Podcast 146 Transcript

A transcript for Episode 146: GO VOTE (2018-11-05).

Pronoiac passed the podcast to otter.ai.

Transcript

Unknown Speaker 0:00 A couple of things you?

Cortex 0:26 Well, I'm excited to report that restarting chrome did nothing about the problem. So maybe this is actually a problem with this thing. And maybe I'll explore another one for the next time we record, I look like what happens is like, you know, every 30 seconds or so you just get sort of slow and robotic, because it's like dragging out what there is of what you're saying over that period. And then I sometimes have to fill in a couple of words of context. Because it like sort of rubber bands back to what you're actually saying, when you're saying it. Yeah. So if I remember, like, weirdly, strangely not responding, like, like on point to something, it might be that and I'm just politely sort of like trying.

Jessamyn 1:01 Well, I mean, we can always go back to Skype, or is that just too crazy

Cortex 1:05 today? We're just gonna go through it with this. I was going to propose we do a shortish one anyway, because my throats feel a little tender. So maybe we'll just like do a allegedly showing podcast, which always is a quick 90 minutes anyway. But I bet we can do it. Let's just admit it's a short. Let's just go every time we talk about a thing we'll talk about, like two things we like and then we'll move on and that'll totally work. It

Jessamyn 1:25 sounds great. I do have a 146 factoid this time. But let's, let's,

Cortex 1:29 let's look. Let's get into it then. Okay. Hello, and welcome to episode 146 of the Metafilter monthly podcast. I am Josh cortex Mullard.

Jessamyn 1:38 Oh, I'm Jessamyn

Cortex 1:41 we're nailing it. We are nailing it is November the first. And the first in November 1 stands for first time we've ever podcast.

Jessamyn 1:51 Hi, are you new here? How you doing? Yeah, I'm doing pretty good. Actually, we were chit chatting sort of pre roll. And Halloween was really fun here in my neighborhood like it always is. And people the little local newspaper that we have does a thing that I always really enjoy where they have like there's a you know, safe and teen Halloween kind of thing, right? Where you you go downstairs, you go downtown, and everybody walks around, you know, early with little kids so that you didn't go run around, you don't have to worry about like big kids or them running out in the road or whatever. And the newspaper does this adorable thing where they set up a photo booth at the gazebo like I have a town with a gazebo. And they just like unroll some gray background, and but they take like pro level shots of all these kids in their adorable outfits. And it's just I just can't like you know, the little, the little monarch caterpillar and the little, the little butterfly together. One of them's kind of going on their hands and stuff. And it just it always makes me super, super happy. And there was a Bob Ross and I believe there was a Bob Ross post

Cortex 3:14 on metal filter. Like there just was like yesterday. I

Jessamyn 3:17 think it's one of those things like word chore maybe posted it had something to do with the library. And then he sent me a link to it in case I had missed it. And I was like I saw it. So also, there's this picture of Bob Ross. So that made me think about long story short. Halloween was fun in my neighborhood. How about yours?

Cortex 3:35 It was good. We had a few folks come to the door which I was telling you the sort of like details of the neighborhood logistics but the short version is a few kids came the door and they knocked on that got candy and they were adorable. And where are your outfits? Yes, we were wearing our Keurig Goonies. You're what does that word like Japanese onesie animal pajama type things. Okay, so great. Kinda like what you were wearing.

Jessamyn 3:57 But tell me what the word is.

Cortex 3:58 cura Guney.

Jessamyn 4:00 kirigami. So kind of like it sounds. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if what I was what I was wearing was definitely heavier. I feel like it had like, a little stretchy ankles and stuff. But I don't know, I just bought it off some person off the internet.

Cortex 4:15 Like pretty much the same. Like yours might have been a little bit heavier. But yes, I think it's the same basic idea. There's a lot of that sort of thing. So yeah,

Jessamyn 4:21 I had a big animal pajamas.

Cortex 4:23 Angela had steaks that had snakes for hands too is pretty good. Yeah, it was nice.

Jessamyn 4:30 I kept like, closing my kangaroo tail in the car door that made that's pretty great. Yeah, yeah, I you know, like all nerds. I kind of overthought my outfit a little bit. So I was like, I'm Kanga from Winnie the Pooh, you can totally tell because I'm wearing this apron as seen in you know, now we are six bobble you know, like I just had this whole idea people were like your kangaroo. Yes. Okay.

Cortex 4:55 Okay, good. Like most kangaroo. Move the fuck?

Jessamyn 4:57 I don't care. You're a grown up. Go. Oh, keep going. Yep.

Cortex 5:02 So yeah, that's good. And and you said you had a number one 146 Fact?

Jessamyn 5:07 Oh, yeah. Well, the reason I was just sitting here kind of earlier it was, I was staring at 146 is one of the few number pages in Wikipedia that actually has a picture, like a photograph of something and it has one of those, you know, those magnetic balls that you can't get anywhere near you, because you might eat one by mistake, and it would ruin your life. Those little magnets. They roll around a magnet balls

Cortex 5:32 click the spot. You didn't paste the link? I did. It's in the it's

Jessamyn 5:35 in the chat. Are we supposed to be clicking? Oh, I had been posting all these things in the other chat.

Cortex 5:42 Oh, Jesus. Okay.

Jessamyn 5:44 Well, let me just copy and paste them posted any links either

Cortex 5:51 just, we just started recording.

Jessamyn 5:54 But Jim Steinman album No wonder you weren't really picking up wisely.

