cj little and Jeff Parker

Nonsense with cj little and Jeff Parker

News EN ↓ 203 episodes

Nonsense desperately tries to make sense of today’s business, technology, and (sometimes) entertainment headlines. Not too serious and occasionally funny, join technologist cj little and leggy blonde Jeff Parker for their unique take on the past week. While we can’t promise you’ll laugh every week, we can promise you’ll learn something new (and maybe even interesting). New episodes drop every Tuesday & Thursday mornings (UTC). Produced by an orangutan; art thanks to artificial intelligence.https://nonsense.productionsTwitter: @nnsnspdcstInstagram: @nnsnspdcstGmail: nnsnspdcst@gmail.com

Author

cj little and Jeff Parker

Episodes

HEADLINES: Fair Use or Foul Play?, Detecting Goverment Spying, and Giving Up Your Private Photos 01.07.2025 27:13

(0:00) Pre-Show (1:13) Open (2:36) cj's week: You’re Not THAT Big or Rush? (3:51) Jeff's Week: Tucker Carney, Polymath (5:20) Headline: Fair Use or Foul Play? AI Copyright Ruling Divides Industry (13:23) Headline: Android 16 Has a New Feature: Detecting Government Spy Tools (17:20) Headline: Canada Drops Tech Tax to Resume Trade Talks (18:48) Headline: Beyond Published Posts: Meta Seeks Access to...

Where Do Heroic Spacecraft Go to Die? 26.06.2025 24:19

(0:00) Open (1:05) Point Nemo: The Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility (4:53) The Space Graveyard (9:30) I’m Burnin’ I’m Burnin’ For You (13:01) What Makes It Back (16:45) The Goldmine of the Future (20:44) cj’s recommendation: Star Wars: Andor (22:08) Jeff’s Recommendation: My Name Is Nobody Humans throw out over two billion tons of garbage every day . Mostly it’s stuff we no longer need and truly do...

HEADLINES: Finally, a Fat Pill; Tesla’s Not So Autonomous Taxi; and AI Exposing Something Private 24.06.2025 25:46

(0:00) Pre-Show (0:57) Open (1:37) cj's week: Old Friend Lunch! (2:28) Jeff's Week: Hands-Free & Iran (5:52) Headline: Pill Power: Eli Lilly's New Drug Rivals Injectables for Weight Loss, Diabetes (10:02) Headline: Not So Autonomous Yet: 10 Tesla Robotaxi Roll Out in Austin (16:13) Headline: Beyond Misdials: How AI Could Expose Your Private Phone Number (21:04) Headline: Sanctions?...

Defying Decay: Humanity's Quest for Eternal Everything 19.06.2025 28:02

(0:00) Open (2:30) People Keep The Strangest Things (3:45) The Museums You Don’t Know About (9:00) The OG Tupperware (12:42) Knowledge & “Modern” Preservation (19:50) Oddities: Airplanes, Wedding Cakes, & Einstein’s Brain Jerky (23:10) The Catacombs (25:01) cj’s recommendation: Acquired: The Complete History & Strategy of Rolex (26:02) Jeff’s Recommendation: Moneyball (the talkie, not the book) Fr...

HEADLINES: More Leaks in Space, Pirelli’s Cyber Tire, and The Golden T1 17.06.2025 28:46

(0:00) Pre-Show (1:20) Open (2:02) cj's week: Hot, In-n-Out, & Oppression (4:04) Jeff's Week: Shohei Pitching & Barkley’s QR Code (8:07) Headline: Aging International Space Station Faces "Top-Level Risk" as Air Leak Accelerates (12:26) Headline: Pirelli's Cyber Tire: Transforming Roads with Real-Time Data (18:32) Headline: Errors and Exaggerations: Decoding the Trump...

The Earth's Hidden Secret: Infinite Power Right Under Our Noses 12.06.2025 31:34

(0:00) Open (1:19) Geothermal Energy Intro & Global Energy Footprint (6:24) Geothermal Electricity Generation (9:26) Down in The Deep (15:08) Vaporizing Rock (!!!) (17:12) Making Coal Plants Green (24:35) cj’s recommendation: Rock Candy & WWDC 25 (29:15) Jeff’s Recommendation: Inside the Mind of a Dog Geothermal energy is a triple threat - a sustainable source for heating, cooling, and gen...

HEADLINES: Ukrainian Drones Hits, Apple’s New Numbering, and One Megawatt For Your EV 10.06.2025 30:36

(0:00) Pre-Show (1:14) Open (2:04) National Iced Tea Day (2:54) cj's week: Summer is Lit! (6:03) Jeff's Week: LA is Lit! (9:58) Headline: Ukrainian drones hit Russian electronic warfare facility (15:38) Headline: Unpacking Apple's AI and OS Overhaul at WWDC (24:45) Headline: Charge Your EV in Five Minutes! BYD’s Megawatt Monster (28:01) MAS Computing Systems Ukrainian drones are far f...

