Episode 18: Show Notes

This week we roll out like Anderson Cooper. You guessed it, we’re keeping them honest. Also, Cord is re-watching “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The whole damned thing.

This Week in Star Trek

Star Trek Script Close to Completion

Ever since J.J. Abrams’ 2009 reboot of Star Trek scored $385 million at the box office, Paramount, as well as fans, have been waiting for a sequel script to be delivered.Initially, screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci revealed that the script could arrive by the summer of 2010, at which point Kurtzman admitted that he, Orci, and co-screenwriter Damon Lindelof were “halfway through the story”. Last December, Kurtzman admitted that the writers finally “have broken the story,” but offered no timeline for when the script would be finished.

But just this week, however, Orci said this on Twitter: ”aiming to turn in first full draft of Star Trek in six weeks or so.”

In Conversation Gives Back

Special thanks to @mandolosophy for the sweet shout-out on Twitter. Hey, review the show.

Our first international text came in from Peter Snyder. No need to re-review the show.

Nerds on Tech

From Jeopardy Champ to Dr. Watson

Global data storage calculated at 295 exabytes

“The study, published in the journal Science, calculates the amount of data stored in the world by 2007 as 295 exabytes. The researchers calculated the figure by estimating the amount of data held on 60 technologies from PCs and and DVDs to paper adverts and books[…]Scientists calculated the figure by estimating the amount of data held on 60 analogue and digital technologies during the period from 1986 to 2007. They considered everything from computer hard drives to obsolete floppy discs, and x-ray films to microchips on credit cards.”

That amount of data breaks down to:

• 1.2 billion average hard drives.
  
• 13 layers of books covering the entire United States
  
• A stack of CDs that would reach beyond the moon

Daily data broadcasted by human beings, not necessarily stored, is estimated at around two zettabytes of data (a zettabyte is 1000 exabytes). That’s the equivalent of 175 newspapers per person, per day.

“The study also pinpoints the arrival of the digital age as 2002, the first year worldwide digital storage capacity overtook analogue capacity.”

Weird Science

Why are some people more likely to get skin cancer on the left side of their body?

Answer: That’s where people sit when they drive.

Armchair Psychologists

Can Television Be a Substitute for a Real Friend?

Yes. A series of studies published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology examines the Social Surrogacy Hypothesis, which posits that parasocial relationships in favored television programs can provide the experience of belonging. 

“Study 1 demonstrated that people report turning to favored television programs when feeling lonely, and feel less lonely when viewing those programs.

“Study 2 demonstrated that experimentally activating belongingness needs leads people to revel longer in descriptions of favored (but not non-favored) television programs.

“Study 3 demonstrated that thinking about favored (but not non-favored) television programs buffers against drops in self-esteem and mood and against increases in feelings of rejection commonly elicited by threats to close relationships.

“Finally, Study 4 demonstrated that thinking about favored television programs reduces activation of chronically activated rejection-related words. These results yield provocative preliminary evidence for the Social Surrogacy Hypothesis.”

Does a musician’s clothing affect how much we like their music? 

Yes, and overly revealing clothing makes us think they’re gross.

Are men really more open to casual sex than women?

YES!

“[In] experiments, conducted in 1978 and 1982, male and female confederates of average attractiveness approached potential partners with one of three requests: “Would you go out tonight?” “Will you come over to my apartment?” or “Would you go to bed with me?” The great majority of men were willing to have a sexual liaison with the women who approached them. Women were not. Not one woman agreed to a sexual liaison. Many possible reasons for this marked gender difference were discussed. These studies were run in 1978 and 1982. It has since become important to track how the threat of AIDS is affecting men and women’s willingness to date, come to an apartment, or to engage in casual sexual relations.”

Do we judge others based on attractiveness? 

YES!

“Experiment 1 (n = 2639) investigated selection of scholarship applicants and demonstrated that a pro-attractiveness bias held only for selection of opposite-sex scholarship applicants; no such bias was observed for highly attractive same-sex applicants.

“Experiment 2 (n = 622) investigated evaluations of prospective job candidates and demonstrated again that pro-attractiveness bias was observed only for opposite-sex candidates; participants discriminated against highly attractive same-sex candidates.”

Our Awesome Governments

New York Release Legal Guide to the Apocalypse

“Quarantines. The closing of businesses. Mass evacuations. Warrantless searches of homes. The slaughter of infected animals and the seizing of property. When laws can be suspended and whether infectious people can be isolated against their will or subjected to mandatory treatment. It is all there, in dry legalese, in the manual, published by the state court system and the state bar association.”

Internet Freedom Abroad and Wiretapping at Home

Secretary Clinton: “I urge countries everywhere to join the United States in our bet that an open internet will lead to stronger, more prosperous countries.”

Clinton’s speech came a day after the House voted to extend to December 8 three controversial domestic spy provisions of the Patriot Act. And Customs officials seized 18 more internet domains without giving the pirate website owners a chance to challenge the forfeiture.

What’s more, the Obama administration on Thursday is expected to testify before a House subcommittee about the need to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which already requires telcos and internet access providers to have wiretapping capabilities. The FBI wants Congress to demand that same requirement for encrypted e-mail services like Blackberry, and also wants that for social networks and peer-to-peer messaging networks like Skype.

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Nerd Rage

Russian Baby Gymnastics

A video of a woman swing her baby around by the arms and legs was removed from YouTube recently because several viewers found it offensive and disturbing. But Oleg Tyutin, a psychotherapist, has been practicing this uniquely Russian form of “baby gymnastics” for over 20 years. He trains young moms to do the same and claims that “It makes infants more open, more sociable, more relaxed. It also helps them develop more quickly.” One of the mothers Tyutin has trained, when hearing about criticism of the practice, remarked that “People in Europe are used to raising their children in over-sanitised conditions, they’re scared of everything.”