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Lords:
* Erica is @yerrikTRB on Twitter, and is thinking about birds
* Dan is @danlwarren on Twitter, and is at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (https://www.oist.jp/). His soundcloud is https://soundcloud.com/danwarren. He is writing music for Hypnospace Outlaw https://store.steampowered.com/app/844590/Hypnospace_Outlaw/
Topics:
* 1:58 The unreliable narrator in songwriting and/or songs where the POV character is a jerk
* We all hope Ben Folds is an unreliable narrator in his song “Brick.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt5EHAqhR1c
* Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Murder Ballads https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmzP977za2bJ8gj8pVmOxSCBNcVZjGy6D
* Moby Dick is bad https://medium.com/@jayshams/moby-dick-is-not-a-novel-e19e41fec946
* George Michael was maybe not that into monogamy https://www.songfacts.com/facts/george-michael/i-want-your-sex
* 15:20 No one should live in this city (whatever city you're in edition)
* Chitras flies and things that sting you https://indacampo.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/why-you-should-never-fall-asleep-in-your-hammock-at-twilight-in-panama/
* Too much water all at once, monsoon edition https://www.kold.com/video/2019/07/31/watch-people-rescued-stranded-vehicle-tucson/
* https://www.kgun9.com/weather/monsoon
* The cheese guy in Okinawa fills in for a clear lack of cheese http://thecheeseguyinokinawa.com/about-us/
* Richard Lenski breeds 69,000 generations of E. coli (not yeast) https://twitter.com/relenski/status/993671677748838400
* http://myxo.css.msu.edu/
* 38:51 Toddlers have incredible memories and if you put something somewhere once because you were lazy they'll remember it goes there forever
* https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/04/childrens-memories-toddlers-remember-better-than-you-think.html
* Here’s the AI spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vRPiprOaC3HsCf5Tuum8bRfzYUiKLRqJmbOoC-32JorNdfyTiRRsR7Ea5eWtvsWzuxo8bjOxCG84dAg/pubhtml
* AI evolves an organism that is tall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-wIZuAA3EY
* 43:20 Kaz asks: You guys talked about simulating people's voices, and I'd like to point out that there's been a lot of progress in this area. Take a look here for some examples: https://google.github.io/tacotron/publications/speakeradaptation
* That Obama thing is called Son of Strelka, Son of God. There’s a Youtube playlist here where four of the nine chapters are illustrated/animated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Any38uNUelM&list=PLw-jIvFxpgIDIlxOnvHr9rN2TUv87Ju_
* The album can be downloaded here: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/DanWarren/SonofStrelkaSonofGod
* The Trump thing is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGYeTmHHZQM
* Evolution Control Committee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DX4nsobHW8
* Negativland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6gPSSYxex0
* Cassetteboy is one of the most active and well-known people doing this stuff nowadays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI87PRgIKks
* 55:48 ANTS
* Acromyrmex versicolor on the AntWiki https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Acromyrmexversicolor
* Walter Tschinkel’s aluminum ant colony casts https://www.core77.com/posts/23607/walter-tschinkels-aluminum-casts-of-ant-colonies-reveals-insect-architecture-23607
* Strangely named ant reproductive strategies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate
* https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170217095939.htm
* 1:03:39 Pokemon Stay (the opposite of Pokemon Go): what's happening to outdoorsy AR games these days.
* https://pokemongolive.com/en/post/
* https://nianticlabs.com/blog/stay-safe/
* https://www.pinterest.com/pin/35114072073932236/
* http://www.birderslibrary.com/images/excerpts/kaufmanadvancedbirding/empidplate.jpg
* https://ebird.org/news/confusing-flycatchers
* https://www.thespruce.com/flycatcher-identification-tips-3859843
Microtopics:
* Staying inside and definitely being totally sane.
* Being on the Hypnospace Outlaw soundtrack but not being Seepage.
* Driving people away from you and writing songs about how they're gone.
* Betraying the concept of music by putting it in advertising.
* Singing about the fish you're going to eat.
* Listening to music for a decade before realizing it's horrifying.
* Being deeply obsessed with an art form others explicitly disregard.
* An eight year old singing a pop song about sex.
* Assuming that a song written in the first person is autobiographical.
