Radiolab

I'm not as familiar with dev/design podcasts but I'll mention some that I've heard good things about; I think it would make a great Product Hunt board. More generally I think podcast discovery is a huge problem b/c 1.) most of us aren't aware of the good shows that exist, 2.) there's no easy way to share the best episodes, so we don't know which ones they are, and 3.) as listeners our interests are incredibly varied so subjective relevance is almost as important as quality. I'm going to share a list of shows that I've personally enjoyed or seem interesting. I'm also going to share some of my favorite episodes, because what's even more hard to identify than a good show are the very best episodes!

#Full disclosure, I'm creating a social platform for discovering and sharing podcasts: http://www.knomad.com/

#Side plug, https://www.audiosear.ch/ is doing some cool things with podcast discovery and exposes searches against digitally transcribed audio from podcasts

------------------------------- [1. Dev / Design Podcasts] -------------------------------

• Iterate | http://apple.co/1MEM8AR

• Giant Robots | http://apple.co/1HVdlOQ

• Isomertric | http://apple.co/1CkElXN

• Programming Throwdown | http://apple.co/1AL7PIJ

• 99% Invisible | http://apple.co/1GdqFAX

--------------------------- [2. General Podcasts I Recommend ] ---------------------------

--Tech News / Startups--

• This Week in Startups | http://thisweekinstartups.com | Amazing interviews. Great tech news insight. Fast paced. Highly recommend.

• How To Start a Startup | http://startupclass.samaltman.com/ | Course taught at Stanford organized by Sam Altman; some of the best distilled startup advice and insight.

• a16z | https://soundcloud.com/a16z | Lots of very smart people having candid discussions about interesting tech topics.

• Stanford ETL | http://apple.co/1uROaKz | Quality of speakers and topics very, but there's a wealth of great insight and stories here from founders to VCs and other interesting figures. The candid Q&A is also good.

• Accidental Tech Podcast | http://atp.fm/ | Marco Arment (co-founder of Tumblr) and co-hosts Casey Liss and John Siracusa discuss tech news, Apple, podcasts, and more.

• Product Hunt | http://apple.co/1FqZlwI | Ryan Hoover and Erik Torenburg interview founders and insiders, typically assoicated with the hottest new products (eg Meerkat right now)

• From Scratch | http://www.fromscratchradio.org/show/ | Jessica Harris interviews founders and surfaces great stories you likely haven't heard in a very NPR-esque manner.

• The Jay and Farhad Show | https://soundcloud.com/jay-yarow | Farhad is one of the best tech journalists out there and they are both great to listen to.

• MVP | http://mvptheshow.com/ | Ryan Block (@ryan), former editor-in-cheif at Engagdet and Peter Rojas, co-founder of Engadget and Gizmodo, discuss tech news. Both are very smart.

• The Tim Ferriss Show | http://apple.co/QG5aka | Life hacking, startups, health, cooking, goal settings, etc. If you don't know who Tim is, google him - he's an interesting guy.

• The Talk Show w/ John Gruber | http://www.muleradio.net/thetalkshow/ | Associated with Daring Fireball.

--Comedy / Entertainment--

• Girl on Guy | http://girlonguy.net/ | Comedian and actress Aisha Tyler (Lana on Archer) interviews actors and comedians. Very funny, very interesting.

• WTF with Marc Maron | http://www.wtfpod.com/ | Marc is pretty funny and he brings on lots of amazing and hilarious guests.

• The Bugle | http://thebuglepodcast.com/ | John Oliver delivering fake news. It's perfect.

• Harmontown | http://apple.co/1BnY0R1 | Dan Harmon (community, rick & morty) and co-hosts do live shows in LA and feature amazing guests. Usually very funny.

• Indoor Kids | http://apple.co/1Auu6vg| Kumail Nanjiani (comedian on HBO's Silicon Valley) talks video games and shoots the shit. He's hilarious.

