Post AbKDOwFAygvXBbWPSa by fluxwatcher@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by fluxwatcher@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AbJ5PBbyqaSC3bprv6 by stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-30T20:31:15Z
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Today, I had a work meeting with a young but eager fellow. We had a chat, I explained a few things, and he agreed with the technical choices I suggested. However, the issue arose when I mentioned writing a few lines of a "tutorial" on how to do certain things. His response: "Can't you make a video?" Surprised (but not too much), I argued that in my opinion, a concise written tutorial is more practical than a pointless video. His reply: "We only watch videos now, even my colleagues look up solutions on YouTube." This is despite the wealth of excellent tutorials on StackExchange and various blogs. I wonder: why waste half an hour watching a video that could be summarized in a few lines of text (saving time for both the producer and the user)?#WorkCulture #Technology #Tutorials #LearningPreferences #StackExchange #Productivity #TextVsVideo
(DIR) Post #AbJ6PtvECa21RCk8i8 by simondassow@masto.ai
2023-10-30T20:41:52Z
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@stefano Not getting this trend either. How do you copy command lines from a video? That seems pretty essential for a good tutorial, to name just one thing.
(DIR) Post #AbJ6oqAFJIeP1Texl2 by stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-30T20:47:05Z
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@simondassow exactly. I don't get this at all.
(DIR) Post #AbJ6w7bSs3Op8UrZIW by amj@fosstodon.org
2023-10-30T20:47:41Z
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@stefano Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. But I agree with you that some videos are unnecessarily long. I think it shouldn’t be a problem to find what fits best and, if in doubt, probably the two options are good
(DIR) Post #AbJ8TIGaLVy7iZTiW8 by Anniiii@gts.ferreo.dev
2023-10-30T21:04:47Z
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@stefano I'd take text over a video every day of the week. I often can't just quickly and easily jump to paragraph x - that had the one piece of information I need a refresher on - in a video; I can't skim a video; I can't select text and paste it somewhere else with a video; I can't even look at the video from my terminal; etc.And the only added value of videos for explanations(that I can see anyways) can also be achieved by just having some images alongside the text, without all these downsides
(DIR) Post #AbJ9EKG2lCAhVJeSW0 by GQB@newsie.social
2023-10-30T21:13:25Z
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@stefano Perhaps its because if you look on Youtube, you’re likely to find an answer, where if you look in StackExchange, you’re most likely to get rudely berated as stupid or lazy instead of a simple pointer to a reasonable question.
(DIR) Post #AbJNCA339AgOcQR5Bw by soaproot@sfba.social
2023-10-30T23:49:52Z
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@stefano I guess you let him make the video? I mean, he's already saying "OK, Boomer" which I suppose isn't really avoidable but I guess we can wait for future him, or others, to notice how hard it is to get information from a video (assuming you and I are right that it is, which I sort of assume must be true).
(DIR) Post #AbJzFIBX9CAOyvKAE4 by vermaden@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-30T23:42:33Z
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@freezr @stefano @Anniiii Same vibes here.Always Text is better then Video.I recently found some interesting video about Ansible and FreeBSD so I converted it first to images and then to text:% ffmpeg -i Video.mp4 -vf fps=1 out%d.png// manually pick useful images% for I in out*.png; do tesseract $I $I.txt; done% cat out*.png*.txt > ALL.txt% rm out*% geany ALL.txt
(DIR) Post #AbK0uzhkLavvmYqAVM by stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-31T07:15:41Z
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@vermaden @freezr @Anniiii That's the way to go :-)
(DIR) Post #AbK18PFUgYh4ls1Lyi by stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-31T07:18:07Z
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@soaproot The thing that surprised me the most was realizing that they are accustomed to this, so it's perfectly normal for them to spend 2 hours on the equivalent of 50 lines of text, editing and assembling the video, as well as pausing and manually copying the lines instead of using copy and paste. Sometimes I get the feeling that our society is evolving towards unjustified complexity. On the other hand, as mentioned by others in the comments, 50 lines in a blog generate less profit than a flashy-titled video on YouTube.
