Two Bit Geeks

Ped & Tom continue to stare into the existential void and search for the meaning of life, with the help of centenarian Okinawans and the Japanese concept of Ikigai, as well as the organizational methods of tidying expert Marie Kondo.

This episode is brought to you by our amazing Patreon supporter, Ekin Köker. Thank you, Ekin! You spark joy!

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• Episode 38: Blazar McBlazeface
• Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles
• The Venn diagram of Ikigai
• Ikigai or Raison d’être
• Episode 33: Staring into the Void
• Okinawa Prefecture
• Victor Frankl and Logotherapy
• Marcus Aurelius and Stoicism
• Søren Kierkegaard and Existentialism
• Friedrich Nietzsche and Will to power
• Homer and the chili pepper
• Mindfulness
• Pomodoro Technique
• Interval training
• Two Bit Geeks in Bulgaria (Thanks Ivo!)
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

A long-lost concert video sparks a stroll down memory lane for two old-school Phish-heads, sharing a “thank you” card full of gratitude for all the joy created by their favorite band, Phish. Tapers welcome!

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• Phish Amy’s Farm Multi-Cam Footage from 1991 Surfaces (JamBase)
• Gallery of photographs taken at Amy’s Farm by Tom
• yeP!
• How Phish sounds to people who don’t like Phish
• Phish vs the Audience Chess Match
• Junta (1989)
• Trey Anastasio shares his Drug Court experience
• Relisten (iOS)
• RoboPhish (Android)

Shows referenced:

• May 14, 1989 - University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts (Tom’s first show)
• Feb 15, 1990 - The Living Room, Providence, Rhode Island (Ped’s first show)
• Jun 16, 1990 - Townshend Family Park, Townshend, Vermont
• Nov 16, 1990 - Campus Club, Providence, Rhode Island
• Feb 15, 1991 - The Colonial Theatre, Keene, New Hampshire
• May 3, 1991 - Somerville Theatre, Somerville, Massachusetts (Tom’s favorite show)
• Jul 14, 1991 - Townshend Family Park, Townshend, Vermont
• Jul 19, 1991 - Somerville Theatre, Somerville, Massachusetts
• Aug 3, 1991 - Amy’s Farm, Auburn, Maine
• Dec 30, 1992 - Symphony Hall, Springfield, Massachusetts (Ped’s favorite show)
• Dec 2, 2003 - Fleetcenter, Boston, Massachusetts (20th Anniversary Show)

Audience recordings excerpted:

• Foam - Nov 3, 1990 - Boulder Theater, Boulder, Colorado (Mastered by Mike Grace)
• Harry Hood - Nov 4, 1990 - Fort Ram, Fort Collins, Colorado (Transferred by Caleb Epstein)
• Runaway Yim - Jul 19, 1991 - Somerville Theatre, Somerville, Massachusetts (Mastered by Marmar)
• I Didn’t Know - Aug 3, 1991 - Amy’s Farm, Auburn, Maine (Taper unknown)
• Timber (Jerry the Mule) - Dec 30, 1992 - Symphony Hall, Springfield, Massachusetts (Mastered by Marmar)
• Harpua - May 3, 1991 - Somerville Theatre, Somerville, Massachusetts (Taper unknown)
• Tweezer Reprise - May 3, 1991 - Somerville Theatre, Somerville, Massachusetts (Taper unknown)
• You Enjoy Myself - May 3, 1991 - Somerville Theatre, Somerville, Massachusetts (Taper unknown)
• Golgi Apparatus - Nov 16, 1990 - Campus Club, Providence, Rhode Island (Taped by John Redmond)

Special thanks to Matt Laurence and all the Phish tapers who shared their recordings with the fan community!

Ped & Tom welcome a new sunrise and a new year, they run through some followup on Github, Stax lids, and ladybird beetles, Tom welcomes some new arrivals to his household, and Ped attempts to experience history in Washington DC.

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• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), IV:21.
• Subtly improved “Janky Tic-Tac-Toe” (thanks to Noé)
• Octahedron
• Guess How Many Stax Lids
• Cause and Effect
• Saturnalia
• Roomba
• Robot or Not?
• Anything Goes
• National Portrait Gallery
• Ford’s Theatre
• Old North Bridge
• Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Ped has a doughnut-related crisis, Tom is visited by ladybird beetles, and they discuss the forthcoming Insect Apocalypse.

This episode is brought to you by Patreon supporter Ossama Al-Alali from Germany. We thank you for your support! You are awesome sauce!

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• The Insect Apocalypse is Here by Brooke Jarvis (The New York Times Magazine)
• The German Amateurs Who Discovered ‘Insect Armageddon’ (The New York Times)
• Trophic cascade
• Anthropocene
• Coccinellidae aka ladybird beetles, or ladybugs
• Tom’s winter visitors
• Hemiptera or true bugs
• How many Stax lids are there?

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Don’t Panic! Tom is surrounded by hippies. Ped is on the lookout for interstellar visitors. And they both continue their search for the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Plus, Ped has a curious collection.

