Welcome back for another amazing episode from the triplets of mayhem, the Nerds Amalgamated crew. This week we have an excellent show for you to enjoy with everyone in fine form and having fun. The first topic of the week is from DJ looking into Simon Pegg claiming that cinema appears to be dying. Now does this relate to the comments about thin margins in movies? Well, that is a good question and if you want to know more you will have to listen in to find out. But we are you will laugh when you listen to this section.
Next up Professor unveils his darker side and lures us into a dungeon…. What, he doesn’t… oops sorry apparently that was supposed to be Professor tells us about a dungeon game made by an AI. My apologies, but it is a reasonably easy mistake to make, after all he is a bit of a mad scientist. But this is looking really cool and fun, some of the options in this are pretty outstanding. Once again this is not a warning about AI trying to take over the world…yet.
Last up we have an AI system that is learning how to work co-operatively with people, and possibly manipulating them. Buck brings us a story about some research from Facebook’s AI team that is pretty darn well ground breaking in regards to the results being achieved. We are talking about an attempt to formulate a near perfect response to an imperfect problem. What does that mean, well listen in and you can find out.
As usual we have the games being played, with Buck changing his at the last second which is kind of cool. Then this is followed by the regular variety of shout outs, remembrances, birthdays, and special events. We are offering a new service, if you are feeling a little pompous and wish to regain that sense of reality Buck is offering to develop a personal insult just for you. As always please remember to take care of yourselves, look out for each other and stay hydrated.
Simon Pegg: "Theatrical Cinema, Sadly, Appears to Be Dying"- https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/simon-pegg-theatrical-cinema-sadly-appears-be-dying-1258252
A.I. Dungeon: a game made by A.I. - https://www.aidungeon.io/
Facebook A.I. takes on the Hanabi - https://techxplore.com/news/2019-12-hanabi-facebook-ai-cooperative-gameplay.html
Games currently playing
Buck
– Jet Rush - https://www.crazygames.com/game/jet-rush
Rating : 3/5
Professor
– Mirror’s Edge - https://store.steampowered.com/app/17410/Mirrors_Edge/
Rating : 4.5/5
DJ
– You Have to Burn The Rope - https://www.crazygames.com/game/you-have-to-burn-the-rope
Rating : 3.5/5
Other topics discussed
Magniflorious definition (An adjective to describe something better than magnificent)
- https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Magniflorious
Wonder Woman 1984 – Official trailer
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfM7_JLk-84
Galactus (fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Formerly a mortal man, Galactus is a cosmic entity who originally consumed planets to sustain his life force, and serves a functional role in the upkeep of the primary Marvel continuity.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactus
Punisher : War Zone (2008 American action thriller film based on the Marvel Comics character the Punisher, directed by Lexi Alexander.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher:_War_Zone
Marvel Movies from 1986 – 2018 (IMDB list)
- https://www.imdb.com/list/ls070044396/
Venom (2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel and Tencent Pictures)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venom_(2018_film)
Big Hero 6 (2014 American 3D computer animated superhero film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hero_6_(film)
Big Hero 6 : The Series (American superhero comedy animated television series, produced by Disney Television Animation and developed by Kim Possible creators Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hero_6:_The_Series
Burn Notice (American television series created by Matt Nix, which originally aired on the USA Network for a total of seven seasons from June 28, 2007, to September 12, 2013.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_Notice
White Collar (USA Network television series created by Jeff Eastin, starring Tim DeKay as FBI Special Agent Peter Burke and Matt Bomer as Neal Caffrey, a highly intelligent and multi talented con artist working as Burke's criminal informant. Willie Garson and Tiffani Thiessen also star.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Collar_(TV_series)
As Time Goes By (British romanticsitcom which aired on BBC One from 1992 to 2005, running for nine series and three specials.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Time_Goes_By_(TV_series)
Sherlock (British crime drama television series based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes detective stories.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(TV_series)
Keeping Up Appearances (British sitcom created and written by Roy Clarke.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_Up_Appearances
Kriol Kitchen (Kriol Kitchen makes the connection between cuisine and Australian history, showing just how fragrant Australia is with diversity and culture.)
- https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/kriol-kitchen
The Marngrook Footy Show (sport panel show broadcast in Australia.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marngrook_Footy_Show
2001 : A Space Odyssey (1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)
Secret Hitler (hidden identity party game developed by Goat, Wolf, & Cabbage LLC, manufactured by Breaking Games and distributed by Blackbox.)
- https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/188834/secret-hitler
Squeaker definition (A squeaker is a child on an online voice chat that has not yet reached puberty.)
