OxF 2024 Wrap-Up
I have raised my hand.
Adam Leventhal:Good. Well done. I
Bryan Cantrill:come up here without having raised my hand. Is that right? According to you?
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. I've never raised my hand once in my life. Just got something to say. I just say it. In fact, it's a common comment
Bryan Cantrill:on my report cards at elementary school,
Adam Leventhal:actually. Exactly.
Bryan Cantrill:It came up a lot in the parent teacher conference. I'm stoked for this.
Adam Leventhal:Me too. Have you
Bryan Cantrill:our last episode of the year. Yeah. This could be fun.
Adam Leventhal:Have you been binging, our back catalog?
Bryan Cantrill:A little bit. I've been binging the back catalog. I've been listening well, I so, do we wanna break with tradition and and give the subject right at the top? I mean,
Adam Leventhal:I Oh, yeah. I mean, I that is that is one of my notes to ourselves that I've been taking while listening to episodes. So why don't we go ahead? That that sounds fun.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. Let's experiment with that. So the, this came out of our episode, with Adam on of the chain of changelock fame. And the, Adam had pointed out that in the changelog, they, they actually do a year end wrap up episode. So I was asking him, how do you point people to episodes?
Bryan Cantrill:How do you find the the episodes to point people? And he says, we always recommend that people go to these year end wrap up episodes. And we thought, that's a very good idea. So here we are. Here we are.
Bryan Cantrill:I would say that that not every idea he gave was a good idea in that pod well, I shouldn't say that. That's too bad.
Adam Leventhal:I'm sorry. That's too critical.
Bryan Cantrill:He recommended the, change log dance party. Do you recall this?
Adam Leventhal:I do remember this. Yes.
Bryan Cantrill:And the, are you getting echo from me?
Adam Leventhal:No. Are you getting echo from me?
Bryan Cantrill:I am yeah. I am getting echo. Just a second.
Adam Leventhal:Ugh.
Bryan Cantrill:You may I'm just going a little slightly insane. Is that possible?
Adam Leventhal:This is a good time of year for it. It's okay. That's you
Bryan Cantrill:know what? Fine. Done. Sorry. The, he had so he recommended this changelog dance party to us.
Bryan Cantrill:Yes. And we, my daughter and I were, we're doing a a menial holiday task, namely, stuffing holiday cards. And I thought, you know, this is a this is a perfect opportunity for this, like, this changelog work music. And so I I put on changelog dance party for my daughter, and, her facial expression is hard to capture, but she said, it's giving old people. Have you heard giving as a No.
Bryan Cantrill:No. So it's like it it it's, it it Just
Adam Leventhal:translate it.
Bryan Cantrill:This is like it is giving me the vibes. I see. And, she's like, yeah. This is this is giving old people. So I'm like, okay.
Adam Leventhal:Well, there was one piece of advice that Adam Stokovic did give us that we slash you have not followed up on, which is the BRAKEmaster cylinder intro for,
Bryan Cantrill:for, yeah, I have not. I'm I'm intimidated actually to do that. Is that.
Adam Leventhal:I just gotta get over it because like
Bryan Cantrill:I've got I just gotta get over it. Yeah. I I don't know. I just feel that I I don't know. I I, I I feel the break you know, because I I listen to so much BRAKE MASTER Cylinder and Reply All, and I I in so did you listen to some of the beats that break master cylinder made for the people that called in to changelog?
Adam Leventhal:Yes. And that reminded me how you haven't followed up with with Adam for the intro to break master cylinder. Like, what's the worst that happens? He's like, look. I listened to a couple episodes, and I don't think you guys need me.
Adam Leventhal:Like, what I mean, what's what what's, like, the failure mode here that he just says, you know, giving old people when he listens to the episode and and that's the feedback we get? I guess that is pretty bad. Maybe don't ask him.
Bryan Cantrill:I yeah. I'm a little bit worried about that. I'm a little I'm just intimidated by that. I I just I I feel like also, I think we're beneath them. Is that not I'm I just feel like you don't don't you have, like, much more serious podcasts to go to?
Bryan Cantrill:I I just feel like there are many more anyway, I just feel No way. Yeah. I I'm intimidated
Adam Leventhal:by it.
Bryan Cantrill:I'm intimidated. No. I'm just intimidated.
Adam Leventhal:Alright. Well, our our commitment to you, the listener, is that Brian will follow-up on this offer.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay.
Adam Leventhal:Alright. Feel comfortable making that commitment.
Bryan Cantrill:I need to do it. You're right. So I'm I Do it. And you know what? It it it is it is my pledge to you.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. So how do we wanna do this? Because we've got, we don't have Breakmaster Cylinder, so we can't do what ChangeLog did, where they had Breakmaster Cylinder create these amazing beef for people. Right. So
Adam Leventhal:I think how I would suggest topics. I think we have a couple of topic areas.
Bryan Cantrill:Are we not gonna talk about kind of the elephant in the room? I thought we were the okay. So I feel because when we were listening to changelog, they were talking about how much they agonize over the titles of the episode.
Adam Leventhal:They were talking about that. And I was like
Bryan Cantrill:We don't we don't have that problem. That's not what we agonize over.
Adam Leventhal:No. But what I would say, I I I was like, oh, cool. Like, cool idea. I'm gonna look back on my favorite titles of the year. And I did that.
Adam Leventhal:Did you do that?
Bryan Cantrill:This feels like an intervention again.
Adam Leventhal:I just feel like our titles are fine. Like, our titles are, a little
Bryan Cantrill:off the nose.
Adam Leventhal:Yes. Very, very descriptive.
Bryan Cantrill:I like our tie I think our titles are fine, actually. I think our titles listen, our titles just like do a job. They go to work. They patch pack a lunch pail. Nothing wrong.
Bryan Cantrill:Nothing wrong. These are good, honest titles.
Adam Leventhal:The the jobs to be done framework for titles. I'm with you.
Bryan Cantrill:I think RTO or GTFO is a good title.
Adam Leventhal:Yes. No. That actually, that is a good title. That's a very good title. Okay.
Adam Leventhal:It it that is a very good title. I liked Intel after Gelsinger, I guess, concise, but also, kinda nail on the coffin.
Bryan Cantrill:God, someone does have to win 2nd place here. And I don't know who,
Adam Leventhal:you know, by I think, bottom of the bat you know, in season in 1 or something like that, we did a episode that was that was, I'll say, actually pretty good about, supporting, systems that kinda look like UNIX or appliance sized and so forth. And the episode title is, like, I know this or something. It's awful title for a pretty good episode.
Bryan Cantrill:It is that is an awful title.
Adam Leventhal:We have a
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Okay. But okay. Why is that an awful title? I agree
Adam Leventhal:with you.
Bryan Cantrill:That's an awful title. Why is that an awful title?
Adam Leventhal:Because I see where you're
Bryan Cantrill:going. Because because people have
Adam Leventhal:no idea what the episode is about. I'm with you. Yes.
Bryan Cantrill:Don't don't look at your lawyer. Why is that an awful title? Because because you have
Adam Leventhal:no idea what it's about.
Bryan Cantrill:You've got no idea what it's about.
Adam Leventhal:And Like our episode this season called what's taking so long.
Bryan Cantrill:Like our episode this season, what's taking so long? Yeah. That I actually think is still better than I know this because it's also a Jurassic Park reference, which is it feels like
Adam Leventhal:Yes.
Bryan Cantrill:It feels like it's an so I okay. That's a exactly. That's about and it's like it's a reference. It's a cultural reference. You got no idea.
Bryan Cantrill:I I actually think I like the descriptive titles. I gotta tell you. I think the descriptive titles are, you know, pragmatic LOM usage with Nicholas Carlini. What I mean, that's wait. What what do you want?
Bryan Cantrill:You you wanna spoke with something like that we we don't want something, as the actual well, speaking of LOMs, the, Bridget asked Chad gbt what she should get for Christmas for gift ideas for me. And, it's I I think we learned that that, LLMs are not gonna replace humans in at least one domain anytime soon. Its gift suggestions were, very bad. They were all based on, of course, like, well, you know, Ryan Cantrell is is is well known for his work in open source. Maybe he would appreciate, a framed ZFS internals.
Bryan Cantrill:It's like, what are we talking about there? There was it and so she was goofballing from the other room as it was coming up with many, bad ideas. I'll tell you, actually, the one good idea it had is, maybe a to a chair organization in his name. Like, that is a good idea. Everything else is not a good idea.
Bryan Cantrill:That's a
Adam Leventhal:good always a good gift for the man who has everything?
Bryan Cantrill:It is always a good gift. But so but I think that the the Pragmatic LM usage with Nicholas Carlini is a good example of a good title. So I think we've got and we put all of that title energy into the image.
Adam Leventhal:Into the image. And you know what? I I know This is what
Bryan Cantrill:I'm getting to.
Adam Leventhal:I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna throw out my shoulder patting myself on the back on this. But looking back on our year of images, we had some good images. Preston Pysh
Bryan Cantrill:(zero zero six:fifty six): You were on your game. And I think that so this is what I meant by the elephant in the room. I think that the people do not see the hidden, the craft, the angst, the agony, the mastery of what you do with the images. Doctor.
Adam Leventhal:Joe Sopcich Yeah. Sometimes I just take a whole week off of work just to think about the image.
Bryan Cantrill:Doctor. Joe Sopcich I think only in the case that you write a multi part blog entry about what you've done complete with links to source code, do people have any idea? So I would like you to rank your images for the year. What is it? I mean, it feels like your top image.
Bryan Cantrill:I mean, and again, we we don't need to stack rank them, although that would also be kind of interesting. But, what were some of the images that really showcase?
Adam Leventhal:Obviously, like, the XC image, I loved. Like, so
Bryan Cantrill:The XC image is unbelievable.
Adam Leventhal:And, what what will surprise, maybe everyone except for you, Brian, is, like, how much self doubt I had over the concept. Like, I went back and looked at our chat messages. Yeah. Oh, yeah. If you go back and look at our chat messages, you you probably were, like, in a meeting, and I was like, hey.
Adam Leventhal:I have an idea, which is so, like, here's kind of the idea of it. And you're like, that's a neat idea, or you could just use the XZ image. And I don't know whether this was like you thinking about, like, the sorry. No. No.
Adam Leventhal:No. This I don't know whether this was like you thinking, well, this is not gonna work. Like, let me save you some time. Or you thinking, you know, you do technically, like, have a job and this isn't particularly it, so maybe you could do that instead. Or if you're just, like like a third
Bryan Cantrill:thing, which is, like, I if, like, if that sounds burdensome to you, I don't you you feel like you have to do that. Yeah. Completely unrelated with you. Yeah. No.
Bryan Cantrill:I was really not trying to
Adam Leventhal:say No. No. So I so I just I mean, again, it's like you gotta you gotta understand my self doubt going into this. So the the the image is I thought I'm gonna take this x you know, we're talking about the XE backdoor with Andres Freud, which is just a a really fun episode. I was so I would I mean, amazed kind of Brian that, not, like, right coming out of his interview with Kevin Roos of the New York Times, you were able to score this great interview.
Adam Leventhal:So, awesome to get Andres on the show. And, of course, what comes to mind is this XZ image I mean, pardon me, the XKCD image of the stacked up blocks with an arrow pointing to a part maintained by a thankless Nebraskan or whatever for for decades.
Bryan Cantrill:A classic xkcd.
Adam Leventhal:Totally. And, thinking, okay, cool. Like, let me remove that block and see what happens. And so I I plugged I was like, I think this will be a really neat image. I plugged into JetGPT.
