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    1. The Pope's Astronomer, Telescopes, & Space Rocks

      Three related videos of Brady Haran in Italy interviewing Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of The Vatican Observatory, were released today on his various channels... and rather than submit them...

      Three related videos of Brady Haran in Italy interviewing Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of The Vatican Observatory, were released today on his various channels... and rather than submit them individually:
      The Pope's Astronomer - Sixty Symbols
      The Pope's Telescopes - Deep Sky Videos
      The Pope's Space Rocks - Objectivity #221

      6 votes
    2. 'The Stranger' was Australia's first locally-produced science fiction television show and one of the first Australian series to be sold overseas

      ABC's media release: 'The Stranger' was Australia's first locally-produced science fiction television show and one of the first Australian series to be sold overseas. (Ignore the references to...

      ABC's media release: 'The Stranger' was Australia's first locally-produced science fiction television show and one of the first Australian series to be sold overseas. (Ignore the references to 'Doctor Who'; the only connection they have is that they were both science fiction shows made in the mid-1960s. I suspect that show is name-dropped just to get people's interest.)

      I've been watching this show. I'm 5 episodes in, which means I'm up to the last episode of the 1st season, with another 6 episodes in the 2nd season (only 12 eps in total).

      It's bad but also good (not in the "so bad it's good" way). The production isn't great: the special effects are low-grade, the sets are ordinary, the acting ranges from hammy to wooden, and the writing is clunky. However, despite all that, I find myself hooked. I want to know what's going to happen next. It's an interesting premise: the remnants of an alien species eking out an existence inside a rocket-equipped moon, having left their home planet after an unspecified ecological disaster, to seek out a new home. The plot is good enough to drag me along with it. It also has historical curiosity value.

      I doubt it's available outside of Australia, but here's the streaming link. Be warned: it's very slow-paced to start with. The first episode doesn't even mention aliens, and the second episode only has hints.

      7 votes
    3. How would you kill Hitler?

      The mission You have been tasked with the mission to kill Hitler. The mission is mandatory and you cannot decline it. You have access to a state of the art time machine: a simple Casio wristwatch...

      The mission

      You have been tasked with the mission to kill Hitler. The mission is mandatory and you cannot decline it. You have access to a state of the art time machine: a simple Casio wristwatch in which you enter the time, date and location where you wanna travel to. It can travel to any point in past Earth's history, and it is programmed to automatically and safely return you to the present time as soon as the mission is completed.

      You have access to all weapons available to humankind in the present day, but you can only take what you can carry.

      You also have access to technology that will make you look ethnically German complete with Nazi uniforms, and a perfectly functioning universal translator.

      How this thread will work

      I will try to come up with a negative outcome for every answer in jackass genie style. Others are welcome to do the same!

      22 votes
    4. If you could make any event(s) in history not happen, which one(s) would you pick?

      I didn't know tildes has trending topics. I'd either pick the rise of the bolsheviks in Russia (You can replace them with the mensheviks, who wanted to abide by democracy.), The division of the...

      I didn't know tildes has trending topics.

      I'd either pick the rise of the bolsheviks in Russia (You can replace them with the mensheviks, who wanted to abide by democracy.), The division of the HRE (A united germany in 900CE would be very consequential.) And the rise of the hapsburgs in what would be Austria-Hungary, since it meshed a dozen linguistic groups together.

      13 votes