# Campfire: Tues, Dec 30, 2025 **URL:** \ **Category:** Campfires\ **Created:** [December 13, 2025, 4:07pm UTC](https://forum.podcaster.community/t/campfire-tues-dec-30-2025/4818 "2025-12-13T16:07:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![craigconstantine](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forum.podcaster.community/craigconstantine/32/2322_2.png) [@craigconstantine](https://forum.podcaster.community/u/craigconstantine)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2025, 4:07pm UTC](https://forum.podcaster.community/t/campfire-tues-dec-30-2025/4818/1 "2025-12-13T16:07:55Z")
![2025-12-30 campfire](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/podcaster1/original/2X/f/f4c6892974d455f408fc3d8fbdf7c39f98713678.jpeg) Tuesday, December 30th is the next Campfire Zoom! # Tuesday, Dec 30th - 3pm Eastern US/NYC The date/time should be 2025-12-30T20:00:00Z in your timezone. ◀ that auto-conversion to display in your local time works _only_ if you are reading this on the Podtalk Community at [https://forum.podcaster.community/](https://forum.podcaster.community/). Takeaways will be posted as replies to this topic. Hope to see you there! # Call link Zoom link 🔽 > **[Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting](https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83516086514?pwd=6Kf0z5RWpxAfSozEiFBg14QwnnUfgv.1)** > > Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications. # What’s a campfire? Generally, campfires are every 3rd Tuesday. Did you read that correctly? **Not**"the 3rd Tuesday of each month — every 3rd Tuesday; slightly less often than every other week, slightly more often than once per month. [About the Campfires category](https://forum.podcaster.community/t/about-campfires/3905) has the details— including how to make them appear automatically on your calendar. ɕ ---
**Author:** ![Mekaboo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mekaboo](https://forum.podcaster.community/u/Mekaboo)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2025, 9:51pm UTC](https://forum.podcaster.community/t/campfire-tues-dec-30-2025/4818/2 "2025-12-18T21:51:51Z")
How do I sign up for the campfire? ---
**Author:** ![craigconstantine](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forum.podcaster.community/craigconstantine/32/2322_2.png) [@craigconstantine](https://forum.podcaster.community/u/craigconstantine)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2025, 11:53am UTC](https://forum.podcaster.community/t/campfire-tues-dec-30-2025/4818/3 "2025-12-19T11:53:09Z")
There’s no signup. At the scheduled time, you simply join the Zoom call via the link in the first post. ---
**Author:** ![craigconstantine](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forum.podcaster.community/craigconstantine/32/2322_2.png) [@craigconstantine](https://forum.podcaster.community/u/craigconstantine)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 2:54pm UTC](https://forum.podcaster.community/t/campfire-tues-dec-30-2025/4818/4 "2025-12-30T14:54:14Z")
This campfire is today, in about 5 hours… ---
**Author:** ![craigconstantine](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forum.podcaster.community/craigconstantine/32/2322_2.png) [@craigconstantine](https://forum.podcaster.community/u/craigconstantine)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 1:32am UTC](https://forum.podcaster.community/t/campfire-tues-dec-30-2025/4818/5 "2026-01-01T01:32:01Z")
Wow, we covered a lot `¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ` # Campfire Takeaways - **Field notes** — A process was described for creating AI-assisted content from podcast episodes, involving a team of specialized AI roles: a managing editor that identifies interesting moments across transcripts, writers that draft pieces, and fact checkers that verify every quote, name, and claim before publication. - **Claude** — [claude.ai](https://claude.ai) from Anthropic was mentioned as the AI platform being used for content creation work, with the clarification that it’s spelled C-L-A-U-D-E. - **The Marginalian** — This website by Maria Popova, formerly known as Brain Pickings, came up as a book recommendation resource. It started as an email to friends and grew into a publication that places books in larger literary and philosophical contexts. Available at [themarginalian.org](https://www.themarginalian.org/). - **The Biblioracle** — John Warner’s Substack newsletter was recommended for book discovery. He’s also a Chicago Tribune books columnist who makes personalized recommendations. Available at [biblioracle.substack.com](https://biblioracle.substack.com/). - **Indigo** — Canada’s largest bookstore chain was discussed as a place for book discovery, particularly through browse-and-buy experiences in physical stores. - **Heather’s Picks** — The book recommendation program at Indigo stores, curated by founder and CEO Heather Reisman, was mentioned as a trusted source for