Darknet Diaries - stories from the dark side of the internet. The host interviews hackers, security experts and convicted felons, as well as his own researched stories.

Stuff you should know - hosts chat tell you everything you want to know about different random topics.

Behind the bastards - a different take on different bastards throughout history.

You’re wrong about - the hosts chat about people and events that you may have had some misconceptions about.

• 99% Invisible
• Well There’s Your Problem
• The War On Cars
• The Urbanist Agenda
• The Climate Deniers Playbook
• Underunderstood
• Induction
• Hard Fork
• Drilled
• The Adam Ragusea Podcast

In no particular order.

Hidden brain : It’s about human psychology joined with journalism

99 percent invisible : About subtle things in everyday life, how it comes to be and why is it like that? Or sometimes a nice history lesson.

Cautionary tales : Very much opposite of fairy tales and all true. Stories about human error or some tragedy.

Linux unplugged : Weekly updates in the linux world.

Invisibilia : Human psychology

The psychology podcast : Same

**The partially examined life **: Modern philosophy

Geomob : Geoinnovation - for fun or profit

The mapscapping poscast : Stories from geospatial world

Self hosted : Hardware and software related to self hosting

I like Nocturne, a podcast about things that happen in the night. Three of my favorite episodes are:

• Nightways, an absolutely fascinating look into the productive and creative ways our ancestors spent the dark hours.

• Elk River Road, where two young women on a roadtrip get lost in the woods overnight and how they face their fears.

• Finding the Void, an artist and his friends rebel against the new shopping complex and end up living in an apartment they create between the walls of the mall.

Trash Taste is really the only podcast I listen to while I’m working. I like it because I like the creators who make it and they talk about gaming and anime. Just a fun podcast that caters to what I like in my free time.

Tim Dillon Podcast. Dry, east coast type humor where he goes over and comments on current happenings. I stopped listening for a while once his producer/part cohost parted ways with him, but I’ve been getting back into it again. His rants and tangents always make me laugh.

Tooth And Claw. Hosted by a wildlife biologist, and his friend and brother, they go over animal attacks. All sorts of animal attacks. They have great chemistry, and I love that they tell you how to best survive if you get attacked by said animal. I don’t know if it’s morbid fascination or what but I can’t get enough.

I’m scared shitless of bears now though. I mean, they were always scary, but now I know all the ways in which they can kill you. :(

I am subscribed to 127 podcasts, so close to getting that elusive extra binary digit, but yeah, lots of different topics and quite a few who don’t have anything new coming out but I keep for the back catalogue.

Broadly speaking I have a few major interests and associated groups of podcasts.

Religion As someone who lives in a supposedly Christian culture with lots of fascistic behaviour creeping into public life I listen to quite a few podcasts around religion. Some are more on the vehement and sardonic end, others more in the range of learning and understanding. The Puzzle In A Thunderstorm group put out a few great shows which are more on the “religion is bad and here is why” end of things, starting with The Scathing Atheist which does lots of current news, moving into God Awful Movies which looks at religious and just plain awful films and shows, and The Skepticrat which is much more politics focussed. That group also works with the team from Cognitive Dissonance on a show called Citation Needed which is basically a few people listening and responding to someone telling them about some weird thing from Wikipedia like a molassas flood or a particularly onerous historical figure. Lastly is Data Over Dogma, a great podcast with a scholar of religion from the LDS church (Mormon but don’t call them that) and an atheist talking about Christianity from a modern social justice perspective and really looking at the scholarship around the associated religious texts. That one is really good and I have learned a lot listening to them.

Science Anything from the microbe.TV group is amazing, starting the TWiV (This Week in Virology) but moving through all the rest. They were great during the rise of covid but I was listening long before that and they really do break things down well and broaden your understanding of science in a meaningful way. The Naked Scientists have a great set of podcasts about general science topics and break things down to a layman level without losing all of the nuance. The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe is a great pop sci group, and Talk Nerdy To Me is another great show from one of the hosts.

Politics/history Cool Zone Media put out a few great shows including Behind The Bastards Whig is about history’s greatest bastards, Cool People Which Do Cool Stuff which is basically the opposite, It Could Happen Here which covers current events and deep reporting on issues around politics and the state, and a few others. Cleanup on Aisle 45 is a great show about law and so on as relating to dealing with the aftermath of the Trump presidency.

News The Daily Beans is a great daily news show relating to US politics, while the Guardian puts out a few more local shows for other anglosphere countries.

General and mixed interest Serious Inquiries Only is a great show for exploring issues around science and politics with a fair and grounded left leaning bent. Where There’s Woke is from the same team and is an exploration of the moral panics around woke controversies and honestly, wow, some of the bull that the right wing get upset about is so incredibly dishonest and the real story is so much more interesting.

There are a tonne more but I can’t make an exhaustive list now, those are the ones that come to mind immediately.

Soft Skills Engineering: I listen for advice on the non-technical side of software development.

