Best Ben Edmunds Podcasts (2024)

1
Motion: Bitcoin mining is good for the grid (Lee Bratcher vs. Ben Hertz-Shargel) 1:15:39

2y ago1:15:39

1:15:39

Guests: Lee Bratcher (twitter.com/lee_bratcher) Ben Hertz-Shargel (twitter.com/benhertzshargel) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Bitcoin mining is good for the grid.” Bitcoin advocates think bitcoin is a good invention for many reasons, one of which is that it makes the power grid more robust. In 2021, Senator Ted Cruz of…

1
Motion: We should always reduce MEV on blockchains (Ed Felten vs. Tushar Jain) 1:09:38

2y ago1:09:38

1:09:38

Guests: Ed Felten (twitter.com/edfelten) Tushar Jain (twitter.com/TusharJain_) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “We should always reduce MEV on blockchains." Generally speaking, MEV or Miner Extractable Value is a way for miners to derive additional revenue by executing transactions based on information in the mem pool. Fo…

1
Motion: Web3 is worse than Web2 (Liron Shapira vs. Kyle Samani) 1:22:40

2+ y ago1:22:40

1:22:40

Announcement: I have a new show called “Crypto This Week.” It’s a weekly, five-minute news comedy satire focused on the world of crypto. Check it out on YouTube here: Crypto This Week with Richard Yan Guests: Liron Shapira (twitter.com/liron) Kyle Samani (twitter.com/kylesamani) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Web3 is wo…

1
Here lies dynamic properties. They were good properties Brent. 37:37

2+ y ago37:37

37:37

Matt and Ben are joined by Colin O'Dell, staff engineer at Wayfair and supporter of the twitter dividing Dynamic Properties RFC to discuss what this RFC really means for PHP going forward and if its really a good idea. They also talk to Colin about what its like to change jobs after a long tenure (13 years) at his previous job, what he likes and do…

1
Motion: The industry is growing out of the Fat Protocol Thesis (Jeff Dorman vs. Joel Monegro) 1:36:55

2+ y ago1:36:55

1:36:55

Announcement: I have a new show called “Crypto This Week.” It’s a weekly, five-minute news comedy satire focused on the world of crypto. Check it out on YouTube here: Crypto This Week with Richard Yan Guests: Jeff Dorman (twitter.com/jdorman81) Joel Monegro (twitter.com/jmonegro) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “The indus…

1
Episode 83: A catch up and a car crash 1:12:48

2+ y ago1:12:48

1:12:48

Ben and Matt catch up since its been a minute since it's just the two of them have talked. They talk all kinds of things about life, conferences, getting hit by a car and how to best impersonate Chuck Norris style rolls.By Ben Edmunds, Matt Trask

1
Motion: DAOs are better than corporations (Kain Warwick vs. Edmund Schuster) 1:17:04

2+ y ago1:17:04

1:17:04

Announcement: I have a new show called “Crypto This Week.” It’s a weekly, five-minute news comedy satire focused on the world of crypto. Check it out on YouTube here: Crypto This Week with Richard Yan Guests: Kain Warwick (twitter.com/kaiynne) Edmund Schuster (twitter.com/Edmund_Schuster) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “…

1
Motion: Toxic maximalism is great for Bitcoin (Giacomo Zucco vs. Paul Sztorc) 1:34:31

3y ago1:34:31

1:34:31

Guests: Giacomo Zucco: twitter.com/giacomozucco Paul Sztorc: twitter.com/truthcoin Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Toxic maximalism is great for bitcoin.” I hear many no-coiners say that “the worst thing about bitcoin is the bitcoiners.” They are referring to their negative encounters with staunch bitcoin believers on so…

1
Motion: It's a bad idea to make Bitcoin compulsory tender (George Selgin vs. Yves Bennaïm) 1:43:06

3y ago1:43:06

1:43:06

Guests: Yves Bennaïm: twitter.com/ZLOK George Selgin: twitter.com/georgeselgin Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “It's a bad idea to make Bitcoin compulsory tender.” If you’re somewhat into crypto, you must have heard about El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law that has made Bitcoin a legal tender in addition to USD. With an asterisk. …

1
Episode 82: Another UUID bites the dust. 1:12:01

3y ago1:12:01

1:12:01

Ben and Matt are joined by Ben Ramsey to talk about what it like being in charge of PHP 8.1, his new gig at Skillshare and we ponder the question: do all good uuids go to heaven? Links: Ben Ramsey on Twitter Ben’s UUID Library PHP Release Process Ben’s PHP Library starter kit Rand’s Leadership SlackBy Ben Edmunds, Amanda Folson, & Matt Trask

