Podcast appearances and mentions of Simon Thompson

In this episode of The Purposeful Strategist, Simon Thompson, Group CEO of Windracers, discusses the transformative potential of autonomous aviation in logistics and humanitarian aid. He highlights the innovative ULTRA drone, which is designed for cost-effective delivery over long distances, and the importance of navigating regulatory challenges. Simon emphasizes the balance between commercial viability and humanitarian goals, sharing insights on operational strategies and the future of drone technology in connecting communities.

You may have heard of this ongoing row between ‘It Ends With Us' co-stars Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. Well, Blake Lively is suing Baldoni over harassment and emotional distress.Joining Kieran to discuss is Simon Thompson, Entertainment Journalist based in LA and PR Expert Mark Borowski.Image: Sony Pictures

As a part of our ongoing effort to commemorate the incredible global story of WW2, we are unearthing our groundbreaking ‘Family Stories'. Originally recorded in 2021, this series tells YOUR relatives' stories of derring do - both on the front line and home front. In this episode we hear your tales of liberating Belgian breweries, battles at Iwo Jima and escapes from Nazi concentration camps. With thanks to Jack Gus Adamson, Steve Flaunty, Martin Jaspers, Roger Justus, Simon Thompson and Matt Wilkins for sharing their stories. Originally released in 2021. A Goalhanger Production Produced by James Regan & Joey McCarthy Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Social: @WeHaveWaysPod Email: wehavewayspodcast@gmail.com Join our ‘Independent Company' to watch our livestreams, get earlybird tickets and our weekly newsletter - packed with deals. Membership Club: patreon.com/wehaveways Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a busy year of geopolitical changes, there is a lot of ground to cover when discussing markets. In this episode, Simon and Dan Jones unpack everything from the mass number of moves to the US market to knotty Aim shares, and the sectors investors should keep an eye on in 2025.Timestamps01:02 2025 prospects06:06 Economic backdrop 10:23 Upgrades and downgrades 15:31 Donald Trump's presidency 21:12 His take on moves to US markets24:16 Buybacks29:20 Aim32:16 IPOs and M&A33:59 Interesting sectors Claim your first 12 weeks of Investors' Chronicle Print + Digital for just £12. You will get instant access to our website and app, plus the magazine delivered to your door every week. To start your trial, visit www.investorschronicle.co.uk/podcasttrial *After your 12-week trial you will pay just £62 every 13 weeks by direct debit. If you're not entirely satisfied, you can cancel up to 5 business days before your renewal date and only pay the £12 already debited. This offer is for UK subscribers only. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Al Pacino playing the Devil should be a big enough sell to anyone. Add into the mix Keanu Reeves, as the hot-shot lawyer who is seduced by a big-time New York City law firm, and Charlize Theron, as his wife who begins to be plagued by visions and nightmares. It's a film that speaks about vanity, ego, greed, jealousy, lust and the loss of innocence. It also features some excellent scene chewing from Al Pacino.Film & TV journalist Simon Thompson joins the podcast to discuss this 1997 horror/thriller film. Thompson looks back at when he first saw this movie, how Reeves performance was something we had not seen before and why he believes that Pacino's monologue at the end of the film is some of his best work.All About Al: The Pacino Podcast is written, edited and presented by Mark Searby. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With Matthew Vaughn's next movie 'Argylle' heading to theaters this weekend, we decided to look back at Vaughn's lowest-rated entry in the 'Kingsman' franchise, the 2021 prequel, 'The King's Man.'Were audience's reactions to 'The King's Man' negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and constant release date changes? Or was this prequel unnecessary to the overall series?Mark and Jacqueline are joined by journalist and producer Simon Thompson to discuss whether Rotten Tomatoes is wrong about 'The King's Man,' which is Rotten at 40% on the Tomatometer.Are you a fan of the 'Kingsman' franchise? Do you enjoy Matthew Vaughn's stylistic action thrillers? Let us know in the comments section!If you'd like to give your thoughts on this movie or have another movie you feel like Rotten Tomatoes got wrong, email us at RTisWrong@RottenTomatoes.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on The Home Show Podcast:To look back on 2023's best and worst interior design trends as well as what we might expect in 2024 is Natasha Rocca Devine of NRD: Interior Design Studio; Jennifer Sheahan former home of the year winner; and Peter Irvine.Simon Thompson from The Hunt Museum also joins Sinead to chat about the launch of their 'Kite Power Festival: Fun with Wind Energy' plus Niamh Maher, Commercial Creative Director with @TheJournal_ie to talk New Year's decorations.

The guest on our final IC Interview podcast of 2023 needs little introduction. Having been part of the Investors' Chronicle team since the late 1990s, Simon Thompson is one of the most valued writers in our cohort. Covering 93 companies for the IC, Simon has invaluable experience and knowledge of the small-cap industry. In this episode he reflects on the past 12 months, and shares his predictions for the year ahead, the areas he's paying close attention to and the sectors that appear most promising. By Simon Thompson: Four small-cap takeover targets to exploit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Startup Acquisition Stories with Simon Thompson, Founder of Podseeker ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Follow the Guest: Simon Thompson https://simonthompson.co/ ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-lynch-94b85785/⁠ ⁠https://solodrop.com/⁠ (SOLD) Follow the Host: Andrew Gazdecki - ⁠https://twitter.com/agazdecki⁠/ ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/agazdecki/​⁠ ⁠https://acquire.com/⁠ Follow Acquire.com ⁠https://twitter.com/acquiredotcom/⁠ ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/acquiredotcom/⁠ https://youtube.com/@acquiredotcom/ ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@acquiredotcom⁠ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ About Acquire.com: Acquire.com is the largest and most active acquisition marketplace for buying and selling online businesses. Acquire.com is the highest rated platform for both ease and quickness to match buyers and sellers. We cater to all types of online, revenue-generating businesses while producing the highest success rates for SaaS and eCommerce/DTC businesses in the M&A industry. Join over 350,000 entrepreneurs making life-changing connections and deals everyday.

It's time for the newest Settle the Score with host Matt Knost and musical director Andy Merryweather and we've got returning guest and show favorite Jeff Sneider squaring off against his former podcast co-host and writer/critic/producer Simon Thompson! This was a blast to record and we hope you enjoy this as much as we did taping it. Now let's get to it, shall we? Our patreon is now LIVE!!! Head over to https://www.patreon.com/settlethescoreshow and join one of our 5 tiers! We're offering all kinds of perks, backstage access, exclusive shows, and more. We can't wait to have you be apart of the show and our new community. So please head to https://www.patreon.com/settlethescoreshow to support the show today! There's a general text thread on our Discord server for everyone. Join the discussion at https://discord.gg/GqcDngEjAB Make sure to SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and leave a REVIEW/RATING on Apple and Spotify! If you'd like to take part in our next fan show you can enter in one of two ways. You can like and retweet the tweet Matt puts out each week promoting that week's show. Or you can leave a comment at https://www.youtube.com/mattknost. For every retweet and comment you leave it just adds your name into the pool that many more times. You can increase your odds by leaving more comments and retweets so fire away! Follow on twitter Matt: https://www.twitter.com/mattknost Andy: https://www.twitter.com/STS_Andym Jeff: https://www.twitter.com/TheInSneider Simon: https://www.twitter.com/ShowbizSimon

How do you produce whisky inefficiently on purpose and why would you want to do that? Well, we also wanted to know and asked Phil and Simon Thompson of Thompson Bros Distillers, Dornoch Castle Hotel and the relatively newly founded Dornoch Distillery.Despite their young age, Phil and Simon have had the chance to try some extraordinary whiskies from times long gone, dating back as far as the 1900s. Inspired by that they set themselves the goal of recreating an old-style spirit.And since whisky creation takes time, they are independently bottling very high quality single cask whiskies and their own blends in the meantime, using a very sophisticated ballot system to get their whisky into the “right” hands – but better listen for yourself and let Phil and Simon explain it to you first hand.Certainly being one of our most entertaining episodes with a lot of geeky knowledge and whisky enthusiast-friendly perspectives, this is one not to be missed!

In this episode of the podcast, we are discussing Green and Sustainable Finance and what it means to the insurance and financial services professions. We are joined by Simon Thompson, Chief Executive of the Chartered Banker Institute, and chair of the UK's Green Finance Education Charter on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and author of Green & Sustainable Finance: Principles & Practice. And Rebecca Aston Professional Standards Manager at the CII.

Dan Jones is back talking to our very own Simon Thompson, the IC's small cap expert. Simon chats through how his Bargain Shares portfolio has fared in a difficult year for markets, what investors should be mindful of in the current environment, the outlook for the year ahead, and much more! -Simon Thompson's latest book Successful Stock Picking Strategies and his previous book Stock Picking for Profit can be purchased online at www.ypdbooks.com at £16.95 each plus £3.95 postage and packaging. Details of the content can be viewed on www.ypdbooks.com.Promotion: Subject to stock availability, both books can be purchased for £25 plus £5.75 postage and packaging. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As strikes hit the UK at schools, universities and among postal staff, Royal Mail's chief executive Simon Thompson joins Ian to discuss the latest on negotiations with the Communication Workers Union.TensCare managing director Neil Wright discusses the natural pain relief company's decline in profits, while Antonio Cacorino from APEX talks about why he's among the investors of TMRW Sports, co-founded by golf stars Tiger Woods and Tiger Woods.The man behind theme bars ping-pong chain Bounce, Adam Breedon, chats about the launch of F1 Arcade, which includes 60 motion simulators.The new director of the National Botanic Garden of Wales, Dr Lucy Sutherland, also joins Ian.

