Once you reach 200 episodes, you start to consider life expectancy. Should a podcast go on forever? Should a human live forever? While I have no idea about the first one, today’s episode is about the second one. Sure we will quickly congratulate ourselves but then we get down to the real work: Researching the quest for immortality. It turns out we …

For many generations, Santa has been seen as a portly fellow who’s hard work throughout the year makes Christmas Day magical for all. That view is becoming a thing of the past. We have done a lot of episodes on the technology of Christmas, and this year we have a new entry: Red One. This Santa is absolutely jacked, and has tremendously high powered…

Almost every culture on the planet has stories of some sort of “Wild Man” creature, whether it is Sasquatch, Yeti, Skunk Apes, Yowie, Wendigo, Yeren, etc. Here in The States we call this creature “Bigfoot”, and proof of their existence is elusive at best. Almost as elusive as John O’Connor, who’s book “The Secret History of Bigfoot” details his tre…

Raiding tombs is tough work, which is maybe Lara Croft, the world’s most famous tomb raider, is such a jerk. Personally I like Indiana Jones a lot better, but he was definitely not as athletic as Lara. Sure he had the bullwhip, but Lara uses a magnetic grappling hook with the proficiency of a samurai warrior. She is excellent at parkour, and is mor…

On this show we discuss how the world will end every other episode, and since we discussed robot survival skills on the last episode, once again, we are due. This week we actually explore what Dennin calls the ultimate apocalypse: Dying if you fall asleep. This is the concept of Markipliers new series “The Edge of Sleep”, which is what inspired thi…

The way we live with dogs has change significantly over the past few decades. Our pets are a part of the family, and as such, we want to give them every advantage possible, including a great education. Dr. Brian Hare has been studying dog cognition for years, and his recent project involves monitoring the cognitive development of puppies starting a…

The early part of this century saw an explosion of television shows demonstrating extreme survival skills. I am talking about Survivor, Naked and Afraid, Man VS Wild, or anything Bear Grylls stars in. I think this was really to show how far we humans have gone from nature. We have lost almost all of our primal instincts, but in fairness, we do have…

Let’s say you work with classified documents, or you just have a boring job you want to forget. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just turn off your brain as you entered work and turned it back on when you left the building? You know, give the heavy lifting to your unconscious or whatever. If this sounds like a dream come true, then you will LOVE t…

The election has come and gone here is the states, and while we don’t get political on this show, we do love movies, so I decided to have Tea Krulos back on the show to discuss his research tying popular cinematic monsters to the political party who wins the White House. Democrats are tied to Vampires while Republicans are represented by Zombies. T…

Beetlejuice has been called “The Ghost with the Most”, but the most of what? Is there something special that he has that other ghosts in the afterlife don’t have? The short answer is YES, and it involves the Deadon particle. Don’t worry, we explain everything for you in this episode. These give him the power to be the greatest bio-exorcist in the a…

My guess is that most people listening to this episode will NOT find themselves lost in a fantasy dungeon (unless it is while playing a game of D&D of course). However should you, it may become necessary to start catching and eating monsters. Luckily the Brain Trust has just finished watching the anime “Delicious in Dungeon” so we have you covered.…

As promised, Noah and I discuss the “Three Goddesses” story, one of them being the Baba Yaga, who is the prototype for our modern conception of the witch. She has a big nose, long chin, a house on chicken lags, and for some reason there is a focus on her saggy breasts. On, and she doesn’t ride around a broom, but it is involved.…

It is Halloween again, and what is more iconic at this time of year than vampires, werewolves, and witches? I thought it was about time we dedicate a whole episode to them, so Noah Charney is back on the show to discuss their origins. It turns out that these creatures first appear in Slavic myths around the 4th century and the werewolf & the vampir…

Humans are visual creatures, but we still rely heavily on our auditory senses to navigate the world. We are also loud by nature, which is why New York City is constantly at 90 decibels. My point is this: If our survival is dependent on staying silent, I think we are doomed. Most of us at least. Which is why the monsters in A Quiet Place are so terr…

Today we decide to take a trip BACK to the planet of Dune, which is a place like none other. In our first episode we talked about the lack of water and how important saving every drop is. Well this time we take a deep dive into that waterless pool to give you as many H2O saving tips that we can. First of all we have to discuss where all the water w…

With a few more minutes I talk to Jeff about Gigolos, Showgirls, and the man behind The Waffle King.By Daniel J. Glenn

Los Angeles should be known as “Celebrity City”, since this is where so many live. If you are an everyday person, and you happen to also live in Los Angeles, there is a small chance that you could run into one of these larger-than-life personalities and get sucked into their orbit. You see, once you reach a certain level of fame you require a LOT o…

