Conversation

Podcasts imo a true problem-to-be-solved (in Clay Christensen sense) medium. Very few people actually prefer audio as a medium to consume information. It mainly solves the "boring commute" or "boring chores" problem. Change my mind.
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Corollary: screencasts are an under-rated medium. While a lot of people DO like consuming a visual+audio track, it demands full attention if you're combining the two. Or at least, high-interrupt (glance to grok every new slide, which will be 1 every 1-2 minutes at a minimum)
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Corollary 2: When context overrides purpose the content is not *serious*. Unless there is a serendipitous match (eg. music is audio-only context and fit to purpose). You wouldn't try to teach geometry in a podcast for eg. except to the blind
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A way to test whether your content is actually a match to the medium or you're doing the "solve the boring commute problem" distribution hack, is to ask if it's easily substitutable by a *different* podcast that doesn't serve the same purpose.
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Example: If I'm reading 1 python tutorial and it sucks, I'm going to go look for a different one. I'm not going to randomly read about Ukraine instead. But with a podcast, I suspect if you don't like the lifehacks podcast, you might substitute a politics one of similar length.
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Replying to
Having read my share of dense mathematical texts, I have to laugh at people who claim the learned something deep in a podcast. Learning something deep = read once, have some tea, read again, read the appendix, have a cigarette, read again, do practice problems, read again...
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maybe sometimes it's worth doing something you're good at even if it's not the best possible context for it – ie if you're very comfortable talking for hours, makes sense to record that, hire someone to transcribe and clean it up, etc. iirc this is how many ppl write memoirs
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in my recent ruminations on "documents are a lousy form of documentation", i consider one exception, which is the story, and i would argue podcasts are effective over the set of stories
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Having a somewhat relaxing approachable form for content is not the same thing as whether it's important or not. It can be part of outreach. It doesn't have to be the only form for the content - multiple views of the same ideas from different forms can reinforce and illuminate.
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