Cortex 5:59 You put it in the Tricaster. And then we restart. This is not interesting audio anyway. Now we know where we are. Yep. At any rate, do you have you? Have you been tempted to eat these regularly? Is that a thing?

Jessamyn 6:13 When you get a box of them, like they're a totally fun toy, except that there's all these like super threatening messages about you know, don't eat them. And I was like, who would? But apparently it's, you know, quite dangerous. And so at any rate, the reason there's this picture of these shiny magnetic balls is that 146 is an octahedral number, which means you can make an octahedron out of them by stacking them. And it's really cool look, and actually, to tell you the truth. So yeah, you know, the end, if you go to octahedral number, you'll actually see this same picture, which is kind of cool. And other than that, like, whatever. I'm tired of sort of the numbers generally. And it's just a number for a whole bunch of airplanes.

Cortex 6:54 Sure, sure. Now, just focus. Let's focus on the good stuff in the numbers. And let's try to not make the bad numbers. We can just like not talk about it. Let's celebrate the good and leave it at that.

Jessamyn 7:04 I should really work more on that actually. So thanks.

Cortex 7:07 Yeah, no, it's like it's sort of like an internal space thing.

Jessamyn 7:11 I react strongly to somebody telling me to just focus on the positive but because you almost never say it. I'm willing to hear it from you. Yeah. Good idea, as opposed to a personal growth.

Cortex 7:20 Yeah. Yeah. And I think yeah, I don't mean like, Well, why are you such a negative? Like this? No, it's more like I think about the same thing with podcasting, and my own creative stuff, too. And I enjoyed listening to people like things. When I was at XOXO. This year, my friend Jesse, each Earl, who we've had on the podcast before,

Jessamyn 7:39 who maybe had the Halloween costume I saw Oh, yesterday.

Cortex 7:45 See, I'm not clear. I think that might just be Photoshop, which not just because if it was, it was still very, very good. But I was looking at like, did he build a Fergus headpiece and attach it to his face, and then also do makeup that looked like it was nudged in Photoshop? I was very confused. Oh, I

Jessamyn 8:01 see what you're saying. I had just assumed that it was an actual costume. Because about Photoshop.

Cortex 8:09 Well, and it's also it's like, it's plausible. Jesse might do that, like, you know, it's like, it's not beyond him. So like, but I'm wondering if I'll quiz him on later. Anyway, the point is the word XOXO. And he got into a conversation, we were sitting waiting for a thing to start, and we got in a conversation with a woman who works at one of the local news weeklies, I don't think we knew that at the time, but and I'm sorting through my thoughts in real time here. Got talking to this woman. She's like, Oh, what do you do? Is it oh, do he's like, Oh, I do a podcast and you're like, Well, I mean, it's not you know, man, it's not very good. But you know, it's whatever. And then a little bit later, he was talking to another woman who recognized from previous exhale, hadn't had a conversation. And he was like, hey, I want to tell you, you know, I really appreciate what you said, you know, you were talking about this the last episode that I was at and you talking about, like, you know, not talking down about your stuff and, and whatnot, and you know, sort of got me to be better about it. And you know, he means this totally sincerely. But then But then like, she's like, Oh, okay, that's great to hear and like standing right next door is a woman who like you know, an hour before he was like, Yeah, my podcast isn't very good. I just, I just, I just put myself in this position. Anyway, it's kind of funny and it makes me think about that like it's like yeah, it's like

Jessamyn 9:25 a general sense telling people like hey, you know, I think your things kind of good like it's okay to be you know, positive about your kind of good thing. I don't think that's necessarily putting somebody down I mean, cheer up and smile are definitely yeah, number one and number two in the bullshit never say that.

Cortex 9:43 Yeah, exactly like that. There's there's space for being like, you know, encouraging someone to like, you know, give themselves credit for something. But it's not the same thing as just like, licensed to be reflexively like nattering on people to like feel the way you want them to perform in the field or anything like that. It's more like no, I want to I want to I want to try and feel good about what I'm doing. I want to say

Jessamyn 10:00 or like I kind of like you're saying, like one of the things I did I have to say like, so I got home not too late last night, right. And I was all keyed up, because Halloween is kind of fun. And maybe I ate a lot of candy and whatever. And well, I tried to, I still have some left, let me just tell you that. Excuse me, one of the things I really enjoy is looking at librarian, Facebook, especially, and a little bit Twitter during Halloween because librarians love to dress up for Halloween, they always do it, I don't know if they all love it, but enough of them love it, that it's a thing, right? And they dress up, they go to their libraries, they often dress up as like library stuff, you know, book book stuff. Sure. And so and then there's like library, Facebook groups where everybody is. And so you can just sprint around and literally just look at like library book themed costumes, for days, right. And I kind of like being the person who's going through and looking at people's stuff and being like, that's amazing. I liked that you did a good job. That's so creative. I mean, you know, honest and sincere kind of thumbs up ish. But like, in some cases where, you know, maybe people don't have a lot of likes or faves on their thing for whatever goofy reason, and being able to be like, hey, you know, I feel like a part of my job is like, nice job. You did good, like, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And because I don't know you spread it around, basically. So that was also a good time. Also, I will note that because I sent you some links to some Instagram stuff. I will note that UPS dogs, which is one of the more worthwhile Instagrams out there had a little UPS package handler costume that they gave to dogs on their route. And so there's a whole bunch of pictures of dogs on the UPS dogs channel dressed up as UPS people for Halloween. I can't stand it. So it's pretty good. I'm gonna move away from Instagram now but just saying,

Cortex 12:06 yeah, that's, that's those are 11 out of 10.

