16: $40 Bridge to PEI

September 30, 2007 9:01 AM

Show #16 of the podcast recaps from the last three weeks of MeFi and Ask MeFi. It was recorded on September 27, 2007 and runs about an hour long.

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Helpful Links

Podcast Feed
Subscribe with iTunes
Direct mp3 download

MeFi Music tracks

Eggdrop by strangeguitars (intro song)

The Superhero Challenge entries

Right on said jeebus by kimyo (bumper song between MeFi and Ask MeFi recaps)

This is Why I'm Fantastic mashup by EMRJKC94

Some Kind of Superhero by flapjax at midnite (ending song)



MetaFilter recaps

The monster Nick Cave thread by first-time poster the_very_hungry_caterpillar

YouTube viewer, explained

Flickr accidental upload thread and news about it

I was a host at the Olive Garden comic thread showcasing Greg Nog's work. His earlier monkey joke.

MeFi User Sites blog

Famous movie scenes from the Simpsons

Star Wars, the musical

The cheap eyeglasses thread, with major shoutouts to the blog that started it all (what FUD means)


Halifax meetup

Bridge to PEI

The Zork Map (waxpancake's Zork IM bot)

Librarian link dump of online learning sources


Ask MeFi recaps

The perfect book for each profession

(Popular posts in the past 30 days on Ask MeFi)

What are good worldwide radio stations? list of online stations

Why do classic rock stations play the same songs over and over again? An answer from someone that worked at a station. Previous Ask MeFi post about songs and nostalgia.

Parents needing help and parents with hoarding issues.

Good blogs by female magicians

Alien story about human senses

How to make conversation with celebrities? miss lynster's trick for throwing celebrities off-guard. miss lynster gets a kiss from Bono. scody hangs out with Bono. Richard Thompson.

Automatic podcast device that works with WiFi?

The source of the Calvin and Hobbes peeing sticker

What to do about man boobs

How to track down a lost camera using EXIF data on flickr (Judith's lost camera story and the closure on it)

posted by mathowie (staff) to MeFi Podcast at 9:01 AM (63 comments total)

Sorry I sound so weird and lossy. I had my input levels set down to 1/8 or so, I have no idea why it's sounding like that. (it gets better further in)
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:43 AM on September 30, 2007

Yeah, I couldn't hear a thing you said about the nice Canadians. But $40! WHAT

Also, I have just got to start paying attention to Mefi Music. That flapjax song is so cool, and Junior's mashup is great!
posted by synaesthetichaze at 10:22 AM on September 30, 2007

why is making an mp3 format audio file called a 'podcast'?
posted by quonsar at 11:14 AM on September 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's the work of pro-pea lobbyists.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:20 AM on September 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

casting pea pods makes the sidewalk all green and slick.
posted by quonsar at 11:21 AM on September 30, 2007

i mean really.
1) an mp3 does not require an ipod (nothing more than an mp3 playback device) in order to be played back.
2) i understand that it's a lame play on the term 'broadcast', in the sense of being intended for wide delivery. but an mp3 that's called a podcast is no more enabled for wide delivery than one thats called a mutton fling. any mp3 or other audio file can be delivered widely. so using the term podcast is a deliberate advocacy, an advertisement, a recommendation, a shill for an apple product called the ipod.
3) why does metafilter shill for apple?
posted by quonsar at 11:26 AM on September 30, 2007

Dude, if you're really trying to put forth the argument that using the word 'podcast' is a priori a shill for Apple, you've got a few decades of berating people for saying 'xerox' or 'kleenex' to catch up on.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:29 AM on September 30, 2007

*blows nose, makes a copy, podcasts it*
posted by quonsar at 11:38 AM on September 30, 2007

Don’t Squeeze the Charmin!
posted by psmith at 11:47 AM on September 30, 2007

It's like how the multi use pathway here is called a bike path. People can still walk on it. They can skateboard on it too. They will continue to call in a bike path.
posted by ODiV at 11:51 AM on September 30, 2007

why is making a html/text format file called a 'weblog'?

i mean really.
1) a text file does not require a log file
2) I understand it's a lame play on the term 'we blow', in the sense that most of them suck.
3) why does metafilter shill for vi?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:54 AM on September 30, 2007 [6 favorites]

It's also similar to how some people call Newfoundland PEI.
posted by ODiV at 12:07 PM on September 30, 2007

It's also similar to how some people call Newfoundland PEI.

