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Finding Better Tech Broadcasts?
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?"
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.
Way to blow it
The show isn't just getting dumber, you're also getting smarter.
I too have noticed the same shallowing in the broader area of tech reporting generally.
I have however noticed that the written word seems to be more resilient and retains depth (in places) longer than other media.
I have also found them to dumb down the old shows. But they just added Hak5 to their lineup. This show is great for advanced users. They really get technical with all things network, hacking, games, .... I also found the audio pod casts from Leo Leport to be good.
Not that this helps you, but I still miss TechTV :(
You won't find any. That's why these shows are on TV - for people who don't want to bother reading specs and details.
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
I have never found any of the tech shows to discuss Tech for the most part. I wanted to her about the core level stuff, life what languages was best for what types of developments. What trends where in the works and how to best use them. How to make the most of product XYZ and not just O hey we installed it and it made nice pretty charts. I wanted to know how best to secure my networks and what products did what and what was the best approach and how to make product xyz do it. But, all I got was "Hey this is a neat new toy yall all need to go out and buy XYZ. Today show was sponsored buy the people who make XYZ, go buy it!" I want more than a bunch of commercials and cute girls pointing to the shinny new boxes.
I listen to TWIT (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 (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 while I'm at it.
Cube On! (http://stores.ebay.com/PuzzleProz)
My thought is that even if there exists what you are searching for, it's only a matter of time until it is dumbed down too.
Good intentions last a while only; after that, money rules. To put it simply: "if there is more demand over there, what the heck are we doing here? Let's go there already!".
There really aren't any anymore. Nothing even close really. Maybe This Week in Tech, but I've never been a fan so I don't know in depth they get these days.
Leo built a one-man studio with five cameras and a NewTek Tricaster.. He streams live weekday afternoons in decent quality and does a good job keeping up with tech, explaining any new gadgets he comes across in-depth. That's at www.twitlive.tv or www.twit.tv for the recordings of what he's doing. Also crankygeeks.com with John C. Dvorak for a weekly round table discussion of tech news.
Way to blow it
Indeed, with a UID that low he should know it's "Frist Psot!!1!!!111111!!!!"
It's a podcast with Randal L. Schwartz, and some other chap who's name escapes me. Very good talk about SW development, and some good speakers. They had somebody from KDE who was very good last week
Bob
I listen to Cnet's Buzz Out Loud podcast to keep up with technology news. They also have a section with Video podcasts over at cnet...
--
traceurl.com
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?
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
The internet is just jam packed with info. Just go sign up for Google's tech talk RSS feed on youtube, that's just a small corner of mostly tech, most of the time (and the occasional diversion into human rights or harry potter as a philosophically christian themed narrative :P ).
There are lives at stake here!
hak.5 was one of the shows i followed. whether or not their topics are described in-depth depends on your definitions, i stopped watching it because i found them not to provide any in-depth information. however, they do show you how to set everything up and do stuff, so it's certainly not a useless surface show.
probably not worthy of a 'stuff that matters' story, except for the use of machines in the process.
I regret how much about any tvshow gears towards the show factor, in stead of indepth tech.
Just watching Systm: great show!!!
Will assimilate their stuff into mine. Will rock.
Like many slashdot readers/linux users, I'm a big fan of Barack Obama. And like many slashdot readers/linux users, I enjoy anal stimulation. Has anyone else combined the two? I tried it last week, accidentally, and the feeling was incredible! Just think about Barack Obama as you slide a finger into your asshole. It's really amazing!
In a couple weeks, I'm going to drop trou and finger my asshole when I vote for him. I'm creaming my jeans just thinking about it!
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.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Oh, wait...
Video shows cost a lot to produce, especially if you want them with high production quality. They have to get a certain amount of viewers to survive. You may have to stay with another medium to get your very technical, niche content, such as text or perhaps audio.
http://hackermedia.org/ is a site that aggregates awesome tech shows. If anyone sees anything that I am missing please email me. While I am pimping out projects I work on, http://hackerpublicradio.org/ is a great show that is done by the community, not any set hosts.
http://www.hak5.org/ They like to open stuff up and see how it works. Also they have good interviews - not only do they ask intelligent and relevant questions, but they pick good people to interview in the first place - many of whom nobody would ever consider putting in front of a camera.