Jessamyn 12:09 Exactly. Wood wood wood throw package in woods again.

Cortex 12:13 They're good logistics professionals. Brant. Let's talk about some metal filter stuff. So I was saying earlier, I think before we got rolling, that my voice is a little tender and maple trying to do a short one. So I'm gonna like try and pick one thing from each sub site as I go for abbreviate experience. And the one thing I'm going to pick from jobs,

Jessamyn 12:34 it better not be my job, Josh. Nope. No.

Cortex 12:39 It is this job from Alexander Michelle saying I need someone to help me out with this fleak Fleetwood Mac baseline for that, right. Yeah, someone write me a good tab for this Fleetwood Mac song which I think that's an excellent use of jobs. Someone who knows how to write tasks and play bass. Fucking knocked out of the park. Great stuff, little scratch for helping out someone with a bass part. That's great.

Jessamyn 13:02 Yes. And I will put up my brief transcription requests that I have in the next day or two. Yes, I was on a podcast, very brief podcast that the man who was recording it was a lovely man. And it was a great interview. But then the sound quality is the worst for various reasons enough so I can barely listen to it. And I would love it if someone would transcribe it for me so we can work that out. But the and I haven't posted this job yet, but I will. But the job that I like pardon me was the Indianapolis Indiana job hey, oh, Peter. And I don't know if this is in your ballpark but maybe somebody's it's just basically dances with sneetches need somebody to visit the Indiana State Archives. Look for a particular document or documents, make copies and send them library skills. pays money. Yeah, that's straightforward. That's good job. Oh, can I also mention I'm sorry, I know we're really trying to stay on top

Cortex 14:01 if we aim for one and hit two that I think we're doing I got

Jessamyn 14:03 my cabal pin. I got my cabal there is no now I'm going through and looking through for the meta talk thread. But who is it that's making them? Oh, all right. Moving on. Well, thank them later, but I got my COBOL pin it's cool. I totally button I can pin an inch Sorry. All right. Moving on. But I got my pen and I love it and I'll give a shout out to the person. Oh, and you guys were kind of talking about maybe getting the store year round ish. This Yeah, yeah, me saying that would be cool. Oh, here it is. It's it's a wine

Cortex 14:48 wine. Yeah, with a double why? Why M?

Jessamyn 14:52 Yeah. The Would you like a button? I don't know if there's around two but they make these cute little feel of the Cabal by user Robocop is bleeding, and they're on pins. And if you make a donation to the site or you give them some money to cover shipping, and it came in a very cute very small square envelope, which was just super fun, so I love it the I

Cortex 15:12 don't know, it's it's super nice. Yeah, they just they wrote in to say it would be cool to this. I said that sounds Yeah, if you want to do that go for it. And I think it's a good proof of concept. They've said, Hey, okay, I'm gonna stop taking orders on this point. Which like, seems like the logical outcome of people liking something that you do on a whim is like, Oh, now it's it's a pain in the ass. But I think it's a good proof that maybe we should just get some buttons up in the like the store store. So yeah, no, I really liked that. That's the it was it was a nice idea. And they did a good job with it. So

Jessamyn 15:42 yeah, and I'm enjoying it. And I made a donation somewhere. I don't even remember where maybe you guys but yeah, was cool. You guys are on my regular regular gift list. Anyhow.

Cortex 15:59 I heard regular and that. Well. I think you nailed the sentence while it was not transmitting.

Jessamyn 16:07 Regular gift list, I basically give my user numbers amount of pennies every month. Which sounds a little flinty, but I figure any little bit and I can ratchet it up. But I feel like all users should do that. Right? Like the less

Cortex 16:22 absolutely all users should spend every month should send us a penny for every digit in their user number and yeah, I think it'd be an excellent plan. Yeah, that's right would be extremely well

Jessamyn 16:32 not every day Josh every for the number every

Cortex 16:37 month or number of of Yes, their user number of pennies would be good.

Jessamyn 16:41 But yes, so I like two

Cortex 16:45 grand a month for me.

Jessamyn 16:48 I like to cite the juicer Kellan?

Cortex 17:25 up let's talk about projects. All right,

Jessamyn 17:31 let me go check out my votes while you tell me what you liked. All right,

Cortex 17:34 I am going to go with zazzles Pack track D obfuscate and visualize US political funding because it is a funding analysis tool, which is a cool and interesting and relevant thing at this time of high election malignus. But it's also got reverse kinematics going on with the nodes in the graph on the visualization, which

Jessamyn 17:59 I hear in every word you're saying. And I'm still not totally if you look

Cortex 18:02 at it, it's kind of springy. I like dynamic springy graphs. It's a dynamic spring new graph. doing interesting stuff. So that's, that's, yeah, it's a nice marriage of things I'm here for and things I'm here for.

