Chris

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Posts posted by Chris

  1. Posted

    Important If True 27:

    Important If True 27


    Join and Undermine
    Careful listeners might detect a hidden message in this podcast. Are you attuned to our frequency? Keep that in mind as you ponder these eternal mysteries: Is it better to smell a rose, or is it better to get your ass going? Are sneeze sabotage strategies all in your imagination? What's the deal with fidget spinners anyway? And does any of this matter? One thing is clear. At the end of the day, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em and undermine 'em.

    Discussed: fidget spinner, FÏDGT™, German artisanal heritage fidget spinner manufactory, Orson Welles peas commercial, the power of a Kamenstein Perfect Tear Paper Towel Holder in the palm of your hand, electronics devices with addictive sliding battery cases that are way better than fidget spinners, historical Ireland keyring, BABY, sneeze sabotage strategies and the supernatural, the history of sneezing superstitions, childhood guilt-inducing power fantasies, grownup elevator call button power fantasies, decoy crosswalk buttons that do nothing, battery powered by your sweat and tears, why you cry, marsh-dwelling weeping sadness robot, beach-dwelling laughing happiness robot, Brad Bird, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Tomorrowland, adage-optimized objectivist wasteland, classic adages, breaking eggs to make an omelet, Brahma chickens fucking you up for breaking eggs, beating 'em, joining 'em, capitalism, undermining (metaphorically), undermining (literally), hoisting by undermining, creation of a self-reinforcing adage-backed worldview, redundant local newscasts, the historical emergence of local news, Cyber-Times, CyberTimes.com

    Send us your questions at questions@importantiftrue.com. 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: Binging With Babish YouTube cooking series, and also the movie Big Night (Amazon, iTunes)

    Nick's Endorsement: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches ("white bread, JIF peanut butter, and any preserve that you want")

    Jake's Endorsement: Shitty Mario novelty Twitter account, Supper Mario Broth blog of Mario deconstruction

    Sponsored by: Quip electric toothbrushes, WASD German-language video game magazine Kickstarting its English-language version

     

  3. Posted

    Important If True 26:

    Important If True 26


    Get Hype
    U mad? Yeah, u mad. Look, get a hold of yourself, and consider these conundrums. If a driverless car has a driver, but the driver is dressed as a car seat, is Tom Cruise a passenger? If your DNA gets hacked by teens, which memes will you use to plug the holes? And what passive-aggressive slogan should you print on the jigsaw puzzle you give to your pharmacist? Get hype for this episode of "You May Be Retired, But You'll Always Be a Dentist."

    Discussed: man dressed as car seat, dressing for the job you want to have, staying incognito in a world of driverless cars, The Raid 2 car chase behind the scenes, injecting DNA with malware, precious meme blood cyberpunk future, hoisting via internet service convenience, procedurally generated Zazzle phrase clothing, waging a passive aggressive campaign using procedurally generated Zazzle phrase clothing, your dream app, gross millennial cuspers, coffee cupping, cupping, cuppers, consolidating your confusing online media library, boiling like a frog in a pot of apps, Silicon Valley billionaire teen blood drinkers, Thiel-hacking teens, heaven, living forever online, turning into dirt, get hype

    Nick's Endorsement: Chat Pack conversation starter cards

    Chris' Endorsement: Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Amazon, iTunes, Hulu)

    Jake's Endorsement: Funemployed party card game

    Sponsored By: Quip electric toothbrushes, Warby Parker eyeglasses home try-on

     

  5. Posted

    Twin Peaks Rewatch 50:

    Twin Peaks Rewatch 50


    The Return, Part 15
    This week on Twin Peaks, things are either moving into position as the finale looms, or they are poignantly coming to an end. One Cooper hears a name he hasn't heard in 25 years, and the other Cooper finally asks about Judy, while Margaret Lanterman says a devastating goodbye, Ed and Norma finally get together and Nadine digs herself out of the shit. The end is very close!

    If you have a question for us or thoughts to share on the new season of Twin Peaks, write us at twinpeaks@idlethumbs.net.

