TechZing is an informal bi-weekly chat show aimed at entreprenures and hackers interested in creating their own web app startup. The show is both educational (with practical advice) and conversational.
272: TZ Interview - Mike Walmsley / Code Avengers
Jason talks with Mike Walmsley, the founder and primary developer of the programming education site Code Avengers.
271: TZ Discussion - The Superintelligent Future
Justin and Jason discuss the summit and the prospect of hosting another one, whether growing the show would be possible or even make a difference, whether World War III could stop a rising population, how HP’s Thermal Inkjet printing is going 3D and how Google is developing cancer and a heart attack detector, Amazon Echo, the prospects for AI in the near term and the risks of achieving superintelligence, how Scientists made a telepathy breakthrough, the latest on Operation Superhero and the SAID principle, Justin’s diet and why he loves Space Nutrients, Jason’s new rules for Colby’s computer time and his recent tour of a local all-girls school, the latest with the math team, Justin’s private preschool future and what’s up with Jason’s various projects.
270: TZ Discussion - Pricing for the Apocalypse
Justin and Jason discuss the TZ summit, the prospect of establishing a colony on Mars and what that process might look like, the prospect of an Ebola pandemic, betting on black swans and counterparty risk, why the TV show Lost was unable to close so many of it’s story lines, the idea for a productivity app modeled after Lost’s Swan computer, Justin’s vintage terminal app and his new cardio solution, what motivates people to change themselves, whether Justin has any regrets about selling Pluggio, why Jason gets satisfaction from helping other people and why he’s more excited about teaching the math class than any of his other projects, the fake legend of Walter O’Brien and Scorpion, the This American Life episode The Super, The Cracked Podcast, the upcoming content sites Nautilus, Quartz, Medium and Svbtle, productivity and anti-productivity habits, the apps Self Control, HabitRPG and EpicWin, an update on Operation Superhero, what happened to Jason’s screenplay concept, the latest with the math class, why Jason put learning electrical engineering on pause and the progress being made by MVCC.
269: TZ Discussion - Ass To Grass
Justin and Jason discuss the upcoming summit, the latest on Disco, Justin’s life with a newborn, the summit’s super sponsors, MV Code Club’s new location and possible sources of growth capital, how the brain can classify words during sleep and how people think more creatively when they walk, the book A Whack on Side of the Head, hitting the reset button in your brain, Jason’s progress on operation Superhero, Justin’s workout and non-diet diet, Justin’s favorite new tech site SciTechDaily, why Colby tanked his spelling test, Justin’s idea for a baby rocker that simulates a drive in a car, the fact that “luck surface area” is going to be in yet another book – “You:Rebranded“, the SyNAPSE Chip by IBM Mimics Brain and the mobile web app that Jason has been developing to monitor and manage Uber’s real-time systems. Summit Super Sponsors Glenn Bennett / 250 big ones Aaron Night / 250 big ones
268: TZ Interview - Dr. Doug McGuff / Body by Science
Justin and Jason speak with Dr. Doug McGuff about his book, Body by Science: A Research Based Program for Strength Training, Body building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week. A special shoutout goes to Andy Chamberlain who emailed Justin with a heads up about Doug and the Body by Science protocol.
267: TZ Interview - Gabriel Weinberg / Traction Book
Justin and Jason talk with Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo, about his new book Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers. Gabriel also appears in the following TechZing shows: 68 TZ Interview – Gabriel Weinberg & DuckDuckGo 91: TZ Panel – Phil Aman & Gabriel Weinberg 99: TZ Panel – Gabriel Weinberg & Peter Cooper 179: TZ Interview – Gabriel Weinberg / Blowing Up DuckDuckGo 225: TZ Interview – Gabriel Weinberg / The DuckDuckGo Step Function
266: TZ Discussion - Sleepless in Pasadena
Justin and Jason discuss Justin’s new baby and all of the related complications, an update on Jason’s weight-loss and fitness program and why he’s so skeptical of Justin’s 15-minutes-per-week workout, the new pullout math class for the 5th-grade math team, an update on Jason’s effort to learn electronics and how he couldn’t get Anki or Mnemosyne to display equations, the progress on the God’s Tweets iPhone app, why Empath has stalled out, how MV Code Club is all set to open a new location, and the status of the Battle Math card game.
265: TZ Discussion - Going Beta with Disco
Justin and Jason discuss the movie Guardians of the Galaxy and the show Halt and Catch Fire, why they both like the post-apocalyptic genre, the final dates for the TechZing Summit, a progress report on Operation Superhero, Justin’s “audacious goal” of starting a funk band, why Jason thinks Derek Sivers is wrong about keeping your goals to yourself, Jason’s electrical engineering learning experiment and his idea of posting his notes and problem solutions to the web using CircuitLab and MathJax, what is was about Stanford’s Neurogrid project that inspired Jason to learn electronics, how Jason’s MightyHive convertible note actually converted into equity and how his angel investment, MV Code Club, is opening a second location, the latest on Disco, why Justin enjoys doing devops using Salt, how Jason and Sandy are going to be teaching Algebra to 5th graders this year and Jason’s plans for the Battle Math card game, a contrarian view of MITx, Parkinson’s Law, whether it makes more sense to join an established but growing tech company or to just apply to YC, why Justin sold his Soylent, Jason’s recent physical and Lightbot – the app / game that teaches basic programming concepts.
