Comments on: 8: jjg interview

8: jjg interview

mathowie — Fri, 11 May 2007 13:53:07 -0800

Recap from the last two weeks plus an interview with jjg and the new theme song by cortex, recorded on May 11, 2007. Also: Podcast site.

By: SirStan

SirStan — Fri, 11 May 2007 13:56:50 -0800

Quick editing Mathowie! Great job.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 11 May 2007 13:57:20 -0800

PedanticFilter: This should be 8, because the last was 8 Preview. Unless 8 is still lurking out there somewhere, waiting to spring upon us whenst we least expect it.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:02:30 -0800

Direct MP3 download

Show notes by jessamyn:

Songs
Save the Fattest Girl for Me by markulus

Overheated by ORThey

MeFi posts
Things found in Books, especially cookies.

Neutrino hunting in Antarctica.

Japanese balloon bombs.

U.S. Nuclear operations in Greenland.

Ask MeFi posts
Gradient house paint.

How to thank your mentor ten years later.

American Indian/Native American blogs.

ABCD = "American-born confused Desi"

Sexist lounge songs.

Other bits
MetaTalk post about the good day on MeFi.

T-Shirt MeTa thread.

jjg links
The magsafe power chord question

By: phaedon

phaedon — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:02:45 -0800

*cranks up speakers, turns on xbox 360, starts killing aliens*

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:02:48 -0800

It's not showing up in my iTunes podcast list. Have you updated the rss feed you're using for Feedburner?

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:03:40 -0800

oops, show #8.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:04:58 -0800

I just pinged Feedburner but it didn't update yet. It should show up in the next 30 minutes or so in the feed and iTunes.

By: jourman2

jourman2 — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:06:35 -0800

it shows up now in itunes.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:08:15 -0800

Sorry that I sound a little warbley/echoey. It was same room/same software/same levels [even lower, if anything] so I'm not sure what was up with that.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:12:10 -0800

Here's the 10 second opening theme song.

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:26:48 -0800

Any chance your bandwidth was hurting, maybe? Sounds like really aggressive compression artifacts to me.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:31:04 -0800

Good question, if so it was the neighbors and their limewiring. I'll have to re-lock up my network.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:34:22 -0800

well, I also downgraded the audio to 96kbps instead of 128kbps, so if it sounds more compressed overall, that'd be one reason.

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:57:40 -0800

To me it's just Jess that sounds a little overcompressed, so I'd go with the p2p bandwidth theory not the overall final mp3 compression theory.

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:18:56 -0800

Yeah, Matt sounds fine throughout; it's something on Jess' end.

By: ODiV

ODiV — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:19:47 -0800

Arg! I click links = talking stops. Why have I not figured this out after 7 shows? How do I end up leaving the page ~3/4 of the way through every single podcast!?

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:20:52 -0800

That's why I just middle click the mp3 link to open it in a new tab, and then I can continue opening/following links during playback.

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:56:19 -0800

I'm meeting a Navajo woman for a coffee date tonight. I'll be sure to ask her if she's ever heard about these wacky "blog" things.

By: BeerFilter

BeerFilter — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:06:01 -0800

You moved the MetaTalk link away from the right edge. What the hell?

On that menu, MeFi and MeTa should be the marbled rye bread, bookending the entire rest of the site. AskMe should be in the middle, like an abundant pile of corned beef. Projects and Jobs go well next to each other, like spicy mustard & Russian/Thousand Island dressing (your pick!) and and so do Music and Podcast, the sauerkraut and swiss cheese of the MetaReuben.

This is how it should be:

MetaFilter Projects Jobs AskMeFi Music Podcast MetaTalk

Don't you agree?

Seriously, I always just flick my mouse up to the last thing on the menu and click to head to MeTa after the ads on the blue piss me off. Don't yall want MeTa to be on the far edge too?

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:06:09 -0800

Is it just me, or is this podcast page new?

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:13:28 -0800

I just pinged Feedburner but it didn't update yet. It should show up in the next 30 minutes or so in the feed and iTunes

And there it is. Sweet.

By: danb

danb — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:26:47 -0800

A suggestion: it might make more sense to link the podcast site from the "Home | Archives | FAQ | MeFi Wiki | Search" bar on the MetaTalk page instead of from the main navigation bar at the top right. With an average of one post a week (or less), podcast.metafilter.com probably won't be a big destination.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:39:09 -0800

BeerFilter, I think it makes sense to do it:
MetaFilter Ask MeFi Music Podcast Projects Jobs MetaTalk

I usually read it as most often clicked stuff near the left for most users.

danb, I decided to put it on the top line because it's about the entire site, we put a lot of work into it, and people that don't read metatalk (all 90% of them) wouldn't know it existed otherwise. At the last conference I was at, three people asked me how they could find the metafilter podcast and I didn't have any quick answer.

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:43:09 -0800

Definitely MetaTalk on the right, and definitely Podcast up on that line. It isn't really a destination yet, but it should be accessible to the folks who know to look, and findable for the folks that decided to poke around.

By: quin

quin — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:45:15 -0800

Yeah, jess sounded a lot compressed. It's not unusable, but the previous ones definitely sounded better.

Also, BeerFilter has the right order. MeTa should stay on the far right. And podcast just fits naturally next to music.

Beyond that, excellent stuff.

By: wemayfreeze

wemayfreeze — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:56:00 -0800

jjg sounds all chopped up, too, but in a weirder way. Zero sound between his words and it sounds like maybe he's a robot? Creating sentences? From scraps of found audio?

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Fri, 11 May 2007 17:03:36 -0800

Yeah, that's the signature of a noise gate.

By: danb

danb — Fri, 11 May 2007 17:22:04 -0800

mathowie: Good point, I hadn't thought about that...the navigation bar can direct traffic to the podcast site, and not just reflect its traffic.

