Daniel and Adam are finally back together after a summer break, and there’s plenty to catch up on! Daniel kicks off the episode with tales of a surprise celebrity encounter during a Fourth of July run—turns out, podcast legend Larry Vader was in Orlando, leading to an epic lunch with Vader and Big Mama (fresh off a Disney cruise). Meanwhile, Adam returns from a whirlwind trip to Scotland, regaling Daniel with stories of white-knuckle driving on the “wrong” side of the road, run-ins with overly helpful Kias, and lessons in Scottish geography (including why “Inverness” means what it does).

Travel woes and culture shocks give way to a whiskey distillery adventure, complete with overpriced taxis, arbitrary “danger lines,” and a crash course in barley anatomy. Adam and Daniel muse on the mysteries of whiskey tasting and swap thoughts on the finer points of smoky vs. sweet spirits—ultimately agreeing that sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar (even when it’s whiskey). The duo dig into tech talk, AI industry hype, and the rise of “context engineering” for working with language models, with Daniel describing his move to structured XML prompts and providing a little inside baseball on how AI models really work.

Later, the “Contact” segment features a bumper crop of listener texts and voicemails—celebrity death updates, Pokémon rain gear theories, debates about banana reports, and Kathy Bacon’s grocery bill deep-dives. The News Game makes a triumphant return with questions about Texas floods, viruses, and James Gunn’s new Superman movie. To top it all off, Adam demos his new Ray-Ban “nerd glasses,” and Daniel gives a PSA about the real culprits behind your summer electric bill (hint: it’s not your LED light bulbs). As always, it’s a perfectly chaotic blend of tech, travel, trivia, and the signature banter fans love.

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