Latest update: 28 september 2019: I listen to a lot less podcasts and a lot more music now-a-days.
I have a long commute and very bad radio shows. So in the car, I like to listen to podcasts.
Here are some of my favorites.
TL;DR
- Code Newbie RSS Feed
- Base.cs RSS Feed
- Risky Business RSS Feed
- .NET Rocks RSS Feed
- Crypto Gram Newsletter RSS Feed
- Hanselminutes RSS Feed
- Security Weekly RSS Feed
- Troy Hunt's Weekly Update RSS Feed
- Herding Code RSS Feed
- Software Engineering Radio RSS Feed
- Software Engineering Daily RSS Feed
- Unsupervised Learning RSS Feed
- The Changelog RSS Feed
- Web Dev Radio RSS Feed
- Starktalk Radio RSS Feed
- Nature RSS Feed
- Physics Central Podcast RSS Feed
- Scientific American Science Talk RSS Feed.
- 60 Seconds Science RSS Feed
- 60 Seconds Space RSS Feed
- 60 Seconds Tech RSS Feed
- 60 Seconds Earth RSS Feed
- 60 Seconds Health RSS Feed
- 60 Seconds Mind RSS Feed
- This Developer's Life RSS Feed
- Radiolab RSS Feed
- Intelligence Matters RSS Feed
- Pilot to Pilot RSS Feed
Update: here's someone else's list too. Via Daniel Kaplan.
Programming and IT
Target people new to the world of software development, in an approachable, inclusive and entertaining manner. But it's useful for everybody, because in this field you're always a beginner at something. And if there's a topic you already know very well, it helps if you hear people like (Saron)[https://twitter.com/saronyitbarek] explain it in such clear terms.
Base.CS is a podcast mash-up of Vaidehi Joshi's BaseCS blog series and the Code Newbie podcast, with Saron Yitbarek.
Carl Frankling and Richard Campbell interview a diverse set of guests about software development. Don't let the name of the podcast fool you. The topics go way beyond .NET.
Every month or so they have a Geek Out, where they go deep into a topic that's not directly related to software.
This is a spoken version of the Crypto Gram Newsletter by Bruce Schneier.
It handles topics like information security, privacy online, Cryptography, etc ... It's mostly Schneier's blog.
Scott Hanselman interviews various people about a wide range of "geeky" topics.
Weekly interviews and discussions about Information Security. It's made by Information Security professionals, and it also targets that same audience. But there are interesting things talked about for Software Developers too.
Update: Security Weekly now has several spin-offs each with a different focus (start-up security weekly, enterprise security weekly, ...). I personally usually listen to the "Hack Naked News" (what's in a name?) because the others are a bit too long, even for my commute! The news sticks usually to about half an hour.
"News and current afairs" in information security. Entertaining and knowledgable hosts, covering the events in "infosec". May do with a little bit less cynisism and snark, but still very informative and not too long.
Troy Hunt talks about his week. Which is somehow always a very interesting week. Troy Hunt specializes in teaching the world, companies and software developers in particular about information security. But sometimes he focusses on other interesting topics. Depending on what he's been up to.
Also, check out his blog for more of this stuff.
K. Scott Allen, Kevin Dente, Scott Koon and John Galloway talk to guests about all the hip stuff in Software Development. Everything quite informal, entertaining and interesting.
Daniel Miesslier curates about 3 to 5 hours of reading into a podcast of about. Keeps you informed and up to date.
This podcast from IEEE magazine is pretty hardcore. It is coming from a computer science perspective. It's interesting if you're up for it. Maybe not for a Monday morning.
Amazingly, this is a daily podcast. Covering a wide range of topics. It's almost impossible to listen to all of them. I have no idea how they're able to pull this off daily. Nonetheless, if you pick the topics you like you'll get some good info.
As a side note: What I really like is that a summary of the topic is the first thing you hear. So if you want to pass on a topic, you can do so right away. Many podcasts first have a few minutes of intro before you actually know the subject. This is sometimes not a problem, but when driving not all cars (I've seen none) display episode titles clearly.
Focusses on giving airtime to the many smaller open source projects that are happening.
Update June 18, 2016: I feel I should say a few more things about The Changelog. They seem to have changed their angle a bit in the last few months. Focussing less on the latest hot thing and even more on the people behind open source project. Check out the shows that feature Richard Hipp (creator of SQLite), Matz (creator of Ruby) and especially the interview with Pieter Hintjens.
Easily one of the favourites.
A web developer talks about developments in the web development world. Occasionally there is an interview as well.
Science
Neil deGrasse Tyson, interviews people about science. They also answer listener's questions. He is always joined by comedians, for comic relieve.
I believe it's now also a TV show on Discovery Channel.
Science news and interviews from nature.com.
Physics news for the general public with an interest in that stuff.
Scientific American Science Talk
Interviews and news about science, from Scientific American.
Scientific American 60 seconds
60 seconds (actually, usualy 2 minutes) of rapid fire science news. Easy to digest.
They have several 60 seconds series each focussing on another field. I'm listening to Science, Space and Tech. Here's the RSS Feed for all of them:
- 60 Seconds Science
- 60 Seconds Space
- 60 Seconds Tech
- 60 Seconds Earth
- 60 Seconds Health
- 60 Seconds Mind
Aviation
I've been training to fly lightweight aircraft, and to encourage some thinking about aviation I looked up some aviation podcasts.
I'm currently only on this one. But maybe I can find some more in the future.
Other
Scott Hansleman (from the Hanselminutes podcast) explores some topics of life in general more in depth.
Noteable episode: 2.0.2 Pressure. Scott talks about pressure with the people that keep Stack Overflow running.
Well produced documentaries about science and life in general. This is easily my favorite podcast of them all.
Notable Episode: The Rhino Hunter. This episode shows the other, less popular, side of the Cecil the Lion story. To me, it shows nicely how there is always more than one truth.
Former CIA Director, Michael Morell, interviews people from the U.S. intelligence community. Some interesting stories and knowledgeable views on the things the U.S. is up to in terms of intelligence and millitary.
I'm no american citizen, but it's interesting nonetheless. I'd like to have something like this closer to home. But this is very interesting and on topics that - let's be honest - concern people all over the world.
