What's your favourite podcast at the moment?

Darknet Diaries is nothing like every other podcast I've ever listened to. Listened to every episode 2-3x. It's a podcast mostly about social engineering, hacking and cyber security.

Start with episode:

92: The Pirate Bay
116: Mad Dog
102: Money Maker

Xbox underground episode is wild
- Listening to that right now, crazy stuff, like Microsoft throwing Dev kits away at the dump.
I love the Episode about The Pirate Bay
- Check out Casefile’s series on The Pirate Bay!
  Edit: I was stupid yesterday and conflated The Pirate Bay and Silk Road
Casefile’s seeies on The Silk Road is an incredibly good deep dive.
That's a good one, used to listen to it then fell out of it for some reason, I'll get back to it.
It's really insanely good. Took a break after binging the first 50 or so episodes. Looks like I haven't even listened to your favourites yet!

Surprised nobody has mentioned my two favourites:

Behind The Bastards: Robert Evans (formerly of Cracked fame) talks about the worst people in history for hours.
Oh No Ross and Carrie: "When they make the claims we show up so you don't have to." Maybe start with the series on scientology, it's some of the best work they've done.

Most of the other stuff I listen to is either industry specific or fandom/hobby specific.

Having just finished up 6 episodes on G. Gordon Liddy, knowing nothing about him beforehand, I second the recommendation of Behind the Bastards.
- I highly recommend the series Gaslit and White House Plumbers for a pair of incredible depictions of this loony.
ONRAC is one of my favorites. They have such a lovely approach to crackpots and charlatans of all stripes. Gentle mockery leavened with genuine engagement with the aim to better understand these bowel movements of human thought and expose the underlying motives of grift behind so many of them.
Love BtB

If you're into gaming I would suggest

NoClip (video game documentarians about modern video games)
video game history hour (general video game history done by the video game history foundation)
insert credit ( almost game show style, the hosts have only a few minutes to answer all kinds of questions about games, the gaming industry, or even opinions.)

Otherwise I really enjoy

behind the bastards ( kind of like deep dives into shitty people of the world and what makes them tick)
cautionary tales ( true stories about disasters, humon error, and catastrophies )
99 percent invisible (weekly episodes on all kinds of deep dives into things that often go without notice in our lives, the most recent episode covers the history of album art for example)

99pi is the gold standard of podcasts IMO. Roman has a the perfect voice for radio
99% Invisible is really golden, in particular their recent episode about Mexico City scrap metal collectors and their unique "horn" was fascinating.
In addition to yours: Coldfusion(TV).
Usually though in a video format on YT but he uploaded on Spotify before
His content is about tech and connected topics (like tech politics) between those.
Alternatively: TechAltar. Also video based and more of a 15-20min video topic but very well researched as far as I am aware
- Sweet, I'll check them out myself. Thanks for the suggestions

On the humorous side:

My Brother, My Brother And Me - 3 brothers giving not-so-serious advice to listeners, reacting to questions from Yahoo Answers (when that was a thing), and overall being funny/silly
My Dad Wrote A Porno - 3 people reacting to an "erotica" book series that one of the guys' dad published (I would say the books are maybe only 5%-20% explicit, depending on the chapter) (some of the characters' voices can be annoying/grating, and the narrator tends to repeat sentences after they react to them which can be annoying as well)
No Such Thing As A Fish - the behind-the-scenes staff of the show QI bring up interesting facts and tidbits from history/nature/etc. (each episode is split into 4 parts where each member brings up a fact and the others react to it and bring up related facts)
If I Were You - Jake & Amir from CollegeHumor giving advice to listeners (mostly in a sarcastic/tongue-in-cheek way but sometimes genuinely), mostly about relationships/dating
SmartLess - Jason Bateman and Will Arnett (Arrested Development) and Sean Hayes (Will & Grace) interview a famous person each episode where only one of the hosts known who it is beforehand (it gets better after the first few episodes, though some conversations are less funny/entertaining than others)
Office Ladies - Jenna and Angela from The Office (US) reacting to each episode of the show and bringing up behind-the-scenes stuff (some of episodes include interviews with other cast members/staff)

I loved MBMBAM from like 1-350. It’s unlistenable to me now. I can’t bear it.
- Why's that?

