I talked about podcasting (radio shows put online for automated downloading and listening on MP3 players anytime) a few weeks ago. Since then, podcasting has become even more popular, and the amount of content available has exploded. Sites like Podcast Alley help sort things out, but there are some great shows that are rated lowly on Podcast Alley - everything’s so new and still trying to find its audiences.

So I am expanding my podcast subscriptions to sample more programs in areas of interest to me, and then contracting by cutting out the stuff not worth my time, then expanding again for the next wave of new stuff. There’s lots of room for better word-of-mouth advertising, so I’m going to share my findings here. Hopefully it will help steer people to good podcasts (and away from crap).

One of the shows I’ve begun listening to (but has been around for a while) is LugRadio. LugRadio is a show about the Linux operating system and related software. The hosts are a quartet of crass Brits, who tend to start segments with good intentions before devolving into silly chaos. I’d be tempted to call it Python-esque, though doing so would probably just reveal this American’s ignorance in British humor on the whole. In any case, the humor seems sincere, rather than forced. Whether it’s establishing “pi” as a legal score on a 5-point rating scale, or responding to someone’s complaint about “language” (intending foul language) by speaking in “f–king clicking noises”, there’s always some unabashed nonsense in the hour’s time between start and finish.

It works, though, because there’s content among the insanity. The last episode contained a great interview with the President/CEO of Linspire, and actually kinda sold me on their place in the Linux ecosystem. The show before that had an excellent interview with a usability guru from the GNOME project. Always something interesting to hear.

LugRadio is much more entertaining than more typical (read: stuffy) tech-oriented shows. Definitely not “work safe”, but with the help of some headphones, it helps pass an hour of my work week more quickly.