Topic: Transcription by the community

[Frode]

Hi all,

I just heard that another podcast (the Ubuntu UK podcast) has a project where the community (normal plebs like us) put in a bit of time and effort to help transcribe the podcast.
This both makes the content searchable and accessible to hearing-impaired people that would otherwise miss out on the content.

In the spirit of community, I took a look at the Transcriber software that's used for that (http://trans.sourceforge.net), and had a go at using it.
I transcribed the 5x5 2008-06-22 episode - I'm sure I messed up the rogues' names, so apologies for that:

Code: [Select]

Intro Guy:  You're listening to the Skeptics Guide five by five Five minutes with five skeptics. With Steve, Jay, Rebecca, Bob and Evan.
Steve:  This is the SGU 5 by 5, and the topic for this week is "NASA plans a trip to the Sun" That's right, not content to study the sun with telescopes and satellites, NASA decides to send a mission TO the sun.
Rebecca:  That's very exciting
Bob:  But they're only gonna go at night
Bob:  How far away are they going to have their ship approaching, and I understand they just wanna collect particles again, right? They're not like..
Rebecca:  It's still gonna be seven million kilometers away..
Steve:  Yeah
Rebecca:  It's not like it's goin' INTO the sun
Steve:  But that'd be the outer atmosphere, though.. And they do want to measure it's magnetism as well, not just collect particles - they wanna sample the solar wind and they wanna directly measure the magnetic field of the Sun. And this will get information that we just simply can't get from afar.
Evan:  They also want to measure the high temperature of the Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona and try to figure out why it's more than a million degrees Celcius, as opposed to the six thousand degrees Celcius of the surface of the Sun
Steve:  Mhmm
Bob:  I thought they solved that issue, but I guess there's still some mysterious aspects to it
Evan:  The other.. The other big mystery, the one that I wasn't aware of, is that when you get that close to the Sun the solar wind is not really going yet, it's really... it's not until you get much further away from the sun, does the solar wind turn into this gale force wind that's going out in all directions, but when you get that close, it's just not.. there's something that's kicking in and giving it the energy to turn into this coherent solar wind and they're not sure how that's happening, so they're hoping that they'll observe that as well
Steve:  Now at the distance the probe is gonna get, the temperature they estimate will be about fourteen hundred degrees Celcius, so they need to develop a heat shield that can withstand those temperatures. The probe right now is just in the design phase, nothing physically exists yet, but.. So that was gonna be the primary technical challenge - the thermal shield able to withstand those temperatures.
Rebecca:  It's also pretty cool that they're using Venus as a sort of slingshot thing.. Because of that, we're probably gonna learn a lot about Venus as well, just by secondary information.
Jay:  So.. Bob, when you say that solar wind.. The solar wind is actually something that can push matter, right? There's enough mass to it?
Bob:  Right, the charged particles eminating from the Sun, and yeah, I mean there's a pressure to it, but also just the pure.. the photons of light also exert a pressure as well.
Jay:  I would imagine that it's incredibly difficult to build a ship that can get closer to the sun, I mean, I'm sure that every time they get closer, they have different considerations they have to worry about
Bob:  Yeah, I mean.. They mention that their solar panels on the probe, obviously they'll be innundated with energy but when it gets too hot, they'll actually fold back and be covered by the heat shield if it gets too nasty and I believe they're also planning on inserting it into orbit around the Sun at a key time - It's gonna.. I think it has a seven year lifespan, this
Evan:  #1 That's a solar cycle, right? #
Bob:  #2 probe, and it will # it will.. yeah, it's end of life is planned to be when the Sun should be at the tailend of the solar cycle, where it's really gonna be energetic and it might see some real.. some real crazy stuff, so that could be interesting
Steve:  Something to look forward to, they plan on launching this probe in 2015, so seven years from now and as Bob said, it's a seven year mission. This is, I think, a very cool potential mission Interestingly, just recently, the presidential candidates were talking about their plans for space exploration. John McCain announced that he thinks that NASA should put a man on Mars #1 which sounds very.. yeah #
Bob:  #2 Really..? #
Steve:  That's.. Oh, it's always an interesting dilemma it'd certainly be extremely cool to go to Mars, but that would be an extremely difficult and expensive mission that would eat up a lot of resources and missions like this, you know, solar probe, that's the kind of thing that would be hurt by that - it would suck the money out of all these other things that NASA's doing, like the solar probe. So that'd be the down side to it - I know a lot of astronomers, like Phil Plait blogged about this, think that it's just not the right time to go to Mars because.. for that reason. And also it would probably end up being a one-off mission - we go there and we come back. And he thinks, and I agree, that we should focus our efforts on not only continuing to do the science, like this probe, but also to achieve a permanent presence, human presence, in space for example by building a lunar base. He thinks, and I agree, that'll be a much better next big project to do, rather than just a one-off to Mars
Steve:  SGU 5 by 5 is a companion podcast to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, a weekly science podcast brought to you by the New England Skeptical Society in association with Skepchick.org. For more information on this and other episodes, visit our website at http://www.theSkepticsGuide.org. Music is provided by Jake Wilson.

