web01.fireside.fm Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:26:50 -0500 Fireside (https://fireside.fm) Topic Lords - Episodes Tagged with “Cort” https://topiclords.com/tags/cort Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800 Every week, Jim invites different friends to guest on Topic Lords and be excited about whatever they've been fixated on this week. en-us episodic The only place on the internet you can hear topics discussed! Jim Stormdancer Every week, Jim invites different friends to guest on Topic Lords and be excited about whatever they've been fixated on this week. yes Jim Stormdancer jim@goombas.org 326. A Dead Quarterback Can Still Score https://topiclords.com/a-dead-quarterback-can-still-score d54cedc6-1533-41c8-9cbd-8a5c69b38768 Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Cort and Ben. We discuss the Geek Code, a fun fact about your neighborhood, Every 5x6 Nonogram, The Calf Path, by Sam Foss, and Phillip Rivers. 1:03:55 yes Lords: * Cort * Ben Topics: * Oh man, remember the Geek Code? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek_Code * I discovered a fun fact about my neighborhood * Every 5x6 Nonogram * https://puzzarium.com/every-5x6-nonogram * The Calf Path by Sam Foss * https://poets.org/poem/calf-path * Phillip Rivers Microtopics: * Secret Playstation Things. * Transposing a matrix in SIMD. * Reclaiming your plug. * Trying and failing to use Libby. * Failing to check out library books from your toilet. * State-sanctioned piracy. * The restaurant where you had the dinner for your wedding. * The "my wife" voice. * Suddenly having nieces. * Hadad and Barney on Black Square Day. * The Talos Principal DLC. * The Geek Code Era. * VMS or OS/2 as a defining feature of your personality. * Dilbert, Perl, Doom, and X-Files: all equally culturally relevant to this day. * The Natural Bears Classification System for Gay Men. * The Human Code. * Your favorite grocery store's end-of-year recap. * The story of a Venezuelan woman between age 30 and 55, and her top 2000 interests. * Your favorite vowel in text messages you've sent this year. * What they call that AE vowel. * Speedrunning your entire email history in a weekend. * The Miracle Mile, where all the tar pits are. * Noted monster Sean "Diddy" Combs. * Two hip hop producers getting mad at each other. * Putting a plaque at your hotel explaining that Jim Morrison did not die at this hotel. * Being the plaque you want to see in the world. * Whether the Museum of Jurassic Technology has reopened after the fire. * A very earnest museum about a history that never was. * Wandering around dazed after every 5x5 nonogram is solved. * Doing your part to serve humanity by solving nonograms. * Do you remember where you were when Every 5x5 Nonogram Section 303 was finished? * Why a dippy bird can't keep you online. * Gesturing at the idea of collectively solving a problem. * Why we haven't heard from Peter Molyneux in a while. * What three digit numbers nonogram solvers think are interesting. * Sending 96 million solved nonograms into space as proof to alien life that humans are still capable of collective action. * Feeling bad about having installed an ad blocker and loading up a four hour block of ads from 80s TV. * Being prosecuted for use of ad blockers. * Look at that smirk. That's a man who knows he's preaching but getting away with it. * Getting a deck of flash cards to learn all of the pentameters. * Three iambs and a reverse iamb. * Your favorite good poems and your favorite shitpost poems. * Tony Gang Flame War. * Refusing to tackle the 40 year old quarterback after his wallet falls out on the field and the photos of his ten children unfold. * The median age of football players rising into retirement age as teenagers learn about the health risks and refuse to participate. * Using NBA 2K as a metaphor for the decline of civilization. * LA finally getting a football team again. (They have two now.) * Whether they're still playing Starcraft. * Broken 19 year olds who can't play Starcraft any more because their APMs are too low. * The experience of attending a live e-Sports event. * Whether they sell hot dogs and beer to the crowd at the live League of Legends event or if it's all GamerGrub and Feastables. * A Youtube shitpost made in Garry's Mod. * Channing Tatum playing the toilet in the Skibidi Toilet movie. * Al Gore: still alive? * Whether Wilford Brimley got plastic surgery to look that old. Lords:

  • Cort
  • Ben

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Secret Playstation Things.
  • Transposing a matrix in SIMD.
  • Reclaiming your plug.
  • Trying and failing to use Libby.
  • Failing to check out library books from your toilet.
  • State-sanctioned piracy.
  • The restaurant where you had the dinner for your wedding.
  • The "my wife" voice.
  • Suddenly having nieces.
  • Hadad and Barney on Black Square Day.
  • The Talos Principal DLC.
  • The Geek Code Era.
  • VMS or OS/2 as a defining feature of your personality.
  • Dilbert, Perl, Doom, and X-Files: all equally culturally relevant to this day.
  • The Natural Bears Classification System for Gay Men.
  • The Human Code.
  • Your favorite grocery store's end-of-year recap.
  • The story of a Venezuelan woman between age 30 and 55, and her top 2000 interests.
  • Your favorite vowel in text messages you've sent this year.
  • What they call that AE vowel.
  • Speedrunning your entire email history in a weekend.
  • The Miracle Mile, where all the tar pits are.
  • Noted monster Sean "Diddy" Combs.
  • Two hip hop producers getting mad at each other.
  • Putting a plaque at your hotel explaining that Jim Morrison did not die at this hotel.
  • Being the plaque you want to see in the world.
  • Whether the Museum of Jurassic Technology has reopened after the fire.
  • A very earnest museum about a history that never was.
  • Wandering around dazed after every 5x5 nonogram is solved.
  • Doing your part to serve humanity by solving nonograms.
  • Do you remember where you were when Every 5x5 Nonogram Section 303 was finished?
  • Why a dippy bird can't keep you online.
  • Gesturing at the idea of collectively solving a problem.
  • Why we haven't heard from Peter Molyneux in a while.
  • What three digit numbers nonogram solvers think are interesting.
  • Sending 96 million solved nonograms into space as proof to alien life that humans are still capable of collective action.
  • Feeling bad about having installed an ad blocker and loading up a four hour block of ads from 80s TV.
  • Being prosecuted for use of ad blockers.
  • Look at that smirk. That's a man who knows he's preaching but getting away with it.
  • Getting a deck of flash cards to learn all of the pentameters.
  • Three iambs and a reverse iamb.
  • Your favorite good poems and your favorite shitpost poems.
  • Tony Gang Flame War.
  • Refusing to tackle the 40 year old quarterback after his wallet falls out on the field and the photos of his ten children unfold.
  • The median age of football players rising into retirement age as teenagers learn about the health risks and refuse to participate.
  • Using NBA 2K as a metaphor for the decline of civilization.
  • LA finally getting a football team again. (They have two now.)
  • Whether they're still playing Starcraft.
  • Broken 19 year olds who can't play Starcraft any more because their APMs are too low.
  • The experience of attending a live e-Sports event.
  • Whether they sell hot dogs and beer to the crowd at the live League of Legends event or if it's all GamerGrub and Feastables.
  • A Youtube shitpost made in Garry's Mod.
  • Channing Tatum playing the toilet in the Skibidi Toilet movie.
  • Al Gore: still alive?
  • Whether Wilford Brimley got plastic surgery to look that old.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Lords:

  • Cort
  • Ben

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Secret Playstation Things.
  • Transposing a matrix in SIMD.
  • Reclaiming your plug.
  • Trying and failing to use Libby.
  • Failing to check out library books from your toilet.
  • State-sanctioned piracy.
  • The restaurant where you had the dinner for your wedding.
  • The "my wife" voice.
  • Suddenly having nieces.
  • Hadad and Barney on Black Square Day.
  • The Talos Principal DLC.
  • The Geek Code Era.
  • VMS or OS/2 as a defining feature of your personality.
  • Dilbert, Perl, Doom, and X-Files: all equally culturally relevant to this day.
  • The Natural Bears Classification System for Gay Men.
  • The Human Code.
  • Your favorite grocery store's end-of-year recap.
  • The story of a Venezuelan woman between age 30 and 55, and her top 2000 interests.
  • Your favorite vowel in text messages you've sent this year.
  • What they call that AE vowel.
  • Speedrunning your entire email history in a weekend.
  • The Miracle Mile, where all the tar pits are.
  • Noted monster Sean "Diddy" Combs.
  • Two hip hop producers getting mad at each other.
  • Putting a plaque at your hotel explaining that Jim Morrison did not die at this hotel.
  • Being the plaque you want to see in the world.
  • Whether the Museum of Jurassic Technology has reopened after the fire.
  • A very earnest museum about a history that never was.
  • Wandering around dazed after every 5x5 nonogram is solved.
  • Doing your part to serve humanity by solving nonograms.
  • Do you remember where you were when Every 5x5 Nonogram Section 303 was finished?
  • Why a dippy bird can't keep you online.
  • Gesturing at the idea of collectively solving a problem.
  • Why we haven't heard from Peter Molyneux in a while.
  • What three digit numbers nonogram solvers think are interesting.
  • Sending 96 million solved nonograms into space as proof to alien life that humans are still capable of collective action.
  • Feeling bad about having installed an ad blocker and loading up a four hour block of ads from 80s TV.
  • Being prosecuted for use of ad blockers.
  • Look at that smirk. That's a man who knows he's preaching but getting away with it.
  • Getting a deck of flash cards to learn all of the pentameters.
  • Three iambs and a reverse iamb.
  • Your favorite good poems and your favorite shitpost poems.
  • Tony Gang Flame War.
  • Refusing to tackle the 40 year old quarterback after his wallet falls out on the field and the photos of his ten children unfold.
  • The median age of football players rising into retirement age as teenagers learn about the health risks and refuse to participate.
  • Using NBA 2K as a metaphor for the decline of civilization.
  • LA finally getting a football team again. (They have two now.)
  • Whether they're still playing Starcraft.
  • Broken 19 year olds who can't play Starcraft any more because their APMs are too low.
  • The experience of attending a live e-Sports event.
  • Whether they sell hot dogs and beer to the crowd at the live League of Legends event or if it's all GamerGrub and Feastables.
  • A Youtube shitpost made in Garry's Mod.
  • Channing Tatum playing the toilet in the Skibidi Toilet movie.
  • Al Gore: still alive?
  • Whether Wilford Brimley got plastic surgery to look that old.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 319. Rolling Dice Like Mozart https://topiclords.com/rolling-dice-like-mozart dde14b3d-f862-491c-991a-6358ebbfd632 Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0800 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer 1:06:00 yes Lords: * Esper * Cort Topics: * Building your identity around a thing that you're kind of not as excited about lately * Stateless procedural music * Hulu can't decide whether it has X-Files * Offering, by Ursula K Le Guin * https://fleurmach.com/2016/09/28/ursula-k-le-guin-offering-2012/ Microtopics: * Figuring out new ways to make video games more expensive. * Puzzled Pint. * Oh man, this one's a real quart! * Puzzled Pint getting you through to the next MIT Mystery Hunt. * Blippo Plus. * If you're going to watch TV, why not watch TV from another dimension? * Capturing broadcast artifacts and CRT fuzz on a 1-bit display. * An amateur DSPist. (Such as myself.) * Whether Lucas Pope took time away from his busy life as a pirate actuary to make a video about temporally-stable dithering. * Dr. Richard Garfield, who loves lasagna and hates Mondays. * Final Fantasy espers vs. Magic the Gathering espers. * All the different licenses Wizards of the Coast is using to fuck up Magic the Gathering. * How to play Magic the Gathering without getting your ass kicked by a SpongeBob deck. * Splitbeard, my nemesis. * The Kickstarter backer tier that nobody pledged to get. * Jim's beard braids, still floating around in a Ziploc bag somewhere. * Electroswing Jackson. * Trying to continue to evolve as an artist after you named yourself Chrono Trigger Remix DJ. * A sci-fi weird constructed zone. * The guy on the team who comes up with names like "banalia" * Fake scam Oxford English Dictionaries. * A Finn named Viznut. * The C program on Viznut's business card. * Recognizing the twelfth root of two in an obfuscated C program. * Bytebeat. * Generating audio in ShaderToy. * A closed form function of T that produces the Terminator theme. * Learning how to put GLSL into the GPU. * Needing the preceding 200 samples to produce the current sample so you just start at T-200 and start crunching numbers. * The oldest film on Netflix. (From 1987.) * Trying to finish X-Files before it leaves your streaming service. * Esper's power over the Futurama production schedule. * Why would you attack and dethrone God when you could summon God to help you fight a slime? * Trying to summon your god in a tough JRPG battle and she's like "not right now I'm editing a podcast." * Trying to describe a vocal sample without saying what the voice is saying. * The bitrate itself shaping new phonemes. * Wahoo vs. wahey vs. waheh. * The great darkness where sleep goes and farther death goes. * The gods choking on all the dreams you forget. * The dump trucks of tasteless gruel keep coming. * How to prevent the data miners determining exactly how far the mystery goes. * You Can't Data Mine Fallen London. * The character who doesn't exist in the game, only the game data files, because he erased himself. * Media where you can predict how much longer the story goes and media where you can't. * The forty second episode of Topic Lords. * The episode of Game Changer that had the fake "end of video" screen before the episode continues. * Hitting tab to switch to the next field. * Hitting tab to highlight the secret clickable button. * Bittorrenting all eight hours of Bandersnatch and watching every scene in random order. * How many names does a Seaman know? * Escaping the internet. * Binge watching the PiCoSteveMo development thread. Lords:

  • Esper
  • Cort

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Figuring out new ways to make video games more expensive.
  • Puzzled Pint.
  • Oh man, this one's a real quart!
  • Puzzled Pint getting you through to the next MIT Mystery Hunt.
  • Blippo Plus.
  • If you're going to watch TV, why not watch TV from another dimension?
  • Capturing broadcast artifacts and CRT fuzz on a 1-bit display.
  • An amateur DSPist. (Such as myself.)
  • Whether Lucas Pope took time away from his busy life as a pirate actuary to make a video about temporally-stable dithering.
  • Dr. Richard Garfield, who loves lasagna and hates Mondays.
  • Final Fantasy espers vs. Magic the Gathering espers.
  • All the different licenses Wizards of the Coast is using to fuck up Magic the Gathering.
  • How to play Magic the Gathering without getting your ass kicked by a SpongeBob deck.
  • Splitbeard, my nemesis.
  • The Kickstarter backer tier that nobody pledged to get.
  • Jim's beard braids, still floating around in a Ziploc bag somewhere.
  • Electroswing Jackson.
  • Trying to continue to evolve as an artist after you named yourself Chrono Trigger Remix DJ.
  • A sci-fi weird constructed zone.
  • The guy on the team who comes up with names like "banalia"
  • Fake scam Oxford English Dictionaries.
  • A Finn named Viznut.
  • The C program on Viznut's business card.
  • Recognizing the twelfth root of two in an obfuscated C program.
  • Bytebeat.
  • Generating audio in ShaderToy.
  • A closed form function of T that produces the Terminator theme.
  • Learning how to put GLSL into the GPU.
  • Needing the preceding 200 samples to produce the current sample so you just start at T-200 and start crunching numbers.
  • The oldest film on Netflix. (From 1987.)
  • Trying to finish X-Files before it leaves your streaming service.
  • Esper's power over the Futurama production schedule.
  • Why would you attack and dethrone God when you could summon God to help you fight a slime?
  • Trying to summon your god in a tough JRPG battle and she's like "not right now I'm editing a podcast."
  • Trying to describe a vocal sample without saying what the voice is saying.
  • The bitrate itself shaping new phonemes.
  • Wahoo vs. wahey vs. waheh.
  • The great darkness where sleep goes and farther death goes.
  • The gods choking on all the dreams you forget.
  • The dump trucks of tasteless gruel keep coming.
  • How to prevent the data miners determining exactly how far the mystery goes.
  • You Can't Data Mine Fallen London.
  • The character who doesn't exist in the game, only the game data files, because he erased himself.
  • Media where you can predict how much longer the story goes and media where you can't.
  • The forty second episode of Topic Lords.
  • The episode of Game Changer that had the fake "end of video" screen before the episode continues.
  • Hitting tab to switch to the next field.
  • Hitting tab to highlight the secret clickable button.
  • Bittorrenting all eight hours of Bandersnatch and watching every scene in random order.
  • How many names does a Seaman know?
  • Escaping the internet.
  • Binge watching the PiCoSteveMo development thread.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Lords:

  • Esper
  • Cort

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Figuring out new ways to make video games more expensive.
  • Puzzled Pint.
  • Oh man, this one's a real quart!
  • Puzzled Pint getting you through to the next MIT Mystery Hunt.
  • Blippo Plus.
  • If you're going to watch TV, why not watch TV from another dimension?
  • Capturing broadcast artifacts and CRT fuzz on a 1-bit display.
  • An amateur DSPist. (Such as myself.)
  • Whether Lucas Pope took time away from his busy life as a pirate actuary to make a video about temporally-stable dithering.
  • Dr. Richard Garfield, who loves lasagna and hates Mondays.
  • Final Fantasy espers vs. Magic the Gathering espers.
  • All the different licenses Wizards of the Coast is using to fuck up Magic the Gathering.
  • How to play Magic the Gathering without getting your ass kicked by a SpongeBob deck.
  • Splitbeard, my nemesis.
  • The Kickstarter backer tier that nobody pledged to get.
  • Jim's beard braids, still floating around in a Ziploc bag somewhere.
  • Electroswing Jackson.
  • Trying to continue to evolve as an artist after you named yourself Chrono Trigger Remix DJ.
  • A sci-fi weird constructed zone.
  • The guy on the team who comes up with names like "banalia"
  • Fake scam Oxford English Dictionaries.
  • A Finn named Viznut.
  • The C program on Viznut's business card.
  • Recognizing the twelfth root of two in an obfuscated C program.
  • Bytebeat.
  • Generating audio in ShaderToy.
  • A closed form function of T that produces the Terminator theme.
  • Learning how to put GLSL into the GPU.
  • Needing the preceding 200 samples to produce the current sample so you just start at T-200 and start crunching numbers.
  • The oldest film on Netflix. (From 1987.)
  • Trying to finish X-Files before it leaves your streaming service.
  • Esper's power over the Futurama production schedule.
  • Why would you attack and dethrone God when you could summon God to help you fight a slime?
  • Trying to summon your god in a tough JRPG battle and she's like "not right now I'm editing a podcast."
  • Trying to describe a vocal sample without saying what the voice is saying.
  • The bitrate itself shaping new phonemes.
  • Wahoo vs. wahey vs. waheh.
  • The great darkness where sleep goes and farther death goes.
  • The gods choking on all the dreams you forget.
  • The dump trucks of tasteless gruel keep coming.
  • How to prevent the data miners determining exactly how far the mystery goes.
  • You Can't Data Mine Fallen London.
  • The character who doesn't exist in the game, only the game data files, because he erased himself.
  • Media where you can predict how much longer the story goes and media where you can't.
  • The forty second episode of Topic Lords.
  • The episode of Game Changer that had the fake "end of video" screen before the episode continues.
  • Hitting tab to switch to the next field.
  • Hitting tab to highlight the secret clickable button.
  • Bittorrenting all eight hours of Bandersnatch and watching every scene in random order.
  • How many names does a Seaman know?
  • Escaping the internet.
  • Binge watching the PiCoSteveMo development thread.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 306. You Wouldn't Believe the Brutes They Make https://topiclords.com/you-wouldnt-believe-the-brutes-they-make 8ae4534c-f845-4674-8b01-3a1c8ef603bd Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0700 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Xalavier and Cort. We discuss the coolest instrument to give a child, what happened to sound lasers?, appearing canes, and The Story of Mel 1:06:06 yes Lords: * Xalavier * https://store.steampowered.com/app/3139570/CoopKaijuHorror_Cooking/ * Cort Topics: * What's the coolest instrument to give a child? * What happened to sound lasers? * Appearing Canes * https://www.amazon.com/Healifty-Retractable-Collapsible-Professional-Accessories/dp/B093G7J6JG * The Story of Mel * http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html * https://melsloop.com/docs/the-story-of-mel/pages/mel-kaye-cv Microtopics: * Whether your middle name is really Danger. * Half an extra plug. * The inexplicable aliveness of Strange Scaffold. * Co-op Casual Horror Cooking. * Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival. * Making a game so that you can voice act the main character. * How many careers you're allowed to have before the world begins to rip them away from you. * Hiring the designer of Frog Fractions when Frog Fractions is already designed. * A boxing game featuring the inside of your mouth. * Knockout Kings 2003 or Fight Night Round 3. * Your dad explaining all the ways grownups are better than children while soundly trouncing you at Fight Night Round 3. * Tattooing a message on your infant son's head so that he reads it when he begins to bald. * Playing music with humans. * What's special about playing an analog monosynth. * Getting an analog synthesizer and finally sounding like the 70s. * Your larynx thinking "I'm singing meat!" while you push air through it, making it vibrate. * All the ways your larynx is confused about the nature of music. * Sitting in a circle and playing music together. * The Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Festival. * Playing folk songs within ten minutes of owning a mandolin. * How Irish sessions compare to Bluegrass sessions. * Being too far back in the crowd to have sex with Neil Young. * A big long guitar with only four strings. * Bass Sherpa Hunter Bond. * Practicing bass with your bass unplugged because plugging in your bass feels like an imposition. * Short-scale basses. * Finding the bass that makes it feel like you're holding Mjolnir. * The Minibrute, Microbrute, Matrixbrute and Polybrute. * The problematic acoustic P-bass. * Travel amps and amp alternatives. * The non-problematic acoustic P-bass. * Oh yeah, that's the acoustic bass player! * The only instrument in a rock band that can go up to. x6 multiplier. * Coming back to Rock Band after learning the actual instrument. * The Rock Band Pro Controller. * What about Second Topic? * Asking a parent if it's okay to give their child an accordion and backpedaling when they start white-knuckling their chair. * Kung fu instructionals. * The smallest member of the mandola family. * Instruments that require elongation. * Chapman sticks. * The kind of musical instrument you can stab someone with. * Vibrating your bones. * That time science stopped itself from inventing something awful. * Non lethal directed acoustic energy weapons. * Sound cannons as an anti-piracy measure. * SASERs. * Using headphones as a microphone and vice versa. * Plugging a bass into a guitar amp. * Traveling to another country and trying out the basses that they have there. * Whacking the high tension wires to make laser noises. * What they have on BART now instead of high tension wire noises. * Raising Cain's. * Trying to reload your appearing cane. * The type of thing the TSA would miss but should watch out for. * Terrorists taking over the plane by doing such an impressive magic show that the passengers are like "that was amazing, we'd better do what he wants" * It poked me straight in the middle of my eye. * A sound laser for mischief and giggles. * Fighting those who would be your comrades in shenanigans. * Easy to operation! * If you love something, let it go. If you hold onto it, it will stab you in the hand. * A frog boiling effect but for extremely long poems. * Computers made out of drums and vacuum tubes. * Royal McBee Computer Corp. * Executing another complete revolution to find the next instruction. * If the thesis of Summoning Salt was that "this is what all gamers should be doing all the time." * When you get old enough that most of the people you don't like are now dead. * When you decide to hate somebody, taking comfort in the fact that one day they will die, or maybe you'll die, and either way you won't have to deal with them any more. * Taking comfort that Mel is out there writing in direct hexadecimal for all us sinners. * Jobs you wish you'd had in the past but that you wouldn't take today. * The honor in choosing not to be famous. * Our first pangram rhyme scheme. * Version control plugins that scan commits for variable names that scan to the Ninja Turtles theme. * Winston on the Microbrute. Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Whether your middle name is really Danger.
  • Half an extra plug.
  • The inexplicable aliveness of Strange Scaffold.
  • Co-op Casual Horror Cooking.
  • Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival.
  • Making a game so that you can voice act the main character.
  • How many careers you're allowed to have before the world begins to rip them away from you.
  • Hiring the designer of Frog Fractions when Frog Fractions is already designed.
  • A boxing game featuring the inside of your mouth.
  • Knockout Kings 2003 or Fight Night Round 3.
  • Your dad explaining all the ways grownups are better than children while soundly trouncing you at Fight Night Round 3.
  • Tattooing a message on your infant son's head so that he reads it when he begins to bald.
  • Playing music with humans.
  • What's special about playing an analog monosynth.
  • Getting an analog synthesizer and finally sounding like the 70s.
  • Your larynx thinking "I'm singing meat!" while you push air through it, making it vibrate.
  • All the ways your larynx is confused about the nature of music.
  • Sitting in a circle and playing music together.
  • The Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Festival.
  • Playing folk songs within ten minutes of owning a mandolin.
  • How Irish sessions compare to Bluegrass sessions.
  • Being too far back in the crowd to have sex with Neil Young.
  • A big long guitar with only four strings.
  • Bass Sherpa Hunter Bond.
  • Practicing bass with your bass unplugged because plugging in your bass feels like an imposition.
  • Short-scale basses.
  • Finding the bass that makes it feel like you're holding Mjolnir.
  • The Minibrute, Microbrute, Matrixbrute and Polybrute.
  • The problematic acoustic P-bass.
  • Travel amps and amp alternatives.
  • The non-problematic acoustic P-bass.
  • Oh yeah, that's the acoustic bass player!
  • The only instrument in a rock band that can go up to. x6 multiplier.
  • Coming back to Rock Band after learning the actual instrument.
  • The Rock Band Pro Controller.
  • What about Second Topic?
  • Asking a parent if it's okay to give their child an accordion and backpedaling when they start white-knuckling their chair.
  • Kung fu instructionals.
  • The smallest member of the mandola family.
  • Instruments that require elongation.
  • Chapman sticks.
  • The kind of musical instrument you can stab someone with.
  • Vibrating your bones.
  • That time science stopped itself from inventing something awful.
  • Non lethal directed acoustic energy weapons.
  • Sound cannons as an anti-piracy measure.
  • SASERs.
  • Using headphones as a microphone and vice versa.
  • Plugging a bass into a guitar amp.
  • Traveling to another country and trying out the basses that they have there.
  • Whacking the high tension wires to make laser noises.
  • What they have on BART now instead of high tension wire noises.
  • Raising Cain's.
  • Trying to reload your appearing cane.
  • The type of thing the TSA would miss but should watch out for.
  • Terrorists taking over the plane by doing such an impressive magic show that the passengers are like "that was amazing, we'd better do what he wants"
  • It poked me straight in the middle of my eye.
  • A sound laser for mischief and giggles.
  • Fighting those who would be your comrades in shenanigans.
  • Easy to operation!
  • If you love something, let it go. If you hold onto it, it will stab you in the hand.
  • A frog boiling effect but for extremely long poems.
  • Computers made out of drums and vacuum tubes.
  • Royal McBee Computer Corp.
  • Executing another complete revolution to find the next instruction.
  • If the thesis of Summoning Salt was that "this is what all gamers should be doing all the time."
  • When you get old enough that most of the people you don't like are now dead.
  • When you decide to hate somebody, taking comfort in the fact that one day they will die, or maybe you'll die, and either way you won't have to deal with them any more.
  • Taking comfort that Mel is out there writing in direct hexadecimal for all us sinners.
  • Jobs you wish you'd had in the past but that you wouldn't take today.
  • The honor in choosing not to be famous.
  • Our first pangram rhyme scheme.
  • Version control plugins that scan commits for variable names that scan to the Ninja Turtles theme.
  • Winston on the Microbrute.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Whether your middle name is really Danger.
  • Half an extra plug.
  • The inexplicable aliveness of Strange Scaffold.
  • Co-op Casual Horror Cooking.
  • Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival.
  • Making a game so that you can voice act the main character.
  • How many careers you're allowed to have before the world begins to rip them away from you.
  • Hiring the designer of Frog Fractions when Frog Fractions is already designed.
  • A boxing game featuring the inside of your mouth.
  • Knockout Kings 2003 or Fight Night Round 3.
  • Your dad explaining all the ways grownups are better than children while soundly trouncing you at Fight Night Round 3.
  • Tattooing a message on your infant son's head so that he reads it when he begins to bald.
  • Playing music with humans.
  • What's special about playing an analog monosynth.
  • Getting an analog synthesizer and finally sounding like the 70s.
  • Your larynx thinking "I'm singing meat!" while you push air through it, making it vibrate.
  • All the ways your larynx is confused about the nature of music.
  • Sitting in a circle and playing music together.
  • The Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Festival.
  • Playing folk songs within ten minutes of owning a mandolin.
  • How Irish sessions compare to Bluegrass sessions.
  • Being too far back in the crowd to have sex with Neil Young.
  • A big long guitar with only four strings.
  • Bass Sherpa Hunter Bond.
  • Practicing bass with your bass unplugged because plugging in your bass feels like an imposition.
  • Short-scale basses.
  • Finding the bass that makes it feel like you're holding Mjolnir.
  • The Minibrute, Microbrute, Matrixbrute and Polybrute.
  • The problematic acoustic P-bass.
  • Travel amps and amp alternatives.
  • The non-problematic acoustic P-bass.
  • Oh yeah, that's the acoustic bass player!
  • The only instrument in a rock band that can go up to. x6 multiplier.
  • Coming back to Rock Band after learning the actual instrument.
  • The Rock Band Pro Controller.
  • What about Second Topic?
  • Asking a parent if it's okay to give their child an accordion and backpedaling when they start white-knuckling their chair.
  • Kung fu instructionals.
  • The smallest member of the mandola family.
  • Instruments that require elongation.
  • Chapman sticks.
  • The kind of musical instrument you can stab someone with.
  • Vibrating your bones.
  • That time science stopped itself from inventing something awful.
  • Non lethal directed acoustic energy weapons.
  • Sound cannons as an anti-piracy measure.
  • SASERs.
  • Using headphones as a microphone and vice versa.
  • Plugging a bass into a guitar amp.
  • Traveling to another country and trying out the basses that they have there.
  • Whacking the high tension wires to make laser noises.
  • What they have on BART now instead of high tension wire noises.
  • Raising Cain's.
  • Trying to reload your appearing cane.
  • The type of thing the TSA would miss but should watch out for.
  • Terrorists taking over the plane by doing such an impressive magic show that the passengers are like "that was amazing, we'd better do what he wants"
  • It poked me straight in the middle of my eye.
  • A sound laser for mischief and giggles.
  • Fighting those who would be your comrades in shenanigans.
  • Easy to operation!
  • If you love something, let it go. If you hold onto it, it will stab you in the hand.
  • A frog boiling effect but for extremely long poems.
  • Computers made out of drums and vacuum tubes.
  • Royal McBee Computer Corp.
  • Executing another complete revolution to find the next instruction.
  • If the thesis of Summoning Salt was that "this is what all gamers should be doing all the time."
  • When you get old enough that most of the people you don't like are now dead.
  • When you decide to hate somebody, taking comfort in the fact that one day they will die, or maybe you'll die, and either way you won't have to deal with them any more.
  • Taking comfort that Mel is out there writing in direct hexadecimal for all us sinners.
  • Jobs you wish you'd had in the past but that you wouldn't take today.
  • The honor in choosing not to be famous.
  • Our first pangram rhyme scheme.
  • Version control plugins that scan commits for variable names that scan to the Ninja Turtles theme.
  • Winston on the Microbrute.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 272. Beakknifed in Busch Gardens https://topiclords.com/beakknifed-in-busch-gardens 13336607-d526-42d1-8e56-7a7845bcd308 Mon, 06 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0800 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Ryan and Cort. We discuss meat-flavored potato chips, the Pico-8 tracker, using "Add or Remove Programs" to add a program, Tommy C, and Advent Calendars. 1:06:56 yes Lords: * Ryan * Cort Topics: * Is it possible to make a "meat flavored" potato chip that's not disgusting. * Meandering Pico-8 tracker jabbering * Do you think anyone has ever used the "Add or Remove Programs" interface to add a program? * Tommy C * https://genius.com/Dan-le-sac-vs-scroobius-pip-tommy-c-lyrics * Advent calendars are just tiny bulk-rate loot crates Microtopics: * Ryan Ike Audio on Instagram. * How to make music and have balance in your life. * If there's nothing to fail at, what are you bad at? * Stand Elsewhere, an Oregon Trail-like. * Converting 50s pop songs to chunky four channel chip tunes. * The Pico-8 Splore database. * Asking a friend to make music for your PiCoSteveMo game, and having to explain what a PiCoSteveMo is, then Pico-8, trackers, music, sound, air, matter, and existence itself. * Potatoed Chips. * Romanian Beef Bolognese Flavored Potato Chips. * Abuela's All-Day Braised Carnitas potato chips. * Hate-buying a terrible flavor potato chips over and over so you can make everybody you know taste them. * Raw Hamburger flavored potato chips that moo when you eat them. * The Doritos Brain-hack. * Looking at the box of Frosted Mini-Wheats with a shrimp on the box and thinking "that's a little shrimpy" * Cool American Doritos. * Eat the cool. They knew the risks. * A bowl of M&Ms with a single Skittle in it. * Fresh Meat Potato Chips. * Walking into the Frito-Lay factory, dangling your jaw open and waiting for come what may. * All Night Nippon Shredded Abuela's Braised Carnitas. * The Taki's One-Chip Challenge. * Inviting all your friends over to try the new Strawberry Mochi Dill Pickle potato chips. * Explaining to your daughter's friends' parents that we're going to give your children tablets I got on the Internet and then we're going to eat lots of food and it's going to taste really weird. The FDA doesn't allow you to put this in food but I need you to dissolve this on your tongue. * Par-boiling your soft palate in lemon juice because it tastes so amazing. * Reprogramming your tongue to remix your palate. * What to do if you love both music and spreadsheets. * Art tools that make your tummy feel icky. * Mr. Lee by the Bobbettes. * What trackers are good at. * An extremely Bojangles tracker configuration. * Trying to do Math Rock in the Pico-8 tracker. * Triggering patterns 0 through 7 as instruments. * Whether the Add or Remove Programs interface can add a program. * Windows Sandbox. * Jacking your whole life up but your Windows desktop is pristine. * Getting a burner desktop for write-ins. * Inventing a guy named Dampiel and getting mad at him even years later. * Classic Dampy. * Renaming your game to doom.exe and suddenly Nvidia cards run it way better. * Putting a comment in your shader saying "Dear Nvidia, please make this shader look rad." * The Valve guy refusing to tell you how the math is wrong. * A selection of gags, hand movements and facial expressions. * Dying onstage while the audience applauds. * Feigning death so often as part of your comedy act so when you really die during your routine it'll be hilarious. * Death: just a bad deal all around. * Not my birth mom, but my robo-mom. * Having a death so weird that even as an extremely minor celebrity you end up on TMZ. * Doing extensive R&D so that you can somehow be murdered by a flamingo. * A bloodied flamingo wearing Ryan Ike's glasses. * Walking through the zoo looking for opportunities for environmental storytelling. * Accidentally doing an immaculate 360 Christ Air and then dying on impact. * Thinking of one funny scenario a month. * A treat that's busting the seams of the Advent Calendar door. * A sack of little handmade animal ornaments. * The Joy of Mastery. * Empty Advent Calendars. * Going shopping for used candy after Halloween. * Terrible Novelty Potato Chip of the Day. * One big Advent calendar the size of a barn door with 365 doors in it. * The Mayan Advent Calendar. * Automats. * Wheel of Fortune except you're assembling a wheel and not a phrase. * Spin the wheel, make a deal! * The first podcast of the rest of your life. Lords:

  • Ryan
  • Cort

Topics:

  • Is it possible to make a "meat flavored" potato chip that's not disgusting.
  • Meandering Pico-8 tracker jabbering
  • Do you think anyone has ever used the "Add or Remove Programs" interface to add a program?
  • Tommy C
  • Advent calendars are just tiny bulk-rate loot crates

Microtopics:

  • Ryan Ike Audio on Instagram.
  • How to make music and have balance in your life.
  • If there's nothing to fail at, what are you bad at?
  • Stand Elsewhere, an Oregon Trail-like.
  • Converting 50s pop songs to chunky four channel chip tunes.
  • The Pico-8 Splore database.
  • Asking a friend to make music for your PiCoSteveMo game, and having to explain what a PiCoSteveMo is, then Pico-8, trackers, music, sound, air, matter, and existence itself.
  • Potatoed Chips.
  • Romanian Beef Bolognese Flavored Potato Chips.
  • Abuela's All-Day Braised Carnitas potato chips.
  • Hate-buying a terrible flavor potato chips over and over so you can make everybody you know taste them.
  • Raw Hamburger flavored potato chips that moo when you eat them.
  • The Doritos Brain-hack.
  • Looking at the box of Frosted Mini-Wheats with a shrimp on the box and thinking "that's a little shrimpy"
  • Cool American Doritos.
  • Eat the cool. They knew the risks.
  • A bowl of M&Ms with a single Skittle in it.
  • Fresh Meat Potato Chips.
  • Walking into the Frito-Lay factory, dangling your jaw open and waiting for come what may.
  • All Night Nippon Shredded Abuela's Braised Carnitas.
  • The Taki's One-Chip Challenge.
  • Inviting all your friends over to try the new Strawberry Mochi Dill Pickle potato chips.
  • Explaining to your daughter's friends' parents that we're going to give your children tablets I got on the Internet and then we're going to eat lots of food and it's going to taste really weird. The FDA doesn't allow you to put this in food but I need you to dissolve this on your tongue.
  • Par-boiling your soft palate in lemon juice because it tastes so amazing.
  • Reprogramming your tongue to remix your palate.
  • What to do if you love both music and spreadsheets.
  • Art tools that make your tummy feel icky.
  • Mr. Lee by the Bobbettes.
  • What trackers are good at.
  • An extremely Bojangles tracker configuration.
  • Trying to do Math Rock in the Pico-8 tracker.
  • Triggering patterns 0 through 7 as instruments.
  • Whether the Add or Remove Programs interface can add a program.
  • Windows Sandbox.
  • Jacking your whole life up but your Windows desktop is pristine.
  • Getting a burner desktop for write-ins.
  • Inventing a guy named Dampiel and getting mad at him even years later.
  • Classic Dampy.
  • Renaming your game to doom.exe and suddenly Nvidia cards run it way better.
  • Putting a comment in your shader saying "Dear Nvidia, please make this shader look rad."
  • The Valve guy refusing to tell you how the math is wrong.
  • A selection of gags, hand movements and facial expressions.
  • Dying onstage while the audience applauds.
  • Feigning death so often as part of your comedy act so when you really die during your routine it'll be hilarious.
  • Death: just a bad deal all around.
  • Not my birth mom, but my robo-mom.
  • Having a death so weird that even as an extremely minor celebrity you end up on TMZ.
  • Doing extensive R&D so that you can somehow be murdered by a flamingo.
  • A bloodied flamingo wearing Ryan Ike's glasses.
  • Walking through the zoo looking for opportunities for environmental storytelling.
  • Accidentally doing an immaculate 360 Christ Air and then dying on impact.
  • Thinking of one funny scenario a month.
  • A treat that's busting the seams of the Advent Calendar door.
  • A sack of little handmade animal ornaments.
  • The Joy of Mastery.
  • Empty Advent Calendars.
  • Going shopping for used candy after Halloween.
  • Terrible Novelty Potato Chip of the Day.
  • One big Advent calendar the size of a barn door with 365 doors in it.
  • The Mayan Advent Calendar.
  • Automats.
  • Wheel of Fortune except you're assembling a wheel and not a phrase.
  • Spin the wheel, make a deal!
  • The first podcast of the rest of your life.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Lords:

  • Ryan
  • Cort

Topics:

  • Is it possible to make a "meat flavored" potato chip that's not disgusting.
  • Meandering Pico-8 tracker jabbering
  • Do you think anyone has ever used the "Add or Remove Programs" interface to add a program?
  • Tommy C
  • Advent calendars are just tiny bulk-rate loot crates

Microtopics:

  • Ryan Ike Audio on Instagram.
  • How to make music and have balance in your life.
  • If there's nothing to fail at, what are you bad at?
  • Stand Elsewhere, an Oregon Trail-like.
  • Converting 50s pop songs to chunky four channel chip tunes.
  • The Pico-8 Splore database.
  • Asking a friend to make music for your PiCoSteveMo game, and having to explain what a PiCoSteveMo is, then Pico-8, trackers, music, sound, air, matter, and existence itself.
  • Potatoed Chips.
  • Romanian Beef Bolognese Flavored Potato Chips.
  • Abuela's All-Day Braised Carnitas potato chips.
  • Hate-buying a terrible flavor potato chips over and over so you can make everybody you know taste them.
  • Raw Hamburger flavored potato chips that moo when you eat them.
  • The Doritos Brain-hack.
  • Looking at the box of Frosted Mini-Wheats with a shrimp on the box and thinking "that's a little shrimpy"
  • Cool American Doritos.
  • Eat the cool. They knew the risks.
  • A bowl of M&Ms with a single Skittle in it.
  • Fresh Meat Potato Chips.
  • Walking into the Frito-Lay factory, dangling your jaw open and waiting for come what may.
  • All Night Nippon Shredded Abuela's Braised Carnitas.
  • The Taki's One-Chip Challenge.
  • Inviting all your friends over to try the new Strawberry Mochi Dill Pickle potato chips.
  • Explaining to your daughter's friends' parents that we're going to give your children tablets I got on the Internet and then we're going to eat lots of food and it's going to taste really weird. The FDA doesn't allow you to put this in food but I need you to dissolve this on your tongue.
  • Par-boiling your soft palate in lemon juice because it tastes so amazing.
  • Reprogramming your tongue to remix your palate.
  • What to do if you love both music and spreadsheets.
  • Art tools that make your tummy feel icky.
  • Mr. Lee by the Bobbettes.
  • What trackers are good at.
  • An extremely Bojangles tracker configuration.
  • Trying to do Math Rock in the Pico-8 tracker.
  • Triggering patterns 0 through 7 as instruments.
  • Whether the Add or Remove Programs interface can add a program.
  • Windows Sandbox.
  • Jacking your whole life up but your Windows desktop is pristine.
  • Getting a burner desktop for write-ins.
  • Inventing a guy named Dampiel and getting mad at him even years later.
  • Classic Dampy.
  • Renaming your game to doom.exe and suddenly Nvidia cards run it way better.
  • Putting a comment in your shader saying "Dear Nvidia, please make this shader look rad."
  • The Valve guy refusing to tell you how the math is wrong.
  • A selection of gags, hand movements and facial expressions.
  • Dying onstage while the audience applauds.
  • Feigning death so often as part of your comedy act so when you really die during your routine it'll be hilarious.
  • Death: just a bad deal all around.
  • Not my birth mom, but my robo-mom.
  • Having a death so weird that even as an extremely minor celebrity you end up on TMZ.
  • Doing extensive R&D so that you can somehow be murdered by a flamingo.
  • A bloodied flamingo wearing Ryan Ike's glasses.
  • Walking through the zoo looking for opportunities for environmental storytelling.
  • Accidentally doing an immaculate 360 Christ Air and then dying on impact.
  • Thinking of one funny scenario a month.
  • A treat that's busting the seams of the Advent Calendar door.
  • A sack of little handmade animal ornaments.
  • The Joy of Mastery.
  • Empty Advent Calendars.
  • Going shopping for used candy after Halloween.
  • Terrible Novelty Potato Chip of the Day.
  • One big Advent calendar the size of a barn door with 365 doors in it.
  • The Mayan Advent Calendar.
  • Automats.
  • Wheel of Fortune except you're assembling a wheel and not a phrase.
  • Spin the wheel, make a deal!
  • The first podcast of the rest of your life.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 258. Only The Head of the Deer Sparks Joy https://topiclords.com/only-the-head-of-the-deer-sparks-joy 19e20ee9-d80b-4718-9ed0-4bb3962fe50e Mon, 30 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0700 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Cort and Mark. We discuss things you've found in the trash, traveling with children, Adventures with BB-8, Burma Shave Sign by Andrew Plotkin, the useless superpowers game, and whether Mega Man suffers ennui 1:04:45 yes Lords: * Cort * Mark Topics: * The best and worst thing you’ve ever found in the trash. * Traveling with children & associated challenges/solutions * Adventures with BB-8 * Survey of Forms - Burma-Shave Sign, by Andrew Plotkin * https://eblong.com/zarf/thod/58.html * The useless superpowers game * Does Mega Man ever suffer ennui? Microtopics: * Dependable sources of guava. * Staring at the raccoons as they go by at night. * Room temperature ice cream full of bullets. * Vietnamese guava vs. central american guava. * Gnawing through a leathery rock to impress your in-laws. * Cudgel Hero Faction. * A life-sized deer sticking out of your neighbor's trash can. * What to do with three quarters of a deer. * Swimming around in a treasure factory and finding spices. * Explaining to your mom where this salt and pepper came from. * Dodging a delicious treat bullet. * Bringing home a NeXT machine from the dumpsters behind Carnegie Mellon. * Throwing away 30 year old legal books and a time traveling lawyer compares you to Hitler. * Won't somebody think of the LA hipsters? * Figuring out how to be okay not having exactly what you want all the time. * Getting heatstroke in Japan. * Mr. Puddles Pineapple having the time of his life. * Getting a photo of your stuffed penguin at a Hamlet castle holding a skull. * Is it really fake if you're telling the truth in a fake way? * Housekeeping having a good time with your stuffed animals. * The perfect companion to explore the Star Wars Galaxy by your side. * Arranging yourself external motivators. * A skill separate from cooking that is still relevant to the dining experience. * Butterfly Pee Tea. * Interwoven bread dough. * These are Zelda meatballs! * Trying out the recipe for Dubious Food in the Zelda cookbook. * Sonic the Hedgehog chili that takes five hours to make. * Rouge the Bat's favorite dish. * Very round droid. Rounder than most. * The make-your-own-lightsaber course class project room experience. * Going to Disneyland and asking someone in costume for directions to the speakeasy. * A game that exists to make children sad. * Everyone working together to blow the shit out of Bowser, Jr. * Losing the boss battle with Bowser Jr. at Super Nintendo World and the attendant hands you the dongle so your kids can listen to Princess Peach crying in despair the entire drive home. * Explaining to the Super Nintendo World staff that you shouldn't need all the keys to get to the final boss because that's not how Mario games are typically structured. * The guy trying to backwards long jump the stairs to the final boss in Super Nintendo World. * A series of billboards that turn out to be a poem. * Which came first, the Pizza Hut or the building shaped like a hut that you make pizza in? * A racially insensitive fireworks store. * Dropping a CRT monitor off of a tall building vs. dropping an LCD display. * Raccoons witnessing crimes. * Shaking exactly two aspirin out of the bottle every single time. * An extremely opaque Pepper's Ghost. * Mega Man defeating Ennui Man and acquiring his powers. * Mega Man can't defeat Dr. Wily because of Asimov's Three Laws. * Dr. Light deleting Mega Man's special abilities between games because he needs the hard drive space for porn. * Mega Man choosing to forget Crash Man's memories because he's tired of remembering that awkward first date. * Dr. Wily hacking everyone's iPhone to have the latest U2 album. * Searching for lords and finding a random raccoon. Lords:

  • Cort
  • Mark

Topics:

  • The best and worst thing you’ve ever found in the trash.
  • Traveling with children & associated challenges/solutions
  • Adventures with BB-8
  • Survey of Forms - Burma-Shave Sign, by Andrew Plotkin
  • The useless superpowers game
  • Does Mega Man ever suffer ennui?

Microtopics:

  • Dependable sources of guava.
  • Staring at the raccoons as they go by at night.
  • Room temperature ice cream full of bullets.
  • Vietnamese guava vs. central american guava.
  • Gnawing through a leathery rock to impress your in-laws.
  • Cudgel Hero Faction.
  • A life-sized deer sticking out of your neighbor's trash can.
  • What to do with three quarters of a deer.
  • Swimming around in a treasure factory and finding spices.
  • Explaining to your mom where this salt and pepper came from.
  • Dodging a delicious treat bullet.
  • Bringing home a NeXT machine from the dumpsters behind Carnegie Mellon.
  • Throwing away 30 year old legal books and a time traveling lawyer compares you to Hitler.
  • Won't somebody think of the LA hipsters?
  • Figuring out how to be okay not having exactly what you want all the time.
  • Getting heatstroke in Japan.
  • Mr. Puddles Pineapple having the time of his life.
  • Getting a photo of your stuffed penguin at a Hamlet castle holding a skull.
  • Is it really fake if you're telling the truth in a fake way?
  • Housekeeping having a good time with your stuffed animals.
  • The perfect companion to explore the Star Wars Galaxy by your side.
  • Arranging yourself external motivators.
  • A skill separate from cooking that is still relevant to the dining experience.
  • Butterfly Pee Tea.
  • Interwoven bread dough.
  • These are Zelda meatballs!
  • Trying out the recipe for Dubious Food in the Zelda cookbook.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog chili that takes five hours to make.
  • Rouge the Bat's favorite dish.
  • Very round droid. Rounder than most.
  • The make-your-own-lightsaber course class project room experience.
  • Going to Disneyland and asking someone in costume for directions to the speakeasy.
  • A game that exists to make children sad.
  • Everyone working together to blow the shit out of Bowser, Jr.
  • Losing the boss battle with Bowser Jr. at Super Nintendo World and the attendant hands you the dongle so your kids can listen to Princess Peach crying in despair the entire drive home.
  • Explaining to the Super Nintendo World staff that you shouldn't need all the keys to get to the final boss because that's not how Mario games are typically structured.
  • The guy trying to backwards long jump the stairs to the final boss in Super Nintendo World.
  • A series of billboards that turn out to be a poem.
  • Which came first, the Pizza Hut or the building shaped like a hut that you make pizza in?
  • A racially insensitive fireworks store.
  • Dropping a CRT monitor off of a tall building vs. dropping an LCD display.
  • Raccoons witnessing crimes.
  • Shaking exactly two aspirin out of the bottle every single time.
  • An extremely opaque Pepper's Ghost.
  • Mega Man defeating Ennui Man and acquiring his powers.
  • Mega Man can't defeat Dr. Wily because of Asimov's Three Laws.
  • Dr. Light deleting Mega Man's special abilities between games because he needs the hard drive space for porn.
  • Mega Man choosing to forget Crash Man's memories because he's tired of remembering that awkward first date.
  • Dr. Wily hacking everyone's iPhone to have the latest U2 album.
  • Searching for lords and finding a random raccoon.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Lords:

  • Cort
  • Mark

Topics:

  • The best and worst thing you’ve ever found in the trash.
  • Traveling with children & associated challenges/solutions
  • Adventures with BB-8
  • Survey of Forms - Burma-Shave Sign, by Andrew Plotkin
  • The useless superpowers game
  • Does Mega Man ever suffer ennui?

Microtopics:

  • Dependable sources of guava.
  • Staring at the raccoons as they go by at night.
  • Room temperature ice cream full of bullets.
  • Vietnamese guava vs. central american guava.
  • Gnawing through a leathery rock to impress your in-laws.
  • Cudgel Hero Faction.
  • A life-sized deer sticking out of your neighbor's trash can.
  • What to do with three quarters of a deer.
  • Swimming around in a treasure factory and finding spices.
  • Explaining to your mom where this salt and pepper came from.
  • Dodging a delicious treat bullet.
  • Bringing home a NeXT machine from the dumpsters behind Carnegie Mellon.
  • Throwing away 30 year old legal books and a time traveling lawyer compares you to Hitler.
  • Won't somebody think of the LA hipsters?
  • Figuring out how to be okay not having exactly what you want all the time.
  • Getting heatstroke in Japan.
  • Mr. Puddles Pineapple having the time of his life.
  • Getting a photo of your stuffed penguin at a Hamlet castle holding a skull.
  • Is it really fake if you're telling the truth in a fake way?
  • Housekeeping having a good time with your stuffed animals.
  • The perfect companion to explore the Star Wars Galaxy by your side.
  • Arranging yourself external motivators.
  • A skill separate from cooking that is still relevant to the dining experience.
  • Butterfly Pee Tea.
  • Interwoven bread dough.
  • These are Zelda meatballs!
  • Trying out the recipe for Dubious Food in the Zelda cookbook.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog chili that takes five hours to make.
  • Rouge the Bat's favorite dish.
  • Very round droid. Rounder than most.
  • The make-your-own-lightsaber course class project room experience.
  • Going to Disneyland and asking someone in costume for directions to the speakeasy.
  • A game that exists to make children sad.
  • Everyone working together to blow the shit out of Bowser, Jr.
  • Losing the boss battle with Bowser Jr. at Super Nintendo World and the attendant hands you the dongle so your kids can listen to Princess Peach crying in despair the entire drive home.
  • Explaining to the Super Nintendo World staff that you shouldn't need all the keys to get to the final boss because that's not how Mario games are typically structured.
  • The guy trying to backwards long jump the stairs to the final boss in Super Nintendo World.
  • A series of billboards that turn out to be a poem.
  • Which came first, the Pizza Hut or the building shaped like a hut that you make pizza in?
  • A racially insensitive fireworks store.
  • Dropping a CRT monitor off of a tall building vs. dropping an LCD display.
  • Raccoons witnessing crimes.
  • Shaking exactly two aspirin out of the bottle every single time.
  • An extremely opaque Pepper's Ghost.
  • Mega Man defeating Ennui Man and acquiring his powers.
  • Mega Man can't defeat Dr. Wily because of Asimov's Three Laws.
  • Dr. Light deleting Mega Man's special abilities between games because he needs the hard drive space for porn.
  • Mega Man choosing to forget Crash Man's memories because he's tired of remembering that awkward first date.
  • Dr. Wily hacking everyone's iPhone to have the latest U2 album.
  • Searching for lords and finding a random raccoon.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 211. Window-Peering Jim Checking Out Your Cats https://topiclords.com/window-peering-jim-checking-out-your-cats 228d0f9c-d36a-444b-90aa-7cbe5b49736b Mon, 06 Nov 2023 00:00:00 -0800 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Cort and Elena. We discuss your baby being due tomorrow, Dogme 95 for web development, visits from neighborhood cats, Potato by Jane Kenyon, the difficulty of designing cooperative board games, and building a conlang generator. 1:04:19 yes Lords: * Cort * https://a.co/d/iRrEZcy * Elena Topics: * My due date is literally tomorrow * Dogme 95 for web development * Visits from the neighborhood cats * Potato, by Jane Kenyon * https://poets.org/poem/potato-0 * Cooperative board games are hard to design * Space themed coop trick-taking card game: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/284083/crew-quest-planet-nine * Building a conlang generator from the phonology up * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonorityhierarchy * Linear algebra cursed conlang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze5ie_ryTk Microtopics: * The Be Real App. * Posting your mortifying skin condition for all the internet to see. * Being born. * The Dance Dance Revolution song "20,November," by Earth Wind and Fire. * PiCoSteveMo. * Tossing around hastily drawn concept art with your team. * Being born, again. * Having a kid for someone else. * Eating cigarettes off of the sidewalk. * A grab bag of thousands of possible pregnancy symptoms. * Literacy as a symptom of pregnancy. * A visceral reminder that you are part of a long chain of humans. * Which came first, humans or birth? * The comfort of the humans who are still around having individual experiences even after you die. * Tips n Tricks for dealing with fear of death. * Inviting dead people onto the show. * Asking for more pro-death art so you can feel better about death. * Pro-life, in the literal sense. * Flowers and mushrooms growing up through the bones. * Returning to the universe to nurture it. * Dumb Ways to Die. * Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlives. * Thought experiments about something weird that could happen. * The Egg by Andy Weir. * Covering birth and death in the same topic. * Looking at photos of yourself from five years ago and thinking "oh shit!" * I am choosing to no longer have conscious experience, mom. You wouldn't understand, mom. * Swedish with a mouthful of potatoes. * Dogme 95. * Enpoopification. * A protocol for exchanging information on a computer. * Rewinding to a kinder, simpler web. * Avoiding all this gestures at the world * New rule: no web servers more powerful than a Raspberry Pi. * The cool thing that was on the web in the mid-90s. * Making art and putting it on the internet and getting a fan base. * The teenage gamer comic series making a comic about prostate exams. * Sharding the internet. * El Goonish Shive. * Anime hammers that you do when someone is being a pervert. * Coming to personal revelations regarding your neurodivergence or gender situation. * How to be a successful artist. * Not knowing if your favorite webcomic had ads because you use an adblocker. * Working at your parents animation studio as an inbetweener. * Merging your cats into one cat. * Neighborhood coyotes. * Cats beyond the reach of fear. * Window-peering Jim: he's just checking out your remodel. * Putting a GoPro on your neighbor's cat and livestreaming the inside of their house. * Cats with amazing life stories that they'll never tell you. * The consort of coffee grounds. * Making shepherd's pie for an entire hamlet. * A possibly accidental double line break. * A line break corresponding to a conceptual boundary. * The Story of Mel: a Real Programmer. * Adding left angle brackets to the start of every line until word wrap makes it a poem. * Blackout poetry. * Pumping gas as an element of Cottagecore. * A hamlet is just a city in New Jersey. * The fireworks on your forehead game. * A game where everyone stops talking. * The Yelling Game. * A dedicated period of yelling. * Space-themed trick taking games. * The Spaceteam card game. * Coming up with a set of place names that sound like they're from the same culture. * Assigning syllable groups to a morpheme. * Asking Claude. * Interpolating the obvious things. * The Sonority Hierarchy. * A gradient from less vowel-like to more vowel-like. * Cursed Conlangs. * Generating syllables and mushing them together. Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • The Be Real App.
  • Posting your mortifying skin condition for all the internet to see.
  • Being born.
  • The Dance Dance Revolution song "20,November," by Earth Wind and Fire.
  • PiCoSteveMo.
  • Tossing around hastily drawn concept art with your team.
  • Being born, again.
  • Having a kid for someone else.
  • Eating cigarettes off of the sidewalk.
  • A grab bag of thousands of possible pregnancy symptoms.
  • Literacy as a symptom of pregnancy.
  • A visceral reminder that you are part of a long chain of humans.
  • Which came first, humans or birth?
  • The comfort of the humans who are still around having individual experiences even after you die.
  • Tips n Tricks for dealing with fear of death.
  • Inviting dead people onto the show.
  • Asking for more pro-death art so you can feel better about death.
  • Pro-life, in the literal sense.
  • Flowers and mushrooms growing up through the bones.
  • Returning to the universe to nurture it.
  • Dumb Ways to Die.
  • Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlives.
  • Thought experiments about something weird that could happen.
  • The Egg by Andy Weir.
  • Covering birth and death in the same topic.
  • Looking at photos of yourself from five years ago and thinking "oh shit!"
  • I am choosing to no longer have conscious experience, mom. You wouldn't understand, mom.
  • Swedish with a mouthful of potatoes.
  • Dogme 95.
  • Enpoopification.
  • A protocol for exchanging information on a computer.
  • Rewinding to a kinder, simpler web.
  • Avoiding all this gestures at the world
  • New rule: no web servers more powerful than a Raspberry Pi.
  • The cool thing that was on the web in the mid-90s.
  • Making art and putting it on the internet and getting a fan base.
  • The teenage gamer comic series making a comic about prostate exams.
  • Sharding the internet.
  • El Goonish Shive.
  • Anime hammers that you do when someone is being a pervert.
  • Coming to personal revelations regarding your neurodivergence or gender situation.
  • How to be a successful artist.
  • Not knowing if your favorite webcomic had ads because you use an adblocker.
  • Working at your parents animation studio as an inbetweener.
  • Merging your cats into one cat.
  • Neighborhood coyotes.
  • Cats beyond the reach of fear.
  • Window-peering Jim: he's just checking out your remodel.
  • Putting a GoPro on your neighbor's cat and livestreaming the inside of their house.
  • Cats with amazing life stories that they'll never tell you.
  • The consort of coffee grounds.
  • Making shepherd's pie for an entire hamlet.
  • A possibly accidental double line break.
  • A line break corresponding to a conceptual boundary.
  • The Story of Mel: a Real Programmer.
  • Adding left angle brackets to the start of every line until word wrap makes it a poem.
  • Blackout poetry.
  • Pumping gas as an element of Cottagecore.
  • A hamlet is just a city in New Jersey.
  • The fireworks on your forehead game.
  • A game where everyone stops talking.
  • The Yelling Game.
  • A dedicated period of yelling.
  • Space-themed trick taking games.
  • The Spaceteam card game.
  • Coming up with a set of place names that sound like they're from the same culture.
  • Assigning syllable groups to a morpheme.
  • Asking Claude.
  • Interpolating the obvious things.
  • The Sonority Hierarchy.
  • A gradient from less vowel-like to more vowel-like.
  • Cursed Conlangs.
  • Generating syllables and mushing them together.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • The Be Real App.
  • Posting your mortifying skin condition for all the internet to see.
  • Being born.
  • The Dance Dance Revolution song "20,November," by Earth Wind and Fire.
  • PiCoSteveMo.
  • Tossing around hastily drawn concept art with your team.
  • Being born, again.
  • Having a kid for someone else.
  • Eating cigarettes off of the sidewalk.
  • A grab bag of thousands of possible pregnancy symptoms.
  • Literacy as a symptom of pregnancy.
  • A visceral reminder that you are part of a long chain of humans.
  • Which came first, humans or birth?
  • The comfort of the humans who are still around having individual experiences even after you die.
  • Tips n Tricks for dealing with fear of death.
  • Inviting dead people onto the show.
  • Asking for more pro-death art so you can feel better about death.
  • Pro-life, in the literal sense.
  • Flowers and mushrooms growing up through the bones.
  • Returning to the universe to nurture it.
  • Dumb Ways to Die.
  • Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlives.
  • Thought experiments about something weird that could happen.
  • The Egg by Andy Weir.
  • Covering birth and death in the same topic.
  • Looking at photos of yourself from five years ago and thinking "oh shit!"
  • I am choosing to no longer have conscious experience, mom. You wouldn't understand, mom.
  • Swedish with a mouthful of potatoes.
  • Dogme 95.
  • Enpoopification.
  • A protocol for exchanging information on a computer.
  • Rewinding to a kinder, simpler web.
  • Avoiding all this gestures at the world
  • New rule: no web servers more powerful than a Raspberry Pi.
  • The cool thing that was on the web in the mid-90s.
  • Making art and putting it on the internet and getting a fan base.
  • The teenage gamer comic series making a comic about prostate exams.
  • Sharding the internet.
  • El Goonish Shive.
  • Anime hammers that you do when someone is being a pervert.
  • Coming to personal revelations regarding your neurodivergence or gender situation.
  • How to be a successful artist.
  • Not knowing if your favorite webcomic had ads because you use an adblocker.
  • Working at your parents animation studio as an inbetweener.
  • Merging your cats into one cat.
  • Neighborhood coyotes.
  • Cats beyond the reach of fear.
  • Window-peering Jim: he's just checking out your remodel.
  • Putting a GoPro on your neighbor's cat and livestreaming the inside of their house.
  • Cats with amazing life stories that they'll never tell you.
  • The consort of coffee grounds.
  • Making shepherd's pie for an entire hamlet.
  • A possibly accidental double line break.
  • A line break corresponding to a conceptual boundary.
  • The Story of Mel: a Real Programmer.
  • Adding left angle brackets to the start of every line until word wrap makes it a poem.
  • Blackout poetry.
  • Pumping gas as an element of Cottagecore.
  • A hamlet is just a city in New Jersey.
  • The fireworks on your forehead game.
  • A game where everyone stops talking.
  • The Yelling Game.
  • A dedicated period of yelling.
  • Space-themed trick taking games.
  • The Spaceteam card game.
  • Coming up with a set of place names that sound like they're from the same culture.
  • Assigning syllable groups to a morpheme.
  • Asking Claude.
  • Interpolating the obvious things.
  • The Sonority Hierarchy.
  • A gradient from less vowel-like to more vowel-like.
  • Cursed Conlangs.
  • Generating syllables and mushing them together.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 187. The Second-Best Whale Playground in Emeryville https://topiclords.com/the-second-best-whale-playground-in-emeryville 5f84c33d-04eb-435e-876b-0b91d5b59ac0 Mon, 22 May 2023 00:00:00 -0700 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Cort and Stephan. We discuss asymmetrical USB-C cables, playground improvement over the last decade, bedtime guitar, Where the Wild Things Are, classic game hardware as a kind of virtual console, and constructing a computing environment as a nested series of cages for a child to escape 1:08:13 yes Lords: * Cort * Stephan * https://lonelystarsoftware.itch.io/playdapon Topics: * USB-C cables that only work in one orientation * http://blog.zarfhome.com/2023/04/usb-c-and-plague-of-grackles.html * Playgrounds seem to have gotten really good again in the last ten years * Bedtime guitar update * Where the Wild Things Are * https://genius.com/Maurice-sendak-where-the-wild-things-are-annotated * Classic hardware has become a kind of fantasy console * https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/04/wi-fi-in-an-nes-cartridge-super-tilt-bro-takes-the-1985-console-online/ * https://www.thenew8bitheroes.com/ * https://www.gbstudio.dev/ * Constructing a computing environment as a nested series of cages for a child to escape Microtopics: * Extra plugs. * Mr. Saitou * How to sideload software onto the Playdate. * Trying to make Sifteo happen. * Where to find all the fancy MacIntosh dithering algorithms. * Ableton for the Sega Megadrive. * Who Zarf is. * EU legislation saying that phones must charge via USB-C, which is unsustainable, when the text of the law ought to have been "Apple, knock that shit off." * Getting rid of your bucket of cables. * Never throwing away wood because you might need one that shape some day * Never throwing away oddly shaped pieces of wood because you might become a carpenter some day. * Playgrounds getting bad and then good again. * Getting breakfast at the Emeryville Public Market. * Whether swings or seesaws still exist. * Giant wooden castles with bridges going between them. * How to make the spinny playground things safe. * A regionally variable playground. * What countries have and don't have playgrounds. * The San Lorenzo Community Park. * A big stone bear you can climb on. * Whether any of those playground speaking tubes have ever worked. * Wanting the world to have magic in it so you lie to your kid about science. * The Dennis the Menace playground in Monterey. * Periodically removing the poison oak. * Growing up and being on the other side of the memory. * The Dead Dad playground turning into a fenced-off deathtrap. * Procedural memory for nice melodies. * Mountain dulcimers vs. hammered dulcimers. * Walking around with a bandolier of mountain dulcimers, one for every key. * What happens when you're living in the Appalachians and you want to make a violin but you can't. * What to do with your ability to play an instrument when you have no free time. * Maintaining a consistent strumming pattern while singing. * Strumming and finding finger positions intuitively. * Here's all the notes. Play the right ones at the right times. * The Virtual Console of musical instruments. * Jim's favorite note in the mixolydian mode. * Where the Wild Things Are for Xbox 360. * A poem with hardly any punctuation. * Going on a journey of many weeks in just a few pages. * Max in a wolf suit fighting bees with a stick. * Maurice Sendak Kart Racer. * Dinosaur Time. * Clapping for names you know. * A building with dinosaur bones in it. * Rumpusing things. * Games where you whack shadow spiders with a stick. * GB Studio. * Putting a wifi adapter in an NES cartridge. * The Mario modding tool set. * An IDE for making NES games. * Pi-Boy D. * Doing homebrew development on a system that is still in active use. * Castlevania: Passacaglia of Disrepair. * GBA of Theseus. * Making a Lynx game that supports 8-player multiplayer, when there aren't 8 people who own the system. * Porting a game about matching colors to a monochrome display. * Giving your kids a computer running Linux to teach them sysadmin skills, but they just play games on their phone instead. * Branded Scratch Wrappers. * Composing new music for the extended What the Golf? cinematic universe. * How to unlock your school laptop to play the Chrome Dinosaur Game. Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Extra plugs.
  • Mr. Saitou
  • How to sideload software onto the Playdate.
  • Trying to make Sifteo happen.
  • Where to find all the fancy MacIntosh dithering algorithms.
  • Ableton for the Sega Megadrive.
  • Who Zarf is.
  • EU legislation saying that phones must charge via USB-C, which is unsustainable, when the text of the law ought to have been "Apple, knock that shit off."
  • Getting rid of your bucket of cables.
  • Never throwing away wood because you might need one that shape some day
  • Never throwing away oddly shaped pieces of wood because you might become a carpenter some day.
  • Playgrounds getting bad and then good again.
  • Getting breakfast at the Emeryville Public Market.
  • Whether swings or seesaws still exist.
  • Giant wooden castles with bridges going between them.
  • How to make the spinny playground things safe.
  • A regionally variable playground.
  • What countries have and don't have playgrounds.
  • The San Lorenzo Community Park.
  • A big stone bear you can climb on.
  • Whether any of those playground speaking tubes have ever worked.
  • Wanting the world to have magic in it so you lie to your kid about science.
  • The Dennis the Menace playground in Monterey.
  • Periodically removing the poison oak.
  • Growing up and being on the other side of the memory.
  • The Dead Dad playground turning into a fenced-off deathtrap.
  • Procedural memory for nice melodies.
  • Mountain dulcimers vs. hammered dulcimers.
  • Walking around with a bandolier of mountain dulcimers, one for every key.
  • What happens when you're living in the Appalachians and you want to make a violin but you can't.
  • What to do with your ability to play an instrument when you have no free time.
  • Maintaining a consistent strumming pattern while singing.
  • Strumming and finding finger positions intuitively.
  • Here's all the notes. Play the right ones at the right times.
  • The Virtual Console of musical instruments.
  • Jim's favorite note in the mixolydian mode.
  • Where the Wild Things Are for Xbox 360.
  • A poem with hardly any punctuation.
  • Going on a journey of many weeks in just a few pages.
  • Max in a wolf suit fighting bees with a stick.
  • Maurice Sendak Kart Racer.
  • Dinosaur Time.
  • Clapping for names you know.
  • A building with dinosaur bones in it.
  • Rumpusing things.
  • Games where you whack shadow spiders with a stick.
  • GB Studio.
  • Putting a wifi adapter in an NES cartridge.
  • The Mario modding tool set.
  • An IDE for making NES games.
  • Pi-Boy D.
  • Doing homebrew development on a system that is still in active use.
  • Castlevania: Passacaglia of Disrepair.
  • GBA of Theseus.
  • Making a Lynx game that supports 8-player multiplayer, when there aren't 8 people who own the system.
  • Porting a game about matching colors to a monochrome display.
