Coding, Loot Boxes & Mrs Doubtfire
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Coding, Loot Boxes & Mrs Doubtfire
Now, you may be wondering why I have called you all here today.
The reason, of course, is this week's episode of Nerds Amalgamated.
This time, the Nerds discuss the hidden genetic code in POLG. Not PUBG, POLG. And these hidden genes aren't blue. Check out the full article, it's a hell of a read.
The Australian Parliament is taking a look at regulating lootboxes. This will get the Libertarians wound up. But will the Australian government actually listen to their committee this time, or will Professor and DJ get to complain about politics again?
DJ thinks Mrs Doubtfire will lose her charm on Broadway. But anyone who can pull off an 18 second sex change has to be fun to watch.
This week's game section involves Professor gushing over Black Mesa and DJ taking a hike in Walking Simulator.
As always, stay hydrated and don't get COVID-19.
Overlapping Coding Sequence
Australian Parliamentary committee’s recommendations in protecting the age of innocence
Mrs Doubtfire on Broadway
Games Played
Professor
– Black Mesa – https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/
Rating – 10/5
DJ
– Walking Simulator - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1214280/Walking_Simulator/
Rating – 4/5
Other topics discussed
E3 2020 cancelled
Tom Hanks & Rita Wilson tested positive for Coronavirus
University student goes to nightspot after being tested positive for Coronavirus
Rugby fan tested positive for Coronavirus
Vacanti Mouse (The Vacanti mouse was a laboratory mouse that had what looked like a human ear grown on its back.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacanti_mouse
Mutations on flies…legs-on-the-head fly
- https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/body-altering-mutations-in-humans-and-flies/
Protecting The Innocence report
Plain tobacco packaging (also known as generic, neutral, standardised or homogeneous packaging, is packaging of tobacco products, typically cigarettes, without any branding (colours, imagery, corporate logos and trademarks), including only the brand name in a mandated size, font and place on the pack, in addition to the health warnings and any other legally mandated information such as toxic constituents and tax-paid stamps.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging
NBA 2K20 filled with loot boxes and slot machines
Team Ninja confesses that microtransactions are involved in changing hair colour in Dead or Alive 6
British parliamentary committee recommends banning loot box sales to children
EA calls its loot boxes are ‘surprise mechanics’ in British parliamentary committee
- https://www.polygon.com/2019/6/21/18691760/ea-vp-loot-boxes-surprise-mechanics-ethical-enjoyable
EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson compares loot boxes to baseball cards
List of Disney animated to live action remakes
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_live-action_remakes_of_animated_films
Rob McClure (American actor. He is best known for his roles in musical theatre. He won a Theatre World Award and was nominated for the 2013 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance in the title role of the musical Chaplin. In 2019, on Broadway, he played the role of Adam in Beetlejuice, the Musical, his seventh Broadway production.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_McClure
More promotional pictures of Mrs Doubtfire the musical
- https://ew.com/theater/mrs-doubtfire-broadway-rob-mcclure-first-look/
Max Von Sydow played as Liet Kynes in the 1984 Dune movie
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dune_secondary_characters#Liet-Kynes
There is no vitamin C in Ribena proven by school kids in New Zealand
Chuck Norris facts (satirical factoids about American martial artist and actor Chuck Norris that have become an Internet phenomenon and as a result have become widespread in popular culture.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris_facts#Prominent_mentions
DNA (Red Dwarf episode, the episode revolves around the genetic engineering technology that the crew discover.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_(Red_Dwarf)
Red Dwarf: The Promised Land (upcoming 2020 British science-fiction comedy television film and the thirteenth installment of the British science-fiction sitcom,Red Dwarf.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf:_The_Promised_Land
Red Dwarf : Back to Earth (three-part miniseries continuation of the British science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf. It was the first television outing for Red Dwarf in over ten years, and features the characters Rimmer, Cat, Kryten and Lister.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf:_Back_to_Earth
Dave Lister interview by Absolute Radio about new Red Dwarf series
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ciigJ6RBI
Red Dwarf (US pilot episode for an American version known as Red Dwarf USA)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf#U.S._version
Lancing with Myself (TNC Podcast)
- https://thatsnotcanon.com/lancingwithmyselfpodcast
Scared Sh*tless (TNC Podcast)
- https://thatsnotcanon.com/scaredshitlesspodcast
Shout Outs
7 March 2020 – Earl Pomerantz passed away - https://variety.com/2020/tv/obituaries-people-news/earl-pomerantz-dies-dead-mary-tyler-moore-show-1203527993/
Earl Pomerantz, an Emmy-winning television writer who worked on numerous sitcoms over the years, died Saturday. Over the course of his career, Pomerantz wrote scripts for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Rhoda,” “The Tony Randall Show,” “Phyllis,” “Taxi,” “Cheers” and “The Cosby Show,” which he also ran for a period of time. He also was creator and executive producer on “Major Dad” and “Best of the West” and served as a creative consultant on “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” “Lateline” and “According to Jim.” He won two Emmy Awards, one in 1976 for serving on the writing team of “The Lily Tomlin Special” and another in 1985 for “The Cosby Show.” In what would end up being Pomerantz’s final blog post, the writer expressed gratitude toward his audience. Titled “Intermission,” the post says the following: “Troubling eye problem. Can’t write. Be back when I can. In the meantime, thanks for the company. I’ve never had more fun writing. So long. And as The Cisco Kid used to say, ‘See you soon, Ha!'” He died at the age of 75.
