Latest / Oxide and Friends / Books in the Box III

Transcript

Books in the Box III · Oxide and Friends

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, Brian.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Hey, Adam. How are you?
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm doing good.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: How are
• 0:04
  Speaker 3: you doing?
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: I'm doing well. You, you made it.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: I made
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: it just in the nick of time.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: I was there was a moment where, and I was, of course, flying following your flight in real
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: time. Right. Like, it's Elon Jet. Exactly.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Elon Jet. Exactly. And, I am thinking, well, you know, maybe we need to get going with if we have to get going without you here and have you, like, you know, maybe you're gonna be joining in as you're kinda, like, walking, like, you know, on the concourse something. So I will need to kick off the recording bot, and I'm just describing this to Steve Klapnick. And I'm like, there's like a wolf named Jeff.
• 0:44
  Is that right? He's like, I think you mean Craig. And it was Jeff with a g in my in my I go, I don't know. Anyway, so, I was we don't feel like I was that close. I think we'll and now that I'm looking at it, like, that's not a what is that?
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: What is the In your in your head, you sounded weirder about it than I than to me. It was a very normal question of how do I set on the recording. So what do you so you're all good.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: What's it like, wolf named Jeff with a g. Can you hear yourself? I mean, this this is okay.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: What is wolf what is wolf what you're saying wolf? Like, the the the canid? Okay.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Yes. The the the the candid. What is the icon there for our friend, Craig?
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, oh, oh, got it. I I I mean, it's
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: the wolf.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's the bear. Yeah. I
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: I Is there a bear
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: like a pacifier? Like, what's going on with the bear? I don't wanna
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: It's got a microphone.
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: Microphone. So Bro. Agree that they at the resolution, it is a little, hard to tell exactly what it is.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm going with pacifier on that one. Are you certain it's not a pacifier? Could it be a pacifier? Alright.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Brian, before we get into it, I just wanna make sure you're not sounding millennial podcast on quality. Okay. I just want to check.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: No. The this is true. Is it is it terrible?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: No. No. It's totally fine.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: It should be, like, serviceable, but not not millennial podcast quality.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Dude, it is it is
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: vaguely radio. Like Right. Like, you're you're, like, an interlude of a nineties rock song, and you're gonna say, like, 2 sentences and then cut back
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: to normal.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He no. He's ready to spit. Exactly. No.
• 2:21
  You sound you sound totally serviceable, just not it sounds like you're not in the litter box as it were.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I am not in the litter box. Yes. I'm not in the litter box because I felt for this that I needed to be among my books. I wonder if you
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: must've I almost spit up my water.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Did you I just I I oh, but I'm clothed, by the way. I mean, it's I I realized that that's
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: why why you why would you bring that up? Why would
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: why would you? Because I I'm closed now. I'm closed now. I I I put clothes on. I I after I rubbed them all over my body.
• 2:52
  Look. I yeah. I'm sorry.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: No. No. It's it's great.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: This is what you're missing out by being, you know, an ebook reader. You know, you you miss the opportunity to
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: wrap
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: your books all over yourself.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I'm very excited to talk about a paper book that I'm holding with me right now.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, boy.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Talk radio sound effects right there.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Radio sound effects. That sounds like the walking
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Drive ball to center field right
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Okay. What is that paper book that I that I I heard I distinctly hear on on What's your radio time hour? Yes.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Yes. So this is our our time honored, I guess, tradition of talking about books for reading. And as a stage dive, it's gonna be very important for people to raise their hand to talk about the books that they're reading. But Yes. A book that I'm reading actually, I just finished on the airplane.
• 3:40
  I was coming back from Grandmasters Nationals where we finished a ignominious 7th. I finished on the plane. A book that someone DM'd or or, tweeted at us, Brian. And I don't think you noticed it. Yeah.
• 3:55
  Okay. And and I was sort of I was sort of, I was I was gonna present this to you at some point, and I guess this is the point. But there is a book about Sun and about McNeely written in about 1999, 1998, 99.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I've read it. I've seen it. I know I can visualize the cover. What's it called?
• 4:14
  It is called Oh,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna give you one guess because the title is eerily and I think accidentally prophetic, and it's playing on Sun.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's not Java Man. No. No. It's I do not remember the title.
• 4:32
  What what is the title?
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: High Noon.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: High Noon.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: High Noon. Right, Karen Karen Southwick.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: It it it was, like, it was pretty good. It was a a pretty good, clinical, about 99.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I've reached the 99. Sorry. You said that. So it's And
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: that and that's why I feel like High Noon was so, like, appropriate of a title because they they can't have known that it was about to be I mean, you know, dusk and then midnight. But, yeah, talking about from the the start of sun to accidentally, its peak at high noon.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Yes. You
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: know, and, like, you know, not, not tons and tons of technical details, but good stuff about Gosling and Joy and John Gage and, stuff about, you know, the the founder squabbles early on. And it was it was, you know, not not too long pretty good. And certainly for someone who came in right after that, I'm kicking myself that I didn't read this, you know, 25 years ago or whatever. But, but, you know, really, I think they captured a lot of the the management zeitgeist, this kind of teetering between chaos and organization. I captured that pretty faithfully.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting. I I feel that, like, the, Sun is to blame not for the most mendacious of Google's management, but for the most incompetent. You know what I mean? Like, that and that the incompetent streak in Google's management, I think you can chalk up to Sun.
• 6:04
  In that, like, Sun did believe yeah. Incompetent is a little too strong. But, hands off for sure. Yeah. Well, and then is that we're positive often?
• 6:16
  I
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: mean and I only came in after the end of the planets, but I guess there's this management paradigm. Right?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I know you were right in the middle of it. So where basically, I think the idea was sort of to let independent organizations be independent and entrepreneurial, but the end effect was that what a customer ostensibly buying from Sun was talking to, like, 5 different organizations that mutually hated each other, who were
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: also like
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: trying to re resell each other's stuff with a markup.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Is planet the metaphor you wanna go for here? You know what I mean? It's just like, does this make sense? It's like, in our solar system, only one planet is habitable. It's only one of the like, the the the planet has Right.
• 6:59
  The the which one of these is Earth, like the which is Venus? Which is Mercury? The planets have nothing to do with one another. You can't get from one of the planets to the it's like, really, like, can we is it I thought that we could come up with a better metaphor. In fact, I'm not sure we can go up with a worse metaphor.
• 7:12
  So for people, the the planets were the different divisions inside of sun. So we were at Sunsoft, which if it for those folks that are kinda long time sun watchers, you can blame the planet model for the fact that the compilers are no longer free. That was Sunsoft trying to monetize the compilers because Sunsoft needed to monetize itself, and it needed to treat Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation, SMCC, like just another customer, which was not that it was bad. That was a it's you had SMCC, and you had JavaSoft, and the and you and then you had Sunsoft. Yeah.
• 7:46
  Sunsoft, SparkBank Electronics, and then you and then it got weird. Then there were, like they started these, like, new planets. It I mean, it was it was like, you know, like Pluto. Like, that you had these things that are like, oh, it's this is no longer a planet. This is now just like a a a celestial object now, and it's it was a mess.
• 8:03
  It was a whole thing. It's a big, big mess.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: But I learned about, this thing, news, like this predecessor to X Windows
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: News. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:10
  Definitely. That I
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: that I had I
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I knew nothing about. So it
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: was it
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: was a Yeah. That's that's like the Gosling's first that's like the yeah. It was a big deal.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: No. For sure. For sure. It was a big deal, and I think Sun really tried to make it a thing, and
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: it it didn't go.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And I think that that then when Java kinda rolled around, they were like, let's not do news again. And it sort of almost directly spawned out of the failure of news. The folks involved were you know, one one of them was one of key folks in job was about to leave to go to Next, had signed an offer, and got yanked back, by Scott McNealy. Actually, they were on the same pickup hockey team, and and Scott kinda pulled them back. So, anyway, bunch bunch of interesting anecdotes for the sun lovers on the call.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That sounds great. And I I can see, I know, Tom is here. Okay? I think I can get I'm not sure if Tom's read, hide it or not.
• 9:04
  But, Yeah.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: And, Tom, you you the a, there's definitely an anecdote about you in there, Tom, about, some some pranks that you pulled. So, I'm sure you've seen it, but it was it was pretty fun.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: This is the, we we got an Oxide and Friends regular contributor that's in high noon. This is the the it's a boy. Gotta talk about bearing the lead there. That's exciting. Yeah.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Let's go.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: We have to go the the Tom Lyon anecdote alone.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Exactly.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: On the subject of Tom, I a book that Tom had recommended, I I think the first time so we should actually set the context a little bit. We did this originally, almost 3 years ago, September of 2021. Sorry. That'd be it was 2 years ago. And then we did another one of these in, June of last year.
• 9:54
  And, interesting, and there were a lot of really good recommendations. Tom, in particular, had made the recommendation about what the Dormouse said by John Markoff. And I had kind of been meaning to read that, Tom, and I, finally got around to it. I was really good. I really enjoyed it.
