95: #dickmove
 transcript  August 2, 2014 11:55 AM   Subscribe

The podcast for August was recorded on July 31st and covers the previous three weeks of the best things we liked on MeFi. It runs about 1hr 46min.


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Episode 95 of the MetaFilter Podcast

miscellany
ee cummings capitalization

Alan Cumming: perfumes and perfumes

MeFi Jobs

Work at Meatbomb's hippie utopia!

Director of Content and Community

Customer Service at Paizo (beginner box)

Edit audio recording of my father's funeral service

MeFi 15th
Meetup photos from Jessamyn: 1, 2 (HDR ghosts)

MeFi Projects

HODOR by bertrandom (posted to MeFi)

Back Tang Wiesenfeld text generation by curuinor

Library of Emoji by aparrish (posted to MeFi, Stallman Pleasure Card)

Phosphates, Fizzes, and Frappes by litlnemo (example, egg cream)

f/5.6 photoblog by TheMadStork

Pee & Pray by Ratio

MeFi Music

Music threads last forever!

Always on my mind by Sreiny

Falling (Theme from Twin Peaks) by ludwig_van

Slow see by ghostbikes (used as outro music, also: shoegaze)

FanFare

Twin Peaks rewatch starting up

FanFare Talk section launched, the Twin Peaks thread

MeFi Posts
July By Women, wrap-up thread

Folk Heavy Metal genre mega-post broke down by country ("I was a founding member actually, played the drums...")

Markov chains explained with interactive simulations

The Flag design thread (Narwhal!)

Anthrocon Fursuit Parade (huge group shot, library mention)

Editing photos as if they were audio files

Lorde's Royals a capella cover with red solo cup percussion

Weird Al covering 8 songs in 8 days (Dr. Demento tape)

Big NYT profile of comedian Maria Bamford

Portland disaster relief trials

Before Google Streetview, there was 1890s photo archive of streets in Massachusetts (examples rough road, big cart, sandy roads, bowler hats)

Mouth Silence, mashups from a world where Smash Mouth never existed

Ingress comes to iOS (Vermont's Morgan horse)

Ask MetaFilter Questions

What sports can someone start doing at age 30 and become world class at? ("My mother actually qualified for the 96 Olympics in Atlanta in archery", Modern Pentathlon)

Recommend songs about Washington/Seattle that are positive (Sir-mix-a-lot with the Seattle Symphony)

What fine foods can I order via Amazon Prime?

Suggest funny birthday and celebratory animated GIFs for company emails (bukkit)

Suggest love songs for longterm couples?

What can I do with an overripe banana? difficultly level HIGH (no banana bread allowed)

Where in the US can I own some land and really get away from it all?

Meetups

Marquis released a novel about theremins
posted by mathowie (staff) to MeFi Podcast at 11:55 AM (42 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

"blar blar blar!"

:)

OK, that's going to stay with me for a while...
posted by krinklyfig at 2:52 PM on August 2, 2014


Actually, there is no hot dog emoji.
posted by mbrubeck at 5:44 PM on August 2, 2014


Thank you for correcting the E. E. Cummings thing because I always want to punch people.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:42 PM on August 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


This thread has been open forever.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:23 PM on August 2, 2014


holy snap a song i am singing in is on the mefi podcast! now there is a sentence i never imagined typing. thank you!


ok resuming regularly scheduled lurking
posted by ghostbikes at 7:34 PM on August 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


The transcript is open.
posted by Pronoiac at 7:51 PM on August 2, 2014


I missed so much this month with travel and work, so this is an awesome way to catch up.
posted by arcticseal at 9:10 PM on August 2, 2014


holy snap a song i am singing in is on the mefi podcast!

IT IS SO GOOD
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:53 PM on August 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


Thank you for this podcast; another great one.