Adam Leventhal:JetGPT gave me something totally unusable. And I went you know, I feel like I do this a bunch with Chat gpt. Like, again, maybe surprising, surprising everyone. It's for you, Brian. But I like, when Chat gpt is very wrong, I just keep at it.
Adam Leventhal:I just I'm like, no Chat gpt. How about a little bit this? How about a little of that? And I get in arguments with it. And it's like, this
Bryan Cantrill:is a
Adam Leventhal:two dimensional image. I'm like, Chad GPT. You have given me a three-dimensional image. Like, I don't I don't know how to like, we're we're kind of at loggerheads. And then I've had Chad GPT say, like, basically, let's agree to disagree.
Adam Leventhal:Like, just kind of using its managerial techniques to to get me to back off.
Bryan Cantrill:It's I
Adam Leventhal:think we're wrapping the musicals.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. We we really need to, no side conversations, please. If we could we're really pleased if we could stick to the we really need the time box this conversation. And
Adam Leventhal:When when Chegg GPT is like, hey, do you know how much electricity I just burned, like, on this argument that you're intent on having with me? I'm like, listen, Chegg. Shit. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:Like, by the way, we're not gonna get any of that back. I mean, some of that is renewable, I guess. But, like, I mean, how much how much more dinosaur blood do you want me to do you want me to actually burn for this?
Adam Leventhal:So then I, like, downloaded not one, but, like, several physics simulators. I finally got one to work. I think it's, like, built in Java. I, like, drew the thing. I, like, you know, got some image that looked okay, downloaded it to my son, Will's iPad, where he has an Apple pencil.
Adam Leventhal:And I, like, traced it with the Apple Pencil to get kind of the XKCD style back onto the computer. This is all, like, I think, like, during an all hands and stuff. Like, I'm trying not to
Bryan Cantrill:have this no. No. No. It was like He just made a business to this podcast. He may he may be a little bit.
Adam Leventhal:I mean, yeah. During an all hands that I was hey. Look. I wasn't doing a crossword puzzle or something. You know?
Bryan Cantrill:Like Hey. Listen. It's true. That that's it's a real it's a real improvement.
Adam Leventhal:Exactly. So and then it it just it came out great. I was really pleased with with how it worked out. So great, in fact, that I've seen it, like, used in in other people's podcasts, which was a little surprising. And then I got a little little uppity about, like, hey.
Adam Leventhal:How dare you steal our images? And then I looked at all of our other images, which is, like, mostly me stealing copyrighted material. So it's a little little late in the day for me to be complaining.
Bryan Cantrill:But that's number 1. We've got our own complaint. But the but I that was an amazing image. And one might say that what an obscene amount of work for the image. But I feel like I mean, that maybe it's a it's an outlier, but it's not an outlier by that much.
Bryan Cantrill:I feel we've
Adam Leventhal:It's a the image
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:It's but it's also, like, if if it took an hour and a half, that would be a lot. Like, I think it's probably closer to an hour. So it really is like
Bryan Cantrill:that. That's actually amazing you did all that in an hour. I I because I mean, I think it is it is outstanding. I mean, it is it is really, but I think you were just on your game. You know what?
Bryan Cantrill:We are using AI much less frequently to generate images. The AI generated images are not good, and we generally use AI to generate an image when we wanna make, like, a meta comment about the the limitations of AI. I don't know if people realize this, that all of our AI or maybe they do. Maybe we're explaining the joke that all of our AI generated images are basically a meta comment on the futility of using AI generated.
Adam Leventhal:Well, I do have one favorite of my images, which
Bryan Cantrill:Are we gonna talk about the OpenAI boardroom brawl?
Adam Leventhal:Oh, was that well, that was that was last year.
Bryan Cantrill:It was last year. It was last year. We got we got a little bit.
Adam Leventhal:That one is great.
Bryan Cantrill:We we gotta have, like, some acceptance. The AI boardroom brawl, I love because it's all, like, 8 fingered people brawling.
Adam Leventhal:Yes. Yes.
Bryan Cantrill:It was really, really quite good.
Adam Leventhal:The What I like from this year was Yeah. Open source LLMs with Simon Willison, which also was that was a great get on your part again. Oh, god. But the image is, is like a a site like a robot reading the New York Times. And a big theme of that episode was, like the the provenance of the training data and like, look, this is all this copyrighted material.
Adam Leventhal:So I I I do love that image of, like, the AI, like, casually reading the New York Times, like, as it, you know, obviously, like, memorizes it and then feeds it back to you. So that was fun.
Bryan Cantrill:And meanwhile, us violating the copyrights of of not just the New York Times, but, like, many people and actually generating this image. We're actually although maybe it's all reasonable use, but all fair use. But, yes, we are Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:As and someone told us, they referred to they're they they told us our their child referred to this as Grand Theft Auto Complete, which I thought was awesome.
Bryan Cantrill:That is that's the man, that's is that a teenager?
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. We yeah. We were there. We were at dtrace.com when, Alex was telling us that, I think.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. We gotta get that kid on the podcast. That's good stuff.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. So what were some of the other we and we had how many, how many Simpsons references did we have this year? I think, actually, kinda like remarkably few almost.
Adam Leventhal:In the images, I think I think none. Is that true? No way. No way.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. Help me out. I can't no. No. That can't be none.
Bryan Cantrill:I just would be very surprised if we had this self control. We had a, well, okay. So let let's talk about just a couple of them. We had the Tomax and Zaymott for the books in the box. Tomax and Seam Ott in the library.
Bryan Cantrill:That was amazing.
Adam Leventhal:That that when I found that one, I was pretty pretty pleased by that found find. The only Simpsons reference I remember is when there was one time when you and I were recording first of all, when we are in the same room recording, it is, like, a 1000% more twiddle twaddle. Like, it is, like, especially at the intro. And I took one of the, like, intros and made it into its own YouTube video. And, that did use a Simpsons reference, which was, like, the kett Brockman, with the cuckoo bird popping out of its head and with the technical difficulties, please stand by from the Simpsons, which is, like, just a hilarious image.
Bryan Cantrill:No, chefs. You're right. That is the only Simpsons reference we had this year. That's amazing. We've had we've had plenty in years past, but that is the only one this year.
Adam Leventhal:Start to use them up. Oh, you know what? There's a there's a this is not our favorite one, but there's another one. You for the Adam Sikowiak episode, you took a selfie of yourself in the k. In the podcasting studio.
Adam Leventhal:And, annoyingly, you took it in portrait mode, and, really, I need the landscape mode. So I had AI kind of fill in the rest of it, and it made like
Bryan Cantrill:a Here, I thought the story was gonna go to any other delightful aspects of the selfie, of the fact that I
Adam Leventhal:Got it. Really you really dolled yourself up for a podcast. I mean, you look just terrific.
Bryan Cantrill:It's from my Pied Piper shirt. Alright. So
Adam Leventhal:Pied Piper shirt looks great. But it, like, invented a microphone stand that's not there and an arm that was definitely not holding it. And I don't know. It is it is kind of remarkable what it's capable of. So in the chat oh, oh, oh, oh,
Bryan Cantrill:the other image that come on, but we gotta have the the a couple others that we that we've gotta go, your because we joked about C SPAN for debugging in the cultural idiosyncrasies episode. Yes. So for the image that you really you envisioned what c span for debugging might look like. Yeah. And this is I I just felt masterful.
Bryan Cantrill:I
Adam Leventhal:think feel that way because I I felt like it you know, like, I felt like it was probably more work than the XC one, and I feel like it just did not land.
Bryan Cantrill:I felt like Oh, it did not land. No. I I it it knocked me out cold. It landed so much that I was just lying in the fetal position weeping. Just just no.
Bryan Cantrill:I mean, just apart why the the the, like, the various subtle aspects of the craft on this one that I
Adam Leventhal:I know I know all the subtle aspects. Like, I I am like, I poured my art and soul into it, and I just feel like when I even when I was looking at the podcast episode, I downloaded I listened to that episode, like, 3 days ago, and I was like, god, like, I worked so hard for this font that, like, you would have to break out the microscope to, like, understand this joke, I guess. And it looks like just me in front of a screen, like, squinting. Anyway.
Bryan Cantrill:Oh, it's much better than squinting because you've managed to catch yourself in the, like, absolute, like, dumbfounded look. I mean, the look is just like, what the hell is going on? It's a great look. I just and I love that you got, like, the C SPAN tagline for those just tuning in. We have mysterious data corruption and install program.
Bryan Cantrill:And it just like and then everyone else is kinda left. It's like it is like the lone spender on the floor at 12:30 in the morning. I just I was I mean, this this was this was
Adam Leventhal:just really Well, obviously, like, I I nailed my audience of 1 on that one.
Bryan Cantrill:And, like, nailed your audience of 1.
Adam Leventhal:Like, I it was one of these ones too where I was like, look, I'm in this deep. I've I've made the laptop, like, ghost image mask. I've been dorking with the opacity of that. Like, I'm not not posting this. Right?
Adam Leventhal:Like, I'm not I'm not just writing off this effort to 0. Like, that's going on the image.
Bryan Cantrill:No. We gotta get all
Adam Leventhal:the way
Bryan Cantrill:through it. And I'm I am I was obviously I I I have been obviously insufficiently communicative about how the the the these masterpieces. Because I really do think that that they are. I mean, some of them are kind of like the logical thing of a screenshot, you know, like, that that makes sense. Totally.
Bryan Cantrill:But but some of them are really are just next level. And then, of course, the one that I really deeply personally appreciate that is in a an outrageously deep hole is you actually finding the New Yorker cartoon for the caption contest over which I've got a chip on my shoulder because I this is where I feel it was exposed to me that the New York caption cartoon was rigged because, yes, they didn't select my caption. But because I it's like, there's just no other explanation. It has to be rigged. And you actually I, you know, you dug up the actual cartoon and I gotta say, it it brought it all back for me.
Bryan Cantrill:I actually wanted because we also located one of the winners and I actually want to get him on he lives in Oakland. I wanna get him on
Adam Leventhal:the podcast. Yeah. I I
Bryan Cantrill:So I So I need to be the first one to tell because you well, because this is my hypothesis with this guy. That like and like, look, fine. Like, you won, I didn't like, we don't need to talk about whether yours is funnier than mine. Like, that's actually we don't need to have that discussion. It doesn't matter.
Bryan Cantrill:Because I am convinced, hand on heart, that is not his best work. I think he's better too because I think he has got better ones that he submitted that didn't win.
Adam Leventhal:I I love this idea too of, like, we find him. We Find us. Conjure up an idea for an episode where we're like, we are going to have an episode on, I don't know, accounting. And we we thought you'd be a great expert as a local. And then we kinda slow walk into, like, have you ever, you know, won a contest?
Adam Leventhal:I don't know. I just, I love like how we would get here in a subtle fashion.
Bryan Cantrill:You know, we kind of miss our opportunity to do it today because isn't today Festivus? Isn't it the airing of Grievous?
Adam Leventhal:Joshua Foer: I didn't know. That would be a much better oxen in French tradition. Joshua
Bryan Cantrill:Foer: No. This is like the the Seinfeld bit. Right? Joshua Foer: Yes.
Adam Leventhal:No. No. I know Festivus. I'm unfamiliar with its specific date. So
Bryan Cantrill:Joshua Foer: I believe it is the 23rd.
Adam Leventhal:Joshua Foer: Okay.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, that's number. Is Festivus. And this would be an airing of the grievances for the maybe so maybe next year, we're gonna have the, the but but I thought this was, amazing that you actually found this. Okay.
