Robotics, Pokemon & Sonic the Hedgehog

Here they come, blowing up your phone, getting funniest looks from, everyone who hears;, hey hey it’s the Nerds. That’s right folks, look out, strap in and enjoy the ride of yet another fantastic fun filled episode of chaos and laughter. Also I know you started to sing along with us in that opening sentence, just go with it and enjoy. First up we look at a robot using origami to pick things up. It is truly spectacular! The boys get Nerdy and geek out over this and the applications it could be used for. When you look at what it can do you will understand.

            Then as we wander through the show the DJ giggles constantly like he fit to burst, we aren’t sure what was in his milk that morning but hey, it worked. The next stop on our magical mystery tour is Pokemon and the Brain, that’s right folks Pokemon and the Brain, not Pinky. Although this has been more successful in taking over the world then Pinky; note, we need to copyright that idea before….too late. Anyway, we take a look at how watching pokemon is affecting people’s brains, and we don’t mean the crazy people running out in traffic to catch Jigglypuff.

            The DJ continues to giggle as he tells us about Sonic the Hedgehog and the change that is happening to rectify the massive failure that was released to so much anger. This is serious folks, some idiot somewhere is trying to make something look even more ridiculous then Will Smith in body paint…and that is a really hard thing to do. Then as normal we have the shout outs, remembrances, birthdays and events of the week, which has some pretty funny moments for your enjoyment. We apologise if this is too informative for some listeners, also hello to the NSA, CIA and the rest of the alphabet soup, we know you are listening. Also we wish to acknowledge the Penguins as the Earths Alien overlords, they rule the galaxy. As always, take care of each other, stay safe and keep hydrated.


EPISODE NOTES:


Robotics and origami - https://www.sciencenews.org/article/origami-design-helps-robot-lift-delicate-and-heavy-cargo

Pokemon and brains

- https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/theres-a-brain-region-for-pokemon-characters-if-you-played-a-lot-as-a-kid/

                    -https://www.futurity.org/pokemon-players-brains-2054662/

Sonic the Hedgehog movie character changes - https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2471298/sonic-the-hedgehog-co-creator-thanks-fans-for-pushing-to-change-movie

Games Currently playing

Buck

– Assassin’s Creed unity - https://store.steampowered.com/app/289650/Assassins_Creed_Unity/

Professor

– Minecraft - https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/

DJ

– Apex Legends - https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends

Other topics dicussed

Facehugger (Alien monster)

- https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Facehugger

Spot (Boston Dynamics robot)

- https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot-classic

Farmbot - Backyard robot for a fully automated garden

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqYrAWssrrY

2019 video games hall of fame inductees

- https://www.worldvideogamehalloffame.org/games

Windows 1.0 (Operating Software)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0

Grandmother Cell also known as Jennifer Aniston neuron

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_cell

China having more gamers than the American population

- https://www.pcgamer.com/China-PC-online-game-market-report-2019/?utm_content=bufferc26c7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer-pcgamertw

Stanford University

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University

Various Stanford university experiments

- Stanford prison experiment - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

- Mozart effect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_effect

Baby bump headphones

- https://www.amazon.com.au/BellyBuds-Baby-Bump-Headphones-Bellyphones-WavHello/dp/B01A6B3H9I

Detective Pikachu director’s opinion on the Sonic the Hedgehog

- https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/3/18528628/detective-pikachu-sonic-the-hedgehog-cgi-live-action-pokemon

Sonic the Hedgehog fans redesign live action Sonic

- https://www.polygon.com/2019/3/6/18253330/sonic-the-hedgehog-live-action-fan-redesign


Mario movie in the works

- https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendos-mario-movie-gets-a-release-window/1100-6464748/

Nintendo movies Phase One

Image link - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5nCFkUXsAERrAG.jpg:large

Tweet - https://twitter.com/AwestruckVox/status/1124143052287815683

Apex Legends losing momentum

- https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/12/18300950/apex-legends-content-decline-update-patch-fortnite

- https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2019/04/26/respawn-has-a-very-good-reason-for-why-apex-legends-updates-are-coming-slowly/#7323db327d9e

A Dangerous Method (2011 movie)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dangerous_Method

