Traffic jams and congested streets are an annoyance many people have to endure. Turns out, the same technology keeping us constantly connected—the Internet of Things—can also improve how we move people and things from place to place. But what are the considerations for technologists? Connectivity can’t be the only piece of the puzzle. Smart road technology can make travel safer, easier, and more efficient. But how can it make travel enjoyable?

Computer literacy is supposedly coming naturally to younger generations who seem to be born with smartphones in their hands. But there’s a difference between tech familiarity and actually knowing how technology works. And when kids learn about the wide world of IT, what else are they learning? Kids know tech is everywhere. In this episode of Compiler, we spoke to middle school, high school, and college educators about what it is their students are hoping to learn—and what skills they pick up on the way. 

Hey listeners—we’ve got something different for you to try. If you enjoyed our Caturday episode and want more stories about security, we think you’ll like Season 9 of Command Line Heroes. It’s Red Hat’s tech history show, and this new season is all about malware. Here’s the first episode:Computer viruses and worms haunt the internet. They worm their way into a system, replicate, and spread again. It’s a simple process—with devastating consequences. But there’s a whole industry of people that rose up to fight back. Craig Schmugar recalls how he and his team responded to MyDoom, one of the fastest-spreading worms ever. Dr. Nur Zincir-Heywood reveals the inner workings of viruses and worms, and how they draw their names from the world of biology. And security expert Mikko Hypponen shares advice on avoiding malware. But he also warns that we’re in an arms race against malware developers.

Memes are goofy. They’re easily recognizable. And they’re often used to make a point. So it’s no wonder that people on both sides of the InfoSec community are not only familiar with memes, but often use them in their endless games of cat and mouse. Consequently, memes are often a sign of a breach of security. Because there’s little as satisfying as leaving a meme as proof of your security prowess. On this episode of Compiler, we hear from a couple of Red Hatters who rose to an unusual security challenge. And while intentions were good, the memes could have easily been something much more nefarious. 

Valentine’s Day is a time for roses, candy, wine, and time with that special someone. And more than ever, people are meeting their romantic partners through dating apps and websites. These apps have different features, and can vary in user experience. What technology can meet the unique demands of those looking for love across cultures, time zones, and even across oceans?In this episode of Compiler, our team goes on a date with Kubernetes to discover how container orchestration speaks to the needs of a constantly-growing user base. From thoughts on scalability, on through to testing and deployment, we hear from those who swipe right on Kubernetes.

In tech, there's a lot of pressure to keep things running smoothly. That makes even a small mistake or a brief outage seem disastrous. When people fail at something, they can experience many different emotions: Anger, regret, or even fear. In this episode of Compiler, Jen Krieger and 2019 TED Fellow Dr. Erika Hamden join us to discuss how we should handle failure, and how teams and individuals can benefit from processing it safely and effectively. Compiler is all about asking questions. And we've got some for you—our audience. Help us compile your thoughts about the show by filling out our survey at compilerpodcast.com/survey.

Since the debut of Compiler, our team has posed a few interesting questions, and the answers have gotten people talking. Do the words ‘manager’ and ‘leader’ mean the same thing? How can technical debt become more complex, outside of team areas of responsibility? We revisit some of our past topics on the show and let others weigh in on what they liked, what they didn’t like, and what we may have missed on the first pass. Want to learn more about Jeff Walter’s work? Pay a virtual visit the Atmospheric Data Science Center or earthdata.nasa.gov.

Working on a popular open source project can be demanding. Just ask the maintainers on GitHub’s ReadME podcast. In a special episode of Compiler, we teamed up with ReadME’s Brian Douglas to learn more about the challenges open source maintainers face—and investigate why burnout seems to be so prevalent in the industry. Burnout’s always going to be a problem. But we can still try to avoid it. To do so, we wanted to understand the recipe for burnout: what factors could we identify that seem to bring it about? This episode’s guests share their own experiences and bring the weight of academic research to uncover the reasons too many of our beloved maintainers burn out.

Start-ups. Newly affluent neighborhoods. Overpriced coffee shops. Tech hubs evoke a lot of imagery, opinions, and emotions. Traditionally, if someone wanted a career in tech, they had to make the move to one of these cities. The influx of new people and new ideas into a city can cause shifts in discourse, culture, and power. After all, technology can transform people, and it can transform places, too. But things are starting to change. In this episode of Compiler, we unwrap what has made tech hubs into spaces of collaboration and creativity, and how that energy can alter cities over time. Lastly, we speak to a few of the change-makers who are thinking outside of the physical and social dimensions we’ve come to associate with innovation.

We’ve all encountered technical documentation: Readmes, product manuals, and how-to guides, to name a few. Some are good, some are not so good, and some are less than helpful. Open source communities often need more people to write and update their projects’ documentation—but it’s not an easy task. So why not help out?In this episode of Compiler, we find out why everyone should write at least a little bit of technical documentation. We speak to people who contributed to documentation to help, to learn, and even to start their careers in open source.If you want to get involved with Fedora—technical writing included—check out whatcanidoforfedora.org.