183: Severance, not Succession

April 11, 2022 9:32 AM

It was a very busy turn of the month so we're wandering in pretty late with this episode. I talk a little bit about my recent decision to transition away from running MetaFilter (but we'll, inter alia, keep podcasting); Jessamyn and I talk about MeFi stuff as per usual; we establish that she started watching the wrong show and couldn't figure out why people liked it; and we chatter about at least three words we're not sure how to pronounce and establish, once more, that neither of us can read IPA. Runs our usual "about 90 minutes".

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MetaTalk
First steps in some MetaFilter changes by cortex

posted by cortex (staff) to MeFi Podcast at 9:32 AM (32 comments total)

Hey thanks for the Projects mention! I've actually got one more quiz in progress I've been procrastinating on but this is a fine reminder to finally get it done. <3
posted by Rhaomi at 1:39 PM on April 11, 2022

whoa—secret bonus track at the end there
posted by obloquy at 4:01 PM on April 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

“We’re actually pretty easy to handle”
posted by one4themoment at 4:51 PM on April 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

whoa—secret bonus track at the end there

Ha, goddammit. I had two distinct thoughts while getting this mixed and edited and posted this morning:

1. "Huh, I guess I didn't add the little end music flourish to this 90 minute podcast", and then, later

2. "Huh, it's saying it's 95 minutes on the file. Weird. I must have just read the display in Garageband wrong."

Anyway, yes, please enjoy the five minutes of silence and then a brief verbed-out flugelhorn gloss of the chorus hook of matthewchen is spamming.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:55 PM on April 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

As promised: AI Jukebox music quiz #2! Or you can just watch the YouTube video if you don't want to bother with the Sporcle part (AI image clues start at 10:00, answers at 20:00).

Also -- having listened to the podcast now! -- I should clarify that while Jukebox *can* be used to continue an existing song, what was really interesting to me about the particular "No Lyrics Conditioning" clips used in the quiz was that they intentionally aren't continuing real music. It's basically just telling the AI "give me something that sounds like Prince" with nothing else to go on, and so it generates pure Prince Noise... that still sounds just like him singing it. It's a fascinating concept, like those "What English sounds like to non-English speakers" things but adapted to music instead. And it actually seems to work better than the ones that try to continue or rewrite a clip, since it can just follow its own muse instead of trying to ape something else, resulting in something that sounds much more natural (albeit surreal and dreamlike).
posted by Rhaomi at 11:31 PM on April 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Updates: I have started reading Dune and have learned the source of many MeFite usernames already. I made a post about that artist guy.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:19 AM on April 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Update: for my part I have forgotten what the slightly chatty AskMe question I said I might post was, so if anybody else remembers after listening let me know. Also I can't believe I buried the lede that I talked Jessamyn into reading Dune.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:35 AM on April 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

I listened to the podcast yesterday and I have already forgotten what you wanted to ask.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:52 AM on April 12, 2022

In both of our defense it was probably one of those things where it was like

JESSAMYN: here's an on topic continuation of what we were already talking about
JOSH: okay but if I may interject: sudden free-associative pun
JESSAMYN: well that happened
JOSH: actually maybe I should post an Ask about that
JESSAMYN: it goes without saying that we will now move on without dwelling on this
JOSH: you know what's great, is Elden Ring
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:56 AM on April 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

You wanted to ask somebody to [please] make you a massive chorizo breakfast burrito.

Or maybe that was me.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:58 AM on April 12, 2022

AI Jukebox music quiz #2

#5 sounds like what's playing on the radio in any taxi I've ever taken in Argentina, Chile, Spain or Mexico.
posted by Grangousier at 11:20 AM on April 12, 2022

I was happy to close the loop on my 5-year-old ask. I got the answer by chance while watching It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. There was a scene in an Italian restaurant and the background music was the mystery fragment from my question, followed by the main melody of La Donna E Mobile, followed by "Oh, of course" and possibly a forehead slap.
posted by mpark at 12:14 PM on April 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

"i don't know my left from my right, east from west"

You would think someone with that surname would have extra incentive to be an expert in cardinal directions.
posted by pwnguin at 12:33 PM on April 12, 2022

we establish that she started watching the wrong show and couldn't figure out why people liked it

So was Succession the show that was wrongly watched & disliked, or Severance? I either have umbrage to take or a new show to potentially watch, depending
posted by Jon Mitchell at 4:53 PM on April 12, 2022

Succession was the show that had the guy peeing in the hallway and the guy barfing into his animal costume in the first five minutes and I noped out. But I kept seeing the Adam Scott ads and people talking about Severance and I was confused into thinking they were the same show. But now I will try Severance and see how it is. If you want a new show to watch try to track down Our Flag Means Death, it's quite good.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:30 PM on April 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Updates: I have started reading Dune...