Sigmund Freud Museum

- https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sigmund-freud-museum

Edward Jenner - pioneer of smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jenner

Ali Maow Maalin - Last person known to be infected with smallpox

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Maow_Maalin

The Shane Oliver Experience (TNC podcast)

- https://thatsnotcanon.com/shaneoliverexperience



Shoutouts

5 May 2017 - “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion” becomes the highest grossing Indian box office film ever earning $120 million - https://deadline.com/2017/05/baahubali-2-the-conclusion-record-box-office-india-imax-north-america-worldwide-prabhas-1202079770/

8 May 1885 - Suicide Woman floats safely - 22-year-old Sarah Ann Henley decided to end her life by throwing herself off the Clifton Suspension Bridge, originally designed by the great Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It stands 101 metres (331ft) above the River Avon and spans a 400-metre wide gorge. It has been considered an engineering marvel ever since it was opened in 1864. Sarah, a barmaid and a follower of fashion, was wearing a wide crinoline skirt, popular at the time. And according to the Bristol Magpie Newspaper: “There being a breeze blowing on Friday the young woman’s clothes were inflated and her descent was thereby considerably checked and the wind also prevented her falling straight into the water, and she was carried into the soft mud on the side.” - https://www.onthisday.com/articles/suicide-woman-floats-to-safety

6 May 1994 – The Channel Tunnel, latest wonder of the world,linking England and France, was officially opened on this day, nearly 200 years after the idea was first suggested. There were many misgivings, the sea having protected for centuries what Shakespeare described as “this precious stone set in the silver sea . . . this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war”.  But the demands of modern commerce prevailed and the completed tunnel – stretching 31.4 miles under the sea – was hailed as one of the “seven wonders of the modern world" by the American Society of Civil Engineers. They rated it alongside the Empire State Building, the Itaipu Dam in South America, the CNN Tower in Toronto, the Panama Canal, the North Sea protection works in the Netherlands, and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It took six years to build at a cost of £4.65 billion – £12 billion ($17 billion) in today’s money. There is no facility for vehicles to be driven through – everything and everybody goes by train. Up to 400 of them pass through the tunnel each day, carrying an average of 50,000 passengers, 6,000 cars, 180 coaches and 54,000 tonnes of freight on the 35-minute journey. The average depth of the tunnel is 50 metres below the seabed, and the lowest point 75 metres below. To accomplish the task, 11 boring machines were used, each as long as two football pitches. They weighed a total of 12,000 tonnes, which is more than the Eiffel Tower. One of the machines remains buried under the sea while another, amazingly, was sold on eBay in 2004 for £40,000 ($57,000). - https://www.onthisday.com/articles/latest-wonder-of-the-world

Remembrances

30 April 2019 – Peter Mayhew, English-American actor, best known for portraying Chewbacca in the Star Wars film series. He played the character in all of his live-action appearances from the 1977 original to 2015's The Force Awakens before his retirement from the role. Mayhew was not in Star Wars: The Last Jedi but was listed in the credits as "Chewbacca Consultant". Mayhew retired from playing Chewbacca due to health issues. Joonas Suotamo shared the portrayal of Chewbacca with Mayhew in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and then replaced him in subsequent Star Wars films. He died of a heart attack at 74 in Boyd, Texas - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mayhew

2 May 2019 - Chris Reccardi, American cartoon director, graphic designer, animator, character designer, producer, writer and storyboard artist. He is best known for his work on the Nickelodeon animated series The Ren & Stimpy Show, and storyboarded many shows, including Samurai Jack,The Powerpuff Girls, Tiny Toon Adventures, and had directing duties on Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! and SpongeBob SquarePants. He was also the supervising producer for the first season of Regular Show and creative director for the short-lived Secret Mountain Fort Awesome. In 2007, he co-created and developed a pilot for Nickelodeon called The Modifyers alongside Lynne Naylor, to whom he had been married to since 1994. He died of a heart attack at 54 in Ventura, California - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Reccardi

