We live in an unjust society, let’s talk about how to fight it.

Mentioned in the show:

• So You Want To Fight White Supremacy by Ijeoma Oluo
• Mike Godwin, author of Godwin’s law tweeted “By all means, compare these shitheads to the Nazis. Again and again. I’m with you.”
• Goebbels St. in German Gardens, Long Island, was renamed to Northside Ave.
• Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber Wikipedia page.
• Spock defined supererogation
• A one-panel comic about the inverse of supererogation

I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. Let’s go live on asteroids!

Mentioned in the show:

• Deep Space Ecology might be the kind of company that sets up terreria for colonists
• Sun of Suns is the first book in the Virga series, a set of stories that feature a society where gravity is expensive.
• Wiki article on the asteroid belt, with details on the different types of asteroids.
• Robert Moses built bridges too low for busses to clear.
• The dam that was built near by Las Vegas was the Hoover Dam.
• Mao-Kwikowski is a reference to The Expanse series of books and TV show
• The inverse-square law states that the farther you go from the sun, the power you can draw from it decreases as the square of the distance.
• A short article on how quantity trumps quality, contains the little ceramics class example.
• Building a KSR-style Terrarium Interactive made for the 2312 book.

(>|<) and (<|>) are universally accepted and totally horrible.

Mentioned in the show:

• Imaginary Worlds Podcast
• Photos of Ben’s coffee table, with the sanding dust photo included
• The Physics Girl’s presentation of the boat-rock problem
• XKCD 1867, an oddly on-topic comic that came out two days after we recorded this.
• Priming is the effect that can keep you from seeing ambiguous situations as anything but your original impression.
• The Underwave off Kanagawa
• Paternoster elevators on Wikipedia
• Frank Drake’s AMA

Which is more important, innate intelligence or acquired experience?

Mentioned in the show:

• The Dunning-Kruger Effect

A follow up that doesn’t quite merit it’s own episode number.

Where the heck is everyone?

Mentioned in the show:

• This American Life Episode 617: Fermi’s Paradox The show that started the conversation.
• Drake Equation
• Fermi Paradox
• Joining The Culture is a reference to an amazing series of books by Iain M. Banks.
• Proxima Centuri b is a planet in the habitable zone of Sol’s nearest neighbor.
• Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a way to listen in on gravity waves, which are a power better way to observe/communicate at long distance.
• Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a future trio of satellites, is another way to listen in on gravity waves.
• The Orbital Mechanics interview LISA Pathfinder PI Paul McNamera, who is very, very good at describing the observation of gravity waves, and describes the predecessor mission of LISA.
• Elementary, Dear Data is a Star Trek The Next Generation Episode.
• KIC 8462852, AKA Tabby’s Star
• WOW! Signal
• The Mechanics and Meaning of That Ol’ Dial-Up Modem Sound, a very, very good Atlantic article.
• Novikov Self-Consisency Principle
• Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie. Trilogy box set for $40 at time of publishing.

Skarp is a futuristic razor that uses a laser to give you a clean shave! Or, at least, that’s the theory.

Mentioned in the show:

• Skarp’s still extant IndieGoGo page
• The Verge’s coverage of Skarp getting kicked off Kickstarter
• Skarp’s “proof of concept” video
• Derek Sivers’ TED talk: Keep Your Goals To Yourself
• Business Insider’s coverage of Slack’s origins
• The Uncanny Valley of Skarp
• We’re hosted on Github
• Children of Tendu podcast
• The Orbital Mechanics Podcast

Welcome to Notion.farm! Ben and Chris get things going with some human-oriented design.

Mentioned in the show:

• Don Norman’s Design of Everyday Things
• How the inventor of Mario designs a game
• Hands book by John Napier
• IBM RealCD skeumorphic software design
• Optimus LCD keyboard design from 2006 with software-definable key tops