Oxide and Friends

Oxide and Friends

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Books in the Box IV

/ 01:34:32/S4:E28
Adam Leventhal:

Last time we also used Craig, there was, like, a gap in the recording. So I looked around, and it turns out that Craig has a buddy called g arc, which is Craig backwards, and Craig and G'Arc are gonna work together to make sure we don't drop any recording content.

Bryan Cantrill:

Are you certain you're pronouncing G'Rourke correctly?

Adam Leventhal:

Gjark? No. I'm not sure of the correct pronunciation of Gjark.

Adam Leventhal:

What what

Adam Leventhal:

do you think is the correct pronunciation of Gjark? I don't know.

Bryan Cantrill:

I I I don't know. And I mean, I think you and I both had Tomax and Zmod vibes in those.

Adam Leventhal:

A 100%. A 100%.

Bryan Cantrill:

Do you think, is this an implicit reference to Tomac and Zayman? It just seems such like a bizarre thing to go do that it's gotta be a right?

Adam Leventhal:

No. I mean I mean

Adam Leventhal:

You have to have

Bryan Cantrill:

Tomac and Zayman on the Detroit's episode. If not, why not?

Adam Leventhal:

That's amazing that we didn't because when Did you

Bryan Cantrill:

know that we didn't?

Adam Leventhal:

I know I I'm I feel pretty confident that we didn't. Yeah. Wow. It's a, that's

Bryan Cantrill:

a very weird attribute of the Detrace source space.

Adam Leventhal:

It really is. It's great. I was actually, it's funny. You mentioned that Brian, because, as you were talking about Tom X and Z amount for like first thought is, you know, cartoon and action figures from whatever it was 35 years ago. 2nd thought was, I wonder if the people know that that's the name of the buffer and the other buffer in DTrace.

Bryan Cantrill:

You know, it's completely, to me, this is not out of the out of question that the variable names in DTrace could surpass the GI Joe figures in ultimate fame, in lasting fame.

Adam Leventhal:

Okay. You know?

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay. I no. Listen. I know you think I'm getting a little too big for my purchase over here, but listen, our Tomac and Zaymott are in daily use. These things are used all the time.

Bryan Cantrill:

Their Tomac and Zaymott this is not something that has left the generational chasm. The people who are listening to this being like, they're they're having audio problems again.

Adam Leventhal:

So Tomac

Bryan Cantrill:

I mean, there's just absolutely no way this has left the jail. I don't think GI Joe I I don't think anything It's

Adam Leventhal:

such an okay boomer kind of thing. Yeah. Exactly.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, it's a this is an okay extra thing.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I mean, I don't think any of this has has, you know, has left the generational cast. But anyway, the the I mean, these are bit characters in twins, right? Twins that would complete one of those sentences.

Adam Leventhal:

Joined at the pain. Do you recall this?

Bryan Cantrill:

Joined at what?

Adam Leventhal:

Doctor. Joined at the pain. You don't remember this part? If you hurt 1 Doctor.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, you're right.

Adam Leventhal:

Doctor. If you hurt 1,

Bryan Cantrill:

it would injure the other. Doctor.

Adam Leventhal:

You injure the other. God.

Bryan Cantrill:

God. Yeah. God. That's right. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

So the how do how oh, were you and we're here because of, of course, because of Oh, yeah. Jeff and Jeff and Feog would have been better. I'd still get known

Adam Leventhal:

has been known only to you, but that's

Bryan Cantrill:

pretty Esther's known Only in my inter dementia. So, hey, I got another question speaking of like podcasts and generational lore and and and total lack of introductions. So as we we're in Books in the Box 4, so we're we're excited to talk about some of the books we've read since July of last year. So it's been a little while, a little longer than a year. And I one of the books I read in the last year is and you should know that I by the way, I you know, last year I was with my books, clothed, which I felt like I had to offer up.

Bryan Cantrill:

But like, relistening to it, I felt I sounded even weirder than it sounded at the time. I just felt like it's I am like, you know what? I am not gonna be a but I just still wanted to be with my books, but I wanna be in the litter box, so I brought my books to work. I actually That's fine.

Adam Leventhal:

I I I've

Bryan Cantrill:

got my I I'd you know, I kinda got the, the books I wanted to talk about, brother Lizzie. And one of them was Sunburst, The Ascent of Sun Microsystems. Did I talk about this book? I swear, in one of our intros, I talked about this book. Because I think you yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

I think you you did mention that.

Bryan Cantrill:

You're feeding this. I it's because you know what I ended up doing? I got this from High Noon, which you Right. Which you gave to me or regift it to me depending on one's interpretation I didn't for my birthday last year. Gave to you.

Bryan Cantrill:

I was thinking.

Adam Leventhal:

I mean, I bought it, read it, and gave it to you. I mean, I don't know.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. I think I I think, like, a flat out gift. I think it was Okay. I, the but so High Noon sent me to this book, Sunburst. I swear I brought it up in one of our podcasts.

Bryan Cantrill:

So then I went it through and listened to, like, the first 10 minutes of not obviously, not every episode in the last year because I think it's in there somewhere. And man, that is a weird cut through humanity. See, have you done this? Like, there's so because in the first 10 minutes, like, it's kinda joker's wild. I mean, this is I know.

Bryan Cantrill:

Just like, I know what I'm telling you. Like, yes. This is doing this really good work. You're telling me the thing that I've been telling you nonstop for 3 years.

Adam Leventhal:

You mean us talking about some action figures we had 35 years ago is not out of character?

Bryan Cantrill:

Doctor. And the fact that they could telegraph pain. I think that's such a great pull. Exactly. And so, but in particular, you know, a detail that I had just forgotten is the, SPF in the SPF trial, it coming out that he believed that Shakespeare could was like mathematically not the not the greatest author of all time, and then forcing you to explain that against your will.

Adam Leventhal:

Oh, God, I do remember that. I remember, and I remember giving it an explanation and then you pausing and saying basically that I had given the most credit possible to SBI.

Bryan Cantrill:

It did you really were trying to go out of your way, I felt, to, to to give weight to this absolutely zany idea. Yeah. No. So that that is just such a weird cut through the last year. And then I couldn't find that.

Bryan Cantrill:

I'm like, nink, you didn't mention it.

Adam Leventhal:

But You know this. You know this. Right? Like, we could you could search the transcript. Anyway.

Bryan Cantrill:

I should search the transcript. Okay. Yeah. So this, well, so do you mind kinda kick kick off with this book just to

Adam Leventhal:

like Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Let's go. Yeah. Alright. Alright. Alright.

Bryan Cantrill:

So the, so just to to get it on there because, you know, I think one of the things we have said is that there's not a great history of Sun, and I actually think that this book, that Sunburst, is, is the closest one we've got. I think it's actually it's pretty good. Written by Sun Employees, kinda covers up until 1990. Yeah. But but I thought it was, it was really good.

Bryan Cantrill:

It goes through a lot of the that that kind of the, you know, from a you know, the thing I love about it is it's written by some employees, but it definitely pulls no punches.

Adam Leventhal:

Mhmm.

Bryan Cantrill:

I mean, in particular, they really throw Bill Joy under the bus in a way that was really very delightful, so felt no obligation to, but it's good. And so anyway, that that was what I wanna get out there. Again, I'm I'm convinced I brought this up earlier on the podcast, so I'm sorry for doing that, but just for the recording

Adam Leventhal:

as they say.

Bryan Cantrill:

There we go. And that, who's that by? That is by Mark Hall and John Barry. With a forward by Tom Peters. Feels very, very 1990 of it to have a forward by Tom Peters.

Adam Leventhal:

And having I I, you know, I read High Noon obviously, how would you compare the 2?

Bryan Cantrill:

Better than High Noon.

Adam Leventhal:

Okay.

Bryan Cantrill:

Cool. Because I tell

Adam Leventhal:

I feel like High Noon was

Bryan Cantrill:

about that. Was fine.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. High Noon was fine.

Bryan Cantrill:

High noon was fine, but but I think this book is better. I think sunburst is better.

Adam Leventhal:

Okay.

Bryan Cantrill:

That sunburst obviously ends in 1990. So, it is really only the history from, like, 83 to 90. But in some ways like that's and you know, Sun is like has several different lives within it. And, that first life is a really important life, you know, where they've kind of caught this big workstation boom, you know, they're riding Moore's Law, they're developing their own microprocessor, it's just an explosion of stuff. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

So I think this is a good chronicling of that kind of chapter. And then, I don't know what you call, like 1990 to like 94 is kind of a a bit of a doldrums. And then you hit Java and the internet and UltraSpark and Solaris.

Adam Leventhal:

So I feel like that that's where high Newton really covered. Like, I mean, presciently really up to the peak.

Adam Leventhal:

I feel like the the

Adam Leventhal:

title was even more on the nose than the author could have possibly

Bryan Cantrill:

It was a higher noon than they could have possibly known. It's like I knew the sun was gonna set. I knew the sun was actually gonna be like

Adam Leventhal:

invade it. Explode. Explode. Exactly. So how do you wanna do this?

Adam Leventhal:

I mean, I I've got a few. We've also got Nick up who has volunteered to to bring some book recommendations. Where where do you wanna start?

Bryan Cantrill:

I say we just run Robin. Let's let's just, okay. Ron Robin. And do you well, actually, let me ask you this. Do you and obviously, I haven't answered this question for myself.

Bryan Cantrill:

Are there any books that were recommended to you in a previous Books in the Box episode that you've read? Yes. That you read last year.

Adam Leventhal:

Yes.

Bryan Cantrill:

And and what do you think?

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

So I read,

Adam Leventhal:

Into the Raging Sea by

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, that was mine. Yes. Oh, yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

God, I loved it so much.

Bryan Cantrill:

So Well, so good.

Adam Leventhal:

This was a ship that was destroyed in her I mean, spoiler, in hurricane Joaquin and a description of, you know, from the, I was gonna say, like, flight data recorder, but the the shipboard equivalent. And, so a narrative pulled from that, that was just fascinating about about all the failures and failures of leadership and failures to recognize changing conditions back to, like, onshore mismanagement, you know, which which tragically ended with, All Souls Lost. It was just a fantastic book.

Bryan Cantrill:

A fantastic book. You're not giving away the ending, I feel, unlike Moby Dick and Major the movie Major League. I feel this is not a spoiler because it is I mean, it is the sinking of El Faro is kinda in the subtitle.

