Podcast - This Is Only a Test
Episode 328 – Embrace The Splurge – 11/26/15
Norm is joined by Tested’s Senior Science Correspondent Kishore Hari and Senior Rapid Prototyping Correspondent Sean Charlesworth to talk about NASA’s announcements, Designer Con, Gear VR, and the holiest of consumer holidays: Black Friday. Plus, we give our reactions and analysis to the new Captain America: Civil War teaser trailer. Prepare for a comics knowledge bomb! That and more on this week’s episode of This is Only a Test. Have a happy American Thanksgiving, everyone!
Comments (20)
There’s no Thanksgiving in Australia and New Zealand, where I’m from, but most countries do have a founding day of some kind, though those are celebrated more like July 4th. In terms of family dinners and reflecting on the year, that’s usually reserved for Christmas and New Year’s.
Oops, double post.
We have a “harvest festival” in the UK which is a religious thing that the church organises and it’s not a national holiday. People will donate excess food to the needy (food banks, old folks homes) and I think this is where Thanksgiving tradition in the USA and Canada came from.
I’d wager a large percentage of the population completely forget about it’s existence when they reach adulthood as participation really only tends to be people who regularly attend church and younger school children. If you don’t go to church and your kids are younger than, say, five and older than ten then it really can pass you by.
Oh, and again I’ll be that guy who is bemused at how far the USA is behind the times when it comes to paying for things with cards. Chip and PIN has been widely used here for more than ten years, it’s been ubiquitous for five or six years and “contactless” payments (their branding, not mine) is widespread too, debit cards here are routinely issued with some kind of RFID technology which allows people to tap their card against the reader and pay for things like that. There has been a lot of legislation here which moved the burden for fraud onto merchants and banks which may not have happened in the USA so consumers have just lapped it up. The government even raised the transaction limit from £20 ($30) to £30 ($45) a couple of months ago as it’s became so popular. I was at a street food thing this summer when I realised just how widespread contactless is here, admittedly it was a place which is really aimed at twentysomethings and thirtysomethings in an ‘arty’ part of town, but a girl in front of me paid for a burger at what was basically a food truck with Apple Pay and nobody batted an eyelid. Once you reach that point of acceptance then I guess you can call the technology a resounding success.
Happy Thanksgiving ya’ll!
Canadian Thanksgiving is very similar to American Thanksgiving food wise. Our Thanksgiving lands on a Monday so you are guaranteed a long weekend. However, NFL football and CFL although essentially the same sport have some key differences. CFL football fields are wider, longer, they use more players, one less down and have (in my opinion) a handful of brutal rules.
is it just me or do Kishore and sean sound very similar to jeremy and patrick.
Thank you from Canada!
As for Black Friday, we have some of that these days here in Canada, but no where to the same extent that you do in the US. But we have had a very similar event called “Boxing Day Sales” which takes place on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, a holiday we inherited from England. It’s a statutory holiday, and the sales on Boxing Day can be a deeply discounted as the US Black Friday. I think that it came about as a way for stores to clear extra inventory they had bought for the holiday season but not sold before the end of the year.
loved the show.
Kishore was great! I welcome more of the new guy!
Loving Kishore, he’s very well spoken, knows his shit. Want to see him on the show more.
When MST3K first aired I was a freshman in high school, and I absolutely adored it. I still remember watching the very first Turkey Day Marathon. After Joel left the show and Mike took over, I held a grudge and stopped watching for the remainder of the show’s run. Having now revisited the SciFi channel run with the group that later formed RiffTrax, I have to admit that these episodes hold up a lot better than the Joel run and now rank among my all time favorites. Mike Nelson and Bill Corbett are particularly gifted comedians, and I now believe the show got better toward its end. Which is to say: I have supported RiffTrax and enjoyed their output for years, and I will continue to do so. But I can’t seem to get excited about an MST3K re-boot with an all new cast and all new writers. I’d love to be proven wrong, but I don’t see it working with a new generation of fans.
Kishore is great ! I hope to see/hear more from him on tested.
I have to check out his podcast Inquiring Minds, episode 90 is with will and norm so perfect to start.
I have been listening to some of the past pod casts with Patrick and on several occasions it sounds like his sounds levels are way off. He will all of a sudden simple get much quieter and be impossible to hear. and for the rest of the pod cast he will sound different from the other presenters. It could be the way I have been listening to it, but it appears to only happen to Patrick therefore I am doubtful.
Norm made me very nervous about the future of Tested and Adam with that strange Tested won’t be doing it and that’s all I can say comment…
the last couple before today’s have had all sorts of volume issues for me. I watch on YouTube on the TV and had to keep the remote handy to constantly mess with the volume. Some people would be way too quiet and some (especially norm) would suddenly get crazy loud.
There are people out there that like to leave the house, go to the store, and actually physically handle the items that they want to buy. There are people who get a rush out of going to the store when it is busy, like a game, and coming out on top. There are families who like to go out together to get everyone out of the house. There are people who are not as tech as you or I who don’t know they can just buy online. Heck there are people who still don’t own computers or smart phones who are going black friday shopping because that is what they have always done. And like your cohost was saying, for some it is just tradition.
Hearing Kishore makes me feel like I’m listening to a different podcast 😉
I really liked the two new guys you had on this episode.
I’ve been listening to you guys talk about civil war for at least 10 minutes now and still have no idea what the hell it is.
One of my fav things about Tested is finding new podcasts to listen to… Patrick, Veronica, and now Kishore. Inquiring Minds clicks with me so much, really love it.
I’m not too worried. Let’s see, who do we know that is starting up a VR company and is good friends with Adam? 😉