The Hacks

Tom is back from phase one of his paternity leave!  Chunga couldn't be happier, to have Tom back. He's also bouncing off the walls because the Vegas Golden Knights are one win away from the Stanley Cup! Although he hasn't been the biggest fan of VR headsets, Chunga thinks it'd be cool to watch the game in VR without actually having to go to the arena.

While Tom was out, Apple unveiled their new "Vision Pro" VR headset that, raised a lot of eyebrows. In past episodes of The Hacks, both Tom and Chunga have repeatedly said that VR is in a word--ridiculous. They've long believed its a passing fad and is doomed to fail, HTC tried to do it, Meta is still trying to do it, and both companies have lost hundreds of millions of dollars! So why is Apple attempting VR now, at a time when consumers have shown that they just don't want it--or do they?

In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga take a look at Apple's new, $3700 VR headset  and tell you why they think it may be a huge game changer that changes everyones preception about VR technology.  Listen Now!

Tom and Chunga are feeling nostalgic!  Recently, Tom was trying to explain to his daughters that music used to be fairly diffucult to get your hands on.  It took effort and commitment to find certain albums or CD's! 

Now days, getting music, now matter how new or old is a very easy thing to do thanks to an open source offering called Napster!  Both Tom and Chunga were huge fans of this decentralized, distributed file sharing platform. Although it was extremely popular, the very things that made it successful, also brought about it's eventual downfall.  In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga talk about the seeds of chaos that were planted by the Napster business model and how it changed virtually everything we do in todays world!  They also talk about if other decentralized, distributed computing platforms are doomed to suffer the same fate!

Tom loves learning new programming languages, always has. He even likes learning about the ones that he thinks are--in a word--crap!  Even though he has this obsession, he's always maintained that his favorite is Python.  

Recently, Tom came across a brand new programming language called "Mojo"!  Like Tom, it's safe to say that we're all fans of Python, generally speaking. However, Python is not without it's faults.  Thats where Mojo comes in. The Mojo development team is present it to the world as kind of a "Python + +".  Simply put, it addresses Pythons bigges problem, which is speed and takes actions to make it fast... Ok, ok, faster. It also claims to make a number of additional improvements, as well.

In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga everything they know so far about Mojo and they'll throw in a few other new programming languages for good measure.  Listen NOW!

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Every so often, Tom and Chunga like to have an episode that pays tribute to innovators that have not only changed the tech industry--they've changed the world. They call these special episodes, Super Nerd Spotlights!

In this episode of The Hacks, Tom & Chunga are showcasing an amazing woman named Hedy Lamarr! Does that name mean anything to you? Once upon a time she was a very famous actress, that had become a household name, worldwide. 

She was also a brilliant, self taught innovator! In fact, all of us, nearly every person on Earth, uses her inventions all day, every day. What was it? What is this world changing innovation that we should all be thanking her for?  Listen now to find out!

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Toms life has changed significantly over the past few days. Now that he has a new baby, he's spending more time at home and in his downtime, he's getting the chance to play some video games!

For reasons they can't quite figure out, Tom and Chunga haven't talked about video games for on The Hacks for a very long time, even though it's a massive segment of the tech industry. One of the games that Tom is most excited about right now is the new Legend of Zelda game! Experts are saying its going to take hundreds and hundreds of hours to complete.

In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga talk about the evolution of video games and how incredibly complex their construction and development has become. They also explore why some video games become legendary, billion dollar, classics and why others don't stand the test of time. Here's a hint, they both agree that the reasons have nothing to do with the actual tech.  What are they?  Listen now to find out!

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You may have noticed that The Hacks missed an episode last week.  We are proud to announce that Tom Hatch and his beautiful wife Melissa have had a baby!! Everyone is doing great and adapting quickly thanks to an abundance of new tech. Now days, even baby stuff is loaded with crazy new tech!

Technology is moving fast, everybody knows this. There a growing number of innovators and thinkers that believe it's moving way too fast, especially when it comes to A.I.. Jeffery Hinton is one of these people.  He's considered to be the "Godfather of A.I." and he just resigned from Google in order to speak out against his own creation. He says he regrets his entire life's work.  He also says the world needs to slow down and treat A.I. with extreme caution.

What do Tom and Chunga think?  Do they agree? Are these brilliant innovators right, and we're headed for disaster at the hands of A.I.? Listen NOW to find out!

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Odd's are, if you're working in the tech industry, you're also one of those people that still gets really nerdy when is comes time to get a new computer. Tom and Chunga are no different!

Chunga is really jealous today.  Tom just purchased a ridiculously cool new laptop! Plus, it has a new AMD processor that Tom claims is superior to Intels i9.

In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga are allowing themselves to be gear heads and talk about stunning new laptop hardware. During his search for this new laptop, Tom discovered that a lot of claims made by laptop manufacturers--while not completely false--are indeed very misleading! How powerful is your laptop? Are you sure?  Listen now to learn how to find out!

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The whole of the United States population has been scratching their collective heads for about a week now.  Everyone wants to know how it's possible for a 21-year old IT guy to have access to the nations most sensitive and secret information. Some of this information is extremely damaging to the U.S. Government.

Tom Hatch has a background in the U.S. Intelligence Community and feels a strong need to apologize on behalf of his former colleagues, who he says are honest, dedicated and very hard working professionals. He also has an explanation of how this time of thing happens. Here's a hint, over one million Americans have a top secret security clearance.

In this episode of The Hacks, Tom answers Chunga's questions about what it takes to gain and maintain a Government security clearance, and how its even possible for someone as young as 21 to have access to highly secret, and classified information.  They also discuss the charges and punishment thats associated with a crime of this magnitude and what--if anything--can be done to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

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Tom and Chunga were highly confused by last weeks episode of The Mandalorian. They came away from the story annoyed and wondering what happened!

This confusion reminded each of them about a situation thats currently happening with Idem Project. In the world of open source software, there are always two distinct masters that need to be served. There's the open source community, and then there's the customer. Sometimes their needs align--most of the time they don't. 

In this episode of The Hacks, Tom and Chunga talk about the respective challenges of trying to serve the needs of an open source community, while trying to please the software customers that are required in order for the project to succeed.  Listen NOW!

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Tom Hatch has had an incredible life!  To be clear, his life has been no bed of roses but it has been remarkable.  He's also had an amazing career as an innovator and thought leader. There are many who would say that Tom Hatch has changed the world.

Tom loves meeting and talking with people at trade shows, conventions and while lecturing around the world. One of the most common questions that people ask when the meet Tom is "If you could, what would you do differently"?

In this episode of The Hacks, Chunga asks that very question! If he could, what would Tom change about his life and do differently.  You may find the answers very surprising--shocking even. Listen now to find out what he said!

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