85: Silk Road 2.0

This month's podcast was recorded on October 7th and runs about an hour and forty minutes long, covering most of September's best posts, projects, and questions from the site.

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MeFi Jobs
Fetched some sand from the coast




Thanks MeFi Jobs! on MetaTalk

MeFi Projects
Kiva Interest Rate Finder by rajbot (posted on MeFi, MeFi team on Kiva)

Five Thousand Selfies by cmyr



Digital Covers for Over 400 Children's Books by Toekneesan (posted on MeFi, notmathowie)



Python for Poets class in Brooklyn NY by lupus_yonderboy (class starts soon!)

JAWS: The Text Adventure by malevolent (posted on MeFi)



The Disappearance of N by ignignokt - really interesting UI for finding a lost friend

It is Dangerous to go Alone! brand t-shirts by Jezztek

MeFi Posts

Same story within 2min: 1, 2

Neural network handwriting generation (examples: 1, 2, 3,)



Internet Archive's live music archive

Hello Yes This is Bird - joke twitter feed

Golden Goose Awards for publicly funded science

Intangible concepts to a blind person

Critiquing dick pic with love (restless_nomad comments on it)

Animated surrealists gifs from Milos "Sholim" Rajkovic

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979) entry on The United States

allRGB - images with every possible color contained within

"a ridiculous unending tournament of pirate Mugen characters from across a wide spectrum of games "

Ask MetaFilter questions

"Who is that european guy that carried lots of stuff with him?" answered in 17 minutes, referenced in an old thread (more info)

How many things can be tracked on the Internet? (foliage map, jessamyn's current status)

Looking for niche catalog sites? (Misericord, MeFi post about "mercy seats")

Is there a map of soil color for the US?

How is the US Civil War taught in schools in other countries?

What words are found on the bottom of an Emmy Award?

Follow-up on a "what kind of computer should I get for my 95 year old grandmother" thread

How do Adult Human Beings get shit done after work?

Unsolved weird one: What are these mysterious packages coming to my home?

What TV/Films feature candlepin bowling?

What are the cell phone conventions around missed calls?

Planning out a wedding with a cocktail hour instead of a sit-down dinner

MetaTalk posts

Little hacks for MeFi: slimmer chat client window, Video playlist player

MeFi Music

Kiss by grumpybear69
Monday by tmcw
Dream Job: Music Producer, 3-2-1 Contact, 1982 by Sokka shot first
Instant Ramen by grog
Verbena by greenish (featured song at the end)

posted by mathowie (staff) to MeFi Podcast at 12:16 PM (49 comments total)

Oh, I see how it is, Matt gets to use the img tag.
posted by box at 12:21 PM on October 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

Oh man, I totally spaced on playing the Jaws IF game. Thanks for the reminder.
posted by griphus at 12:23 PM on October 8, 2013

Oh, I see how it is, Matt gets to use the img tag.

I think there is another better collection on the wiki but please see "Abuse of mod rights" for more on this subject.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:36 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

I think your link might be broken, Jess. When I clicked on it, it immediately redirected to a page that said my PayPal account would be charged twenty bucks.
posted by box at 12:40 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

I think that's the same link as we use in town.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:41 PM on October 8, 2013 [9 favorites]

The longer list of mod uses of the IMG tag on the wiki.
posted by beryllium at 1:12 PM on October 8, 2013

I will link to this until the end of my days.
posted by mykescipark at 1:14 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also, filthy light thief gave advice for how to find more such images and cortex and jessamyn provided lists of their own uses, not all MeFi-related, in a thread last month.
posted by beryllium at 1:35 PM on October 8, 2013

I'd like to point out that I first noticed that Mathowie and Fred Gwynne looked somewhat similar here. I even linked to the same picture.

Also, my flickr site just rolled 1,000,000 views thanks to those covers. I'm stunned and really happy that I was able to share those with so many folks. As for my age, I'll be 50 in January, but the collection is obviously beyond just the books of my own childhood, they're really just books I found haunting thrift stores for the last 25 years, and that appealed to my weird aesthetic.

