Technical Tea

Does Niki spend most of her time in the jungle with a cute hat and a whip? Or is she actually excavating herself out from a pile of grant applications? Does Huyen live in a hoodie and a dark room, illuminated by the green glow of her computer? Or is it really more meetings and getting people to write down what they're going to do as much as coding?

On this episode we talk more about what our jobs really are, what we like, what we like less, and what we think the future may be for future research scientists and software engineers.

In the future of this research scientist and software engineer? Perhaps a coffee date with a sparkly vampire named Elijah in Vienna?

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▶ A Day in the Life of a Scientist

00:17:09 Garden hermit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit

00:21:20 Figure 6: Tau-containing neurons in human Alzheimer's disease, human CTE, and muskox brain

"Evidence of traumatic brain injury in headbutting bovids" by Ackermans, N.L., Varghese, M., Williams, T.M. et al., Acta Neuropathologica, 2022 | Springer

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00401-022-02427-2#Fig6

00:26:42 The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog: And Other Serious Discoveries of Silly Science by Carly Anne York

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/carly-anne-york/the-salmon-cannon-and-the-levitating-frog/9781541605213/

00:27:11 New Law of Urination: Mammals Take 20 Seconds to Pee | National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/mammals-pee-20-seconds-biology-urination

▶ A Day in the Life of a Software Engineer

00:34:47 Software engineering | Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering

00:41:48 Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL) | University of Maryland

https://hcil.umd.edu/

00:47:27 Separation of concerns | Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns

00:52:38 The Mythical Man-Month | Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

00:55:28 What is GDPR, the EU's new data protection law? | GDPR.eu

https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/

01:01:17 5 mobile app features to help you work on the go | Trello Blog, Atlassian

https://www.atlassian.com/blog/trello/5-mobile-app-features

▶ This Month's *Sparkle*

01:24:04 Self Care Vampire - Mobile romance game trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joiSkuTOoq0

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Hosted by Nicole Ackermans and Huyen Tue Dao

▶ Follow us:

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▶ Follow Niki:

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"Headbutting goats self-inflict traumatic brain injury": https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.26.734585v1

"Goats love to bash heads—but it might give them brain damage": https://www.science.org/content/article/goats-love-bash-heads-it-might-give-them-brain-damage

▶ Follow Huyen:

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Website: https://randomlytyping.com

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▶ Intro/Outro, Music from #uppbeat, "Strangers In The Night (Acapella)" by Vocalista: https://uppbeat.io/music/tracks/vocalista/strangers-in-the-night-acapella

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Office Hours episodes are now available to everyone (although our wonderful patrons get them early)!

* These episodes are a bit different than our regular episodes so if you're not familiar with those, go listen to them first! *

Every month we hang out over a cup of tea and plan the next big episode. Well... mostly we chat and go off on tangents and it ends up being an entire show.

Enjoy :)

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In this Office Hours, Niki catches us up on the start of her Vienna adventures, and Huyen admits to getting taken in by the dopamine hits on the modest success so far of Technical Tea (thank you our patrons and people that engage with our content with likes and contents; so grateful). In spite of the fun of the dopamine hit and even with "good" content, how are we feeling about our relationship to social media, especially being content creators? How are we using or not using AI? How does misogyny and patriarchy show up in weird ways like on the ISS (and wasteful and ridiculous it is)? Well, stop in front of our purple and pink painted soap box and hear us chat about it, and TONS of other random things.

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Hosted by Nicole Ackermans and Huyen Tue Dao

▶ Follow us:

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Twitch: https://twitch.tv/technicalteashow

▶ Follow Niki:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nicoleackermans.com

Website: https://nicoleackermans.com

▶ Follow Huyen:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/queencodemonkey.dev

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queencodemonkey

Website: https://randomlytyping.com

▶ Intro/Outro, Music from “Strangers In The Night (Acapella)” by Vocalista: https://uppbeat.io/music/tracks/vocalista/strangers-in-the-night-acapella

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In our Halloween episode, a French zombie and a Vampire Witch experience Leech Mania talking about Hirudo Medicinalis, spring-loaded lancets, and fancy leech jars. We like to keep the humor(s) high around here: black bile and phglegm specifically. What form will the Zombiepocalypse take? Is it rabies (rabid whales, what?), prion disease (legit terrifying), or cordyceps (coming for the last of us)? Our listeners share their eponym experiences. Niki slaps on some anti-AI-slop stickers. Huyen is still an otaku (and a brimmed cap).

