In Conversation

Show Notes: Episode 15

The fans continue to support us, the media can’t ignore us, our critics bore us. This convo spits mad heat, so watch yourself.

This Week in Star Trek

Star Trek was Totally Not Gay

Star Trek producerBrannon Braga says he regrets not featuring openly gay characters in the franchise.

“There were people who felt very strongly that we should be showing casually, you know, just two guys together in the background in Ten Forward. At the time, the decision was made not to do that and I think those same people would make a different decision now because I think, you know, that was 1989, well yeah about ‘89, ‘90, ‘91. I have no doubt that those same creative players wouldn’t feel so hesitant to have, you know, have been squeamish about a decision like that.”

In Conversation Gives Back

We want to thank the fans.  Here’s to Cyril Schauland, Alberta Howey, and Aaron Merrill.

You too can get a shout-out by reblogging the show, leaving a comment, writing a review, or suggesting a story.

Weird Science

To Tired for the Truth

“Too tired to tell the truth: Self-control resource depletion and dishonesty” from Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 45, Issue 3, May 2009:

The opportunity to profit from dishonesty evokes a motivational conflict between the temptation to cheat for selfish gain and the desire to act in a socially appropriate manner[…]Results indicate that dishonesty increases when people’s capacity to exert self-control is impaired, and that people may be particularly vulnerable to this effect because they do not predict it.

Beautiful People Have More Daughters

Satoshi Kanazawa, London School of Economics

physically more attractive parents are indeed more likely to have daughters than physically less attractive parents[…]Being physically attractive at age 7 increases the odds of having a daughter by 23% or decreases the odds of having a son by 19%.  Similarly, net of the same control variables, being physically unattractive at age 7 decreases the odds of having a daughter by 20% or increases the odds of having a son by 25%.

Lesbian-Dar

“Female sexual orientation is perceived accurately, rapidly, and automatically from the face and its features” from Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 45, Issue 6, November 2009:

Whereas previous work has shown that male sexual orientation can be accurately and rapidly perceived from the human face and its individual features, no study has examined the judgment of female sexual orientation. To fill this gap, the current work examined the accuracy, speed, and automaticity of judgments of female sexual orientation from the face and from facial features. Study 1 showed that female sexual orientation could be accurately judged from the face and from just eyes without brows and limited to the outer canthi. Study 2 then examined the speed and efficiency of these judgments, showing that judgments of the faces following very brief, near subliminal (40 ms) exposures were significantly better than chance guessing. Finally, Study 3 tested the automaticity of judgments of female sexual orientation by examining the effects of deliberation on accuracy. Participants who made snap judgments of female sexual orientation were significantly more accurate than participants who made thoughtful and deliberated judgments. These data therefore evidence a robust, reliable, and automatic capacity for extracting information about female sexual orientation from nonverbal cues in the face.

Suppression of Information

Egypt Blocking Social Networks

Jared Cohen of Google Ideas said via Twitter:

One Egyptian says, “facebook used to set the date, twitter used to share logistics, youtube to show the world, all to connect people” #jan25

KFC Recipe Leaked

Video Games with Cord Blomquist

Angry Birds is the Shit

When you’re girlfriend won’t give the iPhone back because she can’t stop playing, you know you’ve found a game that isn’t just for gamers.

Help In Conversation Grow

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Nerd Rage

Litigation is Futile

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), with the cooperation of Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, has quietly shuttered 12 torrent websites in the U.S. and at least 39 sites abroad by filing copyright violation complaints with the sites’ hosting providers.

[…]

The specific URLs are not being released because frequently the affected sites will spring up elsewhere online under a different TLD (e.g., TorrentMovies.com becomes TorrentMovies.info).

Releasing the names of the sites would make it much easier for users to find their new URLs in the future.

This news, while interesting and concerning, is a far cry from the70-plus sites shut down by the Department of Homeland Security last November, the culmination of a brewing crackdown effort.

iPad Newspapers!

News Corp.’s iPad-exclusive newspaper, The Daily, will launch next week at an event in New York City.

The company sent an invitation to reporters Thursday morning. The launch will take place midmorning on Feb. 2 at New York’s iconic Guggenheim museum. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch will be at the event, along with Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) Internet services executive Eddy Cue.

Show Notes: Episode 14

This week we do what we do every week, talk some nerdy-ass shit.

This Week in Star Trek

Sulu, Song, and Civil Rights

As guest narrator for “Sci-Fi Spectacular,” the debut program on the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2011 Pops Season calendar, veteran actor George Takei[…] shared with the audience some of the groundbreaking elements of the 1966-69 television series “Star Trek,” which he credited to series creator Gene Roddenberry. 

“During a time in which the civil rights movement was in full swing, the Enterprise’s chief communications officer, Lt. Uhura, was an African-American,” said Takei. “The Cold War was still far from over, and our navigator was a Russian. And with the war in Vietnam reaching a head, my character — Sulu, the ship’s helmsman — was of Asian descent. Back in the middle 1960s, this was almost unheard of.”