Adam Leventhal:

Right.

Bryan Cantrill:

I loved this book. I thought it was I I read it right after it was recommended to us. I gave it to my mom for Christmas.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I I gave it to my dad. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Did you, oh, look at that. Look at that. Yeah. Yeah. It's really great that we found one another, you know, we share such bizarre things in common.

Bryan Cantrill:

We give our parents disaster books.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I mean, I should all say that our parents actually went to college together too, but I'll I'll just leave that for a future episode.

Bryan Cantrill:

That is true. But I the the the presence of the voice recorders on these things. So there are, like, 6 different recorders throughout the ship. So they have all of these conversations. I mean, it is mesmerizing.

Bryan Cantrill:

It is so good and there are so I mean, there's so much fractal failure here. It takes more than just a dummy captain to sink a vessel. Oh, yeah. And Yeah. And a hurricane.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Although, actually, those 2 are probably get you I don't I don't

Adam Leventhal:

Most of the way there, hurricane.

Bryan Cantrill:

Probably do get you most of

Bryan Cantrill:

the way there.

Bryan Cantrill:

But there's some other things too. And I thought that book was really, really great. And so thank you for that recommendation. It was a

Adam Leventhal:

Who I I didn't give the recommendation.

Bryan Cantrill:

Who No. No. You didn't give the recommendation. It was a listener who gave the recommendation while at sea. Oh, wow.

Bryan Cantrill:

They came in via Starlink and gave that recommendation. I was I especially a special admiration to someone willing to give a a marine disaster.

Adam Leventhal:

That that reminds me of what

Bryan Cantrill:

we actually, I'd say.

Adam Leventhal:

When, we years ago now, we were, reviewing the Boeing book.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Flying Blind. Free call. Flying by. Flying by.

Bryan Cantrill:

Flying by. Flying free call. Was it the one? Yes. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Flying by. And I

Adam Leventhal:

was and I was reading that on a 787, nervously, I would say.

Bryan Cantrill:

But was there a clarinet playing in the background?

Adam Leventhal:

Pardon me. 737. And no, there wasn't at the time, but that was obviously a highlight

Bryan Cantrill:

of Obviously, top of mind is the clarinet. I did one of truly, I think one of our both all time favorite moments on this podcast is when we've got the author of Flying Blind on here, and his kid is he's having to move from room to room because his kid is practicing the clarinet and and sounding like pretty good for a kid.

Adam Leventhal:

That's Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

I also read another one, another another book that was recommended now. And and this opens the door, folks who are giving recommendations, really, you need to have read the book. And I think last year, we accepted a recommendation for for someone who who said they were looking forward to it, hadn't read the book, we're looking forward to it. And this is, Doom Guy by John Romero.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes,

Adam Leventhal:

one of the authors of doom, almost a rebuttal to masters of doom, which painted Romero in a very bad light. I hated this book. I can't like, I, I, I can't even like, I just rage read my way through this book. Just feeling like I've I felt so passionately that I couldn't just put it down, although my wife insists that that's the thing one could do. Not something I'm capable of.

Bryan Cantrill:

No. This is the skill you and I have in common. The incapability of putting down a bad book and also incapability of not complaining to your spouse about it.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right. She

Bryan Cantrill:

said, why don't you put

Adam Leventhal:

it down? It was just atrocious, poorly written, like weird narrative vignettes that that kind of that because I don't care about John Romero and I didn't beforehand and I care less now, like, just made no sense to me. So couldn't stand it. But this actually dovetails into a recommendation I give. I had forgotten that I'd read this book, but, Gordon Mechner, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing his name correctly, but the author of Prince of Persia, wrote a bunch of like, was an avid or an intense journaler during the period when he was creating Prince of Persia, selling it, publishing it, porting it, and so forth.

Adam Leventhal:

And Prince of Persia

Bryan Cantrill:

yeah. Amazing. Did you play Prince of Persia when it first came out?

Adam Leventhal:

You know what? I played it on the Mac, not on the Apple. So I think the answer is

Bryan Cantrill:

On the Apple 2gs Yeah. I think. And it was like peering into the future.

Adam Leventhal:

Totally.

Bryan Cantrill:

And it it was amazing.

Adam Leventhal:

The technology that he I mean, what they were able to do in the Apple was kind of unthinkable at the time. And I remember it being spectacular on the Mac too, and probably even better, but less probably less magical just because, you know, there were other other game the technology was more advanced. The system was more advanced. But, his description of of building and publishing it, interacting with the publisher and, just the the rotoscoping, the the inspiration from adversity, from constraints. It was everything that I wanted this this doom book to be and that wasn't.

Adam Leventhal:

And, Mescher's notes from the timers journaling from the times published beautifully with great graphics, is awesome. Can't recommend it highly enough.

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay. That's awesome. I actually I have this book, but I have not read it. And I've been I've been meaning to. I also played did you play Crotica?

Bryan Cantrill:

Crotica?

Adam Leventhal:

No. That was his first game, right?

Adam Leventhal:

Oh, his

Bryan Cantrill:

first game. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Yeah. No. I

Bryan Cantrill:

didn't. I read it Crotica on the Atari 800.

Adam Leventhal:

Nice.

Bryan Cantrill:

It's weird. Definitely. It feels like another day down at the home over here, but, which is and and Crotica itself was like was definitely differentiated. It was amazing. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

But Prince of Persia was just so next level. Yeah. That's great. So the book was good.

Adam Leventhal:

Book is really good. And, you know, as you know, I'm mostly like an ebook person just because I don't like clutter, or or rather I've I've saturated with clutter. And I and I don't wanna get rid of existing clutter. But, I got the physical copy and the the which is really important, just the, the graphics, the images, all that stuff, and just the tactile. It's just a really well made book.

Adam Leventhal:

It's a really terrific one.

Bryan Cantrill:

I wanna say that, like, Stripe Press made this book. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Published this book.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. That's

Adam Leventhal:

right. You know what? I've got it in my cabinet right here, but I I think that's correct.

Bryan Cantrill:

I'll I'll This is the value of being among your books when we're doing this.

Adam Leventhal:

Well

Bryan Cantrill:

And and clothed. And clothed. Yeah. Clothed and among the books. So I

Adam Leventhal:

have to emphasize that point. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, I love the like the walking away from those.

Adam Leventhal:

That was I mean, I've got a physical physical microphone. I I got it right here.

Bryan Cantrill:

There you go. I got this this book right here. Yeah. And is it by Stripe Press?

Adam Leventhal:

Yes, it is. Yep. So ideas for progress. Yes. Press.stripe.com.

Adam Leventhal:

Yes. That's right.

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay.

Adam Leventhal:

It's a

Adam Leventhal:

great book.

Bryan Cantrill:

So, keeping with the this this group is a great segue to a book that I'm reading now and really enjoying. So, oh, actually, first of all, you've laid down the law based on I could when you were saying, like, you may only recommend a book you've already read, I'm like, okay, clearly, there is some something went wrong in a previous recommended recommendation from last year. I'm gonna recommend this book even though I'm I I'm probably about 2 thirds of the way through it. Is that still safe? I'm I'm reactively.

Adam Leventhal:

I wanna be clear. Last time, the recommendation was unread. Like, I think the book had not yet been published.

Bryan Cantrill:

So, okay. So, in their credit to their credit, this is not someone who's actually trying to sabotage you, but this is a book you're gonna read anyway. Don't you think? Because you were waiting for Romero's like kind of,

Adam Leventhal:

yes. It had, I mean, it, it had, some of the same chiplets that we look for in like a dubious movie, which is

Bryan Cantrill:

just something we've

Adam Leventhal:

discussed at nausea, but it's it's publication date had been pushed out several times.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's like, yes.

Adam Leventhal:

Another another good sign that like things are not going well. So, I mean, it's

Bryan Cantrill:

not going well.

Adam Leventhal:

I suspected I wasn't gonna love this book, already. So that which is a fair critique.

Bryan Cantrill:

But in part because in order to I mean, masters of doom goes into this fracture. Right? And it's kind of like wasn't it gonna be hard for you to have an a kind of an account from Romero that squares it all and is still sympathetic? I mean, isn't it hard to be I may not I need to read Masters of Doom. Is that

Adam Leventhal:

That's totally fair. Barking? Yeah. It is my dog barking. She's like

Bryan Cantrill:

Does the dog did the dog read a book? Or is the dog like dog's like, I got her book recommendation, but I haven't read it yet. Am I allowed to even like

Adam Leventhal:

It's like, let me in. Come on. I just wanna yeah. Exactly.

Bryan Cantrill:

So the, on Stripe Press, I so so I am reading a book, and I don't know how I got to it. I thought I got to it from Sunburst. But a, a book that is really interesting on the history of Silicon Valley written in 1985. So it is very semiconductor heavy, and very well written. It's the major minus is there are absolutely no sources whatsoever.

Bryan Cantrill:

There are no references which really kinda sucks because I don't think it's not gossipy. I I don't think the stuff is wrong. And I've already encountered some of the sources that this guy clearly used. But the the book is called The Big Score by Michael s Malone. Not a great title.

Bryan Cantrill:

And this is like a bit of a theme. And not really widely available. And actually, my copy this is so great. What do you get? A copy of a used book?

Bryan Cantrill:

And, it's been, it's been personally signed by the author, made out to Sue. It says, Sue, I hope I told some of the real stories that we PR people know, but can never tell. Thanks for being interested. Hope it meets your expectations. Michael Malone.

Adam Leventhal:

There's so much.

Bryan Cantrill:

And, Michael Malone? I I don't wanna speak on behalf of Sue, but I think it might not have met her expectations. Or maybe it did, and she's like, nope. It definitely is what I was expecting it. That's why I'm giving it away.

Bryan Cantrill:

I but it ended up in my possession. Great book, and it's been republished by Stripe Press.

Adam Leventhal:

Nice.

