This Is Your Brain on Podcasts | Hacker News Reader

This Is Your Brain on Podcasts

nytimes.com

73 pointsdnetesn41 comments

This is what I got from this article: Researchers looked at MRI scans of people listening to a Podcast on their daily commute. The researchers don't know what any of it means.

Functional MRI scans are the equivalent of looking at what transistors are switching in a chip at any given moment, only more useless since the brain is much more generalized.

"Oh! Cache is lighting up!"

http://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/

It's from 2009, so things have improved, but still.

You know what? I bet the differentiation in the exposure to light (via different pictures), combined with ever-so-slightly-still-electrolytically-active neuro-pathways, produced those results.

Dead salmon, though they may be, light-sensitive organs the eyes still are.

And provided that the salmon were probably preserved on ice, much of the carcasses probably remained fairly chemically stable, so while the electron pumps in the electron transport chains of the multi-polar neurons were deactivated, I bet the whole pipeline from salmon's visual cortex to its eyeball probably was still slightly capable of transmitting photo-sensitivity.

Then, it probably came down to the fMRI imaging software being so fine-tuned as to notice that differentiation, and amplify it into statistical significance!

If that is true, then fMRI studies of V1 in humans are totally screwed. You show them anything, and the unconscious effects overwhelm the stats software and you get 'hits'. As the article goes into, you better be damn careful with your controls and your p values if you want to actually do anything useful in fMRI. If you want to just publish papers, it seems like a great field, but there seems to be better ways to just make a paycheck.

The paper this article references has not much to do with listening to podcasts while commuting. It's about how "the meaning of language is represented in regions [of the brain]".

Wonder if the post would have received the same attention with the more precise title "This is your brain on stories".

I certainly would like to read an article on "This is your brain on stories" that would highlights and explores escapism, role of story-telling, etc. That would make a nice book as well.

I recently got into listening to podcasts. I noticed that I really don't like the "get together to discuss a topic" kind or the "here's a 2 minutes segment from the radio news" but really do enjoy one-hour long political, history and documentary podcasts.

Just wanna make sure you have these in your feed: Revolutions Podcast, History of Rome podcast (finished, but with 5 years of content), Dan Carlin's Hardcore History.

Idk, the "get together and discuss" podcasts vary widely in quality. I find that the way the hosts talk really determines whether I like it. I really enjoy My Brother My Brother and Me (A comedy podcast around answering YahooAnswers questions), and listening to Boars, Gore and Swords helps me solidify and digest what I watched in Game of Thrones.

But some of the discussions podcasts are just babbly. "One bad mother", "Throwing shade". There's very little content.

Even RadioLab does me wrong sometimes, but that's probably just because I have a basic science education and Robert Krulwich is an idiot. Radiolab suffers from the balance fallacy, argument to moderation, and false dilemma.

Article itself is pretty light on the details, but good opportunity to ask the HN community -- which podcasts really fire your neurons?

I used to listen to the "classics":

- This American Life

- 99% Invisible

- Serial

- Invisibilia (sp?)

- TED Radio Hour

- Radio Lab

But after a few years they all feel very boring.

Agreed, they're all same-ish now.

I feel a bit of that from 99%, but not from TAL and Serial. Though I'm still mourning the loss of David Rakoff.

I'm feeling that about 99% Invisible too. I like the show, but the several minutes of ads and cross-promotion for every Radiotopia production & challenge coins & "beautiful nerds" is getting really grating. And putting random episodes of other podcasts into the feed or as an extra 15 minutes at the end of episodes is really annoying.

I still listen to it, but it's on my shortlist of podcasts I may unsubscribe from in 2016.

Heh, except for the challenge coins, I don't really mind any of that; just that it got somewhat repetitive. I'd rather they'd cut the episode length and maybe only released bi-weekly.

This discussion 2 weeks ago was filled with recommendations:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11509835

Nice, missed that. Thanks!

A lot of it depends on what you're into. If you like history I'd suggest "Hardcore History" by Dan Carlin or "Revolutions" by Mike Duncan.

For economics, there's NPR's "Planet Money" and WNYC's "Freakonomics".

If like the tech/startup scene (as I assume many of HN readers are) I'd suggest "Startup" by Gimlet Media.

We Hate Movies

I'm not into podcasts but I am VERY into audiobooks via audible. I listen to them while commuting, while doing chores around the house and while walking the dog. I used to read voraciously and never had time any more. I alternate fiction and non fiction. Some recommendations: 14 by Peter Cline, the Power of the Dog by Don Winslow, and The Like Switch by an ex-FBI agent about likability.

Changed my life immensely for the better. I read about 5 books a month now.

I enjoy audiobooks also, particularly when paired with the Kindle book. I can fairly seamlessly switch back and forth between reading and listening.

Interestingly - the price of a Kindle book on Amazon + adding audio to it (which comes from Audible) is frequently less than buying the audiobook from Audible.

I'd argue that listening to the book is quite different from reading it.

Why?

Well for starters, different areas of the brain are used and the voice or accent of the narrator can have an effect

I subscribe to quite a few podcasts. Here are the ones I consistently enjoy listening to.

