Celebrate Creativity

George Bartley
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This podcast is a deep dive into the world of creativity  - from Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman to understanding the use of basic AI principles in a fun and practical way.

  1. Turning It On!

    2D AGO

    Turning It On!

    Send us Fan Mail Hello, and welcome to Celebrate Creativity. I’m George Bartley. In the last few episodes, I have been talking about Voice Control in a broader way — my own background, some of the reasons I care about it, and some of the larger philosophical questions behind it. What does it mean to use your voice to deal with a machine? What does it mean in terms of independence, creativity, and accessibility? But now it is time to move a little closer to the ground. Today, I want to talk about something very practical: how Voice Control comes with every recent Macintosh, how you turn it on, and what you are actually looking at when you face those settings for the first time. Because that first encounter can be a little unnerving.  I remember the 1st time I saw voice control on the MacIntosh. I saw it as something just for disabled people and felt that voice control could not possibly do much that was useful. And I must admit, that I gave up after about 30 seconds, and said this is not for me. I had some erroneous idea that it was impossible. But all that needed a little time on my part. It's not that it was badly designed. But simply because it was new. And new things often look more complicated than they really are. You go into the settings and suddenly you are looking at terms like language, microphone, show hints, play sound when command is recognized, overlay, fade overlay after inactivity, fade after, fade by, and Voice Control tutorial. And if you are a first-time user, you may think: what in the world am I looking at? And to be honest, even if you don't fully understand some of the settings by the end of this episode, you're doing about right. It takes a while to get your bearings, but it certainly is worth it. So that is what I want to do today. I want to slow it all down. I want to describe what the user is seeing, what those items mean, and how to think about them without getting flustered. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

    27 min
  2. Looking from Both Sides

    3D AGO

    Looking from Both Sides

    Send us Fan Mail Looking at Life from Both Sides Hello, and welcome to Celebrate Creativity. I’m George Bartley. And I promise that starting in the next episode, I'm going to begin to teach you how to use voice control. But today, I want to talk about accessibility, disability, voice control, and something even larger than all of those: what it means to look at life from more than one side. There is a phrase that has stayed with me for years from a song by Joni Mitchell: I’ve looked at life from both sides now. I am not quoting the whole song, and I do not need to. That one phrase is enough, because it expresses something I have thought about for a very long time. I have looked at disability from both sides now. I have lived as someone who works with people that have motor difficulties. And I have also lived as someone that many people would never assume had a disability unless I told them. I have looked at communication from both sides now. As someone who helped others communicate. And as someone who has known what it means to need a different kind of access to the world. I have looked at institutions from both sides now. From the hopeful side, where they want to help. And from the realistic side, where good intentions often collide with lived reality. And I think that matters. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

    31 min
  3. What It Feels Like

    3D AGO

    What It Feels Like

    Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and the second part of Voice Control on the Macintosh: Why It Matters, and What It Feels Like to Learn It. I hope you realize by now that this podcast has been talking about the importance of voice control and some of the human elements involved in mastering the skills. So rest assured that in a few days, I will deal into the mechanics of voice control - in other words HOW use it. My philosophy of education it's not to try to dazzle you with information that might be hard to remember, but to carefully explain a concept. And then use tried and true educational concepts by going back and explaining that concept over and over in different ways - ways that help make that concept your own. In future episodes, I intend to talk about specific voice control commands, and even have imaginary visits from historical figures in the fields of computing and literature - individuals such as William Shakespeare, John Milton, Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and the writer of the first computer program - Ada Lovelace.  But before you learn the actual information, I feel that you need to get the attitude towards learning and a different way of working down first. And that is the purpose of the previous and the following few episodes. Now let me come back to something I said earlier in a broader way: adaptation is not defeat. I think many people, when they first I'll say that I'd like for you to rest assured that in a few days I'm gonna deal with the mechanics of using voice control in other words and that certainly matters  find themselves needing a different way of working, feel that they are somehow moving backward. They may feel that because something old has become painful or difficult, they are losing ground. But another way to see it is that they are being asked to develop a new form of competence. And developing a new form of competence is not failure. It is growth. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

    41 min
  4. Voice Control on the Mac

    5D AGO

    Voice Control on the Mac

    Send us Fan Mail Hello - welcome back to How to Talk to Your Mac.  And this is  part one of Voice Control on the Macintosh: Why It Matters, and What It Feels Like to Learn It - in this and the following episode I want to talk about the philosophy behind voice control, and then we'll get into the specifics in future episodes. However, first, I'd like to apologize for the weeks this month when I have been unable to do an episode. For the first time in years, I think I have had computer problems when things would just not go the way I wanted. But no, I have not become a victim of pod fade, a term used to refer to a podcaster that just stops putting out episodes without any intention of continuing. And it looks like I'm going to be jumping right back into the game. In fact, this podcast just hit over 33,000 downloads across the world. Celebrate Creativity has now has reached listeners in 121 countries and territories — Not surprisingly, the majority of the downloads are in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, and Singapore. I decided to forgo the third promo in this series–it didn't really say anything new about voice control itself, and–instead say a few words about why the use of voice control matters is so important. And I hope that when you really get into this podcast, you just might find that you can't see yourself using a computer without voice control.  It may seem somewhat hard at first, but you just might find that voice control becomes natural, and the fastest and most efficient way of using a computer. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

