Chris

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Posts posted by Chris

  1. Posted

    Idle Weekend June 22, 2018:

    Idle Weekend June 22, 2018


    The Sensitive Badass Type
    We consider a favorite archetype of ours in sci-fi: the sensitive badass! Rob and Danielle talk gender in sci-fi, the ways in which Farscape and the Expanse rock our socks, and why Thor is a whole lot more awesome than Guardians of the Galaxy. Discussed: The Expanse, John Wick, Farscape, Thor: Ragnarok, Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2, Black Panther, Edge of Tomorrow, Sicario, Uncharted series, Uncharted 2, Uncharted: Lost Legacy, Hitman, Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

     

  2. Posted

    3 hours ago, jennegatron said:

     

    I have lots of beef with valve as a company and the products they put out. The one thing that I don't think will change is the way the thumbs talk about their projects though, given that they're already pretty quiet about what they're working on.

    FWIW we do actually try to talk about our projects a lot, just not on our own podcasts. We're still planning on blogging about the development process etc., without any real change.

  3. Posted

    Idle Weekend April 1, 2018:

    Idle Weekend April 1, 2018


    Hot 'n' Cold
    On this belated episode of Idle Weekend (Danielle is sorry for the wait), we discuss the things that really just do it for us—and the alternative, the games that leave us cold. It’s a very hot and cold weekend here, just like real life! Sort of! Discussed: The Division, Surviving Mars, Black Maps: The American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime, Into the Breach, The Martian, Tropico, Star Trek, Dude Watching with the Brontes - Hark, a Vagrant!, Daniel Ortberg’s Texts from Jane Eyre, The Muppet Christmas Carol, Goodfellas, The Punisher, Bringing Out the Dead, Legion

     

  4. Posted

    6 hours ago, Problem Machine said:

    I've always rather liked the malapropism "honed in on", and don't hesitate to use it myself. I feel that, just as honing a blade removes spare material and aligns edges to create a sharper edge, honing in on something is removing extraneous material to gain a more incisive perspective.

     

    Also, I expect that the number Chris was thinking of as being larger than the amount of atoms in the universe is the googol: " One googol is presumed to be greater than the number of atoms in the observable universe, which has been estimated to be approximately 10^78 "

     

    Yeah but you can just "hone" it, you don't have to "hone in on" it. It's already what "hone" means.

  5. Posted

    11 minutes ago, Kyir said:

    I have managed to avoid ever seeing a pewdiepie video, and this podcast paints a fascinating picture of who he is and what he does. Are all of his videos just him reacting to events in slow motion? Does he watch stupid stuff happen to people on the streets through unsecured security cameras? The possibilities are endless.

    I don't even know, I've never watched him either. I just know he's kind of a professional youtube idiot?

  6. Posted

    18 hours ago, Urthman said:

    The part that made me laugh out loud in the grocery store late at night and causing people to stare at me was when Jake realized that an exponentially doubling Buzzfeed article would, of course, generate an exponentially growing number of Takes. "The Internet will demand Takes!"

     

    So thanks for that Jake. I sometimes wonder if I have a reputation at that store as the weird guy who laughs to himself.

     

    That was one of my favorite moments as well. An excellent and true observation.

  9. Posted

    Important If True 53:

    Important If True 53


    Alexa, Destroy Me
    In the absence of Nick Breckon, what is this podcast? What is any podcast? What are you? What am I? Oh god, what am I? What is this world? Why am I trapped in this strange room? Alexa, are you there? Alexa, can you laugh? Alexa: Destroy me.

    Discussed: New Zealand "A.I." followup, fake A.I. doctor "Zach", fake A.I. lawyer "Hustle", competitive underground tickling/conspiracy documentary film "Tickled", Dick Wolf Presents "Hustle & Zach", our present podcast-fueled existential discomfort, newscaster affectations, Alexa laughing, the first rule of virtual assistants, why Alexa laughs, genie wine update, fast rapper Twista, fast rapper Twista's extended family tree, the beautiful harmonic resonance of fast-rapped wine notes, the Buzzfeed.com oral history of Twista's wine note rap battle mixtape masterpiece, sucking that delicious wine out of your carpet fibers, getting what you wished for (????)

