Magnetic Waves, Piracy & Valve
Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio
Magnetic Waves, Piracy & Valve
We hope that everyone is well and enjoying the start of the holidays season. This week we have the answer to the mystery of why the Sun is so hot and the dispersal of magnetic waves during solar flares. That’s right, one of those little mysteries that has been confounding scientists for years appears to have been solved with evidence supporting the rejection of the null hypothesis. Ooops, sorry, in other words research that explains why it appears to happen has been developed. So if you would like to know more about why that is then please listen in and enjoy this discussion that does wander off topic occasionally but in a fun way.
Next we look at the effect piracy is having on Marvels profit margin (which as a Disney corporate entity we must acknowledge are very slim margins). We discuss this and consider the alternatives such as going digital like XCT and some of the other projects from our friend Shaun at Comics2movies have begun to do. Buck wanders down memory lane reminiscing about when he was a boy (OK Boomer does not apply here as Buck isn’t that old). Can you believe that comic books used to only cost 15 cents? These days it is $10 and has less of a story in some cases, although XCT is cool if you want a great read.
Last topic is Valve news and what is happening with them. For example did you know that they are in the process of ending their controllers? Also did you know that they have recently had a sale on these controllers? Professor did and has bought one, even though they weren’t on sale here? Also Half-Life Alyx the VR experience game is looking downright awesome, if the promo video is anything to go by this is a game to get into.
As usual we have the regular shout outs, remembrances, birthdays and events for the week. Until next time remember to look out for each other, take care of yourselves and stay hydrated.
Mystery of the magnetic waves - https://www.technology.org/2019/12/02/scientists-crack-60-year-old-mystery-of-suns-magnetic-waves/
Comic Piracy - https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-50564713
Valve News
- Steam Controller sale - https://www.theverge.com/good-deals/2019/11/26/20984123/valve-steam-controller-discontinued-sale-price
- Valve Index - https://www.roadtovr.com/valve-index-sold-out-stock-half-life-alyx/
- Half-Life: Alyx announcement - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2W0N3uKXmo
Game currently playing
Buck
– Raid: Shadow Legends - https://raidshadowlegends.com/pc-mac-plarium-play/
Rating – 3.5/5
Professor
– Counterstrike Global Offensive - https://store.steampowered.com/app/730/CounterStrike_Global_Offensive/
Rating – 3/5
DJ
– UNDEFEATED - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1116960/UNDEFEATED/
Rating – 3/5
Other topics discussed
Laser (a device that emits light through a process ofoptical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser
Corona (Corona Extra is a pale lager produced by Cervecería Modelo in Chicago for domestic distribution and export to all other countries besides the United States, and by Constellation Brands in Canada for export to the United States.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(beer)
Corona (an aura of plasma that surrounds the Sun and other stars. The Sun's corona extends millions of kilometres into outer space and is most easily seen during a total solar eclipse.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona
Solar Eclipse blindness
- https://www.preventblindness.org/solar-eclipse-and-your-eyes
Solar Storm of 1859 (a powerful geomagnetic storm. A solar coronal mass ejection hit Earth's magnetosphere and induced the largest geomagnetic storm on record, September 1–2, 1859.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859
Earth’s magnetic field (also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from the Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field
Magnetic Declination in Brisbane
- http://www.magnetic-declination.com/Australia/Brisbane/117433.html
Orienteering (a group of sports that require navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain whilst moving at speed.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienteering
Comics2movies (Online comic book and memorabilia store that brings independent and rare comics all to one place.)