Adam Leventhal:Well, this one actually maybe even took more work also than the exe episode because not only to dig around and find it, I found, like, a very low res image then had to, like okay. And then I had to, so my mom has a New Yorker subscription. They have an archive and stuff like that. I don't know if you've been in this particular hell, but the, like, helping mom remember her password. But, like, it was may maybe just felt like it took 3 days, but, like, it it, it actually took 5 minutes, but it was it was, like, my least favorite brand of hell.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, because you also urgently need this password. This is extremely important. This is for the image on the podcast, which okay. So, actually, part of the reasons ends up being, like, somewhat high stress is that we are not I mean, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but we're kind of blocked getting the episode out until we have made it.
Adam Leventhal:That is usually, like, the the gating factor. Like, I I definitely have had episodes that that kind of brought I put on the back burner for a couple of days while I noodled on the right image.
Bryan Cantrill:The right image or your mother's password for her New Yorker subscription. So I get
Adam Leventhal:it's like It's like
Bryan Cantrill:It's like, why did he just get like, you're extremely upset with me for not remembering my password, and I'm trying to remember why you're so animated.
Adam Leventhal:It's like, now, okay, tell me what the text message says. It's like, well, it says not to read it over text mess over the phone to anyone. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. I past that part.
Adam Leventhal:I'm not anyone. After that, what's it say?
Bryan Cantrill:After that, what does it say? So did you when you saw that image, hearing my description of it, were you like and then seeing the image, did you give me more or less credit when you saw that? Oh, we
Adam Leventhal:just like I'm
Bryan Cantrill:like Okay. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:You kinda like
Adam Leventhal:Your your grievance, your, like, decades long grievance is well founded. Was well founded and continues to
Bryan Cantrill:be well founded. Oh my god. Oh, that is I cannot I think I'm gonna I I think I'm gonna choke up here.
Adam Leventhal:What do you get for the man who has everything?
Bryan Cantrill:You you you actually, you you you endorses grievances. You That's right. Thank you
Adam Leventhal:so much. Chad says or the other the other other Josh says that as a citizen, New Haven has to mention the appreciation of the picture of the inside of the Beinecke rare book library for the RFD episode. And I was really pleased with that one too. As also as someone who grew born and raised in New Haven, as we were talking about, RFTs and, like, you know, I'm I was thinking of, like, what are these inch ancient tomes? And, of course, I grew up in a place where, you know, literal ancient tomes are collected.
Adam Leventhal:So that, that other other Josh, that was also one of my favorites. Although I guess they're all kinda like inside jokes, but that's like an inside joke with myself and I guess you as well. That is
Bryan Cantrill:an inside joke with yourself because you told me, like, I'm extremely proud of this one. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. What is that? I and but, you know, you you said it with such, like, authority that I was I was afraid to ask. I'm like, this is obviously this is obviously something I should know.
Bryan Cantrill:This is clearly something that that is, an I y and I Feels
Adam Leventhal:feels on brand to, like, not ex not read the tweet. So, yeah. So the Beinecke Rare Book Library is this amazing building in New Haven, and it is it houses these ancient ancient books, books that are like like, it's all humidity and temperature controlled and, like, they, you know, they only, I think, expose some books to environment every once in a while. And, the it's a very soft light in there so that it doesn't damage the books. And in fact, the whole building is composed of this, like, maybe centimeter thick, maybe less thick than that marble.
Adam Leventhal:So what you get in broad daylight is, sunlight diffusing through the marble, and it kinda lights up inside. It's just beautiful. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous building. And if you're in New Haven and you've eaten all the pizza you can eat, go wander by the the Beineke Rare Book Library. It's very cool.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Do you wanna talk about the pizza just for a second? Because I think if we you know, the thing I actually did listen to a couple of episodes and things that I thought we never brought up, we brought up multiple times. So Such as New Haven pizza. New Haven?
Bryan Cantrill:Well, I mean, yeah. The New Haven pizza, the, the the the Munson Nixon line? Is that the
Adam Leventhal:We did. We brought that up in the baseball episode.
Bryan Cantrill:I feel we brought that up a couple of times. Like, NBA's death has come up multiple times. It's just like there there are things that I felt like we are that are extremely obscure. They're like, okay. I actually brought that up.
Bryan Cantrill:Sorry.
Adam Leventhal:Again? Right?
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Jesus. God again with it. Oh, yeah. I get it.
Bryan Cantrill:Like, MCA died. Fine. Like, the world moved on, pal. The okay. So can I ask you another question about, another image?
Bryan Cantrill:Please. Because there's another image that you were like, no, this is the image. And I'm like, I I get it, but I think I don't get it, and I don't I
Adam Leventhal:I Okay. You've got
Bryan Cantrill:such momentum here. So RT or or GTFO, you've got an image from
Adam Leventhal:that, Prince.
Bryan Cantrill:I I know you do. And I can you I I I I also know a lot. So Why does it fit for this episode?
Adam Leventhal:Okay. So to me, like, so, I think that's a good question. Maybe one should have asked beforehand before just telling you I loved it. So to me, this is the little prince off on his tiny moon, as I recall, like, being hitched to, a bunch of birds, like, carrying him back to Earth.
Bryan Cantrill:So I'm with you on all of that. I'm a 100%. I'm a I'm a yes yes yes on that.
Adam Leventhal:Return to the office is like, okay, he's he's been working from home on his tiny planet, and now he's, like, being forced to go back to the office on his string of birds. I feel silly saying it out loud.
Bryan Cantrill:Oh, that's great. I I think it's great that you think it's great. I that is the I I I just the fact that you because you you like, look, some on some of these images, like, god, I don't know. Should it be like, is this a good is this a good idea? Isn't that and I'm like I think you got like, I think your ideas are are outstanding.
Bryan Cantrill:And although I feel like I gave you insufficient validation on the on on the x z. But and so I think it's great that you had just, like, no, like, absolute certainty this is the image. Like, no. It is the little prince home planet, birds returning. That's getting
Adam Leventhal:I I like You know, that's great. Sometimes I like sometimes, like, I mean, sometimes you just go, like, you know how it gets, like, when you are, like writing something or, or you, you start getting deeper and deeper. And like, sometimes you're like, have I just wandered up my own asshole? And, and sometimes that same feeling can be expressed in absolute confidence. And I think, like, that that this might be I've wandered up my asshole and this is perfect.
Adam Leventhal:No.
Bryan Cantrill:I was I I just wanna say because I'm actually a little I do not wanna chip away at any of that confidence because I think the confidence is great, And I love it. It's like this I love the absolute certainty of this. So it's good. I mean, it's like, I wasn't I mean, the answer is like, there's not something there's not another layer I was missing on this one, which is good.
Adam Leventhal:There you go.
Bryan Cantrill:That's not that sounds like a criticism and it's not. I think it's great.
Adam Leventhal:I still love it. Even though even though reading it, like, my justification out loud sounds like a prompt gone wrong.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. The other one that I also just like just where you're just like just nails on the craft was unshrouding Turin, the chip.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. You know what? That felt easy. Like, that felt You
Bryan Cantrill:did that so fast and I thought it was just like I mean, I just like, what this guy is getting this guy's just he's at the top of his game.
Adam Leventhal:He's at
Bryan Cantrill:the top of I'm watching a future hall of famer here just going to work. He's just making up That's that's
Adam Leventhal:He says old school Photoshop. Like, that's like that No.
Bryan Cantrill:But he just like the the just like having the certainty about, like, no, we're gonna put the Shroud of Turin on tour on the on the tour in the park. I just thought it was it was it was great.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Well, thank thank you. I felt like, I you know, that one I just felt like was was almost too on the nose. I don't I do love I so, you know, my complaint with Mastodon, which is, I mean, other than it being boring, which I'm I apparently, nobody gave me flack on that from from saying last week. So I
Bryan Cantrill:said it again. You I feel like I've been snared in the blue sky episode to, like, slagging on Mastodon where I clearly said that I love the idea of loving Stedan. Yes. And I gotten I like Mastodon is very, there's some folks who are upset on Mastodon. I yeah.
Adam Leventhal:So so on this one
Bryan Cantrill:I'm just talking to you.
Adam Leventhal:Someone on Mastodon was like, you know you know, the Shroud of Turin is actually a negative image and you've done a positive image. Like, yeah. It's like
Bryan Cantrill:What you are referring to as Linux. I call it new Linux.
Adam Leventhal:I and I I just I I just loved that. I felt like that was a very Mastodon comment, and I appreciate it. Oh, I should also mention, you know, on the XDF image, someone I'm Mastodon was like, why didn't you just draw it by hand? Like, why why did you go through all the trouble of, like, plugging into a physics simulator and doing this and that and whatever?
Bryan Cantrill:I would just do the physical equation in my head and draw it by hand. Great. If I
Adam Leventhal:wanna Why why so first of all, here's my free advice to everyone. Don't just like the the phrase why didn't you just you can just let leave that aside. You don't you don't even need to use that phrase ever again. So why didn't I just
Bryan Cantrill:do it?
Adam Leventhal:Because I fucking can't. Because I don't know how to do that. I can't draw that. What are you talking about? I'm not that good.
Adam Leventhal:I I could barely trace it, like, on a screen without my hand shaking. So that's why I didn't just do that.
Bryan Cantrill:Also your image for adversarial machine learning, which was also my thought.
Adam Leventhal:You know, I showed that to you. I remember my recollect. So it that one is I think during the episode, correct if I'm wrong, but we talked about, like, a LLM, kind of making subtle perturbations of, say, an image of flamingo until a classifier decides actually, it's not a flamingo. It's a bus.
Bryan Cantrill:Cool bus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Great episode.
Bryan Cantrill:Nicholas Croini are one of our only guests, that we had twice in the year. Yeah. And then another great episode. Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:So and so I decided to make a bus that looked like a flamingo. Right? Like a a kind of more on the nose. And I think I I remember being, like, you know, again, real proud of myself patting myself on the back, sending you the image, and you're like, Explain? I was like, remember?
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:That's No. I thought okay. I'll go look at
Adam Leventhal:the receipts on that one. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. You may wanna go get you the receipts. I may, I I feel that that I I thought well, I'd I'm gonna retcon myself into thinking that I was very strong and supportive from the start anyway, because I thought that was that's that's a very good image.
Adam Leventhal:Thank
Bryan Cantrill:you. Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:I I I like that one. A
Bryan Cantrill:lot a lot of very good images, I felt.
Adam Leventhal:Well, I I mean, one more. Yep. One one more I enjoyed because it was kind of an extra callback. And so, episode's called innovation stagnation where, this this is the the genesis of read the tweet, I think. Or maybe there was other read the tweets.
Adam Leventhal:But It
Bryan Cantrill:is definitely, one where you're, like, pretty much shouting out, folks, read the tweets. I'm sorry. We did not read the tweet in innovation stagnation. You should always go back and edit that. So so Nate
Adam Leventhal:Silver posted something. I'm not gonna read the tweet now, certainly. Dumbass. Posted something basically saying like, is innovation dead? Like innovation used to be faster.
Adam Leventhal:Like, remember the space shuttle or something. And now we just have, you know, new social networks, something like that. And that image is a cutout from Mystery Science Theater 3,000 pointing at the tweet. And I don't know about you, Byron. I loved, loved, loved Mystery Science Theater 3,000.
Adam Leventhal:Like even sober. I watched that show, like in college. And, so, like, my only regret honestly is, like, maybe we can't use that again, but I feel like it is such a great silhouette of, like, the MST 3 k guys, like, pointing at something.
