11: Music Challenge, TravelFilter, and the Party

July 6, 2007 3:53 PM

Here's show 11 of the podcast for July 6, 2007. It's about an hour long.

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posted by mathowie to MeFi Podcast at 3:53 PM (71 comments total)

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Stuff mentioned in this show:

The mefimusicchallenge songs (permalink this challenge). Songs played included Sailing on Right By and Rain in the Desert

RSVP to the Portland 8th Anniversary MeFi Party located at Ground Kontrol.

ludwig_van's tour announcement and his music site

TravelFilter. Location demo: NYC, New York State, entire US. The URLs are hackable, so plop any country name you can think of or chop off the city name to see state or country level questions. My first demo Trip Report on Maui.


MeFi recaps:

gamers and their avatars

Chess tactics in English & three blind mice's story about chess

Public Domain photos via MeFi Projects

The life of Otokichi (adrift across the ocean and back)

Olympics best forgotten

Nature reclaims amusement park


Ask MeFi recaps:
Dirty Jokes for Grandma

How do I find out about a murder? (photo!)

52 week challenge & Help me become better rounded

Decent financial advice

Single Forever
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:54 PM on July 6, 2007

sweet
posted by puke & cry at 3:55 PM on July 6, 2007

noooooooooooooooooooo, we almost had a full day without metatalk posts!!!! you should be banned!!!!!!!!
posted by micayetoca at 4:08 PM on July 6, 2007

oh, shit, it's you, sorry, #1.
posted by micayetoca at 4:09 PM on July 6, 2007

Oh, man, I wouldn't have dropped a silly comment into Matt's Maui post if I'd know Travel was going semi-live today.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:10 PM on July 6, 2007

Thanks for the shoutout... I realised that you could just click on the tag AFTER I made the playlist. What error were talking about fixing, again?
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:13 PM on July 6, 2007

pb fixed the "permalink" in the notes above so that it works (no music player yet though).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:23 PM on July 6, 2007

Doobiedoobiedooo... So, in the apologizing-is-better-than-asking, the "travel" implies that you're coming from some other place to this place, rather than already living there and wanting more to do (because it would be places.metafilter.com, or PlaMe instead of TraMe). But I'm going to "travel" from my house to a pool if I can find one, and the goddamned LA parks and rec websites are ass...
posted by klangklangston at 4:58 PM on July 6, 2007

Yay! Something to listen to at work! Finally1

TravelFilter is purdy, too. Nice job.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 5:22 PM on July 6, 2007

Will there eventually be a ticketstubs functionality on TravelFi? Some way to upload and storytell would be nice. /ikidbcilove
posted by Stan Chin at 5:24 PM on July 6, 2007

What song was done by a "someone who produces for an actual famous person in europe"?
posted by delmoi at 5:29 PM on July 6, 2007

I didn't realize until I heard it in the podcast, that the title of my song might have not come across as a joke. I didn't intend to mock the challenge or attack Jessamyn at all.

In all fairness, I think that any theme would have been as hard, it's the actual challenge that is, well, challenging. (And worsened if you are, like me, musically challenged to begin with).

In any case, I just wanted to mention this, because it seems like the "joke" didn't really came across as such. The challenge is a great thing and it revived Music. Didn't mean the title of my song to be read as "harsh" or a real complaint. My apologies.
posted by micayetoca at 5:33 PM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

The yellow/orange bar on travelfilter really clashes. Other then that, it looks nice.
posted by delmoi at 5:38 PM on July 6, 2007

Jeeze, we almost made it through an entire day without a MeTa post...

(I guess #1 gets a by, though, it being his sandbox and his baseball bat.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 5:46 PM on July 6, 2007

"europe-famous" ++ Good stuff.

And seriously, I'd love to participate in the music challenges, but the last softwares I used was Acid Music before sony bought them. Recommend something?
posted by boo_radley at 5:48 PM on July 6, 2007

*is a chatty cathy*
posted by Hildegarde at 5:49 PM on July 6, 2007

Wow, when I fast forward by moving the bar and then stop it, the greatest delayed dub moment happens. Anyone else getting that? No, I'm not high.
posted by sleepy pete at 6:06 PM on July 6, 2007

Rather then showing °F for U.S. cities, and °C for international cities, you should simply show both.
posted by delmoi at 6:12 PM on July 6, 2007

The yellow/orange bar on travelfilter really clashes. Other then that, it looks nice.

