Podcast 178 Transcript

A transcript for Episode 178: Leisure Suit Larry's, Uh, Pixels (2021-11-10).

Pronoiac passed the podcast to otter.ai.

Transcript

Cortex 0:01 Did did doo doo podcasting?

Jessamyn 0:03 So since I know you're not going to put this up before probably the end of today, that's, we'll see. I'm just gonna say that it's the opening day of learned League season 91 Oh, yeah, I got all six of the questions, right for only the seventh time ever in 10 years of playing.

Cortex 0:24 Congratulations. Don't say what they are. I will say I am that that okay. Well, extremely quickly. Such

Jessamyn 0:30 a lack of reason. Like, Oh God, I'm motivated, but

Cortex 0:33 don't motivate me to not. We did not need another externality on that. But I

Jessamyn 0:39 was so proud of me. So yeah, no, that's awesome. Congratulation exciting for

Cortex 0:43 me. I've said before and I keep thinking like periodically. Oh, maybe I'll do the next 100 League and then the next time it comes through. I'm like, No, I'm okay. But I'm still not. Okay. I still like I still think fondly of it, but like good.

Jessamyn 0:55 Right. Well, they're they're a lot more flexible, but advanced access now, which is nice. Oh, nice. So like, it's a lot easier where if you're like, Man, I just have a thing that day. You can get the questions early, but it still involves coordinating and a whole bunch of shit. But playing in the offseason is sometimes fun. That's almost my favorite. Now I find the regular season a little dispiriting, but obviously

Cortex 1:21 when everybody's in more of a slow pitch softball, mood and drinking beer,

Jessamyn 1:25 you can pick a topic that you're better at you know, so there was like book of knowledge mini league that I almost made it into the championship on but then there was liberation, which was all about liberation movements, which I would have thought I would have done okay, and, and I just got smoked, so smoked, and but you don't care. So if you're doing badly you don't feel good about it. You're just like math, fuck it, like, you know, answer a bunch of bullshit answers or whatever. And you're not like letting down the team or the league or the Rundle or whatever the hell it is. So, yeah, that's that's my feeling. But it was nice to have like a little thing that's going on because holiday season starts in earnest in two weeks, and Hanukkah is early. So yeah, yeah, I'm enjoying the still quiet time before things go. What about yourself, besides your brother visiting what else but up?

Cortex 2:21 Well, he visited and we got tattoos. So Oh,

Jessamyn 2:25 he got one, two. I only got the job side of the whole thing.

Cortex 2:27 Yes. No, no, it was that was sort of like his motivation. thought was like, Hey, let's let's go get matching tattoos. I was like, All right.

Jessamyn 2:34 Wait, did you get the same ones we did?

Cortex 2:38 walking around with a Menger sponge on his arm.

Jessamyn 2:39 So what's the Menger sponge significance to him?

Cortex 2:43 He also likes math. And he likes me. That's so sweet. So like, it's not it's not outside of his wheelhouse? Yeah, no, he's got he's got several

Jessamyn 2:51 little tattoos. He is a Tattooed Man. But you are not. Yes. Right. Yeah,

Cortex 2:55 he's got a nice floral thing, sort of like a loose sleeve on his whole left arm. He's got a mathematical equation on the one side of his ribs. And sorry, I remember some sort of energy equality thing, I think, Okay. Something that was deeply meaningful to him. And to me, it looks like a mathematical equation. So sure. Scott. I guess I said, Yes, I will. Yes. Text band on one of his biceps. Love it. Yeah. And some other stuff. I can't remember what all that's cool.

Jessamyn 3:24 But it was your first one. What was I have to tell you, me and my sister both have if not matching at least similar tattoos. Because after my mom died, we both got four leaf clover tattoos, but they look different. But they're each like it's the same idea. But with a different manifestation, I guess.

Cortex 3:43 Yeah. By the way, this is episode one. The metaphor podcast. I am Josh cortex. Mullard.

Jessamyn 3:50 And I'm Jasmine. Yes.

Cortex 3:51 And what were we saying?

Jessamyn 3:54 We were talking to Josh about his first ever tattoo. How old are you Josh?

Cortex 3:58 I am 42.

Jessamyn 4:00 Wow. Yep. Oh my god.

Cortex 4:03 Wouldn't it be neat if that had been a year that hasn't happened during a pandemic? So I could have enjoyed a little bit more just on the

Jessamyn 4:10 50 at the beginning of the pandemic and I tell you what, yes. Yeah.

Cortex 4:15 But ya know, it's it's, I'm I'm delighted to have done it. I'm already thinking like, oh, well, you know, good if it was like next to that on my arm and stuff like that. So we'll see how that goes. But

Jessamyn 4:24 did you go to like artists you knew or one that you know if I figure in Portland, everybody,

Cortex 4:31 there's, there's so many tattoo artists in town, like I don't have one because I've never gotten a tattoo before. And I like this guy, and maybe he'll be my tattoo artist, like he's nearby and did a good job on zero notice for the thing I wanted. So,

Jessamyn 4:43 yeah, I mean, I saw the pictures. It looked like you know, they shaved your forearm. They tattooed your forearm.

Cortex 4:49 Yep. The thing that did the whole thing. Yeah, that's so far. It's not bothering me. It's like healing up perfectly fine and haven't gotten the point of being purely or itchy. So, so I'll take them Yeah, so did that sort of family hung out? That's, you know, things. That sounds good though. Like I said, possibly in pre roll just like, I'm on that sort of like, and that was like an intense four days of like, you know, very happily seeing people I haven't seen in a while and spending time with my family and a lot of lot of everything. So I'm definitely sort of like, refractory curve right now. Just like okay, and yeah, I guess I have any energy left somewhere.

Jessamyn 5:32 Hanging out at home, where it's where it's calm, peaceful. Yep.

Cortex 5:38 But here we are. It is. Like you were saying it's the first day of learned League. It is. Monday, November the eighth as of this recording, both of afternoons

Jessamyn 5:49 daylight savings.

Cortex 5:52 Ended again. Yep.

Jessamyn 5:53 And oh, and I got my booster shot on Friday. Oh, nice. Yeah. I slept 11 hours Friday night. It was like, I usually get a healthy eight but like, wow, wow. But then I felt okay. On Saturday, which was good. Like, Friday was not great. But got a lot of sleep woke up the next day feeling okay. And happy to be boosted? I guess.

Cortex 6:17 Yeah, that's great. Yeah, no, I just got mine on Thursday. So yeah, we're all were boosted as hell here.

Jessamyn 6:25 Well, and the booster like recommendation seem to vary a little state to state so like Jim's not eligible yet. But Milo is because they've made certain mental health challenges make you booster eligible, but Milo lost his vaccination cards, mental health challenges, which means he has to go through that process in order to go through the next process. My sister's getting boosted sooner because she's got a front facing job. But around here, if you don't like basically I was like, Well, I have a front facing job because I work at the library occasionally. But then the library is like, Nah, we're closing. And I'm like, when? And they were like, well, Saturday is our last day. And I'm like, well boosted on Friday. Fine. I mean, they don't care. It's like there's not a vaccination shortage around here. But I do like to try and be scrupulous about the rules because they're important.

Cortex 7:23 Yeah, you were. You did the thing. I did the thing. The things done.

Jessamyn 7:30 Yeah. Let's talk about metal filter a little bit.

Cortex 7:32 Let's do it. Let's see, there's a couple of job posts. From October since we last talked.

Jessamyn 7:40 We need to figure out how to get more people because I see people in asked me to filter occasionally with things that could be jobs. And I feel like we need to encourage people slightly more to

Cortex 7:51 but somehow do it without doing the intrusive Oh, it looks like you're asking about x clip. Yes, algorithmic shift. So

Jessamyn 7:57 no, it's not a dancing pumpkin. I don't want maybe dancing Santa, I guess. All right. But yeah, I mean, again, we should we should we should, you know, do a little community engagement be like, Hey, here's another place to find people that might be up your alley. They can do gig things. They can do other things. But it looks like what barber Spitzer is looking for property project management and maintenance. That seems interesting.

Cortex 8:26 Australia use hello is the or Tasmania?

Jessamyn 8:29 Yes. full time position for definitions and entitlements. I don't know what entitlements even means there.

Cortex 8:36 But if you do then maybe that's the job for you. Yeah,

Jessamyn 8:39 looks like it pays well, looks like it would actually be kind of interesting.

Cortex 8:44 And then shake hands has a more of a one off job needs to drop out document at the Pennsylvania Secretary of State in Harrisburg if you're in the vicinity. Hey, hey, go help. Help them out. Yeah. And yeah, boom, jobs. We did it. Pew one,

Jessamyn 9:03 I would just like to also shout out from below again, the map is a thing of beauty. Thanks for the fact that it works. It looks awesome.

Cortex 9:11 Back in back into backhand gear,

Jessamyn 9:14 I'm still happy about it.

Cortex 9:16 I'm happy that you're happy about it.

Jessamyn 9:19 Totally shows me the names of like 10 countries, but one of them's Romania, which I always enjoy. So I'm like hey, I always feel like I miss an opportunity to capitalize on having lived in Transylvania around Halloween, you know, oh, yeah,

Cortex 9:37 that seems like something like it's you know, leaning into that's a real opportunity

Jessamyn 9:41 was was Halloween a thing? Where you were this year because I know last year we were just like,

Cortex 9:49 we're gonna dance lights off. Yeah. Now we we went on over to a friend's house and had a nice little fire pit in the backyard and avoided any trick or treating B cuz like, when we don't avoid trigger trading in our house we get like for trick or treaters, like it's not a popular street for it anyway. So.

