Two Bit Geeks

Ped & Tom go around and around on roundabouts, BritComs, accents, dialects, and bubblers. They revisit the problem of social media dopamine hits, and then explore the promise of Bitcoin and the blockchain.

This episode is brought to you by Patreon supporter Chris!

Chris is awesome-sauce.

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Accents & Dialects [01:44]

• Received Pronunciation
• A tour of British accents
• How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk (New York Times)
• Bang a U-ey, Rotary, and Other Boston Slang (Boston University)

Rotaries & Roundabouts [10:32]

• Swindon’s ‘magic’ roundabout
• “Big Ben! Parliament!”

Remaking BritComs [15:16]

• The Office UK vs The Office USA
• The IT Crowd being remade for the US
• Graham Linehan
• Why the Geek Community Hates ‘The Big Bang Theory’

Antisocial Media & Feedback Loops [21:09]

• Former Facebook VP says social media is destroying society (Washington Post)
• Dopamine
• Facebook Messenger for Kids (New York Times)
• Child Online Protection Act (COPA)
• Wait Until 8th
• A deviously hairy online ad (The Verge)

Bitcoin & Blockchain [1:00:43]

• Net neutrality
• Bitcoin
• Blockchain
• Cryptographic hash function
• The Official PedCoin Ledger

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Celebrating the luminous, quiet and noisy joys of the season, Quentin Tarantino has phasers set to kill for Captain Picard, and AlphaZero ushers in a new era of mostly fear for Ped and Tom as they ponder the perils of the new AI. Happy Holidays, humans!

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Yay, snow; nay, leaf blowers [00:27]

• Annual Average Snowfall for New England
• Your average American household at Christmas
• Cats in Christmas Trees
• It’s simple and quiet when it snows
• At least Jean-Luc is on board
• First world problems: noisy machines

Tarantino + Trek: A match made in … ? [14:00]

• Patrick Stewart is all-in
• Tarantino: Remix Artist

AlphaZero and the new AI [26:49]

• Long ago, Deep Blue beat Kasparov with brute force
• In Just 4 Hours, Google’s AI Mastered All the Chess Knowledge in History
• AI’s Hype cycle has now circled back, and this time it means business
• Quickly drawing neural networks back in Episode 04
• Machine Learning neatly explained by CGP Grey
• AlphaZero is AI’s Trinity Test moment
• Minority Report’s PreCogs
• Mutual assured destruction
• The Only Winning Move
• Universal Paperclips
• Final thought to ponder: Eponymous Link

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Ped & Tom celebrate a year of podcasting with their first inductions into the Two Bit Geeks Hall of Fame.

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Too Many Cats! [00:00]

• How Many Cats is Too Many?
• (Stuffed) Cat Chucking in Belgium

ʻOumuamua Update [03:04]

• The first known interstellar object
• Light curve of ‘Oumuamua
• Relevant XKCD 1919 - Interstellar Asteroid
• Asteroid Capture
• Sagan standard
• Occam’s razor
• Cueball and Megan

Evidence Tangent [11:15]

• The Scientific method vs Anecdotal evidence

A Two Bit Anniversary [18:10]

• Two Bit Geeks Episode 1: Roll for Initiative!
• Don’t Start a Podcast (College Humor) h/t to Charlie
• Two Bit Geeks Episode 9: All Aboard from Silly Town!
• The Two Bit Geeks Subreddit h/t to /u/loonling

The Two Bit Geeks Hall of Fame [24:27]

• Adam Ruins Everything - Why Mount Rushmore is the Weirdest Monument
• Archimedes
• Randall Munroe
• Relevant XKCD 1732 - Earth Temperature Timeline
• Relevant XKCD 1262 - Unquote
• Martin Gardner
• The Top 10 Martin Gardner Scientific American Articles
• M. C. Escher
• Martin Gardner bibliography
• Conway’s Game of Life
• Benoit Mandelbrot
• Vi Hart
• Vi’s YouTube channel
• Numberphile by Dr. Brady Haran
• Standup Maths by Matt Parker
• Hexaflexagons by Vi Hart
• How to Make a Hexaflexagon: The Definitive Guide by Vi Hart
• Twelve Tones by Vi Hart
• Nikola Tesla
• Why Nikola Tesla Was the Greatest Geek Who Ever Lived - The Oatmeal
• Elon Musk
• “Weird Al” Yankovic
• White & Nerdy by “Weird Al”
• Gary Gygax
• Dave Arneson
• The great 1980s Dungeons & Dragons panic
• Zork
• Choose Your Own Adventure
• Deathtrap Dungeon
• Leonard Nimoy
• Tom Baker: the definitive Doctor Who?
• “You may be A doctor, but I am The Doctor. The definite article, you might say.”
• ”Fezzes are cool.”