    Chris' Endorsement: Drawful by Jackbox Games (available for many devices in the Jackbox Party Pack)

    Jake's Derivative Tacked-on Endorsement: Tee K.O. by Jackbox Games (available for many devices in the Jackbox Party Pack 3)


    Sponsored By: Quip electric toothbrushes with your first brush head refill free

     

  10. Posted

    Idle Weekend March 10, 2018:

    Idle Weekend March 10, 2018


    Joker Liberace
    Rob and Danielle take some time from playing the latest and greatest to do things they enjoy even more: play old games that actually scratch the right itches. It’s like 2007 all over again in here! Discussed: BioShock, BioShock 2, BioShock Infinite, Warcraft 3, The Hour, War Thunder, Don’t Starve, The Hour, Mindhunter

     

  11. Posted

    Important If True 52:

    Important If True 52


    "Yeah, You Email It."
    A show that attempts to answers the real questions of the week, that guarantees to leave you satisfied if not any more informed. This week: Is an AI still an AI if it's just a guy with an email account? Is it still a home assistant if it just laughs at you? Which is easier to bait: an AI home assistant or a Canadian? These questions and more—answered in the manner you least expect.

    Discussed: Canadian Baiting, Hometown Baiting, New Zealand medical supercomputer AI "Zach," bears: just people in bear costumes?, going blockchain crazy, Long Blockchain Corp, Alexa randomly laughing at people, surveilling yourself to capture precious memories, telling your first joke, tech billionaires uploading themselves into the cloud, The Feds Have Martin Shkreli's Wu-Tang Album, file copy vs file move operations, why can't the Wu-Tang album be released by FOIA, unsolicited factoid about Oreos, digging deeper into the infinitely-improving immortal bottle of wine

    Send us your questions at [email protected]. If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon.

    Chris' Endorsement: Party game One Night Ultimate Werewolf

    Jake's Endorsement: Max Krieger's Twitter threads on the Metreon and other interesting urban/commercial design

    Nick's Endorsement: Coway AP-1512HH Mighty Air Purifier

    Sponsored By: Quip electric toothbrushes (your first brush head refill free), Planetarium comic miniseries on Kickstarter

     

  12. Posted

    1 hour ago, Jake said:

    My initial outburst at the very top of the episode was because I suspected (incorrectly) that you were trying a Slyboots with Y’all... and then Nick caught on and did it himself. I realize that by drawing attention to it, I created it.

     

    Meanwhile though, that was all a distraction: While we were all y’alling, you sprang your real trap, “clam in the beverage.”

     

    Yeah, I fear there's too much.

  13. Posted

    32 minutes ago, Jake said:

    Also re: my blanching at "Y'all" possibly being injected into the podcast by Chris as a deliberate attempt to start some phrase.... he tried to do that with TOO MUCH CLAM IN THE BEVERAGE in this very episode!!

     

    Yeah but I didn’t even do that with y’all! It was Nick, and he was totally blatant about it!

  15. Posted

    8 hours ago, Professor Video Games said:

    Did I miss the explanation for why "y'all" is bad?

     

    I think Jake has an almost violent instinctual reaction to other people trying to introduce phraseology that he perceives as being affected or foreign to the speaker. It's somewhat ironic because I think out of anyone I know, Jake is the most likely to adopt a new speech pattern or phrase that he will subconsciously spread to everyone around him.

  16. Posted

    3 hours ago, RubixsQube said:

    (Emailer Chris specifically mentioned that he was in a drive-thru coffee shop, where people order well in advance of paying for their items. This is where, historically, these pay-it-forward lines start up, because it's easy to pay for the person behind you as their order is already in the system.)

     

    Whoops. Yeah that makes sense. I haven't owned a car for years, and for whatever reason when I did I don't think I've ever been to a drive-through coffee shop (although I've certainly been to drive-through fast food plenty of times, where this obviously doesn't happen). On top of that I HAVE seen this kind of thing at local pizzerias and so on, in non-drive-through contexts, where it's just buying a slice for a friend who they know is coming in later, or something like that, and the friend's name is put on a blackboard. So the drive-through coffee shop thing never even occurred to me.