• 10:12
  Yeah. That was a great one. So thank you for that recommendation, Tom. Really appreciate it.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: You're welcome. The, yeah. I I don't realize I was in high noon. I read it a long time ago, but I don't remember.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Tom, you're I mean, we you're always been famous to us, but this this is, you know, so you're, you're book famous. Great. And so and then, Tom, you had, I and I've I still I sadly, the making of the microchip is still where it was a year ago. So, namely, on my bookshelf where I look at it, it it it's
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: daunting volume.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: It's daunting. Have you made any progress on it?
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: No. I I just got through another book, called A History of Silicon Valley by Jero Scarruffi, And it's a it's a terrible book in that there's no plot or story or anything, but it's just knee deep in facts and figures. And it's fascinating, and it covers not just the computer side of things, but also biotech and military and cultural stuff. So it's pretty interesting.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: You know, and I feel like the biotech side of Silicon Valley is way too often forgotten. That that that there's a I mean, this is also, I mean, Boston, I think, is is rightfully thought of as kind of the historical epicenter of biotech. But, there is San Francisco would be, certainly in the running there with I mean, this is where, obviously, PCR was invented here. It's a great book actually on have you have you read the book on PCR? There's a great book on PCR.
• 11:56
  I've never read years ago. Have you read this? I don't know.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Was it about the chemist who's really into drugs and stuff?
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah. It was the chemist who's really into drugs.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: That one
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: that that that's the one. The I'll I'll go take that one up because that was actually a great read and a good reminder of of the kind of this area's role, in but that's just good. So the the the we you not well structured, but worth reading nonetheless, it sounds like.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it it it's a great place to dive in and and then go Google about the stuff he's talking about. He he also has no references, which is a drag. So it's not it's a very strange book, but, just thick with details.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: The book that I was thinking of, by the way, is Making PCR, a story of Biotechnology, 2011, which was, really interesting history of PCR.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: You were talking about the planets earlier. I I should note that today. Today is the anniversary of the water war between Sun Labs and Sunsoft.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Okay. I
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: don't know. Could you Were you around, Brian?
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I was not, but this is definitely handed down to me as oral tradition. So I will be very curious to fact check it. No. This predates me. But so could you just
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: yeah. I I posted I posted a link that has the raw footage, but it was this amazing war that was prepared for for several weeks on both sides and included, you know, helicopter support and god knows what else.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: And this is Sun Labs.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: All kinds of trebuchets and you know? So it's it's basically between the Sun Labs building and the next building over, which was one of the Sunsoft buildings and the little pond in between, and people marching back back and forth and flinging water balloons. And I I I actually I actually didn't see it either. It was I was traveling for some reason. But
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Can I describe how this is handed down to me as as kind of, legend was and I again, I'm very curious how accurate this the the this the scissor was? Ben Stoltz is there. Ben can can weigh it as well. But so the way way this was handed down to me is that it was sun it was labs versus the operating system group versus Sunsoft. And over at Labs, you had the these ridiculously ornate contraptions and a trebuchet that never quite work correctly.
• 14:28
  And meanwhile, over at Sunsoft, they had just had the old surgical tube slingshot, and they were just doing enormous damage with just this, like, very simple slingshot that come about 3 or 4 person slingshot, and they are just, like, absolutely launching water balloons, with deadly accuracy. And, of course, this is the triumph of of the the the the pragmatic gorilla movement over the the the kind of the fancy labs trebuchet is the way that was. Is is that at all is there any reality to that at all?
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: I don't recall what yeah. Who won or whatever? Well, it's just a total melee. And, at the time, we I had we we had a Russian au pair living with us who's taking care of our kids, and she was dating a guy in Sun Labs. And so she saw it and came back and reported it as, like, the most completely fucking insane thing she had ever seen.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: It's still the stuff of legend. And that was how many years ago tonight? That was, you said?
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: That was 1992. So
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: 92. Okay. So when I show up in 96, but it was definitely legendary, when by the time I showed up.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: The the other great story I heard was that, the Sun Labs guys got wind of Sunsoft hiring in a helicopter. And so they got out their their radio gear, and they jammed all the frequencies so they couldn't coordinate with helicopters.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Wow. I guess you're
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: all keeping touchpad.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Pretty high-tech also. I think, motion's running pretty high. It's kind of the the
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: When you're calling it an airstrike, yeah, I think so.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: You're calling it a literal airstrike. Exactly. It's like, no. We're we're gonna jam their communications. Right?
• 16:16
  Isn't, is that civil aviation just legal? I where I mean, where's
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the counterinsurgency? What's going on?
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Have we drifted into domestic terrorism here?
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't think, yeah, that was legal. But
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: That's pretty great. Well, a another book that I actually, so as long as, Ian, you're here, because you made a recommendation that I also read that I loved, which was Cyberville by Stacey Horn, about the history of echo. You know, I was wondering if you'd did you actually read that? I know you'd recommend it. I think you'd started to read it by, last year.
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I read it after I recommended it.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Right. What did you think? I thought it was really interesting. I thought it was interesting because so this is a well like social network. This is like New York's equivalent of the well.
• 17:07
  This is Echo. And I thought it was really interesting because I thought there was so much foreshadowing for what later happened to the Internet and social networking where we saw this real dark side. Ian, what did you think?
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I think there was a lot of lessons learned that, got relearn about 5 to 10 years later, and we could have avoided a lot of pain. It's if more people had read this book, that were involved in in the next wave of social networks.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: And Elon Musk, not too late. You could still figure out how social networking works. The you could, I I because I feel like there's a lot of actually currency in there still today. So, you know, that that was a that was a great recommendation. Then you I'd also read, although I've done this a year ago, but, the, your the the book on Blockbuster, which was absolutely terrific.
• 18:00
  And why is that title escaping me? I don't have to add it in front of me. It's not too big to fail. What is it? The the blockbuster book?
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: Yes. I can't remember, either.
• 18:13
  Speaker 7: No. No.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: I'll I'll dig that up. Yeah. Yeah. That was another, terrific book.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: This was Built to Fail?
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Built to Fail. Exactly. Not too big to fail. Very much not too big to fail. Yes.
• 18:22
  Built to Fail, which is a, a great book about, and that's where I learned it's is it HMBs at the Steve's at the grocery store in in Texas? Am I remembering that right? No. What's the what what's the grocery store?
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: H e b.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: H e b. H e b. Yeah. Which was, really extraordinary to learn about, and they're kind of their execution, it sounds like they are, every bit as good as this book made them out to be. It sounds like they're they're really an interesting grocery store.
• 18:55
  So the other book that I I just took a very long time to get through, like, on the order of many weeks, not months, to get through a book that I would highly recommend. A little book that no one's heard of called Moby Dick. I I read Moby Dick, Adam. And have you read Moby Dick?
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: No. Never read Moby Dick, since you you threatened to have this, this show I did. Exclusively on Mobindec.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Dedicated to I wanted to dedicate the show to Mobindec. This is
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: true. I I only got as far as downloading onto my Kindle, but it's it's it's
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Well, to what your response was, are you concerned that we have too many listeners?
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Yes. Well, you know, the best audience for my jokes is me separated by a small amount of time.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I so okay. So we do not we we will not dedicate the entire show to Moby Dick, but Moby Dick is extraordinary. It's really, really good. Hey. I I I think it's it's really outstanding.
• 19:49
  It is, it's well written. It's got, it there's so much in there thematically. So the reason I do you I I know I'm I'm now answering the question that no one's asked. But do you know how I got to Moby Dick? I yeah.
• 20:03
  Exactly. Do I have
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: a choice? Doesn't feel like a very important question.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Let's get it out.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So so when we were and I was actually I'm curious if you heard me use wailing as a metaphor. I would use wailing as a metaphor.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And and you, in particular, around hard tech investing, I think.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Yes. That's right. That hard tech investing is that you're going whaling. And Yeah. And in particular, I there was one BC firm in particular that was really a poor fit that should not be investing in hard tech because they haven't done any.
• 20:37
  All they've done is software. And I was telling them, it's like, you need to fish from the pier. We're going whaling, which I intended to, like, tell them why they are not a fit. Unfortunately, it made them desire oxide or thought they thought they desired oxide a lot more. They thought I was like, this isn't a negotiation tactic.
• 20:54
  I'm telling you, like, there's a lot that's, like, not great about Weiwei. But this idea that, like, you're on this because I think it's amazing that you'd go on this multiyear journey. And but I was I at the back of my head, I'm like, am I, like, how over my skis am I on this one? I don't actually know that much about whaling. And I was talking to a friend of mine who is super into whaling, and I was asking her, like, what will be the book to read on whaling?
• 21:22
  She's like, the book to read on whaling is Moby Dick. Like, that is the book to read on whaling. And she's like, I got the edition for you. So you wanna get the the Arian Press edition. This was a, like, a handcrafted edition of which they only made 250 copies, but you can now buy a refresh of this for, like, you know, whatever, $10.
• 21:43
  And it's amazing. So, like, they have a they they developed their own. It's all the hand pressed custom font and everything. So the the edition is amazing. But the book is just incredible, and there's a lot you can say about Moby Dick.
