Decipher SciFi

Latest Episodes:

Robocop: cyorgification, space defense, and robot on robot violence Jul 11, 2017

Show notes

Verhoven’s genius

Over-the-top satire. Starship Troopers. Blood and guts in the late 80s/early 90s. Co-ed locker rooms and mocking commercial advertising interludes.

Space Defense

The “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative. Firing weapons from space, orbital platforms, and simulated gravity. Depictions of artificial gravity in media at the time.

Cyborgification

Availability of cyborg components and social stratification. Different kinds of artificial hearts.

Robocop

The economics of the brainwashed cyborg vs pure AI robot. Body transplants vs brain transplants.

Brain-machine interfaces

Opto-neural processing enhancement. Reading visual memories from brain activity.

Machine learning and eyeballs

The resolution of the eye. Simple computer-vision and inadequacy of 1980s VHS tapes.

Robot vs Robot

Cyborg body design type choices. Bipeds descending stairs. Dean Kamen’s stair-climbing gyroscopic wheelchair. (correction: I talked about “tri-wheeled” tread-based wheelchair on the show. The iBot actually had two sets of wheels and I was thinking of other wheelchair designs)

ED-209

“Stop, citizen, or I will rub my poop-hands on you.” Animal noises and postural intimidation tactics. Safety alarms.

Primary directives

Comparison with Arthur C Clarke’s three laws.

# Robocop Asimov 1. Serve the public trust. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. Protect the innocent A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. Uphold the law A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Our Robocop Remake: Our Robocop Remake
That scene from Our Robocop Remake with all the dicks: YouTube
What is the Resolution of the Eye? by Vsauce: YouTube

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Doom: PC games nostalgia, intelligent supercomputers, and interdimensional beings w/ Daniel James Barker Jul 02, 2017

Show notes

Doom

Doom was a really awesome important thing in 1993. History lessons because Dan is too young to understand but we are old. Nostalgia, for better or for worse. Modularity and the development of game modding. How to play a modern game without playing it.

The true test of technology

The true test of any technology: can it run Doom? Doom running on a Macbook Pro Touch Bar.

Volumetric Projections

“3D holograms.” As a narrative/historical record playback device. As seen in: Prometheus. Difficulties versus augmented reality.

Health

Measuring “life” as a life meter. Micromorts and actuarial considerations. Safety gear in health packs.

Hell Universe

Tapping into unlimited energy; who could resist?

Vega the supercomputer

Turing tests. Regrets. “Absolute zero” cooling systems and marketing speak. Backups analagous to DNA cloning.

Samuel Hayden

Body transplants vs brain transplants. Where does the self reside? Cyborg geniuses. Life goals.

RIP AND TEAR

Doom (The original game): GoG Steam Android
Doom 2016 Soundtrack: YouTube
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner: iTunes Amazon

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The Girl With All the Gifts: parasitic fungi, speed of smell, and the end of humanity Jun 27, 2017

Show notes

Dad jokes

A fun guy lol ?

New sorts of zombies

Fungus zombies! Similarities to The Last of Us. Surprise that we’re not completely tired of zombies. Pandemic vs epidemic.

Fungus

Mycelium, hyphae, fruiting bodies. Spores! “All mushrooms are edible. Some only once.”

Fungus Marionettes

Fungi playing Surgeon Simulator with human bodies.

Sense of smell

Hunting by smell. Covering scents. Smelling slow and fast. The power of Axe Body spray. The power of chemical warfare. How “smells” work.

IRL

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis! The real fungus on which the zombie fungus is based. The rundown of its lifecycle. Biting the leaf. Chemical instructions controlling behaviour.

Cordyceps moving to humans

The difference in arthtropod and human circulatory and nervous systems. How to best spread fungal infections between humans.

The end of homo sapiens

Parasites forcing their hosts to act in their interests. Mushroom towers. The rise of homo boletus. Coming around on anthropocentrism.

Goodbyes

Do you want a cat?

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey: iTunes Amazon
Why Do We Have Two Nostrils? by VSauce: YouTube
The Last of Us: Amazon
Zombie Parasites from Nat Geo Live: YouTube

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Childhood's End: revealing aliens, Drake equation, and scientific inquiry Jun 20, 2017

Show notes

Arrival/First Contact

Aircraft shielding. Impressing upon humanity the futility of resistance.

Selecting Diplomats

Alien diplomatic moneyball.

They Know Us

Flawless colloquial earth languages. Cultural context. How to manipulate apes. Benevolent alien dictatorship.

Curbing Scientific Inquiry

Approaching utopia removing incentives for innovation. Alien limits on research. “The stars were not meant for man.”

The Great Filter

Maybe these aliens in the show are the great filter. Filling in some slots of the Drake Equation. Maybe we’re just terrible for the universe and they know it. :/

Butt Numbers

Directed evolution at a scale of tens to thousands of years.

Alien Appearance

This part is too spoilery for this page

Remember Us

Not too much to ask, really. We could have had a worse run.

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke: iTunes Amazon

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Kingsman The Secret Service: gaia hypothesis, rebooting civilization, and Oddjob with swordlegs Jun 13, 2017

Show notes

Gaia Hypothesis

The idea that the biosphere self-regulates to support life. Does it hold up?

Civilization Reboot

Sim cards. Better ways to select the humans that will survive. Minimum populations.

Oddjob with swordlegs

Sword legs! Cleaving humans not just through but vertically.

Prosthetic feet/legs

Butts! And their utility for distance running. Hugh Herr and awesome climbing feet.