The Unseen Costs of Public School Decline 06.06.2025 27:28

(0:00) Open: Graduating High School @ KSMF (2:47) Funding: A Strong, Positive Correlation (8:21) Private vs. Independent Schools (12:01) Independent & Charter School Origins (18:45) The Thousand Person Desereted Island (22:30) cj’s recommendation: School Games (24:40) Jeff’s Recommendation: The Four Seasons The notion that school funding has no bearing on student performance is a pervasive, ye...

HEADLINES: Russia’s Walking Into Spider Webs, Starships Go Boom, Tariffs - Less is More, and Trump Asked to Keep Broadband Expensive 03.06.2025 26:49

(0:00) Pre-Show (0:43) Open (1:27) Pride Month! (2:18) cj's week: Banana Ball! (5:01) Jeff's Week: Dr. James Robert “Bobba” Parker, 90. (6:21) Headline: Operation Spiderweb: Drones Hammer Russian Airbases (10:20) Headline: Mars or Bust: Why Starship Keeps Blowing Up (16:11) Headline: Trade Chaos Mounts as Court Blocks Trump Tariffs (20:38) Headline: Broadband Giants Push Trump to Kill Low-Cost Pla...

HEADLINES: The CDC Has Been Unleaded & Digital Tests Are Hard 27.05.2025 25:29

(0:00) Pre-Show (0:58) Open (1:57) Bee Week: Scripps Spelling Bee (2:41) cj's week: Viruses & Sonic Booms (5:14) Jeff's Week: Terrible Booms (6:39) Jeff’s Week Part 2: Chocolate Cake (8:08) Headline: From Prevention to Peril: CDC's Lead Program Has Been Dismantled (11:24) Headline: Paying Top Dollar for Disaster: In Its Transition to Digital, the College Board Is Getting Failing Gr...

When Good Memories Go Bad: The Distorting Power of Nostalgia 22.05.2025 35:50

(0:00) Open (2:45) When Good Memories Go Bad: The Distorting Power of Nostalgia (4:44) The Allure and Deception of Nostalgia (9:33) How Nostalgia Works (15:31) The Consequences and Implications of Distorted Nostalgic Memories (19:50) How to Navigate Nostalgia with Awareness (30:34) cj’s recommendation: The Handshake From Game 6 of the Dallas-Winnipeg Series (34:06) Jeff’s Recommendation: Hannah Ga...

HEADLINES: AI Writes 30% of Microsoft’s Code, Fusion Doubles, Gemini’s Nano is Near, and Sorry About Your Teeth 20.05.2025 30:07

(0:00) Pre-Show (0:53) Open (1:30) National Rescue Dog Day (2:08) cj's week: My Wife Can’t Stand Nonsense (3:33) Jeff's Week: (4:45) Headline: Programmers bore the brunt of Microsoft's layoffs as AI writes up to 30% of its code (9:51) Headline: Laser-powered fusion experiment more than doubles its power output (14:12) Headline: Google is about to unleash Gemini Nano's power for th...

The Mind's Mischief: Why We Fall for What Isn't Real 15.05.2025 38:02

(0:00) Open (0:37) The Lure of the Lie: Exploring Our Susceptibility to Falsehoods (2:53) Quantifying Bullshit: Pseudo-Profound Bullshit (6:28) Why Do People Still Believe in Falsehoods? (29:55) Fighting The Untruth (34:24) cj’s recommendation: ChatGPT Likes Me! (35:40) Jeff’s Recommendation: Poker Face Why do humans, with our big fancy brains, keep falling for obvious falsehoods? The short answer...

HEADLINES: Europe lures American nerds, California overtakes Japan, Mexico sues Google, and 1970’s soviet space junk 13.05.2025 22:04

(0:00) Pre-Show (0:58) Open (1:47) cj's week: Smokin’ Beef! (2:43) Jeff's Week: Dodgers & Ecobees! (3:19) Headline: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US (8:50) Headline: California overtakes Japan as fourth largest global economy (11:34) Headline: Mexico is suing Google over how it’s labeling the Gulf of Mexico (15:49) Headline: Soviet Spacecraft Crash Lands on E...

The Sinking of the Supply Chain: The Great Wall of Tariffs 01.05.2025 31:00

When the cost of importing goods goes up significantly with little notice, manufacturing orders get paused. Without orders to ship to the customers that normally make the orders, shippers reduce the number of boats that sail. When fewer boats sail, less stuff gets imported. When less stuff gets imported, there’s less stuff to buy at the stores. We are currently in “Chapter 3: The Sinking of the...

HEADLINES: Tariff Woes, The Upcoming Manufacturing Shell Game, & Bye-Bye Nest Thermostats 29.04.2025 29:07

(0:00) Pre-Show (1:11) Open (1:58) National Supply Chain Day (4:55) cj's week: Nintendo Switch (6:03) Jeff's Week: Aliexpress Purchasing Party End (8:00) Headline: The Trade War's Wave of Retail Shortages Will Hit U.S. Consumers in Stages (11:59) Headline: Chinese freight ship traffic to busiest U.S. ports sees steep drop (13:36) Headline: Some Amazon sellers are pulling out of Prime D...

