Apple's new iPods with video aren't out yet, but you can download all kinds of audio files now. The need to have newspaper obituaries read to you may not have struck you as an imperative for the new media technology, but audio obits nonetheless await you at blogofdeath.com.

Or if you've always wanted to know how to clip a cat's nails, hammer properly or chop an onion without crying, Canadian radio hobbyist Tod Maffin has found self-proclaimed experts to talk you through the trauma at tmaffin.libsyn.com.

But podcasts (audio programs you download off the Internet to an iPod or similar device for listening at your leisure) thus far seem to be more a device for time-shifting — saving radio programs to listen to when you want to, rather than when a station tells you to — than an audio revolution. Thousands of podcasts are available, and many are indeed homemade shows of a sort you'd never hear on the radio. But many of the most popular podcasts are simply programs from National Public Radio, the BBC and other big radio producers.

Meanwhile, primitive ratings systems are emerging, such as the Top 25 Podcasts by Hits at www.podcastingnews.com. Eight of the top 25 podcasts are commonly heard on U.S. public radio or the BBC. Another eight of the top 25 are about podcasting or other new technologies — a sign of how self-referential and limited the podcast world remains in its second year.

But sprinkled through the hit shows are a few that capture podcasting's anti-establishment potential. The Dorktones, a clever, slightly randy crew of Dutch rockers (www.dorktones.com), put together programs of campy and wry songs — ranging from Tom Jones' "Theme From Thunderball" to snazzy surf numbers such as the Atlantics' "Bombora."

Cody Hanson's Vinyl Podcast (www.vinyl.codyhanson.com) features out-of-print music. One show features a song called "Pork Butts." "When you like the kind of music I like," Hanson explains on the show, "you'll spend 99 cents on just about anything containing the word 'pork' or the word 'butt.' " It's a funky little number from the late '70s, and Hanson simply introduces the song, plays it and thanks you for listening. End of podcast.

Other shows in the top 25 are less enticing. The Dollar Show (www.thedollarshow.com) is a garage version of your average FM raunch radio morning-yuks chat show.

When we checked last month, the top 10 shows at podcastalley .com didn't have one program in common with the top 25 at pod castingnews.com. But the mix of topics is similar: Shows about technology and sex dominate. We also found a poker strategy program and a Dutch priest's "Catholic Insider" show.

In one of the better uses of the technology, podcasts emerge as a collective basement record library. The grand old sultans of radio satire, the Firesign Theater, made many hours of archives available at firesigntheater.com/podcasting/list.php.

And unpublished authors have found a new form of vanity press, the podcast novel. "EarthCore," a sci-fi thriller featuring, as author Scott Sigler puts it, "actual science, blood, blood & more blood, and a super-hot villainess who dabbles in S&M," was originally released as an e-book. It's now free at www.scottsigler.net/earthcore and recently made podcastalley's top 10.