A special episode, an audio roundup/summary of the last year’s podcasts. I cover the 19 episodes I did starting in June last year. A year of thinking out loud.

* The inaugural episode riffing on the like-new ethos of the industrial age and the transience/aging based ethos of the digital age. June 21, 2019: A Wabi-Sabi Technological Age.

* On the problem of how to repeatedly break into technology scenes. July 5, 2019: Following the Scenius.

* Plotting vs. pantsing, and setting the stage for creative, generative work vs. planning to finish something. July 26, 2019: Planning to Start, Planning to Finish.

* An episode on how marketing is now a bottom-up process with 3 layers: memes, brands, and missions. August 2, 2019: Memes, Brands, and Missions.

* On why social media favors positive behaviors such as clicking like buttons, but not negative ones like mute and block. August 23, 2019: Towards Subtractive Social Media.

* Investing in the things that make you ordinary rather than special, such as being an early adopter. August 30, 2019: Investing in Your Ordinary Powers.

* Probably my favorite thread of the first year, building an analogy between charismatic megafauna and technologies, built around a 2x2 of non-marquee vs. marquee, and smoke-and-mirrors vs. WYSIWYG. September 6, 2019: Technological Charisma.

* Riffing on the problem of how injecting AI into a system breaks learning curves for humans. September 20, 2019: Like Riding an AI Bicycle.

* Next up, another episode based on a 2x2, this one has normal versus weird on the x axis, and timid vs. bold on the y axis. September 27, 2019: The Direction of Maximal Derangement.

* Picking up the thread on charismatic technologies from September 6, an episode about an idea to replace the concept of Net Neutrality, based on the end-to-end principle, with one based on end-to-end encryption. October 4, 2019: Charisma Neutrality.

* A reflection on the death of Alexey Leonov and the first spacewalk with two women, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. October 18, 2019: Spacewalks and the Species.

* Putting together ideas from Alan Kay, William Gibson to think about how December 6, 2019: Inventing Time

* Navigating time in ways that go beyond optimism and pessimism. February 21: Beyond Optimism and Pessimism

* The first pandemic episode. The word default has two meanings: failure to fulfill an obligation, and a preselected option. Both meanings became very salient with the pandemic. April 3, 2020: Defaults and Defaults.

* A riff on Marc Andreessen’s Time to Build essay which was doing the rounds then, based on a graphic I made up called the Builder’s Cone, comparing the relative rates at which you adapt versus society adapts. April 24, 2020. How, What, and Where to Build

* One of the things I’ve been doing with the pandemic is reading a lot of history that seems relevant. Through most of May and June, I was reading Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror. An episode inspired by that. May 8, 2020: The Medieval Future of Management.

* In May, we had the BLM protests and that seemed to bump the pandemic from the headlines. What was the significance of that? May 29, 2020. From Story to Setting

* Connecting the idea of big moods to emotional common knowledge, and a complementary concept I made up called little moods. June 19, 2020. Big Moods, Little Moods.

* Probably my most popular episode from the last year, a detailed look at the concepts of elites and elitism, how elites fail, and how to get better elites. July 10, The Next Experiments in Elitism.

Get full access to Contraptions at contraptions.venkateshrao.com/subscribe