Verge ESP

Verge ESP

By The VergeTV & FilmScienceTechnology
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Verge ESP episodes

  • Buy the ticket, take the ride featuring interview with Juan Thompson

    It's sort of a shame Kanye didn't name his album Waves after all — the same week that The Life of Pablo dropped, the LIGO group said they found gravitational waves. (Waves would also be thematically appropriate for Tidal, which is the only place where TLOP is legally available.) Today, Liz and Emily discuss them both, and bring on special guest Juan Thompson, to talk about Hunter Thompson, writing, and too much fun.

    First up, the ladies discuss gravitational waves, their significance for Einstein's general relativity, and what promise they may hold for astronomy. As a special bonus: Liz also explains this isn't the first time someone's claimed to find gravitational waves — but every previous time, the "discoverers" have been wrong. Turns out, contrary to what your textbooks teach you, a great deal of science is about being wrong.
    Then, Emily talks about Kanye, and what it's like to see an album process from the point-of-view of the artist in real-time. If the streaming copy is all that's available, she points out, Kanye can continue editing songs to his heart's content — indefinitely.
    Then special guest Juan Thompson — son of Hunter S. Thompson, one of Liz's personal writing heroes — joins the show to talk about his new book, Stories I Tell Myself. (For anyone who has the misfortune of knowing Hunter Thompson only by reputation, here are two gems: "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" and "He Was a Crook," the Nixon obit.) The younger Thompson's book, out now, isn't just about celebrity parents — it's about alcoholism, love, and fatherhood. Juan talks about Hunter's devotion to writing, and how painful it was in Hunter's later years when the drug use and alcoholism slowed and then halted his typewriter.

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    54 min
  • Badly behaved record execs, badly behaved scientists

    We rarely go into this thing with a theme in mind, but an unfortunate (and all too common) one just fell in our laps this week: men doing bad things — and getting away with it. First we talk about the repeated reports of sexual harassment coming out of the science community, and why universities and organizations like the National Science Foundation aren't incentivized to do much about it. We also talk in a larger way about how important it is to recognize the fallibility of our heroes — whether they're scientists or football players — and how keeping abusive people around discourages other people (i.e. women) from the community.

    Conveniently HBO's about to launch their latest men-being-despicable drama, the Martin Scorsese-Mick Jagger coproduction Vinyl. You can read Emily's review here; on the pod we talk a little more about why our narratives are about the businessmen and executives at the top, rather than artists and strivers coming up from the bottom. These things tend to go in cycles, but for the past few years — especially within Scorsese's oeuvre — it seems like we're siding with The Man.
    Finally, Liz talks with Kate Clancy, a professor at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana who studies harassment in field research. They talk about the steps being taken to protect researchers and student — ideally before they drop out of the field altogether — and just how much funding clouds the issue.

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    54 min
  • The 90s are coming!

    Liz and Emily are back on their proper coasts — finally — and from this perspective, it becomes clear the 90s are back. Like, in a very serious way. Is it just part and parcel for the 20-year rehash cycle? Can it be attributed to the fact that all the #content is made by people who were young in the 90s and want to recapture their lost youth and innocence? Is Emily excited about the new Full House? How is the X-Files going? Why are all the children wearing crop tops? Will we ever see JNCOs again?

    Meanwhile, Liz is wondering why the CDC treats host vehicles for fetuses women as though their own health, self-determination, and decision-making revolves around their parasites babies. The CDC has made the absolutely bonkers recommendation that women of child-bearing age who are not on birth control shouldn't drink. (This makes sense for women who are actually trying to conceive but that is absolutely not how the recommendation was worded; special emphasis was placed on the possibility of unintended pregnancies, and how young women shouldn't drink juuuust in case they're accidentally knocked up. Y'all know abortion exists and is legal in this country, CDC, right?) First: not all women of childbearing age are fertile! Second, not all sexually active women are interested in men! Third: why does the baby's health get all the hype — when there's a whole human being who already exists and probably needs to be healthy for her own sake? (Alcohol is a leading cause of preventable injury and death.)