What yellow/orange bar...?
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 6:18 PM on July 6, 2007

Didn't mean the title of my song to be read as "harsh" or a real complaint.

I think I took it in the spirit it was intended, I just thought it was very amusing.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:41 PM on July 6, 2007

The one that has the date and time on the right hand side, and is connected with the TravelFilter logo on the left side.



Below " MetaFilter AskMeFi Projects Music Jobs Podcast MetaTalk" and above "Home Archives Tags Search"
posted by delmoi at 6:55 PM on July 6, 2007

"I think people went on a jonsonfest" is the best thing I've ever heard.
posted by jonson at 7:14 PM on July 6, 2007

Thanks for the warning about how dark Ground Kontrol is, mathowie. It'll be right up my alley.
posted by DaShiv at 7:58 PM on July 6, 2007

Thanks for episode 9, btw. The interview with Cold Chef was so great I lost track of time while waiting in line at the Massachusetts RMV!
posted by mds35 at 8:26 PM on July 6, 2007

Travelfilter looks good. Will there be anywhere to tuck in trivia on existing posts (e.g. if I don't really want to do a whole trip writeup and don't want to ask a question pretending not to know, but wanted to discuss what to do for vegetarian eats in Heidelberg Germany) (visit the one decent veg*n restaurant which also has ridiculously limited hours, and stay somewhere with a stove)?

Another note entirely: Matt, you seem to have styled the favicons for each branch, but I think you forgot for Travel (at least, it's green like AskMe's).
posted by Tuwa at 8:55 PM on July 6, 2007

Jebus, you'd think I'd notice that "totally alpha" notice at the top of the page (and remember that posting a comment makes the podcast quit playing).
posted by Tuwa at 9:13 PM on July 6, 2007

I was coshed from behind at the last jonsonfest and awoke much later with no wallet and a sore groin.
Definitely going again next year!
posted by Abiezer at 10:33 PM on July 6, 2007

maybe I missed it, but what are the song credits for this ep?
posted by janell at 10:39 PM on July 6, 2007

janell, it's in the first comment.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:46 PM on July 6, 2007

gar. Eyes slipped right past all that yellow.

Going back to the dumb-cave now.
posted by janell at 10:51 PM on July 6, 2007

I have to say that the podcast has quickly become one of my favorite MeFi things. The highlight, for this episode, comes around 31:50, where Matt says this about Second Life:

"Once every two weeks I'll get an email like, 'Cassimus Platimus wants to give you a jewel' or something and I'll be like 'Aarrrg, god...I'm not even interested!' "

The same thing happens to me, but it's the delivery that just cracks me up. I think #1 should consider moonlighting in observational comedy.
posted by SassHat at 11:04 PM on July 6, 2007

Wrt travelfilter; interesting idea. But I have 2 remarks:
- it's not linked from the top bar. I guess not a lot of people will visit it.
- I'm not sure I will be visiting travelfilter to answer questions. Scouring askmefi is already quite a lot of work.
posted by jouke at 12:09 AM on July 7, 2007

Hey, what do you know. Thanks Matt, and see you tomorrow jessamyn!

Yeah, that's right.
posted by ludwig_van at 12:11 AM on July 7, 2007

I mean, Matt Haughey web 2.0'd my site and I'm going to rock out with Jessamyn in Vermont. Take that, cortex.
posted by ludwig_van at 12:27 AM on July 7, 2007

I would also add that keeping the TravelFilter questions out of AskMe (as opposed to having the questions in two places at once) would probably help a bit in thinning out the question population on AskMe.

Just a thought.
posted by SassHat at 1:07 AM on July 7, 2007

Jouke, it's not linked from the top bar because it's still not finished, and in the podcast Matt and Jessamyn talk about how the questions from travel will show up alongside askme questions, so you don't need to keep tabs on two sites.
posted by voidcontext at 5:34 AM on July 7, 2007

Ok. Tx.
posted by jouke at 6:10 AM on July 7, 2007

SassHat: "I would also add that keeping the TravelFilter questions out of AskMe (as opposed to having the questions in two places at once) would probably help a bit in thinning out the question population on AskMe. "

1) This is going to be extremely difficult. A lot of people are going to end up mad with deleted questions. Matt, you should a) probably come up with some way to move questions from AskMe to TraMe (and maybe back) easily, b) add code to the AskMe form so that if someone chooses the "travel" section, it gives them a big red notice that says "are you sure this shouldn't be in TraMe?" or maybe just automagically cross-post for them.