* Writing a song about cheating on your wife and everybody assuming you're endorsing it so you write a last verse that's like "/s"
* The last verse of "I Want Your Sex" being about how George Michael doesn't really want your sex.
* Putting together a choreographed dance routine to "I Want Your Sex" at summer camp.
* Whether Dad Jr. has anything to say about it.
* An angry crowd proclaiming that Jesus is a slut.
* The Robert Browning poem where he evidently thought "twat" is an item of nun's clothing and rhymes with "bat."
* Describing the white whale as obsidian and ebony because you don't have the internet and can't look up what obsidian means.
* A beautiful desert with amazing food where you have scorpions in your house.
* A microwasp stinging your hand leaving a patch of cell death that lasts for almost a year.
* The dirt being impossible to dig in so there are no storm drains and when the monsoon comes the water rises up to your windshield.
* The front door's doorknob being too hot to touch in the summer.
* The process of getting into a car when it's 118 degrees outside.
* Sedona being much more livable than most of Arizona because it's in the mountains.
* Growing up in Oklahoma where it's incredibly hot during the day and cools down two degrees at night.
* Going tide pooling where there are dozens of species of snail that
* A subtropical jungle with stunningly beautiful coral reefs where all the wildlife is lethal.
* Going tide pooling where dozens of species of cone snails are extremely interested in your death.
* A fish that looks like a rock in a stream that will kill you if you step on it.
* Encountering a dozen lethally venomous animals every time you go to the beach.
* Living in the Bay Area where we have programmers.
* Resenting programmers but getting along with them really well.
* Getting a tech job and having to practice your self-compassion.
* Repping the city in the world with the biggest economic disparity.
* The power company shutting your power off because they can't be bothered to keep the lines clear of trees.
* Discerning the different kinds of plants that are burning in a brushfire by smell.
* Being performatively off-put by brushfire smoke that smells different from brushfire smoke in your hometown.
* Cheese scarcity in Okinawa.
* Whether or not you're allowed to bring suitcases full of cheese into Japan.
* If Gandalf really liked cheese.
* The Scottish guy who sells cheese in Okinawa for $100 per kilogram.
* Long grain rice connoisseurs in Japan importing basmati from California.
* Being unable to export farming and food preparation processes because your are getting assistance from local microbiomes.
* Japanese laws restricting rice imports so they don't corrupt the local rice microbes, but they don't give a shit about the cheese.
* RNA sequencing the brine from a batch of pickles that turned out really well.
* Celebrating the 69,000th generation of your yeast culture by posting "nice" on Twitter.
* Toddlers learning a lesson far too well.
* Telling each other stories from the spreadsheet of all the ways machine learning has failed.
* Breaking land speed records by falling over really fast.
* Reassembling Barack Obama's audiobook into a story about a demigod with the head of a dog who recreates the world after the apocalypse.
* Reality now being more ridiculous than your satire from four years ago.
* Spending a lot of time trying to identify birds.
* The basis for discussion of whether something is something or isn't something else.
* Convincing the people with the money that your field of study will eventually help somebody some day.
* The growing sense in the world that maybe not all progress is good and maybe we should skip out on some knowledge.
* The number of lines of code it takes to destroy society.
* Doing science because there is a trust that some day someone will want to know your results.
* Wanting a place to have a conversation about anything other than Elon Musk's kids name.
* Starting a podcast and never talking about anything depressing.
* Trying to transplant your neighbor's leafcutter ants into your own yard because you are a field biologist who can't go outside.
* Being waylaid by ant stings because you are allergic to wasps.
* Ants biting you with their mandibles, but only to hang on so they can sting you like wasps because they're technically in the wasp family.
* Ants being around long after humans are gone.
* Filling an ant colony with lead because humans will get more value out of a model of an ant colony than the ants get out of being alive.
* Filling an ant colony with jello and having a tasty dessert.
* Ending up in an ant lab and doing ant things.
* Studying the effects of climate change on Pokemon.
* The exchange rate between Pokecoins and Bitcoins.
* Coordinating Pokemon Go raids on Nextdoor.
* Asking Pokemon Go players if they're registered to vote and they answer that they're doing a raid when that doesn't tell you whether or not they're registered to vote at all.
* Trying to avoid the Audubon society losers at the ornithology conference.
* Birds permitting you to identify them even though they could easily fly away.