44: Sex dreams and Unicorns

Episode 44 was recorded on August 21st, features recaps from all sections and runs a scant 45 minutes long.

• play
• pause
• stop
• min volume
• max volume

Helpful Links

Podcast Feed
Subscribe with iTunes
Direct mp3 download

MeFi Music
Music Challenges (jingles/Velvet Underground/Hallelujah)
MeFiMu Promo by uncleozzy
Prenup by sredefer
Let's Kick It by CarrotAdventure
Distance of the Moon (Albedo Mix) by speicus

MeFi Jobs
Knock down a wall for me

Web job in NYC

MeFi Projects
Quitter - command-line twitter

In Which I Ruin Rashomon For Everyone Forever (which got posted to MeFi | full poster)

Good, the Bad, and the Etsy (follow-up on MetaTalk)

Angry Octopus Comics (posted to MeFi | favorites: 1, 2)

MeFi Shop refresh coming soon

MetaFilter Posts
Every calculator you could possibly require (comment)

How to cook like your grandmother (writer behind the blog showed up to say hey)

Billy Faier and his banjo (he didn't have a problem with a torrent of his stuff)

Phineas Gage photo identified (photo in question)

Forgotten Bookmarks (previously | Miko's own blog)

Translation Party!

Ask MeFi posts

How to build cheap, weird instruments

How do I learn to build stuff?

Help me get some real tools for fixing things

MetaTalk posts

homunculus' 1000th post

Languagehat's book is out

You can search your MeFi Mail

Best MeFi parodies ever

The infodump is back

posted by mathowie (staff) to MeFi Podcast at 4:26 PM (83 comments total)

This is an acceptable reason to break a MetaTalk-free day. Yay!
posted by GuyZero at 4:31 PM on August 26, 2009

I just wanted to say that Sex dreams and Unicorns is a typical Wednesday for me.
posted by P.o.B. at 4:46 PM on August 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yay!
posted by rtha at 5:36 PM on August 26, 2009

I wish there was a transcript of the podcast.
posted by smackfu at 5:37 PM on August 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm seriously baffled as to why my Job post was amusing. You do know walls can be knocked down, right?

WTH, mods? :)
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 6:06 PM on August 26, 2009

You do know walls can be knocked down, right?
You Should See the Other Guy

EPON... oh, it's just too easy.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:18 PM on August 26, 2009

Why does it say that the knock down a wall job is "978 miles away" from me? Dude is like my neighbour.

*that's a real question
posted by gman at 6:21 PM on August 26, 2009

Hey it's 978 miles away from me too and I'm the dude.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 6:25 PM on August 26, 2009

I like the stereo separation. Thanks, cortex!
posted by Pronoiac at 6:33 PM on August 26, 2009

You do know walls can be knocked down, right?

I know more about this topic than you can possibly imagine.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:35 PM on August 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

GODDAMMIT!

*goes back to work on the post, the real good post, the post that will prove podcast worthy, oh yes I'll make em all pay*
posted by The Whelk at 6:41 PM on August 26, 2009 [3 favorites]

Listening to this with headphones; cortex is on my left, mathowie is on my right, and jessamyn is in my head.
posted by 517 at 6:50 PM on August 26, 2009

You know who else wanted another person to tear down a wall?
posted by qvantamon at 7:02 PM on August 26, 2009

Reagan?
posted by 517 at 7:10 PM on August 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I know more about this topic than you can possibly imagine.

Do we do moderator taglines in addition to MetaFilter ones?
posted by danb at 7:12 PM on August 26, 2009

I don't know, but if we do I'm going to start using:

"I don't need this shit. I can make books."
posted by P.o.B. at 7:49 PM on August 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Listening to this with headphones; cortex clowns to the left of me, mathowie jokers to the right; jessamyn is in my head stuck in the middle with jess.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:03 PM on August 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yeahh, I lost it at "I can make books!" line, too.
posted by boo_radley at 9:50 PM on August 26, 2009

I like the stereo separation. Thanks, cortex!

It seems just and right that jessamyn is directly in front of me and the two dudes are off to either side. Excellent work, please keep doing this!
posted by Meatbomb at 11:20 PM on August 26, 2009

smackfu: "I wish there was a transcript of the podcast."

