Hope in Source - podcast cover

Hope in Source

Henry Zhuhopeinsource.com
What are the parallels between faith and open source software? Join Henry Zhu for an off-the-cuff conversation between friends. Check out hopeinsource.com and nadiaeghbal.com/public-faith for the backstory!
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Episodes

Very Online (Strange Rites)

What happens to our religions when they meet the Internet? Tara Isabella Burton joins Henry to chat about her new book, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World. They chat about our failing institutions, taking fandoms like Harry Potter seriously, how we all remix religion, how consumerism infects all of life, on embodiment and givenness, and most importantly, what is our freedom even for? Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/online Tara: https://twitter.com/NotoriousTIB Henry: https:/...

Jul 23, 20201 hr 3 min

Towards Shalom (Nicole Williams)

What does flourishing look like? Nicole Williams joins Henry to chat about faith in a less reductive way (than many of us may of grown up with): on rationality, the Church as a body, education, liturgy, family, being productive, and simply doing things for it's own sake. Was rather hard to say what we were getting at until the very end, all tying back to a picture of shalom! Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/shalom Nicole: https://twitter.com/nwilliams030 Henry: https://twitter.com/left_pad...

Jul 08, 202056 min

Legacy (Timothy Patitsis)

Why do we so easily forget where we come from? Dr. Timothy Patitsis joins Henry again to chat about the affect of legacy on our lives through the language of standards, language diversity, being a melting pot or mosaic, Chesterton's fence and legibility, Jane Jacob's tripartite society, algorithmic control and agency, sanctification and faith as an adventure. Michael Polanyi says that "a society which wants to preserve a fund of personal knowledge must submit to tradition". Transcript at https:/...

Jun 01, 202048 min

MA 13: Jordan Scales on Nostalgia and Not Taking Yourself Too Seriously

Why attempt to faithfully recreate the past? Jordan Scales joins Henry to chat about 98.css, design systems, being pixel perfect, accessibility, the Microsoft Windows User Experience reference manual, using VMs, MSPaint and Figma, whimsy and having fun with coding, creating satire at no one's expense, and even how Babel's Guy Fieri meme could of been Jeff Goldblum in another universe. Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/nostalgia

May 26, 20201 hr 17 min

MA 12: Maggie Appleton on Embodiment Through Metaphors

Is programming all digital/cerebral or do we still have embodied roots? How does this affect how we write, teach, and learn code? Maggie Appleton joins Henry to discuss everything metaphors (basically everything). We chat about mental models and abstraction, Polanyi, Cartesian dualism, auto ethnography, knowledge, cats! Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/metaphor

May 13, 202054 min

MA 11: Maggie Appleton on Open Source as a Gift Economy

Is the open source community a gift economy? What even is a gift? Maggie Appleton joins Henry to discuss open source as a gift economy (versus a market economy), why we participate in open source and exchange gifts, rituals and habits, patronage and crowdfunding, quantified self and disembodiment, our role in tech. Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/gift

Mar 06, 202055 min

12: Haircut (Bonus)

Why not record an conversation while getting a haircut? Fellow friend and developer Jonathan Tsao cuts Henry's hair and they have a spontaneous conversation about a variety of topics covering faith and culture, living in NYC, creativity, narratives, sharing in vulnerability, and embodiment.

Feb 14, 202028 min

MA 10: Jonathan Farbowitz on the Commitment to Infinite Uptime

How should we think about saving something forever? Jonathan Farbowitz (Guggenheim) continues the on-going discussion of software preservation with Henry in talking about the goals of museums, the hard (and maybe impossible) task of keeping something intact, the norms and steps of conservation, comparing physical and digital artwork, the importance of authors in conserving a piece, emulation vs. language porting (rewrites), a discussion about an art's "dependencies", possibly adding automated te...

Jul 15, 20191 hr 15 min

MA 9: Wendy Hagenmaier on Preserving the (Digital) Past

In our pursuit to create products for the future do we neglect the past? Wendy Hagenmaier (Georgia Tech) discusses with Henry on the importance of maintaining our history, especially in software itself. They chat all about archival: what is it, what should concern an archivist, differences b/t physical/digital, artifacts/process, value/worth of things to preserve, struggles, places where archival can happen (personal, libraries, companies, museums), and our shared responsibility and knowledge. T...

Jul 08, 201942 min

MA 8: Anthony Giovannetti on Mastery and Learning through Games

Why play or even make games? Anthony Giovannetti (MegaCrit) joins Henry to chat building the video game Slay the Spire with the community. They discuss games an a interactive medium, immersion, player incentives/tradeoffs, emergent gameplay through roguelikes (procedural generation, permadeath), player mastery/difficulty, Steam early access, user feedback, importance of testing, data-informed balancing, and player accessibility driving features via streaming, translations, and UX. Transcript: ht...