MLOps Coffee Sessions #128 with Simon Thompson, Managing Machine Learning Projects co-hosted by Abi Aryan. // Abstract It's a cliche to say that choosing and running the algorithms is only a small part of a typical ML project but despite that it's true! Setting up and organizing the project, dealing with the data asset, getting to the heart of the business problem, assessing and choosing the models, and integrating them with the business processes in production are all at least as time-consuming and important. Simon has written a book that talks about how these different activities need to be orchestrated and executed and he hopes that it might be useful for people who are starting out managing ML projects and help them avoid some of the crunches and catches that seem to trip people up. // Bio Simon has been building and running ML projects since 1994 (when he started his Ph.D. in MachineLearning). His first commercial project was for the Royal Navy, and since then he has worked in Telecom, Defense, Consultancy, Manufacturing, and Finance. This means Simon has experienced a wide range of working environments and different types of projects. As well as working in a variety of commercial environments Simon collaborated on EU research projects, UK Government funded research projects and worked as an industrial rep on three MIT consortia (BigData@CSAIL, Systems That Learn, and the CISR Data Research Board). Simon was also an industrial fellow at the Alan Turing Institute for a year. This means that he has also seen a lot of the communities' practices and concerns as they developed, and he had the chance to put them into use in a commercial environment. Right now, Simon is working for a technology consultancy called GFT, and his job there is primarily to deliver ML projects for companies in the capital markets such as investment banks, although we also do work in retail banking, insurance, and manufacturing. // MLOps Jobs board https://mlops.pallet.xyz/jobs // MLOps Swag/Merch https://mlops-community.myshopify.com/ // Related Links https://medium.com/@sgt101 Managing Machine Learning Projects From design to deployment book by Simon Thompson: https://www.manning.com/books/managing-machine-learning-projects MLOps Community Newsletter: https://airtable.com/shrx9X19pGTWa7U3Y Language processing. Simon Thompson CO545 Lecture 10: https://docplayer.net/211236676-Language-processing-simon-thompson-co545-lecture-10.html --------------- ✌️Connect With Us ✌️ ------------- Join our slack community: https://go.mlops.community/slack Follow us on Twitter: @mlopscommunity Sign up for the next meetup: https://go.mlops.community/register Catch all episodes, blogs, newsletters, and more: https://mlops.community/ Connect with Demetrios on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpbrinkm/ Connect with Abi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abiaryan/ Connect with Simon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-thompson-025a7/

Hosted by multiple iTunes Top 10 podcaster James Burtt, Building The Brand is in-depth conversations with the entrepreneurs, founders, marketing and brand experts, PR specialists, CEO's and CMO's who have built some of the country's most successful companies and brands.   If you are looking to explode your brand using the power of audio, contact James' agency Phonic Content   On today's show James chats to Simon Thompson the founder of Podseeker, a SaaS podcast database and API.   There are loads of tools out there for researching and understanding traditional media formats, but nothing for podcasts. This is why Simon started Podseeker, he saw a need in the market so he built the tool for himself and it turned out others needed it too.   In this episode you will hear: What Podseeker is Why Simon started Podseeker How he built Podseeker Why you need to use Podseeker   ———————————————   If you enjoyed this episode, connect with James and let him know your No.1 takeaway  https://www.instagram.com/jamesburttofficial/   If you're an entrepreneur or business owner that is interested in blowing up your brand using the power of audio, check out Phonic Content - the team that makes this very podcast - https://www.phonic.media/

Simon Thompson, Chief Executive of the Chartered Banker Institute and author of Green and Sustainable Finance: Principles and Practice in conversation with with Jonas Persson, Head of Sustainability and ESG Finance at Llyods Banking Group - Green Conversations

Our latest podcast discusses 'how will Volkswagen integrate its new Europcar acquisition', 'how Chinese cell and module manufacturers are cutting back production just to stay in slack with polysilicon and what it means to the market', there will be a discussion on hydro and whether it will make a comeback. Finally, the podcast ends with our publisher Simon Thompson sharing something that caught his eye in the world of renewables throughout the week. Our Rethink Energy landing page can be found by following the link below where you will find all of our weekly analysis, reports and forecasts, podcasts and any webinars we have led. Rethink Energy Archives - Rethink (rethinkresearch.biz) Our main website can be found by following the link below - Home - Rethink Technology Research ltd (rethinkresearch.biz)

Simon Thompson, Chief Executive of the Chartered Banker Institute and author of Green and Sustainable Finance: Principles and Practice in conversation with Sarah Rickard, Head of ESG Risk, HSBC UK.

Chiggerticky chronicles his unending struggle to shut up and listen.   OPENING VOICES:  Trigger warning  by Rick Dietrich;  “For the love of everything sacred….”  by Simon Thompson;  “Why don't we listen to THEM?”  by Ernesto Sirolli  from his 17-minute TED Talk which  is well worth viewing.  I vibe with Sirolli. As he says in the talk,  Africa changed the course of his life for the better, as it did mine.  Watch Sierolli's talk here:  https://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someone_shut_up_and_listen?language=en   MUSIC:  Intro: “Yice Hole!” by CHIGGERTICKY Outro: “Closin' Time at Nyrene's” by CHIGGERTICKY

Simon Thompson, Chief Executive of the Chartered Banker Institute and author of Green and Sustainable Finance: Principles and Practice in conversation with Richard Winder, Head of Sustainability at Handelsbanken.

We are joined this week by the hilarious and insightful Simon Thompson to discuss this hilarious Ryan Reynolds movie, Buried. We find time to talk about our love of the cinematography and lighting choices, the tremendous performance by Reynolds and that fucking snake with an attitude that showed up halfway through the movie. What a sassy dick. IDYP Twitter IDYP Instagram ---- Theme Song: Ross Bugden - "Welcome to Chaos" 

Simon Thompson, Chief Executive of the Chartered Banker Institute and author of Green and Sustainable Finance: Principles and Practice in conversation with Elisa Moscolin, Executive Vice President at Sage.

Simon Thompson is a digital media expert and the founder of PodSeeker.co. He joins the show to discuss the differences and similarities between influencer marketing and PR, his 5-step framework to implement a podcast influencer marketing strategy, and how PodSeeker can help you with that.

In this episode you'll learn how farmers, malsters, brewers and distillers are finding new inspiration and flavours from crops that had previously died out.Will and Foxy talk to Alison Milne, a 6th generation farmer and maltster from Scotland who has created her own family malting business, Crafty Maltsers. Ali has taken on the challenge of growing and malting heritage varieties of barley for brewing and distilling because it offers a chance to differentiate from products that are created with only efficiency in mind as novel flavours and characteristics are revealed. To best explain how those flavours and characteristics come through, Simon Thompson and his team from Dornoch Distillery join us and reveal exactly why it's worth all the effort.For our Desert Island Drink we speak to Christine Parkinson of the Alcohol Free Sommelier podcast about the state of alcohol free wine and how the best options are not necessarily alcohol free wines(?!)Plus we talk rugby, pints and Foxy makes the worst joke of his tenure so far...Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BizBevPod)

In this episode you'll learn what challenges and opportunities one of the sharpest minds in marketing sees in the US drinks industry as categories converge and branding becomes more important than ever.Will and special guest co-host Bourcard Nesin (of the Liquid Assets podcast) talk to Jonnie Cahill, the Chief Marketing officer of Heineken USA. Jonnie gives razor sharp analysis and insight into the current US drinks scene where consumers increasingly don't care what category a drink belongs to, they just want to be delighted with great liquids and beautiful brands. Seltzers, such as Heineken's Arizona Sunrise, loom large in the conversation but Jonnie explains how beer can innovate and grow well into the future, siting the example of Heineken 0.0, a brand he helped create.For our Desert Island Drink Foxy sneaks back into studio and we talk to Simon Thompson of Thompson Bros. Distilling from Dornach on the East coast of Scotland. Simon gives a very different perspective on distilling for flavour in a distillery the size of a shed and using ingredients like heritage barleys and brewers yeasts. Simon also proves he's one clever bucko when it comes to thinking about what drink to choose for the island a why. Plus we recap the huge news that Business of Beverages is going to host a two day event in Leuven, Belgium on May 25th & 26th of 2020! Get in touch at bizbevpod@gmail.com if you would like to attend, speak or sponsor.P.S. Bourcard's sister played rugby, obviously ;-)For more highlights and lowdowns follow us on Twitter/Instagram: @BizBevPod (manned by Foxy), or LinkedIn/Facebook (manned by Will).Business of Beverages is self-funded and hosted/ edited/ independently produced by Will Keating. Pádraig Fox co-hosts in a personal capacity.All opinions are those of the person expressing them at all times.Recorded at Hellfire Studios.Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BizBevPod)

Simon Thompson, Chief Executive of the Chartered Banker Institute and author of Green and Sustainable Finance: Principles and Practice in conversation with Simon Connell, Global Head of Sustainability Strategy at Standard Chartered.

We're kicking off 2022 with a double interview. Firstly, everyone's favourite stock picking expert Simon Thompson is on the pod to discuss the feature he's written this week: Secrets of Successful Investing. Then IC properties writer Alex Newman joins us off the back of a busy week, with the government asking housebuilders for a 4-billion-pound plan to resolve the unsafe cladding crisis, and a peer-to-peer property lender launching in the UK. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With more than 10% of landlords letting to students, in this month's episode of Listen Up Landlords, we take a look at what's going on in the land of student lets.  Presenters NRLA CEO Ben Beadle (@BeadleBen) – a student landlord himself - and Richard Blanco (@richardblanco_)  are joined by Victoria Tolmie-Loverseed, assistant chief executive at national student housing charity Unipol and Simon Thompson of website accommodationforstudents.com to discuss the latest news in the sector.  They examine the trends in the market, levels of demand at universities across the country and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on landlords providing student homes.  Elsewhere Catherine Behdad of the NRLA advice team talks about the hot topics on the phonelines throughout the month, including questions on the intricacies of student lets.  Later in the show, student landlord Terry Samuel and agent Sally Hatcher, who specialises in letting to students, share their experiences – and the lessons they have learned over the years.   If you enjoy the show, please spread the word on your social media channels using the hashtag #listenuplandlords.    For all podcast enquiries email press@nrla.org.uk    ACCREDITATION: You can now pick up a CPD point to be used towards NRLA accreditation by listening to the podcast. To log your point, visit the accreditation dashboard in the ‘Your Account' section of the NRLA website. Select ‘Other' then ‘NRLA Podcast' from the dropdown menu.   More information   To read a full transcript of the show click here.  For more information regarding the new NRLA student landlord course click here.  To attend our free letting to students webinar click here.   Guest Biographies    Victoria Tolmie-Loverseed – Assistant Chief Executive - Unipol  Victoria leads on accreditation, training and governance at the national student housing charity Unipol Student Homes. She has worked in housing for 15 years, most of this time within the higher education sector and latterly as a non-executive director for two housing associations. She studied surveying at university, and is passionate about the potential for good housing to make life better. For more information on Unipol visit unipol.org.uk  Simon Thompson – CEO Accommodationforstudents.com  Simon set up website Accommodation For Students, one of the NRLA's recognised suppliers to match students with and landlords when he was struggling to find somewhere to live as a student himself more than 20 years ago. There are now 35,000 landlords on the site along with 1,000 student letting agencies and a million students looking for somewhere to live. Visit https://www.accommodationforstudents.com/    Terry Samuel – student landlord, Leamington Spa  Terry Samuel is a retired teacher who lives in Devon. His daughter encouraged him to purchase his first student house for her to live in, whilst she was on a five-year university course. With his wife, he owns and manages six four-bedroom student properties in North Leamington Spa. Letting high quality, clean, safe and well-maintained student houses has been the key to developing their student business for the last 20 years. Terry is an active member of Warwick District Council's Landlord Steering Group, who organise local Landlord Forums in association with the NRLA. For more information visit: www.spaletting.moonfruit.com  Sally Hatcher  Sally's career in lettings spans over 25 years dealing with student and professional lettings in Canterbury.  Sally Hatcher Estates is a family-run business and Sally is also South East area representative for Propertymark. Visit www.sallyhatcher.co.uk for more information.   

