Continuous Learning: Supercharged Podcasts

​​ The best piece of advice I was ever given relating to learning was about podcasts, and the manner of listening to them. This has turned my commute listening to junk radio into the best personal development practice I follow

With the pocket casts app you can easily find, download and setup lists of favoured ones. More importantly you can listen to them 1.2 times their original speed. Then, when you get used to it you can listen to them at 1.4x, 1.6x etc.

I decided to share this now as I have reached a personal milestone. Coupled with the ability to skip silence, this app has given me the ability to listen to over 11 days(!!!), 264 hours worth of educational material.

The knowledge I have gained from this is invaluable. Also, importantly it gives you some input, advice and conversation which is outside of the ‘semi-isolation’ which exists in almost all workplaces.

I often find myself sharing a list of ones I have found useful. I think this is quite an interesting set to begin with, although obviously researching some more appropriate to your technology choices or career desires could be required.

I this helps just one person the same way it helped me it was worth writing up! Happy listening

Dev ones I’d always listen to

• Toolsday - My favourite dev one. Enjoyable short and normally always useful
• You’re doing it wrong – This is new, but fantastic and definitely on my “auto-download” list

Dev ones I pick based on topic being discussed

• Hanselminutes
• Does not compute
• Changelog
• Full Stack Radio
• Coders Campus - Simple Java Tutorials. I think this is aimed at people who are newer to java but can be a nice refresher on things such as streams/lambdas etc
• Developer Tea - More career type advice (I think aimed at more junior devs), but a great concept of being 15 minutes long so perfect for a “tea break” or bus journey
• Shop talk show
• Software engineering radio

Dev language or framework specific I’ve used these when learning new technologies and now just keep an eye out for interesting topics

• Devchat.tv - Collection of Angular podcasts
• React 30

Machine learning This is an area of massive interest to me due to previous experience. Even if not working in it, the scientific approach to development will have a large impact on the cutting edge technology over coming years IMO, especially as more and more companies are focusing on this

• Data Skeptik
• Linear digressions
• This week in machine learning and AI

Sport analytics Not work related, but interesting and great inspiration for ‘pet projects’ to play with new tech on

• Stats bomb
• Analytics FC Old but great
• Opta Pro

Football related entertainment

• Not the top 20 Bridges the gap slightly with analytics as they have people from that world as guests and their discussion often references experimental361s content
• Quickly Kevin. Will he score
• Gas cast

Podcasts for the Kids

• Brains on
• Story pirates

Philosophy, life, the current world

• Waking up. Sam Harris