Software Engineering Radio and public speaking

I recently discovered Software Engineering Radio and added it to the list of podcasts I regularly listen to during my commute.

There are 2 interviews in the archives with none other, than Prof. Doug Schmidt, who works at the same institute where I do (he is the creator of the ACE/TAO framework and the author of the Pattern Oriented Software Architecture books among others.). Unlike most of us nerds, he is a truly brilliant public speaker. I admit sitting in during some of his talks where the topic itself was not all that interesting for me, just to listen to him talk.

Well, today, I realized one of his secrets. Well, in addition to being smart of course. And having a good sense of humor. His other secret is: he talks fast. A high words per minute count doed make you sound more interesting and even smarter.

See also GeekBrief TV's episode 166, where Cali Lewis talks about why learning to talk fast is important. [Update: the archive doesn't go back enough to see that episode. Oh, well.]

A nice podcast on Python VMs

I don't have much time and patience for podcasts and I'm really happy when I find one that doesn't make me feel like I'm wasting my time. Here's probably the most informative podcast on Python that I've listened to in a long time:

• How Python runs by Chris Hefele [MP3] (Guest podcast on Python411)
  

It's a nice high level overview of CPython, Jython, IronPython, Psyco and PyPy. How they came about, what's the idea behind each of them and how they relate to each other.

The podcast is from April and in my opinion paints a somewhat rosy picture of these technologies but it's still highly recommended.

Google Developer Podcast

The only podcast that I regurarly listen to nowadays is The Java Posse. Recently Google launched a developer oriented podcast called the Google Developer Podcast. Since Dick Wall and Carl Quinn from the Posse are participating in the GDP it's almost like listening to a special edition of the Java Posse. For me this is a very good thing.

When I started going to the gym more I subscribed to tons of different podcasts: Python411, Drunk and Retired (Java), Digg Nation, Floss Weekly, etc. In the long run however I found that most of them are too unprofessional for my taste or don't have the right topics and especially signal to noise ratio. So I ended up listening to them only occasionally and stuck with the Posse in the last few months.

Are there any good developer podcasts you recommend?