This week we invite our special guest Shaun Keenan, creator of Xtreme Champion Tournament (in which mythical and legendary heroes face off) to share his thoughts on some news from San Diego Comic Con.
Kicking things off, the Nerds discuss Nintendo's itchy DMCA trigger finger, they’ve taken down the tragically short-lived DirectX 12 Super Mario 64 Port. This was a fan work based on the Mario 64 decompilation project, reformed into a gorgeous 4k Ultra-Widescreen rendition of everyone's favourite plumber. And they also lost 2TB of data including user account details, which are now being used to hack people. Oops.
There's now one less reason to leave the house, since gardening provides a boost to your emotional well-being that is as powerful as going out for dinner or taking a run. Grow chickens and you have an excuse for a dinner and a run as well. So, is gardening the ultimate weapon against millennial depression memes?
Lastly, Shaun chips in to talk about SDCC's move to being an online only event. Pros: Better food. Better chairs. No lines. Cons: No costumes. No crowd excitement. It's a tough sell for some of us, but the rest of us are perfectly happy to stay at home.
This week, Professor broke his brain in HyperRogue and DJ confronted his fear of the dark in Alan Wake.
Come back next week, we miss you.
Nintendo Lawyers File Copyright Complaints Against Super Mario 64 PC Port
Gardening at home as good as exercise
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204619307297
Comic-Con 2020 is now an online event
-https://comicbook.com/comics/news/san-diego-comic-con-announces-online-show-making-fun-itself/
Games Played
Professor
–HyperRogue - https://store.steampowered.com/app/342610/HyperRogue/
Rating: 5/5
DJ
– Alan Wake - https://store.steampowered.com/app/108710/Alan_Wake/
Rating: 3.5/5
Other topics discussed
5G (In telecommunications, 5G is the fifth generation technology standard for cellular networks, which cellular phone companies began deploying worldwide in 2019, the planned successor to the 4G networks which provide connectivity to most current cellphones.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
VHS ( (short for Video Home System) is a standard for consumer-level analogvideo recording on tape cassettes.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS
Nintendo has reportedly suffered a significant legacy console leak
Sony Pictures hack (On November 24, 2014, a hacker group which identified itself by the name "Guardians of Peace" leaked a release of confidential data from the film studioSony Pictures.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Pictures_hack
Team Fortress 2 and CS:GO source code leaks
- https://www.pcgamer.com/au/team-fortress-2-and-csgo-source-code-leak-raises-security-fears/
Mythbusters Experiment on Talking and Music Effects on Plant Growth
- http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/plant-ed/2004-December/007770.html
Victory Garden (also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States,United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I and World War II.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden
FarmBot: open source backyard robot for a fully automated garden
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqYrAWssrrY
Community gardening (A community garden is a single piece of land gardened collectively by a group of people.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_gardening
Comic-Con @ Home 2020 trailer
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbHnCt9GM5s&feature=emb_logo
Armageddon Expo (Armageddon Expo is a New Zealand owned and operated pop culture convention that holds multiple events around New Zealand in cities including Auckland, Wellington, Tauranga and Christchurch.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_(convention)
- https://www.armageddonexpo.com/
Marvel Studios held a panel at San Diego Comic-Con where Feige announced the full Phase Four slate. This included five films to be released—Black Widow, The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder—as well as five event series to be released on Disney+—The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,WandaVision,Loki, What If...?, and Hawkeye.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Phase_Four#Development
Zoom meeting hackings also known as Zoom-bombings and security updates to avoid it
- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/23/zoom-update-security-encryption-bombing
Adam Savage from Mythbusters going Incognito at Comic-Con 2018. His costume this year is a replica of the first high-altitude pressure suit, made in 1935 for famed aviator Wiley Post.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nqfq3qjkfQ
HyperRogue game screenshot
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – Male and Female Eivor Are Both Canon Choices, Says Narrative Director
Blake’s 7 ((sometimes styled Blakes7) is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake%27s_7
