web02.fireside.fm Tue, 14 Apr 2026 08:49:30 -0500 Fireside (https://fireside.fm) Topic Lords - Episodes Tagged with “Jonah” https://topiclords.com/tags/jonah Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0700 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 233. A Huge Pile of Gold You Just Use To Shoot Porn On https://topiclords.com/a-huge-pile-of-gold-you-just-use-to-shoot-porn-on 8e98eeee-453a-4cd3-af63-367c254209bf Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0700 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Jonah and AC. We discuss listening to music backwards, decentralized manufacturing, other terms like "foodies" to describe those who are super into universal bodily functions, The Bathroom Line, by Jesse Thurston and playtesting Legos. 1:12:35 yes Lords: * Jonah * AC Topics: * When was the last time you listened to a song backwards? * Decentralized manufacturing * Are there other terms like "foodies," to describe those who are super into universal bodily functions? * The Bathroom Line, by Jesse Thurston * Playtesting legos Microtopics: * Pet Rock Dot Site * Whether rhythm is a kind of sound. * A rhythm synthesizer that produces control voltages. * All the things you could hypothetically like about New York City. * Crowded speculative real estate. * Canada's role as a fire hazard. * The power company in charge of all the wildfires. * What happened to Smokey the Bear. * Stopping for lobsters crossing the highway. * Whether Smokey the Bear died in his sleep. * Putting the oven on self clean and it cleans your whole house. * Bringing back Satanic Panic to make backmasking cool again. * Constructing a cliff that echoes backwards. * Musique Concrete. * The kind of people who would make an album in Csound. * Admitting that your music is hilarious. * Conlon Nancarrow's works for player piano. * Black MIDI. * Knowing that you should be adding a constraint to your assertion but not knowing what it should be. * If Conlon Nancarrow had only entered cryosleep. * Loading up a song in Sound Forge. * Squid Salmple. * Bluetooth: it works every time! * Virtual modular synthesizers with cool cable physics. * The etymology of backmasking. * If Wiktionary is so good, why isn't there a Wiktionary 2? * Franchising your rhythm box. * Doing each other's administrative work. * Doing a labor swap to get fresh eyes on your project. * Ubering to the trail head. * Imagine: paying rent for an office. * Poopsocking it on this family show. * The Armory. * Going back in time and having $14 million. * Selling your forehead as advertising space. * Joseph Circuit City Smith. * This man needs your help to remove his porn logo forehead tattoos. * Aspirational snake eye contacts. * Your contacts contact. * Antique sword knife bookmark charm sword knife pendants knife charms for bookmarks. * Going to the breathing club and breathing really hard. * The Hearty-Starty. * Trying to joke about a thing that turns out to just be a real thing. * A Facebook group for people who love shitting. * Blinkos and all the nuances of the ways they love to blink. * A whole world just for smelling. * How your heart doesn't stop every time you sneeze. * Green text vs. other colors of text. * The r/bluetext subreddit that's all about links to other web sites. * Nutty Gum and Fruit Spleggings. * Finding the one while in line to poop. * Going to college for like a year and one of the best things about it was the bathroom graffiti. * A chalkboard in the physics department's bathroom stall. * Help I'm trapped in the bathroom grout. * Peeing while trying to think of a poem. * Peeing your pants in the bathroom. * Don't Backmask Me, Bro. * Finding someone in a bar who wants to playtest your experimental game for three hours. * The movie Yesterday except for inventing Legos. * Following instructions as a way to fidget. * Trying to solve a difficult programming puzzle when someone comes up and starts biting you in the ass. * All the ways someone can be onboarded onto an experience. * Free HTML5 Games Tagged Idle. * Top Three Clickers. * Roguathia. * Waiting until you have more SP to select upgrades. Lords:

  • Jonah
  • AC

Topics:

  • When was the last time you listened to a song backwards?
  • Decentralized manufacturing
  • Are there other terms like "foodies," to describe those who are super into universal bodily functions?
  • The Bathroom Line, by Jesse Thurston
  • Playtesting legos

Microtopics:

  • Pet Rock Dot Site
  • Whether rhythm is a kind of sound.
  • A rhythm synthesizer that produces control voltages.
  • All the things you could hypothetically like about New York City.
  • Crowded speculative real estate.
  • Canada's role as a fire hazard.
  • The power company in charge of all the wildfires.
  • What happened to Smokey the Bear.
  • Stopping for lobsters crossing the highway.
  • Whether Smokey the Bear died in his sleep.
  • Putting the oven on self clean and it cleans your whole house.
  • Bringing back Satanic Panic to make backmasking cool again.
  • Constructing a cliff that echoes backwards.
  • Musique Concrete.
  • The kind of people who would make an album in Csound.
  • Admitting that your music is hilarious.
  • Conlon Nancarrow's works for player piano.
  • Black MIDI.
  • Knowing that you should be adding a constraint to your assertion but not knowing what it should be.
  • If Conlon Nancarrow had only entered cryosleep.
  • Loading up a song in Sound Forge.
  • Squid Salmple.
  • Bluetooth: it works every time!
  • Virtual modular synthesizers with cool cable physics.
  • The etymology of backmasking.
  • If Wiktionary is so good, why isn't there a Wiktionary 2?
  • Franchising your rhythm box.
  • Doing each other's administrative work.
  • Doing a labor swap to get fresh eyes on your project.
  • Ubering to the trail head.
  • Imagine: paying rent for an office.
  • Poopsocking it on this family show.
  • The Armory.
  • Going back in time and having $14 million.
  • Selling your forehead as advertising space.
  • Joseph Circuit City Smith.
  • This man needs your help to remove his porn logo forehead tattoos.
  • Aspirational snake eye contacts.
  • Your contacts contact.
  • Antique sword knife bookmark charm sword knife pendants knife charms for bookmarks.
  • Going to the breathing club and breathing really hard.
  • The Hearty-Starty.
  • Trying to joke about a thing that turns out to just be a real thing.
  • A Facebook group for people who love shitting.
  • Blinkos and all the nuances of the ways they love to blink.
  • A whole world just for smelling.
  • How your heart doesn't stop every time you sneeze.
  • Green text vs. other colors of text.
  • The r/bluetext subreddit that's all about links to other web sites.
  • Nutty Gum and Fruit Spleggings.
  • Finding the one while in line to poop.
  • Going to college for like a year and one of the best things about it was the bathroom graffiti.
  • A chalkboard in the physics department's bathroom stall.
  • Help I'm trapped in the bathroom grout.
  • Peeing while trying to think of a poem.
  • Peeing your pants in the bathroom.
  • Don't Backmask Me, Bro.
  • Finding someone in a bar who wants to playtest your experimental game for three hours.
  • The movie Yesterday except for inventing Legos.
  • Following instructions as a way to fidget.
  • Trying to solve a difficult programming puzzle when someone comes up and starts biting you in the ass.
  • All the ways someone can be onboarded onto an experience.
  • Free HTML5 Games Tagged Idle.
  • Top Three Clickers.
  • Roguathia.
  • Waiting until you have more SP to select upgrades.

