Decipher SciFi

Kids and aliens and not understanding how pranks work. Losing your arm to a racoon attack, but then turning into a cyborg so maybe it’s okay.

Joe shared with us this recent development in zombie satellite communications. The long-term orbital stability og geosynchronous orbit, and ssedpace “ruins” as the longest landing mark of an expired humanity.

Huaraches! Coffe tools and supplies. Colbert’s long lost dinosaur mug.

Ancient tatoo princess art reconstruction. Mummification and skin art preservation.

Like all the things with Star Trek in them - feeling nostalgia for good Trek.

Conquering the Three Body Problem and moving on to the… eight body problem? Breaking your brain. Tidal forces and planetary ejection. Game theory: secret society, or open discussion?

The great synthetic filter from beyond space and time.

If that’s the words, then that’s the words

Christopher Peterson

Classifying the artificial intelligence of Trek’s synthetic life. Issues with anthropocentric terminology. Backing up synthetic “minds.” Finding out you’re a robot and also, somehow, simulation hypothesis.

“To die is to be human” and other stupid nonsense. YOLO. “I’m gonna live forever ha-haaa. Wasting deaths in Star Trek.

Small-scale good-guy Borg. Dunbar limits and smaller collectives.

But also mayonnaise! Definitively “The Best Sauce.” Coolio’s Ghettalian Garlic Bread. Japanese mayonnaise appreciation.

Dune set photos!. Sting’s codpiece. Manly housework. NVidia RTX Real-Time Noise-Reduction Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA6R9NmZO80

Magic Leap disappointment and waiting for trickle-down from Enterprise. AR vs VR and chaning expectations. Oculus Quest sold-outness. Half-Life Alyx: game changer? Splatmoji. Programming your way into a Bash-hole.

Volcanoes! Krakatoa exploded while we were all over here trying to figure out face masks. Remebering our Dracula episode w/ Joe Ruppel where Krakatoa brought on the “year without a summer.”

Super Mario 64 Decompilation. Decades later, the smoke fix. Figuring out why game decompilation is interesting. Appreciating harcore nerds.

A larger time investment, generally… but high idea-load! That one time we did a book in the past. And that next one we’ll probably do in the future.

Chinese science fiction. This book as the first Asian Hugo Award-winner. The difficulty of translating highly technical, crunchy hard scifi. Translation footnotes or the lack thereof in the audiobook. Prior movie adaptation from the same author on Decipher SciFi: The Wandering Earth. Adaptions, failed or otherwise. Minecraft engine magic.

Inverse square law and power and focus difficulties. Reaching out way above our stellar paygrade and reaping the consequences. Scale-accurate “first contact” scenarios.

DO NOT REPLY

DO NOT REPLY

DO NOT REPLY

-An alien

The frustation of having no closed-form solution to your planet’s gravitational situtation. The value of the scientific method. Recognizing that there is always a model. The complexity of a model may not be veyr connected with the complexity of the results it yields.

Targeting the loci of technological advancement. Figuring out how to prevent that advancement in opposing far-away civilizations.

What if math… didn’t work anymore? Adrian’s initial frustration with this book. How totally exciting it is to discover math is broken when you’re not being tortured by aliens.

I am the best mathematician that has ever existed.

Adrian Falcone

What if Memento, but with nanites?

Everything is either postponed or straight-to-streaming now. What do we expect the film industry to do after this debacle?

The 1990s comics bubble. Chromium gimmick covers (Bloodshot was the first?).

The difference between the magic of “nanotechnology” in 1993 and now. Being spoiled by Hollywood nanotech superpowers. Being impressed by self-mending t-shirts. Brute force superhero combat - no tactics whatsoever!

Just a heads-up, flour burns when spear in the air: Exploding Flour @ YouTube.

Just a conversation in isolation!

“Free time” for parents working from home with children. Catching up on movies and video games. Stress. Running marathons with bikes.

Remote learning, remote work, and video meetings. Bunnies and allergies in springtime. Skyrim! And immunotherapy and poisons.

Making bread while locked down! Peanut butter and jelly (jam!). Sourdough cultures. Making bread from actual ancient Egyptian yeast!

Aliens. Alien intelligence. Alien vessel shapes and what it says about the show you are about to watch. Moebius ships?

Crystalline FTL space antennae. The realities of lightspeed communication and why The SETI Institute doesn’t do “Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence.” Unexplained FTL comms.

When your crew is this good, you really should just send a ship without the humans on it instead. MapQuest in spaaaaaace being confounded by gravitational lensing. Dark matter… blocks your view sometimes? Rogue planets and how very very very dark it is in between star systems. Robinson Crusoe oxygen rocks (or crystals).

The taste of another episode of Decipher History! Featuring Josh 💪😉

1917: trenches, trench rats, and modern war w/ Josh

Our world is on the brink of some possibly extreme unpleasantness. Known unknowns threats to civilization. Humanity is bad at planning for statistically-likely-but-not-definite disaster.

The anti-scientific garbage that starts to overflow in the face of a public health crisis. Goop. Alex Jones. Snake oil. Homeopathy. Price gouging. Levels of understanding and respect for the severity of the current pandemic across age groups.

R0, or basic reproduction number. Vulnerable sub-populations. Prisons. Social distancing. Hoarding toilet paper and… meat? The nipah virus.

Social distancing. Hoarding steak and toilet paper.

Historical pandemics. Rate of spead and pandemic reach in the premodern and modern worlds. Propaganda and the “Spanish Flu” of 1918. Wildlife as natural disease reservoirs. Wildlife farming and infectious disease overflow. Disease-spread mitigation. Getting germs in your holes Wash your hands!

The taste of another episode of Decipher History! Featuring Ryan Stitt of the History of Ancient Greece Podcast 🔱

Alexander: succession, “The Great,” and sooo many Alexandrias w/ Ryan Stitt