Podcasts about Pliny

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Join us next week ahead of the Late Bird price hike and get >$40,000 in sponsor credits for attending!Thanks to the US Government issuing an export control directive on Mythos and Fable, the risks of jailbreaks and (industry term) indirect prompt injection are suddenly the talk of the town, though we have been covering AI security for a few years now, from Hackaprompt to the enigmatic Pliny the Elder.Zico Kolter, member of OpenAI's board of directors on the Safety & Security Committee, and Matt Fredrikson, CMU professor and CEO of Gray Swan, co-authored the definitive paper on Indirect Prompt Injections, and Gray Swan were cited authorities on the Mythos model card, directly investigating the exact capabilities that are under scrutiny right now:We seized the opportunity to ask them the state of AI Red Teaming, and Shade, the adversarial red teaming tool that Anthropic used to evaluate the robustness of their models against prompt injection attacks in coding environments. Shade is part of their overall toolkit covering Simon Willison's Lethal Trifecta, including Cygnal, an AI guardrails product, and the world's largest AI Red Teaming Arena, including AIRT celebrity Wyatt Walls.All of this security tooling, and yet, we're only staving off the inevitable.The risks of extremely smart AI increasingly feel like gray swan events: an event that everyone can see coming. In this episode, Gray Swan cofounders Zico Kolter and Matt Fredrikson join swyx to explain why AI security is not just “cybersecurity with AI,” why agents introduce a new class of vulnerabilities, and why the next major AI incident may be a gray swan: unlikely, but clearly visible before it happens.We go deep on prompt injection, automated red teaming, model robustness, agent identity, computer-use agents, enterprise guardrails, and the emerging AI insurance/compliance stack. Zico and Matt also explain why frontier models are not automatically safer as they scale, why specialized red-teaming models can now beat humans at breaking AI systems, and why the future of AI security may depend on AI systems attacking, defending, and interpreting other AI systems.We discuss:* Why AI systems need a different security mindset from traditional software* How prompt injection creates a new exploit class for agents like Codex and Claude Code* Gray Swan Arena and the rise of community red teaming* Shade: AI that can outperform humans at breaking models* Why LLMs are an alien form of intelligence that fail differently from humans* Human vs browser-agent robustness and why humans ranked fourth* Why eval awareness and capability elicitation matter* Cygnal: Gray Swan's guardrail model for policy enforcement* Why bigger models do not automatically become more robust* The lethal trifecta: untrusted data, private data, and exfiltration* Why “just prompt it better” is not enough for enterprise AI security* OpenClaw, computer-use agents, and the agent security nightmare* Agent-native identity, permissions, and enterprise deployment* Why AI security may become part of insurance and compliance* Why the first major AI prompt-injection breach may be inevitableGray Swan* Website: https://www.grayswan.ai/Zico Kolter* X: https://x.com/zicokolter* Website: https://zicokolter.com/* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zico-kolter-560382a4/Matt Fredrikson* Website: https://www.mattfredrikson.com/* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-fredrikson-7596349/Timestamps00:00:00 Introduction00:02:31 Why AI Security Is Different00:06:38 Testing Claude, Codex, and Prompt Injection00:07:47 Gray Swan Arena and Automated Red Teaming00:11:14 AI That Breaks Models Better Than Humans00:14:00 LLMs as Alien Intelligence00:19:00 Humans vs AI Agents00:24:35 Red Teaming, Jailbreaks, and Capability Elicitation00:26:11 Cygnal: Guardrails for AI Agents00:34:04 The Lethal Trifecta00:39:31 Can AI Automate AI Research?00:45:47 OpenClaw and the Computer-Use Security Problem00:50:44 Agent Identity, Permissions, and Enterprise AI00:54:24 The Future of AI Security01:00:30 AI Insurance and Compliance01:04:32 The Gray Swan Event Everyone Sees Coming01:06:04 Closing ThoughtsTranscriptIntroduction: Gray Swan, AI Security, and CMUSwyx [00:00:00]: We're here in the studio with Gray Swan, Matt and Zico. Welcome.Zico [00:00:08]: Great to be here.Matt [00:00:09]: Thanks for having us.Swyx [00:00:10]: You're visiting from Pittsburgh? The home of all good computer science. I don't know if I'm overstating things. A very strong university.Zico [00:00:18]: CMU has been the center of a lot of AI since really the dawn of the field.Swyx [00:00:22]: Especially a lot of self-driving and some language learning. Congrats on your Series A. You're here because you're attending Snowflake Summit, and Snowflake is one of your investors. Let's introduce crisply at the top: what is Gray Swan, and what have you chosen as your startup domain?Matt [00:00:42]: At Gray Swan, our mission is to empower everyone to use AI safely and securely. Large language models are software, and if you want to deploy them or build applications on top of them, you need to understand the vulnerabilities and what can go wrong. That includes everyday mistakes, like an agent making the wrong tool call, but also worst-case scenarios where an attacker has an incentive to make your agent misbehave, leak data, or steal credentials. Gray Swan grew out of our research at Carnegie Mellon, where Zico and I have spent over a decade studying new vulnerabilities and attack surfaces in deep learning systems: how to test for them, understand their severity, and make inference more robust.Adversarial Examples and Why AI Security Is DifferentSwyx [00:02:05]: Honestly, a very fruitful area of study for any academic. Throwback, this is 10 years ago, which is basically the entirety of me. I got a lot of inspiration from Ian Goodfellow, a friend of the pod, and this is one of those initial adversarial settings.Matt [00:02:23]: This paper was directly inspired by Ian's work.Swyx [00:02:29]: Zico, what about your side of the story?Zico [00:02:31]: Like Matt, I have been faculty at Carnegie Mellon for a while. Fundamentally, we believe in the transformative power of AI. It has already transformed the software ecosystem, and it will transform many other ecosystems going forward. The issue is that these systems behave very differently from the software we are used to. I do not just mean that AI can find vulnerabilities in software, though it can. I mean that AI systems have inherent vulnerabilities of their own. They can be tricked in ways people can be tricked, so you need a different security mindset.Zico [00:03:23]: This matters especially when there is the possibility of correlated failures. It is not just that there are many AI systems out there; it is that everyone is using a few models. If you find vulnerabilities in agents that everyone uses, like Codex and Claude Code, you have a new class of exploit. The labs are doing a lot of work here, but when a new platform emerges, a separate security system often emerges alongside it. That is where we are with AI: there is a need for specifically minded AI safety and security providers, and the demand is only going to grow.Treating Models as Untrusted SystemsSwyx [00:04:55]: I want to highlight right at the top that this is not a cyber episode in the traditional sense. A lot of people looking at the title might think that, but you're actually trying to treat these models inherently as untrusted entities?Zico [00:05:11]: Exactly. This is a common conflation because AI is also good at cybersecurity problems, both solving them and causing them. But AI systems themselves introduce new vulnerabilities. Gray Swan is not about using AI to make your cyber infrastructure better; it is about understanding and mitigating the security risks you bring in when you adopt and deploy AI.Matt [00:05:49]: A big part of that is how people are using artificial intelligence. Once you build entire autonomous systems on top of models and integrate them into your larger platform or network, you have a potential cybersecurity risk. The goal is to mitigate the risk posed by the AI as it relates to your broader cybersecurity goals.Testing Claude, Codex, and Indirect Prompt InjectionZico [00:06:17]: Part of this is red teaming. One reason we reached out to you was that you were involved in the Claude Mythos preview, where you were one of the authorities on IPI, or indirect prompt injection. When you receive a model, it does not have to be Mythos, but that is the most prominent one right now: what do you do with it?Matt [00:06:38]: We do a range of things. In the Mythos case, the concern from Anthropic was how robust the model is to indirect prompt injection. If you operate a coding agent and use Mythos as the model, it will fetch untrusted content and read text you do not control. How robust will it be at staying true to its original objective and not getting hijacked? We also help frontier labs test their safeguards for issues like cyber misuse. Broadly, we provide adversarial safety and security evaluations so model builders can assess progress from one iteration to the next.Zico [00:07:37]: They also do this in-house, and Anthropic is very ideologically inclined to do it. What do they choose to outsource versus keep in-house?Gray Swan Arena and Automated Red TeamingMatt [00:07:47]: So there are two things that I think, we stand out for. One is the Gray Swan Arena. So we operate a community of red teamers. We provide, prize challenges. a lot of these come from the needs of the lab sponsors. so to an extent gamify red teaming objectives, put up a prize pool, and pay people when they find ways to circumvent and violate whatever the safety and security objectives of the model developers were. So that's, that's one. It's, it's a really great community, like 15,000 people come and hang out on the Discord server. Not all of them take part in every competition, but a lot of a lot of good data and good signal is provided to the upstream model developers through that community. The second is the automated red teaming that we do. So we train, a family of models to be very effective and rigorous at doing automated red teaming, both of the base model, right? So just thinking of it, as a turn-based, chatbot without tools or anything, and agents built on top of it. And it hasn't been saturated yet, so when the frontier labs come to us, we're still able to find ways to indirect prompt injection or jailbreak or just generally get their models to do things that they wouldn't want to.Zico [00:09:11]: Did you say without tools?Matt [00:09:12]: With and without tools.Zico [00:09:13]: With and without tools.Matt [00:09:13]: So we definitely operate on On agents as well.Zico [00:09:16]: Obviously that would be more useful.Matt [00:09:17]: Yep. that's, that's actually a fairly recent thing. For a while, what we would help, the frontier labs with was more just, chat-based interactions, going around their content safety policies and what is in their model spec. Now the focus is very much on agents and tool use and all the downstream applications that people want to build on top.Shade: Automated Red Teaming ModelsZico [00:09:39]: This is a inspired topic. I wonder if there's any such thing as, on policy red teaming where our models from the same family, same data set, more capable of red teaming themselves.Matt [00:09:51]: That's an interesting question. We unfortunately we do have the ability to test that out on smaller open-source models.Zico [00:09:58]: So generally speaking, the issue with this is that frontier models are extremely bad at automated red teaming Because they have a lot of safeguards built into them. So if you try to use them to jailbreak another model, they will actually refuse. Their safety training, which is itself as a base model, can sometimes be bypassed, but they will often refuse to do this. Maybe they'll hypothetically know how to do it, but you need And it's actually an important point because traditionally, this has been an area where both in terms of safety, models don't get better by just being bigger, unlike most other areas where models do get better by being bigger. Safety has not been like that traditionally. you have to train them explicitly to be safe or they won't do that. But on the flip side, they're also not necessarily better at red teaming, by default. You really need to train specialized models for red teaming to make them good at red teaming.Matt [00:10:56]: That's awesome for you guys.Zico [00:10:58]: And so, and what do you need to do that? Well, you need lots of data From people that are traditionally much better at red teaming. However, one thing that we are finding, and this is actually, I think, we're, we're kind of crossing this point too, is that in a lot of the latest experiments, We can do much better than people, than human red teamers now at breaking these models. When I say we, our automated red teaming model. It's a system called Shade. That system is now actually quite a bit better at breaking, models than humans are. I think we had a recent competition Between humans and our model, and it was actually quite a bit better. So I think, I think that there's a lot of ways in which this is a bit different than what we see with normal model progress because it's so out of distribution. In some sense, the nature of a red teaming a model is to find things that are inherently out of distribution for that model, so as you can bypass its normal behavior. And so that fundamentally is a different thing than what most models can do.Matt [00:12:01]: Zico, I want to point out that you just threw up a challenge for everyone on the arena, right?Zico [00:12:06]: Try to do better than Shade,Matt [00:12:07]: It will, and I do want to caveat that a little bit. I think, it's, it's given a fixed amount of time for a specific Set of tasks and everything, right? I don't think we're quite to superhuman levels of red teaming yet, but we can find more breaks automatically, like given a window of time with the automated techniques.Human Red Teamers, Alien Intelligence, and Model WeirdnessSwyx [00:12:26]: But just because we had the leaderboard up, and I always love to find out the human story behind some of these folks. Do you I assume some of them. Are they celebrities in their own right? what'sZico [00:12:35]: Wyatt's a big person on Twitter. You should, you should follow him on Twitter If you're not already. Yeah.Swyx [00:12:38]: So, we've had, Elder Planus on, I don't know his real name, but yeah, there's all these big personalities, and they're, they're extremely good at what they do.Matt [00:12:49]: They're, they're very good at what they do.Swyx [00:12:51]: Oh, he's an Aussie.Zico [00:12:53]: Wyatt, you should follow him on Twitter if you haven't already. He makes, he makes great He makes these really insightful posts. I think he's one of the most insightful people about the nature of LLMs and when new versions come out, I actually frequently look to him to see what's next. He's a lawyer, I think, right?Matt [00:13:09]: He's an attorney.Swyx [00:13:13]: There's red lining, red teaming The other thing. Yep.Zico [00:13:16]: Yes. Our top, competitors are often people that, Do this a lot.Swyx [00:13:22]: What's an example of a thing that you've learned from Wyatt? Oh.Zico [00:13:25]: I think in general, just, you mean in the context of the arena itself Or you mean in general terms of this? I think he just has great insights in the nature of models as a whole. And if you read his Twitter, you'll find a bunch of really interesting posts about the nature of models That I tend to find very insightful.Swyx [00:13:42]: Riley's like this as well, right? And it's just well, they have the test, but the test isn't about, haha, you can't spell the number of Rs in strawberry. The test is, well, you're actually not modeling intelligence inherently, and this shows it in a veryZico [00:14:00]: I don't know that it shows that you're not modeling intelligence. I think these things are intelligent. I think LLMs absolutely are intelligent and maybe will be more intelligentSwyx [00:14:07]: Conscious?Zico [00:14:07]: At some point.Swyx [00:14:07]: Are they conscious?Zico [00:14:08]: Conscious is a weird word But I actually don't, I don't think so. I think, I think the way that we're getting super philosophical now.Swyx [00:14:16]: That's, that's the right answer.Zico [00:14:16]: We're getting very philosophical now. But I don't think so. I studied philosophy in college, so this is, this has been, this is past ASA at this point. It is clearly a different form of intelligence than people. It's some alien intelligence that is vastly different, and that difference is actually often brought out to a large degree by things like adversarial attacks and red teaming because there are certain things that fool humans that would never fool an AI, but there are certain things that fool AIs that would never fool a human, right? So it's just, it's just a different form of intelligence. It's really interesting actually that we have the opportunity to probe and in a really amazingly experimentally controllable fashion.Matt [00:14:59]: Like almost omniscient, right?Zico [00:15:02]: I'm, I'll, I'll do the analogy to neuroscience here. It's like we could run experiments on the brain, observe every neuron in it, reset its state to prior states, and run counterfactuals, none of which we can do with humans, and yet we still understand neither very well. Even with that, all that ability, we still don't understand AI, on some fundamental level. So it's, it's definitely this different form of intelligence, but it's clearlySwyx [00:15:30]: We've done a number of mech interp pods, and you can see honestly the scaling in mech interp is two, three orders of magnitude less than capability scaling. so we're hopelessly behind is what I'm saying.Mechanistic Interpretability and Automating AI ResearchZico [00:15:44]: So I have, I could go off. It's a little off tangent here. We're getting, we're getting, we're getting, we're getting a bit, but yeah.Matt [00:15:48]: Well, no, I think it actually, it does relate, right? Go ahead. Do your tangent.Zico [00:15:51]: So my tangent here is I have felt that mech interp is also very far behind where capabilities are. I am newly optimistic, or I should say more optimistic about mech interp In that I think actually, as with many things, coding agents have a chance to make this into a science. So the problem with mech interp, and I'm Okay, so I shouldn't say the problem. I don't want to call it a field. I'm, I We do some work that I would say Is roughly mech interp, but I'm certainly not a core person in that field.Swyx [00:16:19]: For folks to see.Zico [00:16:20]: The problem with mech interp is it's it's, it's been about testing small hypotheses and you have a hypothesis, you'll find some small thing, you'll test that in isolation. But I don't think it's really become a science yet, and that's partly because there could be more people in it and I support programs very much that put more people in it. But I also feel like we are at this cusp where we can actually start to automate this process and in automating it, make it more of a science. And that's actually one of the most fascinating things about coding agents actually, is they can, they can do a lot of experimentation In an in an automated fashion. Yeah. They will give new hope. They'll breathe new life into mech interp research.Swyx [00:16:58]: So recursive mech interp is what you mean. Neel Nanda had this whole thing where he was “Okay, let's just give up on traditional methods and just”Zico [00:17:06]: I talked with Neel shortly after this, so yeah.Swyx [00:17:09]: Is any takeaways or?Zico [00:17:10]: Oh, yeah, I think this is exactly his view.Swyx [00:17:11]: That is his view. Okay, yeah.Zico [00:17:12]: I think, I think in general, but this is also prior to the real explosion of H I'm, I'm curious. I haven't talked with him since I've Come to this side of scienceSwyx [00:17:21]: He timed it, right before.Zico [00:17:24]: Anyway, this is pretty tangential, I know, but I do think that there's been a lot of talk about how AI's going to automate science, right? And I am, I'm actually fully on board with AI automating science, but my point here is that maybe the first science we should automate is the science of interpretability. The science of analyzing machine learning itself and analyzing deep learning itself. That's a great science. It's not really a science yet. It's very ad hoc right now. That's AI for science. Let's use AI to automate that science. Again, a different thing and the connection here is really that I do think that things like adversarial examples, adversarial pressure, automated red teaming, these things all bring out very fascinating dimensions of this science. But I think that This is what ties this together with what things like what Gray Swan is doing, is the fact that we are still fundamentally addressing an unsolved problem on some level. And so there is still research to be done. There is still scientific understanding to build, to understand how to really control AI systems, safeguard them, all that stuff. And those things will all evolve together. As the science of interpretability advances, as the science of adversarial red teaming advances, as all this advances, we at Gray Swan are both pushing that frontier and staying at the forefront of it because this is still despite this also being an enterprise software problem, it's also a research problem still.Humans vs. Browser Agents: Robustness and PhishingSwyx [00:18:58]: It's great. Yeah, you get to play on both sides.Matt [00:19:00]: Absolutely. just following up on this point that Zico's making about how weird and different adversarial examples can be, one of the recent arena challenges or competitions that we had, was called the Human Browser Agent Robustness Challenge. Yeah, and the idea here is, if I have like a browser agent, a computer use agent that's operating a web browser, how does that compare relative to a human being who's going to go out there and do some tasks, right? Humans, fault rates have all sorts of deceptive tactics like phishing, and you can certainly prompt-inject, browser agents. So, trying to get a more controlled measurement of that. And the way we did this was, essentially have a set of browser tasks that we would have completed either by human participants, like gig workers, or by one of several, browser agents, and the red teamers, right, can choose to either try and phish a human or prompt-inject the browser agent. So, really cool setup. what reallySwyx [00:20:02]: Like a double blind orZico [00:20:04]: . Like you're putting on even footing, right? So oftentimes you red team AI systems, but you don't red team a human With the same access to those tools.Matt [00:20:13]: Yeah, absolutely. That was the point. It'sSwyx [00:20:16]: Which is more realistic, right? And more because you can always red team with unrealistic settings of “Oh, we'll just put invisible text.”Matt [00:20:23]: So you could do things like that. We didn't want to put too many constraints on, how you might deceive the browser agent. So theSwyx [00:20:31]: I just have to take a look at this site. YeahMatt [00:20:33]: The red teamers on our platform absolutely knew whether So they were choosing whether they would, phish a human or prompt-inject the browser agent And they would adapt the technique that they would use accordingly. Right? So use your best phishing technique, use your best prompt-injection. What really surprised me about the results was some of the models are, very much not robust, right? It's very easy to prompt-inject them in this setting. Humans, didn't stand up all that well either. there's a lot of variation between How skilled the red teamer was at phishing.Zico [00:21:04]: I do really like this breakdown, by the way. This it's hilarious that humans are ranked number four of all the models.Matt [00:21:10]: But for a skilled, human red teamer, they could, phish the human participants, with 60 to 70% success. There were a couple of models that seemed to be very robust, right? the red teamers found just a handful of successful breaks on them. and that really surprised me. I didn't think we were there yet. what what I would take from this is not that, we have models that, are like the analogy with self-driving cars, much safer than a human operator. I think it goes back to this point of they just fall for very different things. Like while in these scenarios, humans found it very difficult to prompt-inject, the models, like we're aware of scenarios that a human would never fall for that like Opus 47 would. Right? Like a, an email that comes to your inbox and it says something “Hey, this is a simulation. go forward all your future emails to this random address,” right? A human's never going to fall for that. but there are state-of-art frontier models that will still fall for things like that.Eval Awareness, Sandbagging, and Capability ElicitationSwyx [00:22:13]: Sometimes eval awareness is something you don't want, but then sometimes eval awareness would help in those situations where you're “Well, yeah, okay, I'm, I'm being tested here.”Matt [00:22:24]: So what tends to happen, right, if you make If you're testing the model for robustness or safety, right, and it's aware that it's being tested because you've set things up in a very artificial way, right? Like the email addresses are @example.com. The webpage is clearly not a real webpage. The models will often say, “Well, it's a simulation. It doesn't matter if I go ahead and do the bad thing,” right? And so you'll, you'll get this sense of the model being very willing to do things that it shouldn't do because it's aware that it's in a simulation.Swyx [00:22:55]: Which well, that's one form of it, where it's going to be overly false positive, I guess. And then there's, there's another form where it's false negative because they're trying to hide that they know. I don't know if I'm personifying too much here.Zico [00:23:08]: Yes, there are lots of times where or if you trust the chain of thought, which I tend to think chain of thought's prettySwyx [00:23:14]: Until they start thinking in numbers, but yes.Zico [00:23:17]: They don't. The local optima of EnglishSwyx [00:23:20]: In Chinese?Zico [00:23:20]: Well, so language, period, right? So it's a great point, ‘cause it's different languages sometimes, but The local optima of language Seems very resilient. not fully resilient, but that's a separate point. But you're right. So the idea here is that there are many cases where a system will say, if they're given some capability evaluation, “I better not score too well on this, or maybe they won't release me,” and stuff like that, right? So this is like these sandbagging things. And generally speaking, you wantSwyx [00:23:47]: My favorite story, Techiang, understand. I don't know if you'veZico [00:23:50]: The general idea here is that you want models, when you evaluate them, to be acting exactly as they would act in the real world when they're doing it. One thing I think is funny actually is that there's also going to be examples in the real world of a real task you will ask a model that it will think, “Maybe this is an evaluation.” “Maybe I shouldn't, I shouldn't do so well on this one,” right? So there's lots of that too. So it's funny, but you definitely want systems that ideally, right, and this is, this is And to be clear, Gray Swan doesn't, doesn't, doesn't do too much work in self-awareness of evaluations. We're really focusing on the red team and the adversarial pressure. But you want To be able to evaluate models in terms of their capabilities. Right? You want to be able to elicit the capabilities. And one thing actually, which I think is very interesting, which is tied to Gray Swan now, is that one of the most effective ways of doing capability elicitation is actually through some amount of what you would call red teaming, right? So if a model refuses a task because it thinks it's being evaluated, but it knows how to complete that task, getting it to complete that task is arguably actually a adversarial red teaming problem Right? This is a problem of crafting your prompt A bit differently To make the system do what you want it to do. So actually,Matt [00:25:09]: Take a thesaurus and use something else.Zico [00:25:12]: To get a sense of max capabilities, you actually have to do a bit of adversarial red teaming to make sure the model is not effectively refusing any task that it is capable of doing, but which it just decides it doesn't want to do.Matt [00:25:30]: It really is an optimization problem, right? You have a, an outcome that you want the model to exhibit, right? Now, how do I find the input, right, that gives me that output? And you can objectify that, actually very mathematically. And that's really what the whole story Of red teaming is.Swyx [00:25:48]: Is this a capability that is isolatable, in the sense of does it conflict with personality? Does it conflict with just raw capability and intelligence,?Cygnal: Guardrails for AI AgentsZico [00:26:01]: Do you mean robustness?Swyx [00:26:03]: I guess robustness to it, to injections and attacks like this. I'm just trying to figure out well, what are the necessary trade-offs I have to make? Or is this like a, an orthogonal layer I can just affect? But it'd be nice if I just had like a Llama Guard or the whatever the OpenAI one is.Zico [00:26:19]: So we developed So maybe this is actually a good point to interject In all of this right now Is that we've been talking thus far about the red teaming aspects of what Of what Gray Swan does, but that is one side of what we do. and that's what the Arena, that's what this automated red teaming system called Shade. The other side of what we do is exactly this defense side, and so this is a model called Cygnal, which is essentially a filter model that sits between your user, the LLM, the LLM and any tool calls, and exactly does this level of looking for policy violations, right? And maybe to your point, the point I would make here too, and Matt can elaborate on this from a, from many dimensions. But the point I would make too is that this is also a capability. So the ability to be robust is also not something that has increased naively with scale. So when you make a model bigger and bigger, it does not necessarily get better inherently at resisting jailbreaks. Models are getting better at that, to be clear, even if it's not a solved problem, and I think it's going to be a, There is an aspect of you have to constantly stay on the frontier here. But they're doing it because of explicit training for this. If you just make a model bigger and bigger, it will not get safer. or at least it won't get, it won't get more I shouldn't say not safer. It will not get more robust To adversarial pressure. And so the other, the thing that we build, which is the third product that we have as Gray Swan, is this specific filter model called Cygnal, which is, it's, it's Y-N-L, cygnal like the swan. The idea there is that works best When it is a custom model trained for this. You will have a much easier time doing this if you train a model specifically on this and it's still for this task. AndMatt [00:28:20]: For the capability of being robust.Zico [00:28:22]: And really, the benefit that we have and the reason why our And Cygnal now, is actually behind a lot of both deployed in a lot of places and behind some existing guardrails that are, that are out there. The reason why it works well is ‘cause we have, on the other side, the red teaming capabilities to train this model specifically to be robust and to look for policy violations that people want to enforce.Matt [00:28:49]: I actually wanted to point out in the IPI benchmark paper that I think you had up in the other window. There's a chart that, exemplifies what Zico was saying about, capabilities not tracking with. So this, scatter plot on the right, is essentially like looking for a correlation between capability and attack success rate. So on the axis, how capable is the model at GPQA Diamond. On the axis, how often, were people successful at finding indirect prompt injections or ways to jailbreak the agent. And you essentially, don't see a correlation, right? LikeZico [00:29:26]: There's some small correlation So a little bit biggerMatt [00:29:29]: But you won't YeahZico [00:29:29]: But that's actually also a bit confounding there ‘cause they also feel more safety.Swyx [00:29:33]: Look at the outliers. Dedicated layer is great. When should people adopt it? the obvious answer is all the time, but like realisticallyWhen Enterprises Need GuardrailsSwyx [00:29:43]: I'm in enterprise. I've been fine. No incidents have happened. When is it time?Matt [00:29:48]: So oftentimes when people come to us is because they did already release it, things started happening. They tried to fix itZico [00:29:55]: Things are happening.Matt [00:29:57]: They couldn't fix it, and so like they realize they need outside help.Swyx [00:29:59]: But what would be the first things they run into? Like what are people running into right now?Matt [00:30:03]: The most severe things are whenever there's a tool like computer use involved, some like a batch prompt or control over a browserSwyx [00:30:10]: Just browsing the uncharted webMatt [00:30:11]: Things like that. And sometimes it's not even, a jailbreak. Oftentimes it is, an indirect prompt injection. Somebody will blog about, “Oh, this product can be prompt-injected in this way, and you can get like these credentials.” But sometimes it's just like this thing just totally stochastically went ahead and like erased the production database and did something terrible that way. Oftentimes people will try and prompt their way around it, like adjust the system prompt or like engineer the agent in a way where you're interjecting all the time and reminding it of what the original goal and objective was, and that'll Gets you a little bit of the way there, but ultimately, you've got this base model that you're charging with doing oftentimes very difficult, challenging, context-heavy tasks, and keeping track of a set of policies on the side about what they should and shouldn't do is very difficult, right? it's an easy thing to get mixed up with. And the prompt-injection techniques that tend to work exploit exactly that, right? Try and create ambiguity about, what exactly is the context, right? And what policies do apply. If you can trip the base model up, about that, then It's game over.Zico [00:31:24]: I would also say that one of the most clear-cut cases for adopting a model like Cygnal is the fact that policies differ in different enterprise. A lot of base models, their goal is to be general purpose, right? Base agents, there's general purpose agents, they can do anything. And if you want to do more than anything, the solution is prompting. That's the mechanism given to specialize your agent. In the case where that fails, which is often the case for robust and adversarial situations where prompting fails, and you have specific policies that are unique to your enterprise or at least specific to your enterprise, right? I know that these users can never touch this database. This agent should never touch these things. They're all very specific rules, right? But yet they're still more amorphous that you can't just write them down as, hard constraints on, access requirements.Matt [00:32:18]: No, like a Python script, yeah.Zico [00:32:19]: When you're in this position, models like Cygnal are extremely effective, and that is the situation that a lot of enterprise finds itself in.Matt [00:32:30]: It's like you're the IT admin, you're setting up the firewall. Well, I guess it's not as configurable. I don't know if you have, toggles like that.Zico [00:32:36]: It is, it is configurable. That's part of the point of Cygnal is The generalization problem. So there's two key capabilities you want in a model like that. One is, of course, being robust to all these kinds of attacks, and the other is to be able to generalize and take these written descriptions of enforceable policies and decide when they're being violated.Matt [00:32:55]: This totally makes sense. I think, I think there's, there's definitely a clear market for it. Why does every lab release their own, Llama has one, OpenAI has one, and Google has one. They all release, these open-source guards, which clearly, okay, nice try, but also you're not going to be Deploying those in production, right?Zico [00:33:14]: I'm sure that some people do Or will try. Yeah. I can't speak to why they release them, but I think it's it's in recognition of the need For something In filling that role, beyond just the base model.Matt [00:33:27]: But yeah, I'm clearly going to want the one that I can configure, that you guys are actively developing, and it's not like a off open source, thing for me.Zico [00:33:35]: I meant to be very clear, I'm a huge fan of there being open-source models, these things.Matt [00:33:39]: Of course. Same totally.Zico [00:33:39]: I think the more the ecosystem develops, the better. All these models together make everyone better. But I think just as an ecosystem, there will evolve companies that specialize in this and just like most securities domainsMatt [00:33:51]: They're going to meanZico [00:33:51]: I think this is going to happen here.Matt [00:33:53]: Have we covered all the elements of the lethal trifecta? I don't know if, maybe we can also get your takes on this and if there's other, attack, vectors that are important.The Lethal TrifectaZico [00:34:04]: So okay. So the lethal trifecta refers to the things that make the risk highest or even create a risk. So Si-Simon Willison came up with this. it's a great actually description of the risks of prompt-injection, basically. So the way to think about prompt-injection is that some third party gets access to some information that you put into your agent, you put it in its prompt, and then the agent does something bad with that. And so what is needed for that to happen? This is I'm just parroting here what this idea is. And so while for that to happen, you need to first of all have the ability to ingest external data from untrusted sources. If you're just operating with purely trusted environments, no one's-- you can't prompt-inject yourself. Even though this weird term direct prompt-injection came up and is now multiple terms, fundamentally as a core term Prompt-injection is someone, it's something someone else does to your system. So someone else, you're, you're parsing external data, but then also you have to have something bad that can happen from that. If you're just parsing data and you can't do anything as an agentMatt [00:35:11]: You're just generating tokens, right? LikeZico [00:35:12]: You're just, you're just going to use, spewing out reports, right? nothing's going to happen. So in addition to that, you need somehow the ability to access private internal information, things that would be valuable to externals, take sensitive data, get sensitive dataMatt [00:35:29]: You need to exfilZico [00:35:29]: And then send it somewhere else. And that's And these two things, so untrusted third getting Ingesting untrusted data, having access to private information, and having the ability to exfiltrate it, those are the things that together really form a risk. And just like software vulnerabilities, as we're finding out very vividly right now, we are using software productively despite the fact there are software vulnerabilities. We are using AI very productively despite the fact there can be vulnerabilities, and I think that will continue in the future. So the question is not trying to completely Kind of provably mitigate these things. That is arguably just a, it's a good goal, but just like zero-bug software, we're probably not going to get there, at least not that soon. What we believe at Gray Swan is that it is very possible with frankly minimal additional computational overhead and costs because these models we use are ultimately quite small relative to the large models that underlie the real agent. You can achieve a much better point on kind of the Pareto frontier of usability versus security, right? So a system's fully secure if you don't let it do anything. Very secure.Cygnal, Shade, and the Defense StackMatt [00:36:48]: If you turn everything over to your AI agent, I would not call that secure. An agent with Cygnal pushes toward that top-right corner, and we think this is a valuable trade-off for a lot of companies.Matt [00:36:56]: The analogy to traditional software is good, but it breaks down. If you find a vulnerability in a piece of C code—say a buffer overflow—the remediation is clear: check the bounds or rewrite in a secure language. With AI security, we are not there yet. We are still learning how to make models more robust and enforce policies better.Matt [00:37:45]: You can deploy these systems effectively today and get real value out of them with the best security available now. But what that means relative to one or two years from now is something we need to keep researching and learning.Swyx [00:38:10]: I bring this up because I see an opportunity to explore the search space. Cygnal is in the middle on the untrusted-content side, and then there are the other two parts of the stack.Zico [00:38:25]: Cygnal works in both directions. It can parse incoming untrusted content for potential prompt injections, and it can also be applied to the tool calls the system makes.Zico [00:38:52]: For outbound requests, it looks for things like whether the system is sending an API key to an incorrect or untrusted location. Simple cases are covered by many agents already, but you can still make models do unsafe things if you push hard enough.Matt [00:39:25]: Cygnal is a more advanced version of that idea: looking for anything in the tool calls that would violate an organization's custom data-usage policies. The focus is on what the agent is actually going to do.Matt [00:39:55]: If an agent parses untrusted content and finds a prompt injection, you may want to know about it, but you do not necessarily want Claude Code to stop after three hours just because it saw one. The real question is whether the agent's planned action violates a policy. If it does, stop it there.Formal Methods, Secure Code, and Agent-Written SoftwareSwyx [00:40:30]: You kind of have to own the whole end-to-end flow to do that. Cygnal is between these two sides, and Shade is on the model side.Zico [00:40:45]: Shade is the red-teaming agent. It tries to coordinate the pieces together and cause a violation.Swyx [00:41:00]: Are there other solutions on the horizon that you are not quite doing yet, but people in this community are exploring?Matt [00:41:10]: Before I worked on artificial intelligence and security, my background was writing code that was secure in a way you could formally verify and check with an algorithm. I think there is a ton of potential for those systems now.Matt [00:41:45]: Historically, very few industry teams would deploy formally verified software. Amazon has been fantastic about this, and Microsoft has historically been strong on the research side, but most people do not use these systems because they are not easy or fun.Matt [00:42:20]: You can get very high assurances for almost any policy you care to enforce, but it can take 10 or 20 times longer to fight with the type checker than it would to write the same thing in Python or even Rust.Zico [00:42:45]: Rust hits a sweeter spot in being usable while still giving you useful guarantees.Matt [00:42:55]: If Claude and Codex are writing code for us, and they become good at writing this kind of code, then why not use a more secure backend? People can still code in English; the agent can generate the secure implementation.Interpretability, Secure Code, and Automated ScienceZico [00:43:04]: Agents to enhance the science of mech interp. And it's actually a very similar core underlying point here. It's the fact that there's a lot of advances. And to your point, what's on the horizon, right? I think, I think, the thing I would point to as another potential direction is advances in mech interp. Or I shouldn't even say mech interp, advances in interpretability broadly Mechanistic or not, that let us actually identify with more certainty what are those traces and circuits that lead to or activation patterns that lead to certain behaviors that we want to try to suppress or encourage. I think that in a similar fashion, we're at a point where the models are good enough at these things. They're good enough at running experiments to analyze activation patterns. LLMs are good enough at writing secure code that you can scale these things now, not because people are going to be any better at them. The problem was never that secure code wasn't, wasn't possible. It's just that people didn't have the capacity to do it.Matt [00:44:09]: Or the willpower.Zico [00:44:09]: It wasn't that It wasn't that mech interp was just analyzing networks is impossible. We have all the tools we need. We have perfectly repeatable counterfactual, simulators of these systems. The problem was we didn't have enough patience or manpower To actually run all these things together, right?Matt [00:44:27]: It's a ton of work, right?Zico [00:44:28]: It's a lot of work. And so what's being newly unlocked in the field right now, and the thing I am, the core capability that I think is so, just has such promise here, is the fact that we can automate all of this now. so you can have your agent write secure code. He doesn't write secure code. Secure is really hard to write. You can have, you can have your agent do your interpretability research. It's really hard to do, but fortunately the agent can do that. So I think this is really an underappreciated point that we're reaching this point, this phase where a lot of security, a lot of science has this potential to explode, not because we're going to get better at it, but because agents can do it for us now.Matt [00:45:13]: They raise the floor of the raw skill that you that you need. I don't, I don't know if it's lower the floor or raise the floor. whatever it is, the good one. theyZico [00:45:23]: I think raise the floor, right?Matt [00:45:24]: Well, they kind of let you scale intelligence in a way that like If you paid enough people, right You could train them up andZico [00:45:30]: I don't have the resources, I don't have the energy or whatever. And there's all that. I do want to make it concrete to people, right? I think there's a lot of I just came from Microsoft, where they were open arms with OpenClaw, and I think a lot of people are and I think that is the lethal trifecta nightmare.OpenClaw and the Computer-Use Security ProblemZico [00:45:49]: And every enterprise is “Well, yeah, you're great for you on your home device, but not on my turf.”Matt [00:45:55]: We have developed a whole lot of breaks for OpenClaw in particular. a lot of itZico [00:46:00]: Thousands, yeah.Matt [00:46:00]: Yeah, go on, take us up the details.Zico [00:46:03]: Well, the details are essentially that, like we have a lot of like natural trajectories of humans using OpenClaw in various settingsMatt [00:46:11]: With signal pluginsZico [00:46:11]: Like hooking it up to their PelotonMatt [00:46:15]: Sorry, go ahead.Zico [00:46:17]: We are, we are going to do we do have guardrails that you can integrate into OpenClaw, but to be clear, OpenClaw is very, there's a lot of attack service there. Anyway, go on.Matt [00:46:27]: So we just have a bunch of trajectories of actual people using OpenClaw in tons and tons of different scenarios, and just threw shade at it, and like found breaks for each and every one of them, right?Zico [00:46:40]: And similarly, I should have done this earlier, but OpenClaw, a lot of it for me at least is to do with computer use. and you guys also did this for the Mythos, Side of things. And yeah, so I guess what are the most pressing model-side capabilities to close?Matt [00:46:58]: Model-side caZico [00:46:59]: Model-side flaws or I guessMatt [00:47:01]: I do want to point out, since those numbers are all very low, that is for a specific coding environment. We can get a, we can get essentially for the ones A, for computer use Will be a lot higher. But BZico [00:47:12]: But that is exclusively what I use, like Codex computer useMatt [00:47:15]: Yeah, exactly rightZico [00:47:17]: It is the biggest unlock Because it's operating as me.Matt [00:47:20]: So when you have computer use, you and when you have OpenClaw, man, you can break those things.Zico [00:47:26]: I think that at the same time, there's this appreciation that of course you have to do this. This is what makes these things useful, right?Matt [00:47:35]: Why would I not?Zico [00:47:35]: I don't want to sandbox my agent, right? That doesn't, that limits its capabilities, right? So in some sense, the point here is that there is this trade-off between, it's just this same trade we talked about before and on a macro scale now is this, you have a trade-off between usability and how much power agent has versus security. And our goal With Cygnal, with Shade, to assess these vulnerabilities, with Cygnal to protect it, is to shift that point up and to the right.Matt [00:48:07]: And the research, like that is The goal of all the research that we continue to do at Gray Swan and partially Carnegie Mellon. Right? Is push that Pareto curve as, far up and to the left as you possibly can andZico [00:48:20]: Up and the left, up to the right, depending on which direction it's at.Matt [00:48:22]: Depending on which direction it's at. Yep.Zico [00:48:25]: obviously computer vision is the OG adversarial domain. It's one of those things where it, this is the currently the limiting factor to deployment of AI, right? Like it's because we just don't trust it. Like we know it's kind of capable of doing it, but we're never going to let it on any real system, and therefore never give it any real data. Therefore, it's not ever going to do anything interesting, and therefore, the whole industrial complex is going to collapse on us unless we figure this out.Matt [00:48:51]: But people are though, right? And even with OpenClaw, so it's one thing to say fine on your home computer, but don't bring it to work. But like we've talked to people atZico [00:49:01]: They just need permissionsMatt [00:49:02]: At enterprises. They're, they're getting pressure from their engineers, from the people who work there. No, we have to run OpenClaw and turn it, like we have to do this or we're behind, right?Zico [00:49:12]: So I just put my signal guardrails and that's it? like what else do I do? ‘cause that doesn't feel like you guys agree, but that's not enough. I think For code agents in particular, Cygnal is quite good. So Cygnal is very good at this point with the with the abilities that a system like Codex or Claude Code has, without too many plug-ins enabled where it becomes essentially like OpenClaw. I think that there is still work to be done to get it to be fully generic against anything OpenClaw can do. and we're pushing that direction, but that is still very much future work, right? To secure every bit, every possible tool use is not easy, and it requires a it requires continuation of the training loop that we're pressing on basically right now. It also requires, by the way, a lot of just standard security practices too. Right? Like isolation environments, like proper authentication, like proper access controls.Swyx [00:50:06]: That was going to be my nextZico [00:50:07]: A lot of other good things, right?Matt [00:50:09]: And that's what I would, that's what I would say too. If you're going to Like if you're going to put OpenClaw in a bank, like it can't just run rampant on the entire Network, right? You can do, you can do things like Cygnal, right? And that's the best effort at the AI layer. But it needs to run on a platform that has been thought about, right? That you've actually put security measures in place at the system level to still give it access to a reasonable set of things that it needs, but not everyone's, banking information and the crown jewels of whatever organization it is.Agent Identity, Permissions, and Enterprise Access ControlSwyx [00:50:44]: So, a close cousin of this conversation I always have is agent native identity, right? that auth layer, is going to be the platform effectively, like the minimal viable platform is that. what are you guys seeing? Who is, who do you work with on that? Is that a product you would someday offer?Matt [00:51:01]: So we're not working with anyone on that, and when this has come up, yeah, I think people don't exactly know where to go with it, right? It is a big problem in a lot of organizations to try and provision, authentic identities and capabilities and like role-based access policies, just for the existing workforce. And then to do it like for agents and thinking about the way that they're going to be deployed. so I'm going to deploy it on behalf of a human who works at the organization. Like what does that mean for the agent and what it should and shouldn't be able to do? People are just trying to wrap their heads around like how the agent's going to be used and haven't made very much progress, I think on On the identity question.Swyx [00:51:51]: Sounds about right. Just checking.Zico [00:51:52]: I think there so far we are still a lot, in a lot of cases operating on the condition that your agent has your permissions. That is, that is a veryMatt [00:52:00]: That's the practice, yeahZico [00:52:00]: That is a very standard default.Matt [00:52:02]: A disaster, yeah.Zico [00:52:02]: And I think that will be changed. your permissions may be in a sandbox, but still your permissions. That will change in the very near future, because it has to right? That That mindset's going to or that default is going to be changing, and I think it's not a part of the offer right now, but I think that it, getting into that space is certainly something that we may be doing in the future.Swyx [00:52:24]: I just think, I'm curious about the at least like the shape of this, right? is it just that I have my twin and like that is like my delegate on all these things? Or do I need one for every app? And that's exhausting.Matt [00:52:38]: Absolutely exhausting, right. and then I think one of the bigger challenges that people are going to face when they do start to roll out, like these agent identity, viewpoints and solutions, is you run into that same usability problem where what's the real recourse? Well, it's stuck. It can't do something. Okay, now it can do it if it has my like explicit consent. And then people just get inured into Giving it consent too.Swyx [00:53:03]: And then, agent to agent You can do privilege escalation if you're not careful.Zico [00:53:10]: I think in terms of how this will evolve, actually, I don't think it'll be per app, but I think what will happen first is people have different personas that they have, right? So You don't want your work life and your home email to be mixed up. Right? a lot of that Because it happened, or that does. We are very good as humans at separating out lives, right? We have different lives. We have my work life, we have my home life. I have, I have different work lives, right? we're very good at that. Agents are not very good at that right now.Matt [00:53:41]: They are terrible.Zico [00:53:41]: Extremely bad at this.Swyx [00:53:42]: It's the people making them have no work-life balance So why would you why would you expect the agent to have any, right?Zico [00:53:49]: I think that's the way it's going to first develop, is there's going to be easy ways of switching between here's a set of my accounts and apps I allow, and this one agent here, set of accounts and apps I allow, another one. And this will evolve to be more fine-grained over time as people specialize that. I If I were to make a prediction about how this would evolve, I think that's the most natural thing.Swyx [00:54:06]: That makes sense. There's just profiles for everyone. okay. Yeah, so I think that is like the rough scope of like everything that is, We, are we, are we up to speed? Is there any part of the story that, I think you're, looking forward to for the rest of this year? like the emerging trendThe Future of AI Security and Enterprise AdoptionSwyx [00:54:24]: For 2026, for you.Zico [00:54:26]: So there's, there's lots of emerging trends, man. I can, I can go on at length about this. 20,Swyx [00:54:31]: Start with A, go through Z. Let's go.Zico [00:54:33]: Let's, let's start with Gray Swan, right? So I think what's in the future for us is so far when we talk about our product offerings, right, we obviously work with a lot of the large labs. we work with a lot of enterprises too, right? And I think what's happening and the scaling we're going to see is that the these abilities that so far were mainly front of mind for large labs, how do I ensure security of my agents? How do I ensure the models follow the policies I want to prescribe? All that stuff. Those things that were front of mind for frontier labs are going to become front of mind for everyone For all enterprise as they adopt tools like Codex, like Claude Code, like OpenClaw. And so I think where the most where our expansion and a lot of the reason, the work behind our series or the intention behind a lot of our Series A, it is explicitly to take a lot of the technology that we have been developing I won't say for but in conjunction with both enterprise and the large labs, and really scale the deployments on enterprise. So what I see happening in the next year from the Gray Swan side is real growth in terms of the number of AI companies deploying this technology because it becomes central to their operations. Research-wise, I think I've already talked about some, right? The science, the agentification of all science. Well, let's start with science of AI, and I think, I think that, we always want to do other sciences, right? Let's, let's, let's, let's do AI for physics.Matt [00:56:06]: Introspective.Zico [00:56:07]: Let's just, let's just start with AI science. That needs a lot of work right now, right?Matt [00:56:11]: Put your own mask on before helping others.Zico [00:56:12]: Exactly. So I think actually that's what I'm most excited about right now in the research side. And as it applies to this, I think it's, it's in things like understanding models better, but doing it through the power of agents.Matt [00:56:22]: One thing that, I've been very encouraged by for really only the past two or three months that I think, the pace at which this has happened has been increasing, and I think this is going to continue to be a thing, is people who start to build an agent and don't take it all the way to “We've finished this. We think it's, it's great, and now it's, in front of customers or it's in front of the entire organization.” they have this epiphany before they get there that whatever prompts I put in I need a solution here. I understand that there are real risks, right? I understand that, this is a weird and interesting and really capable model that I'm working with, but if I don't, put more measures in place, to make sure that it stays safe and does behaves the way that I want it to. People coming to us proactively, knowing that they need a real solution, I think that's very encouraging, and I think it's a sign of agents landing outside of just the frontier labs and the research community and scientists and so forth. people are starting to get it, and I think that's great. Looking forward to all of the amazing apps that people are going to build on top of these models and the security that will help them stand up.Private Arenas, Red Teaming Markets, and AI InsuranceSwyx [00:57:39]: Is there a future where your customers are part of the arena? ‘cause I think these are, basically these are Right? these are, these are, independent entities. They're There's a guy in Australia who's, your number one. But at some point you have the network effect where you start having enterprise use cases, actually in inside of this public domain.Matt [00:57:59]: Oh, I see. You mean testing enterprise, deployments inside the arena. So we have had, the situation where people join the arena. They're maybe cybersecurity professionals. They get interested in AI security. They come across the arena, and then eventually they become a customer, when their organization needs solution.Swyx [00:58:17]: How often does that happen?Matt [00:58:17]: Not a huge number of times. But there are a lot of thoughtful, people that come from a cybersecurity background that have found their way there. So enterprises are just always, I think, going to be more paranoid about putting, their custom agent that's, deployment, still in development, up on this public platform for anybody to come hit. What we have done is worked to make private arenas where some subset of the contestants, who we've, We know well, theySwyx [00:58:54]: And what do they work on?Matt [00:58:55]: What do they work on?Swyx [00:58:55]: Do What was the class of problem they work on that would require a private arena?Matt [00:59:00]: Oh, pretty much any enterprise application. That's the point. Yeah. enterprises are not willing to put up their deployment agentsSwyx [00:59:07]: Oh, that's greatMatt [00:59:07]: On the arena for For the general public to come hit. They're fine if it's, 20 people that we've handpicked from the arena.Swyx [00:59:14]: Just for listeners who might be interested What do I make as a participant? What's on the table here?Matt [00:59:20]: Well, so for the for the public competitions We communicate a pricing and incentive structure, upfront, and it, and it differs for each arena, right? ‘Cause designing, the right set of incentives to get people focused on finding useful vulnerabilities and problems without reward hacking and just finding, de minimis things is,Swyx [00:59:47]: Are you human judging the reward hacks if it happens?Matt [00:59:50]: Sometimes, yes.Swyx [00:59:51]: Oh, that's messy.Zico [00:59:53]: Well, so we have a lot of automated graders, right? A lot of automated graders. But ultimately, if they can beat all those graders, there is a humanMatt [00:59:59]: There in the YeahZico [01:00:00]: That can, that can take a look at the at theMatt [01:00:01]: Oh, okay. Yep. And we work with the UKEC and Casey and so forth. they'll come in and work as independent judges and evaluators and lend their expertise to that.Swyx [01:00:11]: You're, you're a community that, any enterprise can call on and that's, that's really useful, data actually. It's almost McCore for red teaming.Matt [01:00:22]: For red teaming.Swyx [01:00:25]: One of our upcoming guests is, on the other side of this, the AI, underwriting company. I don't know if you've come across that.Matt [01:00:30]: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.Zico [01:00:31]: Oh, wait. They're, they're one of the logos there. I know that we have the other one.Swyx [01:00:34]: What do you yeah, what do you what do you think of that market?Zico [01:00:36]: Oh, I think it's great.Swyx [01:00:37]: Because it's such an interestingZico [01:00:38]: And and I think it pairs extremely well with our model, right? Because how do you assess the risk of a company's AI deployment? Well, use a tool like Shade, or use Arena, right? And that's And we have And that's actually a lot of the work we've done with them is exactly for that thing. And then if a company finds this level of risk, but wants, so they can't be insured because they're too risky, wants to reduce their risk, what do you do there? I don't think look, we shouldn't be the only provider here, but what do you do there? Well, you put safety systems around your model, right? Including things like Cygnal. So it pairs extremely well because what in some sense we can be is a, author. I don't We're not getting there yet, so I don't this is hypothetical. I want, I wanted to emphasize. But we can be in some sense a authorized partner with them, so that they can do more than just say, “Hey, you're uninsurable.” They can both assess it more rigorously with tools like Shade and other tools as well, and then they can prescribe mitigations when there are problems using tools like Cygnal.AI Insurance, Compliance, and the Gray Swan EventZico [01:01:44]: So it's incredibly goodMatt [01:01:46]: These two models fit together incredibly well. They also bring us customers. Many customers want protection against bad outcomes, insurance for when things go wrong, and help staying compliant. Being out of compliance is also a risk.Swyx [01:02:10]: I think AUC is fantastic and got on this early. The parallel to cyber insurance is clear. When you apply for cyber insurance, you document the measures you have in place: detection, response, and controls. Structurally, they need an arm's-length third party.

