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John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

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Re: John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

#91

Post by ruswick »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #86
timmins wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some moments between Mann and Benjamin that are so funny that I have to pause, finish laughing and resume. It's always when they cycle through "I think you mean.." and "No, you're probably thinking..."

What are Mann's episodes about? I tried to listen a few times but I never fully understood what it was about and got confused... Could you give me a few pointers?!

They're supposedly about productivity, but most of the show is just Mann saying things in strange voices. If you can make it past the first ~20 minutes, things get less absurd and the hosts begin to form coherent thoughts.

Re: John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

#92

Post by timmins »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #86
timmins wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some moments between Mann and Benjamin that are so funny that I have to pause, finish laughing and resume. It's always when they cycle through "I think you mean.." and "No, you're probably thinking..."

What are Mann's episodes about? I tried to listen a few times but I never fully understood what it was about and got confused... Could you give me a few pointers?!

Ha, I believe the original intent is to discuss productivity which is what Mann consults with business / startups.

It doesn't always go as planned which is probably why you were confused. The show is filled with random tangents which could be just as engaging. Topics include his other podcasts, Sodastream, keyboard, GTD, daughter, Star Wars, etc.

Pro Tip: sit with the episode for at least 30 minutes if you really want to hear the topic of the week. The first 29 minutes are build up to excellence.

Edit: I love the fact that while I was typing two other posts described the exact same thing. Awesome.

Re: John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

#93

Post by ruswick »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #68
jkahn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Gruber's flippant attitude has been bringing the Talk Show down for the past few months. Dan is what holds it together. These days, Hypercritical is by far the best podcast I listen to. It's not worth listening to without Dan Benjamin.

I'd be really really sad if hypercritical gets cancelled. I hope John Siracusa never leaves 5by5 - Dan Benjamin doesn't contribute that much to the show, but is still a great host. Hypercritical is excellent.

That's what makes the shows good. Dan, like most hosts that own networks (like Leo) don't really know a lot and don't really contribute to the conversation. Their job is to get the best cohorts and let them do their thing. As far as I'm concerned, the less Dan talks, the better. That's more time that people like Siracusa and Marco get to talk.

Re: John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

#95

Post by frou_dh »

ruswick wrote: post #93
pooriaazimi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be really really sad if hypercritical gets cancelled. I hope John Siracusa never leaves 5by5 - Dan Benjamin doesn't contribute that much to the show, but is still a great host. Hypercritical is excellent.

That's what makes the shows good. Dan, like most hosts that own networks (like Leo) don't really know a lot and don't really contribute to the conversation. Their job is to get the best cohorts and let them do their thing. As far as I'm concerned, the less Dan talks, the better. That's more time that people like Siracusa and Marco get to talk.

That's out of order. Dan is a coder, a writer, something of a designer, and has founded or been involved with several startups. He shows he knows a thing or two.

Put another way, I very much doubt any of these co-hosts you admire share your view that Dan is clueless.

Re: John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

#96

Post by pooriaazimi »

frou_dh wrote: post #95
ruswick wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what makes the shows good. Dan, like most hosts that own networks (like Leo) don't really know a lot and don't really contribute to the conversation. Their job is to get the best cohorts and let them do their thing. As far as I'm concerned, the less Dan talks, the better. That's more time that people like Siracusa and Marco get to talk.

That's out of order. Dan is a coder, a writer, something of a designer, and has founded or been involved with several startups. He shows he knows a thing or two. Put another way, I very much doubt any of these co-hosts you admire share your view that Dan is clueless.

Yes, he is a coder (Ruby on Rails), has had talks on Ruby, is familiar with iOS development, Perl, PHP (he said PHP was the language he used daily for a couple years) and is not clueless at all. He has also done a few PeepCode screencasts (Ruby, Sinatra, jQuery, Mercurial, Command Line, vi, ...).

The problem is John Siracusa, who basically knows too much.

Re: John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

#97

Post by nathanclark »

I imagine that this is money related. The Talk Show was one of the original shows. 5by5 has grown a lot since then. Dan has put ton of work in to his company. And it shows. Perhaps as a business 5by5 is doing much better now then it was when it started out. Perhaps gruber was still operating under the original agreement him and dan had when they first teamed up. Maybe gruber is no longer satisfied with their agreement seeing how well the talk show franchisee is doing.

This seemed more apparent when Dan teased him a bit for not wearing the 5by5 shirt. Seemed like a sore point. Dan left me with a small impression that gruber what "phoning it in" by commenting on the fact that gruber didn't dress up for the show. Dan, it's a radio show. Good luck guys.

It's fun to guess at these things.

Re: John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

#98

Post by jsz0 »

It's funny how so people always assume there has to be horrible personal conflicts behind these things. In my experience people mostly move on because they think they have found a better opportunity for themselves. Hard to second guess people's career moves.

Re: John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

#99

Post by pacomerh »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #86
timmins wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some moments between Mann and Benjamin that are so funny that I have to pause, finish laughing and resume. It's always when they cycle through "I think you mean.." and "No, you're probably thinking..."

What are Mann's episodes about? I tried to listen a few times but I never fully understood what it was about and got confused... Could you give me a few pointers?!

This 5by5 drawing sums it up, http://goo.gl/6kXwj It's a good network overall, Merlin's show is mostly funny, he can touch on interesting topics about productivity, but mostly his character is very peculiar.

Re: John Gruber takes 'The Talk Show' to Mule Radio

#100

Post by nickheer »

awolf wrote: post #55

Shame on you John Gruber. Seriously though, it's John's show and he's free to take it to another network. I just _really_ hope that this transition was done in a respectful manner and that there isn't bad blood between 5by5 and Mule. A little background: Let's Make Mistakes, Mule Radio's main show, got started with 5by5's help. Let's Make Mistakes was a 5by5 network show for it's first year of existence. It garnered…

> If Mule now aggressively poached The Talk Show from 5by5 then it was certainly a dick move.

Looks like John was the initiator:

> John approached us and we were thrilled to welcome him.

https://twitter.com/#!/MuleRadio/status/203567508660297728

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