Happy new year! Adam, Norm, and Will regroup after the winter break to talk about how they spent their holiday, share some of their favorite books and movies of 2015, and get excited about NASA’s open applications for the next class of astronaut candidates.
One Day Builds
Adam embarks on one of his most ambitious builds yet: fulfil…
Show And Tell
Adam recently completed a build of the royal St. Edwards cro…
Making
Viewers often ask to see Adam working in real-time, so this …
One Day Builds
Adam and Norm assemble a beautifully machined replica prop k…
One Day Builds
One of the ways Adam has been getting through lockdown has b…
Making
Adam unboxes and performs a quick test of this novel new hel…
Making
When Adam visited Weta Workshop early last year, he stopped …
One Day Builds
Adam tackles a shop shelf build that he's been putting off f…
Show And Tell
Time for a model kit build! This steampunk-inspired mechanic…
One Day Builds
Adam reveals his surprise Christmas present for his wife--a …
The Three Body Problem won the 2015 Hugo Award, and was nominated for the 2014 Nebula.
I’m currently rereading the whole Raymond E. Feist series that started with Magician, I’m around half way at the moment doing 13 hours per book. But what I can recommend is Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey, a good ripping Sci-Fi that’s now also a series on SyFy called The Expanse. (Which I’m also liking a lot.)
Among my favorite things of the year was the TV show on USA called “Mr. Robot”. I was sure you guys would talk about it on Still Untitled. I’d be very interested to hear the three of you discuss that one, especially if it was in a season 1 spoiler cast. Happy new year!
Adam: Do you have the Old Timey Microphone because you are going to make the Resistance informant Droid that was at Maz’ in the Force Awakens?
Post Office by Charles Bukowski
I’m sorry, but Django is the Tarrantino film I can rewatch with glee – Kill Bill, not so much
Excellent stop motion show: Tumbleleaf on Amazon prime. Delightful kids program.
Also, the Nightrunner Series by Lynn Flewelling. I might have heard about it from you guys, but if not, check it out!!
the Wake by Scott Snyder is an excellent limited series, if you haven’t already read it. Would love to hear your thoughts on that. Also, since Adam is such a big fan of Murukami, I would also recommend the short stories of Kenji Nakagami. He’s much more visceral and intense than Murakami.
Movies: Inherent Vice
Ya! That one was obvious to all the geeks in us.
During the movie I was “why does that robot bringing a mike to his mouth, when he already have a mike “as” a mouth” 😉
(Pretty sure it was a SHURE brand mike)
Thanks for all the great recommendtations good reads, tv-shows and movies on the podcasts.
Try Peter F. Hamilton`s “Commonwealth Saga”, starting with the book “Pandora`s Star”. I find the books really amusing. It`s Sci-Fi where the people of our planet has spread to other planets around the galaxy due to exciting new technologies.
(I listen to almost all my books in the car between home and work, so I also recommend audible.com)
TV-show:
The Heavy Water War. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heavy_Water_War )
Perhaps not the best tv-show of 2015, but certainly worth a look if you are interested in WW2. It might not be the most accurate story, but I think it is pretty close to the actual events.
Mandatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no_elVGGgW8
Book recommendation: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. In short, it’s a book about a dogs life living with his owner, and get this, it’s told in the dogs perspective. So you read about the dogs experience and you get an insight of the dog (named Enzo) using his dog senses. It’s a beautiful book.
These are great non-fiction books I read last year.
The World’s Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne. Great memoir about a man dealing with severe Tourette’s
Diary of a Man in Despair by Friedrich Reck. Diary of a German aristocrat who was opposed to the Nazis during Hitler’s rise to power.
I keep coming back and rereading Scott Lynch and this is probably my favorite.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. Great fantasy gang of thieves book.
I second the Mr. Robot recommendation. It’s a fantastic show that has an interesting and refreshing take on cinematography for TV.
I loved The Lies of Locke Lamora. Recommended.
just today i received a joyful little book: practical atlatlry of the four corners by justin garnett. it’s a small book, only ~120ish pages, but it’s a surprisingly potent package for nerdy and making sensibilities. atlatls are spear-throwers – practically another forearm that you hold in your hand to throw 5+ feet long darts with. they’re a damn old technology, as in paleolithic europe old. it’s what bow and arrow displaced.
what i like about the book is that it’s practical – it informs you about how these things work, how to make a set of equipment, and how to use it – it’s solidly rooted in archaeology, and it’s really accessible. the narrow focus on basketmaker (southwestern US, 1500BC–AD500) artefacts allows it to be both short AND detailed/accurate. if all you want is build a set of equipment, go out and throw darts, you get more info than you strictly need. if you want to replicate basketmaker artefacts, you get all you need. if you want to research other artefacts and recreate those, it arms you with enough knowledge to be versed and oriented in the subject matter. it has the sort of focussed lean-ness that doesn’t get in the way of your enthusiasm for making things.
