After Things Podcast

Andrew Mayne, Brian Brushwood, and Justin Robert Young embark on a technological odyssey, starting with Andrew’s recent acquisition of a Bamboo A1 3D printer. The excitement is palpable as Andrew shares his adventures in 3D printing everything from knives to whirligigs, showcasing the printer’s impressive capabilities. The conversation then shifts to AI, with the trio exploring Claude 3.5 and its ability to generate games and video content on the fly. From creating simple games with just a few prompts to discussing the future of 3D printing and AI in creative industries, the episode is a deep dive into how these technologies are reshaping our world. Picks: Brian Brushwood: The Dark Tower movie Justin Robert Young: Audio AI for generating music Andrew Mayne: Old Doctor Who episodes

Andrew and Justin spend most of the episode comparing OpenAI's GPT-4o rollout with Google's AI announcements. They describe GPT-4o as a multimodal system that combines text, image, sound, and voice into one model, and emphasize that OpenAI's live demos felt fast, real-time, and more transparent than Google's earlier staged or prerecorded presentations. They also discuss latency, the shift from separate speech/transcription models to a single model, and how native desktop and mobile apps, along with ChatGPT for Enterprise, fit OpenAI's product strategy. The second half of the conversation broadens into release timing, safety, secrecy, and organizational interpretation. Andrew says OpenAI often holds capabilities back for safety or product timing, that people overread departures and rumors, and that claims about AI hitting a wall are premature given the field's growth. The episode closes with Andrew recommending AMC's Interview with the Vampire and Justin offering OpenAI's YouTube channel as a place to watch th

The episode opens with a long discussion of the OpenAI / Scarlett Johansson controversy. Andrew says he had a direct view of GPT-4o voice development, that OpenAI hired actors with disclosures and fair pay, and that there was never an intent to copy Johansson’s voice. The hosts argue that the resemblance was driven by audience expectations shaped by Her and by a familiar voice archetype, not by a plan to mimic her. From there, the conversation moves through AI’s strengths and weaknesses: emotional companionship, chatbot use for counseling and rewriting messages, multimodal video analysis for inventorying property, and hallucinations or odd outputs from models. The latter half shifts into space news and speculation, covering Ed Dwight’s Blue Origin flight, NASA’s Artemis and Starliner problems, commercial launch competition, the X-37 military spaceplane, whale communication and alien contact analogies, Dyson sphere detection, and finally a recommendation for Severance. Key topics OpenAI voice casting and the S

The episode opens with the news that philosopher Daniel Dennett has died, and the hosts reflect on how influential his books, especially Darwin's Dangerous Idea and Consciousness Explained, were on Andrew's thinking about arguments, thought experiments, consciousness, and where the boundaries of sentience may lie. Brian adds his own examples from dogs and consciousness, reinforcing the sense that Dennett was especially good at exploring philosophical borderlands without always forcing tidy conclusions. The middle of the episode is a long riff that starts with dog-powered historical machines and novelty inventions, then moves into Meta's Llama 3 release and a humorous discussion of Mark Zuckerberg's new public image. The conversation then turns to Boston Dynamics' new Atlas robot, broader robotics manufacturing and patent issues, cheaper robot dogs and quadrupeds from Unitree, and finally a fossil snake discovery from India that may have been about 50 feet long. The episode closes with pick discussions, includ

The episode opens with a discussion of AI-generated music, starting from a Weird Things intro written by Suno and moving into comparisons between Suno and Udio. The hosts note that Udio produces cleaner vocals but shorter initial clips, while Suno can generate longer clips and be extended. They treat the tools as a major sign of how quickly AI-generated creative content is improving. The conversation then broadens into practical uses for generated songs, especially study aids and mnemonic tools. Andrew demonstrates songs about Roman history and Broca's area, and the group talks about how music can help memory, how cheap and fast generation changes creative work, and how AI may become embedded in everyday life. The latter part of the episode shifts into a long discussion of technology adoption, AI limits and risks, media bias and journalistic self-correction, and then ends with TV picks. Key topics Suno vs. Udio quality and format differences: The hosts compare AI music generators directly. Udio is described a

The episode centers on a long discussion of AI's rapid move from novelty to everyday utility. The hosts describe using AI for transcription, editing, text simplification, image cleanup, and coding help, and Andrew demonstrates how tools like Groq and Cursor make inference and programming feel dramatically faster and more accessible than earlier AI systems. The conversation also walks through tokenization and why newer, cheaper models are changing how products are built. A second major thread is the cultural and ethical backlash to AI, especially in creative fields. Brian raises the objection that generative systems are trained on prior human work without permission, and the hosts debate whether that makes AI theft, derivative influence, or just another technology panic. They also discuss regulation, especially in Europe, and close with picks that include TV, film, and AI tools, while arguing that abundance and personalization will reshape music and social media. Key topics Personal AI usage in daily work: Jus

Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood embark on a journey through a variety of topics, starting with a real-world disaster involving a boat crash and a collapsed bridge. They speculate on the implications of tainted fuel and the role of the National Transportation Safety Board in such incidents. The conversation then shifts to the potential for economic and infrastructural disasters, including the hypothetical use of nuclear weapons to disrupt GPS systems. The hosts also discuss the fragility of modern infrastructure and the importance of disaster preparedness. The conversation takes a turn into the realm of technology and security, with a focus on the challenges posed by AI and deepfakes in authenticating identity. They explore the idea of a secure, emergency communication system to verify callers during crises. Finally, the hosts share their picks, including a book recommendation and thoughts on the Netflix adaptation of ‘The Three-Body Problem’, noting its strengths and weaknesses. Picks:

The episode opens with a discussion of Boom Supersonic and its attempt to revive commercial supersonic air travel. The hosts talk about Boom's successful test flight of a scaled-down prototype, the plan for the Overture airliner, the role of Japan Airlines, and the history of Concorde, including sonic booms, U.S. restrictions on supersonic flight, and the Concorde's drooping nose and hot exterior. A large middle section focuses on AI as practical tooling: how to prompt ChatGPT and vision models more effectively, how OCR and form-filling could save huge amounts of time, and how Andrew's robot demo uses GPT-4 vision to navigate toward butter in a 3D simulation. The discussion expands into agent-style systems such as Cognition Labs' Devon, AI-assisted research and source gathering, productivity gains in editing and transcription, and the idea that AI is best understood as very powerful software rather than a magical wish box. The final stretch moves through several offbeat stories: a Montana Franken sheep case,

The episode opens with Justin describing a Cameo birthday message he received from Kirstie Patterson, the performer associated with the viral Willy’s Chocolate Experience disaster, and the hosts discuss how the incident became internet-famous, the “depressed Oompa Loompa” label, and how Cameo can be a practical way for someone caught in online notoriety to earn money. They also briefly discuss the “unknown” character from the event and the broader weirdness of the production. A major middle section focuses on SpaceX’s Starship test launch, which the hosts describe as a successful suborbital flight that reached space, separation, and orbital speeds even without a landing. From there they move into broader reflections on iteration, feedback loops, AI and robotics progress, the pace of change in the tech world, and the question of how long adoption takes compared with technical feasibility. Key topics Cameo and the Willy’s Chocolate Experience aftermath: The hosts talk about a birthday Cameo from Kirstie Patters

The episode opens with a long discussion of SpaceX test launches and the broader idea that visible failures are part of iterative engineering. Andrew and Brian contrast that with the Space Shuttle program, noting that shuttle design involved practical compromises, unexpected hazards, and a much messier reality than the idealized version often told. They also briefly touch on the value of publicity and storytelling in aerospace, including drone ship landings and fairing recovery attempts. The conversation then shifts to the Apple Vision Pro, which Andrew describes as an impressive demo but a compromised device lacking a compelling everyday use case. After that, the episode moves through several science and tech topics: early nonlinear video editing systems like Edit Droid and Avid, de-extinction efforts around woolly mammoths and proxy mammoths, dinosaur DNA preservation and decay, Europa's oxygen uncertainty, and naturally occurring hydrogen or 'white hydrogen.' The episode ends with picks and recommendations

The episode opens with the hosts riffing about recording and editing workflow, including the value of planning for cuts, trusting the edit, and how much polished media depends on invisible post-production. From there, Andrew introduces a preprint about panspermia via cosmic dust, then the conversation shifts to a monkey-raft explanation for how monkeys may have crossed into South America on floating vegetation islands rather than by land bridge. The middle of the episode becomes a broad science-and-cosmology segment in which Andrew leads a tour through the early universe: inflation, quark and hadron epochs, nucleosynthesis, the photon epoch, recombination, cosmic dark ages, structure formation, and the universe's possible heat-death future. The latter half turns to astronomy experiences and tools, including telescope viewing, iTelescope.net, and amateur observing, before closing on entertainment picks and a long discussion of the Glasgow Willy Wonka event, The Wheel of Time, and the live-action One Piece adap