• Cracked | http://apple.co/1ALKJBT | Cohosts Jack O'Brien and Michael Swaim analyze movies, tv shows, and pop culture. Usually very funny.

• Smartest Guy in the Room | http://apple.co/1xrlF2s | Greg Proops.

• Nerdist | http://apple.co/1h68I6j | Chris Hardwick and co-hosts. Best episodes are defined by his guests.

--Science / Space--

• Radiolab | http://www.radiolab.org/ | Basically This American Life with fascinating scientific insights baked into about 90% of the stories. It's my favorite podcast.

• StarTalk Radio | http://www.startalkradio.net/ | Neil deGrasse Tyson (need I say more?) and comedian co-host Eugene Mirman discuss space and science with a stellar line up of guests. Informative and funny.

• Inquiring Minds | https://soundcloud.com/inquiringminds | Focuses on the intersection of science, society, and politics.

• Invisibilia | http://apple.co/1MF54zm | Spin off from Radiolab focusing on the invisible forces that control human behavior – ideas, beliefs, assumptions and emotions. Merges scientific research and storytelling.

--Other--

• UpVoted by Reddit | http://apple.co/15PutIP | Alexis Ohanian interviews people associated with some of the most amazing stories from Reddit

• The Daily Show without Jon Stewart | http://apple.co/1zi10mV | Behind the scenes conversations with the writers, producers, and correspondents. Funny stories and insight into how the show is made.

• Hardcore History | http://apple.co/1zz1dgL | Very long podcasts dedicated to in depth coverage of historical periods. Sam Harris loves it. Very highly regarded.

• Savage Lovecast | http://apple.co/1uapNF9 | Dan Savage reads anonymous questions from listeners and offers sex and relationship advice. Very informative and entertaining.

• Real Time with Bill Maher | http://apple.co/1pHRinG | Audio version of the HBO show. Comedy, politics, interviews, and panel discussions.

• StartUp | http://apple.co/1K5YDt9 | Alex Blumberg creates a podcast about creating a podcast company.

• Planet Money | http://apple.co/1bbrIDO | NPR; some of the best radio reporting on financial issues. They made 30min on the European debt crisis INTERESTING. wow.

• This American Life | http://apple.co/1K5XCRI | One of the very best podcasts in existence. Various stories from American life. Can only listen to the most recent ep in most podcast apps.

• Serial | http://serialpodcast.org/ | If you haven't heard of this, welcome back to the internet ;). Amazing 12 episode story about a real murder in the 90s.

• Freakonomics | http://apple.co/1fldET0 | Authors of freakonomics explore similar issues. Interesting, insightful, and informative.

• Criminal | http://apple.co/1fmyL7k | Stories of people who've done wrong, been wronged, and/or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Great replacement for Serial while waiting for season 2.

• Radio Free Burrito | http://apple.co/19qR5RA | Wil Wheaton presents an infrequently-updated podcast with music, stories, and other things which he finds ... interesting.

• FINAL LEVEL | http://apple.co/1zXuTDQ | ICE T has a podcast.

------------------------------ [3. Episodes I recommend ] -------------------------------

• Radiolab | What's Up Doc | http://www.knomad.com/episodes/?=i8Sgvfo3n9

• Radiolab | Juicervose | http://www.knomad.com/episodes/?=nPgwIKZbpY

• StarTalk Radio | Big Brains at BAM (Live event w/ Mayim Bialik of The Big Bang Theory, Bill Nye , Paul Rudd, +others) | http://www.knomad.com/episodes/?=9ciLDi6Ng1

• StarTalk Radio | Evolution with Richard Dawkins | http://www.knomad.com/episodes/?=AlfRdLw0k1

• Girl on Guy | Ryan Stiles (Improv legend from Who's Line) | http://www.knomad.com/episodes/?=oE6px2jKb5

• This Week in Startups | Josh Elman (Twitter and user acquistion) | http://www.knomad.com/episodes/?=pcwSWJRbOu

