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Finding Better Tech Broadcasts?
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Oct 22, 2008 03:28 AM
from the show's-the-thing dept.
from the show's-the-thing dept.
BearGrylls writes "As a young lad and aspiring technologist I have found shows like Revision3's 'The Broken' and 'Systm' to be entertaining, informative, and, most importantly, thorough. As time has gone on revision3 has kept some of the tech-related shows, but dumbed them down to appeal to a larger audience. This annoyed me, but I've continued to be a loyal viewer of their tech shows anyway. However, I suspect this trend to continue and my disappointment to grow. Where can I find tech shows that dive deep into projects and discussions instead of simply skimming the surface?"
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Re: (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never had a first post before.
I haven't found any TV shows I like about Tech in a long time, but I like Make magazine.
Re: (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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Moderately offtopic - But which are the best tech magazines which one can subscribe to?
I checked out Make after you mentioned it and it seems to be a very good one. One I can think of myself is IEEE Spectrum . Are there others?
Educational TV (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Educational TV (Score:5, Interesting)
There's more to it than that. The OP's opinion: "dumbed them down to appeal to a larger audience" describes cable television (or any mass media) perfectly. As time goes on, the requirement for more-and-more viewers, requires lowering the intelligence to where even Jimmy-Joe Bob can understand.
I remember when TLC was called the Learning Channel and actually had intelligent programming. Now it's more akin to the "Tender Loving Care" channel about babies, weddings, and other stuff that doesn't require thinking. Discover Channel has also been dumbed down. Ditto Animal Planet. Ditto A&E.
The History Channel is the only basic cable channel that still teaches something useful. The rest don't require anything more than 5th grade education.
Parent
Re:Educational TV (Score:5, Funny)
The History Channel is the only basic cable channel that still teaches something useful.
The History Channel... is that the one with all the shows about bible codes and UFOs?
Parent
Re:Educational TV (Score:4, Funny)
The History Channel is the only basic cable channel that still teaches something useful.
The History Channel... is that the one with all the shows about bible codes and UFOs?
They also have programming about Nazis.
Parent
Re:Educational TV (Score:5, Funny)
They also have programming about Nazis.
That was one heck of a fast Godwin.
Parent
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>>>They also have programming about Nazis.
Yeah but they've toned-down those shows. The Hitler Channel..... er, I mean the History Channel is now showing more programs about the Romans, the Barbarians, or the Middle Ages. Their documentary about the 300 Spartans was more-entertaining (and informative) than the actual movie.
Re:Educational TV (Score:5, Insightful)
Sci-Fi Channel - yet another channel that was dumbed down. I remember when they had "talk shows" that visited conventions to meet the fans, discussed new technologies that were emerging, and interviewed authors about their latest books. Now the channel fills its primetime slots with "Scared Stupid", "Dishonest Seances", and other hokey nonsense.
Parent
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Funnily enough, History Channel is always at the top of my list of channels that went way downhill. They do still have the veneer of informative programming, but will have things like straight-faced interviews with one of the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. They love doing segments on wacky crap nobody takes seriously, and paint their quack subjects like some underdog determined to shine the light of truth.
They should call it the conspiracy channel.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
They should call it the conspiracy channel.
If a new network sprung up with the same budget as the History channel and had that name, I'm afraid to think of how many people would take it seriously.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I refer to it as "The Ladies Channel".
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when have these shows ever been for the bright? I remember watching one or two of these shows a few years back and it seemed like skriptkiddie 101 for stoner wiggers.
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TV broadcasts are for dump/passive people. Smart, tech-savvy users search pro-actively on Internet the informations they need or want. The bandwidth per people of TV broadcast is so low that they can not afford to make shows solely for specialists that would make them compete with Internet.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Then IMO you have a responsibility to CORRECT those wrong assertions. Not all of them, but at least one or two, or else nobody else is going to learn.
Just a thought.
Revision 3 has new, better shows! (Score:5, Informative)
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Great for advanced users?
I only watched one episode, but it consisted of them talking about "pwning n00bs", and interviewing someone who was supposedly "seriously 31337" about some shareware app of his, before talking about counter strike for a few minutes. They also mentioned some game on Steam, which they commented on by saying - and this is a direct quote - "of course, everybody uses it already".
I'm not saying it was bad - I would have loved this show when i was 13-15. But... Seriously?
On TV? No. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
That can't be true at all, it'd be like saying stargate is pure make believe and not the fine set of documentaries that it is. Next you'll be saying HEROS isn't real either. What's the world coming to! People don't even believe photographs any more!
Re:On TV? No. (Score:5, Informative)
Oddly, I thought your point was clearer the first time!
As it happens I do quite enjoy The Gadget Show (UK) - although it doesn't always go into as much detail as I would like, and suffers from an occasional bout of "oooh... shiney!".
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
There was a great series shown in the UK for a while, called "Planet Mechanics". They built, from scratch or any simple materials they could lay their hands on, a high pressure water turbine for off grid electricity, a working wind turbine generator, a compressed air powered moped, a farm slurry digester to make methane for fuel, all kinds of stuff.
No content in Tech TV (Score:2, Informative)
GDGT.com (Score:5, Informative)
I listen to TWIT [thisweekintech.com] (This Week In Tech) regularly, mainly for Leo Laporte and any guest who isn't Dvorak. I don't find Leo to be particularly techy, but he's quite entertaining and controls the flow of the show well.
They mention Rev3 alot and also a new site called GDGT [gdgt.com] (GaDGeT) which is supposedly good - I must admit I haven't found time to check it out yet.
Okay no excuses, subsribing to an RSS feed is dead simple, so I'm going go ahead and subscribe to GDGT and check it out. - Oh and IO9 [io9.com] while I'm at it.
