Damek.

For those who don’t know, podcasts are a way of keeping up with radio shows and downloading them to listen to at your leisure. They make use of Really Simple Syndication (RSS), which is otherwise mostly used for people to keep up with a wide variety of blogs and news sites in a more efficient manner, usually through built-in web browser tools, like those in Safari and Firefox, or through one of the many stand-alone tools. Podcasting uses the same concept, but puts a link to an audio file in place of the headlines and news content of a traditional feed.

So, who cares? That’s what I thought. I don’t even like radio, especially talk radio. Then I put 2 and 2 together and realized, I don’t like the radio that’s around me. I’ve always been curious about radio from far away, like other countries, and there are some local (or at least NPR) radio shows I’ve heard about from time to time that I might like to hear, but they’re always at inconvenient times. Yeah, for the past 5-10 years, I could download shows from far away if I wanted, but they either stream in real-time or come in a variety of non-standard formats like RealAudio, etc., I’d have to be at my computer to listen, and I’d have to remember to keep checking the sites all the time to get new shows.

Thansk to the flowering of MP3 players in recent years, that’s where podcasting comes in. With shows providing feeds, you can have one program that checks all the feeds, finds the latest shows, and downloads them, usually directly to your portable. They are now all in MP3 format, which any player can play.

This has been great fun. For the past couple of weeks I’ve found a few radio shows I like listening to from Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and even some home-grown USA shows. I can easily check for new shows at my leisure, and try them out on my way to and from work or on my lunch hour. A good talk show about something you like can be much better than a blog. Reading about things isn’t always as dynamic or engaging as listening to other human voices talk about them. Plus, radio shows are more likely to have interesting experts on. That said, I won’t be giving up reading websites any time soon. But podcasts are a nice addition to my standard information fare, and you gotta love hearing British and Australian accents on a weekly basis!

If you’re curious and want to know more, the BBC has some information about their service and using podcasts in general. Here’s a few of my favorite shows (some of which will also have similar information about podcasting and how to access them):

BBC’s Today Interview — this daily show usually runs between 15 and 20 minutes, and though not always worth listening to people not living in the UK and governed by its politics, I find it interesting more often than not, and it’s neat to keep up a little bit with what’s going on politically in another country. Plus, you can’t beat those accents.

Mark Kermode’s film reviews — another BBC show, this is now my preferred method to keep abreast of film. I don’t think I really had a method before. They run through the top ten (in the UK), review 2-3 new films, and then highlight a couple of unknown films. Plus, you can’t beat those accents.

BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent — BBC correspondents from around the world are given some time to highlight or reflect on stories of their choice. Hit or miss, but I’m interested in the story more often than not. Plus, you can’t beat those accents.

NPR’s Science Friday — they cover a lot of issues, some in short updates, and others more in-depth. The science isn’t usually too watered down, and the split the shows up by topic, which is nice if you don’t want too much show at once. Boring American accents, though.

The Science Show — this weekly show from Australia’s Radio National is really good. They talk about some science news and go into depth on some issues. This is by far my favorite show so far, because the science isn’t too watered down. I was a bit surprised that the host has a British accent, and the guests seem to often be British or American. Still, you can’t beat those accents!

Living On Earth — this is a weekly environmental news & issues show from NPR. I’ve found it very educational and interesting. I love the weekly shows because I don’t feel bombarded by daily episodes, and I don’t feel I have to listen to each and every show. Somehow daily shows make me feel threatened into keeping up with them. In any case, Living On Earth is just the sort of thing that interests me lately, with discussion about current ecological issues and problems. No interesting accents, though.

Quirks & Quarks — here’s a science show from Canada’s CBC. It’s a bit watered down for the general public, which turns me off a little, but the first time I listened to it they were doing a special “questions from the public” show, which captured my interest, and since then I’ve kept listening to it because the episodes are short and make a nice break between longer shows. Canadian accents aren’t too much of a turn on, though.

Earthwatch Radio — this is a two-minute feature program that radio stations can insert into breaks. This makes it excellent for podcasting because you can even have it pop up in between music and not feel that you have to commit to a long session just to listen to it. Unfortunately, the shows also then suffer from not being able to go very much into depth about things. But they still manage to cram some great news and info into those two minutes enough of the time to make it worth subscribing. I wish the host wouldn’t affect such a radio voice, though, it’s most distracting. Definitely points off in the accent department.

EcoTalk — this show from Air America has a predictably political bent to it, which may occasionally get slightly grating, but for the most part it’s about topics that interest me and have the measure of science to them, so I find it entertaining and worthwhile. Recently they’ve had a spate of shows that came out of World Environment Day, which allowed them to get some interesting voices and perspectives from around the world. In the last show I heard the host interviewed Teddy Roosevelt (IV) and covered Republican environmentalism. Lack of interesting accents is a downer, though.

All In The Mind — this is another show from Australia’s Radio National. They deal with psychological and mental topics, like addiction, Alzheimer’s, and artificial intelligence. Most recently I listened to a show about the female orgasm and evolultion. The more medical shows don’t appeal to me so much, but when it’s good it’s good. Plus, we’re finally back to a show where you can’t beat those accents.

And finally, Dr. Karl — another Australian show where Dr. Karl talks about science and has listeners call in and it’s all-around fun to listen to. Plus, for the last time, you really can’t beat those accents!

As you can see I’ve really found an interest in listening to radio shows about science. In some ways it’s better than reading blog entries about these same issues. In others, it can be frustrating sometimes because I’ll hear something I want to blog about or look up more on later, and I have to try to remember what it is and put effort into thinking about it, requiring more work than a quick link to some site on the internet. I liked some other, more political podcasts, from KCRW (Left Right & Center), Air America (The Rachel Maddow Show, Politically Direct), but I couldn’t stick with them. I think I prefer science to politics in general, and I prefer my politics in bite-size blog format. I didn’t even try podcasts of music shows. I much prefer learning about new music from reading about it than from having people I don’t know play it for me. My listening time is far too valuable for that. Strange, though.

Oh, and the podcast tool I like to use is iPodder, available for Mac, Linux and Windows.