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Podcasts are my new Wikipedia
- gman83 5y agoI used to listen to podcasts all the time but since around 2018 I've switched mainly to audiobooks and personally I get way more out of that than podcasts.
- kzrdude 5y agoI'll try your suggestion, but it might come down to the podcast type. Some of them are just two people talking as if they are hanging out, of it's a very low fact content discussion. I weed those out now. A focused topic and fact or idea based discussions or stories in each episode keep me listening.
- feintruled 5y agoMe too, audiobooks really allow you to wallow deep into a subject without distraction. I find the 'zoo radio' format beloved of podcasts a little annoying and often inappropriate for the subject matter - I tried the 'Behind the Bastards' podcast that gets recommended a lot and it was all "whoo! Soviet Russia! J-Stal in da house! Millions dead!", very jarring. I'm sure there are many with more stolid presentation, but mock pissed-up banter seems to be the default. I do enjoy ones more in the style of radio programmes, or for that matter actual radio programmes.. In Our Time is excellent for short deep dives into all manner of subject.
- BrissyCoder 5y agoAnyone else here had podcasts destroy there brain?
- mongol 5y agoI think this is good advice but it is often hard to find podcasts that approach a topic with sufficient detail. I have also used listennotes for this, and still do from time to time, but I have started to search Youtube for lectures more. Any topic + lecture. Someone speaking to an audience for 30-60 minutes has worked best for me.
- xhrpost 5y agoAlso of good note, there are many Wikipedia articles with spoken recordings available for free. I once listened to the entire hour long article of the Cold War. Not something I would have likely read completely otherwise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spoken_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spoken_articles
- wrycoder 5y agoI wonder if this is true for other languages? I’m trying to find relatively simple Spanish texts read by a native speaker.
- rodrigo_b 5y agoAre you looking for anything in particular? I wouldn't mind recording myself reading a couple Wikipedia articles. I'm a native speaker from Argentina.
- wrycoder 5y agoI’m looking for texts at a beginner or intermediate level, read by native speakers, which have not been abridged. For example, I have a dual language text of Hesse’s Damien. I found an audiobook on Amazon, but it has been abridged, to the point that individual sentences have been changed - with words eliminated! That makes it very difficult to follow text while listening. I’ll see if Librivox, mentioned above, has a copy. Thanks! What I’m trying to avoid is starting to read Spanish with an English hybridized with Latin pronunciation running in my head. I can halfway understand written Spanish already, so I figure that a few weeks following audiobooks with a text would be very helpful to getting a good start on a proper accent.
- mynameisash 5y agoYou might have some luck with Librivox. There are Spanish recordings[0] that you could use to practice your comprehension. I did this with French, and it was very helpful. Years ago when I naively tried to learn Japanese, I listened to Oku no Hosomichi[1] over and over again, which I still to this day find to be a beautiful listen, though I gave up on trying to learn that language. [0] https://librivox.org/search?primary_key=5&search_category=language&search_page=1&search_form=get_results https://librivox.org/search?primary_key=5&search_category=la... [1] https://librivox.org/oku-no-hosomichi-by-matsuo-basho/ https://librivox.org/oku-no-hosomichi-by-matsuo-basho/
- mojuba 5y agoI've also noticed that coding and speech are compatible in a sense that they are probably processed by different parts of the brain and can be done simultaneously. Coding is closer to mechanical work, or let's say it's like building a physical machine with your hands. Whereas speech is a different set of muscles (both producing and understanding speech are related in fact). That's my amateurish pseudo theory about this.
- isolli 5y agoFor me it's the exact opposite. I can listen to classical music while I code, but certainly not to songs. Even unconsciously listening to spoken words completely destroys my focus.
- timClicks 5y agoBut programming isn't really about the mechanics of touching a keyboard. I find that it often requires deep thought and a lack of distractions.
- mojuba 5y agoIt's not about touching the keyboard. Building a program in your mind is like building a machine. A program is a machine and therefore you use the same area of your brain that e.g. you use while building a Lego object.
- iszomer 5y agoMind maps help. White boards are even better. In my early college years, I used my bedroom's closet mirror like a starving artist would.
- wombatmobile 5y agoImagine I gave you some materials and tools and asked you to build a physical machine with your hands by the end of the day. If I were first to place some plans in front of your eyes, what would your hands build then? If there were no plans, what might your hands do before they started building a machine? What organ/s might help your hands to do this? If that organ/s was busy listening to a podcast, how might that affect the output of your hands?