Jessamyn 10:07 Right, because it's, it's in a slightly weird location and

Cortex 10:12 yeah, we're just sort of like, you know, we're, we're on a street that's a side street to IT side street like, you know, there's just, it's never gonna be the Federal Fair for any number of trick or treaters.

Jessamyn 10:23 Well, and I assume in Portland like people know where the places are. And your place isn't one of those places.

Cortex 10:30 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I assume so like, I assume there's neighborhood organization stuff and things like that, like, I don't pay attention because like, I don't have kids. I'm not taking them trick or treating.

Jessamyn 10:39 So I don't I don't have kids. But I put on my bee costume anyhow.

Cortex 10:45 Sure. I just mean, like, I don't keep track of where it's happening. That's not my house, because I don't have any specific need to know the logistics. So it's like, yeah, well, it's not happening here. And oh, well,

Jessamyn 10:55 well, even though Vermont's COVID numbers are not looking great, which is too bad, Vermont. And it's an it's weird. I mean, it's not weird. It's like, this is how pandemics happen. But like, you know, unvaccinated people, we have a very small percentage, I think we have over 90% vaccinated, it's really high. But most, you know, people are still getting sick kids are getting sick. It's it sucks. And so the numbers aren't great. But there are more things that are happening. And you know, those things probably feed off each other, to be honest. But there's like a little downtown. Any thing that happens for Halloween here, and it did not happen last year, there was not a thing, like there were a couple like drive by and will like throw candy into your car if you roll your window down kind of thing. But this was like, you know, a couple little things, there was a really nice day, the dead sort of set up in our local gazebo, which was actually really sweet. Not only because it was made by actual Mexican members of our community, but also like many people have lost someone in the last year. And it I think people like grokked it a little more than they might during like an average year where you don't lose people as rapidly as people have been losing people. And so it was just it was nice. And so I decided to put on my bee costume and go walk around. I actually have like a walk around friend who also enjoys dress up, which is usually my problem. Like, my friends here don't like dress up, which is fine. But I am a little shy to want to go. Dressing up and walking around by myself.

Cortex 12:40 Yeah, it's a little bit trickier for calculus.

Jessamyn 12:43 Grown up you don't have kids, like at least I'm female but still. So my friend put on her frog costume I put on my bee costume. And we walked around a little bit which was nice. Yeah. And then you know was home at a completely reasonable hour and we don't have trick or treaters here. So I ate my like three pieces of candy and was like ooh, and check checked in on internet Halloween, which was a good time. Nice. Well, and projects was very Halloween oriented in a way that was actually kind of fun. I guess we can switch over to projects now if you'd like to. Yeah,

Cortex 13:20 let's talk about projects. Yeah,

Jessamyn 13:22 I, you know, I always enjoy Miss Jenny's posts. And this time was no different. This time. She's come up with a thing called the worst house on the internet. So basically, it's like a virtual bad trick or treating experience because I mean, I don't know about you, but I could remember the bad houses I still can like I'm 52 years old.

Cortex 13:49 I think what what would a bad house be

Jessamyn 13:51 the bad house or either the ones that give you toothbrushes? Or like maybe there's like kind of a weird person who lives there and and I you know it's it's odd thinking about this because thinking about what might be weird to like a little kid might be different than what's weird to you. Now, you know, but like people who would give stuff that kind of like warrant candy or just wanted you to come into their house which felt creepy pervy but it was uncomfortable and you weren't sure what to do when you were a little kid no ill fitting costume. Yeah, I had their lights on but they weren't actually open for trick or treating because I was like rural trick or treater right you had to walk like yeah, a block in the dark in between commitment houses. Yes. That's scary. And there was like lurking, lurking boys, you know, would menace you in weird, you know, little kid ways kind of.

Cortex 14:56 I remember like, there would be the occasional house was giving out like pencils or something, and like, depending on whether they were good pencils that might actually not have been a deal breaker for me, but like, like, I remember that being a thing, but also I don't really remember like carrying like, I haven't. I haven't retained any specific memories of that, like, there's no time was like, I can't believe this just happened. It's like a really shitty house, whatever, go to the next house.

Jessamyn 15:17 Well, and we were like in a really small neighborhood. So you might only hit like, I don't know, 20 houses 25 houses. Sure, you know. And so, if there's 20 houses and like 15 of them have their lights on? If one of those is giving out toothbrushes then it's like 10% toothbrushes Yeah,

Cortex 15:36 that's it. That's the sort of sit on your ears. Yeah, that was like I was like in residential Portland. So like, you could really pick a direction and just like plow through a lot of houses if you wanted to. So yeah, there was no sense of it being precious. You know, there was always rumors that maybe someone would be giving out a full size candy bars and no one actually Oh, God,

Jessamyn 15:53 nobody ever gave out full size candy bars. But I don't know what they gave out. Because I didn't think font size was quite as much of a thing when I was little. Yeah, I

Cortex 16:01 wonder like, because I would have been, I would have been a few years younger than you and I feel like font size was

Jessamyn 16:06 like always on your heart. You're 10 years younger than me.

Cortex 16:09 That's a 10

Jessamyn 16:11 Isn't it? What year were you? 79? Yeah, I was born in 68. It's more like 11

Cortex 16:19 You're just you so you've got to say a youthful Aviv.

Jessamyn 16:23 It's because I get so much sleep. Yeah, that's probably. I mean, that's what I tell people when they're like, you're how old that it's like because I'm dressed like a child.

Cortex 16:32 But I've been meaningfully alive for less of it because I spent more of it like, you know, functionally you know

Jessamyn 16:43 worst house on the internet, and there are just ridiculously weird bad. Oh, yes. Some houses you get like coupons, like for French fries. And then you have to get your mom to like drive you to a place like that McDonald's coupons. Were not a great or you get like money for UNICEF if you were collecting for UNICEF but like,

Cortex 17:07 wouldn't you have to just give it to UNICEF so that's not even Yeah.

Jessamyn 17:11 Well, that's exactly the thing. I mean, charitable giving is great. And getting kids plugged into that is great. But if you have a house that like all they have is nickels. Yeah. Confusing. And you know, having weird parents didn't make any of this any easier. Right? But so this kind of mimics that. It's a very funny goofy thing. You ring a door bell and I think I got like a Groupon for some money off of like something. I got, like, 25 like, like a 10th of a quarter of a bit. Like a Dogecoin. Like, like a quarter of a penny's worth of Dogecoin I think was one of them. awful, just awful. Awful. So So I so I enjoyed it because it was funny, but also like you enjoyed it like yeah, you know, kind of a goofy one off.

Cortex 18:09 I just saw screencap from the like our Shibu subreddit on Reddit, you know, the subreddit on Reddit that subreddit. Boy?

Jessamyn 18:19 What? Just had a birthday.

Cortex 18:24 What? I don't know. I mean, it's a kind of dog like it's a subreddit about shibui news. It's not a subreddit about the shibui new cryptocurrency and the screenshot is was of a moderator in all caps saying this is not a cryptocurrency subreddit, if you post it, you will be banned.

Jessamyn 18:43 Yeah, I think whatever that funny dog is the one that has like the little Comic Sans captions around it from time to time.

Cortex 18:53 Oh, the really excited laughing looking sheeple you know, yeah, I don't know if the sheep that's one

Jessamyn 19:00 was one of the original shoes that captured you know, the Sure. I believe that dog had a birthday recently because well, hurray for a photo of Alec Baldwin. Oh, no. Oh, Alec Baldwin's in fucking Vermont. Okay, hiding out orally, because I read about it in the fucking paper. Yeah. I know. It's a mess.

Cortex 19:30 I appreciate malevolence project. Are you a clickbait genius?

Jessamyn 19:35 Oh, yes. I also enjoyed that very much.

Cortex 19:38 Similarly, working within some internet vibes, but yeah, just like, you know, find find the correct clickbait headline, based on the you know, some, some actual data and then variations and whatnot. It's a it's a cute idea.

Jessamyn 19:54 Can I ask you like a completely naive internet question? Sure. Is is no nut November a thin joke, that's become a thing. And it's just a meme.

