A couple of months ago my main laptop experienced a catastrophic hard drive failure. While I had most of my files backed up, key files and applications got scrambled. One area that suffered was iTunes and my podcast subscription. As a result, I’ve rebuilt my podcast subscriptions, and these are now my “top 5” in no particular order:
- DataPortability: In-Motion Podcast. If data portability governance and policy issues bore you, check this out instead. You get regular news about topics like identity, data portability, privacy, and standards, plus there’s usually an interview with a leading technical expert from a related identity standards or interoperability project area.
- All About Books - Nebraska Public Radio. Still my favorite book review podcast. Just two guys providing mature, intelligent, and personal reviews of one fiction and one nonfiction book each week. Beats long winded and scattered book review podcasts like The Washington Post and the New York Times hands down.
- BBC History Magazine. A monthly. I recently went out and bought a copy of the magazine I like the program so much. Really informative and fun approach to British and European history without being silly. The “Time Machine” feature is always interesting and informative.
- Nature Podcast. A weekly science news program from Nature. Well produced. I always get a laugh at the regular announcement, “Brought to you by Bio-Rad’s ProteoMiner Protein Enrichment Kit” — I have NO idea what they’re talking about. Listening to this program has convinced me, though, that I need to get smarter about biotech, genomics, and heredity, or face extinction.
- The Sounds of Science from the National Academies. A bit on the dry side, but this is one way to learn a lot about ongoing projects sponsored by the organizations collectively referred to as the National Academies (National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council.) Well integrated with other resources available on the organization’s extensive web pages. A recent one about “dirt” (more appropriately, “soil”) was quite informative.
- Copyright (c) 2008 by Dennis D. McDonald