8 March 2020 – Max Von Sydow passed away - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/movies/max-von-sydow-dead.html
Max von Sydow, the inimitable screen actor who starred in classic films like The Seventh Seal and The Exorcist, has died. The actor, who was born Carl Adolf von Sydow, studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre before becoming an internationally renowned star. He changed his name while serving in the military prior to acting school, fashioning himself after a flea named Max that he had played in a sketch. Von Sydow would go on to have a career that spanned more than six decades. He was an actor’s actor, starring in offbeat sci-fi like Dune, horror classics like The Exorcist, and adult dramedies like Hannah and Her Sisters. He earned two Oscar nominations along the way: a best-actor nod in 1989 for Pelle the Conqueror, and a best-supporting-actor nod in 2012 for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. But the prestige performer never shied away from mainstream fare either, playing memorable roles in projects like Flash Gordon and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as well as TV hits like Game of Thrones—on which he played the omniscient Three-Eyed Raven. “You see, I had an odd upbringing,” von Sydow once said. “My father was a scholar, a professor in the town where I was born, and his subject was folklore. He was a master at telling stories, folktales, and adventures. I was very shy as a child and heard more fairy tales than the average child because of my father. I think this and my shyness prompted my imagination and led to an interest in make believe.” He died in Provence at the age of 90.
9 March 2020 – World record Smurf gathering – https://comicbook.com/irl/2020/03/09/smurfs-world-record-gathering-france-coronavirus/
Over 3,500 people dressed in blue met up in Landerneau in the western part of France to smash the previous world record set last year in Germany. 3,549 Smurfs fans showed up for the record-breaking event on Saturday. The event came in just under the wire in terms of social gatherings as France banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people. For Smurfs fans, however, the threat of the coronavirus wasn't ever a real concern. Last February, a gathering of nearly 3,000 Smurfs fans came together in Lauchringen, Germany to break the 2009-set record of 2,510 people dressed as Smurfs. With the German group's world record being short-lived, it remains to be seen if another group will make the attempt again in 2021 with an even larger gathering. "We figured we wouldn't worry, and that as French people we wouldn't give up on our attempt to break the record," one Smurfs fan said. "Now we're champions of the world." "There's no risk, were Smurfs" they added. "Yes, we're going to Smurferize the coronavirus."
Remembrances
10 March 1982 – Minoru Shirota - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoru_Shirota
Japanese microbiologist. In the 1920s Shirota identified a strain of lactic acid bacteria that is part of normal gut flora that he originally called Lactobacillus casei Shirota; it appeared to help contain the growth of harmful bacteria in the gut. The strain was later reclassified as being Lactobacillus paracasei Shirota. He founded the company Yakult Honsha in 1935 to sell beverages containing the strain, branded Yakult. He died from dysentery at the age of 82 in Tokyo Japan.