Support Topic Lords

]]> Lords:

  • Jonah
  • AC

Topics:

  • When was the last time you listened to a song backwards?
  • Decentralized manufacturing
  • Are there other terms like "foodies," to describe those who are super into universal bodily functions?
  • The Bathroom Line, by Jesse Thurston
  • Playtesting legos

Microtopics:

  • Pet Rock Dot Site
  • Whether rhythm is a kind of sound.
  • A rhythm synthesizer that produces control voltages.
  • All the things you could hypothetically like about New York City.
  • Crowded speculative real estate.
  • Canada's role as a fire hazard.
  • The power company in charge of all the wildfires.
  • What happened to Smokey the Bear.
  • Stopping for lobsters crossing the highway.
  • Whether Smokey the Bear died in his sleep.
  • Putting the oven on self clean and it cleans your whole house.
  • Bringing back Satanic Panic to make backmasking cool again.
  • Constructing a cliff that echoes backwards.
  • Musique Concrete.
  • The kind of people who would make an album in Csound.
  • Admitting that your music is hilarious.
  • Conlon Nancarrow's works for player piano.
  • Black MIDI.
  • Knowing that you should be adding a constraint to your assertion but not knowing what it should be.
  • If Conlon Nancarrow had only entered cryosleep.
  • Loading up a song in Sound Forge.
  • Squid Salmple.
  • Bluetooth: it works every time!
  • Virtual modular synthesizers with cool cable physics.
  • The etymology of backmasking.
  • If Wiktionary is so good, why isn't there a Wiktionary 2?
  • Franchising your rhythm box.
  • Doing each other's administrative work.
  • Doing a labor swap to get fresh eyes on your project.
  • Ubering to the trail head.
  • Imagine: paying rent for an office.
  • Poopsocking it on this family show.
  • The Armory.
  • Going back in time and having $14 million.
  • Selling your forehead as advertising space.
  • Joseph Circuit City Smith.
  • This man needs your help to remove his porn logo forehead tattoos.
  • Aspirational snake eye contacts.
  • Your contacts contact.
  • Antique sword knife bookmark charm sword knife pendants knife charms for bookmarks.
  • Going to the breathing club and breathing really hard.
  • The Hearty-Starty.
  • Trying to joke about a thing that turns out to just be a real thing.
  • A Facebook group for people who love shitting.
  • Blinkos and all the nuances of the ways they love to blink.
  • A whole world just for smelling.
  • How your heart doesn't stop every time you sneeze.
  • Green text vs. other colors of text.
  • The r/bluetext subreddit that's all about links to other web sites.
  • Nutty Gum and Fruit Spleggings.
  • Finding the one while in line to poop.
  • Going to college for like a year and one of the best things about it was the bathroom graffiti.
  • A chalkboard in the physics department's bathroom stall.
  • Help I'm trapped in the bathroom grout.
  • Peeing while trying to think of a poem.
  • Peeing your pants in the bathroom.
  • Don't Backmask Me, Bro.
  • Finding someone in a bar who wants to playtest your experimental game for three hours.
  • The movie Yesterday except for inventing Legos.
  • Following instructions as a way to fidget.
  • Trying to solve a difficult programming puzzle when someone comes up and starts biting you in the ass.
  • All the ways someone can be onboarded onto an experience.
  • Free HTML5 Games Tagged Idle.
  • Top Three Clickers.
  • Roguathia.
  • Waiting until you have more SP to select upgrades.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 120. The Mouse is For Hippies and Slackers https://topiclords.com/the-mouse-is-for-hippies-and-slackers fe51ad17-d1cb-4ada-8675-eb3b63dcd068 Mon, 07 Feb 2022 08:00:00 -0800 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Daniel and Jonah. We discuss the energy of Chop Socky, the Resident Evil series, Flettner airplanes, Ogden Nash's poetry, Indonesia, and watching movies without finding out anything about them first. 1:01:12 yes Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords) Lords: * Daniel * https://twitter.com/dmullinsgames * Jonah * https://works.rip/ Topics: * Chop socky – when are we gonna get that energy back into the world media producing environment? Also listening to movies instead of watching them. * The Resident Evil series * Flettner airplanes * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlmvHfIAszo * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6geOms33Dk * Double feature: * The Eel by Ogden Nash https://poetrysplash.tripod.com/ogdennash2.htm * The Lama, by Ogden Nash https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/poetry/poem-a-day/lama * Indonesia: The 4th most populous nation on Earth. You never hear about it * Watching stuff "going into it without hearing anything about it" -- how do people actually do that? Also me walking into a movie theater. Microtopics: * A website for dead people who will pay $12/year for as long as they're dead. * Hummus. * Whether Inscryption is more popular than hummus. * Starting a topic with an anecdote. * Walking around a city with the audio of a movie playing on your headphones. * Watching a foreign film subbed because you're too cool to realize there's a subbed version in the settings. * What you notice when you strip the visuals out of a visual medium. * Porting Doom to ears. * Whether blind people have their own Steam. * Going through several iterations of reinventing how you shoot zombies. * A woman scaled up 2x on every axis. * Brazil's first new console after the Megadrive. * Porting Resident Evil 4 to the Megadrive. * Jim's entire history with the Resident Evil stories. * A goofy Zelda boss but it's in a horror game for some reason. * Turning doing donuts in a two car garage into a boss fight. * Being bad at puzzles that aren't supposed to be puzzles, like how to use this can opener. * A Flettner airplane made out of KFC buckets. * The Magnus effect. * The downside of an airplane that drops like a rock if the engines lose power. * The world's first portable steamroller. * An airplane that is heavy enough to create its own runway. * Putting a dog in the Youtube thumbnail. * A poem that was short even before you cut the last 25%. * A joke poem that becomes even more of a joke when you cut out the punchline. * Dad giving you permission to memorize the shortest possible poem. * Web design nostalgia. * Hypertext protocols that predated HTTP. * How HTTP ate every other hypertext protocol's lunch. * This thing that was invented in the 70s. * Tetris the Grand Master, and how it would be better with mouse input. * Hypothetical keyboard-only interfaces for audio editing software. * A keyboard macro scripting language thing for transcribing sheet music. * How to pronounce "Latex" * Pronouncing the typesetting puns. * Being surprised when a country has almost as many people as the United States. * Gamelan. * Being Indonesian and knowing more about Indonesia than most people. * Whether modern day Greeks get annoyed when you try to engage them about Greece 2000 years ago. * Thinking you know where New Zealand is but not. * Growing up in the US and spending all your geography points on remembering which state is which and not having any left for the rest of the world. * Talking about yourself in any person. * Why nobody reviews Frog Fractions games. * Soda speak. * Divesting yourself of places you might get spoiled. * Middling Marvel Movie Buddies. * How to make choices without having enough information to decide. * Totally wasting your plug. * The premier place to send answers to the Inscryption ARG. * Counting the number of syllables in the sentence that claims to not be an ARG clue. Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • A website for dead people who will pay $12/year for as long as they're dead.
  • Hummus.
  • Whether Inscryption is more popular than hummus.
  • Starting a topic with an anecdote.
  • Walking around a city with the audio of a movie playing on your headphones.
  • Watching a foreign film subbed because you're too cool to realize there's a subbed version in the settings.
  • What you notice when you strip the visuals out of a visual medium.
  • Porting Doom to ears.
  • Whether blind people have their own Steam.
  • Going through several iterations of reinventing how you shoot zombies.
  • A woman scaled up 2x on every axis.
  • Brazil's first new console after the Megadrive.
  • Porting Resident Evil 4 to the Megadrive.
  • Jim's entire history with the Resident Evil stories.
  • A goofy Zelda boss but it's in a horror game for some reason.
  • Turning doing donuts in a two car garage into a boss fight.
  • Being bad at puzzles that aren't supposed to be puzzles, like how to use this can opener.
  • A Flettner airplane made out of KFC buckets.
  • The Magnus effect.
  • The downside of an airplane that drops like a rock if the engines lose power.
  • The world's first portable steamroller.
  • An airplane that is heavy enough to create its own runway.
  • Putting a dog in the Youtube thumbnail.
  • A poem that was short even before you cut the last 25%.
  • A joke poem that becomes even more of a joke when you cut out the punchline.
  • Dad giving you permission to memorize the shortest possible poem.
  • Web design nostalgia.
  • Hypertext protocols that predated HTTP.
  • How HTTP ate every other hypertext protocol's lunch.
  • This thing that was invented in the 70s.
  • Tetris the Grand Master, and how it would be better with mouse input.
  • Hypothetical keyboard-only interfaces for audio editing software.
  • A keyboard macro scripting language thing for transcribing sheet music.
  • How to pronounce "Latex"
  • Pronouncing the typesetting puns.
  • Being surprised when a country has almost as many people as the United States.
  • Gamelan.
  • Being Indonesian and knowing more about Indonesia than most people.
  • Whether modern day Greeks get annoyed when you try to engage them about Greece 2000 years ago.
  • Thinking you know where New Zealand is but not.
  • Growing up in the US and spending all your geography points on remembering which state is which and not having any left for the rest of the world.
  • Talking about yourself in any person.
  • Why nobody reviews Frog Fractions games.
  • Soda speak.
  • Divesting yourself of places you might get spoiled.
  • Middling Marvel Movie Buddies.
  • How to make choices without having enough information to decide.
  • Totally wasting your plug.
  • The premier place to send answers to the Inscryption ARG.
  • Counting the number of syllables in the sentence that claims to not be an ARG clue.