Bryan Cantrill:

And there are so this book is loaded actually with some really good stuff, and has sent me down a couple of different paths, just if I may. One is and I'm sure there are there is, like, a canonical book on Fairchild, but this just reminded me that I really need to read a book that is dedicated to Fairchild. Fairchild Semiconductor. Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

The the the subsidiary of Fairchild Cameron Instrument. And I just feel like this is and this is true for, like, lots of companies and kind of eras in our history, but, like, every time I read about Fairchild or learn about Fairchild, I feel like it's something new, some new facet, something that is and this is the the the Traitors 8, leave Shockley Semiconductor and and form Fairchild, with the help of Arthur Rock. And it's, the the history of Fairchild in here is great. The and so, I'm not sure if we talked about it here, but the, the folks left Fairchild formed many different companies. So Intel, AMD, National Semiconductor, and these companies were all called the Fair Children.

Adam Leventhal:

Mhmm.

Bryan Cantrill:

And so here's my question to you, Adam. Given that Pierre Lamond, a is a founding member of our board, I feel and that Oxide is his last company. I think Oxide is the last of the FairChildren.

Adam Leventhal:

Or maybe a fair grandchild or, like, a direct Fairchild?

Bryan Cantrill:

I feel that we the fact that we had a someone who is at Fairchild on our board. Okay. I say, we are you know, we're like one of those, like, super late in life children. Like, isn't didn't like John Tyler? Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, was it John Tyler. Right? And he didn't he have was it John Tyler or Zachary Taylor? I honestly always these kids admitted. I'm sure I'm the only one that makes this mistake.

Bryan Cantrill:

But one of these two cat had a kid at, like, 95. Got it. And

Adam Leventhal:

Where where the 5 year old whose siblings are all middle aged?

Bryan Cantrill:

Absolutely. No. And did you know that, like, again, it's either John Tyler or Zachary Taylor. I'm certain it's one of those 2. That, like, that child also had a child, like, in their seventies.

Bryan Cantrill:

So there was someone who's, like, alive today whose grandfather was a president in the in, like, the 19th century. Pretty great. So, yeah, I feel like we're like that, you know, not to make it 100%.

Adam Leventhal:

Totally makes sense. Couldn't agree more. Exactly.

Bryan Cantrill:

Exactly. Like John Tyler or Zachary Taylor, depending on whichever one it was. But the, the the history of of Fairchild is remarkable. The history of Intel is also really remarkable. I feel this is, you know, we've, may I, so have we talked with the oral history, that Pat Gelsinger's oral history?

Bryan Cantrill:

I'm not sure we talked about that here. I don't

Adam Leventhal:

think we have. We talked about them you're from the Computer History Museum.

Bryan Cantrill:

From the Computer History Museum. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

I don't think we've talked about that one in particular, but we've talked about the them generally. And also, folks from the Computer History Museum, we remain available to discuss them as a spin off podcast.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. Folks, excuse me, you may remember us from the stack of letters that that you have not responded to, and the restraining order that you've taken out against us. Yes. But, yes. We folks at the Computer History Museum.

Bryan Cantrill:

You know the thing that drives me nuts on these things? Do you I don't know how often you listen to these. They also put ads on them, like, pretty frequently. And you're like, I am the 4 hundredth viewer on this thing, which is already, like, a shame because I'm listening to this amazing oral history that should be listened to by many more people. And I'm getting, like, an ad every 10 minutes.

Bryan Cantrill:

It's like, can we

Adam Leventhal:

You know, I, I paid for YouTube explicitly because of some of these ones. And, like, both to treat them as a podcast and to get rid of ads, like, to run it in the background when I'm driving or whatever.

Bryan Cantrill:

So no ads. Yeah. But, you know, that's almost worth doing. But by the way, like, give this museum. That money should not be going to YouTube.

Bryan Cantrill:

That money should go into So we should, but there was a just in terms of Intel, I mean, because a lot of these folks have done oral histories at the Computer History Museum. And the I I think that a full history of Intel needs to be written. Intel is in a is in a massive peckle right now. And I think the history of Intel is very, very is more relevant than ever before.

Adam Leventhal:

You're you're totally right. Like, I think, you know, the history of Intel to the present day, would be, like, great perspective because they're at such a tricky spot. And understanding how they got there, very interesting.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. They're in a tricky spot. And I mean, I do think it's like, things are gonna have to really, really change. I, so the other thing I might recommend is so this took me to an, there's an I'll I'll drop this in the chat, but an oral an interview, I don't think it's written in oral history, with Jerry Sanders, who is the founder of AMD. And there's a profile of Jerry Sanders in the big score.

Bryan Cantrill:

That guy is wild. And all I knew about Jerry Sanders was famously the pink pants. So do you have you do anything about Jerry Sanders? No. No.

Bryan Cantrill:

No. Seriously. Founder founder of AMD, very, very colorful guy, worked at Fairchild, really interesting to hear him in his own words, and famously wore pink pants to IBM, when he was calling on IBM as a way of kind of like, you know, as a way of being abrasive, basically. Turns out he never wore pink pants to IBM. That was totally made up.

Bryan Cantrill:

That is completely apocryphal. So literally the only thing I knew about him was just a myth. But, that's great. Really, really, really interesting guy. The history of AMD is really interesting in contrast because AMD and Intel are founded at almost the same time.

Bryan Cantrill:

And, the, you know, it was said that Noyce raised $5,000,000 for Intel in 5 minutes. Because Noyce has already had a big winner in Fairchild. And when they when they got Noyce to go from Noyce was the last one to commit from Shockwave to Fairchild, and Noyce was kind of the leader of the group. So the the, Noyce is a really interesting person in many different dimensions up there with, like, World War 2 is stressful. Robert Noyce is interesting.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. Okay. Great. But Noyce is super interesting. So he raises $5,000,000, like, in 5 minutes.

Bryan Cantrill:

And, and, the the line that that Jerry had was for AMD, was that, like, yeah, I had to it took me 5,000,000 minutes to raise $5

Adam Leventhal:

was

Bryan Cantrill:

Jerry's Anderson's line. But really interesting. And then that took, took me to, and I won't recommend the book because I haven't read it yet, but I did listen to the oral history with Hector Ruiz, who was the CEO of AMD. And, man, that oral history was outstanding. So he is the CEO of AMD.

Bryan Cantrill:

He is who Jerry Sanders annoyances as his successor at AMD. And, Ruiz in particular, like, the 2 things that he does that are very, very painful for the company to do are they spin off their foundry. They actually have to first, they have to sue Intel because their agreement with Intel prevented them from using an outside foundry. Isn't that amazing? Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

So they literally I mean, you just think I mean, this is like one of these crazy things that I guess I knew but I had forgotten That they that AMD was by a previous agreement with Intel settling out x86. They could not use their they had to use their own foundry. And so Jerry Sanders famously said, Real men build their own fabs. Mhmm. So there was this kind of idea that, I mean, AMD had its own fab for that reason.

Bryan Cantrill:

The so but they kind of bound them to that, and they had to first sue Intel to get out from underneath their own fabs, and to be able to actually outsource that. And then the other thing that he did was apparently, they got very close to an acquisition with Nvidia that Nvidia wanted to do, but they could do for a reason that he doesn't elaborate on. Some something there. I'm not sure what that is. And which is amazing, or interesting anyway.

Bryan Cantrill:

And then he, leads the acquisition of ATI. So it's like and this all happens in, like, you know, 2005, 2006, 2007. Anyway, this is a long This is true. This all from from this is part of the this is from the big score and me kind of going down these various, I wouldn't say rabbit holes because this is like super relevant stuff, that is very very current.

Adam Leventhal:

But So I was gonna hold on to this. So that sounds awesome. Definitely gonna check out that one. I was gonna let other folks join in here, but one of the books I want to recommend Yes. It's, like, dovetail so perfectly with that one.

Adam Leventhal:

So, this is Chip War by Chris Miller.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, yes. Have you read that? That is on my how is it? No. I I really wanna read it.

Bryan Cantrill:

Is it how is it?

Adam Leventhal:

Awesome. And I cannot wait to hear your review of it in part. So very similar. Like, it it I mean, it starts in at least in very similar ways. Starts with Fairchild, starts with Silicon Valley, history of semiconductors, Intel, AMD.

Adam Leventhal:

I didn't know that Micron was founded in Idaho. I'm not sure why I sort of, like, thought of mic yeah. I just had not picked that one up. So anyway, but a bunch of kind of like, there's some history of semiconductors that I'm sure will feel very familiar to you, a bunch of stuff that I just did not know. But then, you know, in particular, your chip war, The title comes from the geopolitical centrality of semiconductor manufacturing now, and, like, Morris Chang, who I think we've talked about before on the podcast, like, I fucking love.

Adam Leventhal:

Right? Like Amazing. Yeah. I mean, what may may be one of, like, the top 10 heroes of the industry.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. I agree.

Adam Leventhal:

Yep. Just the degree he he create, you know, from TI built out the the country's greatest, kind of greatest national product, like just from his strength of will, just astounding. And I will just say that, like, the the geopolitical implications of, like, Taiwan being an island claimed by China, and mentioned that, like, you know, Trump has been explicit about, how weird it is that the mob charges for production, but we, are willing to protect Taiwan for free. Just a reminder that to vote in 8 days, I think it's very important to do that. But ship wars spectacular.

Adam Leventhal:

I think you're gonna love it.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. And there is a great, Morris Chang also did a great oral history with the Computer History Museum. Oh, I

Adam Leventhal:

gotta check that out.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, it's a must listen. No. I, I absolutely agree, and I mean, it it's such an interesting story in so many different dimensions, actually. There and there's a great the acquired on TSMC is also pretty good.

Adam Leventhal:

So good.

Bryan Cantrill:

So Okay. Okay. I like,

Adam Leventhal:

I didn't know there was one company that could make these, like, ultra, UV machines, like ASML in in the in In

Bryan Cantrill:

in the Netherlands.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. And then all, you know, all, from research, apparently from, like, our national labs. So very complicated, you know, negotiation and horse trading that allowed all that to happen, but but really very interesting.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's awesome. No. I'm excited to read it. It's been on my kind of, like, mental cue, but for a long time, but I need to have that one to go to the the front of the list.

Adam Leventhal:

Should we, pull in our our guests who've been waiting for

Adam Leventhal:

the Let's close.

Bryan Cantrill:

Alright. Well, let's still wait and kinda well, except we'll run Robin it. Everyone can get kinda we'll we'll, give a book, and then we'll come around for another lap.

Adam Leventhal:

Alright. Nick, you've been waiting very patiently.

Nick:

Yeah. Thank you. Can am I coming through clearly?