Jessamyn 18:18 Excellent. Well, I enjoyed Hannover, Hannover three or the I love being a woman except t shirt. I love being a woman except for the misogyny, dehumanization and lack of pockets. I made a pocket themed tweet the other day. And as always, I feel like there are some people who literally just have like a saved search about pockets on Twitter so that whenever anybody tweets about pockets, they're like I am here for this. But I appreciated their effort in that case. And it's true. You know, being being a woman is great for a number of different things, but the pocket thing kills me kills me. Yeah, as well as the dehumanization isn't great either. So

Cortex 19:04 yeah, yeah, both of those things. Yeah, I'm gonna break my own rule mentioned one of the just because it's actually related, Chris awesome. Also has Oh, I saw this Yeah, it's love tracker that he's been doing a ton of work on and it's a ton of work. And I think it's worth mentioning especially since we're right at sort of like the culmination of its usefulness so yes. All right. That was project See how quick we did that. were amazing. Yeah. Great. Nice things everybody. Let's talk about Yeah, everyone, everyone currently this podcast is tremendous and doing an excellent job. Yep. How about how about meta filter? Okay.

Unknown Speaker 19:41 Hola. Hola. Hola. Hola. Hola.

Cortex 19:46 Moving so briskly is tricky like we don't have like the time to sort of like

Jessamyn 19:49 well I don't we share with us but it filter. All right.

Cortex 19:52 Jesus Christ Joshua to explain

Jessamyn 19:54 this. Every every week. Do not comment in a What did we mention?

Cortex 20:07 Here? I'll stall for time. There's a really nice post about

Jessamyn 20:11 Did we mention the gritty thread last podcast? I

Cortex 20:14 don't remember. I don't maybe it's my comment

Jessamyn 20:16 certainly did not happen until after the podcast, but it may have been because we mentioned it

Cortex 20:22 in the podcast. I'm okay. Just talking about greedy some more.

Jessamyn 20:25 Well, let me just Ctrl F for greedy. Okay, well, while you're looking for we

Cortex 20:29 did I will mention this. Okay. Okay, please come on.

Jessamyn 20:39 I'm just continuing to enjoy gritty and the fellow worker gritty account, which is all I had to say about that. I didn't really comment much on Metafilter this last month, I had like some shit going on and had my head down a little bit in the more I don't even know what you would call it. Like just the more upbeat internet because I was kind of working on my mood. And most of that is actually straightened out. But it meant that I really didn't spend a lot of time on the site. So So yeah, I'll take you in and then come back around.

Cortex 21:07 Yeah, no, that's fine. Well, yeah, I agree. I agree. Like in that pretty stuff. Anybody who doesn't know what we're talking about already is like, what the fuck are they? mascot for the Philadelphia Flyers? Yeah. Okay.

Jessamyn 21:20 And was actually created by the same person that created what that the Philly fanatic. And it's a very polarizing figure, because he's kind of bright orange kind of nuts.

Cortex 21:34 Yeah. gritty and some people are wrong, basically. Is, is the

Jessamyn 21:39 Yeah, situation. All right. Maybe? Well, I don't know

Cortex 21:42 if that's like, oh, I wasn't charging you. I was just trying to give no, no, no, no, no, but like,

Jessamyn 21:46 I'm trying to work on my, you know, language, just in general and trying to you know, just stop using crazy as default for everything. Right. But so I'm working on you know, what do I use and like, you know, I'm working on like, ridiculous, outrageous, outrageous really works well for, for gritty. And also, there have just been a whole bunch of like, the flyers have really, and the fans have really positioned greedy as sort of a Power to the People kind of person and so their fellow worker, greedy Twitter account, which is hilarious, which is all just memes about basically, you know, smashing that state, which I appreciate. Okay, so God, please. Yes,

Cortex 22:26 no, it's good stuff. And I did that gritty watercolor that the TJ got.

Jessamyn 22:32 I didn't know you had to just like, jump in with dibs as fast as possible, Josh?

Cortex 22:38 Well, I didn't I mean, I didn't set up rules. He just asked me and I was like, okay, you know, there's not like a formal dibs process. He had just actually said, Hey, I will send it to you. So there you go. All right. Oh, yes, I was I was mentioning that. There's a post by BQ about a write up of a whole bunch of Olds calculating and drafting tools like basically pre CAD so 1970 back to whatever Renaissance but it was like you know, like a compensation anglers faces in there as painted was trying to fill in

Jessamyn 23:15 yammering about gritty. Josh, were

Cortex 23:21 we're operating on all cylinders today.

Jessamyn 23:24 You know what? I not only love this stuff, but like my father used to kind of collect this stuff. I mean, I sent you like his wacky ruler. Yeah, we do have some wacky rulers and I took like tech drying, like, right before the advent of you know, doing computer stuff. I actually got awards in tech drying and looking at this kind of stuff always gives me like those kinds of, you know, road road less traveled path not taken feels like oh, ah, so beautiful. This is a great, this is great. I love it. I love it.

Cortex 23:58 It's real nice. Oh, man, I'm gonna I'm going to drive by some stuff and not get into it to try and keep myself sort of honest. There's a post from Cellar Door of pies with geometric designs, like, you know, like baking a pie. And they're great. They look really great. They're super nice. So people should look at those because they're nice looking pies. And there was this excellent post by existential dread of this creepy webcomic this sort of manga webcomic about like, horrible monsters.

Jessamyn 24:33 Did you say manga II or?

Cortex 24:34 Yeah, like, like, in the style of, of manga manga, Japanese comics.

Jessamyn 24:41 Yeah, sorry. I wasn't trying to pick on your pronunciation. I just didn't know what you although it's really I guess,

Cortex 24:45 maybe it's Chinese. Anyway, it's a horror comic with a really terrible layout. You'd have to constantly scroll down which is awful, but it's nice and creepy as Halloween eat, and I realize it's technically November today, but fuck it. There's like a good solid week of Halloween hangover at least.

