastic.
My current listens:
• 99% Invisible (https://99percentinvisible.org): Design's unnoticed marvels explored.
• Articles of Interest (https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/articles-of-interest): A podcast about clothing, style, and wear.
• Conversations with Tyler (https://conversationswithtyler.com): Tyler Cowen's dialogues on economics and culture.
• Derek Sivers (https://sive.rs): Musings of a musician turned entrepreneur.
• Radiolab (https://www.radiolab.org): A journey through curious scientific and philosophical landscapes.
• The Memory Palace (https://thememorypalace.us): History's footnotes brought to life.
• Cortex (https://www.relay.fm/cortex/): Two YouTubers discuss productivity and workflow.
• What's Your Problem? (https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/whats-your-problem): Problem-solving strategies in business and life.
• Software Unscripted (https://twitter.com/sw_unscripted?lang=en): Conversations on the realities of software engineering.
Bingeworthy series that are completed or on indefinite hiatus:
• S-Town (https://stownpodcast.org/): A deep dive into a quixotic Alabama tale.
• The Anthropocene Reviewed (https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed): John Green reviews facets of the human-centered planet.
• On the Metal (https://oxide.computer/podcast/on-the-metal): Tech veterans unpack computing and engineering layers.
• Björk: Sonic Symbolism (https://mailchimp.com/presents/podcast/sonic-symbolism): Exploring the iconic artist's musical narratives.
• My Year in Mensa (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-year-in-mensa/id149...): A satirical take on high IQ societies.
• The Trojan Horse Affair (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trojan-horse-affai...): Investigation of a British school controversy.
• Hello Internet (https://www.hellointernet.fm/): General banter on life, universe, and everything in between.
Support these cool tech podcasts produced by my friends:
• devtools.fm (https://www.devtools.fm/)
• The Changelog (https://changelog.com/podcast)
• Elm Town (https://elmtown.simplecast.com/)
• Future of Coding (https://futureofcoding.org/podcast)
• Hest (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hest/id1484697758)
• Software Unscripted (https://feeds.resonaterecordings.com/software-unscripted)
• TODEPOND PODCAST (https://www.todepond.com/)
What's that Schopenhauer quote, "he who writes for fools will always find a large audience". I suppose the same can apply to podcasts.
So yes, sometimes some weeks the guests are very biased and towards a certain kind of beliefs, some(experts) are just his friends now at this point who like the platform he gives so millions(?) would listen.
I am not going argue he asks the best questions but you can often see that the way he is not an expert but a knowledge seeker, the guests are free to speak what they want and leads to interesting discussions. His personal knowledge is limited to his curiosity and interest but when the guest starts speaking of topics he isn't aware of he keeps asking good questions which are vague most of the time.
I do not listen to all episodes but only when the guests are interesting and/or the topics they cover are interesting or very new to me.
With Sanjay Gupta, he brought him on so that he could have a debate about the COVID vaccine, and Gupta conceded many points that Rogan made. He never has "gotcha" questions like many journalists, and I believe it's an entirely honest discussion with all of his guests. For example, he has had hard-core pro-Palestinian journalists like Abby Martin, and very pro-Israeli talk show hosts like Ben Shapiro. He's had politicians from all sides of the spectrum. He is more than willing to have people debate the COVID policies and vaccines but no one takes him up on his offer, like Peter Hotez. He has some independent journalists like Alex Berenson who is very much against the legalization of cannabis, something that Rogan uses often.
In terms of "fringe beliefs", what do you mean? I like the fact that he has a variety of topics, some of them absurd, like aliens. Not everything has to be serious.
But!!! But... I don't like the mindless exploitative stuff (which is unfortunately 95% of it). I like the hard-cutting journalism stuff.
My favorite 3 are Swindled, Court Junkie ('Court', not 'Crime'), and In the Dark.
Swindled is a dry recounting of white-collar crimes. Funny and informative and kinda scary.
Court Junkie focuses not on the crimes, but on the court cases, and is 75% real audio from the courtroom, with additional narration by the host.
