A good podcast: Twenty Thousand Hertz

Everything you've ever wanted to know about sound, and things you didn't know you wanted to know but are glad you learned, such as:

• why all film trailers sound the same with that deep "booj" noise
• how NASA ran live audio from the Moon
• how the language in The Sims came about, and the people who voice it
• the history of Windows startup sounds
• the Loudness Wars, aka the reason so much popular music from the last few decades is just badly mastered

An additional treat is the Mystery Sound competition they run every episode, where they play a snippet of an obscure (or sometimes very familiar) sound, and listeners can submit their guesses. Everything from the Gracie Films tag at the end of the Simpsons, to herring farts. Every year they do a Mystery Sound Game Show episode, and this year's is hilarious. There are some sounds in there that will no doubt trigger Pavlovian reactions for anyone listening.

Listen now: Twenty Thousand Hertz