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    <fireside:genDate>Mon, 25 May 2026 08:02:59 -0500</fireside:genDate>
    <generator>Fireside (https://fireside.fm)</generator>
    <title>Topic Lords - Episodes Tagged with “Apepers”</title>
    <link>https://topiclords.com/tags/apepers</link>
    <pubDate>Mon, 19 May 2025 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
    <description>Every week, Jim invites different friends to guest on Topic Lords and be excited about whatever they've been fixated on this week.
</description>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <itunes:type>episodic</itunes:type>
    <itunes:subtitle>The only place on the internet you can hear topics discussed!</itunes:subtitle>
    <itunes:author>Jim Stormdancer</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary>Every week, Jim invites different friends to guest on Topic Lords and be excited about whatever they've been fixated on this week.
</itunes:summary>
    <itunes:image href="https://media24.fireside.fm/file/fireside-images-2024/podcasts/images/3/3597ddeb-e52e-4cda-a59c-c64600489fea/cover.jpg?v=5"/>
    <itunes:explicit>yes</itunes:explicit>
    <itunes:owner>
      <itunes:name>Jim Stormdancer</itunes:name>
      <itunes:email>jim@goombas.org</itunes:email>
    </itunes:owner>
<itunes:category text="Comedy"/>
<itunes:category text="Education"/>
<itunes:category text="Arts"/>
<item>
  <title>291. Nair and Nnail: Keratin Erasers</title>
  <link>https://topiclords.com/nair-and-nnail-keratin-erasers</link>
  <guid isPermaLink="false">1868fe09-0898-4b02-a803-c71919ed56e5</guid>
  <pubDate>Mon, 19 May 2025 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
  <author>Jim Stormdancer</author>
  <enclosure url="https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/3597ddeb-e52e-4cda-a59c-c64600489fea/1868fe09-0898-4b02-a803-c71919ed56e5.mp3" length="66038803" type="audio/mpeg"/>
  <itunes:episodeType>full</itunes:episodeType>
  <itunes:author>Jim Stormdancer</itunes:author>
  <itunes:subtitle>Lords: Alexei, Evan. We discuss silt clouds and underwater visibility as a game mechanic, the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid and the utility calculations of weird buildings, what happens when your Firefox root certificate expires?, and The Ailing Mirror-Smith.</itunes:subtitle>
  <itunes:duration>1:08:47</itunes:duration>
  <itunes:explicit>yes</itunes:explicit>
  <itunes:image href="https://media24.fireside.fm/file/fireside-images-2024/podcasts/images/3/3597ddeb-e52e-4cda-a59c-c64600489fea/cover.jpg?v=5"/>
  <description>&lt;p&gt;Lords:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Alexei&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Evan&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Topics:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Silt clouds &amp;amp; underwater visibility as a game mechanic&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The bass pro shop pyramid and the utility calculations of weird buildings&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;What happens when your Firefox root certificate expires?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The Ailing Mirror-Smith

