The Happy Jōb Records

Terry grudgingly accepts an episode about how he lives his life, which is different from how Russ lives his life. Russ plays interviewer and provocateur. 1m 30s Coming strong out of the gate, Russ presses Terry on nature vs. nurture and Terry deflects the question. Unsuccessfully. 4m 44s Any time age based feuds arise, please remember that “My Generation” by The Who was released much, much closer...

Failures of discipline and the consequences/non-consequences. Advice from Terry on how to tighten up a person’s life to find and enjoy the good stuff. 2m 45s Framing and ground rules for discussion. 7m 15s Discipline and food from a regular, non-dieting person. 14m 0s Running past and present. Failures in consistency over years and years. 19m 30s Terry probes Russ’s mind(set). 24m 9s Chasing wooly...

At long last the willpower vs discipline debate kicks off. Terry leads a disciplined life according to Terry. Russ probes this assertion. The stage is set for a future Discipline Challenge. 1m 48s Discipline, dedication, and Juggalos. 9m 41s Russ has a bone to pick with “discipline” as we know it. 16m 51s The crux of the debate: Is humanity more or less disciplined than 150 years ago? 17m 38s Disc...

Welcome back to another round of Movers and Shakers, where arbitrary kudos are granted by a pair of non-authorities on much of anything. 0m 18s The worst startup idea that keeps coming up. 7m 59s Elicit lets you auto-analyze research papers. Get learnin’! 17m 3s Formant is the data platform for robot companies: management, telemetry and monitoring; teleoperation. Get robotin’! 17m 44s Asteroid Min...

Today marks the inaugural TEN RANDOM QUESTIONS. A savage beat down of rapid fire inquiry into things imagined and real. Terry survives, barely. Russ may not be so lucky in the end. 0m 36s Ground rules. 1m 16s The questioning begins: Bob Dylan and singular greatness. Snowflakes or ants. Useless talents. Drum fills (in music). 8m 40s Revisiting broken ground rules. 26m 34s The questioning continues:...

Bell Labs has a storied history that sometimes borders on legend among a certain type of nerd. The guys marinate on what the heck happened, if we should want a successor, where inventions get invented, and national competitiveness in the late-early twenty first century. 19m 59s Turns out Reddit already answered “What is the nearest modern equivalent to bell labs” on r/AskEngineers. Well, time to r...

Today is the three way showdown of the century: Startups vs Corporations vs Viral Pinkeye. 0m 1s “Terry I’ve fallen ill.” Germ talk commences. There is comiseration and gratitude that it’s not worse. 9m 5s On to the definitions. Investopedia is a bit of a crutch for this one because it’s quick, easy, and not full of glaring errors. 31m 6s Terry makes the bold claim that Teams has formally, officia...

After some quick musings on productivity, pronunciation, the meaning of life and work, and habits versus accomplishments, today marks the first of Movers and Shakers: companies of note based on arbitrary criteria set by us. 09m 22s Ground rules and Terry’s criteria for inclusion. The companies must be unique and solve an emerging problem. 10m 5s Regent - electric sea gliders 23m 49s Russ’s criteri...

The guys catch up with Sorin Farc, freight pilot and ex-seminarian, Friend-of-Terry, and most interesting man in Kentucky. 2m 12s On visiting family back home across the Atlantic. 5m 8s Exploring the idea that “kids today” might actually be “kids today, here.” 9m 6s Flying vs. Romania. Is it a forced comparison? Yes. 12m 14s Decreasing staff on the flight deck over the years. 13m 1s Manual, mid-fl...

Terry makes an earnest attempt to educate Russ on some basic philosophy; today it’s Seneca and stoicism. 5m 5s It’s a tough time to be a news hound. 10m 30s Some differing opinions arise on how and whether to trust (but verify?) the media in 2023, and things land on the sane side of wild conspiracy theories. 15m 15s Informal stoic-ness self-assessment time. 17m 47s Unhappy workers, resilience, off...

Things get off to a bit of a spicy start when Terry triggers Russ with the mere mention of “specialization.” Measuring progress across a society is hard, but might be slightly easier if you’re measuring the average of all of civilization. Some conclusions are nearly reached, and it becomes clear the guys might not think of themselves as podcast specialists yet. 11m 33s Basemarks and Benchlines 25m...

Drawing on nearly several decades of adjacent experience, the guys dig in deep on industrial robots. If you haven’t memorized the wikipedia page like Russ, pop in for a history of mechanization as the term “robot” was coined and used to popularize a once-failing machine. 1m 42s Not all mechanization is robotics. Are robots just mechanization…with a face? 3m 14s Guess the hot dog dispensing robot’s...