2) Putting "n answers" as the link from the front page to each thread in TraMe isn't right. For instance, this isn't a question, and the responses aren't answers. (On that page itself, it does say "comments".) Also, it's hard to see which posts might be questions and which might be reviews. Some indication on the front page of "this thar is a question" would be nice.

I think TraMe has a lot of potential, here. Just navigating by location is a big win.
posted by Plutor at 6:38 AM on July 7, 2007

Take that, cortex.

*shakes tiny fist*
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:30 AM on July 7, 2007

I would also add that keeping the TravelFilter questions out of AskMe (as opposed to having the questions in two places at once) would probably help a bit in thinning out the question population on AskMe.

The good news is that with two mods, thinning out the AskMe questions is less of a priority. As I envision it, the TraMe posts appear on the AskMe from page somehow but the final posts sort of "live" on the travel part of the site. So, for archival purposes, you'd look up location-based questions that are travel-applicable on the travel site but you'd see them as they're asked coming across AskMe as well.

I'm really pleasantly amazed at all the work mathowie and pb put into this. Even at an "80-90% done" level this site is pretty great.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:37 AM on July 7, 2007

"answers", "comments", feh! On travel, they should be "advisories"
posted by bonehead at 7:56 AM on July 7, 2007

TraMe? No no no. "TravFi." Or "TraFi." Because it's TravelFilter, not TravelMeta.

Personally I think MetaTravel would work best as far as abbreviations go. "MeTrav" or "MeTravel."

Just not TraMe.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 8:10 AM on July 7, 2007

I've got this crazy inclination to call it "Travel".
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:36 AM on July 7, 2007

MeFi Travel. Like MeFi Music, and MeFi Jobs.
posted by mdonley at 8:46 AM on July 7, 2007

Metafilter: freakin' cellos and tubas and shit.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:56 AM on July 7, 2007

An hour long? Good god, who has that kind of time?
posted by five fresh fish at 11:28 AM on July 7, 2007

I think it's really cool that the tagline for TravelFilter is a line from the Steve Miller Band's "Jet Airliner."

That song has special meaning to me.
posted by Afroblanco at 1:55 PM on July 7, 2007

Just wanted to say that I thought the threads you highlighted in the green were great. I especially look forward to the Ask MeFi recap since it's increasingly difficult to keep up with all the threads.

Also, I'm glad the Music Challenge is taking off. I should be in the mix soon!
posted by danb at 2:56 PM on July 7, 2007

I've got this crazy inclination to call it "Travel".

....

That was going to be my next suggestion

...Damn you, cortex.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 3:00 PM on July 7, 2007

TraFi.
posted by delmoi at 5:48 PM on July 7, 2007

It would be cool if we could add a travel guide to cities in addition to the questions. I don't know how viable a wiki would be, but it would be very useful.
posted by geoff. at 8:53 AM on July 8, 2007

geoff., we were thinking 2 or 3 trip reports about a place would serve as a sort of travel guide. You could put a lot of hotel, food, and transportation tips in a trip report.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:13 AM on July 8, 2007

TravelFilter-TraFi-TraFic Report
posted by Megafly at 9:32 AM on July 8, 2007

You could put a lot of hotel, food, and transportation tips in a trip report.

I can't quite wrap my brain around how to go about it, but could there be a way to cross-reference detailed answers to "Where to go?" questions with the trip report category? [eg.]
posted by carsonb at 10:30 AM on July 8, 2007

On reflection, I s'pose I should just write it up properly and post it to the trip report category.
posted by carsonb at 10:32 AM on July 8, 2007

MeTr, pronounced /ˈmiːtə(ɻ)/ (like the word "meter")
posted by Plutor at 10:53 AM on July 8, 2007

MeTr

Of course!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:59 AM on July 8, 2007

For the first time, I listened to this podcast on my ipod with headphones. Two new things happened:

1. I fell asleep. But that's probably because I was on a bus and had taken a Dramamine. So I listened again.

2. There were times, when I was just zoned out enough but still paying attention (and also probably a bit groggy from the drug-induced nap), when I felt like Matt and Jess could hear me too. Maybe it was because having it right in my ear like that, and it being so conversational, made it feel like being on the phone. There was one moment where I almost responded out loud to something. And there was another moment when there was a baby crying on the bus, and for a split second some part of my brain worried that it was bothering them. Weird.
posted by lampoil at 7:19 PM on July 8, 2007

