Justin and Jason discuss Justin’s short-lived madness about algorithmic trading, the book Building Algorithmic Trading Systems, using neural networks to predict the future price of Bitcoin, why Jason said no to doing the MIT Circuits & Electronics MOOC with his friend Phil, the unexpected benefits of working on toy problems, why teaching the accelerated math class is Jason’s favorite three hours of the week, the conditions under which accelerating kids can provide significant advantages and when it doesn’t, Colby’s “IQ” test and Ms. Extra Credit, moving God’s Tweets from a VPS to EC2, RDS and S3 and how changing Apple developer accounts caused a iOS/OSX/Titanium upgrade cascade, MaxCDN vs. Amazon’s CloudFront, tricks for developing professional-looking Titanium apps, the TED talk – Behind the Great Firewall of China and how Obama and Cameron are cracking down on encryption, why Jason, like most most security researchers, doesn’t believe North Korea was behind the Sony attack, why it’s a good idea to dismiss government claims when they fail to provide evidence, Seymour Hersh’s debunking of the USG’s claim that Syria used chemical weapons, the failed SpaceX Falcon 9 landing and Elon Musk’s recent announcement about the Texas Hyperloop experiment, Larry Summer’s response to Marc Andreessen’s tweet storm about secular stagnation, a listener’s app Happy Scales, why pursuing an academic career in math or science is the new monasticism, replicating the career paths of Elon Musk and Jeff Hawkins, the sudden handwringing about the future threat of strong AI, the series Extant, Black Mirror and Video Game High School, the problem with uploading your intelligence into a digital world, the cloned bull that changed, László Polgár and the nature nurture debate, Justin’s walking desk and the quest for workout economy, how Jason’s leg injury has put a pause on Operation Superhero and his philosophy of how to continue making progress (see Ray Liotta’s rant in Copland).

Grand Patron $100: David Walz (Thanks so much!)