Decipher Scifi : The Show About How And Why

Indie scifi Impressive shoestring productions. Remembering Moon. Lived-in duct-tape science fiction. Sleep cycles Circadian rhythms. Setting our clocks by light exposure. Light exposure and activity levels. Wearing your sunglasses at night. Different varieties of blindness and sleep rhythms. Retinal sensitivity to light. Space prospectin’ Alien meat-testicle gems. Personal testicular security systems. Organic gemstones. Pearl production. How attractive our kidney stones might be to alien speculators. “Real” utility vs perceived value. Wound handling Wound sealing. Stopping bleeding in an emergency with caulking foam. Packing a wound full of tiny tampons. Failed experiments in would sealing with: beads, marbles, beans, etc. Amputation history. Ancient Greek amputation practices and efficiency records in the Napoleonic and American Civil Wars. Support the show!

A review This was the best worst thing we’ve ever seen. I’m sorry. You’re welcome? Space tricks Leaving whole rocket stages to just kinda be in orbit and hit stuff. Talking in space by providing your own atmosphere thanks to your incredible, super lung capacity. Also, how that doesn’t work and Superman needs to be a close talker and hold conversations by vibrating his mouth directly on someone else’s spacesuit helmet. Superman bodily materials The hair that can hold at least a half ton. How does Superman cut his hair? Introducing weird gnarly alternate Superman with really long hair and uncut fingernails. Donating Superman’s bits to materials science. Making things out of hair. Totally realistic space elevator musings. Superman as a launch platform. Dissecting the Man of Steel for fun and profit. Using Superman for “free energy” (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal). Super-denuclearization Superman’s built-in orbital mechanics skills. The tiny bit of nothing that would be all of 1987’s nuclear wor

Life and death of a star A hundred years to uninhabitability is a little bit quicker than we thought. Timelines here to red dwarf and all the unpleasantness in between. Probing your star The surprising difficulty of actually reaching the sun. The Parker Solar Probe. Taking a close peek at the corona and the young solar wind. Close as in millions of miles. Moving Earth Shifting circumstellar habitability zones. Moving the planet out nearer Jupiter as our sun expands. Throwing moderation to the wind and ditching the solar system. Tidal forces. Planetary travel in deep space Relativistic impact vulnerability. Appreciating Earth’s protected position within the heliosphere, blocked from impactors by two gas giants and its own moon. Earth’s new home Traveling across deep space with no sun. If you dig deep enough, mayyyyyyybe Kelvin’s “secular cooling” would keep everybody warm for the trip. Signing up for some eye shine. The three-body problem. Going deep Living underground. Shielding from the

You folks asked us a bunch of questions. And we gave a bunch of answers! I’ll leave the actual Questions and Answers to be listened to in the episode, but we did mention some resources etc which I’ll link below… Past History coverage To whet your appetite if you’re as excited as us about the possibility of Decipher History: Outlander with Lee from Viking Age Podcast The Mummy and Stargate with Dominic Perry from History of Egypt Podcast And a bunch of things like Conan the Barbarian Hidden Figures The Time Machine War of the Worlds and a bunch more with Joe Ruppel Podcasting advice “Just make stuff!” But then for technical details for other Linux podcasters, my dotfiles (application configurations) are shared openly on Github. Files and scripts relevant specifically to our podcasting are probably all mentioned here. Free software and licenses Creative Commons and free software and making the world better by helping more people make their stuff. Episode image made using: A Nice Cartoon G

Past coverage We like this show lots! Thus, our continuing coverage: The Expanse: Nick Farmer on conlanging and the intersection of language and scifi The Expanse VFX: an interview with Cailin Munroe, VFX Producer The Expanse Season 2: falling into the sun, martian gravity, and human g-force limits w/ Fraser Cain Difficulties The oft-overlooked actual difficulties of space settlement. Not technology and logistics, but like, how hard it will likely be for the humans doing the job at first. And second. And then for a while after, too. Plants in spaaaaaaaace Growing fresh food in space habitats. Poop-potatoes. Wide-spectrum LEDs. Self-contained hydroponics/aeroponics. Low-g situations People in spaaaaaaaaace. Dealing with microgravity. Bro, do you even lift in space? Eyeball un-squishing. Figuring out how to burp. Fluid-pooling and major injury. High-g situations. Turning people into jelly. Differing human sensitivity to sustained g-forces in different directions. The wonderful enginee