In Conversation Gives Back

We want to thank the fans.  Here’s to Keven Poorman, Kacey Anne, Alex Sherfey, and Leisha Tagami.

You too can get a shout-out by reblogging the show, leaving a comment, writing a review, or suggesting a story.

Political Nerd

House of Drupal

The House is moving its 520 websites to the Drupal open-source platform and the 93 freshmen members will get the new platform first.

A flexible Drupal hosting platform is now the preferred Web hosting environment for House websites, according to a Sources Sought notice posted online recently by Dan Strodel, chief administrative officer of the House.

Which Type of Hardball?

Will Google’s Eric Schmidt recast himself as Google’s anti-antitrust man?  Or will he take on a new career at middle age?  The New York Post had this to say:

Sources say the outspoken chief, who broke the news that he’s passing the CEO title to 37-year-old co-founder Larry Page in a sarcastic tweet — “Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!” — has been consulting with CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” executive producer Liza McGuirk on developing a show featuring himself as host.

But was Schmidt ever really in control at Google?  Gruber posted this Schmidt quote from 2009:

One day Larry and Sergey bought Android, and I didn’t even notice. Think about the strategic opportunities that has created. Sergey found Google Earth one day while he was surfing on the Web. And then he walked into my office and told me he bought them. And I said, “For how much, Sergey?” And it turned out to be a few million.

Search Neutrality

“Neutrality” — if it’s good enough for the core of the internet, isn’t it good enough for the edge? The biggest Internet providers say it is — and would love to have the government slap a few neutrality rules on Google, just to see how the advertising giant likes the taste of the regulatory bridle. But is it the same thing? NYU Law professor James Grimmelmann ran through eight main principles that underlie various ‘search neutrality’ arguments. He found every one of them ‘incoherent.’

 Spiritual Nerd

Regrets of the Dying

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. 

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. 

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Terrifying Military Tech

Gorgons Gone Bad

It’s the one of the most revolutionary — and one of the most chilling — weapons to come out of America’s decade of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Gorgon Stare, a new “all-seeing” camera system for aerial drones, is supposed to boost U.S. surveillance by an order of magnitude, by installing a hive of nine or more cameras under the wing of an Air Force Reaper drone. Gorgon Stare-equipped Reapers are meant to watch over a “city-size” area, while also simultaneously sending video feeds to dozens of “customers” on the ground.

Military analyst Winslow Wheeler, the 53rd Wing at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida revealed in a draft report dated Dec. 30 alleged problems like poor-quality video, glitches in the process for downloading video streams, and a small problem of the drone blinding itself with a laser.

The layout of the underwing pod puts it in the way of the Reaper’s nose-mounted ranging laser, meaning Reaper remote pilots could accidentally “lase” and blind their own cameras.

…cameras are ”marginally sufficient to track vehicles” but “not sufficient to track dismounts”

…imagery is “subject to gaps between stitching areas [where the camera images meet], which manifests itself as a large black triangle moving throughout the image”

…Gorgon Stare “cannot reliably find and track human  targets; it has additional problems for moving targets, and the random location inaccuracy makes the system virtually unusable for prosecuting even stationary targets”

Video Games with Cord Blomquist

Angry Birds is the Shit

When you’re girlfriend won’t give the iPhone back because she can’t stop playing, you know you’ve found a game that isn’t just for gamers.

Nerds in Time

Nice Cans

This week in 1935, the first can of beer was sold:

The first canned beer in the United States goes on sale in Richmond, Virginia. By the end of the year, 37 breweries follow the lead of the Gottfried Krueger Brewery.

The American Can Co. began experimenting with canned beer in 1909. But the cans couldn’t withstand the pressure from carbonation — up to 80 pounds per square inch — and exploded. Just before the end of the Prohibition in 1933, the company developed a “keg-lining” technique, coating the inside of the can the same as a keg.

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Nerd Rage

The Internet Makes You Dumb, You Jerk

Has high-speed Internet made you impatient with slow-speed children?

Do you sometimes think about reaching for the fast-forward button, only to realize that life does not come with a remote control?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, exposure to technology may be slowly reshaping your personality. Some experts believe excessive use of the Internet, cellphones and other technologies can cause us to become more impatient, impulsive, forgetful and even more narcissistic.

Pope is Predictably Creepy

Pope Benedict XVI set out his views on social networking in a message entitled, “Truth, proclamation and authenticity of life in the digital age.”

He said the possibilities of new media and social networks offered “a great opportunity,” but warned of the risks of depersonalization, alienation, self-indulgence, and the dangers of having more virtual friends than real ones.

“It is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives,” Benedict said in the message for the Catholic Church’s World Day of Communications.

Real Science & Meditation

Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain’s grey matter.