Bryan Cantrill:

You are.

Nick:

Okay.

Nick:

Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. Longtime listener, First Ned caller. Thanks for opening up the stage.

Nick:

Appreciate it. I'll try not to to, inflate your guys' egos too much, but I really, look up to both of you. So so it's it's a pleasure to get a chance to talk to you.

Bryan Cantrill:

You know, I was just thinking, what could you possibly be apologizing for? Because we're such a pair of jackasses. But that actually is something to apologize for. I actually agree. That that apology accepted, I think.

Nick:

Thank you. First, on the note of Stripe Press, I wanted to say, I have their, working in public book about open open source software development and Yeah. Just the book is just so beautifully built. Like, you can lay it flat, and it just, like, opens up nicely. It reminds me of, like, old books from, like, back in college.

Nick:

In the library, you'd find that just, like, are just beautifully designed and stuff. So those are definitely worth the money.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's great. Yeah.

Nick:

But, that's not my pick. I I I'll keep it short here. I, have little kids running around, and they'll probably drag me out of my office pretty soon. But, I have 2. 1 is kinda old.

Nick:

I'm sure it's kinda been recommended maybe before, but Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull. I don't know

Bryan Cantrill:

if Yeah.

Nick:

Anyone has has read that one, but Ed Catmull, he founded Pixar with

Bryan Cantrill:

with

Nick:

some other folks. I'm forgetting all the names, but, just a legend in the history of computer graphics. He I think he studied with Ivan Sutherland, I think is that's the name, who who did the original, I wanna say, Sketchpad software of, like, your, like, penultimate, like, computer graphics program. So just really good history there, really interesting history about Pixar, but his thesis is great because he's talking about after, you know, they had their first success in Toy Story, his job changed and he's like you know, it's like he's he's achieved his goal of making an animated feature film with graphics, computer graphics. But after that, his his job sort of shifted to wanting to build a company with a really great creative culture.

Nick:

And I just thought that was great, and he has a lot of really good, insights in how he did that. I haven't finished the book, but I've I'm well enough into it to to say that it's a a worthy recommendation there.

Bryan Cantrill:

You've you've crossed 11th all threshold? Yeah. Yeah. So confidently a chart that you're not gonna no no one will be rage reading it.

Nick:

Yeah. I'll I'll put my put my name on it.

Adam Leventhal:

There you go.

Nick:

So there's that. And then I think this book came out this year. It's hardcore software by Steven Sinoffski. And I'll drop a link in the in the chat, but it's, just a fantastic history of Steven's work at Microsoft. He started in about 1989, and he was put on the project of building the tools, around c plus plus.

Nick:

So it's just a really great history of, like, the early days of c plus plus and Microsoft, and, like, they're ascending, you know, into their monopoly status, and things are growing and all kinds of stuff. But, like, really just interesting stories. But I the thing that kinda struck me as interesting was just how intertwined, Microsoft's history was with the development of c plus plus and how they embraced it early and kind of jumped on it and and made it a better product than it might have if if they hadn't taken it up. And it was their hedge against, next objective c, because objective c was coming out and, like, Bill Gates was, like, jealous of the cool stuff that Steve Jobs was doing with. And, you know, everybody was getting the hype around, object oriented programming was, like, really starting to fire up.

Nick:

And, so it was really interesting to see that, like, literally, like, c plus plus was the like, their play against objective c, and, like, it's just really interesting because, like, you kind of every company has their kind of pet language, and I didn't know that c plus plus was their original one, so to speak. The it's it's a great book. Also, I don't wanna spoil it or anything, but, Steven becomes the technical assistant to Gates himself. So he's, like, working side by side with Gates. So, like, he's got a pretty good insight in, just, like, what Bill was like at the time and all the interesting, things they're doing.

Nick:

And there's just so many good lessons, for software engineers, and it it's just a really great book. It's available. You can buy it in print, I think, but it's, there's an audiobook, which I think I think, Adam, you mentioned that you like you like audiobooks.

Bryan Cantrill:

And and for Adam, there's an auto auto audiobook.

Nick:

It's it's, I I I say that because, like, I am sitting here among my books, but I don't really have time to read anymore now that I have young kids running around and, you know, work and all that stuff. So the only time I really get is, like, when I'm standing at the sink doing dishes. So that's usually when I listen to you guys do your livestream and stuff. So it's, audio is really important just to even have a chance to read anything. So

Bryan Cantrill:

Well, we are very pro audio. So Yeah. That's great. And and have I've I've listened I think most of the computer history Museum, oral histories have also been at the same 2 editions. So I'm I'm right there with you.

Bryan Cantrill:

So the so Steven Smolovski is there during a pretty bare knuckle period at Microsoft. Is there any kind of a reflection back on, like, I mean, Microsoft this is this is kind of the era where they are, you know, it's kinda up to no good. I mean, they're they're definitely abusing the market power they've got. Does he have any kind of, is there any kind of Robert McNamara in retrospect?

Nick:

Yeah. I I think it will probably get into that. I he did have some interesting insights. I I can't really remember off the top of my head, but it seemed like they were just trying their best, you know, to, like, really win the market. And it's like I think, part of it was when he was a TA, a technical assistant for Gates.

Nick:

He got to participate in, like, one of the off sites with all the executives, and they would, like, brainstorm, you know, how to, how to, like I can't I can't remember the phrase, but, like, he he really let on that Gates was extremely paranoid at the time. And, like, I think this was around the time that the Internet was starting to pick up. So it's like you could tell

Bryan Cantrill:

Or maybe after the Internet had already been picked up.

Nick:

Yeah. Well, like, where

Bryan Cantrill:

Mike's just a little little laid off the off the mark on the old Internet.

Nick:

Yeah. No. I you're you're totally right. The I think where, meaning is, like I think they went on a recruiting trip to to, university or something, and, like, there there was a snow day, and they were checking the, like, email. Like, they're logging on to the to, like, university's network, and they could see, like, it was just on fire.

Nick:

And they're just like, okay. Yeah. Everybody's just sitting around emailing each other. This is the future. Like, we gotta get networking software figured out.

Nick:

And then Oh, yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

This is actually he mentions this is his Wikipedia article. Cornell University 1994 after being stuck in a snowstorm, which means it was, like, definitely not in June or July, but could have been in any other month of the year. The that's yeah. That's interesting. They were yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Sounds good. I mean, I I would I I will I I will confess that my disposition disposition towards Sanofsky and kind of Microsoft execs of this era, it does kinda match my mother's disposition towards Robert McNamara, which is like, I'm I'm I'm glad that you can read something from him and not be overcome with rage.

Nick:

Sure. Yeah. I, I haven't gotten that far in the book to where I might be, opinionated against them. So he's a he's a fresh name to me. So There you go.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, you you pair it with, with Jerry Kaplan's startup, book I know we've talked about from time to time, but that's another that's a really good book that is written, from the outside of Microsoft. That's the, about the about Go, the company, not the language.

Adam Leventhal:

Well, and, that was good. Showstopper 2. I mean, we we talked about that.

Bryan Cantrill:

2.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I guess more ins was that that was not a particular insight. I mean, it was a journalist, you know, what following folks around. I thought that was a great one too.

Bryan Cantrill:

I thought that was a great one too. Yeah. G Pascal Zachary. That's right. Friend of the pod or Lisa on the pod.

Adam Leventhal:

Of the pod.

Bryan Cantrill:

Has struggled with the audio issues on our podcast, which is Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

I'm right. Not a small group of people.

Bryan Cantrill:

Well, like, those are great recommendations.

Nick:

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it, guys. See

Bryan Cantrill:

you. Yeah. You bet. Thanks. And thanks so much for, you know, hopping up here, giving the recommendations.

Bryan Cantrill:

Alright. Who else we, who's next, Adam?

Adam Leventhal:

How about Josh?

Josh:

Hello. Hello.

Josh:

I'm a long time listener, first time caller, and I am here to recommend, Exploding the Phone by Phil Lapsley, which is about phone freaking and the subculture that grew up around exploiting the phone system. Very much written for a general audience, so don't expect, like, super crazy technical details, but it it's really him diving into the the back culture and getting interviews from people who were there. And it does have a very good high of high level explanation of a lot of the technical elements as well that I found very interesting.

Adam Leventhal:

Josh, this is super cool. And, Josh, if I may, did you do you feel like you lived through some of the periods of

Bryan Cantrill:

this book, or was was that the same question?

Josh:

No.

Bryan Cantrill:

I was asking you for your birth year. Could you please provide us your birth year? No.

Bryan Cantrill:

It's so sweet when

Josh:

it's fine.

Bryan Cantrill:

Tomax and Xamot. Do they have any special attributes that you can name?

Josh:

It it's wait. No. They don't. It's fine. I was 13 when this book came out.

Josh:

So

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay.

Josh:

Yeah. Got

Bryan Cantrill:

it. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

There you

Bryan Cantrill:

go. Came out.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Yeah. Published in 20 in 2014. 2014. I don't that math doesn't matter too good for me, but yes.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's okay. Okay. I think I think Josh is telling us very gently that we are extraordinarily old.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right. That sounds right.

Bryan Cantrill:

He's like, yeah, I don't know what I've never had a rotary phone.

Adam Leventhal:

Right.

Josh:

Actually, I have a rotary phone in my house, which is my my father took an old pay phone and modified it to work with modern telephone signaling. So

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay. Okay. You know, I think we Adam, I think we got an honorary Xer here. I think I think we gotta we we we gotta promote this guy up. We like it.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, interesting. So

Josh:

When the hardcover got published, IG.

Bryan Cantrill:

But yeah. No. This is a good book.

Josh:

Lots of great tangled detail lots of great, like, social and technical details, and it also touches on how the whole phone freaking subculture ties into the homebrew computing scene that was happening around the same time. You know, of course, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were selling blue boxes to the rich and the famous.

Bryan Cantrill:

A 100%.

Adam Leventhal:

A bunch

Bryan Cantrill:

I mean Yeah. I mean, this was what I mean, this was this is the era of the anarchist cookbook, and this is I I mean, I I mean, this is much more this is our lived experience, I dare say. I don't know that you and I were on the I was too freaking to actually do anything, but I Yeah. There's some mesmerized by it all.