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://medium.com/@EvanBalster/the-ailing-mirror-smith-9c4b5a76cd#9520" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;https://medium.com/@EvanBalster/the-ailing-mirror-smith-9c4b5a76cd#9520&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Microtopics: &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Roguelike Celebration. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Virtual conferences.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;How to be in a conversation with one person in a room and not the whole room. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Drinking a polymorph potion to put a different animal emoji next to your user name. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Roguelikes and Roguelikers.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Topic munching and topic grazing.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;How to design non-violent roguelikes.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Spending your paw prints on the "become water" skill so when a human tries to pick you up, you just flow out of their hands. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Imitone.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Abruptly tooting a horn.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Reading an email and then pointing at it and yelling "sold!"&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;DSP for game developers. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Video essays about maritime disasters. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Penetration diving. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Huge warning signs in front of every underwater cave.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Silt Warnings. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Guideline Entanglement. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Moving in more directional axes than you normally do. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Fast things that live underwater. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Panicking and forgetting that the game is turn based.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Playing Nethack with a screen reader.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Multi stage dives to deliver oxygen further and further into a cave system. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Retrieving the bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Inventing special hells to put yourself through because the existing hells aren't good enough. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Gabe Newell's lack of fear response. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Remembering the time you blacked out and thinking "the brain is really cool."&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Borrowing some time from your cat attack to give to the car crash.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Scout the Floof.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Running out of adrenalin and being extremely calm. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Entering and exiting Tennessee in a state of intense unreality.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The acoustic properties of a gigantic metal pyramid. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Getting married inside the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Hotel rooms attached up the back of the giant fish.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Why the Egyptians built pyramids rather than other cooler shapes. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A procedurally generated lady in Canada. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Importing the Burning Man from Burning Man. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Stopping at Saskatchewan for gas.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Home of the World's Biggest Dad.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Building Ram Pumps in Dwarf Fortress. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Great Pyramid Ram Pump. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Mummy Tea.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A terrible waste of tax dollars that brings joy to children all around the world. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Firefox telling you "oh &lt;em&gt;shit&lt;/em&gt;, you need to update now, dog."&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Configuring Windows Firewall to not allow Windows Updates.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Protecting your users from malware by opening the floodgates of Internet ads.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Encino Man. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Handing Firefox a Baby Ruth and it's like "this tastes like plastic."&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Picking tiny hills to die on as a way to remain mentally stable.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Escalating lack of politeness from a UK security firm.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Nitric Acid Piano: sounds great but hurts like heck to play. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;3D printing new fingernails right onto your bare cuticles every morning. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Working on a long project in which you see more potency than clarity of purpose. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Valorizing craft for the sake of craft, disconnected from the use of it.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;In the worst case scenario, how could your tool be used?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Avoiding doing evil by making morally neutral art.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Sitting on multiple generations of Cold War techno-optimism.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Keita Takahashi's manifesto about being a video game romantic.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Designing things that people can do and enjoy in the world we want to live in.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Striving to bring people some small amount of a positive emotion.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Making curry for your colleagues and going totally overboard on it.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;I'm going to go do evil with this curry.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Learning the flavors of new herbs and spices.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Fenugreek leaf.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The worst time in history to get enthusiastic about cooking quiche.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Trying to figure out how to post. &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</description>
  <content:encoded>
    <![CDATA[<p>Lords:</p>

<ul>
<li>Alexei</li>
<li>Evan</li>
</ul>

<p>Topics:</p>

<ul>
<li>Silt clouds &amp; underwater visibility as a game mechanic</li>
<li>The bass pro shop pyramid and the utility calculations of weird buildings</li>
<li>What happens when your Firefox root certificate expires?</li>
<li>The Ailing Mirror-Smith

<ul>
<li><a href="https://medium.com/@EvanBalster/the-ailing-mirror-smith-9c4b5a76cd#9520" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@EvanBalster/the-ailing-mirror-smith-9c4b5a76cd#9520</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<p>Microtopics: </p>