Amishi Jha, PhD, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training’s effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, “These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training. They demonstrate that the first-person experience of stress can not only be reduced with an 8-week mindfulness training program but that this experiential change corresponds with structural changes in the amydala, a finding that opens doors to many possibilities for further research on MBSR’s potential to protect against stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Show Notes: Episode 13

This show is about how we don’t believe in luck, especially any unlucky vibes that might come from doing our 13th episode.  No, instead we believe in nothing.  That’s right, Lebowski, nothing.

This Week in Star Trek

Google Unveils Universal Translator

Today’s alpha release of Conversation Mode offers translation between English and Spanish using an Android device.

From within Conversation Mode, you can press the microphone to select their language and start speaking. Google Translate then translates that speech and reads the translation out loud. The second speaker can then respond in his or her language and be heard.

Nerds on Tech

Will Android Destroy Windows?

Asus has confirmed that three of its upcoming tablets will run the next version of the Google mobile operating system, Android 3.0. aka Honeycomb.

[…]

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is running Android version 2.2 Froyo, and will be upgradable when Honeycomb is officially released. Motorola’s Xoom tablet will launch with Honeycomb in the spring.

Windows Everywhere, Then Nowhere

This year, dozens of companies will ship Windows 7-based tablets and they will all fail. Instead, consumers will continue buying iPads, and they will buy Android-based tablets (and, possibly, the RIM PlayBook), because those products, unlike Windows tablets, have been created specifically for that market.

International Nerd

While pundits are saying that the Chinese “planned capitalism” system might be superior to the United States, Time and the Daily Mail show us these photos of Chinese ghost towns.

Weird Science

23andMe’s Top Findings of the Year

It’s Good to be Pear Shaped:

“Apples”, whose weight concentrates around their middles, appear to be at greater risk for developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes than their pear counterparts.

White People are Neanderthals (Asians Too):

Neanderthal DNA consistently matched European and Asian samples better than it did African; the difference was small, but consistent. It suggested that the Neanderthals, which were restricted to Europe and Asia at the time modern humans originated in Africa, had interbred with humans once they began migrating out of Africa.

Latino Genetic Variety:

In the case of association studies, the name of the game is to study two groups of people who differ only with respect to whether they have the disease of interest or not; people in the disease group should have the same mix of age, gender, ancestry, etc. as in the non-disease group. The genetic diversity of Latin American populations may hinder such studies because of the difficulty in building genetically-matched groups.

Web-Based Research Works:

In this peer-reviewed paper 23andMe confirmed that self-reported data from customers has the potential to yield data of comparable quality as data gathered using traditional research methods, moving scientific research forward, faster.

Over 9,000 people contributed data to the study of 22 separate traits. Novel SNP associations were revealed for hair curl, asparagus anosmia (the inability to detect the scent of certain asparagus metabolites in urine), the photic sneeze reflex (the tendency to sneeze when entering bright light), and freckling. Previously identified genetic associations between nine genes and certain pigmentation-related traits (hair color, eye color, and freckling) were replicated.

The Science Behind a Good Marriage

Self-Expansion is the Key to a Happy Home:

While the notion of self-expansion may sound inherently self-serving, it can lead to stronger, more sustainable relationships, Dr. Lewandowski says.

“If you’re seeking self-growth and obtain it from your partner, then that puts your partner in a pretty important position,” he explains. “And being able to help your partner’s self-expansion would be pretty pleasing to yourself.”

The Michelangelo Effect:

Research suggests that spouses eventually adopt the traits of the other — and become slower to distinguish differences between them, or slower to remember which skills belong to which spouse.

Support the Show

Please Review us on iTunes. If you’ve got something to share with us, leave a comment here or suggest a story using the link the sidebar.

And hey, be a pal and tell someone about the show.  That’s how we grow and if your friend subscribes, that’s a gift that keeps on giving.

Nerd Rage

Breaking News: Email is More Widely Used Than Facebook

As of May 2010, U.S. mobile users spent more time sending or reading e-mail on their phones than any other internet-enabled mobile activity (comprising 38.5% of mobile internet time spent). Social media was a distant second (10.7%) and reading news/current events was third (7.2%).

Make Jimmy Wales Go Away

Are you never tempted to take advertising? If not, why not?

No, not at all. We like being supported by small donors. It’s good for Wikipedia and good for the world.

Except that we have to see your damned face all over Wikipedia, which is way worse than a few ads.

Show Notes: Episode 12

This show is about the new year, the new Tron, and new reasons for nerds to be angry.

This Week in Star Trek

80-Year-Old Publish Trek Guide

As the writer of the six-book series “Star Trek Reader’s Reference to the Novels,” the 70-year-old with several advanced degrees has read and summarized nearly 80 Trek-themed novels. You could say she’s gone where no woman has gone before.

For years, she taught a college-level science fiction class based on “Star Trek.” She retired in 1998 from her post at a Midwestern community college, where she taught for 27 years, following eight years at the grade school level.

