91: Because Math?
 transcript  April 3, 2014 2:51 PM   Subscribe

A new podcast covering the month of March and the recent April Fools. It runs about 90min long and was recorded yesterday.


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Tech Industry April Fool's joke generator by bwerdmuller

Egress Methods by aparrish a twitter bot that generates rhymes for the Paul Simon song "50 ways to leave your lover"

Exponential Binary Clock Countdown by locrelite

TileArray by quarantine (here's my avatar)

Finnegans Sleep by stokast



Stellar storytelling app by jeffamaphone

Airships a dieselpunk ship-building RTS by Zarkonnen

MeFi Posts
2048 thread, posted as a question on Ask MeFi, The full history of Threes

The Office Time Machine pulls up clips and trivia from any year you want from The Office (US) entire run of shows

Seinfeld without people, a video of Nothing.

Mural made in prison

Missing MH370 plane mega-thread (good day by day news blog)

Matt Damon, Hugh Bonneville, and Bill Murray on Graham Norton's show

Great post about the international frozen water trade before we had ice makers (photo of jessamyn harvesting lake ice)

The history of trying to get to absolute zero

Kickin' it Old School: a special collections librarian group reviews advice and recipes from history (the pancakes entry)

Manuscripts from the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages

What went wrong with Streetfighter the Movie

The disappearance and re-appearance of Duncan MacPherson thread where his mother showed up to comment

Oculous Rift bought by Facebook post

Derivative Clicker

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Where do you put your hands when you sleep?

National Poetry Month: Great accessible poetry to share with others?

Help me sing a dutch nursery rhyme

Give me great performances by artists at the top of their game (mostly music)

(star trek episode mentioned earlier, YT clip)

What are some lethal but surmountable diseases you can have as a kid but beat and grow up as an adult?

Travel bucket list: give me the best places to visit in each of the 50 United States

MeFi Music iOS beta testers needed

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MeFi TV subsite discussion

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Would you like to play a game? by not_on_display

MST3K Theme by dubold
posted by mathowie (staff) to MeFi Podcast at 2:51 PM (55 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite

First out to say yay and thanks. And the weekend is coming!
posted by Namlit at 2:57 PM on April 3, 2014


Also, after our rambling dissection of "2048 is fun!" vs. "THREES got ripped off!", here's a nice roundup today on Giant Bomb called Meet the Clones.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:59 PM on April 3, 2014


These podcasts always remind me that I am reading an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SITE than the mods.

I saw and/or participated in like, three of these threads.
posted by The Whelk at 4:37 PM on April 3, 2014 [6 favorites]


Ye olde transcript
posted by Pronoiac at 4:40 PM on April 3, 2014


Yes, The Welk, I was wondering where you've been!
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 5:03 PM on April 3, 2014


I'm over in the Hannibal threads providing comfort and color commentary.
posted by The Whelk at 5:33 PM on April 3, 2014 [2 favorites]


As long as you aren't providing snacks.
posted by maryr at 6:07 PM on April 3, 2014 [2 favorites]


Did we talk about cookie clicker?
posted by arcticseal at 6:42 PM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


YES.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:52 PM on April 3, 2014 [2 favorites]


My FPP made the podcast, that is so yay!
posted by oceanjesse at 6:56 PM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


I am fully onboard with robot commentors.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:10 PM on April 3, 2014


Yay, new podcast! I love the title. (Actually, I love every time you all get delighted by math!)

Regrettably, I have a broken hand so transcription may be a bit tough for me for a few months. If you'd like a transcript, please help make one!
posted by beryllium at 8:25 PM on April 3, 2014


Shingles is from the same virus as chickenpox. And it's painful.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:29 PM on April 3, 2014


Sometime I want the mods to make a postcast based entirely on my Metafilter and it would be mostly rambling about post-gallery-system art experimentation and the occasional WTF? in a thread about 80s movies.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:40 PM on April 3, 2014 [2 favorites]


And also Hannibal
posted by The Whelk at 8:49 PM on April 3, 2014


YOU'RE WELCOME
posted by shakespeherian at 8:51 PM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


What were some of you guys' favorite/most unexpected April Fool's answers?
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 8:55 PM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yay, my FPP got mentioned! Also, jessamyn, why have you not seen Frozen, go see Frozen right now! SO MANY TROPES SUBVERTED.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:07 PM on April 3, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm very excited to see that both I and Zarkonnen have something in the podcast!

