89: Bookie Clicker

The latest podcast was recorded yesterday and runs about an hour and fifteen minutes, covering all the highlights from the site in January.

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

Helpful Links

Podcast Feed
Subscribe with iTunes
Direct mp3 download

MeFi Jobs
System Architect job at Oregon State University

Part-time graphics designer for Equality California

MeFi Projects
doge maker project by zackola (williams carlos williams joke)

thinkContext browser extensions for progressive causes by thinkcontext

Mapschool by tmcw (posted to MeFi)

Picflood is an unfiltered stream of recent images uploaded in tweets by quarantine

Straight Outta Downton by edlundart



Circle of Useful Knowledge blog of tips from a 1888 reference book by adamrice

Openings: first lines from books, movies, poems, songs, etc by c95008

Only The Best Recipes, listing 4 and 5 star recipes from many sites, sorted by category by kbrowser3 (posted to MeFi)

MeFi Posts
Craigslist Mirrors (example, ghostbusters mention)

Slow TV 1-4hr videos of landscapes, trains, and other calm scenes (see also: drivelapses)



Famous Book titles rewritten as Upworthy headlines, which became a spreadsheet, which became a game

Snowy Neckdowns - desire paths in snow show where streets could be narrowed

Jack Conte's XOXO talk describing Patreon

Tintype portraits of celebrities at Sundance (how tintypes are made)

Make your own cookie clicker game with Idle Game Maker

Designer Locomotives from the early part of the 20th century

Geel, Belgium, the town that houses mentally ill strangers

Jamie Casino, the local lawyer with the most insane commercial seen regionally during the Super Bowl

Breaking Madden, pushing the limits of Madden Football xbox games to the breaking point

Jared Lorenzen: 300+ pound QB, American folk hero

Qallunaat! "Why white people are funny" movie by Inuit humorist/filmmakers

Follow the World - every country's twitter accounts (see also: single digit twitter accounts)

Ask MeFi Questions
Why are Olympic sports for women on the official site called both "ladies" or "women" in different contexts?

Decoding grandma's cancer codes found on cards (went kind of viral)

Looking for book recommendations on mundane single topics

Media recommendations for a gender non-conforming 3yo boy

Bass Aackwards dating style (followup on a "should I ask my roommate out" question)

Looking for old awesome 70s GE ads, where to find more?

MetaTalk posts
MetaFilter's Third Annual Interactive Fiction Contest is underway! (previously)

MeFi users translating newly found ancient poems

MetaFilter's LinkedIn group

MeFi Music
Black Mountain Blues by gorbichov

posted by mathowie (staff) to MeFi Podcast at 3:14 PM (38 comments total)

I wasn't on the podcast this month, but wanted to point out for people one of my highlights for the month of January: this Tolkien post that went into incredible depth about the backstory of the major characters and analyzing some what-if scenarios. A great read if you missed it.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 3:17 PM on February 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

Here's the link to the LinkedIn group if people don't want to dig around in the thread to find it.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:42 PM on February 6, 2014

Nice job gang, evn with the terrible dad pun that is the title of the post.
posted by wheelieman at 5:42 PM on February 6, 2014

Yum is a package management tool, like APT, except for RPM-based distributions like Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS, SUSE, etc. as opposed to .deb based distributions like Debian and Ubuntu. The name comes from Yellowdog Updater, Modified which was a rewrite of Yellowdog UPdater (YUP) which was a component of a Linux distribution called Yellow Dog Linux. But all the other major RPM based distributions eventually adopted it, and today it has no particular ties to any given distribution. If you remember using a RPM based system in the old days prior to Yum, you had the rpm command that could be used to install a .rpm package file, but the process of finding and downloading that file, as well as ensuring its dependencies were satisfied was a completely manual process (but there were sites like rpmfind.net that eased the pain somewhat.) Yum sits at a higher level and can automatically fetch updates and new packages from a remote repository, as well as their required dependencies, invoking the old rpm command to install them. So it's not a replacement for RPM, but an augmentation or front end. It's similar to how on APT systems you use the dpkg command to install a .deb package file already on disk, but most people don't do that, they run apt-get to fetch things from the network and manage dependencies.
posted by Rhomboid at 5:58 PM on February 6, 2014 [7 favorites]

