Last week Monica saw the most recent Mission Impossible movie and was fascinated by a plot detail wherein the characters need to use ancient technology from the — shudder — 1990s! Just after that, John Oliver did an expose on air traffic control towers where he noted that they often still run on software from…
Month: June 2025
Call For Comments: Retro Technology Worship
From Monica: Probably surprising no one who has listened to our many episodes about super spies or franchises with nine-plus installments, I love Mission Impossible movies. Tom Cruise can build new elaborate ways to not kill himself and I’ll eat it up every time. But perhaps because he is so insistent on doing things “for…
e374. The Accuracy Dilemma: Balancing Fact and Fiction in Pop Culture
The nice thing about having your own podcast is that sometimes you can just turn a casual conversation into content that you discuss with the whole wide world. That’s what happened for Mav this weekend when he walked in while his wife, returning guest Stephanie Siler, was watching a psychology YouTube podcast discussing the concept…
Call For Comments: So what is a sequel, anyway?
From Mav: A couple weeks ago, I saw an article announcing that there is going to be a sequel to the 2013 indie teen sex crime neo-noir dark comedy erotic thriller (it has a lot genres!) Spring Breakers. The headline caught my attention because I love that movie. So I read it found out that…
e373. Collecting Value. Understanding Valuation in Popular Culture
Do you have a collection of anything? Comics? Toys? Baseball cards? Records? Whatever? Ok, if you have such a collection, do you know what it’s worth. That is to say if it was destroyed in a fire or some other disaster would you know what to value it at for the insurance claim? Well, Wayne…