Podcasts
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. ↩︎
-
He Was Like, WTF is FCBM?
Ned and Meg confuse Meg's dad over text messages and then talk about it. We reassign the rings of hell and remind people that deterrents are not really useful in the ways that proponents usually expect them to be. We sideswipe MLMs, religion, public education, the benefits of the GED, and naming things. Welcome, thanks for coming, please email us, wash your hands, wear a mask, get the shots, don’t be a dick and thank you again.
-
Nodus Tollens and the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
What’s your sleep plan? Ned and Meg push their bedtime with a late night podcast recording, just like old times. Today, or rather tonight, well, really the other night, we discussed the definition of the made up phrase Nodus Tollens which sounds a lot like Latin but is in fact a contrived phrase that means you’ve lost the plot of your own life story and it no longer makes sense to you. If you’re not totally unsettled by this and other existential ponderings, join us. Wash your hands, wear a mask, get the shots, don’t be a dick and thanks for listening. Go to bed!
-
Myopic Design
Ned and Meg get miffy about myopic design, a phenomenon that occurs when people design things for all the wrong reasons. The dumbest invention, a shining example of myopic design, is perhaps the now-infamous and totally defunct Juicero. If you love a good long justifiable cathartic complainaroo, this one’s for you. Wash your hands, wear a mask, get the shots, don’t be a dick, and thank you as always.
-
These Two Fabulous Books
Ned and Meg have some book recommendations this week, and also the general recommendation that you do a foot peel, stat. Our book recommendations and discussion today are about *The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions* and *Diary of Edward the Hamster 1990-1990*. Both of these books are formidable in their own right and feature incredible design elements as well as huge doses of imagination. Please read! Also, wash your hands, wear a mask, thank you for listening, get the shots, don’t be a dick. Super Great!
-
Zooming at the Dentist
Ned and Meg and Lauren discuss dystopias again, and this time we fuss over details like the difference between a once-great community after the fall, and dystopias that never reached greatness to begin with. We discuss wretchedness as a function of dystopias, societal trends up and down, victim blaming, participation in your own torure, and how hell is alway personal but dystopias are equal opportunity. How do you measure suffering per square foot? Join us on this uplifting voyage through misery. As always, thank you for listening, wash your hands, wear a mask, get the shots and don’t be a dick!
-
Paper Plate Design
Ned and Meg investigate the origins of the ubiquitous paper plate. We compare the pros and cons of paper plates. We compare old inventors to new ones. We talk about disposable culture. Join us! Thanks for listening, wash your hands, wear a mask, don't be a dick.
-
Color Palettes The Podcast
Ned and Meg get together after Ned’s birthday to talk about colors! People use colors for all sorts of stuff and how they combine those colors matters a whole lot. Dive into the human condition with us and also visit Objectcolor.com because it’s amazing. Thanks for listening to us, wash your hands, wear a mask, don’t be a dick, super great!
-
Disappointment Reliquaries
Ned and Meg have a semi-absurdist conversation about a new thing we invented, sort of. We talk about traditional reliquaries, which are gorgeous mini buildings with gross old bones in them. We revisit the Joy of Melancholy. We discuss the colossal, ubiquitous failure represented by flip flops. Ned expounds on the benefits of a turf lawn, and how regular lawns are just vessels for disappointment, which brings us full circle to our topic title. Enjoy the disappointment with us! Thanks, wash your hands, keep wearing a mask, don’t be a dick.
-
Your Idea Pile Does Not a Philosophy Make
Ned and Meg and Lauren talk about metals, like steel and it’s even cooler friend nitinol. We also talk about how a philosophy is more than an incoherent jumble of opinions, and how Ned’s job is basically just arguing semantics all day (some guys have all the luck). Lauren talks shared meaning, Meg complains a bunch, and we expound on the virtues of the MN State Fair. As forever, thanks for listening, and wash your hands and get the shots and wear a mask anyway and be nice.
-
The Cycle of Discomfort
Dana and Ned and Meg and Lauren discuss the pain avoidance cycle and adapting to discomfort, patterns of behavior, how kinks are more common than not, how great Ted Lasso is, and how annoying some plot devices are. We ask who among us can stand to rewatch something they’ve seen before, and Dana gives us a plethora of excellent reading suggestions. Thank you for listening to us, and for washing your hands and getting the shots and wearing a mask maybe still because it ain’t over til it’s over, kids!
-
Design Is Not Art
Ned and Meg and Lauren talk about the differences between art and design, both of which we love. We also discuss girding loins, medieval torture devices, Jemaine Clement, whose god is it anyway, American tangents, lexical ambiguity, and the Great Buffalo Sentence which some of us had just talked about the other day and some of us were totally ignorant of! Baader-Meinhof! Thanks as always for joining us, and wash your hands and get the shots and don’t be a dick!
-
Polarizing The Lawn Sign
Ned and Meg and Lauren talk about the possibility of Meg having new neighbors to the West and what she’s prepared to do to ensure that only people she likes will buy the house for sale. Ned and Lauren offer moral support. Wash your hands, wear a mask, get yer shots, don’t be a dick! Thanks for listening.
-
Ned's Nautical Nightmare
Ned and Meg and Lauren and Ben from Bisexual Orgies listen to Ned recount a harrowing tale of high seas adventure and high drama aboard a dysfunctional vessel and a dysfunctional captain to match. Sail with us and learn about Ned’s indomitable spirit. Wash your hands, wear a mask, get yer shots, don't be a dick, thanks for listening.
-
Buyers Remorse
Meg tells Ned and Lauren the story of Buyer’s Remorse, which leads to discussion about Lauren’s work as a sexuality educator. Sex ed and sexuality education are different, and we bet you didn’t know that. See? You learn so much with us. Listen to the whole thing! As always, thank you and wash your hands and get the shots and don’t be a dick.
-
Even Though Art Can Go South Sometimes It Doesn't Mean That You Shouldn't Try
Ned, Meg, and Lauren converse about the relationship between art and money, art successes and failures, creating art with others and making lots of art in lots of ways. Wash your hands, get the shot, don't be a dick, thanks for listening.
-
Anxiety in a Cup
Ned and Meg chat on Mother’s Day about how much caffeine makes us psychotic. Meg gets hyperactive depression and Ned has been rabbit-holing an espresso machine and we’re both in a love/hate relationship with coffee beverages. We discuss Ned’s coffee science and dosing schedule. We talk about chasing the high that Ned got at Cafe Madeleine where one may obtain either the best or the worst espresso, depending. We dive into coffee mythology, dissect the merits of espresso machines, and we humbly suggest James Hoffman’s YouTube coffee videos. Wash your hands, wear a mask, get your shots, do all the things, don’t be a dick. Thanks for listening!
-
Trendliest Tech
Ned and Meg discuss more digital gobbledigook and cryptography, but this time it’s in the context of art! Jim Sanborn made a trio of sculptures that utilize cryptographic puzzles, one of which is called Kryptos, and it lives outside the CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. Three of the puzzles included in the Kryptos sculpture are solved, but the fourth remains elusive. We also discuss old cars, steganography, and Elonka Dunin who is a rad lady who solves puzzles, including the first three in Kryptos. Thanks for listening. Now go get your shots, wash your hands, wash your face, wash your underwear. Be nice.
-
Step Into Our Wardrobe
Ned and Meg talk about their innate ability to bend and dilate time, Ned's chronostasis affliction, distorted perception, how awe is essentially the experience of perceptual vastness, and how the first and last events in a series of identical temporal events appear to be of different duration even when they are not! Time flies, and does all kinds of other weird business, too. Thanks for listening! Wash your hands, take a walk, wear a mask and get your shots.
-
Not Fucking Trustworthy
Ned and Meg talk about the latest hype at the intersection of the art world and block chain, NFTs. We dish on digital assets, block chain public ledgers, the black market, intellectual property rights, and all the major problems with NFTs. This whole topic is both as crazy and not as crazy as you may already think. Watch out! This one’s a trip. Wash your hands, wear a mask, get yer shots, don’t be a dick, thanks for listening.
-
Passive Aggressive Foods
Ned and Meg celebrate May Day by talking all about food. We start with a ranking of passive aggressive foods, which segues into aggressive aggressive foods, peasant foods, and booby trapped foods, with a smattering of English foods just to round it all out. This probably won’t make you hungry but you may want a sweet snack just because this is a long one. Wash your hands, wear a mask, get yer shots, don’t be a dick. Thanks for listening!
-
The Ugliest Color
Ned and Meg discuss the grodiest color in the universe known to humans, Pantone 448 C. We analyze this color through several frameworks, including the ISCC NBS, the urban dictionary, the Munsell color system, RGB, CMYK, and of course our own preferences. This one’s a real treat. Enjoy! Wash your hands, wear a mask, get yer shots, be nice.
-
Existential Dread and the Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone of Despair
Ned and Meg get some stuff off their existential chests in this very existential episode about existential dread and a thing called the self-licking ice cream cone of despair. Dread: where does it come from? We say cops, pain, illness, and other people. Hell is always, always, other people. So what should we do, rob banks and go into existential retirement? It worked for Meg, or the latter half of that sentence did anyway. Join us as we further discuss anxiety, fight flight or freeze, how much Zoom sucks as the default communication tool during Covid, and who we might instill dread in by just being ourselves. Wash your hands, get those shots, keep your mask on because of viral variants, and be nice. Also don’t force your coworkers to be your friends, everyone HATES mandated fun. Get a real social life; we’re never coming back to the office. Thanks!
-
Octothorpe Means Different Things to Different People
Ned and Meg and Dana go down the rabbit hole of unusual punctuation and before we know it, we embark on an accidental voyage of discovery where we uncover truths about the many contexts and names for the “#” symbol and explore keyboard layouts. We ask wtf is a hexadecimal?! What’s this about Jim Thorpe?! Who is the mystery man, Doug Kerr?! Find out. Wash your hands. Wear a mask. Get yer shots. Stop being a disappointment. Just kidding. Maybe. Thanks for listening!
-
What You Don't Know About Your Flop Sweat Might Be Killing You
Ned and Meg discuss the dangers of flop sweat, as well as Gio Ponti’s daughter, Lisa Ponti, who made exceptional drawings and watercolor paintings, and who died not long ago at the age of 97. Her work is showing in NYC through the end of May 2021. We also discuss blood draws, cleaning house, the height of Roman plumbing and lead abatement as a means of coping with murder trials.
-
I Just Ran Up a Flight of Stairs
Ned and Meg discuss their favorite artist, Peter, of Peter Draws on YouTube. We discuss many of his videos and his aesthetic before moving on to aspirational musings around a future Peter Draws fan convention. Beyond that, we rant a while on abortion rights and introduce a new department in the FC:BM empire, the D.E.A.D. Thanks for joining us once again. Wash your hands, wear a mask, get the shot, don’t be a dick, watch Peter.