Another suggestion: Get cortex in on this action!

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:06:12 -0800

I don't care about the order, as long as it's:

Meta, Ask, other stuff I never click on, MetaTalk.

By: wheelieman

wheelieman — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:09:51 -0800

Yea why hasn't Cortex joined you to chat about the week in review?

By: de

de — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:23:18 -0800

Yea why hasn't Cortex joined you to chat about the week in review?

it's not about cortex. how about introducing us to madamjujujive?

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:49:23 -0800

The blue, the green, the bluey green, the dark gray, the white, the gray, the other gray.

I miss the maroon.

By: serazin

serazin — Fri, 11 May 2007 19:18:22 -0800

Great podcast thanks.

And..

PLEASE bring back the sidebar for great FPPs! I love the sidebar and I really miss seeing great posts highlited there. There have been a number of really fantastic posts lately that I missed seeing there. Otherwise, a really super post is forgotten as soon as it slips off the front page.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 11 May 2007 19:24:12 -0800

Where exactly do you think the sidebar went?

By: serazin

serazin — Fri, 11 May 2007 19:29:19 -0800

It's still there, it's just not used to highlight front page posts anymore - or hasn't been for a while. In a recent thread, Matt said he felt that the podcast and favorites basically served the same purpose, and didn't seem super compelled to post stuff there.

I was just registering my opinion that I'd like to see the sidebar used along with the podcast to point out great posts.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 11 May 2007 19:31:27 -0800

I'm pretty sure we still use the sidebar for that, though there has been a lot of admin stuff there lately too.

By: serazin

serazin — Fri, 11 May 2007 19:37:03 -0800

Huh. Well, I see askme references, and meta-in-jokes (which are cool), it's just used less for main page references lately. Right now there are two links to the blue on there, both from almost a month ago, one is basically a reminder to refrain from reposting.

I'm not hating on anyone, just sayin', I like seeing great posts sidebarred.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Fri, 11 May 2007 19:40:58 -0800

jjg's usually been kinda snarky and prickly in his interactions (that I've seen) on the site over the past few years. Interesting choice for an interview -- but I guess it's a Cabal™ Thing. Heh.

Still, he sounds like a nice guy, so maybe he just comes off badly in text.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Fri, 11 May 2007 20:50:17 -0800

Yeah, Matt sounds fine throughout

He sounbs a bib stubbed ub to me. *Snnk*

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 12 May 2007 07:12:31 -0800

Matt - what's the deal with the Greenland story? I'm very interested in this, but the story you linked just seems to deal with Thule AB, and to be honest, it's not that big.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Sat, 12 May 2007 09:16:17 -0800

BTW, iTunes doesn't support HTML descriptions. So two minor fixes would help it a bit:

1) Use " instead of the quote entity.
2) Put something like quotes around link titles, because w/o html, they blend in when they aren't linked.

By: Penks

Penks — Sat, 12 May 2007 12:49:12 -0800

The Neutrino hunting in Antarctica post was made on May 8th, of last year, not last week. That's probably the reason why some of the links are not working any more.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sat, 12 May 2007 12:56:01 -0800

I knew I was forgetting something there....

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Sat, 12 May 2007 13:58:54 -0800

markulus' song is quite awesome, as is the cool new theme song by Cortex - good stuff!

Thanks for featuring the bacon-in-books post, Jessamyn, and for the nice commentary you & mathowie offered on the post - that made my week. I was smitten by all the great stories that the thread spawned - we have such a remarkable group of people commenting here on Mefi.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:32:28 -0800

I agree that MetaTalk should be the last link in the top bar.

I hope mjjj comes to a Boston meetup sometime. We could have a 495/metro-west thing so folks don't have to go into the city itself, if that's an issue.

By: joeclark

joeclark — Sat, 12 May 2007 19:23:20 -0800

Pronunciation note for Jessamyn: “Desi” is pronounced like “Pacey,” not as in Arnaz.

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Sat, 12 May 2007 19:33:53 -0800

Eideteker, you are sweet - I do keep my eye on the area meetups and one of these damn days! (That VT gathering sure looked fun)

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sat, 12 May 2007 19:53:20 -0800

Like lacey? Thanks!

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sat, 12 May 2007 22:15:51 -0800

A few things:

- I'll move MetaTalk back to the far right position in the next day or two.

- The interview with Jesse was done via skype using his laptop's default microphone, and his office is next to the air conditioner, so there was a really loud constant hum that I used a noise gate to filter out. When he talks you can hear it, but I probably could have eased up on the gate setting so that it wasn't so obvious.

- the entire "fattest girl" song was supposed to play at the end, but Garageband was "intelligent" and simply reused the clip I played at the beginning, even though I dragged a full copy of the song into my editing window.

By: danb

danb — Sun, 13 May 2007 10:37:06 -0800

One more minor thing: the list of sites in the footer doesn't include the new Podcast site.

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Sun, 13 May 2007 16:56:54 -0800

I've added it to Foneshow, because of course you all need to hear Matt and Jess on your cellphone as soon as they publish a new podcast...

Holding off posting Foneshow to Projects till we get our SMS short code deal in place...

By: markulus

markulus — Tue, 15 May 2007 07:30:38 -0800

Wow....a spot on the podcast? Consider me extremely honored. Thanks a lot mathowie and jessamyn!

By: drezdn

drezdn — Tue, 15 May 2007 07:56:21 -0800

Fun as usual. If you have an interview with the noise like jjg's again, could you cut the words less closely? For me it was really distracting.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Fri, 18 May 2007 07:29:12 -0800

I'll move MetaTalk back to the far right position in the next day or two

Thank you Matt.