<ul>
<li>Roguelike Celebration. </li>
<li>Virtual conferences.</li>
<li>How to be in a conversation with one person in a room and not the whole room. </li>
<li>Drinking a polymorph potion to put a different animal emoji next to your user name. </li>
<li>Roguelikes and Roguelikers.</li>
<li>Topic munching and topic grazing.</li>
<li>How to design non-violent roguelikes.</li>
<li>Spending your paw prints on the &quot;become water&quot; skill so when a human tries to pick you up, you just flow out of their hands. </li>
<li>Imitone.</li>
<li>Abruptly tooting a horn.</li>
<li>Reading an email and then pointing at it and yelling &quot;sold!&quot;</li>
<li>DSP for game developers. </li>
<li>Video essays about maritime disasters. </li>
<li>Penetration diving. </li>
<li>Huge warning signs in front of every underwater cave.</li>
<li>Silt Warnings. </li>
<li>Guideline Entanglement. </li>
<li>Moving in more directional axes than you normally do. </li>
<li>Fast things that live underwater. </li>
<li>Panicking and forgetting that the game is turn based.</li>
<li>Playing Nethack with a screen reader.</li>
<li>Multi stage dives to deliver oxygen further and further into a cave system. </li>
<li>Retrieving the bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald. </li>
<li>Inventing special hells to put yourself through because the existing hells aren&#39;t good enough. </li>
<li>Gabe Newell&#39;s lack of fear response. </li>
<li>Remembering the time you blacked out and thinking &quot;the brain is really cool.&quot;</li>
<li>Borrowing some time from your cat attack to give to the car crash.</li>
<li>Scout the Floof.</li>
<li>Running out of adrenalin and being extremely calm. </li>
<li>Entering and exiting Tennessee in a state of intense unreality.</li>
<li>Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt.</li>
<li>The acoustic properties of a gigantic metal pyramid. </li>
<li>Getting married inside the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid. </li>
<li>Hotel rooms attached up the back of the giant fish.</li>
<li>Why the Egyptians built pyramids rather than other cooler shapes. </li>
<li>A procedurally generated lady in Canada. </li>
<li>Importing the Burning Man from Burning Man. </li>
<li>Stopping at Saskatchewan for gas.</li>
<li>Home of the World&#39;s Biggest Dad.</li>
<li>Building Ram Pumps in Dwarf Fortress. </li>
<li>Great Pyramid Ram Pump. </li>
<li>Mummy Tea.</li>
<li>A terrible waste of tax dollars that brings joy to children all around the world. </li>
<li>Firefox telling you &quot;oh <em>shit</em>, you need to update now, dog.&quot;</li>
<li>Configuring Windows Firewall to not allow Windows Updates.</li>
<li>Protecting your users from malware by opening the floodgates of Internet ads.</li>
<li>Encino Man. </li>
<li>Handing Firefox a Baby Ruth and it&#39;s like &quot;this tastes like plastic.&quot;</li>
<li>Picking tiny hills to die on as a way to remain mentally stable.</li>
<li>Escalating lack of politeness from a UK security firm.</li>
<li>Nitric Acid Piano: sounds great but hurts like heck to play. </li>
<li>3D printing new fingernails right onto your bare cuticles every morning. </li>
<li>Working on a long project in which you see more potency than clarity of purpose. </li>
<li>Valorizing craft for the sake of craft, disconnected from the use of it.</li>
<li>In the worst case scenario, how could your tool be used?</li>
<li>Avoiding doing evil by making morally neutral art.</li>
<li>Sitting on multiple generations of Cold War techno-optimism.</li>
<li>Keita Takahashi&#39;s manifesto about being a video game romantic.</li>
<li>Designing things that people can do and enjoy in the world we want to live in.</li>
<li>Striving to bring people some small amount of a positive emotion.</li>
<li>Making curry for your colleagues and going totally overboard on it.</li>
<li>I&#39;m going to go do evil with this curry.</li>
<li>Learning the flavors of new herbs and spices.</li>
<li>Fenugreek leaf.</li>
<li>The worst time in history to get enthusiastic about cooking quiche.</li>
<li>Trying to figure out how to post.</li>
</ul><p><a rel="payment" href="http://patreon.com/topiclords">Support Topic Lords</a></p>]]>
  </content:encoded>
  <itunes:summary>
    <![CDATA[<p>Lords:</p>

<ul>
<li>Alexei</li>
<li>Evan</li>
</ul>

<p>Topics:</p>

<ul>
<li>Silt clouds &amp; underwater visibility as a game mechanic</li>
<li>The bass pro shop pyramid and the utility calculations of weird buildings</li>
<li>What happens when your Firefox root certificate expires?</li>
<li>The Ailing Mirror-Smith

<ul>
<li><a href="https://medium.com/@EvanBalster/the-ailing-mirror-smith-9c4b5a76cd#9520" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@EvanBalster/the-ailing-mirror-smith-9c4b5a76cd#9520</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<p>Microtopics: </p>