Support Topic Lords

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

Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • A website for dead people who will pay $12/year for as long as they're dead.
  • Hummus.
  • Whether Inscryption is more popular than hummus.
  • Starting a topic with an anecdote.
  • Walking around a city with the audio of a movie playing on your headphones.
  • Watching a foreign film subbed because you're too cool to realize there's a subbed version in the settings.
  • What you notice when you strip the visuals out of a visual medium.
  • Porting Doom to ears.
  • Whether blind people have their own Steam.
  • Going through several iterations of reinventing how you shoot zombies.
  • A woman scaled up 2x on every axis.
  • Brazil's first new console after the Megadrive.
  • Porting Resident Evil 4 to the Megadrive.
  • Jim's entire history with the Resident Evil stories.
  • A goofy Zelda boss but it's in a horror game for some reason.
  • Turning doing donuts in a two car garage into a boss fight.
  • Being bad at puzzles that aren't supposed to be puzzles, like how to use this can opener.
  • A Flettner airplane made out of KFC buckets.
  • The Magnus effect.
  • The downside of an airplane that drops like a rock if the engines lose power.
  • The world's first portable steamroller.
  • An airplane that is heavy enough to create its own runway.
  • Putting a dog in the Youtube thumbnail.
  • A poem that was short even before you cut the last 25%.
  • A joke poem that becomes even more of a joke when you cut out the punchline.
  • Dad giving you permission to memorize the shortest possible poem.
  • Web design nostalgia.
  • Hypertext protocols that predated HTTP.
  • How HTTP ate every other hypertext protocol's lunch.
  • This thing that was invented in the 70s.
  • Tetris the Grand Master, and how it would be better with mouse input.
  • Hypothetical keyboard-only interfaces for audio editing software.
  • A keyboard macro scripting language thing for transcribing sheet music.
  • How to pronounce "Latex"
  • Pronouncing the typesetting puns.
  • Being surprised when a country has almost as many people as the United States.
  • Gamelan.
  • Being Indonesian and knowing more about Indonesia than most people.
  • Whether modern day Greeks get annoyed when you try to engage them about Greece 2000 years ago.
  • Thinking you know where New Zealand is but not.
  • Growing up in the US and spending all your geography points on remembering which state is which and not having any left for the rest of the world.
  • Talking about yourself in any person.
  • Why nobody reviews Frog Fractions games.
  • Soda speak.
  • Divesting yourself of places you might get spoiled.
  • Middling Marvel Movie Buddies.
  • How to make choices without having enough information to decide.
  • Totally wasting your plug.
  • The premier place to send answers to the Inscryption ARG.
  • Counting the number of syllables in the sentence that claims to not be an ARG clue.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 57. A Rationale for Mountains https://topiclords.com/a-rationale-for-mountains f81d81c6-50de-4e01-a89b-7e5f637c4e28 Mon, 23 Nov 2020 08:00:00 -0800 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Aaron and Jonah. We discuss graffitti-based arguments, unphysical physically-motivated procedural content generation, the inventor of "None Pizza With Left Beef" and "Young Sheldon," the hobo code, and designing a game around semantic prime theory. 1:12:01 yes Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords) Lords: * Jonah * https://works.rip/ * Aaron * https://aaronsee.media/ku.html Topics: * Graffitti based arguments * Unphysical physically-motivated procedural content generation * Mandelbulb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTpbP5BVtiA * The inventor of "None Pizza With Left Beef" went on to create "Young Sheldon" * The 10th anniversary of None Pizza Left Beef: https://gizmodo.com/reflections-on-the-10th-anniversary-of-none-pizza-with-1819692097 * Jesse asks: "Hobo code" * https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a25174860/hobo-code/ * Designing a game around semantic prime theory Microtopics: * A game that is not about toppling governments. * Seeing a political message spray painted on the wall and painting a reasoned response beneath it. * Going around Athens and restenciling graffiti to be more legible. * Going to the bathroom to catch up on the latest stall graffiti. * Graffiti as art versus graffiti as a forum for communication. * Seeing that there is no graffiti on the bathroom walls at your new office job and bringing a mechanical pencil to work in order to get the party started. * Sticker bombing your school with stickers saying "good source of fiber" and "for rectal use only." * The potential of industrial glues. * Waiting for a telephone pole to be covered with posters thick enough that you can carve a room out of the posters to have your band practice in. * A city on a massive hill where the hill is made of all the previous cities that were conquered in that place. * The best edible band flyer glues. * Generating Perlin noise and picking an elevation for the water level to generate your video game world. * Simulating tectonic plates to generate your video game world. * Exploring the Mandelbulb. * A rationale for mountains. * Making an apple pie from scratch and having to invent the universe, except it's not an apple pie, it's an alien planetary body. * Attempting to solve a problem with no reasonable way to validate your solution. * Doing world building but it's not just putting orcs in a mountain range inventing a way for planets to work that is not plate tectonics. * The new Frog Fractions game spoiling for all of pop culture including itself. * A photograph of a disc of plain dough with meatballs scattered loose in the box. * Hacking the Domino's garlic bread by ordering a pizza with just garlic on it. * Hatewatching your favorite sitcom. * Moving to Greece and everybody finding out that you're a nerd and being like "oh I know what your favorite show is." * Making a TV show where the whole joke is that the main character has Asperger's. * Finding Chuck Lorre's email address and writing to ask why the show is called "The Big Bang Theory." * One level of pun connoisseurship