Get to know Zengineering Podcast in five minutes — About Your Hosts & The Show
Adam and Brian have known each other since fifth grade. Now you can too. Hooray!!
Zengineering was born out of 25 years of nerdy, deep, important, technical, and stupid conversations between two friends: Adam and Brian. Here’s what we know about ourselves and are willing to share, publicly…
If you’re looking for The Zengineering Podcast Press Kit, it’s over here, but you might get stuck in an infinite loop between here and there. Be careful.
What is Zengineering Podcast?
Zengineering Podcast is for everyone who loves Science & Technology and also cares deeply about Life’s Big Questions. We (Adam & Brian) are obsessed with the spot where modern Science, Technology & Engineering meet Philosophy & Spirituality. As proud wearers of lifetime nerd badges, we have found this to be the place where the most interesting questions are both formulated and discussed.
Through Zengineering Podcast we discuss lots of tech, dive deeply into science and engineering, and go on lots of random tangents in a pursuit of how to build mental models of the world that inform and guide our actions in positive ways. We do our best to share this exploration.
Episodes are released every two weeks, with the occasional bonus in between.
The best things you can do to help are rate and review us on iTunes & support us on Patreon.
Some of Our Favorite Episodes
Brian
- E031 — On Planets: Why We Explore And What We Know
- E030 — On How to Argue Good — with Mike Rosolio
- E027 — On Artificial Intelligence — Part 1 — A History of Artificial Memory
- Shorty 001 — On Monkey Sex
Adam
- E005 — On Dungeons & Dragons, Fantasy Sports, and Lego Math
- E036 — On Virtual Reality Part 2 — A Dungeon of Whiteboards
- E018 — On Digital Audio, Apple, and Headphone Jacks
- E015 — On Water — with Ian Prichard
Who is Adam?
Adam is a maker, a problem solver, a polymath, and a weirdo. He spent his childhood taking things apart to see how they worked, and building things out of Lego and old boxes. In a time before computers (and girls) he was a Boy Scout, an epic level wizard, and occasional competitive swimmer. When he discovered cameras and computers he took those apart too — literally and metaphorically — learning how they worked, and how to make things with them. He spent these early years having many an abstract conversation with Brian (or frequent podcast guest Alan) without knowing to call them “philosophical.”
In the pool Adam gained focus. He spent summers, and hours before and after school training with Michael Phelps and the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. At the University of Virginia he continued swimming earning 28x All-ACC, 18X All-America honors, and competing at 2004 Olympic Trials. All the while receiving a BA in Philosophy, and continuing to take increasingly complicated cameras and computers apart.
After college Adam moved to Los Angeles and spent a year at film school. Realizing his knowledge of digital cameras and computers put him a step ahead he took the money saved for the last two years of school and started One Step Productions, a digital-only media production company. With One Step he continued to chase digital frontiers with projects like Rules of The League, the world’s first “trans-media” web series, and #fracturedfridays, a live streaming chat show. Increasingly interested in the interactive and app space Adam teamed up with a technical co-founder to start Kerplinq, an app and website design firm, producing projects like location based tag game Freeze.
Burned out from 8 years at the helm of upstart companies, and looking for more complicated things to take apart Adam enrolled in Southwestern Law School and completed his JD in 2016. He studied entertainment law, intellectual property, and technology law. Still chasing digital technologies and frontiers he crafted independent studies around topics of decentralization in government, and the implications of cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and version control in law-making. While in school he worked as a consultant and growth hacker helping bands and brands with their digital presence and business. Oh, he also launched Zengineering Podcast which he now works on part-time while continuing to work as a consultant.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Emily and a couple of goofy dogs.
What’s up with Brian?
Website | Twitter | Linkedin | Stack Exchange | Everywhere
Brian likes to say that he is an artist and an engineer. Sometimes both are professional, sometimes both are for fun, and ideally both are both. Does that make sense? Hmm … he thinks so. He’s also been known to describe himself, at least in terms of his style, as a modern wizard. Time to switch to first person.
Personally, I love activities. Like, really really really love activities. I’ve always been a hobby collector, which sometimes I’m embarrassed about, but I swear I’ve gone really deeply into some of them, and my favorites have been cycling in and out of my life for decades. Singing & playing music, surfing & bodyboarding, fitness of all kinds, photography, engineering & creating things in general, building engaging and loving relationships, diving really deeply into weird topics, writing many stuffs, researching the features of things I may or may not buy, adventuring and exploring in the woods, in the desert, underwater, in dungeons, through books, around the web… Got a new idea for an activity? Yup. I’ll give it a go. I also like the things everyone likes, for example, hanging out with friends, traveling, watching awesome things on tv, and hugs … really good hugs.
Academically, I studied mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University, business in grad school at San Diego State University, and as much as I could before, during, and after. I think of myself as floating in an uncomfortable ether somewhere between the working world and academia. I guess that’s why I write, create, and do Zengineering Podcast. Currently I’m obsessed with the science of climate change and figuring out how the economy really works (in an a way I can apply in general day to day thought). This shit’s dense. But, that’s part of the fun, right?
Professionally I’ve always been an engineer of one type or another. I’ve worked as a manufacturing engineer designing industrial robots, I’ve run and sold a successful web startup in the manufacturing space, and now I’m CTO of a data company where I write a lot of code, analyze a lot of data, and tend to a fully scalable herd of computers. In the future, I will no doubt do other things.
I try to be thoughtful and kind. Sometimes I’m a jerk, but that is almost never my intention. I always play devil’s advocate and I know that can be annoying, but take solace in the fact that the game is being played in my own head, 10 times more aggressively than I’ll play with you. It’s often useful, and also often annoying, so, I get it.
Also, because you asked, I’m 6' 8", and no, I don’t play basketball. Never really have. Always jammed the shit out of my fingers. I do play beach volleyball, though. It’s great … Yes, everyone does ask me how tall I am … No I don’t mind. I’m so many standard deviations away from the mean that it’s reasonable for you to be surprised when you see me and wonder … I bet I scared you a bit. I often scare people coming on and getting off elevators … Yes, it’s been nice chatting with you too … Cheers!
