PODCAST · society
Hope in Source
by Henry Zhu
What are the parallels between faith and open source software? Join Henry Zhu for an off-the-cuff conversation between friends. Check out hopeinsource.com and nadiaeghbal.com/public-faith for the backstory!
Episodes
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Words are Totems (Xiq)
What happens when we treat language as a historical totem? Xiq walks with me at UBC campus for https://atmosphereconf.org! We discuss swarms of AI fairies, openness and game theory, hyperstition and psychomagic, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and why thinking heaven is boring is a failure of...
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Infrastructure as Play
What does it mean to build an infrastructure for play? Brendan Schlagel and I trace a path around the lake in Prospect Park, chatting about generational mementos, tracing maps, a pattern language for games, riding ferries, physical constraints, and the idea of a depth jam (Recorded June 2025)
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Snow is a Commons (Melody Kim)
Can snow itself be like open source? Just a fun thought while walking around talking about openclaw and seeing everyone's creations.. all on a impromptu prospect park sauntercast with Melody after last week's blizzard! (titled after Illich's essay, Silence is a Commons) 0:00 highlights 0:38 route...
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Salience (Sonya Mann)
What makes something call out to us? Sonya and Henry explore how prayer transforms perception: ceaseless prayer, the felt body, sacred patterns, remembrance in communion, the invisible church spread through all time, and the holy mystery we're part of. (Recorded October 2020) Transcript at...
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Internet Checkpoint (Melody Kim)
What happens when anyone can build anything? Melody and I snapshot this AI moment for us: vibe coding as gambling, understanding debt, McLuhan's extensions and amputations, building for community not companies, and why culture is really about cultivation. 0:00 Internet Checkpoint (what it means +...
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An Ordinary Walk (Laurel Schwulst)
Can a conversation have a sense of place? Laurel and I take a stroll through Central park on Memorial day: chatting about the idea of a walking podcast, sauntering, voice notes, memory, the romance of distance, physicality, screenshots, printers, embodiment, energy, perception, ultralight…
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The Façade of Control (Melody Kim)
Does technology give us control or the illusion of it? We explore how societal expectations, the nature of work, and AI challenge what it means to be human, contrasting the allure of self-sufficiency with the call to vulnerability. Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/facade/ [05:18] Work…
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Unpacking Belief (Joseph Choi)
What does it really mean to call yourself anything? Joseph Choi begins to explore his ongoing journey of faith deconstruction, reconstruction, and whatever it is now. But we end up through about the anxieties around labeling one's beliefs, between commitment and optionality, and abundance and...
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Sacred Charity (Austin Chen)
How does rationality/ea and faith intersect? Austin Chen joins me to explore the overlaps between Catholic upbringing and EA principles. We discuss his car wash story, tithing/earning to give, the concept of utilons and fuzzies, creating secular liturgies like Taco Tuesday, the tension between...
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Right Feeling (Sonya Mann)
How does faith call us to both right action and right emotion? Sonya Mann joins me again to discuss the layered meanings of biblical parables. Some themes I liked: the paradoxical nature of faith, the generousity of God, the interplay bt obligation and grace, freedom within constraint, the…
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Artificial Physicality (Drew Austin)
Why does everyone care about New York? Drew Austin explores the interplay bt digital/physical env and how tech values shape our lives. We discuss some of his past essays: fashion as public good, airport lounge-ification highlighting, and how digital paradigms reshape our physical spaces. Topics...
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Everyone is "Protestant" Online (L.M. Sacasas)
How do we all act as protestants online? L.M. Sacasas joins Henry (4th time!?) to chat about material/digital culture, how we compensate for natural affordances in new digital interfaces, our inability to account for non-measurable losses, texture vs. frictionlessness, lofi, roguelikes, reality…
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Finding Hope Amid Burnout (Alex Kim)
Where can hope be found? Alex Kim joins again to open up questions of responsibility, and our place in relation to times of weariness. He speaks out his experiences growing up and also shepherding a local church body as a youth pastor. We speak amidst the burnout on notions of time, the work of...
