Informatonauts

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Nikhil Gopal and Nick Robison spend an hour talking about life, technology, current events, and the things that happen in the lives of nerds.

Informatonauts


    • May 9, 2014 LATEST EPISODE
    • infrequent NEW EPISODES
    • 1h 3m AVG DURATION
    • 15 EPISODES


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    Latest episodes from Informatonauts

    Episode 15 - UCSD Spits on Spritz, MapReduce for Rubes, BASIC is 50, Brain Rules

    Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2014 65:42


    Nikhil runs for knowledge. IBM studies people. Study shows Spritz is terrible for comprehension, (but good for forgetting things, we think). Mapreduce uses a mafia structure (masters, mappers, groupers, reducers). A fondness for BASIC and variables named A1. You don’t need to learn to program. Yes, really. Nick mixes all the metaphors, in a pool.

    Episode 14 - APIs are the new black (again), the humility of genius, coffee cleansing, and coding sucks

    Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2014 61:15


    [Originally Recorded on 5-2-14] Nick and Nikhil are off the ‘joe. Wood tables and hammers defeat little children. The Universe is not a toy, is something you learn in college. You don’t need to learn to code. College is worth more than $100K. APIs are in again (and so is Github)!

    Episode 13 - Brunch Life, Flu with a View, A Book By Any Other Name Would Smell As Old, Cockroaches are Smarter Than Ataris, Life Is Older Than The Universe, and Nick and Nikhil Browse the Web.

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 22, 2014 55:43


    Nick is homesick and Nikhil is living the brunch life. Is reading books still a thing? Some models are useful, and Nick has the flu. Cockroaches are smarter than computers and may be older than the Universe. If XKCD doesn’t cut it, make your own. But if you do, your an idiot. Join us as Nick and Nikhil browse the internets.

    Episode 12 - Smart Companies, Amazon Is For Lovers, Wolfram Is Smarter Than You, So Long XP, and Medical Ethics

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 11, 2014 68:45


    Smartest company in the world? Try Illumina (and Apple is nowhere to be found). Walmart Rises! Oculus VR and Father Putin, breaking all the rules! Amazon Smile is a great idea. Reminiscing about Windows XP (Goodbye old friend, we’ll miss your bubbly blueness). Nick rants on healthcare and ethics. Nikhil recounts how a hospitals screw peoples’ credit. Kickstarter is now a pre-startup incubator. Nikhil and Nick play with Wolfram alpha (and inflation between 2008 and now is 11% suckas). Amazon is for (book) lovers.

    Episode 11 - In America, Facebook “Hack” You. Also, Workspaces and Microsoft Keynote

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 2, 2014 70:54


    Nikhil can’t buy the XBox One. Nick and Nikhil talk workspaces. No one works from home. Microsoft might not be cool, but that’s why REAL hipsters use it. Nikhil works on D3 stuff and Nick tries to be productive. Facebook releases its own language, Hack. Vinyl records may be better than Spotify--but probably not. Oh yeah, a banana has 105 calories. And men may have menopause.

    Episode 10 - Are Watches Still a Thing? The Future is Hard, and Kids These Days….

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2014 61:27


    Nikhil can’t wait for his very own titan. Nick laments his lack of true nerdery. Whippersnappers actually install toolbars. Indie developers are just as cool as indie bands. Nikhil’s not making money fast enough, but the city’s still paying for it. The last piece of Nick’s childhood is dead in the snow. And we both try to predict the future, but we’re not engineers.

    Episode 9 - 2048, California knows how to Ponzi, and Arscoin on AWS (don't try this at home)

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 12, 2014 69:06


    The unbeatable 2048. Umbrellas are for tourists (and Canadians). Against the Startups of the Age. Nikhil pulled the Chemex trigger. How blade grinders are like fruit ninjas. Some fish for your bash scripts. All your Arscoins are belongs to Nick. And he lost a lot of money doing so. Vim harder, Vim smarter.

    Episode 8 - Standing Desks, Keurig Is The New Sony, and Re-living Jurassic Park

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 5, 2014 62:17


    HIMSS is an acronym for a reason. Better health and more painful feet can be as cheap as $25. Relive Jurassic Park on the internetz. Nick and Nikhil develop a coffee tasting experiment. S/MIME is awesome, cryptography is moot, and Google Keep is what Evernote wishes it could be when it grows up (and it works with GTD)!

    Episode 7 - Our Caffeine Is Conceited (now in grams!) and How Facebook Is a disease

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2014 61:46


    Nikhil is now obsessed with Neo4J and other graphing databases, Java is the bane of our existence, Stephen Few and Edward Tufte know that practice makes pretty. Update on 3D printed glasses, so hip that hipsters aren’t even doing it yet. Princeton shoehorns Facebook into a disease model, and Nikhil might be a teenager because he uses Snapchat and Instagram.

    Episode 6 - iPhone Phone Conceit, PowerPoint = Weak, and 3D-Printed Glasses

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2014 58:36


    Preparing for the apocalypse with your own 3D printed glasses, Nikhil thinks PPTs are weak sauce, Hemingway app can help make your crappy writing a little less crappy, Flappy Bird iPhones are $1000 on eBay, and Nick and Nikhil berate every company in the mobile phone space because they are conceited academics who live in a bubble and think they can do better.

    Episode 5 - The Seahawks, the new American Eagle

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2014 67:17


    A City United. Hail to the new Chief, Nadella, not Wilson. The Future is 30 Years Ago. Your Code Is Bad, and You Should Feel Bad. Statistical Errors, Croatian Style. I Got (new) Music in Me. All Your Hosts are Belong to Us.

    Episode 4 - Sexy Morning Dancing, More Coffeescript, And Why Your Emails Really suck.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 29, 2014 58:52


    Store bought metaphors and organic CPUs. Dance to your happy place. The little app that could. Yuppy apps for Getting Things Planned (and then procrastinating). Email Fail. The Full Stallman, or how to be (marginally) safe on the internets. You have no culture, Nikhil doesn't finish books, and Nick only reads books about books. Larry Ellison is anti-Phasianidae, and your langage is in the Matrix (only if you took the Blue Pill).

    Episode 3 - Hipster Paradise: PDAs, IPAs, GMOs, and Afroeurasians.

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 23, 2014 65:28


    An alphabet soup of acronyms and methodologies. Pen and paper isn't so bad. Why Nikhil is obsessed with coffee, and Nick is still confused. The art of warring on steppes of Afroeurasia. Cheap services for cheapskates, and an apple for Snow White (NOW WITH MORE SCIENCE!!).

    Episode 2 - Internet Kittens, Now Endangered. And how!

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2014 60:58


    Coffee on the mind. Our data is better than your science. Coders moonlighting as data scientists (but just to ‘pay for med school’). The government is killing our internet kittens, but not really. Nvidia’s got a new kind of sexxy.

    Episode 1: Unbounded Narcissism

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 15, 2014 63:30


    Time Travelers on the Internet, Space Rated Plants, Life Changing Books of 2013, Sounds of Where We're From, Excel and the Beautiful Future of the World, Genomic Pictures, and a Lifetime of Caffeine

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