8.18: Contact—Explained

Another book from the ’80s, but hey: at least this one is fiction!

We read Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel Contact and watched the 1995 movie of the same name. In this episode, our overview of the book: its plot and its basic interests.

Things we mentioned on the show, in the order we mentioned them:

• Carl Sagan
• Cosmos: TV show and book
• Neil Degrasse Tyson
• Fermi Paradox
• Wow! signal
• Very Large Array
• Arecibo Observatory
• Neil Patrick Harris (wait for it, it’ll all make sense in the end)

• November (8.20 and 8.21): Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, Zeynep Tufecki. You can also download it from Tufecki’s website as a PDF.
• December (8.22 and 8.23): Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan.

• “It’s a Movie, It’s a Dream” by Josh Caress. Used by permission, please don’t use without permission.
• “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, meaning you can do whatever you want with this music… as long as you share it for others to likewise do what they want.

Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors:

• Daniel Ellcey
• Douglas Campos
• Jake Grant
• Marnix Klooster
• Spencer Smith

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