• 21:57
  But I feel like there's in all the analysis I've read, there's one piece that was missing. Namely, Herman Melville is super, super into whaling. That's just a very important detail. Like, this guy is really into whaling. And you just learn a lot, I think, about and and I would say that, like, I come away with having more conviction than ever that this is actually a good metaphor for a start up because you are going whaling.
• 22:24
  You're going on this multiyear journey. You are kinda getting your crew. You're getting together, and then you're taking this extraordinary risk, although not to life or limb, but to to go to venture out. And in a whaling ship, the crew actually has a slice of the profits called the lay, in a whaling ship. And, perhaps like a startup, they tends to not be worth very much.
• 22:49
  That's the one. It's the one to like me. So, you know, you you know, you kinda can't chase that metaphor as much as you want, but a really good book. I think it's a really good book, and I think it's, like, funny. I laughed out loud a bunch.
• 23:02
  I also think it's a absolute waste to inflict this on anyone who is, like, certainly younger than 30. I would say younger than 40. Like, certainly a high no high school student should should need to read Moby Dick because, you like, you're a child. Be like, you did this this book has nothing for you. Like, you don't actually you the the the deep resonance of this book, you're not gonna have it till you have a lot more life experience.
• 23:26
  This is what I have to say. Education is wasted on the young.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Can we can you share what you shared about, Moby with me? Oh, that that that
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: that that that Moby, the the artist? Yes. It is the yeah. This is like, you know, when you this the other reason to read Moby Dick is, like, you get into the Moby Dick Club, and now there are all these Moby Dick references that you get. Oh, by the way okay.
• 23:50
  You one thing I am not doing, by the way, I am not spoiling the ending for you. And some there is, like, we socially, we just don't seem like, there's this idea that, like, I don't know. It's written in 19th century. Anyone can spoil the ending for anyone else. So I was like, come on.
• 24:07
  There's no and so I was watching, and you feel like I mean, like, nothing is safe. You know, I was watching Major League with my 16 year old because we view it as a documentary about the Okra days. We'll leave that aside. But so watching Major League, a movie made in the eighties that has a very explicit Moby Dick spoiler in it. And in particular the there's, like, a because it I mean, I know I the the love story in Major League.
• 24:38
  I I what do you mean you don't recall the love story in Major League, Adam? There's a love story in Major League. You and the, in particular, he he, the catcher, needs to prove his glove.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Davis. You're right.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Isn't Crash Davis?
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, no. No. I'm I'm I'm I've got Bull Durham. I'm sorry. That's Bull Durham.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Pardon me. Also a great book. Or also a great movie. But the, no. The the, but the catcher needs to prove his love by reading Moby Dick, and she asks him an extremely specific question about the ending while I'm reading Moby Dick.
• 25:11
  I'm like, Jesus Christ. You literally just ruined the actual ending for me. Anyway, I'm not ruining it. I'm not gonna like, I think people, like, casually like, this is an ending that I feel is famously spoiled, and I'm not gonna spoil it. So that's what I'm gonna say.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: And this is an important, pro tip along with read Moby Dick, which is don't also watch Major League. So hold off for a few months.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Hold off. Exactly. It's only I I don't know how many people have been reading Moby Dick being on the edge of their seat reading Moby Dick while they're watching Major League, but I'm just saying it happened to me.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: It's really a pretty small I mean, a small club.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: It's really a small club. It's like a small club, and and I'm in it, and I'm gonna I'm writing a letter right now to the producers of Major League. Dear sir or madam, I trust this letter finds you well. The, but you're asking about so Moby, the artist, is the great great nephew of Armand Melville. So changes, like, his name to Moby with that.
• 26:07
  It's kinda cool.
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Or at least according to
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: his Wikipedia page, claims to be, but that's good enough for me. I trust Moby.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: And there were a bunch of Simpsons references in Moby Dick. I know that it may be fair to say there are a bunch of Moby Dick references in The Simpsons, but it felt like
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: That's right. For for me, the Simpsons is canon and Moby Dick is terrific.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Moby Dick is just like, wow. How they how did they crib the Simpsons, you know, a 140 years beforehand? But, from Hell's Heart, I stab at the Springfield. Nice. Anyway, Really good book.
• 26:43
  And, it takes a while to get through because it is so dense to do the super into whales, and you're just, like, googling all the time. Because I just felt like there's so much stuff that I'm like, what even is this? And, also, although you may it's like where there are things that, like, I've never heard of, and I would, like, brought up by Bridget. I'm like, have you ever heard of, like, ambergris? She'd be like, yeah.
• 27:04
  Of course. Like, yeah. The ambergris. Absolutely. And then it kinda rattles off a bunch things about amber grease.
• 27:08
  Do you know anything about
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: amber grease, Adam? Isn't that, like, made from whale blubber? Jesus.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Am I the only one that doesn't, like, I okay.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: You know what? But Bridget and I were both raised you were raised in coastal cities, you know, so maybe that that's it.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Yes. On the yeah. Do you is there some mandatory whaling class in the Connecticut curriculum? Maybe that that would actually
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Well, there used to be.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: There used to be. When they got rid of the Hartford Whalers, they also got rid of the mandatory customer.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Too soon.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: No. Fair enough. I but now I, like, I really wanna go to New Bedford. Like, I I I this is like a gateway drug. I'm getting super duet.
• 27:49
  The so that really highly recommended. Great, great book. And I think that there's also a bunch of people that I've read. Because I, you know, through this out there on the Internet, a bunch of people are like, yes. It's a great book.
• 27:58
  It's like the best ever. This actually prompted me to read another book that I absolutely raced through, that I I could not put down, on endurance, on, Shackleton's do do you what do you know about Shackleton or not Shackleton?
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: 0. I I I even even though you've mentioned Shackleton to me within the last few weeks, I feel like I've already dropped back to 0.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: So I was like, Shackleton, I don't know. Antarctica, stranded, like, made it back. That's kinda what I knew about about Shackleton. Didn't really know much detail. Alfred Lansing wrote this book in, like, the fifties, like 1957 or something like this on Shackleton.
• 28:40
  Amazing. This story is crazy. I mean, it is it's it's got to be the best survival story ever because and I this I don't feel this is a spoiler because this is like something I feel is well known about Shackleton. They all survive, and they survive, like, despite the absolute longest odds. And this book Endurance, I was just a page ripper, and I would I wish my kids were I would read it aloud.
• 29:06
  This might be a read aloud to to a younger kid, to to Joshua. Maybe a house.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: It I mean okay. It looks like it's not that long. Looks like it that that's, like, a month or whatever. Yeah. Cool.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: And I think that it would be, like, I almost well, I I wish my kids were a bit younger. I'd real read aloud. I think it's that good. So that's what I gotta say. Nice.
• 29:26
  So, I I think I'm done. I I just had to get the I had to get the nautical books right out of my system, and I think that we we we we basically did a good job. So I'm sorry. I'm done now with that particular theme.
• 29:41
  Speaker 8: So Can I pile on to the nautical theme?
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Go pile on to the nautical theme. Yes, please.
• 29:46
  Speaker 8: Okay. I I posted this one for you on Mastodon, on, but I actually managed to make it to the call today despite not picking out what I hope my audio call is okay.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: It is good. Are you at sea right now?
• 29:56
  Speaker 8: Yes. I am literally at sea off the coast of Baja, but, Starlink is holding up right now. So
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 30:05
  Speaker 8: It's a brave new world. But I apologize for answering those. Yeah. So I wanted to recommend Into the Raging Sea by Rachel Slate. And it is a work of an investigative journalism about the sinking of the, USS Alfaro in 2015, which is the first loss of a US merchant marine vessel since, like, the early eighties or something like that.
• 30:30
  And it is both both haunting because it, pulls heavily from the recovery of the black box recordings from the voyage of the ship, including, I believe, all the all the dialogue from the last chapter is taken verbatim, from the black box. But also, fascinating in the the investigation of the both the approximate and the systemic issues that resulted in the ship being lost and 33 people being lost at sea. You know, the the cultural factors in the Merchant Marine, the the great sexism and classism, racism, the economic factors that, cause shipping companies to be pushed to run leader and leader and cut corners everywhere we can, the the technological factors, in terms of, like, people relying on systems that present pretty pretty pictures over systems that are actually more accurate. And, Yeah. It's it's fascinating and heartbreaking, and I I recommend it to everybody.
• 31:36
  Okay.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This book looks great. I'd never heard of it until your recommendation on Mastodon yesterday, and this looks really terrific. So, yeah, I I'm not done with my nautical theme, I think. I think this is gonna be the the the next one I add to it.
• 31:50
  But it really looks like a terrific book. And so I'll I'll
• 31:54
  Speaker 8: look forward to your review next year.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And and do you are are are do you read maritime disaster books while at sea? I mean, I definitely admire that.
• 32:03
  Speaker 8: Sometimes. I find it it's a really good way to fill time. I've there was a while, maybe about 10 years ago, where I read the Wikipedia index of shipwrecks by year, which is really, actually, shockingly interaustic. You also learned that all these merchant relationships, like, they never die. Like, they're built for one company for a purpose, but then they just sell it on to somebody else.
• 32:23
  So all these ships are floating around, like, 80 years old or or something, right, with long, complicated histories.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I definitely I I could I mean, that's a deep Wikipedia black hole. Did you find the the the root cause of the HMS comfort, by the way? This is this is something that has bothered me. Do you could you do this?
