Comments on: 38: Zombie Bot Army

38: Zombie Bot Army

mathowie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:30:29 -0800

First episode after the great server hackening, this podcast covers activity across MeFi for the month of February. It was recorded on the 25th of February and runs about an hour.

direct link

Helpful links Podcast Feed MeFi Podcast on iTunes Direct mp3 download MeFi Music mentioned Saint V. Massacree by The White Hat Mefi Rock On by BrnP84, from the February challenge MeFi Jobs Design the cover of a MeFi collaborative fiction project Interactive Fiction-o-rama MeFi Interactive Fiction Contest (MetaTalk thread with a MeFi demo, a MeFi thread about IF, Don't Shit Your Pants IF game thread.) MeFi Projects Things My Beard Can Lift (fake beard lifting, awesome socks) Look at This Cat! (this cat) j, a cd command that learns MetaFilter posts Döner mit alles! Letter People (graphic of all Letter People) The McNuggetini A detailed history of miniature golf (which is in response to the Time Magazine 25 top blogs article -- MetaTalk post about the Time article that prompted this post, MetaTalk post about the Slate Ask MeFi article) The President's Desk post Hey, look at this cat! (penned by jessamyn) User Friendly copy/paste comics snafu Ask MeFi questions What should I know before I shave my head? What is it like to dream? Slate guy commented in the thread after we started recording. What is the best order of blog comments? (hint: not YouTube's model) What are "taters"? Easy conversation starters? How can I be a good grandfather? Best documentaries about assholes?

By: DU

DU — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:34:57 -0800

Not that I'm complaining about More MetaFilter Content, but am I the only one disoriented by the way the content seems locked inside an opaque audio format?

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:36:41 -0800

I apologize for the intermittent echo you might hear on some people talking -- there was some bleed-over from one of the recorded tracks that about halfway through I figured out and got really diligent about removing, but it shows up a bit in the first 20min.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:38:29 -0800

I the only one disoriented by the way the content seems locked inside an opaque audio format?

We make a completely optional audio podcast with extensive notes and annotation as seen here, and we've been doing it for two years, and you're just now noticing it exists? And seeing how the mp3 format has been around for nearly 15 years, I'm not sure I'd call it opaque.

By: DU

DU — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:42:15 -0800

No, I'm disoriented each time I see one. And I mean opaque in the "not accessible to my eyeballs" and "can't use in random access mode" senses, not in the "can I google the file structure" sense.

Ooh, pony request: I'd like to hear the section about taters but probably not the section about grandfathers (say). Split it up!

Pony shootdown: This would require more linearity than most conversations actually have.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:46:13 -0800

Pony shootdown: name one other podcast that offers 30 slices of each episode, ordered by topic.

It's way too much work for little gain. Try the seek slider thing the player above, DU.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:46:38 -0800

There's probably some way for an adventurous person to go and create a post-hoc time index of the podcast, if they really wanted to do that.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:50:28 -0800

And, sorry if I sound pissy DU, but I spent about 4 hours editing the podcast, then uploading and annotating this episode by listening to it all over again when it was complete, then we had a network outage out of our control right as I was posting this, so I had to rewrite the post announcing it, etc.

Bottom line: it's already a lot of work and I don't look forward to making it worse.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:53:41 -0800

FWIW: I appreciate it, guys.

By: DU

DU — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:54:14 -0800

Sorry sorry sorry. I'm only posting because my eyes need filling while I listen.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:58:44 -0800

Pony shootdown: name one other podcast that offers 30 slices of each episode, ordered by topic.

One quick question: Why "ordered by topic"? The podcast is linear. Chronological order might be more user-friendly in a don't-have-to-keep-count-of-the-songs-to-figure-out-which-one-this-is sense.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:59:19 -0800

(Also: Yay! Podcast!)

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:04:37 -0800

DU: are you on drugs? If not, do you need to be? Jeez.

By: jmd82

jmd82 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:11:03 -0800

Here's your visualization!

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:12:58 -0800

Pony request: Can you guys type up the podcast as a script, and then come over to my hosue and perform it for me live?

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:13:48 -0800

Yes, hosue. I wanted to make the request as hard to complete as possible.

By: snsranch

snsranch — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:14:42 -0800

PODCAST AHOY!!!!

By: snsranch

snsranch — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:16:18 -0800

Astro Z, now THAT'S an idea!