And In the Dark is maybe the most gut-wrenching of them all, especially season 2. This podcast uncovered evidence in a wrongful conviction that ended up going all the way to the supreme court. This one is true door-to-door journalism - literally knocking on the doors of homes in a small rural Mississippi town to ask what people remember about a crime from decades ago, and ultimately taking down a corrupt district attorney. Just amazing.
Jeremy Howard was just awesome, I love that guy.
The episode with Michael Royzen was so full of jargon that I often couldn't follow and didn't finish it (yet?), even though I am really interested.
I Doubt It: https://dollemore.com/
I also listen to non-politics stuff: Factually: https://www.adamconover.net/
Dumb Dad Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dumb-dad-podcast/id146...
A good metric for me is probably something like: is this going to be important or relevant in a few weeks?
David Pakman had a podcast episode with Lex Fridman and even he recommends that you treat him as a small part of your media diet.
Still good to know what's going on day-to-day, albeit a bit more micro-level than not.
They have a great panel: a reporter from Wired, a journalism professor and author, a photographer (who is also the network community manager), Leo (who hosts the show) and a rotating set of guests.
I am interested in every show they produce.
This Week in Tech is also great, but I prefer the TWiG panel :)
https://opensourcesecuritypodcast.com/
I was not paid to post this message. This is a totally organic high quality review!
Seriously though, I wasn't paid, we do this for free.
darknet diaries
malicious life
Application security podcast
hacked
privacy security and osint show
Day[0]
shared security
I've been enjoying it. Thanks for putting it out there!
If you're in the PNW or interested in that area the Timber Wars series is a must listen.
Oxide and friends: https://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends
On the metal: https://oxide.computer/podcasts/on-the-metal
Handmade network: https://handmade.network/podcast
Signals & threads: https://signals-threads.simplecast.com/
I've listened to some episodes of Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal when he has interesting guests on. For example he recently did two podcasts with Joscha Bach who is always a really creative guy to hear from. Also learned about Machine Learning Street Talk because Joscha Bach was a guest on there and he was promoting his appearance.
Godbolt, the guy that made Compiler Explorer, also had a few podcast episodes which I enjoyed.
Someone already mentioned it, but Conversations with Tyler can be really good as well. He did a podcast with Paul Graham which HN readers might enjoy.
Comedy: - L'apero du Captain (french, discussion about tech news and general news, and other less reputable things) - Deux heures de perdues (french, movies spoils with critics) - Las noches de Ortega (castellano, character impersonating and improbable stories) - My Dad Wrote a Porno (english, porn book spoil and critics)
Science: - Podcast Science (french, everything is in the name) - PlanetGeo (english, condensed lecture about geoscience topics) - ScienceDiction (english, links an actual word with an often suprising scientific stories) - Undiscovered (english, stories about scientific discoveries, how they happened and in which context. I think it is the best thing ever produced by human beings. But I may be partial)
History: - Culture 2000 (french, summary about a theme by four teachers who have tried to study it during the last two weeks) - Beyond Huaxia (english, history and cultural development of far-east asia with a strong accent of the territory that is today China)
News: - El hilo (spanish, south-american news) - Histoires du monde (french, locked-in on France Inter app, short summary of a world event)
Economy: - Planet Money/The Indicator (english, general economy podcasts covering the news or an economic concept. The second is shorter and more nerdy) - Freakonomics (english, behavioral economy. The recent episodes are less interesting and consist more often in interviews of people linked with the political world. It is made by one of the author of the books of the same name)
- Volts by David Roberts: Interesting by itself, but makes me less pessimistic about the climate crisis. He talks to a lot of fascinating entrepreneurs, usually working with "hardware", which as a software engineer always feels like magic to me.
- 13 Minutes to the Moon: Blew me away, and it's relatively quick listen. It's a detailed retelling of the moon landing with original audio.
- Dolly Parton's America: Also a limited series. Goes into why Dolly Parton is such a cultural icon. Learned a lot about the US.
