Weird Things

The episode opens with a long biology digression about what makes two animals similar or different, using turtles and tortoises as a lead-in to hyraxes and elephants. Andrew explains that hyraxes are the closest living relative to elephants, and the hosts discuss surprising shared traits such as elongated teeth, long gestation for a small animal, and social behavior. They also note that sea cows/m...

After a few weeks of trying out short-form video on YouTube, what seems to be the early indicators of how they’re received? What goes into making thoughtful short-form videos? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.” Picks: Brian: Ask from Ryan Levesque Bryce: Arcade Paradise

The episode opens with a discussion of SpinLaunch after a headline about a NASA payload launched by a giant centrifugal system and later dug out with an excavator. The hosts describe how the concept uses a spinning lower stage in a vacuum to fling small payloads upward, with a conventional upper-stage rocket taking over later, and they debate whether it could realistically serve small satellite la...

Justin and Bryce both tried out the Structured app we talked about last week and have some critical feedback. What features stick out after a week of use? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.” “The World’s Most Satisfying Checkbox”: https://www.andy.works/words/the-most-satisfying-checkbox

The episode opens with a discussion of NASA's DART mission, a planned spacecraft impact on the moonlet Dimorphos orbiting Didymos to test asteroid deflection. The hosts explain the basic idea, compare it with other hypothetical planetary-defense methods such as nukes, gravity tractors, and mass drivers, and note that NASA planned a livestream and a later probe to measure the orbital change more pr...

Bryce is diving into a new todo/calendar hybrid app, Structured. How do we use apps and plan our days? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.” Picks: Andrew: Beyond Fireship Justin: House of the Dragon Brian: Life’s Work from David Milch

The episode opens with a long discussion of Artemis/SLS, which the hosts describe as a politically driven NASA program built to preserve existing contractors rather than as an engineering-first project. They argue it was shaped by pork-barrel politics, hydrogen’s complexity, and sunk costs, and they debate whether the program should keep going, whether the public should call it out more directly,...

The episode opens with a discussion of a FOIA request by The Black Vault for additional Navy UAP videos after earlier Navy videos had been publicly released. The hosts debate why more footage would be withheld, suggesting ordinary explanations like protecting military capabilities, avoiding disclosure of foreign technology tests, or keeping unresolved sightings from becoming public intelligence ta...

Andrew’s considering a move from LA to San Francisco–even though he’s totally work-from home. What’s his anxiety around moving and being closer to his cutting-edge job? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.” Picks: Brian: The Rehearsal Bryce: Slime Rancher

The episode opens with a discussion of Westworld and how rewatching earlier seasons changes the experience, followed by a broader complaint about storytelling that relies too much on surprises. The hosts pitch prequel-style ideas for Westworld and Jurassic Park before moving into a long segment on the scrubbed Artemis launch, including the failed wet dress rehearsals, valve and thermal-alignment p...

Long-time listener Joe Diamond writes in and asks about his EPK–electronic press kit. What works and what improvements can you make when presenting yourself in a freeform brochure of your own design? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.”

The episode opens with a long discussion about Mars agriculture: the hosts speculate on what the first plant grown on Mars should be, with guesses like lichen, moss, mold, and grain before turning to research suggesting alfalfa as an early crop. Bryce explains that simulated Martian soil let alfalfa grow without added fertilizer and could enrich regolith for later crops, but the hosts note major o...

The episode opens with a climate-change segment centered on an MIT Sensible City Lab concept for a large reflective structure in space at the L1 point to reduce incoming sunlight. The hosts treat it as an emergency, temporary geoengineering idea rather than a real near-term fix, emphasizing that it would be extremely expensive, politically difficult, and unable to solve the broader problems of cli...

Bryce reports in on how his marbles project is doing after having launched a Patreon. What levels is it setup in and how could he expand what he offers to supporters without compromising the show? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.”

The episode opens with a clarification about an AI-related U.S. federal court ruling: the hosts explain that the case is about whether an AI can hold a patent, not a broader ruling that AI art cannot be copyrighted. They then move into a long discussion of DALL·E and other AI image tools, treating prompting as a real creative skill and noting that the systems have moved from novelty outputs into s...

Andrew shares the story of Simon Coronel, who took won the FISM Grand Prix Close-up, the top-level international competition for magic. How does your journey affect your goal and how can you keep your eyes on that goal? What is your label and does your label meet your goal? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.” Picks: Andrew: Quinn’s Ideas Justin: Bar...

The episode opens with the hosts joking through a grocery-store movie-night snack run, including pretzels, Sun Chips, Reese's cups, Doritos, bean dip, guacamole, and pre-popped popcorn. That setup turns into the main Weird News story: a Virginia woman found a snake in a bag of popcorn, which leads to a long back-and-forth about whether pre-popped popcorn is worth the risk and how startling a snake...

How do you get an opportunity in a time of high convenience and tech? To get started, who has to tell you yes? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.” Picks: Bryce: Real Sports, July 2022 – Sumo and Habits on iOS

The episode opens with the hosts returning to the Georgia Guidestones after news that the monument had been damaged by an explosion. They walk through the inscriptions one by one, treating the stones as controversial late-20th-century art and debating the meanings of its population, reproduction, language, governance, law, rights, and abstract moral guidelines. The back half shifts from joking abo...

The episode opens with the hosts celebrating the end of the "weird wars" and then spending much of the first half discussing the first James Webb Space Telescope images. They talk about gravitational lensing in the SMACS 0723 deep field, the telescope's six-point diffraction spikes, the Southern Ring Nebula in near- and mid-infrared, the Carina Nebula, and Stephan's Quintet, including mention of a...

Brian held his first class on being a creative and story-telling. How did it go? How much confidence does he have for it? What goals did he hit and what’s next? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.”

The episode opens with Andrew Mayne describing a YouTube creator, Mashpo, who made a one-dimensional game and then pushed the idea toward a 4D Minecraft project. The hosts unpack what it would mean to perceive a world as a thin strip or a slice, compare it to barcode-like visuals and anaglyph 3D, and discuss whether humans could adapt to higher-dimensional perception using new sensory cues and neu...

How do you keep track of reminders? Email, notes, whiteboards, what works for us? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.”

The episode opens with a recap of a friendly wager about when SpaceX Starship will be reused and safely land after a second launch. The hosts discuss Starship progress, the FAA's finding of no significant impact, remaining regulatory items, Elon Musk's July launch remark, and SpaceX's rapid production ambitions, including talk of building one Starship per day and using Starbase to build the fleet...

We’re back and we are imagining training artificial intelligence to create dynamic media that can be rewritten, recut, and A/B tested in realtime. What would a post-scarcity world look like post-tech-singularity? A future where real-time media modification could be automatic–that’s coming from a world where animatronics can do human-sized stunts on a theme park schedule. Send your project question...