Verizon Says “Think Star Trek”

Analysts say that in the coming months, as popular smartphones like the iPhone begin to migrate to other carriers, wireless carriers will have to rely on pushing their network as a key way to lure new subscribers and retain the ones they have.

Before closing out the session, [Ivan Seidenberg, the chairman and chief executive of Verizon Wireless] advised attendees that when thinking about the future of Verizon Wireless to “think Star Trek,” he quipped.

Avatar Kinect is Poor Man’s Holodeck

This new software allows for really dork avatar-to-avatar meetings online, but could be awesome for people who would like to do some computer animation, but don’t have any technical skills.

Home Town Hero

Amazing Memory Man

60 Minutes recently aired a special on people with hyperthymesia, or superior autobiographical memory.

The first person ever identified with this ability is Jill Price, who says she feels haunted by the never-ending stream of memories and hasn’t wanted to meet any of the others.

Next was Brad Williams, a radio news anchor and reporter from La Crosse, Wis., who isn’t bothered by his memory. He says it comes in handy at work and playing trivia games.

Things the participants had in common:

• Able to remember specific days of their lives by date
• Enjoy categorizing their memories
• Hypochondria
• All three men are lefties
• None are in long-term relationship aside from Marilu Henner, but she is twice divorced

One study participant said, “Because I know that I’m gonna remember whatever happens today, it’s like, all right, what can I do to make today significant? What can I do that is gonna make today stand out?”

Home State Zeroes

Mythomatic

The Hipstamatic backstory is lore in the Hipsta community. The story starts in North Central Wisconsin in 1982 where brothers Bruce and Winston Dorbowski came up with an idea for bringing photography to the masses cheaply. Inspired by an old Russian plastic camera and the Kodak Instamatic, they worked from their small riverfront cabin, developing and hand-producing the all-plastic cameras which they called Hipstamatic.

In 1984, Bruce and Winston were supposedly killed by a drunk driver on their way home from signing a lease on a new building that would have been their manufacturing plant. The Hipstamatic was never mass produced.

Nerds on the Aisle

Tron Guy Shut Down by Big Cinema

TRON Guy a.k.a. Jay Maynard was told to keep his costume at home. Though he’s been doing his internet gig since 2004, theater management though insisted that he would not be allowed to see the movie if he came in his suit. Maynard believes because his fabulous costume is “too distracting” because it lights up.

Rare Exports

What’s more metal than demonic Santa? This premiered on the 22nd in DC at the Landmark E Street Cinema, so Jerry and I will be seeing it soon and will present our review on the show.

The King’s Speech - Historical Fiction

The critically acclaimed King’s Speech is riddled with errors.  First and foremost it fails to inform the viewer that David, a.k.a. Edward VIII, was a Nazi sympathizer:

And, as a way of presenting his political views, we see him make a single foolish comment about the Nazis. What the film never mentions is that Edward VIII was an ardent admirer of Hitler and of fascism, and a proponent of appeasement long after Germany moved onto Polish soil and hostilities began in earnest. Edward lived in continental Europe with Simpson after abdicating; following the German invasion of France, he absurdly asked the Nazis to look after his house. Eventually, the British government convinced the couple to move to the Bahamas, where he became governor. The idea was to keep the pair far away from the Nazis so as to prevent Edward from cutting any deals with Hitler.

The film also neglects to tell us that Churchill supported Edward throughout the abdication crisis.

Finally, Bertie is shown as concerned about the Nazis before becoming king in 1936, but actually fully endorsed Chamberlain’s plan of appeasement, going so far as to violate royal protocol and invite him to the balcony of Buckingham Palace after he gave a significant chunk of Europe to Hitler.

The Movie That Could Have Been:

A king fights against a stutter and his dastardly, treasonous brother, while eventually sloughing off his old instincts for appeasement. He even overcomes his distaste for Winston Churchill—the politician who bent over backward for that very same brother—and lends his steadfast support to Churchill’s aggressive policy against fascism.

Nerd Rage

Jack Cafferty: Internet is for News

We - meaning those of us in television news - may soon go the way of the dinosaurs.

A new report shows that the Internet is gaining on television as Americans’ main source of national and international news.

The Pew survey shows overall 41% of those polled say they get their news from the Internet - that’s up 17 percent from just three years ago.

Television still tops the list as the main news source at 66%, but that number is down significantly from 82% as recently as 2002.

NewSouth Books Teaches America’s Schoolchildren the Meaning of Irony

NewSouth Books’ announcement that it is bringing out a desecrated edition of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” — in which faceless editors at this distinctly vanilla-flavored publisher will have excised every one of Mark Twain’s brilliantly seditious employments of the evil word “nigger” — has caught the fleeting notice of bloggers and pundits around the country.

Anti-Vaccine Quacks Must Be Stopped

The British medical journal BMJ, which published the results of its investigation, concluded Dr. Andrew Wakefield misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study — and that there was “no doubt” Wakefield was responsible. The journalist who wrote the BMJ articles said Thursday he believes Wakefield should face criminal charges.

