Here are once again with the fabulous Nerds for the weekly episode of hijinks and merriment. This week we look at topics that will hopefully entertain you, perhaps educate you, perchance even make you laugh. As usual we have our three Nerds, idiots, nutjobs, wackjobs, funny farm contenders, or as we like to say, your hosts. Bucky, Professor and the DJ. Bucky is our slightly older, kind of grumpy Nerd, who dislikes Mumble rappers, reality TV and generally stupidity. Professor our younger Nerd who likes gaming, long walks to the camp fire, and his Switch when on the bus. Last but not least, we have the DJ, the resident Droid that no one is looking for, who likes anime, games and laughing.
First topic up this week is about some new illustrated novels, or omics, from the Firefly franchise. The DJ is challenged to finally watch the series to help him discover his inner Browncoat, will he be brave enough to walk down the street in a hat like that and show he aint afraid of nothing? We will find out, but by my pretty blue bonnet if he doesn’t we will aim to misbehave and cause mischief.
Next up we look at the stress and traumatic conditions developers are suffering through to bring us new games. With reports of people developing PTSD, and hiding this fact so they can get jobs. This is seriously messed up, what these people are going through is downright wrong and needs to be looked at. Also Buck has a rant about the need to look after each other because he is sick and tired of morons putting profit before people.
Last up Buck brings us an article about Rainbows. No, he hasn’t become a hippie or something drastic. He just felt we needed to take a moment and look around us and admire the simple things, you know, kind of like smell the roses and noticed the politicians as people (we think they are, but don’t hold us to that – Ed.). So we have 20 facts about rainbows and one of which is that the Greeks thought there were only three colours in the rainbow.
We follow this with the usual look at the games we have been playing this week and give you a run down on them. Concluding with the episode with the regular Shout outs, remembrances, birthdays and events for the week that we all love. As always, take care of each other and stay hydrated.
EPISODE NOTES:
Firefly comics - https://comicbook.com/comics/2019/05/13/firefly-the-sting-joss-whedon-boom-studios/
Rainbows - http://discovermagazine.com/2019/may/20-things-you-didnt-know-about--rainbows
Games currently playing
Professor
– Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - https://cataclysmdda.org/
Buck
– Monster Truck Drive - https://store.steampowered.com/app/847870/Monster_Truck_Drive/
DJ
– Dota 2 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/570/Dota_2/
Other topics discussed
Changes to Santa Clarita Diet
Ed Boon’s take on fatalities
Facebook content moderators having PTSD
- https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-content-moderators-lawsuit-ptsd
Grumpy Cat (internet personality)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumpy_Cat
All Dogs gone to Heaven (1989 film)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Dogs_Go_to_Heaven
Linguistic relativity and the colour naming
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate
Chromatic aberration
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration
Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow
- http://luckyireland.com/the-origin-of-a-pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow/
Minecraft Earth (mobile game)
- https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/earth
Dota 2 New Character: Mars
- Character bio - https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Mars
- Mars’ character design - https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/apps/dota2/images/mars/hero_mars93fd33s5.jpg
Shadow of the Colossus (2006 game)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Colossus
Trials Fusion (2014 game)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trials_Fusion
Stunt Car Arena (arcade game)
- http://www.arcadespot.com/game/stunt-car-arena/
Millionaire’s advice to young people – stop spending smashed avocados
Colorectal Cancer also known as colon cancer
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorectal_cancer
Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Jubilee_of_Elizabeth_II
Queen Victoria
- Bio - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria
- Queen Victoria with her grandchildren and other guests - https://images.immediate.co.uk/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/Queen_victoria_family-fd7d69f.jpg?quality=90&resize=768,574
Stevie Wonder catches microphone stand
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUgngvsWLlE
Carrie Fisher roasts George Lucas
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ97s396kb0
Mark Zuckerberg will eat meat he kills
Apple loses money than the value of Facebook
Walt Disney
- Bio and urban myth on Walt’s body is frozen - https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney
- Human bones in Disneyland - https://collinsrace1.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/are-there-human-bones-at-disney-parks/
Elvis Lives (That’s Not Canon Podcast)
- https://thatsnotcanon.com/elvislivespodcast
Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of The Caribbean character)
- https://pirates.fandom.com/wiki/Jack_Sparrow
Henry Sutton (Australian Inventor)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Sutton_(inventor)
Shoutouts
7 May 1999 - The Mummy opened and grossed $43 million in 3,210 theatres in the United States on its opening weekend. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mummy_(1999_film)
14 May 1796 - English country doctor Edward Jenner administers the first inoculation against smallpox, using cowpox pus, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jenner
Remembrances
11 May 2019 – Peggy Lipton, American actress, model, and singer. She was well-known through her role as flower child Julie Barnes in the counterculture television series The Mod Squad (1968–1973), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama in 1970. Her fifty-year career in television, film, and stage included many roles, includingNorma Jennings in David Lynch'sTwin Peaks. Lipton was formerly married to the musician and producer Quincy Jones and was the mother of their two daughters, Rashida Jones and Kidada Jones. She died of colon cancer at 72 in Los Angeles,California. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Lipton
13 May 2019 – Doris Day, American actress, singer, and animal welfare activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967. Day's film career began during the latter part of the classical Hollywood era with the film Romance on the High Seas, leading to a 20-year career as a motion picture actress. She starred in films of many genres, including musicals, comedies, and dramas. She played the title role in Calamity Jane and starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much with James Stewart. Her best-known films are those in which she co-starred with Rock Hudson, chief among them 1959's Pillow Talk, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also worked with James Garner on both Move Over, Darling (1963) and The Thrill of It All, and also starred with Clark Gable, Cary Grant, James Cagney, David Niven, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Richard Widmark, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall and Rod Taylor in various movies. After ending her film career in 1968, only briefly removed from the height of her popularity, she starred in the sitcom The Doris Day Show. Day became one of the biggest film stars in the early 1960s, and as of 2012 was one of eight performers to have been the top box-office earner in the United States four times. In 2011, she released her 29th studio album My Heart which contained new material and became a UK Top 10 album. She received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Legend Award from the Society of Singers. In 1960, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures in 1989. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom; this was followed in 2011 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award. She died of pneumonia at 97 in Carmel Valley Village, California. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Day
