MSP [] MATTSPLAINED [] MSPx

Sometimes it pays to be retroactively futuristic. As we approach 2019’s halfway mark, MSP takes a beat to pull together some of the threads of the first part of this long and stupidly confusing year.

What does it mean to be human in a world full of sentient machines and technologically enhanced people? In another Disrupted World special, we take a look at the future of the human species and get ready to welcome our quantum cousins.

If fake news and social media are getting you down, switch up your feed. Every day brings a raft of awesome innovation and fantastic discoveries.

From the historical accuracy of Assassin’s Creed to digital superpowers to donuts with black holes. Or black holes with donuts. We take a look at a tiny handful of the breakthroughs social media hasn’t told you about over the last few weeks.

Warning: Contains the words Quaversfreude and Twivalanche.

EPISODE EXCERPT:

I’m not saying that after MSP’s 4-episode series on Disruption that Matt Armitage feels that he needs to shake things up, but that would seem like a logical conclusion.
•Over the past few weeks we’ve gone to some fairly dark places on the show.
•I wanted to lift a little bit that darkness today.
•To try and reassure everybody that that it isn’t hopeless.
•And to try and highlight some of the great innovations and inventions and discoveries that have come out
•not over the last few months or years but literally over the last few weeks.
•I want to show people that however bad things might appear to be, it’s partly because we’re only focusing on one part of the picture.
•There is so much incredible stuff happening.
•One of the stories we talked about last week on geeks was NASA’s intention to put the first female astronaut on the moon within the next five years.
•It really is a great time to be a human. Animal, not so much.

Where are we starting? With Game of Thrones, like every episode over the past few weeks?
•Not with game of thrones but with games in general.
•And I guess the same theory applies for shows like GOT.
•Games may be helping us to grow our appreciation of history.
•A report in their new scientist talks about the accuracy that the makers of Assassins Creed Odyssey have gone to accurately recreate the world of Athens in around 400 BC.
•We know that with movies and TV shows based in ancient times, more attention is paid to plot devices than to the accuracy of geography or the actual surroundings.
•But with games you don’t have the same time impediments, especially with the sprawling worlds of many of today’s networked titles.
•And as we seen the physics engines and the replication of surroundings in all manner of games, as well as the attention to detail, is effectively creating these simulations of the world of that time.

Couldn’t you read a book?
•Of course you could. Or you can go to a museum and look at some of the exhibits.
•Or go and visit some of these places.
•Most of us have some artefacts of antiquity hanging around where we live. Possibly even in our own homes.
•There is a reason that the tech is called virtual reality.
•So if you’re going to play games, why not immerse yourself in all these fantastic landscapes that bring history to life.
•Learning isn’t just about absorbing facts in textbooks. It’s about to experience.
•And what better way to explore ancient Rome or Greece or Victorian London them to walk its streets with a sense of purpose or a mission.
•And as I said about other games, once you get bored exploring, you can start creating mayhem..

I think we’re sticking with superpowers for the next story…
•Yes, or an invention that pretty much gives us a superpower
•The power to see round corners. Just like superman and his laser x-ray whatever it is vision.
•In theory this isn’t something that actually knew with been able to use imaging algorithms with video images for quite a while to project an image of what things might look like around the corner.
•And they’ve always required some very stringent conditions, such as they’re not really being much going on around the corner, which kind of defeats the point.

This is the theory of an accidental camera?
•Yeah, you project patterns of light on the ground at the...

In the final part of our Disrupted World series, MSP asks the ultimate question: is it time to break up the tech giants?

Do we have the power and the will? Will it solve the problems big tech has created, or do we have to look deeper, at finding alternate solutions and pushing them through ourselves.

In part 3 of our Disrupted World series, MSP takes a look at the social costs of digital disruption and asks if we are somehow becoming less human in the process.

Of course, that takes us to CoffeGate, Game of Thrones and Gladiator, and Matt considers launching the world’s first Sesame Street fake movie review podcast.

