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May 5, 2011
Low Bandwidth Videos That Pollute the Net
Why would I want to watch a talking head for 10 minutes delivering in 500 words what would take two good sentences in print and 30 seconds to read? That's what I mean by low bandwidth for content.
Worse, it seems a lot of the video is blurbs of people arguing on MSNBC and Fox News. The excerpts are always some "gotcha"moment where one of the poster's favorite paladins scores a point over the shouts of the lesser intellects on the panel. Spare me that bullshit. If I wanted to watch a shouting argument, I would stay home on a Sunday afternoon. -- Call me old fashioned « Jaded Haven
Posted by Vanderleun at May 5, 2011 11:00 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
I'm in the 'just let me read the transcript so I can skim past the chaff' crowd. Too many of those talking heads have faces made for radio and voices made for print.
Posted by: Mikey NTH at May 5, 2011 1:17 PM
I never watch those either, they exist for the 30 second commercial preceding them, nothing more.
We all can read much faster than they talk.
Posted by: Tard at May 5, 2011 7:32 PM
Count me in too. Even with seekability, text is still far more random-access than audio could ever be.
Posted by: Fearless Ferenc at May 6, 2011 6:02 AM
How many 24/7 news networks are there? And why is about half of their content composed of "we have 15 seconds left", "we'll have to take that up later", and other such filler?
TV makes you stupid. TV is about pictures and the words just signal something is happening. Most of the time the breaking news is first online, then blogs, then radio, and then TV.
You are far better off to skip the smorgasbord of junkfood that is TV and go for depth of information. When that information comes into the news you will have context and perspective. TV is good for finding the experts in a field, and their organization. Go to the online site for the expert and his organization and read their arguments where you can actually spend more than 45 seconds while the opposition screams over the other expert.
I find podcasts, especially podcasts with authors of books to be a great alternative to TV. In the same 30 minutes of content per hour found on TV you can hear an author who spent a few years, or a career, discuss the vital points of some subject. Find the conservative counterpoint to this expert and you have surveyed the landscape of the issue and you don't have the blood pressure spike that pointless TV generates.
Posted by: Scott M at May 7, 2011 3:39 AM
I had a brief email exchange with the Instapundit(MPBUH) telling him pajamas video was doomed for just this reason.
Even while half cut (now) I can read faster than you lot can talk.
Posted by: Fred Z at May 7, 2011 7:28 PM