However, Wakefield said his work has been “grossly distorted.” Speaking on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” he said Wednesday he is the target of “a ruthless, pragmatic attempt to crush any attempt to investigate valid vaccine safety concerns.”

Anderson Cooper Must Be Stopped

After thousands of birds mysteriously fell out of the sky in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve, it was only natural that Anderson Cooper turned to an expert for an explanation.  Enter Kirk Cameron.

“Well, I first think that they ought to call a veterinarian, not me. You know, I’m not the religious-conspiracy-theorist go-to guy, particularly,” Cameron said. “But I think it’s really kind of silly to try to equate birds falling out of the sky with some kind of an end-times theory.”

Show Notes: Episode 11

This week we’ve figured out how to see listener submissions and we even use one of them!  I’ll probably drone on too long about the Metrodome collapse, Jerry will hate the video game section (as usual), but we’ll end strong with stories about emo kids, an IBM trivia machine, Google News, and nerds throughout history.  Delightful.

This Week in Star Trek

Geordi on Community

With the very talented Donald Glover… @nbccommunity #bydhttmwfi http://twitpic.com/3g9b8w — @levarburton via twitter

In this episode of @nbccommunity I play… #noauditionnecessary http://twitpic.com/3g8i6r  — @levarburton via twitter

Back on the Paramount lot. On the set of… #memories http://twitpic.com/3g88f6 — @levarburton via twitter

Star Trek LIVE!

The touring show is making Hartford, Connecticut its next stop, appearing at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts.

Combining science with entertainment, STAR TREK LIVE sparks a world of discovery by teaching and encouraging scientific literacy. Audience members will leave the attraction with an understanding of the different elements of science and technology.

STAR TREK LIVE debuted in May, 2010 and is scheduled to travel throughout the United States and Canada.

This Week in Wikipedia

The metrodome collapsed last week, check it out:

Here’s how Wikipedia says the roof works:

An air-supported structure supported by positive air pressure, it requires 250,000 ft³/min (120 m³/s) of air to keep it inflated. The air pressure is supplied by twenty 90-horsepower fans.^[14] The roof is made of two layers: the outer layers are Teflon coated fiberglass and the inner is a proprietary acoustical fabric. By design, the dead air space between the layers insulates the roof; in winter, warm air is blown into the space between layers to help melt snow that has accumulated on top.

The stadium was awful for baseball:

Because it is unusually low to the playing field, the air-inflated dome occasionally figured into game action. Major League Baseball had specific ground rules for the Metrodome. Any ball which struck the Dome roof, or objects hanging from it, remained in play; if it landed in foul territory it became a foul ball, if it landed in fair territory it became a fair ball. Any ball which became caught in the roof over fair ground was a ground rule double. That has only happened three times in its history - Dave Kingman for the Oakland Athletics on May 4, 1984,^[19] University of Minnesota Gophers player George Behr and Corey Koskie in 2004.

Really awful:

The Metrodome was widely considered one of the worst venues in Major League Baseball in its later years due mainly to fan experience.

Home-field advantage:

The Metrodome is the loudest domed NFL stadium.

Video Games with Cord Blomquist

World of Warcraft Expansion Sells 3.3 Million Copies

According to Blizzard’s calculations, the Cataclysm add-on sold 3.3 million units within 24 hours of its release, becoming the “fastest-selling PC game of all time.” The previous record holder? World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, which sold 2.8 million copies in one day back in 2008.

Unreal iPhones

In just a few days, budding iOS developers will be able to conjure up some of that visual voodoo of their own using the Unreal Development Kit. 

Weird Science

Jeopardy will pit Man vs. Machine

The iconic game show announced Tuesday that it will pit Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, its all-time most successful contestants, against “Watson,” an IBM computing system, in a series of battles next year.

International Nerd

Armenia: Yerevan Police Say Emo Music Threatens Country

Following the suicide of a 15-year-old boy, police in the Armenian capital Yerevan are cracking down on adolescent fans of emo music, a derivative of punk rock that is known for angst-ridden lyrics. Armenian officials contend that emo aficionados undermine social stability. But some psychologists and rights activists caution that hauling tattooed teenagers off to police stations for questioning is a strategy destined to backfire.

Google News

The Groupon Deal That Never Was

Google is seeing that in order to play in the SMB space, they cannot be only a self-serve company. No, in fact they are going to have to do something that either they have decided never to do or have just been reluctant to do: offer real people to sell all of their products and provide some level of customer support besides forums run by other people asking the same questions people have.

Richard Stallman Doesn’t Care for Chrome OS

“I think that marketers like “cloud computing” because it is devoid of substantive meaning. The term’s meaning is not substance, it’s an attitude: ‘Let any Tom, Dick and Harry hold your data, let any Tom, Dick and Harry do your computing for you (and control it).’ Perhaps the term ‘careless computing’ would suit it better.”

