Faraway, So Micro

This was one of my first feature requests to @mijustin and @TransistorFM from way back when I first started using them to host podcasts. Love that they’ve nailed it so well, including beautiful looking designed badges.

Podcasters (people in general) love to share achievements, but often don’t even stop to recognize them when they happen. And nobody else can celebrate these kinds of things for you.

Direct link to video on YouTube.

Justin Duke, creator of the great Buttondown email newsletter app, has an “About This Site” for his personal blog that’s a great read and motivator for creating a personal site.

This section jumped out at me as someone who helps create podcasts for a living:

One day, though, I made the mistake of accidentally messing up my syncing on my podcatcher of choice by pulling out my iPad that hadn’t been touched in a few months for a plane ride. For a few bizarre moments, I caught myself listening to episodes that was three months out of date. What started out as a minor annoyance (oh no, I need to spend the next three hours doing crosswords to the sound of silence!) turned into fascination and finally into horror as I realized just how irrelevant the content was — entire swaths of how I spent my day had the shelf-life of a mere fortnight or less.

Obviously I think it’s very healthy to not spend the majority of your day tuned into podcasts, despite the fact that podcasts are what puts food on my family’s table. I also noticed a similar thing happen when I unplugged from the daily or even weekly tech and news podcasts I was subscribed to - not much changed in what I felt I knew, and I had more time to spend on other things - namely editing client podcasts. :)

Via Craig Mod on Twitter.

My friend Tim Neufeld, from my @U2 fan site and podcast days, posted his thoughts about an article published in the MB Herald detailing the mess that the Canadian Conference of of Mennonite Brethren Churches and their US equivalent, USMB, made of a recent book they published, and then quickly pulled and removed 3 pages, and have now republished - all without talking to the author, editor, or anyone involved in the publishing of the book.

Setting that mess aside, my point in mentioning all of that is part of what Tim wrote hit way too close to home here in my own church that I was compelled to document it below:

…but one value I have always prioritized is to honor voices of diversity, not just in theory but in practice. Many leaders are fearful these days. That fear shapes a leadership culture of defensiveness rather than openness. Voices of disagreement are threatening when denominations and churches face peril on multiple levels (declining attendance, closure of facilities, damage control after scandals, reduction of budgets and staff, challenges to old patriarchal assumptions, etc.).

Three critical qualities are needed in both local and national leadership as we hurl through the chaos and upheaval of these changing times. (1) Absolutely essential is the capacity for self-reflection and the ability to see oneself as others would see them. We are dead in the water without the wind of self-awareness. (2) Similarly, the need for empathy and the desire to empathically hear and feel those that are voiceless, marginalized, and victimized on the edges, without leaders projecting their own pain onto those that have been hurt by leaders’ actions (red flag warning: “It hurts me to do this, but…”). (3) Finally, rather than belittling and controlling, leaders should focus on empowering members into new thoughts and experiences without feeling threatened and without seeing leadership’s primary role as theological gatekeeper.

When leadership acts out of fear, and without empathy, the community they are trying to lead are pushed to anger or apathy - neither of which bring peace or love back to the community.

If you’re outside the US, you’re no doubt familiar with podcast hosts saying “we’ll be right back…” and expecting an advert only for nothing to happen and the podcast to start right back up again. That’s dynamic ad insertion at “work”. See this thread from Marco:

I don’t understand why I’d buy an M1 based Mac Studio when the M2 based MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are out right now - so clearly there’s going to be an M2 based Mac Studio coming.

The obvious deciding factor would be “Do you need a faster Mac right now or can you afford to wait?”

This post on MacRumors.com helps sort out the differences between the two chips - but everything I read there tells me I should wait before taking an M-based plunge with my main work machine - I currently have a 2019 16" MacBook Pro.

This paragraph jumped out at me as a reason to wait for the M2 based Mac Studio:

Both the ‌M1‌ and the ‌M2‌ have dedicated video encode and decode engines for hardware-accelerated H.264 and HEVC, but the ‌M2‌’s video engines are also able to accelerate ProRes and ProRes RAW to enable playback of multiple streams of 4K and 8K video. In addition, the ‌M2‌’s media engine includes a higher-bandwidth video decoder, supporting 8K H.264 and HEVC video.

I don’t do a lot of 4K video right now for clients, but when I do - rendering is the biggest bottleneck to creativity and getting my work done efficiently.

I recently heard someone talk about how fast their M1 Max MacBook Pro is at rendering video on a client’s podcast and that’s what’s got me feeling the itch to upgrade.

It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg for me right now. If I upgrade to a Mac Studio, I’ll get more work done which will allow me to make more money and then be able to more easily afford upgrading to a Mac Studio. 😊