High Risk/High Reward: Stories from my Life in Technology

An exciting topic: Edge Computing, an emerging market. IoT, microcontrollers, and other digital or analog sensors that collect, preprocess, and deliver data to feed the multitudes of systems hungry for real world data. Explores the maker culture and gives props to leaders like Adafruit for thought and social leadership producing and promoting tools to create the next generation of product developers. Art, science, math, movement, and magic come together at the workstations of unconventional engineers who are understand more than just had to wrangle bits, but also to create performance art and purpose-built tools. Power management, alternative energy sources and low energy designs are being explored and mastered. A new generation of geeky artistic scientist/engineer/makers are preparing to let their presence be known. Inside these communities are wonderful virtues of tolerance, acceptance, love, peace and the sharing of knowledge.Also covered are my typical rants and pleas around IoT and edge computing device security and privacy. I provide a really cute anecdote that connects a fledgling early prototype of the Jibo robot with none other than the Beatles (should be subtitled: tales from the Pool House).I tried new recording techniques on vocal and musical content. All music/noise is my own except for 8 seconds or so of a rare Beatles song, and a background electric guitar/drums riff that sounds a tad like electrified Angie by the Stones. Opens with a few seconds of my new Taylor AD12e over a drumbeat, then goes into background levels and plays out a psychotic hour long electric guitar jam with some new audio equipment that explores many tones and textures. At the end is a select clip from that jam at foreground audio levels to play out the episode. As usual, the music is bizarre and includes some really good stuff and some misses. When I "stream of consciousness jam", I don't think. I just feel and play. Occasionally, failure to think can hurt. More often, it creates something interesting and oddly compelling (so says the writer/performer). Episode image is a portion of my office #2 where I do my hardware work just piled with components where I make edge computing devices--primarily artsy things.That desk is piled 4X high with active p

A new episode may March 17, 2021 with typical potpourri of inter-tangled subjects including software development, music, quantum physics, and dogs. At the end it includes a new song composed, performed, and produced within one hour same day. This is another electronica song built 100% from digital samples, loops, and synthesizers/software instruments. I make a provocative comment that I tease throughout the episode of why software and music are THE SAME THING. I connect the dots to this but still leave it somewhat as a thought experiment. "Dogs are the best invention ever" is a comment I made to my partner Sue that day. I clarify that software and music are the same thing, but dogs, software and music are not all the same thing. I think if you listen to the episode and stick with it the full hour you should come away agreeing with my proclamation that "software and music are the same thing."Image for this episode is just a picture of me at my desk taken by Mac's Photo Booth app this week. I like this picture because it replaced all the ridiculous pictures I was using a profile pics of me in a suit and tie. I happen to love to get dressed up and had two weddings (Sue's son Spencer and his wife Bri, and my daughter Jackie and her husband Drew). This new photo is a more accurate picture of what I typically look like. However, even in this pic I am a bit more dressed up than my typical Levis and rock and roll t-shirts.

I urge us all to do more "sciencing". We must search forever for more information and insight into our cosmic circumstance. I'm a little Mars crazed right now and highlight the rock formation referred to as "the harbor seal" as one of the amazing images coming in from the rover Percy.Short, quick, loud, and sciency. Art, science, research, experiment, learn, strive to understand. Think. Ask.Songs are both from Pandemic Richie and the Quarantined. Opener is End of Times (aka Closing of an Error), end sound is The Observer, my bizarre musical celebration of quantum physics. All is just saying: "Get out there and do some science(ing)."

