Four (or so) Podcasts from September You Must Listen
These are few podcast episodes that truly stood out for me over the past few weeks. I thought I would share them as I believe that many will find them informative or entertaining. They are in no particular order.
Arrested DevOps Podcast: Don’t Worry, Do Care With Aaron Blohowiak
In this episode of Arrested DevOps (ADO) podcast, ADO’s Jessica interviews Aaron Blohowiak, a senior software engineer at Netflix. The discussion covers a variety of topics. On the technical side, they discuss some unique challenges that Netflix is tackling in regards to cost optimization, capacity planning, and content delivery. They also chat on business related topics regarding corporate structure. For a company as large as Netflix with numerous business units and teams, creating an efficient organization is a real problem. Aaron touches on some of these issues, especially with regards to their influence on security. The conversation also digs into company culture, measuring team and individual performance, and keeping people motivated. The podcast episode is a very insightful and candid discussion that I found thoroughly enjoyable.
Tim Bray’s ongoing podcast episodes
Relatively recently, Tim Bray started producing a selection of articles from his blog in podcast form. I’ve been going though them, and many of them are very intriguing and informative. I am going to cheat here and group several of them into one item. I felt that three episodes in particular follow a common theme and are worth a listen (or read):
Tim Bray has expressed and written on his opinions around wealth distribution and concentration of market power in the big-tech business. These few episodes describe Tim’s thoughts on the topic of monopolies in the IT world and problems this causes, and he offers some ideas on how to address it. They are really fascinating and informative arguments, and seem very pertinent today. I certainly gained a new and different perspective listening to them. As somebody who doesn’t have a lot of time to read articles online, I hope Tim keeps producing more of his blog content and thoughts in audio format. I find them very educational.
Hanselminutes Embodying a disembodied AI with Chris Conner, Altered Carbon’s Poe
Chris Conner is a stage and screen actor whose recent role has been portraying Poe in Netflix’s Sci-Fi series Altered Carbon. Poe is a very unique AI as his character is based on the famous writer Edger Allan Poe. Scott Hanselman interviews the actor on his process in preparing and portraying a futuristic AI that doesn’t fall into the usual cliches. It’s a lively and engaging conversation that offers a unique perspective on technology from Chris, whose background is in literature and theater arts. I think many will find the episode entertaining, especially if you’re familiar or fan of the show.
The Origins Podcast with Stephen Fry
Apart from seeing him appear in few films, I was not very familiar with Stephen Fry. In this episode of The Origins Podcast, physicist Lawrence Krauss interviews Stephen Fry. Warning - at over two hours long, this is not a short listen. But boy! - the discussion is fascinating. Stephen Fry is a master of English language, and listening to him speak is illuminating. The broad range of topics discussed is very diverse including philosophy, language, education, ancient greeks, technology, physics, and AI. And it’s all packed into one lively discussion that is both captivating and enlightening.
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