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.
[Insert pithy quote here]
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 on.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Citizen Engineer 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 videos, with footage of working prototypes.
You may enjoy these shows:
The Packet Sniffers
http://www.packetsniffers.org
HackTV
http://www.hacktv.org/
M0difyd
http://www.pracdev.org/m0diphyd/
Infonomicon TV
http://nomicon.info/infotv.php
Irongeek
http://www.irongeek.com/
Hacker Media
http://hackermedia.org/
Hacker Public Radio (Daily tech audio podcast)
http://www.hackerpublicradio.org/
Today With A Techie (Audio podcast - stopped at 300 episodes)
http://www.twatech.org/
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
www.wavefront-av.com
If you have an interest in information security, I recommend the PaulDotCom Security Weekly podcast. Paul and Larry do an excellent job of covering the news and giving in-depth tutorials for useful security tools.
It's not always tech, but it's never dumbed-down. 2 hours a week. Podcast available.
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Informative? Please.
gdgt is not even up and running yet, and Leo Laporte is a complete buffoon, as is all of TWIT.
Wouldn't putting reflective objects in the oceans, to bounce sunlight back into space, cause the sun's energy to pass through the atmosphere TWICE, heating the air MORE than if it only travels through ONCE?
Other than that, I guess cooling the oceans would help, as they could then absorb more of the ambient earth heat, or the excess heat in the air caused by reflecting the sunlight through it again...
Oh, and yes, I am being facetious...
I asked about trade magazines and got a few responses, and I'm always looking for more reading material, so I'm interested in hearing responses too.
And for the record, I like Lightwave, Dr Dobbs, Network World, Storage Magazine, and I'll be writing soon for Simple Talk Exchange, so you should subscribe to that, too ;-)
Check out my sysadmin blog!
If you want to learn about something complex and nuanced, then your television is the wrong place to look. It has been argued by sociologists like Neil Postman in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, and even by admen themselves, like Jerry Mander in his Four Arguments for The Elimination of Television, that the medium of television is a poor conduit for complex ideas.
Even the networks which have not arguably been "dumbed down," like the History Channel mentioned here, are a pretty poor provider of accurate detail, although they are certainly entertaining. For example, the "Engineering an Empire" program covering they Byzantines suggested that the Emperor Justinian was a brilliant leader, whereas in fact he was not a visionary at all, but an easily manipulated tool whose military victories in Europe, vaunted by the program, were provided by his general Belisarius (cf. Lord Mahon's The Life of Belisarius).
Personally, I recommend books for the fundamentals and periodicals from the IEEE or ACM for the leading edge. Television is only good for a broad overview of the current buzz, not for diving deep into anything.
Stadiums instead of stadia is one common (and annoying) example.
Did you mean the plural of "stadium", a unit of length just shy of 200 m, or the plural of "stadium", a venue for concerts and sporting events? I always thought the former was "stadia" and the latter was "stadiums".
Everything.
Did you ever read the late, lamented Dr. Dobbs Journal?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
http://www.sploitcast.com/
SLOITCAST doesn't update as regularly as I'd like them to, but it does have a nice back catalog of discussions for you to peruse.
There's a podcast I listen to fairly regularly that is pretty good.
http://www.nerdnewsradio.com/
For tech and science news and commentary, I listen to (and in one case, watch) these tech-oriented podcasts, available via iTunes...
In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg
Make Podcast (video)
The Naked Scientists (Good, intelligent reporting and discussion. The hosts each have professional academic specialties and speak from their respective areas of expertise. Nice children's segments in this show.)
NOVA Science Now
Krulwich on Science (A classic British attempt to make science as deep and boring as possible. Luv it!)
NPR Science Friday
NPR Technology
The Science Show
Tech Talk Radio ('Gotta say: They're supposed to be experts, but they aren't and their mistakes are so damned funny sometimes... That's where this show gets entertaining.)
FLOSS weekly and Security Now. They are both shows that Leo LaPorte of This Week in Tech does. They all can be found here http://www.twit.tv/. FLOSS is one open source project per episode. Security Now is about computer security; current events, how stuff works and anything else that relates.
You should check out Revision3's Scam School. You can learn some basic social engineering skills, all while earning free beer!
