Podcast 173 Transcript

A transcript for Episode 173: No That's A Different Penguin (2021-06-01).

Pronoiac passed the podcast to otter.ai.

Transcript

Cortex 0:00 Yeah. Do you ever do you have a hard stop or anything

Jessamyn 0:02 or I don't. The hard stop will be when Jim walks in the door. If you hear me say, Hi, Jim, and then you can't get in touch with me for three days. That's basically why but he should be leaving at three which means he'll be up here when we're done. All right, well,

Cortex 0:16 we'll we'll get this party started this episode 173 of the medical or monthly podcast, I am Josh cortex Mullard. And I'm Jessamyn and we are here talking about metal filter and stuff. And And yes, you get to see your boyfriend for the first time in however long

Jessamyn 0:33 I can't even believe it. Like it, it it I mean, we've seen each other. But we haven't like spent any time not basically masked and more or less distant, because we're both like super duper rule followers. And the rule said no. And then for the last couple of weeks after our vaccinations were final. Jim has been wrapping up his semester. And so this is the first weekend and it's long weekend, and it's 49 degrees outside my landlady already turned off the furnace. And hello, New England

I took a shower today because there was residual heat in the house from yesterday. So criss crossing fingers, I used my electric sheets last night and they were nice and warm.

Cortex 1:20 See, and I was just I will I will take that cold as much as I can get like it's been kind of back and forth the last little bit in Portland and I'd like soaking up every bit of cold and rain that we get.

Jessamyn 1:32 To be honest, I'm kind of the same because we really did have like four or five days of it's miserable, hot, muggy, crappy outside. You know, it was nice because it brought out the fireflies. I have seen fireflies, which is cool.

Cortex 1:48 I hear there's 10,000 of them.

Jessamyn 1:50 Ish. Ish. And then when I was talking to Jim about this, he's like, oh, you know, the fireflies in Indonesia. And they all blink in the same frequency in the trees. And I was like, Oh, how do they? And then, you know, sent me down a rabbit hole of Firefly reading about but but yeah, then it got cold again. So I actually right now I'm enjoying it. We'll see how I feel about this tomorrow.

Cortex 2:12 Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. It was actually 10,000 lightning bugs and 10 million fireflies? I'm double checking my

Jessamyn 2:19 god damn.

Cortex 2:20 I'm saying the lyrics of the song. Fireflies by Owl City. Yeah, I thought the first time I heard it in passing, I thought it was what's his name? Ben Gibberd. That band Death Cab? Oh, yes, I should make sure that it's not actually just Ben Gibberd in another project or something. And I had a very helpful city. I will city to good name, which I don't I don't know anything about them and the songs from like 12 years ago, but it showed up on the most recent was

Jessamyn 2:51 Adam Young. It's that guy who like plays all the instruments. I think

Cortex 2:58 it's such a

Jessamyn 3:00 like, there's one guy. Sure there's no other members of the band. Sure What I mean is L city is that guy. He's just that guy. Yeah, yeah. So it's like the mountain goats, which I know technically help other people. But they really only Well, I

Cortex 3:15 mean, was that what Postal Service was like to bringing it back to Ben Gibberd hidden projects of his that I actually liked.

Jessamyn 3:22 The service was always multiple people. Yeah,

Cortex 3:25 I don't know. I've always wondered. I'm not I don't know why this has turned into me getting around to saying I'm not super into Death Cab for Cutie, because that's so

Jessamyn 3:36 wasn't he like a weird creepy rapist?

Cortex 3:39 Oh, geez. I don't know anything about that.

Jessamyn 3:41 Now, maybe Oh, God, I should shut up. Maybe that's the Modest Mouse guy. Oh, that's

Cortex 3:46 terrible, too.

Jessamyn 3:48 Oh, my God, I'm so wrong. Thank you. I'm so sorry. I was thinking about that terrible man for Modest Mouse because they're all the same band. I know. That's bad.

Cortex 4:00 Ben Gilbert has a very he's a very clever lyricist, and a very solid song and lyric constructor in a way that I like more than I like some of the actual songs he writes is kind of what it comes down to. Like, I really admire his capacity to put together a metered rhyme and to do clever things with lyrics. And then about half of the songs he puts out. I'm like, Yeah, I really like the song. Like, I look like I like it. Technically, I like it as an object. And then I just don't particularly enjoy it as a piece of music. And it's a weird thing. Boy, so yeah. So you were saying before we started that 173 is not a very interesting number.

Jessamyn 4:39 No, I said there was a plane crash and you were like, we don't have to talk about it. But now we have.

Cortex 4:44 I do want to come back to last episodes 172 Because you pointed out that it was a piece of the lazy caterer sequence.

Jessamyn 4:51 Oh, and then you went and did a bunch of art about it. Yeah,

Cortex 4:54 it really got off. The thing. I really enjoyed that.

Jessamyn 4:58 A little bit more about that. Okay, so Oh, because in case for people who didn't listen to it last, yeah,

Cortex 5:02 the lazy caterer sequence that got brought up and that I subsequently got excited about is the question of, if you take a circle, let's imagine it's a pie or a pizza, or a cake or whatever the fuck something that you the caterer who is lazy, has a knife and needs to cut up. And you need to cut it into as many pieces as you can, using as like a minimal number of cuts. So normally, like you got a cake, okay, I want to cut this into six pieces, I'm going to cut it like top to bottom, and then about 60 degrees and about 120 degrees, and boom, I've got six nice equal pieces of cake. The problem is, you could in theory have cut seven pieces with three cuts. Seven is the most you can produce with three cuts by crossing each of the previous cuts with the new cut. triangle in the middle, right or there. It doesn't even have to be tiny. You could do it sort of offset. Yeah, the main thing is you can't

Jessamyn 5:57 even a triangle it is okay. Yeah, yep.

Cortex 6:00 The main thing is that every time you make a cut, you need to bisect each of the previous

Jessamyn 6:07 cuts and not go through the bisection. Which Yeah,

Cortex 6:11 yeah, not go through any of those existing midpoints. And that's actually not very hard to figure out a way to do mathematically. If you want to control the distribution and the size and whatnot of those cuts, that gets a little bit trickier. But if you just want to do it every time, it's actually a very simple problem. Except that like the pieces get very small very quickly, if you aren't careful about where you're putting in the cuts,

Jessamyn 6:31 right and stupid like so if you were doing it with an actual cake, you really couldn't get 172

Cortex 6:37 Yeah, it's not like it's not a practical problem. And I think I said at the time, and I will double down now, that lazy caterer is a bad description for this problem, because this is actually a very difficult way to cut up a cake or pie or whatever, it takes a lot more effort than just sort of like standard wedges, or a Little Caesars Pizza style grid. Like this is a this is a pedantic

Jessamyn 6:57 gotta work on it every cut, you've got to fuss with it. This is

Cortex 7:00 basically a sociopathic caterer problem. But but it's a different problem. It's fun to play with, I enjoyed making some art based on it. I enjoyed exploring sort of the the math behind the whole thing. And 172 is like the 21st term in the sequence. So if you had a knife and a cake, and you made exactly 21 cuts, exactly right, you could produce 172 pieces of cake. So that's, you know, the 21st 21 might not be the right term number, but that's the idea. You know, for some n 172 is exactly the most cuts you could get or the most pieces you could get.

Jessamyn 7:35 Right? Yeah, yeah.

Cortex 7:37 So that was fun. So fuck 173 shop was something that you drew a picture. Yeah. And then then I drew pictures of various solutions of that caterer problem and that and yeah, it was good.

Jessamyn 7:49 Did you draw them mathematically? Or did you I mean, I assume everything because you've got the plotter is like,

Cortex 7:54 yeah, yeah. typically constructed plus circles are apparently Yes. You know. So having,

Jessamyn 8:00 oh, my God is great. I watched taskmaster, and one of the tasks was having to draw the largest, most perfect circle. Like using only the tools that you have available, and like watching people, like fall, fall down on it, and then watching the person who got it perfectly. It's fascinating, because there are like, you know, some of these tasks where you sit there and you're like, Oh, I know, how do I do that? And most of them are not, but drawing a circle. I was like, yes. Yeah. Why aren't you doing this is

Cortex 8:33 so interesting with this show, like when when there's something you're like, I have a fucking solution, and you so want to see it manifest. And then people either do or don't,

Jessamyn 8:41 or they do something else. cool and interesting. And I'm delighted, but yeah, sometimes I could just be like, Clint, clutching my little fists being like, please make a good circle, Oh, you made a bad circle.

Cortex 8:54 It's the worst one, they do a really bad job when like, a basic solution is not that hard. And also you thought of that solution in the time that you're watching this edit a TV show, versus them not coming up with that solution. In the time that was edited out that they had, in addition to like, come up with some

Jessamyn 9:11 of these tasks. Do you have like a time constraint that I think does make people who would otherwise do a fine job? Struggle, you know?

Cortex 9:19 Yeah, yeah. There's there's no real accounting for that time pressure. Everybody who sits at home and says, Well, I would have gotten that on. Yeah, but you weren't on fucking Jeopardy. So

Jessamyn 9:27 Oh, my God, my most brilliant friend who was on Jeopardy, you know, really did have kind of not only a choke in the clutch event, but a choke in the clutch on TV and made a very funny, meme worthy answer, because, yeah, yeah, you're on TV.