  • Giving your kids a computer running Linux to teach them sysadmin skills, but they just play games on their phone instead.
  • Branded Scratch Wrappers.
  • Composing new music for the extended What the Golf? cinematic universe.
  • How to unlock your school laptop to play the Chrome Dinosaur Game.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Extra plugs.
  • Mr. Saitou
  • How to sideload software onto the Playdate.
  • Trying to make Sifteo happen.
  • Where to find all the fancy MacIntosh dithering algorithms.
  • Ableton for the Sega Megadrive.
  • Who Zarf is.
  • EU legislation saying that phones must charge via USB-C, which is unsustainable, when the text of the law ought to have been "Apple, knock that shit off."
  • Getting rid of your bucket of cables.
  • Never throwing away wood because you might need one that shape some day
  • Never throwing away oddly shaped pieces of wood because you might become a carpenter some day.
  • Playgrounds getting bad and then good again.
  • Getting breakfast at the Emeryville Public Market.
  • Whether swings or seesaws still exist.
  • Giant wooden castles with bridges going between them.
  • How to make the spinny playground things safe.
  • A regionally variable playground.
  • What countries have and don't have playgrounds.
  • The San Lorenzo Community Park.
  • A big stone bear you can climb on.
  • Whether any of those playground speaking tubes have ever worked.
  • Wanting the world to have magic in it so you lie to your kid about science.
  • The Dennis the Menace playground in Monterey.
  • Periodically removing the poison oak.
  • Growing up and being on the other side of the memory.
  • The Dead Dad playground turning into a fenced-off deathtrap.
  • Procedural memory for nice melodies.
  • Mountain dulcimers vs. hammered dulcimers.
  • Walking around with a bandolier of mountain dulcimers, one for every key.
  • What happens when you're living in the Appalachians and you want to make a violin but you can't.
  • What to do with your ability to play an instrument when you have no free time.
  • Maintaining a consistent strumming pattern while singing.
  • Strumming and finding finger positions intuitively.
  • Here's all the notes. Play the right ones at the right times.
  • The Virtual Console of musical instruments.
  • Jim's favorite note in the mixolydian mode.
  • Where the Wild Things Are for Xbox 360.
  • A poem with hardly any punctuation.
  • Going on a journey of many weeks in just a few pages.
  • Max in a wolf suit fighting bees with a stick.
  • Maurice Sendak Kart Racer.
  • Dinosaur Time.
  • Clapping for names you know.
  • A building with dinosaur bones in it.
  • Rumpusing things.
  • Games where you whack shadow spiders with a stick.
  • GB Studio.
  • Putting a wifi adapter in an NES cartridge.
  • The Mario modding tool set.
  • An IDE for making NES games.
  • Pi-Boy D.
  • Doing homebrew development on a system that is still in active use.
  • Castlevania: Passacaglia of Disrepair.
  • GBA of Theseus.
  • Making a Lynx game that supports 8-player multiplayer, when there aren't 8 people who own the system.
  • Porting a game about matching colors to a monochrome display.
  • Giving your kids a computer running Linux to teach them sysadmin skills, but they just play games on their phone instead.
  • Branded Scratch Wrappers.
  • Composing new music for the extended What the Golf? cinematic universe.
  • How to unlock your school laptop to play the Chrome Dinosaur Game.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 170. My Brain Likes the Things I Like https://topiclords.com/my-brain-likes-the-things-i-like c6cdc2d0-01b3-4c7f-a3ef-e8afb3000e26 Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0800 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Tyriq and Cort. We discuss fantasy consoles, music from the 80s, getting earwormed by a song that doesn't exist, and Aesop Rock - Ruby 81. 1:08:52 yes Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords) Lords: * Tyriq * FourBitFriday in all the places * Cort * Leftover Pumpkin Pie Curry https://savethefood.com/recipes/leftover-pumpkin-pie-and-turkey-curry/ Topics: * Fantasy consoles * https://github.com/paladin-t/fantasy * Tyriq's 80s homework * 80s homework playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3SbI8kec0NtJp8szqsl4Ek0lZHqvHjaX * Tyriq's reaction: https://topiclords.com/articles/80s-homework-reaction * I meant New Kids on the Block, of course. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Starr * You can't slake an earworm with 3/4 of a chorus * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlAeEcVnnvo * https://youtu.be/rI3yD3WAcz4 * Aesop Rock - Ruby 81 * https://genius.com/Aesop-rock-ruby-81-lyrics Microtopics: * The album you finished. * A song that is entirely made of uncleared samples. * Turning leftover pumpkin pie into delicious pumpkin spice curry. * Interactive Pico-8 holiday cards. * Artificial constraints pegged at a level of technology somewhere in the 80s. * Writing specs for Pico-16 so that you don't accidentally make Pico-16 when you're making Pico-8. * Seeking a box to work within. * The most played entry in your Steam library is something your kids left running for weeks. * A collection of 50 games made for a console that never existed. * List of Fantasy Consoles. * The fantasy console hidden as an Easter egg in the Frog Fractions hat DLC. * Four joysticks in your garage waiting for an arcade machine to be installed into. * Languages that transpile to Lua. * Emulating the PlayStation 9. * A fantasy console for making 4D games. * A popular game engine that starts with the letters UN. * Civilisation's relationship with art. * Hop's Big Adventure in the Gift Dimension. * All the problems with Lua. * The Pico-8 show with the Pico-Lords. * All the things people were doing in the 80s. * Playing an inaudible guitar. * The sound of somebody being chased. * All the good Meat Loaf albums. * An inspiring thing that shows up a lot in your life. * A hip hop album entirely devoid of metaphor. * Listening to the first fifteen seconds of each song on an album. * Drums that are emblematic of everything you hate about the 80s. * A big decade with a lot of things happening. * Gil Scott-Heron. * Music that is distinctly of the 80s vs. music that happened to be released in the 80s. * The musical equivalent of oatmeal. * Not liking the whole chorus, but liking the first chord change in the chorus. * The bass part of Like a Prayer. * Your superpower: knowing what marmite tastes like and knowing your don't like it. * Hyperactive j-pop with way too many chord changes. * Creating a mashup that is better than the sum of its parts, but only for ten seconds. * Purging an earworm with another earworm. * We Need a Bigger Dumpster, by Cheek Face. * The parts of your brain that you're not on speaking terms with. * A photographic memory for all audio except for words. * Songs about love or romance or being horny: get that shit out of here. * "Baby Got Back," a song about Sir Mix A Lot's infant and her extremely loaded diaper. * Waking the sleeping beagle. * Some kind of intentional arson. * Painting an evocative picture of an extremely specific moment in time. * Uncles and aunts and stuff everywhere. * Thank you, Genius! * Bad or text-to-speech bad? * Trying to fix all instances of a given fact that is wrong everywhere on the internet. * Wesley Willis writing the story song "Oil Express" because he wanted to write about oil changes. * Lords Rule, Nuff Said. Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • The album you finished.
  • A song that is entirely made of uncleared samples.
  • Turning leftover pumpkin pie into delicious pumpkin spice curry.
  • Interactive Pico-8 holiday cards.
  • Artificial constraints pegged at a level of technology somewhere in the 80s.
  • Writing specs for Pico-16 so that you don't accidentally make Pico-16 when you're making Pico-8.
  • Seeking a box to work within.
  • The most played entry in your Steam library is something your kids left running for weeks.
  • A collection of 50 games made for a console that never existed.
  • List of Fantasy Consoles.
  • The fantasy console hidden as an Easter egg in the Frog Fractions hat DLC.
  • Four joysticks in your garage waiting for an arcade machine to be installed into.
  • Languages that transpile to Lua.
  • Emulating the PlayStation 9.
  • A fantasy console for making 4D games.
  • A popular game engine that starts with the letters UN.
  • Civilisation's relationship with art.
  • Hop's Big Adventure in the Gift Dimension.
  • All the problems with Lua.
  • The Pico-8 show with the Pico-Lords.
  • All the things people were doing in the 80s.
  • Playing an inaudible guitar.
  • The sound of somebody being chased.
  • All the good Meat Loaf albums.
  • An inspiring thing that shows up a lot in your life.
  • A hip hop album entirely devoid of metaphor.
  • Listening to the first fifteen seconds of each song on an album.
  • Drums that are emblematic of everything you hate about the 80s.
  • A big decade with a lot of things happening.
  • Gil Scott-Heron.
  • Music that is distinctly of the 80s vs. music that happened to be released in the 80s.
  • The musical equivalent of oatmeal.
  • Not liking the whole chorus, but liking the first chord change in the chorus.
  • The bass part of Like a Prayer.
  • Your superpower: knowing what marmite tastes like and knowing your don't like it.
  • Hyperactive j-pop with way too many chord changes.
  • Creating a mashup that is better than the sum of its parts, but only for ten seconds.
  • Purging an earworm with another earworm.
  • We Need a Bigger Dumpster, by Cheek Face.
  • The parts of your brain that you're not on speaking terms with.
  • A photographic memory for all audio except for words.
  • Songs about love or romance or being horny: get that shit out of here.
  • "Baby Got Back," a song about Sir Mix A Lot's infant and her extremely loaded diaper.
  • Waking the sleeping beagle.
  • Some kind of intentional arson.
  • Painting an evocative picture of an extremely specific moment in time.
  • Uncles and aunts and stuff everywhere.
  • Thank you, Genius!
  • Bad or text-to-speech bad?
  • Trying to fix all instances of a given fact that is wrong everywhere on the internet.
  • Wesley Willis writing the story song "Oil Express" because he wanted to write about oil changes.
  • Lords Rule, Nuff Said.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • The album you finished.
  • A song that is entirely made of uncleared samples.
  • Turning leftover pumpkin pie into delicious pumpkin spice curry.
  • Interactive Pico-8 holiday cards.
  • Artificial constraints pegged at a level of technology somewhere in the 80s.
  • Writing specs for Pico-16 so that you don't accidentally make Pico-16 when you're making Pico-8.
  • Seeking a box to work within.
  • The most played entry in your Steam library is something your kids left running for weeks.
  • A collection of 50 games made for a console that never existed.
  • List of Fantasy Consoles.
  • The fantasy console hidden as an Easter egg in the Frog Fractions hat DLC.
  • Four joysticks in your garage waiting for an arcade machine to be installed into.
  • Languages that transpile to Lua.
  • Emulating the PlayStation 9.
  • A fantasy console for making 4D games.
  • A popular game engine that starts with the letters UN.
  • Civilisation's relationship with art.
  • Hop's Big Adventure in the Gift Dimension.
  • All the problems with Lua.
  • The Pico-8 show with the Pico-Lords.
  • All the things people were doing in the 80s.
  • Playing an inaudible guitar.
  • The sound of somebody being chased.
  • All the good Meat Loaf albums.
  • An inspiring thing that shows up a lot in your life.
  • A hip hop album entirely devoid of metaphor.
  • Listening to the first fifteen seconds of each song on an album.
  • Drums that are emblematic of everything you hate about the 80s.
  • A big decade with a lot of things happening.
  • Gil Scott-Heron.
  • Music that is distinctly of the 80s vs. music that happened to be released in the 80s.
  • The musical equivalent of oatmeal.
  • Not liking the whole chorus, but liking the first chord change in the chorus.
  • The bass part of Like a Prayer.
  • Your superpower: knowing what marmite tastes like and knowing your don't like it.
  • Hyperactive j-pop with way too many chord changes.
  • Creating a mashup that is better than the sum of its parts, but only for ten seconds.
  • Purging an earworm with another earworm.
  • We Need a Bigger Dumpster, by Cheek Face.
  • The parts of your brain that you're not on speaking terms with.
  • A photographic memory for all audio except for words.
  • Songs about love or romance or being horny: get that shit out of here.
  • "Baby Got Back," a song about Sir Mix A Lot's infant and her extremely loaded diaper.
  • Waking the sleeping beagle.
  • Some kind of intentional arson.
  • Painting an evocative picture of an extremely specific moment in time.
  • Uncles and aunts and stuff everywhere.
  • Thank you, Genius!
  • Bad or text-to-speech bad?
  • Trying to fix all instances of a given fact that is wrong everywhere on the internet.
  • Wesley Willis writing the story song "Oil Express" because he wanted to write about oil changes.
  • Lords Rule, Nuff Said.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 159. It's Beautiful That We Once Existed https://topiclords.com/its-beautiful-that-we-once-existed b6eab021-dcb9-4c7d-9d3e-802376104117 Mon, 07 Nov 2022 00:00:00 -0800 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Kev and Cort. We discuss losing all your memories around age 4, extreme "kids in trench coat" trope scenarios, Krista and Tatiana Hogan, "Autopsy" by Ross Sutherland, Neighbors overplaying the same playlist, and technology making creative expression easier. 1:06:47 yes Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords) Lords: * Kev * Cort * Cort's new album: https://postgoodism.bandcamp.com/album/tourism * The Frog Fractions vinyl: https://www.turtlepalstapes.com/product/frog-fractions-green * Monty Python's three-sided record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMontyPythonMatchingTieandHandkerchief * Locked grooves: https://www.yoursoundmatters.com/locked-grooves-endless-fun-literally/ * The Most Wanted Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jId-qaEwuvI * The Most Unwanted Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gPuH1yeZ08 Topics: * Before age ~4 you don't really make long-term memories, but you can develop long-term habits. How to best exploit this. * Spark : The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-Brain/dp/B08RZD6D4Z * Extreme "kids in trench coat" trope scenarios * Necrophilic landscape http://2dcloud.com/the-necrophilic-landscape * Artist Morgan Vogel https://www.tcj.com/morgan-vogel-1986-2020/ * Krista and Tatiana Hogan are conjoined at the brain. They share thoughts, senses and control of their bodies. * "Autopsy" by Ross Sutherland * I can't find a text transcript online, just a few records of Ross performing the poem. Nor does Ross himself have a "home page" per se. Here's a link to his podcast, it's great: https://www.imaginaryadvice.com/ * Neighbors overplaying the same playlist * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PrettyWoman(soundtrack) * https://www.worstideaofalltime.com/ * Is it unambiguously good that technology makes creative expression easier? Microtopics: * Mic on, pants off. * The inherent meaningless of "limited editions" in a finite universe ultimately bound for a slow heat death. * Vinyl record Easter eggs. * A big ol' spiral cut into the vinyl. * Limited characteristics of a physical process. * Mental models of what it means to master an album. * Novelty vinyl colors. * Jim's burgeoning record collection. * The most glorious twenty minute act of art terrorism. * Losing access to your old memories because your brain changed formats. * How to erase medical debt by just not paying it. * Borrowing money from your toddler. * Spark: the revolution of exercise or some other subtitle. * Mollusks eating their own nervous systems. * Eating your own childhood to launch yourself into adulthood. * Upping the emotional stakes with large animals and near-death experiences. * Putting your girlfriend in mortal danger so that she's more likely to want to marry you. * Getting pigeonholed as a really good butt. * Getting surgically separated so you can disguise yourself as two kids in a trench coat. * The hemispheres of the brain as independent entities which happen to share a body. * Lumps of biology. * Every person's unique inability to speak to other people's interiority. * Walkie-talkie telepathy vs. "perfect mutual understanding" telepathy. * One mind with two faces. * Superhuman limb/vocal cord coordination. * Segue Week. * Burroughs cut-ups. * Vigorous grandparenting with a face of terror. * A modern-day television quiz show phoenix. * The impenetrable free-form rhymes of a heart attack in October. * The greets. * Tracker music instrument names as cut-up poetry generators. * Super Obituaries! * The potentially transformative effect of reading your own obituary. * The perverse incentives behind soliciting reviews of unfinished games. * The awesome power of knowing that your feedback will be considered. * The neighbor who only listens to Rod Stewart's Greatest Hits over and over again. * Listening to entire albums until you're so sick of them that you underflow and love them again. * The song you have to listen to to get to Roxette's It Must Have Been Love. * Bad podcast ideas. * Novelty t-shirts whose joke is only funny once, but you still wear it once a week * The shirt with the Fight Club and the cognitive science reference on it. * Shirts/tattoos as pop culture dog whistles. * Getting a tattoo of the Colossus' weak points so that you can meet the people who stab you there. * Naming your game's public alpha something innocent so it doesn't arouse suspicion when your friends see you playing it. * The hazards of wearing a shirt promoting a pop culture reference you know nothing about. * Wearing a shirt that makes people try to talk to you about a video game you've never played. * All the people you disappointed in high school. * NPCs in Thief Deadly Shadows talking about how hard it is to get a job making games. * A bright future where nobody can make a living making video games. * A bright future where AIs curate collections of AI-generated content. * A case for the 1991 film "Super Mario Brothers" as the pinnacle of entertainment. * Charles Martinet doing the Mario voice as he leaps to his death from a roof in "The Game." Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Mic on, pants off.
  • The inherent meaningless of "limited editions" in a finite universe ultimately bound for a slow heat death.
  • Vinyl record Easter eggs.
  • A big ol' spiral cut into the vinyl.
  • Limited characteristics of a physical process.
  • Mental models of what it means to master an album.
  • Novelty vinyl colors.
  • Jim's burgeoning record collection.
  • The most glorious twenty minute act of art terrorism.
  • Losing access to your old memories because your brain changed formats.
  • How to erase medical debt by just not paying it.
  • Borrowing money from your toddler.
  • Spark: the revolution of exercise or some other subtitle.
  • Mollusks eating their own nervous systems.
  • Eating your own childhood to launch yourself into adulthood.
  • Upping the emotional stakes with large animals and near-death experiences.
  • Putting your girlfriend in mortal danger so that she's more likely to want to marry you.
  • Getting pigeonholed as a really good butt.
  • Getting surgically separated so you can disguise yourself as two kids in a trench coat.
  • The hemispheres of the brain as independent entities which happen to share a body.
  • Lumps of biology.
  • Every person's unique inability to speak to other people's interiority.
  • Walkie-talkie telepathy vs. "perfect mutual understanding" telepathy.
  • One mind with two faces.
  • Superhuman limb/vocal cord coordination.
  • Segue Week.
  • Burroughs cut-ups.
  • Vigorous grandparenting with a face of terror.
  • A modern-day television quiz show phoenix.
  • The impenetrable free-form rhymes of a heart attack in October.
  • The greets.
  • Tracker music instrument names as cut-up poetry generators.
  • Super Obituaries!
  • The potentially transformative effect of reading your own obituary.
  • The perverse incentives behind soliciting reviews of unfinished games.
  • The awesome power of knowing that your feedback will be considered.
  • The neighbor who only listens to Rod Stewart's Greatest Hits over and over again.
  • Listening to entire albums until you're so sick of them that you underflow and love them again.
  • The song you have to listen to to get to Roxette's It Must Have Been Love.
  • Bad podcast ideas.
  • Novelty t-shirts whose joke is only funny once, but you still wear it once a week
  • The shirt with the Fight Club and the cognitive science reference on it.
  • Shirts/tattoos as pop culture dog whistles.
  • Getting a tattoo of the Colossus' weak points so that you can meet the people who stab you there.
  • Naming your game's public alpha something innocent so it doesn't arouse suspicion when your friends see you playing it.
  • The hazards of wearing a shirt promoting a pop culture reference you know nothing about.
  • Wearing a shirt that makes people try to talk to you about a video game you've never played.
  • All the people you disappointed in high school.
  • NPCs in Thief Deadly Shadows talking about how hard it is to get a job making games.
  • A bright future where nobody can make a living making video games.
  • A bright future where AIs curate collections of AI-generated content.
  • A case for the 1991 film "Super Mario Brothers" as the pinnacle of entertainment.
  • Charles Martinet doing the Mario voice as he leaps to his death from a roof in "The Game."