    Looking for a place to discuss the season with fellow viewers? We recommend the Twin Peaks Rewatch forum.

     

  6. Posted

    Idle Weekend August 18, 2017:

    Idle Weekend August 18, 2017


    Sleepovers, Prey Tell?
    In this fine installment of Idle Weekend, we get really excited about (GOTY) Prey, the finest damned immersive sim this side of the solar system. Rob has finished it, and we spoil the hell out of the ending. We also talk about fun sleepover games: the games of our younger years that we enjoyed on an all-night basis with buddies. It's a very happy episode of idle Weekend! Prey Spoilers! Discussed: D&D, Donkey Kong Country, Perfect Dark, Sonic 3, Prey, BioShock 2, Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Dark Knight Rises, Jane the Virgin, WWE, Lucha Libre, Dunkirk, Atomic Blonde, On the Move (autobiography by Oliver Sacks)

     

  7. Posted

    Idle Weekend August 20, 2017:

    Idle Weekend August 20, 2017


    The Mooch
    In honor of the Mooch, we go through our gaming torrid affairs: games we had a very brief, very intense love affair with. Sometimes, these things just don't work out. Discussed: Kingdom, No Man's Sky, Empire: Total War, Mass Effect 3, What Remains of Edith Finch, Ruse, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

     

  14. Posted

    Idle Thumbs 310:

    Idle Thumbs 310


    They Came Through the Floor
    They're out there. They're at the gates. You can hear their indistinct scrabbling and inhuman gobbering. scrabbling and It's a strange and hostile world—dinosaurs, self-replicating weird car homunculi, The Thing—but that's why you built your house out of stone, after all. There's nothing to worry about…is there? One of the voices pierces the night and, pressing your ear against the thick walls, you strain to hear.

    "Come out, you piece of shit!"

    Discussed: West of Loathing, ideal game rating system, Production Line, self-driving car robot capitalist nightmare, The Isle, Rust, fair betting on competitive spectator games, hypothetical The Thing online multiplayer game, Grand Moff Tarkin

    Sponsored by: Squarespace, with the offer code "THUMBS" for 10% off

     

  15. Posted

    2 hours ago, Demimonde said:

    Upon rewatch, I noticed something creep into the tippy upper right hand corner of the frame when the oldest kid sees Miriam. Between when he says "There's someone there" and "Go tell mom." It looks like some kind of skeletal finger thing offering maybe a key? The camera does not move--the thing moves into the still frame--and I could not account for a tree branch or twig, as the kid is in the open road. I'd love to get your thoughts, even if your thought is, "She's gone mad." Oh, p.s., Ronnette Pulaski's trestle bridge in the center of the shot.

     

     

    Whoa!

  17. Posted

    On 7/17/2017 at 7:09 PM, Mike Danger said:

    I have to ask: did anyone immediately catch on that all of the stories have the same narrator? It took me until the second of the Two Men stories (can't recall the name at the moment) to figure it out.

    Because I was taking notes for the upcoming book club episode I think I noticed it more quickly than I otherwise would have, because of the presence of consistent characters, locations, and nicknames (like the narrator as "Fuckhead"). By about a third of the way through I figured there was some kind of continuity but it took me a little longer before I was fairly confident it was in fact the same narrator throughout.

  18. Posted

    Important If True 24:

    Important If True 24


    Eye Explodes, Brain Expands
    If a podcast could answer all your deepest questions about existence, would you listen to it? Before you answer, consider this week's conundrums: Does an Amazon shopping algorithm know your own home better than you do? Are meme GIFs contagious, and if so, can they give your hard drive a cold? When a security robot drowns in a mall fountain, is the robot played by Mel Gibson or Joe Pesci? Now, choose. (If you choose incorrectly, a robot will put you in a dumpster.)

