3 ms·

Transcript or blog post please, there is no reason for this to be a video

aspenmayer 2y ago
Transcripts actually are available for this video and many other videos on YouTube - press the "more" button to open the video description and scroll down past the Chapters and Music sections to find the Transcript section, and press the button labeled "Show transcript" to open the transcript. This section/button was not available/visible when I viewed this video on the mobile website, but was available on desktop version of site and on the iOS app, so if you're not seeing it, that may be why. In general, this kind of shallow dismissal is against HN guidelines, but I think you might just not be aware that this feature exists on YouTube, or else I don't know why you would ask for a transcript when one already exists. That being said, the transcript feature has moved around, as it used to be under the three dot menu to the right of the Share button, and many people have made posts on the Google/YouTube support forums and on Reddit noting that they had trouble finding the feature when it was moved in the past. I hope this helps you to consume content in ways that are meaningful to you. Having a preference is okay, but insisting that others adopt and share your preference is not fair to those who don't share your goals, ideals, or use cases.
- galdosdi 2y ago
  I am aware of the feature. The styling makes it hard to read and the autogenerated transcript text is poor quality, so without a real transcript made by the author, it's useless. A real, literate piece of text intended for reading rather than autogenerated poorly, would be a lot easier to read. What I'm railing against here is the video-fication of the web as literacy rates and attention spans keeps going down. I do not think it is consistent with HN's mission of intellectual edification to use this kind of lowbrow video content that doesn't actually use the video format for any useful visualizations that can only be done in video (eg 3blue1brown), but is merely text content that is made more engaging with a bunch of meaningless clip art and narration
  - aspenmayer 2y ago
    I would agree with you generally, but not in this specific case. They explain how they used street photographs collected by the government as part of a special program. They also included topical photographs from the actual diner/automat chain that the video creator’s dad visited, as well as menu scans for pricing info. Furthermore, they sourced government relative cost of living data from a government report from 1900-2000. I actually don’t think they used clip art at all. On balance, the video did make extremely excessive use of jump cuts, but I couldn’t really fault the video much beyond that. I thought it was cute how the video creator’s dad called her YouTube channel “her show,” it was just so quaint and wholesome. Video literacy is a form of literacy too. Somehow I doubt that a person of any age who would watch this video for entertainment purposes has poor literacy. There are services you can use to download the captions from YouTube videos, by the way. I guess I disagreed with your original comment and I disagree with this response even more. Some things are just a matter of taste or preference, but other things you’re meaningfully incorrect about. On the whole, I think you’re just not a fan of YouTube videos that other folks enjoy but I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss the content in this manner. If you don’t like the video, ignore it, and hide the post if you must. I don’t think you could intellectually justify flagging the post, but do that if you think it’s against the guidelines. The guidelines make specific statements about complaining about votes or posts, which you’re kind of doing here so I don’t know what else to say while being constructive.
    - galdosdi 2y ago
      I get your point. Your view is widespread. The war is over, video has won. I know I have to accept this. It just makes me sad, because there's no way around the fact it just takes _longer_ on a time-per-idea basis to consume content this way, no matter what I do, whether I use the AI generated transcript, use the speed up fourier transform feature at 2x, skim it with scrobbing time jumps, or whatnot. PS: Blog posts support photographs. A slide show did not need to be a video. I'm OK with videos that really make use of the video medium -- this is not one of those.
      - aspenmayer 2y ago

Transcripts actually are available for this video and many other videos on YouTube - press the "more" button to open the video description and scroll down past the Chapters and Music sections to find the Transcript section, and press the button labeled "Show transcript" to open the transcript. This section/button was not available/visible when I viewed this video on the mobile website, but was available on desktop version of site and on the iOS app, so if you're not seeing it, that may be why. In general, this kind of shallow dismissal is against HN guidelines, but I think you might just not be aware that this feature exists on YouTube, or else I don't know why you would ask for a transcript when one already exists. That being said, the transcript feature has moved around, as it used to be under the three dot menu to the right of the Share button, and many people have made posts on the Google/YouTube support forums and on Reddit noting that they had trouble finding the feature when it was moved in the past. I hope this helps you to consume content in ways that are meaningful to you. Having a preference is okay, but insisting that others adopt and share your preference is not fair to those who don't share your goals, ideals, or use cases.

galdosdi 2y ago
I am aware of the feature. The styling makes it hard to read and the autogenerated transcript text is poor quality, so without a real transcript made by the author, it's useless. A real, literate piece of text intended for reading rather than autogenerated poorly, would be a lot easier to read. What I'm railing against here is the video-fication of the web as literacy rates and attention spans keeps going down. I do not think it is consistent with HN's mission of intellectual edification to use this kind of lowbrow video content that doesn't actually use the video format for any useful visualizations that can only be done in video (eg 3blue1brown), but is merely text content that is made more engaging with a bunch of meaningless clip art and narration
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  I would agree with you generally, but not in this specific case. They explain how they used street photographs collected by the government as part of a special program. They also included topical photographs from the actual diner/automat chain that the video creator’s dad visited, as well as menu scans for pricing info. Furthermore, they sourced government relative cost of living data from a government report from 1900-2000. I actually don’t think they used clip art at all. On balance, the video did make extremely excessive use of jump cuts, but I couldn’t really fault the video much beyond that. I thought it was cute how the video creator’s dad called her YouTube channel “her show,” it was just so quaint and wholesome. Video literacy is a form of literacy too. Somehow I doubt that a person of any age who would watch this video for entertainment purposes has poor literacy. There are services you can use to download the captions from YouTube videos, by the way. I guess I disagreed with your original comment and I disagree with this response even more. Some things are just a matter of taste or preference, but other things you’re meaningfully incorrect about. On the whole, I think you’re just not a fan of YouTube videos that other folks enjoy but I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss the content in this manner. If you don’t like the video, ignore it, and hide the post if you must. I don’t think you could intellectually justify flagging the post, but do that if you think it’s against the guidelines. The guidelines make specific statements about complaining about votes or posts, which you’re kind of doing here so I don’t know what else to say while being constructive.
  - galdosdi 2y ago
    I get your point. Your view is widespread. The war is over, video has won. I know I have to accept this. It just makes me sad, because there's no way around the fact it just takes _longer_ on a time-per-idea basis to consume content this way, no matter what I do, whether I use the AI generated transcript, use the speed up fourier transform feature at 2x, skim it with scrobbing time jumps, or whatnot. PS: Blog posts support photographs. A slide show did not need to be a video. I'm OK with videos that really make use of the video medium -- this is not one of those.
    - aspenmayer 2y ago