Seriously, hardcore history? I dont even remember where I heard from him, but I think it was a Lex podcast. So I checked out hardcore history and was mightily disappointed. To my ears, he is rambling 3 hours about a topic, more or less unstructured and very long-winded, so that I basically remember nothing after having finished the podcast. I tried several times again, because I wanted it to be good. But no, not the format for me, and not a presentation I can actually absorb.
Hardcore History can certainly be off kilter, and the first eppy of any series tends to be a slog as he finds his groove. That said, Wrath of the Khans, Fall of the Republic, and the WW1 series do blossom into being incredible gripping series.
Yea there are much better examples of quality history podcasts, that are non-rambling. E.g. Mike Duncan podcasts (Revolutions, History of Rome), or the Age of Napoleon podcast. But even those are really just very good digestions of various source materials, which seems like something where LLMs will eventually reach quite a good level.
It's interesting I have the exact opposite opinion. I'm sure Mike Duncan works very hard, and does a ton of research, and his skill is beyond anything I can do. But his podcasts ultimately sound like a list of bullet points being read off a Google Doc. There's no color, personality, or feeling. I might as well have a screen reader narrate a Wikipedia article to me. I can barely remember anything I heard by him.
Carlin on the other hand, despite the digressions and rambling, manages to keep you engaged and really feel the events.
For such historical topics, my LLM-based software podgenai does a pretty good job imho. It is easier for it since it's all internal knowledge that it already knows about.
