‘funny,’ not funny

Jim was down in North Carolina last week and recorded this conversation with David Wilcox in his home studio. Lionel joined us from San Antonio. We talk about songwriting, the lightness and darkness behind the songs, emotional buoyancy, and just soak up the perspective of this singular artist. All song samples included with permission from David Wilcox.[contains fbombs]

Lionel and Jim continue their discussion of AI, and move into the idea of human understanding through modeling, Isomorphism, stories, and the importance of forgetting.

In this episode, Jim and Lionel talk about what everyone is talking about, the advances made in AI this month. We tackle questions like “what are we going to do?” and “does it have agency?” and “what is compassion?” and “how do we know what we want?” as well as diving into the cheerful subject of how we are killing the planet. An uplifting listen, if...

John Chin is a Jazz musician and composer based in New York City. He has 4+ albums available and is working on a new live album recorded during the pandemic. His recent release “Anything Mose” was recorded with guitarist and vocalist Richard Julian. We dig into that album, as well as two of his other albums, “Undercover,” and “Fifth.” Check out his music at http...

Jim invites Lionel, Sarah Elkins, and Ben Burnes to tear into his novels The Wakeful Wanderer’s Guide series, to his own horror and delight. Lionel, Sarah, and Ben share their reactions to Jim’s novels with honesty and candor. What transpires is a lively discussion about not only the books, but thoughts on meritocracy, villains and heroes, self-deception and forgetting, names and ident...

Jim and Lionel take a moment to dig into the things that keep coming up in our recent conversations. We talk about the nature of money, work, AI, worth, what we want, what we should do, what do we want to be.

Chuck Robinson of Peepers Puppets stops by to talk about the creative side of coding. We get into food choices in New England vs Texas and Georgia, the nature of coding, and the process of building something that works. We end with some discussion of the rise of the machines and end up wondering where the nearest bunker can be found. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~08-W...

Recorded February 15 from TónLab studio (recorded on my ipad for convenience). Jim went to Iceland to record a collection of songs with producer Kurt Uenala. We discuss the first three songs we recorded, an ambient music event in Reykjavik, swimming in Iceland’s hot springs, a couple of books, Brian Eno’s process, and more. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3...

Lionel and Jim talk about Jim’s upcoming trip to Iceland to record a “phonogram” with Kurt Uenala, we talk about The Scottish Play, The All Thing, volcanic gardens, whiskey and the history of that drink, the steam engine, Otto von Guericke, drinking at Iota with Steve Negrey, extremely expensive bourbon, Louisiana cuisine, the music of Mike West, the problem of flying with guitar...

Lionel and Jim discuss email woes, Bitcoins and Blockchains by Antony Lewis, Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson, more Neal Stephenson, The Cloud, Jim’s reading of Chromaspace Conscript by Megan Alnico, the nature of money, and Jeff Bezos’ yacht (again.)Photo credit: Fred Romero from Paris, France , CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/...

Brothers revisited! This week, Lionel’s brother Damian joins us to talk about big construction, data centers for crypto mining and AI, modern art in the Hudson Valley, The M1 Abrams Tank, hybrids vs. electric cars, problems with money and guns, the end of work, and what’s still great about the United States of America. References: Here

We have our first caller! How this happened is a mystery, I suppose. Perhaps it’s all fake. However it happened, we ended up with a lively conversation with Tim on line one. We discuss phone hacking viruses, the future of crypto, DJs, record stores, tastemakers in the age of instant access, leisure, work, and the pandemic response. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~...

Jim Rosen, Catherine Pilfrey, Matthew Bellows, and Jim Infantino have been teaching meditation online for almost 3 years as part of a twice weekly session that meets Tuesdays and Thursdays called Mindful Aware. In this episode, Matt, Jim, Jim, and Catherine answer Lionel’s questions about meditating online and discuss the practice of teaching meditation from a western perspective. References...

A new season for the new year! Professor Donald Smith returns to the pod, post haste to deal with Jim’s misconceptions about gravity, a discussion of neutron stars and the James Webb Telescope, mental models in physics, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Ptolemy, and more. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~01-Donald-Smith-2/

Lionel and Jim look back at a little more than a year of making this podcast. We remember conversations with our guests, our growing reading lists, talk about the origin of the podcast and what we want to see in 2023.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~14-Johnny-Gottadoo/

Donald Smith manages Guilford’s introductory and advanced physics laboratories, laser optics laboratory, and rooftop observatory. He joined us to talk about Chat GPT and education challenges, the search for life and the startling size of the universe, German Science Fiction currently streaming, and his reading list. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~13-Donald-Smith/

We touch on two books Jim is reading, A Canticle for Leibowitz , and The City & The City , as well as The Hunger Games , which Jim is reading to his daughters. Then we talk about the new Texas Governor’s governmental bans on TikTok and certain types of drones. From there, we move on to topics we don’t fully understand and get lots of things wrong, including Quantum Computing (Lione...

Ben is a musician and game developer who focuses his energy on creativity, positivity, and community. Ben does a weekly YouTube show called the Two Hour Music Challenge. We talk about his music work and what he's reading and watching and just generally chill out to a selection of his hundreds of tunes. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~11-Ben-Burnes/ All song samples...

Jim and Lionel return to the subject of the traditional Thanksgiving feast, discuss Riddley Walker, A Clockwork Orange, possible shortcomings of The Peripheral TV series, Andor & Rogue One, Iceland travels, and Heima, by Sigur Ros. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~10-Upside-Down/

Kurt Uenala (aka null+void & Kap10Kurt) has produced, programmed, mixed, and remixed giants like Depeche Mode, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Kills, Dave Gahan, Soulsavers, Yelle, Erasure, The Ravonettes, The Kills, The Big Pink, and Moby. We talk about his gadgets (heavy nerd warning), touring with Jim, his recording process, alarms going off in the middle of the night, learning Icelandic,...

Bill is a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard and the co-director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. Jim met him while on tour with Jim’s Big Ego in London. We talk about English Football, Thanksgiving from a UK perspective, Doctor Who, Billy Butcher, Frank Herbert, Zombie Math, and the World of Warcraft disease. You might recognize his...

We are joined by the amazing Vance Gilbert and talk about nostrils, voting in MA and TX, Vance’s Monday Acoustic Pajama Party, his incredible songs, the songwriting scene in the Boston of the 90s, our favorite songwriters from that time, especially David Goldfinger, being on tour with a comedian and more. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~07-Vance-Gilbert/ All song...

Jim starts by telling us about his favorite hot sauce . Then he talks about the extensive references page on the website , which is still in process, thanks to Johnny Gottadoo. Then they launch into a discussion of The Peripheral on Amazon Prime, and discuss the book Educated by Tara Westover, before finishing with some concerns about the inevitable demise of Affirmative Action by SCOTUS.Reference...

John Infantino is a writer and director, known for Regular Show , Star vs. the Forces of Evil , and Despicable Me , as well as his work on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack , Adventuretime , Chowder , and Camp Lazlo, to name a few. He is also Jim’s brother. John talks with us about creating cartoons, writing the stories we watch, adaptations & mutations, shows he’s watching,...

Jim and Lionel discuss streaming shows and books including the Rings of Power, the upcoming show based on William Gibson’s The Peripheral, Chef’s Table: Pizza, N.K. Jemisin ’s The Broken Earth Trilogy , Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza , and Hero of Two Worlds : The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution by Mike Duncan. Listen to The History Happy Hour Podcast with Mike...