Hosted by Simon Thompson, Chief Executive of The Chartered Banker Institute and author of Green and Sustainable Finance: Principles and Practice.    Simon is joined by our first Guest in our Green Conversations podcast series - Sarah Kemmitt, a consultant to UNEP FI, working with the Net Zero Asset Owner and Net Zero Banking Alliances.  With a background in environmental science, Sarah's early career focussed on habitat conservation and research into carbon and nitrogen cycling in agroecosystems.  Following the financial crisis, Sarah took the opportunity to move into banking regulation and internal audit. In recent years she combined these career paths, contributing to the Bank of England's work on the regulation and supervision of climate risks. 

This week on Episode 523 of Priority One: the Roddenberry Foundation continues to promote a positive future, while Star Trek already wins some Emmys this year; in gaming, Star Trek Online takes us through a mirror darkly with “Reflections” and On Screen: Lower Decks Season 2 Episode 6! TREK IT OUT Edited by Thomas Reynolds Star Trek Wins at the Emmys By Elio Lleo On the heels of the Star Trek Day event, the franchise had cause for more celebration. During the two-day Creative Arts Emmy Event this last week, Star Trek walked away with two wins. First up, an Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Single episode for Star Trek: Discovery's Season 3, “Su'kal.” Then, Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup For A Series for the Discovery episode, “If Memory Serves.” Now, Star Trek has been nominated for a total of 10 Emmys and the 75th Annual Awards show is set to air on Sunday, September 19th on CBS. So, let's keep our fingers crossed that Star Trek takes home several more!  The 2321 Emmys will use photon torpedoes in place of play-off music. Image: Television Academy. Praise the Word of Rod By Elio Lleo As Gene Roddenberry's centennial celebrations continue, his son and CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, Rod Roddenberry, spoke with Forbes's Simon Thompson about the last 55 years and the future of Star Trek. With the first four original movies being remastered in 4K UHD, Rod remarks about how great it is to see how there's still a hunger for the original incarnations of Trek, saying: I think it makes Star Trek new again, especially for our new audiences. You've got the TV series now that has brought in a newer, younger demographic, and I think some people are resistant to look at older stuff. When it comes out in 4K, it looks fresh and new. I'm excited by them being introduced to Star Trek through the original movies. ...oh, UNITY, that's what the shirt says. Image: Paramount Pictures, via Forbes. What about NuTrek? Well, for Rod, it's all about ensuring that any of the recent incarnations stay true to the core of what his father's vision was all about saying: He wants people like J.J. Abrams and Alex Kurtzman and others to come along and do that. He also wanted to make sure that it remains Star Trek… [a]s long as they are continuing the tradition and the idea of it making you think. Having it entertain is extremely important, absolutely, but let's be considering different points of view on this as well. Rod goes on to discuss his own personal history with the franchise and how it was he grew to be so invested in his father's legacy. What Escapes In Vegas...Stays In...Hmmm… By Cat Hough If you're headed to Vegas anytime soon, you should definitely trek out the new Star Trek: Discovery-themed escape room launched by Escapology. The game is set during the third season of Discovery and has opened just in time to coincide with the 4th season premiere on Paramount+.  https://player.vimeo.com/video/599794944/ Your role in the game is acting as a civilian engineer tasked with inspecting the U.S.S. Discovery NCC-1031 as it undergoes the refit and upgrade to the 1031-A. However, sci-fi things happen during your inspection and Discovery collides with a quantum filament, causing major hull damage. The filaments' quantum resonance has also caused a polarity shift in the antimatter containment system, leading to a progressive degeneration in the containment field. If field strength falls below 15%, it will collapse, destroying the vessel and everyone aboard. Because sci-fi stuff happened, the main computer has closed emergency bulkheads across the ship and the turbolift control system has been disabled, leaving the bulk of the crew trapped and unable to begin repairs. In a convenient turn of events, your turbolift stopped near the Auxiliary Control section, so all you have to do is override its systems. At this point, you're the best option for helping Discovery and its crew avoid this disaster. Another reason to hate this design. Image: ViacomCBS, via CBR. Then, you, and your team, must escape the turbolift and communicate with a senior officer. You can save everyone if you can just re-establish communications and work together to repair the antimatter containment field before the strength falls below 15% which is projected to be in precisely 60 minutes time. Or that's how long you can book the room for: packages can be reserved at the Las Vegas Town Square location via the Escapology website and they currently show the price for 6 people is a little under $250.  Festivity Will Now Commence By Thomas Reynolds and Rosco McQueen It's practically cliché at this point: the commercial Christmas season starts earlier every year, with candy canes and carols drowning out the trick-or-treaters and turkey dinners. But...what if December isn't merely encroaching on the other months? Isn't Christmas adding their celebrational distinctiveness to its own? Are they not being adapted to service Saint Nick? Yes, Christmas is assimilating the calendar–and your holidays, as they have been, are over. The Elf on the Shelf was the first to fall to the Collective; the angel tree topper is next. Image: Eaglemoss. Festivity may be irrelevant, but that hasn't stopped Eaglemoss from creating a grim messenger of holiday cheer.  Invading Sector 001 on September 30th, the Borg Cube Advent Calendar brings 24 Trek accessories and gifts to all good little Trekkies. Socks, coasters, coffee mugs: each item included in the box also includes a short note with trivia and stories behind it. The Calendar sells for a considerable $149.95, so your bank account might look like New Providence if there's more than one Trekkie on your gift list. However, if you're after something a bit less “Sovereign-class”, then the California line of starships may be more your style.  Eaglemoss has revealed the new XL model of the USS Cerritos.  The model is 9.75” long and faithfully reproduces the Cerritos as it appeared in the first season. It's due in January 2022, so not quite in time for Christmas, but it will soon be joined by a model of the U.S.S. Titan. Both models were made using the actual VFX files used in Lower Decks, with both ships looking a little more animated than the usual line of starships–like they could have leapt from the screen to your living room. Ejectable warp core not included. Image: StarTrek.com Quick News Roundup Here are a few headlines that we didn't discuss but might interest you. For her efforts to help eradicate sexual harassment from the entertainment industry, Michelle Hurd was awarded the SAG-AFTRA President's Award. Hurd (Raffi on Star Trek: Picard) is an actor, activist and National Board member who's worked to provide resources to SAG-AFTRA members who experienced sexual harassment and assault. She also assisted in developing updated guidelines and policies to eliminate harassment and assault from the industry.  You can color your favorite Lower Deckers. The Star Trek.com website is still celebrating Star Trek Day and you can download and print pages to a new coloring book from season two of Star Trek: Lower Decks.  We want to remind you that you can participate in the Roddenberry Foundation's “Boldly Go” campaign by submitting a video, photo, letter, poem, or even a simple selfie. The theme or question to answer, “describe your hopes for the next 100 years!” Visit BoldlyGo.com to learn more! STAR TREK GAMING NEWS Edited by Thomas Reynolds A Fanatical Devotion to Charity By Shane Hoover It's policy here at Priority One that we love charity bundles (and if it isn't, it should be). The latest effort from STO and Fanatical.com is no exception. Following the familiar format, players can select one of two reward tiers based on their donated amount: Tier 1 - $1 ($15 value) 32c Vanity Shield Overlay Rainbow Risian Caracal  ‘Charitable' title Tier 2 - $7.99     ($82 value) All items from Tier 1 Narendra-class Support Cruiser (T6) Vor'ral Support Battlecruiser (T6) 1 Fleet Ship Module 1 Gold Tech Upgrade 30 Lobi Crystals Rarely is it this easy to support the needs of the many. Image: Fanatical. But the benefits don't stay in-game: each purchase of any tier in the bundle earns you a chance to win the Grand Prize! Tier 1 purchases earn a single Grand prize entry, while Tier 2 purchases net you five entries. The winner gets a place on Star Trek: The Cruise V, a ticket worth over $5000. I don't know if God needs a cruise ship, but I sure wouldn't mind getting on this one. The winner also receives a digital copy of every expansion pack available for Star Trek Online. That's Legacy of Romulus, Delta Operations, Temporal Agent, Gamma Vanguard and Discovery Operations. All told, that's over $720 worth of STO goodies. You can also get one free entry into the Grand Prize drawing by visiting a link which requires you to sign up for the Fanatical newsletter. Nearly 90% of the sales price on these charity bundle items will benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, providing children with safe and fun places to grow and thrive, and offering mentoring life-enhancing programs. STO Takes Another Hard Look In the Mirror By Rosco McQueen With the conclusion of the Klingon Civil War, you would think Starfleet and members of the Alliance would have time for a little bit of exploration in Star Trek Online. Think again!!  As a mirror universe admiral once said, “You haven't seen the last of me!” https://youtu.be/krG7YUY9JNw This newfound peace is short lived, as a new danger emerges from the Mirror Universe. A former enemy, Admiral Leeta (voiced by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine star Chase Masterson) is being hunted by the Mirror Universe's Kuumarke, a Terran Empire special agent. Players will team up with Admiral Leeta to stop Kuumarke and her Terran forces from using stolen information to bring destruction to the Prime Universe. Captains can investigate this looming threat in a new featured episode, Firewall, as well as participate in a new ground TFO, “Operation: Wolf.” Captains can also earn daily progress by playing the “Counterpoint” TFO and the episode “Jabberwocky” to work towards claiming the brand new T6 Mirror Gagarin-class Miracle Worker Battlecruiser.  It's worth noting the first Captain on your account to claim the ship also receives 8x Terran Empire Agony Phaser Weapon Packs which each contain your choice of starship weapon type, and 3x Ultimate Tech Upgrade - Beam/Cannon/Projectile Tech which may be used to upgrade any starship weaponry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlkM4MrvSR0&feature=emb_title The new Terran ship has a 4 forward, and 4 aft weapon layout, compared to the regular 5/3 layout of the Prime Gagarin. It features a Lieutenant Commander Command Specialist Bridge Officer seat, and a universal console - the Destructive Protomatter Wave Projector.  The wave projector targets multiple vessels, ripping apart their hulls. If they are destroyed then they send out a secondary shockwave, which may infect other targets in a chain reaction.   Carriers With Crossover Appeal By Thomas Reynolds For years, STO was a preeminent source for new Trek stories–and what's a new Trek story without a ship? Cryptic's designs helped progress the post-Nemesis state of shipbuilding art, establishing distinct aesthetics for a modern 25th century. Now 2021's a different scene, with five different television series and other MMOs generating new ships of their own. That said, STO's contributions aren't going unnoticed. Yes. It's a cat carrier. Good job. Image: Cryptic Studios. The Continuing Mission blog for Star Trek Adventures recently posted fan-made guidelines for bringing Cryptic's Atrox- and Aspero-class carriers into the tabletop world. The unofficial STO-to-STA ship conversion assigns stats and traits based on their online counterparts, so you can drag-and-drop them into your campaign. It's an interesting look at RPG mechanic design, if that's your thing (and if you're listening to this podcast, that's a pretty safe guess). But it also reflects Cryptic's success in creating ships that become Trek characters in their own right. Quick Gaming News Roundup With Reflections taking us back into the Mirror Universe, STO's original ships are getting some fresh new looks--looks that could kill, that is. Ten of Cryptic's 25th century Federation designs, including the fan-favorite Pathfinder, have been touched up for the new arc, ranging from new materials to full-blown remasters. The Terran Empire is also getting their own versions of four ships–the Shran, Reliant, Andromeda, and Pathfinder–dressed to impress and distress. For fans of STO's story blog posts, this was all related in a private communique from Vice Admiral Hemphill of Starfleet. Or is it Lord Baron Vice Admiral of Starfleet? The answer: yes. If you launch STO through the Epic Games launcher - or if you want to get a free Terran Incursion Pack that includes a Terran Empire Sonic Phaser Stun Pistol, an Elite Services Starter Pack and a Small XP Boost, then you'd need to download the game and launch through Epic Games. The pack can be claimed once per account, all items are bound to account and you must complete the tutorial in order to claim it.  The red tells you they're Evil ships, because they can't grow goatees. Image: Cryptic Studios.

