It was done right before the first Crew Dragon launch. They do such a great job of digging into a company’s history and the business model that powers them.
100% agree with SpaceX, mine 2nd would be Pinduoduo and how revenue and cash held can be completely different and how advanced China is many areas (like logistics) compared to the west.
https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/pinduoduo
I was going to put this one. I'm a fan of Reply All, but this was an episode that was so good it almost didn't seem real. Low spoilers, but they downplayed the ending so much that even without it, it'd have been a really good episode. But with the ending, I straight up dropped my jaw. Such a cool, relatable, story.
I'm listening now and enjoying it. Very relatable as I have an 80s horror movie I saw one scene of when I was a kid and I still have not been able to find it. Haunts me to this day. A family is outside all afraid and some force is tugging a chain into the sky.
I had a scene that haunted me as a kid and I thought there was no way I'd ever find it (literally had little more than the fading scenes from the dreams).
And this year I found it. I'd always remembered it wasn't a cartoon or live action - but something in between. So it turns out it was the scenes of 'death' from Jim Henson's "The Storyteller". Just something about the creepy face that did it as a kid. Was definitely a strange sensation to connect it all and see the images anew. Humans/memories/brains are weird. (The Storyteller, Season 1, Ep 5 - it's on Amazon Prime in Canada)
A magnificent BBC podcast series that covers in extreme detail the Apollo 11 mission, including explanations of the busy chatter that you hear from mission control audio.
They had a series about Apollo 13 this year. It needed to be paused because one of the producers were a doctor that needed to help with Covid, but later it was completed.
From the link below: "What are the police for? Producer B.A. Parker started wondering this back in June, as Black Lives Matter protests and calls to “defund the police” ramped up. The question led her to a wild story of a stabbing on a New York City subway train, and the realization that, according to the law, the police don’t always have to protect us. Producer Sarah Qari joins Parker to dig into the legal background, which takes her all the way up to the Supreme Court... and then all the way back down to on-duty officers themselves."
Technically from 2019 but heard it this year, it's 1984 (the year not the book) [1] an outstanding episode from the excellent Theory of Everything podcast [2] by Benjamin Walker. As bonus you also have an episode about the book 1984 [3].
You're Wrong About is probably my favorite podcast discovery of the last year. I generally dislike shows with the format of "the host reads a few articles and pretends to be an expert on it." But they do an above-average job on this show.
I haven't listened to the Disco Demolition Night episode. There was a good treatment of it years ago on the short-lived Gimlet podcast Undone: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/undone
I loved this interview Lex Fridman had with George Hotz. He's very opinionated original thinker with the credentials to back it up. He runs comma.ai, sellers of a device that can plug into many cars and drive for you.
Yeah, I got on a real big george hotz kick. I wanted to go more in depth into the interview so I built out a transcription platform to easily be able to transcribe and host audio or youtube programs. It uses aws transcribe under the hood. Here's his second interview transcript. I've been meaning to do his first one as well
had to give up on that one at about 1:30:00 even Lex seems tired. No offense but the ratio of trolling and content with Hotz is way too high. I enjoyed Lex episodes with his father and Alex Garland though.
Credentials? Lex has no such thing. Hes an imposter leveraging his association with MIT. His work was never peer reviewed and he shills for tesla. When he was called out on this he started to sensor people on twitter for highlighting these facts. Lex is a fraud. I can't believe how easily some people are duped into belief. But then I remember Joe rogan probably has the biggest podcast flowing on earth.
No I meant Lex Fraudman. Hotz is good in my book, the guy can actuary write code an has pulled sonys pants Down in a major embarsment for them. Kudos to hotz
He is shilling for the tesla. Non of his research is worth the paper it's written on. He has no solid acediemia and he oversells his weak ties to MIT via marketing which is build on lies. Do the research, there's plenty of content online about this guy, and the rest of the Rogan network shilling people out of their cash.
Lex kisses rogans ass hard because he knows its going to get him more followers he can exploit.
On a personal level, I find lex to be dull and offer little to no insight in the tech realm. Just another dude who got on board the AI hype train and is trying to ride it into dollar bill land at the expense of people who lack critical thinking abilities when it comes to this kind of stuff. An endorsement is not always a true seal of quality.