“I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there’s a sucker born every minute. The US government may try to encourage people to place their data where the US government can seize it without showing them a search warrant, rather than in their own property. However, as long as enough of us continue keeping our data under our own control, we can still do so. And we had better do so, or the option may disappear.”

Chrome OS and the Conservatism of Corporate IT

And any reasonably competent IT executive can plainly see that Google, for all of their algorithmic might, isn’t known for product longevity.

Podcast Pick

The Pod F. Tompkast

Released only once a month, but for obvious reasons.  Tompkins has created a super high production value show that sounds like an old-timey radio hour.  The show features installments of “The Great Undiscovered Project,” the story of a movie that was never released, which showcases Tompkins sometimes terrible but always funny impressions.  Tompkins also throws in segments from his monthly live shows at Largo, conversation with his friend Jen Kirkman and bookends the cast with stream-of-conciousness monologues.

This Week in Nerd History

Dec. 13, 1809 - Dr. Ephraim McDowell, a pioneer in abdominal surgery, examines his patient and makes the decision to attempt the first surgical removal of an ovarian tumor, earning him the sobriquet “Father of Ovariotomy.”

Dec. 14, 1962 - Mariner 2 Reaches Venus and become the first spacecraft to transmit data from another planet back to Earth. 

Dec. 16, 1770 - Ludwig van Beethoven is born to a family of musicians in Bonn, Germany. Along with myriad contributions to Western music, his Ninth Symphony played a role in determining the length of the music CD. Maximum play length of a CD is 74 minutes and 33 seconds, slightly more than the maximum length of U-Matic master tapes, which were 72 minutes.  Some say this was to accommodate the longest known recording of Ludwig’s Ninth, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler at the Bayreuth Festival in 1951, which ran just over 74 minutes.

Show Notes: Episode 10

This week we start out with a correction (not our mistake, NASA’s), then we go right into Star Trek related news, some fun facts about Patrick Stewart offered up by Wikipedia, and then the usual slurry of strange news, trivia, and nerd rantings.

Corrections

NASA Scientists Should be Ashamed

When the NASA scientists took the DNA out of the bacteria, for example, they ought to have taken extra steps to wash away any other kinds of molecules. Without these precautions, arsenic could have simply glommed to the DNA, like gum on a shoe. “It is pretty trivial to do a much better job,” said Rohwer.

In fact, says Harvard microbiologist Alex Bradley, the NASA scientists unknowingly demonstrated the flaws in their own experiment. They immersed the DNA in water as they analyzed it, he points out. Arsenic compounds fall apart quickly in water, so if it really was in the microbe’s genes, it should have broken into fragments, Bradley wrote Sunday in a guest post on the blog We, Beasties. But the DNA remained in large chunks—presumably because it was made of durable phosphate.

This Week in Star Trek

New Bio of Star Trek Art Director

Richard Jefferies’ brother designed the starship Enterprise . After flying B-17 bombers in World War II, he ended up as Hollywood technical adviser, where he captured the attention of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. The rest is Trekkie history, which Richard Jefferies has captured in a biography about his brother: Beyond the Clouds: The Lifetime Trek of Walter “Matt” Jefferies, Artist and Visionary.

Brent Spiner Tweets About Howard Stern

“I shall spend the day in contemplation. I shall look inside and ask myself, “Will life be worth living if Howard Stern goes off the air?”

“If they don’t make a deal with Howard Stern, they will be making a Sirius mist…oh, never mind.”

“Sorry about the grammatical mistake. I was taking a nap when I wrote it. Nonetheless, Howard Stern is the best interviewer in the business.”

The Week in Wikipedia

One-Person Show

In what was possibly the only instance in which an actor adapted an entire novel for the stage, Patrick Stewart played all 43 parts in his version of A Christmas Carol, which played three times on Broadway and at the Old Vic in London

Video Games with Cord Blomquist

Rockband: Queen

Next week’s Rock Band DLC will be two track packs that are all Queen.

Video Games Go Grammy

Christopher Tin’s “Baba Yetu,” an amazing piece composed for Civilization IV, has received a Grammy nomination. The song was originally created for the 2005 game, but is eligible this year because it has been re-recorded and is a regular part of Video Games Live, a touring show of video game music. The track is nominated in the “Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists” category, is from the composer’s debut album, Calling All Dawns.

Blizzard Upset with Multi-Hour Free Commercials

Blizzard CEO Paul Sams is none too happy with Korean channels MBC Game and OnGameNet. They’ve been broadcasting StarCraft tournaments without the company’s consent, Sams revealed in a press conference in Seoul yesterday. Last month, Blizzard filed to sue both networks and he says the company is currently considering filing against the Korea e-Sports Players Association (KeSPA) as well, who manage these tournaments.

Consumer Corner

Government Finally Realizes that Webcam Barbie is Creepy

Barbie Video Girl, a Barbie doll tricked out with a video camera concealed in her necklace, could be used by predators to create child pornography, warns the FBI in a recent cybercrime alert.