Well, Airships is an awesome game that deserves excitement, but it's probably not the right word to use about the Duncan MacPherson post. Lynda MacPherson and her husband Bob have been so brave and tenacious in getting to the truth about what happened to their son, and it was humbling to have her show up in the thread.

I'll listen to the podcast this afternoon and see what you guys had to say about them. :)
posted by daisyk at 3:03 AM on April 4, 2014


i am fairly sure this is the first time one of my fpps has been mentioned in the podcast, so i guess i can retire now.
posted by empath at 3:56 AM on April 4, 2014


Is there a semi-conscious effort to spread the wealth, as it were? Like if one user just happened to put up six kickass FPPs in one month, would you not want to talk about all of them?
posted by Chrysostom at 5:55 AM on April 4, 2014


Oh, this is cool. I missed most of these posts!
posted by zarq at 6:35 AM on April 4, 2014


I think we've definitely had podcasts where we were like "oh, and there was this really great post about x by thesugarbeetdon'tstop...and oh geez this other really great post about y also by thesugarbeetdon'tstop, man they were on a roll", so it's not something we avoid per se. More that there's just a lot of natural wealth-spreading going around because we've got a great big pile of people here posting neat stuff.

I sometimes try to pull from among the various Music tracks I've liked a mix of folks who are prolific/established and folks that are new because I think it's nice to focus on both, but Music has a smaller posting base so it's a little different, and also musical preferences are such a personal thing and it being one person doing most of the mentioning is a further narrowing factor that there's a lot more of an issue with me needing to make an effort not to just be like AND CHOCOCAT POSTED A COUPLE SONGS, THEY'RE GREAT, END OF.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:51 AM on April 4, 2014


Sometime I want the mods to make a postcast based entirely on my Metafilter and it would be mostly rambling about post-gallery-system art experimentation and the occasional WTF? in a thread about 80s movies.

Yeah, I have daydreams where the mods say stuff like "I really appreciate Mrs. Pterodactyl's thoughtful views on education and her patience in explaining them" but really they probably think "Oh Jesus her again".
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:53 AM on April 4, 2014 [4 favorites]


Thanks, cortex, that's what I thought. Came to mind because I had one post make the podcast, but at least two other ones I had been about to post, and someone had just beat me to it.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:08 AM on April 4, 2014




Is there a semi-conscious effort to spread the wealth, as it were?

I think the times we really prepare (more lately, not as much some podcasts in the past) the more we find a range of different stuff by different users. There are some users who predictably pull in a lot of favorites or fantastic post flags and if we're looking at those lists as well as our own picks you might see more posts by the usual suspects. I'm a pill about this on the BestOf blog, really trying to get people who haven't been there before (when I'm updating that, which I haven't been so much lately) even though there are some users who are consistently posting long interesting comments about various topics. More to the point, the site has SO MUCH great stuff even though it seems like we talk about a lot of it, picking eight AskMes out of like ... several hundred is not mentioning very many of them.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:39 AM on April 4, 2014




Oh no beryllium! I hope your hand gets better!
posted by Pronoiac at 9:51 AM on April 4, 2014


I'm on my way to LA for the weekend, and I might not keep up on things - so if the transcript breaks, please mefimail or email me.
posted by Pronoiac at 9:59 AM on April 4, 2014


Another thread that has been rewarding to follow all month has been this Ukraine/Russia thread; people have been continuing to add updates there for a long time and it's been a good way to keep loose tabs on the situation there.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:47 PM on April 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


