Great cast as always, but one small point I have to note:
John “Bruce Willis” McClane killed Hans “Alan Severus Rickman” Gruber by dropping him off the top of Nakatomi Plaza. Al Powell shot and killed the blond psycho AKA as Karl “Alexander Godunov” Vreski after he was carried out on stretcher.
Yeah, I know, but I had to point it out, as I love the Die Hard movies (apart from no.2).
Although McClane shooting Gruber with his gift-taped 9mm did set the whole falling out the window to his death scene in motion… 
OK, now I really want to see this. 
On the women vs men discussion:
It’s tough to ‘rate’ women in sports vs. men -If you look at the olympics, or the WNBA, etc, women sports usually aren’t established until decades after the corresponding men’s sports are. So that’s years and years of catch up, in terms of developing techniques that can better yield the ‘power’ of women, with popularity, or even getting the actual ‘best’ women for the sport.
I agree that in general, women are not as strong because we have less muscle and testosterone, so if it is brute strength and nothing else, yes, men will win. But at the same time, because there’s more body fat, I wonder if that means we are better at survival type/longer term situations/sports where the fat is more advantageous as a fuel source. So maybe women are stronger over an extended period of time than men.
I think it comes down to whether a certain activity is pure strength or requires other skills. Even in firefighting, a profession seemingly largely based on strength - say a particular woman is indeed weaker and will drag Sean by the ankles if needed. Does that make her a worse firefighter than one who would carry him like a potato sack? Well, no, if she was the only one who could crawl through a small space to actually reach Sean in a burning house and save him, and the guy who can carry him like a potato sack can’t. The strongest firefighter might not be the BEST firefighter. Just as the quickest firefighter might not be the best firefighter, or the smartest firefighter, or the smallest, or the most nimble, etc.
I think we associate strength with too much of what makes an athlete, or a pilot, or a soldier, etc, a good one. Strength is definitely a criteria, sometimes it’s the most important criteria - but usually it comes down to a whole bunch of combination of criteria that makes someone good or the best at what they do.
ETA: WOO, JUAN!
Well, I hope there aren’t any stairs involved. picturing Sean’s head bouncing down stairs while being dragged by ankles by woman firefighter
I have to say I can understand Sean’s concern. I actually have dragged someone down a flight of stairs by their ankles before. For some strange reason they weren’t too pleased with me afterward. Then again, they also couldn’t remember my name, and developed a slight drooling problem.
IIRC, the gap closes between the elites at marathon-distance events, but men still come out ahead. A notable exception is long-distance swimming, where the extra body fat works in women’s favor (extra buoyancy and insulation.)
- I think it comes down to whether a certain activity is pure strength or requires other skills. Even in firefighting, a profession seemingly largely based on strength - say a particular woman is indeed weaker and will drag Sean by the ankles if needed.
You’re probably too young to remember, but this was HUGE when FDs started admitting women, and had to adjust their requirements. Mayor Koch quipped, “I don’t care if a firefighter is a man or a woman, as long as they can carry a 250 pound mayor out of a burning building.” (NYC was one of the earlier municipalities to allow women firefighters.)
Oh, and don’t forget. Al Powell’s cousin is a manager at a Buy More.
Bwahahaha…well at least you got the bonus that they couldn’t remember your name and sue ya. Welcome to the forum LaserJake!
Well, as a 6’4" woman, I’d probably be able to hold my own… about fifteen years ago. But my daughter will likely end up taller than me, and I’ve been giving subtle hints that it would be ever-so-cool if she’d end up being able to kick some serious butt. Gotta find her a new Ju-Jitsu class.
That’s not a bad choice, but I’d recommend Aikido. You just got to find one that’s not too hippiefied. Ask if they do weapons forms (it’s based on a sword school.) If they do, sign her up. Judo would also not be a bad option, and it’s more widely available.
Now I have a gift-taped 9mm.
HO-Ho-HO
I wanna know when the “Uncle Sean’s Naughty Story Hour” Podcast is gonna start??!!
You know, you’re about the twelfth person who has asked me that. lol, Perhaps I should actually start doing “Uncle Sean’s Naughty Story Hour”
They are called the fairer sex but such deliberation in targeting a younger kid and well the skill it doing it so well it has to be admired:)
As for running with scissors… Yuqi Lui
Hey Sean, no need to worry Triceratops is still alive and kicking, well taxonomically speaking that is. The name ‘Triceratops’ takes precedence because it was published first in 1889. Torosaurus followed in 1891. Interestingly both genera were named by the same person, Othniel C. Marsh. I guess he was a little exuberant in his species naming. Anyway here’s a reconstruction I found of a younger Triceratops and an older ‘Torosaurus’.
