Comments on: 70: phylactery, gegenschein, narthex, miasma & catarrh

70: phylactery, gegenschein, narthex, miasma & catarrh

mathowie — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:38:14 -0800

Episode 70 of the MetaFilter podcast is the first one in a while and runs almost two hours. It was recorded on Monday April 9th.

The DONUT CHALLENGE: use phylactery, gegenschein, narthex, miasma & catarrh in a sentence during the podcast. Josh: "So, I was showing my grandpa's old phylactery to some Catholic friends who'd invited me to midnight mass, and we're standing there in the narthex of St. Michaels and I look out the window and there's this wonderful gegenschein on the horizon, this glowing miasma of solar dust, like the sneezed-up exudate of god's own catarrh." MeFi Projects Pocket Tactics mobile game review blog Zombies Run iPhone running game Three Quick Questions usability testing web service A helpful drinking robot: a liquor license Portland, Oregon google maps mashup Pentametron iambic pentameter twitter bot An Instrument-a-day project (photos) Samsabot Markov text generator/twitter bot Drunk Eliza MeFi Music The Great Dog Spirit by snsranch Kevin Is Lonely by chococat Wurlitzer Epitaph by CarrotAdventure Lover's Slide by InfidelZombie Such Great Heights by unSane Millimeters of Mercury — El Amor Es Un Juego (Love is a Game) by dacre Four Chord Music Challenge (challenge page) Thunder Without Rain by fingers_of_fire MeFi Jobs Wikipedian-in-residence at Consumer Reports Android Developer Need a caricature drawn? MeFi Posts Made by Hand - videos of handmade stuff Playfic - an interactive fiction in a browser tool/player Animated map of current wind patterns in the US Hairballs in humans aka Bezoars Detailed photos of a smoking pipe being handmade (the Wizard pipes are awesome) An illustrated guide to common logical fallacies How to host a dungeon and The Tome of Awesome for D&D nerds Fruit Crate labels (Boston Public Library's feed, one of these labels hung in my house growing up) Sheboyganscanner - tweets of random bits from the Sheboygan, Wisconsin police scanner (example, book about bar harbor police reports by user lelilo) Which state do residents hate most based on per capita residents? The Thin Wall Challenge - a neighbor tries to do funny things for the short period of time his neighbors get it on South Pole expedition adventurer's love for cheese doodles memepool is back! Podcast transcription Classic Nintendo games are NP-hard The Payphone Stadium project Economies of Scale multiplayer game An epic demoscene post (example, some highlights) Ask MeFi Questions Is a dentist obligated to give you back your gold crown Taking the random out of racking pool balls A question about list of lists that ends up filled with more lists of lists (housecoat cat categorization) What are some realistic jobs shown truthfully in movies? Give me some rogue-like game suggestions that can be played and stopped at any time What would a modern diner think of a nice dinner from the 1930s-1960s? (US Senate dining menu from 1964, also Senate eateries you can eat at today) Hotel WiFi rewriting web pages and injecting ads/javascript MetaTalk posts April Fools subtle tweak TradeWars BBS game server for mefites MeFi Airbnb group msalt becomes the World's best palindromist (also mentioned in the Economist) This Is My Jam (this is my pig tweak) Where were you when you joined MetaFilter?

By: Celsius1414

Celsius1414 — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:41:04 -0800

Whoosh reference I'm assuming from previous podcast's title: "69: Internet History Whooshing Over My Head" :)

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:42:37 -0800

Yeah I think we clued in to that later. I am in awe of cortex's lexical skills.

By: Celsius1414

Celsius1414 — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:44:50 -0800

Ah, cool. I think I coincidentally opened the podcast page a minute or two after y'all posted the new episode, so I'm only 5 minutes in. :)

By: Ivan Fyodorovich

Ivan Fyodorovich — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:07:26 -0800

Actually, I made the table jessamyn mentioned for listing mefites on OKCupid (and I took it down within two weeks, as promised). What I did in that TIMJ thread was create MP3s of every song posted over that 24 hours by the mefites I was following and then made them all available for download. But only for a few days.