- hengheng 5y agoPodcasts are horrible for learning. They are nice entertainment while doing laundry, cooking or driving in case you feel that you've already taken enough breaks for the day. I've listened to podcasts while taking a shower, but mostly I prefer some calm. Learning or reading wikipedia is something that requires my intense focus, and in turn I like to define my own pace. Couldn't imagine doing two things at once and calling one of them 'work' and the other 'learning'.
- jjeaff 5y agoJust depends on what kind of work I suppose. You could probably learn a lot from podcasts while, for example, driving a truck, or working as a security guard. I can't listen to podcasts while programming, but I can certainly learn a lot from listening to podcasts while cleaning the car, or working in the garage, or mowing the lawn.
- xattt 5y agoI am not sure about the science of this, but personally it has to be work that doesn’t involve speech/language processing. It would be interesting to set up an experiment to see which activities involve speech processing that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with that role of the brain.
- anon23anon 5y agokind of feel like wikipedia is shitty for actual learning too except maybe for history
- cortesoft 5y agoI think different people learn in different ways. Some people struggle learning from reading, and podcasts might work for them.
- euler2100 5y agoCouldn't have said it better, learning from only listening can be really hard under several conditions when something happening in front of you can snatch your attention away and make you miss a big chunk of info.
- Barrin92 5y agoslightly dodging the main point but just one sentiment I see a lot nowadays that I really dislike >But I felt guilty for not learning new things and just listening to music all day long Along the same lines something I regularly hear "I don't read fiction it's a waste of time". You can learn new things by listening to music, by doing or engaging with art, by rereading the same stories, and so on. Learning means expanding the mind of the learner, it is not external fact gathering. You can do the same thing over and over and learn something new every time, Nabokov used to (cheekily) point out that the only good reader is a re-reader, because you can only memorize ten books or so, you just gotta find the right ones and they'll last you a lifetime or put more succintly: "The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes"
- nostromo 5y agoI don't think I learn much from art. But I don't care -- I don't enjoy art and music to learn. It's a much more emotional and human experience -- and that has just as much value to me as learning does.
- mrleinad 5y agoI'm not sure learn is the right verb, but I think that it certainly opens the mind to other stuff that we couldn't previously see. And that cascades into other areas as well.
- boringg 5y agoI think that is learning. Being able to see the world from other peoples perspectives is learning.
- paperwasp42 5y agoI cannot agree more with this. After almost dying a couple times, I've come to see the "must be learning constantly" mindframe as utterly toxic. Expanding your skillsets is great! But it's mind-boggling how many people I know who feel genuine guilt over simply relaxing and enjoying life, art, friends, family, etc. Slacking off and not getting necessary things done is terribly self-destructive. But so is cramming "learning", "goals", and "growth" into literally every second of your day.
- trompetenaccoun 5y agoPodcasts are an awesome source of misinformation. How many people actually look up sources after listening to a podcast? Based on what I observe, the number must be very very low. It's something I personally noticed multiple times already, someone is incredibly misinformed on a certain topic, and when you dig deeper it turns out they're not simply indifferent to learning about it - on the contrary - they regularly listening to a podcast about it.
- mdoms 5y agoI listen to podcasts from trusted sources like BBC, The Economist or Wall Street Journal. I don't check their facts just like I don't when I read their published material. If I didn't trust my podcast sources I wouldn't listen to them. It's why I don't listen to New York Times podcasts.
- RNCTX 5y agoI listen to podcasts that joke about the military / law enforcement / intelligence agency biases of places like the BBC, The Economist, and the Wall Street Journal. That's what's great about the medium, something for everyone! :D
- Dylan16807 5y agoNot feeling like examples? Anyway, I have no reason to believe podcasts are any worse than other typical places people would try to learn things. And surely the takeaway shouldn't be "don't try to learn"...
- iszomer 5y agoI do it while listening to a podcast.
- WesleyLivesay 5y agoPodcasts have come to occupy a similar spot in my media consumption. It isn’t so much about any real learning just satisfying inquisitive urges. I am under no illusions that I would become an expert of a topic by listening to a podcast, but I still enjoy learning about things even if retention is very low. It was/is the same for Wiki articles. They can also both be great starting points for deeper dives providing just enough context to let me know if I am even interested in further time commitments. Another thing that have been replaced by podcasts, at least for me are specialty news sites. No need to go read about last nights Red Wings game or the latest blockbuster when a podcast can give me that information, and when I am on a walk or driving to work.
