Author Archive

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell

FCC gets catty with Google, Nexus comes to Sprint, 4K is for suckers, and more.

Guest: Natali Morris

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Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com.

We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time: 48:48

If you thought the audio podcast would get shorter because of our video show, you were not right. We have almost a full hour of discussion about why we like dark fantasy, what makes C.S. Lewis so cool, and the ups, downs, ins, and outs of Quentin Coldwater and The Magicians. Also Veronica keeps saying “lady cave” because she thinks it’s funny.  It’s funny.

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

What We’re Drinking” segment needs an S&L name 

Tom: Racer 5 IPA 

Veronica: 2009 Mandolin Cabernet Sauvignon 

QUICK BURNS

New cover art: Abercrombie, Sanderson, Banks, Sapkowski 

Publisher hails CS Lewis ‘space trilogy’ e-book debut

Writing advice from C.S. Lewis was both adorable and concise 

The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books for Libertarians 

Over 2/3 of U.S. libraries offer e-books; 28% lend e-readers 

Cover art and blurb for Peter F. Hamilton’s GREAT NORTH ROAD

CALENDAR

BARE YOUR SWORD

FAQ – A Sword and Laser Primer for New Members 

Lev Grossman says what fantasy is about 

Send us videos! 

TV, MOVIES AND VIDEO GAMES

Full episode list for Season 2 of GAME OF THRONES 

GAME OF THRONES renewed for a third season 

BOOK CHECK-IN

The Magicians by Lev Grossman 

Meta-mockery of the fantasy genre? 

Courage of your convictions when referencing other books? 

A Case of Loose Ends? 

EMAIL

Hello Tom & Veronica,

i’ve just watched the first video version of Sword & Laser on Youtube, and i totally loved it!

I have a small question you guys can hopefully help me out with.

I’ve recently sold my tablet (the poor thing was collection dust on the shelf), but now i’m finding myself getting back into e-books.

I could read them on my smartphone, but the small screen makes me want to turn it off after a few minutes.

Reading them on the computer works sometimes, but my concentration levels aren’t as high as i hoped, i usually find myself surfing the web withint 10-15 minutes.

Audiobooks may be a solution, and i am currently listening to one, narrated by your first guest Scott Sigler. However, i was hoping to somehow combine this with reading e-books.

Any tips on how to make it easier to read e)books for an hour at a time without reinvesting in a tablet or any other devices would be appreciated!

Love the show, your dragon definitely needs some patting

Sincerely,

JP

ADDENDUMS

This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature and featuring audio versions of many New York Times Best Sellers.

For listeners of this podcast, Audible is offering a free audiobook, to give you a chance to try out their service.

For a free audiobook of your choice go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.  

In 1944 – Harvard University President James Conant wrote to IBM founder Thomas Watson Sr. to let him know that the Harvard Mark I was operating smoothly. It was used in conjunction with the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships.

In 1967 – The Surveyor 3 spacecraft was successfully launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida on its mission to the Moon. It was the first to carry a surface soil sampling scoop.

1970 – The Apollo 13 spacecraft returned safely to Earth after a frightening malfunction caused the team to orbit landing on the Moon and scramble to keep themselves alive.

In 1959 – The programming language LISP had its first public presentation. Created by John McCarthy, LISP offered programmers flexibility in organization.

In 1971 – Abhay Bhushan proposed FTP (File Transfer Protocol) in RFC 114.

In 1976 – The Helios-B deep-space probe made what was then the closest controlled approach to the Sun at 43 million km or within 0.3 AU.

In 1452 – Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest artist, inventor and engineer in history, was born near the Tuscan town of Vinci.

In 1892 – The Edison General Electric Company and the Thomson-Houston Company merge to form the General Electric Company, manufacturer of dynamos and electric lights.

In 1977 – The first West Coast Computer Faire takes place in Palo Alto. The star of the show would turn out to be the Apple II. The computer featured a built-in keyboard, 16 kilobytes of memory, BASIC, and eight expansion slots all for $1,300.

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell

RIM fired it’s best ideas, Windows 8 on an iPad, why CISPA is worse than SOPA, and more.

Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/tnt.

Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com.

We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time: 50:43

In 1894 – Alfred Tate, a former Edison associate and the Holland Brothers, opened a public Kinetoscope in New York City at 1155 Broadway, on the corner of 27th Street—the first commercial motion picture house.

In 1956 – Ampex demonstrated the VRX-1000 videotape recorder at the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters Convention in Chicago. It was the first successful commerical videotape recorder.

In 1996 – Jennifer Kaye Ringley hooked up a camera in her dorm room at Dickinson College and set it to upload a picture every three minutes as an experiment. The JenniCam would eventually reach 4 million hits per day at its peak.

It’s here, it’s really here! After months of hard work (and dealing with dragon negotiations) we’ve finally launched the video show! Check it out below:

Huge thanks to Scott Sigler for being on the first episode, and hopefully many of you have already started reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman. 

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell

Microsoft roadmap leaked, Nest fights to defend its…. Nest, Canon’s new 4K camera, and more.

Guest: Lance Ulanoff

Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/tnt.

Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com.

We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time: 41:03

In 1960 – The United States launched Navy Transit 1-B. It demonstrated the first engine restart in space and more famously the feasiblity of using satellites as navigational aids, proving systems like GPS would work.

In 1970 – The crew of Apollo 13 heard a sharp bang and vibration followed by a warning light. Jack Swigert radioed back the famous words “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”

In 1974 – Western Union, NASA and Hughes Aircraft, teamed up to launch the United States’ first commercial geosynchronous communications satellite, Westar 1. The system relayed data, voice, video, and fax transmissions to the continental U.S., Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Alaska, and the Virgin islands.