Episodes

Friday Dec 03, 2021
The Basics of Biology
Friday Dec 03, 2021
Friday Dec 03, 2021
We talk about the basics of biology. What are amino acids? What are organic compounds and why are they important for living things? How do the various components of a cell work? What is osmosis? How does the same DNA create various types of cells? Why do identical twins express different traits? How does evolution work? Why do viruses mutate so quickly? Did Darwin have a better publicist?

Wednesday Nov 17, 2021
The Basics of Satellites
Wednesday Nov 17, 2021
Wednesday Nov 17, 2021
What's it take to build a satellite and get it into space? What are the six major factors to consider when building a satellite? How does a satellite get into orbit? What about space dust and space junk? Are solar storms likely to take down our satellites? Can satellites shoot lasers at the earth? What do you call people from the Yukon Territory?

Tuesday Nov 09, 2021
Second Language Acquisition
Tuesday Nov 09, 2021
Tuesday Nov 09, 2021
What language should you learn? What are the best ways to learn a language? What is a cognate? Is language emersion the only way to learn? What is L1 transfer? How do you test a language learner for proficiency? We discuss all the things you need to know about learning a second language and how to succeed and what succeeding means. Join us.

Wednesday Oct 20, 2021
The Basics of Economics
Wednesday Oct 20, 2021
Wednesday Oct 20, 2021
We take on economics. What does GDP mean and why is it important? What are the principles of a free market? How can a natural disaster cause economic problems? How does economic inequality happen and does it cause problems? How much gold is there in the world? What is the Federal Reserve? What is a command or planned economy? How does communism work? What is the difference between socialism and communism? What is bitcoin? Come find out with us.

Wednesday Oct 06, 2021
Vaccines
Wednesday Oct 06, 2021
Wednesday Oct 06, 2021
We discuss vaccines. What is the history of vaccines? How do vaccines work? Can you get sick from a vaccine? What is VAERS stand for and what's its purpose? Are there serious side-effects from the COVID vaccine? (We pull numbers from this chart.) What are the reasons to get the COVID (and other) vaccines? Is a vaccine mandate legal? Should you send a picture of a rash to your doctor? We deal with all of these questions and more.

Tuesday Sep 21, 2021
The Basics of Units of Measurement
Tuesday Sep 21, 2021
Tuesday Sep 21, 2021
We discuss the basics of units of measurement. What are the international standards for measuring. We cover the seven basic units and some derived units. How is a meter defined? Is the standard kilogram still a large chunk of metal? Is a kilogram measuring mass or weight? What is a joule? What is a gigawatt? Did Back to the Future contain scientific inaccuracies? Come find out how measurement units can help you understand the physical sciences.

Thursday Sep 09, 2021
Taiwan
Thursday Sep 09, 2021
Thursday Sep 09, 2021
We're joined by the former Director of the American Institute in Taiwan, Brent Christensen, who answers all of our questions about Taiwan. What are the biggest industries in Taiwan? How is Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing affecting the price of cars? How did Taiwan control the COVID-19 pandemic? Why does Taiwan use traditional characters? What is the history of the Taiwanese people? What's going on with Taiwan immigration and education? Brent gives us in-depth analysis into various aspects of the Taiwan-American relationship, and the Taiwanese culture.

Monday Aug 23, 2021
Object Oriented Programming
Monday Aug 23, 2021
Monday Aug 23, 2021
We discuss the principles of object oriented programming. What is a script vs a program? What are the four principles of object oriented programming? What's an interface? How can understanding programming help you better understand movies? What's a value type vs a reference type? What is recursion? Come learn about these and more with us.

About Us
We bring an eclectic group together: a linguist turned computer scientist, a mechanical engineer, a hospitality manager, a teacher, and a doctor. And that doesn't include our guests. Some would say, "Hey, you're not 'laymen'!" To that we would respond, "Shh..." In reality, we take on various subjects in which we are certainly laymen. Additionally, from a philosophical perspective, we think everyone is a layman sometimes, and that's ok. We should embrace that and learn. So join us in learning. We try to keep it fun and interesting, but mostly we try to bring you along with us as you learn it from a layman.