Ok, I knew of exactly two of those threads. I read the site all bloody day. How is this possible?
posted by billiebee at 3:22 PM on April 4, 2014 [5 favorites]


A couple notes for Mathowie and Cortex after listening to the podcast:

* Mathowie - Not sure whether Matt Damon, Bill Murray and Hugh Bonneville drank before the Graham Norton show, but they were definitely drinking DURING the show. (That glass that Bill Murray shotguns right at the very start? Champagne. And the tumblers that appeared on the tables later? Vodka. You can hear Hugh warning Paloma Faith "that's vodka!" as she's about to have a drink, and that's also why she throws the contents of a glass over her shoulder.)

Also - they've started using Matt Damon's "this is the best time I've ever had on a talk show" in the advertising for Graham Norton on BBC America.

* Cortex - omigod I totally remembered that STAR TREK clip the second you started talking about it. I think it even inspired me to write some fanfiction about it when I was, like, seven.

Whee!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:09 PM on April 4, 2014


"Cortex - omigod I totally remembered that STAR TREK clip the second you started talking about it."

Me, too. It makes me feel old to consider that many people don't know that scene. I know that I watched some of the episodes of TOS when they aired, but I was very young, between two and five. But the show became heavily syndicated very quickly after it was canceled, and by 1972 when I was seven and eight the show was a daily part of my latchkey after-school routine.

In fact, I have a strong memory of being at a friend's house one day in 1975 sometime and seeing on his television an episode I'd never seen before, which utterly blew my mind — I didn't think that was possible, having seen what I thought was every episode multiple times. I think, but am uncertain, that the episode new to me was Shore Leave (written by Theodore Sturgeon). Maybe not, though — that episode stuck in my mind because I would fantasize about the possibilities.

Anyway, cortex's mention of that scene in The Omega Glory actually evoked a sense memory for me — I feel like I can remember the television and the room. Also, I'd always experience a frisson when watching that scene; possibly still would today, despite my radically different views on the US.

Why, yes — I do have an original, first-edition copy of Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual. Why do you ask?

If we do have a television subsite, I suggest that some of us have a TOS re-watch. Cortex, are you with me?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:54 PM on April 4, 2014


Small world - SHORE LEAVE is the episode I've talked about a couple times, because I managed to reference it in a college essay.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:50 AM on April 5, 2014


Just out of curiosity, has MetaFilter been hit by that patent troll who's suing Adam Carolla? I hear they're sending threatening letters to a lot of podcasts and I'm wondering if you're on their radar yet?
posted by Toekneesan at 8:07 AM on April 5, 2014


Nope, have not heard from them, though I'm familiar with the lawsuit.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:08 AM on April 5, 2014


Good. Let's hope we're esoteric enough to continue being ignored.

Great podcast, by the way. Lots of fun. I also added my favorite bits of our glorious commonwealth to the bucket-list question. And thanks to the mention in the podcast, I really enjoyed Hippybear's Graham Norton post, which I think I saw earlier, but then forgot about before watching. I'm in a domestic flurry this morning, baking bread, making cheese, and bottling beer, and between the podcast and that Graham Norton episode, a smile hasn't left my face all morning. Thanks!
posted by Toekneesan at 8:28 AM on April 5, 2014


So I downloaded threes and I may not get anything else done this weekend. I didn't even make it to the end of the podcast yet. So addictive!
posted by shelleycat at 10:47 AM on April 5, 2014


Today I had to print out two sets of wedding photos (242 photos in total) at the Rite Aid, and this podcast kept me occupied.

Also <3 for the shoutout in the April Fool's page that I totally missed!
posted by griphus at 11:11 AM on April 5, 2014


Good podcast.

Saga is brilliant.
posted by johnofjack at 1:59 PM on April 6, 2014


After what an amazing jerk I was in a previous incarnation I am grateful to be able to make posts here at all. I am finding the podcast thread a handy guide to things I may have missed.
posted by Mistress at 10:05 AM on April 7, 2014


Beryllium I hope your hand gets better! And Pronoiac I am just now seeing this.
I knocked out a bit of the transcript tonight. Will get it finished over the next few days.
I'm no where near as fast as Beryllium!
posted by TangerineGurl at 10:16 PM on April 8, 2014


Thanks for the good wishes, and thank you for transcribing!