A pure celebration of geekdom and nerd squads. As I said to my daughter just before recording this: "I'm like a super geekazoid, huh?" Her answer: "Yeah you are." Aha! Someone agrees with me! This episode stays in the technical domain. There's a lot to talk about in the world of computers and the components that enable them. We will be going from a discussion of Raspberry Pi to the Apple M1 creating a mighty hunger for some Apple Pie.I received a parcel from across the pond today. It contained a Raspberry Pi Pico, the new $4 programmable microprocessor, arriving from the England. The Pi Pico intrigues me because I have already thought of some cool projects to use them for. One of the projects is a sweet Valentine's oriented couple's project: to merge my sweetie Sue's hobby (arts and crafts) with my geeky creations to create something interesting and fun. Now I just have to implement at least part of it by Valentine's day because I think this is a clever, unique, interesting way to bring our leisure hobbies together. How much more (super geek) romantic could something be? I am not joking about this either.I had already been in the middle of several Raspberry Pi projects using Pi Zero W, several Pi 3bs, and a Pi 4/4GB RAM. The image for this episode shows some of the Pi boards, my soldering workstation, and peripheral components such as a hi quality camera, sound cards and synthesizers, a breadboard and other cool nerd toys. If you look closely, there's a yellow CD case from Symantec C++, a product I worked on while working at Symantec in the early 1990s. It's there as a reminder and behind it are some Jibo robots. I "stage" my work areas to always include something inspirational whether a book, product, picture, guitar, piece of some product from my 40 years as a maker, or pictures of puppies.Many products are mentioned. None paid or asked for placement. This remains an non-monetized, unbiased, rant-oriented podcast series. But at the end I hint that one of the companies should consider sponsoring me in some way based on the plans I have to do business with them.Music is just some pre-Super Bowl snippets from a 45 minute, high gain, loud, experimental jam. It was like driving a Mustang Cobra with 600 Horsepower on the verge of losing its grip on the pavement. This is why we love tubes. The responsiveness and added harmonic content is delicious and oh so satisfying. Apologies to Ms Sue. I played super duper loud pushing all 4 tubes in the recording chain to their limits and letting the Tele bridge pickup work it's magic. Played on Liz The Firecracker (2020 Squier by Fender Affinity Tele with special upgrades) through Blackstar Studio 10 KT88 with new Genalex Gold Lion tubes for both the 12AX7 preamp and KT88 power amp. Another Gold Lion in the SM57's signal chain pointed two inches off center of the Celestion, and an Electro Harmonix 12AX7 LPS in the Rode NT5 room mics signal chain. All tubes hand selected and modern Russian-made reissues of the classic British tubes.Blah, blah, blah. My intros are longer than the episodes!

Partially a political rant, but some interesting technology advice and life enhancing practices. This is my longest to date. Rather than edit it down, I decided that even the tangental subjects all contributed to the message. It's a message of hope, a call for accountability, a sincere question how we break the political gridlock, sprinkled with life stories that somehow, in my head at least, relate.Because of some of the political/social commentary, I think I swear at about 3X the usual amount. The content isn't dirty or otherwise inappropriate. I just had a case of potty mouth. Recorded into the wee hours of the morning. I did almost no processing on the audio. I clipped two loose recordings of a song I am working on acoustic guitar. The recording quality is fine and the acoustic sounds nice, but the performance of the song (which is really 2 sections for a 10 minute suite of songs, is not yet production quality. Nor is the song done. The actual title of the original piece is "Things We Can't Say" but I renamed the sections in light of the topics here. I had an insanely busy week and barely touched a guitar, keyboard, or microphone. That might explain the anger that seeps into this episode. DJT fans may not enjoy this episode, unless they are the type who seek all points of view (if such a person exists). I even talk about hearing the same news story on ABC News followed by hearing it on Fox News while waiting for takeout Thai food.January is the month of my daughter's wedding and for that reason it is always a month to remember. The title Formember is a mash up of forget/remember. Although her birthday is not much of a topic, I will share a lovely picture of her, her husband, my sweetheart Sue and I. I believe I mention how I fell for Sue at age 16 and the experience of meeting 22 years after our last in person meeting. What's a political rant without a little bit of classic romance?

A shorter form episode discussing my befuddling fascination with Raspberry Pi devices, the small single board computers and microcontrollers. Today I was smitten with the new Pi Pico. Joanne, my robot overlord, introduces the podcast and we close out with a brief jam called Fuzzmi (a combination of Fuzz and Jimi).

