Nerds Amalgamated

Ubisoft don't want you to feel comfortable owning games. We think we speak for all of us when we say we're already comfortable not owning Ubisoft games. AI are coming for the translator's jobs. Is the human touch compatible with artistic integrity? Scientists are always working on the next big thing, but sometimes it backfires. This time, the antivenom is a provenom. Professor  SAG-AFTRA’s AI...

The Nerds are back! This week on Nerds Amalgamated we're joined by our friend BPM to discuss the SAG-AFTRA AI deal, the Golden Globes and using magic as medicine. DJ – Golden Globes 2024 Recap - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-08/golden-globes-2024-winners-list/103291446 Professor – SAG-AFTRA AI Backflip - https://variety.com/2024/biz/news/sag-aftra-ai-voiceover-studio-video-games-1235866313/...

It’s 2022. And since we’ve decided to use a recent, arbitrary date as the marker of the completion of a solar revolution, which is a specific period of time, it’s time to review everything that happened in the last 3.154e+7 seconds. We’ll cover the best and worst games, movies and science news from the last year. It wasn’t all bad, promise. 2021 in Gaming Psychonauts 2 Wildermyth Unpacking Grand T...

The 13th Doctor has been incredibly controversial. Jodie Whittaker is worried that she's ruined the idea of a female Doctor. Whose fault is it really though? Is the concept really ruined forever? An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but the doctor teams up with rotten oranges to diagnose early stage cancer. A New Challenger Joins The Mobile Gaming Battle. Qualcomm has paired with Razor to develop...

NASA's DART mission has lifted off to protect humanity from rogue asteroids. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test will attempt to change the orbit of threatening asteroids by... hitting them with a rock. Hopefully that'll be enough to save Earth from future threats. Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, wants console developers to preserve old games and avoid NFTs. Legal emulation will help bring classic ga...

Animal kidneys. Some people like them in pies, but pig kidneys go just as well as replacements for human kidneys. A new GMO pig can provide kidneys that are completely compatible with the human immune system. This could have a big impact on transplant waiting lists, and is also a new step in transhumanism. Half Man, Half Pig, He's Pig Man. Facebook are rebranding their parent company as a Metavers...

You'll want to pack your umbrella for a trip to TOI-3362b, it rains molten aluminium there. We discuss alien weather, and the reason why we're very unlikely to ever take a holiday there. Surprisingly, the molten aluminium isn't the biggest barrier to visiting TOI-3362b. Microsoft have promised to do better with Right to Repair for Microsoft hardware after pressure from shareholder group As You Sow...

Twitch got hacked. It's bad. Someone's learning a very important cybersecurity lesson right now. We now know a lot more about how they work on the inside, including payouts for top streamers and private chat messages. Let's hope nobody does anything malicious with this. NFTs might be coming to gaming to help keep track of player owned items and let characters move between games. Yep, we've combine...

What is the measure of a man? Is it the number of totally awesome robot body parts he has? We hope so. Transhumanism has reached another stride with a biomechanical replacement for kidneys that could eliminate the need for dialysis and transplants. What else can we replace? How long until we can be uploaded into the internet and send Von Neumann probes out to colonise the galaxy? We're getting a n...

Rusty is coming back to Doctor Who. No, not that one. It's Russell T Davies, back to regenerate the greatest show on TV with his old production team. It remains to be seen whether he can recapture the magic, but the BBC must be desperate.  Gaming PCs are incredibly rare, and they're likely to get even rarer. This means people will pay a massive premium, and that entry level parts don't really...

A judgment has been handed down in the Apple Vs Epic lawsuit. Now Apple has to allow third party payment systems. This could be the foot in the door to breaking Apple's monopolistic tactics. Concrete made from Astronaut blood is a potential solution to building on Mars. Let's hope it never gets to the point of keeping people locked up and farming them for building materials. Denis Villeneuve has j...

Big Brother is finding ways into your home through your games. You'd be surprised just how much they can tell about you from the way you play. China has decided to take effeminate men off TV, along with a whole bunch of new criteria. This echoes the Tik Tok ban on ugly and fat people. China, you have some issues with representation. Maybe take a look at that. An asteroid is coming close to Earth....

