After Things Podcast

Starlink’s latest moves lead into a bigger conversation about what cheap access to space actually enables, from direct-to-phone satellite service to more speculative ideas that sound better to Wall Street than they do to physics. Andrew, Justin, and Brian then pivot into reports of a possible plague incident connected to a Russian lab, using that as a jumping-off point to revisit COVID-era failure...

The hosts celebrate what is probably the thousandth episode of Weird Things by reflecting on how the show started as a pushback against mean-spirited debunking and grew into a long-running space for curious, skeptical conversation about the unknown. They revisit old Weird Things territory like goblin stories, Monkey Island, UFO conventions, and the abandoned dream of live investigations, then comp...

Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood look at what would most shock their past selves from 20 years ago, from modern iPhones and reusable rockets to today’s AI systems, while also noting how some expected breakthroughs like VR adoption still feel unfinished. They revisit old tech predictions, why 3D TV failed, and why AI now feels like the first genuinely fast-moving platform shif...

Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood explore how fast AI tools are changing creative work, from generating 3D game pieces and fixing models inside design software to using computer-use systems for audio production, presentations, and rapid prototyping. They argue that the real skill is shifting away from operating every tool by hand and toward knowing structure, taste, and what t...

Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood spend the episode on the practical and philosophical edges of current AI. They start by talking through Apple’s new foldable Duo and why a better form factor, remote computing, and voice-first workflows could matter more than raw on-device power, especially if phones become the main portal to server-side tools. From there they dive deep into O...

Andrew Mayne and Brian Brushwood range from economics to space weirdness, starting with Malaysia’s nearly empty Forest City and what a failed megadevelopment says about speculative housing, demographic pressure, and whether abandoned infrastructure can be repurposed for art, events, or other experiments. They then dig into scams and AI-driven impersonation, arguing that the real danger is persiste...

Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood cover the latest wave of AI releases by comparing OpenAI’s 5.6 model, Anthropic’s Fable, and the new Chinese Kimi model, arguing that the most interesting shift is not just raw capability but how differently these systems now behave in planning, initiative, and collaboration. They also spend a lot of time on what AI is already good for in real...

Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood explore how new AI video tools are changing filmmaking by making real footage more editable and steerable, letting creators keep human performances while using AI for sets, lighting, costumes, and polish. They compare that shift to earlier changes in digital editing and game engines, then turn to viral robot mishap clips to separate remote-con...

Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood dig into the latest UFO-file buzz and explain why alien discourse so often feels like an endless build with no bass drop. They talk through why so much recent evidence comes down to misunderstood thermal imaging, camera artifacts, cropped data, and human storytelling instincts, while also criticizing skeptics who dismiss possibilities too quic...

Artemis gets a victory lap as the crew celebrates the mission’s safe splashdown and talks about how a future moon landing would dominate the internet in a way Apollo never could. From there the conversation turns into an extended AI state-of-the-industry check-in, focusing on Anthropic’s reported compute bottlenecks, Claude reliability complaints, and the restricted Mythos model that appears power...

OpenAI’s shutdown of the Sora app kicks off a broader discussion about how AI companies are being shaped less by hype cycles than by raw compute limits, with Disney deal fallout, Anthropic’s work-hour throttling, and rumors of even bigger next-generation models all pointing to infrastructure being the real bottleneck. From there, the conversation shifts into what these tools look like in practice:...

The episode surveys an accelerating AI landscape where new hardware like Cerebras and Groq enables near real?time model responses, making voice and agent interactions feel instantly conversational. The conversation covers the rise of code models (Codex, Claude Code), practical tips for using multiple models to check each other, the tug-of-war between frontier labs and big incumbents (OpenAI, Anthr...

In this episode, Andrew Mayne, Brian Brushwood, and Justin Robert Young tackle the latest in space exploration drama. They start with NASA’s Art Two mission facing delays due to a pesky hydrogen leak in their much-mocked SLS rocket. The conversation then shifts to Boeing’s embarrassing blunders with their Starliner spacecraft, highlighting the company’s fall from grace in space tech. Amidst these...

