Slashdot Mirror


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?"

19 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Re: by dukeofurl01 · · 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.

  2. Re: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Way to blow it

  3. Educational TV by mac1235 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The show isn't just getting dumber, you're also getting smarter.

    1. Re:Educational TV by theaveng · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
    2. Re:Educational TV by arotenbe · · 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?

      --
      Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
    3. Re:Educational TV by j85ason · · 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.

    4. Re:Educational TV by arotenbe · · Score: 4, Funny

      They also have programming about Nazis.

      That was one heck of a fast Godwin.

      --
      Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
    5. Re:Educational TV by theaveng · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
  4. Revision 3 has new, better shows! by mldkfa · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  5. GDGT.com by davidpfarrell · · Score: 5, Informative

    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)
  6. Re:On TV? No. by rugatero · · Score: 4, 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!".

    --
    This comment is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to real insight or information is purely coincidental.
  7. Re:I have seen the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Indeed. They should be using kilometres instead of stadia.

  8. Re:I have seen the same by 16K+Ram+Pack · · 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).

  9. Hackermedia by droops · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  10. TWiTNetwork by rlp · · Score: 3, 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.

    --
    [Insert pithy quote here]
  11. Re:I have seen the same by pjt33 · · Score: 4, 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.

  12. Expand your horizons by sp332 · · Score: 3, Informative
    If you're looking for in-depth tech, you can't beat the video archives of technical conferences. Sure, there are some boring presentations, but you can usually tell the boring ones in the first few minutes and go try another. My favorite site is the Chaos Communication Congress, which has everything from presentations from the Mifare hackers, to technical improvements to nmap, to geek culture presentations. Great stuff in there.

    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.

  13. Why not DIY? by Phreakiture · · Score: 3, 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

    --
    www.wavefront-av.com
  14. NPR Science Friday by jddj · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not always tech, but it's never dumbed-down. 2 hours a week. Podcast available.