up from "what's up dog" * Ungoogleable questions such as "why is the show called 'big bang theory'" and "what is the volume of a parakeet" * Finding out the volume of a parrot via water displacement. * Emailing every combination of letters at gmail.com and asking them all why the show is called "the big bang theory" and hoping that one of them is show creator Chuck Lorre. * A duck that means "free telephone" * The canonical hobo object. * Sitting around the fire with a lead mug you're drinking chili out of. * How often you need to pretend to faint. * Reading Wikipedia aloud and going "huh!" * An alternative Topic Lords podcast with train noises dubbed over it. * Recording a podcast where you read a stack trace for ten minutes and your seatmate moving to a different place on the train. * A podcast episode where the host gets carted off in handcuffs and yells "avenge me!" and hits upload with their toe. * Being arrested on live TV and your fans assuming that it's another mysterious lore drop. * The optimal minimal subset of all languages. * The 65 words that can express any human idea. * A Pinteresty soundbite of knowledge. * Deep philosophical conversations with your toddler. * A semantic substrate that is our natural world. * Persuasive systems having some fundamental level of plausibility because at some level the system has to function. * Making a career out of building persuasive systems. * Overcoming difficulty with persistence. * Telling the story of overcoming difficulty with persistence via a masocore platformer. * A couple of sentences on a sheet of paper that you then enact. * Investigating an opaque system and taking away a message. * Some Frank Lantz tweet threads. * The indie game community transitioning from focusing on game design to focusing on art design. * How juicy you should make a game. * How good the screen shake was on Rod Humble's "The Marriage." * Spreadsheets like you've never felt them before. * Cracking knuckles on the juice hose. * Eating the concept of frying something. Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • A game that is not about toppling governments.
  • Seeing a political message spray painted on the wall and painting a reasoned response beneath it.
  • Going around Athens and restenciling graffiti to be more legible.
  • Going to the bathroom to catch up on the latest stall graffiti.
  • Graffiti as art versus graffiti as a forum for communication.
  • Seeing that there is no graffiti on the bathroom walls at your new office job and bringing a mechanical pencil to work in order to get the party started.
  • Sticker bombing your school with stickers saying "good source of fiber" and "for rectal use only."
  • The potential of industrial glues.
  • Waiting for a telephone pole to be covered with posters thick enough that you can carve a room out of the posters to have your band practice in.
  • A city on a massive hill where the hill is made of all the previous cities that were conquered in that place.
  • The best edible band flyer glues.
  • Generating Perlin noise and picking an elevation for the water level to generate your video game world.
  • Simulating tectonic plates to generate your video game world.
  • Exploring the Mandelbulb.
  • A rationale for mountains.
  • Making an apple pie from scratch and having to invent the universe, except it's not an apple pie, it's an alien planetary body.
  • Attempting to solve a problem with no reasonable way to validate your solution.
  • Doing world building but it's not just putting orcs in a mountain range inventing a way for planets to work that is not plate tectonics.
  • The new Frog Fractions game spoiling for all of pop culture including itself.
  • A photograph of a disc of plain dough with meatballs scattered loose in the box.
  • Hacking the Domino's garlic bread by ordering a pizza with just garlic on it.
  • Hatewatching your favorite sitcom.
  • Moving to Greece and everybody finding out that you're a nerd and being like "oh I know what your favorite show is."
  • Making a TV show where the whole joke is that the main character has Asperger's.
  • Finding Chuck Lorre's email address and writing to ask why the show is called "The Big Bang Theory."
  • One level of pun connoisseurship up from "what's up dog"
  • Ungoogleable questions such as "why is the show called 'big bang theory'" and "what is the volume of a parakeet"
  • Finding out the volume of a parrot via water displacement.
  • Emailing every combination of letters at gmail.com and asking them all why the show is called "the big bang theory" and hoping that one of them is show creator Chuck Lorre.
  • A duck that means "free telephone"
  • The canonical hobo object.
  • Sitting around the fire with a lead mug you're drinking chili out of.
  • How often you need to pretend to faint.
  • Reading Wikipedia aloud and going "huh!"
  • An alternative Topic Lords podcast with train noises dubbed over it.
  • Recording a podcast where you read a stack trace for ten minutes and your seatmate moving to a different place on the train.
  • A podcast episode where the host gets carted off in handcuffs and yells "avenge me!" and hits upload with their toe.
  • Being arrested on live TV and your fans assuming that it's another mysterious lore drop.
  • The optimal minimal subset of all languages.
  • The 65 words that can express any human idea.
  • A Pinteresty soundbite of knowledge.
  • Deep philosophical conversations with your toddler.
  • A semantic substrate that is our natural world.
  • Persuasive systems having some fundamental level of plausibility because at some level the system has to function.
  • Making a career out of building persuasive systems.
  • Overcoming difficulty with persistence.
  • Telling the story of overcoming difficulty with persistence via a masocore platformer.
  • A couple of sentences on a sheet of paper that you then enact.
  • Investigating an opaque system and taking away a message.
  • Some Frank Lantz tweet threads.
  • The indie game community transitioning from focusing on game design to focusing on art design.
  • How juicy you should make a game.
  • How good the screen shake was on Rod Humble's "The Marriage."
  • Spreadsheets like you've never felt them before.
  • Cracking knuckles on the juice hose.
  • Eating the concept of frying something.

