January 2006 Archives

I have trouble understanding when people actually listen to podcasts. I don’t mean the funny and musical ones, you could listen to those while doing the dishes, but I mean the deep technical talks or interviews. The ones you actually need to pay attention to, to understand and learn. I am not good at multitasking while listening intently and I don’t ride the bus or get stuck in traffic.

Ironically I started thinking about this while listening to a podcast of an ACM Queue interview with me. Mike Vizard runs an interview series called QueueCasts which premiered this January with the interview with me and also one with Rob Gingel of Cassatt. This was already the second podcast interview I had done in a short term, the earlier one being with Halley Suitt (now CEO of Top Ten Sources) in IT Conversations/Memory Lane. When listening to my own interviews I continuously want to hit the fast-forward button, but of course that could be because I am rather boring.

I believe my main problem with the format is you are supposed to use it linearly. I love to read articles, papers, books, etc., but I am often a non-linear reader. I will scan back and forth for interesting pieces. The fact that you cannot build a hierarchical model of a podcast for selective drill down is pretty annoying to me. Maybe I am suffering from an adult form of ADD, but the few times that I have tried to listen to podcast interviews, I find myself wishing that they had written it down instead of putting it in audio. Maybe services such as Casting Words are going to help, they use Mechanical Turk for transcribing podcasts (see Jeff Barr’s example transcript), but it would be great to see more structure around it.

It is not that I want everything written down. Jon Udell is starting a new screencast series, The Screening Room, where he reviews new software, and there would be only limited value in a written version. I do find myself flipping forward to the next screen occasionally, so I believe more structure would be absolutely helpful.

The first month of this year has been cold and rainy in Seattle but it did bring a number of surprises in books, music and theater.

• I am sure many of you have seen the announcement last week that Amazon.com will be producing a weekly internet-only Bill Maher show called “Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher”. The fishbowl concept is something that Amazonians are very familiar with; frequently musicians, authors and other artists will visit Amazon, to talk about their work, and to give short performance or read from their work, etc. Last Friday author Max Barry read a chapter from his latest book Company and at lunch time Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall performed. KT was truly spectacular, making use of a playback machine to create her on backing’s on the fly. Here is a videostream from her website that demonstrates the process. She is an incredible strong live performer. Her album is not out yet in the US, but you can preorder it, or you can get it directly from the UK.
• In the past I have read most of Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels, enjoying the later ones more than his earlier ones. I think he rightfully got an Edgar Award for Resurrection Men in 2004. It wasn’t until 2 weeks ago that I discovered two unknown novels by him at the Toronto airport (on my way back from CUTC) which he had originally written under the pseudonym Jack Harvey: Blood Hunt and Bleeding Hearts (there is also a 3^rd one: Witch Hunt). The books are fast-paced thriller stories, very different from the moody and complex Rebus ones. They are very enjoyable and addictive entertainment, of the kind that makes you read through the night.
• Last night I went to see the 1^st event performance at UW School of Drama of Bertolt Brecht “The Good Woman of Setzuan”. This was a very strong performance with interesting set design and costumes. What made it particular interesting was the original score developed for the performance based on blues and ragtime music. Opening night is on Wednesday Feb. 1 and it will run through Feb 12. You will not be disappointed.