(DIR) Post #AbK2KVSRWij5SNPYy8 by masek@infosec.exchange
2023-10-31T07:30:16Z
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@freezr @stefano My biggest problem is that video tutorials are artificially lengthened to accommodate monetization rules. You have 10+ min videos to explain a detail that could be done in less than 10s.One of my ideas for retirement is to create a YouTube channel doing only <30s videos covering the most popular tutorials 🤪.
(DIR) Post #AbK2NGIQLzJjIp2Taq by stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-31T07:32:00Z
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@masek @freezr That would be nice. A real halloween for many creators 😆
(DIR) Post #AbK4oje5XbcA3UOseu by grahamperrin@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-31T07:59:23Z
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@stefano @soaproot Be: — clear— complete— concise.<https://people.freebsd.org/~grahamperrin/style/writing/tips/> — an emphasis on concise.
(DIR) Post #AbK55T0ycx5fOm5Io4 by masek@infosec.exchange
2023-10-31T08:01:43Z
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@stefano @freezr Unluckily still 9 years to go till reaching retirement age 😄.
(DIR) Post #AbK8T8MNNAzC9R4RNI by agrantler@mastodon.social
2023-10-31T08:39:18Z
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@freezr @stefano Generation tl;dr.
(DIR) Post #AbKAHngm5QfSlRKrQm by TomasHelleberg@mastodon.nu
2023-10-31T08:59:57Z
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@stefano a text tutorial is basically a paper and pen solution.. I can't imagine giving intro to advanced computer programs or usecases in text + screendump. But then obviously a video tutorial should be short and sweet.
(DIR) Post #AbKB7xFHngGXShLZZo by polezaivsani@chaos.social
2023-10-31T09:09:19Z
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@stefano Seems like this hasn't been brought up yet, so: text is also more judicious expenditure of resources, save the planet, put it in text.
(DIR) Post #AbKCpQPfKevaKTUh60 by slink@fosstodon.org
2023-10-31T09:00:13Z
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@freezr @stefano i could not agree more.my workaround is "video to blog" https://kagi.com/summarizer/index.html (⚠️paid!) #kagii recently used it not on a blog, but a talk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I8UvQKvOSSwV:DW video: didn't watch
(DIR) Post #AbKDOwFAygvXBbWPSa by fluxwatcher@mastodon.social
2023-10-31T09:32:31Z
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Why be so judgmental? Strive for a compromise: Allow him to create the video, but limit it to 20 slides of text, and let him choose the font, colors, and background music /s@grahamperrin @stefano @soaproot
(DIR) Post #AbKDOxSKTH2gwggQbI by stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-31T09:35:32Z
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@fluxwatcher @grahamperrin @soaproot The point is this: according to him, I should create a video instead of a tutorial, as he can understand it better that way. I am ready to create a (reusable) written tutorial for his training, but I'm not going to be a videomaker for this 🙂
(DIR) Post #AbKDPT9ecF7NG2Bxw0 by vermaden@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-31T09:35:38Z
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@stefano @freezr @Anniiii I also forgot one step - how to get the video:% youtube-dl -c -i -f b --skip-unavailable-fragments 'https://youtu.be/aBcDeFgHiJk'% pkg which -o $( which youtube-dl )/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl was installed by package www/yt-dlpHope that helps.
(DIR) Post #AbKFsPcv0mZ6ccoDyq by Anniiii@gts.ferreo.dev
2023-10-31T09:45:59Z
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@vermaden @stefano @freezr I know it wasn't your main intention but thanks for showing me `pkg which`, didn't know about that subcommand yet, but it seems handy ^^
(DIR) Post #AbKGsoyerHqZCRjiW8 by idealistik@troet.cafe
2023-10-31T10:13:53Z
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@stefano What was his reaction?I also don't understand his point of view: Is he doing so because all people do so or did he thing it's reasonable to watch videos instead of reading text (maybe added with illustrations)?
