Podcasts for scientists

I have just discovered Podcasts. A Boston talk radio station (96.9) http://www.wtkk.com/ , carries a program between Noon and 1:00 hosted by Eagan and Braude. They are a lot of fun with Margery Eagan being somewhat more conservative than far left Jim Braude. Unlike most talk radio hosts they don’t harangue one with a political point of view but focus on off beat topics. Because of their time slot, I often miss them our have to leave my car part way through the show. Today I decided to check out the station’s web site to see if there was anything I could download. There was. They podcast the thing so one can simply download the program to one’s computer or so I thought. However, there was no file to download but instructions to copy a URL (the www thing) to one’s player. Well, I did not have a player. After some searching on the web I downloaded several players including something called iPodder and the Yahoo music engine. It isn’t easy, but hidden in their menus are little boxes that will accept the URL WTTK wanted me paste into my player. Why can’t this be more direct? These critical functions always seem to be hidden rather than upfront where they should be. It is probably that these players want you to buy their stuff rather than download free stuff from somewhere else. However, once these URL accepting boxes were found and used, it all worked. My next discovery was the podcasts at NPR. I am fan of “Science Fridays” but rarely can listen when it is on. Now I can get the broadcasts at any time and listen when it is convenient for me, even when walking or working out. Technology is fantastic. It is interesting that we have had ways to time shift TV for some time but it has never been easy to time shift radio until now.