Photo by Dušan Smetana on Unsplash

Michael and Michael reconnect after Thanksgiving to talk about trucks, virtual reality experiencing cows, bacon, slime molds, Stadia, security and Bond.

This episode is bookended with Tesla stories — starting with a funny tweet from Lego on the new Cybertruck, and ending with Elon Musk’s purchase of one of the Mk.1 Lotus Esprit cars from the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me.

In between these automotive pieces, a story about VR-wearing cows moved the co-hosts to consider whether they may dream of electronic sheep, or what virtual reality environment would help increase their milk production.  This reminded Michael M of the California happy cows commercials.

An interesting article on openai.com‘s specifically designed suite of video games to test how quickly a reinforcement learning agent develops the skills needed to master the games also captures Michael and Michael’s attention.  Continuing on the theme of games and game platforms, friend of the show epredator / Ian Hughes’ wrote an insightful blog post about the Google Stadia launch.

Rounding out this week’s episode is a discussion on security, quantum encryption and forward secrecy.

We hope you listen and enjoy! 

Selected Links

TechCrunch article: Lego’s take on the Tesla ‘Cybertruck’ comes with innovative roof racks — https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/27/legos-take-on-the-tesla-cybertruck-comes-with-innovative-roof-racks/ 

Verdict article: VR for cows: Moove over Oculus Rift, the cows are in town — https://www.verdict.co.uk/vr-cows/ 

California Happy Cows commercials

Zingerman’s — https://www.zingermans.com 

Science Friday segment: The Most Charismatic Single Cell You’ll Meet Today — https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/curoious-creatures-slime-molds/ 

TechCrunch article: This 16-game arcade for AIs tests their playing prowess — https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/03/this-16-game-arcade-for-ais-tests-their-playing-prowess/ 

OpenAI’s Procgen Benchmark game suite — https://openai.com/blog/procgen-benchmark/ 

Feeding Edge blog: The perils for early adopter — Stadia — http://www.feedingedge.co.uk/blog/2019/11/28/the-perils-for-early-adopters-stadia/ 

Schneier on Security blog: RSA-240 Factored — https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/12/rsa-240_factore.html 

Forward secrecy — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_secrecy 

MIT Technology Review: Why the rise of the app has put thousands of people in the hospital —