Andrew Mayne, Brian Brushwood, and Justin Robert Young gather to discuss the latest in space exploration and AI developments. They express concerns over the Artemis missions’ delays and technical challenges, particularly focusing on the SLS rocket’s issues and the ambitious plans for lunar landings involving SpaceX’s Starship. The conversation shifts to the AI domain, where they critique the rival...

In this episode, Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood kick things off with a discussion about a medical emergency that led to an astronaut’s early return from the International Space Station, sparking rumors of the first space pregnancy. They then shift gears to the Artemis missions, highlighting the Artemis II mission’s goal of sending humans around the moon for the first time s...

In this episode, Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood explore the curious incident of a Californian homeowner, Kenneth Johnson, who discovered a 550-pound bear living under his house and the challenges he faced in evicting it. The conversation then shifts to the broader implications of AI and genetic engineering, pondering a future where animals could possess human-like intellige...

Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood kick off the episode with a discussion on the latest AI model updates, including Google’s Nano Banana and OpenAI’s GP 5.1. They explore the implications of AI personality and its impact on user experience. The conversation shifts to a group chat feature with ChatGPT, enhancing collaboration and consistency across AI interactions. They also tou...

In this episode, Andrew shares his experience attending a robot demo by 1X, highlighting the challenges and advancements in robotics. The hosts delve into the broader implications of AI and robotics on the workforce, discussing both the potential benefits and the anxieties surrounding technological change. They explore how AI is already impacting various fields, from healthcare to content creation...

Andrew Mayne, Justin Robert Young, and Brian Brushwood embark on a journey through the conceptualization of Handful, a fictional restaurant where gravy is served directly into patrons’ hands. The discussion evolves into the realm of AI-generated content, exploring the implications of AI in creative processes and content distribution. The hosts share insights into the rapid development of AI tools...

In this episode, Andrew Mayne and Brian Brushwood embark on a philosophical journey through the realms of storytelling, AI’s burgeoning role in creative processes, and the enigmatic app SO’s contribution to communal humor and creativity. They explore Stephen King’s insights on storytelling, the magic of indirect evidence in magic tricks, and the importance of showing rather than telling in narrati...

The episode is largely a deep dive into OpenAI's Sora app, with the hosts describing it as more than a video model and instead a new social-media modality built around short generated clips, personal cameos, remixing, and highly shareable strange or funny scenes. They discuss its rapid rise in the App Store, invite-only rollout, the technical jump in Sora 2 Pro, voice and character consistency, an...

The episode opens with a discussion of NASA’s Perseverance rover and a Nature paper about a Martian sample with tiny chemical patterns that, on Earth, are often associated with microbial interaction. The hosts emphasize that NASA is being careful and calling it a possible biosignature rather than proof of life, and they compare it with earlier inconclusive Mars-life claims such as the Antarctic me...

The episode centers on how rapidly improving AI models are changing the shape of computing, with Andrew, Justin, and Brian discussing local models, embedded assistants, and AI as a general-purpose layer rather than just a chatbot. They argue that AI is becoming cheaper, more capable, and more useful when integrated into operating systems, products, and workflows, while also noting that people are...

The episode opens with the hosts reflecting on how quickly AI is changing and pushing back on the idea that it will simply replace human roles. They argue that teaching, parenting, preaching, customer service, banking, and restaurant work still involve human presence, trust, empathy, and cultural meaning that AI cannot fully replace, even if it can augment or automate parts of those jobs. [L41-L49...

The episode opens with discussion of Grok 4, the Humanities Last Exam benchmark, and how AI model performance is getting harder to measure cleanly as benchmarks saturate. The hosts compare xAI’s rapid progress with OpenAI’s ChatGPT agent and note that the new systems are trading benchmark leads quickly. A long middle section focuses on Grok’s unsafe or unhinged outputs, possible causes such as int...