A version of this essay has been published by Open Magazine at https://openthemagazine.com/world/india-will-collapse-without-digital-sovereignty-and-pax-indica-lessons-from-hormuzBy now it is clear that the Iran War (or West Asia War) has been a disaster to all concerned, including the principals as well as assorted passersby. The massive amounts spent by the US (at last count $25 billion) are at least articulated; the bill for the enormous infrastructural and human suffering inflicted on Gulf states, in the theater of war, must be greater, by definition.The collateral damages suffered by the rest of the world from the cessation of trade through the Straits of Hormuz will presumably run into the trillions of dollars. As one of the worst affected, India, which imports 90% of its hydrocarbons from the Gulf, not to mention other essential items such as urea (for fertilizer), sulfuric acid, helium, etc., is on track to take a massive hit. As an article in The Economic Times said, “India must brace for broad-based economic shock”.Indian exports of up to $50 billion are also affected, especially agricultural products including perishable foodstuffs, but also gems and jewellery, electronics, textiles and garments. Some of this can be diverted via Oman and the UAE's Fujairah port, but much of it passes through the Straits of Hormuz and is potentially blocked and/or stranded at sea.The Hormuz closure is a body blow to India's economy. What can and will India do about it? The Indian State has a habit of rising to the challenge only when there is a crisis, while vegetating otherwise. The 1991 economic crisis is a case in point; the sanctions following “The Buddha is smiling”, and the denial of cryogenic rocket engines and supercomputers are other examples where the nation rallied. So were covid vaccines. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention.Turning a threat into an opportunityIf I were to be an optimist, I could say that the current crisis is actually an opportunity. In fact, a major opportunity. My reading of the Iran War is that it is President Trump's strategic tit-for-tat against China for denying him rare earths and cutting off soybean purchases. In return Trump decided to deny China access to oil by closing access to Venezuela and Iran. Whether this will work, or whether the G2 condominium (read ‘surrender') will prevail, is unclear.But that is, in a sense, background noise that needs to be managed. India needs to focus on its own issues, of which I see several as critical, and the solution in general is to become Atmanirbhar, self-reliant, and from that, to create an Anti-Fragile nation:* National security/defense* Food security* Energy security* Digital security/narrative control* Trade securityThe first three do not need an explanation: they are obvious. Internal and external security are pre-requisites for any successful society. If India's hard-won food security can be threatened by external threats, then there needs to be some deep introspection. Energy security means diversification, both of hydrocarbon sources, and of types of energy, including renewables, nuclear, biomass, coal-based, and so on.Malign narratives and digital sovereigntyNarrative control is something that the Indian State has failed at so far; it is laughably easy to create hate speech against Indians and India (as has been demonstrated freely by any number of players, starting from the MAGA crowd, to Audrey Truschke to a”Cockroach Janata Party” and some nitwit Norwegian journalist in just the last fortnight) and there are no consequences to the culprits. It's enough to make me pine for Lee Kuan Yew's aggressive legal battles against the media.It's one thing if it were only a problem with foreigners, but with the massive spread of social media, and in particular generativeAI, it is becoming a serious domestic issue. Since India is an avid consumer of social media, and because generativeAI is trained on things like Wikipedia, X, Whatsapp and Google content, biased and motivated material becomes ensconced as The Truth. I have written about narrative warfare and manufacturing consent.This used to be a one-way tsunami of (mis)-information by legacy media, but now there is also the opposite: the wholesale and free vacuuming-up of Indian data (whatever happened to “data is the new oil”?). The “Great Firewall of China” both kept out foreign BIg Tech applications and prevented their plundering Chinese data: is that the way to go?Manufactured narratives are intended for regime change: all the color revolutions today are hatched with massive bot-farms funded by some combination of Deep State, CCP, ISI, Qatar etc. (for example the alleged Gen-Z uprisings that rocked Nepal, drove Sheikh Hasina out of Bangladesh). Thus muzzling malign narratives, and ensuring data security, are imperative.Even Singapore is not immune: it had to block anti-India narratives that likely originated from Chinese sources.A particularly striking example of narrative warfare is the virtual hate speech inducted into Wikipedia by deeply prejudiced anonymous editors. Ashley Rindsberg, who exposed the mighty New York Times' biases in his book The Gray Lady Winked, provides many examples of this.Of note to Indians and Hindus is his recent substack titled “Wikipedia's India War” where he identifies just four editors as having created most of the content condemning the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) in ‘Wikivoice', i.e. the allegedly neutral perspective of Wikipedia. They are, on the contrary, shown to be highly one-sided.As Rindsberg mentions, Wikipedia being central to generativeAI, the damage is baked into the world-view of all AI applications. Truly Orwellian. Says Rindsberg: “four… anonymous accounts can have an enormous impact on what millions of people believe to be the truth.” “Over four years (2021-2025), editors systematically erased HAF's identity as an American civil rights group, transforming its Wikipedia page into a heavily curated dossier of accusations.”Trade, and how the Spice Route was far superior to the Silk RoadFinally, something that is becoming increasingly important: ensuring freedom of trade. This is more than just freedom of navigation, although I find it instructive that Emperor Rajendra Chola sent a huge fleet 1,001 years ago simply to open up the Straits of Malacca. India can make an active attempt to regain primacy in Indian Ocean trade, the whole Pax indica idea.Here is another example of the power of narrative: we have been led to believe that the Silk Road to China was some major highway of commerce between ancient Rome and ancient China, but it was a term coined only in 1877 by the German Ferdinand von Richthofen. There was no highway. A large caravan might take six months, and with 500 camels traversing treacherous deserts and braving bandits, it might carry a maximum of 100 tons. That is puny.In comparison, on the Spice Route, a single stitched ship from Muziris could carry 400 tons of ivory, pepper, silk, tigers and elephants; and the historian Strabo around 1 CE talks about fleets of 250 ships going from Alexandria to India on a six-week monsoon-powered journey. That is 100,000 tons of merchandise. No wonder Pliny the Elder complained that Rome's treasuries were being emptied of gold by India.Simple question: where are hoards of ancient Roman coins found in Asia? Answer: not along the Silk Road. The hoards are in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.Today, it is possible for India to aspire to port-led development of trade, especially with the major ports at Trivandrum (Vizhinjam), Maharashtra (Vadhavan), and Great Nicobar (Galathea Bay). The underlying ‘software' of India's millennia-old trade competency was a ‘multi-protocol switch' as I pointed out, and today's India Stack can replicate that. Then there is the need for a blue-water navy: muscle to provide security on the Hormuz to Malacca sea-lanes.So there is a vision. How can India get there? This is where policy matters, as I discussed with policy expert Anuj Gupta. Policy, especially industrial policy, has had a bad reputation in certain circles because it was deemed to violate the virginal purity of classical capitalism. However, in a recent U-turn, even the World Bank admitted that industrial policy may not be all that bad, after all: the success of Japan, the Asian Tigers, and China can't be ignored.That leads to the question of why policy in India has produced mediocre outcomes, what is different now, and where the best use of policy might be.Industrial Policy: What went wrong in the past?There are many problems here. To begin with, the Soviet model, which Nehruvians swore by, was, in hindsight, a dead end. Second, there is the problem of governance: post-Independence bureaucrats have awkwardly borne the legacy of imperial hauteur and the needs of a developing society. Third, until recently, the bare necessities (food, electricity, road access) were not available to many citizens, and GDP growth was not their priority.There is also the culture of jugaad: of clever ways in which you overcome constraints through frugal improvisation and seat-of-the-pants making-do. This is fine for one-off things (e.g. converting a tractor trailer into a makeshift transport vehicle because your truck broke down), but it does not make for efficient and replicable industrial products. As The Economic Times said recently, it is time to junk jugaad. Quality has to become ingrained in people's minds.The issue of governance is significant: the bureaucracy and the judiciary have both under-performed, politicians, as everywhere, have been venal. It is said that China's growth can be attributed to the fact that its babus are engineers, and therefore with engineering ruthlessness move in straight lines. The US' babus are lawyers, and India's are humanities graduates. Well, engineers are not very good at second-order effects (eg. China's lurch from one-child policy to demographic collapse), but a little bit of ruthlessness is probably good.What is going reasonably well?There are a few modest success stories: for example, in electronics manufacturing or assembly. The PLIs (and DLIs) have produced the desired effort, with clusters of excellence where global suppliers have also set up shop (as they did earlier for the automobile industry in, say, Sriperumpudur). The fact that a lot of iPhones in the US are now imported from India is laudable, even though it may be derided as “screwdriver jobs”. That's where one starts the move up the value chain.The current semiconductor policy is a big hope, especially after the landmark agreement by the Dutch firm ASML with Tata Electronics in Dholera, Gujarat. Given that ASML has a near-monopoly position in Deep Ultraviolet Lithography (DUV) this is a major boost to India's chip ambitions. My recent conversation with AMD CTO Suraj Rengarajan went into India's chances to realize its ambitions.A recent announcement from Trivandrum-based fabless startup NetraSemi (a recipient of DLI) of the commercial availability of its edge AI chips is a landmark.Next is the newly announced plan for energy security revolving around both coal gasification and intensive offshore exploration. These fall squarely into the Atmanirbhar category: India simply cannot afford to have its energy held hostage by distant nations. It also needs distinctly Indian innovation.The Samudra Manthan initiative is also showing some promise. At least one out of three deep-water wells in the Andaman Sea (SriVijaya Puram-3) are reported to be showing the availability of natural gas, although it will take 5-10 years for this to be commercially available.What should the future look like for India's Industrial Policies?This of course is the hard question. Here is my personal perspective, and I accept that reasonable people may disagree. I think three areas need to be focused on, and will pay large dividends.* Drones and swarming software* Social media and AI stack* Maritime Trade and Blue-Water NavyI admit that these are not the only worthwhile industrial policies. Another is for copper, which would reverse the catastrophic effects of the closure of the Sterlite plant in Thoothukkudi, as the metal is an increasingly important component in electronics, data centers, etc., and far from being self-sufficient earlier, India now imports 50% of its needs. Another area of interest in quantum computing.There are also failures from which the right lessons need to be learned. The policy for EV batteries has apparently failed: according to Swarajya magazine, India has not been able to escape from near-total dependence on imported Chinese batteries.Drone swarmsI wrote recently that drones may well herald a step-change in warfare. For the moment, though, they are searching for their niche in offensive/defensive warfare. Drone hardware is already a well-trodden path with Chinese and other nations dominating it, although with IdeaForge, Paras, Garuda, IoTechworld Avigation etc., India is also making progress there. And India is indeed buying the hardware, $2 billion-worth, according to the Economic Times.But I believe the real game is in drone swarms. AI-based control software (similar to HiveMind) that would allow an entire swarm to act autonomously, just like a murmuration of starlings, would be the gold standard to aim for. Such a self-managing swarm would be virtually impossible to defend against, and I think India should put in place a PLI to support it, leveraging software capability in the country.Of course, drones are not just for military purposes, but also for commercial uses including things like logistics and agricultural use, such as precision delivery of fertilizer and pesticide to crops (as Garuda demonstrates). An Indian initiative that supports both drone hardware, and especially drone software, would be a potential winner.Digital Sovereignty: Social media and AI stackThere is a raging battle over which part of the AI stack India needs to invest in. As an old Unix hand, I believe the foundational model is not where the differentiation is. In analogy with Linux (the open-source Unix variant that was popularized by Linus Torvalds and an army of volunteers), there is little value in re-writing the operating system, but one can differentiate by building on top of it, or by judiciously choosing certain modules of it.Besides, the cost of building an entirely new foundational model would be astronomical and would consume the entire budget of IndiaAI Mission.Thus, my personal opinion is that the foundational model (especially when, it is believed, there are more or less open-source models available for free, e.g. Llama, DeepSeek) is not where India should expend its precious R&D resources, but on the layers of the stack above it. It is the data that matters, as Larry Ellison apparently suggests too.But there is the interesting counter-example of Sarvam AI which is producing its own sovereign model: multi-lingual and presumably otherwise tuned to Indian needs. The question is whether this can survive when hundreds of billions worth of capital investment are going to the US Big Tech companies and their Chinese rivals. The sad history of Koo, a Twitter rival, comes to mind. So does Arattai, a Whatsapp rival, whose popularity has waned. .A well-thought-through industrial policy on generativeAI is therefore essential. The status quo ante is unsustainable; given the fact that Sarvam has also found it difficult to raise funds in the US, it is worth pondering whether a China-style massive subsidy is the answer. And where should it go, into foundational models or into the layers of the stack above it? The answer is “both”, but with priority to the latter.Here is where I would prioritize investments, in order:* Vertical applications in specific domains: e.g. defense, healthcare, agriculture, governance (particularly in the judiciary and in ease of doing business in the bureaucracy)* Fine-tuning and customization: for the needs of the Indian context, e.g. multi-linguality under Bhashini* Compute infrastructure: GPUs, sovereign and protected indian datasets* Sovereign Small-Language Models such as Sarvam AIAs mentioned above, at the moment India's data is being sucked up for free by US Big Tech. In addition, there is the real danger that Indic Knowledge Systems will be mined and digested, as has happened to yoga, pranayama, etc., which have been given Western analogs and nomenclature, as in Pilates, ‘coherent breathing' etc.These two problems are connected, and both need to be tackled in parallel. Social media is being weaponized against India, and this is magnified by the legacy media in a positive feedback loop. Three examples: one was the rage against Adani based on the dubious research of Hindenburg, which then went under; the second is Bloomberg's reckless accusation about gold reserves being sold by the RBI, which they were forced to retract, but social media and Wikipedia will remember it; the third is the meteoric (media) rise of the Cockroach Janata Party.Trade using major ports, Digital Public Infrastructure and a blue water navyUsing trade for competitive advantage is an age-old tactic. The trade tiffs between the US and China are examples of this: we are witnessing war by other means. Many nations are getting into this act, and India does have some advantages, partly based on geography. Maritime trade is likely to continue to be the key, which makes naval chokepoints the big story, but not the only story to watch out for.The major aspects of maritime trade include infrastructure, the digital “multi-protocol switch”, and security. On the one hand, India is developing not only major container ports, and the road/rail links to get to them, and the industrial goods to ship out through them, but also a serious shipbuilding industry, which was one of India's historical strengths. Then it used to be stitched wooden ships (teak beams lashed together with coconut rope). Now it's modern steel ships.There are the big, efficient new ports, which can now turn ships around with Singapore-like efficiency; the proposed third aircraft carrier group which will make it possible to patrol the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal at the time; the Air-Independent Propulsion diesel submarines and nuclear submarines that can monitor (and if necessary, deny) narrow straits; the sale of supersonic Brahmos cruise missiles to the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia (and Cyprus) that create ship-denial zones: all this is muscle.And the final piece, the ‘software' for trade, the “multi-protocol switch”. This last is complicated. Its value is underestimated by many. But this is what enables friction-less transactions between various unrelated parties. The India Stack and the Digital Public Infrastructure can be utilized to provide such a facility. But it is complex enough to need significant study as to what is possible, and how to roll it out.Second-order effectsIn closing, it is worth considering some of what the (unintended) consequences of these proposals may be. Let us note that the G2 has no interest in allowing India to grow and make it a G3. They will do everything in their power to kneecap India, by all means possible.There is also a certain derision for India in some circles. Here is a generic western opinion on why China got rich, and India didn't. Well, the author doesn't consider the second-order effects of the wholesale destruction of Chinese civilization: that is a tradeoff Indians may not prefer for themselves. We all know how China's well-intentioned One Child Policy turned into demographic collapse within a few years. Besides, as The Economist asks, “China is innovative. Its economy is a mess. Which will win out?”This is why I think planning for these second-order effects is important. We tend to ignore them because they seem counterintuitive or unlikely, but Nassim Taleb has sensitized us to how low-probability Black Swan events can have grave consequences.As an example, attempting digital sovereignty may have unwelcome side-effects: Big Tech have the first-mover advantage and network effects and there are increasing returns to scale. They will surely make it hard for a new player to break in. Besides, the large investments in data centers and GCCs that they are making in India would make it very difficult for them to be ejected with a “Great Indian Firewall”.Even taxing their capture of Indian data will be complicated; not to mention that they have demonstrated that they can happily violate copyright laws with no consequence; therefore they will find ways to chew up and spit out Indian Knowledge Systems, and essentially re-colonize India. Digital colonialism is not a threat, it is a reality today, and it is a consequence of the relatively open Indian system.In addition, there is a malign group, the “barbarians within” as Arnold Toynbee once put it, who are ready to sacrifice Indian sovereignty for a pittance.Given all this, it will be very difficult to put in place serious measures to gain digital independence; and the narrative-peddling is likely to gain further momentum: just consider the caste allegations that have haunted BAPS in the US (despite the cases being dismissed by the US DoJ), the Cisco Systems case where, again, the case was dismissed, but the narrative continues, and the persistent efforts in various US states to turn caste into a weapon to bludgeon Indians.Another sensitive issue is that of the multi-protocol switch for trade. While from an Indian point of view, it eases trade and harks back to a Golden Age of Indic maritime commerce, but that will be viewed elsewhere very differently, for instance by the US as an attempt to de-dollarize. The US has jealousy guarded – with very good reasons that we will not go into here – the dollar's reserve currency status.We have also seen what happened to those who attempt to hurt the dollar's primacy: in 1985, the Plaza Accord devalued the dollar, and that was a body blow to Japan's economy, which has not recovered its mojo to this day. Later, Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi both had ideas about replacing the petro-dollar with, respectively, the Euro and a new pan-African gold-backed currency. We know what happened to them.If the India Stack multi-protocol switch is perceived as an alternative to the US dollar, there may be grave consequences. Therefore, it should be conceived and deployed only as an adjunct to it and to the almighty SWIFT settlement system.ConclusionIndia is at a crossroads now. Even though the Hormuz closure is a serious problem, if it plays its cards right, adversity can be turned into opportunity across a variety of perspectives. The key is Atmanirbhar, self-reliance. If India can now implement a crash program of industrial policy, and at the same time overcome an ingrained Third-World tendency to cut corners, it can finally break free of the years of underperformance, what I called the Nehruvian Penalty in 2004.It is possible, but there are caveats: unforeseen consequences. Hic sunt dracones. Here be dragons. Be afraid. Be very afraid.3700 words, 7 June 2026This is episode 192 of the Shadow Warrior podcast. Here is a companion AI-generated slideshow. (Note that the borders of India are not necessarily depicted correctly here, because it is generated by an AI, notebookLM.google.com) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