Defying Gravity (and Latency): The Low Earth Orbit Internet Revolution 24.04.2025 31:20

Getting the Internet from space - it’s a thing. But how does Starlink get fast internet access streamed to the ground? And are they the only ones? Well, in this episode the guys chat about satellite internet constellations - who needs them, how they work, who is operating them, and what the benefits and drawbacks are. As a people, we are on track to more than triple the number of satellites zip...

HEADLINES: Price Hikes, Janky Government Roof Internet, AI Age Detection, & Humanoid Robots Run! 22.04.2025 31:46

(0:00) Pre-Show (0:33) Open (1:02) Earth Day (1:53) cj's week: Here Comes The Sun! (2:18) Jeff's Week: Filling The Papal Vacancy (2:50) Headline: A lot of Logitech products cost more now than two months ago (7:24) Headline: Trump’s tariffs trigger price hikes at large online retailers (13:30) Headline: Is the GSA using a backdoor to siphon off government data? (17:00) Headline: Meta is ram...

Coins, Commerce, and Carts: the History of Shopping 17.04.2025 33:27

Retail has come a long way from the days of trading bits of precious metals for chickens and grain. In this episode, the boys discuss how technology has propelled retail shopping forward over the past century-plus. The printing press, physical mail delivery, cable television, the internet, and now search terms and product viewing stats have all worked to transform how consumers discover, assess,...

HEADLINES: Tariffs, US Supercomputers, No Tariffs, Magnets, & More Tariffs 15.04.2025 23:23

(0:00) Pre-Show (1:04) Open (1:35) Tax Day (1:41) cj's week: Earthquakes & Dodgers History (3:30) Jeff's Week: Pre-Tariff Ordering (6:08) Headline: Actually, Semiconductors Still Face a 'Special' Type of Tariff (15:34) Headline: Nvidia says it will build AI supercomputers in America for the first time ever (18:20) Headline: China Halts Critical Rare Earth Exports as Trade War Intensifies (21:2...

H5N1 Avian Influenza: What the Flock?! 10.04.2025 45:36

(0:00) Open (1:38) The Flu (4:12) Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Bird Flu (12:36) Case Fatality Rates (16:55) Mammal-to-Mammal Transmission (19:54) Is H5N1 the Next Pandemic? (23:39) How Can You Protect Yourself? (27:59) What’s the Impact? (32:48) Egg Prices (41:42) cj’s recommendation: 8-Piece Buckets from KSC! (43:24) Jeff’s Recommendation: Black Bag Over the past two decades bird flu has effectively ki...

HEADLINES: EU’s $1B X Fine, Starliner’s Wild Ride, & Tariffs Got You Down? 08.04.2025 30:57

(0:00) Pre-Show (1:12) Open (1:38) cj's week: Back on Land, Water Parks, KSC! (3:26) Jeff's Week: Buying All The Amazon, I Love Big Bats (5:36) Headline: EU may “make an example of X” by issuing $1 billion fine to Musk’s social network (10:33) Headline: Starliner’s flight to the space station was far wilder than most of us thought (17:39) Headline: We just declared a trade war with the world (29:4...

Smoking in the Boys' Room 28.03.2025 40:23

(0:19) DiskWorld! (4:15) Barney’s Beanery (13:35) Early Smoking Bans Staring The Catholic Church (20:00) First Call For National U.S. Flight Smoking Ban (24:57) Why Airplanes Still Have Lavatory Ashtrays (27:32) Smoking in The 51st State (32:47) Free In-Flight Smokes! (36:16) cj’s week: Canada’s Elbows Up, Never 51! (37:52) Jeff’s week: Dodgers in Japan! In this episode, our first-ever dedicated b...

HEADLINES: Chapter 23 & Me and Text STOP to Opt-Out of War Plan Texting 27.03.2025 29:38

(0:00) Pre-Show (1:01) Open (1:20) Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day (2:55) cj's week: IoT Bonanza! (4:38) Jeff's Week: Japan! (8:14) Headline: 23andMe is filing for bankruptcy (11:38) Headline: Trump's War-Planning Signal Group Accidentally Added a Journalist (12:57) Headline: Boston Dynamics and Nvidia Each Show New Humanoid Robots (15:48) Headline: Apple Struggling with AI (19:43) Headline:...

Nonsense Unplugged: Hosts Gone Wild 13.03.2025 47:30

(0:00) Pre-Show (1:47) Open (2:44) National Science and Engineering Week (3:42) cj's week: The Great Train Show (5:13) Jeff's Week: The Curse of Pool Automation (6:39) Headline: Despite everything, US EV sales are up 28% this year (8:03) Headline: Music labels will regret coming for the Internet Archive (31:50) Headline: What’s behind the recent string of failures and delays at SpaceX? (40...