Show Notes: Episode 20
This week, we get extreme with our retirement, which will come early. Oh yes, it will.
This Week in Star Trek
Shatner Wants to Play Kirk Again
The 79-year-old actor, who recently surprised the ‘Discovery’ space shuttle crew with a wake-up call, says he will always look back fondly on the Star Trek films, saying, “I think it struck a nerve in its humanity, as well as its sense of adventure. Maybe the actors had something to do with it. … It was a joyful experience for me”.
Hey, Review the Show
Shout outs this week!
New Tumblr Followers: meeksketch, anglobibliofile, smoestoe
You are now considered “Listeners,” a much appreciated member of the In Conversation community, but nonetheless the lowest rung on our ladder toward super-fandom.
If you want to become a fan, review the show!
Newest Viewer: Aaron Merrill, who submitted yet another story. Thanks dude, but you should review the show.
Newest Fan: Tate Watkins
Thank you for the review sir. Be sure to check out Tate’s podcast “Trying to Make Pardner.”
Hey, review the show.
Nerds on Tech
Did Gaddafi Inspire Rap-Based Video Game?
Fifi [50 Cent] paid an undisclosed sum to sing and dance like a fey little puppet in front of Mutassim Gaddafi at the 2005 Venice film festival. But while the other stars have been embarrassed by their (possibly unintentional) connection to a despotic regime, Fifi seems to have used his as the inspiration for a startlingly violent video game called 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, released on the PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2009.
Jerry, should I get one?
Mechanical Turd (Submitted by Aaron Merrill)
Intrigued on hearing that Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is increasingly used by spammers, Mark Alen, a UC Berkeley Operations Research PhD candidate decided to see whether he could hire Mechanical Turks to spam him, so he posted an offer to pay for writeups of things to see and do in Shiraz City, France. There is no Shiraz City in France (there is a Shiraz City in Iran, though). This did not deter a flock of MTs who happily wrote fictitious reviews of the good times to be had in Alen’s fictitious town
“The catch here is information overload,” said Aaref A. Hilaly, Clearwell’s chief executive. “How do you zoom in to just the specific set of documents or facts that are relevant to the specific question? It’s not about search; it’s about sifting, and that’s what e-discovery software enables.”
For Neil Fraser, a lawyer at Milberg, a law firm based in New York, the Cataphora software provides a way to better understand the internal workings of corporations he sues, particularly when the real decision makers may be hidden from view.
Weird Science
A laser can act as a “tractor beam”, drawing small objects back toward the laser’s source, scientists have said. It is known that light can provide a “push”, for example in solar sails that propel spacecraft on a “wind of light”. Now, in a paper on the Arxiv server, researchers from Hong Kong and China have calculated the conditions required to create a laser-based “pull”.
The trick is not to use a standard laser beam, but rather one known as a Bessel beam, that has a precise pattern of peaks and troughs in its intensity. If such a Bessel beam were to encounter an object not head-on but at a glancing angle, the backward force can be stimulated. As the atoms or molecules of the target absorb and re-radiate the incoming light, the fraction re-radiated forward along the beam direction can interfere and give the object a “push” back toward the source.
Armchair Psychologists
Internet Makes Yer Marriage Better
The relation between compulsive Internet use and marital well-being is tested in a two-wave prospective study among 190 newlywed couples. Theresults suggest that (a) compulsive Internet use predicts marital well-being, and not vice versa, (b) that this is a within- rather than a cross-partner effect, and (c) that the frequency of Internet use may be positively related to marital well-being.
Our Awesome Governments
The U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane is poised to launch on its second mission Friday (March 4), though what exactly it will be doing once it leaves the ground remains a mystery.
[…]
With its blunt nose and stubby wings, the unmanned X-37B spacecraft resembles a miniature version of NASA’s space shuttles. The vehicle was originally developed as part of a NASA project that was shifted to the military when funding ran dry.
[…]
The secrecy surrounding the X-37B has led to some speculation that the plane could be a space weaponof some sort. But Air Force officials have repeatedly denied that charge, and some experts have postulated that it is a platform for space reconnaissance.
The X-37B is built by Boeing’s Space and Intelligence Systems division. It can fly long, extended missions because of its solar array power system, which allows it to stay in orbit for up to 270 days, Air Force officials have said.
from Accidental Politicians:
“We study a prototypical model of a Parliament with two Parties or two Political Coalitions and we show how the introduction of a variable percentage of randomly selected independent legislators can increase the global efficiency of a Legislature, in terms of both number of laws passed and average social welfare obtained.”
Unless that social welfare is defined as more monster truck rallies, state fairs, and corn dog eating contests, then I don’t give a heap of shit.
Housekeeping
Review us on iTunes.
Nerd Rage
I had big hopes for the Google box. When it launched, shortly after the new Apple TV, I remember telling my fiance every detail about it with bated breath. I couldn’t wait to buy one.
Then the networks got involved. Even though there are workarounds, the networks decided that it was in their best interest to pull a bunch of the potential programming from the box. What we had left was a machine that didn’t do anything especially well, unless you happened to be a satellite subscriber. But this was exactly what I didn’t want. I wanted the Google TV to enhance my post-cable-cutting experience. I didn’t want to add new cables in order to enjoy it.
1 note
-
inconversation posted this