99% Invisible
Well There's Your Problem
The War On Cars
The Urbanist Agenda
The Climate Deniers Playbook
Underunderstood
Induction
Hard Fork
Drilled
The Adam Ragusea Podcast

In no particular order.

my brother my brother and me (funny)
sawbones (medical mythbusting and funny)
the adventure zone (funny d&d)
Darknet diaries (hacking and security stories) (EDITTED)
npr up first (quick daily news)

Those are the ones I've stuck with. Also:

Hardcore history (in depth history lessons)

Similar to TAZ- The Critshow (funny Monster of the Week AP)
Oh yes, hardcore history is so good.

I love knowledge fight. About Alex Jones and the conspiracy theory of the day.

Stuff You Should Know

Also Radio Lab
Second this. Josh and Chuck have been teaching me so much for so long, I can't imagine not having this one.

Last Podcast on the Left: cryptids, cults, and killers. My go to everyweek they just covered Andrew Cunanan.

Something Rotten: Jacob Geller and Blake Hester analyze darker video games. I love Jacob's youtube channel and Blake Hester has some great insights in this series as well. They are currently covering Silent Hill 2 and just had SuperEyePatchWolf guest star.

Just went to the Beach Blanket Bingo show. Hail Satan!

The Memory Palace - Short, surprising stories of the past, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hysterical, often a little bit of both.

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, and hilarious fiascos. They'll delight you, scare you, but also make you wiser.

I Spy - True stories told by spies who steal secrets, kill adversaries, and turn agents into double agents. Each episode features one spy telling one dramatic story. Unfortunately, this show seems to be defunct. Still an interesting listen, though!

Limetown - A 22 episode fictional story about the mysterious disappearance of over 300 people from a small town in Tennessee.

The Other Half - Two friends watch the same movie—except one only watches the first half, and the other only watches the second half. Then they get together and discuss the film, and try to figure out the context of what they saw.

Hey Riddle Riddle - My favorite podcast at the moment. Three improvisers answer riddles some of the time, and goof off most of the time. They do improvised scenes and have a good time.

Twenty Thousand Hertz - The stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds. It's basically 99% Invisible, but for audio.

What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law - Particularly interesting if you live in the U.S., this show takes a look at modern issues and controversies through the lens of constitutional law. You'd think a podcast about legal matters would be dry and obtuse, but the show really is geared for a non-legal-minded audience.

Almost Plausible - My own podcast! A couple of friends and I friends take an ordinary object, such as a pillow, or a ceiling fan, or a toilet brush, and we come up with a movie plot where that object plays a central or critical role. Note: At the time of posting, we have just released our Halloween episode, which breaks from the regular format. So if you go listen to the Pumpkin episode, although it's an entertaining one, it's not representative of the show.

Love the show as well.
Too bad the guy is on a mental health sabbatical
That was unexpected, do we know why?

Co-recursive
the Haskell Cast
the Lambda Cast (not that fun to listen to but it taught me a ton)

Linux Unplugged
Linux Lads
Linux After Dark
Linux Downtime
Linux Matters
Linux Userspace
Linux Actio News
Linux + Open Source News, by TLE
Late Night Linux
Coder Radio
2.5 Admins
Darknet Diaries
Tech over Tea
The Homelab Show
Selfhosted
The Privacy, Security, & OSINT Show
FriendsPerSecond

And yes, I listen to all of these and more (but these are the English ones), I really like podcasts...

