I’m a bit late to updating the list this year. There aren’t too many new entries, but there are a few changes.

Politics

5-4 Pod – Official Description:5-4 is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. It’s a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court’s most important landmark cases; an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics. Presented by Slow Burn co-creator Leon Neyfakh, 5-4 is a production of Prologue Projects. Eric’s Commentary: If you really want to see how crazy it is that 9 men and women who server for life have such control over American life, you can be silly like me and listen to this show. I often find the topics and conclusions depressing (whether it’s the current Supreme Court or one from the past) The hosts are entertaining, though. They’re all practicing or former lawyers.

First off, I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy listening to the science fiction short story podcast Escape Pod. Today I listened to episode 949, A Foundational Model for Talking to Girls. Large Language Models (LLMs), what we have colloquially called AI for the past few years, have been a giant source of wonder and consternation in the world. AI in general has long been a topic for science fiction, but this short story tackles the current LLM version of AIs. I found it to be a very fun episode that is a master class in providing a huge amount of backstory without an exposition dump. I don’t want to spoil anything about this story, but they naturally drop all these background details about the world that make me want more stories in this universe. It also has a fun, light tone to it. I highly recommend you either listen or read (the full text is available at the episode link above)

Once again I used a script to pull out the official descriptions of the podcasts as well as the URL where I access the feed. After the official description you’ll see my commentary about the podcast.

Politics

5-4 Pod - Official Description:5-4 is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. It’s a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court’s most important landmark cases; an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics. Presented by Slow Burn co-creator Leon Neyfakh, 5-4 is a production of Prologue Projects. Eric’s Commentary: If you really want to see how crazy it is that 9 men and women who server for life have such control over American life, you can be silly like me and listen to this show. I often find the topics and conclusions depressing (whether it’s the current Supreme Court or one from the past) The hosts are entertaining, though. They’re all practicing or former lawyers.

In short succession 2 podcasts I listen to covered the movie adaptation of The Pelican Brief. If you watched it back in the 1990s you probably didn’t realize how bananas the plot of this movie was. It sounds OK in short summary - some evil corporations kill 2 US Supreme Court judges to prevent a certain ruling. But once the podcasts go into the details of the movie - it makes next to 0 sense.

This time around I’ve written a Python script to take the OPML file from Podcast Republic and generate the list along with URLs and official descriptions for all the podcasts. If I have additional thoughts I’ll add them after the official description.

The World Around Us

99% Invisible - Official Description: Design is everywhere in our lives, perhaps most importantly in the places where we’ve just stopped noticing. 99% Invisible is a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture.

I’ve both added and dropped some podcasts since last time around. Where I’m listing the same podcast as last year I may use the same description as in the past with slight (or no) variation.

Public Radio

Radiolab – Heard about them because sometimes their stories are used on This American Life. Radiolab is a lot like TAL except with a much bigger focus on sound effects. It is, in a way, the descendant of the old radio shows of the 30s and 40s. (Approx 30-45 min)

I’ve both added and dropped some podcasts since last time around. Where I’m listing the same podcast as last year I may use the same description as in the past with slight (or no) variation.

Public Radio

Radiolab – Heard about them because sometimes their stories are used on This American Life. Radiolab is a lot like TAL except with a much bigger focus on sound effects. It is, in a way, the descendant of the old radio shows of the 30s and 40s. (Approx 30-45 min)

I’ve both added and dropped some podcasts since last time around. Where I’m listing the same podcast as last year I may use the same description as in the past with slight (or no) variation.

Public Radio

Radiolab – Heard about them because sometimes their stories are used on This American Life. Radiolab is a lot like TAL except with a much bigger focus on sound effects. It is, in a way, the descendant of the old radio shows of the 30s and 40s. (Approx 30-45 min)

I’ve both added and dropped some podcasts since last time around. Where I’m listing the same podcast as last year I may use the same description as in the past with slight (or no) variation.

Public Radio

Radiolab – Heard about them because sometimes their stories are used on This American Life. Radiolab is a lot like TAL except with a much bigger focus on sound effects. It is, in a way, the descendant of the old radio shows of the 30s and 40s. (Approx 30-45 min)

I’ve both added and dropped some podcasts since last time around. Where I’m listing the same podcast as last year I may use the same description as in the past with slight (or no) variation.

Video Games

Giant Beastcast – The East Coast Giant Bomb crew. This podcast is more about video game culture and news stories. It spends a lot less time on the “what you’ve been playing” section. I’ve actually grown to enjoy this one way more than the Bombcast because of the focus on the cultural and news aspects.

I’ve both added and dropped some podcasts since last time around. Ever since I started using Doggcatcher on my cellphone I’ve been able to listen to more podcasts because, even without the pitch distortion my sandisk had, it plays the content a lot faster. Where I’m listing the same podcast as last year I may use the same description as in the past with slight (or no) variation.