Today we bring in a person best described as the middlest reliever of all former podcast hosts and talk podcasting, baseball, lawyering, and life skills. 1m 46s Patrick is a huge baseball fan “in the American sense,” but came to it as an already grown man. 3m 44s Terry is a huge baseball fan in the 1986 Red Sox sense.  8m 17s Russ invents an alternative history of racist team names in which t...

Terry makes a simple request to bring song lyrics to the show prepared to discuss and hand out some superlatives and Russ’s effort gets a solid “sounds like you mailed this one in” from Terry. 1m 52s Russ’s approach is to work from memory. 4m 9s Terry’s approach is to bring a couple of winners, then throw darts at the Top 40, which actually ends up working pretty well… 5m 0s …except for Doja Cat w...

0m 18s Putting “the future of work” into some very brief historical context. 15m 53s Playing video games doesn’t mean you know how to code. 23m 0s The debate rages on: Was there in fact a time when the average person better understood the technical workings of the products or services they sell or support? And if so, when? 35m 50s Someone had to make STEM and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineerin...

Today we learned of Terry’s unabashed love affair with coal-fired power plants, which are arguably the most impactful technology of ever. Arguably in the sense that Russ is happy to argue against that claim. Where there’s no argument is on the importance of systems thinking and the role of complexity in modern society and work. 0m 57s Coming strong out of the gate, you CAN build an autonomous AI r...

In today’s episode, find cultural references that are old enough to be decidedly not-current, but not old enough to be classic. There’s a chance that it gets redeemed with some heavy philosophy in the end. It’s hard to avoid the feeling that Russ is just trolling Terry as he attempts to host a serious show. 20m 33s Mean-spirited former television host Bill O’Reilly is also a former mean-spirited r...

Terry watched Wolf of Wall Street and it really stuck with him. Which is to say, it made him ponder deeply on the heroics of being selfless by showing the complete opposite. The guys both hesitate to name their heroes directly, which is a slight cop out. 14m 9s Check out “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History” by Thomas Carlyle if you’re looking for a take on the cultural role of hero...

A conflict arises in the detail and nuance of comparing societal epochs. In other words, Russ accuses Terry of being a grumpy old man and Terry clarifies that he is not, in fact, grumpy. 2m 23s Utilitarian buildings and looks vs. design intent. 7m 49s The futility of mid-Atlantic palm trees. 19m 45s Creativity: Time was spent; a thing was made. That about sums it up. 44m 20s Filling the gaps left...

Today Terry asked to talk about morality in arts and culture. Whether intentionally or not, Russ dodged and deflected that topic almost entirely and instead casually wove an analogy of biscuit making as artistic production. Try to enjoy, and go grab a cat head while you listen! 14m 57s Terry confirms that country music phenomenon Jelly Roll “is on things.” In the sense that he is known, not in the...

Metrics are hard but flying blind is harder. Take your seat-of-the-pants measures and quantify them with aggregate metrics when you can. 19m 8s Americans are dying from “diseases of despair” like overdose, suicide, and liver failure. What gives? How does this compare to past times? 20m 28s Economic data are readily available and centrally documented in the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank’s FRED onl...

Whenever you’re looking for a convention center foyer in downtown Atlanta, GA, be sure to check out the Georgia World Congress Center Building C. There’s some water features, tropical plant installations, and plenty of brutalist concrete and glass! This road episode covers beauty as a cultural institution. 6m 46s Pockets of beauty outside the rest of regular life. Is there any room for part-time b...

“Eloquent commentators” William Buckley and Gore Vidal occupied opposite ends of a spectrum and arguably kicked off a decades-long skid towards talking heads shouting insults over one another on television. Which is to say that by contemporary standards they held a long running civilized debate between intellectual foils. Check out the 2015 documentary Best of Enemies if you want to know more. Tod...

Today’s episode sees the guys name check intellectuals, thinkers, philosophers, scientists, and randos like they were rapping a diss track in 1996. Enjoy! 4m 45s A couple of people you might want to check out include Albert Einstein, Max Planck, and Isaac Newton. Drop their names at social events and people will automatically like you.  17m 14s Check out Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s longform hot t...

9m 24s: Black Swans are not to be trifled with and also were a weirdly specific cultural thing in a few different spheres for a couple years. Snag the Nassim Nicholas Taleb and get inside the brain of Terry circa 2010    13m 25s: J. Patrick Doyle, savior of Dominos (sp?) cruddy pizza  15m 31s: The Dominoes Pizza Tracker is in fact patented number 10,262,281 B1, April 16, 2019. Yum…?...