Science Faction Podcast

This episode contains: Devon, Ben and Steven all record in the same room again! It's crazy! Devon tells us about his travels, and Ben tries to QA a Tesla. It's a whole thing. Only one Science and no Big Question this week because we have Sci-Fi to talk about.  Robot Overlords: Researchers Discover a More Flexible Approach to Machine Learning. Liquid neural nets can transform their underlying algorithms on the fly. They are based on the Caenorhabditis elegans nervous system. Nonlinear equations, worm nervous systems, and liquid neural nets are all here.  https://www.quantamagazine.org/researchers-discover-a-more-flexible-approach-to-machine-learning-20230207/  Picard: We talk about the first episode of the third season of Star Trek Picard. There are a lot of nits to pick, but we are generally optimistic about this final season. We start off with some complaints about seasons 1 and 2, but it seems season 3 has rectified some of those. We have deep discussions about Captain Shaw, The Orville, and ship refits. 

This episode contains: Devon doesn't feel the valentine's spirit this week. Ben's kid loves Trailmakers, Ben used barter.vg to trade for the game. "Are we back to bartering?" asks Steven. Did we ever stop? Steven knows about bartering thanks to Fallout 1. Devon & Ben watched the Superbowl. Steven went to a SB party but didn't watch it. Steven is really enjoying Hogwarts Legacy. Steven recognized Ben was way too stressed out over debt in our Traveller game. Ben learned that he had more fun in an RPG by making it a "yes day." We don't want to be Murder Hobos in RPGs. Context around the term "murder den" is helpful. This Week in Space: Ring discovered around dwarf planet Quaoar confounds theories. There's a ring around the dwarf planet Quaoar just outside the solar system. How is the dwarf planet Quaoar pronounced? Devon tries his best. Quaoar has rings further away from the planet than we thought possible. The Roche limit is the zone where a planetary ring can be created. Scientists discover planets by obse

This episode contains: We discuss how 2/5/2023 feels like it should be the future, but totally isn't/ Devon won big at Texas Hold'em, but not in Texas. Ben has a story about a frog and a banana. Devon also weathered an ice storm, his house not so much. We have suspect we have very special listeners.  This Week in Space: Will Machine Learning Help us Find Extraterrestrial Life? SETI is using machine learning to check 150TB of studied data, and found 8 signals of interest that were previously looked over. We talk about radio waves, and how this machine learning can sift through the noise coming from Earth. And then we talk about Futurama.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230130130512.htm  What the Crazy Kids are Doing: Carbon capture is here—it just isn’t evenly distributed. New York City apartment towers are going to get smaller carbon capture facilities. These facilities will be able to remove carbon dioxide and expel it as "beverage grade". Then, it will be used in concrete as building material

This episode contains: All three hosts are here, slowly rotating around the sun, to bring you science and science fiction. Devon explains why he can’t record this afternoon (the answer is football). Ben tells us about the ongoing woes of being a home owner. Steven and Ben talk about playing Walkabout Mini Golf on VR. Listen To This: MusicLM: Generating Music From Text. MusicLM is a model generating high-fidelity music from text descriptions such as "a calming violin melody backed by a distorted guitar riff". MusicLM casts the process of conditional music generation as a hierarchical sequence-to-sequence modeling task, and it generates music at 24 kHz that remains consistent over several minutes. https://google-research.github.io/seanet/musiclm/examples/ Riffusion’s AI generates music from text using visual sonograms. Riffusion is an AI model that generates music from text prompts by creating a visual representation of sound and converting it to audio for playback. It uses a fine-tuned version of the Stable Di

This episode contains: Ben joins Steven in person, and Devon phones it in this week. Your heart has ventricles and… dorsicles? No Ben; It’s atriums. Steven reminds us that he knows the beginning of a Barenaked Ladies song. Devon chats about his first cruise! TLDR: It was… about as he expected. Was Devon on a cruise long enough to get scurvy? Are drink packages on cruise ships worth it? Everything's still wrong with Ben this week. Looks like one of Ben's bedroom walls will need to be replaced. FEMA declared the recent rainstorms in California an Avengers-level event. Ben is getting his septic tank pumped this week. Goodbye wooden deck. Ben found a lot of surprising things when crawling under his house. You wouldn't illegally download a house, would you? Steven needs a break from his vacations. Listen to Steven guest host the Plastic Plesiosaur podcast this month! Brain Matters: Orienteering may help fight cognitive decline. Orienteering is a new sport, kinda like extreme hiking. Devon is our resident sports ad