• 32:46
  What No. No. I familiar with that. This is the container ship that broke into 2, and then one half of it the one half of it, like, burst in the, like, burst in the fire, and I wanted a like, like, does a ship and this is a lot like, the the the bow was separated from the stern. Like, the literally, the ship cracks in the 2.
• 33:07
  These are 2 wholly separate parts, and the bow portion of this container vessel burst into flames. And I'm like, look. Like, I'm not a maritime engineer, but does that seem normal to everybody? Like, does that seem is that would you expect fire? And I could not get the I you know what I mean?
• 33:25
  Like, the final accident report or whatever, and no one seems to care. No one died. So it's like there's, like, whatever. Some massive loss of property.
• 33:32
  Speaker 8: Speaking as someone on a boat right now, like, fire is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to you on a boat, which is counterintuitive. But if you think about it, like, there's nowhere to go if there's a fire.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The one of my favorite like, you know, you get one of these, like, Discovery Channel documentaries, the Fire at Sea documentary. It's just, like, absolutely terrifying. Yeah. Fires are very, very bad news.
• 33:55
  Speaker 8: Yeah. If you want another Wikipedia black hole on a nautical thing to go down, look up the, the Halifax Explogee, which was a cargo ship loaded with t, TNT during the First World War that exploded in Halifax Harbor and took a large portion of the city with it.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Boy, the and and didn't start a war. It wasn't used as a cause for America to go. I'm so I'm amazed that that the US can use that as a cause to invade another country. Now is the way those things generally rolled at that time?
• 34:23
  Speaker 8: No. No. But, when newspapers were writing about the, first atomic bomb, they compared it to the California State explosion.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Wow. Wow. Yeah. That is a okay. Yeah.
• 34:35
  That is a that is a good Wikipedia black hole. That's great. Good stuff. Yo. That's a that's a great recommendation.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Welcome.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah. Ian, you do you have, do you have some good recommendations for us?
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Right now, I'm reading If Then, How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, which I didn't know if which is by, Jill Lepore. I don't know if you've seen this one
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: or heard of it.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: No, no, tell me about it.
• 35:08
  Speaker 6: It's, about this corporation that lasts for about 11 years. It's founded in 1959, and it's places its stores in 1970, and they are doing very early work on voter data collection and, kind of application of computers to social sciences to try and predict how voters will behave in an election. They're looking at the, I think 64 election was the first one that they really came into to view on the JFK campaign, and, yeah, it seemed like a pretty high profile flame out where it kind of burnt bright and not for very long, and has some pretty interesting ties to, the politics that were happening in that kind of 10 year period, as well as just, like, computing in the Northeast where, some of the work was done out of MIT, and, on the early time sharing systems that were in MIT, and, the invention of email, or like early days of email were in that same, like kind of tied in with this. Yeah, pretty interesting so far. I'm about, I don't know, 2 thirds of the way through at the moment.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, this looks really good. And does this go what what was the election in which Univac was able to did did am I remembering this correctly? And maybe do they talk about this in the book where UNIVAC was used to predict was it the is it the 1960 election? Yeah.
• 36:50
  I can't remember the details of that.
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: And and I think that they talk a bit about how, computers make their way into the newsrooms, of the TV stations at the time, and start, you know, predicting results based on early returns, and then this kind of the part that I'm kind of up to is the New York Times enter into a contract with this corporation, with Simulmatics to be able to do some similar sorts of, reporting, and they get some IBM mainframes installed, and, you know, hilarity in shoes where they were not as competent as they seemed to indicate early on to the New York Times. So, yeah, pretty interesting stuff, and some kind of US history that I'm not super well versed in.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's really interesting. It was 1952. It's a couple of people pointing on the chat. There there was the 1952 election, that but that you know, those looks great.
• 37:56
  You know, how do you find what to read? I just feel that you've had so many great recommendations for us that I've just never heard of before. Like, where how do you get your the the next thing to read?
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: And are you seeing other podcasts? Is that what's going on?
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, we're I and I when we said that we were in an open relationship, we really didn't expect that that you would be going to other podcasts. I don't know. This is
• 38:22
  Speaker 6: I think this one may have been an Amazon recommendation going down the deep black hole, which is like similar items, and you're clicking to before you find something that's like actually good. I did end up, picking this book up, in person in Portland, when I went to the to Powell's. Yeah.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: And that
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: has some good stuff there.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I've never actually been physically to Powell's. I've bought books from them online, but it was it was was it great? Was it as good as it, I imagine? I imagine it's a it's a huge bookstore.
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: Right? It's massive. It's absolutely massive, and there is a wall which is like, historical business fiction, which I Oh. A good, I don't know, 30 minutes pouring over all the titles and managed to restrain myself to buying only a couple of books because it was Did you
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: say historical business fiction?
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: So, like, historical fiction, but based
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: The kind of stuff that we've been talking about on this podcast is, like, it's, you know,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: But nonfiction.
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: Right? Nonfiction. Sorry. Yeah.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Nonfiction. Okay. That makes more sense. I was like, I
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: was gonna be very excited
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: for this genre. Yeah.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Now that's a small demographic.
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: Alternative features. Yeah. That could be fun.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Right. What what if Sun had bought Apple?
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's like I think it's right next to the business erotica section. Section. Did you see that? In fact, it's even weirder.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: I thought we weren't gonna talk about that one.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: That's right. That sounds, yeah, I mean, I I love that. That sounds great. And so that that you got if then there. Yeah.
• 40:03
  If then not the best title. That's a little bit of a rough title, but it's, I I I bought a copy. So I, Ian, you could recommend pretty much anything, I think. And I I would I would you got a very high hit rate. I've really enjoyed your recommendations.
• 40:20
  Do you Do you I speaking of which, do you have any others? I mean, is that Yeah.
• 40:23
  Speaker 6: I've got a couple others for today. I would note that, I haven't read this one because it just got released, but, John Romero just released his, autobiography, during the Riot First Person.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: I think that's coming out oh, is it is it out, like, this week?
• 40:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah. It came out, like, I don't know, on 18th, so less than a week ago.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: In Masters of Doom, I have not read. That's definitely on the queue. You've read Masters of Doom. Right? I mean, you've reenjoyed everything.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, and I've I've been waiting for for Romero's rebuttal for for a while now.
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I would I masters of doom is definitely an excellent read, and I would recommend that as well.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Very fun, especially for folks who kinda grew up on doom and in that genre and and that kind of era of computing and video games.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: That's not 3 d.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I can't I I'm really very much looking forward to hearing what Romero has to say just because he he's not portrayed in the most flattering way.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This looks good. And so this is just out now. Ian, have you read this, or have you that you got this on the way, I guess? Yeah.
• 41:37
  I literally tried it. Yes.
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: I downloaded it to my kindle but not read it, so it's in the same state as, maybe dig for Adam, I guess.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I I feel like your likelihood of reading Doomguy is higher than Adam's of reading movie Dick. Adam, Adam, am I disparaging you? I'm sorry.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: No. That's fair. That's fair.
• 41:59
  Speaker 6: And then I've got one more for today. This one is called From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's interesting.
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: So this is not in the usual set of things things that we we talk about in this podcast, but, it is about how, the voting system in Australia, changed over time to to be able to evolve to get, both compulsory voting, but also it talks about the women's suffrage movement in Australia, and the 2 are kind of tied together in many ways, and yeah, it's pretty fascinating stuff, particularly like looking at how the US system and the Australia system are both kind of reactions to the problems at the point in time that they split off from the UK system, and that, know, both of them are kind of reactions to the problems that they saw at the time, and, from that framing is kind of interesting.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: That looks really interesting. And, Ian, have you read the fatal shore?
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: No. I haven't.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, the fatal shore is so good. The fatal shore this is by Robert Hughes. Outstanding book on the history of Australia. I have tried to get more or less every Australian I know to read it, but no Australian I know has read it. And, Adam, do this is do you recall this is also on the book list for our wedding?
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Do you remember this?
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: I don't remember your book your wedding having a book list, so that's that's on me. I
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: I apologize. I feel like you are like most of our wedding goers in that you, like, I kinda faded out by page 3 of that letter you sent. So, yeah, I don't know. If there's a buzz at the end of it, I definitely missed it. The I had the okay.
• 43:54
  Like, perhaps it would advise idea that, like, I we had a bunch of Americans going to Australia for our wedding and, wanted to I it's it's easy for Americans to not appreciate that Australia is a different country with a very, very different history. So I and the history is super important. I mean, I get this everywhere. And so, yeah, we put together a a a reading list that, again, don't worry. No one else paid attention to either.
• 44:18
  But The Fatal Shore, was was first among them because of the fatal shore is a really, really good book. Any and this looks great. The the secret yeah.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: Brian, I read Fail Short too. My my favorite part of that was the story about the guy who escapes from Australia and joins some ship and ends up going all the way around the Pacific up through Japan and back to North America and down somewhere, and then they recapture him and take him back to Australia.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, the and the because the system of of transportation, which is the the Australia being used, and it we which is I mean, it's super complicated, and you have a lot of people that are being transported that don't deserve it. And then you've got a set of people who are being transported who really do deserve it as it turns out. And the, Adam, a bunch of them actually there's a group that escaped, came to San Francisco and started burning down San Francisco.