Jun 21, 201957 min

MA 7: Philip Gee (#1) On Growing Old with the Web

Do we learn in a vacuum, or does it involve our whole selves? Philip Gee (UC San Diego) joins Henry to chat about maintaining a web presence since its beginnings. We discuss some of the points made in Nadia's post on ideas carrying us forward, even beyond what we are known for, the greater intimacy of podcasts and vlogs, attaching ideas to people, science as subjective vs. purely objective and in community, knowledge as opening up possibilities, embracing whimsy and being random (haircut podcast...

May 31, 20191 hr 4 min

MA 6: Jory Burson on the Significance of Standards

Why should we standardize? Jory Burson (Bocoup) joins Henry to talk open source and standards: what they are, why we need them, what should be standardized, lifecycles of standards, past/future accessibility of participating in the process, and more! Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/standards/

May 24, 20191 hr 5 min

MA 5: Evan You on Funding One's Freedom

How can we be free? Evan You (Vue.js) chats with Henry about the complexities of funding people vs. projects, non-monetary perks of oss, Patreon potentially just a payment processor, the honing in on the uniqueness of open source (being free, flexible, organic/emergent, self-motivated, distributed/remote), full time not being for everyone, the importance of side projects and off-pressure moments and just having fun. Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/freedom

May 06, 20191 hr 26 min

MA 4: Mikeal Rogers on Getting Old in Open Source

How old is open source anyway? Mikeal Rogers (Protocol Labs) joins Henry in talking about making friends through podcasting, conference organizing as maintainer-ship, patronage and fundraising, old/new school open source, deprecating packages and ecosystem health, new ideas and becoming a maintainer by being the "first", and parenting! Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/getting-old/

Apr 29, 20191 hr 23 min

MA 3: Stephanie Hurlburt on the Perception of Value

What do we treasure? Stephanie Hurlburt (Binomial) joins again to chat about inherent vs. perceived value, success breeding success, psychology around hiding information, code versus money, a holistic/explicit view of business, everything as marketing, confidence, money as idolatry, the nature of giving, our biases around people/status, people want to see you succeed, communicating how people can help you. (recorded in February) Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/value

Apr 19, 201955 min

MA 2: Stephanie Hurlburt on Boundaries

How is business development relevant to open source? Stephanie Hurlburt (Binomial) joins Henry to chat about understanding learnings from success, setting health boundaries, what "networking" really means, conversations/pitching, and more! (recorded in February) Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/boundaries

Apr 12, 201949 min

MA 1: Omnigamer on Speedrunning as Research

What's beyond simply beating a video game? Eric "Omnigamer" Koziel joins Henry to chat about speedruning as an optimization problem (code golf), game knowledge as discovery, access as a result of technology, issues of game preservation/archival, coordination issues, obscure/popular games, versioning/patches, and more! (recorded in January. Since then, Eric has a new book out, Speedrun Science). Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/speedrunning

Apr 10, 20191 hr 27 min

11: City as Liturgy (Timothy Patitsas)

Is the city a toaster (an object) or a cat (a living organism)? We are joined by Dr. Timothy Patitsas to talk about how our physical and digital spaces, like liturgy, can be understood as "the work of the people". We discuss science as organized complexity, the meaning of knowledge, recursive societies, fractal hierarchies, and implications for governance.Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/city

Mar 21, 201954 min

10: Trust

Why do we trust anyone? We talk about trust as an act of faith, trusting people versus trusting code, and the relationship between trust and work. Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/trust

Oct 16, 201835 min

9: Liturgy

How do our rituals shape us? We talk about where habits come from, why we use them, and whether they strengthen our belief systems. Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/liturgy

Oct 16, 201833 min

8: Authority and Leadership

Does authority have a place in religion? We talk about authority in decentralized organizations, listening to others versus trying something new, and when to fork or leave a community. Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/authority

Oct 16, 201826 min

7: Mythology and Symbolism

How do symbols and stories foster culture? We talk about stories as a way to onboard new contributors, the mythology of leadership, when leaders step down, and how traditions evolve over time. Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/myth

Oct 16, 201835 min

6: Money

How do communities handle money? We talk about money and centralization, tithing systems, how much funding is too much, and when to contribute money versus time. Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/money

Oct 16, 201844 min

5: Evangelism

How do we evangelize our ideas? We talk about evangelism in religion and tech, meeting people where they're at, living one's values in public, and maintaining humility in the face of conviction. Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/evangelism

Oct 16, 201834 min

4: Holy Inefficiency

Can everything that matters be measured? We talk about measuring the output and health of a community, competition between groups, growing a community without losing authenticity, and embracing "holy inefficiency". Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/inefficiency

Oct 16, 201838 min

3: Intrinsic Motivation

Why do we do what we do? We talk about intrinsic motivation, the role it plays in creative work with uncertain outcomes, motivating new contributors, and sustaining motivation over time. Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/motivation

Oct 16, 201844 min

2: Community Membership

What does it mean to join a community? We talk about casual versus committed membership, and how maintainers and leaders manage expectations around trust and collaboration. Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/membership

Oct 16, 201835 min

1: Faith and Open Source

We talk about our backgrounds and motivation for doing this podcast, and why the practice of faith seems so prevalent among open source developers. Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/faith

Oct 16, 201834 min
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