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The Stack Overflow Podcast

Podcast #119 – This Podcast is Definitely a Simulation

Welcome to The Stack Overflow Podcast episode #119 recorded Thursday, October 12, 2017 at the Stack Overflow HQ in NYC. Today's motley crew includes VP and GM of Stack Overflow Jay Hanlon, CTO David Fullerton, News Editor Ilana Yitzhaki, me, Producer Jess.  Joining us are very special guests Michael Ludden, Director of Product at IBM Developer labs for IBM Watson, and SO Content Marketing Manager Rachel Ferrigno. Special thanks to this week's sponsors: Oracle and Digital Ocean. Stack Overflow appreciates Oracle's support for this podcast and for our community. Learn more about all the ways Oracle supports open source, java, and developers like you at oracle.com/developers.   Digital Ocean just launched Spaces - a beautifully simple Object Storage service designed for developers who want a simple way to store and serve vast amounts of data. Digital Ocean thinks developers who try spaces will love it, so they're making trying it easy. New and existing DigitalOcean customers can you can get a free 2 month trial of spaces by going to do.co/stackoverflow. On this episode:

  • Today's Developer Story (and so much more) is Michael Ludden, a self proclaimed script kiddie who has an amazing vision for what AR and VR could be. We chat about how he is trying to bring that vision to life with IBM's Watson, as well as some of the philosophies of futurism, with a healthy dose of pop culture thrown in for good measure.
"Use your imagination to invision a future powered by AI and even maybe taking the form of AR or VR that is hopeful and can augment human ability and help to future-proof the world from being dystopian."
  • The NYC Developer Hiring Ecosystem report is here! Rachel Ferrigno gives us a rundown of her findings, including the fact that 10% of the nation's developers are located in the NYC metro area. You can download your own report here.
  • After 20 years, AIM is shutting down. We take a few minutes to mourn the messaging service before pointing and laughing at each other's embarrassing screen names.
This week's Constitution question comes from our very own David Fullerton. It's called the Nick Craver amendment, because of reasons. "It is forbidden to participate in a Hangout or other video conference while working at a treadmill desk or any other form of treadmill." Post your answer to twitter using the hashtag #stackoverflowpodcast, with either PRO if you think that treadmill desks should be banned when in a video call or CON if you think that exercising while in a meeting is fair game. The wittiest answer, whether on the winning or losing side will win a set of SO stickers. Last week's winner, for the proposal: "One must always use rebasing instead of merging branches in Git." is @TheOnlyMego with: https://twitter.com/TheOnlyMego/status/918326739952160769 Thanks Mego, you win some stickers. And thanks to all of you for listening, we'll be back in 2 weeks. Links for the lazy:

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