Oh, and a pilot of Zombieland the TV series was actually produced, but it was not ordered to series. It was from the same writers as the 2009 movie, but a completely different cast, which from all accounts was one of the major damning factors. This was part of Amazon's foray into original television, where they produced a number of pilots and then let customers decide which to pick up based on view counts (or something.) Zombieland did not make the cut. Incidentally, just today they released a second round of pilots.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:40 PM on February 6, 2014

Rhomboid, I didn't realize that a part of Yellowdog Linux was still so important. Cool; thanks!

Also: WHAT HO, MODS.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:43 PM on February 6, 2014

The transcript is open!
posted by Pronoiac at 7:57 PM on February 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

My favorite comment on Picflood was when Jessamyn said "These aren't even random, it's just girls!"

Thanks for featuring. Great work on the podcast. And sorry you had to see a mouth-pooping pic. :-)
posted by quarantine at 8:00 PM on February 6, 2014

Oh gods, that Zombieland pilot ep was terrible. There are zero-budget zombie films that are better than episode. Part of the problem is that they were following an entertaining film that starred good actors, with a show that featured similar people trying to re-capture those roles, and they fell so very far from the mark.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:14 PM on February 6, 2014

evn with the terrible dad pun that is the title of the post.

You misspelled "especially with".
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:29 PM on February 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Pedantry time: Normal schools were not for normal people, they were teachers' colleges.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:42 PM on February 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

As requested, here is my angry email about Cocktails:

Cocktails are a 1800s creation, and uniquely American in a few ways.

Specifically, they were made to order drinks - before the introduction of them, you drank straight spirits, beers, cordials, or in a fancy establishment, a punch. America's young industrialists with disposable income (and our massive drinking culture) wanted a more customized experience, and also combined with the early prohibition movement, wanted a way to drink in a more acceptable manner.

Bitters were considered medicinal, but tasted horrible. Mixed with some spirit, water, and a little sugar, and it became the original morning pick me up. This is also what most people agree as the original Cocktail, and what we now call an old fashioned. So a fancy evening dinner drink now was what people in the 1850s were drinking as their morning hangover remedy.

The prohibition in the US killed off a lot of the fancier drinking establishments and trades, the more famous bartenders (or mixologists as Jerry P Thomas liked to call himself at the time: hipsters are being retro, not ironic) moved oversees to ply their trade. The resulting super sickly sweet cocktails of the era were associated with covering up the flavors of bathtub gin and other things. There is a crazy cocktail nerd group that tries to recreate lost recipes, trying to find old bottles of spirits or liquors from long closed distilleries.

I highly suggest the book Imbibe which gives a history of the cocktail scene in the 1800s, along with a bunch of classic recipes (also updates to make them drinkable by a modern palate).

(Also, the Oregon State lab and their stuff is awesome, they host many opensource projects, and are cool guys).
posted by mrzarquon at 9:01 PM on February 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

they were teachers' colleges.

Normal teachers!

point taken!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:15 PM on February 6, 2014

(er, maybe that was a joke and I misinterpreted, in which case I'll show myself out. But my grandma went to normal school! I have her diploma!)
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:18 PM on February 6, 2014

CGP Grey has a thing about how many countries there are.
posted by poe at 9:25 PM on February 6, 2014

"Of course there's a Ghostbusters wiki." :D
posted by zarq at 5:11 AM on February 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Great podcast as always, but what happened to "Poetry Corner, with languagehat and Bromius" - ? If we can't submit new ideas for bits to Radio MeFi, I don't see why we can't produce our own MetaFilter Alternate Audio Magazine, "The Voice of the People". We'll need a jingle and some stings - so memail me, Metafilter Music.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 5:42 AM on February 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

When will Cortex's name be added to the canned intro?
posted by Karmakaze at 6:14 AM on February 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's no one's fault but mine; I've been meaning to get a good recording of a new theme song done Real Soon Now for what is now literally years. I should really get on that.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:01 AM on February 7, 2014

I love love love the MetaFilter Podcast. Easily one of my favorite 60-120 minutes a month. Always brings up things I missed, always discusses things I loved (or hated), always makes me feel like I just spent time with friends bullshitting about life and getting drunk while doing so.