• This Week in Startups | Austin Heinz (laser printing DNA) | http://www.knomad.com/episodes/?=5svl1R35Me

• Stanford ETL | Salman Khan (of Khan Acamedy) | http://www.knomad.com/episodes/?=CSE0IUhzL4

• NPR Fresh Air | Larry David (of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm) | http://www.knomad.com/episodes/?=cgnxA5WCYV

• Product Hunt | Ben Rubin (co-founder of Meerkat) | http://www.knomad.com/episodes/?=WqYFTgqjEW

I'm an avid podcast listener, and here are some of my favourites off the top of my head:

Radio Lab (science) -- http://www.radiolab.org/

THE science show to listen to. If you're going to listen to anything from this list, this is the show to listen to. It's very well produced and always interesting. Their most controversial show was Yellow Rain (http://www.radiolab.org/story/239549-yellow-rain/).

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Freakonomics (science/economics) -- http://freakonomics.com/

I often consider this show to be Radio Lab's counterpart. Their headline is "exploring the hidden side of everything". Every single episode is fascinating (here is the show "Cobra Effect" to get you started: http://freakonomics.com/2012/10/11/the-cobra-effect-a-new-fr...). The shows all lean toward a very economist-like way of looking at things, so unless you're in the field, you'll enjoy much of the insights that come about because of this.

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Planet Money (economics) -- http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/

Just a well-produced podcast about money and its long-reaching tendrils. Shows usually focus on interesting stories about money/finance that are in the "background" and go otherwise unnoticed by the population at large.

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TED Radio Hour (everything) -- http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/

Basically a radio version of TED talks. However! It's very well produced and every show is basically made for radio. It's not just TED talks with the video part stripped out.

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This American Life (everything) -- http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

The most downloaded podcast for a reason.

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The Irrelevant Show (comedy) -- http://www.cbc.ca/irrelevantshow/

Fantastic comedy sketch group from Canada. Their most famous cast member is probably Mark Meer (Shepard's voice actor in the Mass Effect games). While some of their sketches can fall flat, more often than not they make me smile. Their humour has a very Canadian slant, so unless you're living in Canada, sketches about, say, Canadian law and politics, might be a little more difficult to decipher. :)

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Wait Wait Don't Tell Me (comedy) -- http://www.npr.org/programs/wait-wait-dont-tell-me/

The only show that actually manages to consistently make me laugh out loud in public. It's a news trivia show with a panel of well-established comedians and writers that participate in the game. Highly recommended.

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Honourable mentions include:

To the Best of Our Knowledge -- http://www.ttbook.org/

Snap Judgement -- http://snapjudgment.org/

Intelligence Squared -- http://www.intelligencesquared.com/

Science Friday -- http://www.sciencefriday.com/

Ask Me Another -- http://www.npr.org/programs/ask-me-another/

I actually don't think our views are opposing, but I think the point I'm trying to make is just tricky because falls in a small area that doesn't oppose determinism. I actually view the mind as a total algorithm, because there are a shocking number of personality traits that appear to be deterministic[1]. Thus, I don't actually believe in free will, but I find it to be a useful model by which to live by (kinda like how classical mechanics helped us get to the moon despite relativity ultimately being more accurate). There are many things that can still work within a deterministic system though, they may just require the right set of inputs[2] to get the desired outputs. So I just proposed a perspective (one that leverages our apparently limitless ability for plasticity and memory) as an input, and maybe it'll trigger some people to deterministically consider it for helping themselves, leading to useful outputs.

The system is much too complex to assume that just because we don't have what amounts to total 'free' will that we're hopeless to improve anything at our level of operation. If someone's determined (pun intended) to be a defeatist, then alright, but some others are just waiting for the right inputs to take them down a more useful branch of execution. Because just like a program, even though everything is neatly outlined and determined, that doesn't mean you know what every output ever will be. That's why I don't think 'hardcore' determinism to the point of discouraging choices is a useful view to take, much like how hardcore philosophical skepticism is a dead-end line of logic; neither really provide anything you can build off of, so while they may ultimately be true, they're poor models for productivity. I mean, it's possible that you're right and I'm just having a hard case of cognitive dissonance, but it seems to me like extrapolating deterministic genetic algorithms to argue against useful high-level perspectives is still making a lot of assumptions about the implications of such a system. Meanwhile, I'm just reporting observations that been found with regards to skill acquisition.