I just read what the sign said on the $40 bridge.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:17 PM on September 30, 2007

Podcast is not referring to the medium. It is as if you were making the case that television and movies should both be called "film" due to synchronized picture and dialog. The podcast is fundamentally different in presentation and means of consumption, but not technically different than other things in MP3 format.

More specifically "podcast" conveys what is being presented and what the audience should suspect, meaning our vocabulary is becoming more efficient. Why is it a "podcast" and not another word? It is tautological in that popular words result in efficiency and efficient words become popular, but both functions can influence each other to various degrees.

You might make the case that "podcasts" came to being because of the popularity of the iPod as "MP3" is neither catchy or cool to use. But in reality why we can analyze why it is "podcast" and not "streamcast" or "MP3cast" or the myriad of words that were in use at the time, I would be satisfied that the the paticular process of a culture matriculating vocabulary has more to do with a stochastic process than some deterministic (marketing campaign) process, asshole.
posted by geoff. at 12:22 PM on September 30, 2007

I copy and pasted "asshole" by mistake, which comes of much more aggressive than I intended.
posted by geoff. at 12:24 PM on September 30, 2007

Why do they call the kids on quonsar's lawn the kids on quonsar's lawn? I'll eat my hat if that one with the hacky-sack was younger than 20! Get a job, beardo!

Now do airplane food!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:29 PM on September 30, 2007

...and the contract is fulfilled for yet another edition.
posted by jonson at 12:57 PM on September 30, 2007

Welcome, welcome, (mathowie!)
Welcome, welcome, (jessamyn!)
Welcome to the MetaFilter MP3 Format Audio File Intended For Wide Delivery!

posted by bac at 1:06 PM on September 30, 2007 [3 favorites]

3) why does metafilter shill for apple?

Same reason that it uses USian. It's all about brand loyalty.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:48 PM on September 30, 2007

A podcast is an RSS feed with a link to an MP3 file, so you don't have to go check to see whether there's a new one.
posted by kindall at 2:14 PM on September 30, 2007

+1 kindall
posted by chrismear at 2:47 PM on September 30, 2007

P O D C A S T
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:21 PM on September 30, 2007

Pod people make podcasts, Quonsar.
posted by Dave Faris at 3:21 PM on September 30, 2007

why is making an mp3 format audio file called a 'podcast'?

Yahoo to Silence Podcast Service -- "Yahoo Inc. will jettison a little-used service for finding and rating audio programs known as 'podcasts.'"

Next Internet-fad to fail: Twitter!
posted by ericb at 3:22 PM on September 30, 2007

This all got really confusing when people started adding moving pictures to their podcasts and called them vodcasts.
posted by dg at 3:24 PM on September 30, 2007

We won't even talk about the sodcasts.
posted by languagehat at 3:28 PM on September 30, 2007

I always assumed the 'pod' bit became part of the name because it overlapped with the (then) recent popularity of the iPod which was a watermark for making music more portable and subscribable. In essence, a podcast is just a media file wrapped in an XML feed, and the ability to subscribe to it in syndicated format does make it more portable - but yeah, it'd be nice if the term was not specifically, inextricably tied to an Apple product. Leo LaPorte often grinds that axe, even going as far as to call them "netcasts" although I don't know if that's any more descriptive.
posted by deern the headlice at 3:47 PM on September 30, 2007

Podcast comes from the term "pod people." By listening to the podcast we are exposed to top-secret subliminal messages which brainwash and band us together as Mathowie and Jessamyn's secret army.
posted by SassHat at 4:17 PM on September 30, 2007

I'm currently working on the next big technology: inkcasts. You see, it's a bit of drivel scrawled with a pen on a piece of paper, and mailed to readers. It's completely independent of the internet! Ha, take that suckers! Patent pending.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 4:46 PM on September 30, 2007

Podgive not that which is holy unto the poddogs, neither podcast ye your pearls before podswine, lest they trample them under their podfeet.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:21 PM on September 30, 2007

podcasts are technically media files wrapped in an RSS feed to make automatic downloading easier.
posted by empath at 5:34 PM on September 30, 2007

F@M, your podwords speak well unto and liketh mine own podmind. Or something.