1
Motion: Algo and fractional stablecoins are flawed (Bennett Tomlin vs. Sam Kazemian) 1:16:41

3y ago1:16:41

1:16:41

Guests: Bennett Tomlin (twitter.com/bennetttomlin) Sam Kazemian (twitter.com/samkazemian) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Algo and fraction stablecoins are flawed.” A good stablecoin can sustainably hold its peg, and recover quickly from a premium or discount. This is a basic requirement for stablecoins. An obvious desig…

1
Motion: Security is about maximizing the minimum set of colluding miners (Anatoly Yakovenko vs. Dankrad Feist) 1:26:22

3y ago1:26:22

1:26:22

Guests: Anatoly Yakovenko (twitter.com/aeyakovenko) Dankrad Feist (twitter.com/dankrad) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Security is about maximizing the minimum set of colluding miners.” This is a mouthful. The minimum set of colluding miners is the smallest cartel of dishonest block producers you need to attack a networ…

1
Motion: The US urgently needs to catch up on Central Bank Digital Currency (Robert Hockett vs. Lawrence White) 1:34:43

3y ago1:34:43

1:34:43

Guests: Bob Hockett (twitter.com/rch371) Larry White (twitter.com/lawrencehwhite1) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “The US urgently needs to catch up on CBDC.” Central Bank Digital Currencies are sort of like government-run Paypal accounts. They allow the government to do scalpel-like fiscal policies more easily, such as …

1
Episode 81: The Book of Psalm 53:43

3y ago53:43

53:43

Matt and Ben are joined by PsalmPHP author and maintainer Matthew Brown to talk about static analysis, open source maintanence, how he and Ondrej Mirtes made a nice contribution to the PHP Coore and how to get Matthew out to more conferences so people can buy him the beers he so rightfully deserves. Show Notes: PsalmMatthew on Twitter…

1
Motion: Trustless smart contracts for Bitcoin is impossible without forking (Ruben Somsen vs. Muneeb Ali) 1:47:12

3y ago1:47:12

1:47:12

Guests: Ruben Somsen (twitter.com/SomsenRuben) Muneeb Ali (twitter.com/muneeb) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Trustless smart contracts for bitcoin are impossible without forks.” A few projects have been known to try to bring smart contracts to bitcoin. But are they doing this in a way as you understand it? This episode…

1
Motion: NFTs are dumb (Edmund Schuster vs. Andrew Steinwold, co-host: Maria Shen) 1:14:38

3y ago1:14:38

1:14:38

Guests: Edmund Schuster (twitter.com/edmund_schuster) Andrew Steinwold (twitter.com/andrewsteinwold) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Special co-host: Maria Shen (twitter.com/mariashen) Today’s motion is “NFTs are dumb.” Non Fungible Tokens have taken the world by storm. A transaction in NFT is a transaction in some sort of digital ownershi…

1
Episode 80: Belles Of The Ball 47:03

3y ago47:03

47:03

Matt and Ben are joined by the founder of Larabelles community Zuzana Kunckova to talk about why communities are so crucial to developer growth, what it takes to start a comnmunity and why Zuzana started Larabelles. We then dive into how she got her start as a developer, where her career has taken her and what is gonna happen with conferences after…

1
Episode 79: Fell In Love With A Tree: The Phil Sturgeon Story 1:01:15

3+ y ago1:01:15

1:01:15

Ben and Matt sit down to talk to Phil Sturgeon… yes that Phil Sturgeon for their once every 2 year check in with the former host of this very podcast. They talk about what it’s like to bikepack across Europe during working hours, how Phil knew what issues needed to be addressed immediately and which he could push off to later and then they talk abo…

1
Motion: Ethereum is too early for institutional money (Lyn Alden vs. Qiao Wang) 1:05:42

3+ y ago1:05:42

1:05:42

Guests: Lyn Alden (twitter.com/lynaldencontact) Qiao Wang (twitter.com/qwqiao) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Ethereum is too early for institutional money.” Quite a few institutions have voted with their feet on Bitcoin. This ranges from corporate treasuries to money managers. At what point will Ethereum catch the atte…

1
Motion: Diem is a glorified Paypal (David Gerard vs. Bryce Weiner) 57:54

3+ y ago57:54

57:54

Guests: David Gerard (twitter.com/davidgerard) Bryce Weiner (twitter.com/bryceweiner) Host: Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09) Today’s motion is “Diem is a glorified PayPal.” Diem of course used to be called Libra. It’s a cryptocurrency floated by Facebook in 2019. It was a big deal back then. A global borderless currency for 2 billion install base…