    Discussed: Resin Pineapple Bookends with Gold Finish, 9.25" Purple Floral Print Terra Cotta Flower Pot, Amazon shenanigans, mall robot alleged suicide, Knightscope security robots, Minority Report, putting your wet phone in rice, putting your wet murdered security robot in rice, Knightscope security robot buddy cop film, robots that smoke, robots that vape, Mel Gibson, Joe Pesci, robot self-awareness, game theory applied to being put in a dumpster, eye explodes, laser comes out, brain expands, CRISPR-based gene meming, E. coli GIF infections, contracting a case of memes, original memester Eadweard Muybridge, beautiful organic data corruption, The Matrix but you're a hard drive instead of a battery, your hard drive catching a cold, Jurassic Park but like with Minions inside DNA or something, frozen meat from heaven, Italian sausage drug deal, Hansen's soda drug deal

    And here's that Brian Eno quote Chris haphazardly paraphrased: "Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit—all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided."

    Send us your questions at questions@importantiftrue.com. 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: Chipmunks songs played at 16rpm (Standouts: Walk Like an Egyptian, Heaven is a Place On Earth, Bettie Davis Eyes, Diamond Dolls, Jessie's Girl

    Nick's Endorsement: International Space Station Fly-Through 4K, An Inside Tour of the International Space Station 1080p

    Jake's Endorsement: 9.25" Purple Floral Terra Cotta Flower Pot

    Sponsored By: Quip electric toothbrushes

     

  21. Posted

    Idle Thumbs BONUS:

    Idle Thumbs BONUS


    Ruination Online July 2017
    Enjoy this bonus episode drawn from our 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. This month it's a lightning round: two minutes an answer for maximum efficiency.

    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: The future of VR headset adoption, indie comic books and adapting comics to other mediums, the origin of the "baboo" sound, making an RPG character sheet for yourself, Legion, vowels, visiting and living through an event from history, the moon, Lord Nelson's final words, what makes for a good ruination question?

    A note: One answer on this podcast makes reference to Important If True Episode 24, a podcast which has not yet been released. Whoops! We forgot how our schedule works. Look for that episode on Thursday, July 27 for the answer to Reggie Clark's intriguing question, "If you were really a robot would you want to know?"

     

  23. Posted

    59 minutes ago, Gormongous said:

     

    Before the Second World War, most Southern American dialects of English were non-rhotic, and apparently it was considered more prestigious there than rhotic speech. "Nauh see he-uh, suh" in your best Foghorn Leghorn and all that. It's arguable that, beyond the generalized cultural pressure of the New South, most Southerners abandoned non-rhotic speech over the course of the twentieth century because African American Vernacular English had begun to assimilate the white South's non-rhotic tendencies and thereby "spoiled" that prestige.

     

    That said, the passage does actually appear to be from a Brit, an M.J. Shields writing to The Economist in 1971, and it acquired the association with Mark Twain when transferred over to the internet.

     

    Interesting! My impression of non-rhotic English is that it is itself a fairly modern affectation—a cursory Wikipedia search seems to basically confirm this: "No English authorities describe loss of /r/ in the standard language prior to the mid-18th century, and many do not fully accept it until the 1790s." "Americans returning to England after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 reported surprise at the significant changes in fashionable pronunciation. By the early 19th century, the southern British standard was fully transformed into a non-rhotic variety, though it continued to be variable as late as the 1870s."

     

    Your point about Southern American dialects makes sense and is well taken, particularly in the context of a sense of prestige, presumably in line with many other traditions of British aristocracy favored by the South and parts of the Northeast. It seems like Mark Twain would have been born into that evolution: "The adoption of postvocalic /r/-less pronunciation as the British prestige standard in the late 18th and early 19th centuries influenced American port cities with close connections to Britain, causing upper-class pronunciation in many eastern and southern port cities such as New York City, Boston, Alexandria, Charleston, and Savannah to become non-rhotic."

     

    It was weirdly forgetful of me to forget that property of Southern American speech, but also my general hazy memory that non-rhotic speech is a phenomenon that largely took hold after the establishment of the American colonies (rather than American colonists/citizens themselves actually originating a shift to non-rhotic American-sounding speech) is basically true to history.