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Deconstructing Tom’s editing filter, briefly Brother X, Star Wars and LOTR news, questionable parenting trends of the modern age and debating the value of death. Plus, Two Bit Geeks t-shirts are here!

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Ode to the Cutting Room Floor [00:22]

• The Curse of Knowledge
• How to remember your dreams

Bits & Pieces [09:40]

• Dare to be Stupid, Weird Al’s sublime pastiche
• A green light for a new Star Wars trilogy (no spoilers, Brother X)
• Bezos pays a boatload for the Lord of the Rings TV rights

Where have all the children gone? [23:51]

• Helicopter parenting and the vanishing neighborhood
• The digital allure of indoors and the decline of play
• The many layers of free-range, boredom and the calibration of letting go

To die or not to die: that is the question [49:05]

• Why Die? by RIP Grey
• Why Age? by Kurzgesagt
• Senescence discussion on Hello Internet

Bonus Round: Two Bit Geeks t-shirts are here!

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Wandering down the aisles of emergent 80s nostalgia, briefly Blade Runner and the satisfaction of reinvention, Dungeons & Dragons gets back on the scene, first light on the biggest bangs in the universe and interstellar greetings from the Vegans of Lyra.

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A special “Thank You” to Patreon supporter Xavier Lambein!

Meandering nostalgia, 80s style [03:20]

• The Banana Splits, mixed-reality early pioneers
• The Stranger Things font is intentionally awesome
• We loved the pace of Blade Runner 2049 (and Roger Deakins’s cinematography)
• Devo’s Satisfaction is the perfect cover

D&D: back and here to stay [17:51]

• Turn on, tune in, drop phone
• Rock Stars of the new platforms: The Adventure Zone and Critical Role
• Wizards of the Coast hit the structure/creative sweet spot with Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition

Big news from the sky x 2 [27:30]

• The first observed neutron star collision has astronomy geeks over the moon
• Time + stellar fusion = stuff: Tom, Bill Wurtz and NASA explain how everything got made
• Buzzed by an interstellar fly-by! All hail Vegan King 1I/ʻOumuamua

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

31:10!

The busy geeks are back from more travels and buzz through accumulated corrections and followup, followed by a deep dive into software development, a trip to the world of Ahch-To (also know as Ireland), and finally Tom finds himself on a ‘special’ list.

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To sleep, perchance to dream [01:27]

• The Art of Dreaming by Carlos Castaneda
• Lucid dreaming
• Sleep paralysis
• No Dumb Questions 015 - What the Heck is Sleep Paralysis?

Corrections and Followup [10:30]

• Listener correction on Viruses vs Bacteria
• Antibiotic / Antimicrobial Resistance (CDC)
• Mysterious Dimming of Tabby’s Star May Be Caused by Dust (NASA)
• The Search for Planet Nine
• Making Life Multiplanetary (SpaceX)
• The BFR
• Recent Elon Musk Reddit AMA
• Imposter syndrome
• A-Town

Software Development [30:17]

• AngularMix
• User Experience (UX)
• User Stories
• Is 30 too old to start in software engineering or CS? (Hacker News)
• Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (Tech Crunch)
• GitHub
• jQuery

A Trip to Ahch-To [1:00:43]

• Star Wars sets in West Kerry (Episode VIII Spoilers!)
• The mediaeval monastery on Skellig Michael
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi Trailer
• Looper

Airport Security [1:08:06]

• SSSS (Secondary Security Screening Selection)
• What It Means When You Get ‘SSSS’ on Your Boarding Pass (Lifehacker)
• Security theater
• Relevant XKCD: Password Strength

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Climate change, nuclear war, hostile AI, runaway nanotech, supervolcanoes, supermassive meteor strikes and unrelenting alien invasions: Ped and Tom shine a gamma ray burst on the biggest threats to our continued existence. Inspiration optional!

