Episode 511: Dark Matters of Philosophy

Science Faction Podcast

This episode contains: Steven, Ben and Devon are all here and accounted for. Steven is trying to not be a bump on a log and is attempting to use his Fitness+ plan to get fit. We get sidetracked by talking about the "runner's high" but don't get too far into it. Ben had a birthday! Happy Birthday Ben! He watched Inside Out 2 and we all give our opinions on the movie. Devon has been playing piano and talks about the Simply Piano app. Of note: Ben doesn't discriminate with music. Also, the renowned athiest Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" and it isn't quite used as intended.

https://marathonhandbook.com/is-runners-high-real/

https://www.hellosimply.com/simply-piano

Your Scientists Were So Preoccupied With Whether Or Not They Could, They Didn’t Stop To Think If They Should: llama.tif is a font file that contains a large language model. You can use it to generate text like a chatbot (in any app that uses the HardBuzz software). Who is this for? Why does it exist? We discuss.

https://fuglede.github.io/llama.ttf/

This Week in Space: How did a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way come to be? Crater 2, located approximately 380,000 light years from Earth, is one of the largest satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. How this galaxy originated remains unclear. A team of physicists now offers an explanation. Devon does his best to explain Dark Matter and Dark Energy. He also talks about 'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence M. Krauss. This leads to chatting about another book: 'Raising Freethinkers' by Dale McGowan, Molleen Matsumura, Amanda Metskas and Jan Devor, which has guidelines for how to raise children to think beyond religion.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/06/240611130335.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Universe_from_Nothing

https://archive.org/details/raisingfreethink00mcgo_0

Book Club: These Alien Skies by C.T. Rwizi (part of the Black Stars collection). Accidents happen in the strange realms of the African Union system. One of them sends two humans to the far side of a star gate in a thrilling short story of hope, survival, and new dimensions. We chat about this short story, but honestly, our talk is kinda boring. This was a solid story and we all agree that we enjoyed it.

Next week we are reading The Black Pages by Nnedi Okorafor (part of the Black Stars collection).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B098QRGYHR?ref_=dbs_m_aos_rwt_calw_tkin_3&storeType=ebooks

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098T11H5Q?ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_H4Y39S68BAPVJJKQGFZH&ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_H4Y39S68BAPVJJKQGFZH&social_share=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_H4Y39S68BAPVJJKQGFZH