• 45:11
  So they're saying Hey. The That's they don't like that here. Right? The the the I believe it was the Sydney Coves or the Sydney Ducks. Some gang that had what I felt at the time was not a very menacing gang name.
• 45:23
  I don't know. I feel like, but, yeah, Tom, I did you I I love the Theodos Shore. I thought that was a great book.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It was a long time ago for me, so I don't remember too much.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: If you're going to Australia if you're going to Australia and you would like our reading list, you could be the 1st person there to read the books on it. I do. The Or even read the reading list. I don't think he I mean, I should've I mean, I I should've quiz people on just the contents of the reading list. I'm not even asking you to read the post stuff.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: You know how I know that I forgot about the reading list is because I didn't bring it up in every conversation when I've ever introduced you to anyone. This is the guy who had a reading list for his wedding is what I've would've started every sentence with.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: So you're saying, really, it is a blessing that people did not make it to that final page. Yeah. It's true. You know, no one has actually given me grief about the reading list or indeed said anything about
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: the
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: reading list. So maybe, yeah, maybe everyone just, like, faded out. Maybe no one even got there. Maybe no one had the best experience.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: It's we should be kind.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Right? It's his day. Right. I guess the other possibility is that everyone's like, oh, wait a minute. It's a sweet English guy?
• 46:26
  Yeah. Yeah. That sweet English guy. Yeah. I tried.
• 46:28
  He's like, he he got going on Moby Dick, and I thought I would I thought I was stranded on a way where I got I would Yeah. Alright. Look. Some things have changed. Yeah.
• 46:39
  That's great.
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: I think, there's now multiple people asking for the reading list to be posted, so, make sure that that makes it to the show notes at the very least.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, but my Australian reading list. Alright. I'm I will. You know what? I will.
• 46:52
  Thank you, Internet. Someone wants my reading list, and I will I I this is where I this is where, like, the grand reveal is. Because we're just like, I destroyed every copy of that thing that was I I I married you despite the reading list, like, not the, so Oh, she's
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: like, no. No. No. You sent it to me. I just didn't send it
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: out to any. Right. But I keep you the ring list to send to the guest. And, like, yes. And I know and I told you I did it because I I know what's best for you.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Our whole relationship is founded on a lie.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Founded on a lie of the reading list that was never sent. That included actually a bunch of great books. But, Peter Carey book is terrific. Leviathan, bunch of good stuff. Book on the dismissal, which is, like, something I've extremely hard book to find.
• 47:39
  But, the dismissal is when the governor general actually dismissed parliament Australia. All sorts of interesting things about Australia that you could learn. You read the reading list, but Yeah. I'll tell you I'll talk about
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: for the entire Internet when I say I can't wait.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: I can't wait. Exactly. I can't wait to make fun of you for this. I had to be yes. Please post the Internet.
• 47:58
  It's like, the time Alexander's made a podcast, and he, won't share it with me. Even he's like, it's genius, but no. And he's like, but Tobin, his older brother, is super into it. He wants me to send him, like, every episode. I'm like, are you certain that he's not making fun of you for it?
• 48:12
  Like, are you certain he's not wanting you to send him this podcast to mock you mercilessly?
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They've said John that one. Right?
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, those are great recommendations. I thank you very much. Are did any others? We did we did we get though
• 48:26
  Speaker 6: the the the 3? That's about it. Yeah. I would, plus 1 on Tom's recommendation of Psalm for the Wild Built, the first in the Monk and Robot series. It's a light read, but it's fun,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: And And where is was that dropped in the chat? Where is that?
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah. It was, Tom Tom dropped it in the chat. It's, it's by Becky Chambers. Yeah. Yeah.
• 48:54
  It's a it's a great
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: It's about a tea brewing monk and his adventures with a wild built robot.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. I I need to this is, I I assume, science fiction, which I keep trying to find the right entree into. I'm just not a science fiction person, but I I it it's not a point of principle. Alright.
• 49:24
  Is that Phil Boby? Do you have some
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: Oh, yes. Let's see if I can get all the way through this without crashing, but, like, mentally, because I have to load the entire contact at least some interesting context from this book into my brain between my work day and now. I'm gonna be talking about Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, which
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: That's a pretty that seems like a pretty tortured pun on barbarians at the gates, which I'm sure came up as a phrase. I'm not sure if on the side of Microsoft or on the side of the DOJ in the early Microsoft days, like eighties, nineties early, I mean.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Wait. Is it is it a pun on the Barbarians to the Gate book, the about which is a terrific book, by the way, about RJR Nabisco and private equity. Anyway
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: You're you're you're already going far deeper than I have because I'm I've look. I I've been as far as I'm kind of going on a Microsoft history binge. I I kind of have to.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: And this okay. Like, Overdrive, Showstopper, they've all been hey, Showstopper. They've all been, podcasted to death. So I can just listen my way through those instead of having to read my way through those. But this one's kind of niche.
• 50:39
  I found it for, like, $6 at a half price books and in Redmond. In Redmond, obviously, because where else do you get mic niche Microsoft titles? And it's like a loose collection of stories. It all all put together with the objective of, okay, back in the day when the DOJ was typing down on Microsoft, this book was written as a weird, like, reverse hit piece where they're like, okay, everybody's gonna think that Microsoft, you know, Bill Gates and everybody, they're so Machiavellian, they're so evil. They always have everything calculated.
• 51:15
  This book was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. They're all idiots, and they were all just barely getting by. They had no plan. They're all mad. All no plan over there.
• 51:26
  So we're just going to write about all the dysfunction in there, and hopefully this proves that Microsoft is defensible against the DOJ just because they weren't planning to be this evil. It just happened that way. Right? Very, very funny premise for a book.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. An interesting fact.
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: There is so much I mean, it's not like the stories are all in one cohesive order and there's one big payoff. Like, I think they jump across time a little bit. But one interesting one I think that you'll like in the, Cantrelliverse is that and you you in particular. The reason so you DOS robbed you of your childhood. Right?
• 52:05
  No memory protection. They had memory protection on those CPUs. Right? But they never used it. Right?
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: That's correct.
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: Okay. So you know why they how they finally got memory protection into the into Windows 3.0. Of course, it seems like from this book, Microsoft was still so completely unsure of what their strategy was for the next operating system, while dealing with IBM, right? Are we going to deal with IBM TopView? What's their strategy for OS2?
• 52:41
  The history of these operating systems and how they're going to deal with each other, it's a lot less clear cut than I thought it was. I'm Gen Z, so I have no perspective on this. Okay. They found a professor who had written a debugger, a scroll screen trace debugger, and they took interest in this debugger. They brought him on, this guy named Sargent, and he started working with his debugger.
• 53:05
  I don't know if he let's see. It was his yeah. I guess he kept using that debugger. He just debugged his way through a prototype of Windows 3.0 that could take all the programs that were never designed to run-in protected mode and run-in protected mode. So he used a debugger, your favorite thing, to get through non protected mode, your least favorite thing.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: That's pretty funny. I wonder what was the name of the developer?
• 53:35
  Speaker 8: Do you know?
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: It the one that he was recognized for was SST, the scroll screen tracer debugger. Mhmm. Again, I had, like, 5 minutes to scroll through. I think he kept using that debugger to find all to find and squash all the bugs. And at that point, it's another Windows story.
• 53:56
  It's like the IBM PC, right? If they knew how big of a deal this was gonna be, they would have just put a ton of people on it and it would have fallen over. But they got this professor in. He sneakily made this memory protection, protected memory prototype. And just because he was able to get it in under the radar meant that, oh, finally, we can now present it to management and be like, here's our case to to go for it.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: So do I infer correctly, do you work for Microsoft? I assume you work for Microsoft.
• 54:27
  Speaker 5: I do. And so praying that I do not get pinged on call while wait while telling this story.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Right. And so for you, is the, like, the evil Microsoft? Is that, like I I mean, because I I that must feel like otherworldly at this point. It it it's kinda like
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: So so I only get traces and hints of it because the people I came around while growing up were all of all the parents were, like, 40 year old Microsoft. Like, what happens when you take all those evil jackasses and they turn 40 or 50 or 60? And then what are those personalities? Right? They usually don't What what
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: do they find, like did they they try to cure tuberculosis or every whatever? I mean, Gates seems to have been kind of, like, the the the the now has, like, redeeming qualities. So I feel that although, actually, maybe now
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: with the divorce
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: Not all of them fly off from the east side. Some of them are only millionaires instead of billionaires, so they live around here. Right? So I only got that culture. And, of course, Microsoft pushes all this open source stuff, which I love, by the way.
• 55:30
  I
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: Which is crazy that they love. I mean And I mean, I mean, it's good. Yeah. It is. It's great.
• 55:35
  And in fact, we were just I'm we're talking about Playwright, last last week. Right? And it's amazing. And it's an it is a Microsoft tool. There's Microsoft tools.