This episode contains: Ben and Steven in the same room recording. Ben has a week of disaster. Steven is guesting on Plastic Plesiosaur Podcast. Devon is nowhere to be seen. Magnets, How Do They Work?: Qi2: How Apple might finally harness MagSafe by giving it away. We talk about the future of phone chargers, and how everything being compatable is a complete win. https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/3/23538131/qi2-wireless-charging-apple-samsung https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/01/10/future-of-magsafe-and-the-new-qi2-wireless-charging-spec  YUMMMM: Why chocolate feels so good; it is all down to lubrication. We talk about the science of lubrication in terms of chocolate. Fat is neccessary. We also ponder the ramifications of this science and the 'fake meat' industry. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230113112804.htm Big Question: Why are anachronistic elements in fiction so cool? We talk about Willow and dark City before Steven goes on his rant about Star Trek not being anachronistic but Star Wars

This episode contains: Steven and Devon host this all new episode while Ben rests. Devon tells us about his upcoming cruise and his work ethic leading up to a vacation. Steven talks about California’s torrential rain, including his trip to Disney during a storm. Devon then tells us about his day at The Great Wolf Lodge. She’s a Brick House: Riddle solved: Why was Roman concrete so durable? An unexpected ancient manufacturing strategy may hold the key to designing concrete that lasts for millennia. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230106144441.htm Drink Up: Good hydration linked to healthy aging. Adults who stay well-hydrated appear to be healthier, develop fewer chronic conditions, such as heart and lung disease, and live longer than those who may not get sufficient fluids, according to a new study. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230102100941.htm Sci-Fi/Big Question: We discuss whether immortality is possible, what technologies may help us achieve immortality and the social impact

This episode contains: Ben likes new things! Devon says hi. Devon's sick again. Can you tell? Steven says not to thank people for doing their job. What do you think? Disney Dreamlight Valley seems cool. What should someone do if they're totally burned out by Disneyland? Vacations with kids are just trips. Devon and Steven are done chasing kids. Steven's kids don't like Star Wars land at Disneyland. Not yet. Shut up when I'm talking to you!: Being assertive: Reduce stress, communicate better. Assertiveness is not necessarily natural. It is a learned trait. Passive behavior can lead to stress, resentment, and feelings of victimization. Being assertive creates self-confidence, empowerment, and honest relationships. Passive, aggressive and passive-aggressive behavior all damage relationships. Just "No." is a complete sentence. You don't need to explain yourself. Formal assertiveness training is available through mental health professionals. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/

This episode contains: Steven and Ben record on Christmas Day, because they hate their families! Just kidding. Steven talks about his Covid filled Xmas, and Ben regales us with tales of his kid's broken arm. What joy! What Merriment! Merry Crisis.  Robot Overlords: We talk about the physical intelligence of ant and robot collectives. Harvard researchers designed a team of relatively simple robots that can work collectively with simple commands. The RAnts use photormones to successfully escape a corral. Neat. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221221135358.htm  Grumpy Cat of Birds: Ben introduces us to the Tawny Frogmouth, and you'll never be the same again. It's an amazing bird that isn't an owl, but kinda looks like one. Native to Australia and New Zealand, it is an ambush predator that simply swallows it's prey with it's giant mouth. So cool. Also, Steven gets schooled on cultural appropriation, but it's cool because Fight Club. https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/tawny-frogmouth  https://ww

This episode contains: Steven is back “in studio” with the rest of us after having his internet completely replaced. Ben’s son may have broken his arm, if Ben could only open the CD to see the x-rays. Devon then tells us about his recent time in California, which includes playing Death May Die. Batter Up: Affecting baseball friction with different substances. In baseball, even the smallest detail can tip the scales in favor of the batter or the pitcher. A recent publication has highlighted how rosin powder helps maintain a more constant friction when pitching, something that could bring about a fairer playing field in Major League Baseball. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221215104734.htm This Week in Space: Here’s what we know, and what we don’t, about the damaged Soyuz spacecraft current docked with the ISS. A leak in an external coolant of the Soyuz spacecraft could cause the flight computers to overheat. This may lead to an early departure from the space station. https://arstechnica.com/sc