Anyway, as cortex mentions, This is My Jam is listed in the social explorer, so folk wanting to follow mefites can use that. But, also, I myself followed every person who posted their TIMJ identity in the thread as well as those who had listed themselves in the SE — and mefites are pretty much the only people I follow — so another (and more convenient) way to follow (many/most) mefites would be to go to the page on TIMJ that lists everyone I'm following and just click the "follow" button that's conveniently provided.

I've really enjoyed TIMJ quite a bit and have discovered a lot of great new music because, of course, mefites have very good taste. :) (I actually went on another of my crazy OCD benders and collected a list of every track I've "loved" on Last.FM and every tracked I've "liked" on TIMJ, and then gathered those I already had and found, one way or another, MP3s for those I didn't. So now I've got a folder and associated playlist of 160 songs that I love. Which is cool And lots of them came from mefites on TIMJ!)

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:20:40 -0800

How is the Hotel WiFi rewriting web pages and injecting ads/javascript post an AskMe post? And why is the Podcast transcription included as a MeFi post?

Why no, I haven't listened to the podcast yet, why do you ask?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:21:43 -0800

Why don't you get back to us in a few hours after you have and all will be made clear.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:22:44 -0800

And it's not too late to be a foolish April (stent) or (president taft). 'struth, I swear it.

By: Trurl

Trurl — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:38:07 -0800

I console myself with the knowledge that Orson Welles was snubbed by the Academy too.

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:20:58 -0800

Perfect timing you guys! I had just run out of new podcasts in my queue, and I've got an evening of cleaning/organizing/laundry before my dad arrives for a visit tomorrow. I'm an hour in, and taking a break for dinner. I <3 the MeFi podcast.

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:22:35 -0800

FYI, Oregon requires chain restaurants to post their nutritional information on their menu.

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:23:45 -0800

Oh, also, regarding Matt's comment about his various accountants not understanding the homepage: I think most people who are new to MetaFilter encounter a post page first. (Maybe several post pages over time—I know that's how I was introduced to the site.) Eventually, I clicked on the links that led me to the larger site, but if you start out knowing what a post looks like on its own, it's pretty intuitive to see a page full of them and figure out what's going on without being like, "Gah! Wall of text!"

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:26:08 -0800

Vocabulary with Jessamyn is another good sub podcast.

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:07:44 -0800

I threw some more notes in the Projects post about Bender, to answer your questions about it that came up during the podcast. I doubt the city will care about it, since I'm just displaying the information from this page (which exists to notify people of liquor license applications in the first place) on a map.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:29:58 -0800

Looks like I have some logistical details to work out, or I can deliver them in person if you can wait until the middle of August when I'm a'comin' to Portlandia to visit my dad.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:33:07 -0800

Oh, also, it'll be a baker's dozen for the bonus word exudate. Well played, sir!

By: pjern

pjern — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:37:17 -0800

The Boeing surplus store?

Can I get a remaindered 727?

By: FishBike

FishBike — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:57:05 -0800

Economies of Scale is such a great game, it really deserved more love in the podcast.

For people who like these kinds of games, there's an inverted U-shaped graph of "should I play it" vs. game goodness.

On the left side are games you shouldn't play because they're bad. In the middle are the games you should play, because they're pretty good. And on the right side are the games you shouldn't play, because they're good to the point you'll play them to the exclusion of everything else in your life, with possible negative consequences.

Fair warning to anyone who didn't already check it out when cortex posted it to the front page: Economies of Scale is somewhere on the right side of that graph.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:31:41 -0800

Looks like I have some logistical details to work out, or I can deliver them in person if you can wait until the middle of August when I'm a'comin' to Portlandia to visit my dad.

August is a fine month for donuts. If this isn't your first trip to Portland you probably know about Voodoo Donuts, but that's probably where the deal should go down.

Oh, also, it'll be a baker's dozen for the bonus word exudate. Well played, sir!

Above and beyond, that's my philosophy. Plus it was right there on the wikipedia page for "catarrh".

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:39:48 -0800

I haven't listened to this yet - I can't volunteer transcription, sadly, but I can adjust audio if that would help.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:41:45 -0800

Speaking of audio, I went way more aggressive on the compression and limiting for the vocal tracks for this one, murdering some of my fussy "ooh dynamic range" darlings in favor of having our voices hopefully be more consistently audible in noisy environments. Folks who've had trouble with previous podcasts on that front, please let me know if this is markedly better or not.