Cortex 20:09 Yes. I don't fucking know. I'm not that like, I'm not gonna Oh,

Jessamyn 20:13 I just read somebody on Twitter talking about trying to explain it to his son. And Jesus. I just, I can't google it. I can't all just ask Josh. Yeah,

Cortex 20:27 I mean, I don't know, I have to assume it's like a weird slurry of everything. Like, it seems consistent with my perception of people being weird and horny on the internet that like, genuinely, not masturbating for a month is something probably plenty of people do. And then maybe there's like people who are just like SAP

Jessamyn 20:48 subreddit that I'm very, yeah. Which, you know, very familiar, medium. Familiarity

Cortex 20:57 to spend all your days there is I would say. Anybody else? Yes. No? I mean, who fucking knows, right? Like, I write, like, like, like, what's, there's, I mean, there's the Poe's law thing to begin with, like, you know, how, you know, any sufficiently like, sarcastic or ironical, or whatever thing is going to be interesting reels from actual, like, dumb bullshit that someone believes or means, like, you know, satire is dead and mutilated, and has been cremated and put in milkshakes at this point. But also, like, that's not even a binary question. Like it is a it's definitely, like, there's some sounds like Yeah, well, I mean, it's definitely a cultural thing. There definitely couldn't exist, like the cultural idea of no November right of nofap in general. And on the one hand, there are certainly people who just think that's a funny thing to say and talk about. And on the other hand, there's definitely people like historically who've been like, oh, masturbation is a thing you should never do. And those people are probably not really hanging out with each other on Reddit. But like, it's not like the idea of shunning masturbation is even like a new invention in humanity. And then you have the people who are gonna like sort of be into it for the lols. And you know, they may or may not actually not be masturbating, they may or may not be hanging out on subreddit talking about whether or not they're masturbating. But the idea exists there. So like, I'm sure there's genuine. No, not November writes, I'm sure there are plenty of in it for the lols No, no, not No. for brides who enjoy like trolling people with the idea that someone will be doing this and then some people who just think that the whole thing is absolutely a farcical thing. And, you know, everywhere in there who? I don't know, I don't, basically, I don't know how to answer the question other than say that, like, I'm sure, you would get genuine answers in either direction from people who hang out on Reddit.

Jessamyn 22:46 Know, your meme seems to think it is a thing. So that's good. At least I included so that other people can see.

Cortex 22:57 Again, like, like, culturally it's a thing like, like, how, how much of a thing a thing is, like, Flat Earthers how many Flat Earthers actually genuine believe the word the world is flat. And how many people think is funny to be you know, haha Flat Earther I think it's probably the same thing. Right? Like,

Jessamyn 23:12 that's probably my research. So yeah, do your own research. So

Cortex 23:16 yeah, so I don't know.

Jessamyn 23:19 Well, good. Thank you. I'm glad I'm not because you know, sometimes I just think I just don't know anything about kids today. And I feel like today's the day I finally have to confront that, but it isn't yet. Oh, and I enjoyed while you were rebooting your computer very much enjoyed the Saturday afternoon IKEA trip simulator. Yeah. By dng and I think I've mentioned that the one time Jim and I went to IKEA together it's probably the closest we've come to breaking up over over nothing. Like there are occasional times where like maybe we have an extreme difference of values or like whatever we're just having a bad day. But this was just like we went into IKEA happy and came out of IKEA like seriously like in the elevator just being like I swear to God, I'm gonna murder you like, you know, and I can't just does that to you. And so this is a great simulation of how that happens.

Cortex 24:27 It is a it is a strange and complicated environment.

Jessamyn 24:31 Well I should put in a plug if if you're interested in in the weird world of IKEA. Nino slippery is a author from Vermont, who has written two books, just short novellas that are like sort of a dystopian thing that opens up inside of an Kia like store that isn't IKEA, but it's clearly IKEA and And I just have to put in a plug for them because they are really good books. Nice. One of them's called thinner and the other one is called. I don't remember. I'll figure it out.

Cortex 25:15 On the nerdy and meta filter side, there's a project from Caden. Caden numbers I've currently 2048 There we go. What? What game 2048. Now well, that Yeah, but I mean, 2040 it's just it's a power of two. I almost said.

Jessamyn 25:35 I am sorry, Josh. Yeah,

Cortex 25:37 well, I'm just saying it's like, I didn't learn the number from the game, the game took the name from the number. You don't? Look, we didn't talk about 178. So we're gonna talk about like, two digit powers of two instead.

Jessamyn 25:51 Every time I look at what a number is in binary, I'm always like, well, that's a cool pattern. And it's like, it's one to zero. So it's always gonna be a cool pattern.

Cortex 25:59 Alright, I bet you could find one that you don't like, that pattern kind of sucks. There's nothing good about that pattern. Maybe. Anyway, it's a little project to convert exported metaphors or comments to other formats. Yeah. So I mean, that's the whole thing. Like converting.

Jessamyn 26:18 Trimble doesn't have to do it. Yeah. And then people can get something that

Cortex 26:22 is well, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, like, you know, because we exported in a way that is straightforward. But like, you know, it's not necessarily straightforward to import to other contexts. So great. So yeah, so that's some good work. I appreciate that.

Jessamyn 26:36 Yes, that is that is a link to Nino Tsipras book, neat, non binary author that I think people would probably like but might not discover.

Cortex 26:46 Nice. And there's a bunch of other stuff will go forever if we keep talking about all but projects is good. Keep personal projects, like I need

Jessamyn 26:53 to go learn about me and Vermont's mystic paths word board game just because I love word board games. And I would like to I don't know branch out. I mean, really? How many scrabble games can you play? I'm not sure yet. But I feel like I get better at Scrabble when I play other work games more.

Cortex 27:19 That makes sense. Sort of slopping around of skill sets across different things. Yeah, exactly. Did you see that? There's a queen's gambit board game. And it's not like this is not a joke. And it's not chess. It's a game that has chest

Jessamyn 27:32 about it. I think I saw somebody tweeting about it. I saw What the actual fuck

Cortex 27:38 when I saw a couple different WHAT THE FUCK reactions to it was what? brought on my radar? Yeah, it seems both an edible and also like

Jessamyn 27:46 a movie about chess.

Cortex 27:48 Yeah, well, it's a it's a it's a short, dramatic TV series.

Jessamyn 27:54 It's a TV series about jazz. Yes.

Cortex 27:57 So the fact that there's a board game other than chess is just hilarious. And also, I

Jessamyn 28:01 thought it was about This is so stupid, but I think I thought it was about queens. Like I thought it had something to do with like royalty.

Cortex 28:08 I mean, that would have been an equally reasonable guest. Jake's just based on like the title. No, it's a it's, it's good. I enjoyed it. It's Taylor joy as a woman, you know, who grows up in an orphanage and learns to play chess and becomes like an international, like, just sensation. And that seems off with the Russians and Yeah. And it's also like, yeah, just

Jessamyn 28:30 no, yes. No,

Cortex 28:33 no, I think it's just sort of like, like, it's a sort of fairly doting about his chest, but it's more like, you know, running with sort of, like the theme of mid century chess and politics and whatnot.

Jessamyn 28:42 Okay.

Cortex 28:44 Yeah. Yeah, posters up and projects. Keep coming. Shall we talk about Metafilter proper.

Jessamyn 28:51 Let's talk about metal filter. prepper I had something Oh, I actually made a post this month. And it is about a topic near and dear to me. So I'm gonna Yammer about it for until you make me stop. So the burden bility map so basically, we've seen over the last couple of years sort of people who do outdoor and nature naturalist enjoying the outdoors stuff, really working on their inclusion game right and especially because there have been some notable negative situations where, you know, people have gotten weird grief for birding while black and that kind of stuff. Yeah. And bird ability is a neat little map that's been made with the this this organization called Bird ability in conjunction with local Audubon. That's essentially a crowdsource map that tells you what accessibility features birding locations have, so it's not I thought, hey, all of these places are accessible because number one, that doesn't mean anything specifically. I mean, it doesn't strict ADA way, but it doesn't. There's a lot of different ways to have an accessible burning site. And one of the things that I really like about this project is that it doesn't just talk about the standard stuff, even though that is important, you know, like, Are there restrooms is there, you know, a hard place to park the cars, so you can take a wheelchair out on it, you know, are the paths accessible, blah, blah, blah, she talks about a lot of sort of cognitive sensory stuff, as well. So is it really noisy? Are there you know, a bunch of people nearby? Are there sort of this, that and the other like, like, what's the kind of safety profile of the place? And, you know, they go through some time and effort to be like, Look, safety? Isn't? Are there people that look different than you nearby? But more like, you know, are there? Are there other people nearby? Or is it kind of a weird, secluded location that you might not feel comfortable in if you were somebody who does not feel comfortable in those situations, and so, you know, people who are interested in this project can kind of go through and it's intended to be kind of objective. So not like subjective, like, well, I didn't feel safe here. But like, it's noisy here relative to whatever. And so people who like experiencing the outdoors and who don't mind spending a little bit of time kind of filling out a checklist can submit there just reports about a space and it doesn't take that long, it's like 10 or 15 minutes. And then people who are interested in birding or experience in the outdoors, can learn about these spaces on this huge crowdsource map, primarily in the United States, but there are locations all over the world. And you know, get to basically interact with and experience the outdoors with the assistance of lots of different people and give them that information. So bird ability week was second week, third week in October, and I just made a little post about it. And it's always fun to talk to Metafilter people about burning stuff. Nice. And I saw red bellied Woodpecker today, which was very exciting.

Cortex 32:26 Also, an RBT right. Earlier, rb, rb not RB not,

Jessamyn 32:32 that's what maybe that makes more. No, not November that.

Cortex 32:35 Okay, see, I was gonna try make a joke about birds who really liked beef and cheddar. So for lunch, cuz he's an RV nut, like Arby's. See? Oh, I was the one not making a dick and balls joke. So good. This one for posterity. This is the one that just worked out. I need to draw some pixelated penises for a mefite friend who's working on a loom project.