Audio glitches again. They're less obvious on speakers. Hopefully we've actually fixed it this time. The director of Wonder Woman 1984 has joined the crusade to stop movies being released on streaming. She thinks they look fake. It’s a good cause, but we’re not sure the world is ready for this. Junk food lowers your life expectancy. Fruit is good for you. A new study has put numbers to just how go...

The audio quality can be a little wonky this week. We've identified the issue and resolved it. Sorry about that. We’ve heard for years that gamers are violent. But what if gamers were more peaceful in game than the people around them in real life? A really interesting new study has identified that gamers behave differently in EVE Online depending on the type of community they live in. The Nirvana...

The UN has asked game developers to be more green. It would make a nice change from every brown military shooter of the early 2010s. Oh, wait. They want us to use less energy. The UKIE has written a Green paper on methods for developers to reduce their carbon footprint. SMS is an awful, insecure method for 2FA, but we still use it because anything better is too hard. Maybe this latest string of ha...

We've got a very important issue to talk about this week. Apple wants to look at your private pictures. They've made such a big deal about privacy for years, so what's changed and why can't we trust them anymore? What have you done Tim Apple? The Australian government really hasn't liked supporting the games industry, despite years of lobbying and studies into how great the industry is for the eco...

The Steam Deck is not coming to Australia yet. WHY, GABEN, WHY? WHY HATH YOU FORSAKEN US? Professor was pretty annoyed that the Index had never released here, but realised researching for this episode that it's finally here. So at least that means maybe the Deck will get here eventually. It has very exciting hardware and has Professor gushing over Valve's push to save us from Microsoft and let us...

We're back, tell your friends. Let us know what you think of our new format. California isn't actually banning gaming PCs, despite what you might have heard. Yet again clickbait channels are using lies to drive clicks, which isn't really a surprise. But California IS requiring minimum power consumption for devices in idle state. So get back to gaming and have fun. Dogs are better than children at...

Despite the universe conspiring to prevent us releasing this week, we've finally got this episode done. Things will be a bit hectic for a few weeks while we sort out moving, but we'll be back to our usual schedule soon. The Powerpuff Girls, created from sugar, spice and everything nice, were nearly rebooted into a weird dark alternative universe where the Powerpuff girls gain some additional bitte...

Disco Elysium is the latest victim of Australia’s Classification Board, those evil boomers who want to stop you having fun. Ok, I’m only exaggerating a little. It took us this long to get R18 games, why do they keep getting banned? Why does the ACB treat games differently to movies? There’s a long history of video game censorship in Australia, and we spent way longer than planned talking about it....

ABC's Four Corners has done a report on predatory microtransactions. It's nice to see a layman's description to help explain to non gamers why this matters so much. We discuss a solution. Maybe. Let us know if you can see any issues. The Colonial Pipeline has been hacked, resulting in fuel shortages across the South Eastern United States. Is this the start of a new generation of cyber crime? Are p...

Epic and Apple's case is going through the courts, and we're on the sidelines gobbling up any juicy news on the industry. Xbox hardware has never been profitable. Only 7 percent of Fortnite income is from iOS. And the Epic Games Store is a long way from being profitable. However the case turns out, we'll have a much better picture of the industry. AI is a fancy buzzword, but sometimes there's a pr...

Another year, another Oscars ceremony. We're more interested in the Razzies though. This year's worst performances include politicians and the Oscars themselves. 505 Games, the publisher behind Control are pulling some dodgy deals with providing the DLC for Control. It's not clear why they're doing this or what they plan to do, but it's a really big problem for people who got Control in Humble Cho...

We blame our recording bot for our late release. The bot has been taken out and shot. Ingenuity has finally lifted off and begun proving that heavier than air flight is possible on Mars. Also Perseverance is creating oxygen. Very soon, the Martian Colonies will be open for business! Sony don't want you being able to play games you've bought, or using the PlayStation you paid for once they say enou...

Why does the Professor's sign off always cut out? Why does DJ always repeat himself? Why does Sony hate retro gamers? All these questions may never be answered. Sony plan to kill the digital storefront for older PlayStation consoles. Combined with C-Bomb, that means these consoles might become completely useless within six months. Gamers and Developers are very upset. Sci-Fi often predicts future...