I like the format just the way it is.
posted by snsranch at 5:54 PM on September 30, 2007

speaking of F@M, i wonder if flapjax at midnite is fold and mutilate's sock puppet.
posted by quonsar at 6:54 PM on September 30, 2007

You will all be thrilled skinny to learn that the Chinese for blog being 博客 bókè, a play on the sound of the English that could also be read to mean something like "read by a wide audience of visitors;" when podcasting got popular, the Web2.0 wags dubbed it 播客 bōkè. Sounds similar, but the first character replaces 博 meaning "extensive" with 播, meaning "to broadcast," both in the modern media sense and, as in English, in the old-fashioned seed-sowing sense.
In China, we tend to over-think our beans in a small bowl rather than on a plate.
posted by Abiezer at 7:20 PM on September 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Which is arguably better, Abiezer. They don't get all scattered that way!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:24 PM on September 30, 2007

You have some very shamanistic frame-drum vibe going on in that superhero song, flapjax. The place before thinking, where the spirit walks, man! Very nice, and no crockery of any kind needed.
posted by Abiezer at 7:45 PM on September 30, 2007

Thanks, Abiezer! That's a bodhran, with a pretty loose head, and dressed up real pretty with duct tape and plastic and whatnot.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:35 PM on September 30, 2007

... His earlier monkey joke.

I didn't take that as a joke. I thought it was a comment to encourage the OP to change the tags. See also the comments in this thread.
posted by philomathoholic at 12:09 AM on October 1, 2007

I take umbrage at the phrase "from Brooklyn"; I'm a New Hampshirite who just happens to live in NYC for now. Me and long cold indoor-activity winters, we go way back.

Yeah I know what you mean, I moved from New England to Seattle in the 90s which is the equivalent of moving to Brooklyn this decade, I think. But why no long johns on this guy then, hmmm?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:41 AM on October 1, 2007

Jessamyn was on PEI? :( :(

Should have had another mini-meetup.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:16 AM on October 1, 2007

OMG OMG JESSAMYN AND MATT SAID MY NAME OMG

OMG

Yeah! I'm both attracting Matt's misattributions and on a first name basis with him, apparently... mrowr.

The other Matt, McConaghey, said "No," by the way, even though he was alone and it was New Year's Eve in Ensenada, and proceeded to dance around the bar very much like an octopus. You know what they say - It's a hell of a drug.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:24 AM on October 1, 2007

the flagging mention of the Nick Cave story got me wondering -- how much flagging is too much flagging? Or how serious do I have to be about something to flag it and not annoy the admins?
posted by garlic at 2:57 PM on October 2, 2007

Anything that you flag that you like is great, go to it. Flag as fantastic a lot, it's fine. If you're mad at a particular thread, there is not really anything gained by flagging, say, ten comments in a thread. Once we see a thread getting a lot of flag attention, we'll take a look and see what's what. Sometimes people flag like 20 comments in a thread and, even if they're all terrible and flagworthy, usually we've checked the thread out after we see a few flags (for AskMe especially, I can't speak to MeFi as much). So, while it may feel good to flag every comment in a thread, it's not that useful and, since we tend to remove the flags from the queue after we've dealt with them -- they stay in the database but not on the todo list -- having to remove all 20 flags once we've either closed a thread or dealt with whatever the problem is takes a little time. It's a very minor thing, but every so often we'll email someone to say "hey you don't have to do ALL that flagging" but if people still do it, it's no big deal.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:02 PM on October 2, 2007

Flag as fantastic a lot, it's fine.

Note that "a lot" means "when you really, really like something", not "at anything that doesn't make you want to vomit."

And yes, I'm pretty much talking to you, tehloki.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:14 PM on October 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

I never get love on the podcast. What's up with that? I thought everything was supposed to be about me.
posted by dios at 4:49 PM on October 2, 2007

Regarding the question about music magazines and "what was pre-Pitchfork?" ... Well, for me it was CMJ. A decent mag for the time and it came bundled with a pretty good sampler cd. This was at least 15 years ago. Eesh.
posted by itchylick at 11:57 AM on October 5, 2007

They keep a list of users never to be mentioned on a podcast, Dios, and you and I are both on it.
posted by Dave Faris at 12:43 PM on October 5, 2007

Y'all should just do like me and imagine the podcast as a party at which you're the coolest person there - mentioning you would be irrelevant, since everyone's well aware of you doing your thing over by the punch bowl, and since you're the coolest, you're magnanimous about the less-cool people getting their time in the spotlight.

It also works for Meet-Up call-outs, being ignored at actual parties, and crying yourself to sleep at night.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:48 PM on October 5, 2007

C'mon, Alvy, everybody's always talking about you!