Jessamyn 33:03 I mean, no you don't you just have to take some pictures of actual dicks and put them through a Pixelmator

Cortex 33:09 camp but that's you get such poor results when you try to like there's

Jessamyn 33:13 sorry it's not a thing I've done very often. pixel art

Cortex 33:17 is tricky pixel art, especially like low color pixel art, which for like a loon project it needs to basically be a black and white bitmap Black and White might not think that colors but you're working with like just like very simple way

Jessamyn 33:27 they wanted to actually look like a penis or they wanted to look like a blurred out penis.

Cortex 33:32 They wanted to look like like cartoon penis like like a playful sort of penis that would look good on a textile on like a towel or something. But like tiled like, you know, small ones tile across the the length of, of a woven piece of fabric.

Jessamyn 33:44 Oh, interesting. Yeah, I feel like you could look up old ASCII porn for that. Maybe? Maybe that's a good idea. Larry, something like that. People if there was a Pete, there

Cortex 33:55 was surprising little actual nudity in the leisure suit. Larry games. They always covered it up with some Yeah, so it was always just for like a little more burlesque of a thing. I don't know if we ever saw Larry's dick, other than in the first one briefly as like a two pixel sized boners window. If I'm even remembering that, right, it might have just been like

Jessamyn 34:14 Boehner through a window. I feel like maybe that well.

Cortex 34:22 How about leashes Larry's pixels. Could like yes, you know,

Jessamyn 34:26 we had that game when I was a kid. And that wasn't like appropriate at all. And in my mind, I had it when I was in high school, but then I kind of looked up the arc of leaders who Larry's games and I don't think that I don't think that lines up. My father must have had it at home. Like when I was then away at college and came back maybe Yeah, yeah.

Cortex 34:51 Yeah, I mean, the first one would have been early 80s. So

Jessamyn 34:54 Well, early 80s. I was still at home. Yeah. See that? Thought too, but the Wikipedia page seemed to imply otherwise let me look real quick. Let's both Yeah. Yeah. 1987 87 Hmm.

Cortex 35:11 Right. It's later than I would have guessed. Like, it looked like shit it No, it looked like it needed to be 1987 for Leisure Suit Larry to come out but

Jessamyn 35:18 really there was like a Sierra game called soft porn adventure. Of all things in 1981 and then there was some literary games but yeah, I think the jewelry things didn't come out until 97. Which so again, I would have been in college and so it was very confusing to me where I saw it. Eddie right. Moving on.

Cortex 35:44 Yeah, weird. Okay,

Jessamyn 35:45 we try to re podcast this.

Cortex 35:49 It's at Padre. Is that anything? No, that's not anything. Speaking of video games I posted I enjoyed and the content of the post that I enjoyed this this month was posed by simmering octagon about the epic 10 hour long, cyberpunk 2077 video review by a guy named Tim Rogers. Which sounds insane. Okay, well, there's a game cyberpunk 2077 came out late last year. It was long anticipated had been like years and years and development and hyping. And it's like, it's a cyberpunk II game. It was like Grand Theft Auto except for cyberpunk. So like,

Jessamyn 36:31 this is modern times. This is this is a game came out recently.

Cortex 36:35 Yes, this the game came out like late last year. And it was a big big deal as like, it had been hyped for for years. And, you know, is a big game from a company that already made big games have made the Witchers games which were very, very big. And they are now the basis of a Netflix series. Yeah, well originally came from like some Polish novels, and then like, turned that into video games. And then that became a phenomenon that Netflix turned it into, you know, series, next season's coming

Jessamyn 37:06 series, but it did seem to come from nowhere in a weird way. Like it wasn't built on a franchise I was familiar with. But like back to cyberpunk 2077 Anyway,

Cortex 37:15 well, this is the same people and it's the same sort of big thing. And it was very, very hyped. And also the folks who make it CD Projekt RED aren't always super great about their politics and stuff. And so people were pretty worried that was gonna be like, in like, aggressively shitting every direction sexual politics was a big thing. Like they, they they're doing some like weird sexy stuff in the future as part of like, just the pervasive Blade Runner media landscape thing. And like, are they being Yeah, clever or shitty about transmis? And yeah, like, so.

Jessamyn 37:49 It's 2010 with the 2010 it's 21

Cortex 37:57 Yes. Anyway, the game came out and you know, people played it and it was pretty broken when it came out, especially on consoles like Grand Prix, okay, on PC, but it came out and it turns out, it's a video game. It's a big video game. It's like, like a GTA or the Witcher games. It's big. And there's a lot to play and there's stuff that works and stuff that doesn't work so well. And Tim Rodgers is a guy who does he's been doing like video game journalism for a long time. And like, you know, this is a game that he basically been looking forward to, in a sense, you know, since he was like 20, and a baby video game journalist and

Jessamyn 38:31 yeah.

Cortex 38:33 So like to conclude his first season of his action button review project he started

Jessamyn 38:40 just like a YouTube shooter. Yeah.

Cortex 38:44 He did a review of this game that he'd liked been literally waiting 20 years for to some extent and like, you know, there's so much to talk about in terms of his feelings about it and like ways of talking about video games that he did like an hour long initial chapter to the then six different hour ish long chapters on different aspects of it. Like the whole thing is like, it's a stunt but it's not like a time wasting stunt. It's more like, Hey, I'm just, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna, for some reason, spend like your next eight months

Jessamyn 39:11 diligence hats aspect of this,

Cortex 39:15 like so like in, in in in vibing, with the branching path nature of the narrative in cyberpunk, and many other games like that really

Jessamyn 39:23 has branching paths.

Cortex 39:24 Yeah, you can you can choose to go this way or that way of Yeah. So in that sense, in that spirit, he's like, Okay, so here's the thing if you've watched the intro, and now there's like six different chapters on different aspects of this, watch two of them and then watch the final chapter. And that's how I want you to watch it and so ever will have a slightly different experience. And you know, I can't tell you not to and you're gonna come into the comments and be like, Oh, well, you really let watch till six we think about that. And you know what, I don't care. I don't care. Shut up. I don't care. But anyway, it's interesting. It's, it's one of those things where like, I have no idea how interesting this would be to watch if you really weren't like that. Interested in the game or sort of a little bit into the style, but like, I've never watched any of his like stuff at length before, I've seen little clips of him before it's gone. And it seems like an amusing guy who does, you know, videos and criticism, right? But it's it's big, long, thoughtful thing and also sort of like, Goofy. And I'm impressed that he made it and I'm actually sort of working my way through it in bits and pieces, because it's just a lot to watch. Like, you know, it's 10 fucking hours and yeah,

Jessamyn 40:27 yeah, well, it seems like good in a vacuum. That user basically is like, Ah, I want like, but then like, kind of came back around and saw some different segments and wound up. Basically enjoying it. Yeah, but also, at first was just like, I've just not what even is kind of

Cortex 40:53 what I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, almost like a statement of purpose, purpose, slash shooting yourself in the foot on purpose of like, you know, the joke of like, you know, well, it's with my tenants, man, I can't like sit down and like, read a book for an entire half hour, but a watcher for our video essay on a game I've never played never will, like, you know, and that's like, and that's reflected back there is more and more of this long form, sort of, like video based criticism and analysis and stuff. Right. And for some people, that's just gonna be a hard fucking No, and for other people is gonna go

Jessamyn 41:26 for me, yeah. But you know, I get that it's part of other people's enjoyment media landscape. And I'll definitely watch anything that has the word taskmaster in it. So each their own.

Cortex 41:41 And then we that's the thing that happened, so much discussion to the thread, because like, there's 10 hours of material to watch before discussing it. But yes, but as 10 hour long, branching path, video reviews go, Oh, come on. I think it's this Yeah, yes. Yes. That was kind of the joke. That's kind of that's kind of what is going for? Well, good. What else you got for MediCal?

Jessamyn 42:02 Well, after Jim kept needling me to post, like, the postal fun facts, post and better filter, and I was like, I'm not gonna it's not my thing. No, he just decided to post it himself. So basically, the website, the Postal Service has a website, that's just facts that usps.com Which is actually kind of cute. I was very surprised that had not been posted before. kind of slick website with facts about the Postal Service. And as you know, like, the Postal Service is one of those things that like, if you're into it, you're into it. And if you're not, you're either are not because you don't use it and don't give a shit, or you hate it, and you just can't be bothered. And so I didn't want to talk to Postal Service haters on metal filter. So I didn't post this, Jim doesn't care doesn't pay attention to that kind of stuff. And it's much more good natured than me. And so he posted a US Postal Service has no official motto, and the website and the twitter bot that posts a different post office every 30 minutes, which I actually enjoy very much. And then slab tablet showed up just talking a lot. And so did some other people. And, you know, it turned into kind of what I thought, which was people talking about the legendary inefficiency of the post office. And people are like, Well, yeah, except for all the worse ways to get stuff delivered, I guess, or, and one of the things that's really interesting for me is like, you know, did joy, the Postmaster General, the man people love to hate? Who really seems to be doing all he can to drive the post office into the ground? My local people who work at the post office seem to really like him

Cortex 44:04 and talked about this last time and like, yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's just

Jessamyn 44:07 very confusing to me. And, and I think I may have found a way to sort of reconcile it, which is, they like him because they have new trucks and stuff, you know, but like other other modernization stuff. And we don't really have a lot of like, delivery problems, just because there's just not a lot of people hear so it's easier to deal with, you know, contractions in the Postal Service thing. But the new trucks could, as well be some kind of weird grift or handout to the joys, cronies. So it wouldn't make the employees happy but make other people mad, maybe. Yeah, I don't know. So thanks, Jim, for taking one for the team and posting that post office post.