10 March 2012 – F. Sherwood Rowland - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Sherwood_Rowland
Frank Sherwood "Sherry"Rowland, American Nobel laureate and a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. His research was on atmospheric chemistry and chemical kinetics. His best-known work was the discovery that chlorofluorocarbons contribute to ozone depletion. Rowland theorized that man made organic compound gases combine with solar radiation and decompose in the stratosphere, releasing atoms of chlorine and chlorine monoxide that are individually able to destroy large numbers of ozone molecules. Rowland's research, first published in Nature magazine in 1974, initiated a scientific investigation of the problem. In 1978, a first ban on CFC-based aerosols in spray cans was issued in the United States. The actual production did however not stop and was soon on the old levels. It took till the 1980s to allow for a global regulation policy. Rowland performed many measurements of the atmosphere. One experiment included collecting air samples at various cities and locations around the globe to determine CCl3F North-South mixing. By measuring the concentrations at different latitudes, Rowland was able to see that CCl3F was mixing between hemispheres quite rapidly. Rowland and his colleagues interacted both with the public and the political side and suggested various solutions, which allowed to step wise reduce the CFC impact. CFC emissions were regulated first within Canada, the United States, Sweden and Norway. In the 1980s, the Vienna Agreement and the Montreal Protocol allowed for global regulation. He died from complications of Parkinson’s disease at the age of 84 in Newport beach, California.
10 March 2012 – Bert R. Bulkin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_R._Bulkin
Bertram Raoul Bulkin, American aeronautical engineer who participated in the first United States photo-reconnaissance satellite programs and is best known for his role in building the Hubble Space Telescope. He was assigned to the company's proposal to build the Support Systems Module or basic spacecraft for the Space Telescope or Large Space Telescope (ST or LST; later renamed the Hubble Space Telescope or HST). Early on, observers noted the design continuity between the systems modules for the Hexagon and the LST. Bulkin described the April 24, 1990 launch of the Hubble Space Telescope as "like watching your mother-in-law go over a cliff in your brand-new Cadillac." Asked at the time of the launch what scientists hoped to see with the new instrument, he said simply, "God." As director emeritus of scientific space programs for Lockheed, Bulkin served on several national scientific advisory committees, including panels for three of the four space telescopes in NASA's Great Observatories Program: the Hubble, the Chandra, and the Spitzer. He died from a heart attack at the age of 82 in Lodi, California.
Famous Birthdays
10 March 1923 – Val Logsdon Fitch - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Logsdon_Fitch
American nuclear physicist who, with co-researcher James Cronin, was awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics for a 1964 experiment using the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory that proved that certain subatomic reactions do not adhere to fundamental symmetry principles. Specifically, they proved, by examining the decay of K-mesons, that a reaction run in reverse does not retrace the path of the original reaction, which showed that the reactions of subatomic particles are not indifferent to time. Thus the phenomenon of CP violation was discovered. This demolished the faith that physicists had that natural laws were governed by symmetry. He participated in the drop testing of mock atomic bombs that was conducted at Wendover Army Air Field and the Salton Sea Naval Auxiliary Air Station, and worked at the Trinity site, where he witnessed the Trinity nuclear test on July 16, 1945. He was born in Merriman, Nebraska.
10 March 1940 – Chuck Norris - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris
Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris, American martial artist, actor, film producer and screenwriter. After serving in the United States Air Force, Norris won many martial arts championships and later founded his own discipline Chun Kuk Do. Norris is a black belt in Tang Soo Do,Brazilian jiu jitsu and Judo. Shortly after, in Hollywood, Norris trained celebrities in martial arts. Norris went on to appear in a minor role in the spy film The Wrecking Crew. Friend and fellow actor Bruce Lee invited him to play one of the main villains in Way of the Dragon. While Norris continued acting, friend and student Steve McQueen suggested to him to take it seriously. Norris took the starring role in the action film Breaker! Breaker! which turned a profit. His second lead Good Guys Wear Black became a hit, and Norris became a popular action film star. Norris would go on to star in a streak of bankable independently-made action and martial arts films, with A Force of One, The Octagon, and An Eye for an Eye. This made Norris an international celebrity. In the 1990s, he played the title role in the long running television series Walker, Texas Ranger, from 1993 until 2001. Norris made his last film appearance to date in Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables 2. In 2005, Norris found a new fame on the internet with Chuck Norris facts became an internet meme documenting humorous, fictional and often absurd feats of strength and endurance. Although Norris himself did not produce the "facts", he was hired to endorse many products that incorporated Chuck Norris facts in advertising, the phenomenon resulted in six books (two of them New York Times Best Sellers), two video games, and several appearances on talk shows, such as Late Night with Conan O'Brien where read the facts or participated in sketches. He was born in Ryan, Oklahoma.