• 55:44
  No. They it's been, I mean, Microsoft, it is amazing how much has culturally changed from when this book is written in 1998, which is really kinda the peak of it. I've got another book suggestion for you, actually. If you're if you are at Microsoft and you're interested in kinda understanding that era. Book in I remember you the in, actually, no.
• 56:04
  It's a great book. Start Up by Jerry Kaplan. Have you read this, Adam?
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's been, it's been a minute. I think it it actually was given to me, along with, the barbarians, led by Bill Gates, by, you know, relatives who didn't know what to get me for Hanukkah some years. You know?
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: But
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: it's been a long time.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: It's worth a reread. I had read it when I when it this was a book that came out in 1995. I read it when I first came up to Silicon Valley in 1986, but I've not read it since. And Jerry Kaplan is a, has started a tablet company called Go, which makes it not not Go the programming language, Go the company. And it is a really, really, really good read.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: So And then one of
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: This came up this came up in Barbarians, the Go comp if I'm not this this was the, like, the the writing tablet. Go. Right?
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: Yes. That's right. That's right.
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: Okay. This this book has an entire chapter of them just Windows blah blah. Microsoft getting so distracted with the one goal of just fucking over Go with 10 Windows. And it's like, good job, everybody. You did it.
• 57:15
  You wrote the thing that obsoletes go. They're not a concern on the market, and nobody cares about it.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. And so startup is startup is basically a retelling of that from Kaplan's perspective. And it does feel like very directed of, like, we are and this is kind of the era of this is before the findings of fact, and they were kind of with impunity. They would kind of announce that they're doing something to destroy a start up. And it was really very felt very stifling, but it's it's definitely an interesting I we it will couple well or parallel, with, with It's stuff.
• 57:52
  Our brains and advocates.
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: That I don't I I never like the point of view that people have about, oh man, Google is just not successful at all. I wish Google were successful. If Google became the next Microsoft, we would have this whole evil 30 years of evil replayed on the web. Yes. It's very important to not have companies so evil that they they spend they go out of their way to screw over startups and then get nothing out of it.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: It, yes. Microsoft was it was it was pretty bad behavior in in the the the late nineties, and we were well served by the DOJ, also finding the fact. And the Yeah. I think they they really cooled their jets honestly after that, and then they kinda went into the I
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: don't know how I didn't connect these I don't know how I didn't connect these dots earlier, but it's only super, super recently that I realized that the, don't be evil motto that Google used to have, it wasn't some moral stance that they were keeping internally about let's let's all do nice things for the no. If that was just market subtle marketing to be anti Microsoft because back then,
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. If you said evil evil
• 58:59
  Speaker 5: in the context of software, of course, you're talking about Microsoft. Nope. We my generation does not get that now. I did not get that.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: No. And it's And
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: you say evil ass. Oh, Microsoft.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Well and this is like a big wake up call when we were trying to hire someone who was trying to decide between Giant at the time, Microsoft and Facebook, and went to Facebook. And all of the younger millennials were my reaction is like, well, at least he didn't go to Microsoft, so I can still, like, have some respect for him. And, like, what are you talking about? Microsoft's a fine company. The fact that he went to Facebook, like, I'm disgusted.
• 59:34
  Like, I actually thought higher of him than that. I'm like, oh, okay. Like, Facebook is the one I nailed.
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: Confirm that this is this is the view now, that if you go to I had I had an offer for Meta before I before I, the
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: A 100%. And this is in 2016 when it and I feel like I was kinda late to that realization. And, but, yes, it was very clear that, like, that Meta had Facebook had really lost their way. And Yeah. What, I mean, justifiably, younger folks thought of Facebook the way I had thought of Microsoft.
• 1:00:08
  And for good reasons, it turns out, the the the the kids are alright. The kids are right about that one.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah. And my last dig at Microsoft will be, I am starting my own timer to see when device script will be mentioned in a podcast because that is definitely up up the same alley as hubris. And we will see where that goes, especially with your node marriage and divorce. I'm waiting.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: For okay. Well, I mean, obviously, you you've sent us my script now. I'd not heard of it until now. So we're gonna you your your time stop your time right now.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Right.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry if I rabbit hole this and put us so deeply over time. I'll just say this before leaving. TypeScript on microcontrollers. That is it.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This looks wild. This looks wild.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: This has got Ultra Java overtones, Adam.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaking of, Ultra Java. Absolutely.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Java in the planets. Oh, god. In the marine. Yeah.
• 1:01:10
  And, Adam, I know you're gonna have to disappear in in short hours because you've been away from home. So
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Well, then then I before I do, I have one other book that I've been really enjoying that I'm listening to. I feel, you know, as you know, I feel
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: Don't stop being dirty about it. Like, you said you like, every time you say listen to a book, you apologize. No reason to apologize. That's right.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: So I'm I'm listening to Chernau's Washington. You know, I loved Hamilton just like every everyone does. But, and the reason I got there was I had, like, credits on Audible that were going away, and I was like, what is the longest book I can get for the fewest credits?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: And it is, like, 40 fucking dick. Is it No. It's no. No.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: This is longer. Moby Dick was 24 hours. This is 41. I'm Okay.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: Move over.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: There you go. Exactly. Step aside. And I think I it'd be fascinating, you know, that that time period is obviously fascinating. But I think the things, the discussion of slavery in the founding, very nuanced discussion of that.
• 1:02:09
  Oh, interesting. Washington's views were were really interesting, surrounded by Hamilton and other aides de camp, and became much more progressive sort of in their, you know, in in that military family, which was really interesting to see how, for him, the youth was influencing him in a much more progressive direction. But the other big big sort of surprise or thing that I didn't quite appreciate was the degree to which, you know, he needed to make sure everyone understood that he was not going to be a monarch. Because people didn't understand forms of government that were not monarchies. So people like, oh, okay.
• 1:02:48
  Wait. I guess we have a president. I guess that's sort of like a king. Right? And it was really important that he had no children, that he and Martha Washington have no children of their own.
• 1:02:57
  So in in a lot of ways, he was a safe pick for president because the the, you know, the there were no, he had no sons to, like, marry off to royalty off in Europe.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: That's really interesting. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I is they recommended though, it sounds like.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: And much, much more. I mean, that's that's, like, you know, 30 seconds of the 41 hours. I'm, but, yeah, I'm I'm I'm really enjoying it.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: I love Chernow.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Exactly. And and, apparently, there's a bunch of new scholarship about Washington. So it's not just a retread, but there was, I mean, new you know, I think it was written in 2010, but new as of then. So, you know, it wasn't just shifting over what other folks had already written, but actually a bunch of new stuff that had not been woven into a narrative.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: I have to say the other reason I love Hamilton and Chernow is to just to put TJ back in his place. Thomas Jefferson. I'm not a Thomas Jefferson fan. And I I you know what? I I I I love the fact that Hamilton basically hate his guts and use it use him as a chicken.
• 1:03:57
  And Yeah. And and calls him out on his own hypocrisy on on, you know, talking a mean game on liberty and then being an unapologetic slaveholder.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, very nuanced in Washington too where he, I mean, he, like, he had very little money. Like, he kept up this appearance of having tons of money and was but, you know, didn't wanna sell off slaves. But, anyway, very complicated, conflicted, and, you know, all of these declarations about liberty, you know, have a very sour taste when you have massive slaveholders running the government.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: That's yeah. That's great.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a great one. Really enjoying it.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: That is awesome. And, Adam, if the, Jeff, the wolf with the pacifier will stay if you
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: Yes. Yes.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Don't worry.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: Keep the trap. Right?
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: So Craig Craig is in for the long haul.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: Craig Craig's in for the long haul. Craig is like, tell me more about that reading list. I wanna go back that list. I was I was just, like, just riveted edge edge of my seat. Yeah.
• 1:04:57
  Makowski, do you have, some books for us? Go for it. We can't hear you, or I can't hear you. But Discord maybe go in split brain. I don't know.
• 1:05:14
  Adam, my
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: what green circle isn't appearing on Discord, so that means the problem is between Makowsky and Discord.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 7: How about now?
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: How about now?
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 7: Here we go. Hey. Sorry. First time list or or long time listener, first time caller, so I apologize for that. I actually, just snuck out of my office to tell you guys about these books, so I'm gonna be super quick.
• 1:05:35
  But I have an elevator pitch for 2 different titles, that kind of come from the sort of world of, like, organizational behavior that leads to terrible engineering outcomes. The first is California Burning by, I believe it's Catherine Blunt. I don't have my notes in front of me. She's a Wall Street Journal reporter, and that is a deep dive into the history of PG and E, so both the history of electricity coming to San Francisco and California, but then also the, the incentives and the organizational behavior and, other things that led them to accidentally blow up San Bruno and then burn down, Paradise, California. The, like, teaser fact, I guess, I'll share from that one is the there's a great sort of metaphor for tech debt in your engineering projects.
• 1:06:27
  I think they're in that much of the problems that PG and E has had in the past few decades have been coming from, the fact that they are financially incentivized to build new things and not to maintain old things. And and that is a theme that runs throughout their history. Don't know if anyone's already read that one, but I would definitely recommend that for any tech leader or engineer.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This looks really, really good. Great recommendation.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 7: Yeah. And then the second one, and I'm gonna run back to my my cube, is the it's called Command and Control by Eric Schlosser. And that
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: is Yeah.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 7: Yeah. You know this one. Okay. Cool. So you can probably tell it more than me.
