Mark and Toddcast

This week we chat with special guest the Unipiper about his return to playing the National Anthem at the Portland Timbers game, after muffing it the first go-around. He also stays to chat about our news roundup, including the advancement (or not) of AI political ads, the language of sperm whales unlocked, magnets made the earth flourish with life, a defrocked AI priest who suggested baptism via Gatorade, and much more.

In 1993, TV news studios started receiving calls from kids who opened their Barbies and GI Joe dolls for Christmas only to discover Barbie shouting militaristic slogans and GI Joe talking about shopping. Later parodied on The Simpsons, this bit of "culture jamming" has its origins right here in Portland (which also involves ipecac, mashed potatoes, and vomiting at a Dan Quayle appearance). All that, and much more on this week's episode.

It's nice to find a library that has every book. But what if there's a library with every book ever printed, but also every sentence, paragraph, and page that could ever be written in the future? It's a heady concept, and it's called "The Library of Babel," which has more "books" than atoms in the entire universe. It's a lot, so join us this week as we crack the book open on this fascinating subject.

And if you thought those three things weren't enough, we also dive into sending the "essence of humanity" to the moon, Oregon's "devil comet" and Dark Sky Sanctuary, giant hybrid sheep, and Deez Nuts get arrested.

Pressed into the asphalt of Philadelphia, Boston, Richmond, Kansas City, and even Santiago and Barcelona are these mysterious tiles talking about Kubric, resurrection, and Jupiter. What are they? Where did they come from? And do they mean anything? Take a dive into the weird world of the Toynbee Tiles. Also, another successful pilot project for Universal Basic Income, violent crime in the US is dropping, measles outbreaks in Florida, and a woman has maggots rain down on her during a flight. Whee!

After an entire year of waiting, the Madonna concert finally happened! Take a ride with Mark and Todd as they travel to Seattle to catch Madonna's fantastic Celebration Tour on Part 2 of Mark and Todd's Big Adventure!

In this mostly real-time episode, Mark has a surprise adventure for Todd to celebrate both their birthdays, which ends up being quite the ride. Get to the choppa!

It was sort of the Segway before the Segway: a commuter monorail system balanced by a series of gyroscopes. While this innovation never took off, there are still modern-day companies working to revive the concept. Find out more this week, along with an apocalypse of cicadas, ungrateful fans sue Madonna, cold Tesla batteries, video proof that plants communicate with each other, Portland's biggest eyesore buildings being sold, and controversy around Bobi, the Guinness Record holder of "world's oldest dog."

Everyone has heard of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, which purported to show that anyone could become a monster warden or beaten-down prisoner in the matter of a week. But what if that whole experiment was kind of bullshit? This week we take apart the experiment, and discuss news including the end of the beloved Fruit Stripe gum, federally rescheduling marijuana, the rich owning 90% of stocks, and the feel-good story of the week: Bill O'Reilly's books being removed from Florida schools.

This week we blow up a story about one of the most famous non-famous people in the world: Treb Heining, whose work with balloons has transformed, well, ballooning, I guess. Hear his wonderful story (the ups and the downs), as well as news stories about the new Portland waterfront skate park, a new study about the regret rate of transition surgeries, things Portland were in the top 10 for in 2023, a pastor tries to deep fry a McDonald's employee, and more. Happy new year, weirdos!