Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks

Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks is the tech podcast about humans. Hosted by George K and George A, this podcast examines AI, infrastructure, technology adoption, and the broader implications of tech developments through both guest interviews and news commentary.Our guests bring honest perspectives on what's working, what's broken, and new ways to examine the roles and impacts of technology in our lives.We challenge conventional tech industry narratives and dig into real-world consequences over hype. Whether you're deeply technical or just trying to understand how technology shapes society, this show will make you think critically about where we're headed and who's getting left behind.

Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks is a technology podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 195 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks, a technology show with 195 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #53

  Season 4 Finale...and special announcement!

  Aug 3, 20266 minS4

  That’s a wrap on season 4! What's coming next isn't just another season. Fifty-two episodes took the show past its cybersecurity origins into conversations with a corpus linguist, a nuclear security expert, an Amnesty International policy lead, a world champion Muay Thai fighter, and journalists from Fortune and 404 Media, just to name a few of this year’s guests. That range is the reason for what comes next. We’re thinking through changes to the show’s cadence, format, and programming The show isn't ending. But we’re dialing back while we build what’s next. We hope you stay along for the ride!

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  Episode #52

  Designing compute for the edge: Out of the cloud and down on the ground,

  Jul 27, 202642 minS4

  Cloud computing solved for scale by centralizing everything into a handful of massive buildings. Edge computing is the argument that scale was never the only thing worth optimizing for. On this episode, Jeff MacMillan of Green Edge Computing Corp makes the case that sovereignty was never really about geography. It was about how many entities you'd have to strong-arm before someone gave in. The conversation moves from mining sites with unreliable wireless to a Cloud Act clause most people have never read. It lands on an uncomfortable question: when decentralizing compute means decentralizing oversight too, who ends up accountable for what happens in the box nobody's watching. The same hardware standard the U.S. military spent fifteen years refining now sits in clinics and 7-Elevens, and has implication and applications for bringing cutting edge software to the most remote areas. What does it mean when you can bring your own compute literally anywhere? Mentioned: Jevon’s paradox

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  Episode #50

  Designing Human-AI collaboration to make people heroes not cogs

  Jul 13, 202648 minS4

  No one gets fired for doing what McKinsey says. That's not a joke, it's the actual product being sold in half of enterprise consulting: credibility a board can point to when a decision goes wrong. This week, Tim Lidman, founder of Clyde and formerly of a collaboration platform absorbed into Accenture in 2021, argues that AI won't replace that function — and says so without flinching, even though it means some prospective customers will balk. Tim also shares why he thinks “human in the loop” is such a dehumanizing turn of phrase. The conversation moves through the politics that quietly derail group decisions, the trap of building for experts at the expense of everyone else, and a real case where a district court judge canceled a trial because both sides had submitted AI-generated arguments neither side had bothered to check. And this episode ends somewhere unexpected: a founder building frontier AI for a living who gives his own children zero screen time, and why he thinks boredom is the skill nobody is protecting anymore. Mentioned: Deloitte Canada’s GenAI snafu citing made up research •  • Judge cancels trial after finding out both sides use AI

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  Episode #88

  Token math, YOLO business strategies, and the true cost of your attention

  Jun 29, 202640 minS4

  When companies mandate AI adoption without a use case, without a strategy, and without a business outcome in mind, they don't get transformation. They get jazz hands and nightmare token bills. This month's System Update pulls apart what's actually happening beneath the headlines: Oracle's 21,000 layoffs attributed to "AI adoption," Amazon arming junior developers to replace senior engineers, and enterprises burning through AI budgets they cannot predict or control. The deeper argument George K. and George A. make is harder to dismiss than the headlines. You cannot drive deterministic business outcomes with probabilistic means of production. The CEOs and CTOs who greenlit LLM adoption at scale are now facing a math problem that no earnings call language can paper over. The free water is now a metered utility. Will the bill ever be worth paying? The episode also turns to labor theater and what we’re giving our attention to: what we lose when institutions optimize for engagement over depth, and what it costs when an entire generation learns to consume rather than think. Mentioned: NYT on Schneider Electric’s AI adoption without layoffs Amazon tokenmaxxing mandate goes sideways Oracle sheds 13% of its workforce amid so-called AI adoption Amazon still hiring junior employees while also doing layoffs…? The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes , by Jonathan Rose Snap’s intentional targeting of teens' attention Denmark invests in de-screening its schools

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  Episode #47

  Who is served & who gets protected when leaders only look up?

  Jun 22, 202654 minS4

  When an institution says it's changing, how do you tell the difference between real reform and a vocabulary update? Charlotte Duval-Lantoine has spent years studying organizations that adopt the language of culture change while leaving intact the structures that made change necessary in the first place. The tells are subtler than most leaders want to believe, and they show up earlier than most are willing to look. In this episode, Charlotte joins the show to talk about what organizational failure actually looks like from the inside, why decentralizing blame onto individual character is one of the most reliable signs an institution isn't serious about change, and why the absence of a feedback loop is the red flag most executives mistake for resistance. The conversation moves from military culture into the executive boardroom quickly. We explore why the same pattern runs through both. Mentioned: Operation Honour Female representation in Canadian Armed Forces Cyberstarts scandal Big Man in Melanesian cultures

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