So if we think there's a demand for this, maybe some of you will check out the Transcriber software, and we can set up a similar setup that the Ubuntu UK Podcast has: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PodcastTranscription

Cheers,
Frode

[Neutral Milk]

I was thinking about this recently. If you have a problem telling apart let's say Jay and Bob then that's probably a pretty big issue when it comes to transcribing.

[pandamonium]

i'd be willing to take part in this - it would be another good resource for skeptics.

[chionactis]

I would be willing to help out as well. I worked for about five years typing conversations to deaf people all day, so typing the SGU conversations would not be a big deal.

[Frode]

I was thinking about this recently. If you have a problem telling apart let's say Jay and Bob then that's probably a pretty big issue when it comes to transcribing.

Not that big, as if others also work on it, then we can correct each other.
If we use a versioning system like bzr (via Launchpad), then it's trivial to correct these things.
It's a community effort, not relying on one person.

And I know Bob, Steve and Rebecca's voices - just need to hear more of Evan and Jay...

[Frode]

I would be willing to help out as well. I worked for about five years typing conversations to deaf people all day, so typing the SGU conversations would not be a big deal.

Great, and with pandamonium helping, too, we'll make a difference!

I'll set up a project in Launchpad for us, with two bzr branches, one for 'normal' SGU, one for 5x5.
Details to follow!! 

[kgallo99]

Your floating head scares me a bit but I have to agree... Jay?? Bob??? I try and try to figure it out and after a year I still am always freakin' wrong!  Drives me nuts because they have their own unique personalities most definitely but.... which one is enamored with nano tech?  I just  don't know for certain. 

Karen

[pandamonium]

well, fortunately i have the necessary knowledge of which is bob and which is jay.  rebecca's pretty easy to distinguish.  steve, tho, i might have a problem with

but seriously, let me know what is going on with this, 'cause it sounds funner than fun.

i may need some slight tutorial on the software and such, fyi.  i'm not a complete idiot, tho, so it shouldn't be too hard.

[Frode]

well, fortunately i have the necessary knowledge of which is bob and which is jay.  rebecca's pretty easy to distinguish.  steve, tho, i might have a problem with

but seriously, let me know what is going on with this, 'cause it sounds funner than fun.

i may need some slight tutorial on the software and such, fyi.  i'm not a complete idiot, tho, so it shouldn't be too hard.

If you download the Transcriber software, and open a podcast in it, some of the few things I've noticed are: you'll use 'Enter' to segment, Ctrl-t to assign speaker, Tab to play from where the cursor is, Shift-Tab to play the segment you are in.
Have a play, you'll pick it up easily. There's some built-in help, too.
We'll get the project set up soon, then we can collaborate on the work, including correctly assigning names to the speakers.

If anyone that admins the website reads this, the transcriptions will need a place to live, once we get working on them..

[Frode]

In preparation for this to kick off, I have created a team on the Launchpad site.
Please go and sign up to https://launchpad.net/~sgu-transcribers if you want to join this effort.

More technical info on how to do the transcription to follow soon..

[chionactis]

I kinda forgot about this.

I don't know if you are still doing it, but I registered for Launchpad a moment ago. I don't know what exactly the transcription software does, but to be honest, I think I might prefer just listening to the podcast, pausing, rewinding etc. until I finish the episode.

Also, I have absolutely no problem telling Jay and Bob apart, so that's not an obstacle. I am always a little surprised when people say their voices sound the same. Anyway, I am just going to start transcribing the most recent episode and work backwards.

[pandamonium]

do you think you'd want help with this?  'cause i'm still interested, but this seemed to kind of fizzle.  i can't put a lot of work into it while in school, but in a month or so, i go on vacation for a couple of weeks.  as i'm too poor to do anything, transcribing the podcast would be definite fun

[chionactis]

do you think you'd want help with this?  'cause i'm still interested, but this seemed to kind of fizzle.  i can't put a lot of work into it while in school, but in a month or so, i go on vacation for a couple of weeks.  as i'm too poor to do anything, transcribing the podcast would be definite fun

Yeah, that would be great. Since I'm starting with the most recent episode, I guess you could start with the first one. We will just meet somewhere in the middle. I don't know if Frode or anyone else has transcribed a full episode yet, but hopefully they will post here to let us know.

I'm just going to use this format for now:

Steve: This research suggests that paper clips attract dark energy.

Bob: They should invest billions and billions of dollars in this!!

Rebecca: *sigh*

Jay: That's bullshit, Steve. I'm not buyin' it.

[pandamonium]

sounds good.

how should we coordinate for putting these online (which i assume is the greater goal)?  should we find some sort of document hosting place (like livejournal or some such thing where all the emo kids go to cry) or post them directly to the forum?  i like the idea of putting them on another site and linking to the forum, but this could be too complicated.

weeeeee!  this is fun already

[chionactis]

I'm thinking they can either be posted at the fan site that Mike set up or on the official site.

Here is a sample of what I have so far.

Steve: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday November 5th, 2008 and this is your host Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella…

Bob: Hey everybody.

Steve: Rebecca Watson…

Rebecca: Hello everyone.

Steve: Jay Novella…

Jay (voice sounds congested): I’m not feelin’ so well tonight, guys. (quiet laughter in background)

Steve: …and Evan Bernstein.