Recommend me a (non-gaming) podcast

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I know we've had such a thread not too long ago, but my search-fu is apparently far too weak to find it.

Thread title made generic to hopefully make it useful for others to make requests and post recommendations.

My personal request:
I've really been in love with CBC Radio 3's podcast for listening to some great music, but lately I've really been in the mood for classical. A quick check on iTunes confirms that there are in fact Classical music podcasts, but was hoping there was someone that could steer me in the right direction.

Not long ago I listened to Ravel's "Miroirs" for the first time, and realized my exposure to and knowledge of "classical" music was severely lacking. Ideally, I'm looking for a podcast with a good selection of pieces (both classic and modern and less commonly heard sets) and instrumentation (not just all orchestral) as well as insightful commentary on each piece.

TED

Skeptic's guide 5x5

BBC documentaries

The only other podcast I listen to besides GWJ on a weekly basis (even though they don't update it on a weekly basis anymore) is Webcomics Weekly with Scott Kurtz, Brad Geiger, Kris Straub and Dave Kellett. Not because I'm into their webcomics or making webcomics, but because they are frequently hilarious and have a great rapport. They frequently spend the first 15 minutes of every podcast comically one-upping each other on some random topic, usually dealing with Geiger's Midwest heritage.

Also, the discussion is usually broad enough that you can listen to older podcasts without them feeling dated, unless they're talking about some convention they went to.

NPR's Fresh Air (Interviews and sometimes reviews of books, tv shows, movies, etc.)

This American Life (which is always said in one of these threads)

1Dgaf wrote:

TED, Skeptic's guide 5x5, BBC documentaries

I second most of these, particularly Ted.com.

NPR's Science Friday podcasts are short, sweet, and informative.
NPR has a listing of about five different classical podcasts you might want to check out, too.

The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe
Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's Film reviews
Astronomycast
Stephen Fry's Podgrams (when they do appear, which is far, far too rarely)

zeroKFE wrote:

The Adam Carolla Podcast. If you ever enjoyed Loveline or the recently cancelled Adam Carolla radio show, you will very much enjoy his newly launched daily podcast. If you aren't familiar with Carolla's work, or only know him from The Man Show or Crank Yankers, you still might give this a try -- this is the format where Carolla truly shines.

He was on Bill Simmons's podcast (which I recommend), and I thought he was very good.

On the NPR theme. I always update these before I go for a drive.

Wait Wait, don't tell me.

Car Talk

I haven't checked out Adam's Podcast yet, but I enjoyed his radio show. Thanks for the heads up zero.

Sorry, none of these are music podcasts, but they're some of my favorites:

Another vote for This American Life.

Radio Lab.

Tekzilla.

TWIT.

Cranky Geeks.

If you want fiction, try Escape Pod (science fiction), PodCastle (fantasy), or Pseudopod (horror). Escape Pod in particular has been very irregular in its updates since late last fall, but there's a huge backlist at this point, so perhaps the editor will get things back together by the time you catch up.

I second This American Life, Radiolab, and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

I also listen to CNet's Buzz Out Loud for tech news.

Also recommended by someone here was the History of Rome podcast, which is pretty good.

There's no podcast, but the Exploring Music program sounds like it might be what you're looking for.

Exploring Music wrote:

Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin is an exciting daily radio program that delves into a wide assortment of topics in classical music. Each five-program series builds off a single theme ranging from composer biographies to explorations of various cultures, musical styles, and time periods.

Throughout this journey, Bill McGlaughlin guides the listener deep into the music with care and enthusiasm by giving historical context, illustrations at the piano and providing a special insight that only a top-notch musician, conductor, broadcaster, and composer could.

I'll second, third (or fourth?) This American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, AstronomyCast, and The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe.

I love the Skeptoid podcast, it's a short one, about 10 minutes a week, with a single topic for each show. Brian Dunning is awesome.

Another great NPR show is Science Friday, with Ira Flatow - always an interesting topic being discussed.

People have mentioned This American Life, This Week in Tech, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Car Talk, so I'll throw in WeatherBrains, My History Can Beat Up Your Politics, both of Dan Carlin's podcasts (Hardcore History and Common Sense, and You Look Nice Today, A Journal of Emotional Hygiene.