This week on Episode 523 of Priority One: the Roddenberry Foundation continues to promote a positive future, while Star Trek already wins some Emmys this year; in gaming, Star Trek Online takes us through a mirror darkly with “Reflections” and On Screen: Lower Decks Season 2 Episode 6! TREK IT OUT Edited by Thomas Reynolds Star Trek Wins at the Emmys By Elio Lleo On the heels of the Star Trek Day event, the franchise had cause for more celebration. During the two-day Creative Arts Emmy Event this last week, Star Trek walked away with two wins. First up, an Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Single episode for Star Trek: Discovery's Season 3, “Su'kal.” Then, Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup For A Series for the Discovery episode, “If Memory Serves.” Now, Star Trek has been nominated for a total of 10 Emmys and the 75th Annual Awards show is set to air on Sunday, September 19th on CBS. So, let's keep our fingers crossed that Star Trek takes home several more!  The 2321 Emmys will use photon torpedoes in place of play-off music. Image: Television Academy. Praise the Word of Rod By Elio Lleo As Gene Roddenberry's centennial celebrations continue, his son and CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, Rod Roddenberry, spoke with Forbes's Simon Thompson about the last 55 years and the future of Star Trek. With the first four original movies being remastered in 4K UHD, Rod remarks about how great it is to see how there's still a hunger for the original incarnations of Trek, saying: I think it makes Star Trek new again, especially for our new audiences. You've got the TV series now that has brought in a newer, younger demographic, and I think some people are resistant to look at older stuff. When it comes out in 4K, it looks fresh and new. I'm excited by them being introduced to Star Trek through the original movies. ...oh, UNITY, that's what the shirt says. Image: Paramount Pictures, via Forbes. What about NuTrek? Well, for Rod, it's all about ensuring that any of the recent incarnations stay true to the core of what his father's vision was all about saying: He wants people like J.J. Abrams and Alex Kurtzman and others to come along and do that. He also wanted to make sure that it remains Star Trek… [a]s long as they are continuing the tradition and the idea of it making you think. Having it entertain is extremely important, absolutely, but let's be considering different points of view on this as well. Rod goes on to discuss his own personal history with the franchise and how it was he grew to be so invested in his father's legacy. What Escapes In Vegas...Stays In...Hmmm… By Cat Hough If you're headed to Vegas anytime soon, you should definitely trek out the new Star Trek: Discovery-themed escape room launched by Escapology. The game is set during the third season of Discovery and has opened just in time to coincide with the 4th season premiere on Paramount+.  https://player.vimeo.com/video/599794944/ Your role in the game is acting as a civilian engineer tasked with inspecting the U.S.S. Discovery NCC-1031 as it undergoes the refit and upgrade to the 1031-A. However, sci-fi things happen during your inspection and Discovery collides with a quantum filament, causing major hull damage. The filaments' quantum resonance has also caused a polarity shift in the antimatter containment system, leading to a progressive degeneration in the containment field. If field strength falls below 15%, it will collapse, destroying the vessel and everyone aboard. Because sci-fi stuff happened, the main computer has closed emergency bulkheads across the ship and the turbolift control system has been disabled, leaving the bulk of the crew trapped and unable to begin repairs. In a convenient turn of events, your turbolift stopped near the Auxiliary Control section, so all you have to do is override its systems. At this point, you're the best option for helping Discovery and its crew avoid this disaster. Another reason to hate this design. Image: ViacomCBS, via CBR. Then, you, and your team, must escape the turbolift and communicate with a senior officer. You can save everyone if you can just re-establish communications and work together to repair the antimatter containment field before the strength falls below 15% which is projected to be in precisely 60 minutes time. Or that's how long you can book the room for: packages can be reserved at the Las Vegas Town Square location via the Escapology website and they currently show the price for 6 people is a little under $250.  Festivity Will Now Commence By Thomas Reynolds and Rosco McQueen It's practically cliché at this point: the commercial Christmas season starts earlier every year, with candy canes and carols drowning out the trick-or-treaters and turkey dinners. But...what if December isn't merely encroaching on the other months? Isn't Christmas adding their celebrational distinctiveness to its own? Are they not being adapted to service Saint Nick? Yes, Christmas is assimilating the calendar–and your holidays, as they have been, are over. The Elf on the Shelf was the first to fall to the Collective; the angel tree topper is next. Image: Eaglemoss. Festivity may be irrelevant, but that hasn't stopped Eaglemoss from creating a grim messenger of holiday cheer.  Invading Sector 001 on September 30th, the Borg Cube Advent Calendar brings 24 Trek accessories and gifts to all good little Trekkies. Socks, coasters, coffee mugs: each item included in the box also includes a short note with trivia and stories behind it. The Calendar sells for a considerable $149.95, so your bank account might look like New Providence if there's more than one Trekkie on your gift list. However, if you're after something a bit less “Sovereign-class”, then the California line of starships may be more your style.  Eaglemoss has revealed the new XL model of the USS Cerritos.  The model is 9.75” long and faithfully reproduces the Cerritos as it appeared in the first season. It's due in January 2022, so not quite in time for Christmas, but it will soon be joined by a model of the U.S.S. Titan. Both models were made using the actual VFX files used in Lower Decks, with both ships looking a little more animated than the usual line of starships–like they could have leapt from the screen to your living room. Ejectable warp core not included. Image: StarTrek.com Quick News Roundup Here are a few headlines that we didn't discuss but might interest you. For her efforts to help eradicate sexual harassment from the entertainment industry, Michelle Hurd was awarded the SAG-AFTRA President's Award. Hurd (Raffi on Star Trek: Picard) is an actor, activist and National Board member who's worked to provide resources to SAG-AFTRA members who experienced sexual harassment and assault. She also assisted in developing updated guidelines and policies to eliminate harassment and assault from the industry.  You can color your favorite Lower Deckers. The Star Trek.com website is still celebrating Star Trek Day and you can download and print pages to a new coloring book from season two of Star Trek: Lower Decks.  We want to remind you that you can participate in the Roddenberry Foundation's “Boldly Go” campaign by submitting a video, photo, letter, poem, or even a simple selfie. The theme or question to answer, “describe your hopes for the next 100 years!” Visit BoldlyGo.com to learn more! STAR TREK GAMING NEWS Edited by Thomas Reynolds A Fanatical Devotion to Charity By Shane Hoover It's policy here at Priority One that we love charity bundles (and if it isn't, it should be). The latest effort from STO and Fanatical.com is no exception. Following the familiar format, players can select one of two reward tiers based on their donated amount: Tier 1 - $1 ($15 value) 32c Vanity Shield Overlay Rainbow Risian Caracal  ‘Charitable' title Tier 2 - $7.99     ($82 value) All items from Tier 1 Narendra-class Support Cruiser (T6) Vor'ral Support Battlecruiser (T6) 1 Fleet Ship Module 1 Gold Tech Upgrade 30 Lobi Crystals Rarely is it this easy to support the needs of the many. Image: Fanatical. But the benefits don't stay in-game: each purchase of any tier in the bundle earns you a chance to win the Grand Prize! Tier 1 purchases earn a single Grand prize entry, while Tier 2 purchases net you five entries. The winner gets a place on Star Trek: The Cruise V, a ticket worth over $5000. I don't know if God needs a cruise ship, but I sure wouldn't mind getting on this one. The winner also receives a digital copy of every expansion pack available for Star Trek Online. That's Legacy of Romulus, Delta Operations, Temporal Agent, Gamma Vanguard and Discovery Operations. All told, that's over $720 worth of STO goodies. You can also get one free entry into the Grand Prize drawing by visiting a link which requires you to sign up for the Fanatical newsletter. Nearly 90% of the sales price on these charity bundle items will benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, providing children with safe and fun places to grow and thrive, and offering mentoring life-enhancing programs. STO Takes Another Hard Look In the Mirror By Rosco McQueen With the conclusion of the Klingon Civil War, you would think Starfleet and members of the Alliance would have time for a little bit of exploration in Star Trek Online. Think again!!  As a mirror universe admiral once said, “You haven't seen the last of me!” https://youtu.be/krG7YUY9JNw This newfound peace is short lived, as a new danger emerges from the Mirror Universe. A former enemy, Admiral Leeta (voiced by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine star Chase Masterson) is being hunted by the Mirror Universe's Kuumarke, a Terran Empire special agent. Players will team up with Admiral Leeta to stop Kuumarke and her Terran forces from using stolen information to bring destruction to the Prime Universe. Captains can investigate this looming threat in a new featured episode, Firewall, as well as participate in a new ground TFO, “Operation: Wolf.” Captains can also earn daily progress by playing the “Counterpoint” TFO and the episode “Jabberwocky” to work towards claiming the brand new T6 Mirror Gagarin-class Miracle Worker Battlecruiser.  It's worth noting the first Captain on your account to claim the ship also receives 8x Terran Empire Agony Phaser Weapon Packs which each contain your choice of starship weapon type, and 3x Ultimate Tech Upgrade - Beam/Cannon/Projectile Tech which may be used to upgrade any starship weaponry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlkM4MrvSR0&feature=emb_title The new Terran ship has a 4 forward, and 4 aft weapon layout, compared to the regular 5/3 layout of the Prime Gagarin. It features a Lieutenant Commander Command Specialist Bridge Officer seat, and a universal console - the Destructive Protomatter Wave Projector.  The wave projector targets multiple vessels, ripping apart their hulls. If they are destroyed then they send out a secondary shockwave, which may infect other targets in a chain reaction.   Carriers With Crossover Appeal By Thomas Reynolds For years, STO was a preeminent source for new Trek stories–and what's a new Trek story without a ship? Cryptic's designs helped progress the post-Nemesis state of shipbuilding art, establishing distinct aesthetics for a modern 25th century. Now 2021's a different scene, with five different television series and other MMOs generating new ships of their own. That said, STO's contributions aren't going unnoticed. Yes. It's a cat carrier. Good job. Image: Cryptic Studios. The Continuing Mission blog for Star Trek Adventures recently posted fan-made guidelines for bringing Cryptic's Atrox- and Aspero-class carriers into the tabletop world. The unofficial STO-to-STA ship conversion assigns stats and traits based on their online counterparts, so you can drag-and-drop them into your campaign. It's an interesting look at RPG mechanic design, if that's your thing (and if you're listening to this podcast, that's a pretty safe guess). But it also reflects Cryptic's success in creating ships that become Trek characters in their own right. Quick Gaming News Roundup With Reflections taking us back into the Mirror Universe, STO's original ships are getting some fresh new looks--looks that could kill, that is. Ten of Cryptic's 25th century Federation designs, including the fan-favorite Pathfinder, have been touched up for the new arc, ranging from new materials to full-blown remasters. The Terran Empire is also getting their own versions of four ships–the Shran, Reliant, Andromeda, and Pathfinder–dressed to impress and distress. For fans of STO's story blog posts, this was all related in a private communique from Vice Admiral Hemphill of Starfleet. Or is it Lord Baron Vice Admiral of Starfleet? The answer: yes. If you launch STO through the Epic Games launcher - or if you want to get a free Terran Incursion Pack that includes a Terran Empire Sonic Phaser Stun Pistol, an Elite Services Starter Pack and a Small XP Boost, then you'd need to download the game and launch through Epic Games. The pack can be claimed once per account, all items are bound to account and you must complete the tutorial in order to claim it.  The red tells you they're Evil ships, because they can't grow goatees. Image: Cryptic Studios.

