This episode contains: It’s just Ben with his son, special guest host Flint Lawless! Ben’s got COVID, Steven’s vomiting all over the place and Devon’s in California. Does anyone want to really listen to all that?!?! Instead, Flint and Ben chat about COVID quarantines, Halloween, and how awesome friends are.
Everybody wants to be a cat, Because a cat’s the only cat who knows where it’s at: Cats Make Nearly 300 Different Facial Expressions. Cats can sometimes get a bad rap for being aloof or not emotive. Compared to dogs, felines tend to be more subtle with how they express themselves—perhaps with a mere flick of an ear or curl of their whiskers. A study has found that cats use nearly 300 distinct facial expressions to communicate with each other. The findings suggest that cats’ facial expressions provide information about their emotions and social behavior, and could potentially help humans better understand and communicate with their feline companions. This study may even one day lead to an app that can decode cat facial expressions.
Turning old rotary phones into music streamers: Flint and Ben wax poetic about spinning wax. But what if it was even less convenient to listen to your music? Sometimes more convenience is cool, sometimes less is cooler. You pick up the rotary phone and it welcomes you in a bit of a sleepy voice with the words: “Hello, dial zero to listen to music”. Why zero? It is zero because it is the most satisfactory number to dial. Then you get to listen to a directory of your playlists, and choose using a two digit number. Dial the number of songs you want randomly played from the playlist, and then hang up. Voila, your music is now streaming to your speakers.
https://vasilis.nl/nerd/turning-old-rotary-phones-into-music-streamers/
Science Fiction: Flint and Ben review the 908th episode of Star Trek: “Old Friends, New Planets.” It’s the fourth season finale of Star Trek: Lower Decks, and we also by extension review the fourth season as a whole. What do you get when the Ferengi make a Genesis device? Then it gets fun when Flint gives Ben the rundown on how awesome the new 1.7 update for Trailmakers is. Trailmakers finally is going to space with the biggest map they’ve ever made, with several fascinating planets. Flint’s building spaceships to explore the cosmos. Flint’s even got a hot take on the lore behind the planet Doon (his theory is it was originally a water planet). Furthermore, there have been big updates to character customization. We wrap up the episode with last words, and Flint knocks it out the park.