Distilled

In this mostly technical episode, we discuss strategies for integrating caching strategy into your web service. Various methods of caching are considered, from fine to coarse granularity. Rails developers will rejoice. Everyone else will be envious and/or annoyed. Also, we played with Google Glass, so there's some conversation about that, too.

This frivolous episode discusses a number of aspects of applied humility, whether through personal and/or professional failure or through the all-eclipsing brilliance of others who raise the bar in status quo. Specifically, we discuss the startup funeral phenomenon, Elon Musk's hyperloop concept, and the generally epic awesomeness that are SpaceX and Tesla. It makes us feel small, but it's also inspiring. And hilarious.

In this deep dive technology discussion, we explore the ways we interact with information. This goes beyond the visual presentation of structured information. Users must understand the context of their actions. More importantly, users are not only working in a personal sandbox. They are interacting with other users and their data. Inevitably, this complexity leads to limitations as the user community scales. Discussion covers several aspects of data modeling as it relates to social network dynamics, with consideration for scalability.

In this episode, we entertain the notion that video chat has come full circle. When we were young, video chat was a technological impossibility. Now, we have it in our handheld devices. Still, adoption of this awesome technology has not reflected the amazing capabilities of modern devices. The reason is complex, largely driven by infrastructure requirements. Will you chat with your grandmother on your wrist watch? No. Wrist watches died in the 90s. It'll actually be in your brain, when you're ready.

After many months, we've finally revisited the topic of developer experience. That is, user experience where the user is a developer. We often think of developers as being immune to the dynamics of user experience, since they should know better. We are wrong. They don't know better. They're susceptible to the same emotional reactions as consumer users. In this episode, we tell you how to cater to these users to improve their experience when consuming your API products.

In a past episode (The Evolution of Manufacturing) and in several episodes since, we've talked about 3D printing and the future of manufacturing. In this episode, we expand on that idea as it pertains to the consumer market. There's also a healthy discussion of iOS 7 and the death of textural design. You're not going to want to miss this one.

The singularity is upon us! Well, almost... With this new service, you can use open-source software to design changes to any genome. You can then order a sample of the redesigned genetic material, and they'll ship it to you. It sounds like science fiction, but it's real and unregulated. You don't want to miss this hilarious discussion of some creative possible applications of genetic manipulation.

In this episode, Aubrey and Justin experiment with voice control, contrasting Siri with the Google search app. The results are staggering. Siri is very well suited to personal assistant tasks, but the voice interaction in the Google search app is noticeably faster. Also, Siri appears to humanize the results a bit more, whereas Google simply returns factual information. Google is clearly winning.

Often, we overlook the role authentication and identification play in the collection and organization of data. In this episode, we dig into a real world example of authentication in a crowdsourcing app. What counts as personally identifiable information (PII) and what is generic enough to provide uniqueness without explicitly identifying a user? Have a listen, and find out for yourself.

Many businesses encounter conflict and drama surrounding their intellectual property. Aubrey and Justin propose an alternative perspective. You can never fully protect yourself from copycats and competition. In the end, user experience is the primary driving force that ensures your product's success. So, instead of focusing on non-disclosure agreements in a hopeless attempt to protect unprotectable things, build something great and raise the bar with quality of experience.