Am finding that the MetaFilter podcasts are perfect to listen to when you're stuck in a hospital bed for hours on end (socialist medical care is great but slow) waiting for docs to either test you, or waiting for the results or to be released. The banter between Matt, Jessamyn and Cortex is enduringly entertaining and probably helps reduce blood pressure in the listener (big win).
posted by Wordshore at 4:26 AM on August 3, 2014 [5 favorites]


Get well soon, Wordshore!
posted by arcticseal at 5:54 AM on August 3, 2014 [2 favorites]


Or my interminable commute. I like the math discussions at the beginning.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:20 AM on August 3, 2014


"stay away from guys with big beards"

WTF? *laser eyes*
posted by hippybear at 11:31 AM on August 3, 2014 [8 favorites]


It runs about 1hr 46min.

This is before the intro/outro and music is added. It's really 1:55. I figure that's a nitpicky detail but I am a pedant and maybe people here are too.

"stay away from guys with big beards"

Jim has noticed that since he'd been a big beardo guy he's gotten a lot more positive attention from men and less positive (and possibly some fearful attention) from women.

That sounded good. Did you have to edit out all my mouthbreathing or was I doing better not doing it this time?

Get well soon Wordshore.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 11:33 AM on August 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


Feel better, Wordshore!
posted by zarq at 12:56 PM on August 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


Hey, cool! My project is in the podcast! Thanks, all!
posted by litlnemo at 1:59 PM on August 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


So the guy get his funeral edited?
posted by cjorgensen at 6:35 PM on August 3, 2014


That sounded good. Did you have to edit out all my mouthbreathing or was I doing better not doing it this time?

It sounded great in the original recordings! No edits necessary, though my setup is still making a slight hum I need to track down/eliminate. I think that "move the mic near your nose instead" solved it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:36 PM on August 3, 2014


Well, yes! Move your mic near your nose and don't hum. Problem solved.

Today is easy. Now the dishes.



Oh no
posted by Namlit at 5:30 AM on August 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


MetaFilter: I am a pedant and maybe people here are too
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 6:09 AM on August 4, 2014 [4 favorites]


It's called Abelian because the order of dropping the sand doesn't matter.

The reason why it seems more lucid, per se, is that it follows Zipf's law in a more principled way. I was comparing it to an order-1 model. I already tried adding a somewhat formal grammar in the same automata-ish way, but probably I will try increasing the state space in the Markov way.

As far as I know, the way to get words is novel and unprincipled. The model itself is turned from a lattice into a graph, the graph has for each node a word, and to say that a node avalanches in the model is to say that the word has been generated.
posted by curuinor at 7:12 AM on August 4, 2014


curuinor, to an outsider who just barely knows what Markov-generated text is, your three lines look like a very nice sample. :7)

And then I listened to the podcast, and lo, my eyes were opened.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:41 AM on August 4, 2014


It's called Abelian because the order of dropping the sand doesn't matter.

Yes but why is that called Abelian is the other side of the coin. WHO IS ABEL AND WHY WAS HE SO GOOD AT DROPPING SAND.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:57 AM on August 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Our culture today is so car-dominated that I don't think many people realize that bicyclists were pushing for better roads long before cars were common/popular.

From the Wikipedia entry on the League of American Bicyclists:
"The League was a prominent advocacy group for the improvement of roads and highways in the United States[5] long before the advent of the automobile."
posted by sarah_pdx at 8:00 AM on August 4, 2014


You may laugh, but Niels Henrik Abel was born on the island of Finnøy.
posted by zarq at 8:02 AM on August 4, 2014


My apologies for my melodramatic-sounding comment. Am not seriously ill; body is just getting fixed from the damage of a self-inflicted predominantly cheese and coffee diet.

And this thread isn't about me but about the awesomeness that are the podcasts created by Matt, Jessamyn and Cortex.

Say; where/when do other MeFites listen to the MetaFilter Podcasts?
posted by Wordshore at 9:09 AM on August 4, 2014


WHAT HO, MODS.

