This week, the Triumphant Trio discuss Arfidmeister, chock full of RFID goodness. Bad 80’s music combined with future tech as cyborg eyes promise to watch you soon. And more rules for XBOX 360 developers. On Boston in Brief, Kaiju Big Battel hits the Big Time in Boston, and politicos get to stand on a soapbox and discuss new forms of media and their influence on culture at MIT.
Any comments or suggestions?
Email: Colin, Carl, Captain Damage
Skype: bostongeek
Voice: 1.617.209.4200
All music composed and recorded by Karl Kornfeld.
There is actually a gigantic after market business for body parts and mechanical upgrades (mufflers, engine parts, etc) for the Honda Civic. I used to work at a auto parts store and there were whole catalogs that were specifically for Honda Civics.
Actually Kaiju has been hosting the Action Blast cartoon block for G4 for a while now, but I guess they are getting their own show now.
I know there is a gigantic market for Civic parts. I saw a Civic with doors modded out to open like a Lamborghini’s. Problem was, it was a Civic Wagon. From like… the mid-90’s.
My problem isn’t with the Civic per-se. It is pretty well-known that the Civic’s engine was vastly more powerful than it let on. mods to the stock engine could get it running at 8000 RPM, and allowed it to do very interesting things on a budget somewhat smaller than that required to afford a Ferrari 355.
My problem is with people who take their stock 90hp Civic and put stupid body mods on it. Like spoilers. Your 90hp ass isn’t ever going to hit speeds that require a spoiler. Also, lowering your car so that it is only an inch from the ground is only going to result in the destruction of your front bumper and undercarriage. Your trashcan muffler might make your car sound loud, but when you get smoked at the green light by the soccer mom driving a Volvo, we’ll all know the score.
I guess I don’t like people who take their limited funds and ‘pimp out’ their car, rather than investing in under-the-hood upgrades. I mean, it’s much more impressive to see what looks like a stock car peel out and hit 60 in 4 seconds than watch some neon-colored turd wind it’s way up.
Oh agreed, I think it may be one of those status symbol things. I knew a kid when I was living in Dartmouth, MA who had sunk $30,000 into his Honda Civic only to have it get repo’d because he wasn’t making the payments.
^^^^^ the above post says it all. Both about aftermarket mods, as well as the status of civilization in the greater New Bedford area.
la la la…I can’t hear you. I absolutely abhor anyone who modifies a car that just shouldn’t be modified. In my opinion, it comes 100% from the ego and it is viewed as a status symbol. And it only causes trouble. I’ve seen it all too up close and personal. I’ve seen the aftermath of a broken window because someone wanted the cool stick shift. That whole incident ruined what was supposed to be a great weekend. (*twinge*) And that’s completely why my opinion is what it is.
I want a glass of RFIDSchlager.
My idea of car mods is, “How can I improve performance and/or technical capacity.”
Touchscreen LCDs, GPS-linked computers, NOX boosters, sure.
Dildo-shaped shifters, not so much.
Funny how this is the initial topic of conversation for this podcast… which really had nothing to do with car mods…
Yeah. I know friggin’ food makers are going to start spiking their products so supermarkets scan you as you walk in and KNOW what the hell you’ve been eating. Then, as you move from aisle to aisle, signs will start glowing, beckoning you over. Because if you like Cracker Barrel Sharp Cheddar, you’ll LOVE their Swiss….
Wait, that doesn’t happen to you already? That happens to me every time I walk in to the liquor store.
HAHAHAHA.
Nice.
For the record, I’m not offended.
But I laughed my ass off at the end of the podcast. ;D
(I also sent in an answer for the game geek challenge – whoop! I love that game!)
PS – If Carl will buy a dildo shaped shifter, I’ll leave a sexy message on the voicemail.
(Disclaimer: But I’m not one of those girls he described. I’m the sort who helps you wire your house or drink your Guinness and makes off with your favourite baseball cap.)
I have a black XBOX baseball cap from the launch of the original XBOX. It’s not only my favorite hat (nice British spelling, btw), it’s my only one. So keep yer grubby mitts off. Colin has a red Red Sox cap, though.
Hrm, will the message be extra-sexy if I buy a big pink dildo-shaped shifter? I mean, I don;t have to actually use it on my car, do I?
Yes. Yes you do.
And unless that xbox hat is really nice… I’m gonna pass. The Sox hat now… maybe.
I come by it honest.)