Cortex 44:57 That you've now had to engage by proxy with us was, yeah, and

Jessamyn 45:01 I did comment in the thread. But if it's not my thread, I don't care as much like I know, theoretically, it shouldn't matter. But realistically, it does. And one of the things I did, because I feel like I've been getting my life back over the last month and a half. And not just because I've, you know, got my booster, but because like, work stuff has both picked up and calmed down in ways that are both helpful for me. So I've got a little bit of more free brain to do things that I want to do. And one of the things I did was, you know, I've been cleaning up my apartment, which has been great and it really silted in. But one of the other things was cleaning up the giant bag of stamps I have, because like my mother always used to get me like stamps for like, like birthdays and stuff like like new stamps or unused new stamps that you can use on letters and kind of cool old ones that look neat. But like her and my sister are both kind of like go bigger go home people. So they just got me many more stamps than I ever needed. And they just turned into this big bag of extra stamps. And I've started sending more mail. So I've been using more of them. But then I was like, I just need to deal with this. So I kind of organized them. But now I have a whole bunch of neat interesting stamps that I can put on envelopes because I know what I have. And it's not just like every time I move a book or a magazine, I'm like, Ah shit. Are there more stamps in here? So that's been very nice. So, yes. And the post office, like, you know, the guy at the post office is always like, Ah, it's too bad. You put these cool old stamps on this letter and I'm like, what was I gonna do otherwise put it in like a three ring binder on a shelf this way at least you can appreciate it. The person can appreciate it. Like yeah, they're not that cool. Yeah, and they're cooler to us. I think so. Yeah. saps

Cortex 46:57 one big topic of interest in the last couple of weeks here is Facebook renaming its corporate structure to meta Yeah.

Jessamyn 47:06 What even the fuck are you like poised to do something with that,

Cortex 47:15 I can't imagine I mean first of all, there's nothing cool different could possibly do with like, you know, Facebook shit. I mean, it's it's it's maddening and also like a non filter basically

Jessamyn 47:28 should like somewhere here's the

Cortex 47:31 here's the problem like anything that I do that is a reaction to that is kind of legitimizing losing Facebook through like, the weird attention. Yeah. Like my, my absolutely juvenile comment of like, more like, what did I say jerk fucker Berg. left us a mod comment in that thread. That's about? Yeah, it's about all I really want to say, you know, it's like that, that's, that's my statement on this subject. Because like, here's the thing, it's Facebook, they're fucking behemoth. Like, you know, we can imagine the idea that there would be a situation in which there would be a clear cut, you know, like, legal complaint to make beyond you. fuckos.

Jessamyn 48:10 But like, you saw, like some of the ones zipping around the internet of people being like, actually, our company was called meta and this is what Facebook did to us. But I haven't followed I mean, like you I find the whole thing kind of despicable and so I've mostly ignored it, but it's the all the metal filter people united. Yeah, like

Cortex 48:28 everybody agrees that it's fucking horseshit. And that's, that's kind of I think about all there will be to it, like I really don't see. Meta going around trying to close down every website that has meta in the name because that would be a fucking quixotic thing in the first place and

Jessamyn 48:45 need a lawyer I have one would love that. If if it

Cortex 48:48 if anything, like approaching that stupidity does occur, you know, we'll sort of like, measure that out when it comes and I'll take you up on that. Yeah, I mean, I'm like, we're not gonna go fucking suing Facebook, like, you know, like, it's just not, ya know, it's just stupid. It's just stupid and maddening. It's like, it's such a specific, kind of stupid, maddening thing to happen. You know, it's like if someone started up a yacht company, and all the gods were named after like, your dead grandpa, and there was one parked on every street corner. It's like, well, on the one hand, I don't know, but I'm gonna hand this fucking what what's happening? You know, it's just so yeah, that was I enjoyed that thread. In the everybody's angry to sort of play.

Jessamyn 49:31 It's not ultimately consequential in most ways for almost everybody so you can kind of talk about it and dish about it and hate it. But it's not like dishing on climate change where realistically, the oceans are still rising anyhow. So you're kind of you know, you laugh to keep from crying. Like, you know, this sucks, but I don't think Facebook changing its name. You know, the problem with Facebook

Cortex 50:00 and people are still calling Google Google even if it's technically the alphabet companies no one gives a shit like in terms of like popular branding so like yeah whatever but that that was quite a thing. I had a that was a day for sure.

Jessamyn 50:10 Yeah, I missed this entirely I think I just wasn't around on the internet this day. So yeah,

Cortex 50:14 it's yeah, just as well. But I'd nicer thing that I liked from Metafilter in the last month is a post I didn't make because someone made it in July and I only finally caught up last month but claw soon back in July, I made a post about a fractal advice from a channel called Hand Tool rescue who's a guy who does restoration of old hand tools and such

Jessamyn 50:40 the fractal link Are you. Oh, I

Cortex 50:43 pasted into Slack. into Slack. I'm not even in that slack. I know. I know. I've just I had the wrong window focused.

Jessamyn 50:51 Rude. Are you at work too?

Cortex 50:53 Nope. Just a slacks usually open. Okay, there's there's your link it's a fractal vise it's a it's a vise that instead of having to like fixed metal heads on either end of the vise, it has a bunch of articulated like half circles nested in each other. So that like when you close it around any object?

Jessamyn 51:13 Yeah, oh, this was going

Cortex 51:15 around on Twitter, like earlier in the year, which is probably proximal to this post, which actually classroom was making after I think the initial thing had gone around, and then other people started doing it. So it's a collection of videos and projects and whatnot about that. And I just think it's a lovely piece of machinery. Like it's it's pandering to me just with like, the fractal angle, but like, you know, it's, it's cool.

Jessamyn 51:35 I mean, I get why it's fractal, but it's barely fractal as much as it's just like, gorgeous. Like, yeah,

Cortex 51:44 it's decidedly, I'm gonna say it's decidedly it's decidedly fractal answers is one of more fractal machines I've ever seen.

Jessamyn 51:51 Yeah, but I mean, name another fractal machine.

Cortex 51:53 Exactly. So

Jessamyn 51:59 oh, I read a book that had a what they think is a spaceship sci fi book, which has a fractal exterior, like pyramid fractals, you know, have a pyramid and each pyramid has a pyramid coming out of it? Yeah, like

Cortex 52:18 a serpent serpent? carpet or? Exactly. sort of

Jessamyn 52:21 thing? Of course. Yeah, if that's what it is, yes, that's what but it was neat. Just because they specifically use it because both that I think it keeps more of the radiation from getting to the inside of the spaceship, but also they you know, it's some like future blob, the blob, the blob that takes, I don't know, some elements out of the surrounding atmosphere, and do more of it if they have a bigger surface area. And so they have this gigantic surface area by having that thing.

Cortex 52:58 Yeah. So it's 3d Abs are Pinsky. Pyramid?

Jessamyn 53:02 Yeah. But it was a lot of you. Fractals in my in my actual in my actual life?

Cortex 53:08 Nice. Yeah, no, it's it's a, it's a good way to get a lot surface area. And same thing with surface geek carpets and mango sponges, you know, the farther you go, the more surface area they have, and the less volume they have. And so within the limits of construction, you can have a great deal of surface area and a very lightweight object, which is like a sort of two for one deal.

Jessamyn 53:31 Yeah, deal. Well, I really liked that machine. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. And this is kind of an old school metal filter post, by dances to blue, which is just the Reddit thread of the most useful websites that most people might not know about. Ultimate internet rabbit hole, but I just like, you know, and it's via Digg, which is just this. This I love it. I love it. And then it's just, you know, me fights, calling out things they found there that they liked or things they like that maybe even weren't even there. And so it's just a great long list of stuff.

Cortex 54:17 Oh, nice. And I see tree rooster got to a very important place, which was mentioning the online encyclopedia of integer sequences. So yeah,

Jessamyn 54:25 yeah, I believe you and I probably talk about that annually.

Cortex 54:28 Yep. Yep. If not more

Jessamyn 54:30 of it much better to have it be an online encyclopedia than something you have to buy in a book.

Cortex 54:35 That'd be weird to buy like a set of OEIS volumes. That'd be that field very

Jessamyn 54:41 well. I mean, remember, I don't know if it's a remember thing for you. But you know, there used to just be like print books of random numbers. Yes, before you could usefully generate them from computers. You could buy a book and then use that book to look the I'm up for I'm not even sure why, but it was a thing. I didn't totally understand it and I assure you still like looking at them for no reason.

Cortex 55:10 There's something I don't know. It's like a, sort of like secular mysticism about large strings of random numbers. Yeah, exactly.

Jessamyn 55:20 I share that feeling. Well, those are my main Metafilter things. Did you have anything else from it?

Cortex 55:27 Toss one more at you and then we can move on. I came across this post by TSS because there was a typo that needed fixing and then it turned out was completely my shit. Which is a it's a post about hacking Bush are really sort of about like robbing question of

Jessamyn 55:45 this. I get it.

Cortex 55:47 Oh, god dammit. I did it again. I did it again. Oh, Jesus. Okay, there you go.

