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  • The Memory Palace - Short, surprising stories of the past, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hysterical, often a little bit of both.

    Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, and hilarious fiascos. They'll delight you, scare you, but also make you wiser.

    I Spy - True stories told by spies who steal secrets, kill adversaries, and turn agents into double agents. Each episode features one spy telling one dramatic story. Unfortunately, this show seems to be defunct. Still an interesting listen, though!

    Limetown - A 22 episode fictional story about the mysterious disappearance of over 300 people from a small town in Tennessee.

    The Other Half - Two friends watch the same movie—except one only watches the first half, and the other only watches the second half. Then they get together and discuss the film, and try to figure out the context of what they saw.

    Hey Riddle Riddle - My favorite podcast at the moment. Three improvisers answer riddles some of the time, and goof off most of the time. They do improvised scenes and have a good time.

    Twenty Thousand Hertz - The stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. It's basically 99% Invisible, but for audio.

    What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law - Particularly interesting if you live in the U.S., this show takes a look at modern issues and controversies through the lens of constitutional law. You'd think a podcast about legal matters would be dry and obtuse, but the show really is geared for a non-legal-minded audience.

    Almost Plausible - My own podcast! A couple of friends and I friends take an ordinary object, such as a pillow, or a ceiling fan, or a toilet brush, and we come up with a movie plot where that object plays a central or critical role. Note: At the time of posting, we have just released our Halloween episode, which breaks from the regular format. So if you go listen to the Pumpkin episode, although it's an entertaining one, it's not representative of the show.

    • Co-recursive
    • the Haskell Cast
    • the Lambda Cast (not that fun to listen to but it taught me a ton)

  • Darknet Diaries

    Intelligence Squared

    Sean Carroll's Mindscape

    • IMO, Sean seems more intent on impressing the audience and the expert rather than conducting a good interview. I listened to an episode that involved category theory and he regularly interrupted the guest so he could show off how much he knows about it.

      • I'm relistening to that episode now because I'm curious about what it is you perceived.

        He interjects sometimes to help tie things together ("and this is interesting because of [earlier observation]") or to adjust the level of technicality to suit his intended audience ("we're allowed to use the word torus here"). Not all Mindscape guests have a solid feel for the podcast and default to giving popscience breakdowns with analogies and leaving out technical jargon, and so he has to set the bar a bit by explicitly allowing the introduction of technical terms and bringing together of complex related topics.

        Don't know if that's what made you feel like he was trying to show off.

  • Recently bigned 85 episodes of Lingthusiasm, a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics. It's released monthly and hosted by two linguists, one of which is Tom Scott's writer and the other is a linguistics professor in New Zealand.

  • I recently discovered:

    • If Books Could Kill from Michael Hobbes (How the worst ideas spread through airport bestsellers)
    • Failure To Launch from Fluid Podcasts (How brands fail)
    • Lions Led By Donkeys (Military history failures)

  • A toss-up between Philosophise This and the BBC's In Our Time for me. Thinking Allowed is also in the mix and I've recently started Mike Duncan's Revolutions which is proving entertaining too.

    • Probably "Philosophize This"

      Any episode of any of these that especially stick out to you?

      • Probably “Philosophize This”

        Ha, spellcheck got to it.

        That one takes few episodes to settle down but all from around ep 40 or so are good. The last few - starting with 179 - are looking at AI and consciousness and covering a lot of great viewpoints.

        In Our Time - "Polidori's The Vampyre" and "Thomas Paine's Common Sense" are both ones that I heard recently and found particularly interesting. Also Thinking Allowed's "The Petite Bourgeoisie".

  • Beautiful / Anonymous with Chris Gethard is my favourite lately. It's essentially an hour-long phone conversation between the host and an anonymous stranger. The anonymity makes people open up and be vulnerable, and Chris is an amazing conversationalist who manages to bring something interesting out of every caller.

    • Roderick on the Line
    • Risky or Not?
    • Penn’s Sunday School
    • This Podcast Will Kill You
    • Reconcilable Differences
    • Accidental Tech Podcast

    • I love Reconcilable Differences! Probably my favourite podcast at the moment. I'm currently working my way through all the old episodes. ATP is very good too, but I think it's too focused on current events to go through all previous episodes

  • Nextlander, it's some of the OG Giant Bomb guys, I love their video games and industry coverage, and they're such warm comforting guys :-)

  • I dropped the ball a bit on listening to podcasts therefor right now it'd be "This American Life" but normally I also enjoy the Flophouse.

  • The Unmade Podcast (https://unmade.fm/) is probably my GOAT. Brady Haran (from Numberphile, Computerphile, etc.) and his Childhood friend, Tim Hein, come up with wacky ideas for podcasts that they won't actually make. Definitely the funniest podcast I've ever heard.

    Hello Internet, also from Brady, with CGP Grey, is also amazing. Though sadly on hiatus.

    • Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
    • The psychology of your 20s.
    • Talks at Google
    • What should I read next?
    • Lex Fridman

    A bit more teckie:

    • REWORK
    • The Changelog
    • Go Time
    • Screaming in the cloud
    • The New Stack podcast
    • Ship it!

    Languages learning:

    • Tanaka radio (Japanese)
    • The Miku real Japanese
    • The real Japanese podcast
    • The procrastination podcast (English)

  • Future Ecologies

    It's so gorgeously audio designed and mixed, all about ecological preservation, geology, humans place as a part of nature, and many more and tangentially related topics. Headphones are a must.

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