Jessamyn 25:02 I mean, you can have enjoyed stuff that was about Halloween.

Cortex 25:06 Yeah, it was still it was still the spooky month when I enjoyed that. So and then the one other thing I'll mentioned, just because it's wonderful is the Marvel Olympics are back again. So if you want to watch teams of inanimate marbles, compete in Olympic events for marbles, while someone straight face Idli and passionately commentates the whole thing. You really, really should, because it's great. And 2018 Marble Olympics are here. Excellent. So there we go.

Jessamyn 25:34 All right, I have the one post, that is the post for Jessamyn. And it just took me a little second to find it, which is secret agent sock puppets post about the Library of Congress's National Screening Room, which is digitized historical films and a whole bunch of stuff. And it's all in kind of a nice interface. And I think I don't remember what Jackie's user name is. She's dear Splenda on Twitter, but she was basically like, you know, proof that the Library of Congress loves us is looking at this sort of stuff available in the National Screening Room. So like, you know, there's a film you know, a 1905 film looking at Coney Island at night, back when you know, lights was, lights, were kind of a big deal. five cent trolley ride crossing an ice bridge at Niagara Falls, I'm just kind of looking at the stuff that's on the front page. I mean, I kind of wish the Library of Congress, maybe slightly faster. Like I have some hopes and feels about how this will get better over time. And I think it will. But there's so much fun stuff there that if you can kind of wrestle with the interface. It's a really, you know, there's 300, classic black and white films and somewhat unappreciated, posed by secret agent sock puppet, although it was from two days ago. But still, you should, you should go look it out. You should pull some fun stuff out of it. And yeah, it was awesome.

Cortex 27:14 Yeah. Well, and that's, that's a classic like underappreciated really just under common, because it's like, dozens of favorites on it. Yeah. Good point. Good

Jessamyn 27:21 point. Sorry, I'm

Cortex 27:22 gonna go watch hundreds of hours of stuff. I have nothing to say about at the moment. I'm just pleased to hear.

Jessamyn 27:27 Right. Right, which, you know, happens a lot, actually. So I enjoyed it. And I have to also say, just in the How was your month Jessamyn that I finally got the Library of Congress to acknowledge that I exist after being like a huge lobby or for like her getting the job in the first place. Like, I've never had any direct interaction with her. Right. Since since. You know, I was a member of ALA when she was the president in 2004. And it's always kind of bugged me a little bit. Like I've always like, been like, Why can't she just kind of flip it girl favorite something, anything. But I saw there was a designer. I know, it's petty, but I saw her on Jeopardy. Like, there was a question literally about her on Jeopardy. There was a picture of her getting sworn in. And they were like this woman's getting sworn in on this Bible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, fancy bullshit. Who is she? What's her job? And like, the first like, person to buzz in didn't fucking know, was like, I don't know, the librarian at the National Archives, that person to the national archivist, Jesus. And then the other two people had no idea until nobody got the question, right. But I whipped out my phone and took a picture of the screen and then put it up on Twitter and added the Librarian of Congress and was like, sigh on Jeopardy. And then she saved my tweet. So all right, her or at least her social media people know I'm alive. Yeah.

Cortex 28:51 Or was someone sneezed? And I mean,

Jessamyn 28:55 just let me have my thing. But thanks, Josh.

Cortex 28:59 Yes. Let's see. Let's talk about AskMe Metafilter. Let's move on NAS Metafilter.

Jessamyn 29:06 What about libraries? This is kind of a difficult, but I think a good asked Metafilter thread. I mean, basically, this is Chando. And I'm a public librarian. My desk is right inside the damn door. I have to deal with difficult patrons. I had a friend who got shot like up the road from the library a couple years ago. And like, I'm dealing with some anxiety about having to do my job and I'm worried like, I'm worried I'm gonna get shot, the political climate is making me nervous, and et cetera, et cetera. And there's a lot of people who had really good advice at but the reason I really pulled it aside as a, you know, thing dimension is because Robocop is bleeding who is himself, a librarian who deals with Access Services, which is often like circulation and those are often kind of the frontline people. well within the library has a really good really bang on confidant useful answer, which I thought was really good. So I was happy both. I mean, obviously, it's not a good thing when people are frightened or afraid. But it's nice when you feel like maybe there are remedies that can help people do things better at their jobs or do their jobs better or whatever. So yay, Robocop is bleeding for answering the question. And yay, gentle for asking. Because, hey, we all you know, get better that way.

Cortex 30:32 Also, I'd like to briefly say yay, for the corpse in the library for popping in with a perfectly helpful a little bit of an answer, but also having that username. In that context. Oh, God. Oh, my God.

Jessamyn 30:45 Wow, I'm happy. I didn't see that at the time. Because I would have been like, maybe you should just stay out of here.

Cortex 30:53 I'm friends with her at this point. So she was like, oh, yeah, I've never felt bad about my username. But you know, it was an answer.

