My favorites: I never miss an episode, and these are often the highlight of my week.
Econtalk
A delightful show that shows just how broad economic theory (and its principles) can be applied. Unlike NPR's Planet Money, which mostly consists of "crunchy" stories chopped down for audiences with a short attention span, listening to an episode of Econtalk feels like cutting into a juicy steak - it'll take more time and effort to consume, but it's so much more enjoyable to listen to a deep dive into a specific topic. The longer I've listened to it, the more I've come to appreciate what a great interview Russ Roberts is, and how willing he is to give a platform to people whose views differ from his.
Recommended episode: Munger on Slavery and Racism. Russ Roberts and Mike Munger discuss the conditions that led to the American South's attitudes toward slavery during the 1800's, explaining how uniquely bad American slavery was (and how it differed from other instances of slavery throughout history in ancient Rome, for example).
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/08/munger_on_slave.html
Giant Beastcast
Hands down my favorite video game podcast, recorded from Giant Bomb's east coast office. It's got a well-rounded cast of folks with diverse tastes and interests, so you get a pretty broad look at a variety of games across the spectrum. It's fun, inclusive, and it's frequently peppered with moments of hilarity.
Recommended episode: Episode 109. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at a podcast episode in my life. In a discussion of Mars colonization, Dan Ryckert forgets the words "astronaut" and explains how we would need "space people" to "steer the ship" to reach "Star Trek land." In the mailbag segment, we find out how Dan finished college without ever going to class. The crew teaches Dan that architects don't actually construct buildings and that it doesn't take "like, 40 architects holding up planks and stuff" to create a house.
https://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/the-giant-beastcast-episode-109/1600-2007/
Harmontown
Dan Harmon of Rick and Morty and Community fame rants into a microphone for 50 minutes in front of a live studio audience in Burbank California. Whoo boy. This is a tough podcast to recommend, but it's one of my favorites to listen to. Many early episodes consist of Dan Harmon getting blackout drunk and rambling. (Yes, he is literally getting blackout drunk; he's confirmed in interviews that he would listen to the tape to find out what he said the night before.) Even when the show is a disaster, it's entertaining. Actually, it's ESPECIALLY entertaining when it's a disaster, and some of my favorite episodes are the early ones where Dan Harmon and Erin McGathy get into real arguments on stage. It's like watching the prequel to their divorce.
Recommended episode: Episode 104, Death to Superman. Dan Harmon hates superman and tells us exactly why. Here's a clip:
Good Christian Fun
Kevin T. Porter and Caroline Ely discuss the fun, the problematic, and the weird side of Christian pop culture. Fun, inclusive, and hilarious. As someone who grew up in a religious household, this podcast is a real nostalgia trip, and the show strikes a perfect balance of calling out the truly bad parts of Christian movies and music without strictly being a show about bashing on it, either. It's an incredibly niche podcast with a super narrow appeal, but I love the sincerity and earnestness of the hosts and so much of the show just lands perfectly for me.
Recommended episode: Episode 2, Fireproof (with Anthony Troli). The group has a chat about a movie that's bad, but sadly falls just short of "so bad it's good" territory. Then, they commence the search for the Worst Christian Song of All Time.
Important if True
Chris Remo, Jake Rodkin, and Nick Breckon used to host the video game podcast Idle Thumbs, but realized that most of their time was spent discussing the horrifying ways in which robots will enslave and kill us all, so this spinoff podcast was born. Tune in each week for a look at the weirdest parts of technology and pop culture. Whether these three men are idiots or geniuses is currently unknown to me; all I know for certain is that they make me laugh on a regular basis.
Recommended episode: No single episode stands out amongst the rest, so I'll fall back on recency bias and say that the most recent Episode 43: Bad Gift Special is a good listen if you enjoy hearing stories about a man's experience of watching the Nutcracker ruined by other audience members in perhaps the most horrifying way possible.
The Weekly Substandard
Not to be confused with the Weekly Standard, the Weekly Substandard is a weekly dive into pop culture (mostly just movies) from the perspective of three neocons who believe that the Empire was really the good guys in Star Wars. One of the hosts is Jonathan V. Last, who wrote a piece breaking down why the Jedi are the bad guys:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-case-for-the-empire/article/2540
Recommended episode: The Substandard Goes Rogue. Released just before Rogue One hit theaters, the team dives into Star Wars and explains how the Empire has been unfairly maligned by the storytelling of the prequels, and how Luke Skywalker is actually a radical space terrorist.
Tapped
Overheard conversations about the awkward moments we encounter in real life. If you are a fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm and the "error comedy" genre which results on painfully awkward situations and faux pas and frustrating social misconduct, you will love this show. Each 45-minute episode consists of three 15-minute sketches.
Recommended episode: It's so tough to pick a favorite, but when it comes to pure discomfort, File 1.275 ranks very high. File 4.716 starts with a kind of adorable segment and ends with a seriously frustrating one.
Not as favorites: I listen to these occasionally, when there's a topic or guest that I find interesting. Many of these were favorites at one time, and later been reduced to shows that I now enjoy occasionally.
The Tim Ferriss show
It's an interview show, and he interviews "top performers" from many disciplines - some of these are super interesting and informative, some I don't enjoy at all. I listened to the show frequently during its early days when he mostly talked to Silicon Valley types, but nowadays I listen less often.