Bryan Cantrill:I I thought it was good. And that would it was one of our hot takes. So it was a good, that's what would be tempting. So one thing I did is actually went through our episodes and categorized them a little bit. Okay.
Bryan Cantrill:And so I you know, and I'm taking, like, very, like, rough cuts, obviously. But that how many hot takes do you think so we had, 32 episodes in the year. How many of those do you think are hot? What what what and again, I'm, you know, I could put a wiggle in here.
Adam Leventhal:I'm gonna put the line at 6a half?
Bryan Cantrill:What was that a number?
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. 6a half? 6a half. Yeah. That's that's an over underline.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. So I so, it'd be interesting to know I'm sure people in the chat are gonna be, like, you got, like, everything.
Adam Leventhal:It's like a It's like over 40.
Bryan Cantrill:Over all day every day. So it is over. I so I've got it at 9. Okay. And being a little bit, maybe, a little bit too generous, I mean, certainly, that innovation stagnation one is a hot take.
Adam Leventhal:Oh, for sure. But I've got,
Bryan Cantrill:like, open source LOMs with with Simon Wilson. I an episode that I'd lost That's
Adam Leventhal:a hot take. That's, like, got a guest on it and everything.
Bryan Cantrill:You, dad. When when was the last time you will listen to that one?
Adam Leventhal:It's been a minute. Okay.
Bryan Cantrill:You don't recall us having, basically, a witch trial for Kevin Roose for, like, the first five minutes of that thing doing outbound readings for that. It actually is not a witch trial because that that implies that he is somehow the victim in this. We just absolutely demolishing him for and you talking about we're reading this line aloud to your mother and I mean, this is, it it has got some hot take. Yeah. I feel that is that that that's got some hot take in it for sure.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. I don't know. Maybe that's not a hot take. The, certainly, the All You Have to Fear is Fight Itself. That's a good example of a title that got a little too clever for itself.
Adam Leventhal:I'm with you.
Bryan Cantrill:Do you do you do you remember what that one was about without any prompting?
Adam Leventhal:I remember it being about Thud.
Bryan Cantrill:That is the Matt the Matt Assay thing where he falsely accused the No. Folks of going there. So we a more descriptive title would actually help there.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Might have helped the the listener count as well.
Bryan Cantrill:But that one is that yeah. That one, I so okay. On we'll get to listener counts in a second. The and I counted, like, innovation tokens with charity majors. I I counted that as a hot take because
Adam Leventhal:That big time hot take. Even when
Bryan Cantrill:Oh, no. No. It's okay. You're good with me on that one. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:The CrowdStrike, the the BSOD fiasco, with Katie Musaurus, I counted that as a hot take.
Adam Leventhal:Okay.
Bryan Cantrill:With our CockroachDB, it feels like a hot take. Yeah. Reflecting on founder mode is definitely a hot take even though it's 2 weeks out. Like, it is a cold hot take, but it's Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:Absolutely a hot take. Tactic take. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:RTO or Gigi? I've anytime you're doing an out loud reading, you gotta say it's a hot take. So that's like RTO or GTFO is definitely a hot take. Right? Okay.
Bryan Cantrill:That's obviously
Adam Leventhal:That's right. Even though it had a you're right. A lot of these have guests, but just, like, you know, nice like, Andrew was on that show.
Bryan Cantrill:Andrew was on that show. Yes. A lot of them have guests, but are still hot takes.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:The, I loved What I love about the RTL or GTFO, episode is when I'm reading from the mail that that Jassy has sent internally and you're like, wow. I got the worst email that you've I've ever heard of. Like, no. No. I've actually I've got 2 more paragraphs.
Bryan Cantrill:It's like, you you can't possible like, no. I just reject that. And then until after Gelsinger, I think you also have to say it's a hot take. That's what happens to hot take. But, I mean so you're 9 ish.
Bryan Cantrill:So I I would say it's, like, it's over ish on the 6th. Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. That's right. That's right. I think it's It wasn't the full 32. It wasn't the full catalog, but you're right.
Adam Leventhal:It's a good 3rd.
Bryan Cantrill:So about a third of our of our podcasts are, and then on, what what's your take on guests? On how how often do we have a guest?
Adam Leventhal:I'd say probably 2 thirds of the time, so I'll say 20. We have some kinda guest. Right? Like, you know, I'm I'm gonna count, you know, when when Amdr joined us on, on RTR GTFO, for example.
Bryan Cantrill:As a guest. So I may have I may need to go count more carefully. I've got us at 15, counting that one. So I that that that I could be That
Adam Leventhal:could be right. But we okay. Yeah. That could be right. I believe it.
Bryan Cantrill:But you know, it's kind of ridiculous because I'm I'm on the one hand, I am I I am, too intimidated to to approach BRAKE MASTER Cylinder. I think we've got we've gotten some really great guests. I I've I've got, like, no such intimidate when approaching some of these guests. We've had To
Adam Leventhal:be clear, you've gotten some great guests. Like, you have done a terrific job this year of of grabbing some great folks.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, they and alright. So we let's talk about some of the great guests we've had with we've we've had, a bunch of them. I think, we got at the top, we got we gotta talk about Andres Frond and, his enormous generosity in terms of coming Dockside and Friends because of its low production values. This is what I loved about Andre. It's, like, took some of the pressure off that you guys, you know, are are such jokers.
Bryan Cantrill:I mean,
Adam Leventhal:in for I mean, he did, you know, show up with a tin can microphone, like, to his credit. Like, he really, like, took our
Bryan Cantrill:boat with us. How to do it. When in Rome, man, I know how to do this. Like, yeah. It's like, we're all about audio problems on this podcast.
Bryan Cantrill:I thought it was, that was great, though. I mean, I felt it.
Adam Leventhal:Oh, my god. So good. I mean, it was like Oh, good. It was such a great conversation. It was so enlightening to me personally, and just I felt really fortunate that that you got him, like, at that moment too.
Adam Leventhal:It was like it was something great to be yeah. It was like having the the the conversation that was everyone was having. It was great. That was a terrific one.
Bryan Cantrill:Yes. And, actually, it did we you know, wait a minute. That was where we got spun up on Kevin Mills.
Adam Leventhal:That's right. That's right.
Bryan Cantrill:We got spun up on the on sorry. On the Simon Wilson one, we were spun up on the IEEE Spectrum article. We that was a hot take, but we were spun up on the IEEE Spectrum
Adam Leventhal:article. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I didn't think our Kevin Roose hatred kind of bled over across episodes. But, you know, that was that was definitely
Bryan Cantrill:And that was in that is legitimately that is just disappointment in Kevin Roose, because I feel like he I feel he could do better. We feel like he could do better.
Adam Leventhal:I even remember the line I was pissed about where he was, like Yes. Talking about, you know, Andre's works on Postgres, which is, like, too boring to understand. And if I tried to explain it to it, you'd be bored or whatever. Like, well, buddy, I don't know.
Bryan Cantrill:Bored to tears if I could explain it, which I can't.
Adam Leventhal:So I don't know. Maybe you're a journalist and you could try. I don't know. Just just saying. Just spitballing here.
Bryan Cantrill:It's like you would die on the operating table if I gave if I gave you this open heart surgery, which I can't. It's like okay. What? Yeah. That doesn't look okay.
Bryan Cantrill:That's not making sense. So Andres was a great I we talked about Simon Wilson. It was great. Nicholas Carlini, we talked about about, Nicholas on, Roger Codori. That was a that's, a great episode.
Bryan Cantrill:Roger's amazing. And I thought that was I loved that. And actually, that one was a really influential one. In particular, our colleague, Ryan Goodfell, had mentioned to me that that episode really formed and listening to Raja formed his own thinking around p 4 and the X2.
Adam Leventhal:Oh, that's awesome. That's that's great to hear. It It was really great
Bryan Cantrill:to hear. Yeah. It was really interesting. I mean, and all all credit to Raja. I think he's, a really interesting guy.
Bryan Cantrill:And I I mean, he's, has had such a, you know, an interesting career and is so, I think I feel so down to earth. I anyway, I was really grateful for Roger for joining us.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. And there we were talking about heterogeneous computing. I did love that, I think the the pitch that we had was answered, like, what's the difference between a CPU, GPU, FPG, and ASIC? And I think we, like, only sort of got there after 90 minutes. Like, I think we we drew some distinctions, but not all of them.
Adam Leventhal:But it was it was, to be clear, still great.
Bryan Cantrill:That you that's right. And that is a Rachel Stevens request. And, actually, that's a good point. So that that is kind of an episode that we did a little bit by request. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:And then Raj had this great blog post. So, Katie Masaurus on the the Blue Screen Your Death Fiasco was, was amazing. Bridget listened to that one. Oh, nice. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:I did you did you your family listened to any episodes?
Adam Leventhal:My folks listened to the XZ episode.
Bryan Cantrill:Really? Okay.
Adam Leventhal:And and enjoy well, because, you know, they had read about it with, Kevin Roose and everything. So the big New York Times fans over there. So
Bryan Cantrill:there was a lot of image. It wasn't just like, mom, you don't actually have to play the podcast. You just need to look at the image. The image is that
Adam Leventhal:God. Can you imagine that conversation? If you think, like, recovering passwords is tough, like, how am I gonna explain, like, that image? That's yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:So they just they it was it was very it was very kinda current.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. The the other one that a family member, my dad listened to was, the baseball startup episode of the baseball episode with the founders of the Ballers, Paul and Brian. Not only did he listen to it, but he shared it with another person that we mentioned on the show. We mentioned my dad on the show, mentioned how growing up on the Munson Nixon line that he he forced friends who were wearing Yankees hats to leave them outside. But we also talked about
Bryan Cantrill:allowed people who wore Yankees hats to enter his house. Correct. Right.
Adam Leventhal:Right. Just
Bryan Cantrill:the hats
Adam Leventhal:need to stay outside.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. The hats need to stay outside. I mean, I feel like that is entirely I I just feel like, you know, you gotta give the right, you know, the right spin on this.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Yeah. And then
Bryan Cantrill:On the muds and Nixon line, it can be this is, you know
Adam Leventhal:It's a war zone, basically.
Bryan Cantrill:A war zone. Exactly.
Adam Leventhal:And then we also mentioned, Bill George, the scorekeeper, for the longest game in baseball history. Also, my neighbor in Rhode Island, at our at our beach house, Rhode Island, and we we talked about him as well, and and he listened to the episode.
Bryan Cantrill:He listened to the which I that's just great. This and he this this is the longest game in history. This is, the Paw Sox.
Adam Leventhal:That's right.
Bryan Cantrill:And the r RIP, the Paw Sox.
Adam Leventhal:Yes. No longer there in Pawtucket. Now the Woo Sox.
Bryan Cantrill:They're now the Wusox.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. I
Bryan Cantrill:okay. And do they do they have the kind of the franchise continuity? I mean, is it like Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Okay. I mean, Berlin is pretty small. You know, I think, like, if you lived in Pawtucket, you'd probably be a little little cranky, but, like, I don't know. It's, like, not that far.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, no. The the reason I said that is because I when I you and I saw a Paw Sox game together Yeah. At McCall Field?
Adam Leventhal:It was- McCoy Stadium.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. McCoy Stadium. And I remember walking and being like, I hope that the longest game in baseball history is featured prominently somewhere in in this thing.
Adam Leventhal:That is my hope. That is my hope. You're hoping you can find a little corner somewhere where they talk about turns out that is basically the theme. Like, if it were a theme restaurant, that would be the theme.
Bryan Cantrill:It is exactly right. And, in particular, what they have done is they have the box score that wraps around the entire like concourse
Adam Leventhal:Yes.