It seems like someone could automate Waxy's method and undercut Casting Words's prices ($2.50 per minute!?).
posted by Plutor at 5:53 AM on August 27, 2009

I like the stereo separation. Thanks, cortex!

Cortex, jessamyn and mathowie: outstanding in their stereo fields.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:01 AM on August 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

The stereo's been like that for at least three or four podcasts, fwiw. Throwing the two dude voices off to either side to create some separation on those parts of the frequency seemed like the smart move, yeah.

I wish there was a transcript of the podcast.

So do I, idly. I spent something like an hour transcribing 8-9 minutes of one of the first episodes back around the beginning of 2007 and have no desire to do that again, though.

Finding some way to actually crowdsource it easily with a minute or two of audio per chunk distributed on demand would be pretty slick, but I don't know if enough people are likely to care to keep coming back to that every couple weeks. It'd be neat to see, though, so if someone really wants to try and make it happen I say go for it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:41 AM on August 27, 2009

1) Implement audio captcha requirement to post or comment anywhere on MetaFilter
2) Use podcast as source of audio samples for captcha
3) Profit! Transcript!
posted by FishBike at 8:06 AM on August 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

FishBike: twisted genius.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:19 AM on August 27, 2009

*goes back to work on the post, the real good post, the post that will prove podcast worthy, oh yes I'll make em all pay*

Make it a post about Richard Dawkins, Scientology, AIDS, pet care, Israel, nannies, circumcision, peak oil, vampires, and Islam. You will engender great favor!
posted by Mister_A at 8:54 AM on August 27, 2009

It'd be neat to see, though, so if someone really wants to try and make it happen I say go for it.

One word, duder: Interns.
posted by The Straightener at 9:11 AM on August 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

Holy shit, I got mentioned on a MeFi podcast. That's so cool.
posted by Shepherd at 9:11 AM on August 27, 2009

Make it a post about Richard Dawkins, Scientology, AIDS, pet care, Israel, nannies, circumcision, peak oil, vampires, and Islam. You will engender great favor!

Over in the Infodump 2.0 thread,we've actually already analyzed which tags are associated with the most favorites, and the most comments. (Disclaimer: this link goes to my own comment in that thread since that's where the results of said analysis are). This is an example of the sort of geekery that cortex referred to in the podcast.
posted by FishBike at 9:37 AM on August 27, 2009

The only problem with the stereo-lovely podcast is when you're listening with one headphone in at work so you can still respond to people in the real world. It's strange when everybody in the podcast is responding to something you can't hear. Trippy until you figure out what's happening.
posted by This Guy at 9:49 AM on August 27, 2009

Heh. If you pull your headphone jack out partway, you may get a mono signal that will solve that. A bit klugey, but useful in a pinch.

Anyway, the vox are all compressed a good bit and the pan is only 20 points in each direction, so you shouldn't have the far-side vox completely dropping out ideally.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:05 AM on August 27, 2009

It's definitely not completely silent, but essentially so when my volume is turned down. I just fixed the problem by putting my other headphone on and ignoring the other people around me. Much nicer this way.
posted by This Guy at 10:08 AM on August 27, 2009

Oh hey I just noticed this. Heehee, jessamyn said I'm "nice"! Score!

(ps. I pronounce my username "spike-us" but you'll have to ask the ghost of Roger Zelazny for the real pronunciation.)
posted by speicus at 11:38 AM on August 27, 2009

You can set up mono audio, but checking, that might only be for the iphone 3gs.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:11 PM on August 27, 2009

The first six minutes. Listening to it at half-speed makes everyone sound kinda drunk.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:17 PM on August 27, 2009 [2 favorites]

Awesome work.

This is totally something I can do instead of working.
posted by smackfu at 12:30 PM on August 27, 2009

Thanks for the calculator nod. I'm pretty geeky, but not as geeky as my calculator post suggests.

*goes back to watching 10-hour BBS documentary*
posted by starman at 12:45 PM on August 27, 2009

Just to give credit where it's due, smackfu is really tearing it up on the transcript.
posted by Pronoiac at 2:36 PM on August 27, 2009

I've been watching it unfold in front of my eyes, pretty great.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:46 PM on August 27, 2009

J: I've been listening to all of this music, all month. I've been listening to this music non-stop on heavy repeat. This is awesome. Tell Matt about it because he clearly hasn't been listening to it.

C: It's a shitload of banjo music from Fayer, Fire? I've never actually heard his name.