Recommended episode: Naval Ravikant. Possible the best podcast episode I've ever heard, as Naval dispenses incredible wisdom on how to live an effective life and fulfilling career -- this sounds like "pie in the sky" type of stuff, but quite a lot of it is really concrete and actionable advice (like how to get delicious food without drowning it in sauce to flavor it, among myriad other topics).
https://tim.blog/2015/08/18/the-evolutionary-angel-naval-ravikant/
Startup
Season 1 of Startup Alex Blumberg tells the story of the creation of his podcast company, Gimlet. Later seasons are investigative journalism pieces about other companies. The first season of Startup was a binge-listen for me and I still go back from it to time to time for its great storytelling (and a fascinating story). The more recent seasons have varied radically in quality; I think the recent Startup Bus mini-series is the only one that's come close to matching season 1 for me.
Recommended episode: Episode 1: How Not to Pitch a Billionaire. It's a chronological story; start from the beginning.
Writing Excuses
Four professional authors talk about the craft of writing in 15 minutes or less. Great advice for fledgling writers. Of all the podcasts I've listened to, this might be the one that was most personally life-changing, as I'm now a professional writer (which wasn't the career path I was on when I first discovered the podcast). During the summer of 2012 I had a job that involved a lot of boring lab work, and binged hard on the first 6 seasons that had been released at that point. Then I went back and re-listened to seasons 3 through 6 several times. Since then, my listening has tapered off, partly because I feel like I've "outgrown" the podcast, and partly because the earlier seasons tend to focus more on the fundamentals while the later seasons have focused more on specific topics that aren't as universal.
Recommended episode: Season 3 episode 14, The Four Principals of Puppetry with Mary Robinette Kowal. This is actually Kowal's first appearance on the show, as a guest before she joined as a regular part of the team. If you want to become a better fiction writer, spend 14 minutes listening to this episode; it might be the best possible use of your time.
http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/...ciples-of-puppetry-with-mary-robinette-kowal/
Limited Resources
Marshall Sutcliffe and Lois Scott Vargus talk Magic: The Gathering limited play. As someone who is an avid Magic player and drafts at least once a week, most episodes are right up my alley. To anyone who isn't a Magic player and doesn't draft, it's hard to recommend this because of how specific the subject material is. This podcast can be a great way to get into the game if you're interested in it, though. While there is a lot of jargon, many of the best episodes are focused more on strategy and the general philosophy of how to approach any game with a mentality that maximizes your win percentage, and you might find some good advice that's applicable to games like Poker, or even life.
Recommended episode: Episode 364 - How to approach gaming (and life). A look at how to maximize your value when playing the game known as "life," viewed through the lens of Magic: The Gathering. This is the kind of episode where LR is at its best: laying down general principals, using Magic as framing device for a discussion on how to maximize your value when playing the game known as "life."
http://lrcast.com/limited-resources-364-how-to-approach-gaming-and-life/
The Pitch
It's like Shark Tank, but without the fake drama: founders pitch their company to real investors to try and get funded. One of my favorite parts of the show is that each episode ends with a "follow-up" about what happened 3-6 months after the pitch, to find out whether the deal actually materialized. Sometimes, you'll have stories that seem like a success in the meeting (where investors are ready to lay down money), but then the funding never comes through after the investors do their due dilligence. Or, you'll have stories about someone who "failed" during the pitch, but then went on to raise money from other sources, or managed to run the company successfully without funding. It's like Shark Tank, but more realistic.
Recommended episode: No one episode really stands out as being particularly better than the rest, but if you want the episode that does the best job of illustrating what this show different from Shark Tank, check out ep 10: Sudden Coffee. If you want something more Shark Tank-esque, the episode with the most "drama" is probably episode 14: Tushy.
Armstrong and Getty
Half wacky morning news show, half serious talks about political theory and the human condition, from two libertarians broadcasting out of northern California. I guess this is technically a radio show, but they release it as a podcast in the form of four 35-minute episodes every week day (which IMO is the superior way to consume it, since you don't get commercials.) This one is tough to recommend, but I grew up listening to these guys as a young teen when my dad would drive me to school, and more than ten years later I find myself still downloading their show when I want to hear their takes on the news of the day. This show is probably responsible for my libertarian leanings during my teenage years. It's formatted for radio (with each show being composed of 7-minute segments where they reset often), so it's easy to listen to, and I often find myself enjoying the show just for the pure entertainment value of hearing two genuinely funny guys quip about the news of the day. Plus, since they release 2+ hours of new material every day, it's always there whenever I run out of other stuff to listen to.
Recommended episode: It's a news show, so I wouldn't really recommend diving into the archives (though it can occasionally be fun to download an episode from the George W. Bush years to hear what people were talking about back then). Just find the episodes from the most recent day and listen to them in order.
Love + Radio (Love and Radio)
Profiles on the atypical, with beautiful sound mixing. They're like little audio documentaries about weird and interesting people.
Recommend kinky episode: A Girl of Ivory. A story about an unusual relationship. It goes to some really, REALLY unexpected places. Deeply fascinating.
http://loveandradio.org/2016/09/a-girl-of-ivory/
Recommended non-kinky episode: Fix. A story about journalist who gets his rush from breaking a big story. His story has much seedier beginnings.
http://loveandradio.org/2016/01/fix/
Other shows I sometimes listen to, but don't feel inclined to write up a description for:
Giant Bombcast (video games)
Idle Thumbs (video games)
LitRPG podcast (book reviews and interviews with LitRPG authors)
Homecoming (audio drama, season 1 is good, I dropped partway through season 2)
S-town (a short 6-part series)
99 Percent Invisible (stories about design)
Waking up with Sam Harris (interviews)
Chatty AF (the Anime Feminist podcast)
ANNcast (the Anime News Network podcast)
Fast Karate (video games and anime)
Friends from the Internet (mostly an advice show for a specific audience)
The Truth (audio dramas)
Author Stories Podcast with Hank Garner (interviews with authors)