A very short and extra strange podcast. It features my first guest speaker. After a minute or two talking it goes directly into a song written especially for today January 20, 2021. The episode is called "The End of an Error" and the song is "End of Times". Rich had a little too much fun with geek toys. The podcast is spoken by a simply Python program using Joanne's voice, an AWS robotic voice, followed by a minute of the meat puppet before the synthesizers and 808 drum machines steal the show.Never fear brave rockers. I have not abandoned neither my distorted maniacal guitar tones nor foregone the docile sounds of the acoustic. I was just feeling a tad discordant and wanted to make something nasty. The song fails at nasty and ends up with an uplifting lilt. I am still displaying the nervous tick from the extreme time signature tight rope I walked. Listen to the way the little riff slides in twice before disappearing into the half nothingland. My goal when writing the piece was to take all the rules of music composition I knew and toss them out the window. The song groves with a pure and perfect inner metronome bearing no resemblance to other devices of its ilk. For some reason I really like the tune. Warning: may cause you to convulse for the duration of the piece. Recorded entirely using Akai MPK Mini and assorted software instruments under a jazz shuffle played on electronic drums.

A short episode to kick off 2021. Subjects include luck and what I found simply by looking down.The image for this episode shows examples of quartz including a piece with two garnets found right here in my yard.There's a track at the end that I call "Cruel Year Blues (rough mix)". It's the Telecaster known as "Liz the Firecracker" solo through several warm tube amps over a rock drum beat recorded New Year's Eve (Dec 31, 2020). The beginning has a solo acoustic snippet from the song "The Art of Harmonic Negotiation" from about a minute and twenty seconds into the song (full version on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/rich-sadowsky-468824781/the-art-of-harmonious-negotiation). The SoundCloud track includes an explanation of the title. Here we use just a few seconds. The full song is rather interesting and well recording.All recordings done between Dec 31, 2020 and Jan 2, 2021 with final production, editing and publishing done on Jan 3, 2021. All tracks and voice recorded in Sturbridge, MA. You might notice how loud and full voice for podcast is. Used some new recording techniques and mastering tools. Also as is my practice there are two microphones into different tube preamps and each is hard panned to one channel. This creates a fuller, more interesting tone.Please note: in the voice portion of podcast I mention guitar parts inspired by John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. However, the clip I included did not sample that portion of the song. So you might not hear any influence there. The end clip is inspired by the classic Booker T and the MGs song Green Onions raised to the G key with some modern fuzz and tube saturation added.

Some strong statements about software development and choosing it as a lifestyle. It's all good fun until someone squelches your creativity. Or stuffs you in box with too many walls and obstructions. You've probably done this to someone yourself. We all do. But we shouldn't. There's a real cost to the lost innovation. The grind yields 1X of the capacity of a team. A disruptive creation could be a game changer. Not just could be, it is likely to be. People innovate and solve for their biggest absorbed pain, or for the customers, or their coworkers. Give me a 1X return with 0% breakthrough bet and I'll pass. Give me a 90% grind output plus 10% chaos theory running amok, any day. You won't beat 1X return every roll of the dice, but imagine the outcome of it coming up once every 3.5 rolls on average or even every 6. In a year you can blow the lid off the norm. IMO you have to do this. Because the grind never wins. Anyone can do it. And the human cost is toxic and counter-productive. Vote a little chaos in 2021 to experience some growth.There's a strange snippet of a protest song called "Depleted Optimism". It's about how we take people, get them excited, and then stuff them unceremoniously in a box that all but assures low quality results. It's a really rampant problem. I have some ideas on how to solve it.Later we visit a new song and an old song both written by Dennis DeYoung, formerly of Styx. One is Dennis' hard hitting "With All Due Respect", also a protest song, that rages at the media (and more--the top of the food chain). This is probably Dennis' greatest rock song ever. Performed and video made through the pandemic with home made video. Long live rock and roll. I utilize "Fair Use" doctrine to sample a very short segment just to make you hip to the song and go consume it fully and legally on youtube. Legality ends there when I play one of my favorite songs to play/sing on acoustic guitar, and one of my all around favorite songs: Suite Madame Blue. Not Dennis. Me. But a different take and only one minute long. Takes you from a room into a cavern as it builds from the farce about the song being about a woman and lets loose on the true subject: America.The overall audio quality is good. I have been building new signal chains, mastering techniques, getting better equipment and using Apple Logic Pro to produce. Rode NT5 AND Shure SM57 used on all takes on guitar and vocals. Both ran through high quality Russian-made 12AX7 preamp tubes (a Genalex Gold Lion and Electro Harmonix 12AX7s). Acoustic Seagull Maritime SWS Mahogany HG. Three tracks vocals achieving space effect and double track reinforcement. Also used a little audio crack (addictive little tricks) to make every sound exciting and happening.The image in this episode is in lieu of a magazine cover. I need to get good photos of the magazine covers I've had with tech articles. This is the last version of a product I co-created originally with an early toolkit of asynchronous networking, telecom, serial, networking stacks and other essential tools to communicate in real time with clients and servers alike while at Turbo Power Software. The connection will unravel in the episode (or will it?).The songs "Society for the Free Mind" (not in the episode) and the full "Depleted Optimism" are on SoundClould in Pandemic Richie and the Quarantined Profile. https://soundcloud.com/rich-sadowsky-468824781/society-for-the-free-mindLabeled (take 2) because I pulled an earlier version that I decided was not the right message. After producing this episode I had technical difficulties uploading the Apple Lossless Encoded version. Typically that works fine. Too big for a wav, so I tried high def AAC. Bingo! Success. More proof of the importance of experimentation.