Google's Tech Talks (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I stopped watching Google Tech Talks after they moved form Google Video to YouTube. Back on GV, I could download a fairly high quality AVI that I could easily play on my TV. Now that they're on YouTube, downloading isn't quite as easy and the video quality is nowhere near as good.
Hak5 (Score:2)
So far I've found Hak5 interesting (also from Revision3). It's definitely unpolished (I find it charming), but it does introduce you to some interesting topics I wouldn't normally have noted. Of course, nothing's going to go into 100% detail, but at least it's a starting point.
Hackermedia (Score:4, Informative)
TWiTNetwork (Score:4, Informative)
Leo Laporte's TWiT (named after the flagship show "This Week in Tech") network at twit.tv. It includes downloadable audio casts and streaming video. I listen to it on my daily commute. Two good ones are FLOSS Weekly with Randall Schwartz and Security Now with Steve Gibson. I was just listening to FLOSS weekly today -- they had a KDE developer on discussing the latest developments.
Open university. (Score:2)
The open university do a few good ones here in the uk (like the Atom series) and the history of maths
shown on the bbc.
They don't go into 'serious' depth and the history of maths didn't actually cover much of the maths details but it did cover the the theroies and the history quite well.
You may be able to find them on a torrent site. (and if your really lucky you may be able to find some of those late night open university broadcasts).
There not really strictly tech but they do cover the science tech is based
Expand your horizons (Score:3, Informative)
Citizen Engineer [citizenengineer.com] only has one episode out so far, and looks like it's going to be mostly hardhacking, but it's definitely not dumbed-down.
On the other hand, if you're looking for a serious discussion on the future of tech with a stronger grip on reality than Popular Science, try MIT's LabCast [mit.edu] videos, with footage of working prototypes.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not DIY? (Score:4, Informative)
In the spirit of open source, if something is making you itch, you have the opportunity to scratch it.
I used to host a tech-oriented radio show on a local community radio station. I also syndicated the show using radio4all.net.
Television is a little harder to do, but thanks to sites like YouTube, it is possible to do on the cheap, because Google will absorb the bandwidth costs if your show is a success (and reap the ad revenue).
You can also do what Kevin Rose did in the early days of the Broken: Encourage your show to be distributed far and wide by whatever means are available.
Granted, none of these are likely to produce a result with as much production value as Revision3 shows (there's nothing like geeking out in HD), but it can get you started.
. . . if you want to go that route. If not, that's okay, too
NPR Science Friday (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I have seen the same (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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+V RIDICVLVS
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. They should be using kilometres instead of stadia.
Or Libraries of Congress?
Re:I have seen the same (Score:5, Insightful)
What I think is happening is that news and factual reporting is a deeper fracture between a "TV" and an "internet" audience.
The internet now provides news in incredible depth. If you read bloggers who really know their subject, you'll get far more depth than TV ever gave you, and often more depth than most newspapers. You ever heard a TV economics reporter explaining the Laffer Curve or Basquiat's Broken Window Fallacy? You just never get that stuff. When the political parties were arguing about post office closures, not one journalism did the digging that showed that it was basically an issue of EU subsidies (that the government couldn't fund Post Offices).
On the other hand, TV news is incredibly dumb now. A story like Kerry Katona being made bankrupt never made the news when I was a kid. It was almost entirely hard news.
If people want to know why there's a real lack of hard science on TV, it's for this reason. Because the science audience is gone. They're watching video clips on YouTube or reading papers about science. Science coverage on TV is more "technology" now (which actually just means gadget reporting).
Parent
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Mod this up as 'insightful'. You are SO right, and this probably explains why I spend ten times more time on Slashdot than watching the telly. Thank God/Allah/Flying Spaghetti Monster for the internet!
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If you read bloggers who really know their subject,
So then the question is, how do you know which bloggers really do know their subjects? Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can start a blog. Is there any type of peer-reviewed rating system for blogs to help find those knowledgeable sorts?
Re: (Score:2)
Not just writing styles but spoken English as well. I hope I'm not too pedantic, but surely the correct use of the correct word is essential to ensure correct understanding. Yes we could 'Wiki' language so that what the majority believes is 'right' is right but this road leads to a chaos where, eventually, mis-understanding will become the norm. As for split infinitives, I'm quite happy to boldly go there!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Greek. Although the spirit of your reply is correct; the same applies to words such as "virus": the Anglicized plural "viruses" is acceptable, even though in the original Latin there is no plural form (it's a mass noun).
Re: (Score:2)
I did say "SUPPOSED to be getting to be ever better-educated." I agree with you that this may not be the case, and indeed all the evidence suggests that the general standard of education is still fairly poor. Just look at my spelling!
As for the Government's herding intentions, I thought politicians nearly always 'herded' (ie gathered in parties), whether the populus was dumbed down or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Stadia, stadiums...I'm beginning to wish I'd never mentioned it.
Re:I have seen the same (Score:5, Informative)
No-one says stadia.
I present myself as a counterexample.
It's not even correct to do so.
The Oxford English Dictionary and American Heritage Dictionary offer both "stadiums" and "stadia" as plurals for "stadium". Webster offers only "stadia".
English nouns (such as stadium) pluralize with an s on the end.
There are no simple criterions for determining how English nouns pluralise, whatever they may teach childs where you live. Yet somehow, in spite of the many "crisises" of which we hear so much in the mediums, the English language has survived. It seems to have more lifes than a cat.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think you were on some bo-bo "Websters" site. M-W.com (i.e. the "real Websters") accepts both forms.
Re: (Score:2)
That sounded great until I found that "some other chap" is Leo Laporte. I'll give it try anyway.