knowledge work

A dialogue with Gary Weber on the default mode network, meditation and non-dual awakening, with discussion of psychedelics, thought and time. It is part of the Non-Dual Couch series.

An excerpt of Simon Sinek on Inside Quest discussing millennials in the workplace. He covers parenting, technology, social media dopamine and what that means for managers.

A short excerpt from a 1973 Yorkshire TV film in which Richard Feynman explains that knowing the name of something is not the same as knowing it.

Part two of EEVblog's visit to the NASA/CSIRO Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, showing the control room and how operators contact Voyager 2. It includes live data and spectrum displays.

Pat Wyatt, a veteran game programmer who worked at Blizzard and ArenaNet, speaks at HandmadeCon 2015 in a conversation with Casey Muratori. He discusses network code and architecture in games he worked on, including mistakes on Diablo and the success of Guild Wars.

Freeman Dyson recounts how Enrico Fermi rejected his team's meson scattering model, noting that it had too many free parameters. It is the source of the quote about fitting an elephant.

The Real News Network interview between Aaron Mate and Guardian reporter Luke Harding about Russiagate and Harding's book on alleged Russian collusion.

A Computer History Museum oral history with Avie Tevanian covering his math talent, work on the Mach microkernel at CMU, joining NeXT, leading NEXTSTEP development and the 1996 Apple acquisition.

Part two of a Computer History Museum oral history with Gary Davidian, covering his work on the 68000 emulator for PowerPC at Apple, Power Computing, clean-room contracting and later performance optimization work. It is nearly three hours long.

An Autoline After Hours episode where Sandy Munro discusses his complete teardown of the BMW i3, along with automotive journalists. It covers the car's carbon fiber construction and manufacturing technology.

Engineer Sandy Munro joins an Autoline panel for a 100-minute deep dive on Tesla's design and manufacturing, including the Model 3 and its motors.

A short clip of Leo Laporte interviewing Bill Atkinson about developing HyperCard, including his story that the idea came during an LSD experience.

The full 1971 Dutch television debate between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault on human nature, with subtitles. They discuss creativity, knowledge, power and politics.

A 1983 BBC interview in which Richard Feynman is asked how magnets work and explains why 'why' questions are hard to answer in everyday terms. He reflects on what counts as an explanation and the limits of analogy.

A two-minute clip of Richard Feynman explaining why he considers much of social science pseudoscience. He stresses how easy it is to fool yourself and how much care real knowledge takes.

A short clip of Richard Feynman answering an interviewer's question about why magnets repel, explaining that a 'why' question depends on a shared framework of understanding. It illustrates how hard it is to explain fundamentals to a layperson.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day explains Multi-Domain Operations through footage from his last mission at RIMPAC 2018. He covers missile and torpedo testing and interviews military leaders about the cyber and information domains.

All six episodes of the 1983 BBC series Fun to Imagine, in which Richard Feynman muses on jiggling atoms, fire, rubber bands, magnets, electricity and more. He explains how to think about nature and why imagination is fun.

A two-minute video of Ira Glass on the creative process, describing the gap between taste and skill when starting out and urging you to keep producing until your work matches your taste.

A 20-minute Y Combinator interview in which Sam Altman asks Elon Musk how to build the future. Topics include which problems a 22-year-old should work on, such as AI, genetics, and brain interfaces, and general advice for founders.

Conan O'Brien interviews Jack White in a Serious Jibber-Jabber episode shot on 35mm film. They discuss White's creative process, his use of constraints and his approach to music and art.

A roughly three-hour Computer History Museum oral history interview of Donald Knuth by Edward Feigenbaum, recorded in 2007. Knuth covers his family, music, early programming, his thesis, The Art of Computer Programming, and the detour into TeX and METAFONT.

A short clip of George R.R. Martin asking Stephen King on stage how he writes so fast. King describes setting daily page goals, around six pages a day, and keeping focused hours.

A Computer History Museum oral history interview with Dave Cutler, covering his youth, early work on operating systems at DuPont and Digital Equipment, and his path toward VMS and Windows NT. This is part one of a long-form interview.

Giant Bomb interviews John Carmack at E3 2012 about his virtual reality head-mounted display prototype. He demos it and talks about latency, depth and focus problems in VR.

Sixty Symbols interviews Nottingham cosmologist Tony Padilla, who says string theory deserves to be taken seriously. He explains how strings emerged from the equations rather than being invented.

A panel conversation with Stewart Brand at Ethereum's Devcon4, where he recounts his life and work 'hacking civilization' and discusses the role of institutions in decentralization.

A long interview with former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov describing what he calls ideological subversion, a process of demoralizing a nation. He claims it works by influencing academia and media over years.

John Conway talks in a short Numberphile interview about his mixed feelings toward the Game of Life, his most famous invention. He says he is not especially pleased that it overshadowed his other work.

A 13-minute clip from This Week in Startups in which Chamath Palihapitiya describes venture capital as a Ponzi-like scheme driven by fees and inflated valuations among VCs.

A Computer History Museum oral history with Bill Mensch, designer of the 6502 and 65816, covering his path from a Pennsylvania farm through Motorola and later work.

Former CIA officer Frank Snepp describes how, working in Vietnam from 1969 to 1975, he planted stories in major newspapers to support Agency goals. He notes that some younger reporters refused to take the bait.

A Computer History Museum interview in which John Markoff of the New York Times talks with Douglas Engelbart about his life and research. It covers the influences and struggles behind his work on the mouse, hypertext and collaborative computing, and his aim of helping humanity tackle complex problems.

Jonna Mendez, former CIA Chief of Disguise, explains how disguises are used in intelligence work and what makes deception effective, including changing one's gait.

A Google I/O 2014 fireside chat in which members of the Android platform team answer questions about why the platform works the way it does. It is moderated by developer advocate Reto Meier.

A 2019 extended interview in which Connie Loizos talks with Sam Altman about his work, OpenAI's capped-profit structure, its mission toward safe artificial general intelligence, and criticisms the organization faces.

Peter Norvig answers the top questions submitted by reddit users in a 27-minute interview. Topics include programming language choice, AI, and workplace design.

In a New York Times interview, Jerry Seinfeld describes the anatomy of his Pop-Tart joke, still a work in progress, and shows his longhand writing process.

Computer History Museum oral history of Steve Naroff, an engineer at Stepstone, NeXT and Apple who worked on Objective-C. This first session covers his childhood, music background and early career.

A one-minute clip from the 1995 Steve Jobs interview in which he describes what he saw at Xerox PARC and what he missed. He says he grasped the graphical interface but not the networking and object-oriented parts.