10 March 1949 – Bill Buxton - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Buxton
William Arthur Stewart Buxton, Canadian computer scientist and designer. He is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research. He is known for being one of the pioneers in the human–computer interaction field. Buxton's scientific contributions include applying Fitts' law to human-computer interaction and the invention and analysis of the marking menu (together with Gordon Kurtenbach). He pioneered multi-touch interfaces and music composition tools in the late 1970s, while working in the Dynamic Graphics Project at the University of Toronto. In 2007, he published Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design. He was born in Edmonton, Alberta.
10 March 1956 – Robert Llewellyn - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Llewellyn
British actor, comedian, presenter and writer. He plays the mechanoidKryten in the TV sci-fi sitcomRed Dwarf and formerly presented the TV engineering gameshow Scrapheap Challenge. He also presents a YouTube series, Fully Charged. Llewellyn's involvement with Red Dwarf came about as a result of his appearance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performing in his comedy, Mammon, Robot Born of Woman; this show was about a robot who, as he becomes more human, begins to behave increasingly badly. This was seen by Paul Jackson, producer of Red Dwarf, and he was invited to audition for the role of Kryten. In the early days of Red Dwarf he would arrive to do makeup many hours before the rest of the actors; however, that changed as time progressed as his fellow actors "have a little bit more help in the makeup department than they used to". In an interview with The Skeptic Zone, Llewellyn mentioned that he needs a special pair of glasses to be able to read the script with the Kryten mask on. In Red Dwarf, he worked hard to get the more technically difficult lines right because the show tried to be factually accurate in reference to scientific theories. He was also the only British cast member originally to participate in the American version of Red Dwarf, though other actors such as Craig Charles and Chris Barrie were also approached to reprise their roles. He was born in Northampton,Northamptonshire.
Events of Interest
10 March 241 BC – Battle of the Aegates: The Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet bringing the First Punic War to an end. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Aegates
The Battle of the Aegates was a naval battle fought on 10 March 241 BC between the fleets of Carthage and Rome during the First Punic War. It took place among the Aegates Islands, off the western coast of the island of Sicily. The Carthaginians were commanded by Hanno, and the Romans were under the overall authority of Gaius Lutatius Catulus, but Quintus Valerius Falto had the battle command. It was the final battle of the 23-year-long First Punic War between Rome and Carthage. The Roman army had been blockading the Carthaginians in their last strongholds on the west coast of Sicily for several years. Almost bankrupt, the Romans borrowed money to build a naval fleet, which they used to extend the blockade to the sea. The Carthaginians assembled a larger fleet which they intended to use to run supplies into Sicily. It would then embark much of the Carthaginian army stationed there as marines. It was intercepted by the Roman fleet and in a hard-fought battle the better-trained Romans defeated the undermanned and ill-trained Carthaginian fleet. As a direct result, Carthage sued for peace and agreed to the Treaty of Lutatius, by which Carthage surrendered Sicily to Rome and paid substantial reparations. Henceforth Rome was the leading military power in the western Mediterranean, and increasingly the Mediterranean region.
10 March 1972 – Silent Running came out in theatres - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running
Silent Running is a 1972 environmental-themed American post-apocalyptic science fiction film. It is the directorial debut of Douglas Trumbull, and stars Bruce Dern,Cliff Potts,Ron Rifkin and Jesse Vint. The plot according to IMDB "In a future where all flora is extinct on Earth, an astronaut is given orders to destroy the last of Earth's botany, kept in a greenhouse aboard a spacecraft." Douglas Trumbull says that he learned how to be a director while working on this film, as he had no training or experience in the job. Joel Hodgson, creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000, credits Silent Running as a major inspiration for his show. Bruce Dern plays a botanist in this film. His daughter Laura Dern plays a paleo-botanist in Jurassic Park.
10 March 2000 – The Nasdaq Composite stock market index peaks at 5132.52, signalling the beginning of the end of the dot-com boom. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASDAQ_Composite#Dot-com_boom_and_bust
There were multiple things contributing to this Dot-com boom and bust. Some optimists thought the internet and World Wide Web would be more significant to business than any kind of Industrial Revolution in the past, possibly enabling us to achieve a Technological Singularity. More pessimistic types were concerned that business would require massive technology replacement to achieve Y2K compatibility. The 2000s (decade) brought a mix of pessimistic news stemming from the Early 2000s recession, the September 11 attacks and the impending Afghan War along with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
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