Tornadoes are one of the most truly devastating forces in nature. They can appear out of nowhere, destroy entire towns, and then disappear without a trace. They are categorized not by their power, but by the amount of damage they cause. So how do these killer vortexes form? And why are they almost exclusively a […]…

At the end of the last episode things looked pretty bleak. Highly advanced aliens are on their way and they are stifling our scientific breakthroughs. But humans are resilient. The aliens call us bugs, but nothing is more hardy than the cockroach. But what can we do? Well we specialize in out of the box […]…

Project Blue Book was supposed to be the U.S. Government’s official investigation into UFO’s. The science advisor was a man named J. Allen Hynek. He was the one responsible for the infamous “Swamp Gas” Explanation. Well Blue Book was really a disinformation campaign, and Hynek went from professional debunker to believer. He scientifically analyzed …

The TV show “3 Body Problem” introduces a major conundrum for humanity: Aliens are on their way, and there is nothing we can do about it. Are they friendly? Are they hostile? Who knows (Who am I kidding, we all know they will eventually turn on us)? There is an upside though: It will take […]By Daniel J. Glenn

“When Hell Freezes Over” is a common saying, but what does it even mean? Sure religious doctrine would have you believe that Hell is a place of fire and brimstone, full of lakes of lava, overcooked burritos, nuclear meltdowns, and other really hot stuff. But we also talk about the chill of the grave, and […]…

SpecFlow is a framework for .NET used to create automated tests using the Gherkin Given-When-Then syntax. In, this talk, you'll learn about how SpecFlow can be used to create BDD style tests, and also how it can be extended to be used for different testing scenarios. Stephen and Rich will talk about their experience of using SpecFlow at HAMBS, some…

In this talk I'll share some of the lessons learned in creating and maintaining numerous build and deployment pipelines in both Azure DevOps and GitHub. You will learn about the common traps to avoid, and simple improvements that can make your continuous integration and deployment processes more reliable and maintainable. The principles and techniq…

Let’s be serious: The Gong Show was a national phenomenon! Unfortunately like a lot of things in the 70’s, once a movie was made, the fad was over. This is true of The Gong Show Movie which was really a therapy session for creator and host Chuck Barris. So was his book “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” which became a movie as well. It is safe to sa…

If you didn’t grow up in the 70’s, you have no concept of just how popular “The Gong Show” was. This was a daytime show that destroyed the ratings, and was unlike anything on television. It was basically a reverse talent show where the draw was a parade of terrible acts. They had some ringers sprinkled in, but the wild stunts are what is remembered…

We have been taught that Superman is the icon for truth, justice, and the American way. He is the ultimate superhero, and always does what it right. He is also an alien with more strength and power than anything we can imagine. There are no counters to him. Well except Kryptonite which is unbelievably rare. […]…

Sir Ian Livingstone is a real knight, known as the “Knight of the Nerds”. Never has a moniker been more apt. Ian and his partner Steve Jackson were early fanatics of various complex strategy games. They turned this love into a paradigm changing company called “Games Workshop”. Thanks to an exclusive deal with Dungeons & […]…

How many people reading this have attempted to learn a new language? I know that I have stopped and restarted Spanish lessons twice in the past 3 years. The grammar rules are what kills it. How about a completely unique language, that is almost indistinguishable from English, but uses the exact same rules and even […]…

Developers often say to "design your code like LEGO". Typically, they're suggesting you separate your code into small modules with single responsibilities. However, a frequently overlooked detail is that LEGO bricks have little studs that allow you to join them together without everything falling apart. This seems like an important detail not to ov…

One of the lucky breaks Eastman & Laird received was that Nintendo and Konami were looking for a new kind of game and the turtles came around at the perfect time. Not only was the NES game successful, but the sequel changed the way arcade games operated for a five year period. Listen as we […]By Daniel J. Glenn

1984 was a big year. Ghostbusters and Terminator were released, the events of George Orwell’s novel take place, and in a Massachusetts suburb, two comic artists accidentally created one of the biggest pop culture events in human history: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. What started as a joke between friends has spawned numerous TV shows, […]…

You may not think so, but the formula created by The Bad News Bears is still in use today! A rag tag group of kids, lead by an incompetent and troubled adult somehow manage to overcome their differences and beat the better funded team at whatever sport they are competing in. It is a tale […]By Daniel J. Glenn

Nothing says spring like the smell of freshly cut grass on a baseball diamond, and in my opinion, nothing says America quite like the baseball movie. Sure the sport gets credit as the national past time, but Hollywood is uniquely American. This week film critic Noah Gittell discusses the history of baseball movies, which starts […]…