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Digital Communion (Nick Ripatrazone)
Can our digitally mediated environment be spiritual? Nick Ripatrazone takes us through the lens of the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, focusing on his not well-known Catholic faith. McLuhan himself describes his testimony into the Church as, "I came in on my knees. That is the only way…
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History is Necromancy (David Cayley)
What is the place of history in our society? Who was Ivan Illich and how might he be a helpful voice, even in his passing? David Cayley shares about his new book, "Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey". It's not really a biography, and as Illich himself would say, "you can't capture me!" We talk...
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Reality is Personal (Esther Meek)
What is the nature of reality? Esther Lightcap Meek speaks of reality as interpersonal, saying yes to life, everyday knowing. We discuss hope as a person-ed affair, how life is a sort of scrabbling together of clues, gift economies, covenant epistemology, on commitment, consent, belonging....
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The Dorean Principle (Conley Owens)
Why is Christianity so commercialized? Conley shares about The Dorean Principle, his new book which explains this biblical concept of the Gospel being "freely given". We talk about being a colaborer vs. a customer, reciprocity vs. gift, Bible translation, Christian music, copyright and creative...
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Attending to Silence (L.M. Sacasas)
How can we think about digital communication, let alone silence? Is it possible? L.M. Sacasas is back to chat about a few of his last newsletter posts: the nature of silence, attention not as a resource, on hope vs. expectations, the arms race of escalation, manufactured needs, askesis or...
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Ivan Illich (L.M. Sacasas)
Why read Ivan Illich today? In this episode, Madhu Suri Prakash and Dana L. Stuchul of Penn State University (and Journal of Illich Studies) interview L.M. Sacasas on his work as being a sort of bridge or interlocutor of Illich's thoughts. They talk about schooling and inequality in COVID, ways…
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Digital Disembodiment (Maggie Appleton)
How does the digital life shape our perceptions of ourselves? Maggie Appleton starts us off on a discussion of school in pandemic times which lead to a discussion of the disembodiment that technology can create, somehow bringing us further towards our thoughts on time and space? (Recorded in...
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Software Tetris (Stephen Kell)
How is the state of modern software like losing at Tetris? Stephen Kell joins Henry to chat about Ivan Illich's thought (counter-productivity, radical monopoly, critique of institutions) applied to modern software culture! We talk about the software/hardware arms race, how our default is more is...
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TabFS (Omar Rizwan)
What happens when we open up browser APIs like a filesystem? Omar Rizwan joins Henry to chat about his latest project, TabFS! We discuss possible extensions, tinkering with scripts vs being a whole "project", writing it yourself, few dependencies, determining your 1.0, literate documentation, and...
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Essence (Sonya Mann)
How do we think about ourselves and the communities we move into? Sonya Mann and Henry continue a chat about the nature of conversion: about using jargon within a community, individuation, and transformation. Topics include the tools of a worldview, flavors of faith, the good of questions…
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Reconversion (Sonya Mann)
How does one come to faith, let alone come back to it? Sonya Mann graciously shares some raw thoughts on her re-conversion to Christianity. We cover a lot of ground, going through doubt and spiritual malaise, the phenomenology of faith, fractal reality, "happeningness". (Recorded in September)...
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Approaching Advent (Alex Kim)
What is Advent anyway? Alex Kim joins Henry to chat about the season of waiting, memory, our loss and discovery of tradition, teaching ritual as meaningful, a Christian conception of time, and opening ourselves up to hope. Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/advent
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Technology as Process (Maggie Appleton)
Is technology just of chips and gadgets? Maggie Appleton joins Henry again in a 2-part chat to discuss how tech isn't such a static thing, building off of Mcluhan's thought of media and Dan Wang's article, "How Technology Grows". We cover how tech itself contains it's own process knowledge...