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Micro follow-ups [00:00]

• Todoist is working out great for Ped
• Blink: exceptional standalone sci-fi, and a great Who intro
• Andrew Mao clarifies Resilient Cooperators (more to come)

Handicapping the (Human) Race [15:22]

• Inevitably, we roll along
• Wikipedia at its best: Global Catastrophic Risk
• Nick Bostrom and the Future of Humanity Institute
• Carlin on the anthropocene (and the sixth extinction we’re soaking in)
• Thich Nhat Hanh: evolving intelligence and love
• Interlude: A brief stroll through the Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter
• It’s two and a half minutes to midnight: The Doomsday Clock advances
• Hostile AI: Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and many others are sounding alarms
• Nanotech ecophagy, Grey Goo and see also Astrochicken
• Just a matter of time: supervolcano eruptions and magnetic pole reversal
• Gamma Ray Bursts - what fun!

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

A happy birthday to Curiosity, a stellar job opportunity, and a deep dive into Nicky Case’s game of trust, compassion and resilient cooperation—just don’t tailgate Tom.

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Warming up with Space [00:00]

• Curiosity sings like that
• NASA’s Planetary Protection wants you!

The main event: playing with Trust [05:45]

• The Evolution of Trust (Nicky Case)
• Game Theory 101: The Prisoner’s Dilemma explained
• The WWI Christmas Truce
• TBG Ep. 11: Creating trust in a campaign (13:16)
• The Adventure Zone’s Suffering Game arc
• Resilient Cooperation is where it’s at (Andrew Mao, Lili Dworkin, Siddharth Suri & Duncan J. Watts)
• TBG Ep. 7: Tom forgives the highway cheaters (38:03)
• The Simple Solution to Traffic (CGP Grey)
• Ped’s interpretation of Utilitarianism makes him not like it at all
• Forbidden Island: a pretty cool non-zero-sum board game
• 12.5 years of Diplomacy - nice!

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

Ped & Tom experience the August 21, 2017 Total Solar Eclipse within the magical Path of Totality, and survive the traffic nightmare afterwards.

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Eclipse Followup [00:51]

• Episode 1: Roll for Initiative!
• Solar Eclipse of August 11, 1999
• Solar Eclipse of August 21, 2017
• The Path of Totality
• NOAA National Weather Service Cloud Cover Forecast
• City of Sweetwater, Tennessee
• Baily’s Beads
• The 2017 Corona at Totality
• Total Solar Eclipse simulation (Mashable)
• Solar Saros 145
• The 1999 Corona at Totality
• Solar Eclipse of April 8, 2024
• Solar Saros 139
• Why are some total eclipses darker than others? (/r/solareclipse)
• International Space Station Transiting 2017 Eclipse (Smarter Every Day)
• No Dumb Questions podcast with Destin & Matt
• Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area
• Randall’s Eclipse Review (xkcd)
• What is an Annular Solar Eclipse?
• What is a Hybrid Solar Eclipse?
• Pinhole eclipses
• How does Google Maps predict traffic? (How Stuff Works)
• 4th Down: When to Go for It and Why (New York Times)
• List of solar eclipses in the 21st century
• Solar Eclipse of July 2, 2019
• Solar Eclipse of December 14, 2020
• Solar Eclipse of September 2, 2035
• Solar Eclipse of August 12, 2045
• Solar Eclipse of May 1, 2079

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)

The dramatic conclusion of the The Great Pea Experiment; Ped across America with a road trip redux through five National Parks, seven natural wonders and The Argonath; and there’s good reason to celebrate our 13th Doctor.

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The Great Pea Experiment: riveting finale [00:19]

• The entirety of the pea harvest

Ped across America: road trip redux [04:37]

• The whole trip on a map
• Bison warning (as Tom predicted)
• Ped’s kayak soundtrack: The Argonath!
• A fantastic resource for scenic drives
• Plastic Crazy Straw World, geyser style
• #overthinkingIt: from whence comes “awe”?

Top seven highlights

1. South Kaibab Trail, Grand Canyon National Park
2. Mexican Hat > Monument Valley, southeast Utah
3. East Entrance, Zion National Park
4. “The Narrows”, Zion National Park
5. Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park
6. Blacktail Ponds Overlook, Grand Teton National Park
7. Lower Falls Overlook, Yellowstone National Park

The New Doctor: it’s about “time”! [64:40]

• Just a wee bit of “controversy”, though

Music by Lee Rosevere (CC by 4.0)