Winter Movie Draft, Beasts Of No Nation, The Leftovers (203), Fargo (201) The Walking Dead (602), The Shield (710)
00:48 – Winter Movie Draft
03:14 – Triage
06:08 – Beasts Of No Nation
15:29 – The Leftovers (203)
20:46 – Fargo (201)
24:17 – The Walking Dead (602)
25:49 – The Shield (710)
In 1879 – Thomas Edison finished up 14 months of testing with an incandescent electric light bulb that lasted 13½ hours. It improved on 50-year-old technology to make light bulbs safe and economical by using lower electricity, a carbon filament and an improved vacuum.
In 1949 – An Wang filed a patent for a magnetic ferrite core memory, that he called pulse transfer controlling devices. Two years later he formed Wang computers.
In 1983 – The seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures ruled the meter would be defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. This actually simplified it from the previous definition of 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
We have a delightful conversation with Catherynne M. Valente about decopunk, book awards, and why she fears spoiling herself about her own stories while she’s writing them.
Her decopunk book Radiance is out now!
Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser.
You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks/.
http://swordandlaser.com/home/2015/10/20/sl-podcast-231-can-an-author-spoil-herself
Patrick Beja has been gleaning the rumors of the Nintendo NX console and shares his theories and predictions for Nintendo’s success with Tom Merritt.
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Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
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Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
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Netflix blames chip cards for subscriber decline, China’s Xiaomi revolutionizes set-top box, why fantasy sports gambling could fund the cord-cutting sports future.
CordKillers: 92 – Netflix and Chips
Recorded: October 19, 2015
Guest: Eklund
Intro Video
Primary Target
Signal Intelligence
Gear Up
Front Lines
Under Surveillance
Dispatches from the Front
Hey Tom and Brian.
Here’s a little insight into the Australian pay TV industry I got from my Uncle who is a major advertising executive. Foxtel, which is the only major nationwide traditional Pay TV operator left solvent that has cable and satellite infrastructure has after 20 years of operation a marketshare of around 30% of households in the country. Netflix on the other hand has managed to sign up 9% of all households since it’s launch earlier this year. Stan, Presto and Quickflix the three local Netflix clones are struggling however with less than 3% of households combined.
Since Foxtel took the drastic measure last year of dropping it’s minimum subscription fee per month to $25 in order to fight off the at the time un-launched $12 a month Netflix I’ll be interested to see if they can hold onto their marketshare longer than the much more expensive US cable and satellite companies.
– Nik
Just a quick note. The newest version of Playon and Playlater deserve some air time from you gentlemen. The UI has been completely changed and turned into a DVR style interface. The system has a set it and forget it record style that will record new episodes when available and notification when available for new shows. Only just start messing with it but extremely promising.
– William
Tom and Brian,
This week, my wife Eileen and I moved in to our new home. While setting up our entertainment center, she was confused as to why I was upset at all the cords I had to connect and hide throughout the living room. She asked, “aren’t you a cord killer. Why do you need all these cords?” I explained ‘cord cutting’ was about not using cable anymore and she responded, “well the show should be called ‘Cable Cutters’ or ‘Coax Killers’ then! CORD Killers is misleading!”
It was an awesome conversation!
Your boss in beautiful Norfolk, VA,
– Jeromy
All this talk about Hulu and VR is interesting. Don’t get me wrong…my enjoyment with Hulu is back since the no-commercials plan, but how can they figure out VR when they can’t even send 5.1 surround audio. Come on Hulu. Netflix does it, Amazon does its, Itunes store has it, Vudu has it. Everyone has 5.1 or better surround sound encoded with their streaming content, except Hulu. Still Stereo. Like an old black and white movie. Guess it’s too technically complicated?
– Jon
Hey Brian & Tom,
Since cutting the cord four years ago I’ve kept my old Directv dish laying around just knowing I’d come up with a new use for it. Yesterday was the day. I stripped everything off of it, bolted it to the old front brake rotors I just took off my car and slapped an old grate from a rusted out gas grill on it. I painted everything with high-temp grill paint and now I have a new deck fire pit for the price of free. I’ll likely get much more enjoyment out of the dish this way than I ever did when it was hooked up to directv.
–Eric
(P.S. – I’ll put it on some stone pavers before using it to avoid the deck going up in flames. Also, the cover is from the old fire pit which I bent to match the oval shape of the dish.)
Links
What if we could burn trash for power? Well, we can’t. But we can Pyrolisize it for power. Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast explains to Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt what that means and whether we will face a landfill shortage.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
Real tech stories. Really shaky analysis.
Welcome back to the Weekly Tech Views, where thoughtful analysis is for suckers.
For the week of October 12-16, 2015:
That’s So 2014
Acer is coming out with two completely separate mobile devices, a laptop and a tablet. Haha! No, of course they aren’t. Acer is, of course, introducing a hybrid computer, as mandated by the computer industry’s new HYBRID policy (Here’s Your Best Revenue-Increasing Device).
How About You Back Up That “Like” With Some Cash?
Facebook is testing shopping features in their mobile app with a Buy Now button. This will allow retailers of virtually any product, from clothing to auto parts, books to handmade crafts, to sell to you, with just the click of a button, a hybrid computer.