Jessamyn 31:02 Your username is funny. So

Cortex 31:06 I thought this. So okay, this is a question that was on my radar, because I ended up writing a long answer for it. And for one thing, yay, I answered an Aspie. I almost never do that. And I did. So go me. But it was interesting, because it's a question from blackjack. 514 saying, Hey, I, my 10 year old daughter likes to sing. And I want to get her a couple hours in his studio as a Christmas present. Okay, which is a great idea. And it also I was I was, there's a good answer right out the gate from Uncle Ozzy just sort of hidden the basic stuff. And I was like, hey, and Angela pointed to me. He's like, hey, maybe you can answer this too. I was like, well, Uncle Ozzy kind of said the right stuff. And then I stopped and thought about it. Like, he said, right stuff. But all this shit that I would not have known when I went into studio. Maybe I should talk about

Jessamyn 31:48 never been in a studio before because it's different than just sitting at home in your computer.

Cortex 31:52 Yeah, exactly. And so I sort of started thinking, I was like, if I was like, you know, a parent and a daughter in a studio, having no idea what's going on, no matter how good the studio is it like sort of unhelpful, there's just gonna be a bunch of shit, we don't know. So I tried to sort of outline that in my answer. And the current like, even at that I'd like did the short version. But it was interesting to stop and try and imagine that I have no idea what I'm doing. Right? This is not a familiar process for me and sort of break it down. And so I kind of appreciated that as a mental exercise to sort of like try and draw myself out of like, I don't have a ton of like, studio studio context, but I've been in enough to, like, know, the basics of how it goes well. And

Jessamyn 32:29 you've also recorded in a lot of different environments. So it's not just like you've been in one band your whole life, and you do your stuff. You've been with different kinds and types of bands and different kinds and types of contexts, which I think can give you a slightly more holistic, you know, I've done this a couple of different ways. Let me tell you how it might go. Yeah, when

Cortex 32:48 you see something go differently, if the different times you can sort of like figure out what the common notes are, and sort of break that down to like, well, here's what to basically expect and whatnot. So, so I felt good and engaged. And those those are satisfying for me to be able to try and help out some. So

Jessamyn 33:03 well, here's an AskMe Metafilter that I answered, which is one of those kinds of fun, list generating ones. And of course, it is like every aspect of filter thing. Like, there's a whole bunch of people who are like, don't do it, your idea is bad. But this is Billy B, who basically has to deal with people on the phone all at all times. And some people especially in certain phone support environments, want to kind of know your marital status in order to know how to talk to you if you're a woman. This is a thing dudes never have to deal with ever. Because they want to know if they should call you Miss or Mrs. And like that's just the etiquette in certain places. But let's just say the etiquette fucking sucks, right? So Billy B's tired of it, and just wants to be able to return a fucking memory card. And so how can you know maybe you can say like, or doctor or professor, but ability you wanted to say something like, funny, but like, maybe not to be a dick. But like she's a syst woman. So like, how do we figure this out? Bla bla bla bla bla bla. And so people had some actual like titles that might actually exist. Other people kind of make them up. W city by Mike basically has a list of like, all the things you can pick because there's a ton, especially if you get into, you know, when you're dealing with people from the UK where there may be nobility and you really kind of have to nail that stuff around here. We mostly have military. For the most part. We have a library card, like our ILS integrated library system at the library allows you to put a freeform title in and I don't like SAS the librarians too much but occasionally I mess around because I'm the only one who knows how to use some of this stuff. And I just write wizard and then see how long it takes them to kind of figure out and then they send me email address to wizard West and they think it's funny and I think it's funny.

Cortex 35:05 That's pretty good too. That's pretty fucking good.

Jessamyn 35:07 Well, and it's not wrong honestly, if if we're really going to get right down to it, so I enjoyed the thread though I totally understand that, you know, sassing customer service people is not cool and can have a punching down aspect. But I think in the spirit of this question and especially, you know, these stupid rules aren't going to change if we don't find ways of pushing back in ways that are appropriate and trying to figure out what's appropriate is always a challenge. I really liked whipping Hades terwillegar suggestion of President of Space I in right Reaper of souls get out doctor of necromancy fellow worker is also good. I think we can keep on that. You know, fellow worker, Jessamine fellow worker Josh, I love those. So honorary degree gritty? Right, right, right. Yeah. Read the news you posted

Unknown Speaker 36:01 that made 60 people. So congratulations, formed everyone that came from my house

Cortex 36:32 I like this question for its vague mystery and the possibility that will just literally be unanswerable. I mean, I don't sympathize with the asker about the fact that maybe this is saying, hey, what, what song is, is being played here. And the thing is, I don't know if a song has been played there. It might just literally be someone thinking around like guitar, because look, I'm a guitarist, and I dink around, sometimes I'll just play shit that doesn't exist. Because like, I know, a lot of chords, and I know little runs to put together and I can improvise. So the question is, is the song being played here actually a song? Or is it just a long time guitar? It's like throwing some shit together. And like, you can't prove a negative, right? So you can't prove that it's not a song, but no one's been able to actually nail it down there. Just, you know, it kind of sounds like this all, you know, kind of sounds like this. Well, it sounds like this for a little bit, but then it changes. So that sounds like someone just fucking around I think, is my my seasoned opinion as a guitarist. But then someone could say, well, no, actually, it's this classic blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's like, oh, there is there is an answer. But will it ever happen? We don't know. And that's wow,

Jessamyn 37:43 I have to say, Josh, I haven't heard a word you said. Because I've just been listening to this guitar.