Jessamyn 55:53 All right. Keep talking.

Cortex 55:56 I'm apologizing in Slack for the contracts links. Everybody in

Jessamyn 56:00 Slack is like, Josh, what is happening? Is it even the meta filter slack? Or is it just some slack? Yeah, no,

Cortex 56:07 it's just the general channel on so like, you know, which has a downside, like any other Slack. So I was like, Oh,

Jessamyn 56:13 wait, Slack client, you just have an open in a browser?

Cortex 56:16 No, I use a Slack client. And I was like, clicking over to it for some reason, like, I mean, in the course of talking about medical stuff during the workday, I'm gonna paste links into the slack a lot, you know, and some part of my brain is just not, you know, what, here's what it is usually what I do, this is such a boring bit of process. Usually what I do when we're podcasting, it's like,

Jessamyn 56:36 it's been right, I love hearing about admin. Yeah.

Cortex 56:39 So usually, what I do is like the tricast, window, I pull it out to its own window. And so being a tab inside my normal 15 tabs, I usually have open. And then I will open another window and open all of our links in there. Like, I'll queue up links as tabs in this third window and open up your links in that window as well. And I've realized at times, that just means I'm shuffling between two different, like browser windows for no good reason. It's a little bit friction. So this one, I was like, Well, what if I just like commit to one window, and I'll have to try casting open because I don't really look at it most of the time. And then we'll just open up all the other tabs in that same window, instead of having two windows, I'm doing that. And as a result, I don't constantly have the tricast text field visible when I'm like grabbing a link and getting ready to paste it. And so my eyes looking for the textfield. And it finds slack is the only one that says like, oh, that's where I should be putting it. And I think that's what's going on. Okay, so there we go. Anyway, hacking bush. Yeah. This this post is, it's about a video about a classic mathematics book from 1982, apparently, but anyway, it's it's one that I know and have encountered before, called winning ways for your mathematical plays. And it's sort of loose, friendly, playful, deep dive into game theory and mathematical choice and number theory tied to that, and it's really hard to explain in the video does a good job of sort of easing into it to the extent that it's possible, which is to say, I got about two thirds before I was overwhelmed, I just had to stop watching it. But like, as an introduction, it's pretty good. And there's some little bit of discussion thread as well, it's just it's inescapably kind of weird, high level math. So it's hard to make it really accessible. But this video does a good job of like, at least sort of giving an idea of, of what is going on there and where to start and how weird some of the numbers get in trying to figure out how to calculate, you know, potential winners and chances in specific kinds of Mathematical Games. So I enjoyed it, and also feel a little overwhelmed by it. And if anyone else feels like feeling overwhelmed by it, check it out. There it is. That's my review of that video review of that book.

Jessamyn 58:56 Hey, that was brief. It's not 10, our branching Oh, my gosh. Oh, my dash.

Cortex 59:05 That'll be the next draft. Let's talk about AskMe Metafilter.

Jessamyn 59:10 Great. I enjoyed AskMe Metafilter. As I always do spent most of my time there. And, and like regular metal filter. I asked a question this month. And I would like to especially thank everybody who took the time to read my incredibly fuzzy question. But I figured if where else can you ask an incredibly fussy question, because the problem is, I'm now because I've been out and about more. And I you know, I walk probably six days a week now. I'm out of podcasts. Right? I'm out, right? Because there's only two that I listened to besides this one. And I'm out and I'm picky. A lot, right. I can't stand that. kinda like NPR voice podcast. I can't stand like young hipster dips, who like pretend to do research when they just Google something and then they act like they're imparting knowledge from on I, I can't stand Marc Maron, even though I love his interviews, etiquette, people are too jokey for me. John Hodgman isn't my deal. And so but I know kind of what I like, but I just don't really know what's out there for podcasts, right? There's like that meta talk thread that's all about like, what did you just discover that everyone else has known has been awesome for years. And for me, it's like, wow, podcasts are now part of my routine that they never were before. But I don't really know what's there. And so but I have a long list of things I like. And I've got a short, shorter list of things I don't like, you know, and meta filter, people listen to a lot of podcasts. And I got like, a ton of great advice. And then of course, the podcast I've wound up listening to was one I randomly found on twitter. Like somebody I went to college with, but don't even know as a grown up, posted something about this comedy podcast she was listening to. And I'm like, that's the thing, but it doesn't mean I'm not going to try out really most of these. That seem really interesting. And I'm just so happy that people took the time to read all of my like, like this. I don't Yeah, fussy, because it really matters to me who I'm gonna, like spend my brain time with, and I just don't want people whose company I don't enjoy taking up that time. But it's good. It's tricky. You know,

Cortex 1:01:44 it's tricky. Like, I mean, I mean, music recommendations are tricky. But music recommendations, you can usually kind of pan pretty quickly. And fairly accurately. Like, if you're like, listen to like the first song off an album, you're like, Whoa, this is not it, then like, Okay, move on to the next one. Podcasts. Like you kind of feel like you need to spend a little more time to figure out the vibe and see what the arc of a show is, like,

Jessamyn 1:02:04 you need to kind of start from the beginning, but others really matter. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, yeah, yeah, so it's just tricky. But I really, you know, not only do I enjoy podcasts, but like, I again, like it's my thing when I'm out walking by myself now, just because it'll motivate me to do walking, if there's a podcast I really enjoy, you know, or clean my house, which is what I've been doing the last couple of weeks, which is the other reason I'm out a podcast. So thank you, Metafilter people, I'm gonna start digging into some of these podcasts. And, and I'm sad that there doesn't seem to be a really good Saturday Night Live podcast, because that is the kind of thing I think I would really enjoy. But I've only seen a couple of them. And they all look like they're not great.

Cortex 1:02:49 Yeah. There are select episodes in the backlog of Comedy Bang, Bang, which is a podcast, I like very much where the guest has been SNL person, and they've gotten into like a half an hour of talk about it. But then like it, well, they don't do skits. They do long form improv, like saying no, no, no, they don't. They don't they don't punch dogs, they shoot them in the face. But you know, I happen to like this particular kind. But the point is, if I had offhand a good list of these, there are a number of episodes that probably add up to a few hours of listening of like Scott Ackerman talking with this or that SNL person about sort of like the culture and behind the scenes stuff that was actually really fascinating to trip across on what is usually a much more like, goofy podcast, because Marin

Jessamyn 1:03:34 was always like obsessed with SNL. And so you always would get like SNL dives whenever he had anybody on who either had been in the cast or, you know, had hosted, and I really enjoyed that. But again, I can't even fast forward through Marin anymore. You know what I mean? Like, he's just not my dude, fine. If he's somebody else's dude. And that's kind of what I liked about podcasts is you can tell somebody you don't like a podcast that they recommended. And it's very unlikely to become personal, you know,

Cortex 1:04:05 probably, it's probably not their identity being destroyed. Yeah. Because a lot of people

Jessamyn 1:04:09 listen to 10 or 15 of them. And, you know, you don't like one of them. Or maybe you like another one. But I know that it's kind of fun to tell somebody like, oh, you might like this and have them be like, Oh, I'd like to get into that whole thing. And you're like, Oh, I'm so happy, like telling people about taskmaster who haven't heard about taskmaster. If it's their jam, they will probably be very happy to have found a new show with 12 seasons of stuff and a whole bunch of spin offs. If it's not their jam, whatever, not their jam. I didn't make it.

Cortex 1:04:44 My personal take on this by the way as I'm going to end the several people in the thread who suggested you're wrong about because I think you would probably enjoy that right.

Jessamyn 1:04:53 Thank you who hosts it?

Cortex 1:04:55 It is Michael Hobbs and ah Ah, killing me that I'm blanking on her name. I'm gonna look it up right now.

Jessamyn 1:05:04 His female co host, Sarah Marshall,

Cortex 1:05:07 I would say Sarah Marshall and her male co host, Michael, um, I feel like it's a little bit more like her lead on it. It came out of like that the whole backstory with a guest says it sort of came out of them both being like, sort of research journalists. And she was working on and has been working on for a long time a book about the Satanic Panic. Oh, that whole thing? Right. So like, I've

Jessamyn 1:05:30 heard this. Yeah, yeah. So

Cortex 1:05:32 I think their first few episodes touched on stuff specifically oriented to that. And then they sort of branched out. They've been doing a long form series on the OJ Simpson trial, and a bunch of other stuff. And yeah, they are both very smart. And funny and interesting, because we know

Jessamyn 1:05:48 what research is, I always appreciate hearing about their process, people who thinks they're researching or doing their own researching, but what they're really just doing is googling some lazy shit. You know, like, they're not, they're not adding to my scope of knowledge. They're actually doing less than I would do to look up the same information. Yeah, yeah, no, this this journalists are terrific for that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Cortex 1:06:14 So it's much it's much better that way. And they also, neither of them seems to be perfectly gleeful about the shitty stuff that comes up in the course of talking to us, like, right, they don't like God, and here's a camp, you know, sort of thing rather than like, oh, and then you won't believe what happened to the blood after that. Right. But for Squarespace.