Pre-pod Patreon-only: Devon remembers meeting Ben's cat. He still has the scar. This episode contains: Ben leads the show, Steven phones it in, and Devon holds on for dear life. Devon has to go to "mandatory" parties for work. Steven's internet is unreachable, so he phones it in this episode. Ben was on the edge of the power outage that hit 5000 people. Ben describes the indescribable fun of the card game No Thanks. Ben's kid won 9 straight games of X-Men vs Street Fighter against Steven and Ben. Jurassic Boom: No supersonic boom for dinosaur tails. The Diplodocid tail did not break supersonic speeds, despite earlier claims. Diplodocis tails were 12 m long, weighed 1.5 tons, and moved up to 33 m/s! A sonic boom occurs at 340 meters per second. Did Diplodocis have a huge-ass neck, or huge ass-neck? Devon's kids are gonna know what a sonic boom is, by golly! Devon's son wants to be a treehouse architect. Steven knows one who does that. Steven workshopped some other titles for Devon's article: "Must Go Faster Mu

This episode contains: Steven and Ben (and others) attended Steven's birthday party, and we talk about the awesome fun times we had. Devon wasn't there, sorry Devon. However, Devon and Ben pooled their resources and bought Steven a Steamdeck for his 40th, which is amazing. Buyer Beware: Handshake Domains: Blockchain Powered DNS Is Here, But Should You Use It? Ben explains what a DNS is, the control and attempted decentralization of web domains and his recent purchases. You should also check out https://lawless.rocks. https://www.howtogeek.com/devops/handshake-domains-blockchain-powered-dns-is-here-but-should-you-use-it/ Last Week in Space: NASA’s Artemis 1 mission to the Moon sets the stage for routine space exploration beyond Earth’s orbit – here’s what to expect and why it’s important. We talk about the successful launch of the Artemis 1, what it's going to do, and how it's going to return. We also cover Artemis 2 and 3, which we are very excited for. https://www.geeksaresexy.net/2022/11/17/nasas-artemis-

This episode contains: The three of us are here and ready to talk sci-fi, and only sci-fi. However, we first talk about what makes a “gentleman” and recount our Thanksgiving day experiences. Science Fiction: We discuss Andor’s first season, what we liked about it, and what we might expect from season two. There are a lot of SPOILERS. We end up talking about Andor for half the episode. Ben and Steven then talk about Disney’s Strange World. Ben has been looking forward to this movie for years, while most other people still don’t know it exists. This also has some SPOILERS. Devon is still there, we think. We quickly talk Rick and Morty, then move on to Wakanda Forever. Steven and Ben then tell us all about Wakanda Forever with, again, SPOILERS. We then discuss Marvel Phase Four in general. Also, The Rocketeer.

This episode contains: Ben will not be cooking turkey this Thanksgiving, instead it's poached salmon! Ben battled Devon's ghost on Geometry Wars 2, doubling Devon's high score (he got 12,676,335 if anyone is asking). Devon lost his leg in the Geometry Wars.  "Remember the Slaughter" is a pretty good band name.  Is somebody writing down our cool band names? "Annus Horribilis" is another great band name. It means "unfortunate year." Steven recommends the band "The Sword." They rock. Listen to them. This COULD BE a music recommendation podcast, but Steven rejects that idea. Devon introduces us to Swamp Pop instead of talking Science & Science Fiction. Sleep, Data. Sleep: Artificial neural networks learn better when they spend time not learning at all.  During sleep, the brain is super busy repeating what we've learned in the day. Catastrophic Forgetting happens with neural networks: it's when new info overwrites old. "Computational Biology" is a rad band name too. Our development in neural network's sleep pa

This episode contains: Three old men chat about their relative closeness in age. Ben and Steven played the fantastic science fiction RPG Traveller! Devon attended a BBQ and had some real talk with his kid about chicken. Go, Ninja, Go!: Rats bop to the beat. Scientists have found that rats nod along to music, just like humans do. We talk about these implications. Also, Steven took the long way around for a TMNT joke. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221111155715.htm Busted: Innocent man freed from prison after 35 years, thanks to an old episode of Mythbusters. A man was jailed for admitting to lighting a molotov cocktail with a cigarette, which we know (from science and Mythbusters) to be impossible! He has since been freed. https://www.iflscience.com/innocent-man-freed-from-prison-after-35-years-thanks-to-an-old-episode-of-mythbusters-65677 Rock You Like A Hurricane: NASA says its SLS rocket is good to go for a launch attempt next Wednesday. High wind gusts were within tolerance, and the rocket