Full show notes available at: https://www.technicaltea.show/003-tech-vampires-and-science-zombies/

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03:16 Tech Vampires!

35:56 Patron Thanks

36:48 Science Zombies!

55:36 Listener Feedback

59:12 Something We Enjoyed This Month

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Hosted by Nicole Ackermans and Huyen Tue Dao

▶ Follow us:

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▶ Follow Niki:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nicoleackermans.com

Website: https://nicoleackermans.com

▶ Follow Huyen:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/queencodemonkey.dev

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queencodemonkey

Website: https://randomlytyping.com

▶ Intro/Outro, Music from “Strangers In The Night (Acapella)” by Vocalista: https://uppbeat.io/music/tracks/vocalista/strangers-in-the-night-acapella

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why do we name birds, beetles, telescopes, and principles after people? The good, the bad, the weird. Is there Death of the Author for Eponyms? Why infinitely optimizing (and going 5mph over the speed limit) may not work. Why, we would love to stop adding exclamation points to our emails! Never have I ever been an apothecary.

[0:23] Eponym

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eponym

▶ Eponyms in Biology

[1:26] Carl Linnaeus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Linnaeus

[1:42] Aptostichus barackobamai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptostichus_barackobamai

[2:18] Eponyms have no place in 21st-century biological nomenclature

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d418aae4-a28c-43e9-8713-91cb3139b9e2/files/spc289k55v

[2:45] Anophthalmus hitleri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anophthalmus_hitleri

[4:17] Agathidium vaderi Miller, K. B. & Q. D. Wheeler, 2005

https://www.gbif.org/taxon/65QRM

[4:48] Paramesonephric duct

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramesonephric_duct

[4:53] Johannes Peter Müller

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Peter_M%C3%BCller

[4:55] Golgi apparatus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golgi_apparatus

[4:58] Camillo Golgi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camillo_Golgi

[5:01] Fallopian tube

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallopian_tube

[5:02] G-spot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-spot

[5:51] De-eponymising anatomical terminology

https://litfl.com/de-eponymising-anatomical-terminology/

[6:29] Where are all the Women?

https://litfl.com/where-are-all-the-women/

[8:37] Bird Names for Birds

https://birdnamesforbirds.wordpress.com

▶ Eponyms in Technology

[20:22] Amdahl's law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law

[27:33] Amdahl's Law for AI coding

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BrPB-j6ObY0

[30:06] The Mythical Man-Month

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

[31:29] Liskov substitution principle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liskov_substitution_principle

[31:40] Object-oriented programming

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming

[31:56] Liskov substitution principle - Architectural Patterns

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/architectural-patterns/9781787287495/cf7feec3-2c90-43f7-a3e5-19148eb48cd3.xhtml

[32:39] Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/

[32:41] Who Is Nancy Grace Roman?

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/who-is-nancy-grace-roman/

[34:58] Nancy Grace Roman with the James Webb Space Telescope

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nancy_Grace_Roman_with_the_James_Webb_Space_Telescope_(42127816211).jpg

[36:26] NASA once again declines to rename the James Webb Space Telescope

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137762508/nasa-declines-rename-james-webb-space-telescope-report

[36:37] Lavender Scare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_Scare

[37:40] NASA policy discourages naming missions after individuals

https://spacenews.com/nasa-policy-discourages-naming-missions-after-individuals/

▶ Something We Enjoyed This Month

[50:47] Never Have I Ever: Stories by Isabel Yap

https://isabelyap.com/never-have-i-ever

[53:58] The Apothecary Diaries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apothecary_Diaries

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Hosted by Nicole Ackermans and Huyen Tue Dao

▶ Follow us:

Website: https://technicaltea.show

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▶ Follow Niki:

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Website: https://randomlytyping.com

▶ Intro/Outro, Music from “Strangers In The Night (Acapella)” by Vocalista: https://uppbeat.io/music/tracks/vocalista/strangers-in-the-night-acapella

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We recorded office hours and, as we do, had a chat full of tangents while we figured out how to set up our livestream. Take a peak behind the scenes! This episode is free for all, however in the future, office hours will be provided to patrons only.

Support the show at https://www.patreon.com/cw/TechnicalTeaShow

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Hosted by Nicole Ackermans and Huyen Tue Dao

Edited by Anthony Lemos

▶ Follow us:

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Welcome to the very first episode of Technical Tea! Our theme this month is make-up, but not how you think!

What is CV Dazzle and will it empower Niki to roller derby vs. a hundred duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck? Would Huyen prefer Vibranium Breasts over Super Speed and would either be the ideal superpower with which to build a dream Omni-tool Cyberdeck?

