Thanks to everyone for making 2014 look bright! Best wishes to you and yours.
S&L Podcast – #156 – Wrapping Up Dragons!
It’s a no-holds barred episode where Tom and Veronica reveal their most horrible secrets. Happy Christmas! Also good news from Scott Lynch, slightly bad news from Charles Stross, and the book character you want on your side in a bar fight.
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?
Tom: Talisker 18
Veronica: 2010 Pali Wine Co. Tower 15 The Jetty
QUICK BURNS
New writer hired to continue ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ book series
PSA: Why there won’t be a third book in the Halting State trilogy
Scott Lynch on THE THORN OF EMBERLAIN
New Yorker on Kim Stanley Robinson: “Our Greatest Political Novelist”
CALENDAR
TV, MOVIES AND VIDEO GAMES
First Tantalizing Footage from Game of Thrones Season 4!
BOOK WRAP-UP
A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent (but actually by Marie Brennan)
Alt: His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
Next Book: Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delany (Damon Knight Grand Master Recipient)
BARE YOUR SWORD
Reading Goals for 2014
Improved version of Reading Goals thread
Favorite Series?
When in trouble, who’d you want watching your back?
EMAIL
I just wanted to send along a thank you to you guys and the whole sword and laser community. Thanks to the sword and laser hive-mind I was able to pull together the resources I needed to complete my Masters Thesis in History. I defended my thesis today and passed! Sword and laser’s book club also provided a much needed respite from the demands of grad school. If anyone’s interested I wrote my thesis on the perception of the atomic bomb in American media in the postwar period. And so many people from this group helped me find the works I needed to bolster my research. Thanks again!
-Bethany
ADDENDUMS
Borderlands Meetup Jan. 20
Try these other fine Boing Boing podcasts
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Tech History Today – Dec. 24, 2013
In 1955 – After an advertising misprint Continental Air Defense Command, CONAD started getting calls from children for Santa Claus, so Director of Operations Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for signs of St. Nick. NORAD was created in 1958 and they’ve kept up the tracking tradition ever since.
In 1968 – The crew of Apollo 8 delivered a live, televised Christmas Eve broadcast after becoming the first humans to orbit another space body.
In 1999 – The very seasonal HTML 4.01 was published by the World Wide Web Consortium. HTML 4.01 remained the HTML standard for well over a decade.
Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
TNT 909: Best of 2013
Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell
A super duper mega-cut of some of the best moments from Tech News Today in 2013, both from the show as well as from the pre-show.
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 the wiki entry for this episode at wiki.twit.tv.
Please take the TWiT Audience Survey at http://twit.tv/showsurvey. It only takes a few minutes and we’d love to know what you think.
Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.
Running time: 41:52
Cordkillers: Episode (Beta) 4K getting more OK
Tom and Brian kick off the very first Cordkillers with special guest Justin Robert Young. Netflix is leading the charge for 4K, Hulu has millions but is it enough, and why Atari’s famous ET game failure could help Xbox.
Download audio from Archive.org
Download video from Archive.org
Cord Killers: Beta
Recorded: December 23 2013
Guest: Justin Robert Young
Intro Video
The Big Story
Another Big Story
SlipStream
- Hulu Plus passes 5 million subscribers, plans to double its original content
- Hulu must face privacy lawsuit, U.S. judge rules
Tube Tops
- Simple.tv, the DVR for cord cutters, releases its Android app
- Simple.tv is bringing its DVR for cord cutters to Ouy
Film Falm
Scan Lines
- AllCast now open to all for streaming local movies, photos from Android
- Stevie now turns any Twitter topic into a social TV channel
- Viki Strikes Deal With Baidu to Bring Crowd-Translated Programming to China
- Now TV app brings Sky Sports to Apple TV in the UK
- ‘Ripper Street’ May Return with Funding from Amazon’s LoveFilm
- Wuaki.tv hits 1m users for its on-demand movie and TV streaming service, 125k from the UK alone
What we’re watching
- Brian: Fascinating interview with Mike Rowe
- Tom: Orange is the New Black, Father Ted
- Justin: Bo Burnham “what“
Winter Movie Draft
- Justin Robert Young: $483,480,275
- Fr. Robert Ballecer: $392,813,988
- Casey McKinnon: $390,058,157
- Jeff Cannata: $265,369,223
- Tom Merritt: $182,530,164
- Brian Brushwood: $119,438,873
Premiering this week
Feedback
Gentlemen, in your honor, my wife, Wendy, and I cut the cord with Verizon today. We cancelled our Cable TV, but kept our FiOS internet service, so we still have one cord, but it’s the good one. And Verizon said we’re “welcome” to keep 13 local TV channels for free. Ha, I guess we don’t get to keep the UHF channels. 🙂
Now we’re saving $70 a month. Oops, just found out that we’re only saving $65 a month, because, “dear valued customer,” it’s actually $5 more per month than they said. Oh, and we also have to pay an additional $10 to return our DVR. (I feel like I just made a deal with some guy on Canal Street.)
We will continue to feast from our AppleTV, where we watch Netflix and iTunes… and podcasts, podcasts, podcasts. So we’re ready for your next show!
Happy Holidays to you both. Thanks for all the years of information and inspiration. Excited to see what you guys will do next.
Cheers,
Philip & Wendy Shane
Brooklyn, NY
See what you can do when the TV network is NOT in the USA? <sigh> 180 channels, $15/month, 8-day replay period without needing a DVR (they record & store everything), inside home/outside home, looks great if you were an international sports/soccer fan.
Now Playing on Slingbox 500: DishWorld
Jamie
2013/12/23 – A sample Daily Tech News Show
A sample of the kind of news I’ll be covering on my Daily Tech News Show coming in January. Obviously the real thing will be longer.
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the music!
Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
Another take from Amber
Amber Hewitt sent us this one! Brilliant!
S&L Video REWIND – #18 – Doctor Who, Dragon Kisses, and Paul Cornell
This video is part of our re-release of the first season of Sword and Laser videos as they exit exclusivity. This episode originally posted December 14, 2012.
Download the episode here.
Subscribe to the video encores as a podcast, and in iTunes!
And of course get all the show notes at the original post from last year.
Tech History Today – Dec. 23, 2013
In 1947 – John Bardeen and Walter Brattain demonstrated their new discovery, transistor, at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. William Shockley, who contributed to the invention, missed the presentation.
In 1968 – Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, Jr., and William A. Anders made the lunar-orbit-insertion maneuver on their way to becoming the first humans to orbit the Moon.
In 1986 – Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager touched down at Edwards Air Force Base in the experimental airplane Voyager, completing the first non-stop, round- the- world flight without refueling.
Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
And then Chris weighed in…
I don’t know if this is a show logo or not, but it’s amazing and must go somewhere! Well done Chris Brueckner