Augmented Reality

Versus virtual reality. Physical positioning and orientation fudging in virtual and augmented reality shared spaces. Rainbows End. HoloLens.

Church Scene

It’s so good! Also: long shots, real or otherwise.

The Culling

SIM card splodeyheads. Transcranial direct current stimulation. To cull, or not to cull.

Kingsman: not so secret effects: FXGuide
Arrival Science Fiction Film Podcast: LSG Media

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The Expanse Season 2: falling into the sun, martian gravity, and human g-force limits w/ Fraser Cain Jun 06, 2017

Show notes

Falling into the sun

Why not dump all of our nuclear waste there? Shedding orbital velocity. Eros the magic space potato.

Martian Gravity

Our lack of understanding irl of whether humans can conceive and gestate and grow in low or microgravity. Centrifugal artificial gravity.

Epstein Drive

Pulling Gs. Human limits.

Exciting times

Finally we’re in a place that we’re taking space settlement for granted. Developments in space travel like the Falcon Heavy et al. Recently, Stratolaunch:

Settlement issues

Fragility of interconnected systems at small scale. Radiation. Living inside a big rock.

Venus

Venus sucks. Mostly. On the surface, at least. Soviet Venus missions. Turning Venus into a spaceship.

Solar Energy

Harvesting and limiting solar exposure in different parts of the solar system. Relative solar intensity.

Fraser's things: Universe Today Astronomy Cast Fraser Cain @ YouTube
The Expanse: Nick Farmer on conlanging and the intersection of language and scifi: Decipher SciFi

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Midnight Special: fatherhood, synesthesia, and unconventional computing May 30, 2017

Show notes

Superpowers?

Energy usage and biclops lasereyes.

Radio reception

The old wive’s tale of dental fillings picking up terrestrial radio signals. Satellite military communications frequencies.

Alternative Computing

Quantum and DNA computing. Synesthesia. Recognizing that we are all synesthetes within the bounds of “normal” human brain operations.

Dimensions

Extra- super- ultra-dimensionality. Flatland again.

Superdimensional Beings

“Beings of light” and why this might be the most reasonable example of the trope. The world on the other side.

Carl Sagan on Dimensions: YouTube
Arrival Part 1: superdimensionality and alien physics w/ Jolene & Adrian: Decipher SciFi
: Decipher SciFi

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Nausicaa: rewilding, technological anxiety, and what is "nature?" w/ Miles Greb May 23, 2017

Show notes

Miyazaki recognition

This is Miles’ favorite. Chris doesn’t generally love Miyazaki but really really loves Totoro.

Environmentalism in Media

Processing human-caused catastrophe. We previously explored this in our Godzilla episode with Miles. Miyazaki was inspired by Minamata disease.

Aircraft

irl Nausicaa glider!

Rewilding

The ways in which humanity is worse than poison. Thriving of wildlife in our absence. Predators.

What is nature

Colloquial definitions versus recognition that we are part of nature and not really separate from it.

Technology Anxiety

Nuclear power safety and the negative effects of fossil fuels. Recognizing the relative safeness and harm. Being responsible with our technology.

Preservation

Of knowledge and technology over epochal time. Infrastructure and production. The scientific method as essential technology.

Espers - From Nothing, Something Comes by Miles Greb: Kickstarter

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Prometheus: yoked aliens, cave paintings, and seeding life May 16, 2017

Show notes

Love and hate

A story of love for Prometheus with recognition of its faults. Surprisingly high tomato ratings. So much stuff to think about?

Seeding Earth

Natural selection, evolution, and engineers seeding life on Earth. This would require seeding all life on earth, to explain our shared genetic heritage with everything else that lives here.

Objective-based evolution

In this movie, I guess Lamarck Was Right. Continued Egineer presence over the course of the history of life on earth, guiding things toward their goals in order to make us like them.

The Engineers

Yoked as hell. Albinos with allopecia.

Cave Paintings

List of cultures visited. Radiocarbon dating (carbon-14). Uranium dating. Informational density.

Star Maps

Constellations and hemispheres and directions to solar systems.

Alien System

FTL. Moons and ringed planets. How not to safely approach and explore a new planet/moon. “Eh, seems fine” as a modus operandi for your space exploration mission.

Alien Pregnancy

Parasites. Superparasites, Tearing the umbilical cord. Placenta.

Messages for the Future by VSauce: YouTube

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Guardians of the Galaxy: Groot language, intelligent animals, and where do trees get their mass? May 09, 2017

Show notes

A bit of review

Because we really enjoyed this movie.

The team

A human, a green humanoid, an enhanced raccoon, Drax, and a hypermobile hyperintelligent tree.

Rocket Raccoon

Cybernetic skeletons. Animal intelligence. Cognitive enhancement and different types of intelligence.

Drax

Kinda like a grey hulk. Putting our lack of comics expertise on display.

Groot

How plants work. Nitrogen from the air making 50% of tree biomass. Plant regeneration and communication.

Language considerations! Yay!

Possible layers of complexity under “I am Groot.” The different ways that could or could not represent language. The complexity of metaphors and similar linguistic mechanisms, and how Drax’s people could lack understanding. Thermians. Tamarians.

Old Terran technology

Chris Pratt’s cassette tapes. Batteries. Audio cassette technology. Wearing oxides and tape-stretching.

Why Do Marvel's Movies Look Kind of Ugly? by Patrick Willems: YouTube
Guardians of the Galaxy 2: iTunes Amazon

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