Man meat Ahhhhnold! Your average Joe, working construction just like any other regular guy who is a giant bodybuilding monster-person. We really missed this in our coverage of Total Recall 2012. Memory Memory “insertion” and memory “deletion” or “blocking” in mouse studies. The great distance from where we are now to trivial memory “vacations” a la Recall. Semantic memory, autobiographical memory, and muscle memory. Tracking devices Ideal tracking-implantation locations. The incredible utility of the anus for tracker storage, weighed against the small time window. Mars Building Martian settlements with as much radiation exposure as possible: glass! glass everywhere! Radiation exposure on the Martian surface. Burying your dead on Mars: a tasteful resource-wasting mausoleum indoors, a giant pile of bleached-out mummies outside the door, or arrange them in awesome poses? Space Resources Natural resources in space. Calculating mining cost vs cost to get it where it will be useful. Mining and tra

Review Well, we don’t normally do this sorta thing, but oh man this was so good! What the film is about, how it is about, and why it was so special. Appreciating those who do the best work of making history relatable (cough Dan Carlin cough). Restoration Film degradation. Scratching, exposure, shrinkage, physical tearing. The crapshoot that is video frame rates in early 20th century film footage. Crank cameras and gearing and compressed-air constant-framerate cameras. Correcting for all of this and the challenge of bringing it all up to a standard 24 fps. Film is an illusion The optical illusion that we perceive as movement on a screen. Persistence of vision. Video framerates and the “refresh rate” of the human eye. Motion interpolation as an offense against art and all things good. Tom Cruise fighting the good fight. Motion interpolation as a really neato technology which is actually really cool when not on by default on new televisions. Motion interpolation in VR or video games. Academic controv

Ion Drive Compounding acceleration in the relative vacuum of space. Incredible efficiencies versus chemical rockets, and the very low force produced making it only appropriate once spaceborn. The differing problems solved by chemical rockets and ion drives. The benefit of ion drive once out of Earth’s gravity well and going far away. Earth’s tectonic plates, slowly building up to escape velocity. That beautiful blue glow. “Ionic wind” aircraft in-atmosphere: a completely silent aircraft motor with no moving parts! Landing in spaaaaace Methods of landing on Mars: Aeroshells, parachutes, rockets, and balloons. Past examples. Different bodies in space and their particular atmospheric densities, atmospheric conditions, and gravitational acceleration. Nuclear power solutions Nuclear power vs solar cells. People’s presumption of full-on nuclear reactors rather than the smaller and less-efficient radioisotope thermoelectric generators like on Curiosity. Wondering why we don’t use tiny nuclear robots to blo

Philip K Dick Giving’em the old Philip K Dick joint. Cyberpunk. Adaptation fidelity. Even though it looks like it’s the future… Luminescent tattoos! Bioluminescence, electroluminescence, phosphorescence, and maybe some other -escences too! A world with three boobs. Well, maybe more than that in the whole world. Hand phones. Ubiquitous smart glass. Neck-mounted face-replacing direct-eye laser projectors. Memory manipulation and deletion. “The Fall” Digging a hole through the Earth. Trying to find hard things to do when building a space elevator is too easy. Adding unnecessary rockets to your earth-faller to reach a seventeen minute trip time. Digging deep in the Earth and heat issues. Finding impenetrable hot rock stew even without piercing the crust. Atmospheric pressure in the center of the Earth. Making it work by vacuum tube. The one easy straight line through the Earth that avoids the Coriolis effect, and the actually useful curved lines between land areas. 3d space-scanning Camera rocket gr

Action heroes Glistening, rippling man-meat. Sweaty pecs. Aggressive handshakes with biceps the size of coconuts. Longing for the good old days. Feeling unjustified disappointment when our heroes aren’t giant walking meat monsters. The inapplicability of the bodybuilder physique to actually getting hero stuff done. Bodylifting. Savantism “Savant syndrome is a condition in which someone with significant mental disabilities demonstrates certain abilities far in excess of average” -Wiki. As opposed to someone just simply being awesome at something. Josh’s recent related coverage from The X-Files Podcast @ LSG Media. Acquired savantism. Aptitude for… alien user interfaces? Trans-cranial magnetic stimulation. Nerddom Chess club vs computer club. Afterschool D&D. Duke Nukem and Team Fortress LAN parties at school. Predator Predator vs prey. Linguistically, should they be called “predator” if they hunt mainly for sport? “Predator” as a label for a biological relationship in which one creatures hunt