Support Topic Lords

]]> Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Mic on, pants off.
  • The inherent meaningless of "limited editions" in a finite universe ultimately bound for a slow heat death.
  • Vinyl record Easter eggs.
  • A big ol' spiral cut into the vinyl.
  • Limited characteristics of a physical process.
  • Mental models of what it means to master an album.
  • Novelty vinyl colors.
  • Jim's burgeoning record collection.
  • The most glorious twenty minute act of art terrorism.
  • Losing access to your old memories because your brain changed formats.
  • How to erase medical debt by just not paying it.
  • Borrowing money from your toddler.
  • Spark: the revolution of exercise or some other subtitle.
  • Mollusks eating their own nervous systems.
  • Eating your own childhood to launch yourself into adulthood.
  • Upping the emotional stakes with large animals and near-death experiences.
  • Putting your girlfriend in mortal danger so that she's more likely to want to marry you.
  • Getting pigeonholed as a really good butt.
  • Getting surgically separated so you can disguise yourself as two kids in a trench coat.
  • The hemispheres of the brain as independent entities which happen to share a body.
  • Lumps of biology.
  • Every person's unique inability to speak to other people's interiority.
  • Walkie-talkie telepathy vs. "perfect mutual understanding" telepathy.
  • One mind with two faces.
  • Superhuman limb/vocal cord coordination.
  • Segue Week.
  • Burroughs cut-ups.
  • Vigorous grandparenting with a face of terror.
  • A modern-day television quiz show phoenix.
  • The impenetrable free-form rhymes of a heart attack in October.
  • The greets.
  • Tracker music instrument names as cut-up poetry generators.
  • Super Obituaries!
  • The potentially transformative effect of reading your own obituary.
  • The perverse incentives behind soliciting reviews of unfinished games.
  • The awesome power of knowing that your feedback will be considered.
  • The neighbor who only listens to Rod Stewart's Greatest Hits over and over again.
  • Listening to entire albums until you're so sick of them that you underflow and love them again.
  • The song you have to listen to to get to Roxette's It Must Have Been Love.
  • Bad podcast ideas.
  • Novelty t-shirts whose joke is only funny once, but you still wear it once a week
  • The shirt with the Fight Club and the cognitive science reference on it.
  • Shirts/tattoos as pop culture dog whistles.
  • Getting a tattoo of the Colossus' weak points so that you can meet the people who stab you there.
  • Naming your game's public alpha something innocent so it doesn't arouse suspicion when your friends see you playing it.
  • The hazards of wearing a shirt promoting a pop culture reference you know nothing about.
  • Wearing a shirt that makes people try to talk to you about a video game you've never played.
  • All the people you disappointed in high school.
  • NPCs in Thief Deadly Shadows talking about how hard it is to get a job making games.
  • A bright future where nobody can make a living making video games.
  • A bright future where AIs curate collections of AI-generated content.
  • A case for the 1991 film "Super Mario Brothers" as the pinnacle of entertainment.
  • Charles Martinet doing the Mario voice as he leaps to his death from a roof in "The Game."