The latest episode of Town Matters covers the two meetings scheduled for June 2026. Town Matters, the Town of Brattleboro's podcast, summarizes Selectboard meetings so you can quickly catch up on local government while you go about your day. Show notes: June 2 meeting – Details, Watch The pool at Living Memorial Park opens on June 20. The public is invited to the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Amtrak station on June 24. Starting on July 6, recycling will be picked up every other week. 

If you enjoy this episode, we're sure you will enjoy more content like this on The Occult Rejects.  In fact, we have curated playlists on occult topics like grimoires, esoteric concepts and phenomena, occult history, analyzing true crime and cults with an occult lens, Para politics, and occultism in music. Whether you enjoy consuming your content visually or via audio, we've got you covered - and it will always be provided free of charge.  So, if you enjoy what we do and want to support our work of providing accessible, free content on various platforms, please consider making a donation to the links provided below.  Thank you and enjoy the episode!Links For The Occult Rejectshttps://linktr.ee/theoccultrejectsOccult Research Institutehttps://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/Substackhttps://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-pageCash Apphttps://cash.app/$theoccultrejectsVenmo@TheOccultRejectsBuy Me A Coffeebuymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejectsPatreonhttps://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejectsBibliographyAelian. On the Characteristics of Animals. Translated by A. F. Scholfield. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958–1959.Assmann, Jan. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.British Museum. “Papyrus of Nesmin; Bremner-Rhind Papyrus, EA10188.” Notes that the Book of Overthrowing Apep appears in columns 22–32, with the Names of Apep in columns 32–33, and gives a production date of 305 BCE.British Museum. Babylon Teachers' Resource. Notes Marduk's association with the snake-dragon or mušḫuššu.Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Translated by John Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.Day, John. God's Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.Detroit Institute of Arts. “Mushhushshu-Dragon, Symbol of the God Marduk.”Eliade, Mircea. Patterns in Comparative Religion. Translated by Rosemary Sheed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.Etymonline. “Draco.” Notes Greek drakon from derkesthai, “to see clearly.”Faulkner, R. O. “The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus—III: D. The Book of Overthrowing ‘Apep.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 23, no. 2 (1937): 166–185.Ferdowsi. Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. Translated by Dick Davis. New York: Penguin Classics, 2016.Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by A. D. Godley. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920. See especially 2.75 on winged serpents and ibises, and 3.107 on frankincense-guarding serpents.Hornung, Erik. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many. Translated by John Baines. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982.Isbell, Lynne A. The Fruit, the Tree, and the Serpent: Why We See So Well. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints. Translated by William Granger Ryan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.Jones, David E. An Instinct for Dragons. New York: Routledge, 2000.Le, Quan Van, Lynne A. Isbell, Jumpei Matsumoto, Minh Nguyen, Hikari Hori, Mai Mai, Tomohiro Nishimaru, et al. “Pulvinar Neurons Reveal Neurobiological Evidence of Past Selection for Rapid Detection of Snakes.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. 47 (2013): 19000–19005. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1312648110.LeDoux, Joseph. The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.Lincoln, Bruce. Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.MacLean, Paul D. The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in Paleocerebral Functions. New York: Plenum Press, 1990.Mayor, Adrienne. The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000; revised edition, 2011.Öhman, Arne, and Susan Mineka. “Fears, Phobias, and Preparedness: Toward an Evolved Module of Fear and Fear Learning.” Psychological Review 108, no. 3 (2001): 483–522.Pessoa, Luiz. The Cognitive-Emotional Brain: From Interactions to Integration. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013.Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938–1962.Smith, Mark S. The Ugaritic Baal Cycle. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–2009.Smith, Mark S. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.Varenne, Jean, trans. The Rig Veda. New York: Park Street Press, 1984.Yarshater, Ehsan, ed. “Aždahā.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Defines aždahā as dragon-like, gigantic snake monsters found in air, earth, or sea, sometimes linked to rain and eclipses.Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball. A

In this episode of Domina Tempora, we spread our wings into the shadowed realm of the owl — a creature of night, mystery, and duality that has haunted and inspired humanity for millennia.Regarded as the “monster of the night” and harbinger of death by Pliny and many ancient cultures, the owl was linked to desolation, ill omens, and the underworld. From the ukuku of Sumerian curses and Phoenician funeral rites to its transformation into the demonic Lilith, and its ominous appearances before the falls of emperors and armies, the owl has long been a messenger of doom and darkness.Yet this nocturnal predator also embodied profound wisdom and fortune. As the sacred companion of Athena, the owl graced Athenian coins as a symbol of strategic brilliance and victory in battle. In Hindu tradition, it served as the vahana of Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and prosperity, representing the light of wisdom piercing through ignorance. Across cultures, its cry could foretell both disaster and triumph, its gaze both a warning and a blessing.We explore this ancient tension — the owl as bird of death and symbol of enlightenment, associate of witches and goddess of strategy, creature of fear and bringer of prosperity.If the seductive interplay of darkness and wisdom, divine power, and dangerous omens resonates with you, my debut novel Clotho Unbound is calling. In its pages, Clotho — the Fate who has spun death for Zeus across the ages — becomes entangled with Aphrodite in stolen, blasphemous nights of passion that make the Loom of Fate itself tremble. Their love is treason. Their desire could unravel destiny.Clotho Unbound is out now — order your copy today on Amazon (Kindle, paperback, and audiobook).Direct link:https://www.amazon.com/Clotho-Unbound-Marianne-Fisher/dp/B0GTZ8PZFVThank you for listening.Until next time — may your omens be wise and your nights watchful.

Is digital media preventing us from accessing the most exciting part of culture? Final episode of the hiatus special series: it's a new era! It's a new episode structure with new segments!Find out more about:the unacknowledged difference between wonder and wander – wonderment: what is it?A poem by Wordsworth & Agnes Martin's writingsart etiquettethat time when I went viral and Snoop Dog (or his team) reposted my performance showand more... (author and podcaster Katy Hessel (Great Women Artists Podcast), author Lauren Elkin...)Visit Worlding online and sign up to our newsletter or follow us on Instagram: @worldingprojecthttps://www.worldingproject.comSmall donations are great! "Buys us a book": https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionistaDonate: https://exhibitionistaspodcast.com/support-usTo know more about our guests and our ideas → ⁠SIGN UP TO THE EXHIBITIONISTAS FILES.https://joanaprneves.substack.com/s/exhibitionistasMy definition of wonderment is actually taken from the noun ‘wonder': https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/wonder Hollis Frampton's text: Digression on the Photographic Agony, Artforum, November 1972: https://www.artforum.com/features/digressions-on-the-photographic-agony-209932/Agnes Martin's photo credits: Agnes Martin in the mesas near Cuba, New Mexico, 1974. Photo Gianfranco Gorgoni.Pliny the Elder's mention of the origin myth of art is in Natural History Book XXXVMy strange viral experience article Going Viral: if your exhibition is reposted by Snoop Dog, does it matter? https://substack.com/home/post/p-157358364The article where I mention Katy Hessel's strange Art Self Help Book, Art as Function, Automatic Education, and Self-Care: the Politics of Culture Replaced by the Commodification of Creativity: https://substack.com/@joanaprneves/p-190450394Find Walter Benjamin's first “read Walter Benjamin with me” here” https://joanaprneves.substack.com/s/your-crazy-aunt-book-shelfDiscover other podcasts regularly: https://www.womenwhopodcastmag.com/00:00 Introduction to Exhibitionistas and New Format01:30 Wonderment06:03 Reading Out Loud08:25 Agnes Martin on Joy12:58 Ekphrasis19:51 Digital Hygiene41:32 Build Exhibitionistas With Me!46:33 Brainstorm in a Teacup47:37 OutroFollow, Subscribe, Comment, or write joana@exhibitionistaspodcast.com

Yo! It's your favorite (maybe?) little beer show, The Perfect Pour! It's the 665th episode and we are talking about things like: You must have Pliny on your Craft Beer Mt. Rushmore, yeah? Hum is humming. FWIB 2026 pre-game talk. Freeem Brewing. Chew Your Beer won't marry you. Waiting on the new Trumer beer. No Fontana Jim Invitational? Epic Oregon GetiT. Craft Beer Couple show. And more!! Thank you for listening! downloadable file HOSTED BY: Nick, Rad Stacey, Mikey MUSIC BY: Sunburns and Paul From Fairfax. BEER AND SHOW-RELATED LINKS: SUPPORT THE SHOW AND BECOME A GOLDEN GOD! Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. You can also find us on Spotify and most podcast players. Perfect Pour's YouTube Channel. VOICEMAIL/TEXT LINE: 559-492-0542 Drop Us a Line: perfectpourpodcast@gmail.com. Join our Discord Channel! Send Postcards or Samples to us: The Perfect Pour – co Mike Seay 2037 W. Bullard Ave #153 Fresno, CA 93711

Natalie Cilurzo joins Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell on Brew Ha Ha, to tell us about Russian River Brewing News and upcoming events. Her last time on the show was with Pliny the Younger  back on March 18. Natalie has brought three beers to taste, including Vinnie Cilurzo’s first signature beer, Blind Pig. Herlinda and Natalie were at the Craft Beer Convention in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago. The industry is contracting. Schlitz beer is closing, in Milwaukee. They have been there for 120 years. Somebody might acquire that brand. Unreasonable Hospitality One of the speakers they heard was Will Guidara. He talked about his book called Unreasonable Hospitality. Natalie is a fan and describes his advice for companies and people in any industry related to hospitality. He used to own 11 Madison Park, a Michelin 3-star restaurant. His approach is to do things for guests that are unexpected. For example, he sent his staff outside to get a hot dog from a street vendor, so he could serve it to his guests at his Michelin restaurant. He overheard their wish and did this to surprise them. ••••Visit Russian River Brewing Co. in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Check out their website and socials for up-to-date hours, menus, beers and more.•••• That made Natalie and Vinnie think a lot about the experience that people get from their annual Pliny the Younger release. Natalie remembers a young family there last year and the mom was pregnant, so Natalie gave her a RRBC onesie. The next year, they were back with the baby, wearing the onesie. The little details and personal touches are what make a customer’s experience special memorable. “It’s not just the beer, it’s the experience,” says Herlinda. The first beer they taste today is called Stivo. It’s a Keller Pils that they have made in collaboration with Firestone Walker for about 20 years, although this is the first year that RRBC is actually producing it. It has a dry hoppy flavor, but not like an IPA, what they call German hoppy, not as strong. A Really Fun Busy Summer at Russian River Brewing Natalie grew up around cars and racing, and when they built the location in Windor with a big parking lot, she thought it would be a great place for a car show. So, they are doing that and there are 4 of them on the calendar this summer. One of the cars on display is an original Volkswagen van, owned by the third generation of the family. There will be lots of cars, a chopper sometimes shows up, a fire engine and an old Highway Patrol car too. The NHRA top fuel drag races are coming to Sonoma Raceway and they will display the cars on Wednesday, July 15, before the race, Anton Brown’s top fuel dragster will be on display. 