A long podcast catching you up on many topics including my unemployment, job seeking strategy, learnings, and the joy and challenges of watching your daughter get married in a beautiful ceremony despite the difficult times we live in. There might be some political ramblings in there. A little rock guitar before and after the talking/ranting. The song at the end is clipped out of newly written "Virtually Impossible Reality". If you choose to interpret that title as the occupant of the White House's frame of mind I can't stop you.

Been a tough year. I wasn't sure if I was OK. Time to start a new adventure from a work perspective. Then an omen in the form of a streamed live concert changed everything. I am in an entrepreneurial phase evaluating 30 domain names and business ideas I've been discussing with trusted partners for many years now. Could be exactly the right time to create one of those products/services. Exciting, exhilarating, invigorating, and terrifying. The solution for dealing with the stress: loud rock and roll music. Acquired some new toys and they sound good. Less than a minute intro from the song "Strange Frequencies Emit" and another minute on tail end. All recorded within the period Oct 25th, 2020 through Oct 29, 2020. [in the audio I mistakingly refer to the song. The correct name is "Strange Frequencies Emit. It is unfinished. It will likely have some additional sounds and tones added via synthesized or sampled instruments. Or at least a bass part deliver over alternative instrument.]Image is from a general admission show in 2011 where Sue and I were right up against the stage. That's Dave Haywood licking off a song in style.Sue and I voted this morning. VOTE. Elect a functional, compassionate President who will stand for decency, civil justice, global responsibilities, health care, climate change, women's rights... You know what needs to be done. Get it done. Vote. We need every one of you.

A reasonable short episode with thoughts on a new podcasting direction, some eclectic topics that help explain the bizarre experience of my life/career. Offers a couple of life lessons, some Grateful Dead talk, and a realization of the connection between many software developers and artist formerly known as the autism spectrum. Funny stuff as always. Short episode. Includes some distorted single guitar played through my amazing new all tube Blackstar Studio 10 KT88 with my Squier Tele that I am personally upgrading. Recorded on the little Zoom H4NPro just capturing a stream of consciousness jam. I was playing with a concept in mind of "Shenanigans Ensuing" as a result of recent events and upcoming D-day (I mean E-Day for Election). Excited for a family gathering at our house for my daughter's bridal shower. Taking a few days off to prepare, play guitar, and capture the energy and creative streak I've been feeling. As I state in the episode, my interests are proportional allocations to those interests are constantly evolving. They seem to universally include Music, Technology and Life. I discuss a new series I am currently working with a new format. This series will live on for the regular listeners. They are not large numbers, but many are people I care for and if they want this continue I will do it just for them. Their friendship, technical skills, and support has been invaluable.