Eco-tourism is a huge vacation trend generating billions of dollars. Partnering our hobbies with a passion for global connections has far reaching outcomes. What are the personal benefits gained when we merge environmental concerns with support of the local economy? Everyone wins when we pair our leisure activities with connections to people across the world. Simon Thompson of Ventures Birding and Kerry Owen with Bee Well Honey help us remember that if we are open to learning, then we gain riches that enhance our own lives and support the greater good of humanity.

What do curiosity and creativity have to do with coin collecting and gardening?  What do hobbyists and novices have in common with master beekeepers and birders? How does leisure promote work-- and vice versa? Kerry Owens of Bee Well Honey and Simon Thompson, owner of Ventures Birding, say the joy of discovery is best when we can experience it with friends. Listen in as we talk about the birds and the bees.

This podcast has been set up to capture conversations with individuals who are pushing the boundaries across sectors as we move towards the goal of reaching Net Zero. For this third edition Caroline Saul, Partner and 'Funding the transition to a low carbon future' Stream Lead interviews Simon Thompson, Chief Executive of the Chartered Banker Institute. Caroline and Simon discuss what green finance means in practice and the role of the banking community in the transition to Net Zero.

The Scottish town of Dornoch has a lot of history, and the Thompson brothers are adding a new chapter to the town's legacy. Their family owns the historic Dornoch Castle Hotel, and after managing the hotel and its world-class whisky bar for several years, Phil and Simon Thompson decided to open their own distillery near the hotel four years ago. They've only bottled one cask of their own whisky so far as a thank-you for supporters who helped crowdfund the project, and have also started their own range of independent bottlings to keep the business going while their own whisky continues to mature. That's also given them a unique perspective of the whisky industry as connoisseurs, whisky makers, and bar owners...and not everything they've seen in recent years makes them happy. We'll talk with the brothers on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, the relaxation of some pandemic-related health restrictions could open up more whisky travel and event opportunities soon, and we'll have the details on the week's new whiskies. We'll also have a tribute to one of the great distillers of his day and tasting notes for a rare whisky sample that slipped through the cracks years ago!

Join our Head of External Affairs, Richard Winder, and CEO of The Chartered Banker Institute, Simon Thompson, for a discussion on the rise of green and sustainable finance.

In this episode of the podcast, we are discussing what insurance professionals need to know about climate risk and the recently launched qualification; Certificate in Climate Change developed by the Chartered Body Alliance, which consists of the Chartered Insurance Institute, the Chartered Bankers Institute and the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments. We are joined by Simon Thompson, Chief Executive at Chartered Banker Institute, and Gill White, Chief Customer Officer at the CII.

Darren conducts a raw interview with entertainer Simon Thompson – back in the recording studio after 10 years, but not until after overcoming some serious hurdles. Mental wellbeing and creativity come under the spotlight as an artist shares his new creative process.

My guest today is Simon Thompson Group Commander in Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue service.He had the goal to complete 44597 press up's by the 4th May 2021. 44597 is the total number of uniformed and support staff that work in the various fire and rescue services in England. The 4th of May is an important date for firefighters as it is firefighter memorial day. To complete this on average he did 340 press up's each day. We also discuss:Mental reliance & Ross EdgleyInjuries & setbackshis role as a HAZMAT officerfire safety self-carepersonal developmentrecruitment & fire service valuesGet notified of each episode as soon as they come out by clicking HEREFollow the podcast onFacebook&InstagramA big thanks to the support of our partners for being part of the FFP familyWilliam Wood WatchesBlue Light CardIf you have taken value from any of our episodes and would like to support the future growth of The Firefighters Podcast then you can do so by clicking HEREYou can learn more about and donate to Simon's heroic effort then simply click HERE

Turkey's inflation rate rises to 15.6% in February Turkey's annual inflation rose to 15-point-6 percent in February, maintaining pressure for tight monetary policy. The cost of household equipment jumped the most, with prices rising 23-and- a-half percent year-on-year, followed by transportation, which rose 22-percent. In January, annual inflation stood at just under 15-percent. Rio Tinto chairman resigns after cave blast disaster Rio Tinto chairman Simon Thompson is stepping down over the destruction of two ancient caves in Australia. In May last year, the world's biggest iron ore miner knowingly destroyed the 46-thousand- year-old Aboriginal rock shelters as part of a mine expansion. The incident has already led to the departure of former CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques. Stellantis expects improved profitability in 2021 Stellantis says profitability and vehicle sales are expected to improve this year, after it was formed through a merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot-maker, PSA Group in January. The world's fourth- largest carmaker says it's targeting an adjusted operating profit margin of up to 7-and- a-half percent. The company is also forecasting 6-billion- dollars in annual savings from the merger.

Podcasts. We've all listened to them. But how do you get your target audience to choose the right ones to listen to – yours?  Over the past several years there's been a tremendous popularity increase in podcasts, and with more and more to choose from, it's become very difficult to differentiate. Simon Thompson, Co-founder of Content Kite, joins us to talk about how you can rise above the noise with your podcast and, if used correctly, how you can elevate your brand's image.

Simon Thompson runs an agency in Melbourne, Australia, that focuses on helping B2B businesses add podcasts to their content marketing mix.