Edit - let's not forget the censorship an blocking people on twitter. Lex is a shill.
I have no issue with people whom create podcasts. You're asking the wrong questions and making the wrong assumptions. One has to wonder about your own shortcomings and sidestep this discourse. Thanks for your (lack of) input.
I really enjoyed the ones with Manolis Kellis, particularly number 2:
https://youtu.be/t06rkOOUa7g
Manolis seems such a genuinely nice person, who's also super clever
It's about Japan during the second world war and there's something about the absolutely insane Japanese mentality that lead civilians to commit mass suicide that captivated me.
The whole series, and really the whole of Hardcore History is absolutely amazing and even if you think you don't like history you absolutely should give it a try. Blueprint of Armageddon is still the best piece of entertainment I've ever had, regardless of media.
Strongly agree. Blueprint for Armageddon [1] about the machinations of WW1 is still the best audio narrative I've ever heard. I recently listened to it again after my first binge back in 2014 and it's still unparalleled.
Supernova in the East is also deeply fascinating and disturbing.
This is my recommendation as well. I've been listening to these as they have come out. I listened to part 5 on a long car ride recently. The description of the mass suicide after the Battle of Saipan was shocking. Most people today don't know the horrors of Imperial Japan. Most assume there couldn't be such a fanatical, vicious, and atrocity-oriented culture in contemporary times.
I'm a big fan too, but beware of his pretty bog standard reading of history. For instance, he makes plenty of insinuations in the Supernova series about how the US basically had to nuke Japan because they were so fanatical.
This is an excellent documentary. Skipping ahead to the “Discussion” section and watching through to the end gives a good summary, and it certainly opened my mind. Thanks for sharing, I’m probably going to go back and watch the whole thing.
I found the Planet Money episode Big Rigged surprisingly moving. It covered the business model of American trucking company Prime through the story of Kimberly. It was the all too familiar story of employee rights being eroded through a shady business model. Prime were exploiting workers by encouraging them to operate as independent contractors with an exclusive contract whilst also loaning them their truck, setting their rates, assigning their jobs, and asking them to pay for the training they delivered if they left within their first year of operation.
Planet Money does some great reporting, the things they uncover, man, it's depressing. The episode about plastic recycling and advertising, the episode about REDMAP, the episode about the black woman who had her traffic ticket dismissed and still owed the courts $300. There are happy jems too but right now I can't think of any.
Thanks for the recommendation--I'm listening to it now and enjoying it. It's inspiring me to want to create my own simulation in R. This was a good quote: "if you think things are static, you aren't looking big enough".
Andrew Kelley of Zig [1], Ginger Bill of Odin [2], and Joshua Huelsman [3] (worked on Jai) debate in earnest about moving beyond these languages and why it might matter.
Self-plug since I hosted the podcast, but three compiler devs in the same room generated my favorite banter of 2020!
Just listened to this last night and I second this! It was fascinating hearing all of the different perspectives and design decisions. I've rarely heard a podcast done so well with so many guests so kudos on a great job hosting it Abner. (You may have seen me around the discord, I'm PH Test)
Yes! While I have you here, may I ask how you listened to it? There's the video with closed captions and the audio-only version... which one did you find most convenient?
"The Program audio series" is the only fiction podcast I listen to I heard about it first on HN.
It's hard to single out one episode as a favorite, but I really liked a recent one that is a good standalone episode. ("Read-only memory Computer" == ROM-COM) is the perfect display of the show's signature combination of humor, tech, and wit.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 198 ms ] threadIt was done right before the first Crew Dragon launch. They do such a great job of digging into a company’s history and the business model that powers them.
It’s about how the CIA might have written the Wind of Change song sung by the Scorpions in the 80s, but it has a nuanced take on it.
There was also a really good podcast about the Iraq war called blowback: https://blowback.show/
And this year I found it. I'd always remembered it wasn't a cartoon or live action - but something in between. So it turns out it was the scenes of 'death' from Jim Henson's "The Storyteller". Just something about the creepy face that did it as a kid. Was definitely a strange sensation to connect it all and see the images anew. Humans/memories/brains are weird. (The Storyteller, Season 1, Ep 5 - it's on Amazon Prime in Canada)
[1]: This one, I think: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/roman-mars-describes-...