Josh:

Yeah. There's some really great stories in there. This is this book is also why I own several volumes of the Bell System technical journal, because I was visiting the University of Pittsburgh, and they just literally had the shelf of books that they didn't want anymore sitting in the lobby. And I was like, there's, like, 5 volumes to the Bell System technical journal right here. I see someone else mentioning, Kevin Mitnick's books.

Josh:

I started reading Ghost in the Wires, but I never finished it, and that is why I haven't recommended it. But,

Adam Leventhal:

I

Josh:

I By what I saw, that was also very good.

Bryan Cantrill:

I have a banger recommendation for you that I don't think the and, Adam, I'm not sure if you read this, out of the inner circle.

Adam Leventhal:

No. I don't.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah.

Josh:

I'm gonna need to

Bryan Cantrill:

read that.

Adam Leventhal:

Tier 1.

Josh:

Oh, that is that's cool. That definitely right up my alley.

Bryan Cantrill:

And And very much the same era.

Josh:

I'm gonna link the cuckoo's egg here. I think that was recommended on a previous book in the box books in the box. But, the cuckoo's egg is great. Great classic.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. That is, that's good though. I so alright. You you definitely this is a very good exploding phone looks looks really good. And because that that it was that it was like it was a very finite era.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right, Adam? You know, it's like that's what that is our youth. And

Adam Leventhal:

Sort of like eighties, early nineties kinda neighborhood?

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. And I the one thing I did is I used there was a that you could use, was it was it a blue box that you could use to get free long distance calls? I did do that a couple of times. I just got scared that I was gonna get caught.

Josh:

That's exactly what it was, and the book dives into why and how that worked. And because there it's the actual exploit is I don't know. You probably know this already. I don't know. But it it was that they were sending control information along Audible.

Josh:

Voice lines

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah.

Josh:

Audibly and yeah. When you could give you could give the the tones that would

Bryan Cantrill:

be emitted when a when quarters were dropped into a pay phone, and you could you then emit those control signals.

Josh:

That was a red box.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. That's a red box. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. No. That that's where I didn't use a red box. I I'd I'd use the

Josh:

But the other the other thing about, the other thing about that book is it gave me a real appreciation for just how amazing the engineering behind analog phone systems and electromechanical switching Mhmm. Before the, the move to digital was and the incredible amount of work that went into making that possible. Some really sophisticated systems.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. And I can tell you that Adam and I have both been transported back to the same place at the same time.

Adam Leventhal:

Yes. To the, Colonel technical discussion by, Bonwick senior.

Bryan Cantrill:

By Jeff Bonwick's dad who, walking us through the basically, the the the these Victorian systems. And in particular, that they had to pressurize these tubes. This the the I remember the squirrels were a major problem, eating eating these lead pipes or whatever.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. No. This was bad. This bear is kind of very so the, you know, they're used to these pictures, long ago of, like, you look at the the telephone poles and there are just bajillions of wires. And so the great innovation was to take all these wires and pack them in a tube and they used paper as an insulator and they put it in these lead pipes and the squirrels like to chew on the lead pipes.

Adam Leventhal:

Water would get in, paper is not a great insulator when it's wet. And so the solution was to pump like 5 PSI air through these lead pipes to like blow the water out. So it wouldn't infiltrate the, and and like back when we heard this talk, which was probably like 2,001, 2,002.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right.

Adam Leventhal:

There were like DSL lines that people were needing to connect it on that still were going getting routed through this kind of connectivity. Yeah. It was wild.

Bryan Cantrill:

And when he he described how the party lines work.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

And wasn't that the because didn't DSL never work? I was who's at whose house did DSL never work? It wasn't your house. I feel like there's someone in our immediate circle had, like, a house where DSL simply could not work. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

I think it's right. Frankly?

Adam Leventhal:

Because they were getting, like, the bounce off of the

Bryan Cantrill:

They're getting the bounce because they had the last line and on the on what was an old party line. Yeah. And everything else have been clipped away. Sure. And I I've just got I I visualize Bonwick's dad at a whiteboard with, like, a diagram of a squirrel.

Bryan Cantrill:

Am I making that up? Is that an implanted memory?

Adam Leventhal:

No. For, I you know what? Let's say it's true. It feels true to me. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Oh, sorry. The other talk, Brian, that this reminds me of, I'm from, this is about, 4 years ago, we were doing the hardware hacking, you know, 2 day, 3 day event. There was a guy who was talking about freaking elevators, which apparently like so, elevators still use, some of these antiquated systems. So if folks Google up, Will Caruana, he's written a bunch and talked a bunch about, phone freaking for elevators.

Adam Leventhal:

And in particular watch that.

Adam Leventhal:

It's really interesting. In particular, I obtained, I won't say how, a list of all the phone numbers for all of, like, the blue light phones and pay phones at and elevators of my alma mater. I haven't called them for a while. I haven't called them for

Bryan Cantrill:

a while. Is this Your honor. Yeah. Exact exactly. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Now you you would think after our, after the the the the Dave Hicks, Dave Lightman fiasco and after the attorneys gave you the stern talking to in

Adam Leventhal:

our That's right.

Bryan Cantrill:

Several episodes ago.

Josh:

Yeah. I, also, like, yeah, if that book, like, definitely go visit 1 of the 2 telephone museums if you can. There's 1 in Maine and 1 in Seattle. And the Seattle one's bigger, and I haven't been there yet. So, you know, saying what's going

Josh:

on for me.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah.

Josh:

But I remember one

Josh:

in Maine, and they were actually shutting down a a temporary exhibit on phone freaking, with, like from partly, I think, based on this book. And, they let me peek around in it, before it got shut down for good, so that was really cool too.

Bryan Cantrill:

That sounds really neat. That's a great recommendation. Yeah. That's a that that is that is a great recommendation.

Josh:

Alright. I'll let someone else talk now.

Bryan Cantrill:

It sounds good. Ian, you're you're, what do you got for us? You've always got good stuff for us.

Ian Grunert:

Yeah. With the exception of masters of doom, which seems like it was a, a nudge.

Adam Leventhal:

Well, you know, if if if you loved it, you you can still give that recommendation.

Ian Grunert:

But, it's true. It was there was definitely a unreliable narrator involved, I believe. Yeah. The first that I've got to recommend, was a find at The Last Bookstore in LA. So if you're in downtown LA, it's worth checking out The Last Bookstore.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, it wasn't actually like the final bookstore in the in the city and county of Los Angeles. This is just called the last bookstore.

Ian Grunert:

It is confusingly titled names the last bookstore, but there are more than 1 bookstores in LA, thankfully. The book is called The Mousetriver Chronicles, the True Life Adventures of 2 First Time Entrepreneurs, by John Lusk and Kyle Harrison.

Adam Leventhal:

This

Ian Grunert:

this is a fun one. It's, 22 people graduate from Wharton in 99, and one of them has done like a for the final kind of presentation. They pitched a business in which they're producing mice that look like the head of a golf club as a novelty item, and they decide that instead of going to work for a large consulting company, they're going to move to San Francisco and try and make this, computer accessory a reality. Yeah. It's it's interesting to see, like, all the the differences in doing hardware then compared to now, but also the differences in, like, information availability because there's a number of mistakes made that is like, oh, yeah.

Ian Grunert:

That's that's obviously going to happen. Like, this is a common mistake of what happens when you try and make hardware.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. I have already ordered it. That looks that that looks just grand. That looks terrific. I also the it so it sounds like so they wrote it themselves.

Bryan Cantrill:

I mean, this is this is them describing their own favorite demos.

Ian Grunert:

It is the 2 of them who wrote it. I, I believe they're still working in the industry and going on to have some pretty interesting careers. But they yeah. It's also there's, like, 2 other things that are kinda interesting about it. One is this kinda like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern esque nature of it because

Adam Leventhal:

Oh.

Ian Grunert:

This is all happening in in 9, 9, 2000 in San Francisco, and then they have, like, some of their friends at Wharton have decided to go and either start or join tech companies, and they're kinda watching the tech bubble from, like, an adjacent, like, viewpoint. So that's fine.

Bryan Cantrill:

Ian, are you first of all, I love that. Are you making that reference for my benefit? I mean, I feel like this is one of these references that I'm Adam, do I make this reference more frequently than others?

Adam Leventhal:

Yes. I think that's fair.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Okay. So I'm not sure if it but I I personally, I love that. Just that I not having this reference. I go back to me, but I love the Rosencrantz and Guilden certain effect of, like, you've got these kinda, like, these 2 people making a mouse shaped like a golf club.

Bryan Cantrill:

And meanwhile, Hamlet is going on behind them of, like, the dotcom bubble. I just Ian, this sounds great.

Ian Grunert:

Yeah. It was a really enjoyable one for me. I I thought this is a this is a good pickup.

Bryan Cantrill:

That is awesome. Do you have, any others in your we we can keep keep on rocking, by the way. But we we we can

Ian Grunert:

Yeah. I have a bunch. So, next up, I've got, Hatching Twitter, a true story of money, power, friendship, and betrayal by Nick Bilton.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, here we go. Okay. We're on the we are on we we've arrived at the Twitter subtheme.

Ian Grunert:

Yeah. So I did I looked through the previous episodes, and I don't think this one had been recommended. No. Probably in 2014. Oh, interesting.

Ian Grunert:

So it's like it it kinda goes through early founding of Twitter through the 20, like, early 20 tens. So it's like, yeah, a really interesting period of time for the company that I was unaware of the history of, particularly with, kind of, Jack Dorsey's involvement early on in the company and the degree to which, the claims he makes about inventing Twitter are, you know, where those claims made reality. Like, I'm just it's it's interesting to see the the the collaboration and and the, the some of the, like, you know, stories that happen when you, start a company in your early to mid twenties with 4 people in San Francisco at that time, Marcus.

Bryan Cantrill:

Well, speaking of Rosencrantz at Gilmster, I mean, this is when Adam and I stumble onto the stage in 2007, into the into the offices of Obvious. And I come out of that thinking, my god, I'm never gonna use that with a bunch of clowns. And Adam comes out of that being like, I gotta go reserve AHL before the American Hockey League does. Yeah. Well, sure about that.

Bryan Cantrill:

You know, we were both right. We were both right. The, this looks good, and, I mean, naturally segues you into a book that I read very recently and enjoyed very much. I feel like too often around here, we're talking about good books with bad titles. I gotta say hatching Twitter is kind of in that that category.