(And don’t mock my spelling!
Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson has a lot about the future of RFID. People are followed around by swarms of “smart” RFID tags (calls ‘em nanobots), gathering and exchanging data. New social customs arise to allow- or prevent the nanobots from interacting.
You know, I could absolutely deal with that. It would probably keep me from sounding like a jackass on occasion if I could get the nanobots to shock me when I’m getting close to bad subject.
Imagine what dating would be like with that? What if your nanobots like someone else’s nanobots, but you don’t like them? What if your nanobots are just dirty little whores?
The nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in approximately 103,550 deaths, including long-term. Approximately 16 million therapeutic and imaging nuclear medicine procedures are performed each year in the US alone. Still think radiation should’ve never been discovered Carl? Let’s see how you walk after getting a broken leg set without an x-ray (no, sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound like a threat. Just a rhetorical question).
Nuclear weapons are terrible to be sure. But there is simply no comparing the lives actually lost to nuclear weapons to the lives actually saved by nuclear medicine.
sources: http://www.uic.com.au/nip29.htm
http://www.nuclear.com/archive/2005/10/07/20051007-001.html
This is going to be inflammatory, I know… but honestly I do believe that if it meant no Hiroshima, no Chernobyl, no depleted Uranium shells for tanks, no missing nuclear material, no thousands of tons of radioactive waste that will be dangerous for tens of thousands of years… yeah, I could do without Nuclear Medicine.
This isn’t to say that I value one set of lives over another. It just doesn’t seem to be worth the cost to me.
I was gonna say something, but I’ve decided against it for the good of the Land.
The problem is how quickly and easily we turned the discovery into a weapon.
We are, it seems, an innately mean species. Add to that our relative naivety about fusion when we built the first bomb (much less fission shortly after), sprinkle in our incredible arrogance, and you have the global equivalent of a 3 year old with a flame thrower. We’re wiser about the science now, but still just as arrogant and misguided as we ever were. And still mean.
PS – OK. Game Geek Challenge. What’s up, guys… Somebody fess up. There was no Phoenix Wright last week.
Colin has pointed out that some of my comments might offend people for whom nuclear medicine has been a lifesaver, either to themselves or to a family member.
Please don’t take my comments out of context. I’ve had x-rays too. I do not dispute the lifesaving potential. I merely hold that (as Maggie seems to agree) on the balance we aren’t very good at keeping such powerful tools from turning deadly, and because of that I believe we shouldn’t have ever had it at all.
Any great boon to mankind can be turned into a weapon. The greater the boon, the more terrible the weapon. Pick any discovery that saved lives. Germs led to vaccinations and germ warfare. Pesticides to DDT and Agent Orange. Radiation to x-rays and radiotherapy, but also to nuclear weapons.
We *are* misguided, I agree. And mean-spirited. It’s in our nature to kill, to destroy, to attempt- in our hubris- to control the world and beyond. We’re not a very good species. Unable to live in balance with our planet, unable to keep from killing ourselves and others.
I am fully aware that I am a human being. But all things considered, the planet probably would have been better off without us.
I don’t think anyone disagrees that despite the many breakthroughs we have had in nuclear medicine, its use in weapons, etc. are not a _good_ thing. But, I think what mny of us disagree with (and might find insensitive) is your statement that we would, as a whole, be better off without any of these advances.
I know I do
Being the civilized people we are, we can agree to disagree, then.
Holy crap, I agree with Carl. And no, I didn’t find the comments (as one who has had family members helped immensely by nuclear medicine) inflammatory. I do think that it’s a situation of “the more powerful the breakthrough, the more powerful the damage that can be done”. Man invented the knife to cut hisself some steak, then figured out how to stick said knife in someone’s back. Maybe it was the other way around. Who knows. Man’s capacity for knowledge is only outweighed by his capacity for violence.
I’m curious, where you guys would draw the line in terms of what tech level you think we’re ready for? Do you want to give up electronics and computers since they allow for icbms and mirvs, regardless of payload? Explosives/gunpowder in exchange for no bombs/guns?
I draw the line at the point where more than one person can be killed with a weapon. There’s no such thing as an innocent bystander getting hit with a sword.
I’d give up computers. I’d give up gunpowder. Reduce man to the level of pre-Renaissance technology. Sure, plague was rampant, as was cholera, tuberculosis, and influenza.