YLNT isn't entirely kid safe, but you'd have to listen to the podcast for yourself.

One of the best classical music shows for sheer enjoyment as well as education was Peter Schickele's NPR program "Schickele Mix." Schickele is [also, better?] known as "P.D.Q. Bach" and the music he's composed is pretty funny, especially if you're a musician or are already familiar with classical music and so can get the jokes.

The radio show, though, is much more a tool for teaching about classical music. Check out one of the archived shows and see what you think: http://www.schickele.com/cgi-bin/pla...

Unfortunately, the program died for lack of sponsorship, but there's an impressive backlist of 175 shows to keep you entertained and learning if you wish.

Good stuff already mentioned so far, I'll throw in a few more.

BrainStuff
The Moth Podcast
The Bugle
Stuff You Missed in History Class
Stuff You Should Know
Stop Podcasting Yourself
SModcast
Paul and Storm Talk About Some Stuff for 5-10 Minutes (On Average)

The Adam Carolla Podcast. If you ever enjoyed Loveline or the recently cancelled Adam Carolla radio show, you will very much enjoy his newly launched daily podcast. If you aren't familiar with Carolla's work, or only know him from The Man Show or Crank Yankers, you still might give this a try -- this is the format where Carolla truly shines.

Edit: I should probably also mention that most episodes of the show have been pretty thoroughly not safe for work, so be sure to keep those headphones on.

Also, if you like American sports I find the audio version of the ESPN show Pardon the Interruption (PTI) to be pretty entertaining.

Another vote for:

You Look Nice Today (often so funny I have to stop listening at work).
This American Life (perfect long drive listening).

I also like:
BBC6 Adam & Joe Show: long-time comedy heroes of mine - it's very silly.

Most of my favourites have already been mentioned. It goes without saying that either you like This American Life or you have horrible taste, there's no in-between.

The Sound of Young America is a great interview show of witty or clever B-list celebrities that usually have something interesting to say. The host of that show is also involved in Jordan, Jesse Go! which is funny and irreverent content that tends to serve as a nice companion to You Look Nice Today. Both located here.

Spark is a radio show on CBC that's always engaging. There's about a hundred podcasts about tech and geeky stuff, but this show goes a step further to discuss how it influences modern culture.

Hardcore History (dancarlin.com, I think)
Common Sense (also from Dan Carlin)
Radio Lab

I regularly listen to:

TWiT

NPR: Science Friday

The Atheist Experience

Cranky Geeks

Adam Carolla's new podcast is hysterical... (if you like Adam Carolla)

http://carollaradio.com/

Are Escape Pod and Pseudopod based on scifi/horror lit, movies/TV or everything?

larrymadill wrote:

Adam Carolla's new podcast is hysterical... (if you like Adam Carolla)

http://carollaradio.com/

If I wasn't so interested in getting people to check out the Carolla podcast, I'd be tempted to call you a dirty skimmer.

Lard wrote:

Are Escape Pod and Pseudopod based on scifi/horror lit, movies/TV or everything?

They're pure fiction -- sort of an audible magazine, though each episode is just one story. Escape Pod generally seems to have a few minutes of introduction and a few minutes of epilogue, but not much actual discussion of the story. The story itself is the meat of the podcast.

Hometown Tales
Filmjunk
Mondo Movie
Cinema Diablica
Outside the Cinema

My Staples, in constant rotation.

I'd have to 2nd a lot of these recommendations

Katy wrote:
Lard wrote:

Are Escape Pod and Pseudopod based on scifi/horror lit, movies/TV or everything?

They're pure fiction -- sort of an audible magazine, though each episode is just one story. Escape Pod generally seems to have a few minutes of introduction and a few minutes of epilogue, but not much actual discussion of the story. The story itself is the meat of the podcast.

Escape Pod is short sci-fi stories, Pseudopod is short horror stories and Podcastle is short fantasy stories. They tend to be around 30-50 minutes and there have often been some fairly well known authors featured (Escape Pod usually plays the Hugo Nominees each year for instance). I've listed to Escape Pod for a long time and the quality of the stories is usually very good, if you want discussion of the story there tend to be quite a few comments on the website/forum for the show after it plays.