Interesting episode where I discuss how guitars have feelings, my doctor's insightful prediction, and other bizarre yet hopefully relatable tales. A relatively short < 30 min episode with some interesting and strange glimpses into the mind of a creative musician/technologist who has been locked away alone too long.The song in the episode is a little solo acoustic session I had. I was not planning to record so I just turned on the Blue Yeti USB mic. A nice mic for some uses but not up to my usual analog microphones. I record with the Yeti just so I can listen with a critical ear and capture song or riff ideas. What I captured was a snippet of a song with the working title "Empty Beaches". It has a little avant-garde intro where the notes don't go where you expect, then into a riff. It's a glimpse into the life of a guitarists with songs that must come out even before they are fully baked. Some of the coolest tunes I've ever written emerge from playful jam sessions. This one needs lots of work but it has a story to tell about beaches empty for months suddenly seeing their people return with the warmer weather. But are we ready? Is it safe? These are the questions the beaches whisper to me.The photograph is from a walk to one of the beaches on Walker Pond. Through the trees that frame the sun with their leaves and branches is the pond and forest on the other side. I thought this scene was gorgeous and worthy of a photo.

Last night I unwisely began exploring Quantum Physics (again) and any sleep that came after must have happened in a different dimension. I found a cool series of videos featuring actress Marion Kerr on YouTube and that sent me off on an interesting evening resulting in my mind being blown. Earlier in the day I watched a class Grateful Dead show from Foxboro, MA in 1989. So you could say I had my face melted and my mind blown on the same day, or should I say on all days that ever were and will be. Quantum. Don't fuck with that shit unless you can afford sleepless nights! String theory is a gateway drug made out of absurdities. But Quantum Theory, that's the hard drug.The image is an artistic representation of the E8 quasi-crystal. As far as I can tell this is a royalty free image. If not let me know and I'll find another. This episodes fade in and fade out music is from a song I call Quantumtined. It's an experimental guitar/drums tune that seemed to represent my state of mine. I recorded the guitar and programmed the drums back in March 2020. Obviously the name is derived from the words Quantum and Quarantined. Be careful with this stuff.

A half hour discussion of realities of life in general and in technology. Quarantine amplifies some of the challenges. Lots of idiot savant wisdom from my 35 plus year career building technology products. Some interesting stuff in here that relates to attitude, approach to interacting with people, and providing a growth experience for everyone you intersect with. Get specific with one person and discuss my current team (with the appropriate focus on NDA and personal privacy issues for most people involved). Stories from my life raising money as a CTO pitching and working with VCs such as the classic question: "what is your succession plan if you were hit by a bus?" Believe it or not this is an incredibly common question and proves more difficult to answer than you would have thought even if you're not an arrogant narcissist. I try to soak of the rays of wisdom that every gifted and capable person I meet and let them merge into my essence through osmosis (note: liberties with science and analogies there!). Includes a discussion of "greatness" -- whatever that means to you.This episode also features fade in and out music from my chaos-inspired song "Harsh Echoes of Quarantine" which began life as just an experiment in attempting to melt the tube in my little practice amp. Published under my new solo-band name: Pandemic Richie and the Quarantined. Slightly different portions of the song than the prior episode used.The image was taken today at noon on Monday May 18, 2020 by MacOS PhotoBooth with me attempting to put on an exaggerated angry face. The shirt I'm wearing gives another hint to my anger dissipation strategy. It says: "I might look like I'm listening to you, but in my head I'm playing my guitar (or I'm thinking about buying another one...)." Over my shoulder on left is Time Magazine cover with Jibo robot on the cover from Nov 27, 2017 issue of Time. On my right is my trusty Fender Telecaster Custom Shop HH (the guitar used for both tracks of "Harsh Echoes...").

A long but hopefully interesting episode covering a plethora of topics. A central theme is Guitar Love and what a unique period of time this is for guitar players. YouTube and other social networks are full of the best players freely discussing and playing their passion for guitar. It may be a challenging, frustrating time for guitarists who can't work in the studio or live, they can turn on a camera and talk to eager subjects like me listening on from the edge of my seat. I cover other aspects of life during wartime, I mean quarantine. For the first time, I injected some of my music into the podcast for the opening and ending minute of the episode. This one features my apocalyptic rocker "Harsh Echoes of Quarantine" released under my (imaginary) band "Pandemic Richie and the Quarantined". Admittedly the band is comprised of 2 of my multiple personalties and another manifested as bot drummer Jesse from my arrangement of his Garageband drum programming. I name a dozen or so unique, new, YouTube resources that tickle rock and roll fans 'till they squeal.Speaking of guitar love, two of my favorites from my life. Left is a Fender USA Stratocaster broken in over prior decade, and a relatively new Taylor 714ce, one of the best sounding acoustic/electrics I've ever played. Out of view is the SWR Strawberry Blonde acoustic amp and other studio equipment from my home studio in Oregon. Even a peak of my coveted Event PS8 studio monitors, which have moved to the afterlife and have not been replaced yet :-( This pic is about 17 years old.