Avoid The Origami Setting
Laundroid is a robot capable of folding clothes. While the five minutes required to fold a T-shirt may seem excessive, the time, like everything, is relative. For testing purposes, I performed a time trial measuring my speed at folding a t-shirt, and completed the relatively foreign task in ten seconds. While not necessarily up to the precise standards you might encounter on the shelves at Neiman-Marcus, it was satisfactory for my needs (a low bar, true, as “worn for two days and hanging inside-out from the bathroom doorknob” is satisfactory for my needs). At that pace, I could theoretically fold thirty shirts in that same five minutes. Theoretically. But that little experiment took place in a controlled, distraction-free environment of our laundry room.* In the real world, I have been known to remove a t-shirt from a laundry basket as the Browns kicked-off against the Steelers and had that same shirt in my hand at half-time. So, assuming the Laundroid has no interest in football, I’m willing to give it a whirl.
On This Week’s Episode Of Cute Or Creepy…
Also on the robot front this week is RoBoHoN,** a small robot from Sharp that walks, talks, dances… and is a phone. The default mode for calls is speakerphone, with the cute little robot standing on your table and moving and acting like he’s talking when the person at the other end speaks. There is also the option to pick up the robot and hold it to the side of your head, wherein RoboHoN will whisper in your ear. And you will talk into… well, there’s some debate about that.
There is no word on pricing yet, but to purchase one you will have to pass an extensive psychological evaluation. No, not really, but it would be a damned good idea. I have a friend, let’s call her Jane, who really likes her current phone. Really likes it. It’s covered in stickers, she won’t let anyone else touch it, and she calls it Phonebert. An iPhone 4s. She could easily afford a newer one, but she is attached to Phonebert. Somehow, despite a protective case and the additional padding of half-inch of stickers, she cracked a corner of the glass, and was bed-ridden with depression for days.
Imagine if she gets a RoBoHoN. At first, she’ll be in heaven. She will be the catalyst for third-party RoBoHoN outfit designers. Her RoBoHoN-ey will have a crib, a changing table (let’s face it, version 2.0 is going to drink from a bottle and wet itself), and a spinning, lighted disco ball and dance floor. Jane will be in her glory. Until she drops him. On his head. Because this phone HAS A HEAD! And it will happen. Jane will be ending a call, RoBoHoN’s hand will catch in her hoop earring, he will slip from her hand, and crash to the floor.
So let’s be careful, Sharp, about who you sell these to. Because I can’t handle that memorial service.
It Rhymes And Has A Laser, Does It Have To Work, Too?
Kickstarter suspended funding for the Laser Razor because there is no working prototype for the device that its creators claim will remove facial hair with a laser beam. The public’s reaction, of course, is, “Whew.”
Sure, the idea is cool–anything with lasers is cool–but, inevitably, RoBoHoN would arm himself with one of these, and, when you’re on the phone while eating and you drip mayonnaise from your Italian sub on RoBoHoN’s legs one time too many, he aims his modified laser up your nose and Swiss cheese-ifies your brain. Granted, he gets rid of that one nose hair you can never cut because it curls up somewhere inside your nostril until you’re out in public when it extends to its full length and it looks like a spool of thread you keep up there has started to unravel, so, silver lining and all that, I guess, but still.
Maybe I’m Planning Her Surprise Party; Did You Think Of That?
HP and 3M are going to build privacy protection screens into some laptops. These will be in HP’s new line of business laptops, protecting sensitive data from prying eyes, particularly useful when the user is in crowded public spaces, as viewing will be restricted to the person looking at the screen head-on.
Said an HP spokesperson, “It is certainly not designed to enable you to watch porn while your significant other is in the same room. Why would you even think that? That would be crazy. We would call it a porn screen, if that was the case, and we didn’t, did we? For our line of funny business laptops. But that’s not even a thing. So everyone get that idea out of your head right now. Don’t look at me like that.”
What Was Plan B, Again?
There is a theory being advanced that our need for screen interfaces is on the decline, in favor of voice commands and gesture controls. “Ain’t that a kick in the head?” said HP and 3M.
Can I Get A Discount If I Only Need Three Games?
Valve’s new SteamOS gaming system, the Steam Machine, will launch with 1,500 games available, a huge library providing plenty of variety, which is probably great news for all of you who didn’t just finish the first Portal, eleven months after starting it.
Unleash The Next Wave Of Lawyers!
A jury found that Apple had infringed on a patent held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Damages could have been as high as $862 million, but came in at $234 million. Apple responded by saying, “Okay, sorry about that,” and cutting a check on the spot. Hoho! No, Apple will appeal faster than Packer fans can say “Cheesehead.”
* Now that I think of it, why don’t we have a TV down there?
** Current leader in the “Most Annoying Name To Type” race.
Hope you enjoyed this robot-heavy edition of the Weekly Tech Views. See you next week for another dose of the premium misinformation you can’t find anywhere else.
Mike Range
@MovieLeagueMike
Weekly Tech Views Blog by Mike Range is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Is Home automation finally affordable? High-end installers are now fighting for the average consumer’s dollar. Richard Gunther is at CEDIA 2015 Future Home Experience. and explains it all to Tom Merritt and Andrew Mayne.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
Yahoo released a new mobile app that can replace your Yahoo Mail password. is this the beginning of the death of passwords or a proprietary effort that nobody will use? Jason Hiner discusses the dream of a password-free world with Tom Merritt and +Justin Young.
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Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
The way we interact with our devices is changing with voice control, ambient awareness and sensory input like haptics. Will we always need a screen? Tom Merritt and Scott Johnson discuss.
Using a Screen Reader? Click here
Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!