14 May 1919 - Henry John Heinz, German-American entrepreneur who founded the H. J. Heinz Company based in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania. He was born in that city, the son of German immigrants from the Palatinate who came independently to the United States in the early 1840s. Heinz developed his business into a national company which made more than 60 food products; one of its first was tomato ketchup. He was influential for introducing high sanitary standards for food manufacturing. He also exercised a paternal relationship with his workers, providing health benefits, recreation facilities, and cultural amenities. His descendants carried on the business until fairly recently, selling their remaining holdings to the predecessor company of what is now Kraft Heinz. Heinz was the great-grandfather of former U.S. Senator H. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania. He died of pneumonia at 75 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_J._Heinz
14 May 1998 - Frank Sinatra, American singer, actor and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide. Born to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "bobby soxers". He released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatra's professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known residency performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers!, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy. Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums. In 1965, he recorded the retrospective September of My Years and starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music. After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was followed by 1968'sFrancis A. & Edward K. with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later and recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace, and reached success in 1980 with "New York, New York". Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until shortly before his death in 1998. Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm, and received critical acclaim for his performance in The Manchurian Candidate. He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town, Guys and Dolls, High Society, and Pal Joey, winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he became associated with playing detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome. Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1971. On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s, and actively campaigned for presidents such as Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. In crime, the FBI investigated Sinatra and his alleged relationship with the Mafia. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people. After Sinatra's death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him "the greatest singer of the 20th century", and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure. He died of a heart attack at 82 in Los Angeles, California . - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra
14 May 2019 – Tim Conway, American comedic actor, writer, and director. He portrayed the inept Ensign Parker in the 1960s World War II situation comedy McHale's Navy, was a regular cast member on the 1970s variety and sketch comedy program The Carol Burnett Show, co-starred with Don Knotts in several films in the late 1970s and early 1980s, starred as the title character in the Dorf series of sports comedy films, and provided the voice of Barnacle Boy in the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants. He was particularly admired for his ability to depart from scripts with spontaneously improvised character details and dialogue, and he won six Primetime Emmy Awards during his career, four of which were awarded for The Carol Burnett Show, including one for writing. He died of normal pressure hydrocephalus at 85 in Los Angeles,California. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Conway
15 May 2019 - Rick Bennett, voice actor, known for X-Men: The Animated Series (1992), Balance of Power (1996) and X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996) mainly as Cain Marko also known as The Juggernaut. He passed away in Toronto
Bio - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0072001/
16 May 2019 – The Honourable Bob Hawke, Australian politician who served as the 23rd prime minister of Australia and Leader of the Labor Party from 1983 to 1991. Hawke served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wills from 1980 to 1992 and was Labor's longest serving Prime Minister. Bob Hawke was born in Bordertown South Australia. The Hawke family then moved to Western Australia. He attended the University of Western Australia and then went on to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. In 1956, Hawke joined the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) as a research officer. Having risen to become responsible for wage arbitration, he was elected ACTU President in 1969, where he achieved a high public profile. After a decade serving in that role, Hawke announced his intention to enter politics, and was subsequently elected to the House of Representatives as the Labor MP for Wills. Three years later, he led Labor to a landslide victory at the 1983 election and was sworn in as prime minister. He led Labor to victory three more times, in 1984, 1987 and 1990, making him the most electorally successful Labor Leader. The Hawke Government created Medicare and Landcare, brokered the Prices and Incomes Accord, established APEC, floated the Australian dollar, deregulated the financial sector, introduced the Family Assistance Scheme, announced "Advance Australia Fair" as the official national anthem, initiated superannuation pension schemes for all workers and oversaw passage of the Australia Act that removed all remaining jurisdiction by the United Kingdom from Australia. Hawke remains Labor's longest-serving prime minister, Australia's third-longest-serving Prime Minister and, until his death at the age of 89, Hawke was the oldest living former Australian Prime Minister. Hawke is the only Australian Prime Minister to be born in South Australia, and the only one raised and educated in Western Australia. He also held a world record for beer drinking; he downed 2 1⁄2 imperial pints (1.4 l)—equivalent to a yard of ale—from a sconce pot in 11 seconds as part of a college penalty. He died at 89 in Northbridge, New South Wales. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Hawke
Famous Birthdays
