- Episode #15: Johnny Rodgers on A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander Johnny Rodgers joins us to discuss Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language and its timeless advice for humans trying to make things for other humans.
- Reading for May In May, we’ll be reading Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata and Maurizio Lazzarato’s essay “Marcel Duchamp and the Refusal of Work”.
- Episode #14: George Dyson on Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke George Dyson is on again, this time to talk about Childhood’s End and what it has to teach us about overlord technologies.
- Episode #13: Keith Garrett on “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling” by Ted Chiang Keith Garrett, coy technologist, father, and former marine, comes on to discuss Ted Chiang’s masterful “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling.”
- Reading for February and March In February, Keith Garrett will be on to discuss “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling” by Ted Chiang. In March, George Dyson returns to discuss Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke.
- Episode #12: Gina Trapani on Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin Gina Trapani, exemplary human and champion of good things on the web, comes on to talk about Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. We talk about creating universes, friendship, parenthood, all kidns of relationships, play, vulnerability, loving the web, the beauty of being bad at doing things, blank white boards, and learning a lot. If you listen, you will know what so many others already do: Gina is the best.
- Episode #11: Nathaniel Raymond on The Conversation by Francis Ford Coppola Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, joins me to talk about Francis Ford Coppola’s masterful 1974 film, The Conversation. Nathaniel makes a compelling argument that the movie was a history of the future – with Coppola accurately documenting the profound shift that surveillance technology would have on individuals and society. As Nathaniel says in our discussion: the movie is somehow more relevant to society today, 50 years after it was made.
- Episode #10: Mark Coatney on A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin Mark Coatney, long-suffering digital media pioneer, gets me to finally read a novel by Ursula K. Le Guin and I loved it. Topics include our changing world, what the world is for, preindustrial longing, why we should maybe recognize that media companies are ephemeral things, the pitfalls of power, lame AI, floating orbs of light, humans imitating machines, why humans like things, leaky boats as a metaphor for a lot of software, and the fact that any human power can be changed by human beings – including, possibly, the power contained within ourselves.
- Episode #9: Esther Dyson on Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Spike Jonze’s Her Esther Dyson, whose bio defies summarization (and who happens to be sister of previous guest George Dyson), discusses Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Spike Jonze’s Her. We discuss the substance of life, bioethics, why our senses aren’t always reliable, institutions and culture, predatory business models, child labor, mortality, building communities, and gardening versus carpentry.
- Reading and Watching for October, November, and December In October, Esther Dyson will be on to discuss Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Spike Jonze’s Her. In November, Mark Coatney will be on to discuss A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. In December, I will almost certainly discuss Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, but I don’t know who with.
- Episode #8: Jordan Tigani on “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” by Jorge Luis Borges Jordan Tigani, renowned “database person” and duck herder/CEO at MotherDuck, gives us the gift of “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” by Jorge Luis Borges. We talk about about the potential of language, the limits of language, compression, sloppy ontologies, LLMs, what thing the universe is, simulated annealing, our vague comprehension of what embeddings are, and why it’s unfortunate that there’s no way to not sound pretentious when talking about Borges.
- Episode #7: Max Lenormand on The Little Prince and Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Max Lenormand, geospatial data scientist, podcaster, and continually curious frenchman teaches us about the fascinating Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and the background behind his books Night Flight and The Little Prince. We talk about humans’ strange ambition, personal sacrifice, mortality, immortality, aviation, communication networks, and why love is a choice.
- Reading for August and September In August, Maxime Lenormand will be on to discuss Night Flight and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In September, Jordan Tigani will be on to discuss “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” by Jorge Luis Borges.
- Episode #6: Io Blair-Freese on “The Zahir” and “An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain” by Jorge Luis Borges Io Blair-Freese, philosopher, international development pioneer, and lover of maps and computers guides us through “The Zahir” and “An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain” by Jorge Luis Borges. We talk about idealist philosophy, inevitable religions, identity, the power of attention, the limitations of attention, and the limitlessness of language.
- Episode #5: George Dyson on The Voice of the Dolphins by Leo Szilard George Dyson, historian, boat maker, master human technologist, and friend of friends discusses the totally wild The Voice of the Dolphins by Leo Szilard who discovered the nuclear chain reaction. We talk about AI, geopolitics, alignment (lol), and humanity.
- Reading for June and July In June, George Dyson will be on to discuss “The Voice of the Dolphins” by Leo Szilard. In July, Io Blair-Freese will be on to discuss “The Zahir” and “An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain” by Jorge Luis Borges.
- Episode #4: Chris Beddow on “On Exactitude in Science” by Jorge Luis Borges Chris Beddow, mapmaker, voyager, philosopher, and very good skier uses Borges’s “On Exactitude in Science” and Umberto Eco’s “On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1” to go very very deep on the map–territory relationship. Listen and learn how to recognize how your experience on this planet is mediated by the maps you use.
- Episode #3: Sean Gorman on Dune by Frank Herbert Sean Gorman, geospatial entrepreneur extraordinaire, uses Dune to explain security policy, geopolitics, capitalism, sustainability, common knowledge, the erosion of common knowledge, the importance of friction in political institutions, reasons to think harder about opening up data, and why the OpenStreetMap community are basically Fremen.
- Episode #2: Jason Goldman on Dune by Frank Herbert Jason Goldman, one of the world’s foremost Dune podcast pioneers, talks about all of the Dune books, all of the Dune movies, the Dune TV shows, democracy, institutions, the dangers of charismatic leaders, the (a)moral arc of technological progress, the potential of governing with data, and how so many technologists miss the point of the literature they love.
- Episode #1: Tim O’Reilly on Dune by Frank Herbert Tim O’Reilly. The Tim O’Reilly is our first guest, ostensibly to talk about Dune, but we end up talking about much more, including mysticism, poetry, philosophy, leadership, and our responsibility as humans to transcend our limits.
- Introducing Techs on Texts Why the world needs another podcast. Specifically this podcast.