Episodes
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080 Where does the time go?
Time stretches and distorts across the astral plane as one grows and matures. Perception morphs from baby days to adulthood, as awareness of time is taught and learned, then weaponized. Fight back against…something?...by accepting that some of the time you’ll be doing nothing. Teasing at tips and...
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079 What are you doing Sunday morning?
Terry can’t stop thinking about “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and Russ can’t stop thinking about whether to take the song literally, figuratively, or both. Come with us on a journey deep into the psyche, where we unlock hangover fantasies and fried chicken nostalgia. Also, helicopters. 0m 45s...
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078 What's the underlying cause? with Tim Dawson
Surgeon Tim Dawson returns to deeply ponder surgery and its place in public health in response to difficult questions from Terry. An existential collapse is avoided, but only barely. The gang uncover the universal desire to do something that works. Terry can’t stop thinking about how America has...
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077 What's in your mind? with John Lipinski
Applied researcher, statistician, and friend-of-Terry John Lipinski joins to talk about job prospects for psychology PhDs, numbers and figures, modern (and old-fashioned) brain science, Iron Maiden, iron rods through the skull, and much more. 2m 45s Terry finds his friends on Upwork. 6m 26s...
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076 What do you do on planes?
Air travel. Faster than driving, but you’re confined to a metal tube tens of thousands of feet above the earth. Terry explains what he does on planes and Russ shares the one trick to turn a plane ride into a time travel machine. 0m 37s Identifying the worst plane and deeply observing airline...
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075 What's wrong with blowhards?
Sometimes when you know something, it’s okay not to share it. Other times, it’s not much use to know it and not share it. Still other times, everything we know is an abstraction in which we place blind faith and confidence until an inevitable shattering of our tenuous reality. Also, germs vs.…
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074 Are you responsible for cybersecurity? with Larry Grate
Terry takes the day off to deep clean his passwords while Larry Grate returns to coach Russ through his ongoing cybersecurity existential crisis. Robots, robot safety, and password managers are addressed (inadequately). Attempts are made to put good cyber hygiene practices into plain language. 0m...
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072 What's the most prestigious vocation?
Against his better judgment, Terry agrees to rank various jobs people do. They guys invent a ranking system, then test it out on a handful of different occupations. Judgment is passed, aggressively, mostly on finance bros and streamers. Upon further reflection, no apologies are made but perhaps...
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073 Why are video games fun? with Pat McGuire
In the name of polite conflict, Pat McGuire (Attorney at Law, video game enthusiast) returns at Russ’s request to try and show Terry that gamers are people too. Learn useless trivia about iconic characters like Mario and Donkey Kong and Mr. Wonder. Are video games art? Are they pop-art? Does that...
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071 What's a life of leisure?
This is a fun one! Russ probes Terry about his leisure pursuits and lack thereof. Amusement Parks get thrown under the bus. The coast of Spain comes out on top. Cheering for yourself. Jumping over park benches. Being jaded with playing live shows, or at least with loading gear in and out. 2m 9s...
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070 No billing code for robotic surgery
Tim Dawson, surgeon, returns to give a cursury education on robot assisted surgery with Intuitive Surgical’s Davinci robot surgery system. Honestly, this one is pretty self-explanatory. If you want to hear a robot surgeon describe robot surgery, then this episode is for you. Robot. 0m 30s Tim…
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069 Upbringing Part 1
Russ talks how he was raised and how he’s doing the raising these days. Terry worries about prying but misunderstands the extent to which his cohost will happily dodge, deflect, and fabricate. Stay tuned for next time when roles are flipped and we hear about Terry’s “weird” family. 1m 3s “When I...
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068 Cam chat and ground wars
Hobbies are hard if you pick ones like photography that need skill and you’re uptight about the quality of your results. Doing stuff you’re pretty okay at can be harder than doing stuff you’re bad at, emotionally speaking. Letting kids use your stuff versus keeping your kids from destroying your...
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067 More paths to doing music for life
Man of many talents John Klaess joins to talk musical higher learning, primary research, career ending injuries, staying on the musical horse, and career switching while remembering where you came from. John’s book is Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City. You can find some…
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066 Speculative wildlife operations
Tim Dawson, surgeon, joins for a long and detailed adventure. Origin stories (Lite). Aggressive training and doctoral hazing. Path dependency and living free from regret. Dissociation from chopping open people’s bodies. The money side of medicine. Ignorance of kangaroo anatomy; enormous kangaroo...