<ul>
<li>Roguelike Celebration. </li>
<li>Virtual conferences.</li>
<li>How to be in a conversation with one person in a room and not the whole room. </li>
<li>Drinking a polymorph potion to put a different animal emoji next to your user name. </li>
<li>Roguelikes and Roguelikers.</li>
<li>Topic munching and topic grazing.</li>
<li>How to design non-violent roguelikes.</li>
<li>Spending your paw prints on the &quot;become water&quot; skill so when a human tries to pick you up, you just flow out of their hands. </li>
<li>Imitone.</li>
<li>Abruptly tooting a horn.</li>
<li>Reading an email and then pointing at it and yelling &quot;sold!&quot;</li>
<li>DSP for game developers. </li>
<li>Video essays about maritime disasters. </li>
<li>Penetration diving. </li>
<li>Huge warning signs in front of every underwater cave.</li>
<li>Silt Warnings. </li>
<li>Guideline Entanglement. </li>
<li>Moving in more directional axes than you normally do. </li>
<li>Fast things that live underwater. </li>
<li>Panicking and forgetting that the game is turn based.</li>
<li>Playing Nethack with a screen reader.</li>
<li>Multi stage dives to deliver oxygen further and further into a cave system. </li>
<li>Retrieving the bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald. </li>
<li>Inventing special hells to put yourself through because the existing hells aren&#39;t good enough. </li>
<li>Gabe Newell&#39;s lack of fear response. </li>
<li>Remembering the time you blacked out and thinking &quot;the brain is really cool.&quot;</li>
<li>Borrowing some time from your cat attack to give to the car crash.</li>
<li>Scout the Floof.</li>
<li>Running out of adrenalin and being extremely calm. </li>
<li>Entering and exiting Tennessee in a state of intense unreality.</li>
<li>Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt.</li>
<li>The acoustic properties of a gigantic metal pyramid. </li>
<li>Getting married inside the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid. </li>
<li>Hotel rooms attached up the back of the giant fish.</li>
<li>Why the Egyptians built pyramids rather than other cooler shapes. </li>
<li>A procedurally generated lady in Canada. </li>
<li>Importing the Burning Man from Burning Man. </li>
<li>Stopping at Saskatchewan for gas.</li>
<li>Home of the World&#39;s Biggest Dad.</li>
<li>Building Ram Pumps in Dwarf Fortress. </li>
<li>Great Pyramid Ram Pump. </li>
<li>Mummy Tea.</li>
<li>A terrible waste of tax dollars that brings joy to children all around the world. </li>
<li>Firefox telling you &quot;oh <em>shit</em>, you need to update now, dog.&quot;</li>
<li>Configuring Windows Firewall to not allow Windows Updates.</li>
<li>Protecting your users from malware by opening the floodgates of Internet ads.</li>
<li>Encino Man. </li>
<li>Handing Firefox a Baby Ruth and it&#39;s like &quot;this tastes like plastic.&quot;</li>
<li>Picking tiny hills to die on as a way to remain mentally stable.</li>
<li>Escalating lack of politeness from a UK security firm.</li>
<li>Nitric Acid Piano: sounds great but hurts like heck to play. </li>
<li>3D printing new fingernails right onto your bare cuticles every morning. </li>
<li>Working on a long project in which you see more potency than clarity of purpose. </li>
<li>Valorizing craft for the sake of craft, disconnected from the use of it.</li>
<li>In the worst case scenario, how could your tool be used?</li>
<li>Avoiding doing evil by making morally neutral art.</li>
<li>Sitting on multiple generations of Cold War techno-optimism.</li>
<li>Keita Takahashi&#39;s manifesto about being a video game romantic.</li>
<li>Designing things that people can do and enjoy in the world we want to live in.</li>
<li>Striving to bring people some small amount of a positive emotion.</li>
<li>Making curry for your colleagues and going totally overboard on it.</li>
<li>I&#39;m going to go do evil with this curry.</li>
<li>Learning the flavors of new herbs and spices.</li>
<li>Fenugreek leaf.</li>
<li>The worst time in history to get enthusiastic about cooking quiche.</li>
<li>Trying to figure out how to post.</li>
</ul><p><a rel="payment" href="http://patreon.com/topiclords">Support Topic Lords</a></p>]]>
  </itunes:summary>
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