RE:Productivity

Christine Corbett and Casey Handmer

Casey Handmer and Christine Corbett Moran are Ph.D. physicists working and co-parenting together. Re:Productivity is about making progress on life and children and life with children.

  1. May 25

    2026-W21 Kate Darling: Robotics, Parenting Across Cultures, and Writing in the Margins

    Christine talks with Kate Darling, author of The New Breed and research lead for Robotics, Ethics & Society at the RAI Institute, about parenting in an era of AI and robotics. They cover Alexa upsells, AI tutors, YouTube rabbit holes, humanoid robot hype, school logistics, social media, kids’ books, and the gap between American and European parenting norms. They also cover Kate's recent hobby: romance novels and how to fit it all in between parenting, work, and life. Kate Darling: https://www.katedarling.org/The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals About Our Future with Robots: https://www.amazon.com/New-Breed-History-Animals-Reveals/dp/1250296102/RAI Institute ethics research initiative: https://rai-inst.com/resources/press-release/ai-institute-launches-ethics-research/Beast Academy: https://beastacademy.com/Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/Adafruit Circuit Playground: https://www.adafruit.com/category/965Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-codeMark Rober: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRoberBlake Crouch, Dark Matter: https://blakecrouch.com/books/dark-matter/Netflix, This Is a Gardening Show: https://www.netflix.com/title/81902230David Rees, How to Sharpen Pencils: https://mhpbooks.com/books/how-to-sharpen-pencilsDog Man: https://pilkey.com/series/dog-manDiary of a Wimpy Kid: https://wimpykid.com/Project Hail Mary: https://www.andyweirauthor.com/books/project-hail-mary-hc/project-hail-mary-elThe Wild Robot: https://www.thewildrobotmovie.com/Pax: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/pax-sara-pennypackerChristine Corbett Moran: https://christinecorbettmoran.com/

    1h 12m

  2. May 7

    2026-W19 Kara Linse Buckley and Darragh Buckley: Easy Parenting & Meaningful Work

    Christine sits down with husband-and-wife duo Kara Linse Buckley (sports marketing, ex-Senior Advisor, U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee advisor) and Darragh Buckley (CEO at Increase, employee #1 at Stripe), parents of four in Bend, Oregon. They dig into designing a walkable life around two anchoring goals : easy enjoyable parenting and meaningful productive work, including a custom upcoming house move with kids' bedrooms small-by-design to push family into shared spaces. The conversation ranges across the "lawless place" of the school bus, an extra hour of bedtime math as a happiness hack for the eldest, Beast Academy and the Hard Math for Elementary School curriculum, and how the Federal Reserve quietly pulled off a Fedwire format change with no one noticing. They get into kids learning to code, cursor and Replit unleashing creative explosions (Space Invaders clones, a chemistry-meets-math game), the tension between teaching kids to type vs. voice-driven AI workflows, and the inevitable question of when your child will out-sysadmin you. Plus: an unintentional capitalism unleashing via pesos in a Mexican market, Monopoly variants without sub-$100 settlements, the books making the rounds in their book clubs, and how parenting changes your brain. Books: Heart the Lover by Lily KingThe Correspondent by Virginia Evans (the "crotchety" letter-writing protagonist)Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (trad-wife time-travel novel; Anne Hathaway optioned the film rights)Famesick by Lena DunhamThe Woman in Me : Britney Spears memoirGod of the Woods by Liz Moore (mentioned as a book to skip with postpartum hormones)TV For All Mankind (Apple TV+): new Mars seasonKids' tech & education Beast Academy (Art of Problem Solving)Hard Math for Elementary School by Glenn EllisonScratch (MIT visual programming)ReplitGoogle Colab (Jupyter notebooks for Python)CursorClaude CodeLogo programming languageFinance & engineering Increase: Darragh's companyFedwire: the U.S. wire systemPatrick McKenzie's Bits About Money newsletter and Complex Systems podcastPlaces & community Edge Esmeralda: the popup village in Healdsburg, CA where the eldest demoed his Chem-Mash Lab gameBend, Oregon: where Kara & Darragh have built their home, optimized for walkabilityGames Squatter: the Australian Monopoly-adjacent game in Christine's closetMonopoly: no introduction needed!