Babylon 5 (Babylon 5 is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Television.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5
Fresh Prince of Bel Air - Uncle Phil Tries on Wig and Geoffrey saying ‘awopbopaloobop alopbamboom’
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE0Wgov6ntE
Terralympus - Volume 1 & 2 - Space Sci-Fi Graphic Novel Kickstarter project by Stephen Kok & Shaun Keenan
XCT: Fractured Worlds Kickstarter project by Shaun Keenan & Stephen Kok
- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2067957354/xct-fractured-worlds
An Assemblage of Grandiose and Bombastic Grandiloquents (TNC Podcast)
- https://thatsnotcanon.com/grandiloquentspodcast
The Mistholme Museum Of Mystery, Morbidity, And Mortality (TNC Podcast)
- https://thatsnotcanon.com/themistholmemuseumpodcast
Check out more stuff from Comics2Movies including XCT & Terralympus
- https://www.comics2movies.com.au/
Shout Outs
4 May 2020 – Elon Musk’s son was born - https://people.com/parents/elon-musk-grimes-welcome-first-child/
The 32-year-old singer has given birth to her first child on Monday, her boyfriend Elon Musk confirmed in a tweet. Musk shared the exciting news on Twitter when a fan asked for an update on the baby after the Tesla CEO had previously shared that Grimes was due on Monday. In true Musk fashion, he also announced the baby's name was very outside the box telling fans his son was called X Æ A-12 Musk (pronounced "Ex Ash A Twelve"), although this may not be a legal name in California due to it containing characters that are not English letters. During a podcast with American comedian Joe Rogan, Musk explained the way to pronounce his son’s name. Responding to a question asked about his son’s name on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’, Musk said, “First of all, my partner’s the one that mostly came up with the name. I mean it’s just X, the letter X, and the ‘Æ’ is pronounced, ‘Ash,’ and then, A-12 is my contribution.” He then elaborated that ‘A-12’ stood for “Archangel 12, the precursor to the SR-71, coolest plane ever.”
09 May 2020 – Little Richard passes away at 87 - https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/may/09/little-richard-dies-aged-83-rock-n-roll-pioneer
Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), better known as Little Richard, was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. An influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades, he was nicknamed "The Innovator", "The Originator", and "The Architect of Rock and Roll". Penniman's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding backbeat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll. His innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock tohip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations to come. "Tutti Frutti", one of Penniman's signature songs, became an instant hit, crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom with the lyric ‘awopbopaloobop alopbamboom’, and a series of follow-up records helped establish the genre and influence a multitude of other musicians. Penniman was honored by many institutions. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of its first group of inductees in 1986. He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. He died from bone cancer in Tullahoma, Tennessee.
11 May 2020 – Jerry Stiller passes away at 92 - https://deadline.com/2020/05/jerry-stiller-dies-comedian-seinfeld-actor-92-ben-tribute-1202931049/
Jerry Stiller, the American comedian and actor who was one-half of the great 1960s husband-wife comedy team Stiller & Meara, a fan-favorite cornerstone of the sitcom Seinfeld and the father of Hollywood star Ben Stiller. Jerry Stiller is more well-known with his casting as Frank Costanza, the father of Jason Alexander’s George Costanza, a hot-tempered eccentric who once attempted to contain his rage at wife Estelle and son George (and, indeed, the world) by repeatedly chanting “Serenity Now.” On another classic episode, Frank, ever disgruntled with the status quo, invented his own holiday: Festivus, for, as he said, “the rest of us.” Among the holiday’s made-up traditions: physical feats of strength and the airing of grievances. This role which earned him an Emmy nomination. The year Seinfeld went off the air, Stiller began his role as the eccentric Arthur Spooner on the CBS comedy series The King of Queens, another role which garnered him widespread acclaim. Jerry was the father of actor Ben Stiller, and the father and son appeared together in films such as Zoolander,Heavyweights,Hot Pursuit, The Heartbreak Kid, and Zoolander 2. He also performed voice-over work for television and films including The Lion King 1½ and Planes: Fire and Rescue. In his later career, Stiller became known for playing grumpy and eccentric characters who were nevertheless beloved. He died from natural causes in New York City, New York. His son tweeted “I’m sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes. He was a great dad and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years. He will be greatly missed. Love you Dad.”