Bryan Cantrill:

The I definitely think the big scores in that category. I don't like that as a title. Into the raging season is a good title, but the, Sunburst is kinda lame. A a good book with a really good title is character limit. Mhmm.

Bryan Cantrill:

And this is by Kate Congard and Ryan Mac on the the recent history of Twitter. And it does kind of the full history of Twitter from the beginning, but clearly focusing on the post Musk era. And, Adam, I, this is a great book. I thought it was really, really good.

Adam Leventhal:

Am I misremembering that this came in from the socials from, like, an Oxide and Friends listener? I feel like someone sent this into us. Maybe not.

Bryan Cantrill:

That was might have been me.

Adam Leventhal:

There you go.

Bryan Cantrill:

I just Oh. I

Adam Leventhal:

Our biggest fan.

Bryan Cantrill:

Exactly. I I was definitely, some some key lines that I mean, like, no matter how bonkers you think Musk is, he's more bonkers than that. And the the the Right. Exactly. And I know you're thinking to yourself, well, I think he's pretty bonkers.

Bryan Cantrill:

And you should I mean, I, you know what? I'm not gonna give it away any spoilers. Let's just say, he's real bonkers. And he does something the universe has a bit of a bad blood kind of, John Carrier's bad blood about Theranos, kind of like the each chapter crazier than the one that came before it. It it Oh.

Bryan Cantrill:

It you will read this book quickly.

Adam Leventhal:

This sounds great.

Bryan Cantrill:

You will read it quickly.

Adam Leventhal:

Sounds like a page read.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I will say that more or less I okay. I'm gonna say this, and I'm I won't say more than this. I'm gonna say every single person in this book comes across as unsympathetic, except for someone who is a regular Oxide and Friends listener. That's all I'm gonna say. The There's Who comes across as very sympathetic and is very sympathetic because, of course, we've got great taste in podcasts, but, everyone else comes across as as really quite unsympathetic.

Bryan Cantrill:

I mean, even even the folks I mean, I think, again, it's well told. I I think that that there is nuance to everybody, except for Musk, who's pretty devoid of nuance. But it's, it's a good read. And I it is highly recommended. So,

Adam Leventhal:

Awesome. I

Adam Leventhal:

definitely go check that out. That sounds fantastic.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. I would love to try to coax Kate Conger and or Ryan Maccon here to come talk about it. I would, but, you know, I I keep trying to tag them on Blue Sky in a way that now I'm just right is coming across as creepy, so I need to stop doing it. But it's like, boy, I sure wish. Tag Kate Conger and Ryan Mac.

Bryan Cantrill:

Anyway, it's it's looking a little thirsty, but I would love to talk to them about this book because I think it's a myth. So, the other thing that this book has going for it, is the lawsuit actually. The so Did this employment lawsuit? No. So recall, I mean, this is like this history is so insane that we just like forget all these things that Musk had to be taken to court to buy the company.

Adam Leventhal:

Right. Right. The shareholder lawsuit. Right. Right.

Adam Leventhal:

Which is, you're just like, right.

Bryan Cantrill:

This thing goes from like, this is awesome. This is like a hostile takeover to like a hostile takeover from the other perspective.

Adam Leventhal:

Because his four because right. His, his offer was like 42069 or something. Like made on a whim.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. And the, and so going into the details there, it, it's so in particular, that's how we have all these like text messages. And you've got like JCal, Jason Kalkanis, telling Musk, you have my sword. And all this other just nonsense comes from the the the fact that there was, like, discovery in this case.

Adam Leventhal:

Right.

Bryan Cantrill:

So you have all these, like That's

Adam Leventhal:

a good

Bryan Cantrill:

facts of, like, text messages that these yahoos all sent to one another. And, you know, David Sacks and all these other morons that are, it's it's really wild. And I gotta say, like, I think the the I I'm hoping there's gonna be a sequel for when this thing is like I mean, Twitter is, Twitter's on fire, but it's not yet destroyed. I think Twitter can go a lot lower. Anyway, highly recommended.

Bryan Cantrill:

Highly recommended.

Adam Leventhal:

How about Tom? Friend of the pod.

Tom Lyon:

Is it is it okay if we don't talk about Twitter anymore? It's too painful.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. Yeah. We have this is now yes. For the we we did this now is the we have the end of this Twitter discussion. I'm so sorry.

Bryan Cantrill:

Tom and all other sympathetic Twitter folks.

Tom Lyon:

Yeah. Anyway, long time caller, hardly ever a listener.

Adam Leventhal:

Fair. Yeah. That's fair.

Bryan Cantrill:

Hope choking on my diet coke.

Tom Lyon:

So, 2 particular books I wanna mention. 1 is called The Maniac. Have have I talked about this?

Adam Leventhal:

I don't think so.

Tom Lyon:

It's a it's a book about, John Von Neumann, And it's all it's all based on factual stuff, but it's presented fictionally from first person, first person stories about Von Neumann where the people telling the stories are other really famous people. Oh, wild. And it's a really good book. And all this trivia about von von Neumann from, you know, the computer stuff to all kinds of math stuff and atomic energy and yada yada yada. So excellent book.

Bryan Cantrill:

It is like Von Neumann fan fiction? I'm trying to, like, like, what is the pitch to the publisher look like for this one? I'm just this is

Tom Lyon:

I don't know, but it it ended up on Obama's favorite list or something. So

Tom Lyon:

Yeah. Pretty good.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. I saw I saw

Adam Leventhal:

that, Chip War was there as well.

Bryan Cantrill:

I love that guy. Yeah. I really do. I am sorry. I just I I I miss him.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Yes. Barack Obama, our president.

Tom Lyon:

Yeah. So Von Neumann, of course, was a Martian. Right? So clearly not

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Right.

Tom Lyon:

Not actually not actually human, but very interesting guy. So another book which it's kinda cheating because I don't think anyone can get it anymore. Shift happens. Have you seen this?

Bryan Cantrill:

No. We do this all the time. We do books that can't people can't get it anymore unless you really truly can't get it. What what's it called?

Tom Lyon:

Shift happens. I just dropped it in. It's a history of keyboards, and it's the most beautiful book I possess. It is Wow. It's going to last 100 of years.

Tom Lyon:

It's all chock full of full of color photographs, incredibly detailed history of all this stuff. It's a huge labor of love.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, so this is really out of print. You really do mean that this is unattainable because this is a Kickstarter that has sold out. Oh, interesting.

Tom Lyon:

Right. So if you ever see one other than in my office, grab it.

Adam Leventhal:

Tom, I guarantee you, Brian and I are both currently trying to outbid each other for the loan copy on eBay.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, no. That's not me at all. That's not me at all. I you should let that other bidder win, though. That would be discourteous to Very generous of it.

Bryan Cantrill:

Exactly.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. This looks

Tom Lyon:

It's it's really, really good.

Bryan Cantrill:

That is really it it that okay. The this has got me kind of, like, mesmerized because, like, the keyboard is the the keyboard has actually kind of, like, changed the least of all of the accoutrements of computing.

Tom Lyon:

Yeah. But it's it's, it had a it took a while to settle down. And in particular, the shift key, the where it gets the title, the shift key had all kinds of different names and purposes and subtle side effects, and it's very interesting.

Bryan Cantrill:

The entire they said there are there are 37 Easter eggs hiding in the book.

Tom Lyon:

Yeah. I'm not I haven't studied it hard enough to find those.

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay. Got a It's it's an amazing book. This does look amazing. Yeah. Wow.

Bryan Cantrill:

This looks amazing. Okay. Yeah. So you know what? When you were saying that that I I didn't think you need to apologize for this book.

Bryan Cantrill:

I know I think, you know, apology kind of accepted. This is really Yeah. You you really toast us.

Adam Leventhal:

Total unobtanium. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Total unobtanium. Yep.

Adam Leventhal:

So, totally different, set of things. I you've probably heard of Slow Horses, the Apple TV show? No. No? It's a great, it's a great spy show.

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay.

Tom Lyon:

But slow horses get their name from being in Slough House where all where all that Mi 5 rejects gets sent to spend their time. But, anyway, there's a in addition to the TV show, which is great, there's 8 volumes of books, which I've started reading, and they're very good. So looking for slower horses.

Bryan Cantrill:

Perfect. Is this fiction, nonfiction? What what is a Fiction.

Tom Lyon:

Yeah. It's all fiction. Fiction.

Bryan Cantrill:

Nice. Wait. And what's the I mean, it's on Slough House, there's novels. Got it. Okay.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. There it is.

Tom Lyon:

Yeah. So that's they're really good.

Bryan Cantrill:

You know, I used to really like to buy novels when I was a kid. I'm not sure if that's because, like, it was the cold war or not. That just makes me a a a product of the cold war. Or is that a but, yeah, this looks good and more attainable than the

Adam Leventhal:

unobtainable keyboard book. Right? Than the book with, like, a 120 known copies. Like, the Gutenberg Bible is yeah. Right.

Adam Leventhal:

Gutenberg Bible being more accessible.

Adam Leventhal:

Exactly. Exactly. Tom, good stuff.

Adam Leventhal:

So Yeah. I'm gonna drop one more in here. It's The Last Philosopher in Texas. K. And it's, it appeals to me because of my border El Paso, heritage or whatever, but written by a Chicano guy who grew up in the basement of the local synagogue in El Paso.

Adam Leventhal:

Very interesting stuff.

Bryan Cantrill:

Interesting. And it also, this is fiction as well.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Yeah. And and Good. Some of it is kinda poetic and some kinda magical realism. So it's it's and it's not really very finished, but a lot of whack of ideas in there.

Adam Leventhal:

So good stuff.

Adam Leventhal:

Cool. Tom, that's great.

Bryan Cantrill:

Tom, I think it's fair to say you are an avid reader.

Tom Lyon:

Yeah. I've been doing that for 7 to 6 or so.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. Right. You add it all up. And you, and do you have, like, books physically in your possession? Is that your are you a a physical books kind of a person?

Tom Lyon:

I'm mostly ebook now. But for for, like, my computer history stuff, I like to get the rule book. I don't know why. But

Bryan Cantrill:

And, Tom, did you wanna give a teaser about your idea for a podcast episode? Because Adam and I both think this is a very good idea.