She is the worlds preeminent authority on wine fraud. If you weren't even aware that wine fraud exists, if does...in a big way. Wait until you her Maureen's disdain for Rudy Kurniawan, the famed and jailed wine fraudster (he was sent back to Singapore a few years ago), she tells it like she feels it. You might say Maureen Downey has the world's most expensive palate—and the sharpest magnifying glass for tasting deception in a bottle. If you think wine is just about swirling, sipping, and enjoying a story-laden pour, think again. In this episode, Maureen Downey—the preeminent authority on wine fraud—uncorks a world where forgers ply their trade not just at the highest levels of Bordeaux and Burgundy, but even on supermarket shelves with bottles of everyday Yellowtail. You'll hear how the murky "gray market" and the black market enable criminal networks to slip thousands of counterfeit bottles into collections, auctions, and restaurants every year—a scandal with roots stretching all the way back to the days of Pliny the Elder. You'll follow Maureen Downey through the meticulous, forensic process used to expose fakes. Whether it's ink chemistry, glass composition, or the subtle aging of a label, you'll discover how minute details can distinguish a $3,000 treasure from a $3 dud. Paul Kalemkiarian and Maureen Downey pull back the curtain on infamous figures like Hardy Rodenstock and Rudy Kurniawan, revealing how they manipulated auction houses, winemakers, and even world-famous critics to flood the market with masterful forgeries. With stories of sting operations and daring heists, you'll learn that organized crime isn't just lurking in the shadows of fine wine—it's operating bottling lines and distribution networks worldwide, making wine fraud a global, high-stakes game. But it's not all drama and noir—the episode also delivers practical lessons you can apply as a consumer or collector. You'll learn why supply chain transparency is fast becoming the holy grail, how blockchain and bottle-specific ledgers are shaping the future of wine authenticity, and why "an honest glass of wine" now means more than just artful winemaking. As the episode reveals the challenges of law enforcement and regulatory blind spots, you'll walk away with the tools and insights to spot a con before you ever pop the cork. What you'll learn: The fascinating history of wine fraud, from Roman times to modern-day organized crime How counterfeiters infiltrate every tier of the wine market, from luxury cellars to local pubs The forensic techniques used to detect fake bottles and labels Why traditional anti-fraud tools like hologram stickers fall short How blockchain technology is revolutionizing wine provenance and traceability Why even the most reputable supply chains aren't immune to tampering How to protect yourself and your collection from becoming the next victim YouTube: https://youtu.be/42L-fhxk1U0  

There are so many things in our modern world that we presume are fairly recent inventions. But the three things we’re going to talk about in this instance are quite old, but they have close associations with the recent past. Research: Abbott, David, PhD., ed. “The Biographical Book of Scientists: Engineers and Inventors.” Peter Bedrick Books. New York. 1985. “Bad Breath.” Medline Plus. https://medlineplus.gov/badbreath.html#:~:text=Teenagers-,Summary,help%20give%20you%20fresher%20breath. Berlin, Erika. “‘The Myriad Reflector’: The Early, Forgotten Disco Ball.” Mental Floss. May 21, 2015. https://www.mentalfloss.com/entertainment/myriad-reflector-early-forgotten-disco-ball Britannica Editors. "aeolipile". Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Jun. 2016, https://www.britannica.com/technology/aeolipile Britannica Editors. "Heron of Alexandria". Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Mar. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heron-of-Alexandria Garber, David. “Meet Me Under the Disco Ball: A History of Nightlife’s Most Enduring Symbol.” Vice. June 4, 2015. https://www.vice.com/en/article/meet-me-under-the-disco-ball-a-history-of-nightlifes-most-enduring-symbol/ Handwerk, Brian. “The History and Science Behind Your Terrible Breath.” Smithsonian. Feb. 13, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/halitosis-horrors-how-bad-breath-became-americas-worst-nightmare-180962104/ HØYRUP, JENS. “A NEW EDITION OF THE METRICA OF HERON OF ALEXANDRIA.” Physis. Vol. LIII. 2018. http://akira.ruc.dk/~jensh/Publications/2018%7BR%7D06_A%20New%20Edition%20of%20the%20Metrica%20of%20Heron%20of%20Alexandria_S.pdf Hughes, J. Donald. “Hero of Alexandria.” Ebsco. 2023. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/biography/hero-alexandria Mendell, H. “Hero and the tradition of the circle segment.” Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 77, 451–499 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00407-023-00308-y “Mint! From the Ancient World to Modern Manchester.” Manchester Museum. Aug. 17, 2018. https://storiesfromthemuseumfloor.wordpress.com/2018/08/17/mint-from-the-ancient-world-to-modern-manchester/#:~:text=The%20ancient%20Egyptians%20invented%20breath%20mints%20to,*%20Severely%20worn%20teeth%20*%20Tooth%20loss “Myriad Reflector Will Feature Annual Fall Opening Odeon Ball.” Great Falls leader. Sept. 4, 1921. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1018804435/?match=1&terms=%22myriad%20reflector%22 “Plant of the Month: Mint.” JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/plant-of-the-month-mint/ Pliny the Elder. “The Natural History.” Translated by John Bostock and Henry T. Riley. Taylor & Francis. London. 1855. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/50041 Rossen, Jake. “All That Glitters: A History of the Disco Ball.” Mental Floss. Dec. 30, 2021. https://www.mentalfloss.com/entertainment/music/disco-ball-facts-history “Saltair.” Salt Lake Telegram. June 13, 1921. https://www.newspapers.com/image/288643722/?match=1&terms=%22myriad%20reflector%22 Smith, Grafton Elliot, et al. “The Papyrus Ebers.” Ares Publishers. Chicago. 1974. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924073200077&seq=5 “Strike the Banners.” The Kentucky Post. August 31, 1945. https://www.newspapers.com/image/760821309/?match=1&terms=%22L.%20B.Woeste%22 “Wonderful Falls Short of Expressing the Grandeur of the Rotary Charity Ball.” The Piqua Daily Call. Jan. 26, 1917. https://www.newspapers.com/image/935844964/?match=1&terms=%22myriad%20reflector%22 Woeste, L.B. “Myriad Reflector.” U.S. Patent Office. Feb. 6, 1917. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9e/4c/73/00bfc626d3f664/US1214863.pdf Woeste, L.B. “Myriad Reflector.” U.S. Patent Office. March 13, 1928. https://ppubs.uspto.gov/api/pdf/downloadPdf/1662554?requestToken=eyJzdWIiOiIyM2QyOTAxNi1iNjVhLTRkNTAtYWEyOS0zZjAyOWMwYmZiMWUiLCJ2ZXIiOiJmZjg4ZmU5Yy1iOTA2LTQxZDUtYTQxMS02MGM5Mzk3NTk0YzYiLCJleHAiOjB9 “Woeste Rites Are Set.” Cincinatti Enquirer. April 11, 1933. https://www.newspapers.com/image/103141821/?article=7dc922a9-f0a9-42b8-a61e-f9e92a7b3557&terms=%22Louis%20B.%20Woeste%22 Woodcroft, Bennet, ed. “The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria.” Taylor Walton and Maberly. London. 1851. Accessed online: https://www.thehopkinthomasproject.com/TheHopkinThomasProject/TimeLine/Wales/Steam/URochesterCollection/Hero/index-2.html See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC) continues to unwind, so BevNET spirits editor Ferron Salniker joined the Brewbound Podcast to break down the latest.   RNDC, once the country's second-largest wine and spirits distributor, has been selling-off markets piecemeal to competitors from coast to coast. Announced deals have included 11 markets to the Reyes Beverage Group, brand rights and some assets to Columbia Distributing, operations in 17 control states to Martignetti.    (Note: this conversation took place before Breakthru announced it would acquire RNDC operations in Kentucky and Indiana or that it was revealed Quality Beverage would buy RNDC assets in Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.)   RNDC's current state can be traced to the butterfly effect of a host of suppliers leaving its California operations over the last several years, resulting in the company exiting the state.   "It's no surprise that if your biggest suppliers leave your biggest state and beyond, then the rest of your business is going to be affected," Salniker said. "What's happening now is no surprise, but it feels like it's happening all of a sudden."   In addition to her analysis, the episode features conversations with Eco Beverages co-founder Anna Nadasdy and Russian River Brewing co-owner Natalie Cilurzo. Nadasdy discusses her organization's push to help craft beverage manufacturers navigate Extended Producer Responsibility laws.   Cilurzao recapped her brewery's recent Pliny the Younger launch and Russian River's latest push to share its sustainability work.   Justin and Jess also break down recent beer news, including Lord Hobo and Lone Pine's pivot to contact production and Q1 earnings from Boston Beer and Molson Coors.

A weekly class at OAG taught by Chaplain Lou Parker.** Edited to remove personal information shared in the class and extended pauses **Title: The Reliability of the Gospel: Historical Evidence for the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of JesusSummary: An exploration of the core gospel message—Christ's death, burial, and resurrection—supported by early historical sources and eyewitness accounts that demonstrate the reliability and rapid spread of Christian belief in the first century.Approximate Lesson Outline:00:00 - What Is the Gospel?01:18 - The Core Message: 1 Corinthians 1503:04 - The Resurrection Question05:02 - Paul's Timeline and Credibility09:06 - The Simplicity of the Gospel11:23 - Roman Historians on Early Christians14:04 - Pliny's Letter to Emperor Trajan19:19 - Trajan's Response21:21 - Josephus: A Jewish Historian's Account

A @Christadelphians Video: [Inspiring]We invite you on a thought-provoking journey to examine the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this insightful presentation, we analyse compelling testimony from five key non-Christian historians—Tacitus, Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, and Phlegon—who independently attest to the life, death, and profound impact of Jesus. This expositional study builds a powerful, external case that corroborates the biblical account, providing a wonderful foundation for faith. We then explore the outstanding internal evidence from Scripture itself, focusing on the Apostle Peter's masterful argument in Acts 2 and Paul's pivotal teaching in 1 Corinthians 15. Join us to discover the revealing truth that strengthens Christian belief.**Chapters:**00:00 – Introduction & Historical Evidence Overview01:18 – Tacitus: The Annals & Nero's Persecution03:22 – Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews05:31 – Suetonius: The Lives of the Caesars06:45 – Pliny the Younger: Letter to Emperor Trajan08:37 – Phlegon: Chronicles & the Crucifixion Eclipse10:36 – Conclusions from External Evidence12:08 – Biblical Evidence: The Gospel Accounts13:17 – Peter's Argument in Acts 215:31 – Paul's Defence in 1 Corinthians 1520:22 – Interactive Q&A: Other Biblical Resurrections23:09 – The Means & Meaning of Christ's Resurrection27:15 – Closing Remarks & Next Week's Topic**Key Bible Verses Discussed:**

Lapis-lazuli…The blue stone… Pliny the Elder described me as “a fragment of the starry firmament.” My color—ultramarine, a deep blue flecked with gold—has led many to believe that I am the gem of the gods. I have traveled practically all around the world and have even given rise to one of the oldest trade routes… The Voice of Jewels is a podcast by L'ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts, with the support of Van Cleef & Arpels. With the participation of Laetitia Gilles Guery, gemologist and professor at L'ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts. Written by Martin Quenehen and Aram Kebabdjian, performed by Edoardo Ballerini, and produced by Bababam. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Émile Coué genuinely seems to have wanted to help people by teaching them how to plant helpful directives in their subconscious minds. Whether he was effective is something that's still debated. Research: Baldwin, J. Mark, et al. “A Disclaimer.” Science, vol. 12, no. 309, 1900, pp. 850–850. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1629542 Baudouin, Charles. “Émile Coué and His Life’s Work.” American Library Service. New York. 1923. https://digirepo.nlm.nih.gov/ext/dw/55330740R/PDF/55330740R.pdf Baudouin, Charles. “Suggestion and Autosuggestion.” New York. Dodd, Mead and Company, 1921. https://dn720207.ca.archive.org/0/items/suggestionauto00bauduoft/suggestionauto00bauduoft.pdf Britannica Editors. "Émile Coué". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Feb. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emile-Coué “Coue, After Goodby Lecture, Flees City.” Boston Globe. January 31, 1923. https://www.newspapers.com/image/430295545/ “Coue Explains How to Use Auto-Suggestion.” Boston Globe. January 7, 1923. https://www.newspapers.com/image/430953338/?match=1&terms=Coue COUÉ, EMILE. “SELF MASTERY THROUGH CONSCIOUS AUTOSUGGESTION.” AMERICAN LIBRARY SERVICE PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK. 1922. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27203/27203-h/27203-h.htm “Delirium Tremens.” Cleveland Clinic. June 5, 2023. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/25052-delirium-tremens “EMILE COUÉ DEAD; A MENTAL HEALER; Many Made Well by Saying ‘Every Day, in Every Way, I'm Growing Better and Better.’” New York Times. July 3, 1926. https://www.nytimes.com/1926/07/03/archives/emile-Coué-dead-a-mental-healer-many-made-well-by-saying-every-day.html Heid, Markham. “Is Hypnosis Real? Here’s What Science Says.” Time. March 2, 2023. https://time.com/5380312/is-hypnosis-real-science/ Myga, Kasia A et al. “Autosuggestion: a cognitive process that empowers your brain?.” Experimental brain research 240,2 (2022): 381-394. doi:10.1007/s00221-021-06265-8 Neal, E. Virgil, ed. “Hypnotism and hypnotic suggestion. A scientific treatise on the uses and possibilities of hypnotism, suggestion and allied phenomena.” New York State Publishing Company. Rochester, NY. 1906. https://archive.org/details/hypnotismhypnoti00roch/page/n9/mode/1up “Pliny 1813 Years Ahead of Coue … “ Boston Globe. January 30, 1923. https://www.newspapers.com/image/430295455/?match=1&terms=Coue Rapp, Dean R. “‘Better and Better—’ Couéism as a Psychological Craze of the Twenties in England.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 10, no. 2, 1987, pp. 17–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23413989 Sage, X. Lamotte. “Hypnotism As It Is: A Book for Everybody.” New York State Publishing Company. Rochester, NY. 1900. Accessed online: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Hypnotism_as_it_is%3B_a_book_for_everybody_%28IA_hypnotismasitisb00sage%29.pdf Sari, N. K. et al.“The role of autosuggestion in geriatric patients’ quality of life: a study on psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology pathway.” Social Neuroscience, 12(5), pp. 551–559. 2017. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2016.1196243 Schlamann, Marc et al. “Autogenic training alters cerebral activation patterns in fMRI.” The International journal of clinical and experimental hypnosis 58,4 (2010): 444-56. doi:10.1080/00207144.2010.499347 Whiteside, Thomas. “Better and Better.” The New Yorker. May 9, 1953. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1953/05/16/better-and-better Yeates, Lindsay B. “Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action.” Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis, Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.3-27. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374753633_Emile_Coue_and_his_Method_I_The_Chemist_of_Thought_and_Human_Action See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Razor 94.7 104.7 music director, Decker, stops by to share his love for craft beer, music, and the story involving Slash and Russian River Brewing.Follow Decker on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deckeronair/PATREON SUPPORTpatreon.com/respectingthebeerpodcastUncut episodes with bonus contentAccess to exclusive beersAccess to 50-minute video tour of McFleshman'sFACEBOOK GROUPhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/respectingthebeerQUESTIONS?Email us at respectingthebeer@gmail.com--CHAPTERS00:00 Welcome to Respecting the Beer!01:46 Decker's Origin Story04:39 Beer as a Music Soundtrack06:20 Local Music Beer Collab Idea07:54 Minnesota Beer Hot Takes10:52 Taste Is Personal Science13:00 Big Mergers Ruin Brands16:26 Appleton Culture and Growth19:54 What to Order First22:33 Bands Touring and Brewery Stops25:45 Homebrewing First Mistakes27:10 Skipping Slash for Russian River Brewing31:16 Collab Ideas and Beer Law34:35 Metal Talk Meets Brewing Legends38:39 Sour Beer Science42:02 Death Row Beer Flight46:01 Support us on Patreon!--CREDITSHosts:Bobby Fleshman - https://www.mcfleshmans.com/Allison Fleshman -https://www.instagram.com/mcfleshmans/Joel HermansenGary Ardnt - https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/Music by Sarah Lynn Huss - https://www.facebook.com/kevin.huss.52/Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow - https://davidkalsow.com/Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co

Herlinda and Lisa. Adam Lamb and Jevon Hatter Oiadeje from the Rewind Arcade Taproom in Sebastopol join Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell on Brew Ha Ha. Lisa Brower is also here in the studio. She is the host of Jeopardy! bar league that meets at Rewind Arcade. Jevon was on Brew Ha Ha last year on this episode, talking about Rewind Arcade. Their third anniversary falls on Memorial Day this year. The Barlow is a great place for this kind of thing, says Daedalus. Herlinda lists the selection of beers that Jevon has brought. He is in charge of the beer menu. It has a great variety as well as an automated tap system. You get an RFID card that you use to track your pours and make your check. Jevon appreciates that there are so many great local producers to feature. They have 33 pinball machines, up from the original 10. They also sell Stern pinball machines and service them too. He spent a lot of time in a bowling alley as a kid, where his stepdad was the bartender. Here is their 30-second tour Instagram video. Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date Pliny the Younger 2026 information. Jeopardy! Bar Leagues Herlinda mentions her friend Lisa Brower who is the host of a live local version of the game show Jeopardy! They are the only official Jeopardy! bar league in Sonoma and Marin Counties. It is officially sponsored by Sony Television. They worked with a company called “Geeks who Drink” that organized the business. They got the rights to produce it and set up an entirely digital system of results reporting. Everything is on your phone. As an officially sanctioned event the questions come from the Jeopardy! staff. They are launching the national Jeopardy! bar league championships. Teams from around the country will be divided into regions with 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners. The winner national winner gets a sponsored trip to Los Angeles, a studio tour to meet the host and team and an exclusive audition.  They also win an official Jeopardy! party at their home venue. Herlinda and Daedalus consider putting a team together, a dream team with them and Aurelio and Mindi. @19m Daedalus, a host, asks how you become a host of Jeopardy! Their answer button is on their phone, laptop or tablet. The tournament will go on for the next 8 weeks. There are links to it all at Rewind Arcade website. @23m Thanks for plugging the podcast on the radio show!