11 May 2020 – 15th Anniversary of World of Warcraft's Leeroy Jenkins Video - https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/world-of-warcraft-leeroy-jenkins-15th-anniversary/
On May 11th, 2004, a video was uploaded to the website Warcraft Movies that would have a major impact on World of Warcraft, and the culture surrounding the game. In the video, a team of players crafts an intricate plan, but one shouts "LEEROY JENKINS!" before charging into battle, unprepared, getting the entire party killed as they attempt to save him. The video went viral, and became one of the biggest memes in the history of World of Warcraft, and the internet in general. Since then, Leeroy Jenkins has been referenced on Jeopardy!, The Daily Show, and even on Family Guy. For many World of Warcraft fans, it holds a special place in their hearts. For years, World of Warcraft fans debated whether or not the video showed a real planning session that went awry, or a staged event. The video's creators, Ben Schultz and Ben "Anfrony" Vinson, intentionally answered ambiguously about it for years. In 2017, Vinson released a video showing an initial, failed attempt, proving that the Leeroy Jenkins video actually was staged. While the video itself was staged, no one involved could have predicted what a major impact it would have on World of Warcraft. Fandom can often have a strange impact on popular culture, and that has never been truer than it is in the internet era. The Leeroy Jenkins video is not the only time that a company has leaned into an internet meme, but it's certainly one of the earliest examples. When Schultz, Vinson, and the rest of their friends created the video, they had no idea it would catch on in the way that it did. Others have tried to replicate the success of Leeroy Jones, but the video certainly stands as a unique moment in popular culture.
Remembrances
12 May 805 – Æthelhard - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelhard
Bishop of Winchester then an Archbishop of Canterbury in medieval England. Æthelhard is deposed by Eadbert II (Praen) when he seizes the kingdom of Kent from Mercian overlordship. Æthelhard flees to the court of his Mercian supporters and refuses to venture back to Canterbury, even though it seems safe. In 803, he returns to England from Rome and convenes the Council of Clovesho (Clofesho), which re-establishes the prime importance of Canterbury and, with papal authority, asserts the freedom of the church from secular authority. He died in Canterbury. He was later revered as a saint, with a feast day of 12 May.
12 May 1856 - Jacques Philippe Marie Binet - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Philippe_Marie_Binet
French mathematician,physicist and astronomer, he made significant contributions to number theory, and the mathematical foundations of matrix algebra which would later lead to important contributions by Cayley and others. In his memoir on the theory of the conjugate axis and of the moment of inertia of bodies he enumerated the principle now known as Binet's theorem. He is also recognized as the first to describe the rule for multiplying matrices in 1812, and Binet's Formula expressing Fibonacci numbers in closed form is named in his honour, although the same result was known to Abraham de Moivre a century earlier. The Binet equation, provides the form of a central force given the shape of the orbital motion in plane polar coordinates. The equation can also be used to derive the shape of the orbit for a given force law, but this usually involves the solution to a second order nonlinear ordinary differential equation. A unique solution is impossible in the case of circular motion about the center of force. He died at the age of 70 in Paris.
12 May 1994 - Erik Erikson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson
Erik Homburger Erikson, was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. Despite lacking a bachelor's degree, Erikson served as a professor at prominent institutions, including Harvard,University of California, Berkeley, and Yale. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Erikson as the 12th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. The development of identity seems to have been one of Erikson's greatest concerns in his own life as well as being central to his theoretical work. As an older adult, he wrote about his adolescent "identity confusion" in his European days. "My identity confusion", he wrote "[was at times on] the borderline between neurosis and adolescent psychosis." Erikson is also credited with being one of the originators of ego psychology, which stressed the role of the ego as being more than a servant of the id. Although Erikson accepted Freud's theory, he did not focus on the parent-child relationship and gave more importance to the role of the ego, particularly the person's progression as self. According to Erikson, the environment in which a child lived was crucial to providing growth, adjustment, a source of self-awareness and identity. He died at the age of 91 in Harwich, Massachusetts.