Cortex 9:44 Stressful. Yeah. It's a it's a whole different environment.

Jessamyn 9:47 I'm also going to do the bird report today because something happened over the last month, and birds have returned to my bird feeder after an absence of six months like I have no idea what was wrong. I suspect one of my bird feeders was maybe manky and the birds were just like, but so they've come back and so today, just right now I've seen a red breasted woodpecker. Red breasted woodpecker. Red breasted not hatch, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker. And the downy one looks like a baby because it's sitting on the ladder outside my window. Not quite sure what the hell's going on. And I will update as events warrant. Excellent. Oh, white breasted not hatch. There we go. Exciting. Like I would literally look out the window and see no birds for weeks. So this is very, this is very cool.

Cortex 10:40 That is exciting. There was a recent thing. I don't know if I've ever studied someone who Angela follows on Instagram and who may be a mefites and I'm trying to remember but I can't remember. So I'll just leave it at that someone that my wife follows on Instagram, saw a bird they didn't recognized and mentioned it or asked about it somewhere and a whole bunch of birders got really fucking excited because this is a bird that has been like spotted like six times totals, the mid 20th century and so they ended up having a bunch of birders come to their yards like the next day. Like they were like, Hey, can we come? Look at and take pictures of this bird and you still this swarm of a flock of birders showed up at their house to document this.

Jessamyn 11:27 Do you know where geographically that person?

Cortex 11:29 I don't remember offhand. I remember no details about this, which is terrible. Oh,

Jessamyn 11:32 now there's a big crow standing on the roof. And it stood there. Speaking of Instagram, you can see this crow on Instagram if you follow me on Instagram. But it's outside the window looking at me right now? Because I don't know why it likes to hang on the roof. Except Except to menace me. Wow. Well, I would love to know what that bird is. So at some time, if you can drag it up, I would love Yeah,

Cortex 11:55 I'll try. And I'll try and remember to get the details. Because those stories

Jessamyn 11:58 are just fun. You know, most most of the time, they're just kind of happy stories and

Cortex 12:04 a mefite. Maybe I'll try and like by chain of connection, peer pressure that meant to make new projects posts, because that would be delightful.

Jessamyn 12:12 Right? Oh, and I should also mention since it's this week, black burgers week is May 31. Through June 5, or it was last year. I'm not sure exactly what it is this week, this year. But it's basically the first week of let's see what it says 2021 Forget it coming up. Black burgers Week is coming up. And it's always really fun. Because you see a whole bunch of people promoting black birding, there was a AskMe Metafilter post I will talk about when it comes round loosely in this area. So Hey,

Cortex 12:48 Bert. Nice. Yeah. Should we talk about projects? Sure. All right. Let's talk about projects.

Jessamyn 12:56 Well, we should also mention that we're not talking about jobs because there aren't any.

Cortex 13:01 We could measure that. I just did. Yeah. Good job.

Jessamyn 13:05 fumble, fumble, fix the map. And now nobody's using it.

Cortex 13:09 So well. It's a it's a it's a weird time.

Jessamyn 13:13 I hear people don't want to work.

Cortex 13:14 Yeah, nobody wants to work anymore. Hey, you know, you know, I think that is nice from Project is escabeche has a new book out.

Jessamyn 13:26 Oh, I know that because I know him from other places. I did not see his project post.

Cortex 13:33 I did not either until this very morning. But I knew the book was out. And I need to get a copy. But yeah, yeah, shape the Hidden Geometry of information biology, strategy, democracy and everything else. Which sounds exactly like a book that escabeche would write.

Jessamyn 13:50 Last one was what how to be wrong. How not? Yeah, how

Cortex 13:52 not to be wrong.

Jessamyn 13:53 How not to be wrong. Yeah, it

Cortex 13:55 was a very good read. And as I recall, we had a Metafilter meetup after a reading at pals, and we went to tugboat and it was a nice time and and it's a good book. And yes, so. Yeah, go get that

Jessamyn 14:11 right on dude. And I am sure this will be a really interesting book. And I'm excited about it. And you know, he wrote a lot of it during sort of pandemic times, and I've been on some mailing lists with him watching him kind of, you know, it can be kind of a slog when you've got a whole bunch of other stuff going on at your home. So, way to go. Very exciting. I can hear your ice cubes. Yeah, I

Cortex 14:34 know. I'm just I'm gonna fucking run with it. All right, a little bit of a. It's full immersion podcasting. That's a term I just made up,

Jessamyn 14:41 fuck and run with it. Well, I think we should mention our colleague, restless Nomad, former colleagues, always a colleague, who basically is did put together a zine, called bliss ball is a horror game.

Cortex 15:00 I literally only saw this this morning. What I know right? Now that other people approve projects post I no longer, I'm just

Jessamyn 15:08 gonna parent that of the list, you can give yourself the Jessamyn lecture about, you know, oh chickadee about kind of staying on top of, you know, things on the website, because then you can have this delight all month, not just in the one day, but for sure.

Cortex 15:23 Now, there has been there's been a number of things that have delighted me throughout the month. I'm happy

Jessamyn 15:29 to post that was actually pretty cool and interesting.

Cortex 15:31 Yeah, yeah, we'll get there. But we'll get there. Eventually. We'll talk about my cool interesting posted a minute.

Jessamyn 15:38 I was overwhelmed. But it's basically little horror stories that come out of the baseball universe by Jeremy and some friends. Did Jeremy write the thing? Or?

Cortex 15:54 I'm not sure exactly. Again, I'm not caught up.

Jessamyn 15:57 Yeah, I didn't read it. I was just excited about it. As you know, I don't care about baseball. I tried. And it's just not for me. I appreciate it. And yeah, it is actually the horror aspect made it difficult for me, but you know that my feelings don't have to be other people's.

Cortex 16:14 It's funny. It's, I feel like part of the work that has happened to sort of build things out and make it narratively and inner actually more complex has also like lessened a little bit of that sense of horror because there's like more doodads to think about and more things happening and less not hungry of the existential terror of bliss ball itself.

Jessamyn 16:33 Yes. Fewer that's disasters and more other stuff.

Cortex 16:37 Yeah, but there's there's still that like lurking there like there's still very much a strange and unkind universe feel to place ball that I really appreciate.

Jessamyn 16:47 Also, baseball specs. I guess. So. Dude, shut up. The Red Sox are doing good. And my friend. The organist is now playing in this game, Fenway

Cortex 16:58 Park. Oh, yeah. Back to Back to actually playing. Yeah.

Jessamyn 17:01 And they went from 10% occupancy, like how many seats you could fill? To 25%. And that's a big deal. Like you can kind of hear people cheering in the stands now. Yes. Huge. Live went to full audience occupancy for their last. Yeah, for the last episode of the season. And, like, we were like, Why is the audience so off the hook today? And we realize they're there. Right? Because it's actually well, and they're not like first responders who are you know, enjoying the show? Happy to be there. But also probably, let's be honest, exhausted. You know, these people are just there to be there and, and noisy about it. So that was cool. Yeah.

Cortex 17:41 Nice. All right. So full crowd got to watch little NAS X. His his pants. Ah,

Jessamyn 17:47 ah, that was so cool. I mean, we saw it on TV. I mean, I felt bad for him. But in the thread about the show on fanfare. There's definitely I will toss a link into the chat. But there's definitely like a link to when little last X was then on Conan, Conan,

Cortex 18:05 Conan, good old

Jessamyn 18:07 Jeremy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon. Good, Lord, I swear to Christ. I am not having these problems. I am not having a blood sugar problem like what? But he was on Jimmy Fallon the next night. And they basically did a they had a clip from the dress rehearsal that showed him doing the thing without splitting his pants because it's a kind of an elaborate pole routine, to be honest. And it was actually kind of cool to get to see what the routine would have been like if he hadn't split his pants. And then, you know, it was Jimmy Fallon who was hosting with Dave Grohl for no reason I could figure out but it was yeah, it was. It was fairly neat. Nice. Yes. And I have a segue, you're gonna like to segue do it? So I know you like that weird little penguin and my apologies if he's killed from baseball. But you might also enjoy violent penguin which we talked about I think before because it's a European children's cartoon kind of weird. And dng basically made a

compilation set of compilation videos, I think.

Cortex 19:34 So my impression and I think I believe this is all an elaborate ship post by dng for a project he has done where he created stop motion animation of his pre existing violent penguin work.

Jessamyn 19:47 You know what, I'm what I'm reading. I'm confusing it with that Australian Penguin, which is the claymation

Cortex 19:53 Oh, ping pong or whatever. Pingree.

Jessamyn 19:57 Okay, so All right. Yeah. This dng ship post about his, his paper penguin. And then there's

Cortex 20:05 which is originally drawn penguin and like so there were some violent penguin comics that we've talked about previously. And now it looks like dng has gone and made a series of short stop motion animations of it and I think it's fucking delightful. And also I appreciate how absolutely up its own meetup is submitted to the bit absolutely committed to the bit I applaud it entirely.