A discussion of issues that arose over the bots that block content on sites like YouTube. Loosely related to a recent YouTube video by Rick Beato involving bassist Leland Sklar and James Taylor. Talks about some non-obvious sources of friction that pushes back against emerging technology.The image is playful picture due to use of word "bots" in the title. This is from the manufacturing facility in China where we built the Jibo robot. Playful because this is not the kind of bot this episode talks about!

While reading my friend Rana's book "Girl Decoded", I began thinking about my own journey. I focused in on my emotional maturation where I put myself in timeout when I feel the risk of flaming somebody out or saying something mean or nasty. I'm a deeply empathetic person and feel emotions very strongly. This can lead to quick angry or intensely sad reactions. Sometimes the reactions are justifiable but mostly they are overreactions. Young professional me would fire off an email or call somebody to right any wrong I perceived. The episode goes into this. The Rana el Kaliouby's book "Girl Decoded" and the impact she had on me as a person working closely with her for several years. She's such a positive force of nature that she made ME a better person. One think I do now is monitor my emotions. I can't filter emotions out of my work. The emotions are the genesis of the brilliance or ingenuity. But they also can lead me down dark paths of flaming people. This is extremely relevant topic if you work in software/technology development. You can become paranoid and worry that you aren't on the A team anymore. Whatever team you ARE on, do your best, forgive all the wrongs you perceive, and try to crush your role whatever it is. The people who stand out are the ones who get things done and make things happen. Be that person. And learn how to manage your own hot headed personality. Focus on kindness and effectiveness.Cover photo is pic I took for a song by new one man band Richie Pandemic and the Quarantined on SoundCloud. I don't really wear a mask in my office but I can be found in Grateful Dead or Dead and Company t-shirt several days a week. Clearly this Deadhead thing is just a 40+ year fad for me!Note to self: the word I was searching for was "empathetic" pronounced correctly!

This is my umpteenth episode while under Quarantine. Today I tell you about a ray of sunshine. My dear friend, mentor, and former boss Rana el Kaliouby's book entitled "Girl Decoded" is out. It will be available to purchase on April 21, 2020 on audible.com or other bookseller. The bonus of the audio book to me is that Rana herself reads it. Listen to the Podcast for stories about Rana and why I believe you NEED to read this book. When I think about the idea for this podcast series High Risk/High Reward: Stories from my Life in Technology, Rana and my experience at Affectiva as the 7th employee stand out among the most unique examples of my approach to finding the very best place for me to work at a given time. I share my strategy for being considered for a job I was dramatically overqualified for, how I connected with the founders and became passionate about their vision. I knew I could help them navigate the murky waters of having a great technology looking for a business use case. So quick tales of some of the crazy things we tried. There are no words that would suffice to explain how special of a person Rana is, and therefore, why you must read this book. Give this podcast a listen and I'll explain it best I can. It took a little over 30 minutes to do so. And I still can't fully express who this woman is and why her book may change your life. She certainly had a profound impact on mine.The photo for this episode are the Affectiva cofounders: On the left is Roz (Rosalind Picard, PhD, Director of MIT Media Lab Affective Computing Group), on the right is Rana (Rana el Kaliouby PhD, CEO Affectiva and co-founder). Rana is presenting the roses to Roz for her longtime support and belief in Rana.

Dramatic goings on in my life punctuated by a pandemic moon. Sometimes everything goes wrong all at once and the only solution is to temporarily give in to the stress and panic so that you can emerge free of it. Life, work, health, finances, relationships, family, todo list... These all mix together into the one life we live now. We are each on our own singular personal journey but we experience it together with everyone else. Recorded April 9, 2020 smack in the middle of the expected Covid-19 bell curve in the US. Episode 3 under quarantine. This episodes image inspired the title "Under a Pandemic Moon". It's a photo from my iPhone 11 taken April 7 under a unique mixture of moon brightness, haze, and state of the world.