13 May 1950 - Stevie Wonder, American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. A child prodigy, Wonder is considered to be one of the most critically and commercially successful musical performers of the late 20th century. He signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11 and continued performing and recording for Motown into the 2010s. He has been blind since shortly after his birth. Among Wonder's works are singles such as "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours", "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", and "I Just Called to Say I Love You"; and albums such as Talking Book (1972), Innervisions (1973), and Songs in the Key of Life (1976). He has recorded more than 30 U.S. top-ten hits and received 25 Grammy Awards, one of the most-awarded male solo artists, and has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the top 60 best-selling music artists. Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a holiday in the United States. In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2013, Billboard magazine released a list of the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's 55th anniversary, with Wonder at number six. He was born in Saginaw, Michigan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Wonder
14 May 1944 – Geroge Lucas, American filmmaker and entrepreneur. Lucas is known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm,LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic. He was the chairman and CEO of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138, based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure. His next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti, inspired by his youth in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful, and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Lucas' next film, the epic space opera Star Wars, had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon. Lucas produced and cowrote the sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. With director Steven Spielberg, he created the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade. He also produced and wrote a variety of films through Lucasfilm in the 1980s and 1990s and during this same period Lucas' LucasArts developed high-impact video games, including Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango alongside many video games based on the Star Wars universe. In 1997, Lucas rereleased the Star Wars trilogy as part of a Special Edition, featuring several alterations; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011. He returned to directing with the Star Wars prequel trilogy, comprising The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. He later collaborated on served as executive producer for the war film Red Tails and wrote the CGI film Strange Magic. Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered a significant figure in the New Hollywood era. He was born in Modesto, California - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lucas
14 May 1969 - Cate Blanchett, Australian actress and theatre director. She has received many accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and three BAFTA Awards. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and in 2018, she was ranked among the highest-paid actresses in the world. After graduating from the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Blanchett began her acting career on the Australian stage, taking on roles in Electra in 1992 and Hamlet in 1994. She came to international attention for portraying Elizabeth I of England in the drama film Elizabeth, for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress and earned her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in the biographical drama The Aviator, earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and she won Best Actress for playing a neurotic divorcée in the black comedy-drama Blue Jasmine. Her other Oscar-nominated roles were in the dramas Notes on a Scandal, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I'm Not There, and Carol. Blanchett's most commercially successful films include The Talented Mr. Ripley, Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy, Babel, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Cinderella,Thor: Ragnarok, and Ocean's 8. From 2008 to 2013, Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton served as the artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. Some of her stage roles during this period were in revivals of A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya, and The Maids. She made her Broadway debut in 2017 with The Present, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. Blanchett has been awarded the Centenary Medal by the Australian government, who made her a companion of the Order of Australia in 2017. She was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2012. She has been presented with a Doctor of Letters from the University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, and Macquarie University. In 2015, she was honoured by the Museum of Modern Art and received the British Film Institute Fellowship. She was born in Ivanhoe, Victoria - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cate_Blanchett
14 May 1984 – Mark Zuckerberg, American technology entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding and leading Facebook as its chairman and chief executive officer. Zuckerberg attended Harvard University, where he launched Facebook from his dormitory room on February 4, 2004, with college roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Originally launched to select college campuses, the site expanded rapidly and eventually beyond colleges, reaching one billion users by 2012. Zuckerberg took the company public in May 2012 with majority shares. His net worth is estimated to be $55.0 billion as of November 30, 2018, declining over the last year with Facebook stock. In 2007 at age 23 he became the world's youngest self-made billionaire. As of 2018, he is the only person under 50 in the Forbes ten richest people list, and the only one under 40 in the Top 20 Billionaires list. Since 2010, Time magazine has named Zuckerberg among the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world as a part of its Person of the Year award. In December 2016, Zuckerberg was ranked 10th on Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People. He was born in White Plains, New York - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg
Events of Interest
14 May 1986 - Netherlands Institute for War Documentation publishes Anne Frank's complete diary - https://www.onthisday.com/people/anne-frank
15 May 1928 – Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, "Plane Crazy". It was made as a silent film and given a test screening to a theater audience but failed to pick up a distributor. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_Crazy
15 May 2010 – Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo. Watson headed north-east crossing the equator in the Pacific Ocean before crossing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Watson
16 May 1888 – Nikola Tesla delivers a lecture describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currents to transmit electric power over long distances. His lecture caught the attention of George Westinghouse, the inventor who had launched the first AC power system near Boston and was Edison’s major competitor in the “Battle of the Currents.”
- https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/nikola-tesla
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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