Geek Speak with Lyle Troxell

Large Language Models and Human Minds

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:05:00 +0000

Most people say LLM are just language prediction systems… but how do human minds work comparatively? Can ChatGPT think, understand, or comprehend? Can you?
It’s been a while since Ben, Brian, and Lyle geeked out… join us.

Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4 - Microsoft Research

Tech News and Non Woo Meditation

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 22:00:00 +0000

NFT insider trading, tech experts urge to resist Crypto industry influences, larges plant is a Sea Grass in Australia, Safari is popular, Microsoft Excel reduces remote data types – and Lyle’s hot take on meditation.

Delegate, Automate, Concentrate

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 07:35:00 +0000

Quincy Larson is founder and CEO of the non-profit software school freeCodeCamp, where anyone can go and lear to program for free. Quincy is making real change in the world.

This episode was recorded for my podcast Lunch with Lyle

Quincy mentioned two corses on freeCodeCamp
- Learn Responsive Web Design by Building 20 Projects
- Relational Database Course

The Software Arts: Algorithm - Arithmetic

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 08:29:00 +0000

Professor Warren Sack joins me to speak about the history of Algorithm, including Donald Knuth – Art of Computer Programing, Five Axioms of Algorithms, and When Computers Were Human.

This is Part 1 of 2 on Algorithm.

Lasers for listening and seeing, music production, and recycling

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 18:38:00 +0000

In this non-edited episode of GeekSpeak Lyle calls Ben impromptu to chat about using lasers for listening to rooms remotely, lasers being used to view into rooms, Ben’s recent focus on Music Production, and finally a story about California being better about communicating recycling possibilities on packaging.

Internal Company Podcasts, Some Thoughts

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 23:11:00 +0000

Due to the popularity of the WeAreNetflix podcast I am contacted a bit about my thoughts on company podcasts. The WeAreNetflix podcast started off based on an internal only podcast that Michael Paulson and I started as a hack-day project.
This episode is 20min of me talking about company internal podcasts. Feel free to ask me questions about this episode on twitter. -@lyle

Lower Street - an example podcast provider
One example of a company providing Private Podcast support – I have no affiliation.
- Blog Building an Internal Company Podcast
- Create, Publish, Host & Secure Your Private Podcast | Lower Street
How To Launch A Private Podcast With Exclusive Access
Episode with Michael Paulson - Engineering FlatBuffers Programing sans JSON
WeAreNetflix Podcast

Wildfire-Caused Water Contamination

Mon, 07 Sep 2020 00:15:00 +0000

The San Lorenzo Valley in Santa Cruz County has a partial Do Not Drink / Do Not Boil order in affect: is that order appropriate, what causes Wildfire water contamination, and what are good actions we as a community can take?

Our guest is Andrew J Whelton, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering at Purdue University.

Professor Whelton has studied two other Wildfires in California with water contamination and has some thoughts on our situation for the #CZULightningComplex

Topics by Time
13:49 Water Utility vs State Responsibility
22:28 Can you smell VOCs
24:07 Danger Long Term vs Acute
25:11 Stuck in the Pipes?
26:28 SVOCs
27:18 Can we just flush the system?
29:47 If you lived here…
31:00 Activate Mutual Aid
31:47 Testing Issues – UCSC help?
34:13 When would you be less concerned
36:49 What changes should we make?
39:15 California level issue?
43:20 Take Aways
44:24 Home Water Treatment
Wildfire caused widespread drinking water distribution network contamination - Proctor - 2020 - AWWA Water Science - Wiley Online Library
San Lorenzo Valley Water District
Fire Response, How You Can Help – Community Foundation Santa Cruz County
Listener Miles Z made some notes while listening - here they are:
In case of doubt, consult the interview, as I am not an expert. The notes are about in the same order as the interview. ~~=miles=~~

Contamination and Testing/Monitoring

The state (CA) only requires the water district to test at the source of the water, i.e. where they start pumping it into the distribution system. The rest (downstream testing) is up to the water district.

