Mahatma Ghandi and spring flowers

The Unedited Podcast

Byrichard
Reading Time: 2 minutes

There was a time when I wanted to listen to hours of podcasts a day, and I did. I would listen on my walks, on my commutes to work, while driving and more. I would love listening to podcasts so much that I would wish I had more time to spend on listening to podcasts. That, unfortunately changed, as podcasts became livestreams, and thus unedited.

Too Long For Casual Listening

It’s not that I don’t like listening to people talk, but that when a podcast goes from being fourty five minutes to an hour long, to being one and a half to two hours long then it becomes too long for a walk, and too time consuming to listen to more than one podcast a day. It gets worse. The problem with This Week in Tech, and that entire network of podcasts is that by being unedited they waste our time. Instead of getting tech news we get personal stories. Instead of analysis and context we get opinion and sidetracked. They used to joke about rat holes. By being live and unedited, when shared as podcasts, they become irrelevant.
Hiking podcasts, programming podcasts and others all make this mistake. The result is that listening to podcasts is less engaging than it was. What makes this worse is that podcasts are sponsored and funded, so as they become profitable they become less engaging for the listener.

Using A Running Order

I was thinking about this yesterday, when listening to a French podcast by France Culture. The podcast was organised, with a running order, various sound bytes. It kept on track and it was about something specific. Podcasts have value because they are specific, because they offer information efficiently. When podcasts get sidetracked they become a waste of time.

What Changed

The first thing that changed is the pandemic. It made listening to normal people have normal conversations, whilst in self-isolation deeply unpleasant. I couldn’t listen to people living “normally” when I felt so isolated due to the pandemic still going on.
The second reason is advertising and promotional messages. When a podcast is young people are talking about the topic they’re about. Eventually, with time, they become about self-promotion and advertising. If you listen to one podcast a week, then that’s fine. I don’t. I would listen to a podcast episode or more every day for weeks. Eventually I burned out on adverts and self-promotion. I have the same complaint about YouTube content. They’re breaking the fourth wall.

Audio Books

Paradoxically the fact that podcasts have become so time consuming and long winded has encouraged me to do two things. The first is to listen to more audio books once again. If I’m going to spend hours listening to something it might as well be a book. I have been listening to The Practicing Stoic, Eye of the Beholder, Journey (by Tony Blair) and The Cult of the Amateur. I find it hard to stick to just one book at a time.

Nature

I also listen to nature. I listen to the sound of traffic, and I walk without earphones for up to an hour at a time. Somehow by podcasters losing focus, I have found the time to walk more mindfully, to day dream, to think and just to be in the moment, in space and time.

And Finally

I am looking for podcasts that are worth my time, that are 45 minutes to an hour long at most, that are worth listening to. Walking without distraction is a good thing, anyway. Walking, in the moment is good.

Similar Posts

The Walk from Paquis to Decathlon/Mediamarkt
|

The Walk from Paquis to Decathlon/Mediamarkt

Byrichard

The walk from Paquis to Decathlon can be almost straight if you take the most direct route. You walk from anywhere in Paquis to the train station and from there you head up towards Balexert and from there you head along the cycle and walking paths that veer slightly to the right, take you over the motorway and then to the airport, by the private aviation terminal. From there the rest of the walk takes a few minutes.





This is similar to the walk I used to do from the old town to Meyrin. The walk is not that interesting. It takes you along the same route as the tram takes you, for almost the entire journey. For a brief moment, you see some smaller, more personal buildings along one road.


If I had known that the more interesting bit of the walk would be on the way back I would have tracked that and taken pictures. There are apartment blocks like in other parts of Geneva but they’re separate, with green space. I also saw a row of older houses along the Avenue de Riant Parc.


When you go by car you go along two or three routes. When you’re on foot or on a bike you explore more. You’re going at a speed where you can look around. You’re also going at a rate where traffic lights are less of a concern.


I notice that there are a lot of electric bikes and electric scooters. People are using these two forms of transport. The sun is shining and the temperatures are good. This makes alternative forms of transport more attractive.

Playing With Harmonicas

Byrichard

During a walk a few weeks ago I came across L’Harmonica pour les nuls, Harmonica for Dummies, so I picked up the book and within a day or two I had ordered a harmonica to learn the instrument. The harmonica is a small versatile instrument. that can be used to play a range of music.


