Talk Python in Production

Hey Sean. I spent 9 months writing this book by hand. Yes the image is AI but the book is certainly not. You're definitely not obligated to read it, but I do want to comment that I put a ton of effort into the project.

I think you're going to realize that as time passes and this becomes more normalized, your opinion is going to become the minority. That might be a good thing, or maybe not.

These days I feel like a stick figure drawing in MS Paint even if crude denotes that an actual effort was made compared to "Generate an image of XYZ that includes blah blah blah..." sadly.

In my mind both are first steps to something more "proper" but one is at least hand-crafted artisan-ish compared to the other.

I have no qualms about using AI generated images as placeholder stuff or as a first step in an iterative process but when someone just slaps the image without the least bit of retouching it ends up looking kitsch.

What? The interview podcast?

Not sure if you're confusing with something else? "Talk Python to Me" is a long running podcast that has had a lot of definitely real humans on the show[0].

[0] https://talkpython.fm/

Joel, my podcast has been going for 10 years, I've done research and an interview nearly ever week over that time period resulting in over 500 episodes. It's not AI.

What you are referring to is the Readers' brief and you're taking it out of context. If you actually went to all of them, you would find this as the very first "track":

https://blobs.talkpython.fm/00-readers-brief-intro.mp3?cache...

It clearly explains that this is an extra to the book, it's created with AI and meant to be fun. It makes minor mistakes but enjoy it if you like or just don't listen and read the book without.

Here is the transcript from that opening track in case you don't want to listen:

Hello and welcome to the Reader's Brief for the Talk Python in Production book. This is your author, Michael Kennedy. I am thrilled you're interested in the book.

This companion audio series features short, exploratory conversations around each chapter of the book. They typically range from two and a half to four minutes per chapter. You can listen to each chapter's Reader's Brief just before reading a chapter to help you get in the ideal mindset. Or you can listen afterward and let your mind wander and expand on the ideas covered in the chapter. It's all up to you. Once I neared completion of the book, I had been brainstorming how I could offer an audio version. However, there are sufficiently many code listings that are too important to the content to really support a word-for-word audio book. It would be rough to listen to me narrate a Nginx configuration file to you, for example.

Thus, I came up with the reader's brief idea. A conversation around topics of each chapter in a brief two to four minute format that adds to the book rather than a traditional spoken true audio book. I do want to set expectations a bit. The reader's briefs are spoken by AI. Very good ones, by the way. So you will hear an occasional misspoken acronym such as Nginx or SSH. But enjoy these for what they are and don't expect perfection. They're really interesting ideas and background stories and thoughts on each chapter.

I hope you find that they add value to your experience. I know they did to mine. Finally, I have added the necessary metadata to the MP3 files. You should be able to add them all to your music library and they will appear in a single album. MP3 file for all the chapters together and put chapter markers in that MP3 file. Pick which one you want. Thanks for the interest in my book. I'll be with you page by page as you learn from it. Cheers.

Thanks sort of Ben. :) The book is 100% human written over 9 months by me. The image is AI yes, but the book is not AI slop. It may be slop, but it's my slop if that's your assessment.

What about the content of the "conversations that bookend each chapter"? Are these real people giving their opinion that the second chapter is "fascinating" and that things "make sense" or is it AI-generated? If the latter, what's the point of presenting fake opinions?

Yes, but jumping to the conclusion that there would also be no effort in the text is a bit harsh. It's absolutely normal to set priorities.

It's good stuff. I've been running Granian for about a year and it's be a delight. I interviewed Giovanni (creator) on the podcast BTW.

What are you talking about for dark mode on the site. There is no option to toggle the theme on the site. In the book, inside of readers like kindle on ipad, maybe.

But for the site as you mention, there is no dark mode. Is this some janky extension you use that isn't working? That's note the site's fault.

Only if your system/browser is set to dark mode

Sometimes it results in more work because of the lowered upfront cost of spinning up new cloud services

Oh sure, I just mean that wording in particular. 1/6 the cost is clear to me, 6x cheaper is not, because the wording implies that there's some base point that the original price is the "1x cheaper" base point. Like what is 1x cheaper than the base price? The wording is confusing. Then there's the comparative. Is "6x cheaper" the same as "6x as cheap"? Logic says that 6x cheaper would be the same as 7x as cheap, but many very smart people use these interchangeably. Again, like when people say "3x faster" to mean "3x as fast" which means that "50% faster" is actually slower than the reference speed.

It's just a wording annoyance that always gets to me, so it's not a big deal. I always prefer "x% as fast" and "x% the price", because they're largely unambiguous.