Terrifying Military Tech

We Have a Space Plane?

After 225 days in orbit, the Air Force’s mysterious X-37B space plane touched down today. It was only the second fully automated re-entry and runway landing in the history of space flight. But the mission of this secret craft? Still unknown.

Some are speculating this could be used as a space bomber or a satellite killer.

Weird Science

SpaceX Dragon Capsule Orbits Earth

Commercial space flight and exploration took a big step forward with the successful orbital flight of the Southern California startup’s Dragon capsule.

Lift from Light

Light has been put to work generating the same force that makes airplanes fly, a study appearing online December 5 in Nature Photonics shows. With the right design, a uniform stream of light has pushed tiny objects in much the same way that an airplane wing hoists a 747 off the ground.

My Two Mouse Dads

In a weird feat of biotechnological virtuosity, scientists have engineered mice with genes from two dads, and none from a mom. This was done by engineering females with eggs containing only chromosomes from a father. Mating added genes from a second father.

Scientists Discover that Nothing Doesn’t Exist

Under just the right conditions—which involve an ultra-high-intensity laser beam and a two-mile-long particle accelerator—it could be possible to create something out of nothing, according to University of Michigan researchers. The scientists and engineers have developed new equations that show how a high-energy electron beam combined with an intense laser pulse could rip apart a vacuum into its fundamental matter and antimatter components.

A vacuum, or nothing, is the combination of matter and antimatter—particles and antiparticles.Their density is tremendous, but we cannot perceive any of them because their observable effects entirely cancel each other out.

Nerd Rage

Nerdy Sexy Cool?

“Nerdlesque,” a geeky burlesque show at the Brick Theater in Williamsburg on Dec. 11, notions of sexiness will get turned on their head.  “There’s been a thing over the last 15-20 years of ‘the nerd’ being defined as the unsexy outsider,” said Chris Chappell, who defines “nerd spirit” as an obsessive but sincere interest in something unusual. “But if you look at bands like Weezer and the popularity of video games, you see nerds have penetrated our culture.” The only place left to infiltrate, it seemed, was burlesque.

Girl Claiming to be Nerd Launches Clothing Line

I admit that whenever I told anyone I work with at CNN that I really loved the “Battlestar Galactica” series on Syfy, I quickly followed with a “Time magazine called it the best television series of 2005,” as if the fact that I loved the show weren’t enough.

Eckstein was so passionate about giving the girls permission to “get their girl on” that she negotiated rights with Lucasfilm to develop a line of clothing called Her Universe and other products aimed strictly at the female market.

Show Notes: Episode 9

Hey everyone, I’m going to start releasing the show notes shortly before we record the show as one big unified post.  Hit us up with comments or suggestions below the notes and maybe we can talk about whatever is on your mind when we record the show.

This Week in Star Trek

Star Trek and the Power of the Book

The top 20 growing Facebook pages included Rihanna, Harry Potter, Shakira, Texas Hold’em Poker, Spongebob Squarepants, and Star Trek.  The Trek beat out MTV, Bob Marley, AKON, and Katy Perry.

Couples Beaming to Vulcan, Canada

A little town that shares the name with Spock’s home planet is becoming a hot spot for Trek-themed weddings.  This all started this past summer when Spock himself paid a visit.  ”I figured it was about time I came home,” Nimoy joked.

Weird Science

Life Made with Arsenic

All living organisms on this planet use six elements for almost all of the chemical structures of DNA, RNA, proteins, and lipids […] Surprisingly, a team of scientists provide evidence in Science that another element, arsenic, can be incorporated into the basic chemical makeup of the macromolecules of life, replacing some of its phosphorus.

Terrifying Military Tech

An EMP Will Soon End Civilization

“Not even a global humanitarian effort would be enough to keep hundreds of millions of Americans from death by starvation, exposure, or lack of medicine. Nor would the catastrophe stop at U.S. borders. Most of Canada would be devastated, too, as its infrastructure is integrated with the U.S. power grid. Much of the world’s intellectual brain power (half of it is in the United States) would be lost as well. Earth would most likely recede into the ‘new’ Dark Ages,” states the report by James J. Carafano, the deputy director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, and Richard Weitz, senior fellow and director of the Center for Politial-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute.

Artificial Brains, for Real this Time

Researchers have suspected for decades that real artificial intelligence can’t be done on traditional hardware, with its rigid adherence to Boolean logic and vast separation between memory and processing. But that knowledge was of little use until about two years ago, when HP built a new class of electronic device called a memristor. Before the memristor, it would have been impossible to create something with the form factor of a brain, the low power requirements, and the instantaneous internal communications. Turns out that those three things are key to making anything that resembles the brain and thus can be trained and coaxed to behave like a brain. In this case, form is function, or more accurately, function is hopeless without form.

