Episodios

  • Nerds Book Review: Neuromancer by William Gibso
    Jul 4 2024

    Hello, and welcome to our last episode of season four! We’re reviewing an icon, our idol, and early cast book in William Gibson’s Neuromancer<\i>. It’s got sexy robots, international heists and apartments the size of NYC closets, what more could you need in your cyberpunk? Seriously, this novel is genre defining and explanation avoiding — which is half the fun of listening to this episode. How do Adam, Shaun and Mike try to explain what is inexplicable (and for Adam, unfinished)?

    If you want more nerdy goodness while we’re off for the summer, why not check out our back catalogue? We’ve read books like Snow Crash <\i> by William Gibson and Walkaway<\i> by Cory Doctorow that are in the same dystopian-cyber-maker-fi vein. If you’d rather a more known property, we read the Star Wars villain book Thrawn. There’s lots to love for every nerd.

    We’ll see you again in the fall, with Cloud Atlas<\i>!

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    58 m
  • Nerds Movie Review: Everything, Everywhere All at Once
    Jun 13 2024

    Hey there fellow nerds! We're talking about the 2022 smash movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once while drinking a smoked, maple bourbon peach smash -- kinda an everything all-at-once cocktail. Listen in if you've already watched it, and if not, grab your favorite chapstick, head to Netflix, and give it a watch.

    For those mixologists out there, here's my recipe and process for our beverage:

    1 oz bourbon (we used Elijah Craig)

    1 oz maple syrup

    0.5 oz lemon juice

    1/2 a peach

    Directions:

    Slice your peach into 1/4 and place them in your smoking cloche (or other cocktail smoker)

    Smoke the peaches for at least 5 minutes as you mix the rest of the cocktail. We used hickory wood for this.

    Muddle the peaches in the bottom of your cocktail shaker, then fill it with ice.

    Smoke the drinking glasses, making sure to leave the smoke there for a minute.

    Put the liquid ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake until frost forms on your shaker.

    Remove the glass from your smoking device, or vise-versa and pour the cocktail.

    Rim the glass with the unsmoked peach, and leave on glass for garnish.

    If you want to catch up with our next read, it's the groundbreaking Neuromancer by Neal Stephenson. Genre-defining, compound-adjective-forming, this one is sure to give us a lot to talk about. Until then, stay nerdy!

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    43 m
  • Nerds Book Review: Ray Naylor's The Mountain in the Sea
    Apr 25 2024

    Today we review a book that's all about our avatar's baby cousin -- the octopus. Ray Naylor's The Mountain in the Sea. What's better than octopodes with a culture and written language? How about a near future where we've created the first sentient android, and a security officer with a first name so long you'd have to scroll down to read it all?

    There's more to Naylor's Mountain than this, but after a few surprise beverages from Shaun in our running series of Shaun surprises Mike and Adam with a new brew, what else is there to know? Grab a copy of the book and dive on in!

    If first contact with new intelligences isn't your thing, what about the OG cyberpunk from William Gibson? Up next for us is his genre-defining Neuromancer.

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    1 h y 5 m
  • Nerds Movie Review: Dune 2
    Apr 11 2024

    What do you get when you put three nerds in a room together with spicy margaritas? Our latest 'cast where we discuss the recently released Dune Part 2 based on Frank Herbert's novel, Dune.

    Come for the movie review, stay for the Christopher Walken impressions! And if space operas with intense IR camera filmed scenes of Roman Gladiatorial combat isn't your kind of nerdy, then join us next episode where we discuss Ray Naylor's The Mountain in the Sea, as well as our favorite plural for octopus, what it means to be a sentient human, and bad ass security officers who choose shitty translator devices to stay socially and emotionally distant.

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    1 h y 6 m
  • ChatGPT Does our Homework: "Fear and Loathing in Dallas"
    Mar 21 2024

    In a one-off, we read the ChatGPT generated audio drama we discussed in the previous episode; it's a first for us, and a first for podcasts (as far as we know). Listen in as we read the audio drama "Fear and Loathing in Dallas": three friends trying to escape their rustbelt blues on a road trip to see the Buffalo Bills play in the Super Bowl.

    Try not to laugh, or give in and do! Then, listen in next time as we discuss The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. It's got AI powered slave ships, kidnapping, Matrix-esque hackers, octopods trying to communicate with humans, security officers who fight in a fishbowl of gel and the moral quandries surrounding creating the first sentient robot.

    We'll see you in the next episode, stay nerdy friends. Cheers!

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    18 m
  • Nerds AI Experiment: ChatGPT Does our Writing
    Mar 7 2024

    Join us as we do something a little weird, even for us. As teachers, we are fighting and intrigued by what AI, specifically ChatGPT, can do. So join us for an episode where we ask Chat to do our homework for us to write a story.

    Then, tune in next time as we unveil, for the first time anywhere, our radio drama written by ChatGPT, and performed by none other than us -- your friendly Nerds of the Old Republic!

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    35 m
  • Nerds Book Review: Out There Screaming
    Feb 22 2024

    Here we go with a new book: Jordan Peele’s Out There Screaming, a collection of new black horror.

    We at Nerds are HUGE fans of the editor’s work so we wanted to see what his taste in literature would be like. And man is there a lot to talk about!

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    1 h y 5 m
  • Nerds Review Quentin Tarantino: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
    Jan 18 2024

    Well, now, this is an end of an era. The last Tarantino movie to review: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Listen in as Mike, Shaun and I give the director one last send off, and add a bit of a retrospective as well.

    Then, get ready to return to form: we're heading back to books! First, we're going to read Jordan Peele's collection of new black horror in Out There Screaming, then have a little fun with AI in what I'm calling, ChatGPT Story Hour. We've got plenty more cued up after that, but I like to play it close to the chest.

    If you enjoy what we're doing, the best way to support our nerdy selves is to share our podcast with a friend. Just find that "share" button on your podcast player, and think of one person whose as smart as you are. They'll appreciate it!

    Cheers!

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    1 h y 16 m