Since I stopped running Ubuntu Linux I found myself looking for some new Linux podcasts to listen to. Luckily I discovered mintCast, a great podcast for all users of Linux by folks who run Linux Mint. It comes out most every Monday, and despite being over an hour long (which my digital media player doesn’t seem to like too much) it’s always filled with news I can use. Each show starts out with news for the Linux community, which makes it even better.
Last week’s show, which I was finally able to listen to over the weekend, included an interview with Larry Bushey of the Going Linux podcast. Going Linux is built on the premise that their users are not Linux techies, in fact they give information as if their listeners have never even fired up a LiveCD which is great for folks who are just looking at Linux for the first time.
Of course it made me want to check out the latest Going Linux podcast, a listener feedback show. Going Linux is recorded far enough in advance that they don’t include a news segment, but I have to say that it’s a damned nice podcast whether you’re already a Linux user or just considering checking out our favorite penguin.
I also found a podcast called The Linux Tech Show, which I just downloaded and wanted to let everyone know about since I haven’t found many good Linux podcasts that aren’t either Ubuntu or Gnome based.
My other podcasts
Speaking of podcasts, I have a list of podcasts I regularly check, if not download, on a daily or weekly basis. A most of them are daily news show podcasts from public radio shows I enjoy on WBUR but there a few entertainment shows (most but not all are from public radio shows) that I make a point of snagging so I don’t miss them. I’m going to give links to the home pages for each of them for you to check them out for yourselves. Most of them are available on iTunes but each one has ways to download or subscribe via a basic RSS feed so anyone can enjoy them.
Weekly Podcasts:
- mintCast – usually comes out on Mondays
- The Drum Literary Magazine - I heard about this “literary magazine for your ears” through Radio Boston. They don’t have a traditional podcast but every week they post a new audio file every week. As I was checking my email today I found a message telling me that this week’s post is Jonathan Levy Wainscoting IV narrating Askold Melnyczuk’s novel-in-progress Excerpts from SMEDLEY’s Secret Guide to World Literature.
- The Splendid Table – A weekly show from American Public Media for “people who love to ear”, host Lynne Rosetto Kasper not only talks to people who know about creating good food but also takes questions from listeners. The questions run the gamut from how to prepare something to what goes with the food item in question. I’ve started downloading it every week since my commute has changed to while it’s on the air on WBUR every Saturday at 6pm. I always learn something new from Lynne, and this past week’s show is even better with an interview with the guys from the…
- Dinner Party Download (DPD) – Every Friday Rico Gagliano and Brendan Francis Newnam provide info that “helps you win the dinner party.” APM’s Marketplace often features the Small Talk segment, stories that didn’t quite make the news shows in the preceding week, and the DPD also give us an Icebreaker (a joke), a History Lesson with Booze (something that happened in the past and a drink to serve with the info), a Guest of Honor (this week was Randy Newman), a Main Course, and even a song to listen to while going to or from your dinner party. The DPD just celebrated their 100th episode, showing that they have a damned good idea that can only get better with age.
- Weekends on All Things Considered – NPR’s award-winning All Things Considered has long been known for looking at a variety of things, and as I’ve heard listener feedback about topics we’re amazed they even looked at (I won’t even try to name some since you may want to hear things I’ve heard more than enough about), but they always remind us that the show isn’t Some Things Considered. The podcast is kind of a “Best Of” for the weekend shows, which is a great way to catch stories you may have missed, although the best way to catch up on things is still by checking the show rundowns on the main page. New episodes are posted Sunday nights.
- The Moth – The Moth is an organization that was created to share “true stories told live”, in regular events at their stages in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit, as well as at their tour stops all over the country, such as events in New Orleans in cooperation with the USA Network’s Characters Unite program. The Moth has redesigned their website and made it harder to find their podcast unless you use iTunes, but they do make it easy to find The Moth Radio Hour, a monthly public radio series that shares some of the incredible stories that have been shared. The podcast is updated every Monday.
- Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! (WWDTM) – The NPR news quiz from WBEZ in Chicago is always good for laughs, and between their celebrity panel and each week’s special guest I dare you to not enjoy their hour long show. Among the weekly segments are Who’s Carl (Kassell) This Week?, Bluff The Listener and Limericks, and the listener winners in each segment have a chance to win Carl Kassell’s voice on their answering machine. WBUR airs it multiple times, but my commute is now while they give the show a final airing on Sunday evenings so I snag the podcast so I don’t miss anything. The podcast is posted each Saturday at about 5pm (ET).
- How To Do Everything – Produced by Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag of WWDTM takes your questions about how to do things and gets answers for them. Recent questions include how to get soap out of your eyes in space, how to treat jellyfish stings and how to keep bees from stinging you. The podcast doesn’t have regular release days like other podcasts, but I start checking midweek. You can also follow them on Twitter or Facebook to get notified when new episodes are available.
