Artificial Intelligence
Episodes whose main subject is AI itself: building with, training, evaluating, or debating AI systems. AI used only as a tool for another topic goes to that topic.
#178: The Skywave Secret: Why Aviation Can’t Quit HF Radio
Why do pilots still use scratchy 1940s radio in the age of Starlink? Explore the resilient world of oceanic communication and skywave physics.
#176: What Are AI Weights, Really?
What actually happens inside an AI model? Corn and Herman break down the numerical "valves" and "knobs" that power modern intelligence.
#172: Taming the Sprawl: Building Your Cognitive AI Toolbox
Drowning in a sea of custom AI scripts? Learn how to turn disconnected "vibe-coded" tools into a unified, local-first cognitive operating system.
#171: From Digital Fortresses to Machine-Digestible Sites
Stop fighting the crawlers and start feeding them. Learn how llms.txt and structured metadata are defining the new era of AI Optimization.
#170: How PyTorch Beat TensorFlow and Became AI's Backbone
Discover why PyTorch is the "oxygen" of AI. Herman and Corn explore its history, the magic of Autograd, and the move to the PyTorch Foundation.
#165: The Dual-Signature System That Runs Every Flight
Who’s really running the show? Go inside the high-stakes world of flight operations centers and the "ground-based co-pilots" managing the chaos.
#161: From Search to Design: AI's New Molecules
Discover how AI is slashing drug development times and "hallucinating" new molecules to treat once-incurable diseases.
#158: The Power of the Jagged Profile: Beyond Specialization
Are you a jack of all trades or a master of synthesis? Explore how neurodivergence and multipotentialism are redefining success in the age of AI.
#157: Beyond the Chatbox: The Power of Model Context Protocol
Discover why the Model Context Protocol is the "USB of AI" and how it’s fueling a new wave of autonomous agents and developer communities.
#155: Building an Ideation Factory: Beyond Generic AI Ideas
Learn how to overcome AI repetition and build a multi-agent "ideation factory" to solve complex local economic challenges.
#154: From Apps to Agents: Building Your Digital Workforce
Move beyond simple prompts. Explore the architecture, autonomy, and fiscal guardrails of the next generation of AI agentic workflows.
#153: Acoustic Hygiene: Why Your Room Is Your Most Important AI Hardware
Learn how to transform your home office into a high-performance voice-first workspace using acoustic hygiene and ergonomic IKEA furniture hacks.
#152: Dome vs. PTZ: The Hidden Tech of Baby Monitoring
Herman and Corn explore the best camera tech for tracking a crawling baby, from dual-lens systems to AI-powered motion detection.
#150: Will AI Finally Shut Up Your Neighbor’s Car Horn?
Urban noise is more than an annoyance—it’s a health crisis. Discover how AI sensors are being used to silence the streets and the privacy costs.
#145: The Ergonomic Case for Eyes-Free Computing
Tired of being tethered to your screen? Herman and Corn explore the future of voice-first productivity and the rise of autonomous AI agents.
#144: AI Memory vs. RAG: Building Long-Term Intelligence
Explore why AI needs a "diary" and not just a "library" as we dive into the architectural differences between RAG and long-term agentic memory.
#142: Breaking the Voice Wall: The Future of Native Speech AI
Explore why native speech-to-speech AI is 20x more expensive than text pipelines and how "semantic VAD" is solving the awkward silence problem.
#141: Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secrets of Steganography
Explore the invisible world of steganography, from secret printer dots to AI watermarking and digital dead drops hidden in plain sight.
#136: The Ghost in the Machine: Why AI Voices Hallucinate
Why does your AI suddenly start shouting or whispering like Darth Vader? Herman and Corn dive into the glitchy world of TTS hallucinations.
#135: Is OCR Dead? How Vision AI Is Redefining Text Extraction
Are specialized OCR tools obsolete? Herman and Corn explore how Vision Language Models are revolutionizing the way we turn images into data.