Trying to stay positive and reach out to people. Episode 2 from quarantine. Covers wide range of topics I am passionate about including: music, technology, television, Rock & Roll, puppy dogs, the United States of America, the city of Boston. This might be my favorite episode I've recorded. The episode image is me with my Telecaster Custom in my home office taken in March 2020.

Week 3 for me living in quarantine. I share two helpful thoughts that worked for me. One is rather personal and something I don't talk about often. The other relates to employers supporting remote employees. What I've taken for granted for decades is something strange and new to most others. In follow up episodes I'll share some of my concerns for intermingling home and work networked device. It's the beginning, not the end, and we just need some fresh thinking.The image photo is one of the dozens of photos I take each day on my walk with little doggie Bella around the beautiful forest and lake we live in. There are worst places to be quarantined than this lovely town of Sturbridge, MA.

Looking for a path to a fun and exciting career? Rich shares more ideas on how to find your own action-packed career. He explains some of the concepts of "High Risk/High Reward" as we begin the year 2020. Always entertaining, he shares certain philosophical beliefs and daring practices for turning your career, and your life, into an adventure. The picture is taken during fall in New England at the house we lived in before buying one less than 1/4 mile away. Also in this picture is Sue, Rich's high school AND current sweetheart mentioned in this episode and Bella, the little doggy that keeps him walking several miles in this beautiful town in rural Massachusetts. Forty-something years after meeting Sue in High School, they live in this lovely place just 30 miles from where they went to high school together. Moving easily through tangents that somehow all tie together, Sadowsky tries to distill down a recipe for a challenging and rewarding career (and life). He shares how his latest employer convinced him to come in for an interview.

A new year and a new episode. Rich calls the so-called security camera products to the carpet for unethical policies around security and privacy. He then explains how the very platform that launched so many self-published stars is now working to remove their incentive to create content. Both are important issues. These are topics that you are going to want to understand for one simple reason. That reason? You are the only hope for demanding and modeling change. In order to change things you must first grok them. Achieve grokkage and the path will emerge from the mist. Some light swearing in episode. It may be a new year but it's the old me talking and I swear.

Prior to our series A and the Indiegogo crowd funding campaign, Jibo had to operate extremely lean. Thanks to our co-founder Jerilyn Asher and her connections, we found a secret locations for us to work from. To the best of my knowledge this is the first time this story has ever been told.The image is from a photo shoot with Jibo co-founder Cynthia Breazeal with an early Jibo prototype from this secret location. I believe this photoshoot was for either Popular Science or Popular Mechanics but may have been a different publications. I took this picture as I was supporting Cynthia on this interview and photo shoot. Obviously there is no way to determine the location from this photo.

Raising guide dog puppies was one of the most meaningful experiences in my life. This episode discusses the heart warming (and heart breaking) story of how my late wife Cyndi fulfilled her lifelong dream of raising guide dog puppies. I talk about many topics related to our 4+ years raising very special puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind (www.guidedogs.com). This episode wraps up talking about the beautiful guide dog graduation ceremony and takes us up to when Cyndi passed away. I know it meant the world to her to have fulfilled that dream and raise proud puppies who went on to be guides for visually impaired people. The picture for this episodes is Ruffles, our first guide dog puppy, graduating at Guide Dog for the Blind's (GDB) Oregon campus. Look at how attentively Ruffles listens to me while I tell stories about her. I'm on the right with the microphone, my daughter Jackie, Ruffles in the middle, Ted (the blind man who received Ruffles as his guide) and the GDB master of ceremonies. Cyndi was in the audience and took this picture. She was too ill to take the stage with us.

Everybody will be interested in this no matter what you do for a living. There's a great life lesson in here. It also features the kind of amazing things that happen in my life. This provides insight into why they happen. This is worth the 36 minutes. The truth will set you free!The picture for this episode is a photo of Bob Wilson, the man I speak of in the article, from an article from Eric Rhoads' blog called Radio Ink Tank. It is indeed a small world after all. Eric, is a mentor, friend and former boss. Eric is the creator and publisher of the other radio industry trade publication. I met Bob Wilson in 1984. In 1999 I met Eric Rhoads when he was CEO/founder of RadioCentral and he hired me as CTO.

