‘funny,’ not funny

Lionel and Jim discuss email woes, Bitcoins and Blockchains by Antony Lewis, Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson, more Neal Stephenson, The Cloud, Jim’s reading of Chromaspace Conscript by Megan Alnico, the nature of money, and Jeff Bezos’ yacht (again.)Photo credit: Fred Romero from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~05-Iron-Maiden/

Brothers revisited! This week, Lionel’s brother Damian joins us to talk about big construction, data centers for crypto mining and AI, modern art in the Hudson Valley, The M1 Abrams Tank, hybrids vs. electric cars, problems with money and guns, the end of work, and what’s still great about the United States of America.References: Here

We have our first caller! How this happened is a mystery, I suppose. Perhaps it’s all fake. However it happened, we ended up with a lively conversation with Tim on line one. We discuss phone hacking viruses, the future of crypto, DJs, record stores, tastemakers in the age of instant access, leisure, work, and the pandemic response.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~03-Caller-Tim/

Jim Rosen, Catherine Pilfrey, Matthew Bellows, and Jim Infantino have been teaching meditation online for almost 3 years as part of a twice weekly session that meets Tuesdays and Thursdays called Mindful Aware. In this episode, Matt, Jim, Jim, and Catherine answer Lionel’s questions about meditating online and discuss the practice of teaching meditation from a western perspective.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~02-Mindful-Aware/

A new season for the new year!Professor Donald Smith returns to the pod, post haste to deal with Jim’s misconceptions about gravity, a discussion of neutron stars and the James Webb Telescope, mental models in physics, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Ptolemy, and more.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~01-Donald-Smith-2/

Lionel and Jim look back at a little more than a year of making this podcast. We remember conversations with our guests, our growing reading lists, talk about the origin of the podcast and what we want to see in 2023.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~14-Johnny-Gottadoo/

Donald Smith manages Guilford’s introductory and advanced physics laboratories, laser optics laboratory, and rooftop observatory. He joined us to talk about Chat GPT and education challenges, the search for life and the startling size of the universe, German Science Fiction currently streaming, and his reading list.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~13-Donald-Smith/

We touch on two books Jim is reading, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and The City & The City, as well as The Hunger Games, which Jim is reading to his daughters. Then we talk about the new Texas Governor’s governmental bans on TikTok and certain types of drones. From there, we move on to topics we don’t fully understand and get lots of things wrong, including Quantum Computing (Lionel may be more correct than Jim on this,) and Nuclear Fusion (Jim said it was neutrinos, but it was neutrons). Finally, we talk about Jim’s upcoming portrayal as an eccentric billionaire for Dr. Hanage’s class.Late release due to time constraints.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~12-Superstition-Ain~rsquo~t-The-Way/

Ben is a musician and game developer who focuses his energy on creativity, positivity, and community. Ben does a weekly YouTube show called the Two Hour Music Challenge. We talk about his music work and what he's reading and watching and just generally chill out to a selection of his hundreds of tunes.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~11-Ben-Burnes/All song samples included with permission from Ben Burnes.

Jim and Lionel return to the subject of the traditional Thanksgiving feast, discuss Riddley Walker, A Clockwork Orange, possible shortcomings of The Peripheral TV series, Andor & Rogue One, Iceland travels, and Heima, by Sigur Ros.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~10-Upside-Down/