• 1:07:09
  I guess my quick synopsis or or or pitch for it would be, it's about the history of the American nuclear arsenal. So it walks you through, like, the early days, and then it kinda will speed walks you to the eighties, which is when the actual incident occurred. And the the acute thing that happened was a technician accidentally dropped a wrench and blew up an ICBM in Arkansas in the United States. But the that that's not even a spoiler because, the real story is the, like, fact that we didn't accidentally have a nuclear detonation in our in our Cold War history as a nation, and just sort of a recount of, like, all of the lessons learned and sometimes lessons that we should have learned but didn't, related to how we designed for safety in our our nuclear armaments. And also, I would say there's even, like, a debugging line in there because, as their missile silo is on fire and they don't know what's going on, they they realize that, like, all of the systems they had designed to make it safe were not working.
• 1:08:11
  So, really good read there. And I think both of those titles
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: you or those
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 7: Sorry about that. My phone froze
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: for me.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 7: I was just ending with, I think both of those titles are fairly accessible, not overly wonky. So I would definitely encourage, like, I I tell my teams my my software teams to take a look at them as well. Really broadly applicable lessons.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: Totally agree. And I actually read command and control, after atomic accidents. So, I don't know if you've if you read if you read Atomic Accents. Atomic Accents is a great book, that surveys essentially every atomic accident that happened in the US. And it is remarkable.
• 1:08:58
  We came Steve, you can read this. This is like, we came remarkably remarkably close to nuking South Carolina. Can you imagine if we had nuked South Carolina?
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: Seems bad.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: But it's like, there's no I mean, can you imagine? There's no way to be like, oh, sorry. That was us nuking South Carolina. They'd be like, so be it. See.
• 1:09:20
  What? Like, you you know they'd be like, well, now we have to also nuke my funny story, but now we have to nuke Moscow as well. Or we're we're gonna have to own the fact that we nukes I mean, it is just absolutely wild that we we got so lucky. And in some of these accidents, just extraordinarily lucky. And there are actually, we in in some of these accidents, we actually didn't blow something up because something failed.
• 1:09:44
  If something had actually operated as designed, we would have actually nuked ourselves. So, but command and control is a great book. And I love the the, yeah, the California burning. That that's, you know what I have not read also is, smartest guys in the room, which I've been, that's that's been on the list for quite some time. The, yes.
• 1:10:07
  It wasn't this was the Arkansas is the yeah. This is, and this is it is a Titan missile, if I'm remembering correctly. It's a it's an it's a silo that, and the the wrench has dropped down the silo, and the book is also it's all about the engineering of the silo, which is super complicated, as as one might imagine.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: Have you been to the Titan 2 Museum? You're too No.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: No. It's interesting.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: You can go in a silo, and it's got the whole thing. So it's really highly recommended.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: It interesting. And if you read command and control all the time, you would love command and control if you haven't read it.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: No. I have not.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's it's really good, Especially, if you got any interest in, in Titan, you would love it. Alright. Other, can I go through all my I I mentioned Creative Capital last time about George D'Orio, great book on one of the first century capitals? And I I I mentioned, Adam, I mentioned you taken off at this point.
• 1:11:10
  But, another one that I actually really liked after the, you know, Steve Jobs and the next big thing, which a bunch of us read by Randall Strauss. I'm like, I think I'm just gonna read more books by Randall Strauss. And I read e boys, terrible title, on by Randall Strauss with History of Benchmark Capital, which was I really enjoyed and is I definitely recommend.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: I now there has to be an e boy VC firm. Like, is that not just so they can be able
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: to cope with that title.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The and you know what's kinda funny? Because I I get the sense that, like, I think the book is pretty well researched, but I think benchmark's a little uncomfortable with the book. The benchmark capital is really interesting.
• 1:11:50
  Actually, Steve, it's one of the things that's funny about benchmark is, you know, there are a bunch of things that we've done at Oxide that we think are great. No one has, like, you know I mean, we we've got a uniform compensation across Oxide, which seems like totally radical. And then you realize that, like, actually, benchmark capital does the same thing. And the it it it actually turns out, like, there are actually quite a few high performing teams that did the same kinds of things, which is definitely interesting. And Ian is also recommending the, benchmark, the podcast on Acquired.
• 1:12:20
  Acquired is a great podcast, and they did a an Acquired on Benchmark that is really worth listening to. And, yeah, if you that it's someone was saying, I I listened to the Acquired on Benchmark and then bought and then bought eboys. Eboys, I thought it was great. I thought it was a really good read. I mean, Randall Strauss is a great author, and, it is mainly about eBay, which is kind of the reason he called it eboys.
• 1:12:43
  It's, again, terrible title. Really call it literally anything else. But it is it's pretty it's like eBay was just absolutely minting money early, and is like a no brainer from a VC perspective because the they are, like, immediately profitable. But, the way they operate as a firm is really pretty interesting. And then let's see what else today.
• 1:13:08
  We talked about losing the signal that was, which was fun. That was folks didn't get a chance to, to listen to that. And, oh, the recommending that the the sibling podcast to Acquired called Founders. I'll have to check that out. Acquired is a great great podcast.
• 1:13:27
  Any other Steve, you have do you have any, any recommend book recommendations?
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: Oh, I have one book that I'm reading, And by reading, I mean, I'm reading it really slow, but I am I am part of the way through it, but I've enjoyed it a lot so far is, The Color of Law, a Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. And it's, it's it and what's really interesting about it too is it starts off by saying the author deliberately just chooses to talk mostly about San Francisco, not because San Francisco is particularly bad or different than any anywhere in the US, but because San Francisco has such a progressive reputation, the author is basically like, if I can convince you that it has deeply racist policies, you could be convinced the entire rest of the United States does.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 7: And so
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: most of the stories in it are actually Bay Area focused.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: And for but for that, like, strategic reason, which I also thought was an interesting point about things. Yeah. But they talk a lot about zoning law and, like, how, the way the federal government ran government housing and, like, different things that happened and, you know, stuff that was technically illegal, but was overlooked by authorities because they didn't want to make stuff legal. So just all kinds of things. So it's it's a good book, although obviously, you know, not a great topic, but, just An
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 8: important topic. Things yeah. It's, like,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 4: it's important to remember these things have happened in living memory about people who are, like, older than me, but you just, like you know the past is racist, but then you, like, read some history and you're like, wow. It's somehow even worse than that. So, anyway, a sobering, but but good book.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: History is rife with it. So, yeah, I best of my knowledge, no community is really and as you say, it's just like this was very, very pervasive and and, deeply uncomfortable, but something that is important to confront and learn about. Alright. Any, other recommendations? Other books?
• 1:15:38
  We've got a good I I've I've got a good reading list. Yeah. Tom, go ahead.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: I dropped it in I dropped it in the chat, and it's science fiction, so you might not like it. But, you
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: know what? Go ahead. Try the
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: The book's by John Sundman. I think the first one is acts of the apostles, and it it features a fictionalized company, which is a merger of Sun and Digital and, a lot of thinly veiled sexualized executives. So it's it's fun. It's a fun read.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: This sounds like the genre. This is like business science fiction is what it sounds like. So the the the now this is some science fiction I can get behind.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I don't know if you know John Sundman, but he he was a tech writer on the East Coast, one of the first, East Coast employees. And so he's he's still pretty active writing stuff.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: That sounds great. No. That sounds like a great redo. And and, sorry, what did you say the title was?
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: Acts of the Apostles.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: Acts of the Apostles. Alright.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: Not a not a sign for cutting the title, but yeah.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And when was it written? Is it written is it is it kinda current day, or is it
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: it's written early nineties, I think. And then he's done kinda a couple of riffs on it and updates, and so it's it's a little bit hard figuring out which what order to read things in.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: And this is ACTS like ACTS of the apostles.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: Right. Right.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: Man, I'm just getting, like, a bunch of free downloads from the Catholic online learning resources. I this I gotta it's like There
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: you go. I forgot. Sean Sundman, s u n d m I Oh,
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: there we go. I got it. Okay. Yeah. That this looks, looks good.
• 1:17:24
  I have to I tried to read, some to be, like you know, I I like the idea. Like, you know, this obviously coined the thingy and singularity. I like the idea of, like, software archaeologists. I thought it was really interesting. And I'm like, alright.
• 1:17:41
  I'm gonna, like, just sit down and really force myself to read this. And it was just I I I just couldn't get through the first page.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: It's funny. I I just started reading them too. And it's it is very slow going at first, but now I'm getting into it.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: Okay. So maybe I need to and and, Tom, you you're a science fiction reader. Like, I mean, you enjoy science fiction. Right?
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yeah. My my wasted youth.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: I think I I read at least 50 books by Philip k Dick.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: Just Yeah.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: Do you recommend that? I mean, do you I like, what what is a good to someone who who is a not a science fiction reader? What is a science fiction book you'd recommend? Oh, yeah. Is that a that's is that an unfair question?
