Feature Creep: Built-in Microwave; The Podcast
With a loose focus on design, and a heavy dose of absurdity, we discuss a variety of topics that we hope you will find relevant to your own life. Or, at least you might find them entertaining. Please enjoy.1
-
With your consent, of course. ↩︎
Podcast: Thursday, Oct 1, 2020
Short, Logical Fallacies 2
Ned and Meg attempt to redeem the first episode on our series of shorts on logical fallacies by turning to a better source of definitions and examples, the Purdue Owl. We talk about slippery slopes, genetic and either/or fallacies, begging the question, circular arguments and straw men. Please allow us to edify you a little less clumsily this time. Thank you. Wash your hands and wear a mask and don’t swallow BS.
Podcast: Monday, Sep 28, 2020
Designing Dystopias, Where Are We?
Ned and Meg attempt to tie all our past conversations about Dystopia into a single summary bundle, with predictably mixed results. We pull a drive-by on religion, conformity, conditions on the ground in the real world, entropy, sci-fi, family and state arrangements, and state sponsored violence. Come aboard with us and sail the high seas of disappointment. Wash your hands, wear a mask, stay away from people, don’t be a jerkface jerk.
Podcast: Thursday, Sep 24, 2020
Short, Logical Fallacies 1
Ned and Meg create a mess out of our initial discussion of logical fallacies. But it’s a fun mess. First and worst in a series on Logical Fallacies. The rest will be examples, not hamfisted, much better, please and thank you. Wash your hands, wear a mask, be nice.
Podcast: Monday, Sep 21, 2020
A Litany of Human Indignities
Ned and Meg discuss a litany of human indignities. We review other people’s urine, men peeing all over, human incivility, starvation, genocide, war, your OWN urine, the best toilet paper and our insecurity about it, symbiotic bathroom snoops, AI personhood, cellphones, Trainspotting, botched social outings, radiation from coal slurry, and reparations to the African diaspora (get with the program, y’all). Thanks for listening to our meandering complaints. Buy our stuff. Wash your hands. Wear a mask. This list of demands is getting so long we’re gonna need an acronym soon.
Podcast: Thursday, Sep 17, 2020
Short, Mapping Prejudice
Ned and Meg chat about the Mapping Prejudice project that uses GIS data to map racial covenants in housing deeds in Minneapolis, MN, with a goal of explaining and visualizing the effects of discriminatory housing policies over time. You can volunteer to help or read more about this groundbreaking work at www.MappingPrejudice.org. Wash your hands, wear a mask, be nice!
Podcast: Monday, Sep 14, 2020
Gullibility, The Barnum Forer Effect and Horoscopes
Ned and Meg discuss the Barnum Forer Effect and Horoscopes. Did you know that you have a great deal of unused potential? How human are you today? Bertram R Forer has a test, the 'Diagnostic Interest Blank' to be exact. It’s all BS but people love flattery and celebrity apparently! Call 1-900 Believe A Stranger to get your special predictions now.
Podcast: Thursday, Sep 10, 2020
Short, Close Talking in the Time of Covid
Ned and Meg chat about close talkers in a pandemic spread by close talking. We also take pot shots at updated covid mask designs, dysfunctional citrus presses, and a Niagara of hostile or self defeating design.
Podcast: Monday, Sep 7, 2020
Designing Dystopia, My Dystopia is Better than Yours
Ned and Meg discuss a letter, sent to George Orwell from his former teacher Aldous Huxley, in which Huxley both celebrates and criticizes Orwell’s vision of dystopia for being excellent but not quite as good as his own. We sideswipe lady gangs, Halloween costumes, tee shirt designs, and the movie Little Shop of Horrors. Here’s mom: wash your hands, wear a mask!
Podcast: Thursday, Sep 3, 2020
Short, Encounter at Farpoint
Ned and Meg chat about the first episode of Star Trek Next Generation (TNG) Episode one, Encounter at Farpoint, aka the one with Q! Ned saw it as a kid and it really made a creepy impression. That leads Meg to complain about M*A*S*H*, the worst entertainment drag on television.
Podcast: Monday, Aug 31, 2020
Dystopian Movies and More, but not that More
Meg and Ned discuss movies that feature dystopian themes. They don't even come close to exhausting the list of possible movies to discuss but they give it a good try.