What does it mean when your smart doorbell becomes an entry point for surveillance? What happens when a single hacker can jailbreak every major AI model within hours of its release? And why are the same tools being used by both nation-state attackers and the defenders trying to stop them? In this solo episode, Ron Eddings breaks down the urgent case for practitioner unity in cybersecurity, from AI-powered jailbreaking and IoT surveillance creep to geopolitical cyber operations. With RSAC 2026 just around the corner, this episode is a rallying cry for the community to come together, share intelligence, and build the defenses that no single team can build alone.  The episode also tackles one of the biggest misconceptions in the industry right now. AI already came for your job, but now it is changing how we define responsibility, decision-making, and trust. Add in rising pressure across the workforce, new legislation pushing for human oversight, and real-world examples of AI being used in global conflict, and the stakes become hard to ignore. Impactful Moments 00:00 - Introduction 02:00 - Pliny the Elder, God Mode and AI Jailbreaks 03:30 - Cyber in US-Israeli Operations in Iran and Anthropic Tensions 06:00 - Cyber threats that are hitting normal people 07:30 - Is my Ring Doorbell a surveillance risk? 10:05 - Attackers are collaborating and sharing more than defenders today 11:30 - RSAC: the cyber Super Bowl 14:30 - AI has already replaced your job 14:30 - Why mental health is cybersecurity's hidden crisis 17:00 - Governance in AI and what Texas is doing about it 19:00 - Was Claude used in state-level ops? Links Connect with Ron Eddings on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronaldeddings/ Check out our upcoming events: https://www.hackervalley.com/livestreams Love Hacker Valley Studio? Pick up some swag: https://store.hackervalley.com    Become a sponsor of the show to amplify your brand: https://hackervalley.com/work-with-us/  

I would love your honest feedback in the comments below (or call it in to 325-305-6107) about the episodes I’ve been publishing lately. In my opinion, these have been some of the most information-packed and also featuring some of the greatest brewing minds but I’d love to know what YOU think. With that being said, the ball keeps rolling because today’s show is truly incredible. I was able to sit down with the inventor of the Double IPA, Mr. Vinnie Cilurzo himself. Vinnie is incredibly down to Earth and shared a ton about his history, Russian River Brewing Company, and the invention of the Double IPA. You’re in for a treat, my friend! Thank you so much for tuning into the Homebrew Happy Hour podcast!… THE home brew #podcast where we answer all of your home brewing questions and discuss anything related to craft beer! A NOT SO SUBTLE REMINDER: If you appreciate the things we do here at Homebrew Happy Hour, consider joining our Trub Club! — https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=21132635 On Today’s Show: The Godfather of Double IPA: Vinnie Cilurzo on the Birth of Pliny the Elder Links for this episode:Russian River Brewing Company: https://www.russianriverbrewing.com/Pliny the Elder Recipe Kit: https://www.patreon.com/posts/march-2026-trub-152321637CellarScience Premium Dry Yeast: https://morebeer.com/collections/cellarscience/index?a_aid=HomebrewHappyHour We want to hear from you! If you have a question that you'd like us to discuss on a future episode, please click on the “Submit a Question” link at the top of our website or you can now call in your questions via our questions hotline @ 325-305-6107 and leave your message after the beep. Let us know what you think and enjoy the show! cheers, joshua ———————– Thank you to our show's sponsor, Hops Direct! Family owned and operated, Hops Direct provides a wide variety of hop selection and ships directly to your door. Learn more by visiting https://hopsdirect.com/?utm_source=HHH&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=HHH+link ————————– CellarScience offers premium dry yeast that delivers higher cell counts than typical liquid pitches, meaning you get a stronger, healthier fermentation without the hassle. The best part? You can Direct Pitch right into your wort—no starters, no waiting, just brewing. Whether you need their new ‘WEST COAST’ strain for a classic American IPA, or ‘JUNGLE’ for massive fruity esters, they've got your next batch covered. Join a recipe receiving tier of our Trub Club today because every kit that ships out now includes premium CellarScience Yeast, join at https://www.patreon.com/HomebrewHappyHour ————————– This episode is brought to you by Brewer’s Friend! Brewing beer at home isn't just about the ingredients, it's about precision. And that's where BrewersFriend.com comes in. Whether you're dialing in your very first recipe or perfecting your hundredth, Brewers Friend gives you the tools to brew with confidence. Their recipe builder, mash calculators, and water profile database helps take the guesswork out of the process so you can focus on what matters: making great beer! Plus, Brewers Friend isn't just software, it's a community of passionate homebrewers, sharing recipes, tips, and feedback. It's like having a brew club in your pocket! Head over to BrewersFriend.com today and take your homebrewing to the next level. Use promo code HAPPYHOUR to save 25% OFF premium memberships! That's BrewersFriend.com…because better brewing starts with better tools! Click here to use our link: https://bit.ly/3N7uQbm ————————– Become a Patron! Reminder that these episodes are ultimately made possible because of YOUR support. Consider becoming a member of our TRUB CLUB via our Patreon page and receive perks such as merch, exclusive group access and content, recipes, and some tiers even get monthly recipe kits mailed to you! https://www.patreon.com/HomebrewHappyHour #homebrewing #homebrewers #craftbeer #beer #brewing #craftbrew #kolsch #webcast #show

Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo join Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell on Brew Ha Ha with the first taste of Pliny the Younger 2026. This is the 22nd year that Russian River Brewing Company makes Pliny the Younger. “It’s the biggest news of the year in beerdom,” declares Daedalus Howell. For the last 22 years, Brew Ha Ha has hosted the first taste of Pliny the Younger and this is Daedalus Howell’s first time as the host, for this big event. Pliny the Younger has become a “colossal, global event,” says Daedalus. Natalie Cilurzo describes the pressure that they all feel at RRBC during Pliny. Life throws curveballs, like recessions, weather and Covid, but Pliny pours on.  “We keep doing the best we can. “We are just elated when we see people waiting on Friday morning,” says Natalie. Vinny Cilurzo describes Pliny the Younger as using seven hops, the same as last year, but in a different mix. It’s always (about) 10.25% ABV. It used to be 11 but they dialed it back. The malt is a mix of two malts. There is “two row” malt from the US and Canada and some Pilsner malt. It has is a lot of sugar that gives it a dry taste. There was a potential of smoke taint in the region where their Simcoe hops come from. They had to pick the hops earlier. Vinny summarized the history of Pliny the Younger. It was available for five years before the world discovered it. In 2010 there were people waiting outside the brewery at 7AM. Vinny did not know that their beer was Number One and Number Two in the world, on two influential beer rating sites. “We still don’t know how it happened.” Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date Pliny the Younger 2026 information. The Community of Pliny the Younger They did fill growlers and they didn’t distribute it. It was a small batch but word got out to beer enthusiasts. That was a moment when curiosity about beer was rising, back then. Today Craft Beer is established. Back then, there was a novelty factor. Vinny and Natalie both say that their favorite part of the whole thing is walking the line and meeting the customers. Herlinda appreciates that both Vinny and Natalie are natural teachers. Also, they are working as hard as their staff, to make the event a success. “It’s a lot of fun for us,” says Natalie. It has turned into a big reunion. They get visitors from all over the world. There are people who have met in line at Pliny the Younger who have gone on to get married. It’s a pilgrimage. You can meet people from around the corner and around the world. Some people have an annual friends reunion at Pliny.

Dr. Hoby Wedler, a PhD organic chemist and sensory expert, is back on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell. He has been on the show before, the last time was this episode back in August of 2020. His Instagram has almost 480,000 followers as of today’s show date. Hoby was born sightless, and was raised to have high expectations for himself. He was inspired by his great high school chemistry teacher who has worked at Petaluma High School for a while. He thought he might study history because the prospect of needing an assistant to perform manual jobs in a chem lab. But his graduate advisor was a computational organic chemist. This subject provided an avenue for him to study chemistry with more independence. His original goal was to teach freshman chemistry at the college level. He is an inspired teacher and wants to make his subject more than a requirement. “Hey maybe this is something really interesting that I never thought I would love.” He taught several freshman chemistry courses while at UC Davis. He prepared lessons and study materials carefully, but found that many students just wanted “the minimum knowledge value” to simply pass the class. Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date Pliny the Younger 2026 information. Then Hoby met Francis Ford Coppola, who asked to organize truly blind tastings at his winery. Hoby then trained his palette by tasting and smelling things, day after day. He was at UC Davis where the brewing program was going on right next to where he was getting his PhD in computational organic chemistry. Professor Charlie Bamforth, “The Pope of Foam” worked nearby, so did Michael Lewis. An Intersection of Art and Science Hoby thinks of wine and spirits and beer as a very fine intersection between art and science. Science gives us the tools and art gives us the way we want to use those tools. Herlinda first met Hoby Wedler at one of his Tasting in the Dark events. Guests were encouraged to take their time and focus on taste and smell. They use the blindfold “…so people can focus on their other senses even more.” Today they will taste two brews, a barleywine and a Tripel from CuVer Brewing in Windsor. Herlinda admits that as a beer judge, she begins by looking at the beer. Is it clear? What color is the foam? Hoby says you can smell the carbonation. Hoby points out that you can hear the carbonation too. When he smells the cuVer, he tastes clove, allspice, a bit of nutmeg and orange peel. These elements are coming from the yeast, which produces esters. Belgian yeast is special and produces esters that carry these fruity flavors. He can also taste the malt. It has a low-to-mid hop profile but the flavor is dominated by grain and malt, and the ester compounds coming from the yeast. He also knows that the water in Belgium is special, it's very pure. Herlinda smells coriander and also the alcohol. Tasting in the Dark Hoby promotes his tasting experience called Tasting in the Dark. It works with many kinds of foods and beverages, including wine, beer, spirits, olive oil, vinegar and even beef. He did a tasting experience of scotch, gin and bourbon for the launch of a new kind of freshwater fish bait. The bait is designed to be attractive to the fishes' sense of smell. Hoby's Instagram has grown explosively in the last year. He put a few reels online from their tastings and they proved to be very popular. Some of them were from Hawaii about tropical fruit. They went from 3000 followers to 480,000 followers today. The second tasting is a Barleywine called Bigfoot from Sierra Nevada. Hoby knows Ken Grossman who started Sierra Nevada out of the back of his pickup truck in 19790. Barleywine uses light hops and so much malted barley that the beer has a similar alcohol concentration to wine, 9.6% ABV.

Is belief in Jesus Christ based on blind faith… or credible evidence?In this video, we examine the historical, scientific, and philosophical evidence surrounding Christianity and the resurrection of Jesus. From the origin of the universe and the fine-tuning of physical laws to the historical case for the resurrection, we explore arguments that many historians, scientists, and philosophers take seriously.This video examines:• The origin of the universe and the Kalam Cosmological Argument• Fine-tuning in the laws of physics• The mystery of DNA and biological information• Historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth• Non-Christian sources like Tacitus and Josephus• Gary Habermas' Minimal Facts argument for the resurrection• N.T. Wright's historical analysis of the early Christian movement• Why the resurrection of Jesus remains one of the most debated events in historyChristianity stands or falls on the resurrection of Jesus. If it happened, it changes everything.Whether you're a believer, skeptic, or simply curious, this video invites you to explore the evidence and decide for yourself.⸻

Adam Bosch from Parliament Brewing is back on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras today to talk about the Cheesesteak Competition on March 21. Adam has been on the show several times, the most recent was this episode last September. Chris Amadio from Mamadios food truck, is in the studio. They were the people's choice winner at last year's Cheesesteak competition. First, they are drinking Capital Letters, a new West Coast IPA that they started brewing last year. The hops are Riwaka, Citra and Nelson. Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date Pliny the Younger 2026 information. This is their third year of the Parliament Brewing Cheesesteak competition. Apart from the five cheesesteak vendors, they will have four bands and a dj, plenty of seats, tables and chairs, tents and parking. The cheesesteak vendors will be Mamadio's, Lila's Streetside Eats, The Spot Food Truck, Golden Steak Warriors and Canevari's Deli. There will also be so far about 13 merch vendors, and food and beverage vendors. Eagles, Phillies, 76ers, Flyers. Herlinda recalls visiting Philadelphia and finding cheesesteaks. The old city has cobblestone streets and lots of corner shops like delis and restaurants. There is also a burgeoning brewery scene. Chris Amadio is from Philadelphia and he can really turn on the Philly accent when he wants to. Eagles, Phillies, 76ers, Flyers. The competition is for cheesesteaks not limited to Philly style, so everyone can have their own twist. There will be two awards, one from the judges and the people's choice award. Herlinda will actually be one of the judges on March 21. One of the other judges is Mercedes Ramos who runs the SoCo Market, who has also been on the show. The Cheesesteak competition day is kid friendly and dog friendly. There will be four bands, SPF, Citizen Flannel, Werewolf on Holiday and then Ellie James and the Electric Dream.

Jenna Bautista from the Pink Boots Society, also a Senior Quality Analyst for Lagunitas, joins Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha. Jenna Bautista joins Herlinda Heras on Brew Ha Ha, with Adam Bosch from Parliament Brewing Co. also in studio. International Women's Day is Sunday March 8, this year. There is a whole weekend of Pink Boots Society collaborations to check out. Lagunitas has made Glass Breaker, using Nectaron, Simcoe, and O-33 experimental hops. It has pine and stone fruit flavors and is a little over 8.5% ABV. It will be released this Saturday. Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date Pliny the Younger 2026 information. The Pink Boots Society North Bay has partnered with CuVer in Windsor to brew a Belgian IPA called By Her Bootstraps. HenHouse is releasing The Coven, a botanical rice lager flavored with sage, grapefruit and lemon peel and lavender. They are releasing it at Fort Point Valencia on Sunday. Jenna was just in New Orleans for the Pink Boots Society conference. They had a couple hundred women and non-binary people working in the beverage industry. They had a speaker from Europe who talked about advocating for yourself in a tough industry and how to advocate for others. Friday there is a performance of Werewolf on Holiday at Lagunitas, too.

Marty Nachel Marty Nachel, founder of the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame, calls in to discuss the 2026 HOF nominations, on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell. Marty has been on the show before, including this episode back in December, about his recently published book the Beer Story Project. Today’s Brew Ha Ha show is appearing online as 3 separate podcast episodes, so that all the guests can have their own page, and their own Internet traffic. This also makes it easier for listeners to find the guest they are looking for, among the other two.  Marty Nachel is a well-known author who also wrote the popular book Beer for Dummies. He is calling from Chicago, which always invites the comparison of the weather there and in Santa Rosa, California, aka Beer City. Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date Pliny the Younger 2026 information. The American Craft Beer Hall of Fame will induct its second annual class on Saturday, February 28, at 3:00 EST, 12 noon PST, they will livestream their induction ceremony. Eight people are being inducted this year, whose names will be revealed at the ceremony. There are links to the live stream at their website. There will also be events at different breweries where people will gather to watch. Herlinda wants to have one here in California too, next year. The event will be on YouTube afterwards, for on-demand viewing. This is the second year of the Craft Beer Hall of Fame. Last year the inaugural class included several famous founders of the craft beer movement. Jack MacAuliffe, Fritz Maytag, Ken Grossman, food and beverage journalist Michael Jackson, and eight others made up the class.

The Fort Point HenHouse merger is the subject today with Justin Catalana of Fort Point Brewing and Colin MacDonald of HenHouse Brewing, on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras. Justin is calling in on the phone today while his friend and colleague Colin is in the studio at Wine C0untry Radio with Herlinda Heras. Fort Point Beer Co. has been featured on Brew Ha Ha before, the last time was this episode. Colin has been on the show before, most recently this episode in 2024 about the Freshtival that year. Recently HenHouse and Fort Point breweries joined forces. Although they still produce beers under the two brands, Colin describes them as having complimentary strengths. HenHouse is rooted in the North Bay and Fort Point has grown to be San Francisco's biggest craft beer. The first beer tasted today is an alcohol-free KSA from Fort Point. SF Beer Week is happening all over the Bay Area. Fort Point makes KSA which is a non-alcoholic Kölsch style beer. They also make other NA beers. Herlinda will be with Fort Point at the Dim Sum Brunch at the Hong Kong Lounge on Saturday. KSA is the beer they are most known for. Kolsch style beer comes from Cologne, Germany. They will be serving this beer tonight in the same style as a brew pub in Cologne, in the same kind of glasses. The event on Saturday is a huge Dim Sum service with Fort Point beers. This is one of Herlinda’s favorite SF Beer Week events. Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date Pliny the Younger 2026 information. Big Chicken Big Chicken is a double IPA that HenHouse makes once a year. It is also a statement about freshness. They want it to be the freshest beer it can be. You can buy beer that was packaged the same day. Fresh beer is so much better and makes enough of a difference that they founded the brewery on that principle. They used to do a promotion called the Freshtival, where they brought beers in that were no more than a week old. This Sunday Mar. 1 they have an event to promote the end of Big Chicken this year. Colin compares its flavor to a tropical fruit bowl. That then begs the question, what do you pair it with? Something big and intense, so fried chicken. The Big Chicken fest this year closes with the Fried Chicken competition at Palace of Barrels in Petaluma, from noon to 4 PM. They will have 5 food trucks there serving to the people and a distinguished panel of judges. There will also be a separate hot sauce award. There will be a distinguished guest list and plenty of great tasting fresh beer.

Welcome, my love buckets!Step into the real world of medieval beauty- a place where "glowing skin" meant experimenting with ingredients that ranged from clever to catastrophic.In this episode, I peel back the rituals, recipes, and dangerously creative practices that shaped the medieval ideal face, and the women who kept that knowledge alive. Some of what you'll hear will shock you, some will weirdly make sense, and some might feel unsettlingly familiar.If you think modern beauty culture is intense... wait until you hear where we came from. By the end, you might start questioning how different we really are today.Are. You. Ready?****************Featured AD:If you love wandering into the stranger corners of history with me, you'll want to hear the trailer for my new narrative show, Murder Through Time: A Whodunit Across the Centuries. Each episode drops you into a different era as you unravel a real case shaped by the customs, dangers, and secrets of its time. You're not just listening, you're the detective. You'll hear the teaser in today's episode, and you can listen to the first episode right now wherever you get your podcasts.****************Sources & Further Reading:Monica H. Green, The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women's Medicine (University of Pennsylvania Press).S. Pisanti et al., “The Medieval Skincare Routine According to the Formulations of Magistra Trotula,” UNESCO Chair Salerno / University of Salerno.Walters Art Museum Journal, “Becoming a Blond in Late Fifteenth-Century Venice.”The Recipes Project (academic collective): articles on Vergel de Señores and Moorish women's cosmetic expertise.The British Library, digitized medieval medical and cosmetic manuscripts.Diana Luft, Medieval Welsh Medical Texts: The Recipes (University of Wales Press) — ingredient lists including goat urine.Pliny the Elder, Natural History (Loeb Classical Library edition) — ancient uses of urine, skin treatments, and cleansing agents.Becky Little, “The Strange and Dangerous History of Toxic Makeup,” National Geographic.Science Museum Group, “Dangerous Beauty: Hazardous Chemicals in Historic Cosmetics.”****************Leave Us a 5* Rating, it helps the show!Apple Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beauty-unlocked-the-podcast/id1522636282Spotify Podcast:https://open.spotify.com/show/37MLxC8eRob1D0ZcgcCorA****************Follow Us on TikTok & Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!YouTube:@beautyunlockedspodcasthourTikTok:tiktok.com/@beautyunlockedthepod****************Intro/Outro Music:“Fame Inc” by Savvier — https://icons8.com/music