finding good reads. - **NetGalley and Edelweiss** — These platforms for advance reader copies came up in the context of how book reviewers identify themselves in Amazon reviews, often thanking these services for providing review copies. - **Publishers Weekly** — The trade publication’s book reviews were noted as appearing in Amazon’s editorial reviews section. - **Amazon reviews** — The challenge of navigating book reviews was discussed, including verified buyer badges and the difference between editorial reviews and customer reviews. - **Libby** — The library ebook app (powered by Overdrive) was mentioned as a way to borrow digital books through local libraries in both the US and Canada. - **Book discovery** — The difficulty of finding good books amid the flood of new releases was characterized as a “huge issue in the book publishing industry.” - **OXO** — The kitchen tools company (spelled O-X-O) known for its Good Grips line was used as a metaphor. The ergonomic, easy-to-grab handles were designed originally for people with arthritis. - **“OXO handles on our heads”** — A metaphor was offered for how large corporations exploit human psychology—our “ancient brain”—to grab attention and drive behavior, much like OXO’s handles make it easy to grip a tool. - **Jean-Paul Sartre** — The quote “Hell is other people” was correctly attributed to his 1944 play _No Exit_ (French: _Huis clos_). The original line is “L’enfer, c’est les autres.” - **Hyper-palatable food** — McDonald’s and fast food were used as an analogy for addictive digital content, with the observation that both are engineered to exploit human psychology. - **Content inundation** — Concern was expressed about being flooded with AI-generated and low-quality content, drawing parallels to junk food and its effects on health. - **RSS** — Mentioned as an alternative to algorithm-driven social media feeds, allowing readers to choose what content they receive. - **New York State cell phone ban** — The K-12 “bell-to-bell” smartphone restriction was discussed, prohibiting phone use throughout the entire school day including lunch. - **Steven Pressfield** — The “do the work” philosophy was invoked in the context of creating content because you can’t not create it. - **AI and writers** — A nuanced discussion emerged about whether AI writing tools help or diminish creative work, with different perspectives on using AI as a tool versus doing the creative work oneself. - **The Atlantic** — Mentioned as an example of a publication that people value enough to pay for, representing quality journalism that readers actively support. - **Stephen King** — Referenced as an example of a successful author whose imagination and craft represent what human writers can uniquely do. - **The tall head** — Seth Godin’s concept was referenced to describe how top creators (like Stephen King) get paid while a long tail of writers struggle to earn a living. - **AI model architecture** — An explanation was offered distinguishing between the frozen model (trained on ingested data) and the conversational layer on top that interacts with users and can adapt within a session but doesn’t permanently learn. - **Training data ethics** — The question of whether AI companies fairly compensate the creators whose work was used to train models came up, with acknowledgment that there’s no clear solution. - **Physical books** — Strong preference was expressed for physical books over ebooks, including the practice of highlighting passages and adding sticky notes. - **Reading slowly** — The practice of deliberately reading slowly to appreciate an author’s craft was discussed as a way to honor the work that goes into writing. - **Tabletop gaming podcasts** — Mentioned as an unexpected gateway that drew one person away from social media addiction and into podcasting. - **Social media addiction** — The difficulty of breaking free from algorithmically-driven platforms was discussed, with the observation that people need to find something else that captures their interest. - **Books as patient objects** — The observation was made that books simply wait for you to open them, unlike digital content that demands attention through notifications and algorithms. - **Perplexity** — Mentioned as a free AI alternative to Claude for basic tasks like reviewing written summaries. - **University of Calgary** — Mentioned in the context of observations about students pursuing degrees purely for income potential rather than genuine interest. - **New York Times** — Referenced regarding their lawsuit against AI companies over training data compensation. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forum.podcaster.community/system/32/548_2.png) [@system](https://forum.podcaster.community/u/system)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 4:08pm UTC](https://forum.podcaster.community/t/campfire-tues-dec-30-2025/4818/6 "2026-01-12T16:08:08Z")
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