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:18:40 -0800

But it's an idea Josh Freese already had, snsranch.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:21:03 -0800

I was just lamenting the fact that there wasn't one for February, and then, like Christmas in March, this.

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:25:09 -0800

> I'm only posting because my eyes need filling while I listen.

Watch Fox News with the sound off and pretend mathowie is Bill O'Reilly, cortex is Sean Hannity, and jessamyn is Ann Coulter.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:26:00 -0800

Pony request: Can you make the "mathowie noise" available as a ringtone?

By: gingerbeer

gingerbeer — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:27:22 -0800

Yorvit was really excited about the shout out. And by "really excited" I mean he slept right through it.

By: quin

quin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:32:02 -0800

I don't know, the idea of having them come all the way out, it could get expensive.

But there is absolutely no reason they couldn't do a video podcast, where everything is done with sockpuppets, and each admin is responsible for 5 to 10 different voices.

Also, whether the episode calls for it or not, I think there should be at least one green-screen jumping-from-the-explosion per podcast.

And a scene where everyone just stops and dances like it's a wild 1960's party, with Go Go sockpuppets.

Oh, and there should be a point where the Matt and Jess puppets act out scenes from famous movies. We should be able to write in what we want to see a couple of days in advance.

If you did all that, I guess it would be all right. Pretty ok, even.

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:32:45 -0800

Podcast! Yay!

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:40:13 -0800

Also rtha does not pronounce her name 'Eartha,' but I do.

By: quin

quin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:45:54 -0800

Ooh, that raises a question I've been wondering about forever: How do you deal with really weird usernames? Do you just best guess, or do you contact the person ahead of time and find out how the hell it's supposed to be said.

I mean, in some cases, the username is a visual pun that would be pretty much unpronounceable.

By: Stewriffic

Stewriffic — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:51:58 -0800

How does she pronounce it, jessamyn? I've always said it by the initials.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:52:59 -0800

A puppet show would be awesome.

By: jmd82

jmd82 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:55:02 -0800

Nah, with all that phat cash Mathowie's surely rolling in by now, they should fly people out on his personal plane to be on the podcast.

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:55:05 -0800

It's cool. I pronounce jessamyn as if it were spelled "You took an awesome picture of our cat Yorvit and you were pretty awesome before that anyway!"

Also: rtha pronounced like Eartha makes me think of Eartha Kitt, and that is good.

By: Stewriffic

Stewriffic — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:55:48 -0800

rtha! how do you pronounce your naaaaaaaaaaaaaame?

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:55:52 -0800

I say it the way you do, Stewriffic.

Bird nerds, amirite?

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:59:06 -0800

I say redtailedhawk very quickly in my head. Or arrthuh.

By: Stewriffic

Stewriffic — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:59:18 -0800

OMG, I just got it. You're crazy, missy. I wonder which species code I should be?

By: Stewriffic

Stewriffic — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:00:46 -0800

I've decided: CAWR.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:13:39 -0800

If we checked with people ahead of time about how they pronounce their usernames, it'd rob us of opportunities to quibble over pronunciation during the podcast itself and in the thread after, and that'd be no fun.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:14:46 -0800

Yeah you act like we plan this....

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:20:58 -0800

How about making it an enhanced podcast by using chapters, links, and images?

By: Science!

Science! — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:26:50 -0800

Do you cover the server SQL drama? I'd really like to hear about that.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:29:12 -0800

Can you guys do it as a puppet show? With fire and and guns and a pink elephant on meth?

By: grobstein

grobstein — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:29:32 -0800

"completely optional audio podcast" lol

By: anifinder

anifinder — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:46:14 -0800

MetaFilter reserves the right to substitute your monthly podcast with a dick-punch of equal or lesser value.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:46:44 -0800

Point of contention: cortex should be the Ann Coulter, and jessamyn the Hannity.

mathowie can be the pink elephant on meth.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:46:45 -0800

enhanced podcasts would force us to use AAC instead of mp3, and so far I think we have a lot more mp3 support.

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:50:03 -0800

I've decided: CAWR.

Excellent.

By: Horace Rumpole

Horace Rumpole — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:50:21 -0800

Pony request: Make the podcast mandatory. Put a captcha on the comment box with a trivia question that can only be answered by listening to the podcast.

By: Shepherd

Shepherd — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:54:45 -0800

I started the "Say, what's this JavaScript fooferaw?" Great Server Hackening thread about three hours before the site flew into the mountain, but nobody remembers and the thread seems to have died in the Great Crash.

As a Relatively New Minor MetaFilter Contributor that is my only claim to fame here. And it has been lost.

By: anotherpanacea

anotherpanacea — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:56:10 -0800

The whole Slate-article-leads-to-mod-request-thing made me laugh a lot.

MAI I MODERATE? PLZ THX K BYE.

By: Henrik

Henrik — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:56:19 -0800

Wow, cortex, I totally am d'accord to your differentiation between real dreams and just waking up having some tiny shreds of memories, or only a slight feeling left or something. And calling the latter "daydreaming while you are asleep" is fantastic! I am going to use that for sure.

Could all you admins please start dream diaries and publish them on MetaDream?

By: Science!

Science! — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:58:57 -0800

You do talk about the hackening, cool.

By: dg

dg — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:00:39 -0800

I'm trying to figure out how you could do the Clockwork Orange thing, but with ears instead of eyes.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:03:31 -0800

I started the "Say, what's this JavaScript fooferaw?" Great Server Hackening thread about three hours before the site flew into the mountain,

I remember that!

but nobody remembers

False!

and the thread seems to have died in the Great Crash.

True! But I think someone had a mirror of it somewhere. Lemme see if I can find it.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:08:14 -0800

Here's the first real "Metatalk is back!" thread, and the immediately following Who Attacted thread.

And, bingo, from the first one: a (partial?) mirror of Lost Thread 17267, via Pronoiac.

By: donovan

donovan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:10:45 -0800

A small suggestion: It would be super awesome if the podcast files were clearly titled like "MeFi-Podcast-38.mp3" rather than simply "38.mp3" . . . this would make it easier, upon finding this file at a later date to realize "Oh! It's that MeFi podcast I need to listen to!" as opposed to "What the hell is that file?"

By: Deathalicious

Deathalicious — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:32:48 -0800

Thanks for the plug guys. I really encourage everyone to participate. As I mentioned in the MeTa thread, everyone who submits a story gets a personally signed certificate from me, and the winner gets something special as-of-yet not determined.

By: Shepherd

Shepherd — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:33:47 -0800

Yay! For one brief shining moment I had the unmitigated thrill ride of seeing comments posted to a thread I started at the rate of about one every ten seconds. MY SPIRITS SOARED WHILE YOUR SITE BURNED.

By: peep

peep — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:33:48 -0800

donvan, am I missing something, or can't you just change the file name as you save it?

By: crossoverman

crossoverman — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:39:08 -0800

A small suggestion: It would be super awesome if the podcast files were clearly titled like "MeFi-Podcast-38.mp3" rather than simply "38.mp3"

Rename it when you save it to your hard drive. Why does Metafilter have to do everything for you?

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:44:17 -0800

Hey, the MeFi Collaborative Novel was discussed. Cool!

To elaborate on what cortex said about it in the podcast; Yes, the novel is a continuous work, not a collection of short stories. It runs at nine chapters, each written by a different author and is just over 90 pages long from memory (at work, don't have a copy of the draft with me). We also had three awesome editors from the MeFi community who kindly donated some of their time to edit our work. The authors are now looking over their edited chapters and, with any luck, should be sending me their revised chapters by tomorrow.

The plot is science-fictiony, so those of you hoping for a romance novel or a period peice set in bonny old England are out of luck. That said, I think it's a pretty great story and it's interesting to think that it blossomed out of the single line story idea of "extra-terrestrial life discovered."

We don't have a title yet (although robocop is bleeding, one of the authors, has suggested a title I like) or a front cover as of yet. We'd like to get a front cover done for this, but despite the MeFi Jobs ad, nobody has offered their services so far. Given that we want to get this out to all of you by Easter, it's looking unlikely that we'll get a cover done in time. But as cortex said, if you're able to help, hit me up. My e-mail is in the job ad.

Anyway, when it's all done, I hope that you all enjoy it. Speaking for myself, I think that the novel is a pretty good read and if nothing else, should provide most of you with a great piece of collaborative fiction to read while you scoff down your Easter eggs.

By: Deathalicious

Deathalicious — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:54:03 -0800

The comment that started the whole "Deskology" meme.

The first published article.

An annotated bibliography.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:58:17 -0800

Why does Metafilter have to do everything for you?