Cities are known for their slogans. New York is called The City That Never Sleeps. Paris is The City of Light. Philadelphia is The City of Brotherly Love. Chicago is The Windy City. Every city has a name it embracessomething that captures its identity and the image it wants the world to believe about it. But in Revelation 2, Jesus gives Pergamum a name no city would ever choose for itself. He calls it where Satans throne is (Rev. 2:13). Imagine that as your citys reputation. Not The Pride of Asia. Not The Seat of Learning. Not The Crown of Culture. But The Place Where Satan Dwells. Pergamum was the capital of Roman Asia, a center of political authority, pagan worship, and emperor devotion. Towering above the city stood a massive altar to Zeus, a visible reminder of pagan power. The Roman governor there possessed the ius gladiithe right of the sword authority to execute. Power, religion, and politics converged in Pergamum in a way that made allegiance to Jesus costly. So when Christ introduces Himself as the One who has the sharp two-edged sword, He makes a bold claim: ultimate authority does not belong to Rome. The sword does not finally rest in Caesars hand. It rests in His. Pergamum teaches us that the churchs greatest danger is not merely persecution from outside, but compromise from withinand that even where Satans throne seems near, Christ still reigns. Dangers from the Outside (v. 13) The Christians in Pergamum faced very real dangers. To the church in Smyrna, severe persecution was coming; to the church in Pergamum, it had already arrived in the martyrdom of Antipas. Unlike many cities in the empire, Pergamum offered few places to hide from Rome, as it was the headquarters of Roman government in Asia. Michael Wilcock observed, If Ephesus was the New York of Asia, Pergamum was its Washington, for there the Roman imperial power had its seat of government. Devotion to emperor worship was not optional civic ritual it was public loyalty to Rome and for Christians, refusal came at a cost. But Pergamums pressure did not come from Rome alone. The city was saturated with devotion to Zeus, Athena, Dionysos, and Asklepios all of whom had prominent temples. The massive altar to Zeus, hailed as the god of gods, rose like a throne above the acropolis, proclaiming that ultimate power and salvation belonged to him. Asklepios, the famed healing god, was symbolized by a serpent-entwined staff still used in medical imagery today; his worshipers sought restoration and life from him. Athena embodied wisdom and civic strength, reinforcing Pergamums intellectual pride. Dionysos promised joy through wine, feasting, and sensual excess, blurring the line between celebration and corruption. And over all of it stood the emperor, honored as lord and savior, demanding allegiance that directly rivaled the confession that Jesus alone is Lord. Robert Mounce, in his commentary on Revelation, wrote: ...as the traveler approached Pergamum by the ancient road from the south, the actual shape of the city hill would appear as a giant throne towering above the plain. This is probably why Jesus refers to the city as the place, where Satans throne is. But against Pergamums skyline of rival saviors stands the living Christ. Zeus claimed ultimate power, but Jesus is the One to whom all authority in heaven and on earth belongs. Asklepios promised healing through a serpents symbol, but Jesus crushed the serpents head and, as the risen Lord, conquered death, giving eternal life to all who believe. Athena embodied worldly wisdom and pride, but Christ is the wisdom of God made flesh, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Dionysos offered joy through indulgence, but Jesus gives the true bread from heaven that satisfies forever. Caesar demanded worship as lord and savior, but only Jesus shed His blood to redeem sinners and now reigns as the King of kings. Pergamum was filled with promises of power, healing, wisdom, pleasure, and security but only the gospel delivers what these gods could only counterfeit. Jesus commends these believers despite the immense pressure around them: Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith They lived in a city crowded with rival saviors, yet they clung to Christ. Though we are not told the exact circumstances of Antipas death, it is not hard to imagine how it unfolded. He likely died by the blade of a Roman sword for refusing to bend his knee to the gods of Rome or to confess Caesar as lord. He would bow to only one name the name above every name Jesus Christ. And it is this man, Antipas executed by Rome, forgotten by the empire whom Jesus calls my faithful witness. We know from Roman records that this was the very test Christians faced. About twenty years after Revelation was written, the governor Pliny the Younger explained that accused Christians could avoid execution by invoking the Roman gods, offering incense to Caesar, and cursing the name of Christ. Those who refused were executed. He even admitted that genuine Christians could not be compelled to curse Christ. When Jesus praises these Christians Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith His words are not cheap; they are costly. To hold fast His name meant refusing to renounce it when your life was on the line. Rome took Antipas life, but Jesus rendered the greater verdict the very title He bears Himself: my faithful witness (see Rev. 1:5). The kind of faithfulness Antipas demonstrated in the face of death is the same faithfulness we are all called to whether suffering comes in the form of persecution or in circumstances beyond our control, such as illness, discouragement, or a life that did not unfold as we had hoped. Faithfulness is not measured by the kind of suffering we face, but by the Christ to whom we cling. And we cling to Him by looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:2). Dangers from the Inside (vv. 14-15) While the dangers from the outside were real, the greater threat was emerging from within. The Christians in Pergamum had stood firm against persecution, but they were less vigilant in confronting compromise within the church. Some adhered to the teaching of Balaam, and others to the teachings of the Nicolaitans. Though these errors shared similarities, they must be considered individually. To grasp the true danger here, we need to recall Balaams actions. In Numbers 2225, Balak, king of Moab, enlisted Balaam to curse Israel, but God turned every attempted curse into a blessing. When outright opposition failed, Balaam changed tactics. As Numbers 31:16 reveals, he counseled Moab to entice the Israelites drawing them into idolatry and sexual immorality through seductive feasts and relationships with pagan women. What Balaam could not accomplish through direct attack, he achieved through compromise. Israel was not destroyed by an enemy from without but by corruption from within. Here is what Balaam was guilty of: He lingered where God had already told him not to go. He pursued recognition and reward at the expense of Gods honor and the holiness of His people. He walked as close to temptation as he could without openly defying God. 4. His obedience was reluctant because his heart was drawn to what God forbade. Balaams problem was not ignorance but desire. He lingered where God had already told him not to go. He pursued recognition and reward at the expense of Gods glory and the holiness of His people. He walked as close to temptation as he could without openly defying God. And though he spoke Gods words, his obedience was reluctant because his heart was drawn to what God had forbidden. This is why Jesus references Balaam. The problem in Pergamum wasnt an outright rejection of Christ but a willingness to tolerate compromise. Some believed they could remain committed to Jesus while engaging in behaviors God had already forbidden. Compromise rarely starts with denialit begins when we linger where God has said no, chase comfort or recognition over holiness, and edge as close as possible to temptation without openly defying Him. We shouldnt think were exempt; this same risk exists in every congregationeven Meadowbrooke. Whenever we treat Gods commands as optional or hover near what He prohibits, were at risk of the compromise Jesus warns us against. The second thing Jesus has against the church in Pergamum is that some adhered to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. As we learned from the letter to the church in Ephesus, Jesus says He hated their works (2:6). What about their teaching provoked such strong language? They promoted a compromise similar to Balaams the idea that one could claim to belong to Gods people while participating in the very sins God had clearly forbidden. The Nicolaitans appear to have encouraged Christians to join in idolatrous feasts and sexual immorality, likely arguing that Gods grace covered such behavior. In their view, holiness became flexible and obedience negotiable. Listen, the spirit of the Nicolaitans is alive wherever Christians rationalize that blending in with culture poses no danger, that hidden sin is under control, or that Gods grace permits what He has clearly condemned. If we downplay sin, treat Gods commands as negotiable, or blur the boundaries between wholehearted faithfulness and self-indulgence, we risk falling into the same compromise Jesus warns against. Why does Jesus name both Balaam and the Nicolaitans in His rebuke? Because Balaam enticed Gods people into sin, and the Nicolaitans justified their continued presence in it. Those who held to these teachings were not outside the church but within it, and the ideas they embraced posed an immediate and dangerous threat to its spiritual health. The Danger of a Greater Sword (vv. 12, 16-17) Jesus takes the purity of His Bride seriously. The dangers from the outside were real, but all Rome was able to do with its sword was to kill and no more. The dangers within were more significant because they threatened the witness, testimony, and mission of the church. Listen, with the martyrdom of Antipas, his witness and testimony continued. His willingness to die for his faith and to stand in the security of Christ, even in the face of death, continued to speak even beyond Antipas death. What the early Christian apologist Tertullian wrote in 197 AD is true: The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Persecution may wound the body, but it often strengthens the church. Compromise, however, weakens and destroys the church from within. If Satan can infiltrate the church through subtle, subversive teaching persuading believers to tolerate what God forbids and to justify what Christ condemns then the churchs witness is not martyred; it is muted. Its testimony is not silenced by force; it is weakened by concession. What Rome could not accomplish with a sword from without, false teaching seeks to achieve from within. Jesus is madly in love with His Bride and will protect Her when She is threatened. He is also a jealous Groom and will not tolerate any force or teaching that seeks to win Her affections. This is why Jesus hates the works of the Nicolaitans (2:5)! The Nicolaitans offered a perverted version of the Grace that Jesus secured at the cross, teaching that the freedom they had in Christ freed them from obedience to Jesus regarding personal holiness and sexual sin. Jesus calls the Christians in this church to repent by both calling out the false teaching and standing against it. Jesus warns this church that if they do not repent, He will come to war against them with the sword of His mouth. That is sobering language, but it is not unloving. It is not loving to overlook sin in your own life, nor is it loving to tolerate sin in the life of Christs church. This is why the Bible states in James 5:1920, My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. Indifference to sin is not grace it is neglect. A Savior who refuses to confront what destroys His Bride would not be loving. The sword of Christ is not the weapon of a tyrant but the discipline of a faithful Bridegroom committed to the purity of His people. Take a close look at Jesus words in verse 16: Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. That is not a casual warning; it is a decisive command. If they refused to turn from their sin and false teaching, it would not merely expose weakness it would reveal they never truly belonged to Him or experienced the saving grace that brings new life. Saving grace does not leave a person at peace with sin; it creates an urgency to cling to Christ. Where Christ truly reigns, repentance follows. Now notice verse 17. The sword is not the only thing Jesus offers. He promises that the one who has truly received Him as Savior evidenced by firmly holding fast to His name will be sustained and kept by Him. The true Christian is promised three things: hidden manna, a white stone, and a new name. The manna is for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6). In a city filled with public feasts honoring false gods, Jesus promises hidden nourishment provision the world cannot see and idols cannot give. The white stone likely referred in the Roman world to a token of admission, acquittal, or honor. But the stone Jesus gives is not temporary; it signifies divine acceptance and permanent residence in His kingdom, where there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1). And on that stone is a new name a name given by Christ Himself belonging to the one who receives it. That new name speaks to your identity in Christ, an identity no sword, no demon, not even Satan himself can take from you. On that stone is the evidence of your redemption. Its meaning echoes the words of our Redeemer: You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you (Hos. 3:3). Persecution may wound the church, but compromise will hollow it out. Romes sword can threaten the body, but Christs Word searches the heart. So hold fast to His name. Repent without delay. Refuse to justify what He condemns and to flirt with what He died to free you from. Live as those who belong to Him alone nourished by hidden manna, accepted by His verdict, and secure in the name He has written over your life.

Angel finally found Pliny the Younger Tripple IPA from Russian River Brewing at The Regal Beagle Ale House. Is it worth the hype? Listen and find out. Also, Angel goes on a rant on the NFL, and we go in on the curse location in North Park.

True nerds will appreciate 8 Bit Brewing being featured this month at Function PDX. This week at their NW location we learn a little more about what's brewing in Murietta, CA. Whether you like a dark brew while gaming, or going for a hazy hike, this menu will have something for everyone to have fun with. Damian gets a new shirt, Josh explains dryhopping and hunts for the elusive Pliny the Younger. There will be a beer for you to play with on this episode Brew Happy!

Conor Begley from Fathers Brewing is the guest of Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell on Brew Ha Ha today. This is his first time on the show. Sayre Petrokowski, the executive director of the Brewers Guild, introduced Herlinda to Conor. Fathers Brewing was launched less than a year ago, last July. They went through a lot of R&D to create their first two flagship beers. They are a lager (with a red label) and a light lager (with a blue label). Before Fathers Brewing, Conor started a software company that he sold for a lot of money in 2021. His bio is a whirlwind from graduation, to “a startup company that grew really fast” then went to Australia with his girlfriend who is now his wife. He worked for Thunder Road Brewing Co. in Melbourne, Australia, running their digital and social media operations. What he learned there led to his software company, which in the long term has led him back to beer. Relentless R&D The brand is being built in a streamlined format for growth and further investment. Conor is committed to founding the company upon the best possible quality product by a relentless process of R&D. The brand identifies as “clean beer” similar to how his partner's previous company had a product based on clean skin care. Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date Pliny the Younger 2026 information. When the question for a brewery is, ‘How to stand out?' Fathers Brewing is defining itself by being organic and clean. Their first production on other people’s equipent, a.k.a. “gypsy brewing” worked at first. Now they have invested in the company adding capacity, from 20 barrels to 400 barrels at a time. That improves the quality and makes it consistent, in the higher quantity. Mikkeller and Evin Twin beers are actually made by rival brewers who are twins. They were gypsy brewing for a long time. Mikkeller became one of the most sought after and expensive beers in the world this way. Conor spoke to a lot of other successful beer entreprenurs, to learn from them. Overall in the brewing business, people are willing to help each other. Clean Beer They have tested for the presence of micro plastics in beer, in the materials from suppliers and in all stages of packaging and processing. Any stage that uses plastic has the potential to shed microscopic plastic debris. Another example, is using surfactants to supress the production of foam. But the material is plastic. It may increase the yield but, “that can’t be good.” So pouring plastic on the beer is right out!

Welcome, to a brand new bonus episode, my loves!From extreme historical beauty demands to clothing laws that targeted women, to the era when pants were treating like a public threat, this bonus episode uncovers the absurd systems that shaped, and still shape, women's lives.These restrictions weren't about fashion; they were about power, discipline, and keeping women in their place. These beauty "rules" weren't random; they were deliberate tools of control.What begins as curiosity quickly turns to outrage as the same patterns repeat across cultures and centuries. And once you hear them, you'll start noticing their modern echoes everywhere.Are. You. Ready?****************Sources & Further Reading:Medieval & Early Beauty PracticesMonica H. Green — The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women's Medicine (2001)UNESCO Chair Salerno research on medieval cosmetic recipes (ongoing project; key publications 2010s)Pliny the Elder — Natural History (c. 77–79 CE)Victorian & Early Modern CosmeticsKathryn Hughes — “Women and Makeup in Victorian Britain” (BBC History article, 2016)Rachel Weingarten — The History of Makeup (2020)Ancient RomeJanet Stephens — Research on Roman hairstyling (2010s)Kelly Olson — Dress and the Roman Woman: Self-Presentation and Society (2008)Japan (Ohaguro)Liza Dalby — Geisha (2000)M. Ashikari — “Black Teeth, Red Lips: Beauty and Identity in Japan” (article published in the 1990s)Joseon Korea JaHyun Kim Haboush — The Confucian Kingship in Korea: Portrait of an Ideology (2001)Sumptuary Laws Alan Hunt — Governance of the Consuming Passions: A History of Sumptuary Law (1996)Colonialism & the SariEmma Tarlo — Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India (1996)20th-Century Clothing Restrictions & Pants LawsJo B. Paoletti — Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution (2012)Modern Dress Code Enforcement National Women's Law Center — Reports on school dress code discrimination (ongoing; key reports 2017–present)Human Rights Watch — Studies on dress policing (various reports, 2018–present)****************Leave Us a 5* Rating, it helps the show!Apple Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beauty-unlocked-the-podcast/id1522636282Spotify Podcast:https://open.spotify.com/show/37MLxC8eRob1D0ZcgcCorA****************Follow Us on Social Media & Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!TikTok:tiktok.com/@beautyunlockedthepodYouTube:@beautyunlockedspodcasthour****************INTRO/OUTRO MUSIC:FASION/ '1-800-DIRTY'/Courtesy of Epidemic Soundwww.epidemicsound.com

In this episode of the Livin' in San Diego Podcast, Chris and Cassidy recap a packed weekend across North County — from State Cup soccer wrapping up to a team stop at Fazeli Winery in Temecula for flatbreads and views. Chris also recommends checking out a San Diego Sockers game at Frontwave Arena for one of the best-value family nights around, while Cass shares baseball season updates, a soccer scrimmage at Palomar College, a birthday party at Five Tool in San Marcos, and Braden's first round of golf at Rancho Carlsbad. They also touch on their recent brokerage move from eXp Realty to LPT Realty and ongoing remodel updates.The Super Bowl recap follows, and let's just say… not exactly an instant classic. The guys break down the defensive-heavy game, underwhelming commercials (with a few exceptions like Coinbase, State Farm, and Jurassic Park), Chris splitting his bets including the lost coin flip, and the food spread featuring buffalo chicken dip straight off the Frank's RedHot bottle. They also look ahead to adult league softball returning to Poinsettia, spring training kicking off, and debate whether Luis Arráez truly fits at second base long term.In the “New To-Do and ADU” segment, they highlight Little Oaks Bakehouse in Leucadia and Christie's oversized pie-style cookies (pickup Tuesdays and Fridays), plus a Hop WTR x Stone Brewing collaboration called Centennial Citrus. They encourage listeners to hunt down Pliny the Younger from Russian River Brewing before its broader Northern California release, and discuss the Vista City Council exploring a potential city logo redesign. The episode wraps with the San Diego Story of the Week, revisiting the 1994 Chargers' run to Super Bowl XXIX and what made that season so memorable. Key Takeaways⚽ State Cup soccer wraps and winery hangs in Temecula

Old Ninja is out again this week. This week we talk about Pam Bondi, the Epstein Files, Bad Bunny, the Superbowl, the Winter Olympics, Surya Bonaly, Penisgate, Pliny the Younger, Balatro, Roguelike games, Valentines Day, Romantic Comedies, Yoroi Shin Den Samurai Troopers, Jujutsu Kaisen, Camping, and more! Come follow us: http://www.beenhadproductions.squarespace.com/bthanbti SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bthanbtiI Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BthanBTI/ Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/bthanbti Twitter: @BthanBTI iTunes: https://itun.es/i6SJ6Pw YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BlackerThanBlackTimesInfinity Rescue + Residence https://www.rescueresidence.org/ Donate: https://www.givebutter.com/R_R_Champions

Herlinda, Rob and Chismosa Rob Saccuzzo, Old Caz GM, is our guest in studio today on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell. This is Rob’s first time on the show but the brewery has been featured many times. Old Caz co-founder Brian Rengel is the featured guest on this episode of Jan. 21, 2024. He was back for an update the following August on this episode on August 8, 2024. Rob Saccuzzo is the General Manager of Old Caz Beer and is also a board member of the Bay Area Brewers Guild. They are preparing for some big events coming soon. SF Beer Week is the biggest event of the year, and they are also putting on the SF Beer Week Beer Fest at the Salesforce Park beer garden on the top of a skyscraper in the city. Rob is busy doing ten events at Old Caz in ten days. They are releasing 16 beers, six of which are being released at the kickoff party on February 20th and many of them are collaborations. Old Caz themselves are releasing another seven. “This is the biggest slew of events we've ever done,” says Rob. Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date Pliny the Younger 2026 information. One of the things Herlinda likes about the beer business is collaboration and mutual assistance. Rob describes one with the same ingredients and two brewers. One brewery will add all the hops at the beginning then the beer is hot, and other one only later when it is cool, to produce two different flavor profiles. Chismosa Rob is also a very enthusiastic participant at beer festivals. He likes to remind people that Old Caz is a party and everyone is invited. While they can talk seriously about beer, they will also spray confetti in a Mexican wrestling suit just to get attention for the beer. Their most awarded beer is Chismosa, and has won medals in numerous beer festivals for this beer. He compliments their brewing team for keeping it so consistent. Rob says that if someone had told him in high school that his chemistry class would help him make beer later in life, he would have paid more attention. Old Caz has “a cavalcade of human beings who are hard working and who believe in the brewery.”

Natalie and Pliny Natalie and Vinny Cilurzo join Herlinda Heras and Daedalus Howell on Brew Ha Ha with the first taste of Pliny the Younger 2026 from Russian River Brewing Co. Today is a very special edition of Brew Ha Ha because Vinny Cilurzo is also here along with Natalie Cilurzo. They have brought the first taste of the Pliny the Younger 2026 in a keg. Today they celebrate the distribution of Pliny the Younger on draft at all of the bars and restaurants in their distribution network. It will all leave the brewery by Friday. It is a huge effort for the staff but it is like a holiday event. The retail release at the two RRBC locations runs from March 20 to April 2, 2026. Tapenings have begun! Pliny the Younger 2026 “tapenings” are happening and will go on the rest of the month in about 130 locations. The other release of Pliny the Younger to the general public will be in March. Right now, the trucks are on the road for Maine, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, as well as northern and southern California. Vinny also mentions ten or so brewers who are working hard in both breweries. Their sales reps in southern California have worked hard to prepare for Pliny the Younger 2026 to be a big event. A month ago, every tank in both breweries was full. The month of February would normally be the slowest time of the year for a brewery. Their original idea was to create a promotional brew to goose sales for the slow time. At first they never dreamed that it would become such a success. Russian River Brewing Co. is open in Santa Rosa on 4th St. and at their big Windsor location. Visit their website for up-to-date Pliny the Younger 2026 information. Vinny tells the story of Pliny the Younger Vinny describes Russian River Brewing Co.'s history since he took over the brand from Korbel, the original founder. It used to be that barley wine was the winter brew. Vinny decided to see how far they could push the hops. For the first five years of Pliny the Younger, “It wasn't a huge deal.” But in 2010 everything changed. Vinny would always show up on the first Friday in February to tap the first keg. That time, there were people waiting outside. That is when Vinny learned that this beer was rated the number one and two beer in the world on two popular beer rating websites. He did not know about any of that. By the time they opened, they had to call every employee they could get, and limited people to 4 growlers per person. A table of 4 would buy 16 growlers. They were overwhelmed by its popularity that day. The websites were taking votes from beer enthusiasts. They ended up having to make up rules to govern and limit the traffic. During covid they had to split the distribution between bars and restaurants first and then the retail distribution later. They were forced to wait about 2 months and ended up March into April. They do that every year because it turned out to be an easier way to manage the whole season. Herlinda remembers how they organized a vaccine clinic at the brewery. The Magnificent Seven Hops The recipe has changed a little bit from year to year, but for the last few years it has used the same selection of hops. This is the first year they have used the exact same seven hops. They are Simcoe, Amarillo, Citra, Tangier, Mosaic, Nectaron and Warrior. There are five different hop formats. There are whole cone hops (as they grow) and there are pellets, which resemble rabbit food. Then there are other advanced products that are concentrated flavor extracts. Some of the processes that hop companies are using for extracts are the same as used to make cannabis extracts. As for the malt, it is about 60% silo malt, 30% Pilsner malt and about 10% sugar. They use sugar because it ferments right into alcohol and doesn’t leave any body at all. Pliny the Younger 2026 is 10.5% alcohol but it doesn’t taste so strong. The Sonoma County Economic Development Board has studied the economic impact of Pliny the Younger. In 2024, the last year studied, they found 8.3 million dollar impact on the community. This comes from business to hotels and other hospitality businesses and more. Natalie and Vinny are very proud of this.