1
Motion: Tether has always been acting in bad faith (Bennett Tomlin vs. Larry Cermak, co-host: Patrick McKenzie) 1:15:51

3+ y ago1:15:51

1:15:51

Guests: Bennett Tomlin (@bennetttomlin) Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Patrick McKenzie (@patio11, special co-host) Today’s motion is “Tether has always been acting in bad faith.” This topic is very relevant for today’s markets because Tether is simultaneously an incredibly important, if not the most important, source of on…

1
Motion: Bitcoin is a scam (Jorge Stolfi vs. Lyn Alden) 1:25:57

3+ y ago1:25:57

1:25:57

Guests: Jorge Stolfi (@jorgestolfi) Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Bitcoin is a scam.” At the time of recording and release, Bitcoin reached its all time highs. And it just seems that every few weeks, a traditional financial institution or a well-known investor is announcing their interest in the orang…

1
Episode 6 - Matt Trask 1:02:37

3+ y ago1:02:37

1:02:37

Ben is joined by Matt Trask to discuss his path in to tech, why community matters more than code, personal finance, cycling, and Star Wars. Matt is a Senior Software Architect, Podcaster, API aficionado, and Cycling addict. Links - Civ5 RollerCoaster Tycoon Listen Money Matters podcast Mad Fientist The Soul of America by Jon Meacham How to Win Frie…

1
Motion: Legally speaking, tokens are more like commodities than like securities (Lewis Cohen vs. Gabriel Shapiro) 1:15:00

3+ y ago1:15:00

1:15:00

Guests: Lewis Cohen (@NYcryptolawyer) Gabriel Shapiro (@lex_node) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Legally speaking, tokens are more like commodities than like securities.” Today’s guests are two legal experts in crypto space. One of them will argue that token transactions on the post-ICO, secondary market should for the most part b…

1
Motion: Today’s blockchains can’t increase TPS without taking a hit on decentralization, II (Evan Shapiro vs. Anatoly Yakovenko) 46:24

3+ y ago46:24

46:24

Guests: Evan Shapiro (@evanashapiro) Anatoly Yakovenko (@aeyakovenko) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Today’s blockchains can’t increase TPS without taking a hit on decentralization.” This is a follow-up debate, or you can think of it as a re-match. Previously Emre from O(1) Labs also debated Anatoly from Solana on this very topic …

1
Motion: Tether will likely get crushed by authorities in the next two years, thanks to its shady practices and defiance against regulators (CasPiancey vs. Matthew Graham) 54:57

3+ y ago54:57

54:57

Guests: CasPiancey (@caspiancey) Matthew Graham (@mattysino) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Tether will likely get crushed by authorities in the next two years, thanks to its shady practices and defiance against regulators.” In this debate about the controversial pioneer stablecoin, we talked about pending lawsuits, a lack of regu…

1
Episode 5 - Gergely Orosz 47:41

3+ y ago47:41

47:41

Ben is joined by Gergely Orosz to discuss competitive sports, engineering career paths at big tech, his path to self employment, and the writing process. Gergely is an ex-engineering manager and current author. He's a prolific tweeter, blogger, and writer. Links - The Pragmatic Engineer The Tech Resume The Philosophy of Software Design Transcript -…

1
Episode 78: Into The Woodchipper 53:38

3+ y ago53:38

53:38

Matt and Ben are joined by Chris Fidao (who watched with horror as Matt butchered his last name). The conversation takes a deep dive into how Chris and Dave Hemphill built ChipperCI include the why, the how and what were some of the fun challenges to building a CI service. We talked briefly about how Chris found good use cases for Golang, but Chris…

1
Motion: ZK rollup has a better set of security/scalability tradeoff than optimistic rollup (Alex Gluchowski vs. John Adler, co-host: James Prestwich) 1:26:30

3+ y ago1:26:30

1:26:30

Guests: Alex Gluchowski (@gluk64) John Adler (@jadler0) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) James Prestwich (@_prestwich, special co-host) Today’s motion is “ZK rollup has a better set of security/scalability tradeoff than Optimistic rollup.” Rollups are a class of layer-2 Ethereum scalability solutions. They allow an off-chain aggregation of transaction…

1
Episode 4 - Zach Inglis 42:00

3+ y ago42:00

42:00

Ben is joined by Zach Inglis to discuss his sleep schedule, nomadic life, and how he approaches making the world a better place. Zach is a designer and developer, perhaps best known for organizing HybridConf. He runs a studio with his best friend. He also enjoys losing at poker. Links - AmongUs Factorio The Diary of a Bookseller Transcript - Ben: A…