CV dazzle https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle

Cyberdecks on the rise: https://www.wired.com/story/cyberdecks-tiktok-ube-boobey-diy-computer-gadget/

• The clam phone from 'It Follows': I’m Still Thinking About the Clam Phone in ‘It Follows’

• Happy Snacking, Don't Die by Alexis Nicole
• Dr. Niki's goat research featured by Science Magazine
• Ologies' menopause episodes
• JIMOTHY: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimothy_(raccoon)

• Brick: https://getbrick.com/
• Dungeon Crawler Carl (and just reading a real book): https://mattdinniman.com/books/dungeon-crawler-carl/

If you have feedback, questions, or anything you want to share with us, send us an email at

[email protected] or use the contact form on our website

Thanks to Amos for editing and Tom Merritt, our Executive Barista

Hosted by Nicole Ackermans and Huyen Tue Dao

▶ Follow Technical Tea:

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Support the show on Patreon and get ad-free episodes!

https://www.patreon.com/cw/TechnicalTeaShow

▶ Follow Niki:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nicoleackermans.com

Website: https://nicoleackermans.com

“Headbutting goats self-inflict traumatic brain injury”: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.26.734585v1

“Goats love to bash heads—but it might give them brain damage”: https://www.science.org/content/article/goats-love-bash-heads-it-might-give-them-brain-damage

▶ Follow Huyen:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/queencodemonkey.dev

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queencodemonkey

Website: https://randomlytyping.com

▶ Follow Daily Tech News Show:

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Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/dailytechnewsshow

Website: http://dailytechnewsshow.com

▶ Intro/Outro, Music from #uppbeat, “Strangers In The Night (Acapella)” by Vocalista

https://uppbeat.io/music/tracks/vocalista/strangers-in-the-night-acapella

License code: NZDVYWGLVBIFPAMN

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Come find Technical Tea wherever podcasts are found!

website: https://www.technicaltea.show/

ans @TechnicalTea.Show on Instagram and Bsky

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the pilot episode of Technical Tea before we came up with a name for it! We tested it out during Experiment Week on DTNS and your feedback was good enough that it is now becoming a real show!

DTNS Live, Nerdtacular 2026: Science vs. Tech | https://www.youtube.com/live/o_UmCyk1oKU

- A blood test that screens for multiple types of cancer? It may be available soon | https://www.npr.org/2026/06/21/nx-s1-5858691/blood-test-multi-cancer-early-detection-mced

• ONE35 V2 Camera | https://joinflashback.co/en-us/products/flashback-one35-v2-camera
• The Commodore Callback 8020 Is a Digital Detox Phone That Isn't Dumb | https://www.wired.com/story/commodore-callback-8020-is-a-digital-detox-phone-that-isnt-dumb

• Mission / purpose in the age of AI for software engineers: Why Software Engineers Are Grieving | https://dev.jimgrey.net/2026/06/25/why-software-engineers-are-grieving
• What It Means to Be a Mathematician When AI Does the Math | https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-in-mathematics

• HMD Barbie™ Phone 4G | https://www.hmd.com/en_int/hmd-barbie-phone?sku=1GF030APC1L01

• iNaturalist | https://www.inaturalist.org
• Merlin Bird ID | https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org

Poem by Joesph Fasano

https://poets.org/poem/student-who-used-ai-write-paper

Thanks to Amos for editing and Roger Change for Producing, and to the whole DTNS family for letting us test out the show!

Hosted by Nicole Ackermans and Huyen Tue Dao

▶ Follow us:

Website: https://technicaltea.show

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/technicaltea.show

Instagram: https://instagram.com/technicalteashow

▶ Follow Niki:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nicoleackermans.com

Website: https://nicoleackermans.com

“Headbutting goats self-inflict traumatic brain injury”: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.26.734585v1

“Goats love to bash heads—but it might give them brain damage”: https://www.science.org/content/article/goats-love-bash-heads-it-might-give-them-brain-damage

▶ Follow Huyen:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/queencodemonkey.dev

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queencodemonkey

Website: https://randomlytyping.com

▶ Follow Daily Tech News Show:

YouTube: https://youtube.com/dailytechnewsshow

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/dailytechnewsshow

Website: http://dailytechnewsshow.com

▶ Intro/Outro, Music from #uppbeat, “Strangers In The Night (Acapella)” by Vocalista

https://uppbeat.io/music/tracks/vocalista/strangers-in-the-night-acapella

License code: NZDVYWGLVBIFPAMN

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.