- jmugan 5y agoI can't imagine listening to podcasts and programming at the same time. Well, I can imagine it, but the amount of mistakes I would make would be huge.
- AlphaCharlie 5y agoI could work if you are doing dull repetitive coding tasks, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't tank ones efficiency and thoroughness in intense tasks.
- twobitshifter 5y agoTo other commenters - each person learns differently. I've personally found that the most effective studying is done by hearing the content out-loud and that my writing greatly improves when I read it out loud to myself (or use the word feature) for this. I would expect that the language pathway in our minds evolved to be primarily audio-based, but some people may be able to overcome this bias and learn more by silently reading.
- da39a3ee 5y ago> Instead, I started to listen to podcasts while I worked (mostly writing code), OK, this is making me feel seriously snobbish. Dude, get a more interesting job! This is not how writing software is supposed to be. You absolutely should not be able to learn from a podcast while designing/implementing/testing software. There might be a few exceptions: e.g. tweaking CSS colors. But seriously, get a real software job -- you might find that you actually enjoy it.
- theshrike79 5y agoI can't even listen to vocal-heavy music when I'm coding. Activates the same part of the brain or something. It's either stuff I can't understand (growly metal music) or fully instrumental.
- tehjoker 5y agoI've found podcasts are great for learning about news and history but I would shudder to try to learn anything math based from them.
- floren 5y agoI try to limit how much I listen to podcasts, because it's easy to get into a habit of turning one on every time I'm driving or walking or cooking or cleaning. It's noise that minimally engages my brain and tamps down my own actual creativity and original thinking.
- julianlam 5y agoI had the same thought, especially towards the end of the article when he described how he listens to a podcast with his wife, while grocery shopping. While I'm certain grocery shopping isn't the most mentally stimulating form of activity, it's still "quiet time" (relatively, anyway) that my brain craves. I remember growing up before smartphones were ubiquitous. I never had an iPod or mp3 player, so I'd just be alone with my thoughts for 40 minute bus/subway rides. It sounds like torture today, but I actually look back on that with some bittersweet jealously... simpler times. I reviewed the situations that I listen to a podcast (there are quite few): 1. In the car, because it beats listening to radio commercials 2. Washing up at night, because I hate washing dishes but putting something on distracts me enough to power through.
- midrus 5y agoI suppose it depends on what you subscribe to. > I'm driving or walking or cooking or cleaning. > It's noise that minimally engages What's a better alternative? Listen to the vacuum cleaner? to the other's cars engines? To the top 10 reggaeton mix? I use every single "non thinking" activity I do (like driving, cleaning, walking outside, etc) to listen to things that really interest me, from news about the tech industry, to web dev subjects I'm interested on, to astrophysics and general science divulgation, etc. The amount of stuff I've learnt and the entertainment provided is invaluable to me, and just using time otherwise I'd be just hating my life for being stuck in a traffic jam.
- yardstick 5y agoDo you set aside time for yourself to just do nothing and let your mind reflect and contemplate? Sometimes when going for runs/walks I find myself thinking about all sorts of things, sometimes related to work or a project but also just random things. It’s nice to not always give your brain an agenda and see what it comes up with itself.
- tmaly 5y agoIf a book is somewhat dense in knowledge, I engage with the information better if I read than if I listen.
- thundergolfer 5y agoI also learn a lot from podcasts. I've learnt so much from my favourite, The Ezra Klein Show, that I built full-text over some of its transcripts to help reinforce my learning: https://search.rememex.org/ https://search.rememex.org/ I plan to slowly expand the number of podcast episodes that I have indexed to include multiple podcasts and thousands of episodes. Currently it's about ~100 episodes. For those that are skeptical of why you'd want this, I'd say that I regularly enough find my brain pulling out information that I heard in a podcast episode that I wanted to have the transcripts easily searchable to verify and reinforce my memory.
- acjohnson55 5y agoI appeared on Jeopardy earlier this year, and podcasts were a key part of my studying regime. For example, I reviewed American presidential history by listening to a podcast called American Presidents: Totalus Rankium, a history podcast hosted by two British comedians. This was effective for me on many levels: - the outsider comedian commentary helped add a level of critique and emotion to the material, which made it much more memorable - the presidents' lives overlap, so there's this helical effect of retreading the same material - it also served to review generic American history On the whole, this was much more engaging and effective than a Wikipedia binge. I did also use Wikipedia to explore tangents that my listening brought to my attention.
