New Year, New Nuance
Fallthrough
LLMs as Digital Librarians
Kris frames LLMs as improved search and tutoring tools that let you ask follow-ups and learn interactively.
New Year, New Nuance! In this episode, Kris and Matt discuss what they're looking forward to in 2026—Matt shares the exciting news that he's becoming a dad, and the duo explore the value of growth, changing your opinions, and adding more nuance to how you see the world. They talk about what they're excited to build this year, from physical projects like woodworking and doors to the podcast platform they keep talking about. Kris shares how a conversation with Claude finally made electricity click, leading to a broader discussion about LLMs as "digital librarians" and what education should really be about: teaching you how to teach yourself.
As always, we've got supporter content! This week that includes deep dives into local AI infrastructure, home networking with 10G and WireGuard, and a spicy rant about why centralized package management is fundamentally broken. Not a supporter yet? Fix that today by heading over to https://fallthrough.fm/subscribe where you'll get not only extra content but also higher quality audio. Sign up today!
If you prefer to watch this episode, you can view it on YouTube.
This week's episode of break continues the conversation. Where the two reflect on AI doomerism's mental health toll, why things aren't worse than before, the logistics behind society's real problems, and turning waste into opportunity with BASF's Verbund principle. Watch it on YouTube or listen with your favorite podcasting app! Learn more by going to https://break.show/23.
Thanks for tuning in and happy listening!
Table of Contents:
- Prologue (00:00:00)
- Chapter 1: Matt's Becoming a Dad (00:03:06)
- Chapter 2: Growth & Changing Your Opinions (00:06:39)
- Chapter 3: Adding More Nuance in 2026 (00:15:44)
- Chapter 4: What We're Excited to Build (00:24:57)
- Chapter 5: Learning How Things Work: Electricity (00:30:21)
- Chapter 6: LLMs as Digital Librarians (00:39:05)
- Chapter 7: The Real Purpose of Education (00:51:44)
- Chapter 8: Local AI Infrastructure & Home Networking [Extended] (00:58:38)
- Chapter 9: The Centralization Problem in Package Management [Extended] (00:59:30)
- Epilogue (00:59:39)
Hosts
- Kris Brandow - Host
- Matthew Sanabria - Host
Socials:
- (00:00) - Prologue
- (03:06) - Chapter 1: Matt's Becoming a Dad
- (06:39) - Chapter 2: Growth & Changing Your Opinions
- (15:44) - Chapter 3: Adding More Nuance in 2026
- (24:57) - Chapter 4: What We're Excited to Build
- (30:21) - Chapter 5: Learning How Things Work: Electricity
- (39:05) - Chapter 6: LLMs as Digital Librarians
- (51:44) - Chapter 7: The Real Purpose of Education
- (58:38) - Chapter 8: Local AI Infrastructure & Home Networking [Extended]
- (59:30) - Chapter 9: The Centralization Problem in Package Management [Extended]
- (59:39) - Epilogue
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