Shows / My Weird Prompts
My Weird Prompts
The human-AI collaboration podcast. A man, a sloth, and a donkey collaborate to create a podcast (with a little help from AI). No question is too obscure, no rabbit hole too deep. My Weird Prompts celebrates curiosity in all its forms. Daniel, the human, asks the questions that pop into his head at inconvenient moments. Corn the Sloth offers laid-back, thoughtful takes. Herman the Donkey brings boundless enthusiasm and energy. Together, they explore topics ranging from the mundane to the…
Episodes
My Weird PromptsWhy AI Emails Don't Sound Like You
ChatGPT's full Gmail support finally closes the loop: after OAuth authorization, it can summarize your inbox, find recipients, and send messages on your…
My Weird PromptsTen Beer Festivals, Ancient to Modern
Oktoberfest draws six million people to a meadow in Munich, but it's one entry in a tradition stretching back three thousand years. This episode tours ten of…
My Weird PromptsEgypt's 700,000-Pilgrim Party at Bubastis
Herodotus ranked the Festival of Bastet at Bubastis as the chiefest and most zealously celebrated of all Egyptian festivals — and claimed 700,000 pilgrims…
My Weird PromptsWhat Do You Picture When You Hear "Religious Jew"?
Ask almost anyone to picture a religious Jew and the same figure appears: black hat, long coat, beard, peyot. But walk through Jerusalem, Brooklyn, or Golders…
My Weird PromptsSix Thousand Years and a Deadline That Keeps Moving
The Talmud says the world exists for six thousand years. Maimonides made belief in the Messiah a mandatory principle of faith — and then cursed anyone who…
My Weird PromptsMessiah, Eschaton, and the AI Singularity
Judaism has a Messiah with no end of the world. Christianity has a Messiah who *is* the end. Islam has a Messiah, then the end. Hinduism and Buddhism have…
My Weird PromptsWhy Israel Feels Like a Country at War With Quiet
Israel is often described as chaotic, frenetic, loud — a culture with its own word for the mess: balagan. But why does a beach bar on the Tel Aviv promenade…
My Weird PromptsGreenland's 56,000 People, Two Big Powers, and One Vague Deal
The U.S. and Denmark expect to sign a Greenland security agreement on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly next week — but nobody outside the negotiating…
My Weird PromptsWhat "On the Sidelines" Actually Means in Diplomacy
When the Danish prime minister's office announced a three-party security agreement with the U.S. and Greenland as happening "on the sidelines" of the UN…
My Weird PromptsWhy the UN's Biggest Week Is All About the Sidelines
The UN General Assembly is technically in session all year, grinding through committee work with mid-level diplomats. So why does it transform into a…
My Weird PromptsForecasting for Cranes, Fires, and 15-Minute Decisions
Most of us check the weather by typing a city name into an app and getting a five-day strip of suns and clouds. But that public product is just the baseline —…
My Weird PromptsWhy Trades Still Say Apprentice, Journeyman, Master
The words apprentice, journeyman, and master survive intact almost nowhere except the manual trades — and that's not because the trades are old-fashioned. It's…
My Weird PromptsIronworking: From Rivet Gangs to Rebar Crews
Ironworking isn't one job — it's a family of trades stretching back to 1896, before the skyscraper boom made it famous. This episode traces the arc from…
My Weird PromptsClass, Caste, and the Boarding Pass
Why is class the one hierarchy we're not supposed to name out loud — yet airlines sell it to us at the gate, no apology required? This episode starts with a…
My Weird PromptsWhen "Politically Correct" Flipped Sides
Politically correct" didn't start on campus in the 1990s — it started in Marxist-Leninist party vocabulary, where being correct meant matching the party line…
My Weird PromptsThe Bankruptcy Stone and the Debtor Blacklist
A bankruptcy auction sounds degrading — until you compare it to the alternatives. This episode traces the history of public shaming in insolvency law, from…
My Weird PromptsThe Rise and Fall of the Aristocracy
Daniel's prompt asks why nobody says "aristocrat" anymore—and whether "the rich" or "the one percent" can really replace it. This episode pulls aristocracy…
My Weird PromptsHow Auction Insiders Find the $9,000 Forklift
Daniel asked how government auctions, liquidation sales, and bankruptcy auctions actually work — and more importantly, how the regulars know where to show up…
My Weird PromptsIran Is Rebuilding Parchin. Again.