Jessamyn 20:29 My apologies for confusing Pingu, the penguin who I think we were mentioning in some other context. Oh bluejay. Seriously, it's very cool. The birds have returned. I think they like that there's a ladder outside my window that they can stand on.

Cortex 20:45 It's just like you have a very bird specific like low key case of Tourette's going on. It's very enjoyable. If suddenly intrusive interjection

Jessamyn 20:53 well, they fly away. I don't want to wait till the end of a sentence. Yes, not Pingu. Actually violent penguin. Committed to the bit dng.

Cortex 21:04 And I love I love that it stopped motion. That seems like a wonderful expansion of the existing violent penguin concepts.

Jessamyn 21:10 And I was like, Oh, hey, there's a couple comments, and there aren't. So there are. There's one comment by skyrace. And then three, Chip posi comments by dng in their own thing. So it's just harder and penguins everywhere. Basically.

Cortex 21:28 There's a project that I have not listened to yet. Again, somehow this is again, what the other people were approving projects, boats. And so me not immediately knowing, but artifice, eternity did a cover of Laurie Anderson's from the air, which I'm very fucking excited about. Because I love Laurie Anderson. And I love that whole album. And I like artists attorneys work. This was he mentioned the Mefi comm thing back in 2006. And he had a song on it, I have that. Yeah, I still have several 100 copies of that

Jessamyn 22:02 you should make them, you should send them as a perk with your Patreon.

Cortex 22:07 That's a weird sort of overlap. It's not the way it is. I don't know. It's like, I should send it as a perk for not something more directly medical related maybe. But, but anyway, I'm excited about that. And I'm excited to listen to it.

Jessamyn 22:23 You could do something that has to do with your projects posted by your Patreon. Maybe, right? You did the crossover.

Cortex 22:30 Yes, true. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think about it. I'll think about it.

Jessamyn 22:36 Okay, I'll think about it means no, no, it just

Cortex 22:39 means I if I actually start digging in on it right now, I'll get distracted and also a fear of commitment. On on broadcast, so married. Very, very, very well. Somehow.

Jessamyn 22:55 I love I love it. I love it. Oh, I got a really nice card from Angela, by the way. Let some sunflower seeds because I sent her those stamp rock stamps.

Cortex 23:06 Oh, excellent. Yeah. Like you to pen palling it up.

Jessamyn 23:10 Yeah, well, I had had these like really cool stamps in like, you know, a pile of stamps that I got from my mother, not all of which I'm gonna use. But they were like really interesting rocks. And I thought Angela would like them. And so I put them in a little frame and sent it to her. And it was one of those things that had literally been on my kitchen table for like four months. And I was like, come on, what is the problem here and I've just finally hit that whatever. Escape Velocity sent it to Angela. And she sent me a nice car back and it had some sunflower seats in it and I appreciated it. Nice. So since she is also your roommate, in addition to your wife, like no, I gotten it liked it. I will do that. Because otherwise you wind up sending thank you. So thank yous and then when does it end?

Cortex 23:48 Yep. You just gotta you draw a line at some point. You gotta Yeah, at some point, you got to stop replying to the tweets and just emoji. Yep, yep, exactly.

Jessamyn 23:57 Yep. Exactly. Great. I'm glad we agree.

Cortex 24:00 Someone is going to do a doctoral thesis on that. At some point if they haven't already on like the use of nonverbal emotion emojis as

Jessamyn 24:09 we're done here. Yeah. Projects didn't have a ton of stuff in it. So if I want to put more stuff in it, please do. I feel like a project we could mention as a project even though it was technically in meta talk was the other podcast that greenish actually did another episode. Yeah,

Cortex 24:31 greenish is back with the music podcast, which is a thing she had been doing for a while a while back, and then a whole lot of life happened, including a baby.

Jessamyn 24:42 A baby who's a toddler now? Yeah, right. Right.

Cortex 24:46 But yeah, we've got another music podcast and I am delighted by that. And I super appreciate her enthusiasm for putting that together. Yeah,

Jessamyn 24:53 me too. It's really good. And you know, like when I do my dishes, I have my My best soundtrack playing just so I can motivate myself to do the thing that I don't necessarily want to do. And, you know, it does occur to me how many of the songs on that best podcast are by me mefites Because, you know, I downloaded that giant tarball from music way back, way back when. But I listened to a whole bunch of them and gave like five stars to the one I like, the ones I liked. And then they populated my favorites list. And honestly, I should probably go through and do that again. Because it was a great way to learn about new music.

Cortex 25:32 Yeah, that's a it's a nice thing. There are definitely yeah, I have a hard time remembering to like, I have a boring story that I'm just gonna skip about mp3 management. But yes, I like I like the music that mefites Make.

Jessamyn 25:46 Yeah, I've been told that the, you know, iTunes doesn't even do that four star five star thing anymore, but I refuse to believe it for now. Yeah.

Cortex 25:59 Shall we proceed along to Metafilter?

Jessamyn 26:03 I think so. All right, let's do it. I think so there were lots of interesting things. I enjoyed a lot of meta filter this month. I know that some months. I don't know, some months, I'm more involved in AskMe Metafilter. And some months, I'm more involved in metal filter. And I enjoy them. And the one I would like to start with is cats, and they're Muslim humans who would just who would, who just would like some peace and quiet. So basically, Muslims have prayer rugs, or the ones in this post do and cats love little bounded spaces. And there's a whole bunch of videos, I think mostly on TikTok. Because, you know, Ramadan happened. And basically people are doing their purse from home. And so they have their adorable companion cats who are trying to sort of get in on the square, or the rectangular rug activity. And you know, you see some pictures of like cats that are being given their own tiny prayer

Cortex 27:06 rugs. Yes, I'm looking at those right now. And that is fucking delightful.

Jessamyn 27:09 Yeah, or like chaps that are just trying to jump it all over people, or whatever. And it's just, I don't know, kind of a very, very meta filtery. Post about, you know, cats and people preying on their prayer books, and just a weird mimetic aspect of Ramadan. That's excellent. Yes, the kiddie comedy tag, which I do not believe is used in any other post. And I feel like we should change that. So this is by send a Juanita. And witch who has the note in their profile, after almost 10 years of flirting, I finally joined. And I was gonna be like, Oh, hey, new member Nope. After 10 years of lurking, they finally joined in 2012. Yeah. I mean, I recognize the username, but was like what maybe they had a different verb at anyhow, just kind of adorable.

Cortex 28:11 Yeah. There was a thing from right at the start of the month, foci for analysis posted a thread about simple technology. It's a website called simplifier that has a very simple looking website layout. And it's just this person who has tackled various little tasks over the last six years and documented them of like, building a simple tool or making a simple process or building. Like, a little utility thing for for whatever, like, it's, it's hard to sum up, which is

Jessamyn 28:51 really because it's not tech as we think of it like computers, it's more like tech like maker stuff. Yeah. Like, put together a two part light bulb. Yeah. How to make compound microphone,

Cortex 29:05 building a wire holder for for holding, you know, wires, you know, doing some nickel plating, with, you know, acetate and whatnot. And it's just it's, it's great because it's, it's such a, this is like, I feel like periodically we end up saying this is what the internet for. But this is like one of those. This is what the internet is for things like there's there's a very strong sense that this exists specifically because a web page is a good way to collect this kind of journal of things you did, right? Any technology

Jessamyn 29:34 is a linkable, a linkable thing, how to make your own glass cleaner, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, household ammonia, vodka, distilled water. A clear solution, a sweet, non irritating odor, use it in a spray bottle behaves nearly identically to commercial equivalence.

Cortex 29:52 Yeah. So you just get like a few photos and a few paragraphs depending on the thing, and it's it's great. I really like it. I like concept. I like the execution. I am delighted by this this thing.

Jessamyn 30:06 Yes, no, I like it too. It's a very, very nifty little straightforward thing. Speaking of straightforward things, that maybe are less straightforward than you think this was one of those, like, somebody has a post and a link to a 45 minute video. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm just here for the comments. But then I watched the entire 45 minute video about the oldest trousers in the world. Oh, my gosh, so interesting, Josh, basically, you know, we don't have a lot of old clothing because clothing decomposes with people, right? And so basically, but there are certain places where people and their clothing are preserved because of the climate. One of those places is this part of China, where they found a person buried in trousers, and because, you know, up until about, I guess, 3000 BC, or 3000 year old, so 1000 BC, you know, everybody wore some version of skirt, you know, you had some kind of skirt, and maybe you had like leggings, but you didn't have a thing that like, you know, started at your waist and went down to your ankles, that was your whole clothes, you know, or at least not that we found preserved. And so previously, they thought trousers dated to, I don't know, some other time. And they found, you know, a guy burried and trousers that were older than any other known trousers and like, that's its own kind of, you know, great five minute video. But then this video is all about a group of like scientists, people Weaver people, fabric arts, people, figuring out what you would need to do to actually recreate these specific trousers, like sheep were different back then. And so you know, the wool that you would spin was totally different back then. And the kind of weaving they did, and the way they gusseted the crotch on these pants, to make them work with the materials they had, especially because you'd mostly even have pants at all for horse riding. Because you know, China Mongolia kind of area very, you know, Horse, horse centric. Civilization, and fascinating, fascinating. And of course, me and eyebrows McGee are both like eyebrows Biggie more than me. Like both in that thread being like, what this thing that thing? Oh my gosh, blah, blah, blah. super interesting. Watch the whole 45 minute video. I could never I'm amazed I am even saying it. And besides a little bit of a derail about how pants means underwear in the UK. Which we tidied up. It was just a delightful thread start to finish and I love watching that video.

Cortex 32:58 That's excellent.

Jessamyn 32:59 Yes, pants.

Cortex 33:01 I really I like, I increasingly I liked that whole experience of getting hijacked by a video you didn't expect to watch. Like, you know, like, that's been a thing for a very long time, like certain sure, like, Oh, watch a little bit. And then everybody gets sucked in. But like, more and more like, you know, if something actually manages to suck me in like that. That's the greatest fucking thing in the world. And I will take it every time. Yes, give me 45 minutes unexpectedly of just being into this thing outside of

Jessamyn 33:27 recreating a pair of trousers because you don't actually have something else to do worry about or? Yeah, yeah, get hijacked by in your life that's actually more complicated. You can just spend some time sitting and watching because like I told you a couple years ago, I vowed to like, watch a little more TV because I was just too distracted by the kind of always multi platform internet interactions, you know, you're like kind of looking at Twitter, kind of looking at your email, kind of answering a thing kind of blah, blah, blah. And it was like, I just need to sit and watch a thing. Yeah. And so, you know, that was that was a thing I did. And I felt that was useful. And so finding videos that are long, and that aren't long, because they're five minutes of intro and three minutes of outro because you know, you're watching a branded channel that only gets paid by watching length, which I'm oh so tired of. Yeah, it's great. It's very great.

Cortex 34:27 Yeah. Speaking of much shorter videos, and baseball, I'm pulling it all together. Here's here's here's a post that I haven't looked at until now, but I like the thing that's about this is from just like, yesterday,

Jessamyn 34:42 I was gonna ask you about this. I saw this. I saw how popular it is. I don't know what is happening. So tell me

Cortex 34:49 Oh yes. So this is El Mago is the title of the thread. This is a post by Chef net, shaving it sharp net, sharp net Anyway, it's just a it's a play from a baseball game yesterday, I think where the pirates were playing the Cubs. And I don't know any of the people involved including el Mago. But oh Maga was the person responsible for this happening he's a Cubs player and and that's a nickname presumably I think he's he's the magician. What happens is guy hits the ball knocks it pretty hard towards third base runs towards first it's easy throw to get them out. You know, they throw the first he doesn't get there. So he stops and starts backpedaling and the the guy on first with the ball starts chasing money for like backpedaling slowly, and the guys sort of chasing him equally slowly. And so we're like, What the fuck are we doing sort of thing like maybe worried that the guy's gonna somehow get around him and run up to first but anyway, so he's sort of dancing backwards. And all the while the guy who was I guess on third when this play started establish that okay, well, they aren't paying attention. I'm going to fucking gun for home. Yeah, it goes for home and Elmo goes dancing enough that they don't notice until just too late. And then the first baseman tosses the ball to the catcher, but the guy at home is safe, at which point Almagro just fucking strikes for first again, and that's not as easy to throw, but they get the throw off, but then they fucking drop it, and come back. There so then he's safe at first, and so that he gets up and he just fucking runs for a second. And yeah, it's the broadcast moment is really fun. The color commentators he gets a second and the ball still sort of like in movement. And you know, the broadcast commentators are like, go, go, go, you're invincible. Keep going. But anyway, it was it was it was tremendous. And it's like, you know, this all took like, five seconds to happen. But it's such a fun thing to watch. And I don't think you have to give a shit about baseball to enjoy how goofy the whole thing looks. And yeah, I'm going to imagine the metaphor thread is full of fun baseball stories. But I didn't even know there was a thread until like, two minutes ago. I just liked the moment so much, it's worth endorsing the thread to go watch it and enjoy whatever conversation may come from it.

Jessamyn 37:13 Yeah, no, it is, it does appear to be a very nice thread. And it is one of those things where there are a bunch of people, I met a filter who were interested in sports. And often they have a whole bunch of sports information in their heads that maybe they don't get to share with people enough or often enough. And so when this kind of thing happens, you do also wind up with like, a free for all sports thread, which is a good time. So yeah, I like it. I have a bunch of posts that all go together. But if we're still talking about this is where I thought you were going with that was this is opposed by meta Baroque, which is all of the or a whole combination of the pinball number count videos, you know, those like 1-234-567-8911 12. And so it's basically looking at the different cover versions, the segment's there's a Wikipedia page about the thing, which is the sort of kickoff and then there's a whole bunch of YouTube videos that have like good covers, done by different sort of artists you've heard of, and maybe artists you haven't heard of. It's surprisingly not like a really long. Not a really long thread. But it's one of those like, 19 comments. 70 favorites. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, no,

Cortex 38:45 I am excited. I did not see this. And like, I know the the the original Pointer Sisters version from Sesame Street or electric company, Electric Company. Yeah, I was basically a Sesame Street washer. And I know I saw three to one contract and electric company in bits as a kid too. And I think as a kid, I didn't really distinguish between them enough. And so I probably wanted to see this more often than I did, because I didn't know to watch Electric Company. I would just

Jessamyn 39:12 watch Sesame Street. I have confirmed Was it okay, okay. Nice. Yeah. 37 you were how old?

Cortex 39:19 Negative two?

Jessamyn 39:20 Yes, I was nine. All right.

Cortex 39:25 But, ya know, it's a great fucking tune. And it's a great piece of animation. And it was one was like, early. Like if you have to think of like the earliest trippy thing that you remember, you know, this is a strong contender for it. And yeah, it didn't know about people covering it. And that's delightful too. So I'm gonna have to check this the fuck out. Yes. Thank you. Metta Baroque.

Jessamyn 39:45 Yes, you should. So I have a whole bunch of things that kind of go together. They're kind of the me looking forward to this. Basically, it's just physical and mental health and fitness. So brain wane made a very good post about, you know, fitness is kind of a journey and we all start somewhere. And so it was basically. And it's funny because I had seen, I think and asked Metafilter question kind of about this, like, I just can't really do the stuff I'd like to be able to do with my body, how do I get better at doing the stuff I want to do with my body, and people were like, hey, that's, you know, that's like what couch to 5k is made for and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But basically, this is like this person Hampton. And having like, simple videos, from how you can start as a person who can't really do a push up through a bunch of steps to get better at doing push ups. And it just kind of talks about how to get better with your body to do stuff. And of course, it becomes, you know, discussion of a whole bunch of stuff. But it's one of those things, it's nice because it's friendly and supportive. It's not kind of like we're feel the burn or you know, do reps to exhaustion, or like all that other shit. It's just really, you know, what Napa says is a wholesome approach to what is often a pretty toxic field.

Cortex 41:14 Nice. Yeah. That is excellent. Yeah, and

Jessamyn 41:18 then some of the other ones. Speaking of that pretty toxic environment. Then you have the Hannover post, about the guy on Twitter, who basically hacked so hard his brain gave up, which was one of those things that at first people were like, Oh, God, like, you know, overwork is really terrible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then, as the story kind of more people pay attention to it. People are like, that's not how brains work. Like, that's not how, like, you know, people are like, look, we feel bad for this guy, obviously, what we had what what happened to him was really terrible. But it's not like he hacked so hard, he broke his brain, he just sort of ignored the things you're supposed to do to keep your body alive. And, you know, had had a had a breakdown. And that's different than, you know, using up all the glucose in your brain, because you were thinking so hard. So I kind of appreciated it, because I saw that tweet, kind of go around and get, you know, retweeted by a whole bunch of people. And don't get me wrong, like, you know, men, women, everybody who is working with computers, and working hard, and et cetera, obviously, take care of yourself, and I'm sorry, if you do something that makes you feel bad. But the way this guy framed his own experience was as if he was telling us something new about how science works, when instead, he was just sort of telling us something we already knew about how not to overwork yourself, and ignore your body's cues to take care of yourself kind of. So it was interesting, and I appreciated the meta filter communities, you know, kind of gentle picking apart of this, you know, not just like brah bullshit, it's photoshopped. But like, well, let's talk about what we know about brain science. And yeah, speaking of brain science, these literally are all they all are in a row. Here for this, along slightly, it got a little bumpy thread, maybe it did get bumpy, maybe it felt like it was gonna get bumpy and didn't a thread by Sam yo, about, basically, except for the simple differences in size, there aren't meaningful differences between men's and women's brains structure or activity that holds up across diverse populations. And basically, this is an analysis of 30 years of research on differences in the human brain based on sex. And none of these claims are reliable. And so, you know, there's a whole bunch of people sort of talking about it. Yeah, there was a couple, slightly weird aspects of it, but it worked out and was just good, because this is kind of what we have known, but a lot of people have used supposedly brain differences to back up, you know, justification for prejudicial approaches to, you know, men, women, transgender people, gay people, of any kind, and so this is kind of very gratifying, and there were a bunch of people having really good conversations about it in in that thread. Yeah. And lastly, a very good post by Brook horse, which is mainly for artistic mefites

Cortex 44:56 But what what I loved this post Uh Please could continue i just i, i Yes, I saw this one that I really liked basically a

Jessamyn 45:07 post by Brook horse. It is a humor post, but if you needed explain to you there are links for the Institute for the Study of the neurologically typical, first identified as neurotypical syndrome in 2002. And if you're, you know, preoccupied with social concerns, blah, blah, blah, essentially, the framing is, you know, a more artistic centered view of how you know, neurotypical people that have preoccupations and fascinations that get in their way of dealing with the world. And one of the things I really liked about it is there's just a lot of, you know, me fights talking about, like, their own sort of experiences. It's not even a very long thread. But I, I, I just enjoyed it, enjoyed. Hearing people talk about their lived experiences. From a perspective, that was a lot more in many cases, not neurotypical and just a good conversation to read along with. Yeah, sorry, I didn't. You cracked up and I was like, it's something did I misunderstand.