Thanks for the mention!
posted by Toekneesan at 2:36 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Fanscribed transcript page is open!
posted by Pronoiac at 2:51 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I read this as "modcast".

Have we called it the modcast yet?
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 3:25 PM on October 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

Hey, thanks for the shout-out! You should know that Birthday Bear was not pleased with my username choice.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:27 PM on October 8, 2013

That GWAR thread is the best thing.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:10 PM on October 8, 2013

In my head, I pronounce it Bulgaróktonos, with the stressed syllable rhyming with "stock."

My own name, for reference, is pronounced "Ronald McDonald."
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:12 PM on October 8, 2013

"Escabeche" is a Spanish word accented on the penultimate syllable. Maybe that's not the word the user has in mind, though.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:27 PM on October 8, 2013

Aw. I was kind of hoping my periodic table would merit a mention, especially after /r/breakingbad went "meh" on it. But you know I'd rather impress Team Mod over Team Reddit any day. Clearly, I should have attempted that six billion-link human genome post instead.*



*mobile view be damned!
posted by Rhaomi at 4:57 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh man! How did we forget that. It was mentioned in my heart Rhaomi.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:05 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

I listened to the podcast while doing some Retail Therapy and WHAT HAPPENS AT 30

I MUST KNOW
posted by griphus at 5:38 PM on October 8, 2013

Oh man! How did we forget that. It was mentioned in my heart Rhaomi.

Yeah likewise, just an accident of pre-winter spaciness. We all loved it.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:42 PM on October 8, 2013

You can call me Will. It's my name. Those other letters are pronounced "N-S-vet" which is the other half of my name. Here, see? Some of my relatives still work the family farm in western Minnesota. It's even a century farm!
posted by wenestvedt at 7:49 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Also, WRT Mike Mulligan, you probably need to see this if you loved the original as much as I do: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blutoband/1209462960/
posted by wenestvedt at 7:49 PM on October 8, 2013

I have to say I was really hoping to not have to delete the dick pic thread. It was fascinating. Although no one ever explained to me what the purpose of a dick pic was.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:55 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Escabeche" is a Spanish word accented on the penultimate syllable.

Yeah, I pronounce it in my mind as if it were a Spanish word (roughly "es-ka-BETCH-eh") but I think Brazilian people might actually call the dish something more like "es-ka-BESH." Also, the name of the restaurant Axe Bahia, if I remember correctly, was pronounced "AH-shay Ba-EE-ah."
posted by escabeche at 8:14 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

jessamyn and mathowie, the "Feast Days" title of my Internet Archive post is a reference to something James Taylor once said in an interview: "A concert is always like a feast day to me."

The full quote is "Performing is a profound experience, at least for me. It’s not as if I sit down and play ‘Fire and Rain’ by myself, just to hear it again. But to offer it up… the energy that it somehow summons live takes me right back, and I do get a reconnection to the emotions. A concert is always like a feast day to me."

It makes no sense without context, I know.

Thanks for mentioning the post in the podcast. Glad you liked it. It was fun to put together. :)
posted by zarq at 8:57 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Anything that reminds to to go listen to Matisyahu all day is a good thing. Thanks for explaining the title.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:01 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Silk Road 2.0

Is this something where one has to own a controlled substance to understand ?
posted by y2karl at 9:39 PM on October 8, 2013

You're welcome! :)

Was trying to track down content for a completely different post when I happened upon the IA's archive of live performances by The Weepies, and then everything just snowballed in a different direction.
posted by zarq at 9:46 PM on October 8, 2013

Although no one ever explained to me what the purpose of a dick pic was.

