Hey everyone,
I’m a bit of a podcast fanatic - whether at work, while en route somewhere or to fall asleep to lol.
My tastes are constantly evolving and somewhat eclectic, but here’s a snapshot of where we’re at currently.
I tend to be into nerdy stuff - tech, history, economics, politics and political thought. Also some music related ones. If that floats your boat you might find something new here :)
beginnings
My first ever podcast was The Amp Hour. This was back when I was heavily into electronics and soaking up all the information I could.
I don’t think I even subscribed via RSS and just used to check the website ha.
They have some great episodes but don’t ask me to tell you which ones they are!
As an indicator I would say the longer the episode the more interesting it is - because they just couldn’t stop talking ha.
Actually, now I think about it, the Mike Harrison episodes (probably where I found out about it from - the Mike’s Electric Stuff channel) are quite interesting, and also the Claire (nee Clifford) Wolf one is good iirc.
That’s assuming you are into electronics! If you are, it’s the canonical podcast on that topic imo.
explainer:
If you’re not familiar, RSS is the format used to deliver podcasts to subscribers. You need some kind of app (I use AntennaPod) which will periodically scan for new episodes. It’s like a blog feed but for audio. You can auto-skip annoying intros/ads too (if they are the same length each time)
Moving on
One of my faves of recent years has been Behind The News which I discovered via the Jacobin feed. I wasn’t much taken with their other shows so ended up subscribing directly instead.
This is a kinda cute, NYC based show. Quite US focused, but can also be very international too. The format is usually two guests with a musical interlude in the middle and at the end. Never goes over one hour. The guests are usually erudite ’experts’ with something interesting to say. Notable episodes include the ones featuring Brooke Harrington on wealth and Gerald Epstein on bankers. This is where I learnt that the financial sector has a net drain on GDP.
Making history
I’ve listened to a lot of history podcasts over the last few years. Such as We’re Not So Different (highly irreverent), a teensy bit of The Rest Is History (not really a fan), Gone Medieval (okay), The Ancients (experimenting with this one) and Betwixt The Sheets (occasionally fascinating).
The two I like the most though are:
Fall Of Civilisations - long episodes, released about once a year, but they have a long back catalogue of interesting stuff too. Very much in the Ozymandias vein of things. (awesome old poem in case you’re wondering)
Byzantium & Friends - you can’t judge a book by its cover (or can you 🤔) but I think you can judge a podcast by its theme tune. Blissfully free of adverts, each episode begins delightfully.
A word of warning - the episodes can be very dull lol. The one on the deep state is great. It will be drummed into you that the Roman State didn’t end after the ‘fall of Rome’ but the action had already moved to Constantinople where it continued for another thousand years! (I’m not some empire fan, this really looks beyond the usual battles/generals nonsense)
Changing topic -
I used to religiously listen to the now deceased Go Time (rip) which was all about the programming language Go. It has a successor pod - Fallthough - which is a comically bad name. I still listen to that quite a lot but the quality is variable. Backend Banter was quite good too and had quite a Go slant - and a lot of OCaml funnily enough.
The one I can’t stop listening to despite being usually pretty dull is Oxide & Friends, it can also often descend into a kinda circle jerk. The star of the show is Brian Cantrill who is mildly trolled by various acolytes.
The obvious joke to make is that they are a podcasting company who made a server for content creation and sometimes that doesn’t seem far off the truth! I knew of Brian from various entertaining youtube rants (usually in the form of presentations) about how evil oracle are (allegedly?!) among other topics which usually include D-trace, Unix, Sun microsystems, Debugging etc. Unfortunately these topics are often only covered tangentially on the ‘cast.
The current form was preceded by the awesome On The Metal (bring it back!) which is well worth a listen if you’re a computing nerd. Weirdly somewhere inbetween Jess Frazelle disappeared somewhere which is a real shame. I hope she kept her equity stake!
other notable mentions
The RA podcast has many awesome mixes and some interesting interviews.
Not A Diving Podcast (now Music Not Diving, the original name was better) has many awesome guests, tho the host I’m not sure about - seems to indulge in a tad too much trolling sometimes. Worth diving into the episodes over the years.
Smart Cookies formerly known as Eurotrash which was a funny if misleading name, has some pretty clickbait style titles - but look beyond this - there are some really great episodes here, well worth a sub.
midierror meets is another pretty much dead pod that has lots of great episodes, hosted by some very mysterious character.
Everyday Anarchism is sometimes a bit variable but often quite fascinating.
Two’s compliment is humorous and intermittent. You can prob guess the topic from the great name.
I’m assuming that you’re already subscribed to Pattern Club - or you would be if they had an RSS feed! They had to drop it due to PRS fees/admin unfortunately. However you can follow them on mastodon for updates and probably other places too.
You are also probably aware of the #pastagang podcast? I’m on one of the episodes and you can be too! Just upload one and see what happens hehe.
Why We Bleep is another one with a somewhat annoying host style but some great guests. Infrequent but a worthwhile subscribe for synth nerds. Fun fact - I was once briefly filmed by Mylar Melodies but I think it ended up on the cutting room floor hehe.
The almost(?) defunct Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast has the best name ever. Does what you’d expect.
Shadow World: The People vs McDonald’s is well worth a listen - an amazing and horrifying story. There is a podcast feed, but I’ve only listened to that one mini-series. A must listen!
I guess I should mention Feeling of Computing that my friend Lu is a host of - you may be into this - although if you’re a Lu fan I recommend watching one of their many entertaining talks online instead.
Other miscellaneous mentions: The Rhodes Center Podcast With Mark Blyth, TUC Radio, Macrodose, Within Our Gates, Accidental Gods, Thinking Allowed.
And last but by no means least - Artist and Computer by Peckham Digital is brilliant :)
bonus round
Ok I’m exhausted lol but here are some youtube channels I check in on from time to time (I no longer log in to the website):
- Curious Marc (electronics)
- Angela Collier (physics essays)
- Mikes Electric Stuff (electronics)
- Roger Barnes (dinghy sailing)
- Peter Sripol (making stuff)
- Wintergatan (making stuff)
- Colin Furze (making stuff)
- Good Work (hilarious)
- yorkshire car restoration (don’t ask me why!)
Oh and I recently discovered the Volksgeist channel which is mainly video essays I think - the ones on Future and Andre 3000 are great.
Ok, that’s it for now :)
Feel free to make your own suggestions via mastodon or do a blog!