264: TZ Discussion - Jason 2.0
Justin and Jason discuss Jason’s ambitious health and fitness plan, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s six rules of success, why Jason has decided to pursue his two long-time athletic goals of bench pressing 315 lbs and of dunking a basketball, Karch Kiraly’s athletic transformation at the age of 44, a few of the top vertical jump programs, the 42-year who added 9 inches to his vertical, the before and after videos of the kid who transformed himself into a dunking machine, Jason’s “before” video of his vertical jump, the vertical jump calculation, Justin’s exercise and diet plan and why he wants a picture of Elon Musk next to his bed, how 40’s can be the new 20’s, the TechZing Summit, the latest on Disco and why ownership is split equally among the founders, Jason’s life hack for learning electrical engineering and the progress he’s made so far, why your perceived limitations are almost all just in your mind, why Elon Musk is so successful, the girl who made it to the finals of America Ninja Warrior, how Colby learned to program in RobotC in his summer school class, the latest on Jason’s angel investment in the Mill Valley Code Club, the awesome job that Phillip Monet has done with the TechZing Wiki, Jason’s idea for doing a monthly TZ meetup in San Francisco, developing content for Empath, why God’s Tweets got rejected from the App Store and whether your life really changes that much after having a baby.
263: TZ Discussion - From Zero to Hero
Justin and Jason discuss Justin’s upcoming trip to Mexico, their new low-sugar / high-protein diet and HIIT training regime, the TechZing Summit, how Justin has STILL not received hisSoylent, Jason’s interview on Bootstrapped with Kids, how Jason found a personal instructor to teach him electrical engineering, the latest on Jason’s math card game – Battle Math, why his iPhone project got rejected by the App Store, his recent visit to the Mill Valley Code Club and what’s happening with Empath, the latest with Disco and why Justin likes SaltStack, why most people will initially mock and dismiss audacious goals, but later be inspired by them, and how a season of “Daddy Ball” has lit a fire in Colby and why that’s a good thing.
262: TZ Tech Chat - Derrick Reimer / Rob Walling / Drip
Justin talks to Derrick Reimer and Rob Walling about the Drip tech stack.
261: TZ Discussion - Project Superhero
Justin and Jason discuss the details of Jason’s angel investment in the Mill Valley Code Club, Jason’s weight-loss plan, the power of gradualism, the time required to form a new habit, the importance of short and long-term goals, accountability and positive feedback loops, how an article by Jason’s brother Jay was listed as one of The Atlantic’s top pieces of journalism, a little bit about the TechZing Summit, Lucid Dreaming, the Pasadena App Academy, how MIT flipped their physics classes, how Netflix is creating original content like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards, what makes Silicon Valley so damn funny, the Weissman Score, the Facebook outage, how US Marshals accidentally Replied All to a list of anonymous bitcoin auction bidders, why it may be time for a hard Bitcoin fork, how Colby is writing a RobotC tutorial for the Mill Valley Code Club and Jason’s expected-value argument against teaching a rigorous, proof-oriented Calculus to high school students and non-math majors. Executive Producer: Ben Boyter Thanks Ben!
260: TZ Discussion - Going Angel
Justin and Jason discuss Jason’s recent trip to Disneyland, the latest progress on Disco, Jason’s first angel investment, how Justin has been slowly accumulating Bitcoin, finding a remote, junior Rails developer, the site We Work Remotely, Jason’s new weight-loss plan,StrongLifts, the TV shows Continuum and Halt and Catch Fire, some details on the TechZing Summit, whether it’s harmful to let young kids use iPads, how Jason spent his youth fighting BB-gun wars, shooting tennis ball cannons and juggling burning tennis balls, Justin and Georgie’s plans for a natural childbirth,how zapping your brain with gamma waves can induce lucid dreaming, the possibility of interviewing the founder of AirPair, why Jason wouldn’t consider himself an expert in Titanium (or just about anything else for that matter), why it’s hard to give time estimates when developing software, what makes hell banning a pain to implement, why Internet bullying is the result of people not having any “skin in the game”, the promise-payoff matrix, Uber’s $1.4B raise,how the ridiculous Bitcoin predictions of Mark T. Williams have (predictably) been proven wrong, the difficulty of decoupling emotion from investing, the untraceability of DarkCoin and ideas on how to trade all of the new cryptocurrencies, how it’s now possible to build a complete mobile platform on .NET using Xamarin and EC2, why having more developers slows down development and the latest progress on Digedu’s “No DB” implementation.
259: TZ Discussion - Riding a Rocket Ship
Justin and Jason discuss the TechZing Summit, the last session of Catalyst, Uber’s new office and Jason’s thoughts on Uber’s rapid growth, Justin’s “no DB” project, how options work at most venture-funded startups, getting compensated in convertible debt, Jason’s experience with AirPair and why you should never do a fixed-bid project, shutting down AnyFu and some lessons learned about premature scaling, the latest on Empath and Disco, Vagrant, RabbitMQ and Composer, Justin’s DIY Soylent experiment and the problem with Soylent’s distribution strategy, Jason’s recap of a year spent coaching the 4th-grade math team, the book Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, Justin’s idea for an ancestor constitution, how Occam’s razor is a statistical syllogism and thus a logical fallacy, why people who write their names with initials seem smarter, Jason’s frustration with how mathematicians dismiss any mathematics that isn’t about proving theorems, and Izzy’s struggle with self-confidence.
258: TZ Discussion - A Sunday Evening with Justin and Jason
Justin and Jason discuss Jason’s night with the “Korean billionaires”, the 30 for 30 documentary The Opposition, the big Digedu demo, Justin’s excitement over Node.js and socket.io, why Jason turned down an IdeaLab company, how Justin finally sold Pluggio and the new side project he’s working on with Lance Jones and Joanna Wiebe called Disco, how CNBC contacted Jason about debating Mark Cuban on high-frequency trading, Jason’s phone call with Mark Groton and the subsequent Gawker leak, Empath and Jason’s YCombinator interview, the latest evidence debunking Washington’s claim about the Syrian sarin attack, and the possibility of hosting a TechZing summit.