
Derek Sivers podcast - jger15
https://sivers.org/pinit2
======
sivers
Wow I was not expecting this here. Thanks jger15 for submitting it.

Well, since we're here, can I share with you the tech side of this that most
don't care about?

Instead of using one of the many many podcast hosting services, I wanted to
DIY everything, self-host, etc. Everything is done on the command line.

I rolled my own RSS with a Ruby script:

[https://gist.github.com/sivers/e3a90a742cfc0802ede9dbf553339...](https://gist.github.com/sivers/e3a90a742cfc0802ede9dbf553339174)

Each episode is made using sox :

[https://gist.github.com/sivers/b900bf4004e148b32a5ddf3fffbe3...](https://gist.github.com/sivers/b900bf4004e148b32a5ddf3fffbe3a1c)

This one is especially fun. See the "pad" function that writes that many
seconds of silence before bringing in the desired audio file. Then use that
new file to determine the length of the pad to precede the next file, etc.

In the end I have about 8 WAV files that I do a "sox -M" to merge them all
together into one combined WAV file, with all the timings correct, and tracks
can overlap.

Then for hosting, I just stuck it on the same $10/month Vultr OpenBSD instance
that I host everything else on. Nginx delivering static. And it's held up
fine. I put it on its own subdirectory (m.sivers.org) in case I need to move
it to a CDN some day, but I'm hoping I won't need to.

Finally I use lame -m m -b 96 to make the MP3 and
[https://mutagen.readthedocs.io/en/latest/man/mid3v2.html](https://mutagen.readthedocs.io/en/latest/man/mid3v2.html)
to tag the MP3 including adding the photo to it.

I picked up a lot of these tips from various HN threads over the past year.

Thanks for the inspiration, gang. And thanks again for posting this and the
nice comments. I really appreciate it.

\- Derek

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victor106
Sivers’ blog, books and book recommendations are top notch. They helped
clarify my thinking on lots of topics and provided clarity on life in general.
He is a great teacher.

~~~
krn
Derek Sivers is like a hacker friend you never met who takes your mind to the
places it needs to visit.

~~~
slig
He's like a mentor that "doesn't know I exist"
[https://sivers.org/ment](https://sivers.org/ment)

~~~
andy_ppp
Such a brilliant idea that, using your own brain to give yourself advice is
the best. We should all be taught this in school.

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tenpies
These podcasts are Sivers reading his own work. If you already subscribe to
his mailing list, regularly visit his site, or prefer reading to listening;
the content there is 100% the same.

If you prefer audio, this is for you.

------
paulgb
For Pocket Casts users: [https://pca.st/qyy5wnbn](https://pca.st/qyy5wnbn)

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jplayer01
I’ve been vaguely aware of Sivers for years but this is the first time I’ve
consciously listened to or read his content. It’s quite inspiring in a very
grounded "you know, this is actually sensible and practical" way. Just wrote
my first diary entry in a good 7 years. And the thoughts journal is something
I’ve been experimenting with conceptually and on paper for months now, but
this has given me the push and guidance I needed to really put it into
practice in a structured, consistent way.

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JonAtkinson
Aside: it’s incredible that you can’t tap an RSS link (or long press and
share) to open it in Podcasts in iOS.

~~~
scarface74
You can.

I clicked on the rss link and it tried to open in Apple News and then I was
immediately forwarded to the podcast app where a dialog was displayed to “Add
a podcast by URL” with the url in it.

~~~
JonAtkinson
Ah. I don’t have Apple News installed. I get prompts to install it
occasionally which I decline. I didn’t realise it was the default handler for
RSS feeds.

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netsharc
I wish the submission title was better, I was wondering if someone found an
aggregator was that listed all podcasts where a new episode was published on
that day.