Support Topic Lords

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

Lords:

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • A game that is not about toppling governments.
  • Seeing a political message spray painted on the wall and painting a reasoned response beneath it.
  • Going around Athens and restenciling graffiti to be more legible.
  • Going to the bathroom to catch up on the latest stall graffiti.
  • Graffiti as art versus graffiti as a forum for communication.
  • Seeing that there is no graffiti on the bathroom walls at your new office job and bringing a mechanical pencil to work in order to get the party started.
  • Sticker bombing your school with stickers saying "good source of fiber" and "for rectal use only."
  • The potential of industrial glues.
  • Waiting for a telephone pole to be covered with posters thick enough that you can carve a room out of the posters to have your band practice in.
  • A city on a massive hill where the hill is made of all the previous cities that were conquered in that place.
  • The best edible band flyer glues.
  • Generating Perlin noise and picking an elevation for the water level to generate your video game world.
  • Simulating tectonic plates to generate your video game world.
  • Exploring the Mandelbulb.
  • A rationale for mountains.
  • Making an apple pie from scratch and having to invent the universe, except it's not an apple pie, it's an alien planetary body.
  • Attempting to solve a problem with no reasonable way to validate your solution.
  • Doing world building but it's not just putting orcs in a mountain range inventing a way for planets to work that is not plate tectonics.
  • The new Frog Fractions game spoiling for all of pop culture including itself.
  • A photograph of a disc of plain dough with meatballs scattered loose in the box.
  • Hacking the Domino's garlic bread by ordering a pizza with just garlic on it.
  • Hatewatching your favorite sitcom.
  • Moving to Greece and everybody finding out that you're a nerd and being like "oh I know what your favorite show is."
  • Making a TV show where the whole joke is that the main character has Asperger's.
  • Finding Chuck Lorre's email address and writing to ask why the show is called "The Big Bang Theory."
  • One level of pun connoisseurship up from "what's up dog"
  • Ungoogleable questions such as "why is the show called 'big bang theory'" and "what is the volume of a parakeet"
  • Finding out the volume of a parrot via water displacement.
  • Emailing every combination of letters at gmail.com and asking them all why the show is called "the big bang theory" and hoping that one of them is show creator Chuck Lorre.
  • A duck that means "free telephone"
  • The canonical hobo object.
  • Sitting around the fire with a lead mug you're drinking chili out of.
  • How often you need to pretend to faint.
  • Reading Wikipedia aloud and going "huh!"
  • An alternative Topic Lords podcast with train noises dubbed over it.
  • Recording a podcast where you read a stack trace for ten minutes and your seatmate moving to a different place on the train.
  • A podcast episode where the host gets carted off in handcuffs and yells "avenge me!" and hits upload with their toe.
  • Being arrested on live TV and your fans assuming that it's another mysterious lore drop.
  • The optimal minimal subset of all languages.
  • The 65 words that can express any human idea.
  • A Pinteresty soundbite of knowledge.
  • Deep philosophical conversations with your toddler.
  • A semantic substrate that is our natural world.
  • Persuasive systems having some fundamental level of plausibility because at some level the system has to function.
  • Making a career out of building persuasive systems.
  • Overcoming difficulty with persistence.
  • Telling the story of overcoming difficulty with persistence via a masocore platformer.
  • A couple of sentences on a sheet of paper that you then enact.
  • Investigating an opaque system and taking away a message.
  • Some Frank Lantz tweet threads.
  • The indie game community transitioning from focusing on game design to focusing on art design.
  • How juicy you should make a game.
  • How good the screen shake was on Rod Humble's "The Marriage."
  • Spreadsheets like you've never felt them before.
  • Cracking knuckles on the juice hose.
  • Eating the concept of frying something.

