Not A Thing!

Episode 33

Penny Arcade eXpo in Boston (aka PAX East) was last week, and we talked about a bunch of games:
Assassins Creed Black Flag – best rum name ever
Oculus Rift – the return of Virtual Reality
Dive Kick! – One note (2 note?) fighting game
Street Fighter 4 – rebalancing for patches
Rock Band – releasing their last DLC song
Star Trek – new FPS game movie tie-in
The Walking Dead Survival Instinct – bad tv show tie-in
The Walking Dead from Telltale Games – great comic book tie-in

International Tabletop Day is this Saturday

Dongle-gate: the Lose-Lose-Lose-Lose-situation last weekend.

From the silly things by cops file, two stories:
UK police use scratch-and-sniff postcards
Bangalore police use cardboard standees

Spoiler Alert:
The cardboard standees work.

Also, beer is the root of civilization.

Episode 32

A casino “heist” that was aided by the casino security cameras.

Criticism and praise for steampunk. The boys want solarpunk to be a thing.

In other fashion news, wearable computing is becoming a thing.

Simple robots provide insight into herd mentality and hive minds… and hopefully were mercilessly crushed by industrial equipment before they could rise up.

An article about some of the new metrics that go along with the new media world of tele-vision.

Spoiler Alert:
Psycho has an ending

The Bates Motel show is pretty good.

Episode 31

Our new Logo is here! Big thanks to Skylar deWitte!

PETA is pronounced with a long E. Listen why in the discussion about their complaint against Assassin’s Creed 4.

Alan had an awful set of bad presentation experiences. Please find some good ones from TED or get help from someone like Nancy Duarte and host your own pecha-kucha style!

Spoiler Alert:
In order of goodness from least to most: Predator 2, Predators, Predator

A quick review of Oz, the Great and Powerful rounded out the show.

Episode 30
Scientists link two mice brains. AKA the Binars from Star Trek TNG.

Furthermore, longer term (1 year) testing of wireless brain-computer interfaces is successful so far in animals.

We have a discussion about superheroic abilities through technology and training sparked by this article.

Autotuning is still around and being used extensively.

Spoiler Alert:
Alan is fascinated by the history of electronica (sound alert). Brendan is less interested.

Cinequest is this week in San Jose, and Alan saw Lawrence of Arabia restored and projected in 4K.

Brendan completed the set! He’s seen all 23 James Bond movies and we had a nice chat about some of them.

Episode 28
In (formerly) Communist Russia, meteor fiies by you.

Why there are so many Russian dashboard cameras.

Elon “Tony Stark” Musk’s data dump on the New York Times article unfavorable to the Model S.

Artificial intelligence project (aka SKYNET!) under the guise of the Human Genome Project for Neuroscience.

Enough Data, now Geordi – researchers make a Star Trek TNG style VISOR for mice!

A CLEC is involved in telemarketer spam.

Spoiler Alert:
Slavery *was* a thing.

This week the we watched Django Unchained (Alan, finally) and A Good Day to Die Hard (Brendan).

Episode 27
The Postal Service (not to be confused with The Postal Service) is cutting out Saturday delivery!

A study out of Humboldt University (not to be confused with Humboldt State University) proclaims “Facebook Envy” a thing.

Sea turtle gets artificial flippers in Japan.

Watson will take “Cures for Cancer” for $500, Alex.

Robotic penguin impostors – cute flightless birds or hunter-killer army?

The IOC loses its mind and adds Golf in favor of Wrestling as olympic sports.

Spoiler Alert:
Prosthetic limbs are cool. Just ask Oscar Pistorius.

Bonus:
If you can’t arrange an appointment with Luke Skywalker’s robot doctor or aren’t comfortable with Ash’s prosthetic chainsaw, this “terminator arm” might be the next best thing.

Episode 26

We once again visited the inspirational Nerdist Podcast Live.

Driving a convertible is a thing everyone should try.

Amoeba Records is digitizing physical media.

A patent troll (should not be a thing) is targeting podcasters! We pledge to keep the lights on.

Spoiler Alert:
Richard III is dead.

But they found his body in a parking lot!

Maybe our favorite (post) Superbowl ad. The Extended Look at Iron Man 3.

Episode 25

We are very excited for the TV show in development for the 6th Gun!

Bonus link: Westerado – a JRPG 16-bit style game from Adult Swim with a Western theme. (link updated 2018-05-08, thanks to listener Emily @floatingemily )

It’s a bad month to be CCTV cameras in Berlin.

Twitter launches their own walled garden, aptly called Vine.

The DMCA exception for unlocking phones has now made that illegal. If you can’t break it, you don’t own it.

This story of adults playing tag will warm your heart.

Spoiler Alert:
You’re It.

Alan’s kazoo came in! Listen for it’s podcast debut.