Contamination can come from multiple sources, including backflow when the system becomes depressurized and air contaminated with smoke leaks into the pipes. It can also result from homes that were equipped with plastic pipes that burned. As well as the pipes we know about that burned, i.e. the 5 miles of HDPE pipe through the forest.

The monitoring tests that the water district routinely runs downstream are limited to only particular VOC

20 Years of Ubiquitous Rust

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 07:28:00 +0000

Dedi finds a wifi solution they like, Greg is on the road for the first time since the pandemic, Miles is playing with Rust, and Lyle is happy to have the Geeks virtually together to celebrate 20 years of hosting the show.

Motivations of Podcasting and Fretless Instruments

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 01:30:00 +0000

Ben Jaffe deciding to end his fantastic podcast Linear Digressions, Lyle celebrating 20 years hosting GeekSpeak, and geeking out on playing instruments that do not have “frets” like the Cello and Trombone.

Vacation with Chainsaws, Motors, and Glasses

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 07:36:00 +0000

My vacation included fixing motors, accepting glasses, and milling redwood with chainsaws.

My Replacement Fan Motor
Thermal Fuse Cutoff
New Thermostat Switch with "Firestat"
Milling Redwood
Here are some pix from our milling.
The Logs:

Me with my orange cap and our family friend Jack.

My wife Maggi finishing a log:

Samples of what we are making:
I have Glasses
Here I am with new readers…. and a great scotch, I mean it was still vacation!

The Software Arts: Language

Sun, 24 May 2020 06:44:00 +0000

Warren Sack is back for a conversation of the Natural and Institutional Language from the French Encyclop

Highschool Social Software Usage

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 21:27:00 +0000

On this episode Lyle interviews his daughter Gwendolyn about the social software she uses in High School – iMessage, Instagram, SnapChat, TikTok.

And they play with Lyle’s new RodeCASTER Pro.

Elevating fears of Dropping Thoughts over Time

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 17:02:00 +0000

Ben and Lyle chat about elevators, the fear of dropping things, Podcasting, how we experience thoughts, drawing, learning, music, meditation, Time Tracking, Theme:Focus, Memory and being Present.

Translation: The Software Arts (chapter 2)

Mon, 06 Jan 2020 01:40:00 +0000

What does it mean to implement “hailing a cab” in software and how does this new translation stack up to the existing institution?

Discussions based around “The Software Arts: Chapter 2”, "Translation"with the author Warren Sack.

We talk about the differences of the humanities understanding of translation where meaning is lost, created, or changed, and compare it with the software concepts of perfect translation like compiling code.

Make sure to check out Part 1.

Francis Bacon - Wikipedia
History of calculus - Wikiquote
Ludwig Wittgenstein - Wikipedia
Software is not problem solving...

What I am saying is that software is an art and a form of design. Where you don’t necessarily know what the problem is.
Narrative Intelligence
In the after-show Warren mentions a chapter he pulled from the book about narrative.. here is a paper and talk on the subject:
- Narrative Intelligence
- JS.everywhere(2013): Warren Sack – JS in Research – YouTube

Introduction to The Software Arts

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 18:44:00 +0000

This episode kicks off a limited series of discussions with Warren Sack centered around his book The Software Arts, MIT Press, forward by John Rajchman

The Software Arts offers an alternative history of software that places the liberal arts at the very center of software’s evolution.

Join us in this discussion...
Warren’s book is available from MIT Press – grab a copy and enjoy a multi-episode virtual book club with me and the author. We plan to release an episode for each chapter:
1. Introduction (this episode)
2. Translation
3. Language
4. Algorithm
5. Logic
6. Rhetoric
7. Grammar
8. Conclusion
Reading along is not necessary to enjoy this series or episodes. And feel free to give us feedback and ask questions. Please contact us via Twitter: @WarrenSack, @Lyle.
Where are the numbers? - Tracy Chou
Eric A. Havelock
Marshall McLuhan

Micro Extensions Expand State of Emergency

Tue, 27 Aug 2019 19:52:00 +0000

MicroLEDs, Google Chrome Extensions are more private, macOS is locking things down, Expanse and other shows we are watching, and a post show covering wonderfully geeky PostGraphile.