On the other hand, if man had never advanced beyond medieval tech levels, life would be assured to continue. We were too few and insignificant to cause any real harm to the planet. Our quality of life might be diminished, as would our life expectancy, but I believe we lived more in balance as a species with the world than we do now.
Ahh, yes! The good old days! It was so much better back then. Hey wait a minute! They had guns in medieval europe. They killed multiple people with single weapons (hot oil over castle walls, poisoned wells…) But they had no toilet paper. And women commonly died during childbirth, and all the diseases you mentioned. They were so harmonious with nature they turned the once forested british isles to open fields…
Humans have been making weapons for, what, 2 million years. Every human culture knows war, at least through mythology and history if not from current conflict. How is anyone surprised that new techonology always gets exploited as arms? It has nothing to do with technology or even knowledge. It’s just human nature. Becoming Amish will not change more than a tiny sub-population.
I’m with Karl. We’re shitty stewards of our planet and our (and other less fortunate) species. But we are a part of it all. What we need, IMHO, is not a return to any other era but a leap forward to a new one where rational thinking and a lot less hocus pocus and hoodoo are what drive our culture going forward. Part of that is exactly what we’re doing; talking openly about what shitty beings we are instead of towing some ‘god’s perfect entity’ bullshit. Another step is removing myth and magic from our government and education systems.
We suck at reproduction, our bodies are not made for standing erect, we’re a cesspool of viral vectors, etc. Compared to many other species, we’re pretty ill-prepared animals. But we were just good enough to survive for a while, but not to dominate. So we evolved a big brain to compensate. And eventually we became top banana on the monkey tree. Now we need to put that big brain to real use before we kill ourselves and the cockroaches sit around laughing saying “I told ya so…”.
I guess what I’m trying to get at is that the positive generaly outweighs the negative. Not just in a subjective qualitative sense, but in a real objective quantitative sense. E.g., millions of lives saved by nuclear medicine > 100,000’s killed by nuclear weapons. I think the scuccess of humans as a species shows that we really aren’t likely to destroy ourselves (Convincing arguments can also be made that the threat of nuclear war actually reduced the escalation of conflicts in the 2nd half of the 20th century). Sure there are bad things in our nature, but the good things usually wind up coming out ahead.
Wait a minute – how’d I become the optimist here?
I think people that think the “answer” is to return to a “simpler” time are taking a cafeteria view of history. Sure it’d be fun to fight vikings with swords, but it’d be a little less fun to be burned at the stake in town square on family day for being accused of witchcraft. And I promise you if you found yourself on the battlefiled with a hundred sword-weilding vikings rushing at you, you’re going to wish you had an M16.
Sadly, I would totally be up for sword fights, but thats me.
I do not favor returning to earlier times for many of the reasons that Karl and Maggie pointed out since they are extremely valid points. I also think that the art of brewing has come a long, long way and have no desire to drink beer dipped from an open keg that probably has a rat floating in it. Now future beer, that I can deal with.
I’m still laughing from this one. Because people with swords only kill people with other…hehhehehe…no, I can’t even type it.
You know you want to. Because that comment is chock full of so much bullshit its hilarious.
Medievil times were not an MMO where there was no PvP on the server. I’m sure there were lots of innocent people who got killed by swords.
Also, aside from not destroying our habitat, or killing off animals we’d like to look at in a zoo, why do we need to give a shit about “living in balance as a species with the world” exactly? Because we made it to the top of the food chain and they didn’t?
When I said “innocent bystanders”, I meant in the sense of some guy leaning out a window and spraying a full clip from an Uzi and killing 5 people when he was aiming for one.
Of course people kill innocents. They always have. So do some animal species. But, the numbers are lower and it’s a lot harder to do when you have to do more than push a button in an air-conditioned room or pull a lever on an aircraft bombay door.
And being at the top of the food chain doesn’t really matter, since we’re wiping out so many species. If we cannot sustain our food chain (and as I consult the Magic 8-Ball, all signs point to ‘we can’t') does our dominance really count for that much?
Again, you don’t have to agree with me. But you asked for a clarification of my opinion, and there it is. Where we are, we don’t deserve to be. Everything natural science has taught us points to the necessity of a species living in equilibrium with its environment. Lions and cheetahs don’t overhunt because they in turn will die. Nature self-corrects.
