425. A profoundly serious discussion of rock climbing, video production, artificial intelligence, and how to avoid dying in a climbing gym.

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Once upon a time, twenty years ago, I was sure I was a macho dude. I was climbing my way up the difficulty grades back then, but these days I am climbing my way down them.

I met an artificial intelligence engineer at my climbing gym, and he demonstrated his video craft here. He can create realistic-looking video images of people and have them do all kinds of things, including speaking realistically. The show above is his, and you must watch it to learn anything from this post. You cannot just read the show notes.

We discussed the climbing gym phenomenon, demonstrated how much fun we have, and showed how the safety equipment works. Some of it (the auto-belay) functions automatically using ropes that retract as you go up the climb. When you fall off at the top or jump, it lowers you safely to the ground. This makes the whole thing safe and predictable. At my gym, four-year-olds are allowed to use this device without much supervision.

Here is how the game works:

1. You take a look until you see something with a difficulty rating that seems like you could do it. This is marked at the bottom of the climb.

2. After clipping in, you proceed up the route.

3. The plastic holds are all the same color, so you know what is on limits and what is not.

In addition to these automatically belaying systems, ordinary roped climbing with both “top-roping” and “leading” happens in gyms, too. For leading, the knot is tied, the safety person (belayer) takes the rope and threads it through a friction device, then the climber proceeds up the route from the bottom to the top. He clips into bolts with short pieces of nylon connected by special clips called carabiners and can generally only fall five to seven feet.

“Top-roping” is similar to the auto-belay. The rope is above the climber, and a belayer on the other side is responsible for stopping the rope from moving in case he falls with a friction device.

The gyms in Los Angeles are within an hour or two of outdoor climbing, so it’s a wonderful place to live if this is your thing.

The climbing Olympics is a different level altogether, and the athletes are stunningly strong, flexible, and fit. It all started in Tokyo in 2020.

One thing that didn’t make it into the film was that the gyms have legal protection because the activity is considered highly hazardous. People take responsibility for themselves by signing a waiver the first time they go. This shields the gym from liability and makes the whole scene possible. If they were subjected to the kind of legal hassles doctors suffer with, we would not have these wonderful places to work out, climb, and socialize.

This gym is a fascinating network of many close-knit groups of people. I am on the periphery, looking in, because my climbing abilities have dropped to the point where I can barely do the easy climbs. My friends, however, are studly.

A footnote: You met the young dude who was our audio engineer. He used inexpensive, low-quality portable microphones. At the end of the video, you will hear some higher-quality audio I emailed over after we did the shoot. I used a standard podcast microphone I paid $100 for, which you can now find it on Amazon for $50.

These portable mikes supplied by our amateur sound engineer were terrible. However, you can buy RODE-brand clip-on microphones that use Bluetooth for $90. You heard their excellence when I interviewed real estate entrepreneur, Gary Gilman. We would have obtained far better sound had I remembered to bring my RODEs to the session.

The moral of the story is that if you are a podcaster, don’t go cheap on your microphone, for it is your most important tool. The standard brands for your main setup include the Blue Yeti for $100 or the older model that I use, the ATR2100X for only $50 from Amazon. There are many alternatives.

The rule with microphone distance from your mouth is about a fist’s width away. In order to facilitate this, boom arms to hold your microphone (about $100) are wonderful. Having a microphone stand on your desk is much less convenient, as it sometimes makes it difficult to sit up straight. You also need a foam cap for your microphone to avoid popping sounds when you speak. Ten of these are $10.

You also need a small video camera and an adjustable tripod. The one I like from Logitech HERE costs $60.

Top Out Climbing Gym

It is in Santa Clarita, California. The photo below shows the auto-belay system that I am so fond of. The bouldering areas in the background are climbed without ropes, and if you fall, you have to jump onto the mats at the base.

Brandon is available for you

He does a wide range of video projects, and his rates are reasonable. His websites are https://www.aifilmacademy.com/ and https://www.aifilmacademy.com/consulting. You can text him at 661-713-2851 to start a dialogue. He is going to help me modernize my website using video AI.

A special thanks to Howie for permitting us to film. He is a part-owner of Top Out Climbing Gym and is responsible for creating the wonderful routes that we practice on, enjoy, and occasionally curse.

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Appendix: Blue’s Clues for podcasters

Some of my episodes use AI-generated audio. HERE is how to get started with the program. I recommend it without reservation, except for the cost.

To prepare the app to transcribe my text into voice, I uploaded two hours of samples from my best recordings. Most were from my book dictations, where I used a basic sound studio in my closet and then had a sound engineer remove mistakes. When I use this service, I cannot tell the AI voice from mine.

The program costs about $20 a month for 3 or 4 hour-long podcast episodes, so I use it for only about half of my work. The rest I still dictate manually, and you can tell because of the occasional coughs and errors I make.

I am also using Wispr Flow, a dictating AI.

I use it all day, every day, and it must save me half my editing time. I was struggling with one of its competitors, but when I started with Wispr, I liked it so much that I bought a year’s membership for $144, which was a bit more expensive. It’s been a lifesaver since my Parkinson’s tremor has made typing more difficult.

The backstory is that these programs, with their modest monthly charges, work as well as DragonDictate, the former gold standard. This used to cost about $800.

I have an affiliate link HERE for you to use when you buy—and if you do much writing, you have to get it. Your price is the same as if you searched for the website and bought without using it. You are going to love this thing.