6 May 1992 - Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress and singer. Throughout her long career, which spanned from the 1910s to the 1980s, she continually reinvented herself In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich acted on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel (1930) brought her an international profile and a contract with Paramount Pictures. Dietrich starred in Hollywood films such as Morocco (1930), Shanghai Express (1932), and Desire (1936). She successfully traded on her glamorous persona and "exotic" looks and became one of the highest-paid actresses of the era. Throughout World War II, she was a high-profile entertainer in the United States. Although she still made occasional films after the war like Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Dietrich spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a marquee live-show performer. Dietrich was known for her humanitarian efforts during the war, housing German and French exiles, providing financial support and even advocating their U.S. citizenship. For her work on improving morale on the front lines during the war, she received several honors from the United States, France, Belgium, and Israel. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema. She died of renal failure at 90 in Paris, France - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlene_Dietrich

Famous Birthdays

5 May 1921 - Arthur Leonard Schawlow, Americanphysicist and co-inventor of the laser with Charles Townes. His central insight, which Townes overlooked, was the use of two mirrors as the resonant cavity to take maser action from microwaves to visible wavelengths. He shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nicolaas Bloembergen and Kai Siegbahn for his work using lasers to determine atomic energy levels with great precision. He was born in Mount Vernon, New York - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Leonard_Schawlow

6 May 1856 - Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. In creating psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic process. Freud's redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the underlying mechanisms of repression. On this basis Freud elaborated his theory of the unconscious and went on to develop a model of psychic structure comprising id, ego and super-ego. Freud postulated the existence of libido, a sexualised energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of compulsive repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic guilt. In his later works, Freud developed a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture. Though in overall decline as a diagnostic and clinical practice, psychoanalysis remains influential within psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, and across the humanities. It thus continues to generate extensive and highly contested debate about its therapeutic efficacy, its scientific status, and whether it advances or is detrimental to the feminist cause. Nonetheless, Freud's work has suffused contemporary Western thought and popular culture. In the words of W. H. Auden's 1940 poetic tribute to Freud, he had created "a whole climate of opinion / under whom we conduct our different lives". He was born in Freiberg in Mähren, Moravia,Austrian Empire (now Příbor, Czech Republic). - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud

6 May 1915 - Orson Welles, American actor, director, writer and producer who worked in theatre, radio and film. He is remembered for his innovative work in all three: in theatre, most notably Caesar (1937), a Broadway adaptation of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; in radio, the long-remembered 1938 broadcast "The War of the Worlds"; and in film, Citizen Kane (1941), consistently ranked as one of the greatest films ever made. Welles was an outsider to the studio system and directed only thirteen full-length films in his career. He struggled for creative control on his projects early on with the major film studios in Hollywood and later in life with a variety of independent financiers across Europe, where he spent most of his career. Many of his films were either heavily edited or remained unreleased. His distinctive directorial style featured layered and nonlinear narrative forms, uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unusual camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots and long takes. He has been praised as "the ultimate auteur". In 2002 Welles was voted the greatest film director of all time in two British Film Institute polls among directors and critics. Known for his baritone voice, Welles performed extensively across theatre, radio and film, and was a lifelong magician noted for presenting troop variety shows in the war years. He was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles

8 May 1828 - Henry Dunant, Swiss businessman and social activist, the founder of the Red Cross, and the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. The 1864 Geneva Convention was based on Dunant's ideas. In 1901 he received the first Nobel Peace Prize together with Frédéric Passy, making Dunant the first Swiss Nobel laureate. During a business trip in 1859, Dunant was witness to the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in modern-day Italy. He recorded his memories and experiences in the book A Memory of Solferino which inspired the creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1863. He was born in Geneva, Switzerland - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dunant

Events of Interest

6 May 1937 - Hindenburg Disaster, The German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in the United States. Of the 97 people on board (36 passengers and 61 crewmen), there were 35 fatalities. One worker on the ground was also killed, making a total of 36 dead. The disaster, caught on newsreel coverage and in photographs shattered public confidence in the giant, passenger carrying Zeppelins and marked the end of the airship era. - https://www.onthisday.com/photos/hindenburg-disaster

7 May 1946 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded with around 20 employees. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sony

7 May 1952 – The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey Dummer. - https://www.wired.com/2010/05/0507integrated-circuit-concept-published/

8 May 1980 – The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox.

- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dm79sp.html

                - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7044193

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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