Support Topic Lords

]]> 43. You vs. The One Your Mom Told You To Worry About https://topiclords.com/you-vs-the-one-your-mom-told-you-to-worry-about 46c7904d-ecda-4b8a-a7d8-77ebdc843861 Mon, 17 Aug 2020 08:00:00 -0700 Jim Stormdancer full Jim Stormdancer Lords: Alexander and Jonah. We discuss games on the TI-83, the jazz fusion act that secretly inspired all video game music, Wikipedia disagreeing with itself, rap cliche origins, leisurely game jamming, cartography on weirdly-shaped worlds, and the Doctor Who theme. 1:04:51 yes Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords) Lords: * Alexander teaches math at the college level, which has been quite an experience the past few months. * Jonah makes music for video games, for example Pony Island. * http://works.rip/ Topics: * TI-83 games. Specifically, Tie Fighter / Bobsled / Indy500. * The jazz fusion act that inspired all video game music. * This is the concert we refer to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBD1mrRUIk * But these are the specific T-Square songs included in the episode: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZaUPGjjA4c * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRRmA1I3UNY * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V3KDQh9DVI * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYie77YHkns * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EWI%28musicalinstrument%29 * "Pronounced EE-wee also known as a robo-oboe" * This particular Adventure Playground seems to imply the purpose of the nails is to allow children to build things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdventurePlayground(Berkeley) * Wikipedia in different languages has different opinions on stuff. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture-boundsyndrome * Quill asks: "My name is [name] and i'm here to say [...]" rap cliche can be dated back to a 1940's Chiquita banana commercial" * https://youtu.be/RFDOI24RRAE * https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/whomst-among-us-let-the-dogs-out/ * http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME05/Oldsweetsongs.shtml * Jamming at full leisure speed. * https://jsenzel.itch.io/old-friends * Cartography and meteorology on weirdly-shaped fantasy worlds. * https://imgur.com/a/AFwvAoB * The Doctor Who theme was created before widely available synthesizers. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75V4ClJZME4 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkIEkLww3lg * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0aflcF0-ys * https://goodak.weebly.com/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide-predictingmachine#/media/File:099-tpm3-sk.jpg * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheKLF * https://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/ Microtopics: * Using only the funny TLDs. * Trying to figure it out as you go. * Getting seriously into online homework grading. * Learning the weird object-based Perl they use for checking homework answers. * A podcast with a larger than normal demographic of math teachers. * The most accessible way to develop very small games. * Whether Tie Fighter / Bobsled / Indy 500 is one game or several. * Swapping games over the audio port. * Adding a line from Cool Runnings and renaming your racing game to Bobsled. * Remaking the entirety of Pokemon Red in a TI calculator. * All real world work being done in ways that would get you expelled if you were still in college. * Commissioning your high school classmate to make a bowling minigame in TI-Basic. * A thousand years in the future when nobody knows where TI calculators came from or how they work, but they're still the only calculator allowed on standardized tests. * Jazz fusion's towering influence over video game music. * Thinking a work is wholly original because you have no context for its inspirations. * Playing a riff from Kirby's Dream Land in a solo over Chick Correa's "Spain." * A band fronted by duelling wind controllers. * Having fun exploring and jumping on things. * Jumping into any part of a three hour concert and hearing a water level. * Japanese video games' sense of mystery benefitting from the American ignorance of their influences. * Deliberately exposing children to risk in play. * Rigorous safety procedures pushing back against incredibly unlikely outcomes. * Small children being basically indestructible. * 48 hours of sitting in a room with fans blowing on you, and you're a ghost. * Getting a lot of nosebleeds and hearing everyone's pet remedy for nosebleeds. * Trying all the nosebleed remedies and ending up with a bunch of cool hobbies. * Your favorite nosebleed remedy being dipping your french fries in the chocolate shake, not because it stops the bleeding but because it's delicious. * Wikipedia's surprising plausibility. * Reading Wikipedia and believing things on it even though anyone can edit it at any time. * Private services that seem like they really ought to be a branch of the government. * The pre-history dark ages from which we have no mind uploads. * Each of the Rice Krispies elves singing a verse about their onomatopoeic sound. * Grandmaster Flash watching that Chiquita Banana commercial in the 40s and being like "someday I'm gonna be a rapper and bite that one line." * Tracing a Miami Bass chorus back to a football chant. * The Cool S and the Epic of Gilgamesh being of similarly obscure origins. * The intense frustration of not being able to tell the difference between writing a song and remembering a song. * The damning similarities between "Yesterday" and "Georgia on my Mind." * Music lawsuits being decided by juries of non-musicians. * A Midsummer Night's Dream containing a performance of the Greek play that Shakespeare ripped off when writing Romeo and Juliet. * How to pronounce Ludum Dare. * Taking the weekend to do a game jam and making a game in about four hours and then deciding to watch a movie and relax. * Acrobats with extreme control of their bodies, except for time management. * Learning to scope on the fly by doing game jams. * Starting with a bouncing ball no matter how big your game idea is. * Doing an entire company's worth of git merges and everything collapses into a steaming heap. * Joining a game jam as a scrum master. * Putting separate minigames together into a single game. * Having no idea how to estimate the time it takes to do tasks you do every day. * Making a spreadsheet to find out whether you're making a new web site for your Fall class. * Playing Frog Fractions 2 to find Alexander's chess jam game. * A problem with no fully satisfying solution but hundreds of partially satisfying solutions. * Peeling an orange and then try to make the peel as flat as possible. * What the day/night cycle would be like on a donut planet. * Trying to imagine the political machinations informing the cartography of a fantasy race. * A tide chart for if you have two moons and you're inside a donut. * Land-biased maps where the land is displayed intact but oceans are cut into pieces. * A map displaying any given straight-line path from the front of a penny to the back. * Unwittingly making merciless caricatures of Mr. Lincoln. * You vs. the one she told you not to worry about vs. the one you told her not to worry about vs. the one your mom told you not to worry about vs. the one your mom told you to worry about. * The performance of the 1963 Doctor Who theme. * Doing what feels like interesting work enabled by modern tools and finding out someone did similar work 100 years ago using much more primitive tools. * Cutting audio tape into microscopic strips and rearranging them into interesting sonic textures. * A weird proto-physical synth non-synth thing. * Moving your hand in physical space with no visual reference like a chump. * Artists doing laborious work with primitive tools when they could've just waited 100 years and it would've been so much easier. * A phone app that you take photos with but you have to wait three days after you finish the roll to see the photos. * All the joy of constraint and none of the headache of actually working with 8-bit hardware. * Inventing the math and physics to predict the tides as you're building your tide-predicting machine. * Writing a song about how to get a #1 single and then doing it. * Having a bunch of hit singles and then burning the money you made. Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early!