Or... maybe those frequent references to AA stand for something else?

Nevermind.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:27 PM on October 5, 2007

Aw, man -- I missed that Star Wars musical thread.

Back in the 90s, I was lighting and sound designer on "Jedi! A Musical Tour De Force" at ImprovOlympic in Chicago -- until Lucas sent a cease and desist. It covered all three movies, had some fantastic songs (the standout was "Feel The Flow" about feeling the force) and all of the space battles were done in a little lightbox in the back of the set. We even had each film's opening text-in-space, sung by the piano player, at the beginning of each movie section -- and each one got faster, as did the roomfull of rotating "stars" (via disco ball) that accompanied it.

If I remember correctly, the only surviving record of this extravaganza is some VHS tape somewhere (I wouldn't have it), and the reel-to-reel and CD I have of our best attempt at a low-budget cast recording. I'll see if I can dig it up.

I certainly think our title was much better.
posted by davejay at 10:14 PM on October 5, 2007

oh, and the poster had Vadar, with a kick-line of Stormtroopers behind him.
posted by davejay at 10:15 PM on October 5, 2007

ack! Vader!
posted by davejay at 10:15 PM on October 5, 2007

Holy crap, there's a journal of the show by one of the creators, and a snippet of what appears to be a less-than-favorable Chicago Sun-Times review floating around out there...turns out we did it in 1997. Ten year anniversary!
posted by davejay at 10:21 PM on October 5, 2007

Since we were just on the subject of techspeak-jargonbullshitFilter-What IS an RSS feed afterall? Is it anything new or useful? I looked it up on Wikipedia and the only thing I can remember is something about streaming and real-time and it was tediously technical. What does it allow one to do that he couldn't do before?

Can someone give me an example? Is there a surrounding business model.How does it work (Say it Plain please). How does that benefit you? in what business do you have to be in order for it to benefit you? or is it as I suspect, a fad in both theory and application. Dying a death that old slang and lolcats. I don't want to have to keep hearing it cause I feel so out of the loop.
posted by Student of Man at 2:08 PM on October 6, 2007

An RSS feed takes something like posts on the front page of MetaFilter, or posts from your favourite blog, or news articles from your local newspaper site, and serves them up in a format that your computer can understand. Then, you run a thing called a 'feed reader' on your computer, and it automatically checks to see when new posts/articles pop up, notifies you, and lets you read them right there.

Benefits: automatic notification of new content, without having to check all your favourite websites manually; you can read all this new content in one place in your feed reader, without having to visit all of the individual websites.

That's it.
posted by chrismear at 3:14 PM on October 6, 2007

I think this is the Kenny G thing you guys were talking about. (It's Metheny.)
posted by danb at 11:08 AM on October 8, 2007

Can't believe it took this podcasts thingy to learn me to pronounce "MeFi" properly. So, its' Meeeee-Fi (rhymes with eye)? All along, I've been saying Meh-Feee.
posted by psmealey at 4:04 AM on October 10, 2007

Me too, peacay. And for me, Meh-feee it shall stay. Mee-Fi (rhymes with eye) just don't sit right with me. No way no how.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:07 AM on October 10, 2007

Oops, I mean psmealey. Not peacay. (I just dropped in on peacay's animation FPP, plus all you "p" usernames look alike.)
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:08 AM on October 10, 2007

And it wasn't until just now that I noticed just how much my username resembles peacay's.
posted by psmealey at 4:10 AM on October 10, 2007

Hasn't anyone learned yet?

Jessamyn and Cortex pronounce MeFi to throw off people of the scent of the ["Meh-fye"] cabal.

Stuporduh!

Just listen to how forced it is when they say it: "Mee-fye."

Think about whose going to buy that?

I mean, obviously iPOD users.

Starting to see the "BIG" picture?
posted by humannaire at 8:25 PM on October 18, 2007

[BTW, Mathowie is completely oblivious to the whole set-up. That's why the "mee-fye, meh-fee" banter with Mastermind Cortex in PODcast #1 and 2. Just sayin.]
posted by humannaire at 8:29 PM on October 18, 2007

Not that there is or is not a cabal. Rather, it is like Sterling in Zeitgeist pointed out Eno as having said, "Not doing the thing that nobody had ever thought of not doing."

Bingo.
posted by humannaire at 8:33 PM on October 18, 2007