Doctor Who Not a lot of Doctor Who experience at the table here. Recognition of the Moffat era. Finding a single, self-contained Who unit to use as an entrée. James McAvoy. Millenium Pedantic note: the millenium wouldn’t really start until 2001. Colbert gets to be the jerk for once. Y2K Numeronyms. Alternate terms: CDC, FADL. How we got here (there, then?). Limits on data storage and memory over time that make two-digit date storage actually seem kinda reasonable. Y2K38, aka the Unix millnium bug. The horrors of datetime in software and can you imagine the pain of writing this code for time travel. Standard datetime epochs: unix epoch, planet epoch, and time-since-the-big-bang epoch. We’re gonna need a lot more memory. Multiple hearts Doctor Who has got a lot of heart. But also he has literally two hearts. Animals irl on Earth with multiple “hearts.” Octopus (3), hagfish (4). The role of auxiliary “hearts” in these animals. Human heart grafting in heterotopic aka “piggy-back” heart transplants.

Adaptations Appreciating the book(s). Bigtime. Adapting Douglas Adams. Remembering the text adventure video game exists. Dolphins Dolphin intelligence. It’s not about how smart they are, it’s about how they’re smart. Mammalian sameness as an avenue into better understanding life in the sea. Dolphin communication. Dolphin “language” and the possibility of translation. The Dolphin C.H.A.T. interface. Betelgeuse Big star! Red supergiant, 9th brightest in our sky. “Brightness” outside the visible spectrum. Dying stars gnoshing on their planets before going off. Life form dominance Metal boxes, taking over the planet and slowly digesting the soft squishy things inside them. Street Fighter-style car-breaking. How to judge the “top” species of a world. Babel fish Universal translators. A visit from Nick Farmer from the past, when we asked him about universal translators in our Q&A #2. Space is big Mind-bogglingly big! The bigness of space and the difficulty in finding a sense of scale from

Akira Hey this movie was really important! Time and place. Budgets. Omg so pretty. Subtitles Subtitling adult anime for the west. Translation vs localization. Different industries and approaches to localization. Software localization in comparison to film localization. Fansubs online before the likes of Crunchyroll. Motorcycles Horsepower! Sweet motorcycles. High-speed motorcycle attacks. Turning people into “mushwater.” Funiculars giant slidey freight elevators. Also mountainside trams. Related words: Funicular is Latin for cord Funiculus is Latin for umbilical cord Umbilicus is Latin for navel Waterways Underwater or otherwise. Rivers vs sewers. The Tokyo sewer and transport overhaul preceding the 1964 Olympics. The inefficiency of poop-sucking truck fleets. Traveling in sewers and dysentery avoidance. Psi powers Creepy, wrinkly children. Psi floaty chairs, the escalator of chairs! When operational, their ares a floaty chair. When they fail, they are… a comfortable chair. Mi

Contact “Levels” of alien contact. Converting anal probes and sex bases to contact “levels.” First kind: visual contact Second kind: evidence of contact Third kind: in-person contact The Devil’s Tower How to pronounce butte. Convention vs personal preference. The awesome nature of structures like The Devil’s Tower, jutting up all inaccessible as they are. Translation errors for fun and profit. Thinking back to Schiaparelli’s canals. Geological origins: igneous intrusions and volcanic butte plugs. “Sunburn” Ultraviolet effects on body tissues. What is a sunburn? Arc welding and ultraviolet exposure: “arc eye.” Debunking things Shying away from debunking. Appreciating folks who cross boundaries and make deeply interesting informative generally-useful critical thinking-training material, like Captain Disillusion. Credulity and our personal predispositions. SETI Appreciating a scientific, rigorous approach to finding intelligent life in the cosmos. Communicating with aliens Randomne

Titan The most interesting moon ‘round Saturn! Viewing the moon Titan by eye or by telescope. Protip: bincolulars are actually just two tiny telescopes. Saturn The Saturnian hexagonal storm vs the larger Jovian storm. Latitudinal wind gradients. Adaptation Adapting the world to our needs. The possibility of adapting ourselves to a world. Inhospitality. Ethiopian, Tibetan, and Andean elevation adaptation. Andean vampires? Titan Habitability Atmosphere. Temperature. Breathability. Tidal locking and avoiding tidal locking with Jupiter. Frozen and liquid water! Methane oceans. No shortage of atmospheres in our solar system, but we’re short on good ones. Probing titan The Huygens probe. Proposed future Titan exploration projects.Drones, submarines, floatydrones, sinkydrones, etc. Weather Titanian weather gets bigs! Large methane rainstorms, but really only after decaded or centuries of drought. Energy availability so far from the sun. Hominoforming Who needs oxygen? Apnea training irl. Su