This episode contains: Steven and Ben continue to cast without the delightful presence of one Devon Craft. We discuss out upcoming Traveller game (an amazing science fiction role playing game). Steven then tells why “today was not a good day for Steven.” Because of this, Steven is not prepared and so this is a much looser episode. So we talk about FTL, which Steven has not played since 2015, the Battlestar Galactica board game, and the recent history of indie video games. Steven brings up RimWorld, Tin Can, The Last Starship, and Cyberpunk 2077. Ben tells us about Plunder Panic, a patriate video game. Science Fiction: Ben tells about the 856th episode of Star Trek or the 11th episode of Star Trek Prodigy. The Borg return in this “super good episode.” Star Trek Prodigy also has a video game, which Ben has of course played. Ben also knows what the fourth Star Trek film might have been. Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth were going to team up somehow. We also discuss Ghostbusters, including the 2016 film and the ani

This episode contains: Around these parts, there's spooky and then there's spoopy. Steven says nope. Halloween can stick around year-round if you ask Ben. Ben found a house with severed limbs in the yard, but one was half a real rat. Steven's kids said no to Halloween decorations. They wanted Harvest Decorations. Stores are carrying skeletons for creatures without bones. Like octopuses. Whoops? And your welcome?: US embassies may have accidentally improved air quality. 2008 was great! Steven and Ben had great jobs and would NEVER get laid off. 2008 was also when Geometry Wars 2 came out. In 2008, US embassies installed air-quality monitors and tweeted amounts hourly. Can regulators be shunned to improve air-quality by the power of tweeting? Purely informational intervention from US to improve air-quality. Maybe the regulators should crack down on the quality of our podcast. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/us-embassies-may-have-accidentally-improved-air-quality/ The D in DNA stands for Dubstep: Ancien

This episode contains: Steven and Ben attended a well behaved dinner together. Devon contimplates shock collars for his kids. Oh, and Ben has another job. Neat. Brain Matters: Lab-grown brain cells learn to play PONG, may be sentient. Both Steven and Devon report on new findings on human and mice neurons integrated into a silicon chip and taught how to play PONG. If some red flags are raised, you'd be right. https://nerdist.com/article/lab-grown-brain-cells-played-pong-may-be-sentient/ https://gizmodo.com/scientists-apparently-taught-brain-cells-how-to-play-po-1849647952 https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/brain-cells-playing-pong/ Can You Hear Me Now?: Cheaper hearing aids hit stores today, available over the counter for first time. $799 for over the counter hearing aids, down from $2,000-$8,000. Steven shares his sister-in-law's hearing troubles. We discuss health care a bit. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/cheaper-hearing-aids-hit-stores-today-available-over-the-counter-for-first-ti

This episode contains: It's been a long time since the three of us have been together in one podcast. Ben's been boogie boarding with his son and has learned some interesting things about waves and tides. Steven is doing fine, just fine. We discuss pumpkin art, or “part.” Devon is tired, so tired. Ben also won an arcade machine from work. Boom Goes the Dinosaur: Impact that killed the dinosaurs triggered 'mega-earthquake' that lasted weeks to months. Some 66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer asteroid hit Earth, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs. New evidence suggests that the Chicxulub impact also triggered an earthquake so massive that it shook the planet for weeks to months after the collision. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/10/221006160638.htm We Got Wet: Dinosaur-killing asteroid triggered global tsunami that scoured seafloor thousands of miles from impact site. The miles-wide asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago wiped out nearly all the dinosaurs and roughly three-quarters

This episode contains: Steven and Devon record on a glorious Sunday afternoon. Where's Ben? It's fun to have Nicole Lawless on the show (ep421) as an actual science person. Devon woke up in a good mood, until he watched the Star Trek: Picard trailer. That Star Trek: Picard trailer was TOO DARK. Brighten it up! Devon continues to work on removing the tree stump. With fire. When Devon removed the stump, did he shout "STUMPFEST"? Steven and Devon drool over the new Lego Razorcrest. Lego just bumped up all their prices due to inflation. Crazy. Steven finally gets a day off from single dad duty after Martine's recovery. Ok ok ok, where's Ben? Lego: so much money for plastic in different orientations.  Evolutionarily speaking: Dead fish breathes new life into the evolutionary origin of fins and limbs. Evolution is AWESOME. Devon's 4yo. asked "when were chickens invented?" Devon talks evolution. Previously, our galeaspid fossils only had heads. Now we have a whole fossil. Primitive creatures on earth either had fins