    51 min

  3. May 4

    2026-W18 Aline Lerner: Claude Code, Reality TV Anthropology, and Hedging Your Meaning

    Christine sits down with Aline Lerner, founder and CEO of Interviewing.io, for a wide-ranging conversation on parenting, productivity, and the strange in-between space where life and work blur. Aline shares her first-ever Claude Code project, a LinkedIn browser extension to surface meaningful connections, and Christine gives a deep tour of her Open Claw household setup, complete with a Mac mini, a Slack-driven AI agent named Nova, that lets the AI handle birthday party shopping, gardening orders, and recurring doctor appointments. The conversation moves into the trade-offs of schooling gifted kids in California versus magnet programs Aline grew up with in 1990s New York City, calibrating realistic risk (sharks vs. cars vs. small aircraft), and the meritocratic brutality of professional kitchens. Aline shares her unexpected love of Below Deck and Catfish as practical anthropology, useful, it turns out, for catching fraudulent job candidates. The episode closes on raising kids who aren't assholes despite growing up with more privilege than their immigrant parents had, and on hedging your sources of meaning across both family and work.

    1h 20m

  4. Apr 25

    2026-W17-B Brittney Gallagher - Preschoolers, PACs, and the Politics of AI

    Summary Christine sits down with Brittney Gallagher, co-founder and Board Chair of the AI Objectives Institute and team member at AI watchdog The Midas Project. They cover parenting, hobbies, and current events such as cold-turkey potty training, gaming and role-playing, an Expeditionary Force audiobook binge, gardening from orchids to edible flowers, and how much Replit and Scratch to allow a 7-year-old. Then a sober look at this year's AI policy landscape: open-source Chinese models catching up, super PACs spending $125M to defeat Alex Bores over the RAISE Act, and whether you'd board a plane with a 3% chance of crashing. Show Notes Guest & Host Brittney Gallagher, Co-founder & Board Chair, AI Objectives Institute; Team Member, The Midas Project Christine Corbett Moran, VP of Engineering at Horizon3.ai Games & Media Disco Elysium (and Kim Kitsuragi)Expeditionary Force by Craig AlansonUFO 50 and Party HouseDominionDon't Worry About the Vase by Zvi MowshowitzKids' Tech & Education Khan Academy KidsReplitScratchEdge EsmeraldaAI Safety & Policy The Midas Project"The reporters at this news site are AI bots. OpenAI's super PAC appears to be funding it." (Model Republic), the viral investigation Brittney referencesAI Objectives InstituteCalifornia SB 53New York's RAISE Act and Alex Bores, targeted by Leading the Future super PACAlibaba Qwen and DeepSeek

    1h 1m

  5. Apr 23

    2026-W17-A Joyce Yan - postpartum experiences, AI tools in coding, and crunching the data on when to have kids

    In this episode, Christine Corbett Moran hosts Joyce Yan, a software engineer and new mother, to discuss balancing parenthood and a tech career, the impact of AI on software development, and her personal projects like the Fertility Forecaster website (https://fertilityforecaster.com/). They explore postpartum experiences, AI tools in coding, and the future of work and parenting. The discussion goes into the nuances of second-time parenthood, societal expectations, and the cultural narratives around having children. key topics Balancing parenthood and a tech careerAI tools revolutionizing software developmentPostpartum experiences and recoveryBuilding and deploying a fertility app with Claude CodeBreastfeeding experiences and lactation supportImpact of cultural narratives on parenting decisionsLinks: Fertility Forecaster website (⁠https://fertilityforecaster.com/⁠) keywords: parenthood, AI in coding, postpartum, software engineering, fertility app, work-life balance, AI tools, postpartum recovery, tech industry, personal projects postpartum recovery, breastfeeding, family life, career motivation, second-time parent, cultural narratives, fertility crisis, parenting tips