Edit: Here’s a picture of the skulls that can give a better idea behind the miss naming. As they aged it is suggested that they resorbed a lot of the bone in the the plates on their skull making them look quite different.
I have just the story for you to read. Interestingly it involves Sean Connery. 
Although the concept of species is a bit more fluid than we once thought, as we understand more and more how one species evolves into another, there is a set standard for a species. It is defined as any individual that can interbreed with another, and produce viable offspring on to the 3rd generation. A intriguing recent study on dogs provides some incidental support for the idea that we can at times magnify the differences between fossil species because we lack their DNA. If there is more cranial difference between dog races than there is between all species of Carnivora (including seals and tigers!), then there can be times when, by only looking at fossils, we may conclude that there are different species rather than one species with a large skeletal diversity. This becomes more likely when we consider that most of evolutionary history is famously described as fossil teeth breeding with other fossil teeth to produce new fossil teeth.
So it is reasonable to discover that Triceratops sp. and Torosaurus sp. are one and the same- it is a reasonable confluence of the data that we had previously. However, since Triceratops sp. was discovered first, by long-standing biological tradition, Triceratops will remain the same, and Torosaurus shall disappear, just as Brontosaurus sp. gave way to Apatosaurus sp.
However, all of this is a great deal different than the case of Pluto and the planets. While the species definition is based in some measurable reality (albeit with minor disagreements on the meanings of the measurements), the planet definition is purely arbitrary. For years we were excited to consider that there were probably more planets than the nine that we have/had. (Consider Xena/Gabrielle that became Eris and its moon Dysnomia, larger than Pluto and Charon.) When more and more planets began to be discovered, including larger ones than Pluto, as you discussed in the podcast, it became clear that we needed a definition of “planet” better than what we currently had. But this definition needed to also encompass all of the extra-solar planets that we have discovered over the last couple decades.
Definitions were bantered around, but it was finally decided at that pivotal meeting a few years back, in which Pluto was demoted. Unfortunately, there was more politics than science at this meeting. Most of the astronomers who have the right to vote on this issue were not present at the conference, and most of those who were present at the conference were not present at the meeting when this was voted. There was a scientific outcry afterward of foul play, that often gets ignored in media reports. There are significant problems with the current definition of a planet, most notably that extra-solar planets do not necessarily meet the definition, and that, when strictly followed, Earth itself and most of the planets in our solar system have also not “cleared their orbits” and therefore aren’t planets.
Subsequently there were changes to the definitions, creating “Plutoid” as well as “Dwarf Planet”, to cover a few select objects.
What also gets ignored in many subsequent media reports is that Pluto remains a planet. Pluto is a “Dwarf Planet”, which cleverly can be defined as either not a planet, or a type of planet, depending on one’s proclivities.
In the end, the term “planet” is entirely defined by us humans, without regard to anything specific in nature. In other words, we choose how to define a planet, and whether or not Pluto is one. A species, however, is something that is inherent in nature. We may have enjoyable arguments on just how one defines it, but it is a concrete entity, and its existence is integral to the science of biology. When it was discovered that Triceratops and Torosaurus were one and the same (which, it seems to me, seems to be likely at this point but not conclusively “proven”), we were then obligated to go with the earlier name, Triceratops, and Torosaurus ceased to exist.
Personally, I think this helps us understand where Tundro of the Herculoids came from…
Hey Chuck-
Great post Diamond Vane!
I wanted to add my favorite story from issues concerning gender equality in the work place. It sounds too good to be true but what the hell. Apparently, one of the early female letter carriers was facing a little resistance when trying to break into the profession previously known as mailmen. Her supervisor was skeptical she could do the job because one of her duties would be to weigh large bags (approx 50 lbs) of mail. To do so she would have to heave the bags up onto a table that where the scale sat. Some of the other future coworkers gathered around to see how she would handle the test. She looked at the 50 lb mailbag, then at the scale, and simply put the 10 lb scale on the floor and lifted the bag the six inches necessary to put it on the scale.
Also wanted to say thanks to the 'cast for getting me back into Futurama. I really liked it when it first came out, but I kind of lost touch when I had to chase it around TV schedule. Anyway, I’m really liking the new episodes and can’t wait for a recap of the new season!