I mean, I'm lying a little bit, but I'm not totally lying. Because here's the thing. It's an old Martin. And so this is the guitar my father had. Oh, yeah. And so as soon as I hear people playing it, it's got like a sound. Right? Yeah. Like, I don't know what it is. I don't know why it is. I have no idea. Like, I didn't know that guitar sounded distinctive, until I suddenly heard this and was transported back to being eight years old. And it's fascinating, but I agree with you. Like, who knows? I mean, for me, I'd be like, well, let's get in touch with starry eyes. Smith and ask him what the hell he's playing. Because he probably knows right? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But I love I love those those questions, because, ya know, it's not me. Led Zeppelin. It's some folky thing. I think Steve Earle is the closest, the closest we can we can get to that. But who knows right now we've got on the podcast, maybe more people figure

Cortex 38:46 it out somewhat. Somebody like oh, yeah, no,

Jessamyn 38:48 I know. The old Martin, the old Martin, Josh. All right.

Cortex 38:52 So whether another Ask her to? Yeah, I got

Jessamyn 38:55 one more. This was by Raven, Dave, who's like, look, I'm on campus. These people come on campus with these crazy. Why do I do that? These bonkers, these I don't know, I have to work on my language with these seriously rugged sweaters. And they're heavy, they're dense, they're warm. They cost a lot of money. But when I find them on other sites, they're crappy. I can literally only find these by like the random company that comes on campus to sell these sweaters. How? And so you know, a couple people were like, well, maybe this couple people were maybe this. And then legata basically are like, hey, Bolivia, Fairtrade has a website that sells the sweaters and it looks like they're actually the Jobert that does the fair that Raven Dave has gone to. And now Hurray, you can buy the sweaters on the internet. And how nice is that?

Cortex 39:55 That is a good outcome. I was kind of what was gonna turn into like some sort of old world Fairy Tale were like you know it's specifically because of the construction of the dramatic irony that you can never get the sweater because it's always a day late but the fact that they

Jessamyn 40:09 actually found Josh my stories have happy endings

Cortex 40:11 I know I'm not I'm not even looking for a Saturday I'm looking more for like, you know, like dramatic like

Jessamyn 40:17 ending that isn't the guy gets the sweater is a sad ending.

Cortex 40:21 Well, sure, but the point is the answer is all summer in a day by Ray Bradbury.

Jessamyn 40:28 Yeah, they also sell those finger puppets. If you've been wondering where those come from. A llama finger puppets? Yeah, maybe?

Cortex 40:37 No, I think I know those. I think I've seen those. Now let's talk a minute talk. Let's talk about some stuff like secret quants, there's getting going. Once our time get your signs up, get

Jessamyn 40:50 up to meta filter quants are our was a sort of old school metal filter user who kind of got people to have sort of Love him or hate him. Approach to him. He was a thorn in the side of the mods, sometimes, and many other people super loved him. And so he's this sort of, you know, lovable scamp of metal filter at this point. And that's who the gift exchange is named after. And it's very straightforward, very simple. You sign up, you get another person, you get a deadline, and money limit that is literally not too much. And you send them a package, a little thing, a little gift, the end. And then there's usually a thread where people talk about what their stuff is. And not everybody likes it, but most people do.

Cortex 41:43 So yeah, it's a it's a fun thing. If you feel like exchange and stuff. It's an exchange. So get on in there. Get on with you're gonna follow through Don't Don't be don't be a Santa think. Oh, Santa think? Oh, I'm sorry. I was gonna say there was a Zozo to check in part two, which I think I mentioned this last time.

Jessamyn 42:03 We did because I didn't know what is SOC wasn't pre. Well, we kick out this this

Cortex 42:09 thread. I'm looking links to the previous thread about it saying, hey, some of us sign up for this weird thing. Should we talk about it? And now this is the next thread.

Jessamyn 42:16 So why don't you describe the weird thing? It's like

Cortex 42:19 a full body scan thing you do? And then you get close sent to you. That is like exactly.

Jessamyn 42:27 Yeah, then you run around in front of your phone, and the phone figures out what size you are and then you get jeans that fit?

Cortex 42:33 Yeah, it's like it's like it's like a mo cap clothes sizing system.

Jessamyn 42:37 Mo cap is motion capture. Yeah.

Cortex 42:39 Well, yeah. So anyway, it's it's weird. And like, I missed it until someone posted the previous meta talk. I was like, this is fantastic. This thread

Jessamyn 42:47 is so interesting, right? Because it really seems split between like, I don't know, maybe 60 to like two thirds. These are the best jeans I've ever had in my life. And like 1/3 it didn't fit at all. I don't know what the problem is. This is super not fitting me. You know what I mean? Like, if it's if it's revolutionary technology, I'm surprised it doesn't work for everyone. I'm I'm now super curious what the fail mode is right? Like, how come it doesn't work for everyone? Like is there a specific fail mode, like for the some people that couldn't find their waste? Properly? It's unclear why that is. I mean, people were mostly pretty cheery about it. If it doesn't fit, you just send it back. People said there's like too much room in the crotch. Like who knows why that is. But at any rate, fascinating. And that thread was fun. Yeah. Because I'm interested in that idea as somebody who's closed never fit. Kind of short and a little thick in the middle. And, you know, bus depot with tiny shoulders. It's just a nightmare for me,

Cortex 43:43 man, they come in all shapes and sizes. I just wear my pajamas.