    1h 24m

  6. 05/29/2025

    2025-W22 Leadership, Learning, and Large Projects

    In this wide-ranging episode, Casey and Christine dive deep into leadership transitions, complex systems, and the art of managing large-scale projects. Christine discusses her new role as Head of Engineering at a Series D startup, managing 60+ people and Casey discusses the counterintuitive challenges of scaling teams. Christine shares her synthetic biology progress, building an orbital shaker from scratch and exploring the intersection of hardware and biotech. The conversation spans from ancient Roman infrastructure projects to modern space exploration, touching on hiring challenges, the value of going to primary sources, and why some historical civilizations came tantalizingly close to industrial revolution but never quite made the leap. Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger Now It Can Be Told about the Manhattan Project What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith Accelerate by Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim Radical Candor by Kim Scott Playground - Contemporary science fiction novel about seasteading and AI Climbing Gold - Alex Honnold's podcast (featuring Vitaliy Musiyenko’s Sierra traverse story) Conversations with Tyler - Tyler Cowen's interview show Lex Fridman Podcast - Episodes with Jeff Wasserstrom (China scholar) and Tim Sweeney (Epic Games) The Complete History & Strategy of Standard Oil (Part I) (Acquired) Founders Podcast - Episodes on Jeff Bezos shareholder letters, Jim Simons, John D. Rockefeller, and Estée Lauder How Andreessen Horowitz Disrupted VC & What’s Coming Next (Ben and Marc Discussions) The DER Task Force - Distributed energy resources podcast (Jesse Peltan episode) Main Engine Cut Off - Space industry podcast T+303: The Trump 2024 Transition (with Mark Albrecht) The Almost-Industrial Revolutions of Rome and China  Cost of Glory - Ancient history podcast (Julius Caesar series) Circuit Playground Express - Adafruit electronics learning board Ada Fruit Orbital Shaker Tutorial - DIY lab equipment project Thinking by My Wits - Website featuring Scholar Alex Jones's literary works

    2h 43m

  7. 05/10/2025

    2025-W19 Australian Adventures & Lemonade Stands

    In this episode, Casey recounts his recent trip to Australia to visit family and friends, while Christine shares her experience running a lemonade stand fundraiser for their children's preschool. They discuss ongoing technical and creative projects, explore the challenges of educational systems for exceptionally bright children, and reflect on various books they've been reading. The conversation weaves through topics of metallurgy, neurodiversity, programming languages for kids, and the future of space exploration. Neurotribes  Exceptionally Gifted Children  Superconvergence  Now It Can Be Told  Secret Coders Founders Podcast: Michael Dell Complex Systems: Fixing Government Tech With Mikey Dickerson  Complex Systems: Power In Local Government Adafruit: Orbital Shaker

    1h 32m

  8. 04/28/2025

    2025-W18 Beeping Microwaves and Talking Dinosaurs: The Value of Intelligence in 2025

    Summary In this week's episode, Casey and Christine discuss their weekend family adventures, including picnic table remodeling, bike maintenance, and trips to the local airport and climbing gym. They explore their experiences with AI toys for children, microwave modification projects, and dive into deeper conversations about human intelligence, biology experiments, and aging research. The discussion ranges from reflections on their honeymoon in Cuba to thoughts on economic growth, education, and the potential of technological advancement to solve fundamental human problems. Links Asterix comics - Comics that Casey enjoyed as a child and now reads with his children Now It Can Be Told by Leslie Groves - About the Manhattan Project The Prodigy's Cousin - Book about links between autism and childhood prodigies NeuroTribes - Book about autism Acquired podcast episode on Epic - Healthcare software company Gompertz mortality law Dino - Magical Toys [AI powered toy] Paperclip Maximizers and Squiggle Maximizers

    2h 45m
See All (34)

Trailer

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Casey Handmer and Christine Corbett Moran are Ph.D. physicists working and co-parenting together. Re:Productivity is about making progress on life and children and life with children.

Information

  • Creator
    Christine Corbett and Casey Handmer
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    34
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Christine Corbett and Casey Handmer
  • Show Website
    RE:Productivity