Tom Lyon:

Yeah. So so we we met last week, and I I suggested that they come over to do a a show in my home office where they rummage around my home office for for goodies. And I'll explain what

Bryan Cantrill:

This is like American Pickers for computer manuals. It's I I I it and so, Adam, we're gonna turn it into, like, a buddy movie. We're gonna really gonna do it out. So we good.

Adam Leventhal:

I I mean, in my mind, this is already converted into a heist movie where we walk away with shift happens.

Bryan Cantrill:

I no. No. Not in front of Tom when I tell you. Not in front of Tom. Oh, it is.

Bryan Cantrill:

DM it to you privately. I'm telling you. He's not read aloud in that DM. Oh,

Adam Leventhal:

man. It's been hard to conceal.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Tom, please ignore him. We we look forward to being guesting your unsecure health.

Tom Lyon:

Research on the way out.

Adam Leventhal:

With my gigantic backpack.

Bryan Cantrill:

Exactly. I take this gigantic backpack everywhere. Thank you very much. Now if you may take me take me to your crown jewels, that which I this would be great, I think. Not the heist.

Bryan Cantrill:

The the heist that

Adam Leventhal:

No. No. No. No. No.

Adam Leventhal:

No.

Bryan Cantrill:

No. No. Not the heist at all. Well, please, it's the other thing. The thing that's the cover for the heist, that'll be well, that's all blown.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, congratulations, Adam. Ruined it for everybody. But Tom, those are great recommendations. Thanks. Alright.

Bryan Cantrill:

Who else do we have? We had

Adam Leventhal:

ahh, Merriman. Merriman Industry is up first.

Xander:

Hey, guys. Actual name is Xander.

Adam Leventhal:

Okay, Xander.

Xander:

I have 2 books, that I'll recommend really quickly, and I'm a little bit shocked if neither one has ever been recommended before. And the first one is really a callback to the, Phone Freak book, and it is The Idea Factory by, John Gertner about Bell Labs in the great age of American innovation. And yeah. I mean, obviously, it goes over all the technological innovations that came out, but it also talks a lot about, like, where these scientists came from, like the state of science education in the 1st part of 20th century. It talks about, like, the tenuous relationship between, like, the AT and T monopoly and the US government, and how that went back and forth.

Xander:

Some of, like, their late innovations into the satellite era. So absolutely terrific. Big recommendation. The other one, because I don't think anyone's actually recommended a non or a fiction book yet, is, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Let me make sure I got that name right.

Xander:

Yeah. And it's a science fiction book that imagines what, a spider based civilization would be like in terms of technology and communication and culture and government structure. And there's, you know, a greater plot around that, but it's just really fun if you're, like, a little bit of a science nerd to think about, you know, how spiders will communicate, what kind of society they would build.

Bryan Cantrill:

That sounds it sounds like it that that does sound fun. It sounds like it it can kind of accompany our you know, we we obviously read How Life Works by Philip Ball and learning about, you know, the, the hyper ovulating frogs and just, you know, I feel like it's just takes a couple of twists of evolution for the spiders to be in control. So why not?

Xander:

Yeah. I also I also like it because it only works as a book because you can emphasize with the spider when they're described. But if you were, like, watching it as a movie, you would probably just be caught up in the fact that it's a spider and it's maybe a little bit revolting to humans. So it's maybe one of the rare books that can only work as a book and could probably never be adapted.

Bryan Cantrill:

That that that's always refreshing. You hopefully, the book well, I mean, the so hopefully, the book doesn't do so well that they turned into a movie that's terrible.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. This would this looks like a good one.

Adam Leventhal:

Cool. Alright. Thanks, everyone.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Thank you. This would be good stuff.

Adam Leventhal:

And, now Oliver.

Bryan Cantrill:

Now Oliver.

Oliver:

Now me. Hey, Gen Xers. I had a couple of different ones, and I kinda, like, threw them out because I realized, they were all technical books. And I felt like I was at my usual meet up book club. So I got a new list of books.

Oliver:

And the first one

Bryan Cantrill:

books are good, by the way. You can do technical books. Usually yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

We we we do like technical books. It's fair.

Oliver:

Well, so the technical book that I would that I prepared a spiel for, is actually kind of a product book. It's, Honeycomb, released a book with O'Reilly called Observability Engineering.

Ian Grunert:

Oh, yeah. Interesting.

Oliver:

Jerry Majors and Liz Fong, wrote it. Mhmm. And we read this with, my local DevOps days chapter about a year ago. And to me, it was sort of my first introduction into the philosophy of observability practice, especially, you know, if you're coming from a world where you don't have a lot of really deep instrumentation and then seeing what you actually do. Really highly recommend this book.

Oliver:

I'll drop the link here. Oh, yeah. Brian, maybe to it. And not only that. Yeah.

Oliver:

We had Charity give a talk with us, which he was super helpful with.

Nick:

That's great.

Oliver:

Yeah. No.

Bryan Cantrill:

So I

Oliver:

had a really good time with that book a while ago. I was looking through our list, and I was like, do I have any other ones that I can actually put through in there? And none that I finished. It is the only, Boston DevOps meetup, book club group book that I've finished. But I do have others.

Oliver:

One actually, I was I sort of got reminded of when we were talking about, a bunch of technical history books, and we never no one ever brought up AI, which I thought was ludicrous. That's 2024. Everyone talks about AI. But I was reminded of this book called Red Cloud at Dawn. It's about the so it it's very ominous.

Oliver:

I know. It's about the Soviet nuclear project, kind of a salient moment in history, where,

Adam Leventhal:

you

Oliver:

know, obviously the Manhattan Project really took off. And, there was a solid 3 years there where everyone was or 4 years where everyone's kind of quaking in their boots all around the world waiting for the other shoe to drop. And this book is about the SBNRs involved, which is pretty well documented, but also just how just how how, honestly, despite all the lack of resources and just sheer will and depression, they were able to put together a, really competent nuclear program, which was been out of it several years before the French or the British got it. So that was an interesting book. And, the other book

Bryan Cantrill:

is on, have we talked about biohazard before here? Have we this is by Ken Alibek on the Soviet bioweapons program. Just a

Adam Leventhal:

I think you wrote me that book in, like, 2002 or something like that. I don't think we've talked about it.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's another just a terrific book, and really quite, in terms of, like, the a kind of a skinflint weapons program or weapons program on the cheap. This is they're trying to use in particular, they were trying to use, smallpox as a vector for Marburg, which is just, like,

Adam Leventhal:

why

Bryan Cantrill:

and they assumed that the Americans were also doing the same thing. And it was only after the end of the Cold War, it was just, like, no, that was just that was just Soviet. That was just you guys.

Adam Leventhal:

That's just you. We didn't. That's just

Bryan Cantrill:

No. We didn't quite wow. You guys were super into this whole cold war thing. We were all but, but make it good, so, Oliver, what prompted you to read Red Cloud at dawn? How did we get from AI to Red Cloud at dawn?

Bryan Cantrill:

That that happened Oh, yeah. That was transition for me.

Oliver:

That was quite a jump. Sorry. Well, I was just thinking about, you know, at the time, it was such a huge development, like an earth shattering development. And Yeah. These days, it seems like a lot of comparisons are being made, in terms of, like, general intelligence, or superintelligence to that kind of

Ian Grunert:

Kind of world ending events.

Oliver:

World ending, potentially, you know, apocalyptic sea change. And so that was me making the

Bryan Cantrill:

the I think it's a good jump to make because I I mean, I do think it's, like, worthwhile comparing, like, this kind of fear of a computer program to Tsar Bomba, which where there was, like, a legitimate concern that they're gonna light the atmosphere on fire.

Oliver:

Yeah. I mean and that was that was a hydrogen bomb. That wasn't even that late.

Bryan Cantrill:

It would, it was not that late, but I think at that point, like, I think that was the one where they kinda scared themselves. Like, that's still, I think, the largest nuclear detonation of all time. The and I think that there was like, okay. Time to time to come off the gas pedal on this one here. But this looks like it looks like a great read.

Bryan Cantrill:

Sorry. Didn't mean to take us down as Soviet weapons.

Adam Leventhal:

Oh, no. No. No. No. Not at all.

Oliver:

No. That's really interesting. I see in the description there that they tried to weaponize aids. So that's

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. They were. Yeah. You know, with the sorry. From MS.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. But we were all doing that. Right? That wasn't just no. No.

Bryan Cantrill:

No. Oh, that that was just us too. Okay. Okay. Alright.

Oliver:

Well, first of all, based. But, second of all, that actually brings you to another book, which I think is sort of related to the the sort of tech access, tech economy, political economy access that we've had a lot of in 2024, which is called More Money Than God. My friend who works in in London had to read this for his economics course. And, I thought it was funny that at the London School of Economics, you have to, like, read a book that just shits on hedge funds. But it's really, really well done because, not right, I think it is, because they go into the psychology of each individual sort of, like, superstar group, in these hedge funds up from the fifties sixties to whenever this was published, like 2010, so right after the great financial crisis, and their methods.

Oliver:

So it's kind of a pairing, you know, sort of how I think,

Bryan Cantrill:

Interesting. Yeah.

Oliver:

I think a lot of people who are in the the the the computing or high technology canon sort of look up to certain individuals and their methods and their their life and times and things. And then this was, like, the same thing, but for financial wizards and examining their psychology and whether it's, you know, morally justifiable and that sort of thing. But really, really good book, I think.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. I would also recommend When Genius Failed, which is on LTCM in particular, Long Term Capital Management, on by Roger Lowenstein, another very good book, that takes one of these I like the fact that you've got all the the these different chapters on, just eyeballing the chapters, there's, there's some good stuff here.

Oliver:

Oh, it's long term capital. Yeah, that was in

Adam Leventhal:

the book as well.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah, no LTCM is in, is, is a chapter in More Money Than God, and it's a, it's a very, there's an entire, I mean, that is a that whole thing is is wild. That looks good. I would like to point out in defense of business education that if you look at, like, the the the curriculum, in, like, the the the case study approach, they actually spend a lot of time talking about how businesses fail. How well that's internalized is an open question. But, yeah, it's good stuff.