Oh, you poor thing. But count your blessings -- at least you will never get to Whole Foods Markets of Dune.
posted by y2karl at 6:09 PM on April 12, 2022

That's a good point; my general intention has been to set it to "latest tweets" but I am lax and Twitter keeps fucking with it and defaulting to "home" periodically, and it's probably defaulted again at this point. Will go poke things.

And yeah, one of my quiet petty amusements is blocking just about every promoted tweet I see. You get some real good weird niche industry bullshit showing up after a while when you cut out all the major ad buys.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:50 AM on April 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

for my part I have forgotten what the slightly chatty AskMe question I said I might post was, so if anybody else remembers after listening let me know

You were discussing your title of "recordist" and thought a good question would be what other umbrella terms are used as a description of someone doing multiple jobs.
posted by CuJoe at 10:11 AM on April 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ah ha! Thank you!
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:44 AM on April 13, 2022

It is accomplished!
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:59 AM on April 13, 2022

HEBERT’S! I remember it as a fairytale-style candy shop, and a special treat while visiting family.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:00 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Jessamyn, do you remember the title of the book you mentioned about the Stone Age people who are upended by the newly emerging Bronze Age? I would love to read it!
posted by theatro at 5:04 PM on April 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

Yes, it was called The Gift of Stones by Jim Crace and I may have telegraphed the ending somewhat but I don't think it detracts from it. It was suggested to me by a friend after I'd said I liked the slow pace of Kim Stanley Robinson's book Shaman (which is also about prehistoric folk and some overlap between Neanderthal's and homo sapiens I think).
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:45 AM on April 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Got back from walking the dog - my podcast listening time - but I couldn't take off my headphones right away because I was waiting to hear "octopodes nuts", and then I did and there was much rejoicing.
posted by moonmilk at 7:45 PM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

“ what other umbrella terms are used as a description of someone doing multiple jobs.”

One I’ve seen used a bit that I quite like is ‘multi-passionate creative’.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:44 PM on April 15, 2022

I have finished Dune. Mostly liked it. Will not read the other 17 books. Probably.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:21 AM on April 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

Short Term Whatchamacallit Losses of Dune.
posted by y2karl at 10:25 AM on April 16, 2022

You should definitely not read more than six, since the rest is all weird legacy-riding stuff from his son rewriting the backstory. As a fan of the interesting things Frank Herbert himself did with the story, my compromise pitch is it's very much worth reading the first four, because the second book wraps up a lot of hanging implications from the first, and the third sets up the fourth, and the fourth is a very different and remarkably long-view meditation on all the stuff the first book seeded.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:32 AM on April 16, 2022

That was exactly what someone on Twitter just said "Worth it through the first four." The book I read was a more recent publication so there's a longass Afterword by Brian Herbert and... yeah, it seems like the whole thing may lose a little focus.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:35 AM on April 16, 2022

Frank Herbert was a close friend of Jack Vance. In some ways Dune et. al. are like versions of the xenoanthropological footnotes that stud Jack Vance's novels
writ large.
posted by y2karl at 11:14 AM on April 16, 2022

A belated thank you for the book titles, Jessamyn! I am going to give both of those a try; they fit my current reading mood.

I also just finished a re-read of Dune, sparked by your mentions on the podcast. Still a good read, although I'm never going to adjust to the way characters tend to overuse each others' names in the dialogue. It feels like an awkward remnant of pulp-style writing, and the book would be better with it trimmed way down.
posted by theatro at 1:46 PM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm one of the proverbial 11 people who listen to the podcast, and I just wanted to say thanks, because I very much enjoy and appreciate them. I've been spending a lot less time on MetaFilter for the past two years than I did previously (for reasons which don't really have anything to do with MetaFilter directly), but it still holds a warm place in my heart and the podcast is a good way for me to still feel a little bit attached to its goings-on. In fact, I first learned of the upcoming changes to MetaFilter by way of this podcast episode, so I'm grateful for that.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:24 PM on April 24, 2022 [1 favorite]