Famous Birthdays
12 May 1895 - William Giauque - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Giauque
American chemist and Nobel laureate recognized in 1949 for his studies in the properties of matter at temperatures close to absolute zero. He spent virtually all of his educational and professional career at the University of California, Berkeley. He became interested in the third law of thermodynamics as a field of research during his experimental research for his Ph.D. research under Professor George Ernest Gibson comparing the relative entropies of glycerine crystals and glass. He principal objective of his researches was to demonstrate through range of appropriate tests that the third law of thermodynamics is a basic natural law. In 1926, he proposed a method for observing temperatures considerably below 1 Kelvin (1 K is −457.87 °F or −272.15 °C). He developed a magnetic refrigeration device of his own design in order to achieve this outcome, getting closer to absolute zero than many scientists had thought possible. This trailblazing work, apart from proving one of the fundamental laws of nature led to stronger steel, better gasoline and more efficient processes in a range of industries. He was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
12 May 1918 - Julius Rosenberg - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg
Julius Rosenberg, American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. Him and his wife Ethel Rosenberg were accused of providing top-secret information about radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs; at that time the United States was the only country in the world with nuclear weapons. Julius Rosenberg joined the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, in 1940, where he worked as an engineer-inspector until 1945. He was fired when the US Army discovered his previous membership in the Communist Party. Important research on electronics, communications, radar and guided missile controls was undertaken at Fort Monmouth during World War II. In February 1944, Rosenberg succeeded in recruiting a second source of Manhattan Project information, engineer Russell McNutt, who worked on designs for the plants at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For this success, Rosenberg received a $100 bonus. McNutt's employment provided access to secrets about processes for manufacturing weapons-grade uranium. The USSR and the US were allies during World War II, but the Americans did not share information about or seek assistance from the Soviet Union regarding the Manhattan Project. The West was shocked by the speed with which the Soviets were able to stage their first nuclear test, "Joe 1," on August 29, 1949. He was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York.
12 May 1970 - Bruce Boxleitner - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Boxleitner
Bruce William Boxleitner, American actor, and science fiction and suspense writer. He is known for his leading roles in the television series such as How the West Was Won and Babylon 5 (as John Sheridan in seasons 2–5, 1994–98). He is also known for his dual role as the characters Alan Bradley and Tron in the 1982 Walt Disney Pictures film Tron, a role which he reprised in the 2003 video game Tron 2.0, the 2006 Square-Enix/Disney crossover game Kingdom Hearts II, the 2010 film sequel, Tron: Legacy and the animated series Tron: Uprising. In July 2015 Boxleitner said that he is done with the franchise, as "it's been too up and down for me. I would rather not just keep going. I don't want to repeat my career anymore." He has also starred in several films within the Babylon 5 universe, including Babylon 5: In the Beginning, Babylon 5: Third space, Babylon 5: A Call to Arms, and the direct-to-DVD Babylon 5: The Lost Tales. He was born in Elgin, Illinois.
Events of Interest
12 May 1926 – The Italian-built airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norge_(airship)#Polar_expedition
Umberto Nobile, the airship's designer and pilot explained the Norge trip was to observe the uncharted sea between the Pole and Alaska where some thought land was; at the time he believed Robert Edwin Peary had already reached the pole. On 12 May at 01.25 (GMT) they reached the North Pole, at which point the Norwegian, American and Italian flags were dropped from the airship onto the ice. Amundsen the expedition leader and navigator and polar explorer Oscar Wisting who served as helmsman were thereby the first to reach both poles. Relations between Amundsen and Nobile, which had been strained in the freezing, cramped and noisy conditions became even worse when Amundsen saw that the Italian flag dropped was larger than either of the others. Amundsen later recalled with scorn that under Nobile, the airship had become "a circus wagon in the sky". This was now unknown territory and Amundsen sat at the front of the cabin to look for any land. Unfortunately, they came into thick fog at 8.30 am which made it impossible to see down on either ice or land. The fog stuck to the airship as a layer of ice and lumps of ice were thrown from the propellers and into the balloon skin, with the resulting danger of puncture. Running repairs were made as far as possible from the keel space.