Bryan Cantrill:For that. It was so impressive. And so I just hope that they've done that. I hope, the Woonsocket, I hope they have honored the destroyed history of Bill George. And I'm so the baseball episode, do we know what he thinks?
Bryan Cantrill:What what do you what do you think of the baseball episode?
Adam Leventhal:I mean, he said, yeah. Good. I don't know. I didn't ask for details. No.
Adam Leventhal:I don't know.
Bryan Cantrill:It's like, well, no. I will, Mike. I'll make a point.
Adam Leventhal:Part where you said my name and how I wear the ring from the from the hall of fame. So yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. There you go.
Adam Leventhal:I I don't know that it has inspired him to be a a a more consistent podcast listener, for example.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. Well, we, because I mean, look. We know that that one I and I, I put that one in the category of potpourri.
Adam Leventhal:I look we I love that we we had a episode called pork potpourri years ago.
Bryan Cantrill:We did. I love potpourri.
Adam Leventhal:That was weird.
Bryan Cantrill:I love potpourri because I learned the word potpourri from Jeopardy, watching Jeopardy.
Adam Leventhal:Makes sense.
Bryan Cantrill:Like, what is that? And I I so I learned about potpourri, the Jeopardy category before potpourri, the actual thing that it's named after. And we just, like I would love to know the history of that because that is such a weird pull when you are thinking of, like, you know, we need something that is that is, like, miscellaneous items. Miscellany? How do you pronounce that?
Bryan Cantrill:I'm not I'm I'm afraid to Yeah. Miscellany? How do you pronounce that?
Adam Leventhal:I don't know. Miscellany?
Bryan Cantrill:I should. Yeah. That sounds right. Ripped you into miscellany? Into saying that.
Bryan Cantrill:I so anyway, the the you and you you go to potpourri? I mean, was Jeopardy the first one to use potpourri, the the the the mix wooded scent? What do you how do you how do you describe potpourri?
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Mixed wooded scent. I think that's I think that's good. I think
Bryan Cantrill:The They're
Adam Leventhal:making LOL and proud.
Bryan Cantrill:Exactly. I wonder if Jeopardy anyway, Jeopardy, real pioneer there. Alright. So on the end, I I consider that to be potpourri. So I've got potpourri as our I I I can consider predictions potpourri.
Bryan Cantrill:Maybe I shouldn't do that, but certainly the baseball episode, and then also, our the book club episode on how the how life works with and actually on the the spirit talking about our guest, Greg Cost. Yeah. I love that episode.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Really good one.
Bryan Cantrill:And I know that the numbers are you know, the numbers reflect the fact that this is maybe outside our demographic a little bit. That we we've gone a little bit. And I think we know not to do this too frequently, but, we do like to do, you know, just do stuff a little bit different. Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:For sure.
Bryan Cantrill:Mix up a little bit. And I would also say, you know, the other thing I did is I went through the and maybe this is just how much do the YouTube numbers track the I will I looked at the both the you know, with the with the transistor, which is how we kinda distribute the podcast. I mean, it's RSS, so it's very hard to reason about how much the stuff is actually downloaded, because it's, you know, the the value of an open Internet. With YouTube, you get a little more insight. I how much do the YouTube numbers kinda track that, do you think?
Adam Leventhal:Not, like, not that closely. I don't know. Sometimes, like, sometimes they're ones that, like, crush on YouTube and are just sort of normal on, on podcasts. And then sometimes they they get a little, you know, picked up more on the podcast and less on YouTube. I don't I don't know that they're that consistent, or, like, there's that much correlation between the 2.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. So I was looking the one thing I did is I went through and looked at the up votes to view count ratio as just kind of like just, you know, just because, I mean, whether a thing is viewed by many people kinda depends on, like, you know, who picks it up and, you know, if it's
Adam Leventhal:Totally.
Bryan Cantrill:If it's a hot topic, you know, I mean, that is obviously gonna be picked up by a bunch of folks. And, and so I I looked at that and it was, it was kind of interesting that our, the kind of the, in terms of the top episodes, our open source LLMs, Simon Wilson, and until after Gelsinger actually was the the number 2 in terms of, like, ratio of upvotes to to views. But then after that was, was our book club episode with great cost. So I think that, like, you know, I know that that and then in the 5th place was, The Baseball Startup. So people that listen to those episodes like those episodes or more likely to to hit the old upvote, on it.
Bryan Cantrill:But, I think I I actually think that if you are I think that I really enjoyed both those episodes. Very grateful to to, both Paul and Brian, obviously, from the Ballers, and then to Greg Cost for for joining us here in the studio. I thought that was, in terms of other guests, we mentioned Charity Majors. That was terrific. Really enjoyed, having her on.
Bryan Cantrill:And I had kind of forgotten how much that we were getting. That's this is actually one that we we listened to recently. And Yeah. Really kind of, of, getting to the, the, OXQL bit. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:And, so that that or are you foreshadowing on on on OXQL.
Adam Leventhal:The charity one, that that one has not, like, been picked up or whatever. Like, folks have not listened to that one as much as others, which was surprising to me because I think Charity is terrific. And that was a great conversation too, talking about, like Yeah. You know, being thoughtful about when you innovate. In fact, I would say that is a theme that I've discerned kind of doing my own binging of the podcast over the last week or so since we talked about doing this episode was, you know, talking about being thoughtful about what kinds of innovations you do and the benefits of of kinda those investments and and how it's okay to be weird, but maybe you shouldn't always be weird.
Adam Leventhal:Although, it does really feel like we are always are weird. But, that was a really good one with charity to not just be hearing it the same thing from us, but hearing about how their own investment in their kind of strategic ways in which they're weird really paid off for them. And ways in which that, you know, there's a great discussion there about kind of this dichotomy about wanting to find product market fit, but really, you know, build the thing in order to find the product market fit and being in kind of pulled in these 2 different directions. So I thought, Charity, it was a great conversation with her.
Bryan Cantrill:I thought it was a great conversation. No. I I I really, enjoyed that, and it was really I I felt the same way. And I think I also feel that, like, I I kinda deliberately went to some of the episodes that didn't get as much of attention, and why don't you just go relisten to them? And, like, we did not find a stinker in I mean, like, it's really good.
Bryan Cantrill:Not to sorry to and I mean, total tribute to our guests than everyone else, but, it's it's really
Adam Leventhal:quite miserable. I did come away feeling like we have unsurprisingly made the podcast that we wanted to listen to. Absolutely. I was I was going through a little back and forth with Transistor FM, our our podcast distribution platform, at first, because, like, their AI transcription software had some sort of weird hallucination where it imagined yeah. Like, in the transcription, it would drop in random names like it it thought Brian was whispering JP Morgan a couple of times.
Adam Leventhal:To my knowledge, he weren't. And apparently, they have been using this audio file to, like, try to debug their AI model because it it just, like, wreaks havoc on on whatever AI model they're using. So anyway, I was going back and forth with them, and I started asking about, you know, like, some weird downloads we see. It turns out, like, there is this IP address in Arizona, which has downloaded our podcast, like, a bajillion times. So I said go ahead and block that.
Adam Leventhal:And they were saying, well, you know, what yeah. I know these analytics are important to you. Like, they probably help you figure out what episodes to make. And I was like, no. Like, we're gonna do what we're gonna do.
Adam Leventhal:It's sort of it's not like we're not we're not sort of keeping a finger too closely on the pulse of, like, what does a 100 more listens or not. But then, you know, it's like I I listen to this thing, and I know that I'm, like, walking around with the dogs cackling. And I know I'm just mortified that I'm sure lots of folks are just like, fast forward, can we get to the content here? But anyway, I'm I'm I'm a fan.
Bryan Cantrill:Can we talk about jokes that we think are funny that I'm not sure anyone else finds funny?
Adam Leventhal:Yes, please. I mean, maybe just jokes. You can be the the second part is not even necessary to qualify. I know,
Bryan Cantrill:and I've I I know I have mentioned this way too many times, but your Metapandese is never gonna not kill with you.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. You know what? I I even like, I met a former, she described herself as formerly a Facebook. And I said, did you leave Facebook, or did you leave Meta? And she said, well, technically
Bryan Cantrill:I I left for this going at all.
Adam Leventhal:Technically, I met left Meta. And, of course, I was like, oh, does that make you a former Meta Mate? And then I did try to explain Matamates, the Greek philosopher. And can you imagine that sleigh is just as much in person at, like, a party where kids are playing in the next room as it does on the podcast.
Bryan Cantrill:Oh, I I can only imagine.
Adam Leventhal:Only with me.
Bryan Cantrill:Oh, yes. And then and then you're like, no. No. But, actually, let me give you additional context. And I'll like, with this additional context, I'll it'll make it funnier.
Bryan Cantrill:It's like, no. It's like
Adam Leventhal:I mean, you know what I'll do. I mean, explaining always helps jokes in my experience.
Bryan Cantrill:Explaining always helps jokes. Exactly. I but I think that is, you know, we make not infrequent reference to it. And, I think it's very funny.
Adam Leventhal:The one that I don't know the origin of, I can't remember when you dropped this, but, like, I I it still says is there were some, you I I think we're talking about, adversity being the, you know, spawning great innovation. And I think your insight at the time was that World War 2 was stressful. Yeah. And I do Yes. I do love that, like, every time you hear yourself say something that's sort of, like, knuckleheaded or, like, a facile observation, you're you kind of apropos of nothing.
Adam Leventhal:We'll say
Bryan Cantrill:that World War 2 is a stressful event.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Exactly. Where I'm not like, I'm I I I just love that, like, a casual listener to the podcast is, like, pause and say, wait
Bryan Cantrill:a minute.
Adam Leventhal:Did he just say
Bryan Cantrill:What's what's World War 2 video that I'm gonna do with it?
Adam Leventhal:Like, what is this? World War 2 was a stressful event.
Bryan Cantrill:It obviously was.
Adam Leventhal:Yes. I agree. World War 2 was a stressful event. I feel like many historians would agree with that statement.
Bryan Cantrill:We oh, we got find out I would like you find one historian that would disagree with that assertion, sir. Yeah. You need not be so indignant. It was a stressful event. I didn't know.
Bryan Cantrill:But we just make reference of people like, what are you talking about? But it's true. We we we do make, we probably make 2 frequent reference to world war the the the the stress induced by world war 2.
Adam Leventhal:The alleged stress of world war 2.
Bryan Cantrill:On the I just wanna make sure, I think, on just guests. Also, just it was very recent, but, Paul Frazee, last week was
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Paul was great.
Bryan Cantrill:Oh, that was great. Oh, that was really, really good. So I our our guests this year were and we all obviously, we talked about, Adam, and and that was a terrific conversation, albeit with the, the the dance music that's giving old people.
Adam Leventhal:You know, we
Bryan Cantrill:we had,
Adam Leventhal:Cynthia and Sarna on for the technical blogging episode.
Bryan Cantrill:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right. That was really fun.
Adam Leventhal:I I also listening to parts of that, I realized I I was looking for some safe for work euphemisms and describe so it turned into a bit of you and me doing some either mutual back padding or a little group think or reinforcement bias or high five huddle is what GPT, Chad GPT suggested for, circle So, that's that's my that's my cleaned up version of that.
Bryan Cantrill:High five huddle feels like very lateral motion. That feels like you've not really I'm not sure you've gotten in I'm not sure you've broken into suitability for work on that one. I feel I think that
Adam Leventhal:You're it's a little too a little too close.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. It's you're just you you gotta go further away. If if that if we're trying to get to work suitability, like, you're you you really need to get a little more of a running start than that one. Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:So what did we I guess, we made reference to that in
Adam Leventhal:No. No. No. No. I just mean it was sort of I feel like a little gift to the Magi.