J: I say "fair", which means you would say "fire".

C: (grumbling)

I need to add (grumbling) to more of my comments on site. Heh.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:06 PM on August 27, 2009

Well, that was fun, but I can't really deal with the thought of doing the remaining 13 minutes of transcription. Now I know what job I will never mock ever again. I cannot believe how long it takes to do *one minute*.
posted by smackfu at 3:12 PM on August 27, 2009

Ha, neat! Thanks for featuring my tune!
posted by CarrotAdventure at 3:15 PM on August 27, 2009

I'm just back from a walk in the park. I'll attempt it again, as long as you promise to not edit the Rashomon section with "that's not what they said at all! Here's what happened..."
posted by Pronoiac at 3:40 PM on August 27, 2009

You can set up mono audio

YES!

.., but checking, that might only be for the iphone 3gs.

NO!!!!!


dammit :-(
posted by popechunk at 5:28 PM on August 27, 2009

Okay, that's done. Anyone who wants to links stories & songs, go ahead.
posted by Pronoiac at 6:03 PM on August 27, 2009

Oh! Hello, sidebar!
posted by Pronoiac at 6:46 PM on August 27, 2009

I went to go help but I kept getting edit conflicts and I gave up. I'll go look for typos.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:09 PM on August 27, 2009

I love the tikka-takka of each of you typing in the background, followed by the faint swoosh of a link getting sent, while all three of you are still talking.
posted by gleuschk at 7:12 PM on August 27, 2009

I went to go help but I kept getting edit conflicts and I gave up.

Oops. I'm done now. I wonder if it's locking people out even if they are editing different sections, which would be quite annoying.
posted by smackfu at 7:20 PM on August 27, 2009

People can edit different sections concurrently without conflicts; I found that out somewhat accidentally with the 600-entry-long "who are you supposed to be?" cosplay list.
posted by Pronoiac at 8:07 PM on August 27, 2009

Two things. First, this is freakin' hilarious:

M: Yeah. And with the emphasis on the weird. Which is like every time you hear a Foley artist speak, it's incredibly weird, they're like, "Oh yeah, I shake broccoli over my testicles and some honey and that sounds like a newspaper" and you're like, "What?!"
J: Aaaaaaaaah!
M: I'm paraphrasing.
J: I hope so.
C: A little bit.
J: When I meet your friend the Foley operator next time at dinner, I'm going to be like, "Oohhh."
C: Don't shake hands.
M: And I think I'm using the word "paraphrasing" wrong. I think I'm actually more of a fantasy.
C: I think you're wildly bullshitting is what you are doing.
M: Yes, yes.

And second, unfortunate typo?

J: For fuck's sack...
posted by davejay at 1:01 AM on August 28, 2009

also this transcript is awesome to have because I never have time to listen to the podcasts and I read really fast and i love you all for doing it goodnight
posted by davejay at 1:02 AM on August 28, 2009

I'm really, really happy to see Transmission getting some love.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:07 AM on August 28, 2009

cortex is on my left, mathowie is on my right, and jessamyn is in my head

I'm kind of glad I didn't notice that, since I some point I would've worried that Kara DioGuardi's voice would have suddenly come in behind me and I really didn't want to yelp and freak out on the Metro.

Because that's what I do, I map things to other things. It's a thing.
posted by kittyprecious at 9:10 AM on August 28, 2009

For fuck's sack...

Look, maybe I didn't write every single little tiny syllable, no. But basically I wrote them, yeah.

Also, you're welcome.
posted by Pronoiac at 9:44 AM on August 28, 2009

I always read 31d1 as 31 rolls of a one sided die.
posted by jefeweiss at 9:59 AM on August 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

I always read 31d1 as 31 rolls of a one sided die.

Metafilter: I am so much nerdier than you.

Oh, wait, is the tagline meme reserved for explicit statements?
posted by kittyprecious at 12:03 PM on August 28, 2009

J: For fuck's sack...

I never said that!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:05 PM on August 28, 2009

I didn't, until just now, realize that "31 rolls of a one-sided dice" actually makes no sense.

I never said that!

That's not what the transcript says. The transcript agrees with you completely.
posted by Pronoiac at 1:23 PM on August 28, 2009

Wow, I'm glad everyone liked Angry Octopus! Zoe had a great time with the whole project.