You may as well ask why the wind blows.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:51 PM on October 8, 2013

Also, I think I got distracted before positing this on the podcast but: Mike Mulligan and Are You My Mother are actually two vignettes of the same overarching narrative, like a pair of adjacent Tarantino scripts or two subplots in a P. T. Anderson film.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:53 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

If anybody ever has the chance to get something shipped from #1, do it. He's an impeccable packer.
posted by Apropos of Something at 9:56 PM on October 8, 2013

Also, a shit-ton of sand in a nice jar, with mathowie's great photography, and a mention on the Metafilter podcast? Worth twice as much.
posted by Apropos of Something at 10:03 PM on October 8, 2013

I'm relieved to hear people are still working on their MeFi Music request challenges! Which, I should, like, start on.

Thanks for the mentions, guys! Those are very big ups, indeed. So, so relieved that interface was not somehow confusing to you guys, design-wise.

Oh, man, I love that there's a crime map of the sea. Thanks, tracking-things AskMe thread!
posted by ignignokt at 5:03 AM on October 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is awesome, I've been largely away from MeFi this month due to work and this helps me catch up.
posted by arcticseal at 6:11 AM on October 9, 2013

Oooo, a new one; cheers. Will the MetaFilter podcast sound even better if listened to through artisanal-crafted cables, I wonder.
posted by Wordshore at 6:18 AM on October 9, 2013

wenestvedt, I'm afraid you will probably always be "or possibly ['vɛnɛstˌwɛt]" in cortex's voice in my head. :) (or was the primary stress the third syllable and the secondary the first syllable? I am not always good with stress markings!)

I nearly always listen to the podcast through my laptop's built-in speakers, since I try to avoid using headphones for extended periods of time, especially when it's tempting to turn it up loud to catch small details. I've on rare occasions listened to it on an actual stereo system and mostly just been baffled by it being different!

Also a couple of months ago I put an old episode I had not listened to on an actual pod and took it out for a walk. Experiencing it in the normal way was completely strange. The mods all talk so quickly! And it didn't require total attention, so my mind could go drifty and wonder if the ducks in the river would like the podcast and how would you put headphones on a duck, anyway? and realize I'd missed a minute and a half of conversation but that was okay!
posted by beryllium at 6:58 AM on October 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

So chuffed that my Jaws game got a mention, really made my day.
posted by malevolent at 7:39 AM on October 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Did I miss the link to the continuous fighting game or am I being accidentally silly?
posted by Carillon at 3:12 PM on October 9, 2013

No I think you're right, it's not there, let me track it down....
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:19 PM on October 9, 2013

It's this one. I'll add it up top too.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:20 PM on October 9, 2013

Clip+ will play all the files the IA has. Love it.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 3:29 PM on October 11, 2013

For reference, Yaquina is pronounced "ya-KWIN-a". Never thought I'd have to clarify that once I moved away from Newport...
posted by nickmark at 4:32 PM on October 11, 2013

Transcription on Fanscribed is complete!

Coincidentally, the aforementioned pod was also a Clip+. Good to know that should the ducks tire of the modcast I can serenade them with live concert recordings!
posted by beryllium at 1:26 PM on October 13, 2013

Is Clip+ an iPhone app? I can't seem to find it anywhere on the iTunes store or Google.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:00 AM on October 14, 2013

Guessing, but maybe a reference to a Sansa MP3 player?
posted by box at 8:03 AM on October 14, 2013

box is correct: regrettably the Clip+ is an MP3 player, not an iPhone app! It does play FLAC and Ogg Vorbis and such and generally sounds good, though since it's not itself Internet-capable it would not be especially useful for the situation you described in the podcast.
posted by beryllium at 7:19 PM on October 14, 2013

The transcript is on the wiki!
posted by Pronoiac at 9:26 PM on October 14, 2013

Linked!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:46 AM on October 15, 2013

Ok, and now I've put the right transcript up, at the same link. Thanks for the heads up, beryllium!
posted by Pronoiac at 9:59 AM on October 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yay, thanks! Ep. 84's transcript had been on the ep. 85 transcript page last night/this morning, in case anyone was confused! All is well now, though, thanks to Pronoiac. :)
posted by beryllium at 4:17 PM on October 15, 2013