Jessamyn 1:06:36 That's why I like the UK podcast is because like, Americans are just weird and fucked up about stuff, you know, that there's that there's a lot of them who enjoy that, you know, and again, fine if that's you, it's not me. And so like, you know, no such thing as a fish can talk about things that have to do with, I don't know, like sex, your genitals, like that kind of stuff without it turning into a life. You know, they can just talk about like, your genitals as if they're like things people have, without it becoming suddenly tawdry, just because you mentioned I mean, you know, like we were talking about like, pixelated penises early. Like that, to me is how normal people talk about that kind of stuff. Many Americans are always like, ooh, and I'm not there for

Cortex 1:07:27 it. Yep.

Jessamyn 1:07:30 Oh, Jim's awake from his nap. Oh, he's going out for a walk.

Cortex 1:07:34 It's morning Jim Jr. Walk.

Jessamyn 1:07:37 There were a lot of other things that I really enjoyed from AskMe Metafilter. Mommy, one of the ones cuz I never thought about this even was Quaker Mel basically asking, Hey, you know, we all know about like the happy birthday song. But like, do you have like a personal like, song that Sung just in your like friend group or maybe in your country if you don't sing like the kind of American Happy Birthday song? Like, you know, in the US most people sing this song but not always. In my Quaker meeting, we sang this song, what birthday song are sung in your circle, and if there's a video share it. And it was neat, just because there's lots of people who have different different things that they do, which is cool. And also because like in the seventh inning stretch, which is the Facebook Live thing that I watched with the Red Sox organist, right. They always do Happy Birthday Songs to the tune of hocus pocus by focus.

Cortex 1:08:44 You know that song? I told I just I like the sound of

Jessamyn 1:08:47 a Nicholas. But like, it's basically this kind of metal like gonna take that data. And so that's how it goes. Happy birthday, Bob. Happy birthday, Bob. Happy birthday, Bob. And it's so stupid. But like, that's the song, you know. So if you've had a birthday in the last week, and in fact, the show is going on right now it started at five instead of seven today. You can just request a birthday song and they'll just basically play that but it's just so funny and so stupid. And I feel like you know, having your own traditions like that is kind of what makes a community, a community and so it was fun to see how other people do the same stuff. I will give you a YouTube video so that you can share the joy hocus pocus because the band's name is focused and just just so ridiculous. Yeah, hocus pocus by focus.

Cortex 1:09:45 I couldn't I couldn't help but be delighted by the metrical contact there. Bob.

Jessamyn 1:09:54 Yeah, and they're like a band from the 70s. Like if they're still around, they may still be around but they were definitely We'd like a thing in the 70s. So, you know, at your leisure, you can watch that video and you'll have at least a sense of it. But I enjoyed it. People talk about like, oh, we do this in Germany or in Greece, we do this in Western Massachusetts, we've done this thing in Afrikaans it's this thing. And, you know, it also allows you to appreciate kind of the, the wide and varied backgrounds that people in Metafilter come from. I enjoy. Yeah,

Cortex 1:10:25 that's very cool.

Jessamyn 1:10:29 Should I keep going?

Cortex 1:10:30 Keep going? I've got I've got a couple little ones, but I know you've got to have some. Ah,

Jessamyn 1:10:35 briefly, happy story. LFK was trying to figure out how TSA is lost and found work because they left their laptop at the checkpoint. You know, everybody's nightmare. And I only pulled this out to mention it because they found it. So LFK last laptop, found laptop. And that was cool. Box was looking for a name for their kid crushing machine, office Candy Crush machine. Good punny names. And so this was like a long, a long list. And

Cortex 1:11:15 mostly Crusher. Yeah, citizen crush was

Jessamyn 1:11:20 my first crush candy. Yeah, but super fun. And oh, and then another kind of list generating thing, which I didn't totally understand. But I mostly get it is pots rheb or pots? Pots. I always thought that was pots Ruby, and maybe I've been saying it wrong the entire time? I don't know. At any rate, they have a question about programming and computer terms that refer to obsolete?

Cortex 1:11:58 Tech. Yeah, this is one that I was gonna mention.

Jessamyn 1:12:01 So software bugs named after a bug? Yes. No, maybe core dumps are because of magnetic core memory. And, you know, looking for terms that are something specific. And people, you know, it gets it gets all the Silverbacks out in the room talking about, you know, from a long time ago. And I didn't know all of these, and I enjoyed them. And it didn't turn into a bunch of nerds fighting with each other, which is always nice.

Cortex 1:12:32 Yeah. No, it was it's, it's such a weird the the sort of churn of technology and the degree to which there has been so much speed in the movement of computing technology over the last several decades. Like it makes it feel like a particularly rich vein of weird, anachronistic references. Like, these things exist all throughout like language over the course of centuries. But like, the speed at which, like, the technology itself has come and gone. Keeping the metaphor round is really, it does feel something unusual to sort of computer technology in particular, and it stuff because of that, like just the the speed of the treadmill is rate greater than normal.

Jessamyn 1:13:22 But like radio buttons, I remember videos that had those buttons. They were cool. Yeah. And you know, that's a user interface convention named after the buttons, you'd see that were presets on cars and cars still have preset buttons, but it's not like you push one in and the other ones pop out. Yeah. Which were pretty nifty.

Cortex 1:13:46 And yeah, as folks have noted, like, the, the disk Save icon, like, floppy disks are a dead metaphor, but also what else we're gonna put. Right? There's so like a silver

Jessamyn 1:13:58 ladder, like, especially because more and more stuff just move in SSD. What does that even look like? Weird? Chip? I don't know.

Cortex 1:14:05 Yeah, like when you abstract away the physical item, what is your point of reference? And it's like, I don't know the concept. It's a lot harder to draw an icon of a abstract verb than it is of a, like, physical component. So yeah, no, I thought that was a I thought that was an interesting read. And it has been in the back of my head every time I've thought of something like there has been an answer in there already, since I didn't get there like right away, but

Jessamyn 1:14:30 great, but I enjoyed reading. It just made me happy. And while we're talking about nerds, there were some in Will's thread trying to figure out how to get Ethernet cable from their old house to the even older barn. And you know, you could do wireless repeaters, but and it's the Windland what kind of cable man you know, do you put it in a conduit? Do you man ran out And you know, there's a lot of smart people on the thread with a whole bunch of advice. I'm not sure if Will's done that project yet. He is one of the 11 people that listen to the podcast. So let us know what oh, that was very funny actually saying that a lot of people listen to the podcast. And it turns out, it's more like 15 or 16. But I am interested in how this project went, because probably you'd have to be working on that project fairly soon. If it's going to be before. Yeah, well, the winter time, I was curious about what update us update us.

Cortex 1:15:40 There was I will always mention a thread like this one, I noticed it but there was a thread from Brittany asking, basically, hey, I want to let you know what didn't have a ton of comments or anything, but just a few days ago, and saying, hey, you know, I'm trying to learn to do arch Morty. I'm a creative person, but I don't really like do like visual arts. And I want to how do I do that? What can I look for, like blogs and accounts and things are redone, and stuff for drawing and watercolor stuff, and then had some suggestions. And hey, I feel like a lot of people find themselves doing that a lot. And here's,

Jessamyn 1:16:20 I think this a lot. Yeah, like, I've always thought that I don't have talent for that kind of thing. But that doesn't mean anything, you know, like, like, draw thing you like to look at, like my sister does, you know, cartooning and stuff like that. And I think one of the reasons she's good at it is she just does it often. Yeah. And I think there's more of it, especially with all that, like funny little birds that come around here. Like it would make me happy to have little pictures of the birds, even if they don't look like the birds.

Cortex 1:16:47 Yeah, but if you find a way of doing a thing that you like, and like doing enough to sort of turn, just doing it into accidental practice, like, that's the biggest thing for me. I've talked about that before. But like, you know, if you can, if you can get to the point where instead of doing your homework, you're just kind of doing a thing? Yeah, exactly. Do you feel like doing and that's, that's a humongous step forward. And between that and just sort of like unpacking the assumptions you have about like, what making art should look or feel like versus what you're doing and say, Oh, no, it's, whatever you're doing is what it is like, there's a whole bunch of cultural baggage that needs to be just completely shot out the window. But yeah, you can you can just try doing a thing and try doing a different thing. And, and yeah, so yeah, go make smart. Yeah,

Jessamyn 1:17:32 I think that would be neat. And I liked that thread. Thanks for pointing it out to me. And here's one, here's one by stress, stress, one of the other 11 people, high stress. I really liked it, you've grown your hair long. It looks really good.

Cortex 1:17:49 To cut it off, what was it like saying he was cutting it off? I could be wrong, I could be conflating two different haircut, a

Jessamyn 1:17:56 picture that he put up on malt shop fairly recently, which included the long hair, but it may have been the older picture that he uses for his profile. What he currently looks like,

Cortex 1:18:07 I could also I could also be conflating I liked long hair, I feel like I saw a picture with shorter hair. But I also don't know if that was old or new.

