Totally off topic, I’ve told several people over the last couple of days about some of the podcasts I listen to regularly. Here are three of my favorites.
- TalkCrunch by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. He gets A-list guests (well, from my little world, anyway) and asks good questions. Great way to stay plugged in.
- Swarthmore College Faculty Lectures – a series of faculty lectures going back over the past couple of years. Some great stuff here across liberal arts areas. Generally aimed at non-specialists. Good for horizon broadening.
- The University of Chicago Law School podcasts are amazing. Aimed somewhat at lawyers, but I don’t have any trouble understanding this stuff and I’m decidedly NOT a lawyer. Really fantastic lectures on topics from
Information Asymmetry
to the philosophy of law.
In addition, the SCOTUS blog has several interesting episodes up, and looks like a promising addition to my list. The Nina Totenberg interview, in particular, was quite good.
Any recommendations? I must admit that I am, in general, disappointed with the quality of most of the tech-related podcasts I’ve tried (with Arrington as a notable exception). I might try to remedy that myself someday; who knows. 
The Cato Institute has interesting libertarian / free market podcasts:
http://www.cato.org/podcasts/
The John Stossel “Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity” was nice. Saw “Medicare Meets Mephistopheles” on CSPAN — fantastic premise for a book.
I’ve found most of microsoft’s podcasts to be mostly sales pitches (I wasn’t suprised) but found a few great security podcasts for beginers like me. If I get time i’ll look it back up and post the links here.