Take Back the Day Sam Beckbessinger & Simon Dingle

Sam overviews her recent problem solving endeavours including poop spatulas and pods for your ears. While deliberating on friction in our lives and how to remove it, we mention...



The incredible Shōgun miniseries.
Temu. They really don't need us to link to them.
Various Apple products. They, too, seem to be doing fine without our links.
The Station Eleven miniseries.
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• The Untitled Goose Game

Our intrepid explorers consider the world's many overlooked and dissapearing organisms, and how to think about changing environments while making more of what is already around us. Along the way, Sam and Simon mention:



The Cape Silverside, or "Sukkelvis" fish.
Else Bostelmann
The Schmidt Ocean Institute
Godzilla x Kong
Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Survive the Century
The How to Save a Planet podcast.
All We Can Save
Palworld
Love on the Spectrum
Saunas and their associated cold-water shenanigans. You don't need a link.
The Boy and the Heron
Vengeance
The Book with No Pictures

Games are fun. Work... not so much. Sam and Simon reconnect after many aeons spent not speaking on the internet to talk about games, and why they're fun and important in a way that work isn't and is. Along with other stuff. Things mentioned in this episode:



Hearthstone (don't you dare click that link).
Rabble - for tricking adults in the UK into exercising.
The Oatmeal and Matthew's awesome games, including:
Poetry for Neanderthals.
Honey Heist - be a goddamn bear.
FU - The Freeform Universal RPG system.
Bouldering.
Go - games don't get much gamesier than that.
Smallworld - especially the digital versions on Steam and elsewhere.
The story of Monopoly and American capitalism
The amazing Dr Nechama Brodie
Microsoft Excel World Championship
The Future by Naomi Alderman
Girls of Little Hope by Sam Beckbessinger and Dale Halvorsen
Radiolab's mind-blowing podcast on The Interstitium
Acquired, Cautionary Tales, Search Engine, S-town, and other favourite podcasts of Simon's.

Sam and Simon are together in a room, for a change, and discuss the impact of artificial intelligence, existential crises, and a range of other topics. Along the way they mention:



The Cope Zine (instructions on how to fold it below)
ChatGPT again.
Nick Cave's The Red Hand Files on ChatGPT
Francis Fukuyama and his theories on the progress of civilisation.
Irresistible the movie (one of the many things Simon could not remember).
Also Triangle of Sadness.
The incredible art of Fanie Buys.
Many games. Including World of Warcraft, Don't Starve Together, Mario Kart, Stardew Valley, League of Legends, and other candidates for Sam and Simon to play together.
Wingspan.


How to fold a zine:

From trippy breath work to commanding a robot army, Sam and Simon are getting ready for a super weird future with its various perils. While discussing their battle strategy they mention:



The Wim Hof breathing method
ChatGPT, of course.
Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less by James Hamblin
Building A Virtual Machine inside ChatGPT by Jonas Degrave
Midjourney
Botto the autonomous artist.


(Thanks for the album art, DALL·E 2)

Simon reads Sam a poem and our intrepid duo considers the best ways in which to treat our future selves, the tensions that keep life balanced, pros and cons of social media, and myriad other thingies. Along the way they mention:



Swan by Mary Oliver
Twitter's impending doom
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Replay by Ken Grimwood
Stutz
Breath:The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor