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    OpenAI charges by the minute, so speed up your audio

    (george.mand.is)
    671 points georgemandis | 11 comments | 25 Jun 25 13:17 UTC | HN request time: 1.809s | source | bottom
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    heeton ◴[25 Jun 25 15:10 UTC] No.44378250[source]▶
    A point on skimming vs taking the time to read something properly.

    I read a transcript + summary of that exact talk. I thought it was fine, but uninteresting, I moved on.

    Later I saw it had been put on youtube and I was on the train, so I watched the whole thing at normal speed. I had a huge number of different ideas, thoughts and decisions, sparked by watching the whole thing.

    This happens to me in other areas too. Watching a conference talk in person is far more useful to me than watching it online with other distractions. Watching it online is more useful again than reading a summary.

    Going for a walk to think about something deeply beats a 10 minute session to "solve" the problem and forget it.

    Slower is usually better for thinking.

    replies(6): >>44378391 #>>44378560 #>>44379201 #>>44379324 #>>44379750 #>>44380419 #
    1. pluc ◴[25 Jun 25 15:25 UTC] No.44378391[source]▶
    Seriously this is bonkers to me. I, like many hackers, hated school because they just threw one-size-fits-all knowledge at you and here we are, paying for the privilege to have that in every facet of our lives.

    Reading is a pleasure. Watching a lecture or a talk and feeling the pieces fall into place is great. Having your brain work out the meaning of things is surely something that defines us as a species. We're willingly heading for such stupidity, I don't get it. I don't get how we can all be so blind at what this is going to create.

    replies(6): >>44378472 #>>44379429 #>>44380070 #>>44380311 #>>44388643 #>>44388909 #
    2. hooverd ◴[25 Jun 25 15:32 UTC] No.44378472[source]▶
    If you're not listening to summaries of different audiobooks at 2x speed in each ear you're not contentmaxing.
    replies(2): >>44382161 #>>44383148 #
    3. isaacremuant ◴[25 Jun 25 16:54 UTC] No.44379429[source]▶
    > We're willingly heading for such stupidity, I don't get it. I don't get how we can all be so blind at what this is going to create.

    Your doomerism and superiority doesn't follow from your initial "I like many hackers don't like one size fits all".

    This is literally offering you MANY sizes and you have the freedom to choose. Somehow you're pretending pushed down uniformity.

    Consume it however you want and come up with actual criticisms next time?

    4. colechristensen ◴[25 Jun 25 17:56 UTC] No.44380070[source]▶
    University didn't agree with me mostly because I can't pay attention to the average lecturer. Getting bored in between words or while waiting for them to write means I absorbed very little and had to teach myself nearly everything.

    Audiobooks before speed tools were the worst (are they trying to speak extra slow?) But when I can speed things up comprehension is just fine.

    replies(1): >>44387157 #
    5. bisby ◴[25 Jun 25 18:17 UTC] No.44380311[source]▶
    > I, like many hackers, hated school because they just threw one-size-fits-all knowledge at you

    "This specific knowledge format doesnt work for me, so I'm asking OpenAI to convert this knowledge into a format that is easier for me to digest" is exactly what this is about.

    I'm not quite sure what you're upset about? Unless you're referring to "one size fits all knowledge" as simplified topics, so you can tackle things at a surface level? I love having surface level knowledge about a LOT of things. I certainly don't have time to have go deep on every topic out there. But if this is a topic I find I am interested in, the full talk is still available.

    Breadth and depth are both important, and well summarized talks are important for breadth, but not helpful at all for depth, and that's ok.

    6. lovestory ◴[25 Jun 25 21:56 UTC] No.44382161[source]▶
    Or just use notebookLM to convert your books into an hour long podcasts /s
    replies(1): >>44382862 #
    7. 0cf8612b2e1e ◴[25 Jun 25 23:47 UTC] No.44382862{3}[source]▶
    I am genuinely curious how well this would go. There are so many books I “should” read, but will never get around to doing it. A one hour podcast would be more engaging than reading a Wikipedia summary.

    On the gripping hand, there are probably already excellent 10/30/60 minute book summaries on YouTube or wherever which are not going to hallucinate plot points.

    8. LanceH ◴[26 Jun 25 00:38 UTC] No.44383148[source]▶
    Read the title and go.
    9. parpfish ◴[26 Jun 25 13:20 UTC] No.44387157[source]▶
    The worst part about talks/lectures is that once you lose the thread, the rest is meaningless. If my mind wanders a bit 5 minutes in to an hour long talk, the rest of that hour is a lost cause
    10. zahlman ◴[26 Jun 25 15:57 UTC] No.44388643[source]▶
    > I, like many hackers, hated school because they just threw one-size-fits-all knowledge at you and here we are, paying for the privilege to have that in every facet of our lives.

    But now we get to browse the knowledge rather than having it thrown at us. That's more important than the quality or formatting of the content.

    11. itake ◴[26 Jun 25 16:27 UTC] No.44388909[source]▶
    > I don't get how we can all be so blind at what this is going to create.

    There is too much information. people are trying to optimize breadth over depth, but obviously there are costs to this.