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Comment by throwaway2203 | Hacker News Reader

Anyone else get the feeling that the information density of podcasts is just really low? I'd rather follow along a dense narrative than listen to a bunch of people chat with time wasted in pleasantries/jokes/etc.

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IMO podcasts without transcriptions shouldn't be allowed on HN. The vast majority of readers aren't going to invest an hour listening to the whole thing, so any discussion is just going to be about the title.

Acclimating to voices heard at 2x speed was the best investment I made during the pandemic.

And that's still at least 10x slower than reading a transcript.

IMO podcasts without transcriptions shouldn't be allowed, period.

And it also has accessibility issues. HN is text-based, but the podcast is audio-based. That means some part of the population will be unable to interact with it.

Transcriptions are the killer app for audio and video.

Since when is "information density" the goal of that format? Imagine trying to complain that the "information density" of The Tonight Show Starring Jim Fallon--or hell: The Howard Stern Show ;P--was "really low". The reason people listen to a bunch of people chatting is because they actively enjoy the personalities and the banter, wanting to get a feel for the people involved, not because they are looking for the fastest way to get to the point.

I like to think that some conversations are about the transfer of information while others are about the transfer of feeling.

Excellent point!

The failure to understand this distinction would explain some strange conversations I've had with some people...

> Imagine trying to complain that the "information density" of The Tonight Show Starring Jim Fallon--or hell: The Howard Stern Show ;P

those are largely comedy though right? Comedy is too dependent on timing to worry about information density.

It also depends on why you tuned in. If you start a podcast in order to hear a bunch of people chatting and joking for an hour that's one thing, but when you hit the play button with the goal of learning about something it's more like a lecture that contains 20 minutes of information padded out to an hour.

If you are remotely interested in philosophy, Philosophize This! is a great podcast. I listen to it when walking the dog and sometimes I have to rewind a minute or two when I get distracted by something enough to miss a few sentences. It's quite dense but really informative and entertaining. https://www.philosophizethis.org/

Highly depends on the podcast for me. I don't generally listen to the conversational ones, and usually I listen to podcasts while doing something else like cleaning or working on my house.

Arms Control Wonk, In Defense of Plants, The Long Now, and The History of English are some of my more favorite information dense podcasts.

Thanks for the tips (will check them out, don't know how they turn out yet)

I second The History of English - every one of them, especially the ones around the Great Vowel Shift, is a genuine joy- of-learning experience.

Depends on the podcast but Hidden Brain has always been more on the easy listening/infotainment side of things, rather than something more serious.

You might like The Economist, which has the entire publication professionally read each week, and you can listen at 2x speed, just like a podcast.

Yup. Same thing with articles. It's all lazy production.

This is why people like HN.. You just read the headlines, and see if someone posts a tldr so you don't have to waste your time reading or listening to an hour of unstructured data

All HN comments should have a tl;dr as well, so that I don't have to waste my time with filler content.

TikTok has the best format. Just show me content in easily digestible blurbs, and stop wasting my time!

All TikToks should have a tl;dr, so I don’t have to waste my time watching those long-ass clips.

Beeper messages are where it’s at. If you can’t fit the intel on those two lines of screen, I can’t be bothered.

I agree most of them (90+ percent?) are milking one small thing for ad money.

The exception to the rule: Huberman Labs. He has 2.5 hour pods that are so dense I have to consume them over days.

I have this problem with radiolab. A lot of people really love it, but it's so repetitive, filled with pointless filler sounds/music, and takes so long to get to the point that even when I'm very interested in the topic I often rage quit. At least a little banter/joking is new information even when it isn't on topic.

Exactly. It's so much more prevalent when reading the transcript - you can see how many words are wasted and how much longer it takes to convey something in that form as opposed to an article, however it has the advantage of not engaging your visual system so ultimately allows you to parallelize.

There are podcasts and podcasts. Some are information dense, some are chatty. Different purposes for different moods, styles and people. When it comes to technical stuff yes, the transcript makes for an easy visual scan over whether it is even worth listening.

Nope. I find good podcasts to be at the right level. Hidden brain for the most part hits that. To me, information density isn't as important as to how it is communicated. I actually like some interviewer interviewee panels because they draw out connections that you may not get in an information dense dump. Some of these podcasts episodes (like this one) though are interviews about the book the interviewee wrote, so the density you are looking for is likely in the book.

If you like information dense podcasts you'd like Huberman's podcast as he just lays everything out there.

Depends on the podcast. Well-produced ones are tightly edited, and the moderator keeps the conversation tight. That takes some work (and budget) to do. I find I mainly listen to big-budget podcasts, not on purpose, but because I won’t put up with low information density and all that is left after that are podcasts with the budget and production values to keep it tight.

It is low. I prefer the video essay style although many of those are also full of fluff, but many aren't. If I watch podcast material, its almost always clips cut out and posted by someone with more time and patience than myself - thank you unknown hero who cuts out the good stuff.

David Perell’s North Star Podcast is almost nonstop info. He asks great questions, sort of rapid-fire, while still keeping a pleasant and engaging flow. Try his Tyler Cowen interview if you haven’t listened yet.

No new episodes this year so I’m not sure if he plans to continue but the few I’ve heard have been great. Hoping the rest of the archive is similar.

Well said, most podcasts I listen to these days I skip about five to seven minutes in to dispense with the chat and get to meat of the issue.

If podcasts were information-dense, they'd be useless (for me) because it would be way to easy to miss important points.

How are they useful to you? Do you just like having the sound of someone’s voice in the background? That can be nice when driving, but if I’m really looking to learn I personally expect that I’ll have to pay full attention.

most podcasts select for those that can fill the air

so succinctness is not selected for

note that many of the mid tier youtubers are so verbose that even 2x isn’t good enough

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