Andrew apologizes to the Weird Things audience for the lack of recent episodes and says the show has still been recording. He explains that the delay is due to changes in how the show is handled on the backend, and says they hope to have episodes out soon. He adds that if listeners can hear this message, the new fix is working. He describes the fix as using AI to handle some of the process and calls it the wave of the future. Key topics Lack of episode releases: Andrew directly apologizes for the absence of episodes and says the show has been recording despite the delay. Backend workflow changes: He says the team has been changing how they do things on the back end, which is presented as the reason for the episode delay. AI-assisted fix: Andrew says the new fix is working if listeners can hear the message and explains that it uses AI to handle some of the process. Picks

The episode opens with casual chatter about a possible Starship launch while the hosts are near Brownsville, followed by a long discussion of major AI announcements from Google and OpenAI. Andrew explains Gemini 1.5's large context window claims and the limits of simply increasing tokens, while the group shifts into a detailed examination of Sora's text-to-video results, including improved realism, physics, camera motion, and remaining failures. They repeatedly return to the role of compute, model scaling, and the economics of AI progress. The latter half of the episode focuses on how AI tools may change creative work and how people should adapt by learning to code, prompt, and experiment rather than resist. The hosts also discuss ChatGPT memory, personalized interactions, and Andrew's experiment turning Sora footage into 3D video for Vision Pro. Near the end, Justin gives a Suno Valentine's Day song generator pick, Brian recommends Star Trek: Lower Decks, and the panel briefly covers Rick and Morty, Dune 2,

Andrew and Brian start with travel and recovery talk: Brian describes being knocked out by illness and bad sleep, while Andrew explains returning from a three-week trip to India and how he managed jet lag by staying awake through the long flight. Andrew also says he was careful about water and food after getting sick on a prior trip, and that he brought antibiotics with him via an online doctor visit so he could treat a likely bacterial illness quickly when it hit. The episode spends a long stretch on Andrew's India trip, including his wife's cousin's wedding events, a reception hosted by in-laws, local McDonald's adaptations, the India-Pakistan border ceremony near Amritsar, and a detailed visit to the Golden Temple. From there the conversation broadens into Sikh identity and customs, Sikh wartime history, Indian film culture, and then into speculative futurism: Mars terraforming, the limits of giant climate projects, the Icon of the Seas as evidence of human scale, and a broader optimism about future abunda

The episode opens with the hosts greeting each other for 2024 and then moving into a discussion of older dystopian science fiction that reflected the anxieties of its era. They talk about Logan's Run, Make Room, Make Room/Soylent Green, Clockwork Orange, and Silent Running as stories shaped by fears about population growth, pollution, youth violence, and social instability, before widening the conversation into how people now think about depopulation, fertility decline, and whether modern cynicism is distorting judgments about the present and the past. From there, the episode moves through a 2024 predictions segment covering Artemis, Starship, the presidential election, and the broader role of AI and robotics. The hosts also discuss how chat-based AI is already useful in daily life, debate what counts as AGI and how the Turing test is commonly misunderstood, then finish with reactions to Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and Rebel Moon before ending on recommendations for Fargo, Lower Decks, A Clockwork Orange, and

Whale songs and AI tools. Picks: Justin: Squid Game: The Challenge Brian: Amanda Knox

Google’s new AI launch might not be what it seems. Picks: Justin: Fargo Andrew: Doom Patrol | Now Streaming | Max Original | Max

A Thai restaurant tried to game Google, but accidentally went viral. We knew Google paid Apple a lot to be the default search engine. We didn’t know it was *a lot.* The Humane AI Pin? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.” Picks: Justin: Space: 1969 from Bill Oakley Brian: Play Date

The episode opens with a discussion of SharkNinja's Ninja Neverstick cookware and a lawsuit over marketing claims that the pans are heated to 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The hosts debate whether the claim is literal or exaggerated advertising, compare it to other flashy marketing language, and talk through how a deceptive-marketing class action might work if consumers were misled. Later, the hosts discuss Apple possibly retiring the iTunes name, reflecting on how iTunes shifted from CD-ripping and downloads to a less central role in a streaming era. The episode also covers the Sam Bankman-Fried case and how its transcripts use coded or gamer-style language, which leads into a broader conversation about algorithmic moderation, euphemistic speech online, creator transparency, snoozing alarms, and the rediscovery of the silent film Sealed Hearts. Key topics Scientific-sounding advertising claims in consumer products: The hosts discuss the claim that Ninja Neverstick pans are heated to 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit an

Phone wars, flame wars, nearly-warring podcasters! The simple task of geopolitics. Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.” Picks: Andrew: Curiosity Show on YouTube and “This Isn’t a Ponzi Scheme” from Coffeezilla Brian: The Economist Podcasts+ Bryce: Kagi Search