Also if you want fiction there are plenty of podcasters who have done entire novels in podcast form. The most famous is Scott Sigler who's done some really good stuff and has podcasted 6 or 7 novels now and ended up getting a publishing deal out of it. J.C. Hutchins also put out a number of novels that were really popular (although I haven't personally listed to them myself). My personal favourite was Brave Men Run by Matthew Wayne Selznick. There are loads of others on podiobooks.com and other sites.

Have to 2nd the recommendation for The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. I'd also recommend Coverville which plays a lot of interesting music, it's all covers but there's still a lot of good stuff, check out the countdown that's put out at the end of each year to get an idea.

I also used to listen to The Dragon Page (author interviews) and Slice of Sci Fi (sci-fi news and interviews) although neither are as good as they were and I'm way behind on both of them.

Actually I'm way behind on all my podcasts and I should really unsubscribe and delete some. According to ITunes I have 111.7 days to listen to and this is all new unplayed stuff...

General nerdery:
ExtraLife Radio covers a little of everything-movies, TV, comics, games, toys.
The Bigfanboy Livecast: this is a TalkShoe show, so quality is phone quality, but Mark Walters gets great interviews. Ron Perlman, Mark Hammel, Thomas Jane, Aaron Douglas(Chief Tyrol), Scott Porter(Friday Night Lights), Sam Witwer(Crashdown on Galactica, also now on Smalleville, and the Voice of the Apprentice Starkiller). The normal cast is a group of comic artists, illustrators. Taped live every Thursday.
Buzz Out Loud: CNet's daily technology news podcast. Funny, informative, 30-60 minutes each day.
Smodcast: Kevin Smith and his Producer Scott Mosier, and others, just shoot the sh*t for an hour or more.
The Geekbox-former 1Up staffers tackle movies, TV, games. Ryan Scott is the lynch pin
This American Life: A 4 part hour dedicated to a germane topic. The one on the Bank Crisis is required listening.
Filmspotting:Movie snobs talk film. If you love movies, and analysis thereof, this is for you.
Skepticality: Official podcast of Skeptic Magazine. It is a commentary podcast often on nonsense, Woo, paranormal BS. Notable guests like James Randi, Adam Savage.
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe: Official Podcast of The New England Skeptics. The hosts are science professors, doctors. Generally it has a more scientific slant and more news. Finds in medicine, as well as the mentioned Woo like Prince Charles's Homeopathic "cleanser."
The Naked Scientists: Not naked, but a BBC produced science podcast. Think Bill Nye for post adolescents. Any topic in science is covered, depending on the news. They covered love and sex, have been focussing on the International Year of Astronomy. They even feature a weekly experiment that you can do at home.
NPR: Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, a humorous news quiz show.
Car Talk: An hour of car advice, bad jokes, good fun
Intelligence Squared: Oxford style debate, once monthly; at the end of the month

Bill Maher from HBO is always Good.
The Naked Scientest is really interseting
Of course strong bad email is a must.
alifewellwasted

I listen to a lot of old radio dramas from Humphrey Camardella Media Productions. My favorite is X Minus One, which was an old sci-fi program that aired on NBC and did dramatizations of works by authors such as Phillip K Dick, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov.

Along the radio drama line, I LOVE everything Decoder Ring Theater puts out. The Red Panda is a Toronto based (like DRT) superhero along the lines of Batman, in that he is a rich socialite who fight crime at night, but with humor. Black Jack Justice is a hard boiled crime dramady and is my favorite of the two. They've been doing a sci-fi show during the summers that is entertaining as well.

They're all about 22min, the half-hour broadcast of an era before TV, perfectly suited for a MP3 player.

I see they've been listed (of course), but This American Life and Radio Lab are so good even my mom likes them. Seriously.

I've got two I haven't seen:

Sound Opinions. It's another NPR show and is all about music (generally, guitar driven). High production values (like actual performances from bands) keep it interesting.

The Viking Youth Power Hour. If you want something a little more esoteric, it's just a bunch of guys sitting around chatting about topics, interviewing people. If you ever think Shawn Elliot's stuff makes you laugh, well, get rid of internet and gaming references and replace it with, well, everything else, I laugh a lot when listening to this show. They're drunk most of the time, but dammit, they're Vikings. (I highly recommend the two part show on Star Wars. Hilarious.)

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