Peter and Aubrey dig into the role music plays in their daily lives — not what they're listening to, but how and when they listen. The conversation covers workout playlists, surgery soundtracks, sleep conditioning, studying to isochronic tones on YouTube, and the art of playlist curation. A highlight: Peter reveals an elaborate system of thematic, pun-named playlists (Egyptian death metal, Lovecraft, Poe references) that genuinely impresses Aubrey, who mostly just has "My Pookies" and a birthday party banger playlist she still uses.

SHOW NOTES

• The topic: Peter proposes talking about the role music plays in their lives — not recommendations, but how and when they actually use it throughout the day.
• Aubrey's origin story: She shares a memory from childhood of seeing a hospital bio that described Peter as loving music — and being completely confused, because her only concept of "music" at the time was what her mom played on the piano.
• Vibes-based listening: Both Peter and Aubrey describe a shared but hard-to-explain phenomenon — channel-surfing through albums and playlists until something clicks, with no rational explanation for why one thing works and another doesn't.
• Albums vs. playlists: Peter listens almost exclusively to full albums, but creates playlists to queue multiple albums in a row. Aubrey curates mood-specific playlists of individual songs — and Hayden's entire music library is basically just her playlists.
• Peter's playlist names: An extended segment where Peter reveals his elaborate, pun-based playlist naming system — highlights include "A State of Denial" (Egyptian death metal / the band Nile), "Quoth the Raven" (bands with members of Nevermore), "An Elder List" (Lovecraft/Cthulhu-themed metal), and "Let My People Go" (all things Exodus).
• Blocked artists: Aubrey has Taylor Swift, Drake, and Kanye permanently blocked on Spotify. On Drake specifically: she always hated his voice, then the Kendrick beef gave her a "valid reason" she'd been waiting for.
• Surgery playlists: Peter reveals most of his surgeries finish in under one album's length, so he usually just starts an album. Longer cases (robotic surgery) get a full playlist.
• Study music deep dive: Aubrey credits a YouTube channel called Jason Lewis Mind Amend — isochronic tones over repetitive electronic beats, with thumbnails of animals wearing headphones — for getting her through her degree. She's convinced that if she heard the lizard video again, she'd involuntarily snap into astrophysics homework mode.
• Sleep conditioning: Aubrey listened to Five Easy Hotdogs by Mac DeMarco every night during her hospital shifts until her top 12 Spotify Wrapped songs were just the album, in order. Now it works on planes too.
• No Astro Fact or Health Note this week — both Peter and Aubrey come up empty, but Aubrey teases a spring break deep dive on an astrophysics concept.

This week on Generations, we dive into health tracking—why we use it, where it falls short, and how it can actually help instead of hurt. We talk Apple Watches, calorie deficits, anxiety, sleep data, menstrual cycle tracking, and why trends matter more than daily numbers. We share what we’ve learned from years of experimenting with fitness wearables, why privacy matters in tech, and how being “in tune with our bodies” isn’t about obsession—it’s about awareness. And we wrap with some surprising research on how just a little resistance training can dramatically lower your risk of death and even cancer.

Show Notes

• We kick off with winter fatigue, weird sleep weeks, and how small disruptions affect how we feel.
• Why this episode started with a text about starting a calorie deficit — and why we decided tracking was worth discussing.
• Peter’s long experiment with wearables (Fitbit, Garmin, Pebble, Microsoft Band) — and why most of them ultimately fell short.
• Why we landed on the Apple Watch:
  • Best overall smartwatch experience
  • Solid fitness tracking for normal humans
  • Actually useful smart features
  • Better privacy model than Google-owned ecosystems
• The real value of tracking:
  • Not the daily numbers
  • The trends over time
  • Using data for awareness, not obsession
• Heart rate alerts and anxiety:
  • Using elevated heart rate notifications as a cue to regulate
  • Tracking medication side effects responsibly
• Calorie tracking on a cut:
  • We don’t rely on watch calorie burn to determine deficits
  • Apps like Chronometer and MacroFactor help — but ease of use matters
• Sleep tracking:
  • Sleep latency, HRV, resting heart rate
  • Seeing physiological effects of behaviors (like late eating)
  • Why tracking can be helpful if it doesn’t increase anxiety
• Cycle tracking & women’s health:
  • Logging symptoms daily reveals powerful patterns
  • Hormones affect sleep, hunger, mood, and performance
  • Being in an “in tune with my body” era
• Apple Health collects a lot of data — but doesn’t present it well.
  • Third-party apps like Athlytic make it more usable.
• Medical Fact:
  • Resistance + cardio training linked to 40% lower all-cause mortality
  • Nearly 30% lower cancer-specific mortality
  • Strength training plays a particularly protective role

This week, we dig into the news that Brandon Sanderson has sold the rights to the entire Cosmere to Apple TV. We talk through our initial reactions—excitement mixed with very real nervousness—about what it means when beloved books make the jump to live-action. Along the way, we explore why Apple TV might actually be the best possible home for something this ambitious, how creative control (and unfinished stories) matter more than ever, and what makes Sanderson’s worlds both uniquely difficult and incredibly promising to adapt. We wrap up with thoughts on casting, representation, unfinished series trauma, and why this could be one of the rare cases where hope feels justified.

Show Notes

• We open with a quick life check-in, including wildly different winter weather and a discussion of apartment life, visitors, and an ever-expanding collection of houseplants.
• We shift into the main topic: the announcement that Apple TV has acquired the rights to the entire Cosmere.
• Initial reactions focus on adaptation anxiety—why turning beloved books into movies or shows so often goes wrong, and why live-action adaptations feel especially risky.
• We talk about how Sanderson’s reported level of creative control is unusual, especially compared to other high-profile adaptations.
• Peter reflects on growing up with The Lord of the Rings and how that experience shapes his optimism about adaptations done well.
• We discuss why animation might have been safer—and why live action still has enormous potential if handled carefully.
• A big point of optimism: Apple TV’s reputation among creators for funding projects well, giving creative freedom, and actually letting stories finish.
• Comparisons to Netflix and Amazon highlight the frustration of canceled shows and unfinished narratives.
• We talk about how Apple’s long-term planning (and willingness to greenlight full arcs) could be critical for something as massive as Stormlight and Mistborn.
• Casting comes up, with strong agreement that unknown actors would be ideal to avoid baggage and preserve immersion.
• We joke about nightmare casting scenarios and the dangers of star-driven decisions.
• Representation matters: we discuss how Stormlight’s cultures are intentionally written and why accurate casting is important.
• We explore the challenge of Cosmere “cross-pollination” and how later books rely heavily on wider lore.
• Peter raises an interesting upside: some of Sanderson’s weaker prose moments may translate better on screen, where dialogue and visuals carry more weight.
• We touch on structural questions—movies vs. series, pacing, and how to handle extremely long books.