We just posted the last comic and there is a video from Zoe in the post where she talks about her experience. Thanks to MeFi's own saulgoodman for providing the soundtrack.

Matt, you pretty much nailed one of the main reasons I wanted to have this sort of project in the first place - to show her that she can just go ahead and make the things that she enjoys (comics, in this case).

The front page post gave us a nice traffic spike that day and she was excited as we kept reloading Google Analytics and watching where everyone was coming from. By the time she went to bed that night, her biggest wish was to get a visitor from South Dakota, the only U.S. state that hadn't registered a visitor. Ten minute later I was able to go up and tell her that South Dakota had been represented. So extra thanks if that was any of you!

(Sorry; a bit long of a comment but the front page post is closed at this point)
posted by mikepop at 7:08 PM on August 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

J: Hie themselves over there.

I'm learning new words from the podcast.
posted by smackfu at 9:46 AM on August 29, 2009

I just wanted to say, I LOVE that there's a transcript. I don't like listening to podcasts, but I love reading them.
posted by limeonaire at 10:27 AM on August 29, 2009

Speaking of Keyboard Cat, there's a papercraft version of him out there.
posted by Pronoiac at 2:06 PM on August 29, 2009

So, um...what do we have to do to make sure there's a transcript for the next one? Send cupcakes? Write an ode? Guilt?
posted by davejay at 2:49 PM on August 29, 2009

Probably the best option is "volunteer". It might be that Pronoiac and smackfu have both just discovered a powerful lurking affection for long-form transcription, but the better bet is that a rotating cast doing it in chunks is the sustainable solution.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:56 PM on August 29, 2009

I think the Wiki actually works well, in lieu of some custom web app, but it needs smaller-sized chunks/sections to claim. Maybe 3 minute blocks? That would take 10-15 minutes each to transcribe. They typical podcast is maybe 45-55 minutes of speaking, excluding the end song, so that would be 15-20 chunks.

For anyone who does this in the future: I used some free playback software called Express Scribe, just because it gets really tedious to switch back and forth to a media player. This has function hot-keys to be able to start/stop/rewind which is very convenient since you can just touch-type them. It also has half-speed playback but I didn't really like that. I'm much better at playing a sentence, then stopping the playback until I have that sentence typed. Half-speed makes it easier to transcribe every um and pause but who needs that? YMMV, of course.
posted by smackfu at 3:20 PM on August 29, 2009

Say it with favorites.
posted by Pronoiac at 7:14 PM on August 29, 2009

Did the sections help much? We could have something like the wiki markup:
=== 6 min ===
== Metatalk ==
=== 9 min ===
=== 12 min ===
and have people call dibs in the thread. Concurrent edits would work, as long as they're different chunks. The 6 min chunk would take two edits.

I used Transcriber instead, which worked much better when I stopped trying to have everything someone said on one line. They speak in paragraphs sometimes!

Also, I tended to leave out ums & ahs & sentence fragments. It reads better that way & it's also more forgiving.
posted by Pronoiac at 7:38 PM on August 29, 2009

I think we can do credits/dibs on the wiki too. I'll tack that on to the #42 podcast you're doing. I'll try to interweave the site headers when you're not actively editing.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:11 PM on August 30, 2009

Once I understood the section, I totally got it. Probably need two types

1. actual sections that are more or less permanent [someone can go through and do those off the bat]

- metatalk
- projects
- askme

2. intermediate sections that are just for the transcripts that will be removed afterwards. Editing by sections is super simple and neatly avoids edit conflicts and you can just claim a section and do it til your done. 3-5 minute sections are mostly manageable and then you could have either 10 people doing it, or five people doing two sections each. I'd totally do a section next time, I love having the transcript.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:02 PM on August 30, 2009

Maybe we should throw together a little "so you want to help transcribe a podcast..." page on the wiki laying out the best practices here; we could just drop a link to that into future podcast posts so folks who want to dig in can without having to even hash any of it out in-thread or whatever to get started.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:17 PM on August 30, 2009

I'll tack that on to the #42 podcast you're doing.

Yeah, if anyone wants to play around with transcribing, they can do a section of this. There are plenty left. I skipped over the 10th party podcast (#43) because it seemed like it would be hard, and more appropriate to listen to. And honestly, I really only started #42 because I wanted to try out the Transcriber software on something real, but I couldn't quite get the hang of it. It seems neat though.

