Looking For Podcasts

It's crowdsourcing time! (Or as jwz would say, "Dear lazyweb")

I'm looking for well-done, thought-provoking podcasts. You know, the kind that give you good ideas, that make you consider things you hadn't before? I'm not fussy about subject matter, so long as they are good.

The only rule: Each episode must be less than 20 minutes.

Recommendations?

Comments

[Ginger]

The Norman Centuries is very slow but shows tend to run 15 to 20 minutes. The current episode is the longest and is just under the 21 minute mark. (The rest are under 20.)

[Becky]

The wide variety of "How Stuff Works" podcasts. My favorites are "Stuff You Should Know," "BrainStuff," and "Stuff from the B-Side" (last one currently on hiatus.) There are tech, science and history podcasts as well.

"The Memory Palace" -- Nate DiMeo (highly recommend)

"NPR: Hmmm.... Krulwich on Science Podcast"

"The Puzzle Podcast" -- Adam Weiss and David Leschinsky

[Pat]

I share your preference for podcasts that run under 20 minutes, but those are hard to find. About the only reliable source I know of is the Quick and Dirty Tips network, which has fifteen weekly shows that are all that concise. I listen to eight of them.

[Rob Donoghue]

Ok, violating the rule here, but for a good cause. If you can spare 27 minutes, then the Age of Persuasion (http://feeds.feedburner.com/cbc_ageofpersuasion) is profoundly good an interesting. It's a study and history of advertising, and it has been an unending font of useful insights for me.

On the shorter end, I have also been fairly happy with the family of blogs that come out of the Quick and Dirty Tips folks, most notably the Get it Done Guy and more recently The Public Speaker.

-Rob D.

[Karl Sackett]

History According to Bob is the only one I can think of that regularly clocks in at under twenty minutes. Most episodes run from nine to twelve minutes, and the feed delivers four to six shows a week.

[Mick Bradley]

There was this dude in Cali once upon a time who had an excellent podcast about his life as a roleplayer, and it was usually under 20 minutes. He even won some awards and such for it. But I think that guy ran out of ideas or something because he stopped doing that podcast. Sorry you missed it, it would have been perfect for you. If I can remember the guy's name and/or the show, I'll let you know and maybe you can still grab some back episodes.

[Wayne]

The Memory Palace. Small Snippets of Weird History http://thememorypalace.us/ All are about 5 minutes long.

The Useless Information Podcast More Weird Tales, about 20 Minute or less. http://uselessinformation.libsyn.com/

[Gerald Cameron]

I'll second The Memory Palace and (if you can manage the time) Age of Persuasion, which I'm currently catching up on.

I'll also recommend My History can Beat up Your Politics. which looks at American politics and political history from an interesting, occasionally iconoclastic point of view. Not gospel, but often thought-provoking.

The History of Rome is a little bit on the long side (and the last couple of episodes have been unusually long), but it's a great, great casual history of Rome, starting from the city's founding and currently up to almost the end of the Five Great Emperors period. I inhaled the archives in a matter of a couple weeks last summer. Again, the host isn't afraid to go against conventional wisdom when he thinks it's justified, and he back's himself up.

[Vernon]

I second "The History of Rome". The majority are in the 20 minute range and are a thoughtful and relaxing overview of Roman history.

Planet Money is somewhat hit or miss as they often cut down on content to be under 20 minutes. They do have a few very good episodes, such as their Peabody winning work for This American Life's "The Giant Pool of Money".

Other those two I would recommend NPR's It's All Politics. Quick, concise, and all of the politics you can stand once a week.

[Pete Darby]

From the BBC:

In Our Time , archives available streaming, latest programme podcast, about "the history of ideas", i.e. whatever Melvyn Bragg is interested in. Which is damn near everything, even if he doesn't ever grasp any of the scientific or mathematical ideas.

Thinking Allowed, ostensibly about social science research, but since that is "people and stuff", very wide ranging. Presenters forced bonhomie gets grating for me though. Also, beware of the sweeping generalisations and prejudices (drove me nuts with their "The military are listening to SciFi writers, this is BAD" report).

Non-BBC: Robert Llewellyn's Carpool: The conceit is that Robert, well known as Kryten from Red Dwarf, gives an "interesting person" a lift and they just ramble until they get where they're going. Very relaxed, informal and informative. All interviews initially broadcast as Video, the archives are (slowly) getting transferred to audio only.

Then the ones I'm sure you know: This American Life, This Week in Science, Radiolab, Math for Primates...

[jessecoombs]

If you don't know about the TED talks, you should. Here's the rss page:

http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/198

[Gerald Cameron]

A quick point about In Our Time:

I Looooove it. It's my second or third favourite podcast. Unfortunately, it's also about twice the length you're looking for, consistently (it's a broadcast radio show that is then distributed as a podcast).

But it is definitely worth checking out if you get the chance. Sadly, the archives are not readily downloadable, since they are kept in Real Audio format :(

[Micah]

I'd like to throw in a second recommendation for TED talks. They are brief and cover a large number of topics but they are generally good ideas and interesting stuff. They are video podcasts however, and I'm not sure if you that matters to you. I'm sure that many of them could be listened to and be just as entertaining/inspiring.

This one, on creativity in schools, is particularly worth listening to, whether you end up subscribing or not.

[Jeff]

I would suggest Skeptoid and the Freakanomics podcast.