It’s interesting how things develop. I remember quite well how my brother used to download and listen to interesting podcasts 10 or so years ago, yet it felt like podcasts lost on popularity over the past years and only now is again gaining some major uplift. There are many YouTubers out there who noticed the medium and given its potential with ad placements, it has turn out to be more profitable that just creating YouTube videos.

It’s no surprise then that mainly two YouTubers brought me to discover and listen to podcasts myself.

Hello Internet

Hello Internet can best be described as a “Two Dudes Talking” podcast. It’s purely entertainment and only builds on top of the two peoples personality: CGP Grey and Brady Haren.

If you’ve watched some science videos on YouTube chances are, that Brady Haren was involved. Okay maybe I’m selling this a bit too much, there are a lot of other edutainment YouTubers, but Brady is interviewer, editor and producer behind 12 different YouTube channels, most famous among them Numberphile and Computerphile. CGP Grey on the other hand, you may know from his viral edutainment videos, with animated stick figures and one guy talking really fast while explaining things.

I really enjoy listening to each episode and having been there from the start, I understand most of the in-jokes connected to previous episodes. This podcast is really best listen to inorder as pretty much all episodes have some references to previous episodes.

Cortex

Not surprisingly falling into a similar category as Hello Internet, but this time with a bit focus on productivity and things needed to run a business. Cortex‘s host is again CGP Grey, but this time with Myke Hurley.

Myke has founded the podcast company Relay FM not too long ago and being a podcast company, he’s part of quite a few podcasts. As additional creative outlet he has started a YouTube channel, but currently the project is on hold.

I find the podcast quite enjoyable because CGP Grey has an interesting personality; sometimes a bit awkward, but often also relatable. While it took me a while to get used to Myke’s fanboyism, he is quite a good interviewer and brings a lot of energy to the conversation. I enjoy listening to them discussing methods to run their business, productivity tips and every so often random thoughts on games or the tech world.

No Dumb Questions

And again no surprise, another pair of YouTubers turned podcasters with No Dumb Questions. Destine runs a channel called SmarterEveryDay, where he does all sorts of sciencey things, most of the time by make use of his high-speed camera. He’s also literally a rocket scientist at NASA and as such has a imense passion for science and attention to detail, yet he always seems to find something new and exciting. Matt on the other hand is a pastor with deep interest in humanitarian things, as well as history, while generally being a skeptical person.

Both hosts are believers, yet the two views of science and humanitarian brings forth a lot of very interesting discussions. Definitely recommend checking out this podcast, it’s currently probably my favorite one! Plus it feels a lot more alive than other podcasts, as they don’t stick to a specific format, but one time they may discuss a book, the next episode they might meetup and check something out together or just nerd over some topic either or both of them got excited about.

Writing Excuses

For a change we get away from YouTubers and away from the Two-Dudes-talking genre. Writing Excuses is a weekly 15-30min long podcast featuring various writers discussing different writing techniques.

While I’m not a writer myself, I do enjoy the podcast quite a bit. It gives a look into another field that I find fascinating and it does make you think differently about books you read. And who knows, maybe it will one day become useful, if I ever try to write some story for a game or so…

CppCast

“The only C++ podcast, from C++ developers to C++ developers” is the tag line of CppCast and so far I haven’t seen any other C++ podcasts. Jason Turner and Rob Irving always bring on interesting guests from a wide selection of different fields and nicely mix in industry news as well as user feedback.

If you’re a C++ developer I highly recommend to listen to this podcast. Not only might you just learn about a new library or some new development tool, but it also gives you a sense of the active C++ online community.

Let me know what your favorite podcasts are, maybe there’s one I could pick up as well!