This is the tale of how I finally found my people hiding behind a secure door at an Apple Computer building in Cupertino, CA. (leased by Symantec). At 11 and a half minutes it's my shortest episode to date. Rather than attempt to summarize this funny story, I suggest you give it a listen. I bet you don't see the ending coming!The image for this episode is a screenshot of code I wrote in response to a CompuServe Turbo Pascal forum question. I'd often respond with some code and then later use the code in an article, or write a unit (Turbo Pascal's way of packaging a library) and upload it to the public domain (the old school original "open source"). I have found samples of code from the early 80s still available online and some of the code went into operating systems and entire generations of products. You'll note my contact info is my CompuServe ID since this back in '88. Like much of my 1980s published code this showed how to interact with systems level stuff from your Turbo Pascal program.

As a young man I was a participant in the jury of a death penalty murder case in the city of Los Angeles. This episode explores that unique experience and how challenging determining the truth can be. I share my unique take on jury duty.CORRECTIONS: This trial was a couple years later than I recalled in the audio. The trial ended in 1988 when I was about 26 years old. I first moved to Los Angeles in 1984 just prior to the Summer Olympics.

You can't please everyone. This is a humbling story of how we received feedback on LiveUpdate from someone who signed the message "DeadUpdate Dick". He did not share the glowing reviews we were receiving elsewhere.The image is from publicly available images of LiveUpdate in modern Symantec products.

I was chatting with a friend/former co-worker at Jibo and he mentioned that he was hearing that some former employees were bad mouthing the company publicly. I had heard and seen similar scuttlebutt. I want to both dispute their characterization but also give a tip about how such talk reflects on you. Then in my often ironic way, I proceed to urge people to vote and mention certain characteristics of the occupant of one critical job. Some mind call this hypocritical yet I stick to some key issues and ask people what they wish to support/reward without spending a lot of time on the negative. November 6, 2018 will be here in a few days and voters in America will speak. Be one of those who makes their voice heard by voting. The picture is from Jibo's early days with robot architect Todd as Santa, artist and creative master Fardad Faridi, and I at co-founder Cynthia's house filming our holiday video for followers.

This chronicles two interesting people who came into my life around 1999. They demonstrate confidence and unique approaches to getting hired. The story takes place around the time of RadioCentral and a brief few months beforehand and several years afterward. The picture associated with this episode was my executive bio photo from RadioCentral.

Companies need to establish a strategy around the protection of their intellectual property. Patents are likely to be a viable element of such a strategy. Some information on how this impacts the inventor and basic information on the process, costs, and options. The image is a picture of Norton AntiVirus 2.0 for Windows. NAV 2.0 was the first product to include LiveUpdate which was the technology in my first patent.

I had the opportunity to put my beliefs to the test and listen to alternative points of view. Beside being informative this is a very interesting story that touches on how the press can influence our opinions and we later find that there are other reasonable factors on the other side. Or perhaps this is the story of a man who was persuaded by money to go against their initial views. Or both.

A story of a serious challenge with an employee not fitting in with our team's culture. This discusses the interesting techniques I used to try to mentor and guide this young man to better performance. People really celebrated my methods and held it up as a great example of modern, effective, management. I remain unsure whether this was a win or a loss. You tell me.The picture here is of Symantec's current world headquarters. It is neither the building I worked in nor the manufacturing site mentioned in this episode. Back in my day Symantec was in Cupertino just down the road from Apple's Infinite Loop campus.

This episode covers some of the events surrounding the creation and delivery of Symantec's LiveUpdate technology. The challenges in bringing this to market were more related to corporate politics and company culture than the implementation of an emerging technology. LiveUpdate is a feature still prominently marketed and used today. Nearly all personal computer users have used it at one time or another. There are many more interested facets of this project to be covered in subsequent episodes.Picture is from an early LiveUpdate implementation most likely around 1997.

Inaugural Podcast about a rather extraordinary career as an emerging technologist. Meet Rich Sadowsky. He recounts his life in the disruptive emerging technology business and shares his adventures along the way. Rich has a knack for delivering entertaining and interesting high energy tales from his long and unique experiences.The photo for this episode is a picture from Jibo's first offsite where Boston and California teams meet at secret "pool house" location.