Julie Moronuki: @argumatronic | argumatronic.com Show Notes: 00:57 - Julie's Unique Origin Story Into Programming 03:47 - Good Resources vs Bad Resources for Learning Haskell 11:18 - Areas to Look at Before Taking on Haskell and Functional Programming 15:56 - Terminology 17:50 - The Haskell Pyramid 25:51 - Learning Haskell Vocabulary 28:20 - Monoid and Functor 42:06 - Advice for Someone Who May Not Be Interested in Programming Resources: Haskell Programming From First Principles (Haskell Book) Natural Language Processing (NLP) Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! Programming in Haskell by Graham Hutton Haskell: The Craft of Functional Programming by Simon Thompson Real World Haskell by Bryan O'Sullivan, John Goerzen, and Don Stewart Introduction to Functional Programming Course with Eric Meijer The Joy of Haskell Haskell eXchange 2017 - A Monoid For All Seasons Transcript: CHARLES: Hello everybody and welcome to The Frontside Podcast, Episode 83. My name is Charles Lowell, a developer here at the Frontside and your podcast host-in-training. With me today on the podcast is Elrick also. Hello Elrick. ELRICK: Hello. How you doing? CHARLES: I'm doing well. I'm glad to have you on this one. I'm glad to be doing this podcast in general. We have someone on the podcast today who I've been following for, I guess probably about two years because she published a book that has been very, very helpful to me. It's one that I recommend to a lot of people. It is learning Haskell from first principles. With us on the show is Julie Moronuki, who is co-author of that book. Thank you so much, Julie for coming. JULIE: Yes, hi! Happy to be here. It's nice to finally get to talk to you. CHARLES: Yeah. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast was because I feel as though you have one of the most unique origin stories because of programming and entering in the tech world. Most of us are curious, we either come from video games or maybe we just start fiddling with the web browser. You enter the maze from the entrance that is like hidden from all, I would say. You went straight to writing a book on Haskell, is that --? JULIE: That is what happened. In 2014 on Twitter, I met my co-author, Chris Allen and he has been trying to figure out better ways to teach people Haskell because the on-ramping, I guess of people to Haskell can be quite difficult. The materials that exist are not always accessible and people felt like they need the advanced math degrees before they can write Haskell. He was trying to figure out better ways to introduce people to it. Since I was this person who's never programmed before -- I have no background -- and then he thought, "This will be a very different experience, trying to teach Haskell to her." Because I have a linguistics background and stuff he thought, "That would be interesting too and maybe, she'd be interested eventually in doing NLP." I said, I'm not -- CHARLES: What's that? Acronym alert. JULIE: Oh, yeah. Sorry. Natural Language Processing. I said, "You know, I've never done any programming and I don't play video games and I never have had any desire to learn computer programming. I don't think I'm going to like this. I don't think this is going to last but sure, I will try," and so I did a little bit. I read a little bit of 'Learn You a Haskell for Great Good.' I've read some other things. CHARLES: This was before you guys had the idea of actually writing a book. JULIE: Yes. He had the idea of turning some of his thoughts about teaching Haskell into a book and as he would explain things to me, like the questions I had about 'Learn You a Haskell,' I'd be like, "We should write this down," and he would say, "It's so hard to write it though. It's easy when I'm explaining it to you and it's so hard to write it." Initially, it started that I was helping him at things that he was teaching me and then as we got further into the book and I started reading a lot of other Haskell stuff on my own and figuring stuff out, I was writing more and more of it. Then we were kind of equal co-authors after not too long. That's how it happened. I really didn't think that I would stick with Haskell or with programming. I'm still sometimes I'm not sure about programming. I'm not sure about this whole making software thing. But Haskell is so interesting to me that I'm still here. CHARLES: That is fantastic and it's a great story. I'm curious, when you were doing the proto-research to learning Haskell, coming from really truly first principles and having no experience of programming, what made a good resource versus a bad resource? What are the things that you gravitated towards and say, "This is really instructive." What was the tone there? JULIE: One of the major problems ahead of most of the Haskell resources that exist is they assume that you've done programming before because nobody learns Haskell as a first language so they all assume that you have done some programming before. They would make references to things that if you were a programmer, you would know what they meant but I didn't. That was one of the hardest things for me. Even 'Learn You a Haskell' does that to some extent. CHARLES: What's an example of that? JULIE: I had learned a little bit about recursion from linguistics because that's a thing in human language so I really understood recursion but most of the Haskell resources explain it to you primarily in terms of, "This will be like your loops in other languages." I'm going to be like, "I don't know what a loop is. This isn't helpful for me." There are a lot of things that I didn't understand so when people talk about Haskell as being a pure functional language, neither pure nor functional necessarily, I didn't have anything to contrast them with so they didn't necessarily make sense to me as things that make Haskell different from other languages. I didn't know what imperative programming was and people would say, "In contrast to imperative programming, functional programming does this," and I'd be like, "Okay, but I don't understand what the imperative programming way is so this contrast isn't making any sense to me and same thing with purity." There were a lot of things I had to learn, in fact about mutable state because I didn't know anything about it. I had some understanding of how computer memory works but still some of the ways that people talk about it were not obvious to me. CHARLES: Do you find that seeking out that contrast actually wasn't helpful? Is it noise since at least at the beginning, it's something you'll never do. It's like saying, "Over in France, they wear these kind of socks." Since I'm going out into the street in front of my house, I don't really care. JULIE: Right. In the beginning, it was a lot of noise and I understand why they do that because they are making the assumption that everybody who is learning Haskell has come from some other programming language, probably an imperative one so I understand why that happens but in the beginning, it was very much noise for me. I noticed a lot of Haskell resources, one of the first things they tell you is that in Haskell you can't do 'x = x + 1'. I was like, "If I'm reading this like it's mathematics, why would I think I could do that." If you come from a different programming language, you might well think that you can do that but in Haskell, we can't so making that contrast, when I didn't have that background was really just confusing for me. Now, because I teach people and most of them do have some background in an imperative language, understanding the contrast is more helpful to me but in the beginning it was just confusing and noise. When we wrote Haskell book, we tried not to make those kinds of references and like, "Let's assume that everybody is just like Julie, doesn't know a different programming language that we can contrast it with and let's try to write a book like that." CHARLES: Right. I think that's a key insight because some people would say there's a lot missing or that difference might stand out. Now, that you pointed out, I can see it but I don't think I noticed it while I was reading it. But one of the things that I like is because I also tried to learn Haskell through 'Learn You a Haskell,' and I didn't find it very helpful. I found it entertaining and it's not a knock against the authors. Some of the sketches were really cute but it was still more explaining... I don't know. It was explaining more of the how, than the why, if that makes any sense where I felt as though in your book, there were a lot more analogies to actual human experiences, using the visceral language saying, "A mono is something you can mash together or squeezed together." That really connected for me. Whereas, explaining it in terms of concatenation and laws and stuff like that. Those things seem cited to the secondary resources to the primary resource. JULIE: Yeah. I think that's kind of helpful for me too. There are different Haskell books that have, I think different things about them that are good. I forget the name of the book but Graham Hutton's book, the way he talks about recursion was really helpful to me. The way he explains recursion and of course, folds but folds are things that he's known for so those parts of that book are helpful for me. But really the best book other than my own of course, for me is Simon Thompson's. I think it's called ‘The Craft of Functional Programming' and I think it does better at explaining things just in terms of Haskell. Real World Haskell, I guess is really good. It was harder for me because I hadn't been a programmer before. I think it's got so many practical exercises that -- CHARLES: Was that the O'Reilly book by Irish gentleman whose name eludes me? JULIE: Yes, Brian O'Sullivan. It makes more sense to me now but there were things in it that are sort of programmer things. Because I'd never made software before, that were really confusing for me. But Simon Thompson's, because his book does have exercises and they were ones that I could understand and do. They were fairly self-contained. My first experience actually in writing a program that does IO was from his book and I was just so thrilled. I was like, "I got it. I did it." That was really helpful book for me but I don't see people recommend that one as often but that was probably the best one for me. CHARLES: Yeah, it's always a balance because the Real World Haskell didn't really worked for me, almost because the examples were too pragmatic or too complex and I picked this up when I was 10 years into my programming career and I struggled to follow the JSON parser example, which is parsing JSON is something that I've actually done several times in multiple languages and I still struggled with it. JULIE: Whereas for me, I don't even know what JSON is. This is not something I've ever dealt with. I know what it is now sort of, but it's still not something that I deal with very much. I was just like, "What is this? I don't even know what to do here." It wasn't quite as helpful for me. I've heard a lot of people have success with that one but I think they don't share quite the same richness of programming experience with Brian O'Sullivan. I think it's a little bit more difficult. ELRICK: These are a lot of amazing resources that I wish I knew about when I try to learn Haskell. I took an online course with, I think it's like Eric Meijer and that class was very intense. Looking back, what would you say are some areas that someone should, either start to look into before they step into the Haskell world, being that you didn't come from a programming background but connecting to dots backwards now? What would you say are some areas that people can slowly ramp up into to get into Haskell and functional programming? JULIE: When I teach people Haskell, the people who have the easiest time are people who have been writing Scala for a while and they've moved over to the FP in Scala side. When I first started Haskell, I heard a lot of people make jokes about how Scala is a gateway drug to Haskell. I think there's actually might be so truth in that because I certainly have a lot of students that were Java programmers, then they got interested in Scala because maybe Scala is better for some things than Java and then they start moving more and more over to the FP in Scala side. Those are probably the students that have, I think the easiest time making the transition to Haskell that I've had anyway. But you know, I think even JavaScript, trying to write in a more functional style and there are some resources for that and really, there's a very good tutorial about monads that uses all the code examples in JavaScript. I think a lot of the concepts that you can start to approach them from other languages. Haskell is still going to be weird in a lot of ways and another thing that works for a lot of people is going to Elm. Elm is similar to Haskell but different. I think that that has worked also for a lot of people getting them into understanding more functional programming concepts but with the much easier... The word easy is so -- ELRICK: It's like a relative term like, "Oh, this is easy." JULIE: It is. CHARLES: Easy to say, right. ELRICK: That's what I thought when I step into learning Haskell and functional programming. I was like, "How bad could it be?" JULIE: Right. Learning Haskell can be very bad. I'm not going to kid around about that. It's a shame because I don't think that it needs to be that bad but the way it's presented oftentimes, for various reasons, I think why Haskell gets presented the way it does but I don't think it needs to have it like that. The designer of Elm, whose name I'm not going to try to pronounce because I don't know how you say his last name, he really made an effort to for example, the error messages in Haskell can be very intimidating. The situation there has improved since I started learning Haskell but they can be quite intimidating and he really made an effort to make very friendly error messages, very helpful error messages. I think that it shows and then it makes a difference for people who are learning. If you start with Elm and then you do want to see what Haskell or PureScript, which is also frontend language, mostly. It compose of JavaScript but it's very Haskell-like, then from Elm, let's see if we can get a little more hardcore Haskell. I think the transition to Haskell or PureScript is easier from there. I think it does help to move in the functional direction from whatever language you're in, if you do FP in Scala or try moving to more functional JavaScript or even Elm. Then Haskell will make it more sense from there or be a little easier to approach. CHARLES: Yeah, and I definitely think that for, at least from my perspective, I've been able to take a lot of those concepts that I've learned from Haskell and then apply them, even inside Vanilla JavaScript. There are things that have become indispensable like mapping and folding and they exist in JavaScript. You can reduce arrays, which is a similar to a fold and then you can map arrays but understanding that map, the key insight for me that I got from learning Haskell is that there's a whole class of values that you can map, not just arrays. The standard JavaScript object is essentially a Functor and will get a little bit to that because for people listening what that word even means and the meta around the fact that they're all these weird words and how do I go about something I want to ask you about. But the trees can be mapped and the objects can be mapped and all of the sudden, it's like this one concept that I use so much for lists, it's available on all these different data structures and it's get me thinking like, "What other data structures can I use this operation? What are the things are Functors that I'm working with?" Really, it's changed my perspective to think about the type of the data structure, in terms of the operations. JULIE: I'm in favor of keeping the terminology that we have but just explaining it much better. That's the approach that I take but it can be very hard, especially it was your first learning Haskell. I don't know if you've seen the Haskell pyramid but to get sort of productive where you can write programs in Haskell is not a very high bar. It feels like it is when you first start but it's not really very high bar but Haskell just keeps growing and growing and getting deeper and deeper so you're always approaching new libraries that you've never seen before and you feel then you've been learning Haskell all over again because they're written in a very different style of Haskell or they have even more terminology, even more kinds of Functors that you've never heard of before or something like that so you're always approaching these things over again. It can be a very intimidating feeling and it makes a lot of people very uncomfortable and I'd say, if you like Haskell and that does make you feel uncomfortable, then you don't actually need to do that because a lot of people write Haskell very happily every day in their jobs even and don't do that. They don't mess with some of the newer, super cool libraries that have all this funky terminology and stuff. Some of them don't mess with them at all. CHARLES: But certainly, there is some concepts that are core. I'm thinking of like applicative and Functor and all these things that I'm learning about and I'm curious to hear about your experience as you climb that pyramid. What is the pyramid entailed? First of all, I'd love to hear more about it because this is actually the first time I heard about the Haskell pyramid. JULIE: Say you understand monads, then you can write really a lot of Haskell programs. Probably at some point, you will need to understand monads transformers but if you just get to the point where you understand monads pretty decently, you can write a lot of software so after that, then learning more is maybe going to improve your Haskell, maybe let you write some things that you couldn't write before but a lot of it above, not that these things are necessarily in an hierarchical progression. We cover monad transformers in a fair bit of detail in Haskell book but if you get anything beyond what's in Haskell book, one of those things that some of them are very interesting, some of them can make you much more productive but some of them are also people do them for fun to explore the space and some people love them and some people hate them. Haskell lets you do a lot of things for fun and exploring mathematics in ways that are interesting and exciting and may influence and in fact, have influenced other languages like [inaudible] in PureScript but not really necessary for basic Haskell programming. A nice thing happened while we're writing Haskell book. I was writing, I think it's chapter six, which is about type classes. I was writing that chapter and at the same time, my co-author had started writing the Monoid chapter. The type classes chapter comes in chapter six and we introduce a lot of the basic type classes: num and eq and some of those in that chapter because I do think it's important. Type classes are very special thing about Haskell so I think it's important to, at least start coming to groups at them early. Some people disagree with me about that and think they can ignore them for much longer. But at any rate, it is where it is and I felt that that was important. Maybe the real motivation for type classes, really until we started writing the Monoid chapter so he started writing that while I was working on type classes chapter and he sent me the beginnings of the Monoid chapter to look at. At first I thought, "We've got addition and multiplication and list concatenation and this just doesn't seem interesting. What is this generalization of a Monoid that I'm supposed to get from these three things? And why bother making it a type class," because additional and multiplication are already in the num type class and then list concatenation is just for list so why make this into a type class and what's that motivation there. With eq, we want a quality -- CHARLES: Is that how you pronounce 'eq?' JULIE: That's how I pronounce it because 'equal' or equality. CHARLES: Okay, so this is a type class for doing what? Making sure to being able to compare two values on the same value. JULIE: Yes and it's a weird one because for most data types, you can have an eq instance and you want probably, in a lot of cases to have that but we don't want because function is a data type in Haskell so you don't want to have an eq instance for functions and that's why equality is not implemented generally for everything. That's why it's a type class so there's no instance for functions because that's not decidable. You can't decide if two functions are equal, generally. Some functions you can but in the general terms, for datatype, you can't. CHARLES: That's actually a pretty profound statement. Proof of which is left as an exercise for the listener. JULIE: We got to the Monoid and I was like, "What is the [inaudible]," or something. It turns out that there are Monoids everywhere. There's all kinds of things that you want to, either concatenate or make a product of. Then having this as a type class and thinking of it in terms of like, "We've got this abstraction. We've got this category. We've got this algebraic structure. Now, we can look for in all these other places," because once you've named the thing, then you can talk about it and think about it in a little bit of the different way. It's like, "Now, we've got this group of addition, multiplication, list concatenation." Now, we've got an abstraction of that and we can think, "Where else can I see this pattern?" and it turns out it's all over the place. For me, that was one of our thought like, "Type classes are actually really cool and powerful and interesting thing." For me, that was when it seemed like, "The terminology is worth it because, now I want to think about finding these algebraic structures and in all these other places." CHARLES: Right and like a Monoid, it could essentially be called, if you're using a Java interface, like 'mashable togetherable' or 'concatenatable' or something like that. But there's a kind of one-to-one correspondence but it is a vocabulary that just needs to be learned. JULIE: I don't know much about category theory or anything but the other cool thing about Monoid for me was that there are almost always two because there's almost always one that's destructive or additive or concatenative and there's almost always one that is conjunctive or a product or multiplicative. It's often across product that would be the zipless Monoid that exist in base and it's a cross product of the two lists. There's almost always two, whereas when you think of Monoids in the very abstract looking category theory, it doesn't matter if it's addition or multiplication. The operation doesn't matter, whether it's addition or multiplication or concatenation or cross product because you generalize the actual operation to the extent where what it's going to produce. It doesn't matter anymore. For me, I still think of Monoids in terms of like set theory or Boolean Algebra, then that's one of the things that I think is difficult with Haskell where people talk about Monoids in terms of category theory but I think that's not very helpful for the actual programmer who has to actually deal with the two different instances like sum and products or concatenation and zipping are going to actually act different in a program. CHARLES: Right, they're going to yield a different set of values. JULIE: Yes. CHARLES: Is there a baseline vocabulary? I kind of think of it like learning a new language, right? JULIE: Yep. CHARLES: When you're learning Haskell, you're not just learning a new language. You're literally learning a new language. I could go and I could learn Japanese but it's going to be a struggle at some point. People say certain languages are hard and certain language are easy. I don't generally subscribe to that. I think that most of it is just going about and living in a place where they speak this language and you'll absorb it and it's the decision to go and live there -- that's kind of the primary one. But let's say, you're a foreigner and you're travelling to this country called Haskell that's got this strange language. Like other human languages, it's just got different names associated with different concepts and some of the concepts might even just be unique to that country. Just like when you're travelling and acquiring a human language, there's a certain level of vocabulary that you need to achieve before you can do things like buy groceries and be able to transact financial exchanges or have a conversation about the weather. What are the kind of the levels of vocabulary that you need to acquire to be operational in Haskell or I would say, even in functional programming because now that I've been exposed to this, I see it in Clojure. I actually see people doing this JavaScript and in Erlang, in Elixir and what have you. JULIE: Yeah, I don't really know how to answer this question. How to buy groceries in Haskell? CHARLES: Let me let scale that down because I had this horrible tendency to spend five minutes asking what I say is going to be single question but it's actually like 30. Let's take down the scope. When you were learning this vocabulary, at what point did you feel like you're really gaining traction? We're you really starting to connect the dots? JULIE: For me, I think when I got through Functor. It was when I felt like -- CHARLES: Functor and what comes before Functor? JULIE: Monoid. I think once you understand Monoid and Functor, then a lot of other concepts in Haskell will start falling into place because this is not obvious to everyone but I think once you really understand Monoid and once you really understand Functor, then applicatives are monoidal Functors and that's not obvious to everyone. Like I said, it's not obvious at first certainly, and monads have characteristics of both Monoid and Functor as well. Then you start saying, "There's all these other Functors. There's profunctors and bifunctors. I think once you really understand Monoid and Functor, a lot of the rest of Haskell starts falling into place and then type classes like alternative. Alternative is another kind of Monoid. We have all these other names that if you can see the general pattern of Monoids and Functors, I think to me anyway, a lot of it then just started falling into place. Applicatives to me seemed, I don't want to say obvious or simple but in traverse, it's same sort of thing so we have these other names for it -- traversable -- and I was like, "Why was it called traverse. I don't understand this word at all." But once I saw the type signature and what actually happens with what the function traverse does, I was like, "Okay, I see what's happening here." For me, those were the two big hills. Once I got through Monoid and Functor and really understood them well, then a lot of other stuff just come and fell into place for me. ELRICK: This is really interesting. How was a Monoid explained to you when you were first starting to learn Haskell? Then now, how do you explain what a Monoid is to someone that's learning Haskell? JULIE: When Monoid was first explained to me, it was the pattern of there's addition and multiplication and list concatenation so it generalize out that pattern and that was really hard for me to understand at first because list concatenation and addition are similar but multiplication is different. I was like, "What do these three things have in common?" What they have in common is that they take two values of a certain type and return another value of that type and that's the type signature of the main function, that's in the Monoid type class. But that doesn't really tell you very much. A lot of functions could do that, in theory at least. How you combine them is really what's interesting about Monoid and also what makes concatenation and addition different from multiplication. Fortunately in college, I had had a fair bit of exposure to Boolean Algebra so figuring out that like, "There's actually two basic genres or varieties of Monoid and they are disjunctive or additive or they are conjunctive or multiplicative," and figuring that out, to me I always think that Monoid should really be, maybe two different type classes, one for the additive Monoid like list concatenation and addition and things where you are adding two things like a set union. Then conjunctive, which would be this intersections or multiplication or cross products. I always think there's maybe should be two different type classes but there's not a good way to do that really in Haskell. Instead, we have this one type class and then we do this ugly business of wrapping them in different type names. CHARLES: Is that why you'll have a constructor for some so it's just a wrapper for an integer? JULIE: Yeah. CHARLES: I don't know if that's so bad. JULIE: I don't like it but -- CHARLES: Yeah. You know what? You do a lot more than I do so I'm going to take your word for it. JULIE: Yeah, that's exactly why. Sum and product are the wrappers for integers because integer doesn't have a Monoid. It has two Monoids over it. CHARLES: I see. There's lots of ways to combine integers. JULIE: Yeah and those are the two basic ones. Then because Monoids also have an identity so with semi-groups, then you get even more semi-groups for integers because you get max and min, because they don't have an identity so there's semi-groups. CHARLES: There's always risk getting down into the weeds with the vocabulary but I think that there's a message here because your answer to the question is really, "When I understood Monoid and I understood Functor," from that point on, the overhead that you had to expend to get other things was lower than the overhead that you had to expend to get those initial two things. For anyone listening, Monoid and Functor are probably opaque terms. You have no idea what the hell they mean. We've been talking about in things like that a little bit but then it's okay because they're a finite set of opaque terms and they're very achievable and once you can achieve those, then you've done 90% of the work and now, you're just combining them into interesting and novel ways. JULIE: Yes. I will say it that a lot of people do tell us about Haskell book that applicative is actually the hardest chapter in the book, not monad but applicative. CHARLES: Really? JULIE: Yeah. A lot of people do tell us that. Because that's the first time that you've taken the concept of Monoid and the concept of Functor and combining them into a new thing so then, once you've done that with applicative, then after that, really it's all downhill. CHARLES: Right. It seems like there's a couple of key insights. As you're climbing that hill, I like that analogy is like one, just understanding that there things like type classes so you've through attacking Monoid and through attacking Functor, you realize, "There is such a thing." By recognizing there is such a thing as a Functor, you recognize that there is the potential for other type classes like it. Then through combining it with Monoid, to get applicative, you can see, "I can actually compose these things into new instances of those things," and then that's either the crest of the hill or the Pandora's box, depending on which way you look at it. I think there's a hopeful message in there that if you can invest the time to learn these opaque terms and making them transparent to you, you can really, really, really lean heavily on that knowledge in going forward. JULIE: Yeah. I'm writing a new book now called 'The Joy of Haskell.' The idea of The Joy of Haskell is meant to be an intermediate book. For people who already know some Haskell but we want to make words like Functor more general, like in Haskell book we really focused on the type class called Functor when it's actually a concept from mathematics or actually originally from linguistics oddly enough but we really focused on the type class in there, rather than trying to explain what a Functors are generally. In the new book, in The Joy of Haskell, we're going to try to take a lot of these terms like Monoids and Functors and catamorphisms and all these other words that Haskell has used all the time and try to explain them generally. Then also give examples like interesting uses from different libraries and stuff like that. It'll service both, hopefully a guide to the vocabulary of the Haskell ecosystem and also some documentation and examples for libraries and things like that that are useful because these things do have uses. They do get used in interesting and exciting or terrifying -- maybe those are related -- ways. That's the goal of the new book is to try to make a guide to all of this vocabulary that Haskell use all the time. We're trying to do that. How do I explain Monoids, you asked. You've got two values of whatever type. It doesn't matter the type and in general, there would be two ways you can think of to combine them, either making a sum or a union of all the values in them or making some product of those values, if they contain multiple values or even if they only contain one. That's how I explain them now. I'm not certain that addition and multiplication are actually the best ways to start with that because addition and multiplication don't act quite like set union and intersection do. I'm actually thinking of them in terms of and this is how I explain monoids to the people now, I start from set theory and that sounds really heavy but it doesn't have to be because I think a lot of things about sets are -- CHARLES: They're very intuitive, especially if you have visuals. JULIE: They're very intuitive, for people to think about. Yes, exactly. I explain Monoid now more in terms of set union and intersection. I'm actually giving a talk in October. It's coming up in just a couple weeks at Haskell eXchange in October 12th and 13th in London and I'm giving a talk there called 'A Monoid For All Seasons' and I'm going to try to explain the theoretic motivation for Monoids and try to explain them in those terms. Semi-group is a little bit different because lacks the identity but I'll try to explain the alternative type class and monad plus this really the same thing as alternative. These things are also just Monoids so we have these different names because it's a different type class alternative but it's really just another kind of Monoid. I'm giving that talk about set theory in Monoids in October, in a couple of weeks. People keep asking me on Twitter, "What's your obsession with Monoids," because my name on Twitter is Monoid Mary so I try to explain why I love them so much. CHARLES: Actually, it's an awesome point, which I've just gotten to experience it is what you see like, "Oh, there are these abstract things," you start searching for them. A lot of times, you'll uncover them and it'd be a real timesaver. There's the thrill of unearthing it in the first place and then when you could say, "Now that I've identified this thing as a Monoid, there's so much less that I have to write." There's like less work that I have to do. It's the same reason that we write frameworks for ourselves in software. It's like, "We love Ruby on Rails because of all the work we don't have to do." Now, you have to expend a lot of energy to work with it, using Rails an example but there's lots of software frameworks. It's like, "If you can find a good persistence framework or you can find a good thing for making a library for handling HTTP requests and responses, why would you write it all by hand in the first place?" I think the thing that's exciting for me as a developer is being able to see, "Monoid is a thing. Functor is a thing and I can now actually use this and I can use it almost as a looking glass to explore the world around me. When I see something in the landscape that just leaps out through that lens is another great one." I've been on a big kick lately but being able to say, "This is going to save me so much time because of the thoughts that I don't have to think and the code that I don't have to write." I think connecting it back to the pragmatic, I certainly have become really obsessed, maybe not about Monoids but having a type class large in your mind. JULIE: I think it's a really powerful thing. Sometimes that jargon is really useful. It's useful in a sense that it like compresses a bunch of information into a single word to remember. It's like teaching my eight-year old multiplication and we were talking about like, "It's like addition," and for us adult, I'll just go ahead say, "It's associative and commutative," but showing him that you can do those things and that addition is like that too and we're talking about that and he was so excited to learn that there's this word 'commutative' that encapsulates this idea for both concepts so he doesn't have to think like, "Addition does this thing. Multiplication does this thing." He doesn't have to remember both of those things, like he just remembers, "Commutative and they're both like this." It kind of compresses that information and what you have to remember and think about. Then it does make it easier to see that pattern in other things, then we can find commutativity in other things because now we have this pattern that we can look for and we got a name for it. We can talk about it and really, there's a lot of stuff like that in Haskell where we find some pattern that we find useful or we want to be able to talk about or easily translate to a bunch of different types, not translate is quite the right word but you know what I mean, I think. Then we give it a name and we make type class for it and then it's, "Now, we find it even more place for us." CHARLES: Right. It's about thinking less, right? JULIE: Yeah. CHARLES: That's a big misconception is that it's not about thinking more, it's about thinking less. JULIE: It really is. I think it's because there's so much kind of upfront work, where you have to learn all this new stuff upfront, then people mistake that for how much work we're always doing but in Haskell it's like, "We did all this work upfront and now we're now we're not going to think about these things anymore." ELRICK: That sounds like a good title for a book, 'Learn Haskell and you will think less," but it's true. When I struggled through that online class, I came out of that just being able to pick up any functional programming language and just hit the ground running. It is definitely a plus and you will think less. JULIE: Yeah, in the long term, I think that you do. Haskell is not a perfect language. There are things that probably can be improved. CHARLES: Now, before we go, I wanted to ask you, having had this very unique on-ramp into programming, which apparently you're still not convinced about. I'm curious what it would take to actually convince you but the real question that I have is there any advice that you have for someone who does not have a stereotypical background in programming who may not think that they would find programming interesting, who might have any number of roadblocks in terms of their own conceptions about the path forward. What advice would you have for them? JULIE: I am a bit joking when I say that I'm still not sure about writing software. I don't feel like I'm good at it and I think this is really the key. There are a bunch of domains in programming that I don't personally care about. I don't want to make web apps and I have nothing but respect and admiration for people who do. To me, it's very, very hard. CHARLES: Mostly because our tools aren't the same. JULIE: Yeah and there's just so many things outside your own program, there are just so many things that you have to think about and deal with because there's the network and there's other people's computers and they might be doing in other people software and what it might be doing. It is insane so for me it's very hard. There's a lot of domains of programming that I don't care about and when I thought about programming, that's the kind of thing I would think about. I certainly knew a lot of people who are web developers or the common programming jobs, I guess. Some of them just weren't that appealing to me and I'm not interested in making games or graphics so those are the kinds of things that I thought about for programming. There are things though that I am interested in doing. I'm very interested in natural language processing and I guess that's related to machine learning. I've recently taken up an interest in things like the raft protocol, the consensus protocol. Those kinds of things interest me a lot and there's a lot of the theory that interests me. I'm reading a dissertation right now about implementing a non-strict lambda calculus, which is what Haskell is. It's a non-strict lambda calculus and this guy's dissertations are theoretically implementing a non-strict lambda calculus. To me, the theoretical side is really interesting but then I am also interested in certain kinds of software. For some reason, I have developed quite an interest in making Twitter bots. I think that the advice I would give -- I'm rambling a little bit -- to people who think they're not interested in programming so why should they learn or whatever, is just find the thing that you are interested in and there's probably a way you can make software for that and maybe that will be the thing that will get you interested. It might not be Haskell, maybe you are interested in making web apps, in which case I would say go for Elm or PureScript, obviously because I like functional programs but Haskell might not be the best first language for you in that case but find the thing that you're interested in and there probably is a way to write software to do that. There's probably something in programming that will interest you. It's such a vast field. CHARLES: All right. I really, really like that answer. ELRICK: Yeah, that's a beautiful advice. Find your domain. CHARLES: Yeah, it's bigger than you think. JULIE: It's much bigger than you think. CHARLES: And there is a place for you. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Julie. I really, really, really enjoyed our conversation. JULIE: Yes, so did I. This is a lot of fun. CHARLES: Thank you. Now, before we go, I understand that you are going to be in London, was it roughly very, very soon, you said you were giving a talk. JULIE: Yes, the 12th and 13th of October. It will be recorded for people who can't get in. It will be recorded, I believe. CHARLES: You will be talking on 'A Monoid For All Seasons.' JULIE: Yes. CHARLES: And then you've also got The Joy of Haskell book, which you're hacking away right now, right? JULIE: Yes. CHARLES: With that, thank you so much for both of you. Thank you all for listening. What's a good place for people to reach out for you? JULIE: If they're on Twitter, I'm very active on Twitter so I'm @argumatronic on Twitter and my blog is also Argumatronic and that has more contact information. CHARLES: Fantastic. We'll link to those in the show notes. For everybody else, thank you for listening. You can get in contact with us at @TheFrontside on Twitter and Contact@Frontside.io over email. We'd love to hear from you. This just in, we're running a special. If you go to our website and enter the promo code 'ELRICK20,' you can get that 20% discount on your next custom developed web application. Go check that out. Take it easy, everybody. Bye-bye. JULIE: Bye-bye.

