Sowjanya Pandruju, Cloud Application Architect with Amazon Web Services, Vice Chair of the IEEE Computer Society Madison Section, and Chair of the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Madison Section (Region 4), speaks with SE Radio host Gavin Henry about managing agent state. Sowjanya discusses what agents are and are not, what agent state is, the role an LLM actually plays, why agents need state, the different types of state, where to store agent state, how multi-agents change things, and the solutions to the various challenges created by managing agent state.

Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Paul Thurrott gets hands-on with NVIDIA's new RTX Spark AI PCs and reveals why all that power isn't translating into practical results for certain users. Expect strong opinions and a few surprises about the state of local AI on computers. Plus, Tolaria is a free, open source, vibe-coded replacement for Notion that's based on Markdown files. And now it's on mobile too! Llama Windows is also free/open source and natively supports Windows 11 on Arm and RTX Spark. It may be the easiest way to interact with local AI on Windows.

Windows

• Microsoft discusses second round of pain points updates for Windows 11, starting with a new Photos app plus the ability to work well with just 8 GB of RAM
• Six (!) new builds, including two to the Release Preview Channel
• Microsoft Edge is working towards no-reboot updates
• Opera Air gets a nice refresh
• The Proton roadmap is spectacular
• RTX Spark: HP OmniBook Ultra 16
• RTX Spark: Lenovo Pro 9n 15
• RTX Spark: ASUS ProArt P16 arrives with 128 GB of RAM

Microsoft 365

• OneDrive is getting a Copilot-infused upgrade for files and photos in the AI era

AI/dev

• RTX Spark hands-on: Local AI is more frustrating than useful
• Microsoft is working on a comprehensive strategy to secure AI agents
• OpenAI releases an AI coding model for Visual Basic, other older programming languages

XBOX and gaming

• Report: Project Helix starts with a gaming handheld in 2027, not a console, with a new console in 2028
• Microsoft reveals standalone Cloud Gaming costs - 10 hours for $3.99, 25 for $7.99, 50 for $11.99
• ASUS ROG XBOX Ally X20 is here for $1300 and up
• ASUS ROG XBOX Ally X20 is here for $1300 and up
• AMD is bringing FSR Upscaling 4.1 to XBOX consoles, ROG XBOX Ally
• Final Fantasy VII Remake is the star of the late October Game Pass releases
• NVIDIA touts games already optimized for RTX Spark
• XBOX highlights new indie titles coming to PC, console, and Game Pass over the next year
• EA is shutting down BioWare

Tips and picks

• App pick of the week: Tolaria
• App pick of the week #2: Llama Windows
• RunAs Radio this week: OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications with Will Velida
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Ardnahoe Inaugural Release 5 Year Old

Hosts: Paul Thurrott, Richard Campbell, and Mikah Sargent

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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Summary

In this episode, Andy talks with John Tarnoff, an executive career transition coach, TEDx speaker, and founder of the Mid-Career Lab. After 35 years in Hollywood as an agent, studio executive, and film producer, John found himself starting over at 50 when his tech startup collapsed. He likes to say he's been fired 39% of the time, and he built his second act around helping experienced professionals reinvent their careers.

John and Andy discuss why losing a job is an event rather than a failure, and how to talk about it with honesty and a sense of humor in your next interview. You'll hear the difference between a network and a community, how to make networking feel less transactional, and why every conversation, including the job interview, is a networking event. They also explore claiming a niche while staying adaptable, quieting the inner voice of self-directed ageism, and using AI in your job search without sounding like everyone else.

If you're looking for practical, hopeful insights on navigating a mid-career transition, this episode is for you!

Sound Bites

• "It's always a kick in the gut."
• "Job loss is right up there with major losses like death and divorce."
• "Losing a job isn't a failure. It is an event, and it is potentially a lesson."
• "Your network is everyone in your Rolodex, virtual or real. They will be the ones who will stand by and watch you fail."
• "A community is a subset. They understand you, identify with you, they're rooting for you, they will chip in and help you succeed."
• "Your resume, which is your LinkedIn experience section, is your bio."
• "You want to use that About section as a call to conversation."
• "Every conversation, at the end of the day, is a networking event."
• "So people hire people, they don't hire skills."
• "Very often your superpower is something that you don't even understand that you do."
• "Polish in an interview can sometimes work against you."
• "There's always an opportunity to turn your life around."