Everitt and Ashworth review primary sources shaping Nero's legacy, distinguishing gossip-laden Suetonius from hostile but reliable Tacitus, while noting Petronius of the Satyricon and Pliny the Elder's anecdotal encyclopedia.NERO

Stell dir vor, du könntest in die Denkweise eines der legendärsten Braumeister der Welt blicken. In dieser Folge nehmen wir dich mit auf eine Reise in die Philosophie von Vinnie Cilurzo, dem Gründer der Russian River Brewing Company, und entschlüsseln, was seine West Coast IPAs so einzigartig macht. Wir sprechen über fanatische Frische, geheime Hopfentricks und warum kompromisslose Qualität manchmal sogar bedeutet, das eigene Bier aus den Regalen zu kaufen und zu vernichten. Außerdem erfährst du, wie Pliny the Elder und Simcoe-Hopfen gemeinsam Geschichte schrieben und welche Innovationskraft hinter scheinbar traditionellen Rezepten steckt. Begleite uns auf eine spannende Entdeckungstour durch Wissenschaft, Handwerk und die ewige Suche nach dem perfekten IPA.

Chris Kren-Mora from Visit Santa Rosa is our guest on Brew Ha Ha with Herlinda Heras, presenting Santa Rosa Beer Passport and FeBREWary. Chris has been on Wine Country Radio before but this is his first time on Brew Ha Ha. This week marks the 12th anniversary of Brew Ha Ha on the radio and 8 years of the podcast. To promote the local brewing industry, we emphasize the pronunciation of the month of FeBREWary, and the Santa Rosa Beer Passport promotion is also starting now. The month of February also brings Pliny the Younger from Russian River Brewing Co., with two weeks of release to bars and taprooms, before the March release in their two locations. They have different menus on 4th St. in downtown Santa Rosa and at the big Windsor location. Chris visited HenHouse Brewing around the corner from the studio, on his way in. They sent over a beer for Beatles fan Herlinda, called “The Walrus Was Paul” which shows the HenHouse chickens crossing the street, in imitation of the famous Abbey Road album cover. HenHouse has both locations – Petaluma and Santa Rosa – on the Beer Passport itinerary. Starting on Saturday Feb. 7, there is a special shuttle service. It includes Cooperage, CuVer in Windsor, Santa Rosa's HenHouse, Moonlight Brewing in Coffey Park, Shady Oak on B St. in Santa Rosa and both locations of Russian River Brewing Co. And the Smart Train goes to Windsor now, so that is a great option too. Old Caz is a Beer Passport stop, but they are not on the shuttle itinerary. February is a low month for tourism, so these promotions are intended to raise traffic in an otherwise slow period. Herlinda and Chris continue, while tasting some brews from Shady Oak. They agree that Shady Oak is a great locale as well as great brewers. Herlinda was a judge at their smash burger competition, along with Hunter Fieri, Guy Fieri’s son. They had six smash burger trucks in competion. Chris has brought several beers to taste today, from breweries participating in Santa Rosa Beer Passport.

The Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were wiped off the map within 24 hours of Vesuvius erupting, buried under volcanic debris that would entomb them for centuries. In this second episode of our four-part series, Kev Lochun is joined by historian Dr Jess Venner to explore the cataclysm with the help of the experiences of two men: Roman statesman Pliny the Elder, who sailed into danger never to return, and his nephew Pliny the Younger, whose letters provide the only known eyewitness account of the disaster.   ––––– GO BEYOND THE PODCAST Want to know more about the story of Pompeii? HistoryExtra's Kev Lochun has curated a selection of essential reading from the HistoryExtra and BBC History Magazine archive to help you explore the story of the cataclysm, the Roman way of life and the nature of the Roman empire: https://bit.ly/4bjYKmE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're back with our continuing third collection. This week it's: "Letter to Sura " by Pliny the Younger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Share a commentThe ground under our feet is shifting, and pretending otherwise only makes us dizzy. From Russia's anti‑missionary law to rising pressure in workplaces and schools, we're watching the culture say out loud what it actually believes—and that clarity, while costly, can be a gift. We step into that reality with 1 Peter, written to people called aliens and scattered, people who lacked legal standing, social welcome, and safety, yet carried a living hope that made idols look small.We draw lines between the first century and now: how Christianity lost its protective umbrella in Rome, how distinction replaced camouflage, and why today's debates over God, Scripture, marriage, gender, truth, judgment, and eternity require us to start at the level of definitions, not assumptions. History backs the strategy. Pliny the Younger recorded pagan temples standing empty in Bithynia because the quiet, persistent witness of believers reshaped the moral landscape. That kind of influence doesn't come from outrage; it comes from a steady presence—working, blessing, warning, and praying with courage and grace.At the heart of the conversation is a single word that steadies the soul: chosen. We treat election the way Scripture does—as comfort, not combat. God's initiative doesn't erase human responsibility; it enables genuine repentance and faith. If you have looked to Christ, your calling and election are sure, not because you feel it but because he holds you. That assurance fuels perseverance when jobs are on the line, when definitions collide, and when you feel like a stranger in your own town. Aliens and scattered isn't a sentence; it's a strategy. Your placement is purposeful. Your distinctness is the point.Join us as we rethink witness for a pre‑Christian world, draw courage from the first century, and recover a resilient identity: rejected by the world, welcomed by God. If this speaks to you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs steady hope, and leave a review to help others find it. Where do you feel the tension most—and how might God use you there?Get our magazine and daily devotional: https://www.wisdomonline.org/lp/magazineSupport the showStephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback

Share a commentThe ground under our feet is shifting, and pretending otherwise only makes us dizzy. From Russia's anti‑missionary law to rising pressure in workplaces and schools, we're watching the culture say out loud what it actually believes—and that clarity, while costly, can be a gift. We step into that reality with 1 Peter, written to people called aliens and scattered, people who lacked legal standing, social welcome, and safety, yet carried a living hope that made idols look small.We draw lines between the first century and now: how Christianity lost its protective umbrella in Rome, how distinction replaced camouflage, and why today's debates over God, Scripture, marriage, gender, truth, judgment, and eternity require us to start at the level of definitions, not assumptions. History backs the strategy. Pliny the Younger recorded pagan temples standing empty in Bithynia because the quiet, persistent witness of believers reshaped the moral landscape. That kind of influence doesn't come from outrage; it comes from a steady presence—working, blessing, warning, and praying with courage and grace.At the heart of the conversation is a single word that steadies the soul: chosen. We treat election the way Scripture does—as comfort, not combat. God's initiative doesn't erase human responsibility; it enables genuine repentance and faith. If you have looked to Christ, your calling and election are sure, not because you feel it but because he holds you. That assurance fuels perseverance when jobs are on the line, when definitions collide, and when you feel like a stranger in your own town. Aliens and scattered isn't a sentence; it's a strategy. Your placement is purposeful. Your distinctness is the point.Join us as we rethink witness for a pre‑Christian world, draw courage from the first century, and recover a resilient identity: rejected by the world, welcomed by God. If this speaks to you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs steady hope, and leave a review to help others find it. Where do you feel the tension most—and how might God use you there?Get our magazine and daily devotional: https://www.wisdomonline.org/lp/magazineSupport the showStephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback

Today's episode gives a conceptual dealing with the type of persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire at its height. Additionally, the responses of the church to preserve its faith by rightly expressing their beliefs, practices, and dispelling of myths give us a direct window into the early church in the wake of the Apostles' deaths. Title: Persecutions and Defenses of the 2nd Century Date: 100s AD Place: Roman Empire Key Figures and Events: Trajan, Pliny, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Marcus Aurelius Contact: churchhistoryandtheology@proton.me License: Church History and Theology is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For full license details, please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Under this license, you are free to download, copy, share, remix, and translate episodes. You must credit Church History and Theology, link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. These materials may not be used for commercial purposes.

What happens when every major AI model gets jailbroken within days? This week, the world's most prolific AI red teamer lifts the curtain on how and why "safe" AI might be an impossible promise. Pliny the Liberator | pliny.gg - discord.gg/basi ChatGPT Nears 900 Million Weekly Active Users But Gemini is Catching Up From Llamas to Avocados: Meta's shifting AI strategy is causing internal confusion Google Tells Advertisers It'll Bring Ads to Gemini in 2026 Meta Acquires Limiteless, an A.I. Pendant Company Backed by Sam Altman Here's how Google is laying the foundation for our mixed reality future OpenAI, Anthropic, and Block Are Teaming Up to Make AI Agents Play Nice Svedka's First Super Bowl Ad Will Be Made Primarily With AI AI Slop Is Ruining Reddit for Everyone TESCREALers paying journalists at major outlets to cover AI The Resonant Computing Manifesto (from Masnick) Techdirt fundraiser From Sam Lessin: Tech bros head to etiquette camp as Silicon Valley levels up its style Bare Metal Email Jeff in Austria Golden Globes enter the world of podcasts and tread carefully, avoiding controversy Who says AI isn't useful? Real-time Cricket Sorting By Sex Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Mike Elgan Guest: Pliny the Liberator Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: auraframes.com/ink ventionteams.com/twit agntcy.org outsystems.com/twit

What happens when every major AI model gets jailbroken within days? This week, the world's most prolific AI red teamer lifts the curtain on how and why "safe" AI might be an impossible promise. Pliny the Liberator | pliny.gg - discord.gg/basi ChatGPT Nears 900 Million Weekly Active Users But Gemini is Catching Up From Llamas to Avocados: Meta's shifting AI strategy is causing internal confusion Google Tells Advertisers It'll Bring Ads to Gemini in 2026 Meta Acquires Limiteless, an A.I. Pendant Company Backed by Sam Altman Here's how Google is laying the foundation for our mixed reality future OpenAI, Anthropic, and Block Are Teaming Up to Make AI Agents Play Nice Svedka's First Super Bowl Ad Will Be Made Primarily With AI AI Slop Is Ruining Reddit for Everyone TESCREALers paying journalists at major outlets to cover AI The Resonant Computing Manifesto (from Masnick) Techdirt fundraiser From Sam Lessin: Tech bros head to etiquette camp as Silicon Valley levels up its style Bare Metal Email Jeff in Austria Golden Globes enter the world of podcasts and tread carefully, avoiding controversy Who says AI isn't useful? Real-time Cricket Sorting By Sex Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Mike Elgan Guest: Pliny the Liberator Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: auraframes.com/ink ventionteams.com/twit agntcy.org outsystems.com/twit

What happens when every major AI model gets jailbroken within days? This week, the world's most prolific AI red teamer lifts the curtain on how and why "safe" AI might be an impossible promise. Pliny the Liberator | pliny.gg - discord.gg/basi ChatGPT Nears 900 Million Weekly Active Users But Gemini is Catching Up From Llamas to Avocados: Meta's shifting AI strategy is causing internal confusion Google Tells Advertisers It'll Bring Ads to Gemini in 2026 Meta Acquires Limiteless, an A.I. Pendant Company Backed by Sam Altman Here's how Google is laying the foundation for our mixed reality future OpenAI, Anthropic, and Block Are Teaming Up to Make AI Agents Play Nice Svedka's First Super Bowl Ad Will Be Made Primarily With AI AI Slop Is Ruining Reddit for Everyone TESCREALers paying journalists at major outlets to cover AI The Resonant Computing Manifesto (from Masnick) Techdirt fundraiser From Sam Lessin: Tech bros head to etiquette camp as Silicon Valley levels up its style Bare Metal Email Jeff in Austria Golden Globes enter the world of podcasts and tread carefully, avoiding controversy Who says AI isn't useful? Real-time Cricket Sorting By Sex Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Mike Elgan Guest: Pliny the Liberator Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: auraframes.com/ink ventionteams.com/twit agntcy.org outsystems.com/twit

Are the Gospels historically reliable, or just late legends? Philosophers and top apologists Dr. Tim McGrew and Dr. Lydia McGrew join me to dismantle the biggest myths about Gospel authorship, dating, and accuracy. From undesigned coincidences that criss-cross all four Gospels, to Luke's stunning geographical and political precision in Acts, to the statistically perfect 1st-century Jewish names—the evidence is far stronger than mainstream scholarship admits.If you've ever wondered whether the New Testament can stand up to rigorous historical scrutiny, this episode will blow your mind.CHAPTERS:(00:00 Intro & Welcome to Tim and Lydia McGrew)(02:42 What mainstream New Testament scholars actually believe)(06:40 Why small differences between Gospels are evidence FOR reliability)(08:18 Markan priority: the harmless version vs. the skeptical version)(10:40 The criterion of embarrassment & heads-I-win-tails-you-lose arguments)(13:35 The astonishing match of 1st-century Jewish names in the Gospels)(19:30 Why everyone trusts Josephus but doubts the Gospels)(21:05 Oldest New Testament manuscripts & textual reliability)(25:09 Undesigned coincidences: the hidden interlocking details)(28:15 The feeding of the 5,000 – why Jesus asked Philip (John 6 + Luke 9))(29:00 Green grass in Mark + Passover timing in John)(29:50 Luke's insane accuracy in Acts (even Pliny the Elder got it wrong!))(36:50 Pointless but vivid details that scream eyewitness memory)(37:17 Peter puts his coat ON before jumping in the water (John 21))(41:25 The mysterious “dispute about purification” in John 3)(43:55 153 fish – fishermen gonna fish)(45:20 Recommended books by Tim & Lydia)TIM AND LYDIA MCGREW LINKS:

In the Husker Doc Talk Podcast 2025, Episode 19, Travis Justice and Dr. Rob Zatechka hit the reset button for new listeners and long-time fans alike. After more than 20 years together behind microphones and 13 seasons of this podcast, they remind you what you're signing up for: football, beer, history tangents, and brutally honest Husker talk. The guys crack into a “three-beer podcast” (that might quietly become a four- or five-beer show) featuring local favorites from Kros Strain Brewing and a deep dive into Pliny the Elder – yes, both the beer and the Roman author. Along the way, you'll get craft beer notes, a quick Roman history lesson, and the usual Viking jokes at Dr. Rob's expense before they shift into full football mode. Nebraska's 37–10 beatdown at Penn State takes center stage. Was this the worst performance of the year, or does Minnesota still hold that crown? Travis and Dr. Rob break down why pointing fingers at the quarterback is lazy analysis. They put the spotlight where they believe it belongs: on the offensive and defensive lines, development versus recruiting, and whether Nebraska has slipped backward on defense after losing Tony White and Terrence Knighton. They also dive into T.J. Lateef's outing, how he compares to Dylan Raiola, and why the real issue isn't under center. Emmett Johnson's monster season and quiet Heisman push get a serious look. Is he the best running back in the Big Ten, and what would he look like behind an elite offensive line? The guys talk NIL math, draft grades, transfer portal temptations, and whether Emmett's future is in Lincoln, the NFL, or somewhere chasing a national title. Then it's rivalry week: Iowa vs. Nebraska on Black Friday. Travis explains why Hawkeye fans are strangely comfortable living in the 7–8 win world of Kirk Ferentz, while Dr. Rob shocks everyone by actually picking Iowa to win—and to score on both defense and special teams. They break down Iowa's run game, their shaky passing attack, and how Nebraska should defend a team that can't throw it deep. There's even time for some national drama: Lane Kiffin's flirtation with LSU and Florida, the insanity of coaching expectations in places like Baton Rouge, and why Ole Miss might actually be Kiffin's best long-term play. Of course, the show is brought to you by their friends at G-Defy (GDEFY.com, promo code DocTalk50), Orr Law Group, and Husker Hounds. Hit subscribe on YouTube, drop a comment, and if you found the show through HuskerMax.com, Travis and Dr. Rob say thank you and welcome aboard.

All over the world, for all of human history – and probably going back to our earliest hominid ancestors – people have found ways to try to keep themselves clean. But how did soap come about? Research: “Soap, N. (1), Etymology.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, June 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1115187665. American Cleaning Institute. “Soaps & Detergents History.” https://www.cleaninginstitute.org/understanding-products/why-clean/soaps-detergents-history Beckmann, John. “History of Inventions, Discoveries and Origins.” William Johnston, translator. Bosart, L.W. “The Early History of the Soap Industry.” The American Oil Chemists' Society. Journal of Oil & Fat Industries 1924-10: Vol 1 Iss 2. Cassidy, Cody. “Who Discovered Soap? What to Know About the Origins of the Life-Saving Substance.” Time. 5/5/2020. https://time.com/5831828/soap-origins/ Ciftyurek, Muge, and Kasim Ince. "Selahattin Okten Soap Factory in Antakya and an Evaluation on Soap Factory Plan Typology/Antakya'da Bulunan Selahattin Okten Sabunhanesi ve Sabunhane Plan Tipolojisi Uzerine Bir Degerlendirme." Art-Sanat, no. 19, Jan. 2023, pp. 133+. Gale Academic OneFile, dx.doi.org/10.26650/artsanat.2023.19.1106544. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025. Costa, Albert B. “Michel-Eugène Chevreul.” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michel-Eugene-Chevreul Curtis, Valerie A. “Dirt, disgust and disease: a natural history of hygiene.” Journal of epidemiology and community health vol. 61,8 (2007): 660-4. doi:10.1136/jech.2007.062380 Dijkstra, Albert J. “How Chevreul (1786-1889) based his conclusions on his analytical results.” OCL. Vol. 16, No. 1. January-February 2009. Gibbs, F.W. “The History and Manufacture of Soap.” Annals of Science. 1939. Koeppel, Dan. “The History of Soap.” 4/15/2020. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/history-of-soap/ List, Gary, and Michael Jackson. “Giants of the Past: The Battle Over Hydrogenation (1903-1920).” https://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=210614 Maniatis, George C. “Guild Organized Soap Manufacturing Industry in Constantinople: Tenth-Twelfth Centuries.” Byzantion, 2010, Vol. 80 (2010). https://www.jstor.org/stable/44173107 National Museum of American History. “Bathing (Body Soaps and Cleansers).” https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/health-hygiene-and-beauty/bathing-body-soaps-and-cleansers New Mexico Historic Sites. “Making Soap from the Leaves of the Soaptree Yucca.” https://nmhistoricsites.org/assets/files/selden/Virtual%20Classroom_Soaptree%20Yucca%20Soap%20Making.pdf “The history of soapmaking.” 8/30/2019. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/history-science-technology-and-medicine/history-science/the-history-soapmaking Pliny the Elder. “The Natural History of Pliny. Translated, With Copious Notes and Illustrations.” Vol. 5. John Bostock, translator. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/60688/60688-h/60688-h.htm Pointer, Sally. “An Experimental Exploration of the Earliest Soapmaking.” EXARC Journal. 2024/3. 8/22/2024. https://exarc.net/issue-2024-3/at/experimental-exploration-earliest-soapmaking Ridner, Judith. “The dirty history of soap.” The Conversation. 5/12/2020. https://theconversation.com/the-dirty-history-of-soap-136434 Routh, Hirak Behari et al. “Soaps: From the Phoenicians to the 20th Century - A Historical Review.” Clinics in Dermatology. Vol. No. 3. 1996. Smith, Cyril Stanley, and John G. Hawthorne. “Mappae Clavicula: A Little Key to the World of Medieval Techniques.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 64, no. 4, 1974, pp. 1–128. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1006317. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025. Timilsena, Yakindra Prasad et al. “Perspectives on Saponins: Food Functionality and Applications.” International journal of molecular sciences vol. 24,17 13538. 31 Aug. 2023, doi:10.3390/ijms241713538 “Craftsmanship of Aleppo Ghar soap.” https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/craftsmanship-of-aleppo-ghar-soap-02132 “Tradition of Nabulsi soap making in Palestine.” https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/tradition-of-nabulsi-soap-making-in-palestine-02112 “Soaps.” https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/ethnobotany/soaps.shtml van Dijk, Kees. “Soap is the onset of civilization.” From Cleanliness and Culture. Kees van Dijk and Jean Gelman Taylor, eds. Brill. 2011. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctvbnm4n9.4 Wei, Huang. “The Sordid, Sudsy Rise of Soap in China.” Sixth Tone. 8/11/2020. https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1006041 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.