This week’s main topic covers teaching kids about technology_ When, how, and what should young students learn about computers at school? How far have things come since Merlin’s Business Administration class and the lectures John suffered on RAM vs. ROM?

As your hosts brace for the quadrennial U.S. Presidential election (yes, this was recorded the night before), Merlin illuminates the seedy underbelly of YouTube upload workarounds, John says Merlin’s head is definitely getting bigger, and Merlin considers John’s new theory regarding helium and weight loss. Merlin pronounces more things wrong and misses more of John’s references.

John shares the mysterious tale of the weird new smell in his house, and Merlin outs himself as a relative humidity nerd and baking soda life hacker.

Can a deeper interest in the wild and unexplored possibilities of technology be encouraged amidst the more practical and vocational approach to using today’s computers? Should poets and playwrights encourage their kids’ enthusiasm for coal mining?

(Recorded on Monday, November 7, 2016)