I'm sensing a pattern, do you perhaps like Linux?
- Woah! Thought you'd never guess! 😅
Darknet Diaries is fantastic
- Agreed, easily one of my favs!
Tech over Tea is also really nice

I'm a history buff, so :

-The Age of Napoleon: brilliant podcast that covers the entire Napoleonic era from different angles, currently about halfway, one episode per month

-The history of Rome: finished podcast that goes over every era and emperor in Roman history

The Napoleon one sounds amazing, thanks!
- I thought you may be interested in u/pringles followup comment
  https://lemm.ee/comment/5339314
Are there any good podcasts that try to connect the dots regarding the American and French revolutions and related events?
- Good question, but I don't know the answer. I'm sure there are, but I would guess those will likely be in French.
Are there any episodes of these in particular that stick out to you?
- I find them all good, but he does make some episodes about lesser known aspects. He has a series of 4 or 5 episodes where he really takes a deep dive in Haiti and its tumultuous history. This was a french colony at the time and one of Napoleons, if not the most questionable, decisions. He dives into the history of the Haitian resistance, the slavery, the politics, etc .. and then ties it in with why Napoleon did what he did (reinstate slavery in Haiti). The guy who makes the podcast is a history student and took such a deep dive in the history of Haiti he is now considered one of the foremost experts in the field, and has been asked to give lectures about it. Fascinating stuff.
  But if you want to know about Napoleons brilliance in battle, the entire Italian campaign is legendary for a reason and the episodes do it justice, while also doing a good job at separating fact from fiction (and in the process explaining the birth pf Napoleons propaganda machine).
  Also the battle of Eylau episode gave me goosebumps. Incredible episode.

Right now I'm listening to The Deprogram. It discusses the problems with capitalism from socialist's perspectives. It's very entertaining

Recently bigned 85 episodes of Lingthusiasm, a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics. It's released monthly and hosted by two linguists, one of which is Tom Scott's writer and the other is a linguistics professor in New Zealand.

Darknet Diaries

Intelligence Squared

Sean Carroll's Mindscape

IMO, Sean seems more intent on impressing the audience and the expert rather than conducting a good interview. I listened to an episode that involved category theory and he regularly interrupted the guest so he could show off how much he knows about it.
- I'm relistening to that episode now because I'm curious about what it is you perceived.
  He interjects sometimes to help tie things together ("and this is interesting because of [earlier observation]") or to adjust the level of technicality to suit his intended audience ("we're allowed to use the word torus here"). Not all Mindscape guests have a solid feel for the podcast and default to giving popscience breakdowns with analogies and leaving out technical jargon, and so he has to set the bar a bit by explicitly allowing the introduction of technical terms and bringing together of complex related topics.
  Don't know if that's what made you feel like he was trying to show off.

A toss-up between Philosophise This and the BBC's In Our Time for me. Thinking Allowed is also in the mix and I've recently started Mike Duncan's Revolutions which is proving entertaining too.

Probably "Philosophize This"
Any episode of any of these that especially stick out to you?
- Probably “Philosophize This”
  Ha, spellcheck got to it.
  That one takes few episodes to settle down but all from around ep 40 or so are good. The last few - starting with 179 - are looking at AI and consciousness and covering a lot of great viewpoints.
  In Our Time - "Polidori's The Vampyre" and "Thomas Paine's Common Sense" are both ones that I heard recently and found particularly interesting. Also Thinking Allowed's "The Petite Bourgeoisie".

Obviously Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is hands down the greatest podcast of all time. Unfortunately, because he does so much research, his turnaround rate on episodes is one of the slowest in the business. That said, there's always his back catalog to take a deep dive into, which is fucking awesome.

Well There's Your Problem - leftist hosted industrial disaster podcast

This Podcast Will Kill You - history of infectious diseases, well-cited and funny

Cinema of Meaning - film nerds think way too much about stuff

I absolutely love the concept of Well There's Your Problem, but they can't get to the damn point without derailing the flow of the story with banter that I don't find entertaining. If anyone has any similar podcasts, I would appreciate a recommendation.

Blowback is the most incredible podcast I've listened to. If you like behind the bastards, blowback is better, entire seasons on particular historical events.

I recently discovered:

If Books Could Kill from Michael Hobbes (How the worst ideas spread through airport bestsellers)
Failure To Launch from Fluid Podcasts (How brands fail)
Lions Led By Donkeys (Military history failures)

I haven't seen The Always Sunny podcast mentioned yet. If you like IASIP, this is a must listen.

