Telling stories from the golden era of science and engineering. Each episode unpacks the story one great accomplishment from technical history.
Check out my written posts on Substack: https://freaktakes.substack.com/
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/eric_is_weird
An Interview with Jano Costard, Head of Challenges at SPRIN-D
A FreakTakes interview with Jano Costard, Head of Challenges at SPRIN-D — known to some as “a German ARPA.” The interview will give listeners a peak inside the SPRIN-D experiment, from the perspective of one of its leaders.
12 Jun 2025
An Oral History Interview with ARIA CEO Ilan Gur
ARIA CEO Ilan Gur discusses the metascience experiment underway at ARIA, exploring the personalities and inspirations that drive their innovative work in this interview.
9 Jan 2024
Chuck Thorpe - How CMU Became an Autonomous Vehicle Powerhouse
This video is a recording of an interview done with Chuck Thorpe for the FreakTakes Substack (https://www.freaktakes.com/s/arpa-playbook). Chuck was a long-time researcher and PI at Carnegie Mellon. He primarily engaged in computer vision research that would go into the earliest driverless vehicles.
By the late 1980s, CMU's vehicles were able to autonomously make short trips around the Pittsburgh area. By 1995, a CMU vehicle drove cross country 98.5% autonomously. This all happened in a period when most universities were becoming worse at managing complex systems projects. This interview dives into how exactly CMU pushed against the grain and turned itself into an autonomous vehicle research powerhouse.
25 Apr 2023
Tales of Edison's Lab
Many have strong opinions on Thomas Edison. From great inventor to great fraud, the opinions run the gamut. But few truly understand what life was like in Edison's lab, how he viewed himself, and what his goals really were. This episode recounts tales from the icon's one true place of comfort: his lab.
My writing: freaktakes.substack.com (freaktakes.substack.com)
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/eric_is_weird (https://twitter.com/eric_is_weird)
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
3 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 11 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
9
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
32
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