Ice Road Truckers!
These is cool podcast idea to do. Just in the process of watching Episode 2. I love that it is all about evolution, which is one of my favorite subjects. The samurai crab story at the beginning was especially good.
The 80’s sound space music for the first episode, I found amusing, and definitely sets the time period this series was created for.
I have never seen this series before, but I can see why it influenced a lot of scientists and sci-fi authors. It really is good science, but it gives you lots of ideas to ponder on, not just rote facts.
I find something hysterically funny in this sentence. Loving the Cosmos section on evolution…oh, Fatboy Slim!
Brilliant. Carl Sagan discussion about the Library of Alexandria reminds me Right Said Fred’s, “I’m Too Sexy”
I love that show!!! I grew up in Minnesota and always loved the Christmas - 1 March time of year when we could drive out on the lakes. I still go back every winter to go ice fishing with Dad and play hockey on the lake with my son on a self-build “pond” rink.
On the science/scifi thread, I seem to remember reading some scifi a long time ago talking about the “ice trains” on the moon, trucking ice from the dark side or something. Your comment might not be too far from the truth!
Shooter Out.
That just makes Carl Sagan cooler in my mind. Thank you for sharing. He was a scientist in the 70s…I think it would have been strange if he hadn’t been smoking pot.
Just wanted to let you know. Last night I got home from work and my daughter said to me, “Dad, can we watch ‘COSMOS’?”
That is all.
My lame mutant power would be the ability to drink salt-water safely.
But if you teach the rest of us this self-desalinization, you’d have a gold mine when the droughts hit. Or a salt mine.
I’m about halfway through episode 4 now, seeing it for the first time and I’m finding it fascinating. It’s nice to rekindle that love of learning that I used to have before the working world made me cynical and jaded. The Library at Alexandria, the evolution animations, the effect of the 30 Years’ War on Kepler’s work (they accused his drug-selling mother of being a witch–wha?!) make the show about so much more than just planets and stars. Which is nice and all but doesn’t really float my boat like history and literature always have. And the way Sagan presents the material is brilliant. As Audra said, it’s just enough to make you want to learn more.
A couple of things that struck me as funny: In the discussion about astrology, he mentions having a hypothetical twin that dies “in a riding accident or is struck by lightning.” Seriously, those are the examples that come to mind? And I had no idea that Tyco Brahe had a gold nose and an entourage. He was the pimp daddy of Prague.
Oh, Shooter, you can have that Icon A5 flying car for a mere $250,000 at Neiman Marcus:
On the subject of mankind’s expanding and contracting sum total of knowledge: A great line about Dante Aligheiri (of Inferno fame): Some say he was the last man to know everything.
That plane would go great at my family’s lake home on Balsam Lake, Wisconsin…and it would be faster to get there from here too. I’ve been looking for a good land/sea plan combo. I’d prefer a jet, but maybe I’ll just have to settle for a prop.
I’m contemplating building a Zenith 750, it’s a great platform for floats, and would cost significantly less than $250k. Unreal STOL performance, too.
My favorite moment of the series is the end of episode 3, ‘The Harmony of the Worlds’. Sagan describes Kepler’s ‘The Dream’ (aka Somnium) while Vangelis’ score plays over footage of the Apollo astronauts riding their lunar vehicle on the Moon. Sagan hits the trifecta.
Hey guys. First time post but I needed to share this with you guys. Thought it was fitting…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc
Love the show! Keep up the good work!
Welcome aboard, drummr. That is indeed relevant. Wait 'til you get to podcast 191 