I listened to the Reply-All episode some weeks later and had that deja vu of "I know this song -- but from where??".
Took me a bit to connect them!
Edit: updated correctly that the podcast was with the CTO.
https://signalsandthreads.com/clock-synchronization/
13 Minutes to the Moon.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2
A magnificent BBC podcast series that covers in extreme detail the Apollo 11 mission, including explanations of the busy chatter that you hear from mission control audio.
Made even more magnificent by the amazing theme written by Hans Zimmer:
https://youtu.be/-sExd3yNG2A
From the link below: "What are the police for? Producer B.A. Parker started wondering this back in June, as Black Lives Matter protests and calls to “defund the police” ramped up. The question led her to a wild story of a stabbing on a New York City subway train, and the realization that, according to the law, the police don’t always have to protect us. Producer Sarah Qari joins Parker to dig into the legal background, which takes her all the way up to the Supreme Court... and then all the way back down to on-duty officers themselves."
[1]: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/no-sp...
[1] https://beta.prx.org/stories/288310
[2] https://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/
[3] https://beta.prx.org/stories/288314
https://www.realvision.com/shows/the-interview-crypto/videos...
0: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1112270/4815227-disco-demolition-...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night
I haven't listened to the Disco Demolition Night episode. There was a good treatment of it years ago on the short-lived Gimlet podcast Undone: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/undone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcYp-XT7UI&list=PLrAXtmErZg...
[0] https://www.deep-chats.com/programs/lex/132
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15825900
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9upVbGSBFo
There are a lot of public 'scientists' who have never been peer-reviewed.
I have enjoyed listening to quite a bit of Lex's content and to say 'Lex is a fraud' without any proof strikes me as unfair.
I did a quick search to try to check your assertions but didn't find anything troubling.
My only gripe about Lex is that he is annoyingly good at SEO and I find it hard to browse the web without bumping into his content.
https://amp.reddit.com/r/thefighterandthekid/comments/jinaos...
Lex kisses rogans ass hard because he knows its going to get him more followers he can exploit.
On a personal level, I find lex to be dull and offer little to no insight in the tech realm. Just another dude who got on board the AI hype train and is trying to ride it into dollar bill land at the expense of people who lack critical thinking abilities when it comes to this kind of stuff. An endorsement is not always a true seal of quality.
Edit - let's not forget the censorship an blocking people on twitter. Lex is a shill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qHkcs3kG44
It's about Japan during the second world war and there's something about the absolutely insane Japanese mentality that lead civilians to commit mass suicide that captivated me.
The whole series, and really the whole of Hardcore History is absolutely amazing and even if you think you don't like history you absolutely should give it a try. Blueprint of Armageddon is still the best piece of entertainment I've ever had, regardless of media.
https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-66-supern...
Supernova in the East is also deeply fascinating and disturbing.
[1] https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-bluepr...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylMbvf3sn_g
https://repod.io/blog/best-podcasts-2020
https://pca.st/episode/3740fbb7-654a-4031-ab64-a994b085560e
Andrew Kelley of Zig [1], Ginger Bill of Odin [2], and Joshua Huelsman [3] (worked on Jai) debate in earnest about moving beyond these languages and why it might matter.
Self-plug since I hosted the podcast, but three compiler devs in the same room generated my favorite banter of 2020!
[0] https://media.handmade-seattle.com/the-race-to-replace-c-and...
[1] https://ziglang.org
[2] https://odin-lang.org
[3] https://twitter.com/machinamentum
Transcript: https://nav.al/rich
One of the hosts, Nick, does a funny parody of the Eric Clapton song Change the World
Nick is a genuine monster at impressions.
It's hard to single out one episode as a favorite, but I really liked a recent one that is a good standalone episode. ("Read-only memory Computer" == ROM-COM) is the perfect display of the show's signature combination of humor, tech, and wit.
Link to the episode: https://programaudioseries.com/15-what-you-see-is-what-you-g... (but really, you should check out the whole show!)