- Studio 360 – This weekly pop culture podcast looks at music, movies, television, art, books, design, performance and even science and technology. Another production of WNYC, this show quickly became a Must Hear, and with being shuffled around the WBUR schedule I am glad to be able to just get the podcast and hear it every week.
- Radiolab – Yet another WNYC production, Radiolab is an incredible way to shine a light on things you may not have thought about, but it uses sound as big tool to use rather than just having people talk. I discovered the show over a year ago when I stumbled on an episode called Animal Blessings that had an incredible piece about whales. They only produce a limited number of hour-long shows so it’s not on the air as often as Studio 360, but their hour-long podcasts are worth hearing as soon as they come out, and they also produce shorts that are welcome as you wait for full podcasts.
- On The Media – More of a news show than an entertainment show, this program from WNYC in New York looks at how the media is covering stories in the news. There are no sacred cows, in fact I discovered the show when they looked at the issue of bias in NPR’s news coverage.
- This American Life – Another show from WBEZ, I suspect most folk have heard of the television and radio show with Ira Glass. It’s hard to describe the show, but each week’s show has a theme that they investigate. This week the topic is First Contact, and recent shows have looked at The Old Boys Network, The Psychopath Test and Infidelity. New podcasts are posted late in the weekend, although I can’t see exactly when.
Daily Podcasts
- WBUR Daily News Update - While you can easily go to the website for NPR’s Morning Edition to check the stories covered on the national level this WBUR podcast compiles some of the local stories covered by Bob Oakes and the WBUR news team.
- On Point – Five days a week Tom Ashcroft takes two hours to look at a wide range of topics and letting callers add their own views. The first hour usually looks at a more hard news story while the second hour tends to take a lighter side. Produced at WBUR in Boston, the live show is on from 10am to noon each weekday with a repeat starting at 7pm, but there are often days when I miss parts of shows I really want to hear despite the two airings so I am glad to be able to turn to their podcasts. Updates are available weekdays at 4pm ET.
- Here & Now – Another daily from WBUR, Robin Young looks at multiple topics every hour from the things that are in the news in the middle of the day. Their partnership with the BBC has expanded their ability to look at what’s going on the world over.
- Fresh Air – Terry Gross hosts this Peabody Award-wining daily radio magazine for contemporary arts and issues from WHYY in Philadelphia. New episodes are available weeknights at 10:30pm ET.
- Talk of the Nation (TotN) - Monday through Thursday Neil Conan hosts the third program actually produced by NPR. (Morning Edition and All Things Considered are the other two shows produced by the network itself rather than by affiliate stations.) Neil hosts this show designed as “a part of the national conversation,” and everyone is given a chance to weigh in on topics at hand, whether they be experts that the show brig on the air or listeners who call in. Wednesday shows include the Political Junkie, which includes a chance to win TotN “No Prize” t-shirts, and Fridays the show is handed off to Ira Flatow and the Science Friday staff. Five days a week the show is two hours long, so if your local station is like WBUR and only airs an hour of the show the podcasts are great ways to get any or all of the segments from a given day.
- Radio Boston – This local show hosted by Meghna Chakrabarti and Anthony Brooks was created to be a local version of shows like On Point and Talk of the Nation, and since it became a daily show last May Meghna and Anthony have given us a wealth of information on things going on in the Boston area. Each show includes a Today’s Talker that let the listeners chime in to help us understand the topics even better than if it were just Meghna, Anthony and the experts alone. New episodes go up around 5pm ET.
- Marketplace – You’d think since I don’t have much money to play with in the financial markets I wouldn’t be that interested in a show that is centered on financial news but Senior Editor Kai Ryssdal and the rest of the marketplace team look at not only what’s going on in the financial world but they also look at how it impacts the individuals, whether they live in America or in another country. Their weekend show, Marketplace Money, is an even better way to see how the choices in the world of finance impact us, and they also have podcasts for midday news and tech news. The fact that many Fridays they bring in the Small Talk segment from DPD just make a damned good show even better.
Sorry about the Jabba-sized post, but when I started writing it I didn’t realize it would end up being such a long post. Is there a podcast you guys love getting that I missed? Let us know in the comments.
I said recently that I am working on some new designs for t-shirts I sell and I have one I’d like to get your opinion on. I’m calling it Plato’s Law, based on a quote from the philosopher that I have loved ever since I first heard it:
For those who don’t recognize the term, a Mugwump was originally a group of 
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The Nots design, on the other hand, is only on the front of the tees and points out that you’re a Mugwump, not a member of the usual political affiliations.
