[londons_explore]

I think the interviewer 'acts' dumb, because then the resulting video requires less pre-knowledge to understand.

The video goes from something that 100,000 people with a computer architecture background might watch to something that 10,000,000 people with a tech background might watch.

[nickysielicki]

That's fair, I think you're right.

Selfishly, though, as someone who doesn't work at Intel/nvidia/AMD but is interested in architecture and digital design, it's frustrating how hard it is to find candid opinions from industry experts in comparison to software. Computer architecture just isn't the same in terms of attitude.

One of my favorite things about the computer architecture courses I took was to sit after class and ask my professors about something I'd read about, and more often than not they'd tell me that what I read was bullshit and nobody seriously considered it in the industry, or they'd tell me about something they were excited about that I hadn't heard of. It's hard to get a handle on where the industry is heading and what important people see as the next steps to iterate on.

A general conversation is probably more useful to most people, but there are a lot of times in this conversation where you get the feeling that Keller is right on the precipice of giving an insider prediction of the future, and the topic shifts instead. It's frustrating because those types of conversations are just straight-up difficult to find elsewhere.

[polytely]

Have you listened to https://oxide.computer/podcast/ ?

It's has more depth than Friedman's podcast, I listen to it mainly for the computing history because they interview people about their careers. I hope they do another season soon

[kasabali]

This podcast has a similar problem too. Right when you think the guest is into something, Cantrill rants about a tangential thing and the topic chances afterwards.

I normally enjoy Cantrill's rants, I watch his talks on YouTube solely for listening him rant, but it gets annoying when interviewing a guest.

[bcantrill]

Sorry about that -- still learning how to effectively interview! (If there are specific examples you can cite, that would actually be helpful; I am trying to get better at this.)

[kasabali]

Hi, thanks for hearing!

Unfortunately I don't have specific examples in mind since it has been few months listening the podcast but I remember the episode with Jonathan Blow being a prominent one, because I was new to him, his rants and game development in general, and it felt like every time he was onto something interesting you were ranting about a related issue and after that he was proceeding with his next point without concluding the previous one. At least it felt to me that way.

I hope that didn't sound like I'm complaining. I'm a big fan of you guys and it's a great podcast. I could listen to 100 episodes :)

[bcantrill]

Yeah, the Jonathan Blow episode seems to be the one where that criticism comes up. We generally haven't edited them at all (one take, no cuts), and that one was just too long to realistically edit -- but we probably should have edited some of me out. The perils of a three hour conversation!

[specialist]

Yup.

He asked plasma physicist Alexander Fridman (his father) to clarify what plasma is.

I love it.

Hearing Knuth, Penrose, Fridman's own definition of concepts of things I thought I knew is illuminating. Like allowing us norms to get a peek into their genius.