Episode 231 - Seeing All The Things
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam take some time to talk about important issues like the here one day gone the next WH press secretary Katie Zacharia, the mystery of who gave the order to turn off Starshield right before Russia launched a drone attack against Ukraine, Trump busying himself with minutiae leading up to the midterms, and generally what the hell is going on. And then we get to the thing we really want to talk about - You Can See Everything. It’s both easy and hard to talk about this movie because…we can’t really decide what kind of movie it is even. It’s very good though, and like all of...
info_outline
Episode 230 - Dog Singularity
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen would have liked to spend the whole episode talking about dogs, specifically Yoko. Alas, the new cycles will not allow us that luxury. So we discuss being nice to Claude, being superintelligence to dogs, the Matter Complier, the ugliness of livestreaming an execution by firing squad, and whatever that is going on with MAGA in Texas. For our WAWC, Noam recommends the game Well Dweller, a fun Metroidvania game that doesn’t make you want to throw your controller. Jen recommends the book Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, since we are apparently rehabbing Elizabeth Holmes and we...
info_outline
Episode 229 - K Drama
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam have a nice long chat about the FlyDubai airplane hijacking, Jacob Geller’s weird Title IX admission, the whole mess at Cornell, and Eric Schmitt’s publicity stunt gone awry. For our WAWC, Noam talks about Lanterns again now that the season is over, specifically about how the internet is wrong about the show (but what’s new). Jen is happy that The Apothecary Diaries is back (so is Noam), and we both explain that the show isn’t just for the ladies but is in fact a pretty hefty drama.
info_outline
Episode 228 - Artificial Intransigence
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen get to have the conversation about the upcoming AI apocalypse that they were going to have last week until Nikole Hannah-Jones ruined everything. We discuss AI doomerism, AI CEOs warning of impending doom yet doing nothing to stop it, how AI isn’t a sentient being, and how we’re not all going to die from AI. For our WAWC, Jen doesn’t have anything because we’re in the dead time between anime seasons, but Noam has two fun puzzle games for you - Dimhaven and Penelope Pendrick and the Art of Deceit. We also have a little discussion about if it’s finally time to upgrade to...
info_outline
Episode 227 - Failing Grade
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam are finally back! Just in time to discuss Nikole Hannah-Jones’ big piece on how she was an inattentive parent who left her kid in a bad school because reasons. OK, that’s our interpretation of what happened, not hers, not that she seems to have learned anything from the experience either. Nevertheless, she is persisting, along with some of her supporters. Since it has been so long since we recorded we have a bit of a grab bag of WAWC - Noam is still watching Lanterns and ignoring the online discourse, and Jen went and saw Akira in IMAX when it was showing. Jen...
info_outline
Episode 226 - Harp Attack
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen are back to discuss navigating DC during Freedom 250 events, Trump’s continuing ballroom saga, if we will see a constitutional amendment in our lifetimes, the very weird case of Natalie Harp and her obsession with being close to Trump, Jen’s big theory as to who leaked all these stories, and the never-ending Arday apologia. For our WAWC, Noam assures us that the new HBO Plus series Lanterns is actually good, and Jen pitches you on going through the trouble of seeing The Odyssey in IMAX. Programming note - we will be taking a few weeks off, since Noam has moving chores...
info_outline
Episode 225 - Arday of Reckoning
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam discuss a little Francesca Hong and the general woes of the DSA crowd before getting into the end of the Jason Arday saga. On that topic there is a lot to unpack; where Cambridge went wrong, the responsibility Arday holds for his own actions, blaming “online mobs” for repeating factual information, and the consequences Arday was not going to face for his many egregious lies. In all of that we also discuss Luigi Mangione’s guilty plea and the case of Lindsay Clancy. For our WAWC, Noam is re-reading the novel Neuromancer in anticipation of the upcoming Apple TV...
info_outline
Episode 224 - Gaming The System
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen know that 2026 is hard and scary and that everyone wants to return to 2020. But alas, we do have to discuss the things happening in 2026, like El-Sayed’s very slim win in the Michigan Democrat primary for Senate. As per usual the polling was wrong. The problem is, the polling was very, very wrong and people are starting to ask questions about if that happens for less than honest purposes. Speaking of manipulation, Twitter announced that they will be rolling out a new content creator payment system that seems designed to demonetize those who aren’t providing anything of...
info_outline
Episode 223 - The Web Of AI
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Jen and Noam take a (slight) break from discussing the depressing political news to talk about important things, like the controversies surrounding data centers and generative AI and the new Spider-Man movie. Important things. We get a bit into the drama surrounding the YouTube content creator Hank Green, who has for some reason self canceled over his sin of….using ChatGPT to do his grunt work so that he can have more time to make more content. Yeah, we don’t understand either. We also get into the thornier issue of authors allegedly using genAI in their writing, which has become a...
info_outline
Episode 222 - Beware Geeks Bearing Grifts
Ambitious Crossover Attempt
Noam and Jen spend a little time talking about things like Iran and what’s going on now before getting into the most important topic of the year: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Spoiler alert - it’s a good movie and will win many awards. We discuss the movie itself and, of course, the extremely weird online reactions to the movie and its success. Just a good, old fashioned Ambitious Crossover Attempt episode, like we used to be able to make before everything went pear shaped.
info_outlineJen and Noam make it back after Noam’s illness (not hantavirus, just regular virus) to discuss Nick Kristof’s stupid gullible toxic empathy, how it’s not possible to train a dog to sexually assault anyone, how in the world could anyone question the word of 14 people, and where is all of this antisemitism coming from anyway.
We start out, however, talking about The Odyssey (the movie, that’s not a pun) and the controversies about the casting announcements that were just made. Jen tries her best to explain to everyone that The Odyssey isn’t real, and we both agree that Christopher Nolan knows what he's doing. We also get sidetracked into a discussion on translations and how they can go awry.
For our WAWC, Noam recommends the show From on MGM+. If you didn't know that MGM has a streaming service, you’re not alone, but somehow this show is on its fourth season. We also discuss the current season of Euphoria some more, Noam explains what vorarephilia is, and Jen wonders if that means there are people watching Attack on Titan for different reasons.