Cortex 46:15 No, no, you're interested. I just I just really liked it. I think I yeah, I see. I left a note at the time, just a mod note attached with saying I am cackling because, yes, no, I found that delightful. Basically.

Jessamyn 46:29 It was it was a great post and it was interesting to read. And, yes. Loved it. I think that is my those are my Metafilter posts.

Cortex 46:39 Okay, I've got I've got a couple of knockout and we can hop on to ask weird thing of the month that I enjoyed, and I actually thought fribble had mentioned maybe posting about this, and I didn't even notice at the time that it was someone else who ended up posting. But the Tartarian Empire conspiracy theory, which is

Jessamyn 46:59 that I said to I saw Q anon and Nope. Yeah.

Cortex 47:03 Well, it's, I mean, like, yes, and no, basically, it's kind of interesting, because it's not Q anon specifically, but also it's sort of inevitable. You wondered, isn't there some of the weird territory that you would expect from Q anon and anything like it? The Tartarian Empire conspiracy theory, though, is not like a conspiracy theory about like, pedophile Democrats in pizza shop basements. It's a theory that there was a Tartarian empire that pre existed, modern civilization as we know it, and was elevated and utopic and amazingly capable of beautiful aesthetic works and improbable buildings. And then, at some point in the 19th century, they were overcome by 18th. Century. Yes, sometime in like the 19th century or so. Non Tartarian. Humanity, or, I mean, I don't even I'm not totally clear whether it's hard to Aryans were even supposed to be human or what, but normies Yeah, contemporary normies caught up with them technologically enough to basically destroy them and obliterate almost all record of their having been this massive, incredibly advanced civilization that pre existed us normies. And that is why sometimes you see buildings that seem impossibly amazing compared to all the other buildings, you see. And that's partly why sometimes you can find old photos where beautiful buildings were where the buildings aren't anymore, because they were torn down by the normies, to continue to suppress evidence of the Tartarian empire. And that's why say big stone brick buildings that were absolutely fucking seismically unfeasible in like the early 1900s don't exist anymore, and not because they were torn down because of real estate development bullshit, or the fact that they were incredibly unreliable death traps or anything like that. Nope, it's because the Tartarian must be erased. And that's the that's the basic thing. That's That's it like people like, it's about architecture, it's about, there's no possible rational explanation for these buildings that used to be built this way that have been torn down and aren't built this way anymore. Other than this is a worldwide conspiracy to suppress evidence of this pre existing impossible civilization, of course, versus you know, well, there was a lot of money involved in building fancy buildings. And also buildings get torn down. So it's weird. It's interesting. Like it's a good read card. Yay,

Jessamyn 49:26 looking at me. Oh, yes, sorry.

Cortex 49:30 Anybody? Anyway, that's all like, it's interesting to read like it's a conspiracy theory, anything that's stupid and depressing about conspiracy theories. You're gonna find that but the read on this, it's such an odd specific thing, but it's kind of interesting to read through. I thought the link was good and the whole subject is strange and fascinating for exactly as long as you spend thinking about it, and then you just never think about it again, because no one is shooting up situations or threatening people about the Tartarian Empire's suppression. So

Jessamyn 49:57 it can be a fun conspiracy, such as it It doesn't have to be a scary menacing.

Cortex 50:03 Yeah, it's benign enough in its weird bullshit that like it's not going to lead to mass violence. So in that sense, I'm here for it well, and

Jessamyn 50:12 your comment mentions the Pruitt Igoe apartment complex, which I was literally reading about this morning. In the book that I'm reading called high risers, which is mostly about the Cabrini Green sort of projects in Chicago, but mentions the Pruitt Igoe apartment complex as being just basically torn down, you know, 18 years after they were built or whatever, because they were such a, you know, terrible idea that didn't work. And what you also mentioned is, sheds light on the meaning of that longtime mefites username, which Yeah, for me as well. And I wouldn't have put two and two together, if I hadn't just seen that comment in this thread about a thing I read this morning.

Cortex 50:55 And following on that, I did end up looking up the documentary that proved I go myth, and watched that and it was a good watch and an interesting exaggeration. Like it sort of looks into the actual history and context of the prude I go development complex. And it coming out of sort of like the post war boom with the assumption that booms would continue to boom, and also the underfunding and mismanagement of the complex after it was built. And so the way it took this move from being this big, exciting developments, that was going to house help fight the booming housing demand of the city, and then the boom didn't happen. And actually, the city's like, population started to decline about the same time it got going. So there wasn't this, like, huge influx of money to support this huge influx of need to house people. Right. Instead, it

Jessamyn 51:48 was I don't know if we mentioned Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, terribly underfunded and kind of built broken, to be perfectly honest. Because they have the amount of money they needed to build it the right way. Or didn't care, you know, yeah. Who knows?

Cortex 52:02 So that's, that's, I enjoyed that documentary. I mean, you know, I enjoyed this documentary about this depressing thing that was,

Jessamyn 52:10 is that documentary available in a place?

Cortex 52:13 It's, it's available somewhere? I don't know. Okay. It's this definitely available, depending on your resources.

Jessamyn 52:21 I have lots of resources. I guess. I was just wondering if it was, like, straight forward on Netflix, or Amazon or not?

Cortex 52:27 Yeah, I don't know. Okay. I'm not sure the provenance of the film I watched. It might not be on YouTube for oh, no, I don't know.

Jessamyn 52:34 But you didn't watch it on YouTube? No. Okay.

Cortex 52:37 Cool. Couple other things I mentioned. One is a post I made. I've been making a few posts lately. And I'm enjoying it. It's always nice when I get back into that headspace of oh, I enjoyed this. Maybe other people would, too. I noticed

Jessamyn 52:49 that you should do more of it. Yeah, I'm enjoying it. But one

Cortex 52:53 of the posts I enjoyed, partly for the stuff I posted partly for the conversation that person like proceeded was a post about the Rockford Speedway figure eight trailer race, which is a race that happens at Rockford Speedway in wherever. And they have a big figure eight track, which is a very bad idea for race because there's an intersection in the middle. But that's kind of the whole point terribly like yeah, vehicles that have to be trailing something usually, like a broken down like mobile home type trailer or cargo trailer or a boat. But that's the whole thing. Like you have to have something that you are trailing in your vehicle. And if your trailer disappears, you're out of the race more likely you get stuck in one of the various huge pile ups, that tend to be the things that happen fairly soon anyway. So it's like, it's just it's a dumb County Fair sort of event. Like it's a big, dumb, stupid thing where people bring out their absolute beaters that are like on death's door as vehicles in the first place and drag them around the track

Jessamyn 53:51 of the non Americans told us in the thread.

Cortex 53:56 Yes, yes. Well, it's, it's funny, like a couple people in the thread were like, Oh, this is so wasteful. And I was like, You know what, this these this waste existed already this shitty trailer was sitting in someone's yard. Right? The fact that they destroyed it on this track instead of destroying it, like on their yard is like, you know, it's you can say what you want about it. It's like very much like a sort of dumb American culture thing, but it's also kind of fun to watch. And I really appreciated that some people are like, Oh, shit, Rockaway Speedway, or Oh, shit. Yeah, the way this plays right and like It's nice seeing like, because I never watched one of these as a kid. I knew that Destruction Derby and monster truck rallies exist as a kid, but I've never been to one. It wasn't even like a thing that was culturally in the sphere. I saw my

Jessamyn 54:42 like, like demolition derby. See, you don't even know what they're called. I saw my first demolition derby when

Cortex 54:48 I say destruction, destruction. I mean, I've heard both terms.

Jessamyn 54:52 But Oh, really? Maybe it's yes, coast West Coast thing? I don't know. I don't know.

Cortex 54:57 Demolition Derby. Feels like the right one. Yeah, well I was like, I'm right there with you on that actually. That's what they call him her construction.

Jessamyn 55:03 And I hadn't seen one or even really known about it until I moved to Vermont. And then they were a thing that we had at county fairs whereas in Massachusetts, not so much.

Cortex 55:15 Up here, you know, Destruction Derby is the name of a franchise of video games. That is just a demolition derby thing. So that's probably where that got in my head from.

Jessamyn 55:28 Probably. But yeah, this looks neat.

