/
RSS Feed
Hello, and welcome to the Science and/or Fiction Podcast!
Or should we say “welcome back?” Probably not. It’s been six years. We’re just starting over from the beginning. On this first episode we’re talking about the things we thought were cool in 2025 and predictions we have for 2026.
Show Notes
Stuff we liked from 2025:
- Nobel prizes in chemistry for metal organic frameworks: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/2025-nobel-prize-chemistry-metal-organic-frameworks
- Superman (2025): https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1061474-superman
- Murderbot on AppleTV:
- Link to watch: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/murderbot/umc.cmc.5owrzntj9v1gpg31wshflud03
- Link to the books by Martha Wells: (The Murderbot Diaries): https://bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=the+murderbot+diaries
- There Is No Antimemetics Division by QNTM: https://bookshop.org/p/books/there-is-no-antimemetics-division-a-novel-qntm/62e1b65b6635badb?ean=9780593983751&next=t
- Also check out his other works here: https://qntm.org
Predictions for 2026:
- Lucas: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is going to be cool.
- More info about it here: https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov
- Taylor: Architecture, corporate branding, and consumer culture are going to return to a sort of bleak, brutalist 80s aesthetic. Think somewhere between the movies Equilibrium, American Psycho, and Blade Runner. Corporations don’t have to pretend to
- Here’s an article about brutalism from Clinton Brown: https://medium.com/@clintonbrown/brutalism-bodies-and-branding-aesthetic-minimalism-as-inherited-trauma-3bf8c1810aa9
- And one from 99% Invisible by Kate Wagner on the architecture of dystopian megacorporations in speculative fiction: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/architecture-evil-dystopian-megacorps-speculative-fiction/
- Lucas: Dune III is going to get really weird:
- Just read Dune Messiah if you haven’t yet. Paul’s followers have genocided double-digit billions of people, everybody is high on spice, and some dead people come back as clones: https://bookshop.org/p/books/dune-messiah-frank-herbert/92d08913a3a76634?ean=9780593098233&next=t
- Taylor: people who make cool stuff for us to consume are going to get more weird and independent about it (at least the people you should care about). Here are a few independent creators I’ve really liked lately:
- Sarah Davis Baker: went from making cat videos to making video essays about weird/creepy aspects of internet culture. Here’s her video about what the internet is/used to be: https://youtu.be/oYlcUbLAFmw?si=7dr9cXVvkVwKbzCq
- Dropout: Dropout is the streaming service that used to be College Humor. It makes fun, weird, independent content like improv shows and the Dimension 20 TTRPGLP series. They take exceptionally good care of their employees (good pay, benefits, profit sharing), it’s only $7/month, and they genuinely want you to share your password with people who can’t afford it.
- Here’s a link to their latest Dimension 20 season, Gladlands, where the players are a convoy of helpful people in a Mad Max-esque post-apocalyptic world where everyone is really nice and takes care of each other: https://watch.dropout.tv/dimension-20-gladlands