I used to have a relatively long commute in to work, with a 30 minute drive and a 15 minute walk (I am cheap, and hate paying for parking). Because I have the attention span of a 6 year old meth addict, making this trip without something to listen to was unacceptable. So, I developed a insatiable addiction to podcasts. Here are the ones I listen to regularly.

Distrowatch Weekly Distrowatch is one of the best websites for finding and comparing different linux distributions, and Distrowatch weekly keeps me up to date on what’s new in Linux across a wide range of distros.

Savage Lovecast What can I say, I can’t get enough of Dan Savage. From his quirky humor, to the occasional and hilarious hungover episode, he presents some of the most sex-positive, humanist love advice out there.

Out of Their Minds This is a new show from CBC, and it details the crazy world of cranks, charlatans, geniuses, and fringe scientists. The first episode was on the Grizzly suit dude, and it had Steve Novella from the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe!

Skeptoid Short, <15 minute episodes detailing a specific topic in pseudoscience and skepticism. I’ve heard topics covered on skeptoid that I’ve never even heard about. Brian Dunning is a bit… dry, but I like it.

Point Of Inquiry I’ve done a lot of work with Centre for Inquiry, so I better listen to there podcast! Point of Inquiry is your usual interview-based skepticism show, with ~30 minute shows.

Ideas Another CBC radio program, Ideas is a kind of smörgåsbord of topics from the arts and humanities. Very illuminating.

Know Your Rights This is an excellent new program from CBC detailing the range and limitation of political and civil rights in Canada.

The Atheist Experience A live public access TV show from Austin, Texas run by the Atheist Community of Austin. It used to have a lot more local, dissenting calls, and with it’s growing popularity, it seems many of the calls have devolved to praise or trolling. Still the occasional gem though.

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe One of my favourite podcasts, this 90 minute weekly show has equal measures of new, carousing, and interviews on all things science and skepticism related.

Marketplace Money Excellent, if somewhat US-centric personal financial advice.

Geologic Podcast Hard to categorize what this podcast is. I’d say it is part personal journal, part news, and part humour. Always making me laugh, George Hrab’s excellent show is kind of like a the Daily Show if it was a podcast run by an amateur musician from Pennsylvania.

2600: The Hacker Quarterly Two podcasts, actually: Off The Hook and Off The Wall. Both are shows on issues related to hackers and feature equal parts ranting, news, and fund raiser episodes. Off the Hook is also a call in show.

Freakonomics Radio The radio show from the authors of Freakonomics. Some of the conclusions they come to are a bit sketchy if you ask me, but every episode is both interesting and entertaining.

The Linux Link Tech Show This is one weird show. 2+ hours of interviews, random inside jokes, and ranting about Linux, gadgets, and technology in general.

Skepticality The original skepticism podcast, and the official podcast of Skeptic magazine. Features a history of skepticism section from Tim Farley of What’s the Harm?, a bit of news, and an interview, Skepticality is usually quite informative

The Non Prophets Another Atheist Community of Austin podcast, this is more of a bunch of guys just sitting around talking about news items. I really like that format.

Quirks and Quarks Classic CBC science news program, featuring half a dozen interviews from scientists from Canada and around the world.

Gweek BoingBoing in audio form! An excellent review of all things geeky in the news, from video games, to comic books, to good old fashioned pen and paper RPGs. One of my favourite new podcasts.

A Little Bit of Python A news and interviews program about my favourite programming language, Python. Also hasn’t updated in months, this show may be dead.

Astronomy Cast A fantastic show covering a single topic in space science and astronomy each episode, with the occasional questions show thrown in. They take relatively obscure topics from astronomy and astrophysics and pitch it at a level anyone can understand.

For Good Reason The official podcast of the James Randi Education Foundation, hosted by DJ Grother (formerly of Point of Inquiry). Very similar to Point of Inquiry, I fear the show may have died, as there hasn’t been a new episode in months.



Hacker Public Radio The successor to Binary Revolution Radio, this user-driven podcast tries to have one episode every business day, and they usually range in topic from how-to guides, syndicated episodes of other shows, talks from conferences, and opinion pieces. Naturally, episodes can be hit or miss depending on topic and host.