The Greatest Generation: a couple guys who review ST:TNG, DS9 and now Voyager episodes.

Greatest Trek: the above but for new Trek

On the humorous side:

• My Brother, My Brother And Me - 3 brothers giving not-so-serious advice to listeners, reacting to questions from Yahoo Answers (when that was a thing), and later adding other segments, and overall being funny/silly (note: sometimes they make references that go over my head, but they’re still enjoyable. These references might be best enjoyed by midwestern Americans who grew up in the late 80’s/early 90’s)
• My Dad Wrote A Porno - 3 people reacting to an “erotica” book series that one of the guys’ dad published (I would say the books are maybe only 5%-20% explicit, depending on the chapter) (some of the characters’ voices can be annoying/grating, and the narrator tends to repeat sentences after they react to them which can be annoying as well)
• No Such Thing As A Fish - the behind-the-scenes staff of the show QI bring up interesting facts and tidbits from history/nature/etc. (each episode is split into 4 parts where each member brings up a fact and the others react to it and bring up related facts)
• If I Were You - Jake & Amir from CollegeHumor giving advice to listeners (mostly in a sarcastic/tongue-in-cheek way but sometimes genuinely), mostly about relationships/dating
• SmartLess - Jason Bateman and Will Arnett (Arrested Development) and Sean Hayes (Will & Grace) interview a famous person each episode where only one of the hosts known who it is beforehand (it gets better after the first few episodes, though some conversations are less funny/entertaining than others)
• Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Conan interviews a famous person each episode (I like the interview part better than the introduction, and similarly to Smartless some conversations are less funny than others)
• If you watched The Office (US) - Office Ladies - Jenna and Angela from the show reacting to each episode of the show and bringing up behind-the-scenes stuff (some of episodes include interviews with other cast members/staff) (might not be as humorous as the others but still fun to listen to)

Off Menu - guests get interviewed over their dream food meal menus

Song Exploder - singers, composers, musicians are interviewed about a specific song that they wrote/created/performed. It’s broken down into sections of the work and then the whole song is played at the end of the episode.

James Acaster’s Perfect Sounds - guests are given an album from 2016 that they listen to before the podcast recording, then they are interviewed on their opinions and thoughts about the album.

I am eternally sad about Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and Ask Me Another going off the air.

Darknet Diaries- interesting history/current internet crimes and shenanigans

Criminal, Serial and Smartless - mind able to wander while driving but interesting to capture attention if it decides it’s better then random thoughts

For long road trips I’ll download a bunch of episodes from The Moth. Total crap shoot if it will be the most depressing or thought provoking story.

It’s a real shame that Radiolab seems to have fallen so far from these lists.

Castle Super Beast - Woolie Madden and Patrick Boivin talk about a bunch of bullshit. Videogames, TV and Anime, industry news for both, and really bad letters from listeners that sometimes have funny openers. The fucked up episode names are a treat.

I’ve been listening to Theo Vonn lately. Just three episodes so far. But he’s really funny, and manages to keep the spotlight on his guest despite being continually engaged.

• The Flop House - Three comedians watch a bad movie and then talk about it in funny ways. Additionally they answer letters from their listeners and have a lot of running jokes which I enjoy.
• Obiter Dictum - Two Swedish guys talk (in Swedish) about Swedish and US pop culture including movies, music and books. I enjoy it because it makes me feel kind of at home listening to friends talking about normal things.
• Modern Day Philosophers - a Jewish comedian invites other mostly Jewish comedians to first just talk about their life, etc. and then in each episode to pick a classic philosopher and one of their quote to talk about it with the guest.
• Israel Story - Every day stories from Israel, I was there a couple of years ago and became fascinated with their culture and history, this in a way is for me like going back there without traveling.

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And then I’d like to do some self promotion: Jeenas Excellent Encounters is my own podcast, where I meet people who I think are interesting in my life and then we talk about their hobby or work or some special interest they have. Some exceptional episodes:

• Jehovah’s Witnesses - Althéa - I talked to a woman who grew up in a Jehovah’s Witnesses family, married young and got a child and only then realized that she needs to get out and she describes her way out and her fight to get her daughter back.
• In Israel/Palestine 2/3 - Hebron - I traveled to Hebron in Palestine and stayed at a AirBnB. The host took me with her to visit a family who’s house has been destroyed 3 times already by the Israeli military.
• Living as a foreigner in Russia - Alberto - I interviewed an Italian who met a Russian woman when studying in in Finland and decided to move to Russia for their children’s sake

Sports Bizarre, bias to Australia but has a whole lot of great stories, delivered as a historical comedy. A six parter on the Corruption of FIFA (The FIFA Ethics committee, Lol.), the St Louis 1904 Olympics, the Paris 1900 Olympics, doping and corruption in the Tour de France.

Alpha Blokes. Aussie comedy and yarns. Trendsetter Talkback are the best episodes, once a week, and the term “Head noise” is now in my parlance