Geek Speak with Lyle Troxell

Latest Episodes:

Large Language Models and Human Minds Jun 06, 2023

Show notes

Most people say LLM are just language prediction systems… but how do human minds work comparatively? Can ChatGPT think, understand, or comprehend? Can you?
It’s been a while since Ben, Brian, and Lyle geeked out… join us.

Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4 - Microsoft Research

Tech News and Non Woo Meditation Jun 01, 2022

Show notes

NFT insider trading, tech experts urge to resist Crypto industry influences, larges plant is a Sea Grass in Australia, Safari is popular, Microsoft Excel reduces remote data types – and Lyle’s hot take on meditation.

Delegate, Automate, Concentrate Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

Quincy Larson is founder and CEO of the non-profit software school freeCodeCamp, where anyone can go and lear to program for free. Quincy is making real change in the world.

This episode was recorded for my podcast Lunch with Lyle

Quincy mentioned two corses on freeCodeCamp
- Learn Responsive Web Design by Building 20 Projects
- Relational Database Course

The Software Arts: Algorithm - Arithmetic Jan 04, 2022

Show notes

Professor Warren Sack joins me to speak about the history of Algorithm, including Donald Knuth – Art of Computer Programing, Five Axioms of Algorithms, and When Computers Were Human.

This is Part 1 of 2 on Algorithm.

Lasers for listening and seeing, music production, and recycling Sep 16, 2021

Show notes

In this non-edited episode of GeekSpeak Lyle calls Ben impromptu to chat about using lasers for listening to rooms remotely, lasers being used to view into rooms, Ben’s recent focus on Music Production, and finally a story about California being better about communicating recycling possibilities on packaging.

Internal Company Podcasts, Some Thoughts Jan 27, 2021

Show notes

Due to the popularity of the WeAreNetflix podcast I am contacted a bit about my thoughts on company podcasts. The WeAreNetflix podcast started off based on an internal only podcast that Michael Paulson and I started as a hack-day project.
This episode is 20min of me talking about company internal podcasts. Feel free to ask me questions about this episode on twitter. -@lyle

Lower Street - an example podcast provider
One example of a company providing Private Podcast support – I have no affiliation.
- Blog Building an Internal Company Podcast
- Create, Publish, Host & Secure Your Private Podcast | Lower Street
How To Launch A Private Podcast With Exclusive Access
Episode with Michael Paulson - Engineering FlatBuffers Programing sans JSON
WeAreNetflix Podcast

Wildfire-Caused Water Contamination Sep 07, 2020

Show notes

The San Lorenzo Valley in Santa Cruz County has a partial Do Not Drink / Do Not Boil order in affect: is that order appropriate, what causes Wildfire water contamination, and what are good actions we as a community can take?

Our guest is Andrew J Whelton, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering at Purdue University.

Professor Whelton has studied two other Wildfires in California with water contamination and has some thoughts on our situation for the #CZULightningComplex

Topics by Time
13:49 Water Utility vs State Responsibility
22:28 Can you smell VOCs
24:07 Danger Long Term vs Acute
25:11 Stuck in the Pipes?
26:28 SVOCs
27:18 Can we just flush the system?
29:47 If you lived here…
31:00 Activate Mutual Aid
31:47 Testing Issues – UCSC help?
34:13 When would you be less concerned
36:49 What changes should we make?
39:15 California level issue?
43:20 Take Aways
44:24 Home Water Treatment
Wildfire caused widespread drinking water distribution network contamination - Proctor - 2020 - AWWA Water Science - Wiley Online Library
San Lorenzo Valley Water District
Fire Response, How You Can Help – Community Foundation Santa Cruz County
Listener Miles Z made some notes while listening - here they are:
In case of doubt, consult the interview, as I am not an expert. The notes are about in the same order as the interview. ~~=miles=~~

Contamination and Testing/Monitoring

The state (CA) only requires the water district to test at the source of the water, i.e. where they start pumping it into the distribution system. The rest (downstream testing) is up to the water district.

Contamination can come from multiple sources, including backflow when the system becomes depressurized and air contaminated with smoke leaks into the pipes. It can also result from homes that were equipped with plastic pipes that burned. As well as the pipes we know about that burned, i.e. the 5 miles of HDPE pipe through the forest.

The monitoring tests that the water district routinely runs downstream are limited to only particular VOC

20 Years of Ubiquitous Rust Aug 18, 2020

Show notes

Dedi finds a wifi solution they like, Greg is on the road for the first time since the pandemic, Miles is playing with Rust, and Lyle is happy to have the Geeks virtually together to celebrate 20 years of hosting the show.

Motivations of Podcasting and Fretless Instruments Aug 11, 2020

Show notes

Ben Jaffe deciding to end his fantastic podcast Linear Digressions, Lyle celebrating 20 years hosting GeekSpeak, and geeking out on playing instruments that do not have “frets” like the Cello and Trombone.