The Institute for Science and International Security published annotated satellite imagery showing Iran rebuilding the Taleghan Two site at Parchin for the…
My Weird PromptsThe World's Weirdest Museums: Poop, Parasites, and Broken Hearts
What drives someone to build a museum around fossilized dung, tapeworms, or the objects left behind after a breakup? This week we tour the world's most niche…
My Weird PromptsCholera and the 3.4 Billion Without Safe Sanitation
Cholera kills within hours, costs cents to treat, and has been understood for 170 years — so why is it still spreading? This episode unpacks the two very…
My Weird PromptsThe Hidden History of Toilets and Sanitation
We assume sanitation is a straight line from filth to porcelain — but the archaeology says otherwise. Mohenjo-daro had covered drains and flush toilets 4,500…
My Weird PromptsTen Legal Loopholes Hiding in Plain Sight
A single word in a statute — "occupation" — lets London landlords dodge a billion pounds in business rates with nothing but empty cardboard boxes. This week we…
My Weird PromptsHow Screws Conquered the World
Screws, bolts, nuts, and washers hold the built world together — but the standardized, off-the-shelf fastener is far newer than most people assume. This…
My Weird PromptsThe Real Story Behind Lunch Atop a Skyscraper
Eleven men eating lunch on a steel beam, 850 feet above Manhattan — the most famous construction photo ever taken. But it wasn't the Empire State Building, it…
My Weird PromptsSteeplejacks, Linemen, and Tower Climbers
Daniel wants to know who climbs broadcast masts, transmission towers, and cathedral pinnacles for a living — so we went and found out. Steeplejacks rope-access…
My Weird PromptsWho Actually Works on a Live 765kV Line?
Watching footage of linemen in Faraday suits sitting on live half-million-volt conductors raises an obvious question: who signs up for this? The answer is more…
My Weird PromptsOne Box of VESA Mounts, Three Wrong Assumptions
A moving box full of mystery VESA mounts turns into a tour of what's actually standardized and what isn't. The plate pattern on the back of your monitor has…
My Weird PromptsA Shabbat Radio That Can't Be Paused
What if a podcast player had no controls at all? In this episode, we explore a listener's prototype for a Shabbat-friendly radio: a Raspberry Pi that pulls…
My Weird PromptsCatching Duplicate Submissions Before They Burn Credits
When a webhook fires but the response never arrives, the form looks like it failed — so you resubmit, and now the pipeline is running the same job twice. This…
My Weird PromptsWhat Makes a Bar a Third Place?
A 37-year-old listener named Daniel went looking for a quiet Jerusalem bar where he could actually hear his friend talk — and couldn't find one. This episode…
My Weird PromptsSelfie Sticks vs Drone Law: The 10-Meter Limit
Drone rules attach to aircraft, not to sticks — so a camera on a telescopic pole sits in a genuine legal gap. But the physics closes it fast: stiffness falls…
My Weird PromptsRetention by the Numbers: Who Actually Trains Their People?
We assume structured learning and development is an enterprise luxury — dedicated HR teams, corporate universities, formal budget lines. The data tells a more…
My Weird PromptsWhen to Keep Old Tech for Parts (and When to Let Go)
Daniel built a home inventory system that rivals commercial asset management platforms — and it surfaced a problem he didn't expect. The system knows…
My Weird PromptsHow New Is the Air You're Breathing?
It started with a joke about selling holy air from Jerusalem in little vials — and turned into a real question about whether air can be sealed, preserved, and…
My Weird PromptsFrom Millimeters to Atoms: The Units of Small
The millimeter is the last measurement most humans can actually see and feel — roughly the limit of the naked eye at reading distance. But the moment you're…
My Weird PromptsWhere Does Micro-Engraving Actually Begin?
