Intelligent Podcasts

March 18, 2007 1:54 AM

Where can I find more podcasts like the TED talks?

I'm on a spoken-word podcast kick at the moment and I'm consuming anything that has clever people talking about stuff.

I've watched everything from TED, and followed up anything else from the websites of the speakers at TED.

I don't mind if it's video - I've been watching BBC documentaries on Google Video in the background and most of the time you don't need the visuals.

Where can I find more intelligent speech? Clever people talking about clever things.

posted by alby to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (19 answers total)

Nature and Science, the two top science journals both have regular podcasts, (nature weekly, science fortnightly), some science knowledge would help, but it is generally pretty accessible to a smart layman
posted by scodger at 2:28 AM on March 18, 2007

CBC's Best of Ideas.
CBC is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Ideas is a weekly radio program that discusses a topic in depth each week. I think you will like it.
posted by PercussivePaul at 3:14 AM on March 18, 2007

Open Culture catalogues university courses, audiobooks, lecture series and other interesting podcasts. The editor is an Associate Dean at Stanford and is a reliable guide to all the material out there. It's a great resource and has lots of pointers to other catalogues - there's more and more every week.

See also this thread in the blue.
posted by grahamwell at 3:40 AM on March 18, 2007

The BBC's Start The Week radio show (and podcast) might interest you, along with In Our Time. They can both be downloaded as podcasts, and there's also an extensive archive on the BBC website.
posted by liquidindian at 4:59 AM on March 18, 2007

GigaVox Media has a bunch of free spoken word podcasts through their IT Conversations, Open Source Conversations and Podcast Academy sub-sites. Of the three, IT Converstions seems to have the most general interest content.
posted by SteveInMaine at 7:41 AM on March 18, 2007

I listen to The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, it's a weekly podcast dealing with science and skepticism. I usually just listen from its webpage on the digg.com podcast section. You might have to sign up for a digg account, but I found it to be a good way to discover a lot of interesting podcasts.
posted by dujoducom at 10:12 AM on March 18, 2007

Google's Tech Talks and Author's series is quite good, though you have to separate out the "new features in C++" talks from the Next 50 Years in Science talks.
posted by ontic at 11:07 AM on March 18, 2007

12 Byzantine Rulers is a series of academic but accessibile lectures produced for podcast. Covers the narrative of history moreso than specific dates and statistics about fig production, but is still quite dense and each episode rewards (demands, really) several listenings.
posted by Hildago at 11:10 AM on March 18, 2007

To add to the BBC list, From Our Own Correspondent is great.
posted by lindsey.nicole at 11:12 AM on March 18, 2007

Sorry, here's the link: From Our Own Correspondent.
posted by lindsey.nicole at 11:13 AM on March 18, 2007

I am often really engrossed in The Treatment, which is as you described, largely (though not exclusively) about film. Host Elvis Mitchell always goes right at the heart of the matter -- it's wonderful to hear someone asking about themes and choices rather than plot or "what was it like to work with XXX."

I'd hate to miss the opportunity to miss mentioning The Sound of Young America. The show features highly intelligent (if I do say so myself) conversations with people in the arts & entertainment who are "fun." Which is a rare combo.

I'm going to check out 12 Byzantine Rulers, because I've heard really wonderful things about it from a friend at iTunes.
posted by YoungAmerican at 11:50 AM on March 18, 2007

There are some interesting podcasts and lectures at AEI. Some boring stuff too, I listened to a bunch of No Child Left Behind stuff last year.

AEI events.
posted by LoriFLA at 12:30 PM on March 18, 2007

Here are Open Culture's individual podcast directories


* Arts & Culture
* Audio Books
* Foreign Language Lessons
* News/Information
* Science
* Technology
* University Lectures and Courses
posted by Hankenstein at 12:50 PM on March 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

From my answer to this similar thread on podcasts of lectures:

The Long Now Foundation has recorded seminars in MP3 and Ogg Vorbis format. These seminars typically feature big-name speakers addressing long-term problems or visions in science and culture.
posted by mbrubeck at 2:20 PM on March 18, 2007

SXSW Interactive podcasts for 2007 are slowly being made available. Try those for audio of the many panels from this year's interactive events. (Here are the 2006 SXSWi podcasts as well.)
posted by superfem at 6:26 PM on March 18, 2007

ahhh, ted. gotta love it.

for the record: find any attendee of the previous years' TED conferences and ask them if you can copy their dvd's. what you got as podcasts has been recorded -but not made available to the public- for quite some time.
posted by krautland at 6:41 PM on March 18, 2007

Is Open Culture worth an FPP on the Blue?
posted by grahamwell at 10:00 PM on March 18, 2007

Response by poster: Thank you, MeFi, for the awesome response.
posted by alby at 9:57 AM on March 19, 2007

There's loads of NPR talk shows in podcast form at iTunes. My favorite is Radio Open Source, hosted by Chris Lydon. He often rotates a series of experts in throughout the show, along with one main interviewee. It keeps the discussion engaging for the full hour, even on topics you might not ordinarily care about. Plus he doesn't take call-in questions, he has his producer read comments & questions from users at the show's site.

Alan Watts lectures in podcast form are available at iTunes or at his site.
posted by ibmcginty at 1:37 PM on March 19, 2007