Oliver:

If I can offer one last thing, which is in a book You may. Before I

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. So,

Oliver:

there is this project, that this person I connected with on LinkedIn, and now I'm forgetting their name, which is a bit of me. But, it's called I don't know where actually, where else I'd possibly share this. But it's called OATS. And they're starting from bytecode going up to, you know, instruction sets and writing our compiler and writing an assembly, and their their approach to teaching is really, really fun and novel, I think. So I just liked it.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. That's it. That is good. Like, I think you're right. I think you're like, look, this is not a book.

Bryan Cantrill:

I just don't know where else I'm gonna drop it. So this is coming in right now. I think this is a good one. It looks good. That looks yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

That looks neat.

Oliver:

Alright. Well, thank you. I'll let someone else know.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. You bet. Absolutely. So I'm giving you a book other books on your list. I've got, I do have one more.

Adam Leventhal:

I got I got one more that's it was a pretty weird one, but I really enjoyed it. Just a weird thing to say about it. So it it was a book called Remembered Prisoners of a Forgotten War. It was interviews with Korean War POWs.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I

Adam Leventhal:

knew just embarrassingly little about the Korean War. Interesting. And so it was a great education about the Korean War for me, you know, someone who knew very little about it. But then apparently, Korean War POWs were really treated very poorly. And in fact, not just POWs, but veterans.

Adam Leventhal:

So just a just a very odd time in American history. You know, not the heroes of World War 2, not the sort of empathetic creatures of or or figures of Vietnam. Vietnam. But but these kind of middle children who were sort of not well trusted. And the weird thing is I got to this through a book of fiction.

Adam Leventhal:

I I read last year, I read Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land, which is a great, weird, time jumping book. Really enjoyed that one. Or or maybe not time jumping, but kind of, rush them on, like, tell telling the serve story in a bunch of different time periods and used as one of them being in the Korean War in a POW camp, and so this was source material for that book of fiction. And that's how I

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, interesting. So it's like a bibliography from a book of fiction. Yes. Yes. That's wild.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

So anyway, you you not

Adam Leventhal:

not for everyone, but yeah. I mean, I didn't know anything about this war and, it was a really neat one. And, you know, something from from, again, interviews with all these POWs, with all these veterans, done, you know, 2,021,001.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. I gotta say, like, I didn't know a lot about the history of Korea and or the Korean War until Samsung. And the, you know, there's I I I want her to read this. This would be really interesting because obviously this is very current history, and this is where there's still, you know, the shadows of that war definitely linger.

Adam Leventhal:

So Absolutely.

Bryan Cantrill:

That looks really good. So I one that I read and actually made such an impact on me, I read I wrote a blog entry about it, but I finally read IBM and the Holocaust, Adam. This is a a book that had been on and I like I I think I don't begrudge them the title because, like, it is about you know what I mean? I mean, boy, how do I how do I walk around this way?

Adam Leventhal:

It's a heavy title?

Bryan Cantrill:

Full heavy? Exactly. They, like people will see the title and they're like, oh, god. Like, I just don't know if I'm in the mood for a holocaust book. But it's not the the the the I I put this book off for too long is what I'd like to say.

Bryan Cantrill:

I put this book off for too long, and I think if it had been titled IBM and Nazi Germany, I think I would have read it a little bit earlier because I would have been I mean, the which is not to to take away from its tie into the Holocaust, which is is very real, but it is ultimately, it is not a book about the Holocaust. It is a book about IBM and Nazi Germany, and by extension the Holocaust. But an excellent book, very, very thoroughly researched. It was a, when it came out, it was a, because I mean, I remember when this book came out, it was a big deal when it came out. It was done without IBM's cooperation.

Bryan Cantrill:

IBM still has not really cleaned up, or clean up's the wrong word. It has not rectified, or, even attempted to, rectify this period of its history. And it's pretty bad. I mean, it's, Watson is basically Thomas Watson senior, very much profited off of Nazi Germany. And, it's a it's an outstanding book, and the part of the reason I read it is because I, you know, I think that you always have this kind of ambiguity about, you know, as technologists, what responsibility do we bear for how that technology is used?

Bryan Cantrill:

Right? And that can be, you know, a social media network being abused to, to foment hate, it can be like a lot of things. And the thing that was, I actually thought there was gonna be more ambiguity for IBM than there actually was. I thought like this was actually I thought another thing that was gonna make this a tough read is that there was gonna be this tremendous amount of ambiguity. As it turns out, what IBM did was just like pretty clearly wrong.

Bryan Cantrill:

And very much it's, like, violating the law. And the, very, very much, pro Hitler and pro Nazi Germany when it was, too late. When when other many other, when the US itself and many other American entities realized what was happening. So this is and, you know, Hitler prevent presents Watson kind of the highest civilian medal from Nazi Germany in 1938. You're like, 1938.

Adam Leventhal:

That's

Adam Leventhal:

late. Yeah. Wow.

Josh:

That's late in the day. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

It is late in the day. And the, but I thought this was a really important book. And I would say don't let the I mean, not that one would, but like don't let the don't let the title let you put it off because this is not, it doesn't have the kind of the anguish to it. It it is is really but it is very relevant to us. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

So I I great recommendation part because I I think I have put it off. You've recommended in the past, but I put it off in part because, you know, it sounds heavy. So I will no longer put it off.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. It's quite super light. It's just like it's a it's a it's a fun little jaunt through Nazi Germany.

Adam Leventhal:

Bouncy beach read. Take seconds of bouncy beach read through Nazi Germany.

Bryan Cantrill:

I I know. It's like it's like, how do you like, and I'm trying to, like, yeah, how do you express the fact that, like, no. No. It's not nearly as holocausty as it's made out to be. It's you're just like, Nazi Germany is not as holocausty as you may is I mean, like, where's that one going?

Bryan Cantrill:

So, yeah. I I I don't want you know, you know what I'm trying to say?

Adam Leventhal:

A 100%. I mean, don't don't let the gravity kinda put you off. We're free.

Bryan Cantrill:

Put you off. That's right. That's exactly what it is. Don't let the gravity put you off. And, and I think also because there's a lot that that that whole episode can really teach us, and can teach us about kinda what our responsibilities are.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I think actually, honestly for us, just like candidly, I was looking for, you know, lessons for what our lessons at Oxide would be. And one of them that's like super super clear is like, obey the law. Yeah. That's a good one. And I think that the this is part of what was really shady about IBM is that they were doing all of these, they were pulling tricks to go around the bands that there were on in place around Nazi Germany.

Bryan Cantrill:

So in in in other words, they were trading with Nazi Germany at a time when that was against the law. And Yeah. The They're

Adam Leventhal:

they're irrelevant today where, you know, trade to China, trade to Russia, is going through a bunch of intermediaries. And there are tech companies that are probably being caught up in that where there's it's going through an intermediate whether they know it or not.

Bryan Cantrill:

Whether they know it or not. And the the the and the and in IBM's case, I think you've got responsibility to know it. Right? And in IBM's case, like, they definitely know it. But a good read and and and good good guidance, I think, for us all.

Bryan Cantrill:

And not too call a costy. So, you know.

Adam Leventhal:

There's something for everybody.

Adam Leventhal:

It's something for everyone.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Get me out of here. Oh, this is good. This has been a good, a good good run around here. We got a lot of good stuff.

Bryan Cantrill:

I feel like this. Yeah. Yeah. You and I go

Adam Leventhal:

too long. Enjoy this. I can't believe I mean, it it over a year, but I mean but shame on us.

Bryan Cantrill:

Shame on us. We did do a book club book though. We did we we did do, you know, we did do how life works. I and I time to plug, you have remastered that episode.

Adam Leventhal:

I've remastered all new audio.

Bryan Cantrill:

All new Dolby surround sound.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right.

Bryan Cantrill:

Doctor Greg Kostas, you've never heard him before. But I I loved that discussion with Greg. And, I actually, actually, I'll do a little, a a a bonus recommendation. Alright. I read, Mukherjee's Song of the Cell.

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay. This is by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Have you read any of his stuff?

Ian Grunert:

No. None.

Bryan Cantrill:

He wrote The Emperor of Maladies about cancer. Very good book about cancer. And unbelievable writer. A great as a physician and a scientist and a great author, which is like these things don't all come in the same person. And so Sudhakar Mukherjee's, The Song of the Cell, an exploration of medicine in the new human, which I read after How Life Works.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I found How Life Works to be very, it was very helpful to kind of get a bunch of that stuff again. And I actually went back and helpful to just relisten to Greg as part of that. So Nice. It's my, that's my that's my my upbeat recommendation. And

Adam Leventhal:

Even less holocausty?

Bryan Cantrill:

Even less holocausty. That's what it says right, even less holocausty, raved at 11th, Paul. Yeah. Joshua Snick Baerle Right there in the review. It's good stuff.

Bryan Cantrill:

All right. Well, this has been we got a lot of books to go get. I've already bought a couple of them actually. So, the, oh, Oliver dropped in Deck is Dead, Long Live Deck. We've got a whole episode on that, on on That and, like, the 6 deck books I read as part of that.

Bryan Cantrill:

I didn't just I I didn't fall down a deck well. I fell down like a deck crevasse. I fell down. It was a phase.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Fortunately, you grew out of it.

Bryan Cantrill:

I clawed my way out of it, but it took us it took us an episode for sure. And, it to to to get me out of there. But, that's a good one. I'll I'll drop in the the link to that episode, and I wanna drop in, a link to, some oral histories, some Hector Ruiz, and some Morris Chang. We got a bunch of stuff to drop in here.

Bryan Cantrill:

So I'm gonna hang out in the chat, dropping some stuff in, but, Adam, this is great. Yeah. And, and it was great to see you and the team last week. That was, it was great. I'm obviously fun.

Adam Leventhal:

Great to get the whole team together. That was that was terrific.

Bryan Cantrill:

It was terrific. And, and I was going back to some more past podcast episodes. It was kind of like a return to the office, founder's mode mashup.

Adam Leventhal:

It

Bryan Cantrill:

was a lot of fun. So Yeah. Anyway, great stuff. And look forward to seeing everyone next time. Thanks, everybody.

Bryan Cantrill:

Thanks.

Creators and Guests

Adam Leventhal
Host
Adam Leventhal
X Mastodon Bluesky GitHub Website Link
Bryan Cantrill
Host
Bryan Cantrill
X Mastodon Bluesky GitHub Website Link
Books in the Box IV

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