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Embodied Knowledge (Maggie Appleton)
Can there be knowledge without a knower? Maggie Appleton joins Henry again in a 2 part chat to discuss how knowledge is personal, through the work of Michael Polanyi. We cover how knowing is an activity, ambient technology, dualism, Bruno Latour, knowing as faith, learning through liturgy, Jesus…
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The Convivial Society (L.M. Sacasas)
What does a convivial society entail? L.M. Sacasas joins Henry in the second part of a conversation about Illich and his views of the common good. We speak about Illich's critique against institutions, autonomy and interdependence, the story of the Good Samaritan, learning through apprenticeship...
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Natural Limits (L.M. Sacasas)
Can we consider our limits as a gift? L.M. Sacasas and Henry discuss an understated concept in our modern times, namely our limited nature. We are limited in our ability to control others (parenting), our speech (social media), and our bodies (morality). We pass through a mix of (sometimes heavy)...
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Emotional Programming (Omar Rizwan)
What can we learn from someone's last tweets? Omar Rizwan joins Henry to chat about the Dynamicland way of thinking: communal, involving the whole person, user agency. We discuss user control, the problem of lists, industrial open source, materiality and embodiment, knowing through doing, and…
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MA 16: Philip Gee (#3) on Life After Digital Death
What's life after removing yourself from social media? Philip Gee joins Henry (the last in the "trilogy") to chat about LAT, life after Twitter. We discuss being irrelevant, forcing yourself to think about different things, treating a newsletter like email, restraining your growth, moving to the...
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MA 15: Philip Gee (#2) on Unlisting Yourself
Why would you choose to leave the public internet on your own terms? Philip Gee joins Henry (for the 2nd time) to chat about his recent choice to make a minimal public web presence after being on the web for many years. We discuss the logistics of removing social media (Twitter, Facebook…
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MA 14: Shawn Wang on Open Knowledge
What does it mean to be code adjacent? Shawn Wang joins Henry to chat about not just open code but open thinking with his experience in community managing, the idea of tumbling, moderating /r/reactjs, starting the Svelete Society meetup, documenting and learning in public, being historians of our...
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Inhabiting a Space (Bernardo Hidalgo, Marianita Palumbo)
Do we think about how the places in which we live are passed down? Bernardo Robles Hidalgo (architect) and Marianita Palumbo (anthropologist) join Henry to chat about living as maintenance. We discuss Bosch, responsibility of taking care of the places we live in, on our desire for comfort, the...
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Managing Over-Participation (Working in Public)
Is more (information, people, code) always better? Nadia Eghbal joins Henry to chat about her new book, Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software, a deep-dive into the of open source community and how it may paint a picture of online communities in general. They talk...
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Very Online (Strange Rites)
What happens to our religions when they meet the Internet? Tara Isabella Burton joins Henry to chat about her new book, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World. They chat about our failing institutions, taking fandoms like Harry Potter seriously, how we all remix religion, how…
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Towards Shalom (Nicole Williams)
What does flourishing look like? Nicole Williams joins Henry to chat about faith in a less reductive way (than many of us may of grown up with): on rationality, the Church as a body, education, liturgy, family, being productive, and simply doing things for it's own sake. Was rather hard to say…
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Legacy (Timothy Patitsis)
Why do we so easily forget where we come from? Dr. Timothy Patitsis joins Henry again to chat about the affect of legacy on our lives through the language of standards, language diversity, being a melting pot or mosaic, Chesterton's fence and legibility, Jane Jacob's tripartite society…
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MA 13: Jordan Scales on Nostalgia and Not Taking Yourself Too Seriously
Why attempt to faithfully recreate the past? Jordan Scales joins Henry to chat about 98.css, design systems, being pixel perfect, accessibility, the Microsoft Windows User Experience reference manual, using VMs, MSPaint and Figma, whimsy and having fun with coding, creating satire at no one's...
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MA 12: Maggie Appleton on Embodiment Through Metaphors
Is programming all digital/cerebral or do we still have embodied roots? How does this affect how we write, teach, and learn code? Maggie Appleton joins Henry to discuss everything metaphors (basically everything). We chat about mental models and abstraction, Polanyi, Cartesian dualism, auto...
