Skepticism and optimism collide this week as Norm, Jeremy, and Kishore chat about new quadcopters, holographic displays, Elon Musk’s Mars plan, and the use of technology in the Presidential debate. Plus, our hopes and fears for PSVR’s launch and the upcoming Oculus Connect event.
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Adam reveals his surprise Christmas present for his wife--a …
Elon should dress up as Iron Man for Halloween. That would be hilarious.
The Mavic looked like it was the approx. the size of 2 VHS tapes stacked one on top of another.
This intro gives me GLaDOS flashbacks haha.
Given the wobble at 51:34, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs4DjDa_45I&feature=youtu.be&t=5134 you should really secure the ZF-1 in place with a stand. I was so nervous that thing was about to take a dive after kishore backed into the bookcase.
Bloomberg TV had live fact checking of the debate.
Best way to watch ANY political event (speech, debate, interview, press conference . . . etc.)?
Mute the TV. Trust me, I’m not joking or kidding. It improves the experience by 100% It actually makes it fairly entertaining.
I would also like to take a moment to commend how y’all handled the topic. Focusing on the technology aspect rather than wading into the cesspool of partisan politics – very well done!
Regarding the fact checking – I agree with Norm – it’s impossible to do objectively. Facts aren’t facts when they’re being chosen, interpreted, and presented by humans. I also agree with Scott Adams – he’s arguing that people don’t really care about facts when it comes to making up their minds. Look at just about every argument that dominates the public landscape today. No one is convinced by facts.
Kishore – politics hasn’t been an intellectual endeavor in this country for decades and decades. Probably for at least 150 years (and it was touch and go even before then).
Elon Musk’s brother has a really nice restaurant here in Boulder called The Kitchen (the invite for a Tested field trip is still valid, you guys!) They have 2 locations and a test kitchen, and a branded Model S to get back and forth between them.
Am I the only one that thinks the audio levels on these podcasts are too low? All the other podcast I listen to are fine, this is the only one I have to strain to hear if I’m doing anything except sitting in a quiet place and listening. By the way I do wear headphones.
Timestamps: http://pastebin.com/QAMr4b6v
Cool Mars vision
Technology development – check
Adventure- check
Longterm survival of humans- check
Maybe the wars of the world will infiltrate the cozy safe places sufficiently so that all billionaires want to leave with Elon. But most of them just want longer life, more power and quarterly financial returns. Maybe in the year 10,000 AD this will be a serious proposition as population pressure requires moving out. But we have to start somewhere.
To be clear Frank Darabont was fired from the Walking Dead. He was pushing for more money for season 2 but the studio wanted to cut the budget.
if the rocket type isn’t going to be called the ox, he has officially zero humour. ‘houston, this is musk ox 1, delivering cargo’
re luckey: i don’t know, that didn’t register as an apology to me. that was the plain old sorry i got caught kinda thing. not one iota of realisation what he engaged in. fuck that douchecanoe.
” Musk Ox, this is Musk Rat. Am now launching Musk Deer. Can you hear me Major Tom… Can you hear me Major Tom…?”
I’ve got a project for you guys. You should make a Raspberry Pi sound sample board. It would be a great video and it would help out poor Jeremy!!
Did anyone catch the quality ear buds Jeremy was testing?
Read “Old Man’s War”, so much better…
The Mavic’s gimbal is only 2 axis Norm.
I heard a few casts ago about the new camera you guys are using – what kind is it again? The video is butter, I love it!
Palmer chose to give money to a cause with the goal of shitposting, which makes up The Worst part of the internet. And why? Because it’d be a “jolly good time”? F that guy.
Think the camera is an EOS C100
I watched the debate here in the UK on the Washington Post channel on Youtube, as far as I remember it didn’t have any info on the screen, was just a plain feed.
Carbo Tenore ZH-DX200-CT
wouldn’t a Falcon style landing be easier on Mars because of the reduced atmosphere?
https://soundcloud.com/will-d-709575272/tested-outro-1
here’s an outro for you.
perhaps people don’t care about facts but the do care about being deceived and lied to. Fact checking (if done right and that’s the hard part) would let people know when a candidate is manipulating data and them.
Thanks! I wonder if Tested audiophile Patrick Norton has any thoughts on these.
Even data is trickier than many folks think, although I’m still not sold that many folks would even change their position in the face of mountains of data to the contrary (c.f. take any Black Rights Matter protester and give him Heather Mac Donald’s recent book and see if that makes any difference). I mean, let’s face it, Trump could pull his pants down and moon the audience at the next debate, and most of the Trump supporters would still support him. Clinton could take out a bag of puppies and kill them with a hammer on stage, and she’d still get 40% of the vote. There’s no more reason or rationala behind much of this than your average sports event (“My team is the best and your team sucks and you suck . . . etc.”)
On this particular message board I’m sure I’ll get lambasted for saying this, but I actually think that the Trump supporters are likely the more analytical of the two camps. There are plenty of fools in Trump’s camp, granted, but he (or at least his campaign) is so contrary to the Republican establishment position on most issues that regular GOP folks who actually have decided to support him at least had to do a modicum more thinking before embracing him (it’s not like his natural charm lured them to his side – seriously, I know many a Trump supporter who cares little for the man himself). They had to weed through the 15 or so other Republican candidates and consider if they wanted to go with the GOP policies “as is” or try this alleged different approach. They very consciously decided to try something different.
Clinton supporters, by and large, knew Hillary was going to be the nominee about 6 to 8 years ago and knew they would vote for her no matter what happened. I would venture that 6 to 8 years ago very few would have guessed that Trump would be seriously running or that they would be seriously considering a vote for him.
Many will vote for Trump because they don’t want Hilary. Many will vote for him because he’s the Republican nominee. But if you’re looking for that portion of folks who are actually trying to think through some of this nonsense, I’d bet you at least 5 bucks that the larger portion of that group is on Trump’s side if for no other reason than he is the true anomaly in this scenario and it’s usually the element that is different that requires consideration vice the element that is always the same and expected/predictable. If you’re looking for that element on the Democrat side, it was the Bernie supporters who are basically out standing on a windy corner right now (and many of whom, at least based on what they say, aren’t planning to support Hilary).
Sorry for the long ramble. I kind of got off on a tangent. All that to say, I still think fact checking can be highly biased and that it ultimately wouldn’t have much of an impact on people’s opinion. I could give you examples of bogus “fact checking” but it wouldn’t add much to this overlong post. Suffice it to say, how long did the Birther movement exist AFTER Obama’s birth certificate was revealed? Likewise, how many people do you think would suddenly change their mind about Obama if they knew that it was actually his own literary biography from way back before he even ran for President (1991, to be precise) that started the rumor that he was born in Kenya? Nope on both counts. Excuses would be instantly made (i.e. it was a fake birth certificate or Obama had nothing to do with his own literary biography). Facts just don’t matter to most folks on either side of the aisle, but both sides of the aisle like to pretend that their side is the really objective, rational side.
Humans are messy creatures. There’s just no way around it. Technology simply cannot solve that problem. Ever.
Yes – absolutely – on paper. At this point, the largest thing we’ve landed on Mars weighed 900 kg. We’re talking about 6 to 8 tons here – so that’s a big scale up without the ability to really test things multiple times.
The thinner atmosphere also poses a problem when it comes to slowing down – the current system leverages atmosphere to cause drag. They’ll have to use more fuel on Mars for the same purpose – which is a big unknown right now.