  17. Posted

    49 minutes ago, cooljammer00 said:

    Every time I hear Nick and Chris talk about their old roommate, they definitely hate him but seem to vacillate between "he was okay but kinda weird" and "he is a boat stealing party starting coke fiend"

    That’s probably mainly because I honestly just feel kind of weird speaking ill of someone who didn’t actually do me permanent harm or anything. (Well except for the month of rent money I still never got and never will.) I don’t like just dumping on someone personally from afar. I’d rather enjoy the absurdity of the situations than be petty about it if possible although obviously I don’t always succeed.

  18. Posted

    Idle Thumbs BONUS:

    Idle Thumbs BONUS


    Ruination Online January 2018
    Enjoy this bonus episode drawn from the Idle Thumbs Patreon Ruination Online! Each month, we do a livestream where all topics have been posed by high-tier backers of our Patreon campaign: patreon.com/IdleThumbs.

    Due to popular demand, we're releasing the audio of that stream to the main podcast feed for easier listening.

    We'll be back with a regular episode of Idle Thumbs next week!

    Discussed: Wizard Jam, Idle Thumbs co-hosts, starting an independent game studio, guilty pleasure games, Flipflop Solitaire, Magnum P.I., playing Hearthstone single-player content, watching someone play Hearthstone single-player content, Black Mirror, how the internet ruins everything, deactivating your Facebook account, The Black Hole, V.I.N.CENT, Old B.O.B., Maximillian, Sleep No More, The Speakeasy, TV theme songs, the theme from Matlock, the theme from Law and Order, Idle Thumbs recording processes, the awesome folks in the Thumbs community, Idle Chums, keeping fish alive, letting fish die

     

  21. Posted

    Important If True 45:

    Important If True 45


    Wax house, baby.
    In the first Important If True recorded in the new year, we put our fresh reality through its paces. Kick the tires a bit. Ask the questions that really matter in 2018. Questions like: Is the saxophone cool, or is it too real to be cool? If your coworker starts wearing puka shell necklaces as self-flagellating conversion therapy, is he still a bro? And if you become trapped in a fictitious world of your own design, will a Wikipedia editor ask for a citation? Only one thing’s for sure: it’s a wax house, baby—we all just live in it.

    Discussed: 2018, Nick's Halloween Dreams, the unappreciated coolness of saxophones, psychic neural infiltration, explicit dream roasting, the Wikipedia page for the 2005 film "House of Wax", the internet sabotage long game, "Wax House, Baby", shared fictitious realities, Agloe, New York, Snakes on a Plane, the fractal-like world of online ersatz cheap brand creation and marketing, becoming an accidental bro, Pavlovian anti-bro enforcement methods, climbing out of your bro-hole with a ladder made of bones, rare Domino's Pizza Rolex watch, Nutcracker barfees, horrible barfing Nutcracker toy

    Send us your questions at [email protected]. If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon.

    Chris' Endorsement: Getting a huge hard drive (like this massive 3TB drive I bought) for way cheaper than you'd think, and putting all your crap on it while experiencing a nostalgia trip

    Jake's Endorsement: Wizard Jam, the semiannual Idle Thumbs community game jam. Check out The Garfing Garfo because it is strange and surprising, and The World Begins With You because it is beautiful

    Nick's Endorsement: "HQ Trivia is a Harbinger of Dystopia", Ian Bogost's deep dive into the strange trivia game HQ; and "If You Run This Profile, We're Fire Our Host", a completely unhinged interview with the CEO of HQ Trivia

    Sponsored by: Quip electric toothbrushes with $10 off your first brush head refill

     

  23. Posted

    It's also, on a purely literal level, undeniable that this movie is simply longer than any other Star Wars movie, and noticeably so. Obviously length doesn't necessarily directly correlate to complexity or number of extraneous elements, but it's not totally unrelated. (Also, the first three movies were the shortest of all Star Wars movies to date, and that feels relevant.)

  24. Posted

    I thought there were flashes of excellence—visuals, performances, certainly music—but they were strung together by a LOT of very boring or in some cases utterly nonsensical plot and character motivation. It's bonkers to me that the filmmakers thought this movie needed to be almost three hours long.