For as flawless as Curiosity’s landing was on Mars? That’s how broken today’s episode with Ryan Fleming is. It’s not Ryan’s fault – he comes to the show on point, locked and loaded with solid opinions on Bryan Singer’s “Days of Future Past” X-Men movie, why NASA needs to sex up their image if they want to get the American public to care about space, and why MMORPGs going Free to Play is almost always considered the sign of a game not worth playing in the first place. It’s just that Bobby has a massive headcold, and Cort’s brain is baking in the minor heatwave Portland is enduring, and as such, our heroes momentarily lose the ability to do things like “form sentences” and “make sense” from time to time. Be patient and bear with them – eventually, funny, enlightening things are said. Also, you find out who our new Thursday regular is going to be.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Should have put it here instead of tweeting bobby. For those complaining about just watching the control room during the Curiosity landing, they mentioned it on the stream but watching through NASA’s Eyes On The Solar System http://eyes.nasa.gov/index.html provided an animated view of the landing that was going off of live data at the time of landing and provided a great visual of the landing. You can still do a preview and watch exactly how it landed. At the time this was providing me with data and visuals even faster than the ustream channel. They really should have put more info out about this feature, it really was the best way to watch.
Loved the NASA talk.
I think NASA needs better PR, but ‘sexing it up’ just goes to places that would ruin NASA. It seems to me that anytime something is ‘sexed up to sell’ the core product becomes an after thought. Now, they could leverage the current Nerd and Geek culture that has become main stream in better ways.
As far as long term NASA survival, that’s up to parents. Make science part of your children’s lives, everyday in some way. Raise a scientifically literate child who has critical thinking skills.
Bobby:
Get well… or else!
I’ll miss Big Jim on Thursdays and hope he can eventually make a return but I love the Leia Weathington announcement. That last Byron/Leia combo show was a classic!
I realize fully that I have no impact whatsoever on this show, but I will be taking credit for the addition to the show, based on my suggestion. You are all welcome.
I think it was within an hour of two of making sure it was going to happen that you posted something like “I want Leia” to do it.
At which point I turned to Cort and said “This dude is gonna think he did this.”
Oh, I have no such delusions of grandeur. Like any Internet nerd, I’m simply satisfied to have been the first to say her name before the announcement.
Leia Weathington!!! It’s a Christmas miracle.
Seriously, that’s who I was seriously, secretly hoping it was going to be and IT WAS. I love it when a plan comes together.
English is a complex language and there are always plenty of exceptions to any rule. For example: girl, gimp, giddy, gig, get, gear.
Does it really matter how the original creator intended it to be pronounced? There are plenty of words whose pronunciation changes over time, it is one way languages evolve over time.The important thing is that the word is understood. I wouldn’t think any listeners familiar with computing wondered what Fatboy was talking about when he used a hard G.
“Does it really matter how the original creator intended it to be pronounced?”
Fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender have a very specific answer to that question in regards to M. Night Shyamalan’s film adaptation of the TV series.
“Does it really matter how the original creator intended it to be pronounced? ”
when we are only a fedecade after it was craeted? yes.
Yes, exception are based on the etymology of the word. In this case, there was no country jumping and the word being used in different language as it moved from person to person along trade routes. We know it’s etymology.
” There are plenty of words whose pronunciation changes over time”
which is no excuse for bastardization of the language now. When people use something wrong, they always fall to that argument. Stop using it as an excuse as to why it’s ok for you to be wrong.
“The important thing is that the word is understood.”
Yes, but speaking correctly indicates you aren’t some uneducated knuckle dragger.
“Yes, but speaking correctly indicates you aren’t some uneducated knuckle dragger.”
I agree completely but mispronunciation of a file type is very different to poor sentence structure or misuse of a word’s meaning. I would never judge someone because of their pronunciation of a file extension that may not even be in use in ten years.
Regarding the pronunciation changing so soon after the word’s creation, I wonder if this is a more common occurrence than we think. The word has not had many decades or centuries for the “correct” pronunciation to embed itself in to our language.
Although I’ll miss Big Jim, the Leia and Byron combo is just pure fried gold. Very excited to hear the next thursday show.
Ah, and to those that are complaining about SWTOR going Free-To-Play: what you got because of your money was the chance to play the game BEFORE everybody else. It’s not wasted money. I’m very much looking forward to playing it now that I don’t have to deal with a subscription.
Damn it, Bobby!!
How dare you and Cort make fun of Utah by comparing it to Mars landscape wise. That is simply inaccurate, like you and Cort have ever visited Utah to know what it is like. I just can’t believe that you guys don’t know that Mars is much nicer. Smirk.
If nothing else I’m pretty sure Mars has fewer Mormons. We’re going to need the Rover to confirm this though.
I thought Eddie Izzard confirmed, via conversation between Jesus and God, that the Mormans originated from Mars.
NASA accidentally sexed up their image a whole lot with “NASA Mohawk Guy”, flight director Bobak Ferdowsi, who has women flinging panties at their monitors all over the Internet. I’ve never seen that kind of excitement about NASA before.
I hate to be the one to crush Bobby’s dreams (that’s Cort’s job), but Star Wars: The Old Republic going free to play does not mean it will be moddable. The problem with modding online games is that all data must pass through the server running the game and it will ignore anything it doesn’t recognize. DayZ exists because players of Arma 2 were allowed to run their own servers and the DayZ creators managed to mod the servers they started. MMORPG developers do not allow players to run servers, mostly as a way to prevent pirated copies from working, but also because each ‘server’ that the game has is really a massive, tightly linked, server farm that requires nearly 24/7 attention.