Jessamyn 43:46 But I think some shapes and sizes fit into clothes a little better. Yeah. Mine is not one that fits into clothes particularly well. Or at least I don't mind wearing baggy stuff. Also, I don't have a job. So it's easier. But um, so then there is also the calm and happy peaceful thread by CitiBike, which just has like, what do you look at when you're trying to kind of just be calm and chill on the internet and he shares a bunch of links that he has, including we rate dogs, which of course we like, Officer Edith, who I'm a big fan of who does animals like animal officers stuff on Twitter, you know, emergency kittens, respectful memes, the feelings wheel which I actually thought was kind of interesting because it is a way of like, looking at different kinds of feelings that themselves have sub feelings and sub feelings if you're trying to figure out how you feel about a thing, but for whatever reason, it's just not coming to you. Yeah. And so then there's a whole bunch of other people chiming in the thread with what they're happy stuff is

Cortex 44:44 Yeah, it's nice. It's it's a it's it's a nice refuge. On a similar note, the most recent meta talk pail our meta talk thread was about Halloween because hey, it's been Halloween so

Jessamyn 45:00 And the costume is always good every year I was surprised. I mean wasn't who was doing annual Halloween? It's usually show me your costume. It's usually

Cortex 45:11 five days. Yeah. I don't know if it's still incoming. I don't know that it's necessarily always happened like before rather than after Halloween. So I don't know. I actually got I got a nice little note from him in the mail the other day with a Western Union detainer for the site. So yeah, that was that was kind of nice. And yeah, so I don't know, maybe maybe maybe it's in the works. Maybe he's running behind. Maybe he's like, Oh, there's another thread this year? I don't know. Right? Well, the only time will tell

Jessamyn 45:48 Well, I do enjoy looking at me fights and what they do for Halloween because it encourages me to know that other people overthink their costumes too and then wind up with some random thing that only sort of works and it's fine. You can live that way.

Cortex 46:01 Yeah. Quick Metafilter music minute, please. All right here is music that I like Oumou made a song called squares or the future. That's sort of a slightly goofy Kraftwerk II thing and it's exactly that and it's really nice and I like it. And he had originally written kraut workI and had to write to the Contact Form to ask me to fix the error and I did so I'm a helper and there is a song called virtual confetti by the one they only vote number one the equipment kid on the occasion of Billy B's wedding, so I

Jessamyn 46:42 should have written could not kid in for like some race that I share who is gonna win or somebody would have done it. I've already voted now but maybe I'll encourage somebody else to do it and then I can take a picture yeah,

Cortex 46:53 well anyway, Billy B got wedding got weddings. Dammit. I'm gonna live across the finish line on this one Hey, we got very congratulations Billy be posted his first post music ever which is this five minute long sort of like you know 60s ish boyish sounding sort of song about it's very nice and so that whole thing is great and congratulations to everybody you're doing great. Oh and

Jessamyn 47:20 also that was the shout out for movable book lady which I enjoyed because I really liked the work that movable book lady does and so there was just a glass eyes did a shout out. Yeah. And that was alright. And did we mention anywhere on the website that Chris Muir and greenish had their baby or was that last

Cortex 47:37 I don't know. I don't know it might come up last month but anyway that that happened Good job again goes You did it.

Jessamyn 47:44 I think that a just happened yeah.

Cortex 47:46 Might have been on the cost maybe maybe there wasn't maybe it was just like that it was going to happen was the discussion that came up.

Jessamyn 47:53 Yeah, I'm control effing. And I don't see it but maybe it's because there was no link because I don't think they mentioned that on the site. Anyway, right. You're still happy about that baby.

Cortex 48:03 Something about control effing being how you get a baby in the first place. I don't know I can't put it together. I am going to say the other song I wanted to mention was the negative influence did a cover of creep on the OP one which I've think I've mentioned before probably partly because of the negative influence posting op ones what is on the Opie one the O the O P one is just a neat little synthesizer with Oh, okay. Like it's small.

Jessamyn 48:27 Or something in the UK?

Cortex 48:29 No, no, no, it's it's a small bit expensive, but cool little synthesizer toy that people make stuff with. And the made them and once made a cover of creep by Radiohead on it. And it's really good. And I like it a lot. And that's the story. All right. How's your sound? Yeah, it's going it's going fast here. So I think I think that's it. I think we podcasted in literally record time for us probably in the last five years at least. Thanks. Yeah.

Jessamyn 49:00 Yeah, Halloween.

Cortex 49:01 Yeah. Happy Halloween. Happy November. Everybody go fucking vote. And yeah. Yeah. All right. Podcast vote. Aye, I really gotta like get audio of your robot sound on this time. This at some point, because it's so good. Sometimes.

Jessamyn 49:20 I never get it. Yeah, no. It's just something that happened

Cortex 49:23 in robotics for me. Yeah, no, no, it's entirely it's definitely a local thing on my side. But you know, did you ever did you ever see it was like Jeff Goldblum drunk Apple ads thing where people took like, Apple ads he did and then they slowed him down to like, half speed or two speed. Yeah. And there's like, like, isn't an apple. It's like that. It sounds like that. It's amazing. And anyway, really stuck the landing on this one. I'm really cutting myself off for real this time. Excellent podcast,

Jessamyn 49:49 good podcast, and I'll talk to you next month

Cortex 49:52 that just did it again. It's amazing. Oh, okay. What is the problem? No, no, it's no it's the thing. I'm just gonna cut like a minute before this. cuz I'm just being a pain in the ass because I'm enjoying something that only I can hear like the robot stuff like literally you responded to that with

Unknown Speaker 50:08 podcast and

Cortex 50:12 good night everybody

Unknown Speaker 50:21 can look you in the eye you just like in the skin makes me cry you feel like beautiful Spanish in Spanish