Episode 509: There’s Only So Far You Can Get With Crazy Eights

The Science Faction Podcast

This episode contains: Steven and Ben wonder if anyone is reading these notes… but regardless, they’re your hosts this week, just so you know what to expect. Can you believe that Rubik’s Cubes are back? Ben’s son has mastered ye olde cube of Rubick, but isn’t it kind of like magic on the surface? And don’t even get me started on juggling Rubik’s cubes, geesh! You should stop what you’re doing and watch Godzilla Minus One. It’s an incredible depiction of the horrors of WWII. Ben got frazzled preparing for a BBQ, and told a story where he was asked to rate an Instacart driver’s scorpion face tatoo, even though it was shedding. What does one do after a BBQ? Well, Ben and Steven met in person and had beers and played Kings in the Corner. Ben was hoping to maybe play some Buried Treasure, but Steven wouldn’t have it.

Rules for Kings in the Corner: https://www.wikihow.com/Play-Kings-Corners

Rules for Buried Treasure (it’s a great game, really!): https://www.denexa.com/blog/buried-treasure/

Science or Fiction:

Ruh Roh: As leaks on the space station worsen, there’s no clear plan to deal with them. NASA and Roscosmos are struggling to address worsening leaks in the International Space Station, specifically in the PrK module of the Russian segment. Despite attempts to mitigate the issue, the leaks persist. While not currently posing an existential threat to the station, the leaks are now classified as a high likelihood, high consequence risk. The aging infrastructure of the station, particularly the Zvezda module, and limited resources due to geopolitical tensions, are contributing to the problem. The situation raises concerns about the future of the space station, set to retire in 2030.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/06/on-the-space-station-band-aid-fixes-for-systemic-problems

Roh My: Adobe Sparks Backlash Over AI Terms That Let It ‘Access, View Your Content’.

Adobe’s updated terms of use allow its machine learning tools to view and use customers’ content to develop future Adobe products—but it’s unclear exactly what that entails. This is a big deal for a company making enterprise-level and industry leading products, and may impact whether corporate customers that have NDAs should continue to use Photoshop. Adobe later says the controversy is a misunderstanding about its effort to crack down on child sexual abuse material, but that seems flimsy, especially as they didn’t lead with that when they pushed the new terms to customers. Steven remembers the beginnings of Photoshop, and it’s connection to Industrial Light and Magic through Executive Creative Director John Knoll, who codeveloped Photoshop with his brother Thomas.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/adobe-sparks-backlash-over-ai-terms-that-let-it-access-view-your-content

John Knoll

Who is this show for? Everybody! Let’s go! Steven review the first two episodes of The Acolyte. Is it truly the first BRAND NEW Star Wars since A New Hope? The rumor mill is swirling with talks of a new Star Wars trilogy set 25,000 years before the Skywalker Saga. We are here for it. Maybe not Devon, but Star Wars still has the other two man-children who host this show in it’s thrall.

Book Club:

Next week we’ll be reading Stories in the sand, by Griffon McElroy, published in the Star Wars short story anthology From a Certain Point of View.

But this week, we read a different story from that same anthology: The Trigger by Kieron Gillen. The story follows Aphra as she encounters stormtroopers while scavenging on Dantooine. Aphra is sentenced to execution… how will she escape? The story explores Aphra’s changing views on the Empire after the destruction of Alderaan. So cool to see another story following Doctor Aphra, and another story by Kieron Gillen. We like it. So will you.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chelli_Lona_Aphra