MicroLED Displays Could Show Up in Products as Soon as 2020
Lyle Surgery Update
Google to Minimize the Data Collected by Chrome Extensions
macOS Lockdown and merging with iOS
Expanse fans, no need to worry—Amazon orders season 5 of its new sci-fi show
We’ve got our first peek at S4 of The Expanse and an airdate: December 13
Louisiana declares state of emergency in response to ransomware attack
Is the Phone Dead
Graphile | Powerful, Extensible and Performant GraphQL APIs Rapidly

Simplecast - Podcasting and Business Development

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 08:02:00 +0000

Brad Smith (@brad), the founder and CEO of Simplecast, talks with me about the creation of Simplecast from initial musings to venture capital infused growth, and building partnerships. Brad is also an expert on the podcasting landscape and walks us through some wonderful changes that Apple and Google have recently made that should help the podcasting community.
And, of course, this wouldn’t be GeekSpeak if we didn’t get technical – Brad is a geek and is proud of it.

Lyle's Back Surgery and Podcasting Conversations

Sun, 30 Jun 2019 17:01:00 +0000

Lyle Troxell and Ben Jaffe about the current state of the Geek Speak podcast, conversation styles, and Lyle’s L5 S1 Back Surgery Fusion with instrumentation.

Oruk-hai's Eugenics Star Trek in 1996

Sat, 25 May 2019 07:48:00 +0000

New Geek Rich Zurad joins Ben and Lyle to cover the JRR universe badly, the Star Wars vs Star Trek argument, cover some of the podcasts they like, and their pet health problems.

This gravity-powered battery could be the future of energy storage - Archpaper.com

Lyle Update from Amsterdam

Fri, 17 May 2019 22:13:00 +0000

For the Netflix podcast I did a quick jaunt to Amsterdam – here is an audio-blog type entry of my time there – Lyle.

Ben Joins Netflix

Wed, 24 Apr 2019 05:57:00 +0000

Ben Jaffe and Lyle Troxell talk about the culture at Facebook and at Netflix and about vulnerability at work.
Lyle tells a story about doing a branching talk about branching narratives. A quick chat about Star Trek Next Generation and even Ben’s broken dryer.

Web Auth; Predicting Wind; Anti-Vax Videos

Fri, 22 Mar 2019 07:02:00 +0000

Wind prediction with AI, Anti-Vax movies pulled from Amazon Prime, Web Authn, and Home Automation and the cloud.

Software: Android, Ruby, ORM, & Podcasting

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 08:44:00 +0000

Miles and Lyle chat about software development esp. about Ruby and ORMs which leads to a bit about the GeekSpeak Rails website, podcast chapter marks, recording podcasting, including hardware and budgets. A bit of inside baseball.

Fake Images Undergo Existential Crisis

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 09:20:00 +0000

Generative Adversarial Networks are a pattern of Machine Learning that can do some amazing things – in this episode we chat about them effecting our concepts of truth.
And we include an episode of Linear Digressions from Ben and Katie to really explain how GANs really work.

Updating Broken Laptops with Bad Languages

Sat, 23 Feb 2019 18:40:00 +0000

Miles walks us through buying a used 2015 MacBook Pro and upgrading it with a better hard drive. And we talk programing languages: Kotlin, Swift, Groovy, Java, Python and more.
It’s a programing rich episode of GeekSpeak.

Hacking NES Across Kazakhstan for Better Netflix

Wed, 09 Jan 2019 03:00:00 +0000

Software engineer and “I’ll show it to you at hackday… chap”, Guy Cirino joins Lyle for a chat about hacking at Netflix, driving across Asia, high energy particle physics at CERN, and improving streaming video better for everyone.