1
#60 Edmund "Mundo" Holmes 53:53

3+ y ago53:53

53:53

Mundo has been a friend of the podcast since the beginning, and lately, his work has not only been featured all around PDX and has made it to the news. Hear about what makes his art unique from others and his unique process with his mural and illustration work. Thanks to Blick Art in the Pearl District for the gracious package they put together for…

1
1978 Berkshire Hathaway Letter to Shareholders 26:20

3+ y ago26:20

26:20

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. SHAREHOLDER LETTERSBy Ben Edmund

1
1977 Berkshire Hathaway Letter to Shareholders 19:28

3+ y ago19:28

19:28

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. SHAREHOLDER LETTERSBy Ben Edmund

1
Episode 3 - Randall Kanna 37:59

3+ y ago37:59

37:59

Ben is joined by Randall Kanna to discuss her personal life and career. We discuss why she chose not to pursue a CS degree, the fortitude it took to get started in tech as a woman, and how she's paving the path for engineers without CS degrees. Randall is a senior engineer and author. Links - https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Hurt-Me-Master-Your/dp/15445…

1
Motion: Yield Farming is an innovation (Haseeb Qureshi vs. Meltem Demirors, co-host: Tarun Chitra) 58:07

3+ y ago58:07

58:07

Guests: Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb) Meltem Demirors (@melt_dem) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Tarun Chitra (@tarunchitra, special co-host) Today’s motion is “Yield farming is an innovation.” Yield farming, or liquidity mining, refers to a newly popularized practice of DeFi protocols, where the protocols incentivize usage with reward tokens. The trend…

1
Episode 77: Lets be Frank 49:47

4y ago49:47

49:47

Matt and Ben are joined by the League of Extraordinary Packages chief benevolent dictator for life Frank De Jonge (@frankdejonge. Its pronounced “de-yong”, not like how Matt pronounced it. He is sorry). We talk about Frank’s contributions to the League, and how it makes him feel to have a package download count in the 8 digits. Frank also talks abo…

1
Episode 2 - Maia Bittner 1:03:38

4y ago1:03:38

1:03:38

Ben is joined by Maia Bittner to discuss her personal life and career. Delving in to how her anxiety has driven her so far and how she's working to recalibrate for what's next. Maia is an entrepreneur and investor. She founded Pinch (which was acquired by Chime) and Rocksbox. She is on the board of trustees for Olin College. Transcript - Ben Edmund…

1
Motion: Blockchain analysis companies are bad for bitcoin (Alex Gladstein vs. Dave Jevans) 1:14:48

4y ago1:14:48

1:14:48

Guests: Alex Gladstein (@gladstein) Dave Jevans (@davejevans) Host: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Today’s motion is “Blockchain analysis companies are bad for bitcoin.” Blockchain analysis companies are effectively on-chain detectives. They help exchanges and other financial institutions detect and monitor money-laundering activities and therefore stay i…

1
Motion: Today's blockchains can't increase TPS without taking a hit on decentralization (Emre Tekişalp vs. Anatoly Yakovenko, cohost: Uri Klarman) 1:16:38

4y ago1:16:38

1:16:38

Guests: Emre Tekişalp (@etekis) Anatoly Yakovenko (@aeyakovenko) Hosts: Richard Yan (@gentso09) Uri Klarman (@uriklarman, special co-host) Today’s motion is “Today’s blockchains can’t increase TPS without taking a hit on decentralization.” Today’s guests are from two different public blockchains Coda and Solana. The CEO of Bloxroute came on as spec…

1
#59 Tristan TK Irving 55:54

4y ago55:54

55:54

It didn't take long for Tristan Irving to become a full-time artist in Portland. Even though his work became most known for a portrait after the death of George Floyd, he has held his ground and proven his talents in a time of national crisis. Hear about him, his tortoise Larry, and a whole lot more on this episode of Black Bulb Podcast. Check out …

1
Episode 1 - Taylor Otwell 54:17

4y ago54:17

54:17

Ben sits down with Taylor Otwell to discuss his personal life, what drives him, how he got started with Laravel, and what's next. Taylor is the creator of the Laravel PHP framework, conference organizer, and successful entrepreneur. Transcript - Ben Edmunds: I hear you're leaving Laravel to work on Symphony full-time now? Taylor Otwell: Heck yeah, …

1
Episode 0 - Intro 1:03

4y ago1:03

1:03

A quick intro to the idea behind the podcast. Transcript - Ben Edmunds: Welcome to the More Than Code podcast. I'm Ben Edmunds. You might know me from the PHP Town Hall podcast or the PHP programming community in general. This podcast is to interview specific members of the tech community, delve into their past, their future, their home life, how t…

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