[1] The phenomenon depicted on this episode of Radiolab with regards to Transient Global Amnesia is particularly damning (http://www.radiolab.org/2011/oct/04/ ), because it shows that when given all the same inputs, you're likely to perform the exact same actions over-and-over again. The separated twin studies on IQ also show a remarkable number of personality similarities amongst twins (besides IQ), which indicates a possible genetic component to random things like sense of humor. There's no hard evidence that any of these things are genetically determined of course, but meh. Let's also not forget that epigenetics and GMOs exist, though it may be a while before that becomes useful for GATTACA-like situations, lol.

[2] Yes, genetics and other deterministic factors count as inputs. If you want to reach a branch of logic that requires AND-ing with a genetic component you don't have, then tough luck, but a simple OR with some other less deterministic input is equally possible. Of course, this is just another hypothetical model to cope with our lack of understanding.

The woman who 'painted' music:

"Unraveling Bolero" by Anne Adams - http://imgur.com/a/wkwKZ (photograph of work)

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> "In this podcast, a story about obsession, creativity, and a strange symmetry between a biologist and a composer that revolves around one famously repetitive piece of music.

> "Anne Adams was a brilliant biologist. But when her son Alex was in a bad car accident, she decided to stay home to help him recover. And then, rather suddenly, she decided to quit science altogether and become a full-time artist. After that, her husband Robert Adams tells us, she just painted and painted and painted. First houses and buildings, then a series of paintings involving strawberries, and then ... "Bolero."

> At some point, Anne became obsessed with Maurice Ravel's famous composition and decided to put an elaborate visual rendition of the song to canvas. She called it "Unraveling Bolero." But at the time, she had no idea that both she and Ravel would themselves unravel shortly after their experiences with this odd piece of music."

Radiolab - Unraveling Bolero (S14E01) http://www.radiolab.org/story/217340-unraveling-bolero/

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> "Most neurological lesion studies emphasize performance deficits that result from focal brain injury. Here, we describe striking gains of function in a patient with primary progressive aphasia, a degenerative disease of the human language network. During the decade before her language deficits arose, Anne Adams (AA), a lifelong scientist, developed an intense drive to produce visual art. Paintings from AA's artistic peak revealed her capacity to create expressive transmodal art, such as renderings of music in paint, which may have reflected an increased subjective relatedness among internal perceptual and conceptual images. AA became fascinated with Maurice Ravel, the French composer who also suffered from a progressive aphasia, and painted his best-known work, ‘Boléro’, by translating its musical elements into visual form. Later paintings, achieved when AA was nearly mute, moved towards increasing photographic realism, perhaps because visual representations came to dominate AA's mental landscape during this phase of her illness. Neuroimaging analyses revealed that, despite severe degeneration of left inferior frontal-insular, temporal and striatal regions, AA showed increased grey matter volume and hyperperfusion in right posterior neocortical areas implicated in heteromodal and polysensory integration. The findings suggest that structural and functional enhancements in non-dominant posterior neocortex may give rise to specific forms of visual creativity that can be liberated by dominant inferior frontal cortex injury."

Seeley, W. W. et al. Unravelling Boléro: progressive aphasia, transmodal creativity and the right posterior neocortex. Brain 131, 39–49 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awm270

(note- edited for formatting)

So sorry to hear your story. Cancer just plan old sucks. It has impacted my family and one of my adopted children. My mom had pancreatic cancer (The deadliest of cancers) in 2017 and she is absolutely fine and cancer free a year later. Numbers don't mean anything to the individual and don't look them up is always my recommendation.