Blade Enthusiasm! Silver Weaponizing silver. Colloidal silver. Papa Smurf. Blue anti-vampire aposematism. Agyria a la Paul Karason aka Papa smurf. Spray defense Pepper spray. Garlic spray. The difference between bear spray and self-defense pepper spray. The positives and negatives of fog-mode sprays in vampire club fighting. Johnny Knoxville pain ratings. Scoville units Laboratory capsaicin measurement by high-performance liquid chromatography vs the organoleptic method. The obvious unreliability of the original organoleptic (tasting) method. Blood Blooooood. Blood drinking. Hemoglobin deficiencies. Heme. Porphyria and the vampire legend. Blood doping. Sun block Vampires and ultraviolet sensitivity. “Chemical” and “physical” UV sunblocks. Decipherment Decipherment vs translation. Ancient manuscripts. Multispectral imaging. Machine learning supremacy. Making random noise until you know how to play Mario. The World in UV by Veritassium: YouTube Sunscreen i

Eyeball anatomy All the important parts, wherever they are! Who really cares anyway we’re only here for two in particular: the iris and the retina. The retinal blind spot. Creationism And intelligent design. Are wrong. Reaching conclusions and working backwards for fun and profit. Young Earth creationism. Dan’s religious upbringing. Irreducible complexity. Faulty reasoning. The evolution of the modern vertebrate eyeball Fish and their goofy eyeball arrangements. The crazy Charlie eyeball progress chart. Light sensitive flat patches, pits, enclosures, open pinhole eyeballs, lenses, and flexing your sphincters. Dan’s episode on Three-D Vision. Pepe Silvia eyeball evolution. Comparative eyeball studies Human eyes are pretty sweet! But there other ones that do other things (at their own local summits on Mount Improbable) and are also really good at stuff! Goats, sharks, snakes (sorta), bees. Removing your lenses for fun and profit. Monet’s lens removal and ultraviolet perception. Eyeball shortcomi

Sharks A sharky public service message/pro-shark propaganda. Sharks get a bad wrap in the media. Eating weird stuff. The importance of sharks in the ocean and their roles in their particular ecosystems. Shark behaviour Biting the internet. Alternative shark species name suggestions. “Exploratory” biting. Claspers! The Megalodon’s likely “biiiiiiiiiig” penis. Shark skin with dermal denticles, aka “teeth paper.” Shark intelligence and how you might measure it. The Megalodon Irl best estimates of megalodon size vs the creatures of the film. Limited fossil data and cartilaginous skeletons. Learning from paleoarchaeological study of ancient shark relatives with more calcified skeletal material. Working backward from the modern shark bodyform. Ancient buzzsaw-mouthed monsters. The importance of teeth. Helicoprion ДиБгд CC-BY-SA-4.0 The Marianas Trench Pressure and darkness at depth. Adaptations to pressure and darkness. Odd, squishy creatures. Blob fi

In which we look at your survey responses and reveal where we’re headed in the coming year Listening habits RPG experience Nerd gatherings and meeting listeners irl Creator support LSG Media appreciation party Guest co-hosts Suggestion box Future expansion recommendations (Decipher History!?) Support the show!

This movie It gets a bit weird! And we have a bit of a time summarizing it. Storytelling Adventure stories. Social allegory. The power of science fiction in particular to force you to reframe your perception by believably breaking your assumptions. HG Wells and Moreau. Science fiction tropes and the subversion thereof. Christopher is bad at human things. Code Switching Languages, dialect, and speaking to your audience. “Not having to think about it.” Media Mass media vs indie communities. The lowest common denominator. Kevin Kelly’s 1000 True Fans. Milk stuff A lament for the concentration on cow’s milk. Mare milk. Fermented milk products from cows and horses. Bandwidth by Eliot Peper: Amazon Borderless by Eliot Peper: Amazon Key & Peele Obama Meet & Greet: YouTube Key & Peele on Code Switching: YouTube Support the show!