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065 Still feeling wonderment about math
Multiple-founder Bindu Reddy (Abacus.ai, ex-AWS, ex-Google) weighs in on applied research, science and math vs product management, explosive interest in artificial intelligence, risk and diversifying the customer base. Remember: artificial intelligence does not have consciousness or agency. 2m…
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064 I've been obsessed with food since my earliest memories
Chef Ed Lee loves food and happy people. He joins the guys today to talk growing up in NYC, getting started young, parental doubts, the move to Louisville, and the benefits of learning by doing. Also, loan sharks and eel farms. Visit 610 Magnolia or Nami Modern Korean Steakhouse in Louisville…
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063 Failure is an option
Terry grills Larry Grate and Russ on impossible to answer industrial equipment questions and they mostly deflect and dodge the questions. Especially Russ. It’s a no-holds barred contest initiated by ill-advised insults directly to Terry’s face and someone is going to end up looking the fool. 1m…
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062 Nobody calls me a movie set and gets away with it
These days there’s a lot of transparency into what people are up to, in a way our forefathers didn’t imagine. Is that a continuum? What else is there to expose? Will there be an end? Has it always been thus. Find non-answers to these questions and more in today’s episode! 0m 58s A family of…
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061 Patent protection
In “Trolling for Patents” #2, the mundane is made interesting and the ‘shrooms are made mundane. Existential dread creeps in but never takes over. Terry does his homework during class. This episode features both mounts AND anchors! 1m 3s Terry Miller’s non-patented idea for data encryption....
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060 The sun was just the start
Fresh off of taking in some glorious mid-winter sunbeams, Russ seals himself up in an interior room with inferior audiovisual equipment. Astronomy these days isn’t riding the high it used to. Terry wonders out loud about trusting the stars. And trusting anything. 2m 8s We’re not in decline, we’re...
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059 A skyful of sun
When the little things are big flaming balls of gas hundreds of thousands of miles across sustaining all life on Earth, is it worth waking up early just to bask in the glow? That, and imaginary submarine missions. 1m 58s Feeling bad for those confined to solitary. 3m 30s SPONTANEOUS SUNSHINE SONG...
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058 Unsupervised exploration
How does one feel about the outdoors? A trivial question on its surface reveals deep, foundational worldviews and interpretations of self and society. Although when all is said and done, mayb just go feel the grass. 4m 19s Raised by the woods. 7m 10s Very specifically sky blue. 8m 34s The salt…
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057 Dangerous games
Fresh off of a long series on learning (for adults), Russ has some scary questions for returning guest Larry Grate. A consensus is reached that doing is in fact the best way of learning; Russ remains concerned that his personal information may be compromised by some rookie mistake when “learning”...
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056 Spinning yarns
Stories come from everywhere, but if you’re Terry and Russ they don’t come from novels. Or poems. Or short stories. Or novellas. Or movies. Or TV shows. So where do these guys get their fiction and why are all the usual avenues falling short for them? 0m 26s It can be difficult to coax stories…
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055 Cheat codes to mentorship
Learn from others. There are some things that must be done alone, but making it through life isn’t one of them. Today, the guys explore where mentorship comes from, the form it takes over a career and as you age. They come up thirsty in the end with more questions raised than answered. 1m 27s…
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054 Driving for chicks
Russ fails a learning challenge but wins at Pokémon. Terry deflects and may or may not have even attempted a learning challenge. The guys wax nostalgic about having limited funds and the freedom of a semi-reliable vehicle. Golf carts. Making stuff up about Gen Z. 1m 15s The Learning Challenge,...
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053 Punching at wood and other skills
Once you’re done with your schoolin’, everything changes when it’s time to learn something new. Russ tries to take Terry to task about learning via methods other than osmosis, and about getting down to brass tacks rather than “high level” and “conceptual” learning. It remains unclear where new...
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052 Innately a flutist
Learning. Everybody does it, whether they want to or not. But is learning going out of fashion? Is Terry the last applied intellectual left? Bear witness to this first in a series on sometimes-reluctant skill building and knowledge gains for busy and important grown men. 4m 0s A gift certificate...
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051 Authentic-ish
Steven Ramirez joins from California to talk about finding your way in life and work, leaving big companies, and what it means to be a communicator. 12m 15s The nature vs. nurture of listening skills. 17m 30s Benefits of “rigorous feedback” aka being told you’re doing a bad job. 30m 58s Asking...
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050 On starting
The guys seek wisdom for all the brand noobies out there, including themselves. Seamless segues from drums to guitar to ornithology. 0m 8s Imagining the world before you knew what you know now. 2m 34s Breaking out of the anticipation phase. 8m 35s Uptight Beethoven quotes. 15m 46s Aging into...
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049 Creative mysticism
When you have a day job that isn’t artistic or creative, that doesn’t mean you’re not artistic or creative. Sometimes you segment your worlds. Sometimes you just live like you’re an artist. 5m 36s Chamber music for high schoolers 7m 14s When professionalism isn’t enough 10m 32s Paying for art 19m...