Those rules don’t apply to us anymore. We are a species devoid of checks and balances, except for what our consciousness and self-awareness is supposed to impose on us. And yet, obviously that isn’t working. We have evolved beyond nature’s ability to handle us, but not to the point where we can handle ourselves. To borrow from an earlier comment Maggie made, we’re 3-year olds with flame throwers.
I gave Anya a flamethrower and she’s only 18 months. No accidents yet, she can handle it.
Possibly you’re forgetting that in those days the people who killed lots of innocents from their rooms were called kings instead of generals, but they still managed to get a lot of people killed from the comfort of their castles.
As for not being able to sustain our food chain, how do you figure that, exactly? We’re on track to kill a huge number of species, and very probably lead to notable climate change, which in turn means we lose a significant part of the surface land mass we currently enjoy. Doesn’t mean we won’t have sustainable agriculture, or that the species we want to keep alive for food purposes will necessarily die off.
I’m also puzzled by the “where we are, we don’t deserve to be” line. Did any of the advancements we’ve made as a species come cheaply? No. We worked, fought, bled and died for all of them, technological as well as social. I don’t think we’re where we want to be, socially or morally, but we’ve seen significant improvements since the middle ages you seem to be so fond of. Not everywhere, but in bits and spurts, here and there. And we’ll get there eventually.
I would add to that, but part of mind is still stuck on the “innocent bystanders don’t get down by swords” comment.
I’m sure at some time, there was a case of someone leaning out their window and tossing a bucket of burning coals out the window at someone they didn’t like and hitting 5 innocent bystanders.
You have an optimistic point of view I just don’t share, I guess.
We aren’t advancing in fits and spurts. We are advancing exponentially, and far too fast.
A million years ago we were still little more than apes. 50,000 years ago there was Neanderthal man. 5,000 years ago, the pyramids were built. 1,500 years ago the stirrup was invented. A little over a hundred years ago the automobile.
You see where this is going. Discoveries are coming too fast for their consequences to be understood. When someone else’s discovery tomorrow can outshine the one you made today, things like consequences take a back seat to the realization of the discovery.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing this from a moral point of view. I’m looking at this purely from a survival of the species standpoint.
As for wiping out species… it’s widely held among the scientific community that the planet cannot sustain itself if we eradicate all species with the exception of the ones important for food. Where do you even draw the line? Insects that pollinate? Other insects that control the populations fo the pollinators? Insect-eating reptiles or mammals that keep their populations in check?
You’re one of those “nanotech is going to turn us all into grey goo” nutters, aren’t you?
Grey goo? No. But I do believe nanotech will probably cause a great many problems.
I was only half joking when I made an earlier comment about RFID tags in our food so the supermarket knows what we eat. You think that won’t happen? Or that RFID tags won’t eventually find their way into most people as part of some medical treatment, commercial endeavor, or condition of employment?
Nanotech also has such potential for good. Medicine, ecological studies, space exploration. But no one can possibly be naive enough to think that’s all it will ever be used for, or that there are not catastrophic consequences waiting for us if we mis-step.
Carl, have you made your placard yet?
Rather than talking about traveling back in time to a better time (I think you might be the only one to think that those bygone days were better in any way) why don’t you propose a solution? You can’t stop advancement in science and technology (I think you have even mentioned your fondness for the ability of science to provide answers to questions that those in the middle ages would have chalked up to magic/religion), so what do we do?
“The end is extremely fucking nigh” – what a tired and unoriginal message.
Good point, I hadn’t even thought to ask him how he reconciled his idyllic middle ages fantasy with the religious nut-jobs that populated it.
Alright, now I know you’re just playing dumb on purpose! You know perfectly well that this statement is just plain false:
“Lions and cheetahs don’t overhunt because they in turn will die. Nature self-corrects.”
Lions and cheetahs can’t overhunt because they and their prey are constantly eveolving such that the prey is always just almost out of their reach. Nature isn’t some peaceful static eden. Nature is constant violent struggle. Additionally, there are cases of predators overhunting, such as brown tree snakes wiping out the birds on Guam, and pythons threatening aligators in Florida. I have seen film of a pair of juvenile tigers killing over a dozen antelope in less than half an hour, just for the sport of it.
I think you’re just trying to get a rise out of us. Or maybe you’re just trying to be like a politician – rather than admit you said something dumb without thinking, you keep trying to defend and clarify hoping we’ll get bored and distracted by – oh look! a shiny quarter!
Quarter?! Where?!
As for the overhunting, its more for the fact that most animals don’t hunt for sport, so if they’re not hungry they don’t hunt.