By: madcaptenor

madcaptenor — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:47:22 -0800

Maybe I'm not doing this right, but when I go to iTunes (on the web or on my iPhone) I only see episodes through 69.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:50:13 -0800

Yeah, iTunes doesn't seem to have the newest episode yet. Give it time, they usually update the lists every few hours.

By: in278s

in278s — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:38:33 -0800

Thumbs up for the heavier compression/limiting.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:45:18 -0800

Voodoo Donuts. Worst. Donuts. Ever.

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:49:01 -0800

> Voodoo Donuts. Worst. Donuts. Ever.

Here's a secret: No one who actually lives in Portland eats voodoo donuts sober or without out of towners visiting.

Seriously, the only times I've ever gone to Voodoo has been when I've been visiting Portland before moving here, taking friends who were visiting there, or was tempted by late night drinking and was in the neighborhood.

We all know they are shit donuts as well.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:00:48 -0800

taking friends who were visiting there, or was tempted by late night drinking and was in the neighborhood. -- Ah. Kinda like the monuments or the Smithsonian here in DC.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:03:52 -0800

Fuckin' killjoy donut hipsters, man. Get off my lawn, I'm pretty sure someone's baking artisan maple bars in their garage somewhere.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:34:18 -0800

Be true to your own inner glutton, man, & don't let 'em bring you down. I had about 20 little bargain left-over Reece's chocolate & peanut butter Easter eggs today, and dammit, they were good.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:37:19 -0800

There is nothing wrong with artisan maple bars! They're like 26% of this state's economy.

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:28:50 -0800

I set up the page for the podcast transcript.

By: backseatpilot

backseatpilot — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 05:12:12 -0800

I would like to know more about this MIT surplus store. How have I not heard of this before?

The Boeing surplus store?

Can I get a remaindered 727?

Last time I checked, they had a fine mix of boring (old cabinets) to super-awesome (thirty-foot long press brakes).

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 05:18:11 -0800

I think he's referring to the Equipment Exchange or maybe the annual swapfest THIS SUNDAY.

By: madcaptenor

madcaptenor — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:49:17 -0800

swapfest is monthly, from April through October. (Boston has winter.)

By: backseatpilot

backseatpilot — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:16:55 -0800

I knew about the swapfest, I was hoping for some sort of official campus clearinghouse for old particle detectors or whatever they stopped using in the labs.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:05:09 -0800

So, so happy moonmilk got a shoutout on his Instrument-a-day thing, cause it just way fucking deserves it. Met him IRL when he visited Tokyo, and he's a swell guy, too!

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:46:04 -0800

Jessamyn called me a wench!

By: Bunny Ultramod

Bunny Ultramod — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:46:53 -0800

In regards to the gold tooth question, I just wanted to tell my gold tooth story.

I worked in a dental school for three years. On my first day, I got a tour of the place. We passed a room that was pretty securely sealed up. Oddly sealed up. What's that, I asked?

The gold room, my boss told me.

It was the room where they kept the gold used for fillings and crowns. And, in my mind, it became something like the poster for The Devils' Double, with Dominic Cooper sitting on a gold throne holding gold machine gins dressed in a gold suit while spent gold shell casings landed on a gold floor. Around him would be gold teeth.

I finally got to look into the room. It was just a room, with a bunch of nondescript drawers. It was guarded by a college security guy, though, so at least there was that. But I think they missed an opportunity.

By: ODiV

ODiV — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:35:05 -0800

Tim Hortons has an online nutrition calculator which will show the calorie (and other nutrition related) content of everything, including doughnuts.

By: zompus

zompus — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:12:29 -0800

Not only did playing Economies of Scale inspire me to learn a few more functions in Excel, it got me to finally sign up for a Mefightclub account. I don't have much to say there, but it's interesting to see the metagame discussion and the beginning attempts to set up a Mefightclub Cartel.

By: psoas

psoas — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:35:49 -0800

I will only say that jessamyn's response to the definition of "catarrh" caused me to honk with laughter on a (blessedly empty) street corner.