And you probably are faster than me right now, TangerineGurl--I seem to be able to type 20-30 wpm one-handed, as opposed to 80 wpm in normal conditions. I've been trying to still do a few segments as time permits--I really liked getting to transcribe the bit about the Exponential Binary Clock Countdown!--but I'm very, very glad you all are working on it :)
posted by beryllium at 4:37 AM on April 9, 2014


Interestingly enough, about a month ago my son wanted to know what an ice pick was. I told him at length about an ice box and how you would get your ice with an ice pick by chipping bits off your block of ice, which then led to ice delivery, ice houses, and ice harvesting. His great grandmother was alive when all of this was quotidian. I pulled up pictures of ice houses for him and found @jessamyn's ice harvesting pictures.

His response was "hey - they're doing that just like in 'Frozen'.

So thanks, jessamyn!
posted by plinth at 11:10 AM on April 9, 2014 [3 favorites]


Also GRAHAM NORTON is really really not scottish...
Like really not.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:04 AM on April 11, 2014


I've been a hair model multiple times! It's so much fun! I tend to both confound and please some of the stylists because I'm so open to the weird and wonderful, when the other models are all ZOMG PLEASE DON'T GO TOO FAR WEIRD ARGH. One time I was a hair colour model and they asked me what colour I wanted and everyone was all O_O when I loudly announced "PURPLE!". I totally recommend doing it.

And thanks for the WhereIsMH370 shoutout! My collaborator isn't a pilot - he's a journalist based in KL who's been working this beat for his radio station. (Having a pilot as a contributor would be hella useful because we get so many specific scientific questions that we have trouble answering.) It's kind of petered out in the last few days because me and my collaborator have been busy, but we're still planning to do things like provide transcripts for the press releases.
posted by divabat at 3:47 PM on April 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh and I did think of putting it on Projects, but it's already been on the two MH370 threads and that feels kind of redundant.
posted by divabat at 3:48 PM on April 11, 2014


I'd totally put it on Projects. It's great. I don't know why I thought the guy was a pilot....

I was a hair model once, back when I had dreadlocks and the local Aveda salon did some sort of "happening" thing and needed a bunch of people with wacky hair. They dyed it all sorts of different weird colors and wrapped a lot of string in it. It was a good look for late-90s Seattle.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:51 PM on April 11, 2014


This was another marvellous thing that happened on Graham Norton's show.
posted by arcticseal at 1:26 PM on April 13, 2014


Transcripts for eps. 90 and 91 are complete. Thank you to everyone who chipped in! :)

(At my last appointment my doctor said I should not worry about making use of the fingers that are not included in the cast on my left hand, and I'm much closer to my regular typing speed with eight fingers than with five. Having more hands on the transcript, however, is still always appreciated!)
posted by beryllium at 8:36 PM on April 23, 2014


I really think the transcripts are the MeFi community doing something great. Thanks to everyone who worked on it!
posted by Chrysostom at 8:40 PM on April 23, 2014


I added this ep's transcript and the previous one to the wiki. Thanks to everyone who contributed - especially TangerineGurl and beryllium, but also to stebulus, fever-trees, zamboni, and Tobu!
posted by Pronoiac at 11:18 PM on April 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


So I've started to mark up this ep's transcript on the Wiki with direct links to referred posts and such. I've only gone as far as the Mefi Jobs so far, so if anyone wants to take over feel free!
posted by divabat at 11:45 PM on April 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Just listened to the last few minutes of this episode. WHAT HO, MODS.

Listening to this podcast as I drive to work is frustrating because I can't pause the audio and go read the threads you mention. I should start setting aside a block of time in future months.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:13 PM on April 24, 2014


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