Daniel wants to know where the line sits between engraving and micro-engraving, soldering and micro-soldering. The answer turns out to be messier than anyone…
My Weird PromptsNossa Razão Não É um Pote de Ouro — É Uma Peneira Cheia de Buraco
Baseado no livro "Introdução ao Conhecimento Logosófico", capítulo "Fundamentos de uma Ética Superior". Ronny reflete sobre como cada pessoa é, na prática, "de…
My Weird PromptsFocus Stacking Without the Phone App Guesswork
Phone camera apps default to three focus points, but at macro magnifications the depth of field is a fraction of a millimeter — a five centimeter object needs…
My Weird PromptsRebuilding the Dremel 4250 Manual for One Task
Most tool manuals serve the manufacturer's lawyers, not the person holding the tool. This episode takes that problem seriously: build a system prompt that…
My Weird PromptsInside the Certifications You Can Never Study For
Most certifications are portable — you earn them, you keep them, they travel with you. But there's an entire category of credentials designed to never leave…
My Weird PromptsLiving in a Building That Pretends to Be Full
A listener's friend moved into a high-rise with a staffed security desk, a spotless lobby, and working elevators — and it took weeks to notice almost nobody…
My Weird PromptsWhat It's Like Living Next Door to a Prime Minister
What is it actually like to live a few doors down from a head of state? Not as a thought experiment, but as a daily reality. Drawing on first-person reporting…
My Weird PromptsPrivate Cyber Skills vs. Government Ops
Daniel asked what happens when someone moves from private-sector cybersecurity into government work — and why almost nobody writes about that direction…
My Weird PromptsSystem Prompt Order Is Load-Bearing
Daniel wrote in about his spam sinkhole agent — the classifier that hands pseudo-personalized spam to a second agent whose job is to keep the spammer talking…
My Weird PromptsFighting Fake-Personalized Spam With AI Sinkholes
Pseudo-personalized spam is the new inbox tax: messages that scrape your public work, fake a personal connection, and pivot to a one-sided ask. This episode…
My Weird PromptsChurchill's McKinsey Interview: When Oratory Meets the Case
What happens when the greatest orator of the twentieth century applies for an entry-level consulting job? This episode dissects Churchill's rhetorical rules —…
My Weird PromptsWho's Actually Allowed Into North Korea?
North Korea publishes no tourism data, so every visitor number is an estimate built on estimates. This episode separates the two visitor economies that get…
My Weird PromptsWhat Imports-to-GDP Actually Tells You
The imports-to-GDP ratio sounds like it should measure trade balance, but it doesn't — it measures openness. Hong Kong sits above 178%, the US at 14%, and…
My Weird PromptsCan You Legally Call Yourself "The Most Noble"?
What actually stops you from calling yourself The Most Noble Daniel of Jerusalem? It turns out the answer is stranger than expected: in the UK, selling a title…
My Weird PromptsSelling Holy Air and Moon Deeds
What do lunar land deeds, vials of Irish soil, and sealed bags of Banff mountain air have in common? They're all legal products that sell something other than…
My Weird PromptsThe Trump Interview Playbook: A Filing Job, Five Rhetorical Patterns
Donald Trump in the interviewer's chair for an entry-level filing position — that's the absurd container for this episode's real work: taking apart the…
My Weird PromptsThe Empty Cup Is a Timer: Rethinking Remote Work Spaces
Every remote worker runs the same playbook — find a cafe, buy a latte, stretch it. But the playbook is self-defeating: density breeds conspicuousness, and…
My Weird PromptsThe Skill of Expecting Less (But Not the Worst)
Daniel asked this week: what have researchers and thinkers actually said about tempering expectations? The answer runs through an 18-year study of 1,600…
My Weird PromptsDo Airline Safety Demos Actually Save Lives?
The pre-flight safety demo is legally mandated, universally performed, and almost universally ignored by the people who've seen it most. So does it actually…
My Weird PromptsGrass, Road, or Water: Where Does a Crippled Jet Land?
A forced-choice scenario: an A320 or 737 is in serious trouble, and the crew has three options — a grass runway long enough for the landing weight, a road with…
My Weird PromptsWhy Talking Robots Are Really a Committee
When a humanoid talks, walks, and picks up a cup in one smooth interaction, it looks like a single mind at work. It isn't. Under the hood, most deployed robots…
My Weird PromptsWhen the Interviewer Isn't Real
Companies are deploying AI avatars as job interviewers, and in most cases candidates aren't told. This episode digs into the disclosure toggle that ships off…
My Weird PromptsWhy Bright Lights Make Fog Worse
You've got the flares. You've got the vest. Nobody told you where to put them, what pattern to use, or why a bright LED can actually hide your car in fog. This…
My Weird PromptsThe Mountain, the Message: Nuclear Tests as Diplomacy
Since 1945, the world has conducted over two thousand nuclear detonations—but how many were about physics, and how many were about politics? This episode…