60. Pachinko Lava Lamp

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Lords:

• Chris
  • https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm
• James
  • https://triplefox.itch.io/
  • https://youtu.be/I8uStVXNf0M

Topics:

• An adopted microwave which is too small for popcorn, begging the question: what is it for?
  • https://compassandquill.com/2012/03/12/how-to-cook-microwave-popcorn-on-the-stove/
• What happened to Galapagos? (And recreating pinball in software.)
  • https://triplefox.itch.io/galapagos
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmg5WOvPKpU
• The trade-off between customer satisfaction and worker safety
• John asks "Skipping over links to music when your friends post them, and in turn posting links to music without a shred of self-awareness/the mental barrier to recommending or sharing music."
• Relearning how to run

Microtopics:

• A shoelace knot that you are amazed by.
• Whether somebody knows good ways of tying knots.
• Not having any ads on the show but the same shoelace knot being independently plugged by three separate guests.
• Looking outside and seeing someone furtively deposit the world's smallest microwave on the sidewalk.
• A microwave that is awesome until you try to put popcorn in it.
• A dollhouse microwave that can microwave popcorn one kernel at a time.
• The Easy Bake Microwave.
• That one kid you knew whose family was rich enough that he had a microwave in his bedroom.
• The Easy Bake TV which is just a light bulb that you stare into.
• Downsizing your lifestyle.
• Ultra-miniaturized microwaves that are just big enough for a can of Coca Cola.
• Hot Coke.
• Deciding to try Hot Coke after the show because your microwave is too small to fit anything bigger than a mug of Coca Cola.
• A hot tub with a volume of half a cubic foot.
• Whether the Whirlpool hot tub actually spins.
• Recording an entire additional episode of Topic Lords after this, that only we get to hear.
• Deciding that your fantasy console should be linear without knowing what linear means.
• Making software last a long time by targeting an emulator.
• Deciding that your entire approach to your current project is wrong and inverting its structure and then deciding to make a pinball game instead.
• Having to fake the physical pinball interactions because physics engines still aren't precise enough.
• Not having a ball bearing bouncing around inside of your phone.
• Applying an impulse when the ball hits a collision volume.
• The actual electromechanical mechanism of those triangles near the flippers that push the ball back.
• A physics solver that does mixed rigid and soft body deformation.
• Ordering pinball flippers online so you can measure them because you can't find specs describing their exact shape and size anywhere.
• How pop bumpers work.
• The ball rolling over the skirt and triggering the thrusters.
• Modeling an invisible cone that drives itself down.
• Buying a nice plastic skirt and an extremely high-current solenoid.
• Making a functional pinball table out of cardboard.
• A pinball table inside of a wine bottle.
• Pinball tables all having the common constraint that they need to fit through the door.
• "Hercules," the pinball table where the gimmick is that it's too big to fit through the door.
• How to draw the rest of the owl.
• Pinball except instead of a ball it's water.
• A PSP except instead of a portable video game system it's one of those games where you squeeze water to get rings onto posts.
• Christmas except every present is just a box of avocados.
• Pachinko except it's an oil timer.
• Physically impossible but physically accurate pinball machines.
• Pachinko except there's fire everywhere and what's falling through the pins is your dead body and all your individual bones.
• Getting licensed to make scrambled eggs with an espresso machine.
• A Big Black Egg Gauntlet.
• A big black glove that smells but doesn't look like rotten eggs.
• The pressure of an egg.
• Whether an egg could be held aloft by a shop vac.
• The video of an egg being sucked into a bottle that google shows you when it doesn't have any good results, because you can't stay mad when you get to see an egg sucked into a bottle.
• The ethics of asking your wife to take a video of cafe workers making scrambled eggs.
• The violence of recommendations.
• Whether or not you can get mad about your time being wasted for twenty seconds.
• Doing everything in your power to like your favorite band's new album.
• Your first "Hero's Journey" vs. your hundredth.
• The kind of media you consume while doing other things vs. the kind you actively study.
• Mentoring teenagers and exhorting that they listen to as much music as possible before they get old like you, and handing them some Linkin Park CDs.
• Getting better at stuff.
• Each sport having a different set of recommended vitamin supplements.
• Lurching forward on your ankles.
• Looking up how runners run on Youtube and immediately realizing how you can run way faster.
• Getting running shoes that force you to spring around on your toes rather than landing on your heel.
• Getting it but not liking it.
• Studying Full Tilt.
• Taking your kick scooter on the freeway.
• Pre-Stormdancer problems.
• Googling your own name and finding erotic short fiction starring a gay lumberjack with your name.
• The sound of probably not being able to hear anything
• Whether a beverage can be both hot and carbonated.
• Sadness when you can't carbonate soup.
• The audio signature of Coke being microwaved.
• A microwave% run of Super Mario 64 where you need to turn on the microwave next to the Nintendo 64 at the exact right frame.
• Honey refusing to dissolve in tea no matter how much you stir.
• Putting your mug of flat microwaved Coke in the Sodastream to recarbonate it.