It said it loved me!

*sob*

By: gursky

gursky — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:07:46 -0800

i knew someone wouldn't like it if i marked all of the answers to my question as best, but i really did find them all useful. and Jessamyn's right, i was happy with them.

also, i probably have a lumpy head. guess i'll find out Saturday...

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:26:41 -0800

The authors are now looking over their edited chapters and, with any luck, should be sending me their revised chapters by tomorrow.

eeek. I guess I should be better at checking that account! Guess I know what I'm doing tonight!

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:08:01 -0800

That "what's this Javascript OMFG APOCALYPSE *flails*" mirror is partial, yup, but I don't think it's missing much? I later saved the last version I loaded before leaving for work, & I think by the time I got to work EVERYTHING WAS GONE. *sobs* I've since saved a mod's number just in case.

And the clear thing for a fan to do here is to act out the vocals with sockpuppets or Terry Gilliam-like cutout animation in front of a screencast of the threads, & annotate them with links in Youtube (oh wait, the podcast is too long) or Viddler (I think?).

I think the concept is likely funnier than the the video would be. Also, I'm worried about becoming "surreal video guy."

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:45:03 -0800

Why does cortex keep mispronouncing "z-machine"?

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:16:28 -0800

If this is one of those "it's 'zed'" things, I'm staying home.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:25:03 -0800

I never heard it called a doo-ner either, but I'm willing to let that one slide after finding the Languagelog entry where no one can agree what they're called or how it's pronounced.

By: kate blank

kate blank — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:31:25 -0800

If this is one of those "it's 'zed'" things, I'm staying home.

I am an editor and I immigrated to Canada three years ago THIS IS MY LIFE.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:35:41 -0800

I'm staying home.

As opposed to what you usually do?

By: qvantamon

qvantamon — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:38:16 -0800

So, have you been to the Zed-Zed-Top show?

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:40:01 -0800

Zed's dead, baby.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:44:11 -0800

There's a bit on the latest 'Barenaked Ladies' album (the kids' one) where they they do a zee-zee / zed-zed -Top routine. It's amusing for Canadians.

There's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance among Canadians who grow up watching US Sesame Street and singing the ABC song rhyming zee with cee, while still reading the letter as zed. At any rate, zed-machine sounds better to my ears than zee-machine but that assumes you know what hell zed is.

By: mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey

mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:51:31 -0800

I admit, I've never listened to a Metafilter podcast until now, but hearing Jessamyn go "pew pew" was so darned cute I might listen to another.

By: gman

gman — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:57:42 -0800

Yeah, reminded me of that SNL Sarah Palin skit.

By: jouke

jouke — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:00:39 -0800

I guess you were not talking about this z-machine (big awesome picture)

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:04:52 -0800

You guys' take on Time's mini-golf joke is way off. The joke the Time author was trying to make is that what you *wouldn't* see is someone deciding *not* to make a post about the history of mini-golf because it would be too trivial for the site, not that you would never see a mini-golf post. Read their quote again, it ends with "but it seemed too trivial to post here".

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:12:06 -0800

No, I got it, and most of the people seeing the post when it happened got it (though a few didn't).

I don't consider the existence of that post to be an attempt to defy a misinterpretation of Time's joke; I consider it to be a see-your-joke-and-raise-you-a-manifestation sort of thing.

In other words: not "Fuck you, we can so post about mini-golf, don't tell us what we can't do". That would be missing the point, yes.

Rather: "fuck you, you joke about us never not making mini-golf posts but we actually just made one, how do you like THEM giant novelty apples with three inlet tunnels that come out on a separate lowered green on the other side, and you really want to aim for the left tunnel because a solid shot there is pretty much a whole in one".

Also, I just like cursing at major publications.

By: never used baby shoes

never used baby shoes — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:15:53 -0800

The authors are now looking over their edited chapters and, with any luck, should be sending me their revised chapters by tomorrow.

I've just popped you an email and a MeMail, but to be complete - I have not received my chapter back with edits.

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:32:14 -0800

But their joke was essentially saying "anything, including mini golf, can be made into an acceptable post for metafilter, so the only thing you won't see is someone with interesting knowledge on a topic deciding not to post it." So the refutation of that notion would have been for nobody to ever make a mini-golf FPP on the blue. That someone carried through with the post just validates that their their observation was in fact spot on, it doesn't in any way challenge it.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:40:27 -0800

It's not challenging the accuracy of their observation; it's challenging the implicit hypothetical nature of the example given. The post acts as a kind of letting-air-out-of-the-tires attack on the jokey example, not by proving it inapt but by concretizing what was presumed by the Time writer to be abstract.