Cortex 55:32 Yeah, I enjoyed it. It's just a good stupid time. Dodgy video quality Dodger the audio quality announcer doing an okay job of drag to color and action commentary call 20 minutes of just pure fucking wreckage it's Yeah, it is what it is.

Jessamyn 55:48 I'm watching the school bus race right now.

Cortex 55:51 See, that's it's it's it's good. Just get big dump vehicles.

Jessamyn 55:56 Right. I mean, and this stands are packed. Packed. Oh, yeah. People love these things.

Cortex 56:02 Yeah, one of them is from like, last year, and it's like the coat like the Dukes COVID related announcements about like leaving your seats and whatnot. One other thing I'll mention, and this is my this is a stupid thing in like, internet culture that annoyed me along with everybody else, thread of the podcast, which is the whole fucking Basecamp thing. Fuck those guys. Basecamp for those who don't know, is like a sort of business productivity software. I've never used it. But it's like, you know, it's whatever. It's you use it for business stuff.

Jessamyn 56:35 Yeah, it had kind of like a, like a single page, Slack tool and a bunch of other like, like, like, ticket tools and whatever. But it was like early blogger guys started this early product. Yeah.

Cortex 56:48 What is it 37 signals or whatever. I didn't follow these guys. But I'm vaguely aware of all the names that come up when people start talking about them. Right. And they've, they've operated for a long time as they're like, Hey, we've we know, like, we get how business works. We know, we know the right way to do things. We're gonna be outspoken and iconoclastic. And we're gonna like, you know, write books about, you know, how to manage, and so on and so forth. And then recently, they they barred political talk at work,

Jessamyn 57:16 which they announced in a memo, which is where most of the staff found out about it. Yeah. Like on on Twitter, like, yeah, like, here's our memo, we're putting it on Twitter, you can't do political talk at work. Also, all the health benefits that we gave it the company, we're not doing any of that anymore, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Cortex 57:38 But big, they took a big dump, without telling about the ahead of time. And everybody basically was like, This is dumb bullshit. What the fuck? And also like, why is this happening? And it turns out why it's happening comes largely down to them really fucking up prior to the announcement in terms of dealing with shitty stuff that had happened in the company previously, including maintaining a list of funny names of customers, which is

Jessamyn 58:06 funny names of like, customers usually have sort of non waspy American ethnicities.

Cortex 58:13 Yeah. And, and the issue was not that that happened, the issue was that that happened, and people brought it up. And that led to discussion that

Jessamyn 58:20 well, and they created dei initiatives or a Dei, like team, you know, that team became half of the staff of the company. And then they were talking about that stuff about how to make the workplace more anti racist, and blah, blah, blah. And then they were like, No, yeah, we're not Rich Asians are making me uncomfortable, which is just the classic, shitty white dude, no offense way to handle that stuff. You know, and it was very public. And many, if not most, of their sort of high level, longtime staffers very publicly quit. Yeah,

Cortex 59:02 they lost a whole bunch of people.

Jessamyn 59:04 Very big company. I mean, less than 100 people like less than 200. Small, small company. Yeah.

Cortex 59:11 And there was just a, they, they basically said, Hey, and if this doesn't work for you, you know, we will extend you this generous offer of which was generous and people like okay, a lot of people were like, fucking Okay, yeah, I will leave and take your money.

Jessamyn 59:24 Not only that, if I leave, other people will think that is an actual mark of character on my end. Not a Oh, you just couldn't handle it. Yeah, exactly. I haven't read any of the sort of meta commentary about that except what was happening at the time because it was just a month ago now.

Cortex 59:45 Yeah, I haven't seen any like recent updates. It seems like once a half the company quit and everybody was angry at them. They may have like stopped posting.

Jessamyn 59:53 Right. They also appear to have not hired a damage control company, which is I mean, you know, a lot of people's speculated that they what they really wanted to do was downsized the company severely. And this was like the easiest, dumbest way to do it, you know, because one of the things about being like a white dude who runs a company that is very profitable, and you have a reputation among sort of startup culture is you fail up, right? Like, you know, you don't, you don't really have to be accountable to all the people who, you know, you shocked and horrified by saying working against racism is too hard, you know. And so the worst part about the whole thing is that they will probably be fine. The good news is so well, most of their staff who leave. Yeah, but

Cortex 1:00:43 yeah, anyway. Yeah, giant fucking mess. Gross in interesting ways at times. And it was a big bit of filter discussion, and I'm curious to hear any sort of post mortem on it. But yeah, so that's my that's my dumb thing worth being angry about of the of the podcast.

Jessamyn 1:01:00 Brain, Briar.

Cortex 1:01:01 Yeah. And should we talk about last minute filter? Yeah. All right. Let's do it.

Jessamyn 1:01:09 Did we figure out the answer to this one yet?

Cortex 1:01:11 Which one? Well,

Jessamyn 1:01:13 there was this one that I marked because I was like, this will have to be answered by the time we have the podcast. So this was trespassers, William, one of my favorite usernames and I don't like to have favorites, but like, trespassers, William. Really good.

Cortex 1:01:29 Can I say I don't get it. Oh, well,

Jessamyn 1:01:31 like in the Winnie the Pooh universe. Universe. Listen to me.

Cortex 1:01:36 Yeah, the universe. Yeah.

Jessamyn 1:01:44 Yes, basically, I don't remember exactly what the thing is. But one of the animals has a sign that just says trespassers, w. as like the name of God, I don't even remember. How Hold on. Sirs. W i know it comes from Winnie the Pooh. And of course, I type in trespassers, W and what I wind up with is Trespassers will be shot.

Cortex 1:02:12 Which sounds like a very Christopher Robin sort of vibe. Yeah. So

Jessamyn 1:02:15 piglets, favorite. Grand, famous grandfather talks about trespassers, w as like an almost an urban legend because there's a sign, right? Like piglet lives in, you know, in the woods and then in a tree. And then there's a broken board that says trespassers W on it. And Christopher Robin asks Piglet, what it is Chris piglets, like, oh, it's his grandfather's name. The name has been in the family for a long time. And Christopher Robin was like, what, and at any rate, it's like, it's like a big, sort of you, the reader understand that it's a Trespassers will be shot harassed, whatever. Piglet does not understand this because he's who's not very smart. But I think somebody posited at one point that it was like, you know, trespassers William was actually the full name, which is what this user has taken for username. So it's like, it's excellent, evocative Winnie the Pooh thing that I over explained and under I'm just talking about it.

Cortex 1:03:16 I'm just I'm just not that well versed in the pool. So.

Jessamyn 1:03:20 So basically, right, there

Cortex 1:03:22 was a question too,

Jessamyn 1:03:23 I'm moving on past. Basically, there's a question song from the 80s and 90s. It has a chorus. It repeats a name or word that's like Ilona or Alana because I can't tell by reading it could be Mallanna. Ohana. Hosanna. Something else. It's like a chant. Trying to figure it out. When I sing it the pitches blah, blah, blah and blah. And it turns out, there are a lot of songs that can be described by that. I don't know about the pitch part because I don't know what that is, but like, you know, there's Joanna my Sharona Rosanna COCOMO Alia by Donnie Iris. You know, genius of love where they say Bohannan Graceland by Paul Simon and I think it's still going. And Elisa?

Cortex 1:04:16 Yeah, doesn't look like they've landed on an answer. Yes. Hosanna

Jessamyn 1:04:18 Gianna I sold her Mona Hailong them nom nom Badu be Daya Hey, um, yeah, so if you if listening to me, stumbled through that has given you an idea of what song trespassers William is actually trying to figure out please let them know because oh my gosh, I think I saw that Taz was had sideboard it maybe and I was like, Oh, they must have figured it out but maybe they haven't figured it out

Cortex 1:04:54 yet I want to know the meter on Alana to is it like three notes

Jessamyn 1:04:58 right. I want to hear this users Thinking it out loud and then I think it will come to everybody very quickly. But before that it will not.

Cortex 1:05:06 What do you think about writing trespassers? William, I'm FML asking you if they'll,

Jessamyn 1:05:10 I've already closed the tab. Okay, what do you think about doing it?

