This American Life has nearly 30 years of excellent content. I know it is popular so maybe not worth mentioning, but I think there is a good reason this OG is still around. It is superb. So many little hidden gems.

One of my favorites is the first section of What Lies Beneath:

A beloved drawing goes missing from Mr. Ablao’s third grade classroom. The class holds a funeral for the drawing, which accidentally unleashes a much bigger feeling than anyone anticipated.

But there are many, many more.

I listen to a lot of the BBC Sounds podcasts… possibly because I’m boring and British.

My favourites are:

• In Our Time: 3 academics and a host discuss an academic topic in deep detail. Science, humanities, arts, etc. Some episodes are more interesting than others but depends on your personal interests. I like the philosophy ones because I studied it at university.
• The Today Podcast: UK news and current affairs.
• Screenshot: Film critics Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode discuss the history of cinema by picking a theme or motif to explore per episode, i.e. “Mermaids” was a recent one.
• The Digital Human: explores technology trends and how they affect individuals and society.

My dad wrote a porno

Behind the Bastards

For science communication:

• SciShow Tangents, by Hank Green. Very fun, but most recent episodes have lots of ads. Still very good.
• Ologies with Alie Ward. Interviews with a scientist every week, very informative and interesting.

Welcome to nightvale is good.

Been going for quite some time.

Qwerpline is also a good comedy one.

1Dime Radio

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Darknet Diaries is just amazing, it’s always really interesting, I never get bored

The Lockdown is a pretty good podcast about digital (and physical) privacy and security

The Privacy, Security, and OSINT Show by Michael Bazzell @ inteltechniques.com was really great, but they took it down last year. Fortunately there is still a torrent of the full archive of the show floating around: https://lemmings.world/post/11120738

The Ask Noah Show is all about Linux and open source software

Basically everything produced by Jupiter Broadcasting is just awesome, including Linux Unplugged and Self-Hosted

Linux Matters can also sometimes have really good content (Here’s their Mastodon profile: https://ubuntu.social/@linuxmatters)

Brodie Robertson’s Tech over Tea (I’m sorry I don’t have a better way to link to it than Apple Podcasts)

The Linux Experiment’s weekly Linux & open source news podcast (which you can also follow from the Fediverse btw, Castopod is just an awesome piece of software)

Tech won’t save us. Great series in my opinion. Great if you want to hear about tech in general and it not always be a good thing.

99 percent invisible - fantastic podcast on a variety of topics. Roman Mars goes into detail about every day things and concepts.

Dungeons and Daddies. DnD podcast. Great for road trips. My wife and I were crying laughing at some parts.

American Hysteria. A look into the real and not so real stories that make America.

I haven’t listened to any since I no longer spend my work day in the car, but if you’re a dork like me, you might enjoy:

Tales from the Magic Tavern: A man from Chicago gets sucked into a portal and finds himself in a fantasy world of wizards, Orcs, and a nasty little shapeshifting badger. There is a structured plot line, but all dialogue is improvised.

Hey Riddle Riddle: That nasty little badger from Magic Tavern started his own podcast that focuses on riddles. They ask each other riddles and the listener can try to solve them as the hosts figure it out. Also, full of silly improv scenes between riddles

Dungeons & Daddies: Follows a D&D game in which a group of dads and their sons are transported from our world into the Forgotten Realms. The Dads must use their newfound D&D powers to save their children. Very funny, AMAZING STORY. The DM does a great job, and was a lead writer for Borderlands 2, if that means anything to you.

Get Played: Originally they only covered terrible or bizarre video games, but expanded to weird/ mind bending games. They introduced me to some really good underrated Indy games.

Here’s the Situation: Two Improvisors that present each other with scenarios and they just give their honest opinion on it. For example, of you could only eat one candy for the rest of your life, what would it be? What if there was an organized draft (like in sports) and only one person could claim each candy? How much do you think you could sell an actual magic item for on eBay? They ended it years ago, but it was fun to bring the situations back to my family and see what they thought.

• Knowledge Fight
• Behind the Bastards
• Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff

I’m enjoying Ultra. It’s about Nazi infiltration of the government during WWII. It’s very well done.

Also, Lawfare and the related podcasts are never miss for me.

The Greatest Generation - Star Trek rewatch podcast. Rekindled my love for the greatest franchise in history. Hosts approach the show from a tv production background

Spout Lore - the best real-play podcast, in my opinion. Dungeon World with incredible world building despite almost everyone being named Greg

Blank Check with Griffin and David - film analysis from the film critic for the Atlantic and Arthur from the Tick / Orko / Watto, covering a director’s entire filmography each series

Marvel by the Month - Reading every Marvel comic, one month at a time. Has a gaggle of comic book industry legends as regular guests, talks about the context in which the comics were written, theme and interstitial music are bangers