Not a Gilligan Cut, but something similar if partially inverted.

The shape of the thing is something like if someone was trying to tell a story using fake names to obscure a referent's identity, and they said "this one girl, let's call her Alice", but then someone pointed out that the ostensibly-obscured person in question was, in fact, named Alice and was standing right there. Abstraction fail.

Except in this case it's not a passive failure of the abstraction but an active assault by the referent on the abstraction of the referrer.

By: desuetude

desuetude — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:11:23 -0800

Also rtha does not pronounce her name 'Eartha,' but I do.

I do too, sorta. More urrrrtha, i guess. I tried arr-tee-aitch-ayy but it was just too annoying to say like that.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:19:41 -0800

I just read text and process it directly without routing it through the Broca's Area for reverse transcription.

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:34:06 -0800

By the way, when you were talking about cornering someone at youtube who can speak for the design behind the biblical-flood-scale river of shit that is their comment system, it made me recall a very old Daily Show episode where they had Jerry Springer on as a guest. The host -- I can't remember if this was Kilborn or if Stewert had replaced him yet -- began the interview simply with, "So Jerry, why crap?" Springer kind of sighed and did a sort of facepalm for a bit, and a few moments later managed to come up with "because otherwise you'd get all backed up?"

By: eamondaly

eamondaly — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:17:26 -0800

Aww... that was a great plug for ThingsMyBeardCanLift.com y'all! Here's a special pic just for you!

By the way, for anyone who really can't afford to make a donation in these troubled times, Jessamyn mentioned our newest project: all you have to do is grab some scissors and floss to lift the human spirit yourself! If you upload a pic of yourself lifting something with the downloadable beard, I'll make a donation on your behalf in honor of your achievement! Hooray!

By: dgaicun

dgaicun — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:39:09 -0800

This podcast (the first one I've heard) was my first realization that not all the mods are aware of every post and every drama and every meme that goes on on MeFi. Makes sense, but I think I had this illusion of all-seeing mods.

My experience with dreams matches Cortex's; my dream memory seems to have declined significantly since high school. Same thing: maybe once a month I recall any sort of dream activity upon awakening.

I don't know if this is a common age-related finding.

By: schyler523

schyler523 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:44:33 -0800

So, the other day I was in that transient post-dream, pre-awake state when I was struck by a joke.

I was thinking about seals and I was thinking about chemistry. Here goes:

What do you call a seal that's missing an electron?

A Seal Ion

I'm sorry

By: schyler523

schyler523 — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:45:13 -0800

The podcast was like that.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:32:02 -0800

I do too, sorta. More urrrrtha, i guess.

I've been pronouncing it Arthur (in my head) ever since she first arrived here.

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:19:43 -0800

never used baby shoes: "I've just popped you an email and a MeMail, but to be complete - I have not received my chapter back with edits."

Hopefully you should have it now. Let me know if not.

By: gman

gman — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:13:56 -0800

This podcast (the first one I've heard) was my first realization that not all the mods are aware of every post and every drama and every meme that goes on on MeFi.

Mods, not Gods.

By: flibbertigibbet

flibbertigibbet — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:46:47 -0800

I completely understand the reason why '3 answers to post a question!' would be a bad, bad thing. I like to try to keep my answer:question ration at 10:1, but it's not hard-and-fast, because recently there's been a lot of questions I don't feel equipped to answer (like noted in the podcast, it's aggravated by the self-help theme). So the ratio rule is a good measure for being useful--unless keeping the ratio means posting noise, why I'm not willing to do.

By: allkindsoftime

allkindsoftime — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:02:08 -0800

For a second there when you were talking about the "she favorited every answer in the thread" and made fun of her, I thought you were already talking about my "What is it like to dream?" question and I was screaming at my laptop here in the office "I'M A DUDE GODDAMMIT AND I DIDN'T FAVORITE EVERY ANSWER." Ahem.

Also, since you asked, mathowie, I do have a high-pressure job but I don't consider myself broken.

