It’s been a treat watching the progression of Oxide over the past 2 years or so. I really hope they make a solid dent in the market.
As an aside, if you haven’t already, I’d recommend the Oxide and friends podcast.
As an aside, if you haven’t already, I’d recommend the Oxide and friends podcast.
This is what makes me sad.
I've exchanged messages a bit with Oxide. I wanted to write about them. But they are many timezones from me, so live talk is very hard to schedule.
I couldn't find enough info in text form to research a story. I am a speedreader. I can happily cruise along at 1000 words a minute and can burst up to 3000wpm for short periods. (I read whole novels this way in childhood: a 1970s novel of 200pp was 25min to half an hour.)
It's how I do my job as a writer: lots and lots of reading. Tens of thousands of words a day.
I can't do this with speech. I can't follow speech at 2x speed, and that's still less than half my normal reading speed. 1.5 to 1.75x is the maximum. I'd need a week to listen to the research material for every short article I write.
No text discussion == no coverage.
I am delighted that my colleague was able to do this story, but he's on the same continent as Oxide.
I can't bear talk radio, it's so slow. I've never listened to a podcast in my life; the mere idea horrifies me. You want me to squander an hour on some unscripted chatter about something I could read in 5-10 minutes? Dear gods, no! :-(