Tech News Today 520: Dripping POS

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell

Verizon shared data plans reviewed, Facebook is dying, Antivirus is dead, and more.

Guest: Dan Patterson

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Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time: 48:17

Autopilot 12 – Lost

Autopilot 12 – Lost

Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a sci-fi/drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean. The story is told in a heavily serialized manner. Episodes typically feature a primary storyline on the island, as well as a secondary storyline from another point in a character’s life.

Tech News Today 519: Asymmetrical Fanboy!

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell

Why dual core doesn’t matter for mobile, Swordfighting games get real, a bunch of Apple stuff, and more.

Guest: Nicole Carrico

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We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv.

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Running time: 50:11

S&L Podcast – #102 – I, Dictator

It’s a roller-coaster ride of emotions this week, as we say goodbye to one of science fiction’s greatest writers, revel in swordfighting, and declare Veronica all-powerful.  Bu tthere’s also voting for the July book pick.  Don’t let all that democracy go to your head though.
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?
Veronica: Charles Shaw Shiraz 

QUICK BURNS

BARE YOUR SWORD
Thanks to Sean for setting up Listopias! Vote for your favorit ebooks. 
TV, MOVIES AND VIDEO GAMES

BOOK CHECK-IN

EMAIL
Hello Tom and Veronica,
In your last episode you mentioned that you noticed that fantasy seems to be more popular in later years than scifi, after which veronica immediately dissmissed the notion and attributed it to the popularity of game of thrones. It is not true, although game of thrones is extremely popular it’s popularity is a simptom and not a cause.
It is a well known fact that scifi had been slowing down as a ganre for 30 years, and in the same time the fantasy ganre had been on the rise, and it seems that during the last decade these trends had became more prominent.
Love your show,
Shaul from Israel.
Keeping a candle in the window for scifi.
ADDENDUMS

This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature and featuring audio versions of many New York Times Best Sellers. For listeners of this podcast, Audible is offering a free audiobook, to give you a chance to try out their service. For a free audiobook of your choice go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.

 

Tech History Today – June 12

In 1897 – Karl Elsener legally registered his “soldiers’ knife” for use by the Swiss army. The original had a wooden handle, a blade, a screwdriver and a can opener.

In 1936 – The first radio station with 500,000 watt power began testing as W8XAR in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Test broadcasts took place from 1 AM to 6 AM. The station is now known as KDKA.

In 1997 – 3Com Corp. and U.S. Robotics Corp. completed their merger. The two companies combined US Robotics modems with 3Com’s interface cards.

My message to aliens

I submitted this video to the National Geographic’s Wow reply project.

In 1977, SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) picked up a strange signal from space — a 72-second burst that became known as The Wow Signal. It’s remained unexplained for 35 years.

As part of the anniversary (and to coincide with NatGeo’s new documentary series “Chasing UFOs”), They’re crowdsourcing a public reply using Twitter – anyone that tweets with a hashtag on the night of June 29th will have their message beamed to space from Arecibo Observatory, the world’s largest ground-based radio telescope.

They were nice enough to ask me for a 72-second video message (the same length as the original Wow signal)that will be beamed back along with the tweets. These featured video voices have been selected to represent a cross section of the best in human art, culture and conversation – celebrities, writers, artists, filmmakers, musicians, scientists. etc. And for some reason, me.

I’ll be honest, I’m not so certain that I believe it was an alien signal, it’s more likely Interstellar scintillation of a weaker continuous signal. But we don’t have enough data to know for sure. AND how I could turn down the opportunity to have a video beamed from Arecibo?! I tell you, I couldn’t so enjoy my ramblings at aliens.