- EconTalk - Interviews on many topics with an economics focus. - http://www.econtalk.org/

- In Our Time - Experts discuss an important idea, person or event. - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl

- Software Engineering Radio - Probably the best technical podcast I've found. - http://www.se-radio.net/

- Switched On Pop - I don't know much about music theory but I enjoy listening to these guys discussing it! - http://www.switchedonpop.com/

+1 for Econtalk; while they're interviews, Russ Roberts doesn't try to pass as an "unbiased" journalist, which might grate some people, but I find it makes for more interesting discussions.

I listen to a lot of the popular ones that have already been mentioned (Serial, Radiolab, This American Life, etc), but here are some others I listen to:

- Freakonomics Radio (WNYC). Favorite episode so far: "The Economics of Sleep" [1] - 60 Second Science (Scientific American). Short synopses of new science. - Developer Tea (spec.fm). Targeted towards developers, and episodes generally revolve around tech work and/or career development. Generally around 20 minutes. Good place to start: Interview w/ Sam Lambert, Director of Systems at GitHub [2] - StarTalk Radio (American Museum of Natural History, I guess). Astronomy/Science. I'm especially a fan of the "Cosmic Queries" episodes. - Reply All (Gimlet Media). Tech related, but no specific target audience. 30ish minutes. Favorite episode so far: #53, "In the Desert" [3] - Planet Money (NPR). Economics. Lots of good stuff. - Stuff You Should Know (How Stuff Works). Usually informative, but generally conversational and not heavily edited. - Gastropod (Radiotopia). Food. Also generally conversational with little editing. - Codebreaker, by Marketplace and Tech Insider (NPR). Tech/Ethics.

[1]: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-economics-of-sleep-part-... [2]: http://spec.fm/podcasts/developer-tea/30505 [3]: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/53-in-the-desert/

Edit: spelling

Not really podcast, but similiar enough:

RollPlay shows by twitch streamer JP McDaniels. I really like PnP, but sheduling my own games is tricky and this gives me the weekly fix. It can be kind of slow-paced, but some of the character arcs rival the best I have seen on any media.

BSD Now is the most intellectually stimulating tech podcast I listen to. As the name suggests they focus on covering BSD operating systems and related projects but you don't have to be a BSD user to enjoy the in-depth technical discussions. For example this week's show included an in-depth discussion of copy-on-write file systems and an interview about the CHERI research CPU.

http://www.bsdnow.tv

Joe Rogan Experience: http://podcasts.joerogan.net/. No HTTPS, sadly.

Software Podcasts: Software Engineering Radio, .NET Rocks!, JavaScript Jabber

Mind-opening Podcasts: Reply All, TED Radio Hour, Radio Lab

Comedy Podcasts: Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast, The Complete Guide to Everything, Joe Rogan Experience, Duncan Trussell Family Hour

...does anyone know of a good Java podcast? Seems like the main one is offline now.

I'll leave off the ones that others have already mentioned.

General

- Waking up with Sam Harris. This might be my favorite thing going. No other podcast makes me examine what I believe about the world, spirituality, religion, world politics, consciousness, and so on, like this one does. Just fantastic.

Tech

- The Talk Show with John Gruber. Not much to say here. It's Apple-centric navel-gazing.

- The Stack Exchange Podcast. It's too bad they don't record more often, because this is one of my favorites.

- Accidental Tech Podcast. Another favorite. Perhaps I just like hearing Siracusa tell the others they're wrong.

- a16z. A more valley-focused-let's-talk-about-software-eating-the-world type show. But still good.

I also listen to most of Carolla's podcasts. Adam and Drew -- now five days a week -- and Reasonable Doubt are sometimes better than the flagship show, but his schtick isn't for everyone.

Man, I wish Norm would bring back Norm Macdonald Live.

I listen to a ton of podcasts, but the one I enjoy the most that gets mentioned the least often is Risky Business [1]. It's an information security podcast that is well produced, entertaining but also intelligent. They tend to not just repeat the news, but often go into more detail about the methods used and defensive lessons learned from the various hacks.

[1] http://risky.biz

EconTalk The RSA events London School of Economics events CATO Institute Events Commonwealth Club of California Big Ideas produced by Australian Broadcasting Corp Stanford Entrepreneurship Series Inquiring Minds BBC Thinking Allowed Science Friday Both US and UK Intelligence squared debates

Edge.org talks are great, too, but I don't think they're offered as podcasts yet. Minor inconvenience..

For stories, there's Radiolab, Freakonomics, Snap Judgment, and The Moth

Podcasts are my tool of choice for bike riding smooth cardio sessions. They drive my mind off the effort, it makes my rhythm more regular and the experience more pleasurable. Sometimes I'm even thinking "hard" while pedaling.

I do the same when running. Much better than music

Amusingly, I heard about this research on the Nature podcast.

I was skeptical at first — these fMRI studies are a dime a dozen these days, with dubious results — but this one is pretty robust. The use of training data is nice, and definitely adds a level of verifiablility to it. It's a nice step toward actually understanding how the brain processes not just language but ideas. There is definitely a future where we can understand what people are thinking by observing their brain.

Isn't it just the bloodflow within the brain that we're observing?

We'll never be able to read a mind based on fMRI-style data any more than we'll be able to judge the ongoings of America by the headlights on the highways.

C++ podcasts, anyone?

A niche request, yes, but my podcast app's search won't respect the plus characters. :(

Incredible that they were able to predict areas of the brain that would light up.

Link to paper full text?

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v532/n7600/full/nature1...

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