Comments on: Intelligent Podcasts

Question: Intelligent Podcasts

alby — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 01:54:06 -0800

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.

By: scodger

scodger — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 02:28:42 -0800

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

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 03:14:33 -0800

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.

By: grahamwell

grahamwell — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 03:40:33 -0800

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.

By: liquidindian

liquidindian — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 04:59:48 -0800

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.

By: SteveInMaine

SteveInMaine — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 07:41:21 -0800

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.

By: dujoducom

dujoducom — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 10:12:00 -0800

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.

By: ontic

ontic — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:07:01 -0800

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.

By: Hildago

Hildago — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:10:53 -0800

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.

By: lindsey.nicole

lindsey.nicole — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:12:13 -0800

To add to the BBC list, From Our Own Correspondent is great.

By: lindsey.nicole

lindsey.nicole — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:13:30 -0800

Sorry, here's the link: From Our Own Correspondent.

By: YoungAmerican

YoungAmerican — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:50:29 -0800

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.

By: LoriFLA

LoriFLA — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 12:30:53 -0800

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.

By: Hankenstein

Hankenstein — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 12:50:51 -0800

Here are Open Culture's individual podcast directories

* Arts & Culture
* Audio Books
* Foreign Language Lessons
* News/Information
* Science
* Technology
* University Lectures and Courses

By: mbrubeck

mbrubeck — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 14:20:34 -0800

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.

By: superfem

superfem — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:26:33 -0800

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.)

By: krautland

krautland — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:41:25 -0800

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.

By: grahamwell

grahamwell — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 22:00:50 -0800

Is Open Culture worth an FPP on the Blue?

By: alby

alby — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 09:57:42 -0800

Thank you, MeFi, for the awesome response.

By: ibmcginty

ibmcginty — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:37:48 -0800

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.