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• Lighting the beacons
• “Happy Valley”
• John “Grizzly” Adams
• Whole Foods Market
• Rationalism vs Magical thinking
• 12 Natural and Organic Brands Owned By Big Food (Mental Floss)
• False equivalence
• Light pollution
• Messier 31 - The Andromeda Galaxy
• The International Dark-Sky Association
• Outdoor Lighting Basics (darksky.org)
• Bobcat
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• Zaphod Beeblebrox
• Galaxy Quest
• Infocom
• Play the Hitchhiker’s text adventure online
• Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain ʻOumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration (Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb)
• ʻOumuamua
• The Unexpected Trajectory of Interstellar Asteroid ʻOumuamua (APOD)
• Radiation pressure
• Is ʻOumuamua an Interstellar Spaceship? I’m Still Going With ‘No’ (Phil Plait)
• Light sail
• Tabby’s Star
• The Planetary Society
• Breakthrough Starshot
• LightSail 2
• Rosa (Doctor Who S11E3)
• Lay’s Stax
• Ped’s collection
• How to Make a Tayto Sandwich

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

In this episode, Ped has a new drinking game, Tom reveals he was not a particularly good student, and your hosts welcome the new Doctor. They then return to the topic of Climate Change and why people believe what they believe…or not.

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• Take a drink, u/marzib!
• Chaos!
• The long tail of The Last Jedi followup
• Two-thirds of links on Twitter come from bots (Vox)
• Should You Take Early Morning Classes in College? (MTV)
• We welcome Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor
• Venusian Aikido as practiced by the Third Doctor and the Thirteenth Doctor
• Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040 (New York Times)
• Believe by The Oatmeal
• Amygdala
• Backfire Effect
• Scientific method
• Did George Washington’s false teeth come from his slaves? (The Washington Papers)

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

With apologies for the echoey room, albeit in a new home, Ped & Tom discuss the contrasting environ of Western Massachusetts, a perplexing but pleasing podcast review, and a followup on The Last Jedi that somehow made it through the edit. Then, Ped has a lot to say about CGP Grey and the fight for your attention and Tom makes an unexpected visit to the emergency room.

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• The geography of Massachusetts
• Jeff and Rick
• How The Last Jedi Defies Expectations About Male Heroes (Pop Culture Detective)
• Hello Internet - #108, #109
• Cortex - #74
• Thinking About Attention – Walk with Me (CGP Grey)
• Infinite Scrolling (Relevant XKCD)
• Free will vs Determinism
• The Attention Minefield at Newark Airport (CGP Grey)
• Attention economy
• Screen Time on iOS 12
• The painful diagnosis

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Tom is on the move, Ped is excited about Star Trek, and they both warp through tangents related to genealogy, immigration, solar probes, and climate change. Engage!

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Does it sound like a cave in here? [00:00]

• Democracy Day
• Punching through the diamond wall (Doctor Who)
• Tiny houses
• Pioneer Valley
• Home staging

Coffee Followup [20:56]

• Should Coffee Come With Cancer Warnings? California Says No (NY Times)
• Eureka! California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming The State’s Next Gold Mine (NPR)

Infinity War Followup [25:28]

• Bucky Barnes
• Spider-Man: Homecoming

Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the USS Enterprise [31:43]

• Patrick Stewart is bringing back Jean-Luc Picard for a new Star Trek series (AV Club)
• Ped’s Beginner’s Guide to the Star Trek Universe
• S3E15: Yesterday’s Enterprise

Andrew Sterett, Captain of the USS Enterprise [45:49]

• Andrew Sterett (1778–1807)
• USS Enterprise (1799)
• USS Sterett (DDG–104)
• History Detectives
• The New England Historic Genealogical Library
• FamilySearch (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)

Flying Close to the Sun [1:02:04]

• Parker Solar Probe
• Climate Change Scenarios of the 21st Century (IPCC)

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Ped and Tom followup on some recent developments in the world of science including the mysterious ʻOumuamua, a super-powerful blazar, and a neutrino detector buried deep in the ice. Then, Ped extolls the benefits of three recent self-improvement books while Tom prefers self-deprecation.

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Interstellar Interloper Revisited [01:32]

• Episode 22: Nostalgia Kilonova
• ʻOumuamua
• Non-gravitational acceleration in the trajectory of 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua) (Nature)
• Occam’s razor

Ice Cubes and Star Blazers [08:56]

• Multimessenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube–170922A (Science)
• Neutrinos
• Cosmic rays
• Blazars
• It Came From a Black Hole, and Landed in Antarctica (New York Times)
• TXS 0506+056 aka “Blazar McBlazeface”
• Multi-messenger astronomy
• IceCube Neutrino Observatory
• There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom by Richard Feynman
• 30-Second Quantum Theory by Brian Clegg
• Newtonian physics vs Quantum mechanics
• The Double Slit Experiment

Ped’s Book Report x 3 [32:10]

• The Heartfulness Way: Heart-Based Meditations for Spiritual Transformation by Kamlesh Patel and Joshua Pollock
• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
• Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Tom passes Ped’s code review with a particularly janky bit of programming, stickers are dispatched around the world, and we get some more complaining about Star Wars.

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Janky Programming [01:06]

• Janky Tic Tac Toe (source)
• Strong and weak typing
• JavaScript was written in 10 days
• Indentation style
• Two Bit Geeks on GitHub
• Station 13 on GitHub

Stickers Across the Globe [20:50]

• Two Bit Geeks stickers on Reddit
• They fit in a standard envelope.

Solo: A Star Wars Story [28:10]

• Episode 27: Grumpy Old Men
• Alden Ehrenreich

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)