I'm professionally interested in podcasts since my company provides transcription services. We're launching a free magazine of podcast transcripts. If you enjoy knowledge-dense podcasts, feel free to suggest your favorites for transcription: https://withfanfare.com/podread/
The Real Python Podcast Talk Python To Me Software Engineering Radio Maintainable
Hello Internet
Cortex
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
The Amp Hour Podcast
Beau of the Fifth Column
Peter Zeihan
The Business of Machining
The Wee Scone Variety Show
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
Artificial Intelligence with Lex Fridman
Dark Horse with Bret Weinstein
The Portal with Eric Weinstein
Joe Rogan (if he's got a good guest)
The Anthropocene ReviewedSeems there's text YouTube videos but it's also a regular podcast.
It's also short, 5 mins each I think for the first series and 10 for the later ones.
- Science Vs (science) - Freakonomics Radio (curiosities) - If Books Could Kill (politics I guess) - The Atlas Obscura Podcast (curiosities) - Robinson's Podcast (philosophy of science) - Twenty Thousand Hertz (sound engineering) - Tiny Matters (science) - Unexplainable (curiosities) - Talk Python to Me (programming) - Decoder Ring (curiosities) - Ologies with Alie Ward (science, most of the time) - Sawbones (medical science) - Skeptoid (curiosities) - SciShow Tangents (science) - In Defense of Plants (... plants?) - You're Wrong About (curiosities) - No Stupid Questions (psychology) - Hidden Brain (Psychology) - Radiolab (curiosities) - Overthink (philosophy) - Philosophize This! (Philosophy)
Plus a whole bunch of Brazilian Portuguese shows, too.
The best investing podcast I've found is "The Week Ahead" by Complete Intelligence. I look forward to it every weekend for its variety of guests and subjects.
Patrick O'Shaughnessy's "Invest Like the Best" podcast has a good variety of guests and he asks incisive and insightful questions.
National Review's "The McCarthy Report" has astute legal analysis from a former U.S. Attorney.
Institute for Justice's mutli-season exploration of the 14th Amendment "Bound by Oath" is well-produced, outrage-inducing, and fascinating.
"Breaking News" is a new podcast by Ben Hunt (of Epsilon Theory fame) that explores the news' nudges and narratives.
Another podcast I like a lot is Maintenance Phase. It's basically about debunking ideas on health and nutrition. Has US-centric angle, it's well-researched, the format is pretty loose and conversational, and the hosts are pretty fun. Probably a love it or hate it kind of podcast.
Two well-known scriptwriters (John August, behind e.g. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Craig Mazin, behind Chernobyl and The Last of Us (HBO)) discuss screenwriting and the movie industry. They have great guests as well - most recently Neil Gaiman for example.
They are very interesting to listen to, and give great insight into the different aspects of screenwriting. At the same time, it is different enough from tech where it does not feel like work, while I still learn fascinating stuff.
- Threedom: Funny people Scott Aukerman, Lauren Lapkus, Paul F. Tompkins talk and play improv games
- Hey Riddle Riddle: Chicago improvisers Adal Rifai, Erin Keif, and JPC try to solve riddles and then do improv scenes tangentially related to them
- Doughboys: Funny people Nick Wiger and Mike Mitchell and usually a guest review chain restaurants in America
- Scott Hasn’t Seen: Comedan Shaun Diston and deranged human being Scott Aukerman and a guest watch and talk about one of the many movies Scott somehow has never seen.
About movies (and politics): Michael & Us, Unclear and Present Danger
Tech: Oxide and Friends, Twenty Thousand Hz
Science: Nature Podcast, Quanta Magazine Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/paper-cuts/id168979804...
[1] https://www.c-span.org/podcasts/subpage/?series=bookshelf
Otherwise, as interesting as this thread is to read through, the amount of recommendations here is a bit overwhelming :P
https://www.listennotes.com/playlists/wenbin-fangs-podcast-p...
focused on individual episodes, no podcast subscriptions.
120 - Marc Andreessen & Chris Dixon of a16z | Reinventing the Internet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXHITeaGB8Q
The Secret History of Western Esotericism
Astral Codex Ten(ty solenoid entity)
Stanford Psychology
Les Nuits De France Culture
I get enough tech here. These are for making me a more well-rounded individual. Note: I'd love to get an entire set of medschool lectures as a podcast - does this exist?