    28 min
  5. Voice Control - Promo Two

    SEASON 7, EPISODE 612 TRAILER

    Voice Control - Promo Two

    Send us Fan Mail Now I believe I mentioned that at one time I was doing up to two and three podcasts episodes a day.  As a teenager I had a series of epileptic seizures, and was told that I should not swim - but after I started taking a new medication at that time - Depakote - my seizures became a thing of the past. And I'll talk about a little bit more about that later.  I also started interpreting for the deaf, especially Shakespearean plays. And when I realized that I could swim safely, I started swimming 2 miles three times a week. Of course at the time I thought all this was cool, but I never thought about the fact that my activities were devastating my hands and fingers. I realized recently that I needed to take a break and learn a brand new way of communicating with a computer.  I don't mean to say this was just a choice I made - I would wake up in the morning with agonizing pain. So I decided to take that break - for the sake of my hands and arms - and especially because I know that so much of the information regarding voice control requires me to try out the steps myself and see if they work. I would hate to have to go back and say this will work but this doesn't really work. I want get it right the first time or as much as I can!  I wanna be sure and give you information that you can depend on!With something like Voice Control, the difference between sounding informed and being trustworthy is often very small on the surface, but enormous in reality. I hope that you will see the delay not as wasted time at all and I   I would like to think that listeners are not looking for just glossy theory. They are looking for someone who has gone into the weeds, made mistakes, tried the steps, hit the snags, and come back with something dependable.Because what I what I am building here are not just a series of episodes. I would like to think that along with the information, I am building credibility. A listener can forgive: “This took me a while to figure out.” “I had to test this several times.” But it is much harder for a listener to forgive advice that sounds certain and then fails the moment they try it. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

    12 min
  6. Voice Control - Promo One

    APR 4

    Voice Control - Promo One

    Send us Fan Mail Hello this is George Bartley. And no, I have not fallen off the face of the Earth.  In fact, my podcast Celebrate Creativity - with its current emphasis on William Shakespeare was in high gear - at one point I was doing two and even three episodes a day. Currently Celebrate Creativity has over 32,000 episodes globally. But that rate of output really couldn't continue very long and I started experiencing excruciating pain in my wrists and hands.  As a result, I became fascinated with a way of communicating with a MacIntosh that was totally new to me - a sophisticated way of dictating and controlling all the icons and buttons that you normally work with totally by voice.  So I am starting a new podcast series called how to talk with your MacIntosh - later on we'll get into operating iPads and iPhones by voice. And this is one podcast that I am really working hard on - because I definitely do not want it to be a series of flashy comments that end up teaching you nothing. After a bit of practice, I want you to be able to use your MacIntosh, almost as though you were talking with a friend.  In other words I want to show you vocal commands that work and are easy to use.  It may take practice, but it is sooooo worth it! My goal is to teach you how to sit back and tell your Mac what you want it to do using only your voice.  I have never worked as hard on a podcast, and plan to start the podcast on the first day of the lusty month of May. In the meantime I will have more promos on April the 10th, 17th, and 24th - each on a  Friday - regarding the buildup to this very important podcast - I want to be sure that you gain a strong foundation in learning Voice Control for a variety of reasons, not the least is that your hands will thank you.   And watching all those files and folders move across the computer screen to obey your voice it's about as close to magic as I have ever experienced! So join me May 1, 2026 for a solid introduction to voice control that combines the definitely practical with the seemingly magical! Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

    4 min
  7. The Mouse Trap

    FEB 25

    The Mouse Trap

    Send us Fan Mail Up to now, Hamlet has lived inside questions. “Did my uncle really do it?” “Can I trust the Ghost?” “Am I being manipulated?” “Am I losing my mind—or pretending to?” Act 3 Scene 2 is the moment Hamlet says, in effect: “I’m done being uncertain. I’m going to test the truth.” In other words, Hamlet creates a situation where Claudius either sits calmly… or cracks. What makes this scene so powerful is that Hamlet is doing two things at once. One: He wants evidence. Two: He wants to feel power again. Because Hamlet has been watched, managed, and fenced in. So now he decides to flip the arrangement. Now he watches. Now he controls the room. Now he designs the moment. And that leads us to one of the best surprises in the play: Hamlet suddenly becomes a director. He lectures the actors about how to perform— not too big, not too fake, not too showy. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

    25 min
  8. Get Thee to a Notary!

    FEB 25

    Get Thee to a Notary!

    Send us Fan Mail Master Shakespeare, are you ready? SHAKESPEARE: As ready as any man may be, entering a room where love is examined like evidence. GEORGE: That’s exactly it. Because what happens here is not romance. It’s a controlled experiment—and Ophelia is the instrument. GEORGE: Let’s start with the setup. Claudius and Polonius plan to spy. They stage-manage Ophelia. They put a book in her hands. They position her. What’s the moral temperature of this plan? SHAKESPEARE: Cold. And convenient. They call it “care for her.” They call it “care for the prince.” But the act is simple: they use her presence to harvest Hamlet’s secrets. GEORGE: And what’s chilling is how normal it seems to them. “We’ll just hide over here.” It’s like a household trick. SHAKESPEARE: Power always wishes to be ordinary. If it feels ordinary, it feels permissible. GEORGE: So right away, Ophelia enters a room where her feelings aren’t the point. Her feelings are the bait. GEORGE: Now—Ophelia. I want to underline something for listeners: she’s not “weak.” She’s trained. She has been coached to obey father, brother, court—every authority that tells her what “good” looks like. SHAKESPEARE: A young woman in that world is praised for being governable. They call it virtue. But it is also control. GEORGE: So when Polonius gives her instructions, it isn’t just advice. It’s a system: “Speak when told. Hold this. Stand here. Offer the tokens.”Four Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

    21 min
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About

This podcast is a deep dive into the world of creativity  - from Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman to understanding the use of basic AI principles in a fun and practical way.

Information

  • Creator
    George Bartley
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    616
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Celebrate Creativity
  • Show Website
    Celebrate Creativity