Video Games

Giant Bombcast – This is a HILARIOUS podcast that is mostly about video games.  I say it’s mostly about video games because these guys often will go off on random tangents about what energy drinks they have, what they ate, what they did between video gaming, and other topics.  However, they always get back to video games and provide a really fun podcast.  Segments include What You’ve Been Playing, News of the World, and EMAILS!  My favorite parts are “What You’ve Been Playing” and “Emails”.  It can be a bit geeky in the same way that some of the tech podcasts I listen to are geeky. First Ryan passed away and then Vinnie went to New York. With the podcast being so personality driven, the changes almost drove me away, but I’ve stayed and the new talent is pretty good. (Approx 2.5 hours long)

I’ve both added and dropped some podcasts since last time around. Ever since I started using Doggcatcher on my cellphone I’ve been able to listen to more podcasts because, even without the pitch distortion my sandisk had, it plays the content a lot faster. Where I’m listing the same podcast as last year I may use the same description as in the past with slight (or no) variation.

Video Games

Giant Bombcast – This is a HILARIOUS podcast that is mostly about video games.  I say it’s mostly about video games because these guys often will go off on random tangents about what energy drinks they have, what they ate, what they did between video gaming, and other topics.  However, they always get back to video games and provide a really fun podcast.  Segments include What You’ve Been Playing, News of the World, and EMAILS!  My favorite parts are “What You’ve Been Playing” and “Emails”.  It can be a bit geeky in the same way that some of the tech podcasts I listen to are geeky. First Ryan passed away and then Vinnie went to New York. With the podcast being so personality driven, the changes almost drove me away, but I’ve stayed and the new talent is pretty good. (Approx 2.5 hours long)

I’ve both added and dropped some podcasts since last time around. Ever since I started using Doggcatcher on my cellphone I’ve been able to listen to more podcasts because, even without the pitch distortion my sandisk had, it plays the content a lot faster. Where I’m listing the same podcast as last year I may use the same description as in the past with slight (or no) variation.

Video Games

Giant Bombcast – This is a HILARIOUS podcast that is mostly about video games.  I say it’s mostly about video games because these guys often will go off on random tangents about what energy drinks they have, what they ate, what they did between video gaming, and other topics.  However, they always get back to video games and provide a really fun podcast.  Segments include What You’ve Been Playing, News of the World, and EMAILS!  My favorite parts are “What You’ve Been Playing” and “Emails”.  It can be a bit geeky in the same way that some of the tech podcasts I listen to are geeky. I miss Ryan since his untimely death last year - the guys do well enough without him, but he brought something very special to the podcast that isn’t there anymore. I felt like I actually knew him after about 200 weekly episodes where I spent almost 3 hours with him each time. (Approx 2.5 hours long)

Before continuing on, listen to this short story. (It’s only about 10 minutes long. It starts at about 1 min 50 seconds. Or read the transcript here)

When I first heard this story I thought it was a pretty interesting description of the dating world and how people are often looking for people who conflict with themselves. Note the first exchange our heroine has on her date:

I’ve cut back a lot because I have less time to listen to podcasts. Here are the ones I have now:

Video Games

Giant Bombcast – This is a HILARIOUS podcast that is mostly about video games.  I say it’s mostly about video games because these guys often will go off on random tangents about what energy drinks they have, what they ate, what they did between video gaming, and other topics.  However, they always get back to video games and provide a really fun podcast.  Segments include What You’ve Been Playing, News of the World, New Releases and EMAILS!  My favorite parts are “What You’ve Been Playing” and “Emails”.  It can be a bit geeky in the same way that some of the tech podcasts I listen to are geeky, (Approx 2.5 hours long)

I’ve been listening to podcasts for about two years now.  I got into it because I love listening to some NPR programs, but they are always on when I’m at work or asleep on the weekends.  Eventually, I heard on NPR that they have podcasts of various shows.  I checked it out right away because in Maryland NPR is on 88.1 which is always being interfered with by SiriusXM radio receivers.  At first I only listened to a few podcasts because I didn’t own an iPod and I so I burned the podcasts to a CD-R every few days.  That got expensive, so I got an iPod shuffle.  Since podcasts don’t take up too much space, I started getting into more and more podcasts.  Some I discovered in magazines and others were recommendations from Dan.  So, I thought I would share the podcasts I listen to so that those following this blog could perhaps discover some new podcasts they didn’t know about.  Dan, for example, recently got into This American Life.  (I think after I kept telling him about it - but he may have discovered it independently)  I’m going to put links to the actual podcast URL, so just copy that into your podcather or iTunes.