Heavyweight

Welcome to Night Vale

Science Vs

The Debaters

You Made it Weird

A Problem Squared

A lot of listeners will recommend Darknet Diaries, Reply All, or My Dad Wrote a Porno. But no t many would recommend Star Talk. A science show with comedians.

A very informative show with laughs throughout. Some episodes follow a specific theme such as a show like Doctor Who, and some episodes would answer listeners questions.

Reply All is dead, I believe.
- So is My Dad Wrote a Porno, isn’t it?
  However, Reply All’s PJ Vogt has a new podcast called Search Engine which is good.
- It is yes. Though you can still listen to all the old episodes. TLDR is also very similar too.

Beautiful / Anonymous with Chris Gethard is my favourite lately. It's essentially an hour-long phone conversation between the host and an anonymous stranger. The anonymity makes people open up and be vulnerable, and Chris is an amazing conversationalist who manages to bring something interesting out of every caller.

Uhh Yeah Dude They've been doing the podcast since 2006, and coming up on their 1000th episode. Listener supposed and ad free. Just two guys trying to figure it all out.

That would be Startalk, with Neil Degrasse Tyson. The only podcast I really follow.

Been meaning to listen to that, subscribed.
- If you like that, let me recommend Space Nuts. Astronomy news with fun hosts
- Cool!

Roderick on the Line
Risky or Not?
Penn’s Sunday School
This Podcast Will Kill You
Reconcilable Differences
Accidental Tech Podcast

I love Reconcilable Differences! Probably my favourite podcast at the moment. I'm currently working my way through all the old episodes. ATP is very good too, but I think it's too focused on current events to go through all previous episodes

If you are into videogames I will definitely hear the video game history foundation podcast

Mean Boys, F**kFace, Smart enough to know better, Midflight brawl, No such thing as fish

F**kFace is some of the funniest shit I have ever listened to

Nextlander, it's some of the OG Giant Bomb guys, I love their video games and industry coverage, and they're such warm comforting guys :-)

"If you're listening" is anazing, but I have always loved "The Science Show" the best. Both on ABC.

For non-Aussie podcasts, 99% invisible I guess.

Do you recommend any episodes in particular of these?
- The latest season of "if you're listening" is current world events, but I liked the 7th season, especially the second episode on Zelensky. If you're a yank, going right back to the first season and listening to an Aussie perspective on the Trump thing is likely going to be interesting.
  The Science Show is always good, always current. Just listen to the latest and work your way back, there is always at least one good article in each episode.
  99% invisible has some great episodes. I recently relistened to Deafspace (23 march 2012) and "The Frankfurt Kitchen" is a great one too if you want something more recent. Just impressed Roman Mars can make audio shows about visual design I guess.

I’m working my way through the old episodes of Short History Of and The Soundtrack Show. Both are well written and narrated and worth listening to.

The Soundtrack Show is so great.

Tech:

Fedora Podcast
Linux user space
Linux Experiment (simply more content than the videos)
Thundercast
Sudo show

German

Deutschlandfunk Nova Hörsaal
Chaosradio
Set & Setting (Jascha Renner)
Das ist Netzpolitik
off/on Netzpolitik
Lage der Nation

3x netzpolitik aber kein logbuch!? :D

Spout Lore - the best real play RPG podcast
Last Podcast on the Left - True Crime, aliens, and cryptids.
Marvel By The Month - every Marvel comic, one month at a time
Blank Check - The best movie podcast
The Flop House - the best bad movie podcast
Depresh Mode - Mental health, also the best named podcast in history
No Dogs In Space - alternative music history
Sawbones - Medical history, also relationship goals
Till Death Do Us Blart - the eternal podcast
Improvised Star Trek - Sadly ended but still hilarious

My top 6 according to how podcast addict sorts them:

8-4 Play

The Adventure Zone

Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod

538 Politics

Hardcore Gaming 101

Rude Tales of Magic

I'd probably also give shout outs to Self Hosted, Common Descent, Spacepod, the Nature podcast, and Software Engineering Radio.