- https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Squeaker
Keystroke Logging (often referred to as keylogging or keyboard capturing, is the action of recording (logging) the keys struck on a keyboard, typically covertly, so that person using the keyboard is unaware that their actions are being monitored.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_logging
Mr Burns: Damn their oily hides
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MGndXoF9Eo
Rubbernecking (the act of staring at something of interest. The term rubbernecking refers to the physical act of craning one's neck, performed in order to get a better view.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubbernecking
Elvis Presley – Rubberneckin’ (Paul Oakenfield Remix)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DART7FA9Krs
Bot can beat human in multiplayer games
- https://techxplore.com/news/2019-11-bot-humans-multiplayer-hidden-role-games.html
The Hanabi challenge: A new frontier for AI research
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370219300116?via%3Dihub
Humans Call GG! OpenAI Five Bots Beat Top Pros OG in Dota 2
Good Game (Australian television gaming programme produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which aired on ABC2.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Game_(TV_program)
Lance Armstrong (American former professional road racing cyclist, infamous for the biggest doping scandal in cycling history.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Armstrong
Marion Jones (American former world champion track and field athlete and a former professional basketball player for Tulsa Shock in the WNBA.)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Jones
And Then They Fked (TNC Podcast)
- https://thatsnotcanon.com/attfpodcast
Village People – YMCA
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9OO0S5w2k
Shoutouts
9 Dec 2019 - Caroll Spinney, American puppeteer, cartoonist, author and speaker most famous for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street from its inception in 1969 until 2018. Has passed away at the age of 85 - https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/dec/08/carroll-spinney-dies-big-bird-sesame-street
9 Dec 2019 - René Auberjonois, American actor and singer best known for playing Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine passed away at the age of 79 from metastatic lung cancer in Los Angeles. In films, Auberjonois portrayed Father Mulcahy in MASH the movie, the expedition scientist Roy Bagley in King Kong, and Chef Louis in The Little Mermaid, in which he sang "Les Poissons". In various long-running television series, Auberjonois portrayed a number of characters, including: Clayton Endicott III on Benson (for which he was an Emmy Award nominee) and Paul Lewiston on Boston Legal. He also branched out into voice acting for video games, having appeared in a number of popular video games such as God of War, Fallout: New Vegas, Uncharted video game series, and Star Trek Online. - https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/09/rene-auberjonois-actor-who-starred-in-mash-star-trek-and-benson-dies-aged-79
9 Dec 1960 – The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, is broadcast in the United Kingdom. The programme centres on Coronation Street in Weatherfield, a fictional town based on inner-city Salford. In the show's fictional history, the street was built in 1902 and named in honour of the coronation of King Edward VII. On 17 September 2010, it became the world's longest-running television soap opera and was listed in Guinness World Records. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_Street
10 Dec 2019 - World Anti-Doping Agency bans Russia from Olympics for four years over doping scandal. Russia has been banned from the Olympics and world championships in a range of sports after a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) ruling to punish it for manipulating laboratory data. - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-09/russia-banned-from-olympics-by-world-anti-doping-agency/11782240?sf225607403=1&fbclid=IwAR31t2OKG3hNyGJHQkiok1Lz2vae2es7aFDo0NfFUoj2SK8fv-bII9bc268
11 Dec 2019 - Roxette star Marie Fredriksson dies aged 61 after a 17-year battle with brain cancer. The Swedish pop star, whose most iconic hits included It Must Have Been Love and Listen To Your Heart passed away in Djursholm, Sweden at the age of 61. Her bandmate, Per Gessle, said 'things will never be the same.' . - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7776221/Roxette-star-Marie-Fredriksson-dead-aged-61.html
Rememberances
9 Dec 1937 - Nils Gustaf Dalén, Swedish Nobel Laureate and industrialist, engineer, inventor and long-term CEO of the AGA company and inventor of the AGA cooker and the Dalén light. In 1912 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his "invention of automatic regulators for use in conjunction with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and buoys". He died from terminal cancer at the age of 68 in Lidingö,Stockholm - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_Dal%C3%A9n
9 Dec 1970 - Artem (Artyom) Ivanovich Mikoyan, Soviet Armenian aircraft designer, who cofounded the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau along with Mikhail Gurevich. In March 1942, the bureau was renamed OKB MiG (Osoboye Konstruktorskoye Büro), ANPK MiG (Aviatsionnyy nauchno-proizvodstvennyy kompleks) and OKO MiG. The MiG-1 proved to be a poor start, the MiG-3 went into production but only occasionally could it fight in its intended high-level interceptor role. Further MiG-5, MiG-7 and MiG-8 Utka did not progress beyond research prototypes. He died from stroke at the age of 65 in Moscow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artem_Mikoyan