Lords:

  • Alexander teaches math at the college level, which has been quite an experience the past few months.
  • Jonah makes music for video games, for example Pony Island.

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Using only the funny TLDs.
  • Trying to figure it out as you go.
  • Getting seriously into online homework grading.
  • Learning the weird object-based Perl they use for checking homework answers.
  • A podcast with a larger than normal demographic of math teachers.
  • The most accessible way to develop very small games.
  • Whether Tie Fighter / Bobsled / Indy 500 is one game or several.
  • Swapping games over the audio port.
  • Adding a line from Cool Runnings and renaming your racing game to Bobsled.
  • Remaking the entirety of Pokemon Red in a TI calculator.
  • All real world work being done in ways that would get you expelled if you were still in college.
  • Commissioning your high school classmate to make a bowling minigame in TI-Basic.
  • A thousand years in the future when nobody knows where TI calculators came from or how they work, but they're still the only calculator allowed on standardized tests.
  • Jazz fusion's towering influence over video game music.
  • Thinking a work is wholly original because you have no context for its inspirations.
  • Playing a riff from Kirby's Dream Land in a solo over Chick Correa's "Spain."
  • A band fronted by duelling wind controllers.
  • Having fun exploring and jumping on things.
  • Jumping into any part of a three hour concert and hearing a water level.
  • Japanese video games' sense of mystery benefitting from the American ignorance of their influences.
  • Deliberately exposing children to risk in play.
  • Rigorous safety procedures pushing back against incredibly unlikely outcomes.
  • Small children being basically indestructible.
  • 48 hours of sitting in a room with fans blowing on you, and you're a ghost.
  • Getting a lot of nosebleeds and hearing everyone's pet remedy for nosebleeds.
  • Trying all the nosebleed remedies and ending up with a bunch of cool hobbies.
  • Your favorite nosebleed remedy being dipping your french fries in the chocolate shake, not because it stops the bleeding but because it's delicious.
  • Wikipedia's surprising plausibility.
  • Reading Wikipedia and believing things on it even though anyone can edit it at any time.
  • Private services that seem like they really ought to be a branch of the government.
  • The pre-history dark ages from which we have no mind uploads.
  • Each of the Rice Krispies elves singing a verse about their onomatopoeic sound.
  • Grandmaster Flash watching that Chiquita Banana commercial in the 40s and being like "someday I'm gonna be a rapper and bite that one line."
  • Tracing a Miami Bass chorus back to a football chant.
  • The Cool S and the Epic of Gilgamesh being of similarly obscure origins.
  • The intense frustration of not being able to tell the difference between writing a song and remembering a song.
  • The damning similarities between "Yesterday" and "Georgia on my Mind."
  • Music lawsuits being decided by juries of non-musicians.
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream containing a performance of the Greek play that Shakespeare ripped off when writing Romeo and Juliet.
  • How to pronounce Ludum Dare.
  • Taking the weekend to do a game jam and making a game in about four hours and then deciding to watch a movie and relax.
  • Acrobats with extreme control of their bodies, except for time management.
  • Learning to scope on the fly by doing game jams.
  • Starting with a bouncing ball no matter how big your game idea is.
  • Doing an entire company's worth of git merges and everything collapses into a steaming heap.
  • Joining a game jam as a scrum master.
  • Putting separate minigames together into a single game.
  • Having no idea how to estimate the time it takes to do tasks you do every day.
  • Making a spreadsheet to find out whether you're making a new web site for your Fall class.
  • Playing Frog Fractions 2 to find Alexander's chess jam game.
  • A problem with no fully satisfying solution but hundreds of partially satisfying solutions.
  • Peeling an orange and then try to make the peel as flat as possible.
  • What the day/night cycle would be like on a donut planet.
  • Trying to imagine the political machinations informing the cartography of a fantasy race.
  • A tide chart for if you have two moons and you're inside a donut.
  • Land-biased maps where the land is displayed intact but oceans are cut into pieces.
  • A map displaying any given straight-line path from the front of a penny to the back.
  • Unwittingly making merciless caricatures of Mr. Lincoln.
  • You vs. the one she told you not to worry about vs. the one you told her not to worry about vs. the one your mom told you not to worry about vs. the one your mom told you to worry about.
  • The performance of the 1963 Doctor Who theme.
  • Doing what feels like interesting work enabled by modern tools and finding out someone did similar work 100 years ago using much more primitive tools.
  • Cutting audio tape into microscopic strips and rearranging them into interesting sonic textures.
  • A weird proto-physical synth non-synth thing.
  • Moving your hand in physical space with no visual reference like a chump.
  • Artists doing laborious work with primitive tools when they could've just waited 100 years and it would've been so much easier.
  • A phone app that you take photos with but you have to wait three days after you finish the roll to see the photos.
  • All the joy of constraint and none of the headache of actually working with 8-bit hardware.
  • Inventing the math and physics to predict the tides as you're building your tide-predicting machine.
  • Writing a song about how to get a #1 single and then doing it.
  • Having a bunch of hit singles and then burning the money you made.