AFTERBUZZ TV — Fear The Walking Dead edition, is a weekly "after show" for fans of AMC's Fear The Walking Dead. In this episode hosts Ben Bateman, Simon Thompson, and Ashley Chatman discuss episode 1 of Season 2. Fear the Walking Dead is an American television series created by Robert Kirkman and Dave Erickson. It is a spin-off and a prequel series to the horror drama television series The Walking Dead, which is based on the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. AMC greenlit the pilot to series on March 9, 2015, with a two-season commitment. The first season will consist of six episodes, while the second season received an extended order of fifteen episodes to air in 2016. Follow us on http://www.Twitter.com/AfterBuzzTV "Like" Us on http://www.Facebook.com/AfterBuzzTV For more of your post-game wrap up shows for your favorite TV shows, visit http://www.AfterBuzzTV.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AFTERBUZZ TV -- Walking Dead edition, is a weekly "after show" for fans of AMC's Walking Dead. In this episode hosts Derrial Christon, Quinn Scillian, Simon Thompson, and Ben Bateman discuss episode 14. The Walking Dead tells the story of life following a zombie apocalypse. It follows a group of survivors, led by police officer Rick Grimes, traveling in search of a safe and secure home. Follow us on http://www.Twitter.com/AfterBuzzTV "Like" Us on http://www.Facebook.com/AfterBuzzTV For more of your post-game wrap up shows for your favorite TV shows, visit http://www.AfterBuzzTV.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone, and sorry for the delay.  After our brief hiatus, we should be back to weekly podcasts! Download Link: https://mostlyerlang.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/whymajorincs.mp3 Panel Kevin Hammond @khstandrews Simon Thompson @thompson_si Francesco Cesarini @FrancescoC Fred Hebert @mononcqc Irina Guberman @irina_guberman Heinz Gies @heinz_gies Zach Kessin @zkessin Links http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.htmlhttp://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/103850/as-a-high-school-student-what-should-i-be-doing-to-make-myself-better-more-hirea/103859#103859 http://lwn.net/Articles/641779/?utm_content=bufferc1 http://www.se-radio.net/2008/01/episode-84-dick-gabriel-on-lisp/ http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/OtherDocs/Haskell.html https://erlangcentral.org/jobs/