Jessamyn 1:18:15 Oh, and I was going to ask you looking at you're getting a tattoo picture. Did you cut your hair more than before? Or is it kind of the same? It just

Cortex 1:18:24 it's just it's just pulled up? Like I did the undercut a few months ago? Yeah. Yeah, I've just sort of kept that up. But I've found that I really don't particularly like it down with the undercut even though that was part of the ideas that could go either way. It seems like it doesn't lay back in a ponytail or something. Yeah, so I'm just pulling

Jessamyn 1:18:44 your hair cut. No. Good. Was a little curious. So that describes stress basically had a friend who was running a campaign raising some money, blah, blah, blah, and you know, got a message that was like, Hey, we're almost at the goal. And you know, they discuss donated, and then suddenly, the goal changed. And he was pissed. Because he was like, ah, you know, I was happy to be the person who like put it over the top. But now I see I've just fallen for a thing, because, you know, he's not naive, he understands how these things work, but he's like, I thought, What is this just a engagement trick, and people were like, Yeah, because you know, it was a campaign for transparency. What the fuck aggravating. And so, yeah, he was grumpy about the whole thing. And but it's an interesting bunch of people talking about how this stuff works. And you know how, let's see blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, so basically got a non apology from from from his friend. So sorry, I don't mean to make light of it. Because obviously that's correct. be failing. But it is good to kind of understand how these things work. And you know, people who may just be using different platforms to be raising money, those platforms may be engaging in these slightly underhanded fundraising tools. I had one more mass Metafilter. Basically meese who says, Look, I'm fat, I don't have any rhythm, and out of shape, I have asthma, my feet are weird. But I want to move around, I want to dance, I don't need to like be in a class, I don't need to, like whatever, I just want to like, move around in ways that make me feel good when I listen to music, in an exercise space, but I've used like dance focus aerobic videos, and they don't really work. And, you know, it's like, I'm not super coordinated. But I just want something like fat focused, fat positive, that focuses on like, having a good time and being happy in your body. And so there's a lot of just, hey, here are some things you might actually like dance church, body grooves, some classes by larger people with modifications for everybody tap fit, et cetera, et cetera. And it's just great. Because, you know, there's lots of good options. I mean, it's kind of like you said about art. I think that's also a lot of people feel that with their physicality, right? That they're like, I can't, you know, either I can't exercise or I can't dance because I have these, you know, physical issues, whatever they are. And, you know, being in a situation where you're around a bunch of people who are just really positive about what you can bring to it and what it can bring to you. That's great. It can be really kind of revolutionary in its own neat. Yeah. And so it's great to see all of these options for people with varying abilities who just want to be able to like move and be happy in their body and listen to music. Cool. Yeah. So that's it for me with Hello, Josh. Yep,

Cortex 1:22:20 I'm doing that good radio thing. I'm okay. I'm gonna quietly read the thing we're talking about.

Jessamyn 1:22:24 You know, there's a time for reading it just isn't right now.

Cortex 1:22:28 Well, a number of seasonal li relevant meta talk things.

Jessamyn 1:22:35 Oh, yeah. Just this you have to get this out before the 11th. Yeah.

Cortex 1:22:40 Yeah, I guess so. I'm trying to paste in the wrong window cut.

Jessamyn 1:22:45 Come on. Like what time is an axe?

Cortex 1:22:47 I stopped this time. I stopped this time, so you can start talking about it before? I'm just Yeah, yeah, I pasted it at but didn't hit enter. And then I came over the right window. Everyone had to hear about it. But at least I feel like I'm in control. MEPhI mall, we're spinning up

Jessamyn 1:23:02 the mall for much and I sell my Christmas stamps in the mall. Because when I was assessing my stamps, one of the things I have a lot of is Christmas stamps. And one of the things I don't celebrate is Christmas. so other people can buy some unused American postage to put on their Christmas cards. For me, once the ball is excellent. Which, soon? Yeah,

Cortex 1:23:27 it Yeah, I mean, it's technically up right now. But we'll look at an announcement up in the next day or so. After we make sure everything's up to date. But yeah, so that's, that's a comment if you want to buy from mefites or sells stuff to mefites or mefites or mefites. Or, you know, whatever perverse mispronunciation you choose. You know, that's out there. There's also, like you said, by the 11th, if you want to sign up for the Metafilter, gift swap, you'll need to sign up by the 11th. That's Thursday. Good

Jessamyn 1:23:58 time, who's running that?

Cortex 1:24:01 It's, I think, curious, new and someone else is helping to I think, and I can't remember. I was not involved in the coordinating email exchange, so I haven't had to refresh my brain on it. Oh,

Jessamyn 1:24:16 okay. Yeah. Thank both of you guys for putting it together.

Cortex 1:24:20 Yeah, it's a it's a pile of work to accomplish. And it only happens because of that sort of big volunteer effort. So

Jessamyn 1:24:27 yeah, I decided I was gonna sit out this year, but maybe I may reconsider that actually.

Cortex 1:24:33 You've got time. You've got three days.

Jessamyn 1:24:37 And the card exchange which is holiday cards, I guess.

Cortex 1:24:43 I mean, I don't know that they have to but like it's the holiday time so that's probably gonna be compensated

Jessamyn 1:24:48 in the regular monthly Card Exchange, which I enjoy and also recommend to people if they're interested in getting to be part of the regular, like non Holiday Card Exchange if you just write like writing cards and letters to other mefites. It's a fun option that I enjoy. Yeah, so this is all thank you

Cortex 1:25:06 needle girls needles girl doing this. And you've got about a week left to sign up for that as well. So you know, get in on that, sign up for

Jessamyn 1:25:13 this and just get non Christmas cards doesn't look like it.

Cortex 1:25:18 I thought, yeah, I think it's sort of like you get what you get. You get what you get, which is fine. Yeah. It's also got to help anybody who's like, Oh, I better get on that right now, since it's like eight days in, but NaNoWriMo is happening, because it's November. So National Novel Writing Month, people are trying to write 50,000 words of fiction. And if you feel like torturing yourself, that way, you too can join in and commiserate in the metadata

Jessamyn 1:25:41 thread. I've never participated in that. Have you? Have you done that?

Cortex 1:25:46 I did that five times. All of them a while back,

Jessamyn 1:25:53 Josh, I feel like this is a thing. I had tried

Cortex 1:25:55 that five times, five times in my 20s. And one of them I actually hit the 50,000 word Mark, I think was like the third time I tried maybe. And I basically determined that writing unplanned novels very quickly is not something that I'm particularly good at, or practically enjoy. Like, I enjoyed the stunt of it as much as anything. And it's good sort of sort of like test the the notion of just suddenly putting out a bunch of pros, but no, I'm not perfectly good at it. I found out that I liked writing dialogue, and I hate writing scene setting. And, you know, it's a fascinating exercise.

Jessamyn 1:26:31 I've got no way to find out. And so I'm always completely impressed by people who've managed to basically do anything. But yeah,

Cortex 1:26:39 yeah, yeah, I feel like I developed a much better understanding of the things that I don't even know how to approach in writing fiction, as well as the small set of things that it turns out, like maybe actually do have a little bit more of a handle on. Now, if it was National Novel, or national Twitter, writing, I don't know how to do 50,000 words of tweets in a month. All

Jessamyn 1:26:59 right, well, I was gonna say I am I use this tool called Email meter, that tells me how many emails I've sent and received in a month and bla bla bla, bla, bla, bla bla. But one of the things that doesn't say, which I really like to know, is how many words I've sent in a month of emails, you know, I'm not sure if there's actually a way to do that, because of you know, how much email just is like, iterative kind of, you know, the emails

Cortex 1:27:29 consistently filter out the

Jessamyn 1:27:31 email, blah, blah, blah. But I would love to know, like, how many words I typed into a Gmail a month,

Cortex 1:27:37 I would do that. I would be bet. I bet that would be pretty doable. Like you would have the problem of if, like, quotation, filtering gets messed up somehow, then. Yeah. Accounts. But like, in principle, you can Yeah, I mean, Gmail tries to do that. The all mail clients try and do that. So I bet I bet if you wanted to have a go at that you could find some tools to do it. I bet it's out there. Yeah. Well, maybe I will. Yeah. And yeah, one other one other notable thing from meta talk. Is that roll truck roll, passed away recently. There was a nice meta talk thread about that.

Jessamyn 1:28:13 40 years old, too young. Yeah. He was a friend of mine, friend of Lauren, nice. And I miss him. Sucks. Yep. But you should if you didn't know what a wonderful person he was, you should pop into that thread and or read the big thing that they wrote about him at the EFF where he worked and did a lot of really good stuff.

Cortex 1:28:35 Yeah. And Metafilter did a couple of little sort of privacy, temporary change, like blackout page type stuff, in coordination with stuff eff did over the years. Yeah. And that was basically the work of mele saying, Hey, guys, what do you think about doing this? So?

Jessamyn 1:28:54 Yeah, just just a true Midwestern mench. Lovely man.

Cortex 1:29:01 And yeah, and I don't know is that I think I think we may have gotten there for about 90 minutes in

Jessamyn 1:29:08 seems like a podcast. I'm really looking forward to the mall. I will update my store as soon as I am able to my store to

Cortex 1:29:15 take inventory on my my backstock of lineup prints and get my

Jessamyn 1:29:22 Yeah, that'd be great. Your stuff is great. Thank you. I'm looking forward to it. I look at Boaty McBoatface is on the front of my fridge that little watercolor you did have Bodiam pajamas. bowtie. Yeah, buddy.

Cortex 1:29:37 What a good cat. What a good cat. What a good podcast.

Jessamyn 1:29:40 What a good good podcast. Always good to hear from you Josh. I'm glad you had a good visit with your brother. I'm glad you got a cool new tattoo. And I look forward to tuck into you right around gyms miss. Sounds good. December 6, gym and other gym. Gym time