Children of the Mind

The feature in iPhone 3.0 that resulted in the biggest change in my life is the little "1X" button when playing podcasts (and audiobooks) that switches to "2X" when pressed, enabling the audio to play back at "double speed". (The pitch is adjusted so there is no "Alvin and the Chipmunks" effect.)

I've found I enjoy listening to most of the long list of podcasts I download in iTunes just as much at 2X. (I've heard Leo Laporte say that some study has shown that retention is higher when listening to audiobooks in this fast mode. Perhaps he was referring to this.) That has resulted in quite a bit more time to listen to audiobooks. So the conclusion of this long-winded introduction is that after only getting through about a quarter of Children of the Mind in five weeks, I got through the rest of it in less than a single week.

I blogged about finishing Xenocide and starting Children of the Mind in "Xenocide". I wrote then that my expectations for Children of the Mind were raised after enjoying Xenocide more than I expected. Unfortunately Children of the Mind continued the streak of Orson Scott Card novels "proving" my thesis in "The tyranny of high expectations".

Unlike Xenocide, there wasn't much interesting science in Children of the Mind (and that's probably what I look for the most in an SF novel). Again, there wasn't much action. [SPOILER WARNING] I was more interested than I might have predicted in the fate of Peter and Wang-Mu (and Jane and Ender), but I found the characters agonizing over each other's fate tiring. And the mystery of the nature of the creators of the Descolada virus is never revealed.

In an afterward to the audiobook written and narrated by Orson Scott Card himself—I believe each of the audiobooks in the Ender's Game series have such an afterward—states that he intends to someday write one more book in this series. Children of the Mind was not so disappointing that I won't want to read that when it comes out. But if the future me reads this blog post first, I advise me not to re-read Children of the Mind before that.

Too many long, rambling podcasts

I started listening to the This Week in Photography (TWiP) podcast (episode 65) on my way in to work this morning. Over seven minutes into a one hour and 20 minute episode, and they hadn't really started talking about photography. So I skipped ahead to the next podcast in my playlist.

I much prefer the Tack Sharp podcast. The average length of the episodes is about 20 minutes, and each episode focuses on one subject only. I've learned something from every one of the six episodes so far.

Alex Lindsay and Scott Bourne, the founders and two of the regulars on TWiP are also regulars on MacBreak Weekly (MBW). So it's understandable that the style and format of their podcast is very similar. (They even have "picks of the week".) But what makes MBW (and TWiT) worth listening to (even when they rat-hole or ramble--although I'm often tempted to skip them when they're particularly long--the last MBW was just sort of two hours) is that I feel like I've gotten to know the personalities so each week feels like listening to old friends. (And Leo Laporte does a great job of keeping both podcasts interesting.) Perhaps if I kept listening to TWiP I'd get that same comfortable familiarity with it, but I only have so much time.

The TWIPPHOTO.COM blog has excellent show notes for the episodes, and there's plenty of other material there worth reading. So I'll probably favor their blog over their podcast. (But I find it harder to make time for blog reading than podcasts.)