Comment by surprisetalk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by surprisetalk | Hacker News Reader

I maintain a list with ratings here, but it's a bit outdated:

[1] https://taylor.town/podcasts

    99% Invisible
    Articles of Interest
    Conversations with Tyler
    Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
    Everything Everywhere Daily
    Nice Try!
    Radiolab
    The Memory Palace
    Quanta Science Podcast
    Cortex

Good complete series:

    The Anthropocene Reviewed
    S-Town
    On the Metal
    Hello Internet

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EDIT: I can't update my website because cloudflare is down haha

I'll try to update later today.

A lot of my rankings have changed as podcasts often degrade in quality over time

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EDIT:

Series that I enjoyed at some point in the past:

    Against the Rules with Michael Lewis
    Akimbo: A Podcast from Seth Godin
    American Innovations
    Brains
    Cautionary Tales
    Chemistry for Your Life
    Dear Hank & Jon
    Deep Questions with Cal Newport
    Endless Thread
    Everything is Alive
    Experimental History
    Freakanomics
    Harmontown
    Hey Riddle Riddle
    The Joy of Why
    Land by Hand
    Monday Morning Podcast with Bill Burr
    More Perfect
    Patented: History of Inventions
    The Permaculture Podcast
    The Peter Attia Drive
    Planet Money
    Reasonably Sound
    Reconcilable Differences
    Reply All
    Revisionist History
    The Strong Towns Podcast
    Stuff You Should Know
    The Tim Ferriss Show
    Trailblazers with Walter Isaacson
    Twenty Thousand Hertz

Support these cool tech podcasts produced by my friends:

    devtools.fm
    The Changelog
    Elm Town
    Future of Coding
    Hest
    Software Unscripted
    TODEPOND PODCAST

Articles of Interest is _so_ good. It's a great take on the 99% Invisible "design of everyday things". I was definitely blind to clothing and textiles and Articles of Interest is really enlightening.

You may enjoy Search Engine by PJ Vogt[1], it's really well done. Its the quality of the original Gimlet Podcasts and a bit different than his previous show (Reply All).

[1] https://pjvogt.substack.com

Thanks for the rec!

It's really hard to convince engineers to listen to a podcast about CLOTHING but it's totally worth it.

"Nice Try!" might be a better onramp for most, as it has the same vibe but for everyday objects.

It's not about clothing, it's about a specific type of technology. :)

> A lot of my rankings have changed as podcasts often degrade in quality over time

I totally agree, some podcasts start off so good but then they are in there to appeal the masses than to stick with their original theme/style.

And it becomes really difficult to tell others only listen to this, this and this episode but afterwards its alright.

So I am curious how do you rate them(collectively)? Is it just a arbitrary rating system or is there a science/logic behind it? I wish a podcast app could prompt me after each listen to rate the episode and then use that to update the rating of the podcast(as a whole) based on what I personally gave than the public rating system which is very flawed as a recommendation engine.

I think this should be fairly easy to incorporate on ones personal website too, a way to let your listening history be personal recommendation engine than we relying on our memory to recommend/suggest. And if you stop listening to it and as episodes pile on, it can clearly drop in rating for you(?) or just go down the list.

Here's some more info about my general rating system:

[1] https://taylor.town/2-stars

When I rate podcasts, I try to go based on the last ~1 year of episodes.

I updated the rankings on my website, but unfortunately, cloudflare is not letting me deploy :(

Feel free to email me at hello@taylor.town if you'd like more recs

>I think this should be fairly easy to incorporate on ones personal website too, a way to let your listening history be personal recommendation engine than we relying on our memory to recommend/suggest.

If you look at my past newsletters, I used to do something like this with individual episodes:

[2] https://taylor.town/town-hall-0006

Unfortunately, it's time-consuming, and my readers didn't really care for the granularity much.

I'd be interested in an automated solution though.

Thanks for explaining your rating system.

One last question, why podcast episodes are a 3-stars based rating system while everything else is 5-stars rating system?

Great question!

I only shared episodes that were >2-stars, so I truncated the first two stars :)

HH and Conversations with Tyler are both great, will check out some of your other recommendations.

For history, the Fall of Civilizations Podcast is also fantastic.

Oh man, I love Hey Riddle Riddle.

I used GPT to add links and short descriptions :)

My current listens:

• 99% Invisible (https://99percentinvisible.org): Design's unnoticed marvels explored.

• Articles of Interest (https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/articles-of-interest): A podcast about clothing, style, and wear.

• Conversations with Tyler (https://conversationswithtyler.com): Tyler Cowen's dialogues on economics and culture.

• Derek Sivers (https://sive.rs): Musings of a musician turned entrepreneur.

• Radiolab (https://www.radiolab.org): A journey through curious scientific and philosophical landscapes.

• The Memory Palace (https://thememorypalace.us): History's footnotes brought to life.

• Cortex (https://www.relay.fm/cortex/): Two YouTubers discuss productivity and workflow.

• What's Your Problem? (https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/whats-your-problem): Problem-solving strategies in business and life.

• Software Unscripted (https://twitter.com/sw_unscripted?lang=en): Conversations on the realities of software engineering.

Bingeworthy series that are completed or on indefinite hiatus:

• S-Town (https://stownpodcast.org/): A deep dive into a quixotic Alabama tale.

• The Anthropocene Reviewed (https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed): John Green reviews facets of the human-centered planet.

• On the Metal (https://oxide.computer/podcast/on-the-metal): Tech veterans unpack computing and engineering layers.

• Björk: Sonic Symbolism (https://mailchimp.com/presents/podcast/sonic-symbolism): Exploring the iconic artist's musical narratives.

• My Year in Mensa (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-year-in-mensa/id149...): A satirical take on high IQ societies.

• The Trojan Horse Affair (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trojan-horse-affai...): Investigation of a British school controversy.

• Hello Internet (https://www.hellointernet.fm/): General banter on life, universe, and everything in between.

Support these cool tech podcasts produced by my friends:

• devtools.fm (https://www.devtools.fm/)

• The Changelog (https://changelog.com/podcast)

• Elm Town (https://elmtown.simplecast.com/)

• Future of Coding (https://futureofcoding.org/podcast)

• Hest (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hest/id1484697758)

• Software Unscripted (https://feeds.resonaterecordings.com/software-unscripted)

• TODEPOND PODCAST (https://www.todepond.com/)

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