The greatest advantage with harmonicas is that it fits within a pocket. It takes very little space and can theoretically be taken anywhere. Despite what I thought about harmonicas the book is quite big. It’s over 300 pages.


I play a few minutes a day and I found some online lessons in the form of videos and more. I have spent a lot of time while cooking just playing with the harmonica, rather than playing the harmonica. I got used to the feel. I got used to the sound. I eventually learned to play individual notes. It takes time to learn.


I had a good studying routine before this summer but it has been destroyed by the summer months. When winter comes back I will be back to my healthy routine and I will progress with all of my projects, instead of stalling like I have. I went from studying three to four hours a day, between programming and harmonica to one or two hours, sometimes even less.


I don’t like the pandemic. I don’t like not being able to socialise with single people. I don’t like that the risk of COVID is always hanging over us. I want the pandemic to be over, so that I can socialise doing the things I enjoy, rather than doing things with people that remind me of what I don’t have.


I hate pandemic summers, and weekends. I long for the pandemic to end and to go back to doing group activities.


Too many people live in denial. Too many people behave as if the pandemic was over. It isn’t. The statistics show this very clearly. For over a year I didn’t worry about catching COVID because I was self-isolating and wearing a mask around people. This week I started worrying again. If I was going to get COVID it is during summer


I prefer self-isolation and solitude to being with couples who don’t understand what living through a pandemic as a single person is like.


I am fatigued by the pandemic but playing the Harmonica, rollerblading, cycling, studying and more help me regain my mental health. People drain it.

Roses From A Daily Walk
|

Roses From A Daily Walk

Byrichard

Sometimes you go for a daily walk and all the roses are starting to emerge, and these are not tiny ones. These are saucer sized roses. They are mainly growing at the side of orchards. These are Red and pink, but there are other colours, so if I walk in the right places I should find them too.



I could have posted these images to Instagram or Facebook, but I’d rather post them on my own website, for the world to see, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, three to six years from now. 😉

My first Wehike Hike
| | |

My first Wehike Hike

Byrichard

Wehike is a website dedicated to find people with whom to hike. People can contribute hikes to wehike and then they or other people can organise events based on the hike information. This includes a GPX file and images. At the moment this site is in beta so they are looking for user feedback. At the moment they are based in Switzerland but they will be able to expand globally as people contribute hikes and other people participate in these hikes.

I liked yesterday’s hike because for once I was struggling to keep up with the group rather than the opposite. Usually I’m leading the group and stopping every so often to take pictures and because I’m not certain of which fork to take next. In this case they were waiting for me. This is in part due to the Via Ferrata de Saillon trip the day before. I’ll get back to being in front of the group and taking pictures soon.

This hike was interesting because winter is not over. Apparently twenty five centimetres of snow fell the day before. As a result one local recommended that we choose another route than the one we had planned on. We decided instead to see how the conditions were. As is the case when you go for hikes in Spring the damage from winter has not being cleared away. We found trees and branches on the paths and paths that would normally be clear to find required more instinct and orientation than average.

When you start heading up properly you walk straight up through a pasture and you get to a stone ruin. We stopped at the ruin for a snack/lunch. From this point you walk up steep paths near the field’s age with a river to your right until you get to a clearing. From the clearing you walk up some more and you get towards the vista below.

This is a view looking North at a steep climb up. If you continue to the Cap au Moine then you still have some climbing to do. Due to the deep snow and conditions this is the point at which we started heading back down. We walked along in 20-30 centimetre snow falling someone’s snowshoe traces and then headed down.

When the snow is deep and powdery like it was yesterday it’s really fun. You can run and jump down the hill. I would share the photos if I had the participants’ permission. Here’s a taste.

If you look at my GPS trace you will see how fast we were descending the slope. Eventually you get back to the grass and the tree line. When you get back down to the river you cross a stone bridge and to the right you see a waterfall pictured below.

I enjoyed this Wehike because we had the opportunity to navigate and find the route, we got to climb over trees and walk under branches. We also got to walk a steep hill in the snow and run and bound down a snowy slope without worrying. Snow is so much softer for the knees. I would like to redo the hike later in the season when the snow has gone.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.