The Weekly Planet. Two funny and liberal Aussie guys talk about comics, movies, and TV shows. Mostly the former two. They have a great YouTube channel too.

The Unmade Podcast (https://unmade.fm/) is probably my GOAT. Brady Haran (from Numberphile, Computerphile, etc.) and his Childhood friend, Tim Hein, come up with wacky ideas for podcasts that they won't actually make. Definitely the funniest podcast I've ever heard.

Hello Internet, also from Brady, with CGP Grey, is also amazing. Though sadly on hiatus.

Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
The psychology of your 20s.
Talks at Google
What should I read next?
Lex Fridman

A bit more teckie:

REWORK
The Changelog
Go Time
Screaming in the cloud
The New Stack podcast
Ship it!

Languages learning:

Tanaka radio (Japanese)
The Miku real Japanese
The real Japanese podcast
The procrastination podcast (English)

I enjoy Adam Ragusea's podcast. It is a bit all over the place sometimes, but it's mostly about cooking related stuff?

French speakers should check out Mike Ward sous écoute. It's just Québec comedians* getting drunk in front of a crowd. I really enjoy it.

Darknet diaries have been named a few times already, but I will also list it, it's just that good haha.

Google tells me humorist is a word in english but im not sure? It's mostly people doing comedy, not necessarily movies etc.

- Couple ouvert est pas pire mais j'en ai pas écouté beaucoup.
  J'avais beaucoup aimé la série sur la sudation du pharmachien, c'est sur l'app de podcast de radio-canada, j'avais binge ça en genre 2 jours.
  C'est les seuls autres qui me viennent en tête!

I dropped the ball a bit on listening to podcasts therefor right now it'd be "This American Life" but normally I also enjoy the Flophouse.

Usually those two:
WANshow from the LinusTechTips team
Darknet Diaries by Jack Rhysider

Darknet Diaries is fantastic!

Dear Hank and John (funny John and Hank Green)

Hardcore History with Dan Carlin

The Debaters (Canadian comedy show where two comedians debate whether something (ex: malls, big weddings, etc) is good/bad and get judged by live audience)

check out the pretzels vs peanuts episode

If you like investigative journalism, Someone Knows Something. David Ridgen is fantastic in all of his shows and the care with which he handles delicate subjects is rare.

Future Ecologies

It's so gorgeously audio designed and mixed, all about ecological preservation, geology, humans place as a part of nature, and many more and tangentially related topics. Headphones are a must.

Blocked Party, a Canadian podcast about getting blocked.

Office Hours w/ Tim Heidecker. Very funny but he also has great musicians and other interesting folks on.

black box down - it is about airplane incidents and goes into detail on how it happened plus what changed in the industry to avoid the issue in the future.

FriendlyJordies.

A locally made one here in Australia - How Other Dads Dad, by Hamish Blake.

The Delta Flyers is a great Star Trek podcast about Star Trek: Voyager and more now that they have finished their re-watch of the series.

Mostly industry / work related stuff honestly.

The Kubernetes Podcast from Google

DevOps Paradox

DevOps and Docker Talk

To keep up with the crazies

Knowledge Fight
QAnon anonymous
Cognitive Dissonance

For all my SCP needs

The Exploring Series
SCP Archive
The SCP Experience

Creepy podcasts doing their own thing

Welcome to Night Vale
The Magnus Archieves
The Hotel

I forgot to mention The Exploring Series in my answer! Glad you mentioned it!

Tooth and Claw! I haven't seen that mentioned. Awesome podcast about animal attacks and animal facts

Generation Loss (its a podcast about movies that doesn't take itself too seriously)

I’m really enjoying Working Out Out with Mike Birbiglia and WTF with Marc Maron

• Old Gods of Appalachia (horror anthology series set in an "alternate Appalachia," where the mountains were never intended for human inhabitants)

• We Die First (horror film review podcast "made for Black horror fans, by Black horror fans," but my white ass enjoys it)

• Just the Zoo of Us (a weekly spotlight on one or two animals, with ratings for effectiveness, enginuity, and aesthetics)