Oops! I have to correct my previous post.
The comment about "A classic British attempt to make science as deep and boring as possible. Luv it!" was actually supposed to go after "Melvyn Bragg."
Krulwich on Science is another NPR broadcast. Not very British at all.
Security Now is a VERY entry level security show. He spends far too much time going over how things work (which is not supposed to be the focus of the show) and stammering. The stammering annoys me more than the explanations. Pauldotcom.com has a weekly security podcast that goes into more detail about security vulnerabilities, penetration testing, and programs that are useful for finding network and security issues.
"Trust that little voice in your head that says 'Wouldn't it be interesting if...' and then do it." - Duane Michals
I can see that. SN is user security focused. It gives high level looks at current issues and does a lot of viewer feedback stuff. Personally, security is not my main area of study. For me talking about how DNS works, what the difference is between a TCP packet and a UDP packet, and discussing whats good security policy is far deeper then I know so I still learn a lot from the show.
This brings me to a good point. If you want deep you need to find something on JUST the one topic. SN is user level security. The show you gave looks like it's the how it works of security. SN is more general in topic and audience causing it to lack depth. Depth comes at the price of a smaller audience. I think that podcasts are actually a good place to look for deep shows. They are cheep and fairly simple to make so it's easy for someone in the industry to sit down and make one in their spare time.
Not "dumbed down" in the least: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video_index.php
For tech, their Innovation/Invention category... However whether you judge it entertaining depends on how much you enjoy detailed lectures and an appeal to intellectual audiences.
then you're really not going to like my tech show: joe six-pack checks his myspace.
Exactly. Network and security administration is my job, so SN usually either bores me or annoys me. I still subscribe to it so I can watch for a topic that has not crossed Security Weekly yet, then I research it further. Usually SN is behind SW though.
You also raised a good point that looking through podcasts should be one way of finding shows for what you are interested in. Their are thousands of them out there.
"Trust that little voice in your head that says 'Wouldn't it be interesting if...' and then do it." - Duane Michals
Floss Weekly seconded. Love it
For those who are interested in learning a thing or two about running Linux I would recommend the late Linux Reality podcast (RIP). The target audience is new to intermediate Linux users. There were 100 episodes in total and I found them to give a pretty good overview of Linux -- from introducing the various Linux distros to teaching you basic to intermediate commands and going over how to install and configure services (e.g. Samba).
I remember when I was a teenager I'd watch @discovery.ca on the Discovery channel. And it was always full of science and cool stuff. But it also was full of information and I found it facinating.
Then they were bought by CTV and the format changed and the show as renamed Daily Planet. Gill Deacon left and was replaced with a blonde, who was then replaced with someone slightly less dumb. I still watch the show from time to time, but only when I'm bored. Where as with the previous format which always felt like it had real science and understanding, I'd watch for my enjoyment every chance I got.
Now I don't watch any TV science shows... but thanks to CBC I still get my weekly science, via Quirks and Quarks' podcast.
Another complaint which I wont go into... TLC... wtf happened.
I hate to toot my own horn or pat myself on the back but.......
www.sitescollide.com
I have a podcast about trechnology you may want to try out. I get quite a few hackers and security researchers on the show. I am planning to launch another season soon.
I'd appreciate feedback. Enjoy!
For some older but still relevant content, check out Binary Revolution Radio and Radio Freek America. Hacker Public Radio is another, more current option.
One I like a lot is TalkTech : talktech.tv . She interview founders and executives from Silicon Valley startups on their tech, business models, backgrounds, etc. Good stuff, especially for anyone with entrepreneurial ambitions.
Normally the information you will find in websites is way a lot better that what you find in a show... Shows are more oriented to normal people, no to people who want to get into things for real...
ghostbar page.
BSoD is a brilliant and innovative tech tv show, showing off loads of projects, and anyone can submit segments www.bsodtv.org
What is this UID thing you speak of? :-)
http://geekbrief.mevio.com/ is more of a gadget review, with a very hot host.
