Series 3, Episode 4: Keep Your Trousers On, Archimedes

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Back once again after a seasonal break, Series 3 continues with some Ingenuity from Steve, some DOOM from Matt, and a song about the man, the myth, the mathematician Archimedes from Helen:

• 00:55 – Steve’s bit
• 18:36 – Matt’s bit (pre-order “Love Triangle” here!)
• 39:56 – Helen’s bit

Want to get in touch? We’re on Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram or email podcast@festivalofthespokennerd.com. 

If you’d like inbox updates about this podcast and our plans for future live shows, join our mailing list. If you’re into merch, DVDs, downloads or books check out the Spoken Nerd Shop. If songs are your thing, Helen has created a free album on Bandcamp with tracks from (almost) every episode so far.

This series is sponsored by Brilliant.org, the place to learn maths and science through interactive online lessons. Start your free trial at Brilliant.org/apoud, and the first 200 Unnecessary Detail listeners who sign up for annual membership will get 20% off on the same link.

Corrections and clarifications:

• Russ from Courtenay BC, Canada has emailed with this absolutely brilliant interconnected detail: “the setting of Doom is Phobos, the moon of Mars. So if Ingenuity *could* run Doom, it was in pretty-nearly the right place to do so.”
• Elisha Hastings emailed to let us know that that someone actually recompiled Doom with different values of Pi to see what happened, and you can see the results here.

And here’s a load of extra Unnecessary Detail from this episode:

• Join us for a live show soon! Our big Bristol show is on 12th March 2024, our smaller new material nights in London and larger livestreamed shows at the Royal Institution are back and selling out, so get your tickets if you want to join us in person or online this year: festivalofthespokennerd.com/tickets.
• NASA’s page about the Mars Helicopter project, Ingenuity.
• The original tweet that sparked a conspiracy theory.
• A series of tweets from an engineer on the project, Sam D’Amico, refuting the conspiracy.
• Groundhog Day, the movie.
• Groundhog Day, the musical.
• Groundhog Day, the groundhog day.
• Global Shutter vs Rolling Shutter – what’s the difference?
• Captain Disillusion video about shutter speeds.
• Skye the fearless helicopter-piloting cockapoo from Paw Patrol.
• Sky the labrador dog from Matt’s Life.
• DOOM.
• DOOM code on github.
• DOOM rendering on E coli cells over the next 600 years.
• DOOM on the Texas Instruments TI84 graphic calculator.
• DOOM on a Roomba aka The Doomba by Andrew Taylor.
• Come to one of our live shows this year and you’ll play a pre-show game that Andrew has made for An Evening Of Unnecessary Detail!
• So, what did SNES game cartrides actually look like? (scroll down for more images)
• Matt’s new book “Love Triangle” is being printed at this very moment! You can pre-order it here!
• How Archimedes calculated Pi.
• Listen and download “Keep Your Trousers On, Archimedes” for free on Helen’s Bandcamp page – and all songs from every series of APOUD so far.
• Matt’s Pi-by-hand video will be out on 11 March 2024 on this link.

A Podcast Of Unnecessary Detail is part of the Acast Creator Network. Thanks for listening!