Episode Excerpt

This week we’re staying with us, people, consumers, listeners - whatever you want to call us - to ask: what’s happened to our humanity? I assume this is a response to CoffeGate?
•Hey Jeff.
•Isn’t it strange how these serendipitous things pop up.
•We’re in the middle of a disrupted world series. We were working on human empathy – or the lack of it – for today’s show.
•And what do we get? A barrel roll of haters piling on because a modern day coffee cup was stuck in the background of a shot of this week’s Game of Thrones.
•For those of you who have better things to do with your day, in a shot of the post battle feast in the episode, a takeaway coffee cup was left on a table in front of Daenerys, the Dragon Queen.
•Isn’t it remarkable how far we’ve come, that that statement doesn’t sound as ridiculous as it obviously is.
•Best thing is, you can’t even see it anymore. Because HBO have CGI’d it out following the backlash.

I think some people were commenting that last week’s episode, the Battle, was too dark, and this week, suddenly you can see everything and the crew has left a modern cup in shot. So what was hiding in the dark of last week’s episode?
•It’s a fair point. And I imagine that in the future someone with a BluRay player and a lot of time will take a forensic look at every scene in that episode.
•Hopefully, my Internet will be down on that particular day.
•Look for the most part it’s funny. It’s always funny when this kind of thing gets left in shot.

Did you like the Memes?
•And there are some really good ones. I particularly like the one that makes it look as though it was a deliberate act by Dani rival Sansa Stark to sabotage her.
•I thought that was a nice way of mixing onscreen and offscreen.
•To Jeff: Is there one you liked [We can skip this is easier]?

Jeff Replies
•But there’s also an undercurrent of anger there as well.
•That somehow the production team is lazy and sloppy.
•I saw one post on Twitter along the lines of ‘how dare you charge me so much to watch HBO and then allow mistakes like these to occur.

People are taking it too seriously?
•Is there anything that doesn’t get taken too seriously on Twitter?
•People complaining that their right to say hateful things and insult people has been impinged upon.
•You only have to spend a few seconds on YT to find the streams and streams of videos that unearth these kinds of bloopers and continuity mistakes in big movies and TV shows.
•Gladiators is a classic example.

I think that movie is legendary for its continuity errors…
•Russell Crowe is holding his sword in different hands as the camera moves from
•In his death scene he pancakes onto bare earth but is suddenly resting his head on a rock in the close up shot.
•But do those things ruin your enjoyment of the film?

There’s also a scene where one of the chariots overturns and you see there’s some kind of petrol tank or gas canister underneath.
•This stuff happens. When you consider that blockbuster movies take a couple of years to make and GOT is doing multiple episodes at a similar scale, it’s a wonder that more things don’t get missed.
•But the point is, how can you let something so inconsequential get you angry.
•Your faith in the TV show has been rocked by a single continuity error. To the point where you have to insult the cast and crew.

Didn’t Jon Snow attack the haters online a few weeks ago?
•Even before the new season began there w

In the 2nd part of our Disrupted World series, MSP dismisses Avengers Endgame and looks to The CW’s The 100 for a solution to our privacy problems.

It was supposed to be a celebration of Star Wars for May 4th but we couldn’t think of anything that hasn’t already been done. That’s how Disruptive we are.

Produced by Jeff Sandhu for BFM89.9

Show Links:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/30/reuters-america-update-2-facebook-overhauls-messaging-as-it-pivots-to-privacy.html

Episode Transcript

These shows are dictated to and transcribed by machines, and hurriedly edited by a human. Apologies for the typos and grammar flaws.

As this show is airing on May 3rd, you might expect that uber Geek Matt Armitage would be doing a Mattsplained Star Wars tribute today. The answer, of course, is no. It seems like we’re going with the return of the slightly trashy steampunk sci-fi show The 100, instead.

Are we continuing last week’s Disruption theme with a TV show about the most Disrupted future you can imagine?
•Yes, I’m continuing with the Disrupted World theme we started last week.
•Originally I was going to do something that tied in with Star Wars a little more closely.
•In fact, I was planning to do a show about how movies now seem a little disappointing compared to games.
•I watched Avengers Endgame this week and I have to admit I was slightly disappointed.
•I’d heard all the hype and I’d kept away from spoilers – and don’t worry – no spoilers here, so I was imagining how it might work, especially now Captain Marvel has been admitted into the MCU.

What disappointed you?
•It turned out my imagination was taking me way further out than the movie went.
•Don’t get me wrong – it’s a really good movie, but I found it fairly predictable.
•That spun me back to the idea I’d had about so many movies being a little underwhelming compared to streaming shows and, of course, the increasingly vast universes that games now seem to inhabit.