As a non-medically trained support member I have gotten pretty good in talking with the doctors about my family members cancers. I help explain them to others in my family and when I sit in the conversations with the doctors I stop them talking to make sure the patient is taking it in and understanding. I have unfortunately worked with many doctors and I have never had a negative experience with one when I stop them and ask the patient do you under stand and have them repeat what they heard. I even did this with my son when he was 8 because it was his body. I would than have a notebook and have them write down their questions throughout the day for when the doctors showed up (Usually around 6 or 7 AM)

I encourage everyone that enters the cancer world, as either a parent, spouse or close friend, to learn everything they can. The more you learn the madder I get at cancer research and specifically about pediatric cancer research. There is a Radio Lab Podcast and it got pretty intense for me to listen but I also understood cancer at a much better concise way after listening to this and specifically how cancer spreads. http://www.radiolab.org/story/91714-devil-tumors/

Three piece of information I always give to everyone:

1) The most important staff member of any doctor or surgeon is the Nurse Practitioner. They are the Master Sargent of that practice. Get their contact information and always make sure they are informed of what is happening.

2) Never assume that the different doctors are communicating, because 90% of the time they don't. Not between the surgeon and oncologist and even residents to other residents. Always ask question to make sure they know what is happening to you. Your the one making sure the different silos are talking.

3) Have two people you can call if you have any concerns. You get a gut feeling you don't ignore it. Doctors miss things all the time and you call that person that you trust. My mom started coughing after surgery and I knew it was serious. Two doctors from the surgeon's team show up and basically don't think it is serious. In the room I calmly said that we both have concerns and think someone else needs to see this. They were figuring out someone else to come to look at her. In the mean time I walked out of the room and called the surgeons nurse practitioner directly and state that I thought my mom's vocal cords were paralyzed, which I already ask the two doctors if they thought that was the issue. We were in the ICU within 10 minutes after that call and we were there for 4 days. My mom's voice came back 2 weeks later, she is a license counselor and her voice is her job. The thing is have a plan on who you can call if you get scared about something.

The GP could mean any of several things, none of which have to do with those events (EDIT: he means 1 and the converse-corollary of 3):

1. Auto-eugenics: the ethical obligation one feels, when one knows they have horrible DNA, to adopt instead of breed.

2. Eugenic engineering: currently, this means "do IVF, look at the zygotes, and pick the healthiest ones to try to implant." In the future, this could involve genetic patches from healthy donors ("gene cleaning") or just plain hacked-in transhuman bonus features.

3. Eugenics, under the original botanical definition of the term: pairing people with really great DNA, and encouraging them to breed as much as possible, and repeating this process over several generations. We already vaguely do this naturally by interpreting health-signals like height or breast size as indicative of mating potential, and we're doing it more explicitly when we select good sperm/eggs from a donor clinic to pair to our own. (The final sci-fi-ish step in this one would be for women to volunteer to/get paid to/pay to (depending on supply vs, demand) "adopt at conception" genetically-"optimized" children matched by the clinics themselves. This would probably be in addition to the gene-cleaning techniques from 2.)

Oh, and I guess I should mention this last one, which is closest to the "problematic" version but which, surprisingly, has been attempted to success (i.e. Nobody being unhappy with the arrangement):

4. Libertarian eugenics: Pay people you'd be afraid of reproducing, to not have kids any more. This could be a state rent-transfer, but it's also possible to make it an entirely bottom-up process: any individual activist with some money to give can do their own "vigilante eugenics," finding, say, crack-addicted mothers and offering a lump-sum to get their tubes tied[1]. And this has happened: http://www.radiolab.org/story/251887-what-if-no-destiny/

Really, "the bad eugenics" is a ghost from the past, more an artefact of Nazi beliefs about racial purity than any productive approach to solving the problem.

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[1] Okay, this is less "eugenics" and more "euteratogenics" plus a little "euepigenics." But we're making people here, not show-grade Dalmatians; we care about more than their potential as good breeding stock.