88: Owls as Pets

Episode 88 of the MetaFilter podcast features recaps from most of December, including a bit about the MeFites Choice contest as well as things we learned from Labs. The show was recorded on January 3rd and runs a little over 90 minutes.

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Helpful Links

Podcast Feed
Subscribe with iTunes
Direct mp3 download

MeFi Jobs
Korean Calligraphy

Customer service rep at a RPG company

New Years
Jessamyn's special sweater

MeFi Projects
Warranty Porn by Foci for Analysis

Blorpy: interesting comments found on MeFi, reddit, and quora by mulligan

A History of the Future in 100 objects by adrianhon

The Good Notes Are Circled by danb

MeFi Posts
Megapost on Librarian tumblrs (example of old owls in books, owls in mythology & culture)

Cookie Clicker + japanese video sharing site = Grandma's GIFT video

Owls are high maintenance and make terrible pets (snowy owl on the beach!)

Martyn Ashton's Bike Party 2

Chief O'Brien (star trek) at work comics

The Eggnog Project

Conan O'Brien catches local newscasts reading from the same script (archive.org's TV archive)

The Iron Chef megapost linking to every episode along with lots of supporting links

You too can learn Modern Dance! parody video.

DogeCoin. Wow. (cortex's comment, the story of the real doge, dogs that look stoned)

Origins of common user interface symbols

lil' bub fireplace video

Introverts guide to better presentations

Don't read the comments wristbands

Ask MeFi Questions
Postcard stalker mystery?

What was this sit 'n spin space toy I had as a kid? (photo answer)

What is the bright side of getting older?

I live in the South and am curious what it's like to be really cold up North? (Canada is colder than Mars sometimes)

Do McDonalds employees get their pay docked for mistakes they make at work?

What are some good rice and bean recipes that I can make on Sunday and eat all week?

Looking for a more accessible Food Challenge list (Kati Roll)

What to put into an emergency bag in the trunk of my car?

How to prepare for disaster without going all doomsday prepper?

How do they name interstate exits according to nearby city names? (A: they're called control cities)

Other stuff
Jessamyn on WNPR's Colin McEnroe Show

MeFi Labs announced, including: 2013 Amazon mentions, recent Amazon mentions, Recent YouTube posts

MetaTalk posts
Merry Christmas post

3rd Interactive Fiction Contest

Happy New Year post

MeFi Music
Mele Kalikimaka by chococat

posted by mathowie (staff) to MeFi Podcast at 3:26 PM (37 comments total)

We haz a transcript started.
posted by Pronoiac at 5:03 PM on January 6, 2014

I'll admit that I really want one of those "Don't read the comments" wristbands. Hi-larious
posted by antonymous at 6:09 PM on January 6, 2014

Skimming down the post, there does seem to be a lot of owl mentions. (makes calming tea while waiting for podcast to download)
posted by Wordshore at 6:24 PM on January 6, 2014

Apologies to my neighbors for the loud laughter from me while listening to the mods gloriously discussing Cookie Clicker. That takes the early lead in the 'funniest moment of 2014' so far.
posted by Wordshore at 6:58 PM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Isn't this the second podcast in a row that Cookie Clicker has been mentioned?
posted by arcticseal at 7:06 AM on January 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yes, it is!
posted by beryllium at 8:31 AM on January 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I listened to the entire thing!

Never done that before.

I generally like these podcasts posts more than the podcasts, because they are like a digest form of metafilter and I love seeing how many links already show up as followed.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:54 AM on January 7, 2014

The recipe web-scraping site would be called goroy.com.

Say, may i have a "don't read the comments" wristband? They sound awesome!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:00 AM on January 7, 2014

Yay! Finally got mentioned... for a comment. Heh. It's pronounced like the conjunction "so as."
posted by psoas at 11:03 AM on January 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thanks. Apologies for the mouth-breathing, if that was me. I always try to remember to put the mic higher up. Don't always manage it.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:21 AM on January 7, 2014

I've only mentioned Cookie Clicker in two podcasts? I've been playing that thing for what feels like half a year now.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:30 AM on January 7, 2014

I missed that Iron Chef Mega Post. Reminded me of the time I helped publicly humiliate Bobby Flay...
posted by plinth at 12:11 PM on January 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Holy cow, you spent a lot of time talking about Iron Chef and reality tv shows! :) Thanks for the mention!