Adam Leventhal:Like, you were saying, oh, well, I I chose to do Rust because I read your blog post. And then I said, well, I chose to do Rust because I read your blog post, and just, you know, kinda on and on in that vein.
Bryan Cantrill:Little too self congratulatory.
Adam Leventhal:Well, mutually congratulatory.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, look,
Adam Leventhal:I think it's the high five huddle. It's not like a self
Bryan Cantrill:high five. Huddle. I got you. I got you. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:The okay. So the it internally, we've talked a little bit about the numbers, and we I mean, the episode that did just in terms of absolute an absolute sense, I think the the XE backdoor episode, I think, did the best numbers across the board.
Adam Leventhal:Oh, yeah. I mean, unsurprisingly. Right?
Bryan Cantrill:Unsurprisingly. Right. I mean, you kind of expect that. And we talked a bit about the the the hidden gems. Let's talk a little bit about the Oxide episodes.
Bryan Cantrill:Mhmm. And and what fraction of the episodes do you think are really hit on were Oxide specific?
Adam Leventhal:So oxide specific being, like, kinda folks from oxide talking about oxide stuff.
Bryan Cantrill:Yes. I'm saying that. I mean so, actually, from folks from oxide yes. Yeah. Go ahead.
Bryan Cantrill:On I'm
Adam Leventhal:gonna say,
Bryan Cantrill:like, yeah.
Adam Leventhal:8, maybe?
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. It's like 6. Maybe. Then probably I'm I'm sure I've missed some. And then I've had oxides because there are other we've got other, like, on the when on the cultural idiosyncrasies episode, I'm not sure that we had anyone else from Oxide talking about that.
Bryan Cantrill:We were talking a lot about Oxide.
Adam Leventhal:We we did. Why do we we did because we mentioned jujitsu, JJ. And so, therefore, Steve Oh, so Steve Nickybeard. He was cultured. Yes.
Bryan Cantrill:Kind of like a Beetlejuice phenomenon there.
Adam Leventhal:Exactly. Okay. So I I really enjoyed that one too. In part one of the things I enjoyed most was we were talking about I think there were a lot of good I I think talking about culture and culture being what we do and good discussion. I loved your kind of incredulity about companies not doing demo day.
Adam Leventhal:You're like, demo day is great. Like, we do demos.
Bryan Cantrill:Demos are great. Company possibly operate with that demo day?
Adam Leventhal:And I was like, Brian, you remember, we were a company that did not have demos.
Bryan Cantrill:You're trying to remember, like, you're trying to think how can any company operate with that demo day? That was that was the company we worked for company.
Adam Leventhal:That's right.
Bryan Cantrill:We did that.
Adam Leventhal:Your company did not have demos until you thought about doing demos.
Bryan Cantrill:I'm outraged by this. Yeah. No. There you go. Yep.
Adam Leventhal:Yes. That that was an oxide episode.
Bryan Cantrill:That was an oxide episode. And I think we you know, and those oxide episodes did well. Actually, people really I mean, we I wouldn't say we're hesitant, but we also you know, I would say on the oxide stuff, I feel we it's helpful when people ask us some of the things that they'd like to hear more about Mhmm. Because we're so enmeshed in all of it. I loved the I mean, I loved all of the oxide episodes, but, like the RFD episode, I thought was particularly, I thought that was very timely.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. It was great. All the folks on there, with with Augustus and and David Crespo and Ben Leonard, and, that was great. But but my heart episode that was on on European time?
Adam Leventhal:Yes. Yeah. I think so. No. We did another one during the day because to to accommodate a guest, I can't remember which one.
Adam Leventhal:But, yeah, that that was a special place in my heart because I did that from our Airbnb in Italy where I had, like, packed a mic just for that occasion. So that that was a great episode.
Bryan Cantrill:And then how you know, I I've not spent a huge amount of time in the just because, like, the question that I had, which is how I got here, is, like, how many listeners do we actually have from Europe? We definitely do have listeners from Europe, but most of our our listeners according to the Transistors Analytics, which I how much do you trust those? Do we do do we trust those? I'm not sure we
Adam Leventhal:I trust those decently.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Okay. Yeah. If you, like, if if you kinda show up as a download there, like, that is probably a legitimate download coming from that spot. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:But it's it's like downloads you've missed.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. And it's over and it's under. Right? Like, you get downloads that obviously someone downloaded, but then listened to. But apparently, like, some of the platforms will, like, cache it and stuff, so you don't necessarily get those stats.
Adam Leventhal:So it's hard to know. I mean, it's wrong, but it's hard to know in what direction.
Bryan Cantrill:So it's interesting to look at, like, the I mean, obviously, you know, US and Australia, the UK, but then getting into some European countries. I got kinda mesmerized by the the, like, the 0.03% countries. It's just like I mean, I think it's great. Like, you've got folks in, you know, you in Malawi, you know, in like, there's clearly one person has listened to us in Malawi, which I think or in Namibia, or it's actually, like, multiple people have listened to us from Namibia because 4 different regions in Namibia have listened have pulled the podcast. Or it's one person who has listened to us in 4 different spots in Namibia.
Bryan Cantrill:And, you know, someone who's Either
Adam Leventhal:way, pretty great.
Bryan Cantrill:It's pretty great. As a you know, as someone who's been there to it's actually I saw the I saw The Phantom Menace in Namibia.
Adam Leventhal:I told
Bryan Cantrill:you this? No. That's weird. Is it? It is weird because it had it had, and I, of course, had already seen it and had my heart ripped out and crushed by
Adam Leventhal:its terrible mediocrity. And you saw it for a second time. You're like,
Bryan Cantrill:I saw it for a second time.
Adam Leventhal:That's that's even more confusing.
Bryan Cantrill:It is I saw it for a second time and, in Windhoek with my sister who had not seen it. And, I mean, you've met my sister, you can kind of imagine this that I'm like, it's a terrible movie. It's it's like, no, it can't be as bad as you're describing. I'm like, it is definitely as bad as I'm describing. Like, we are not I don't think it's a good idea.
Bryan Cantrill:But you you got, like, there's not a huge number of movie theaters in the country, but it was so, yeah, we watch it with Afrikaans subtitles in Windhoek, and we got out of there. It's like, that was a really bad movie, and we should not have seen it. I'm like, yeah, I just watched it for the second time. I
Adam Leventhal:Sorry I recommended it.
Bryan Cantrill:Sorry, I recommended it. So, yeah, I guess I came out in their analytics as a as a view in Namibia. But if you if you've been listening to us in Namibia, that's awesome. Or anywhere, I think, around the globe. I think it's really terrific, that we're we've got a a clearly very small number of listeners.
Bryan Cantrill:Tajikistan, I mean, that's like, wow. Yeah. That's a I mean, that's kind of amazing. The if you're a Tajik listening to us, really, really impressed. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:And we had actually someone say, yeah. I'm listening in from Vietnam, which is great. There's actually I just I did click on Vietnam, like, there must be a lot of different listeners from Vietnam because we got, like, 6 or 7 different regions represented in Vietnam. So, I think that is really I think that is really cool. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:All of you. And I that that I I hopefully, that's been, I think, actually one of the great things about doing this, is being able to connect with people around the club. And, we do we need to do more episodes in different time zones? That's my kind of question for you. Should we
Adam Leventhal:He'll maybe. I mean, one of the cool things about, you know, I went back to Italy, went to this conference, you know, whatever, 6 weeks ago, something like that, and meeting a bunch of folks. And I I don't know about you, Brian, but I'm I'm a little shy about in the same way that I used to be shy about saying I have this blog and I've written this thing here in 2024 saying I have this podcast and we talked about this thing. I I don't necessarily, like, break that out right away. But over and over, when I'm like, oh, yeah.
Adam Leventhal:We recorded that
Bryan Cantrill:You know, you're talking about downloading a physics simulator.
Adam Leventhal:And I I I you know, they're a bunch of, like, fans at this RustLab conference, you know, who appreciated when we did the European time zone friendly one so they could join live. So the you know, it's it it is fun, you know, how the the niche reach has reached a bunch of different places.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, I think I told you this that when we had this event here at Oxide, were coming up to me talking about how much they love the podcast. And then in the next breath, asking where's, where's Adam? And I'm like, well, I mean, I don't know Adam's around. Like, I'm here though. I mean, do we they're like really not Have you You yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:Exactly. I okay.
Adam Leventhal:Well I mean, I guess if
Bryan Cantrill:you saw the back, I that's right. That's could I you know, put it away. I was like, well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:I guess so.
Adam Leventhal:You know, we should make some more of those Oxide and Friends stickers. Like, those are those are good stickers. And we were sending them out to folks who helped with the show notes, which really appreciate it. So I'll keep on doing that in 2025.
Bryan Cantrill:Yes. I think there'll be another yeah. A little little Oxide and Friends swag would be great. We should we should do a little more. Okay.
Bryan Cantrill:So and then when terms of what let's on some of the the specific Oxide episodes, getting into, like I I mean, I I say I loved all of the ones that we're getting. I mean, of course, like, we do love the stuff that's super interesting. But then I think these episodes end up being amazing. Like, I mean, the crucible episode, you said Yeah. You really had to you mentioned that one of the ways you sweet talked Alan and to to listen to it is, like, don't worry.
Bryan Cantrill:No one will listen to it.
Adam Leventhal:That's right. That's right. When yeah. Alan James were very apprehensive about joining the show. Like, I I know that James went on this whole, like, you know, went to Guitar Center, like, got a microphone, brought it home, didn't like it.
Adam Leventhal:You know, the there he was expressing his anxiety about being on the show in acoustic quality. And, yeah, Alan was
Bryan Cantrill:listen to it much, James? I mean, do we or not? You know? Seriously.
Adam Leventhal:And then, yeah, very nervous. I was like, Alan, look. Nobody's gonna care about this thing. Like, nobody's gonna listen to it. Like, it's gonna be fine.
Adam Leventhal:It's just for us. And it was great. And it was like and it was yeah. That's I you know what? I think sometimes you give people what they need to hear.
Adam Leventhal:I think and I think that's what he needed to hear in that moment. Thank you very much. Okay.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. Do you know what? That sounds great.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:But, also, I lied to
Adam Leventhal:him because, like, it's one of our most downloaded shows.
Bryan Cantrill:It's it was great. And I thought and, I loved that. I loved, when we had Sean on talking about what's taking so long in terms of of Rust compile times. Getting, Dave and Eliza and crew on the the the saga of sagas, I thought was great. Getting, Ben Nacker on here on OXQL, that one, like, hit an exposed nerve on the Internet before it happened.
Bryan Cantrill:The for whatever reason, like, the fact that we've got our own query language really rubbed people. Rub some folks the people had, like, follow-up had pointed follow-up questions, I think.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Who's the CMU professor who was, who was cranky about that?
Bryan Cantrill:Andy Pavlov. Andy Pavlov. Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. And and, Ben was kinda freaked out about that. Like, he he was not happy that he was being, you know, called a, I don't know, NIH, like a sucker or whatever by this esteemed professor.
Bryan Cantrill:But Yeah. In that regard. I'd also I mean, Ben is is, like, one of the nicest people on the planet.
Adam Leventhal:He's so I mean,
Bryan Cantrill:Ben is such a exactly. Anyway, that was a great Ben, I thought that was ended up being a great discussion. Yeah. Not at all surprised. And I think we we I think we I wanna say we won some people over in that they begrudgingly acknowledged that we have the right to do our own query language at the end of the episode.