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MA 11: Maggie Appleton on Open Source as a Gift Economy
Is the open source community a gift economy? What even is a gift? Maggie Appleton joins Henry to discuss open source as a gift economy (versus a market economy), why we participate in open source and exchange gifts, rituals and habits, patronage and crowdfunding, quantified self and…
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12: Haircut (Bonus)
Why not record an conversation while getting a haircut? Fellow friend and developer Jonathan Tsao cuts Henry's hair and they have a spontaneous conversation about a variety of topics covering faith and culture, living in NYC, creativity, narratives, sharing in vulnerability, and embodiment.
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MA 10: Jonathan Farbowitz on the Commitment to Infinite Uptime
How should we think about saving something forever? Jonathan Farbowitz (Guggenheim) continues the on-going discussion of software preservation with Henry in talking about the goals of museums, the hard (and maybe impossible) task of keeping something intact, the norms and steps of conservation,...
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MA 9: Wendy Hagenmaier on Preserving the (Digital) Past
In our pursuit to create products for the future do we neglect the past? Wendy Hagenmaier (Georgia Tech) discusses with Henry on the importance of maintaining our history, especially in software itself. They chat all about archival: what is it, what should concern an archivist, differences b/t...
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MA 8: Anthony Giovannetti on Mastery and Learning through Games
Why play or even make games? Anthony Giovannetti (MegaCrit) joins Henry to chat building the video game Slay the Spire with the community. They discuss games an a interactive medium, immersion, player incentives/tradeoffs, emergent gameplay through roguelikes (procedural generation, permadeath),...
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MA 7: Philip Gee (#1) On Growing Old with the Web
Do we learn in a vacuum, or does it involve our whole selves? Philip Gee (UC San Diego) joins Henry to chat about maintaining a web presence since its beginnings. We discuss some of the points made in Nadia's post on ideas carrying us forward, even beyond what we are known for, the greater…
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MA 6: Jory Burson on the Significance of Standards
Why should we standardize? Jory Burson (Bocoup) joins Henry to talk open source and standards: what they are, why we need them, what should be standardized, lifecycles of standards, past/future accessibility of participating in the process, and more! Transcript:...
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MA 5: Evan You on Funding One's Freedom
How can we be free? Evan You (Vue.js) chats with Henry about the complexities of funding people vs. projects, non-monetary perks of oss, Patreon potentially just a payment processor, the honing in on the uniqueness of open source (being free, flexible, organic/emergent, self-motivated,...
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MA 4: Mikeal Rogers on Getting Old in Open Source
How old is open source anyway? Mikeal Rogers (Protocol Labs) joins Henry in talking about making friends through podcasting, conference organizing as maintainer-ship, patronage and fundraising, old/new school open source, deprecating packages and ecosystem health, new ideas and becoming a...
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MA 3: Stephanie Hurlburt on the Perception of Value
What do we treasure? Stephanie Hurlburt (Binomial) joins again to chat about inherent vs. perceived value, success breeding success, psychology around hiding information, code versus money, a holistic/explicit view of business, everything as marketing, confidence, money as idolatry, the nature of...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
What are the parallels between faith and open source software? Join Henry Zhu for an off-the-cuff conversation between friends. Check out hopeinsource.com and nadiaeghbal.com/public-faith for the backstory!
HOSTED BY
Henry Zhu
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Hope in Source have?
Hope in Source currently has 63 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Hope in Source about?
What are the parallels between faith and open source software? Join Henry Zhu for an off-the-cuff conversation between friends. Check out hopeinsource.com and nadiaeghbal.com/public-faith for the backstory!
How often does Hope in Source release new episodes?
Hope in Source has 63 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Hope in Source?
You can listen to Hope in Source on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Hope in Source?
Hope in Source is created and hosted by Henry Zhu.
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