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PODCAST

Decipher SciFi

Decipher SciFi explores the how and why in science fiction with conversations about technology, humanity, and the future. This is not a review show, nor will you see much criticism or snark. It is a rationally optimistic look, through film, at where society and technology are and where they are headed. Also, butts.

science film reviews

All Episodes

42:06

Altered Carbon: Zoltan Istvan on transplant...

Decipher SciFi ·

2018/02/06

Immortality by transplant Analogy with developments in head transplantation. Consciousness uploading. Preservation of identity. Conflict of human immortality with religion. Transhumanism and Identity The meaning of race and gender in a world where anyone can be any variety of human (and more). Merging with AI and technology in general. Sleeving The boundaries of the “self” and the “mind” and the meat. Hard to draw! The influence of the greater body system over the “self” part and boners

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40:14

Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams: self-replicating AI,...

Decipher SciFi ·

2018/01/30

Philip K Dick Callback to some.of.our.episodes on PKD and his stories. Pulp scifi of the 50s and 60s. General appreciation for his ideas and the return of thoughtful anthologies. Autofac PKDpocalypse. Consumerism something something. Supreme dedication to a task. The Paperclip Maximizer and the possible danger of a highly-capable AI dedicated to its task. Universal Paperclips. The unconscious, apathetic skynet. Real Life PKD was all about that hash tag life. The malleability of our

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53:43

Black Mirror Season 4 Part 2: dating, robots, and...

Decipher SciFi ·

2018/01/23

Episode 4 - Hang the DJ The one with the dating. Like The button, but instead of one person it’s thousands. And instead of a million dollars you get a date. And still only maybe. Calculating Black Mirror horribleness for comparison between episodes. Massive data-crunching techniques. Episode 5 - Metalhead The one with the robot thing. Comparison with the new SpotMini. Episode 6 - Black Museum The one with the museum. Weird sex stuff. Don’t touch my nipples! The Schmidt Pain Index. The

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49:39

Black Mirror Season 4 Part 1: AI control,...

Decipher SciFi ·

2018/01/16

Episode 1 - USS Callister The one with the Star Trek. Protecting the new kinds of consciousnesses we will eventually create. Sleeping through the AI apocalypse. What our solo video game habits say about us. Posthumous digital simulations. Data sources for creating a digital simulacrum and how DNA is one of the least useful. Designing your brain-machine interface to not possibly ever lock someone in ever. Episode 2 - Arkangel The one with the helicopter parenting. Mundane parenting concerns

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33:26

Nothing but GIFs, all day - Q&A #2 - Episode 124

Decipher SciFi ·

2018/01/09

Our second Q&A episode, wherein we ask our friends to help us answer the the MOST INTERESTING QUESTIONS FROM THE INTERNET! Question: “Could you have x-ray vision?” Answerer: Fraser Cain X-ray vision. Cybernetic eye replacements. Wavelengths of light. The visible spectrum. Ghost in the Shell. Riddick. Light amplification. Gamma rays. Cancer avoidance. Question: “What if numbers are wrong?” Answerer: Adrian Falcone Math. Numbers. Logic. Ted Chiang’s short story “Divide by Zero” was in

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45:33

Avatar: cryo sleep , terrestrial bioluminescence, and...

Decipher SciFi ·

2018/01/02

Alpha Centauri Closest star systems to Earth. Sudden outbursts of James Cameron appreciation. Alpha Centauri {A,B}, Proxima Centauri. Sub-light space travel. Cryo sleep Continuation of consciousness. Perceptions of meatsackness. Pandora the moon Adaptive definitions of moons and planets. Learning about moons aside from our own. Disney World’s Pandora. Bioluminescence The utility of light in dark environs. Bioluminescence evolution on Earth. Useful wavelengths of produced light in

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42:13

The Last Jedi: FTL ramming, salt geology, and real...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/12/26

Space combat Naval analogies and a callback to a similar discussion in our Valerian episode. Magnetic (fused) torpedoes! (FTL) Ramming speed! Ramming vs telefragging. Kamikaze fleets, or attaching telefrag Warp Drives to asteroids and the like. Energy levels with ramming operations at lightspeed. Ruining Star Wars combat by introducing telfragging. Explosions in space Explosions in space shouldn’t make noise, because there isn’t (noise). Not across the near-vacuum, at least. Production of

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36:52

The Osiris Child: floating cities, terraforming, and...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/12/19

Indie scale Scifi adventure throwback. Corporations are always evil. Ambition in scope of indie scifi. Cloud city Floating cities and air bases. Energy requirements. Floating cities on Venus, where balloons of an atmosphere of Earth-like density can float safely and happily in the high clouds. Hamster ball pleasure cruses. IRL “floating aircraft carriers.” Realizing that all aircraft carriers are “floating.” Space settlement light and dark The apparent necessity of slave labour. Western

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01:03:30

Blade Runner: replicant discrimination, synthetic...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/12/12

Replicant discrimination Is racism the right word? Hate and discrimination against replicants. Replicant slavery. Synthetic farming Whatever that means. But in the meantime, let’s eat some grubs okay? The benefits of cricket and grub farming. Necessity breeds insects. Solar concentrators Hey these are neat Replicant birth Pooped out of the goo shoot. Like real life. And then replicants replicating themselves. Space settlement Thank you creepy Jared Leto. Tyrell’s original mission

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36:06

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: alien...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/12/05