• Random Number Generator Horror Podcast Number 9 (another horror film review podcast, hosted by Jeffrey Cranor and Cecil Baldwin)

Smartless: Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes take turns picking a guest to interview each episode. The other two hosts are unaware of who the guest will be ahead of time

Skatcast: a different show 6 days a week! Tuesday is the original show, Skatcast, marketed as Cartoons For Your Earholes. Wednesday is The Dipshit Files, where the hosts wife delves into true crime, telling the host a different story each week. Thursday is Dave and Angus, a comedy show centered around two characters usually traveling the states, learning about them and inevitably getting kicked out of most places they visit. Friday is Just A Ride, where three hosts discuss a variety of topics while keeping in mind that this life is just a ride and we should enjoy ourselves on it. Monday is a Patreon only show where they go behind the curtain for a "bosses meeting" and discuss what's happening and coming up in the Skatcast world

sfultra abut scifi by an Irish martyr

Boonta vista nice people from Australia

Aunty donna more nice people from Straya

The Adam Buxton podcast an angry bearded fella

Alzabo soup a Gene Wolfe podcast by two very nice dudes

Parenting Hell by a pair of UK comedians, Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe. Started as a lockdown podcast about how hard it is to be a parent during lockdown, but it's continued ever since. They get a different guest, usually a comedian, in every week to talk about parenting.

And they're comedians, so it's always funny. And totally relatable if you have kids.

For a more serious podcast, Free Range Humans is a fantastic podcast about effecting change in educational systems.

Seconded!

My top 3:

The Journal: current events
Tides of History: history
ChooseFI: personal finance

Forehead Fables

Those who know, know

The Constant It is 'a history of getting things wrong', with deep research and fun way of storytelling.

Might be worth checking out "cautionary tales" too then. Similar kind of vibe

Beautiful Anonymous! One hour phone call with a stranger and the funniest most empathetic host ever, Chris Gethard.

Linux Game Cast

Abroad in Japan

The Security Privacy and OSINT show

The Jordan Harbinger Show

Behind the Bastards
Citations Needed (not the Tom Scott one, the Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi one)
This Podcast Will Kill You

Star Trek: The Next Conversation

I aim for a (un)healthy mixture of tech and political commentary, far more than I could ever actually listen to.

Based on your current selections, you seem to favor comedy/celebrities/comedians. I don't follow too much stuff like that, but I have maybe two suggestions: Blocked and Reported for Internet bullshit (furry infighting, Adult Baby Diaper Lovers, Twitter drama). It tends towards a sort of moderate liberal/radical centrist politics. Srsly Wrong do kind-hearted goofy skits to explain their politics. Self-identified utopian socialists.

Most of the rest of the stuff I listen to is some variant of interviews with important thinkers or 2+ dudes/chicks/yos shooting the shit about socialism or FLOSS.

"If Books Could Kill", they cover the airport books that captured our hearts and ruined our minds.

One of my new favorites.

All Fantasy Everything is the only podcast that has ever existed. 3 very funny friends/comedians + a guest fantasy draft anything and everything from the world of pop culture.

Some examples of previous draft topics include:

-People named Tom -Words that make you sound stupid -Movie Deaths -Bald People -Power moves -Movie Roles that Nicolas Cage should have had

I always find myself listening to Distractible on long road trips. The stories are really funny. My top two episodes are Bob's Fridge and Illegal Advice.

Unexplainable and Sean Carroll’s Mindscape.

If ur a nerd and like to be reminded how absolutely fucking stupid you are :)

https://www.dudesypod.com/

The Dudesy podcast is an experiment of sorts, with the Dudesy AI learning, evolving and generating data in order to improve the show. Each episode represents a free-flowing, creative exchange between the two human hosts and the AI.

Risk
Criminal
Heavyweight (no longer Spotify exclusive)

Really into The Deprogram and chewing through the backlog.

What's it about?
- A dirtbag left pod with guys from around the world, basically. The hosts are an Iraqi, a Slav, and a Texan and their guests can be from anywhere.
Interesting, subscribed.