Video Games with Cord Blomquist

Inception, the video game

Inception director Christopher Nolan has been considering putting together a video game based on his mind-bending film for a while, but it looks like those plans have gone one level deeper: He now tells Entertainment Weekly that the project is a go. Nolan says he’s working with a full team on the game as “a longer-term proposition” and that he’s excited to “explore” the medium of gaming by creating a new story set in the world of the movie.

Netflix Testing 3 Different PS3 Interfaces

Netflix is reportedly showing off three different user interfaces to users of its service on the PlayStation 3, in order to test out the various recommendations systems and how they’re both created and delivered to users. Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt says the “Play” and “Add to Queue” buttons’ size, placement, and functionality can vary from build to build, and even things like load times and streaming start times are being adjusted among the various test UIs running on real-life PS3s, providing direct feedback to the company about how customers use the video streaming app.

Everyone is Using Stupid-Old Computers

But now, with the Xbox 360 having turned five, and the PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii both having just hit their fourth birthdays, many industry observers see the ongoing success of each of the three major platforms as evidence that neither Microsoft, Sony, nor Nintendo have any intentions of following up in the next year or so. And why should they? Consumers are still buying the machines by the hundreds of thousands each month, and ramped-up online initiatives are breathing new life into the systems.

Two Nerds Briefly Talk About Sports

Did Stats Nerds Ruin Cy Young Award?

Traditionally, the Cy Young Award has gone to the pitcher with the gaudiest record, like Randy Johnson’s 18-2 mark in 1995. Hernandez’s record was just 13-12, but he led the league in ERA and fewest hits per nine innings. The stats community, growing in influence in baseball circles, championed Hernandez’s candidacy as a break from the hegemony of wins, which naturally are dependent on how good your team is.

Apple News

PC World Says So Long iPhone

I believe Apple’s iPhone is rapidly becoming a niche device. Its restrictions are too numerous, its approach too condescending, and its choices too few to have the broad appeal it needs to succeed on a grander scale in the long run.  In short, Apple may always have its share of fans among consumers who don’t mind living in its “walled garden,” but there’s no way it can compete in the market as a whole with the diverse, compelling and powerful platform that is Android.

Medical Tech

Ultrasound for Your Smartphone

Such a device would be useful for emergency responders, who could scan an injured person to detect internal bleeding or other trauma, and then immediately send an image to the hospital so physicians could be better prepared for the patient’s arrival. Or a nurse practitioner visiting a pregnant woman’s home could ask a specialist stationed elsewhere to weigh in on anomalies in the scan.

Spread Your Legs 70 Degress Apart

The three positions they tried were: sitting with the laptop on the lap with legs together, the same position with a laptop pad under the computer, and sitting with legs spread 70 degrees apart. They found that the open legged position was the best at lowering testicle temp (a total of about half a degree on the left, and a little less on the right).

[…]

And while a few degrees doesn’t sound so dangerous, it’s actually enough to effect sperm quality (a rise of about two degree Fahrenheit can be an issue), especially given the length of time most people spend with their laptops.

Vitamin D deficit doubles risk of stroke in whites, but not in blacks

If vitamin supplements are used, Michos says that daily doses between 1,000 and 2,000 international units are generally safe and beneficial for most people, but that people with the severe vitamin D deficits may need higher doses under close supervision by their physician to avoid possible risk of toxicity. The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) previously suggested that an adequate daily intake of vitamin D is between 200 and 600 international units. However, Michos argues that this may be woefully inadequate for most people to raise their vitamin D blood levels to a healthy 30 nanograms per milliliter. The IOM has set up an expert panel to review its vitamin D guidelines, with new recommendations expected by the end of the year. Previous results from the same nationwide survey showed that 41 percent of men and 53 percent of women have unhealthy amounts of vitamin D, with nutrient levels below 28 nanograms per milliliter.

Obits

King of Deadpan now Dead, RIP Leslie Nielsen

Leslie Nielsen passed away Sunday at the age of 84.  He’ll always be remembered as Lt. Frank Drebin in “Police Squad” and the “Naked Gun” films, and, of course, Dr. Rumack in the 1980 film “Airplane!

Irvin Kershner

The man who brought us the greatest Star Wars film has now become one with the force.

Nerd Rage

Top Searches on Yahoo! in 2010

1. BP oil spill
2. World Cup
3. Miley Cyrus
4. Kim Kardashian
5. Lady Gaga
6. iPhone
7. Megan Fox
8. Justin Bieber
9. American Idol
10. Britney Spears

Shooting the TSA

“If you are taking pictures at or near the checkpoint, don’t be surprised if someone (TSA, airport police, or a curious passenger) asks you what you’re up to. We don’t prohibit public, passengers or press from photographing, videotaping, or filming at screening locations. You can take pictures at our checkpoints as long as you’re not interfering with the screening process or slowing things down.

“We also ask that you do not film or take pictures of our monitors. However, while the TSA does not prohibit photographs at screening locations, local laws, state statutes, or local ordinances might. Your best bet is to call ahead and see what that specific airport’s policy is.”