As far as the sections, I think once all the time sections are done, someone can edit the wiki page as a whole (using the edit button at the top) to remove them and clean it up.
posted by smackfu at 1:17 PM on August 30, 2009

Tell me if this makes sense:
* Start the page with the three-minute sections & credits/dibs listed.
* As people transcribe their section, they put in the "Metatalk/AskMe/Projects" sections, at the same level as the time sections.
* Keep the time sections around to avoid editing conflicts. After editing slows down - including corrections & linking relevant threads - remove them.

I like the idea of a "so you want to help transcribe a podcast..." page.
posted by Pronoiac at 2:14 PM on August 30, 2009

I like the idea of a "so you want to help transcribe a podcast..." page.

I made one! Feel free to edit or rework, I figured it would be good to get one up there.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:06 PM on August 30, 2009

Okay, I just did a bit - the end of Ask & the start of Mefi. Parts that felt weird:
* Cutting off mid-sentence at the start or end felt wrong. I put in the full sentence for both.
* Doing the end of a section smackfu started felt weird, because I could see him getting some satisfaction from wrapping up the section. This could be helped by having more than a couple of people doing this or by only putting in the "Mefi" section while transcribing that section.

The new transcribe podcast page should have "put your name in the credits section before you start work on a section" but (1) I managed to forget this when I started my section and (2) I'm going over to chill out in a park & so ... huh. Gimme a sec.
posted by Pronoiac at 3:26 PM on August 30, 2009

I hate to tell you this Matt, but Phineas Gage's accident had nothing to do with left-brain/right-brain stuff.

The wound went through one or both of his frontal lobes and his resulting odd behaviour led to the hypothesis that specific regions of the brain had different functions (and later on, that the front lobes were involved in executive function; and then we had lobotomies, etc).
posted by adrianhon at 5:07 PM on August 30, 2009

Further regarding split brain hemispheres, the corpus callosum linking the two halves of the brain is sometimes cut intentionally to treat severe epilepsy. Not really connected with Phineas Gage.

Thanks folks for working on the transcript - good stuff.
posted by exogenous at 6:19 AM on August 31, 2009

I hate to tell you this Matt, but Phineas Gage's accident had nothing to do with left-brain/right-brain stuff.

left/right, front/back, what's the difference? (yeah, I realize in a brain it's a vast difference, but I remembered it being an opposite parts of the brain injury, just forgot which part it was -- I never studied it, just heard about it second hand all the time)
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:39 AM on August 31, 2009

Heh, I was just mentioning it here lest the misunderstanding travelled further! If people are interested in the left/right brain split, there's a very interesting technique called the Wada Test in which an anaesthetic (e.g. sodium amytal) is injected into the right or left carotid artery, which effectively 'switches off' one of the brain's hemisphere's.

This is a pretty handy technique to study brain lateralisation, although it is rather dangerous and is not really used as an experimental technique, unless someone's having it done to them anyway for operative purposes.
posted by adrianhon at 11:03 AM on August 31, 2009

I smell a new teenage drug scare, adrianhon. I can see the affiliate newsroom coverage already: "Are your children turning their brains off, one hemisphere at a time? Find out at eleven!"
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:12 AM on August 31, 2009

If they start putting the bone saws behind the counter at CVS because of this, I'm going to be very upset.
posted by Plutor at 11:49 AM on August 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Corpus callosotomy is the new trepanation.
posted by exogenous at 11:55 AM on August 31, 2009

Just listened to this - great podcast. Wanted to point out that Rashomon was originally a short story written by Akutagawa, and there is no 'truth' or 'what actually happened.' I don't know if that got mentioned in the original FPP. It's also the foundation for the recent LaChiusa musical See What I Wanna See.

And because Cortex mentioned Terminator time-lines, I wanted to point out that one of my favorite time-lines is the one for Heinlein's All You Zombies.

Fun times!
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:18 PM on September 2, 2009

Not sure why I didn't spot the podcast until today - another great one.

I was really happy to hear the remix of Speicus' track, the original is one of my favourite tracks from the original MeFiMix CD that were so generously provided to us MeFi10NOLA-ites in July (the CD is still in my car's player, where it was loaded as I drove out of NOLA the day after the meetup...)
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 8:18 PM on September 4, 2009