Wait, you guys aren't getting drunk while podcasting?

You're doing it wrong.
posted by hippybear at 4:24 PM on February 7, 2014

We drink a lot of coffee/tea! My background makes drunken podcasting a non-option, as much as I understand it might be amusing to others.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:28 PM on February 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well, they are on the clock, right? What does the MeFi company policy say about drinking on the job?
posted by filthy light thief at 5:42 PM on February 7, 2014

Metaphorical drinking only.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 5:46 PM on February 7, 2014

Honestly, I will say that making it onto the Metafilter podcast is probably cooler than being on ABC World News. (Don't tell Diane Sawyer).
posted by JannaK at 6:27 PM on February 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

Rhomboid, thank you so much for the lovely transcription work! I'm delighted to see we're halfway done (!) already.
posted by beryllium at 7:49 PM on February 7, 2014

> Wait, you guys aren't getting drunk while podcasting?

If you want to hear cortex get progressively drunker, there is crapshoot for that.
posted by mrzarquon at 7:55 PM on February 7, 2014

Yeah, me and churl are far less metaphorical about our imbibement for that podcast.

I would totally do a drinky episode of mefi's with Matt and Jess but I'm not sure it's really the tone we're going for and I wouldn't want to peer pressure them in any case. Plus we usually record in the late morning, so.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:53 PM on February 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the cocktail history lesson mrzarquon!
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:58 PM on February 7, 2014

mrzarquon, do you happen to know which mixologist invented the classic Diet Dew and Vodka? I've heard that it was invented in 1971 by a hippy bartender named Frank McDonahue at The Happy Rooster in Philadelphia. He wanted to introduce more unique color into the commonly served cocktails. Is there any support for that? And do you have any tasting notes?
posted by Drinky Die at 11:27 PM on February 8, 2014

My research suggests that must be apocryphal because Diet Dew was not introduced until 1988 and there is no record of a Frank McDonahue at The Happy Rooster, but could there have been a precursor cocktail with regular Dew?
posted by Drinky Die at 11:30 PM on February 8, 2014

Transcription is complete!
posted by beryllium at 9:46 PM on February 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Holy crap, that was quick!

The transcript's on the wiki! beryllium and Rhomboid rocked it! Thanks also to Joshua McGee and quarantine!
posted by Pronoiac at 11:14 PM on February 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Linked! That's gotta be a new record!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:27 AM on February 11, 2014

This seems like the right thread for mentioning that Cookie Clicker has just added a bunch of new cheevos & a new thing you can build, just in time for Valentine's Day.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:49 AM on February 14, 2014

Wookie Clicker

Snooki Clicker

Rookie Clicker
posted by schmod at 3:12 PM on February 14, 2014

Furious about the new cookie clicker update. Getting 200 of everything is a ridiculous ceiling. So excited for when I get there and can stop playing again. Least favorite most favorite game ever.
posted by SpiffyRob at 5:39 AM on February 17, 2014

I was assuming it was just ("just"!) 150 of everything, based on the scaling of the other cheevos and Orteil's general inclination to keep them practical even when they're also kind of silly. Like, I'm doing 56T CpS at this point and, which comes out to about 28 quintillion a day at standard wrinkler rates; that's with 134 prisms so far, of which I'll be able to buy three going on four more of this time tomorrow if I just let shit accrue for another day; cracking 150 on them is going to take something on the order of a week to ten days and those last couple are going to be real nasty reaches.

But cracking 200 would take, man, I don't even want to think about it. Months, even folding in accelerations from extra heavenly cookie cashin/restarts.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:19 AM on February 17, 2014

Well it's only gonna take 497 sextillion cookies, so.
posted by SpiffyRob at 10:55 AM on February 17, 2014