12 May 1941 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin. - https://www.inverse.com/article/15542-konrad-zuse-s-z3-the-world-s-first-programmable-computer-was-unveiled-75-years-ago
Zuse presented the Z3, built in his workshop, to the public. The Z3 was a binary 22-bit floating point calculator featuring programmability with loops but without conditional jumps, with memory and a calculation unit based on telephone relays. The telephone relays used in his machines were largely collected from discarded stock. Despite the absence of conditional jumps, the Z3 was a Turing complete computer. However, Turing-completeness was never considered by Zuse (who had practical applications in mind) and only demonstrated in 1998. The Z3, the first fully operational electromechanical computer, was partially financed by German government-supported DVL, which wanted their extensive calculations automated. The Z3 revolutionized computing. It was used to help calculate aerodynamics in aircraft design, which the UK’s Centre for Computing History says helped the German Aircraft Research Institute in its analysis. We’re used to today’s computers reading programs from solid state storage, but the Z3 read its programs off of punched film.
12 May 2015 – Massive Nepal earthquake kills 218 people and injures more than 3500. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2015_Nepal_earthquake
A major earthquake occurred in Nepal on 12 May 2015 at 12:50 pm local time with a moment magnitude of 7.3, 18 km (11 mi) southeast of Kodari. The epicenter was on the border of Dolakha and Sindhupalchowk, two districts of Nepal. This earthquake occurred on the same fault as the larger magnitude 7.8 earthquake of 25 April, but further east than the original quake. As such, it is considered to be an aftershock of 25 April quake. It struck at a depth of 18.5 kilometres (11.5 mi). Shaking was felt in northern parts of India including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Tremors were felt as far as about 2,400 kilometers away from the epicenter in Chennai. Minutes later, another 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal with its epicenter inRamechhap, east of Kathmandu. The earthquake was felt in Bangladesh, China and many other states in India. The impact of these tremors was felt even 1,000 kilometres away in the Indian capital New Delhi, where buildings shook and office workers evacuated. According to geophysicist Amy Vaughan, the 12 May quake is likely a sign that more aftershocks are on the way. "Generally, in the days and weeks and months [seismic activity] tapers off", she said. "But ... this is going to temporarily increase [the aftershocks]".
12 May 2017 – The WannaCry ransomware attack impacts over 400 thousand computers worldwide, targeting computers of the United Kingdom's National Health Services and Telefónica computers. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WannaCry_ransomware_attack
The WannaCry ransomware attack was a May 2017 worldwidecyberattack by the WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm, which targeted computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. It propagated through EternalBlue, an exploit developed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for older Windows systems. While Microsoft had released patches previously to close the exploit, much of WannaCry's spread was from organizations that had not applied these, or were using older Windows systems that were past their end-of-life. The attack was halted within a few days of its discovery due to emergency patches released by Microsoft and the discovery of a kill switch that prevented infected computers from spreading WannaCry further. The attack was estimated to have affected more than 200,000 computers across 150 countries, with total damages ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Security experts believed from preliminary evaluation of the worm that the attack originated from North Korea or agencies working for the country. The ransomware campaign was unprecedented in scale according to Europol, which estimates that around 200,000 computers were infected across 150 countries. According to Kaspersky Lab, the four most affected countries were Russia,Ukraine,India and Taiwan. One of the largest agencies struck by the attack was the National Health Service hospitals in England and Scotland, and up to 70,000 devices – including computers, MRI scanners, blood-storage refrigerators and theatre equipment – may have been affected. On 12 May, some NHS services had to turn away non-critical emergencies, and some ambulances were diverted. According to cyber-risk-modeling firm Cyence, economic losses from the cyber attack could reach up to US$4 billion, with other groups estimating the losses to be in the hundreds of millions.
Intro
Artist – Goblins from Mars
Song Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)
Song Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJ
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