Bryan Cantrill:It's like, no. Thanks. You know, we did our own, like, board designs. We did our own switch. Does that bother you?
Bryan Cantrill:It's like, no. No. That's okay. That's okay. Yep.
Bryan Cantrill:That's fine, I guess. But, I thought that episode was great. The episode in Helios was one that ended up, getting a lot of attention.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:People are always you know, they love to go into r f d 26. That one keeps coming back on on Akron News. So that one that one comes up a bunch. What was the other? Though and then we had, Dave Pacheco on back to back on Mhmm.
Bryan Cantrill:Saga of Sagas and then on CockroachDB, kinda what our what what our approach was there. That I I thought those were great. And I think I guess one question I would have for folks is, you know, is is our balance right there? Should we get, you know, would would people be up for a little more? They want more of that?
Adam Leventhal:They want less of it?
Bryan Cantrill:I don't think we would do less of it, but we might do a little more of it. Yeah. I mean, you know you
Adam Leventhal:know, there's one more of it I wanna do that I've been asking for. So now I'm gonna do my airing of grievances.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. See, it is happy Fest of Us. It's time to have your grievance.
Adam Leventhal:So we, it's been a minute now, but we, you, me, rain, Dave, bunch folks, debugged a really nasty, really complicated issue, that maybe I won't even spoil, but it, you know, there was a moment in debugging. You know you know that, like, debugging is going great when Dave and I were like, Brian, we think that this might be a virtual memory bug of some description. And you said, okay. Let's say you can make a bug with your mind. Like, how would that bug work?
Adam Leventhal:I mean, when when we're like, look, nothing is making sense. So Yeah. Exactly. Like, how do we how do we, like, invent something that would conceivably justify it? And and you're right.
Adam Leventhal:But it did seem like almost like we were saying, what if the computer is haunted? You're like, okay. Like, describe that deceased person's previous life that caused them to inhabit.
Bryan Cantrill:I I will offer a a witch having cast a spell on the CPU. I just need a little more detail about what the spell is.
Adam Leventhal:Like, tell me about the spell. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:Tell me about the spell. And then I'll be yeah. That one was a little wild, and that one probably does merit. You know what? I feel I've got a little bit I've left a little bit on the table on that one because that one boils down to, I'm gonna say it generously, a difference of opinion about what the microprocessor's responsibilities are with respect to speculative execution, of a kernel translation.
Bryan Cantrill:And, there's there's a difference of opinion there. I don't think that and and, admittedly, one of the opinions is from the company that makes the microprocessor and another of the opinions from the poor suckers that are trying to implement on top of microprocessor. So needless to say, their opinion wins. I have wanted to get that clarified in a I I wanna get a sentence in the the the programmer's manual that that describes this a little bit, and I have not. I cannot owe them that sentence.
Bryan Cantrill:So, I I feel like but yeah. Though yeah. Okay. That's that so that's are there other episodes that you feel that, as long as you're you know, get I'll get you going Do
Adam Leventhal:you mean
Bryan Cantrill:by varying
Adam Leventhal:of grievances in terms of
Bryan Cantrill:Wait. What are some of the episode other episodes that we need to go, go do?
Adam Leventhal:I don't you know, if if I knew that, we would have we would not be thinking Monday mornings about what episode we should do next. I do have some, like, stretch goals for 2025 that and this, like, this is one of these ones, like, I need you not to laugh, but I think that it's possible. So first of all Okay.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Yeah. What are our stretch goals? This is a great idea because I've got stretch goals too.
Adam Leventhal:Stretch goal Okay. This this one is, like, maybe less stretchy. But, the, Playdate, which makes this little yellow console device Yeah. Did a great podcast. I think we've talked about it here, but it might have been a minute.
Adam Leventhal:They have a great podcast describing, the hardware software interface and, like, how they built it. And, like, this was a software company that branched out into hardware. Great. I think their intro podcast is, like, maybe an hour or 2. It's a great, great episode.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Other other great episodes about, like, games and stuff like that. But the I think the first one, if you just listen to that, it's so good. And listening to it, I'm like, man, their story and our story, you know, feel like very similar. In the same way that when last year we had, we had the CEO framework on,
Bryan Cantrill:like, the outset. Yeah. Narafa.
Adam Leventhal:Some similar some similar yeah. Narafa is awesome.
Bryan Cantrill:Right.
Adam Leventhal:Some some kinda similar histories. And, like, I would love to have the Playdate folks on and this might be, like, maybe a little bit of a reach, but I I think that that'd be a great episode. But I'll tell you my real, like, kind of embarrassing aspiration is to get Morris Chang on the show. Like, that would be
Bryan Cantrill:Oh, god. Wow. My dream dream. That is a that is
Adam Leventhal:And I know that I know that this is a bit of a fantasy, but I feel like we're we're not that far removed from being able to, like, bubble up to and, like, he's done some, like, kinda low budget podcasts. So, anyway, this this this is my fantasy.
Bryan Cantrill:I did not see this one coming. I thought so I the the get that I do wanna try, I wanna try to get Chris Miller, the author of Chip War. Yeah. That one still feels like a stretch. I feel like I'm like, I wanna try to climb Kilimanjaro.
Bryan Cantrill:And you're like, I think we should climb Olympus Mons.
Adam Leventhal:I think we should go to Mars. I'm like,
Bryan Cantrill:Olympus Mons isn't Olympus Mons I need to check, but isn't that on Mars? Yes. Like, yes. I think we should go.
Adam Leventhal:Is my aspiration. 1st to go to Mars. 1st to climb the tallest mountain in the universe.
Bryan Cantrill:Doesn't climbing Olympus Mons necessitate us being on Mars? Like, well, it's an implementation detail. I'm just saying we should look. You got a dream. Fuck.
Bryan Cantrill:You got a dream.
Adam Leventhal:You're missing the forest for the trees, you idiot.
Bryan Cantrill:Just imagine what it's gonna feel like to plant that flag on top of Olympus Mons. You know, and they're not running tourist outfits up there. And I'll tell you that. There's not a line to get to the top of Olympus Mons.
Adam Leventhal:Okay. Look, I told you I said maybe don't laugh, but I guess you didn't hear that.
Bryan Cantrill:No. I'm not laughing. I'm like I mean
Adam Leventhal:You you admire my courage. I saw.
Bryan Cantrill:It's a very brave proposal. It is a very brave proposal. I mean, I mean, like, why not get Breakmaster Cylinder to do a beat for Morris Chang?
Adam Leventhal:I mean, like, let's just let let
Bryan Cantrill:you know, let's do it all, you know? Why not? Okay. So I Morris Chang. Let's put that down.
Adam Leventhal:But look, I'm here. Pierre LeMond probably knows Morris Chang. Right? Sure. I gotta stop.
Adam Leventhal:Okay.
Bryan Cantrill:No. I mean, like, I'm just envisioning the conversation that I'm gonna have with Pierre about Pierre not a listener to Oxide and Friends. Like, just read
Adam Leventhal:me the text even in the 6 digits after it. It's fine, Pierre.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Alright. So the more striking. Why not? That would be I mean, it would be amazing.
Bryan Cantrill:You know, there there is and you said there's there's a book that is he that he's published, like, an autobiography, like
Adam Leventhal:Two part autobiography. Look for it. Published in Taiwan, all written in Chinese. So I'm not sure I'm the the target demo for that. I think the first volume he released, a while ago, because he referenced it in his interview with, Jensen Wong, in the Computer History Museum, oral histories, and that was a while ago.
Adam Leventhal:And the but he just released the the second volume, which is, like, 1200 pages or something like that.
Bryan Cantrill:But and his third there
Adam Leventhal:are no translate no. There are no translations of either volume. So,
Bryan Cantrill:maybe your lupus bond. Get them on the shot. I'm what what the what's the highest mountain on Neptune? I think that may be more of it. In
Adam Leventhal:fact, do
Bryan Cantrill:you think lupus bonds is actually feeling a lot more attainable now than
Adam Leventhal:Of course. I mean, I mean, we do have plans to go to Mars, at least. Exactly. That sounds right. Like, we humanity.
Bryan Cantrill:We we humanity. I the and the and, I mean, it was just gonna be in, I mean, am I gonna do this in, like, Taiwanese? I mean, am I gonna No.
Adam Leventhal:No. He he he speaks great English. Like, have you have you watched the, the episode the, Computer History Museum interview with Jensen
Bryan Cantrill:and him? I understand that, but for you, he's not trail he's deliberately not translated his autobiography clearly. So, alright. Well, no. You know what?
Bryan Cantrill:I'm what what we're I got a lot of studying to do. I got some duolingo. I gotta hit I'm ready I I'm ready to roll. I'm ready to roll. We're gonna I I'm I either I think you gotta get you gotta have the stretch it's a stretch goal.
Bryan Cantrill:Like, look, it's a stretch goal. Look. Stretch goal. Like, why am I
Adam Leventhal:Nobody nobody's ever attained something they didn't imagine first. So, you know
Bryan Cantrill:I usually, like, move the Overton window around our stretch goal. So, like, I wanna like, I'm still thirsty for Kate Conger and Ryan Mac to get on here for, to talk about, character limit. But now that feels like exactly. That just feels so pedestrian that I'm not, I mean, if I have thoughts, I just feels like I'm getting gossip calmness on here. Of course, I which that that's gonna do great.
Bryan Cantrill:What's gonna do wonders for getting them on here? I think I've just, like, shot my opportunity there.
Adam Leventhal:No. Oh, yeah. Because they're they're listening to, like, look. Because they're having a conversation on every word.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Let's
Adam Leventhal:for them to mention my name so I can respond to that invitation. It's been sitting in my inbox.
Bryan Cantrill:It's been sitting in my inbox. Alright. Maybe they can connect maybe they can get us to Morris Chang anyway, you know, get get one. That's a perfect
Adam Leventhal:I'm I it's a dream. Right? They're they're the dream.
Bryan Cantrill:It is a dream. It is a dream. I do think that Chris Miller that one feels like we can that that feels attainable.
Adam Leventhal:Yes. That feels like you're right. Because he's trying to sell his book, like, in English and everything. Yeah. Right?
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. That's right.
Adam Leventhal:As opposed to Marsch, like, not trying to sell a booking in English.
Bryan Cantrill:Yes. And not not running one of the world's most valuable companies and, you know, other other reasons why Chris Miller might be a little more available than Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:Look. You can find all the reasons you want for why I can't have this.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay, Brian? Like, we talked about it. It's positive affirmations
Adam Leventhal:in 2025.
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. So what are some other episodes that we, and obviously mentioned Kate Conger or Ryan Mac. I would love to have them on at some point. But, the, would are there are there other do you that that's gotta be your, That
Adam Leventhal:is that is my that is my Kilavancharo on Everest. Yes.
Bryan Cantrill:Rain in the chat is mentioning the, a long awaited async cancellation episode. I do think we need to do that. Yes. That we should get.
Adam Leventhal:I have a self destructive hobby along those lines. Actually, I have 2. I have 2 self destructive hobbies related to an sync async cancellation. 1st, I buy all the new books that come out about async rust and, and I don't review them because I think it would be rude to.
Bryan Cantrill:Interesting. Because they don't talk about this issue.
Adam Leventhal:Oh, because okay. As long as they're they're not listening right now because they're all terrible. They're all just, like, makes me cry terrible.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. It's hard.