- https://www.comics2movies.com.au/
Jim Zub’s tweet thread about comic book piracy
- https://twitter.com/JimZub/status/1198939012288974848
Spider-Hulk (Marvel Comics character)
- https://mugen.fandom.com/wiki/Spider-Hulk
How manga takes over comic books
- https://comicbook.com/anime/2019/07/06/anime-executives-manga-taking-over-us-comic-sales-anime-expo/
Price of Absolute Carnage #3 (of 5)
- https://www.comicsetc.com.au/collections/comics/products/absolute-carnage-3-of-4-ac
Price of Watchman graphic novel
- https://www.comicsetc.com.au/collections/paperbacks/products/absolute-watchmen-hc
Online piracy can boost comic sales
- https://torrentfreak.com/online-piracy-can-boost-comic-book-sales-research-finds/
Combined annual domestic box office revenue of superhero movies from 1978 to 2019 (in million U.S. dollars)
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/311931/superhero-movies-box-office-revenue/
Jamie Johnson (Comic book artist)
- https://www.facebook.com/jamiejohnsonillustration/
Stan Lee (American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Lee
Oculus Rift (lineup of virtual reality headsets developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a division of Facebook Inc., released on March 28, 2016.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_Rift
Valve Index (virtual reality headset created and manufactured by Valve.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Index
Star Citizen has now raised over $250m in crowdfunding
- In Australian Dollars - https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/12/star-citizen-has-raised-369-million-over-the-last-7-years/
Holden fourth-generation VE Commodore
- https://www.smh.com.au/national/billion-dollar-baby-20060719-gdnzma.html
No Man’s Sky
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man%27s_Sky
Many A True Nerd playing Fallout 76 BETA
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWOoADl--6Q
Vantan games (studio behind UNDEFEATED the game)
- https://www.vantan-game.com/index.php
Megatron Downfall (first person superhero game)
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/430210/Megaton_Rainfall/
Arms Race (game mode featured in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive)
- https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/Arms_Race
Peter Lalor (Irish-Australian rebel and, later, politician who rose to fame for his leading role in the Eureka Rebellion, an event controversially identified with the "birth of democracy" in Australia.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lalor
Eureka Stockade (1949 movie about the Eureka Stockade)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Stockade_(1949_film)
15 reasons why India's and Israel's moon-landing attempts both failed during descent.
Apocalypse Now (1979 American epicwar film about the Vietnam War, directed, produced and co-written by Francis Ford Coppola.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_Now
DC Fontana (American television script writer and story editor, best known for her work on the original Star Trek franchise and several Western television series.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._C._Fontana
Greedy Smith (Australian vocalist, keyboardist, harmonicist and songwriter with Australian pop/new wave band Mental As Anything.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greedy_Smith
Shoutouts
3 Dec 1854 – Battle of the Eureka Stockade: More than 20 gold miners at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Rebellion#Battle_of_the_Eureka_Stockade
3 Dec 1994 – PlayStation was launched - https://www.news.com.au/technology/home-entertainment/gaming/playstation/playstation-25th-anniversary-sony-celebrates-ahead-of-ps5-release/news-story/5479caa4644ced48119c003929f9cfd6
3 Dec 2014 – The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year-round trip mission to an asteroid to collect rock samples. The mission includes a main spacecraft, small rovers, a lander, and an impactor that will be launched into the asteroid’s surface to create an artificial crater. The spacecraft is expected to touch down on Ryugu multiple times starting in early 2019 to collect samples to bring to Earth in late 2020. - https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/hayabusa-2/in-depth/NewsComAu
3 Dec 2019 - Indian amateur helps NASA reveal fate of failed moon mission, Shanmuga Subramanian A software engineer in the south Indian city of Chennai pored over satellite images in his spare time helped NASA locate the debris of India’s ill-fated mission to the moon. He looked at images of the moon’s surface on two laptops for six to seven hours a day until he found what he thought might be the debris of the moon lander. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indian-amateur-helps-nasa-reveal-fate-of-failed-moon-mission/2019/12/03/4953b6fa-1592-11ea-bf81-ebe89f477d1e_story.html
Remembrances
3 Dec 1888 - Carl Zeiss, German scientific instrument maker, optician and businessman who founded the workshop of Carl Zeiss in 1846, which is still in business today as Carl Zeiss AG. Zeiss gathered a group of gifted practical and theoretical opticians and glass makers to reshape most aspects of optical instrument production. His collaboration with Ernst Abbe revolutionized optical theory and practical design of microscopes. Their quest to extend these advances brought Otto Schott into the enterprises to revolutionize optical glass manufacture. The firm of Carl Zeiss grew to one of the largest and most respected optical firms in the world. He died from a stroke at the age of 72 in Jena - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss
3 Dec 1894 - Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist and travel writer, most noted for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and A Child's Garden of Verses. A celebrity in his lifetime, Stevenson's critical reputation has fluctuated since his death, though today his works are held in general acclaim. He is currently ranked as the 26th most translated author in the world. He died from a hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 44 in Vailima, Apia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson
3 Dec 1984 - Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin, Azerbaijani and Soviet mathematician, who made numerous contributions in algebraic topology, geometry, measure theory, probability theory, ergodic theory and entropy theory. Rokhlin's contributions to topology include Rokhlin's theorem, a result of 1952 on the signature of 4-manifolds, which was subsequently generalised by Friedrich Hirzebruch. He also worked in the theory of characteristic classes, homotopy theory and cobordism theory. In measure theory, Rokhlin introduced what are now called Rokhlin partitions. He introduced the notion of standard probability space, and characterised such spaces up to isomorphism mod 0. He also proved the famous Rokhlin lemma. He died from a heart attack at the age of 62 in Leningrad - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Abramovich_Rokhlin
Famous Birthdays
3 Dec 1857 - Joseph Conrad, Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. Conrad wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit during what he saw as an impassive, inscrutable universe. Conrad is considered an early modernist, though his works contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced numerous authors, and many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that Conrad's fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events. Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew, among other things, on his native Poland's national experiences and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche. He was born in Berdychiv - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad
3 Dec 1960 - Julianne Moore, American actress and children's author. Prolific in film since the early 1990s, she is particularly known for her portrayals of emotionally troubled women in both independent and Hollywood films, and has received many accolades, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globes. Time magazine named Moore one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2015. Moore received considerable recognition in the late 1990s and early 2000s, earning Oscar nominations for Boogie Nights, she played a 1970s pornographic actress. She also had success with the films The Big Lebowski, Hannibal, Children of Men and Crazy, Stupid, Love, and won an Emmy Award for her portrayal of Sarah Palin in the television film Game Change. Moore won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her playing an Alzheimer's patient in Still Alice and was named Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for Maps to the Stars. Her highest-grossing releases include the final two films of The Hunger Games series and the spy film Kingsman: The Golden Circle. She was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julianne_Moore
3 Dec 1960 - Daryl Hannah, American actress and environmental activist. She is known for her roles as Pris Stratton in Ridley Scott's science fiction thriller Blade Runner and as Cathy Featherstone in Randal Kleiser's romantic comedy Summer Lovers, as the mermaid Madison in Ron Howard's fantasy-romantic comedy Splash, Roxanne Kowalski in the romantic comedy Roxanne, Darien Taylor in Oliver Stone's drama Wall Street and Annelle Dupuy Desoto in the comedy-drama Steel Magnolias. In 2015 she appeared in the Netflix series Sense8 as Angelica Turing. In 2004, Hannah won a Saturn Award for her role as one-eyed assassin Elle Driver in Quentin Tarantino's two-part martial arts action film Kill Bill. She was born in Chicago, Illinois - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Hannah
Events of Interest
3 Dec 1736 - Astronomer Anders Celsius takes measurements that confirm Newton's theory that the earth was an ellipsoid rather than the previously accepted sphere - https://www.onthisday.com/people/anders-celsius
3 Dec 1967 - 53-year-old Louis Washkansky receives the first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. Washkansky, a South African grocer dying from chronic heart disease, received the transplant from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old woman who was fatally injured in a car accident. Surgeon Christiaan Barnard, who trained at the University of Cape Town and in the United States, performed the revolutionary medical operation. Even though he died 18 days later Washkansky’s new heart had functioned normally until his death. - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-human-heart-transplant
3 Dec 1992 – Neil Papworth, a test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message "Merry Christmas" via the Vodafone network to the phone of Richard Jarvis who was at a party in Newbury, Berkshire, which had been organised to celebrate the event. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_messaging#History
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
Follow us on
- Page - https://www.facebook.com/NerdsAmalgamated/
- Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/440485136816406/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamated
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrS
iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094
RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rss
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/nerds_amalgamated/
General Enquiries
Email - Nerds.Amalgamated@gmail.com