We've probably done this before, but...Thus far the podcast revolution has really passed me by; along with RSS, the software managers for it have always seemed intimidatingly difficult to use (and quite resource-hungry). So I've stayed away, and contented myself with radio and TV and internet and all those safe, twen-cen forms of media.
But now I have a nice little podcast client (and RSS - yay!) for my Sony Clie, which is easy to use and not too fat. I've gone looking for stuff; and I've found plenty of enormous directories of podcasts, most of which are bewilderingly vast and badly organised (and most of the podcasts are badly described). I'd much rather go by word of mouth, in any case. So:
Anyone know any good podcasts?
I'm especially interested in sciencey ones or 'green living' ones. Not so bothered about news or current affairs, and anything from the BBC I'll probably have heard on the radio; what I'm interested in is the obscure stuff, the guy in Montana talking into his computer about how he turned his garden shed into a Mars colony simulator, or the architect who's making an audio diary of his tests on making houses out of cardboard tubing, or the relief worker blogging about attempts to organise tea farmers in Turkhmenistan into a fairtrade collective... you know, weird stuff.
So far, I have only one podcast on my machine, and that probably tells you more about what I'm looking for than anything else, so let's start the list with that:
European Space Agency Advanced Concepts Team podcast
So: anyone?
5 comments:
They're not exactly podcasts, but you can get Battlestar Gallactica on iTunes...
I've not listened to it recently, but Galactic Fractures was super cool about 2 years ago - lots of lesser known, but highly funky soul, funk and jazz.
There's supposed to be a Ricky Gervais thing that people have said good things about - but I've not gotten around to it yet.
(No, I know, neither of these are really what you're after - but thought I'd pipe up)
If it is for news and stuff then the BBC Radio 4 Website has a number of podcasts - I haven't checked them out but I do tend to listen to R4 when driving
The only podcast on my list that I use is This American Life. I highly recommend it. However, it's just a radio show that they've put online.
I concur with your frustration at finding anything good yet home-made. But I'm not sure finding such good shows will ever be easy. For every guy recording his shed mars simulator there will be 6000 people recording their own body noises or discussing their favorite flavor of tea. Take a look at the blog world - there are piles of boring usless blogs, and it takes quite a bit of searching to find one that's good. But at least with blogs you don't have to sit through a half hour session to find out if it's good - a 3 second skim removes 90% of the chaff from the wheat.
Still, not one we get over here (as far as I know) so thanks.
You're right, it's a bit frustrating, which is why I thought I'd ask if anyone knew of anything good. What's more, the software popped up to remind me I'm on a trial period (well, the software is, not me - I'm not expecting my organiser to delete me in frustration and go find a better owner)... so I probably won't bother renewing it. Guess I'll skip the podcast revolution and wait for the next one to come by. Probably won't be long.
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