I also listen to American Scandal, Business Wars, and American History Tellers. The Wondery network has some really engaging content.
The Critshow is another great one.
- machine ethics podcast - future of life institute - infinite monkey cage - Lex Fridman - Designer notes - game makers noteboook - three moves ahead
The absolute best for long format (2.5 hrs) breakdown of mystery, murder, history, comedy, and other amazing stories told by a wickedly intelligent host with a strong sense of comedic irony. Every episode gets me through my Saturday chores with laughter, amazement, and the occasional onset of 'sudden allergy syndrome' aka tears.
Nimrod is pleased
Looking for good ones about biotech / immunology / longevity.
Nuntii in Lingua Latina - headlines in Latin and the original languages
Cato Daily podcast - very high quality and in-depth discussion
They're just fun to listen to. They hardly ever touch anything political which is very refreshing. For their Patreon supporters they have also been going episode-by-episode through Deadwood, which I watched because of their coverage and think is one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Their analysis of each episode really enhanced my experience of the series. (They just finished covering the second season, so one more to go).
I also enjoy Sam Harris's podcast, been listening to him for years now. I don't listen to every single one, but he has some pretty interesting guests sometimes. I like his general "theme" of being interested in the mind, meditation, psychedelics, and also just what's going on in the world. Obviously gets much more political but not the exclusive focus of his pod.
Last, I like the Fifth Column a lot, which is an explicitly political podcast covering current events - they tend to lean a little more right than me but the overall bent of show is sorta centrist/libertarian and I think they do a pretty good job of lambasting both sides of the aisle.
I listen to a few others at varying frequencies. One other standout I'd mention is Knifepoint Horror, which releases a 20-60 minute horror story about once a month. The guy behind it has a pretty unique and interesting approach to horror fiction and I can't think of a single one I didn't enjoy.
Osterholm Update
TapeOp Podcast
The Canadian Bushcraft Podcast
The Working Songwriter
How to build a sustainable music career and collect all revenue streams
No Such Thing as a Fish
The Dollop
We're Here To Help
We Can Be Weirdos
Off Menu
- Behind the tech with Kevin Scott
- Childish
- Dev interrupted
- Doug Loves Movies
- Geek's Guide to the Galaxy
- The HanselMinutes Podcast
- Law Bytes
- Maintainable
- StackOverflow podcast
- Midnight Local
- Newcomer
Marketplace (APM/NPR): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketplace/id20185303...
This American Life: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-american-life/id2...
Radio Lab: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radiolab/id152249110
Search Engine (Reply All's pseudo-successor): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/search-engine/id161425...
On The Media: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id7333071...
What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-roman-mars-can-le...
99% Invisible: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/99-invisible/id3947753...
Articles of Interest: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/articles-of-interest/i...
The Problem With Jon Stewart: The Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-problem-with-jon-s...
More Perfect: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/more-perfect/id1117202...
Planet Money: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id2907834...
Science Vs: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/science-vs/id105155700...
Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conan-obrien-needs-a-f...
The Indicator: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-indicator-from-pla...
Criminal: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/criminal/id809264944
Imaginary Worlds: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/imaginary-worlds/id916...
Fly On The Wall: https://podcasts.apple.com/pl/podcast/fly-on-the-wall-with-d...
WTF: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wtf-with-marc-maron-po...
Spellburn: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spellburn/id661011349
Heavyweight: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/heavyweight/id11508002...
Sometimes:
Decoder: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoder-with-nilay-pat...
Dozens that I listen to occasionally.
[0] https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes
Interviews
- Sam Harriss
- Sean Carrol
- Lex Fridman
- Possible (Reid Hoffman)
- Manifold
Lifestyle/Thoughts
- 80k hours
- Hackers Incorporated
- Startup Therapy
"Creator Economy"
- Colin and Samir
- Media Empires
- The Editing Podcast
- Creator Science
(Tech) News
- The Journal
- Hard Fork
Investing/Business
- Art of Investing
- Acquired