(DIR) Post #AbKJNbxlUmVBio811U by stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-31T10:42:33Z
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@idealistik He was quite surprised that I wasn't going to produce a video...
(DIR) Post #AbKJOYvKHUbkaKROue by vermaden@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-31T10:39:14Z
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@Anniiii @stefano @freezr Thanks.There are more useful less known pkg(8) features - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2019/01/17/less-known-pkg8-features/ - details here :)
(DIR) Post #AbKJqGyEcjjx0r0yxs by Tionisla@troet.cafe
2023-10-31T10:47:03Z
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@stefano the nerd and ex-it agrees with you on this. I prefer text over video any time. but that's just personal preference.the professional me however immediately thought about basic learning principles. Each person has its own prefered types of learning. Some prefer auditive, visual, some motorical e.g. repetively or learning by doing, some learn from a model.The best way is to have a variety of this at once.1/x
(DIR) Post #AbKK1oLKsy3jhYK1js by idealistik@troet.cafe
2023-10-31T10:49:08Z
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@stefano That part I understand from your original post. What I didn't understand is: Why?Does he really think video is the better solution? Or Didn't he never think about it?Could you explain why it isn't?
(DIR) Post #AbKKcJgVpsdLKYdOQi by stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-31T10:56:25Z
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@idealistik He thinks that the best way to show something is providing a video.The tutorial I'm going to provide is on how to put data into those servers in order to make safe backups.So the tutorial is something like:- put the dockerfiles -> here- put the reverse proxy configuration -> here- put the database dumps -> hereand so on.Writing this into a file means being able to modify it, to copy and paste things, etc.A video wouldn't give any advantage over it. And he was puzzled because, according to his experience, everything is a video nowadays
(DIR) Post #AbKLLFFZAcTIblSDDs by Tionisla@troet.cafe
2023-10-31T10:53:19Z
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@stefano Also learing speed and attention spans differ. The emotional aspect or if the things you want to learn have a meaning is important. Also the relationship between mentor and mentee is playing a role. All this is also true vice versa. if you trying to teach someone in a way you are uncortable with it will be subpar.There's a good paper about this by a German neuro-scientist called Gerhard Roth, called "why teaching and learning is that difficult" (unfortunately just in German).2/x
(DIR) Post #AbKLLJM5uI4PLAXTxA by Tionisla@troet.cafe
2023-10-31T11:03:21Z
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@stefano one of the key ideas is: you (as mentor) can't just transfer knowledge, but the learning persons have to create it yourself by what and how and where you experience.Btw. from self experience: you learn better in a face to face exchange (emotional relationship). The teacher always learns while teaching (practice of double transfer), too.Self-teaching is mainly driven by intrinsic motivation and will find a way to fullfil it. If you fail you most likely will rinse and repeat.3/3
(DIR) Post #AbKh40i0BBrVZrwRc0 by alelab@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2023-10-31T15:07:53Z
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@stefano I often see people recording technical meetings. They mistakenly think that this recording will be useful in the future, but in fact nobody reviews hours of recording. It's useless.
(DIR) Post #AbKhEcIZHCUP3X6QK0 by zolotkey@holonet.imperialba.se
2023-10-31T15:09:09Z
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@stefano not to mention Man Pages are more helpful in a SNAFU situation than trying to scrub through a long video that most of it is fluff.
(DIR) Post #AbKzp1r3XCp1uvkLBY by fiery@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-10-31T18:37:23Z
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@stefano text is preferable to video under normal circumstances, except when I need to learn something that is too hard or complex for my current attention power. So I will resort to video when it is too hard for me or when I am exhausted and still want to get *some* progress moving forward. And *maybe* the newer generations are living in a constant state of attention deficit due to overstimulation. Then video is more digestible.