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Comment by warent | Hacker News Reader

"Personally I cannot listen to technical podcasts while I develop software"

What? I've never known anybody that could do that! Anyone that can do that meaningfully must be some kind of savant.

I can't listen to anything with words I understand. Podcasts would be ridiculous.

Right; I'm unable to even listen to music while in deep flow, because I have a composition/conducting background, and ANY kind of music triggers analysis that is a distraction.

I just listen to white noise.

If you’re a composer/conductor then you’ve probably already tried this, but for me two types of music work well (as I’m a similarly analytical musician):

- Minimalism, specifically Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians suite

- Atmospheric, specifically ‘Skyrim Atmospheres’ by Jeremy Soule

Both are so versatile: minimalism for journeys and coding; atmospheric for ‘creative’ periods, walking and sleeping. I do somewhat envy your ability to listen to white noise as it is infinitely replicable, but fear it a little distracting in of itself!

I checked both of them out, and they're nice, thanks! But in both cases, it's definitely music, and as such I'm definitely distracted by it.

You listen to white noise? I'm not even able to handle the sound of the oxygen in the atmosphere.

I just listen to the ambient energy of a perfect vacuum.

> the ambient energy of a perfect vacuum.

I'm not sure what that sounds like.

You can't hear in a vaccum; it doesn't sound like anything at all.

That's what I figured, it was just so floridly put that I'd check.

Yes. Love my DnB :)

I can and often do but my brain just shuts out the podcast when I am concentrating and I don't hear it or can only vaguely remember the content. It becomes like music or white noise. Sometimes they end and I don't notice. I find it much better and less distracting than having background noise of an office or coffee shop and it's comparible to me listening to music.

Upside is that when I'm doing things that don't require high concentration that are kinda boring and easy I get to listen to the podcast while I do it. A faily large chunk of programming is me on autopilot writing things where I know exactly what to do so a podcast isn't a big deal.

If I'm working on something that doesn't require much thought (eg the more rote parts of programming) then I can listen to an easy podcast, like a comedy or storytelling one. When I start working on something that requires thought I definitely can't listen to a podcast and I can't really imagine getting anything out of a lecture I was listening to without giving it my full attention.

I knew one person who could do that type of thing; he had minor split-brain syndrome.

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