International Space Station Contemporary space station size comparisons. ISS transformation over time. Alien life Bipedalism. Bilateral symmetry. The assumption of humanoid structure in the “world.” Duck-billed Ferengi information brokers and neurological RAID modes. Alpha Station “Critical mass.” Vital stats. Population, demographics. Modular growth over time. Racial job specialization. Alpha Station location and travel FTL(?) via “exospace.” The plan to exit the solar system. The

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37:32

When Worlds Collide: observable universe, 20th...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/11/28

The “observable” universe The part of the universe that we can, in principle, capture light from as a function of the speed of light and the expansion of the universe. Galactic perspectives Learning more about the breadth and contents of the universe since the 1950s. Hubble and “island universes.” Figuring out there are other galaxies and past and present ideas of just how many there are. The modern space industry Appreciation for where we are finally. Space travel becoming cheaper and

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30:41

The Day After Tomorrow: paleoclimatology,...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/11/21

Origins Roland Emmerich. And from a book by Art Bell! …of all people. Not known for hard scifi. Climate science communication Some examples are better than others. Arctic vs Antarctic They are… different! How they are different and why the movie might have chosen to go with the “wrong” one for the real-life event on which the opening scene based. Larsen B Ice Shelf. Continental ice vs glacial ice. Antarctic ice shelves A. J. Cook and D. G. Vaughan

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01:00:02

2012: Mayan Calendar realities, galactic alignment,...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/11/14

Mayan calendar They had one! And so do we. They both end on some sort of the cycle and the world never ends because of our arbitrary selection of scope. Fraser is really tired of having to argue about this sort of thing with death-cultists. The end. Galactic alignments Neutrino detection. Heating Earth Earth’s layers. Discovering new and different regions of the earth’s internal structure via seismography. Rate of temperature increase. Effect on oceans. Heat retention and radioactivity.

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38:41

Volcano: seismic detectors, tar pit geology, and...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/11/07

What is a volcano? No, seriously, what is a volcano? A lot of film critics at the time whiffed on this one and at least one or two of us were in the wrong too. Volcano: A vent or fissure on the surface of a planet (usually in a mountainous form) with a magma chamber attached to the mantle of a planet or moon, periodically erupting forth lava and volcanic gases onto the surface. -Wiktionary La Brea tar pits Predator/prey capture ratios. Biological activity causing the bubbling and

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36:58

The Fly: teleporters, dna detection, and arthropod...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/10/31

Body horror Body horror, biological horror, organic horror or visceral horror is horror fiction in which the horror is principally derived from the unnatural graphic transformation, degeneration or destruction of the physical body. -Wikipedia Cronenberg! And Carpenter! You may recall some similar horror themes from our episodes on Event Horizon (though that concentrated rather on the cosmic horror) and The Thing. Mad… scientist? More like mad “project manager,” as he describes himself

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01:00:13

Event Horizon: cosmic deep time,lived-in space ships,...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/10/24

Settling nearby space Mars vs the moon. Inconvenient solar exposure schedules breeding technological food solutions. Substitute engineered fungi for photosynthetic plants as a food source. Exposition Vs “show don’t tell.” Australian flags and separation from the United Kingdom. Space ships Lived-in ships and how they were exemplified in Alien or Star Wars. The “traditional” design of the Lewis & Clark, basically maintaining the naval analogy in space travel. BUT! The Event Horizon is

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32:41

Daybreakers: medical vampirism, living without a...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/10/17

Classical vampires…? And is this a horror movie? Better than the sparkly Twilight ones. Blood-squirting lizards Just because that’s awesome Blood substitutes Substitutes for what part or what function of blood? Making a blood sword on our Conan episode. What blood is made of. What blood does for us biologically. It’s got plasmatic electrolytes It’s what bodies crave Blood transfusion Blood types and our developing understanding during the 17th and 19th centuries. Carlos

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53:34

The Mummy (2017): the New Kingdom, Egyptomania, and...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/10/10

Geographical Context Traveling from ancient Egypt to Mespopotamia. Hiding evil things as far away as possible. Deciphering the Mummy’s historical period Context clues pointing to Egypt’s “New Kingdom,” circa 1500BC-1200BC. Some touches that hinted: Ahmanet’s Nefertiti-inspired crown, her blue finger-paint as direct reference to King Tutankhamun’s golden finger- and toe-jewelry. Speaking of King Tut… His (lack of) actual historical importance. Public knowledge due to the simple coincidence

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01:01:24

Pitch Black: tri star systems, micrometeorites, and...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/10/03

Stasis Stasis for interstellar space travel. “Freezing” people into a low-activity biological state. IRL medical developments. Microimpactors in space Space junk in near-earth orbit. That time a paint chipped cracked a window on the ISS (don’t worry, the ISS is fine). Comet tails and variously-sized chunks of ice as impactors. Landing on M6-117 (and other planets) Atmospheric density vs interstellar velocities. The benefits of landing on a planet with atmosphere vs a planet without. It’s

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39:52

The Chronicles of Riddick: Crematoria, necromongers,...

Decipher SciFi ·

2017/09/26

Necromongers Where do I sign up? Scary space death cults. Necromonger gothic architecture and interior design. Frowny-faces. Face on your face Avoiding ambush predators via application of faces. Strong jaws. Designing against ambush predators. FACES EVWERYWHERE. Why Google’s Deep Dream A.I. Hallucinates In Dog Faces (Atmospheric) penetration Atmospheric entry bombs. Landing invasion ships, overpressure, and displays of power. Also the blue ball planet-killing explosion thing.

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269 results

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