9 Dec 2005 - Robert Sheckley, American writer. First published in the science-fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical. His works include not only original short stories and novels, but also TV series episodes (Captain Video and His Video Rangers), novelizations of works by others (Babylon 5: A Call to Arms, after the film , stories in shared universes such as Heroes in Hell, and collaborations with other writers. In many stories Sheckley speculates about alternative (and usually sinister) social orders, of which a good example is the story "A Ticket to Tranai" (which tells of a sort of Utopia designed for human nature as it actually is, which turns out to have terrible drawbacks). His novel Dimension of Miracles is often cited as an influence on Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, although in an interview for Neil Gaiman's book Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion, Adams said he had not read it until after writing the Guide. He died from complications following heart surgery and a stroke at the age of 77 in Poughkeepsie, New York - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sheckley
Famous Birthdays
9 Dec 1608 - John Milton, English poet and intellectual, who served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, written in blank verse. Writing in English, Latin, Greek, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica, written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship, is among history's most influential and impassioned defences of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. His desire for freedom extended into his style: he introduced new words (coined from Latin) to the English language, and was the first modern writer to employ non-rhymed verse outside of the theatre or translations. Samuel Johnson praised Paradise Lost as "a poem which...with respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among the productions of the human mind", though he described Milton's politics as those of an "acrimonious and surly republican". Poets such as William Blake, William Wordsworth and Thomas Hardy revered him. He was born in Bunhill, London - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton
9 Dec 1917 - Leo James Rainwater, American physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975 for his part in determining the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei. During World War II, he worked on the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic bombs. In 1949, he began developing his theory that, contrary to what was then believed, not all atomic nuclei are spherical. His ideas were later tested and confirmed by Aage Bohr's and Ben Mottelson's experiments. He also contributed to the scientific understanding of X-rays and participated in the United States Atomic Energy Commission and naval research projects. Rainwater joined the physics faculty at Columbia in 1946, where he reached the rank of full professor in 1952 and was named Pupin Professor of Physics in 1982. He received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award for Physics in 1963 and in 1975 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, "for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection". He was born in Council, Idaho - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rainwater
9 Dec 1926 - Henry Way Kendall, American particle physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1990 jointly with Jerome Isaac Friedman and Richard E. Taylor "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics." These experiments involved scattering high-energy beams of electrons from protons and deuterons and heavier nuclei. At lower energies, it had already been found that the electrons would only be scattered through low angles, consistent with the idea that the nucleons had no internal structure. However, the SLAC-MIT experiments showed that higher energy electrons could be scattered through much higher angles, with the loss of some energy. These deep inelastic scattering results provided the first experimental evidence that the protons and neutrons were made up of point-like particles, later identified to be the up and downquarks that had previously been proposed on theoretical grounds. The experiments also provided the first evidence for the existence of gluons. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Way_Kendall
Events of Interest
9 Dec 1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal. YMCA is Young Men's Christian Association. From its inception, it grew rapidly and ultimately became a worldwide movement founded on the principles of muscular Christianity. Local YMCAs deliver projects and services focused on youth development through a wide variety of youth activities, including providing athletic facilities, holding classes for a wide variety of skills, promoting Christianity, and humanitarian work. YMCA globally operates on a federation model, with each independent local YMCA voluntarily affiliated with its national organization. The national organizations, in turn, are part of both an Area Alliance (Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the United States, and Canada) and the World Alliance of YMCAs (World YMCA). - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA
9 Dec 1909 - Dr. Henry W. Walden, flew the first successful American monoplane flight. He was the designer, builder and pilot of that plane the Walden III. It was made after building a rudimentary wind tunnel and experimenting with different surface designs. At Mineola, Long Island, Walden and his plane left the ground and flew for a few hundred feet. He put the aircraft back down safely—elated. - https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/or-die-trying-21230348/?page=4
9 Dec 1967 - Jim Morrison arrested on stage for disturbing the peace at the New Haven Arena, Connecticut, making him the 1st rock star to be taken into custody during a performance. According to Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, Morrison was "making out" with a female fan in the shower in the backstage area of the New Haven Arena when a local police officer who was providing security for the band – apparently not recognizing the singer – told them to vacate the area, to which Morrison reportedly replied, "Eat it." When the officer brandished a can of Mace and warned, "Last chance," the singer retorted, "Last chance to eat it" – earning himself a face full of Mace for his defiance. Morrison was charged with inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. He posted a bond, but the charges were later dropped. - https://ultimateclassicrock.com/jim-morrison-maced-and-arrested-in-new-haven/
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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