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: Oh. Oh, and the one I really liked was the sparrow.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: This and what did you say, Steve? The the guine?
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: Le Guine. Ursula Le Guine.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: Ursula Le Guine. Okay.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I could also pick specific ones, but just, like that is how I always point people to if they, like, want to experience science fiction. She is my favorite author in general in that genre.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: Awesome. That's a great recommendation.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: She's great. The with with the sparrow, it's a story of first contact and how everything can go wrong, and it's pretty pretty hilarious.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, I wanna get actually, I do wanna get more into it because I think it's, like, it's an important genre, and I need to, like like, what's my problem? Why can't I just, you know I don't know. So, yeah, I'm excited to those are a bunch of good recommendations.
• 1:19:19
  Alright. Do we, now I need this is where I need to make sure that, that we're not speaking requests that I missed or maybe there are. Hold on just a second. Oh, yes. Sorry.
• 1:19:29
  I've got 2 speaking requests that I need to process. There we go. Ian Ian's coming back, and, and Ben's here. Alright. Ben, do you have a recommendation?
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 9: Yeah. First, just a a comment. You you reminded me before oh, gosh. Talking about maritime disasters. In in response to a previous episode, I bought Flying Blind and immediately took it on an airplane and started, reading the book during takeoff.
• 1:19:55
  Realized my mistake and put the book down.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: What did you think of Flying Blind? It wasn't good. Good? I thought Flying by was really good. I
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 9: the the the book is written in this dark and brutal way, especially the open like, it hits hard right out of the gate, and and it it it also, like, it it pushes, like, the the humanity and the actual, like, truly terrible like, on on top of, like, screwed the business model and everything was, that that also kind of surprised me. I expected it to be more technical than it was, but it was really about business and management and really trying to drive home how awful these accidents really were.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, which I actually I actually appreciate it because I felt like there was I mean, just bluntly, there was some implicit racism in there in the dismissal of both the the Indonesian crash and especially the Ethiopian crash. As someone who has flown Ethiopian Airways and absolutely loved it, it's a terrific flying experience. I'd recommend Ethiopian in a heartbeat to anybody. It was a great airline.
• 1:20:58
  And I thought they were really, really maligned. And, man, those pilots, those poor pilots, they they were doing absolutely doing the right thing in the Ethiopia air crash, especially. Anyway Yeah. So I'm Yeah.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 9: I'm currently reading, a book by Daniel Kahneman called Thinking Fast and Slow. Yes. So oh, you've heard of this?
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I've heard
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: of it as well. Yeah.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely been of note. Do you and are you liking it?
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 9: It's it is, a little bit challenging to get through it first because every couple pages, I'm like, oh my goodness. I just need to think about this for a little bit and, like because this is it's it starts dredging up so many examples of, like, weird behavior that you've seen people do or you you've noticed in yourself, and then all these things make sense. But I'm I'm I'm very much in the in the back half of the book now, which is much more about, all the the psychology that Kahneman and Tversky developed making its way into economics, and that is also a little trippy.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I it I've not read Thinking Fast and Slow, but I've read, Michael Lewis wrote The Undoing Project, with another terrible title on not a good title, but that is about, actually, Kahneman and Tversky and their kind of partnership and collaboration. Yeah. I read that too. Yeah.
• 1:22:19
  Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So in in but you're you're enjoying thinking fast and slow?
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 9: Oh, yeah. I think the the the other thing is I'm, I at some point, I need to go through here and, like, pick out the all the papers and such that that common references. It is like I mean, of course, it's written by it's written by, you know, a a scientist, college professor, researcher, you know, but it is incredibly well cited. Like, almost almost every statement that he makes is attributed to some particular study. Like, you know, some some paper by some usually, you know, mentioned the author's last name and gear or something like that.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: Right. Interesting. That sounds good. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:22:57
  That's it. A good one. Do you, any other suggestions? Not to put you on the spot. So make sure you got through the the what you
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 9: had to I excellent. Suggestions given.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: And, and, Ian, will you come back to
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I went back through the, show notes and realized I had not recommended this one that I had read a few years back. It's called, The Man Who Solved the How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman. It's a book about Greg Simons and the Renaissance Quants, you know, the medallion fund, and how, Jim Simons kind of started the Quantum Revolution mechanism.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's interesting. And when is that? Are they
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 6: I think they so so he was tinkering on it for a while, and it did not really bear fruit until, the late eighties, like 88 or something. Interesting. And, yeah, it it kind of picks up, on his early research, his early, kinda it it follows his life, basically, and, it does also talk about, Robert Mercer a bit and how, he fits in with, the funding of right wing packs and various other, kind of things that he's been associated with.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really interesting. I'd be interested to read a wait, this is a good book, but the, because it was like, d e Shaw, and I want and and O'Connor Associates, right, in Chicago that were that were on the in the eighties, that were beginning to discover that they could do these things kind of, algorithmically. They could trade algorithmically. They could front run. They could do and, apparently, it was, like, just an era where it was, like, really easy to front run because there are these big trades.
• 1:25:09
  You could see these big trades happening and very easily get in front of them. There's a lot of money to be made. But, yeah, this is and and and well written, it sounds like?
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed this one. This is a good one. At least from memory, it's about 3 years ago that I read this one.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. There's another book of that book about quants called the predictors, and this is about the group that got started in Santa Fe. Basically, a bunch of chaos theory people and some guy some guys who used to cheat at blackjack with with computers in their shoes and stuff like that. So it's a good sign.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: And so what was that sounds like the eudaimonic pie.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 3: It's pretty cool.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: The because the eudaimonic pie is roulette, not blackjack. Have you read the eudaimonic pie? Have we not talked about the eudaimonic pie, Tom? I the uniemonic pie, which is
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 6: easy key. Because, Amazon has just said frequently bought together, the predictors and the Unimoney Pie. So
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: The Unimoney Pie. Okay.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: And I forget how, but but my, it the predictors was about the prediction company.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: Got it.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 3: So one of my brothers ended up as COO there in the early years. But, it's, like, a new
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: that kind of the optical mouse?
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 3: Nope. Nope. That was that was my smart brother.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: That's the smart brother. Right? God, I'll put the line family. Amazing. Yeah.
• 1:26:37
  That looks so the eudaimonic pie I I wanna get the predictors. The eudaimonic pie is a really good book. Another, like, not great title, but about have you read this, Tom? This is about the UC Santa Cruz
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: think I have.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: So this is Doyne Farmer, who is now at the at the Santa Fe Institute. And this is physicists and computer scientists at the at UC Santa Cruz, a same kind of thing. It was computers in in their shoes, and they had decided that, like, look, roulette is Newtonian. We can predict roulette. And it's an amazing story.
• 1:27:13
  Nonfiction, really, incredible. And, they are the reason that electronic devices are banned in casinos. So, definitely worth reading.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 3: I don't think read that, but there's clearly a heavy overlap with the
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: Clearly heavy overlap. Yes. And I enjoyed to to to folks who have read Ben Masterchess Burning Down the House, which is a very entertaining, but kind of like, it's a little bit of cotton candy, book about card counting, I recommend the eudaimonic pie, because it's, again, not a good title. I'm not I feel like is our titles that hard? I feel like it it we got a lot of great books with titles that are kinda mediocre here or or worse.
• 1:27:55
  Feel we could do better on titles. But,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: Like, Burning Down the House is heavily overused.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: Burning Down the House. Yes. That is it is a that is an entertaining book, though. Burning Down the House is a very entertaining book about
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 6: I didn't have to think about oh.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Go ahead.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 6: I was just gonna add. I got,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 4: I got to be easy about that because, you know, the title of my book is just literally the thing that it is, so I don't
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: know. Yes. So it
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 4: wasn't hard for me. But for other titles, I'm sure it's one of the most difficult parts of writing a book.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the Rust programming language, I gotta say, that's a that's a pretty good title. And a lot of those books could serve to learn from your your book, Steve, and they should they should give it a book that that's
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: Simply just be about a nonfiction thing that can be explained very simply. It's just that easy to have
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 7: a good title to your book.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: It it it's it's that easy. Good stuff. Alright. Well, and well, again, I wanna make sure that everyone got a chance to to offer theirs. But, as we, as we did previously, this is we got a lot of really, good books in here.
• 1:28:59
  Oh, hold on. I I have now lost the channel? But, a lot of a lot of good stuff, a lot of good reading for, the next year. And I actually went back and listened to the to the episode from last year where I said I've got some things I need to that I had meant to click on that didn't quite purchase. So, but in years, I've I've already bought a couple of the ones that you recommend that's there.
• 1:29:20
  They're already en route.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 6: I I appreciate that you that you like my recommendations. Thanks.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: Yes. You have this you have an extraordinary power, Ian. Use it wisely. And if then, headed my way. Looking forward to it.
• 1:29:37
  So just got the notification that it shipped. So I'm looking forward to that. Alright. Well, thank you very much, Adam and absentia. Thank you, and thanks everyone as always for, Books in the Box 3, and, looking forward to we'll make this a kind of a quasi annual tradition.
• 1:29:54
  So if you read any good books in the coming year, be sure to bring them next year. Thanks, everyone.