Good podcast, and many many thanks for all the work on TravelFilter - it's lookin' good!
posted by madamjujujive at 10:42 PM on July 8, 2007

... having it right in my ear like that, and it being so conversational, made it feel like being on the phone. There was one moment where I almost responded out loud to something.
Oh, good, it's not just me that does that.
posted by dg at 12:40 AM on July 9, 2007

I listen to a lot of talk radio since my iPod broke. =( This podcast (kitchencomputercast?) is consistently more entertaining than 95% of everything else I hear on the airwaves. I really enjoy it. My favorite part is following your notable threads. The combination of kick-ass links/questions and your unique perspectives on them is a great new way to peruse the site. The inclusion of MeFi Music invariably sends me over to the black.

I notice that a lot of what's featured seems to come from the favorites aggregation or the flag queue. Is that why there hasn't been a cool Project post featured? Or a notable job opening?* I think pulling an example or two from the other subsites, in the way you use a song or two from MeFi Music, would set more listeners towards those sections of the site.

* I could very well be misremembering/wrong—have there been any Projects or Jobs mentioned/linked in a previous podcast?
posted by carsonb at 1:20 AM on July 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

having it right in my ear like that, and it being so conversational, made it feel like being on the phone. There was one moment where I almost responded out loud to something.

There've been a couple times that I've had a podcast playing right when Jess IMed me about some tremendous bit of awfulness going down on the site, and it's produced some of the weirdest cognitive dissonance: like, how can you be so happy and conversational when someone just did that on the OH RIGHT NOT LIVE.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:16 AM on July 9, 2007

I think pulling an example or two from the other subsites, in the way you use a song or two from MeFi Music, would set more listeners towards those sections of the site.

I was thinking that too. I don't check Jobs much because I have a job, but there have been some great projects that have really made me happy. I think part of it is there's no way to aggregate your "votes" on the Projects page into a list the same way you keep your favorites. Maybe we can jigger that up some so it's easier to track. The Public Domain Photos post we mentioned did start life as a project and actually that's where I saw it originally.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:43 AM on July 9, 2007

Single forever -- AskMe thread, referenced late (last?) in the podcast.

Missed this the first time around; admins, ya might add it to the list o' podcast links.
posted by LordSludge at 12:02 PM on July 9, 2007

Cool I EDITED MATHOWIE'S POST to add it. Thanks for the catch.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:10 PM on July 9, 2007

O SHI SOMETHING HAPPENED WITH YOUR EDIT TO FUCK UP MATHOWIE'S POST.

I see the 'posted by' bolded, in normal size, and on the line above the rest of the comment tag line. Looks like a malformed link.

The Public Domain Photos post we mentioned did start life as a project and actually that's where I saw it originally.

Yep, I had just finished listening to the 'cast when I wrote that—I claim short-term memory loss due to the amount of Simple Green I incorporated during that hour.
posted by carsonb at 6:13 AM on July 10, 2007

Here it is:

<a href="http://ask.metafilter.com/65718/Single-forever">Single Forever<a/><br>
posted by carsonb at 6:18 AM on July 10, 2007

fixed.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:33 AM on July 10, 2007

lampoil: " There was one moment where I almost responded out loud to something. Weird."

Seconded - during the conversation on Mefi Travel, #1 mentions that country/city-specific RSS feeds are not yet done and those are still needed. And I actually said out loud "Yes, please. And soon!".. In the middle of my morning jog.. with people around me... hopefully they just thought I was talking in my sleep (or something).

As always, loved the podcast. I especially loved the opening and closing songs for this episode. The female vocals on "sailing on right by" are especially haunting.
posted by your mildly obsessive average geek at 3:26 AM on July 11, 2007

Finally listened. The party sounds pretty much like my teenager-dream, too. Beer, old vid games? *cries*

Wish I was either a) rich b) in North America or c) both.

Ah well. You kids have fun now, y'hear?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:09 AM on July 12, 2007

BTW, the link to Sailing on Right By is bad. It links to all the challenge songs.

(Yes, I am a bit behind on the podcast.)
posted by smackfu at 5:35 PM on August 2, 2007