Lots of examples of people hacking various economic systems (i.e. buying dollar coins to get airline miles) as well as the occasional economics behind tech podcast (Marco Arment & JoCo were both featured recently), and a great way to get a sense of the macroeconomic landscape.
I also love the Motley Fool podcast. They have a lot of great info packed into each episode, while staying true to the Motley Fool style of humor and amazingly simplified explanations of complex topics.
The signal to noise ratio is a problem, but we're talking about some pretty high quality signal and some pretty hilarious noise.
Yes: Merlin can be _extremely_ rambly and he often has a hard time staying on topic, but when he is on, he's on. The last three episodes have been especially great on topics such as risk, valuing yourself, and looking at the big picture in determining how to live your life and career. They resonated very well with me as someone who has taken the plunge of quitting my job and working on my own apps and projects.
99% Invisible is in the same category of general nerdy podcasts like Radiolab (i.e. not just meant for programmers). I think this show specifically would be interesting to hackers, on manufactured sounds for digital interfaces, but there's a lot of good stuff in the archives.
Absolutely agree on 99% Invisible. Roman Mars does a fantastic job and episodes are really well produced. If you're interested on design, this is the show to listen. Episodes are short, 5-15mins.
I actually discovered this during the Christmas break and listened all the episodes in few days. Now it's the highlight of my week.
It may be time to start a news podcast, the "hacker new podcast", where 3 of the top HN users discuss the day's headlines and comments on HN - 5 minutes/day.
Think of it as a summary of HN for HN fans who don't have the time to read all the comments.
As another Gabfest fan, I'll add:
- Community involvement. Live shows and a facebook fan page which they stay active on, and refer to during the show.
- Good mix of regulars, semi-regulars (usually other Slate people), and occasional guests.
TechZing was doing something similar with its panel shows but.. definitely not 5 minutes or each day ;-) I give your idea a thumbs up but podcast production is pretty hard work so it would take some rather dedicated souls to pull it off well.
Funny how German podcasters pretty much unanimously decided not to do ads or sponsoring while american podcasts are often littered with ads to the point where it gets unbearable.
Compare and contrast the TWiT network or 5by5 with Tim Pritlove or BitsUndSo
Isn't the TWiT network a bit of a special case with Leo Laporte trying to monetize and self produce the same niche of programming he was doing with the Screen Savers back on ZDTV? There isn't much of a choice when the point of the screen casts are that they should be your job. Also it helps that we're conditioned to see adverts everywhere.
There was a time when TWiT was funded exclusively by donations, making a point of not taking ads in order to stay independent. At some point I guess the temptation become too big.
how could "StackOverflow" not be listed here? love listening to this show because it is a) technical & b) funny in a "Statler and Waldorf" sort of way ~ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/podcasts/
Stanford's "Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar" is pure gold if you are looking for high-level business, innovation and entrepreneurial discussions.
Stack Overflow (now stackexchange, you can find the old episodes on itconversations), and techzing podcasts are packed with wit and humor. Listening to Joel, Justin and Jason, brightens any day.
Thanks for including some that I'm involved in! :-) I want to suggest two others (which are not mine):
Founders Talk - http://5by5.tv/founderstalk - a frequent interview podcast with founders, true HN style. The guests are often programmers.
Mixergy - http://mixergy.com/ - same as above but with more of a business slant. Mixergy is huge though and Andrew is perhaps as much a "friend of HN" as we could get IMHO :-)
Jason's show and network is what gave me my entrepreneurial spark a year ago. Great guests and great content. He does need to move the show to SF though. You can only interview LA founders for so long. I've really enjoyed the shows the past few weeks @ CNet and Waze because he has interviewed some of the most prominent tech startups.
Completely agree. The show itself has great content. Jason is a smart guy who is humble enough to be engaging and relatable, and confident enough to ask the right questions and make poignant comments. (Only caveat to this statement is the mailchimp ads. The "eee eee eee" part of these ads make me cringe every time.)
I really would like him to move up to the bay area too but part of me think he's able to take a more critical perspective on startups because he's not physically immersed in the SV culture. It would be really cool to run into him in a starbucks or something though.
The Morning Stream (http://frogpants.com/tms) is a particularly good podcast, although the subject matter does not usually contain any programming or indeed tech related material. The banter, and chemistry between the show's co-hosts, and the interesting assortment of trivia that is often on stock brightens my mornings, and the time that I spend on drudge work. I usually listen to silence, or music with no lyrics, mostly jazz and electronica when I have to concentrate on the task at hand. Podcasts are a huge distraction vector for me personally, or at least were till I banned them from my assigned work hours. Nonetheless `The Morning Stream' is highly recommended.
Thanks for this article and comments, I usually listen to Justin and Jason's TechZing but here there are some links very interesting (i.e. http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/, i've seen they put a transcript of every episode so it's useful for me, i use podcasts also to improve my english)
A suggestion for podcast authors: if you cant put a full transcript, at least try to have an abstract (with link,s people, societies etc..)
Thou not as frequently updated lately, it's extremely informative podcast on landing pages, data analysis and consumer behavior in relation to web pages.
"This Developer's Life" is my new favorite podcast. It's introspective, and covers the mental, emotional, and personal side of the life of hackers. And it has great background music.
You say this on a forum titled "Hacker News"? What definition of hacker are you using?
I'm using definition 3 from Merriam-Webster, "an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer", and that is the most compatible meaning for this forum.
Lots of examples of people hacking various economic systems (i.e. buying dollar coins to get airline miles) as well as the occasional economics behind tech podcast (Marco Arment & JoCo were both featured recently), and a great way to get a sense of the macroeconomic landscape.