Wordshore: I listen in the car, on the way to & from work, where "stop-and-go" and "cackling" are a fine match. I just can't decide whether it's a good idea or a bad one to listen when I can't immediately reach for a web browser and run down every interesting thing I hear about on the podcast.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:13 AM on August 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


While commuting.
posted by zarq at 9:14 AM on August 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


MetaFilter: mathowie: Sweet!
posted by Splunge at 9:23 AM on August 4, 2014


While cooking or doing other kitchen stuff, mostly.
posted by Lexica at 9:35 AM on August 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


I listen on the subway and while walking around town! As I am about to do right now.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:52 AM on August 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


While I was listening to the podcast, I was getting indignant at Matt for not recognizing the name of one of the territories of Canada, but then I realized I should get down off my high horse because, while I know the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada, I don't know all of the 31 states and one federal district of Mexico. So, in the interest of us ignorant US residents educating ourselves:

Provinces and Territories of Canada. The ten provinces are Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. The three territories are Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. Here is a quiz to help learn where each one is.

States and Federal District of Mexico. The 31 states are Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Colima, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, México, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, Yucatán, and Zacatecas. The federal district is Ciudad de México (also referred to as the Distrito Federal). Here is a quiz to help learn where each one is.
posted by ocherdraco at 12:07 PM on August 4, 2014 [3 favorites]


The only reason I know all the Provinces/Territories in Canada is because 1) I've been to quite a few of them and 2) those LizardPoint quizzes. I should get cracking on Mexico.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 12:17 PM on August 4, 2014


Today one of the things I have to do is go through a large cabinet of old documents here at work and toss some things and keep others. The podcast is perfect for this, and as an added bonus, it makes my coworkers wonder what I am snickering about.

Here is a photo I took of a small garter snake that looks like it has two heads, but it doesn't. Thanks, HDR!
posted by rtha at 12:45 PM on August 4, 2014


Whoa, I had no idea Mexico had 31 states. I would have guessed like a dozen, tops.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:53 PM on August 4, 2014


Looks at quiz linked by ocherdraco - notices that four of the Canadian provinces/territories seem to meet. Has overwhelming urge to visit the place, just so I can hop between all four. I wonder if anyone else has ... oh, there's a Wikipedia page for it.

That would be an awesome place for a MetaFilter meetup. And a geocache (haven't checked if there is one there yet).
posted by Wordshore at 4:04 PM on August 4, 2014


"The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in order to do a big statewide project to work on their highways, sent a dude out by bicycle — because that's my Segway here — and they did a report of the commission to improve the highways of the Commonweath…"

When I initially heard that, I was like, whoa, there's so many forms of transportation in that sentence!
posted by ignignokt at 5:52 PM on August 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


OK before I listen to the podcast, I just need a few things cleared up so I don't end up traumatised:

1) Jessamyn is still going to be on the podcasts even though she's now retired, right? Because I am not listening to a podcast without Jessamyn.

2) The intro song isn't changing, right? It's never ever changing? Because I sign it to the dog and we love it.

Thank you!
posted by DarlingBri at 6:34 PM on August 4, 2014


Jessamyn is still totally on the podcast. And the theme song might ever change if I get around to recording a good version of the newer one I wrote a while back (like...years ago at this point?) but if we do change it we'll be sure to put the old one somewhere safe for easy access.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:36 PM on August 4, 2014


I think the reason I am going to continue to be on the podcast is because we're never changing the song..... but yeah the plan is for me to keep on doing them. I like it. We all work well together. Oh hi cortex!
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 6:36 PM on August 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


Thank you so much for mentioning my posting, Cortex! I've already been in touch with another kind MeFite who offered to help out gratis. And I LOL'd at the part about teaching me how to do this over the phone. The thing is, I don't wanna learn! ;)
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 8:22 PM on August 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


If I did the math right, I think the 100th podcast would fall around the end of December. As this has sometimes been a best-post-contest month, it would be kind of cool for those two things to happen at the same time.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:53 PM on August 4, 2014


Chicago has their monthly meetup in the first week of the month a 20 minute walk from work, so I like listening to the podcast as I walk over to get a good seat at the bar, or while I'm training for the marathon prior to our meetup.
posted by garlic at 9:39 AM on August 5, 2014


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