But you don’t know enough about gaming?
•Yes. So, it made my comments seem a bit trivial.
•I stand by the idea though. The complexity of the worlds you can now explore and inhabit in gaming is astonishing.
•Especially the titles that don’t have a standardised gameplay.
•Where you can explore the world or worlds and bash a few heads along the way when you get bored, but where you can define your own role and your own place in those worlds.
•That’s far more interesting to me than the kind of linear narrative movies we’re seeing.

You’re going to talk about books again…
•I am, because I love books.
•I think what disappointed me the most about Avengers Endgame – and if some of you are wondering if you’re listening to a tech show or a movie review –
•This is a tech show and I will get to the point…
•The thing about Endgame was the idea of all the realms and dimensions that the previous movie, Infinity War, had laid open for us.
•I imagined it spinning off a little like the Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter series The Long Earth where the population of earth suddenly gains access to an almost infinite number of parallel earths and spreads out.

Before this gets any more complicated. Let’s summarise things a little. You decided not to talk about Star Wars because you were disappointed in the Avengers movie. You didn’t know enough about gaming to make your central point. And now you want to talk about The 100 because it’s the ultimate example of a Disrupted world?
•So nearly right. And yet so wrong. For two reasons which will I hope will become clear.
•When we started talking about Disruption last week, I thought it was going to be a one-off show.
•But since the

It’s the entrepreneurial equivalent of a middle finger. Disruption is more than a tech bro buzzword. It’s a destructive force that we’ll be paying the price of for generations to come.

Produced by Jeff Sandhu for BFM89.9

Show Links:
https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38901702-lab-rats
https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/future

Episode Transcript

These shows are dictated to and transcribed by machines, and hurriedly edited by a human. Apologies for the typos and grammar flaws.

I’ve been away from MSP for the past few weeks. Because Matt decided that I needed some attitude adjustment.

However, while I was away our Inbox was flooded with complaints that the show was starting to sound like the BBC Shipping Forecast. So, who’s attitude do you think needed adjusting?

Of course, we wouldn’t want Matt to adjust his attitude or change anything up, which is why, on this week’s show, we’re talking about Disruption.

Are we looking at the effects of Disruption on our future?
•I actually wanted to call today’s show the search for a noun.
•But I knew that was essentially suicide in terms of SEO, unless we compensated by filling the introduction full of spam terms like size, money, crypto, wealthy, enrichment and pharmaceuticals.

You mean, you’d have had to do exactly what you just did?
•There, you see, I’m already being Disruptive.
•Mostly to the norms of taste and decency.

You sound as though you’re saying Disruptive with a capital D…
•Your ability to aurally process grammar, is extremely impressive.
•that’s aural with an au not an or, by the way.
•I’ve successfully wasted 103, no 105, no 107 words since you asked your first question.
•I’m Disrupting the show again.
•[pause]
•Have you noticed that Disruption always has a capital D?
•If you see it in a presentation, even in the middle of a sentence, it always seems to be capitalised.

Jeff Replies
•There’s this element of shoutiness about the word Disruption.
•It’s the entrepreneurial equivalent of a middle finger.

And you think that’s what Disruption – with a capital D – has become?
•Absolutely. On the one hand it’s a very arrogant response.
•On the other. It’s like a panic reaction
•it has this ‘rabbit in the headlights’ quality about.
•Somewhat lacking in specificity…

A bit like this show…
•Oi.
•Someone asks you what your company does or what’s unique about your product.
•And the only thing you can think to say about what you do is that it’s disruptive.

Is it time to start feeding our meat addiction with a new approach? It ends up in a pan. Why not grow it in one?

Advances in biotechnology, sustainable planet initiatives and changing consumer demand are putting us on the cusp of a cultured meat and plant-sourced burger revolution. This is the case for clean, green, meat.

Show Links:

•https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/03/clean-meat-lab-grown-china-india
•https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47724267
•https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/5/4589744/cultured-beef-burger-public-tasting-mark-post-sergey-brin
•https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ginkgo-bioworks-launches-motif-ingredients-with-90-million-series-a-financing-300802134.html
•https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00011/full
•https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/29/can-the-world-quench-chinas-bottomless-thirst-for-milk



Episode Transcript

These shows are dictated to and transcribed by machines, and hurriedly edited by a human. Apologies for the typos and grammar flaws.