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:26 Start of Interview
• 02:33 Shifting Focus from Projects to People
• 06:15 The Story We Tell Ourselves After Losing a Job
• 10:50 Getting Fired Is an Event, Not a Failure
• 12:46 The Difference Between a Network and a Community
• 16:44 Making Networking Feel Less Transactional
• 21:03 Every Conversation Is a Networking Event
• 23:11 People Hire People, Not Skills
• 24:03 Claiming a Niche While Staying T-Shaped
• 27:03 How John Discovered His Superpower
• 30:44 Signs You Haven't Reconciled Your Past
• 34:14 Blaming, Justifying, and Taking Responsibility
• 37:40 Ageism and the Inner Voice That Says You're Slowing Down
• 41:22 Reinvention Is a Mindset, Not a Number
• 42:35 Using AI Without Flattening Your Voice
• 45:53 The Mid-Career Lab
• 48:03 Helping Kids Think About Identity, Setbacks, and Reinvention
• 49:50 Sampling Life Like a Buffet
• 50:30 End of Interview
• 51:11 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 55:02 Outtakes

Learn More

You can learn more about John and his work at MidCareerLab.com. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn, and while you're there, check out how he uses his About section.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 261 with David Epstein. His book Range came up several times in this conversation about generalists, specialists, and the value of sampling.
• Episode 318 with John Stepper. It's a great follow-up to this episode, with practical ideas on building your network and personal brand.
• Episode 310 with Jeff Gothelf about how to make yourself forever employable by building the well before you're thirsty.
• Episode 374 with Catherine Kaputa, who shares lessons on personal branding and making a big change across industries.

Chat with PMeLa

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

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Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Career Transition, Reinvention, Job Loss, Networking, Community, Personal Branding, LinkedIn, Interviewing, Ageism, Artificial Intelligence, Mid-Career, Leadership

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Awakening by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Dave and Chris catch up on appliance repair nightmares, major career announcements, and hardware security threats. Dave shares his frustration attempting to fix a top-of-the-line Miele washing machine door interlock, while Chris recalls diagnosing a failed dishwasher sump pump. Chris then announces his new role as Developer Relations Lead at Hubble Network%, detailing their hybrid terrestrial and satellite Bluetooth infrastructure. The discussion shifts to semiconductor physics with Dave’s video on light erasing LCD pixels, cybersecurity supply chain vulnerabilities on Ledger crypto hardware wallets, AI voice-changing phone scams, the official End-Of-Life (EOL) of the Zilog Z80 microcontroller, running WebAssembly SDRs on an ESP32-S3, and open-source silicon with Bunnie Huang’s daBao RISC-V chip.