Thanks as well for linking to the Chief O'Brien comic. I missed it the first time around, and it's hilarious. One of my favorite characters on TNG and DS9. (Also Rosalind Chao as Keiko.)
posted by zarq at 12:24 PM on January 7, 2014

I want a don't read the comments wristband!
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 12:34 PM on January 7, 2014

Oh wow plinth, you got any photos online of the cutting board? I'd love to see it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:37 PM on January 7, 2014

I had totally broken my cookie clicker obsession until cortex posted that screenshot in the Christmas thread. Got sucked right back in.
posted by shelleycat at 12:43 PM on January 7, 2014

Oh, plinth, that story is beautiful. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 12:53 PM on January 7, 2014

mathowie - I was looking for them but didn't find them in an obvious place.
posted by plinth at 12:54 PM on January 7, 2014

To get an idea of the insanity that is cryptocurrency: coinwarz.
posted by Rhomboid at 12:58 PM on January 7, 2014

Here's a local news story from the Umass news site that mentions it. Maybe I can find the picture at home in my back ups.
posted by plinth at 1:08 PM on January 7, 2014

mathowie - I put photos of the cutting board into the original thread (seemed to be the best place).

Enjoy.
posted by plinth at 3:08 PM on January 7, 2014

Can the next podcast be an interview of plinth where you get him progressively drunker and drunker and have him tell that story over and over again? Because I would pay money to hear that.
posted by stet at 6:13 PM on January 7, 2014

all of of you people say doge wrong
posted by The Whelk at 12:05 AM on January 8, 2014

Having finally listened to the rest of it: how does one acquire one of these bracelets Jess is so generously giving away?
posted by psoas at 2:57 AM on January 8, 2014

Jessamyn, thanks for giving me an excuse to try out the USB recording interface I just bought.
posted by davejay at 9:55 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I meant to write, above, that the recipe-scraping site would be gorpy.com, but my dumb iPad messed it up. In retrospect, this still isn't that funny, plus there actually are a bunch of sites that collect rcioes from other sites (isnt allrecipes.com one of these?), so maybe I should stop typing now that I have explained myself.
posted by wenestvedt at 3:36 AM on January 9, 2014

I use Yummly for recipes. It only scrapes some sites but at some point you need some-but-not-all recipes most of the time.

I've MeMailed people who inquired about bracelets and they are all in the mail as of today.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:55 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

I got a NEVER. READ. THE. COMMENTS wristband today, and I feel like I should wear it whenever I leave Lord Howie's demesne. Thanks, Jessamyn!

Get it? GORPy.com? Like, gorp, the food?
posted by wenestvedt at 6:13 PM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

I am convinced that the end of the Boards of Canada track Concourse contains fragments of a long-lost, early, MetaFilter podcast.
posted by Wordshore at 1:16 PM on January 12, 2014

Thanks. Apologies for the mouth-breathing, if that was me. I always try to remember to put the mic higher up. Don't always manage it.

I think I've heard this in other episodes, and it's not the end of the world, but cortex (who I assume is mixing) might be able to take care of it by putting a gate on the source tracks, if he hasn't already.
posted by ignignokt at 1:00 PM on January 13, 2014

I've tried gating a couple times but have been pretty unhappy with the balances I've been able to strike between cutting incidental noise and losing actual vocal nuance. In the spirit of "just make sure people are audible" I've been leaning more to the side of accepting noise as part of the bargain.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:14 PM on January 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Caviar and Nonsense" would also have been a good title for this episode. In fact, it would be a good title for just about anything.

Why yes, I am pretty consistently two weeks behind in listening to the various podcasts I subscribe to.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:16 PM on January 21, 2014

Transcript is complete. I'm sorry that took so long!

Also, Matt, I would love it if you could name what the delicious Lao street food you discovered was--I think you shouted it in the podcast but I couldn't parse it and this would seem to be especially useful information to have in a transcript!
posted by beryllium at 2:58 AM on February 1, 2014

The transcript is on the wiki! beryllium: you're amazing!
posted by Pronoiac at 4:53 PM on February 1, 2014

Linked!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:51 PM on February 1, 2014

I went over the unclear bits, and I caught a couple more jokes.

Also, beryllium, please don't apologize for taking so long. Really. You're kicking ass, and without you, we wouldn't finish one transcript before the next episode comes out. You are greatly appreciated.
posted by Pronoiac at 6:23 PM on February 1, 2014

Thanks! I do figure, all other things being equal, that it's helpful to have them done sooner rather than later so that people who can't or prefer not to listen to the podcast can promptly read about things currently going on on the site that interest them and/or participate in the discussion--but I also figure that it's something of relatively minimal social utility either way so it's been slipping down my priority list as I take on other projects.
posted by beryllium at 4:13 PM on February 2, 2014 [2 favorites]