Except maybe when I get in a yelling fight with a podcast at work.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:06:55 -0800

While I don't know everything about the MeFi drama here, I do seem to have a pretty good idea of who is a dude and who is not a dude.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:57:58 -0800

Guess which one I am!

By: SpiffyRob

SpiffyRob — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:14:17 -0800

I'm forever in your dept, cortex. I'd never seen tvtropes.org before, and now I'm probably going to get fired because I won't be able to work until I've devoured the entire site.

That said, I'll be coming to you for a bailout package because I don't have a job, putting me much, much more in your debt.

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:26:19 -0800

Also, whether the episode calls for it or not, I think there should be at least one green-screen jumping-from-the-explosion per podcast.

And a scene where everyone just stops and dances like it's a wild 1960's party, with Go Go sockpuppets.

Oh, and there should be a point where the Matt and Jess puppets act out scenes from famous movies. We should be able to write in what we want to see a couple of days in advance.

You're looking for "The Totally Rad Show" quin. Minus the sock puppets, and Metafilter.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:41:53 -0800

I'm forever in your dept, cortex.

Best typo ever. And yeah, TVTropes is a powerful productivity vacuum. I don't know how many hours I've spent there, wandering from page to page.

Though I do wish I could press a magical "please stop telling me about anime examples, I do not care at all" button.

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:45:38 -0800

LOL BUTTS!

I laughed hard at this and the other meta stuff about youtube "everything is gay and everything sucks" comments.

By: burnmp3s

burnmp3s — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:15:33 -0800

You're looking for "The Totally Rad Show" quin. Minus the sock puppets, and Metafilter.

To me it sounds more like Sifl & Olly.

By: SpiffyRob

SpiffyRob — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:22:21 -0800

I'm forever in your dept, cortex.

Best typo ever.

Either that or you just accidentally acquiesced to taking me on as a subordinate.

Accidental Acquiesence is an awesome band name. Perhaps for a band that tours BDSM coventions?

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:51:01 -0800

Though I do wish I could press a magical "please stop telling me about anime examples, I do not care at all" button.

They group the examples now, so you can just scroll right past it.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:56:24 -0800

They group the examples now, so you can just scroll right past it.

Sure, but you still get over half the page filled with "examples" of how, say, six different episodes of Avatar the Last Airbender managed to partially avert the "Rousseau was Right" motif trope, when the whole point is obviously just for the anime-fan community there to mention the names of their favorites over and over whether it has anything to do with a topic or not.

Still, I love that site.

Anyways, I made the Mini-Golf thread, and understood was Time was saying, and yeah, cortex has it mostly right about the form of humor I was going for. I'm not sure there was even a real "fuck you" in it, but if there was, it was somrhing like, "Time Magazine joked that we're the type of people who would make an FPP about Mini Golf, well FUCK YOU, Time, damn straight we are! Fucking fuckers!"

(profanity added for cortex's benefit.)

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:13:46 -0800

I never heard it called a doo-ner either

Me either—I couldn't figure out what they were talking about for a while. Ö, ö, ö! Is zat zo hard??

Also, I too say Eartha. I'm glad to see I'm not alone.

By: readery

readery — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:07:40 -0800

I've said it as ritha, somehow adding an i, even though I'm a birder and should have figured out the red-tailed hawk reference. Duh!

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:06:39 -0800

BRAIN DOANER!

By: will wait 4 tanjents

will wait 4 tanjents — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:06:37 -0800

I just want all them to know
them=mathowie
I love the podcast.

Been listening for the last 7
... this is in direct conjunction of me gasping
the moment I realized there was a MeFi podcast.

[/ass kiss]

By: the latin mouse

the latin mouse — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:39:52 -0800

Huh. I'd been pronouncing it 'Arthur'.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:45:06 -0800

I still say it's RZA with a lisp.

By: SpiffyRob

SpiffyRob — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:06:03 -0800

Everyone knows that gtha is the genius.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:36:01 -0800

I have been singing ♪ zombie bot aaaaarrmy ♪ to the tune of Bob Marley's Buffalo Soldier all week.

By: cortex

cortex — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:46:06 -0800

Zombie bot army
Crowdsourced mischief
There was a zombie bot army
In the heart of the internet

Slacking at dayjobs
Turning into flashmobs
Fighting on the forums
Fighting with the morans

By: danb

danb — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:35:33 -0800

This is the first podcast I've listened to with cortex. I enjoy the frequency with which he proclaims things to be bullshit.