Support Topic Lords

]]> 132. A Miserable Pile of Knuckles https://topiclords.com/a-miserable-pile-of-knuckles 8eb98b94-a315-412f-85d9-f7db663362ac Mon, 02 May 2022 00:00:00 -0700 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Jenni and Cort. We discuss novel uses for hundreds of surplus ceramic clown statues, thinking about household stuff as a system you can design to meet your needs instead of a cultural lifestyle obligation, Sidetalkin', Big Black Elephant, giving people a video game so they can paradigm shift, and games or sports that started out as fictional, but that people actually play. 50:54 yes Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords) Lords: * Cort * https://twitter.com/postgoodism * Jenni * https://twitter.com/horsewizrd/ Topics: * Novel uses for hundreds of surplus ceramic clown statues * Thinking about household stuff as a system you can design to meet your needs instead of a cultural lifestyle obligation * Sidetalkin' * https://sidetalkin.com/ * Big Black Elephant * https://www.poem-generator.org.uk/18tpkl8q/big-black-elephant.html * People are reluctant to shift their paradigm in real life but give them a video game & they're all for it * http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders-from-mars.html * Games or sports that started out as fictional, but that people actually play Microtopics: * Jenni, she slash her. * A poem that could've been an email. * OST Jam. * If every time you were in a room there was someone else in the room doing the game thing you were doing. * Just trying to enjoy a leisurely video game when suddenly a co-op partner shows up and starts getting impatient with you. * Animals but wet. * Animals but they are in the ocean and don't have legs so they can't kick butt. * The duality of having legs. * The many-faceted world butt. * Try fish: you're welcome. * Becoming deeply involved in the design and production of novelty clown statues. * Who's this unsold clown? * Whether the prenup addresses any of the potential clown situations. * How many clowns could fit in a bed and breakfast. * Monogrammed businessclowns. * How to buy yourself a Lordy. * Sending unsolicited clowns in the mail. * Stacking the clowns until you can ascend to clown heaven. * Cleaning help and support for neurodivergent people to clean our filthy filthy houses. * The act of living in a house and putting things in places. * Keeping your silverware in the freezer. * A house where the forks turn into spoons. * A basket for clothes that are not so dirty that they need to be washed immediately. * Food that is technically rotten but not so rotten that you can't eat it. * The room in your house where the gravity is lower and you float. * Holding a phone up to your face like a taco. * Hundreds of pictures of people holding weird shit up to their heads. * Why all the women are at the end of the page. * Announcing a new consumer electronics device by submitting it to sidetalkin.com. * Side-snorin'. * A fun web site for if you want to look at objects. * A pregnant woman with her belly painted to look like your face. * Copying all the worst aspects of the Virtual Boy. * Whether you want to download jivetalkin.midi. * A poem shaped like something. * Updo bleak curious quiet. * Desert thumbs. * Rather pale pagasus. * A poem that generates its own blurb. * The entire front edge of the pegasus. * Why so political, pagasus? * Any thumb you want it to be. * Defining a thumb by its oppositionality. * Rooting for and with the thumb. * Your boomer aunt who has a really specific idea of gender roles. * Disrupting your toothbrush. * Your beaver farm where the underwear comes down the chute and you feed the underwear to the beavers and put the beavers in the juicer and sell the beaver juice to Lenny who gives you gems you can use to play Scrabble but you only get so many tiles per minute unless you're willing to sit and tap video ads, and whether that's a paradigm shift. * Willingness to think through processes and systems. * A shmup where you control a whale research vessel. * Taking the one skill you have in this life and using it to create heavy handed, ineffective political satire. * Making an exit poll to find out what percentage of players actually learned something from your propaganda simulator game and what percentage just min-maxed the numbers because it was a fun puzzle. * What paradigm you're imagining shifting, exactly. * Every game developer's cottage-core retirement fantasy. * Making video games without ever talking to anyone on Twitter. * Who's the beardy guy dot com. * Scrolling through pictures of beardy guys until you find the right one. * Jugger. * Carrying the macguffin into your opponent's goal. * Arcane rules about who's allowed to touch the dog skull and when. * The global governing body in charge of the rules of Discs of Tron. * The schism in the Jugger community. * Teaching a three year old chess boxing. * Snapdragon. * Taking turns grabbing raisins of a flaming bowl of brandy. * Tucking a clove into one of the raisins and whoever grabs that raisin out of the bowl of flaming brandy gets to stop reaching into the bowl of flaming brandy. * Flaming tennis ball catch. * Calvin Ball, III. * The delicate balance of taking letters out of a username until you get to one that's not taken, before you get to names that are definitely taken because they're so short. Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Jenni, she slash her.
  • A poem that could've been an email.
  • OST Jam.
  • If every time you were in a room there was someone else in the room doing the game thing you were doing.
  • Just trying to enjoy a leisurely video game when suddenly a co-op partner shows up and starts getting impatient with you.
  • Animals but wet.
  • Animals but they are in the ocean and don't have legs so they can't kick butt.
  • The duality of having legs.
  • The many-faceted world butt.
  • Try fish: you're welcome.
  • Becoming deeply involved in the design and production of novelty clown statues.
  • Who's this unsold clown?
  • Whether the prenup addresses any of the potential clown situations.
  • How many clowns could fit in a bed and breakfast.
  • Monogrammed businessclowns.
  • How to buy yourself a Lordy.
  • Sending unsolicited clowns in the mail.
  • Stacking the clowns until you can ascend to clown heaven.
  • Cleaning help and support for neurodivergent people to clean our filthy filthy houses.
  • The act of living in a house and putting things in places.
  • Keeping your silverware in the freezer.
  • A house where the forks turn into spoons.
  • A basket for clothes that are not so dirty that they need to be washed immediately.
  • Food that is technically rotten but not so rotten that you can't eat it.
  • The room in your house where the gravity is lower and you float.
  • Holding a phone up to your face like a taco.
  • Hundreds of pictures of people holding weird shit up to their heads.
  • Why all the women are at the end of the page.
  • Announcing a new consumer electronics device by submitting it to sidetalkin.com.
  • Side-snorin'.
  • A fun web site for if you want to look at objects.
  • A pregnant woman with her belly painted to look like your face.
  • Copying all the worst aspects of the Virtual Boy.
  • Whether you want to download jivetalkin.midi.
  • A poem shaped like something.
  • Updo bleak curious quiet.
  • Desert thumbs.
  • Rather pale pagasus.
  • A poem that generates its own blurb.
  • The entire front edge of the pegasus.
  • Why so political, pagasus?
  • Any thumb you want it to be.
  • Defining a thumb by its oppositionality.
  • Rooting for and with the thumb.
  • Your boomer aunt who has a really specific idea of gender roles.
  • Disrupting your toothbrush.
  • Your beaver farm where the underwear comes down the chute and you feed the underwear to the beavers and put the beavers in the juicer and sell the beaver juice to Lenny who gives you gems you can use to play Scrabble but you only get so many tiles per minute unless you're willing to sit and tap video ads, and whether that's a paradigm shift.
  • Willingness to think through processes and systems.
  • A shmup where you control a whale research vessel.
  • Taking the one skill you have in this life and using it to create heavy handed, ineffective political satire.
  • Making an exit poll to find out what percentage of players actually learned something from your propaganda simulator game and what percentage just min-maxed the numbers because it was a fun puzzle.
  • What paradigm you're imagining shifting, exactly.
  • Every game developer's cottage-core retirement fantasy.
  • Making video games without ever talking to anyone on Twitter.
  • Who's the beardy guy dot com.
  • Scrolling through pictures of beardy guys until you find the right one.
  • Jugger.
  • Carrying the macguffin into your opponent's goal.
  • Arcane rules about who's allowed to touch the dog skull and when.
  • The global governing body in charge of the rules of Discs of Tron.
  • The schism in the Jugger community.
  • Teaching a three year old chess boxing.
  • Snapdragon.
  • Taking turns grabbing raisins of a flaming bowl of brandy.
  • Tucking a clove into one of the raisins and whoever grabs that raisin out of the bowl of flaming brandy gets to stop reaching into the bowl of flaming brandy.
  • Flaming tennis ball catch.
  • Calvin Ball, III.
  • The delicate balance of taking letters out of a username until you get to one that's not taken, before you get to names that are definitely taken because they're so short.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Jenni, she slash her.
  • A poem that could've been an email.
  • OST Jam.
  • If every time you were in a room there was someone else in the room doing the game thing you were doing.
  • Just trying to enjoy a leisurely video game when suddenly a co-op partner shows up and starts getting impatient with you.
  • Animals but wet.
  • Animals but they are in the ocean and don't have legs so they can't kick butt.
  • The duality of having legs.
  • The many-faceted world butt.
  • Try fish: you're welcome.
  • Becoming deeply involved in the design and production of novelty clown statues.
  • Who's this unsold clown?
  • Whether the prenup addresses any of the potential clown situations.
  • How many clowns could fit in a bed and breakfast.
  • Monogrammed businessclowns.
  • How to buy yourself a Lordy.
  • Sending unsolicited clowns in the mail.
  • Stacking the clowns until you can ascend to clown heaven.
  • Cleaning help and support for neurodivergent people to clean our filthy filthy houses.
  • The act of living in a house and putting things in places.
  • Keeping your silverware in the freezer.
  • A house where the forks turn into spoons.
  • A basket for clothes that are not so dirty that they need to be washed immediately.
  • Food that is technically rotten but not so rotten that you can't eat it.
  • The room in your house where the gravity is lower and you float.
  • Holding a phone up to your face like a taco.
  • Hundreds of pictures of people holding weird shit up to their heads.
  • Why all the women are at the end of the page.
  • Announcing a new consumer electronics device by submitting it to sidetalkin.com.
  • Side-snorin'.
  • A fun web site for if you want to look at objects.
  • A pregnant woman with her belly painted to look like your face.
  • Copying all the worst aspects of the Virtual Boy.
  • Whether you want to download jivetalkin.midi.
  • A poem shaped like something.
  • Updo bleak curious quiet.
  • Desert thumbs.
  • Rather pale pagasus.
  • A poem that generates its own blurb.
  • The entire front edge of the pegasus.
  • Why so political, pagasus?
  • Any thumb you want it to be.
  • Defining a thumb by its oppositionality.
  • Rooting for and with the thumb.
  • Your boomer aunt who has a really specific idea of gender roles.
  • Disrupting your toothbrush.
  • Your beaver farm where the underwear comes down the chute and you feed the underwear to the beavers and put the beavers in the juicer and sell the beaver juice to Lenny who gives you gems you can use to play Scrabble but you only get so many tiles per minute unless you're willing to sit and tap video ads, and whether that's a paradigm shift.
  • Willingness to think through processes and systems.
  • A shmup where you control a whale research vessel.
  • Taking the one skill you have in this life and using it to create heavy handed, ineffective political satire.
  • Making an exit poll to find out what percentage of players actually learned something from your propaganda simulator game and what percentage just min-maxed the numbers because it was a fun puzzle.
  • What paradigm you're imagining shifting, exactly.
  • Every game developer's cottage-core retirement fantasy.
  • Making video games without ever talking to anyone on Twitter.
  • Who's the beardy guy dot com.
  • Scrolling through pictures of beardy guys until you find the right one.
  • Jugger.
  • Carrying the macguffin into your opponent's goal.
  • Arcane rules about who's allowed to touch the dog skull and when.
  • The global governing body in charge of the rules of Discs of Tron.
  • The schism in the Jugger community.
  • Teaching a three year old chess boxing.
  • Snapdragon.
  • Taking turns grabbing raisins of a flaming bowl of brandy.
  • Tucking a clove into one of the raisins and whoever grabs that raisin out of the bowl of flaming brandy gets to stop reaching into the bowl of flaming brandy.
  • Flaming tennis ball catch.
  • Calvin Ball, III.
  • The delicate balance of taking letters out of a username until you get to one that's not taken, before you get to names that are definitely taken because they're so short.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 127. Let's e e cummings This Up https://topiclords.com/lets-e-e-cummings-this-up 60e8ca87-b7a3-43a1-aa5b-fbf9664888ea Mon, 28 Mar 2022 00:00:00 -0700 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Cort and Fabian. We discuss Black Square Day, why we have nostalgia for old computers even though they were terrible, the Dirtywave M8 tracker, and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost. 1:13:50 yes Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords) Lords: * Cort * https://twitter.com/postgoodism * Fabian * https://twitter.com/rygorous Topics: * Black Square Day (inventing holidays and subsequently forgetting everything about them) * Nostalgia for old computers isn't because they were good, but because they sucked in ways that were simple to understand * The Dirtywave M8 tracker * Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost * https://www.greatestpoems.com/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening/ Microtopics: * The music videos of Max Cooper. * Styptic pencils. * Doing archaeology on your own Google calendar. * A stable time loop where your future self adds "Black Square Day" to your calendar. * Bringing a palindrome to the palindrome party. * Telling your visitors "it's Black Square Day; dress appropriately." * Celebrating the day you really burned the casserole. * Black Squaroling. * A way that your community organizes itself. * Getting in a pissing contest with your neighbors about whose house has the most black squares. * Booting up to a BASIC prompt so you need to write a short BASIC program to load the program you want to run (probably another BASIC program) * How the Commodore 64 BASIC determined where the line you were editing started and ended. * How Commodore 64 BASIC stored lines of code internally. * Survivorship bias among early microcomputer users. * Accepting a certain level of brokenness because fixing the problem will take an unbounded amount of time. * Machines that are simple enough for a single human to understand vs. those that are not. * What percentage of the Commodore 64's ROM is dedicated to implementing floating point math. * Varying levels of nostalgia for developing for the Playstation 3. * The room in London that the Playstation 2 had instead of a debugger. * The Tool PS2. * Fetishization of the mid-2010s tower PC * Second order nostalgia, for what 90s emulation of 80s games looked like. * Nostalgia for objectively terrible art style. * All the walls swimming all the time. * The 15 year nostalgia gap where nobody wants to remember the early 3D console games. * Making music on the toilet every day. * Trackers. * What Trackers are better at vs. traditional DAWs. * Music that ships with its own source code. * Technical limitations transforming into a unique aesthetic. * How to hide a second song in the same tracker module. * Doing a thing on the screen while music loops. * A portable device to edit spreadsheets that only has a trackball. * Looking at your song through a straw. * Loading a ProTracker module in FastTracker. * Trying to identify which tracker created the MOD you're reading by looking for file format bugs unique to that tracker. * Fixing bugs by hex editing an executable and that becomes the version everybody uses now. * What you call it when an archaeologist writes the file spec. * Unknown sources of dubious quality. * Lore of unknown provenance about how to play a mod file. * Watching dense notation scrolling by. * Loading tracker music into various players to see how their performances of the same material vary. * Trying to load up music you wrote fifteen years ago and needing to source old versions of all the plugins you used. * Watching the woods fill up with snow. * A very evocative one of those. * Whether sleep represents death in this poem or if it's just sleep this time. * Why write a poem. * Interviewing the author of a poem and then interviewing everyone who ever read the poem before writing the authoritative interpretation of that poem. * A joke that doesn't really seem like a joke at all. * Rating a poem on a five star scale and then deciding how many of those stars belong to each of the stanzas. * The Three Musketeers sequels that nobody has read. * Getting paid by the line and adding a character to your story that speaks only one word at a time. * How to write 300 books a year. * Taking out the but because there's nothing for it to but. * Ceramic clown statues. Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

Topics:

  • Black Square Day (inventing holidays and subsequently forgetting everything about them)
  • Nostalgia for old computers isn't because they were good, but because they sucked in ways that were simple to understand
  • The Dirtywave M8 tracker
  • Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost

Microtopics:

  • The music videos of Max Cooper.
  • Styptic pencils.
  • Doing archaeology on your own Google calendar.
  • A stable time loop where your future self adds "Black Square Day" to your calendar.
  • Bringing a palindrome to the palindrome party.
  • Telling your visitors "it's Black Square Day; dress appropriately."
  • Celebrating the day you really burned the casserole.
  • Black Squaroling.
  • A way that your community organizes itself.
  • Getting in a pissing contest with your neighbors about whose house has the most black squares.
  • Booting up to a BASIC prompt so you need to write a short BASIC program to load the program you want to run (probably another BASIC program)
  • How the Commodore 64 BASIC determined where the line you were editing started and ended.
  • How Commodore 64 BASIC stored lines of code internally.
  • Survivorship bias among early microcomputer users.
  • Accepting a certain level of brokenness because fixing the problem will take an unbounded amount of time.
  • Machines that are simple enough for a single human to understand vs. those that are not.
  • What percentage of the Commodore 64's ROM is dedicated to implementing floating point math.
  • Varying levels of nostalgia for developing for the Playstation 3.
  • The room in London that the Playstation 2 had instead of a debugger.
  • The Tool PS2.
  • Fetishization of the mid-2010s tower PC
  • Second order nostalgia, for what 90s emulation of 80s games looked like.
  • Nostalgia for objectively terrible art style.
  • All the walls swimming all the time.
  • The 15 year nostalgia gap where nobody wants to remember the early 3D console games.
  • Making music on the toilet every day.
  • Trackers.
  • What Trackers are better at vs. traditional DAWs.
  • Music that ships with its own source code.
  • Technical limitations transforming into a unique aesthetic.
  • How to hide a second song in the same tracker module.
  • Doing a thing on the screen while music loops.
  • A portable device to edit spreadsheets that only has a trackball.
  • Looking at your song through a straw.
  • Loading a ProTracker module in FastTracker.
  • Trying to identify which tracker created the MOD you're reading by looking for file format bugs unique to that tracker.
  • Fixing bugs by hex editing an executable and that becomes the version everybody uses now.
  • What you call it when an archaeologist writes the file spec.
  • Unknown sources of dubious quality.
  • Lore of unknown provenance about how to play a mod file.
  • Watching dense notation scrolling by.
  • Loading tracker music into various players to see how their performances of the same material vary.
  • Trying to load up music you wrote fifteen years ago and needing to source old versions of all the plugins you used.
  • Watching the woods fill up with snow.
  • A very evocative one of those.
  • Whether sleep represents death in this poem or if it's just sleep this time.
  • Why write a poem.
  • Interviewing the author of a poem and then interviewing everyone who ever read the poem before writing the authoritative interpretation of that poem.
  • A joke that doesn't really seem like a joke at all.
  • Rating a poem on a five star scale and then deciding how many of those stars belong to each of the stanzas.
  • The Three Musketeers sequels that nobody has read.
  • Getting paid by the line and adding a character to your story that speaks only one word at a time.
  • How to write 300 books a year.
  • Taking out the but because there's nothing for it to but.
  • Ceramic clown statues.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

Topics:

  • Black Square Day (inventing holidays and subsequently forgetting everything about them)
  • Nostalgia for old computers isn't because they were good, but because they sucked in ways that were simple to understand
  • The Dirtywave M8 tracker
  • Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost

Microtopics:

  • The music videos of Max Cooper.
  • Styptic pencils.
  • Doing archaeology on your own Google calendar.
  • A stable time loop where your future self adds "Black Square Day" to your calendar.
  • Bringing a palindrome to the palindrome party.
  • Telling your visitors "it's Black Square Day; dress appropriately."
  • Celebrating the day you really burned the casserole.
  • Black Squaroling.
  • A way that your community organizes itself.
  • Getting in a pissing contest with your neighbors about whose house has the most black squares.
  • Booting up to a BASIC prompt so you need to write a short BASIC program to load the program you want to run (probably another BASIC program)
  • How the Commodore 64 BASIC determined where the line you were editing started and ended.
  • How Commodore 64 BASIC stored lines of code internally.
  • Survivorship bias among early microcomputer users.
  • Accepting a certain level of brokenness because fixing the problem will take an unbounded amount of time.
  • Machines that are simple enough for a single human to understand vs. those that are not.
  • What percentage of the Commodore 64's ROM is dedicated to implementing floating point math.
  • Varying levels of nostalgia for developing for the Playstation 3.
  • The room in London that the Playstation 2 had instead of a debugger.
  • The Tool PS2.
  • Fetishization of the mid-2010s tower PC
  • Second order nostalgia, for what 90s emulation of 80s games looked like.
  • Nostalgia for objectively terrible art style.
  • All the walls swimming all the time.
  • The 15 year nostalgia gap where nobody wants to remember the early 3D console games.
  • Making music on the toilet every day.
  • Trackers.
  • What Trackers are better at vs. traditional DAWs.
  • Music that ships with its own source code.
  • Technical limitations transforming into a unique aesthetic.
  • How to hide a second song in the same tracker module.
  • Doing a thing on the screen while music loops.
  • A portable device to edit spreadsheets that only has a trackball.
  • Looking at your song through a straw.
  • Loading a ProTracker module in FastTracker.
  • Trying to identify which tracker created the MOD you're reading by looking for file format bugs unique to that tracker.
  • Fixing bugs by hex editing an executable and that becomes the version everybody uses now.
  • What you call it when an archaeologist writes the file spec.
  • Unknown sources of dubious quality.
  • Lore of unknown provenance about how to play a mod file.
  • Watching dense notation scrolling by.
  • Loading tracker music into various players to see how their performances of the same material vary.
  • Trying to load up music you wrote fifteen years ago and needing to source old versions of all the plugins you used.
  • Watching the woods fill up with snow.
  • A very evocative one of those.
  • Whether sleep represents death in this poem or if it's just sleep this time.
  • Why write a poem.
  • Interviewing the author of a poem and then interviewing everyone who ever read the poem before writing the authoritative interpretation of that poem.
  • A joke that doesn't really seem like a joke at all.
  • Rating a poem on a five star scale and then deciding how many of those stars belong to each of the stanzas.
  • The Three Musketeers sequels that nobody has read.
  • Getting paid by the line and adding a character to your story that speaks only one word at a time.
  • How to write 300 books a year.
  • Taking out the but because there's nothing for it to but.
  • Ceramic clown statues.

Support Topic Lords

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