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    48 min
  • I love sitting on the sidelines of a scientist fight

    Liz has a cold, and Emily is in a cabin somewhere in the mountains of Utah, but the Verge ESP podcast must go on! This week, we're chatting about the return of The X Files to Fox — a show near to Liz's heart and dear to Emily's. Liz has seen the first episode of the miniseries reboot (you can read her spoiler-free review here) and more than anything else, it made us think about why the show was such a perfect mirror for the paranoid '90s. How that gets translated for 2016 is a whole other story.

    We also talk about a scuffle currently happening in the scientific community about the origins of war — and Liz's general delight anytime she hears the words "scientist fight." Humans' predilection for violence and conflict goes back a long time, but could have it gone all the way back to the supposedly chill hunter-gatherer times? There's still lots of work to be done and lots of smack to be spoken before we know for sure.
    Finally, Emily chats with Dilcia Barrera, a programmer at the Sundance Film Festival and at LACMA in Los Angeles. She talks about the changes she's seen in festivals over the past 10 years, how technology has changed the nature of the festival and the films it screens, and what she looks for when screening the thousands of submissions she and her team get every year.

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    50 min
  • Sound & Vision & Personal Fitness Trackers

    Hello and welcome to the first Verge ESP episode of 2016! First of all, some good news: we're gonna be weekly this year. Second of all, some bad news: both Lemmy (of Motörhead fame) and David Bowie died. (Can someone please check on the rest of the iconic UK musicians?) We'll talk a little about how we were affected by their lives and careers — but that's hardly all.

    Did you notice all those health gizmos at CES this year? It's part of a weird trend, where tech companies can dodge FDA scrutiny by branding themselves as "wellness devices." As long as they aren't making health claims like "promotes weight loss," they can sell their fitness trackers without any external verification. Which is why they're body-shaming you as a marketing gimmick. Are gadgets the new diet books — meant to be bought but not seriously used? And why are people adapting serious technology, like EEG, to specious purposes? Liz continues her party-pooping streak.
    It's award show season, may God help us all. Emily had some feelings regarding The Revenant, the Golden Globes, the Oscars, and the general apparatus of Hollywood appreciation. Why do we even care about this stuff? What's worth getting worked up about? And why are so many prestige films so bad? (Is it possible to even make a prestige film without sticking Leonardo DiCaprio in it somewhere?)

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    50 min
  • Drake memes, Space memes, and guest author Ann Leckie

    Memes were everywhere this week, from Drake to a "drunk" comet spewing booze across our solar system. Emily and Liz tackle the plusses and minuses of space giving up clickbait. Emily talks about HBO's Project Greenlight and the vastly different standards men and women (especially women of color) are held to in the film industry. And Liz welcomes award-winning science fiction author Ann Leckie, who just published the conclusion of her Imperial Radch trilogy.

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    1 hr 1 min
  • Martian madness, Song Machines, and The Knick

    Emily and Liz follow up on their experiences watching The Martian, talk about Elon Musk's bizarre cult of personality (and his dastardly plans for Mars), try to make sense of some questionable, high-tech psychosis pills currently being tested, and try not to faint while talking about how graphic the second season of The Knick is.

    Emily also interviews New Yorker music writer John Seabrook on his new book The Song Machine, where he delves into the intricate craft of the modern pop song and its place in our contemporary music industry.

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    59 min
  • Water on Mars, Matt Damon on Mars, and why Liz is so mad

    Liz and Emily go to Mars on the ESP spaceship as they talk about NASA’s findings this week and the upcoming movie The Martian. And speaking of sustaining life, the British Medical Journal published an investigation on food that is seriously in error– Liz explains why, and checks the BMJ’s work.

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    49 min
  • Ghostbusting Gals, #Brands, NASA, and a History of Autism

    Liz and Emily chat about the up-coming Ghostbusters movie, brand activation and personality, NASA logos, and Pluto and its moon Nix. Then, journalist and author Steve Silberman joins the show and talks about autism’s tale of two scientists, which is featured in Silberman’s most recent book NeuroTribes.What does space have to do with the autism community? Tune in to find out.

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    1 hr

About Verge ESP

From the publisher's feed

The entertainment industry provides us with culture, but so does science — and not just the kind of culture you can grow in a lab dish. Entertainment editor Emily Yoshida and science editor Liz…