Gweek 052: Mystery in Space

Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff. My co-hosts for episode 52 are:

Maggie Koerth-Baker: BoingBoing’s science editor, journalist, and author of Before the Lights Go Out, a new book about electric infrastructure and the future of energy.

Michael Pusateri, a lifelong tinkerer and former television tech executive for Disney who blogs at cruftbox.com

and our special guest Andy Ihnatko, technology journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times, and host of The Ihnatko Almanac podcast on the 5by5 network.

In this episode:

645 Pro, a camera app for iPhone.

Orbital, a one-thumb game for iPhone.

Hipmunk, a great comparative airline pricing site.

Battle of the X-Planes: Nova

Rachele Gilmore’s 100 MPH fastball

Coloraturas - Opera Arias

Young Men of a Certain Mind, a graphic novel ebook by Lars Martinson

Avengers: West Coast Avengers: Lost in Space and Time

Berkeley Science Review

Performing Flea, by P.G. Wodehouse

Nerd Nite magazine

Mystery in Space, science fiction comic book.

Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker, by Kevin Mitnick

Sound of My Voice

Character Model

• [Chance Andrew]

  why is mark’s gweek podcast still allowed such a long update? if people want to listen, let them listen, but these minute-by-minute updates are rather unnecessary on the main page, right?

  • [Mark_Frauenfelder]

    Sorry you don’t like them Chance. They are long, but I like posting them anyway. I hope it doesn’t annoy you too much.

  • [Stephen McCaa Randall]

    I don’t know what you mean by update.  Are you talking about the hot-links on the page?  I love that part.

• [Stephen McCaa Randall]

  I 100% agree that Hipmunk is an easy, great service.  Just keep in mind that Southwest airline (last time I checked) does not play nice with HM.  So if SW is your preferred carrier, make sure to check them independently.

• [Stephen McCaa Randall]

  Hey Mark, Happy 1 year anniversary of Gweek!  Not necessarily one year, but 52 weeks of a yearly podcast.  Great job.  I haven’t missed an episode.

  • [Mark_Frauenfelder]

    Thanks so much, Stephen! I’m glad you enjoy Gweek. I love doing these podcasts, because I learn about so many cool things from the other hosts and guests.

• [davidmang]

  I’ve been studying abroad for a year in the UK. I booked my overseas flights with Hipmunk and it’s fantastic, but there is a small caveat: Hipmunk doesn’t aggregate European budget airlines, so once you’re in Europe, you’ll have to do your own legwork on Easyjet, RyanAir, FlyBe, or Flavor-Of-The-MonthAir flights. I recommend trying Skyscanner for anything like that.

  For everything else, Hipmunk all the way!

• [Buddy Bradley]

  cool, I’m totally starting a Nerd Guide to Budapest, thanks for the idea!

• [strugglngwriter]

  Here’s a link to that OnLive desktop app they mentioned in the podcast: 
  http://desktop.onlive.com/

  Not sure what Chance’s beef is about. Too lazy to scroll?

• [anik]

  ‘They’ isn’t a cop out –
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
  Also, it’s inclusive of trans* people, unlike using just ‘he’ or ‘she’.

  And congratulations on a year of gweek! I look forward to it every week!