Meat. A word that delights some and disgusts others. I probably only have to say the words ‘juicy burger’ for half of you to hit pause on this show and switch to your favourite food delivery app.

Assuming you’re back and the food is steaming, have you ever considered how dirty that meat in your hand is? Matt has. But I’ve still no idea what he’s talking about.

You’re not supposed to marinade your steaks in the street, you know.
•That’s where all the flavour is! Or at least that’s what I keep being told about authentic street food.
•Anyway, as they say: if it’s good enough for the flies…
•Ok. This would be a very strange show if it was all about food hygiene.
•Although, of course, that is an issue.
•Things like chlorine washing to disinfect meat, not just because it has fallen on the floor, but because the meat itself is contaminated. .
•That’s become something of a Brexit issue in the UK because it’s outlawed under EU rules but would likely be central to any trade deal with the US.
•But we’re really talking about the bigger picture of meat and other animal products.

We’re talking about technology and diet in a broader sense?
•This is not an entirely novel subject for MSP.
•Meat is a subject we have talked about quite frequently on the show over the years.
•Especially when it comes to the things we are now classing as clean Meats.

Maybe you should tell us a bit more about clean meat in general?
•You’re asking me to pander to people who don’t hang on my every word?
•I’m not really enjoying this post Jeff world I’m finding myself in.
•I’m hoping his attitude readjustment is almost complete.
•You’re just far too high maintenance.

Clean Meat…
•We’ve covered Laboratory-grown meat on the show a number of times.
•In general, when I bring it up, it’s met with the chorus of revulsion.
•In fact, I get more tweet feedback when we do a food show then anything else.

And you can find Matt on twitter @kulturpopup
•You’re just mean.
•When we’ve talked about lab

While parents worry about self-harming memes like Momo, are their own actions creating a generation of kids destined to self-destruct?

Show Links:
•https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24132220-300-strange-rise-of-mukbang-parents-who-feed-their-kids-fast-food-for-cash/
•https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/mar/29/apple-martin-tells-mother-gwyneth-paltrow-off-for-sharing-photo-without-consent
•https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/millennials-burnout-generation-debt-work
•https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/01/would-you-take-a-pay-cut-to-get-a-better-job-title-its-not-as-stupid-as-it-sounds
•https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24132162-300-the-truth-about-generations-why-millennials-arent-special-snowflakes/
•https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/27/18241961/youtube-pedophile-ring-child-safety-advertisers-pulling-ads
•https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/02/momo-challenge-hoax/583825/
•https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/20/us/youtube-fantastic-adventures-mom-arrest-trnd/index.html

Let’s clear something up from the start: is this show intended as a How To guide for exploiting your children?
•I know that I seem to get cast as an AI-toting, modern-day Fagin figure but no.
•There is enough child exploitation – of tremendously varying degrees – going on without me adding to it.
•Of course, my popular online course, how to make money off your weak-minded kids, is available for only 99.99 in the currency of your choice on the Kulturpop website.

Yes. Someone who bought it said it contained four hours of nothing but you laughing.
•It’s a theme that runs through most of Kulturpop’s online courses.
•Get rich with Crypto-Currency is especially popular.
•And it’s true. My course on crypto currency is making me rich.
•But I have my social responsibility hat on today.
•And there’s quite a lot of ground to cover.

We’re looking at deliberate exploitation?
•That’s one aspect.
•There are the online scares and memes, there’s innocent oversharing and there’s also the emergence of Gen Z as the so-called burnout generation.
•So, we’re really looking at the whole cause and effect cycle.

Do you think we’re still obsessed with Millennials?
•Yeah, which is really weird. I discussed this with Jeff on a previous show.
•The last Millennials were born in 1994. The oldest Millennials are now 39.
•We’ll be changing their title to Middlennials soon.
•If you’re 25 or older then you’re not a Millennial, you’re a Digital Native.
•And, the last Digital Natives have been born.

Gen Alpha?
•Anyone born after 2013 or so is characterised as Gen Alpha.
•So when we talk about the exploitation side of this, it’s Gen Z and

The idea of wooden cars, homes, planes and skyscrapers used to be a Fred Flinstone fantasy. Now, with huge leaps in material technology, could wood be the miracle material of our future?