First, congratulations Zach on the birth of a grandson! Sorry to have missed you last week! Download Link: https://mostlyerlang.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/65.mp3 Panel Garrett Smith @gar1t Zach Kessin @zkessin Irina Guberman @irina_guberman Fred Hebert @mononcqc Simon Thompson @thompson_si Kevin Hammond @khstandrews Conferences Elixir Conf EU April 23-24, Krakow http://www.elixirconf.eu/ PolyConf Krakow July 2-4 http://polyconf.com/ Erlang User Conference in Stockholm June 11-12 […]

Guest speaker Edwin Brady talks about Idris in an extremely advanced podcast full of PhDs! Panel Edwin Brady Heinz Gies @heinz_gies Kevin Hammond @khstandrews Simon Thompson @thompson_si Zach Kessin @zkessin Conferences Elixir Conf EU April 23-24, Krakow http://www.elixirconf.eu/ PolyConf Krakow July 2-4 http://polyconf.com/ Erlang User Conference in Stockholm June 11-12 www.erlang-factory.com/euc2015 Code Mesh, London, November 2-4 http://lanyrd.com/2015/codemeshio/

Sorry everyone for the lack of podcast last week!  We are back on schedule now! Panel Bryan Hunter @bryan_hunter Simon Thompson @thompson_si Zachary Kessin @zkessin Picks http://www.release-project.eu Click to access chechina-sd-erlang-efl14.pdf https://www.erlang-solutions.com/resources/webinars/megaload-age-load-testing http://tomatoi.st/