Weird Things

Supersonic Dreams and Toxic Cats


Listen Later

The episode opens with a discussion of Boom Supersonic and its attempt to revive commercial supersonic air travel. The hosts talk about Boom's successful test flight of a scaled-down prototype, the plan for the Overture airliner, the role of Japan Airlines, and the history of Concorde, including sonic booms, U.S. restrictions on supersonic flight, and the Concorde's drooping nose and hot exterior. A large middle section focuses on AI as practical tooling: how to prompt ChatGPT and vision models more effectively, how OCR and form-filling could save huge amounts of time, and how Andrew's robot demo uses GPT-4 vision to navigate toward butter in a 3D simulation. The discussion expands into agent-style systems such as Cognition Labs' Devon, AI-assisted research and source gathering, productivity gains in editing and transcription, and the idea that AI is best understood as very powerful software rather than a magical wish box. The final stretch moves through several offbeat stories: a Montana Franken sheep case, a feral hog joke discussion, a toxic cat from a plating factory in Japan, and then a long conversation about Dune: Part Two. On Dune, they debate Paul Atreides' moral ambiguity, Chani's role, prophecy, the Butlerian Jihad, and whether the adaptation captures the complexity and unease of the book. Key topics Commercial supersonic aviation revival: Boom Supersonic is discussed as trying to build a modern supersonic airliner, with a successful prototype test flight, a plan f
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Weird ThingsBy Andrew Mayne

  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5

4.5

329 ratings


More shows like Weird Things

View all
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! by NPR

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

38,950 Listeners

Stuff To Blow Your Mind by iHeartPodcasts

Stuff To Blow Your Mind

5,667 Listeners

Fat Man Beyond by SModcast Network

Fat Man Beyond

3,930 Listeners

Big Picture Science by Big Picture Science

Big Picture Science

945 Listeners

Film Sack by Scott Johnson

Film Sack

1,377 Listeners

This Week in Tech (Audio) by TWiT

This Week in Tech (Audio)

3,059 Listeners

MacBreak Weekly (Audio) by TWiT

MacBreak Weekly (Audio)

2,013 Listeners

Our Fake History by PodcastOne

Our Fake History

3,482 Listeners

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know by iHeartPodcasts

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know

10,365 Listeners

Ridiculous History by iHeartPodcasts

Ridiculous History

4,561 Listeners

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum by Dan Carlin

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Addendum

8,312 Listeners

The Michael Shermer Show by Michael Shermer

The Michael Shermer Show

941 Listeners

The Political Orphanage by Andrew Heaton

The Political Orphanage

982 Listeners

How We Survive by Marketplace

How We Survive

1,377 Listeners

OpenAI Podcast by OpenAI

OpenAI Podcast

59 Listeners