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048 I don't have a memory of ever wanting to do anything else but make music
If you are compelled to make music, make music. The rest will come along with it. Ville Leppanen joins today and talks about missing meals, playing for pizzas, and weighs in on whether there will ever be “another Nirvana.” Ville cofounded and runs The Animal Farm with his brother Mat. Find…
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047 I used to have imposter syndrome
This one surprising trick will let you beat feelings of inadequacy and worry less about how you’re being judged: Do stuff. Either people will respect you for the stuff you do and the problem is solved, or they don’t and you’ll stop caring because you are too occupied doing stuff. Honestly the…
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046 Trolling for Patents
If you have any curiosity about invention at all, patent databases (and in particular patents.google.com) are a treasure trove of other people’s ideas expressed as succinctly as possible with no fluff whatsoever. Good ideas, bad ideas, crazy ideas, crazy-enough-to-work ideas. Find them all! 11m…
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045 Generalizing Data Science Skills
Mechanical engineer turned quantitative analyst turned data scientist Dan Buttera joins today to weigh in on shifting from industry to industry while building up a useful skillset in tech and management. He brings some fresh perspective to the ongoing discussion of fitting in, finding where you…
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044 Inside-outsiders
7m 1s Breaking into academic publishing was just one example of credential-bucking. There are all kinds of areas where it can be hard to do the thing without being an insider, and getting inside is daunting. Then again, there are a lot of backdoors to this stuff hidden in plain sight. 13m 36s...
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043 Citizen soft scientists
Doing will always beat talking, which is why the guys always talk so much about doing. Russ perceives himself as a sometimes-researcher in technical field(s) with semi-technical publications. Terry puts the pressure on to walk the line between sufficient rigor and democratized access to the...
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042 Lunch pails and Zeniths and Geckos
Shakers and Movers (the segment formerly known as Movers and Shakers) returns, where recognition can’t be bought and the rules can’t be explained. 1m 5s The first honoree is…the same company for both esteemed judges. What’s the company? Of all the companies how did they arrive at the same one? Is...
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041 Things a dog lover would say
Russ tries to keep Terry’s foot out of his mouth and pet lovers everywhere from being mildly to severely offended. The results are mixed. 5m 30s “A dog is not a personality.” Remember this point because it keeps coming up. 14m 15s Rules for friends and families with dogs. Maybe “it’s me or the…
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040 10 Questions #2
Hey Terry how many did you bring? Seven. Round 2 of 10 Questions goes mildly absurdist and earns the unofficial subtitle “I obviously smell songs.” 2m 59s Movie magic 5m 31s 10 Random Questions 2. The ground rules are laid. 9m 16s Terry is the man in black 15m 10s Who wore it first 15m 16s Flag...
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039 New friends until proven otherwise
Today, Larry Grate on going from conveyor belts in a kaolin mine to hardening industrial systems against cyber attacks. Spoiler alert: Email phishing scams put things like water supply and power grids at risk. Russ is unusually concerned and pessimistic about fixes and progress but encouraged by...
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038 Reading science
Science gets filtered before Regular Joes read it. But why? There’s nothing innate to academic (or commercial) research and development that makes it too complex for the average person to follow the basics. Maybe it’s just easier to assume a bunch of big brained geniuses have it under control....
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037 Hurricane Katrina plus covid but everywhere
Russ rebuilt a speaker and Terry makes the logical jump from there to postapocalyptic wasteland survival skills. The guys spend the day as tourists in doomsday-prepper land. 0m 15s Drums and guitars are instruments that most players can work on themselves, but are much more likely to if they are...
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036 Flat earthed reader mail
Defying all odds, someone listened to the show. But then it turned out Terry trusts the “experts” that the Earth is “flat” instead of doing his own research. Maybe that spells the end of letting readers boss us around and divide us against each other. Then Russ lightly grills Terry on why bother...
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035 Sackcloth and ashes and global soft sabotage
Where did Happy Jōb even come from anyway? It came from Terry’s mind, that’s where. After getting that background out of the way, it’s a day of talking shop about data and numbers in industrial settings. While this one’s pretty technical in some of the details, most of the concepts generalize to...
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034 Disciplined philosophers
After days talking discipline, the guys look to the classics. They wonder how much of this stuff is timeless vs. modern. Will it help you win wars. Is getting out of bed in the morning a war. This is all a sideways approach to analyzing individualism vs. collectivism, self-worth, society and...
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033 A series of hours
Russ wants to know what happens to Terry’s routines in the face of distractions and Terry gets philosophical: “A day is just a series of hours.” 0m 28s Drums end songs. 6m 54s The stage is set: What happens to discipline when faced with distraction? 14m 50s Neck tattoos get a bad rap and are at…
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032 Measures of discipline (that we don't actually use)
The numbers don’t lie unless you don’t bother tracking the numbers. Today, Terry gets some semi-solicited advice on how to keep track of things that matter as the number and breadth starts to grow. 1m 1s Russ’s unsuccessful attempts to supplant self discipline with expensive notebooks. 7m 20 Golf...
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031 Questionable life coaching
Russ puts his life in Terry’s hands and gets a line by line rundown of what to cut out and what to really lean into. Like good advice usually does, today’s work takes the form of a half hearted quiz game. 0m 55s Ground rules and introducing the categories: House and home; Leisure suits; Emotional...
About this show
Asking the big questions.
Hosted by
Russ Waddell & Terry Miller
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