Tank Riot

I first discovered TR back in 2009 while working in a job that gave me ample amount of time to listen to podcasts. I enjoyed these three humans very much. I changed jobs and lost track of them around 2012. Today I was listening to a Timesuck episode on Walt Disney and a joke of theirs came rushing back to me. After minutes of trying to remember the name of the Podcast here I am. Reunited and feels so good!!

Pretentious, very biased and opinionated. I really couldn’t see a point to this show outside of just sitting around with friends stroking each other’s egos trying to sound intelligent.

...but first,

I generally like this podcast but the Feynman episode is making me rethink their research/qualifications. Feynman invented way more than just a shorthand for calculus (it was a completely different way to look at quantum field theory and later solid state) and his pop culture trappings (bongos, safes, and the Manhattan project) had little to do with what made him great. He stood toe to toe with Schwinger and Murray Gell-Mann. Also claiming Oppenheimer couldn't pick him out in a crowd is insane and also a completely misunderstanding of their roles. Oppenheimer was the money guy and the spokesperson. Hans Bethe was the lead and he put Feynman in charge (which consisted of future math/physics stars Von Neumann and fermi) because "Feynman was a magician". Instead of trying to understand this man by doing the proper research, these guys went down roads of moral comparison and excitable prose (and trying to give a final moral binary to him for some reason). It's treated arrogantly and the comparison to ray kurzweill shows continued misunderstanding (kurzweill is again a spokesman and book writer, Feynman hardly published because that wasn't important to him). Eventually one of them is honest about the little they know and that was refreshing, but then gave obvious references (minus the physics lectures: those are rad). If you want quality resources, here are a few I've loved: Genius - james gleick (look to gleick for extensive research and high abstraction in any tech related field) Feynmans rainbow - mladinow (one of feynmans fellow physicists near the end of his career at cal tech and future writer for Star Trek) "The jaguar and the fox" from the Atlantic is a nice concise look at Feynman v. Gell Mann and understanding the environment at cal tech. Also look at the published science papers !!(feynmans favorite were bethes 3 quantum papers)! If Feynman has taught people anything, it's how approachable and rewarding these practices can be. On a side note, the passing comments on 2001 seemed uninformed as well. The book and movie were made concurrently (and yes both worked on both), not in lieu of the other. And Kubrick has talked about how he was trying to get nietzche and Clarke in conversation, not recreate a specific short story (although the sentinel is totally recommendable). While all this seems like it would warrant a 1 star, I generally have enjoyed this podcast. I moreso just feel like these guys maybe did something out of their wheelhouse without being upfront about it.