Cortex 1:05:14 I don't think I'm going to remember to. But that's delightful. And I am going to I'm gonna tap Okay, Josh. I mean, you pasted the link. You've got it in your clipboard. Yeah, but you brought it up. This is I'm trying to delegate I'm trying to delegate you have

Jessamyn 1:05:31 sisters. What else you got? Ah, I have just another list generating question. Basically, this is Jacqueline. She has an acquaintance who was jail who was in jail and can only get three books a week, however, the acquaintance reads quickly. And he finishes the books really fast. What are long, good books. So as a librarian, I enjoyed seeing a bunch of long, good books, although I argue with many of them because I didn't like an athame I didn't like you know,

Cortex 1:06:12 really have we talked about that before. I really liked an athame and I did not finish Remondi which is the one after an athame it was contemporary sort of thriller involving a fake MMO as a background thing, and

Jessamyn 1:06:29 oh, I think I didn't read that. And then I read dodge or fall in hell or fall or dodge in hell or whatever, which was loosely after that in time, and I think I suffered not knowing it now and ask them to me was all like, boring, boring, boring, boring. Super boring. Boring. Super boring. Boring, super boring. Oh, it's a math puzzle. The end interesting dudes, boring. Dudes. Like, I felt like it was all a metaphor for a thing I did not understand, I guess. And maybe it was or maybe it wasn't. And I've read other tevens and stuff that I like a lot. For whatever reason, Anathem just made me furious the whole time through because I had a couple friends who were like, this book is amazing. And I was like, No, it isn't. And obviously, that's a taste thing. But my friend who recommended it to me who turned 55 Today is also a really thinkI math guy, the one who kind of is a little disappointed in me, his stupid friend who doesn't seem to be able to grok calculus. Well, yeah. But you know, I think he was really hoping I would read this book, and then we could talk about this book. And I was like, this book sucked. And he was like, Oh, I mean, I didn't say that. Because obviously, no books suck. But I was like, totally didn't work for me. Amazed, I read to the end, which is exactly how I felt about fall. And I'm like, why am I why do I keep doing this to myself? Like, I know Stevenson is like this. Sometimes I really liked his books. But more often than not, I keep reading them because I am angry at them. But also, like Jacqueline's friend who was in jail, like I read really quickly, and you know, I am a little fussy about books. So I like to find good ones that are also long. Yeah. But you liked you liked enough him you thought it was interesting.

Cortex 1:08:38 Well, and I took it very literally, like I was like, like, I thought it was interesting as a story that seemed to be intentionally set in a hard to understand time and place. And the way it played out in terms of explaining why that was also weird and not quite off, like not quite on I found really satisfying like it definitely it was a Big Lurch of a book like it took a big hard turn, like half two thirds through and whether or not that turn was executed very well I think is a good How does Stevenson write books sort of question. But I enjoyed all of it. And I thought it was I thought, I thought it was really fun linguistically. Like there's a lot of language play in there that plays into what is eventually revealed as the whole premise of the book on that stuff. I

Jessamyn 1:09:23 really like fucking math problem. Well, no, no, I

Cortex 1:09:28 don't even remember the math problem part. Like it was

Jessamyn 1:09:30 just like the answer is that but that theory and theorem and aliens happen to know it and that ties it all together somehow.

Cortex 1:09:36 Yeah, and I don't remember that bit like at all like, like, I just remember enjoying, like most of the wordplay and some of the like, the weird mo nastic separation stuff colliding with reality and sort of the hint of kind of Wizardry versus just like, clever understanding of multi world theories and so on. That stuff I dug in a way that I I think to some extent I liked it cuz it felt a little bit more like a third world building novel than some of his stuff. Yeah, I don't think his characters are his best work.

Jessamyn 1:10:07 Usually they're never worked. And to be fair to fall, it was all world building in a weird way. And if you liked that, you probably would have loved that. Although I don't know if I've met people who have liked that book, whereas anathema at least I know a lot of people who have really liked it. Anyway, I was hoping to really like it and did not. Yeah, and so that sucks. And so this is a very long thread of long good books, which is helpful to me personally, because I very much would like more long books to read, although I do find sometimes the long books require, like really needed an editor, you know, like, I just finished the ambergris trilogy, which was Jeff VanderMeer, who I really liked because he wrote the southern reach trilogy, which was amazing.

Cortex 1:10:57 Yeah, I've been a little bit nervous about reading any of his other stuff, because I really loved that drill. Here's

Jessamyn 1:11:01 my advice, skip ambergris, because it really drags in the middle. But hummingbird salamander which just came out, I thought was very, very good. Cool. So I don't I mean, obviously, you liked Anathem. So maybe we are not should not be giving each other recommendations. But we frequently

Cortex 1:11:19 enjoy things that one another, I think, I think it's a better bet than not.

Jessamyn 1:11:24 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I found ambergris to be a little bit of a slog. Although the last book like it's three books, but then they're all published together as one book, and the middle book sucks. But the last book is good. But the first book is iffy. So I don't know if I would tell somebody to commit. Yeah. But hummingbird Salamander. Great all the way through, I thought. All right, excellent. Mostly great all the way through. You don't necessarily like the main character. But if that's not a problem, then it's not a problem.

Cortex 1:11:51 Yeah, it's oftentimes main characters aren't super likable. Yes. All right. Yeah. So as long as we're not expected to like them.

Jessamyn 1:11:57 Yes. Yeah, exactly. And you're not you're you're really not. I use you root for you root for her against the bad guys, but I think that's about it. And you can do that. So very long paperback books. liked it. Um, another book list? Asked meta filter was BW, a very short question. What novels do you read, reread. And why? Because, well, because we had that sort of conversation about I think, comfort movies. That was, that was a meta talk, which I thought was really interesting. Because at first I was like, Well, I'd never watch movies over again. And then I was like, Oh, of course, I do. Like, like, there are some movies, you know, that I'll watch. Like, I was like, Well, I'll see Spinal Tap anytime it's on TV, or whatever. But then I was like, now, especially when I was younger, and like a VCR was more part of my world. Like, they were definitely like, oh, let's watch whatever, again, you know, let's watch office space. Again. Let's watch something because Jim likes to like rewatch a lot of media. And I rarely do for whatever reason. And the same thing with novels. I almost never reread them. And so it was fascinating because this thread was asking kind of why. Also, do you reread them? I really enjoyed just hearing from people about why they read things over again.

Cortex 1:13:28 Yeah, no, I saw them at a talk. And I tried to think of it I couldn't think of specifically. Like, it's funny because I can think of movies I have intentionally watched more than once, but like, I don't have like, oh, today's definitely going to be watched David Lynch's dune sort of day, I think about rewatching David Lynch's Dune, far more than I actually rewatch it, but it would probably be on the list because I've seen it, I don't know, three or four times over the last 30 years.

Jessamyn 1:13:55 That's one stings in. Yeah, yeah. I think I've seen it one time. That was good. Weird, good. Good. Yeah.

Cortex 1:14:02 Very weird. Very, very weird, real mess of a production a lot of ways, but also just absolutely gorgeous and strange in a good way. So. Yeah, well, that's nice. And ya know, I should think about the novel One, because I'm sure I've got definitely there's a few books I've reread as sort of like, dang it. I'm just gonna reread this because I liked reading it the first time.

Jessamyn 1:14:22 Yeah. And then PWA comes in later in the thread and is basically like, yeah, you know, we're just having a dinner table conversation, like, you know, their wife likes these people. They read these other people, why do you do it? Maybe I should, you know, know a little bit more about that. Also, if I were gonna write stuff and so it's just, I don't know, it's neat. One of the things I like about Metafilter people in a general sense is they are often heavy consumers have various media, which is good if you're trying to determine what media you might like to consume and are maybe not as heavy a consumer.

Cortex 1:14:58 Yeah. I like this question from LS Mata. How do I learn to draw basically, you know, and this has come up before it probably comes up? Do you know, the yearly on? Asked Metafilter? Because it's common question like, I want to draw, and I don't know how to learn to draw, and I tried drawing with a book or a thing one time, and it didn't work for me. What will work for me? How do I learn to do this, this skill, because drawing is weird. And drawing is hard. And it's a whole complicated thing to learn to do. But also, it's not as weird as and hard as it seems like, but it's intimidating because we have a lot of baggage tied up with the idea of art and drawing and of practice, and being bad at things at first as adults. And I think drawing in particular, is something that people who are perceived as artistic are also perceived to have just learned to do as a kid because like, if you can draw, obviously, you figured that out, when you're a kid plays into it, like as an adult, it's a little bit harder to look at it and say, Oh, well, I didn't figure this out the first place when I was opposed to it, but I've gotten it now, you know,

Jessamyn 1:16:02 right. Well, and it's what's funny to me is, you know, this is one of those kinds of evergreen questions in a lot of ways. And drawing on the right side of the brain has been the answer forever. Yeah. Like, my mother used that book to learn how to draw in the 80s 70s. I mean, she was always kind of capable with her pans, generally speaking, but I remember when she got drawing on the right side of the brain, and like, started really applying herself to it and you know, making you know, drawing, drawing pictures of her that look like her. You know, it was amazing watching it happen. But yeah, this was really cool, really cool threat. I'd like to learn how to draw a little bird.

Cortex 1:16:49 You should do it. Yeah. I did a bird Brian drawing project several years ago, just out of the blue, and I had not really drawn birds before. And it's just drawing them from pictures. And you know, I've been drawing in general my whole life, but I had not really worked on bird stuff. And I learned a lot while I was doing it, and I enjoyed it. And I I ended up drawing better birds than I expected to so

Jessamyn 1:17:09 better birds. Yeah. Better birds. Speaking of the opponent to birds, I just wanted to say hey, tiny Mojo. Congratulations for finding your cat. Oh, yay, was going to head home after a road trip. The little one left. terrible, awful feeling. You know? They've got to leave the Airbnb in a couple hours. Oh, my God. And check him back. And there's little picture. And premiere. Was like he's not sorry. Because if you look at that cat, not sorry. Not sorry, at all. But that's very exciting. And oh my gosh, I know what that's like. So scary.