Adam Leventhal:Because it's not even that. It's like, man, the one I got recently, it's like talking about how, you know, processes are kinda like threads, but different. It's like, please stop. Please stop. Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Like, I I you know, like yeah. Exactly. Like, if you're gonna talk about, like, a framework, which is inherently about concurrency, I think it'll have, like, a a strong understanding about the distinction between what is a process and what's a threat. The other, the self destructive habit I have is occasionally attending the Rust async working group meetings.
Bryan Cantrill:What it So Wow.
Adam Leventhal:It's a cry for help is what I'm saying.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. It is a cry for help. And what what what happens there?
Adam Leventhal:Very little. Like, very little, not that much. And then when I'm there, I I offer, like, unhelpful pedestrian statements. Like, it would be nice if the documentation were better or or yeah. Or, like, if you could debug the thing, that would be nifty.
Adam Leventhal:And they're like, this is great, like, practical, you know, salt of the earth kind of feedback, but nothing really happens.
Bryan Cantrill:Alright. So are we Asking
Adam Leventhal:cancellation, we'll do it. We'll do it next year. I I do feel like I wanna get my there's a blog post that I that I that I got kinda cooking, but, like, we'll we'll definitely get that sorted out.
Bryan Cantrill:Alright. We got a joker in the chat asking if that meeting gets canceled often. Mhmm. I
Adam Leventhal:And and does it lead to data corruption when it does? That's the real question.
Bryan Cantrill:Exactly. How do they recover from that cancellation? Yeah. Exactly. The I do think it's it would be worth, having an episode on that.
Bryan Cantrill:I'd I'm not sure. Yeah. It might be that that may well, we have to schedule that one, a year from now on on the the next airing of grievances. That one that one could get a little Yes. Little a little rocky.
Bryan Cantrill:And did you have what were some other are there other particular moments or episodes that you, like, favorites from the liked? Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Looking back through my
Bryan Cantrill:I okay. What what is an the episode that you refer other people to, if anything, if any?
Adam Leventhal:Excy. I think it's just like it's it's a good, like, general, you know, Yeah. I don't know. Appeals to a lot of folks. Right?
Adam Leventhal:Like, folks know about it. And, like, it's an interesting one. How about you?
Bryan Cantrill:I so a a bunch of them, I do tend to yeah. I know this is last year, but, I definitely refer people that are interested in working in oxide to the Gary Gay or or us Yeah. Yeah. Episode where we kinda talk about our hiring process. I think it's very important.
Bryan Cantrill:I I do I didn't refer people to the, you know, folks that are interested in oxide as, you know, a potential investor or potential customers, definitely tailoring I I mean, I I'm definitely a little bit worried, like, we will have someone who's interested in oxide again as either an investor or or customer, and they will make the mistake. Like, they're they they have not heard of the podcast, but then they make the mistake of saying, you know, actually, I really love podcasts. And then I send them a follow-up email that has got, like, 31 links in it. And then we don't have a problem for a long time. Like, I think this has happened a couple of times where I'm just like, I have I have not actually read the the the reaction properly, and I have given them too much listening here.
Bryan Cantrill:So my apologies to those folks. I've done that too. I but I've just there's so because when folks have, you know, I love to point people to, you've got so many episodes now that get into specific topics on the on what we built, either the company or the technology that, I saw for people do a lot of different episodes frequently. Too many episodes too often, I think we can say with with relative confidence. And then, you know, there's always, there have been actually there have been sometimes I've gotten actually feedback, that maybe that was a lot of episodes, that that was maybe a little too many.
Bryan Cantrill:So, okay. I'm, you know, trying to trying to moderate that. But Yeah. I I heard some I've heard some folks in regular listeners, so that's been fun too.
Adam Leventhal:That's good. The the, RFD one that we've already mentioned it, but, like, that's another good, like, kind of meat and potatoes, approachable one that I that I refer to.
Bryan Cantrill:What is there anything that you've got wrong that you would like to correct? Actually, how frequently do we edit these before we
Adam Leventhal:Edit them? What do you mean?
Bryan Cantrill:Edit them? We do very little editing. I think people know this.
Adam Leventhal:You do very little editing. I, do all the editing.
Bryan Cantrill:Fair.
Adam Leventhal:How much do we edit? Like, rarely do we do I, like, really, like, take a hatchet to something? Like, I you know, if, especially as people are talking over each other, it'll do that kind of editing. It's rare, but it happens sometimes that I'll, like, actually remove some slice of content. Like, we had a guest on the show, not this year, but in previous years, who was kind of, like, blowing through all the stop signs that everyone and all the other speakers were giving them to, like, please stop talk like, on the vein that you are about to go down, please stop going down that vein.
Adam Leventhal:Just, like, could not be deterred. So just clip that out of the
Bryan Cantrill:show. But we basically do a light edit. I've as you've described, I I do an extremely light edit, which is to say nothing, but you you do a relatively light up.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Yeah. Very light. It'll be like if if if we screwed something up that we really are mortified about personally, that's that's usually the thing I'm fixing.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, so the but I would like to say that I have made some mistakes. I am mortified about that I've we've never doctored. So those mistakes will now live forever. What about
Adam Leventhal:anything really killing you?
Bryan Cantrill:I on on the Intel episode, I did get a couple of, like, for whatever reason, and I was just I don't know. Head of steam something. I called Sapphire Rapids Sapphire Lake. And I know that I yeah. I know.
Bryan Cantrill:I felt, and then I also
Adam Leventhal:are you?
Bryan Cantrill:I pretty much. And then I, I conflated Ice Lake and Cascade Lake at one point. And I know this sounds, like, ridiculous because these kinda code names are a little bit ridiculous, but I thought it was pretty bad. And then I kinda got the the
Adam Leventhal:Have you been reading your comments on Mastodon? Is that what happened? Is that like, have the people on Mastodon been being mean to you about this?
Bryan Cantrill:They have been being extremely mean to me. No. No. Actually, that is funny because the some of the the YouTube comments, are generally, like, not that negative, actually. I mean, there's some complaints about the audio, but then it's like, I think the no.
Bryan Cantrill:Dead silence. Am I wrong? I think I'll go through both the YouTube comments.
Adam Leventhal:Are you too nervous though? No. They're all good. They're they're, like, basically positive and, recently some spam about, Tether. So that's Really?
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. More that
Adam Leventhal:was more on dtrace.com. It turns out USDT also means US dollar Tether. So the fact that we have that that title attracted all the spam
Bryan Cantrill:Oh my god. Great.
Adam Leventhal:This is a great topic. A little off topic, but I have a wallet with this as the passphrase. Can you help me access it?
Bryan Cantrill:A little off topic. That is that's delightful. Yeah. That's great. I I did not realize that.
Bryan Cantrill:That is really a pretty funny. Yeah.
Adam Leventhal:It's a good one.
Bryan Cantrill:And then I think, another episode that you've talked about in terms of, like, component that we have built on, I wanna get the, the rounded 2ie folks.
Adam Leventhal:Oh, yeah. Oh, right. I forgot. Yeah. I bumped into Orhan at this, the, one of the maintainers of Ratatouille at this conference in Italy I was mentioning.
Adam Leventhal:And, yeah, it'd be it'd be great to get him on the show, because we use it all the time.
Bryan Cantrill:We use Ratatouille a lot. Yeah. We In fact,
Adam Leventhal:featured as the image in the OXQL episode.
Bryan Cantrill:That's right. I was feeling like we need a I almost wanna get kind of a feature where we're getting some, like, featuring some crates that people should know about.
Adam Leventhal:Mhmm. You know? That that would be a good episode on its on its own. Right?
Bryan Cantrill:You should know would be a good episode. Just like that. In the past? No. I don't think we have.
Bryan Cantrill:Have we not? Okay.
Adam Leventhal:I don't know.
Bryan Cantrill:You don't know, but then what have we never mentioned how we felt when MCA died? Oh, no. Wait a minute. Do that. Apparently, everything else there.
Adam Leventhal:World War 2 a a source of stress for some?
Bryan Cantrill:Is that okay. And then we are definitely gonna get the, so So when
Adam Leventhal:she just crates in the box, I just have to, like yes. Crates in the box. Perfect.
Bryan Cantrill:I love our books in the box episodes. I think those are great. I love hearing what people are reading, and I, I've already read the Mouse Driver Chronicles, which I thought was Yeah. A great addition.
Adam Leventhal:I have I have not finished that, but it's it's probably
Bryan Cantrill:It is truly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for the dotcom though. I mean, the way Ian described it very, very accurately. And, they truly have no idea what they're doing and just, like, watching them walk into rigs. But they're also very, like, very energetic and and reasonably self effacing, and it's, it is of its time, but definitely, I enjoyed reading it. So I well, I but alright.
Bryan Cantrill:So we should get some, we we should be talking about and, someone in the chat asks to please, have you talk about SerDe token stream.
Adam Leventhal:So Rain, who, like, basically rewrote the whole thing. Thank you, Rain. She was delightful. But, yeah, let's do that. Let's do a crates episode.
Adam Leventhal:We can talk about some some crates that even other people have written.
Bryan Cantrill:Yes. And then I wanna get stay tuned for some great episodes. I think next year, we're gonna I I wanna definitely get we're gonna talk about the X2, from Xyte and, and what we're doing with p 4 there. And, we just got a bunch of interesting hardware and software coming next year. So, a lot of fun stuff to talk about.
Adam Leventhal:Morris Chang.
Bryan Cantrill:And Morris Chang and Olympus Mons. We're gonna go Get out your backpacking gear, folks, and whatever you need to survive on Mars and also what you need to get to Mars because we're gonna go we're going to Mars and we're gonna climb Olympus Mons. But it's been, it's been great. It's been a great year, and it's been so much fun, and I'm looking forward to a terrific year in 2025. So, please, if folks do have ideas on things folks would like us to have on the podcast, I mean, Boris Chang is inbound, so, hey, let's get you know, I I I don't know who's not inbounds at this point.
Bryan Cantrill:So, you know, get them all. I I I can well, let's why stop there? Let's conjure the dead. You know, let's get John von Neumann on the podcast. What's his take on that?
Adam Leventhal:Well, JP Morgan. I mean, you were talking about the other day.
Bryan Cantrill:I mean, I've been been whispering his name non goddamn stop hoping that someone would just be getting him on the podcast. Let's get JPMorgan on here. No. Not someone from JPMorgan. I'm talking about JP Pierpont Morgan himself.
Bryan Cantrill:I wanna I wanna listen to him regale us about putting down the 1907 rich man's panic with his cane. Yep. So it's gonna be, it's gonna be a fun year. And thank you. Thank you, everybody.
Bryan Cantrill:Thank you for for bearing with us and enjoying even the baseball one. We think the baseball one's great, and the the bio one too. And, and feel free to ask me where's Adam when you see me. It's fine.
Adam Leventhal:And, next time in the New Year, bring your predictions. We're gonna be reviewing predictions from, I can't remember when we started, but we're gonna we might even have some 3 years cooked. But
Bryan Cantrill:We've got a the the the first, our first 3 years are coming due. So- Joshua Nelson
Adam Leventhal:(zero zero six:fifty seven): That's great.
Bryan Cantrill:Joshua Nelson (zero zero six:fifty seven): We're going to be reviewing some 3 years. We're going to be making new predictions. It's going to be a ton of fun. So- Joshua
Adam Leventhal:Nelson (zero zero six:fifty seven): Yeah. That's pretty
Bryan Cantrill:great. Alrighty. Thank you, everyone. Have a great end of your year and to bring those predictions next year. So we're obviously off next week, but we'll see you in the new year.
Bryan Cantrill:Thanks, everybody.
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