- spoonjim 5y agoDid you win?
- acjohnson55 5y agoI won one match. Dream come true! Ironically, I almost lost my first match by getting Final Jeopardy wrong, and the category was 19th Century Presidential Campaigns.
- kzrdude 5y agoThe interviews with Ken Jennings on I believe the freakonomics podcast have been very interesting. His explanation that it's about being interested in many things (interest makes you remember) is on point.
- notreallyhere00 5y agoThis is a fascinating discussion but something is still missing: Learning is not about information, it’s about grokking. The magic of the interview podcast is the privilege of hearing the nuance of someone’s thoughts. You can feel their brain spinning in real time. You can gradually begin to comprehend their modes of thinking and their source of wisdom. Within just a few hours of listening to someone, you can begin to predict - nearly exactly! - how they would respond to the next question, even if it’s novel. Even if the information is surprising; the mode of thinking of that person will not be. This means we can tap into the minds of incredibly smart people and begin to.. grok their grok. Deep transfer of wisdom, at scale. Is there anything more magical than that?
- paulnix99 5y agoI've been lurking on HackerNews for goodness knows how many years. This is the first time I've been motivated to log in and comment - I agree 100% with your outlook and very nicely put.
- kzrdude 5y agoAnd there is a wide difference between an "interview" podcast episode and one where it's "two people hanging out", in my opinion. It really needs to be the former, but there's many of those too fortunately.
- halgir 5y agoLike many in the thread, I also had this experience of going all-in on podcasts during my passive time, and then after a couple of years realizing that I had stopped doing any thinking of my own. For me personally, podcasts are great while grocery shopping, washing clothes or other chores that engage me too little to be interesting, but too much to let my mind wander into critical thinking mode. I'm sure this threshold is different for different people. But for intentionally passive time, like walking or running, I've stopped listening to podcasts. I may or may not listen to music. Especially for running, I'll intentionally choose a topic beforehand to think about, and then actively think about that topic. I've found that extremely stimulating.
- atoav 5y agoMy solution for this is very simple: I only subscribe to podcasts which actually give me a new perspective and enough "value" to be worth my time. And there aren't enough podcasts on my list to fill my week. So I skip a lot of the podcasts that would provide a aoothing background noise and only listen those where I feel joy when I see a new episode is out.
- MadeThisToReply 5y agoAny podcast recommendations?
- me_me_me 5y agoDan Carlin's hardcore history is amazing at explaining history at amazing depth that paints completely different picture to what I was taught by school and history documentaries. Sam Harris has a podcasat I have love/hate relationship but as OP pointed, its great at pushing you to think about give opinion.
- atoav 5y agoYes, but mostly German ones (which is my first language). There is one that has many English episodes (mostly geared towards aviation and engineering): <http://omegataupodcast.net/ http://omegataupodcast.net/> One of the EN ones I enjoy is Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
- a_c 5y agoI prefer audiobook over podcast, for both entertainment and casual learning. Podcast to me contains too much fluff. My pet theory is that, (audio)book, being more effortful to create and listen to, provide better quality filter. There are good podcasts for sure, e.g. Naval Ravikant and Guy Raz.
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- ParadisoShlee 5y ago"Podcasts are my new Wikipedia" as far too often, it's watered down hearsay repeated by people with no formal education related to the topic, and at worst incorrect.
- hiidrew 5y agoAgree with this. I recently got into strength training, started cranking out podcasts then. They've now extended in other aspects, grocery shopping, taking a walk during lunch, driving. I think it's nice to have entertainment without requiring my visual focus, especially when you stare at screen for the majority of the day. Some of my favorites: - Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: I've been a sick fuck with these really, started with the one over the history of nukes. Finished all the ones on spotify and paid for his library, worth every penny. - 99% invisible: Love this one as it takes introduces some interesting topics of the design of everyday things, their definition of design is very broad so you get episodes all over the place - Sucker for interview style podcasts with good guests but it depends on the guests, some options include: Knowledge Project, The Portal, Tim Ferris, Lex Friedman, Joe Rogan, Jordan Harbinger - Azeem Azhar's Exponential View: my favorite tech related podcast, also has a great newsletter of the same title - Conflicted: this is a really interesting one by an ex-Al Qaeda member turned M16 informant, really interesting perspective on middle east issues and other geopolitical things