Here are some of the books I keep returning to every now and then. They’re old– 1960s if not before– so some of the predictions of the future are dated. However, I think they’re well-written and the stories (for the most part) offer a lot more than Space Opera!
All the Colors of Darkness – by Lloyd Biggle Jr.
The City and the Stars / Against the Fall of Night – by Arthur C Clarke – these are two variations on the same story. ACC revised the story, but both versions have remained popular
Inside John Barth – William W Stuart – This is a short story.
Time is the Simplest Thing – Clifford D Simak
Way Station – Clifford D Simak
Voyage from Yesteryear – James P Hogan – newer than the others, and closer to Space Opera, but still a good read.
–Paul E Musselman
Thanks to Adam I bought The Story of Film documentary and just finished watching the entire series. I highly recommend it to everyone .
My favorite books of the year were the Tao Series by Wesley Chu, great science/historical fiction. I also really enjoyed The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday great advice based on historical scenarios. I love the podcast and look forward to it every week.
I’m with Will. I highly enjoyed Rogue Nation. I also recommend the Henry Cavill/Armie Hammer The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Very cool as a Bond/MI alternative.
I recommend the book ‘2312’ by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s a sci-fi book contained within our solar system starting in the year 2312. It’s imaginative and descriptively beautiful to read.
After the first episode of The Expanse aired, I read through Leviathan Wakes in about 3 days. I’m currently working my way through the second book right now. I would highly recommend it. Good sci-fi books so far, and the series looks like it’s going to be great. Would love to see a spoiler cast about it at some point.
Adam won’t read this.
It’s not from 2015 , but my favourite stop-motion film of all time is Strings
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374248/
Regarding Adam’s “I never want to see comments again” comment…. 1)You mean everywhere but at Tested, right Adam? ,-) and…
b) Hear hear! If Will has recommendations for Chrome addons or whathaveyou, can you make them public??? I’d LOVE to see them.
The Comment Section of nearly every single spot on the internet is a toxic toilet!
Adam and Will. I’m dying to know something, what are your time management methodologies? How do you guys find the time to do all this reading, blogging, making, movie watching, dining, etc? You guys seem so productive! I’d have to clone myself or not sleep to read, make, watch movies, oh my gosh.
By the way, love your podcast. Been listening for about six months, and trying to catch up from the beginning at the same time.
I agree. A Felton report on an average day to day would be awesome to see.
That’s Princess Beatrix now, Adam. She abdicated in 2013. Her son, Willem-Alexander took over and is the current King of The Netherlands 🙂
Oh and Will, Holland is NOT the same thing as The Netherlands 😉
Holland is just a small part of it, 2 provinces.
I feel that the Mission Impossible movies have become what the Bond films used to be and the Bond films have become the Bourne films.
Odin has already addressed how to deal with the comment section…..
https://plus.google.com/109421497303371532029/posts/3W3xzXpgab5
😉
wow I just read All the Light We Cannot See. I would love to hear what you think of the ending.
Will, our oven also died on Christmas day! The heating element in ours burned in half and caught on fire, which was quite spectacular. All was not lost for Christmas dinner as we were watching our neighbor’s house while he was out of town and he let us use his oven. We purchased a new range the next day and promptly dropped it getting it into the house, chipping the glass top. Luckily it still worked fine and the chip is at the back so I sealed it with silicone so no one would cut their finger on it (like I did) while cleaning it.
Fast forward to New Year’s Eve- I was out with my wife and kids having dinner and got rear ended on the way home. 68 year old man driving a late model Malibu rammed us going somewhere north of 40mph. We were stopped at an intersection waiting for a left turn signal when he hit us. His car then careened off to the side, went through the intersection and rolled across three lanes before ending up on a curb. The driver hit his head against the windshield and was unconscious- he was taken to the hospital on a stretcher but the fire dept. called me later and told me he’s OK now. The driver wasn’t wearing his seat belt… Scared the crap out of my three kids but not a scratch on them. Our car is pretty messed up but it’ll be fine once it’s repaired. It only had 2500 miles on it! We were pretty lucky all things considered.
To top it off my oldest son was selected for an exchange student program to visit Mexico City for three weeks and two days before his flight out our dog ate his iPhone. Dog is fine, phone is kaput. Luckily my wife was able to get him another phone from a friend before I had to take him to the airport at 3:00am.
It was an interesting holiday to say the least!
For books I recommend “The Wright Brothers” by David McCullough.
Adam, totally agree on Raiders and Galaxy Quest- definitely two of the most perfect films ever. Galaxy Quest is just brilliant. Pan’s Labyrinth is up there too, but I could have done without the mouth cut scene… I also liked Inglorious Bastards very much but Jackie Brown has always been my favorite Tarantino film.
As a heads up you may want to note- Adam misspoke, the name of the Muybridge book is “River of Shadows Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West”, not “River of Dreams” Had a bit of a run-around finding it, as there are a TON of books called “River of Dreams”