I get UCTV on my Dish Network satellite and its tech programming is excellent. Plenty to fill a DVR. Schedule here.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
a co worker is doing online casting now for a show. he asked me for ideas, and basically its ratings that make/ break the shows. the more in depth, the less listeners there will be. so its gotta be both dumbed down yet directed towards a mystery- find yourself show. hence, i will start w/a local linux users group to start the basics of powerful pc's. i bring my laptop to all lug meetings, and sometimes im the only one who actually is running linux. other times, im in a room w/unix guru's who help me out. but on quality shows, there are more every day. they pop up, and disapear sometimes overnight, right now, ive been watching youtube for some very refined help... plus, you tube is commercial free..i wouldn't have it any other way.
happy trials
What about the Linux Action Show!!!!! That podcast is amazing and funny. Plus they have the best fake announcer voices in podcasting. They arnt afraid to be cynical or harsh on topics that deserve it.
Nova, and you can watch the episodes online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/
Check out the episode on the secret space program... ..imagine what they're doing now.
/* TBD */
There are several TWiT podcasts, and some of them only partially meet the criteria of the person who submitted the question. Let's review the criteria: "entertaining, informative, and, most importantly, thorough," not dumbed down, "dive deep into projects and discussions instead of simply skimming the surface."
The two TWiT podcasts that meet all the criteria that come immediately to mind are Security Now and the (unfortunately now defunct) MacBreak Tech. Security Now is very technical and educational, and it doesn't dumb things down, but instead it manages to explain very technical topics in ways that make them easy to comprehend. It's mostly about computer and information security (naturally) but it also gets into networking and other related topics as well. MacBreak Tech was mainly focused on Macs as the name implies, but I learned a lot of things from the podcast that don't just apply to Macs specifically. I think all the old episodes are still available, so browse through the titles and descriptions and download anything that looks remotely interesting.
Other TWiT podcasts that the asker might enjoy: This Week in Law and FLOSS Weekly. This Week in Law gets in depth about the legal aspects of computer technology and the computer industry. FLOSS Weekly is all about Free (Libre) Open Source Software and consists largely of interviews with lead developers of major open source software projects.
Another decent computer security podcast is Security Bites from CNET. Security Bites is not nearly as in-depth as Security Now as the episodes are very short and more focused, but the show is worth listening to as well.
If you don't mind the shameless self-promotion, I'm one of the hosts of MacMod Live, which deals with Mac modding and peripherally-related topics. MacMod Live doesn't always get super technical, but MacMod.com has a lot of interesting stuff too if you're interested in computer modding.
All of the above are audio shows (sorry if you're looking for video content specifically). Occasionally we do videos on MacMod Live, and those get posted in the same podcast feed as our audio shows.
the JoshMeister on Security
Don't worry, someone with a properly low uid will come along eventually. 5 digits just doesn't cut it anymore.
Nothing important.
I like Leo's stuff, but Security Now spends way too much time hawking SG's Spinrite. Too much ego...
I listen to the following podcasts that cover technical subjects and are the best I've found. The Naked Scientists provide the best overall coverage in hour-long sessions. Leoville's Futures in Biotech is very good in this cutting-edge field, but offers a limited number of entries. Perhaps more donations would enable the producer to do more. Microbeworld offers one-minute bites. Some of the leoville material that covers his radio call-in program last 2 hrs. Except for the FIB, all of his stuff is electronics-related (computers--Mac and Windows --, computer security, cell phones, digital cameras, and home theater). Some casts involve panels and guests. I've not included several more he does relating to food and children. Time compression software or other enhanced playback options are helpful with it as well as the other items if your time is limited.The Lancet offers several categories of current medical info. Podnuts is a computer repair discussion. Ziepod on Vista Home Premium works well to download all new episodes once a week. http://leoville.tv/podcasts/twit.xml http://feeds.feedburner.com/microbeworld http://www.theworld.org/rss/tech.xml http://leoville.tv/podcasts/kfi.xml http://leoville.tv/podcasts/fib.xml http://www.thenakedscientists.com/naked_scientists_podcast.xml http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/quirksaio.xml http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/rss.xml http://leoville.tv/podcasts/leo.xml http://podcast.thelancet.com/laneur.xml http://podcast.thelancet.com/lancet.xml http://podcast.thelancet.com/laninf.xml http://feeds.feedburner.com/podnutz http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/mh/rss.xml
Another show that's new to Revision3 worth mentioning is Hak5.org. It's a weekly show focusing on security from an offensive standpoint.