Cortex 1:17:56 Yeah. Man, we've got an outdoor cat and I look at this may have happened since the last podcast but we have a federal outdoor cat we've been taking care of ever since the neighbors next door moved a couple years. Big Orange thing. Yeah, it's actually small orange. There's there's also a big orange one that would come and hang out with it at mealtime that lives across the street, and is not an outdoor cat. And it's not needing food. But anyway, yes, there's a little little orange tabby named squeaky mama we call her because she had a squeaky little voice and she was very feral. But she was definitely about dinner twice a day. And we haven't seen her in a couple weeks. So it was just very abrupt and it's like you know she she was old and she was an outdoor feral cat. So like, it's possible she found a new source of food. It's also entirely possible she just crawled somewhere because she wasn't feeling good. And then she stopped feeling anything.

Jessamyn 1:18:46 But coyotes were you are

Cortex 1:18:50 people next door definitely think we do. Like I think there are probably like they're probably coyotes in existence within 20 miles of my house. I don't know how much more there is not. There's a lot of cars near where we are. Right? There's a lot of you know, fucking old cats that die of old age near where we are. It's right. You know, the simplest explanation is a real straightforward one. That feels like more of a matter of time with a feral cat than anything but but yeah, at the same time, man, cats, man. So I'm glad another cat is in great shape.

Jessamyn 1:19:26 Yes. Found and in great shape and not sorry. And, uh, the last one I have for AskMe Metafilter is just this kind of interesting. Like, hey, tell me about this is from titles. So, you know stuff starting to reopen slowly where they are definitely true where I am. And, you know, while respecting and understanding this year has been difficult, hard, etcetera, etcetera. Not everybody is in an area that's reopening. But like if you're at least contemplate hitting that part of the world. Like, what are you going to keep from this last terrible year? You know, like what are things you know, Sprint, s, s print s print F, you know, like I can cut my own hair good enough never go on to the barber again. Funny me fuck bras, you know, state keeping more keep and more food at home like leggings are the new jeans. So it's just a really interesting thread about you know, people talking about things they've learned about themselves. They've learned about their community, they've learned about sort of the things they care about. You know, what, what are you going to keep? And there are definitely a couple people in this thread who are like, nothing like, fuck this whole last year.

Cortex 1:20:54 Yeah, this has been a shit pile and I want to put it entirely behind me if at all possible.

Jessamyn 1:20:59 Yeah. But, you know, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed kind of reading along with what people were interested in stuff and, you know, fuck makeup, fuck antiperspirant. There are definitely a lot of very short answers to this. And yeah, it's it's a nice, long, nice, long chatty thread.

Cortex 1:21:19 Nice. There was one other that I liked, which is songs with interpretations of songwriter night.

Jessamyn 1:21:26 This was the thing I was singing Beyonce earlier in the thing. I had thought Single Ladies. She had denied that it was all about like, you know, originally written to sort of get Jay Z to put a ring on it. But I don't I don't think that's denied anymore. But yes. Fascinating.

Cortex 1:21:46 Yeah. After you subsequently put out lemonade, maybe maybe just be like, oh, actually no. Yeah. Relationship bullshit. does affect my

Jessamyn 1:21:53 rain. totally my jam. Yep.

Cortex 1:21:57 But yeah, that's what it sounds like. So you

Jessamyn 1:21:59 know? Yeah, by Kevin belt, lots of people being like, you know, this song is about that. No, it isn't. You know, Hotel California. It's about drug addiction. No, it isn't. What about fire and rain? Drug addiction, no, et cetera, et cetera? You know, and some of them are just like weird fan theories that really, you know, you have to stretch at and then a whole bunch of other people. Basically saying no. And, yeah, if you're into music, and especially if you're into lyrics, as I am, the whole thing is pretty interesting.

Cortex 1:22:32 Yeah. All right. There were a couple interesting things on meta talk. There's a pen pal project thing. I'm not sure what the timeframe is in. I don't know if this is still open. But maybe it's still I know, I signed out a couple years ago. Anyway, I should say, Chief, the made a post saying, hey, let's do basically pen pals stuff. And that's a free for all, if you're interested in that. Go check out the thread, go sign up. You know, write letters and getting letters. I thought about it. But I'm much better at sending a thing at all in the mail than like writing a letter. And I feel like it's more in the spirit of this thing to like, maybe actually write any text, which I don't always execute well on. So I'm gonna sit this round out, but maybe I'll see how it goes. There was a post from Marcelo Epps asking people just sort of talked about their experience with navigating username versus gender identity. On the on the point that they changed to a new profile, because they felt like the gender read of Margo Epps was kind of getting away. And that led to a nice discussion of sorry, sir Fuckit squirrel, yes,

Jessamyn 1:23:44 climbed, climbed up the ladder, that's the end of our bird talk. So I'm sorry to interrupt.

Cortex 1:23:50 Anyway, it was it was an interesting discussion got slightly bumpy, a couple spots, but I think overall was was pretty good. And just people started talking about that, like the way that's user names and sort of the gender Valence is of user names can affect oftentimes in an unintended way, like your your perception of people or how you're perceived on a site, because we have really that to work with is the thing that people land on

Jessamyn 1:24:18 right and a pronoun field that not everybody checks. And reminder, go fill yours out if you want to. It helps people understand how to respond to you with the pronouns that you want.

Cortex 1:24:34 And one other thing that I have been enjoying a great deal of the last couple of days, dirty old town made a post to celebrate the five year anniversary of a metal filter thread that turned into a great big, long boat thread of people. Making goofy mash up jokes basically was 2000 comments of puns, and I made almost 300 of those comments because that's totally my fucking wheelhouse. So robots made multiple 100 comments in that thread. Anyway, it turns out that we're doing it again in that thread on meta talk now and it's pushing back 500 comments. And I'm enjoying it a great deal. And if you want to make stupid jokes about mashing up two things and into a single title, you should come check it out and be an idiot with us. Yes, because I enjoy being an idiot with all you people.

Jessamyn 1:25:25 Yes. And the the last thing I wanted to mention was just a brief apology to people who are looking for Eurovision and we have a Eurovision club. Yeah, this is just a thing we think we did the wrong way. And

Cortex 1:25:39 we we created our own metadata tarpit, essentially, and it made it very hard to find the Eurovision threads that were on Fanfare for

Jessamyn 1:25:48 anybody who was not already a member of the Eurovision club, you would have had a hard time finding the event. And we didn't totally understand how unfindable it was. We put it in the sidebar but didn't realize it wasn't searchable on the page. So we're sorry.

Cortex 1:26:04 Next year, we'll get ahead that oh,

Jessamyn 1:26:06 we fix it already.

Cortex 1:26:08 Trimble already what I'm saying next year, we'll get a little bit ahead of thinking about the Eurovision. So yes, yes, free will fix the search problem.

Jessamyn 1:26:15 So now you'll be sure to search for things in clubs and find them thank you for

Cortex 1:26:21 the next time around, we'll maybe put a little bit more eyes on Eurovision itself.

Jessamyn 1:26:25 Well, and it's funny because I attended a Eurovision party. But it was early. You know, like it was basically the videos for a lot of the songs that were going to be on Eurovision because your vision wasn't done live. And so we had a little like, international zoom with like a local Vermont friend of mine, and you know, basically 30 or 40 of their friends who I didn't know at all, but we got to kind of watch these videos together. But it was like two weeks or three weeks before your overturn happened. And so then I kind of forgot about it. And so yes, we we know we should have handled that differently. And apologies. Now we have a handle on it.

Cortex 1:27:04 And yeah, I don't know, it's not a podcast,

Jessamyn 1:27:07 unless there's anything else and meta talk loops been doing a great job taking over the site updates and gathering feedback. And we're working on internal mechanisms for that. And I'm really excited about it.

Cortex 1:27:18 Yeah, and I really appreciate Luke has been doing a great job with that. And I appreciate them taking point and trying to find a a good sort of compromise solution for for handling those. So thanks, Lupe. And thanks people for working with us on that. Yeah,

Jessamyn 1:27:31 but I feel like everything else is going okay. This is basically my last scheduled event before a American holiday weekend. I'll be you know, back around Metafilter for my Monday night shift, but I think that's, I think that's a big thing for me. The big plans this weekend.

Cortex 1:27:49 I'm covering for a coworker who's taking the weekend off.

Jessamyn 1:27:51 Ah that bomb.

Cortex 1:27:55 Yeah, I'm gonna get to hang out with a friend this afternoon. And I think see me and Angela go see her mom on Sunday. Maybe

Jessamyn 1:28:05 Sunday when you're covering for your friend.

Cortex 1:28:07 Yeah, well, it'll be quiet. I can take a laptop.

Jessamyn 1:28:11 Oh my God, show me regret this. Don't mean I regret taking the day off.

Cortex 1:28:18 It involves mostly sipping tea and petting cats. So I think I can probably multitask. That sounds

Jessamyn 1:28:25 cool. Well, it's 49 degrees outside so I'm really hoping it gets warmer than this. But and this way I'll trade. I told the squirrel to fuck right off for good. And that's the end of the bird report. All right. Good to talk to you as always. Likewise, and yeah, have a great Have a great weekend doing weekend things.

Cortex 1:28:44 You too and talk to everybody a month or so from now? Yes.