Timeline

• Dave and Chris kick off the episode complaining about persistent microphone and gain issues in the studio. (00:00:30)
• Dave details his ordeal trying to find spare parts for a failed Miele W1 washing machine door interlock teardown. (00:01:15)
• They reminisce about washing machine “fuzzy logic” marketing from back in the day compared to modern AI buzzwerds. (00:01:45)
• Dave breaks down the complex mechanical solenoid interlock required by European safety standards and the pain of shipping delays. (00:02:45)
• Discussing the economics of white goods repair: repair technician quotes ($1,300 interlock + mainboard) versus buying a brand-new appliance. (00:06:15)
• Chris shares his own recent experience diagnosing a failed sump pump on an 8-year-old dishwasher. (00:08:45)
• Comparing basic household appliance automation to the extreme complexity and risks of home humanoid robots. (00:11:15)
• The mystery of dishwasher wash cycles: why the 1-hour power wash uses less water than the eco mode according to the display. (00:12:45)
• Chris announces “things are looking up” with his new role as Developer Relations Lead at Hubble Network, following up on Episode 728 with Alex Haro. (00:14:15)
• Overview of Hubble’s hybrid Bluetooth architecture: a terrestrial network using 100M+ participating devices alongside satellite relays. (00:15:00)
• How standard 2.4 GHz Bluetooth commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) chips use FSK narrowband modulation to transmit data directly to orbit. (00:17:30)
• Satellite link budgets and power requirements: dropping from +20 dBm external preamps today down to +4 dBm for next-gen satellites. (00:19:00)
• Reviewing Hubble’s terrestrial hexagon coverage map and plans to scale from CubeSats to larger, more sensitive satellites. (00:19:45)
• How background location partner apps like Life360 help backhaul terrestrial Bluetooth advertisements. (00:21:00)
• Satellite overpasses in North America (1–2 passes per day) and developer tooling for calculating satellite pass windows. (00:23:00)
• Chris reflects on his 5-year tenure at Canonical (makers of Ubuntu) and staying dynamic in tech careers. (00:24:15)
• A look at corporate identity: why Canonical kept its name rather than renaming to match its famous Ubuntu brand. (00:26:30)
• Dave explains his video on erasing LCD pixels with light, diving into TFT storage capacitors and amorphous silicon band gap physics. (00:27:45)
• Chris accidentally drops a Seeed Studio 60 GHz radar heartbeat monitor live in the lab while discussing physics. (00:30:00)
• Teaching kids about physics: Dave shares how bringing a thermal camera into a kindergarten class demonstrated invisible light through a garbage bag. (00:33:45)
• Nostalgic action movies that hold up: Predator, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park’s “spare no expense” practical effects. (00:36:00)
• Supply chain security issues explained: physical interception, seed phrase theft, and hardware wallet tampering. (00:38:00)
• Elaborate hardware wallet scams: pre-printed fake seed phrase sheets, shipping company database breaches, and bogus CEO replacement letters. (00:41:45)
• Credit card skimmers at gas pumps, fake ATM front panels, and a $100M supply chain hack via a Malaysian authorized reseller NDA purchase. (00:43:30)
• The rise of AI voice-changing phone scams: Dave’s 25-minute call with scammers impersonating Australian Federal Police using real-time voice translation. (00:47:15)
• Open-source CAD updates: the new FreeCAD release, plain-text CAD workflows, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations. (00:51:00)
• Dave’s video on getting paid $175/hr to eliminate your own PCB design job and single-prompt automated PCB/schematic generation tools. (00:53:00)
• Reflecting on Episode 736 with Eric Pan and how Shenzhen manufacturing automation connects with AI hardware design outputs. (00:56:00)
• Hacked YouTube creator channels (Kiss Analog & Learning Electronics Repair): session cookie hijacking via fake CAPTCHas on vintage datasheet websites. (00:57:30)
• The end of an era: Littlefuse / IXYS officially places the iconic Zilog Z80 microcontroller on End-Of-Life (EOL) after 50 years. (01:01:00)
• Asianometry’s video on Exxon’s Office Fling detailing Zilog’s history and Exxon’s foray into office automation. (01:02:45)
• Modern browser capabilities: running Xbox games in browser windows via WebGPU and browser-based emulation. (01:04:00)
• Chris’s internal prototyping tool: running Python in WebAssembly via WebSerial to process raw 2.4 GHz IQ data from an ESP32-S3 as a browser-based SDR. (01:04:45)
• Dave and Chris add an ESP32 footprint to the Micro Timer project, opening up the possibility of connecting the timer directly to space. (01:09:15)
• Crowd Supply versus Kickstarter: Mouser integration and Bunnie Huang’s custom daBao RISC-V co-processor products on Crowd Supply (why the daBaos were late). Cross-links to past interviews with [Bunnie Huang (Episode 260)]](https://theamphour.com/230-an-interview-with-bunnie-huang/) and Sean ‘xobs’ Cross (Episode 521). (01:12:00)
• The open-source versus closed-source silicon security debate: why full RTL transparency doesn’t automatically prevent hardware exploits. (01:16:30)
• Show wrap-up and a sneak peek at next week’s interview with the CTO of Ambiq. (01:17:30)