My top 15 CZ Podcast episodes

A lot of new listeners discovered us through the CZ Podcast episode with Ivo Lukačovič. Since Jiri Fabian ☢ and I have been recording for over 12 years, I decided to put together my 15 favorite episodes. I tried to make the selection as varied as possible so it would appeal to a wider audience beyond developers and people in IT.

CZ Podcast 185 — Rekola

In our last episode of 2017, which also marked our twentieth that year, Vít Ježek joined us with a very interesting bike-sharing project called Rekola. Vítek told us how the project grew out of playful events with a common theme of bringing public spaces to life.

CZ Podcast 197 — Lukáš Kroc, from SpaceX to CreativeDock

Have you ever wanted to send things into space? Ever wondered how one of eccentric genius Elon Musk’s companies works? In this episode we welcomed Lukáš Kroc, who spent three years as a software developer at SpaceX. We discussed how hard it was to pass the interview, the puzzle he had to solve, the software stack, the simulated rocket they ran tests on, workaholism, and more.

CZ Podcast 138 — Artificial general intelligence with Marek Rosa and GoodAI

For episode 138 we invited Marek Rosa, founder of Keen Software, the game studio behind Space Engineers among other titles. We asked about his work developing artificial general intelligence with his company GoodAI. The episode about self-driving cars is a good introduction to narrow AI, and developing artificial general intelligence takes that a step further. This episode is an unusual chance to hear how futuristic ideas become reality.

CZ Podcast 139 — NFC implants, a first step toward cyborgs

Episode 139 features Jan Hubík from Paralelní Polis on NFC implants and other ways to augment the human body as a first step toward cyborgs. We talked about the technology, its impact on humanity, and the ethics of these modifications.

CZ Podcast 169 — Michal Bláha on e-government and more

For this episode we invited Michal Bláha, who is behind many interesting and successful projects, including Atlas.cz, Energomonitor, and Hlidacsmluv.cz. It was one of the few occasions when we could ask about a subject new to us, Michal’s latest work in e-government.

CZ Podcast 152 — Hacking geolocation services

Have you ever imagined what would happen if someone started jamming or even manipulating your GPS signal? The U.S. Navy once tried it. They forgot to turn it off when they went to get a hot dog in port, and the city descended into chaos. In this episode we welcomed leading Czech cryptanalyst Tomáš Rosa, who once again gave us a fascinating account, this time of hacking geolocation services.

CZ Podcast 145 — Human versus machine on the chessboard

For this episode on humans versus machines in chess, we interviewed Václav Vávra. We looked at different aspects of computer chess, its history from the Mechanical Turk to Deep Blue, and its future.

CZ Podcast 119 — Roboauto

Our guests on episode 119 were the Roboauto team, Jan Najvárek, Tomáš Ondráček, Vojtěch Smejkal, and Pavel Černocký. We talked about the self-driving car they’re building and got technical details from behind the scenes, including the architecture itself.

CZ Podcast 114 — Human-computer interaction and adaptive music

For this episode we invited Adam Sporka to talk about human-computer interaction and the world of adaptive music in video games.

CZ Podcast 86 — The NSA and the Snowden affair

After many requests, we invited leading Czech cryptanalyst Tomáš Rosa to this episode. Our topic was how organizations like the NSA operate in light of the Snowden affair. We asked where and how far ahead these agencies might be and discussed public opinion and the reality the media presents to us.

CZ Podcast 80 — DNA

Our guest on this episode was Ondřej Libiger, who does DNA research in the United States. We wanted Ondra to tell us how the world of computers overlaps with chemistry and medicine.

CZ Podcast 51 — An interview with František Fuka

On episode 51 we welcomed Franta Fuka, developer, translator, composer, and all-rounder whom most of us probably remember from the golden age of the ZX Spectrum. We talked about what writing programs was like back then, how development has changed, his favorite programming language Lua, and the Dynawa watch project.

CZ Podcast 162 — Hacking the brain

For episode 162 we invited Janka Chudlíková to discuss hacking the brain. Janka explained how the brain works and what we need to do to reprogram our synapses so we stop getting in our own way.

CZ Podcast 105 — Eight-bit computers

For another episode we invited Martin Malý, alias A. Dent, a veteran of the eight-bit scene, to reminisce about good old eight-bit computers.

CZ Podcast 213 — Beat Games

For another episode we visited our old friend Split, a.k.a. Ján Ilavský. We were late to the party, but got to chat about Beat Saber, the virtual-reality hit he created with the Beat Games team. Everyone knows they sold a million copies, but Split told us that even experts get things wrong sometimes. An integer overflows now and then or a small mistake slips into a for-each loop. Never mind. John Carmack himself helped tune performance for the Oculus Quest. That’s John Carmack from id Software, a legend to those of us who played games in the nineties.

That’s nearly it. You can find more episodes on SoundCloud, Spotify, and iTunes. Unfortunately, episodes 1 to 119 are now only on java.cz. If you’re interested in the history of CZ Podcast, I wrote a look back at 12 years of podcasting: When the unbelievable became real. If you have other favorite CZ Podcast episodes, feel free to send them to [email redacted] and we’ll be happy to mention them on air.