Support Topic Lords

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

Lords:

  • Alexander teaches math at the college level, which has been quite an experience the past few months.
  • Jonah makes music for video games, for example Pony Island.

Topics:

Microtopics:

  • Using only the funny TLDs.
  • Trying to figure it out as you go.
  • Getting seriously into online homework grading.
  • Learning the weird object-based Perl they use for checking homework answers.
  • A podcast with a larger than normal demographic of math teachers.
  • The most accessible way to develop very small games.
  • Whether Tie Fighter / Bobsled / Indy 500 is one game or several.
  • Swapping games over the audio port.
  • Adding a line from Cool Runnings and renaming your racing game to Bobsled.
  • Remaking the entirety of Pokemon Red in a TI calculator.
  • All real world work being done in ways that would get you expelled if you were still in college.
  • Commissioning your high school classmate to make a bowling minigame in TI-Basic.
  • A thousand years in the future when nobody knows where TI calculators came from or how they work, but they're still the only calculator allowed on standardized tests.
  • Jazz fusion's towering influence over video game music.
  • Thinking a work is wholly original because you have no context for its inspirations.
  • Playing a riff from Kirby's Dream Land in a solo over Chick Correa's "Spain."
  • A band fronted by duelling wind controllers.
  • Having fun exploring and jumping on things.
  • Jumping into any part of a three hour concert and hearing a water level.
  • Japanese video games' sense of mystery benefitting from the American ignorance of their influences.
  • Deliberately exposing children to risk in play.
  • Rigorous safety procedures pushing back against incredibly unlikely outcomes.
  • Small children being basically indestructible.
  • 48 hours of sitting in a room with fans blowing on you, and you're a ghost.
  • Getting a lot of nosebleeds and hearing everyone's pet remedy for nosebleeds.
  • Trying all the nosebleed remedies and ending up with a bunch of cool hobbies.
  • Your favorite nosebleed remedy being dipping your french fries in the chocolate shake, not because it stops the bleeding but because it's delicious.
  • Wikipedia's surprising plausibility.
  • Reading Wikipedia and believing things on it even though anyone can edit it at any time.
  • Private services that seem like they really ought to be a branch of the government.
  • The pre-history dark ages from which we have no mind uploads.
  • Each of the Rice Krispies elves singing a verse about their onomatopoeic sound.
  • Grandmaster Flash watching that Chiquita Banana commercial in the 40s and being like "someday I'm gonna be a rapper and bite that one line."
  • Tracing a Miami Bass chorus back to a football chant.
  • The Cool S and the Epic of Gilgamesh being of similarly obscure origins.
  • The intense frustration of not being able to tell the difference between writing a song and remembering a song.
  • The damning similarities between "Yesterday" and "Georgia on my Mind."
  • Music lawsuits being decided by juries of non-musicians.
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream containing a performance of the Greek play that Shakespeare ripped off when writing Romeo and Juliet.
  • How to pronounce Ludum Dare.
  • Taking the weekend to do a game jam and making a game in about four hours and then deciding to watch a movie and relax.
  • Acrobats with extreme control of their bodies, except for time management.
  • Learning to scope on the fly by doing game jams.
  • Starting with a bouncing ball no matter how big your game idea is.
  • Doing an entire company's worth of git merges and everything collapses into a steaming heap.
  • Joining a game jam as a scrum master.
  • Putting separate minigames together into a single game.
  • Having no idea how to estimate the time it takes to do tasks you do every day.
  • Making a spreadsheet to find out whether you're making a new web site for your Fall class.
  • Playing Frog Fractions 2 to find Alexander's chess jam game.
  • A problem with no fully satisfying solution but hundreds of partially satisfying solutions.
  • Peeling an orange and then try to make the peel as flat as possible.
  • What the day/night cycle would be like on a donut planet.
  • Trying to imagine the political machinations informing the cartography of a fantasy race.
  • A tide chart for if you have two moons and you're inside a donut.
  • Land-biased maps where the land is displayed intact but oceans are cut into pieces.
  • A map displaying any given straight-line path from the front of a penny to the back.
  • Unwittingly making merciless caricatures of Mr. Lincoln.
  • You vs. the one she told you not to worry about vs. the one you told her not to worry about vs. the one your mom told you not to worry about vs. the one your mom told you to worry about.
  • The performance of the 1963 Doctor Who theme.
  • Doing what feels like interesting work enabled by modern tools and finding out someone did similar work 100 years ago using much more primitive tools.
  • Cutting audio tape into microscopic strips and rearranging them into interesting sonic textures.
  • A weird proto-physical synth non-synth thing.
  • Moving your hand in physical space with no visual reference like a chump.
  • Artists doing laborious work with primitive tools when they could've just waited 100 years and it would've been so much easier.
  • A phone app that you take photos with but you have to wait three days after you finish the roll to see the photos.
  • All the joy of constraint and none of the headache of actually working with 8-bit hardware.
  • Inventing the math and physics to predict the tides as you're building your tide-predicting machine.
  • Writing a song about how to get a #1 single and then doing it.
  • Having a bunch of hit singles and then burning the money you made.

Support Topic Lords

]]>