I never said most animals hunt for sport. Other Karl did.
And Karl, evolution is not a self-contained process! If antelope evolve to be just out of reach, it is because the lions kill off the slow ones, leaving only the fast ones to breed. Once this happens, the lions that cannot catch the new and improved antelope die, leaving the faster ones to breed and continue hunting.
Nature self-corrects.
And Colin, my proposed solution would be to take war powers out of the President’s hands, make all scientific discovery public knowledge and force nations to sign pacts that they would not develop weapons.
This is what we did to Japan after WWII.
I don’t mean to be the one to buzz back in and sniper out just one idea. But…
“Nature self-corrects” is nonsensical. There is no ‘correct’. Nature changes, but there is no golden formula. No standard measure for rightness. In Manyara, the lions learned to climb trees.
(and when we humans talk about a ‘balance’ in nature, what we’re saying is ‘a balance that favours our continued existence and dominance’, not some hippie formula for a perfect earth, as some would have us believe – no such thing exists)
What Maggie said. And what you said in your 2nd paragraph, which contradicts your original statement I was replying to. Make up your mind.
Now… where’s the beer.
And about “Phoenix Wright” I need answers! ;P
Check it: http://www.riaaradar.com/
I use RIAA Radar constantly.
Most recently with the new album by No More Kings, which looks to be an excellent CD.
I don’t know what’s with the Pheonix Wright thing… anyone… anyone? Bueller?
I didn’t use the word ‘correct’ as in ‘right’. I used ‘correct’ as in ‘course-corrects’. Survival depends on a set of variables that are common to all organisms. Advantageous traits allow certain members of a species to survive, breed, propagate.
Karl, I don;t see where I contradicted myself. Unless you mean where I said scientific discoveries should be public knowledge? My original statement stands: life would be simpler and more assured to continue if we had never developed beyond a certain point. However, it’s too late for that. And so, Colin asked me what my idea was to mitigate the negative effects. I feel that putting everyone- all peoples, all nations, all states on equal footing scientifically, removing all weapons, and de-centralizing power might work better than what we have now.
I’m not sure about the “survival depends on a set of variables that are common to all organisms” comment. In a sense that is right, but there are definitely a large category of exceptions that.
RE: Phoenix Wright
The game geek challenge. Something is amiss. The answer in the current GGC was not for the one that was played last episode. I thought I was having a seizure or something. Or that I’d somehow missed a whole podcast.
I blame our production department. Greg Howley posted two clips, and I think our Production Manager used the wrong one.
For the record, our Production Manager was also laid up with acute appendicitis this weekend, and by now should be at home, recovering from surgery.
Still, we’ll beat him soundly.
Stick to the head and shoulders area.
Yes, of course. Now, where did I put that mummified wookie penis we use for such occasions?
Oooh good use of a PA comic
Was it a cute appendicitis, or were you just drunk and horny?
*ba-dum-dum*
Well, wish whomever you’re referring to a speedy recovery. Wookiee penis or no.
And you know what they say. Once you go wookiee… you walk funny.
I have at times been referred to as a Wookie
Yes. We said you possibly ’smelled’ as bad as a wookie. Also, that you are as hairy as one.
And it’s Karl. Our Production Manager/Maestro.
Greg had not posted a challenge at the time of recording, which is why there’s no verbal introduction. When I did the editing, the challenge was posted so I inserted it. I have no idea what’s up with the answers. It’s not really my department.
I wasn’t drunk. My appendix was very cute with just the right ammount of creamy pus filling.
You know, funny you should talk about creamy filling. My wife had a screwed up dream last night involving several of our friends. For some reason, you were ‘Karl the Cannoli Man’.
Double…entendres…so many…making my brain…hurt..AGRRRRRHHHHH!!!!!
Karl-
I think the reason for the confusion with the GameGeek challenge is that I posted two episodes in one zip file Ep017.wav and Ep018.wav – looks like you aired Episode 18 instead of 17.
I’d like to double her entendre…
Oh, and can I just mention how ridiculous it is to listen to Carl complain about people putting non-functional mods on their cars when he cut a hole in his computer case to put in a clean panel to better display the fucking lights in it?
HAHAHAHAHHA!!!!
I have to say, that I could not agree with you in 100% regarding nGeek Podcast: Episode 68 at BostonGeek, but it’s just my opinion, which could be wrong