S01E06: ixi lang

Darius and Emma found themselves playing a game called Rimworld (yes, we know) a whole bunch over Skype with one another. It became a bit of a shared obsession and so in this episode we discuss what Rimworld is, what we like about it, and even include some candid clips of us playing the game over Skype (excuse the poor audio quality in those bits!). We discuss the virtues and drawbacks of human leather, as well as why opening a sarcophagus full of ancient evils is probably actually a pretty sound strategy. LInks: Rimworld itself, How My Colonists Died in Rimworld, Ranked From Least to Most Depressing, and a Rimworld scenario you can download where two colonists crash land on a planet with nine cats and a bunch of kibble. -- Too Much Not Enough This is a podcast about the obsessions of two very intense people. toomuchnotenough.site Emma: emmawinston.me @deer_ful Darius: tinysubversions.com @tinysubversions

Darius and Emma spend this week discussing research and how to do it. Darius has devoted his life to developing the perfect research workflow, even commanding a Twitter bot to remind him of the unread articles on his reading list. Emma, conversely, spends her working days lying in a state of learned helplessness beneath a heap of incorrect metadata and poorly formatted references. We agree that PDFs are hell, consider whether you might just be better off writing your research down on index cards, and ultimately concede that the ideal research workflow doesn't exist -- but perhaps this episode will offer some ideas of how to get closer. Links: Darius's Tiny Assistant bot and Emma's deeply convoluted Scrivener/Zotero/Applescript workflow. -- Too Much Not Enough This is a podcast about the obsessions of two very intense people. toomuchnotenough.site Emma: emmawinston.me @deer_ful Darius: tinysubversions.com @tinysubversions

Emma teaches Darius about what it was like to make websites as a preteen in the year 2000. Darius is happily surprised to learn that social capital has always been tied to one's ability to purchase a domain name. Emma holds forth on Neopets, blinkies, and adoptables. We come to the conclusion that technology is just the story of humans reinventing the guestbook over and and over. We also talk about participatory culture, which as far as Darius is concerned is basically just academics studying the guestbook over and over (he means this as a compliment). Links: Lissa Explains It All, Greymatter is still around and you can still make websites with it, a Wikipedia article on The Great Tables vs Divs War, a LiveJournal group of women who post memories of this era of web development, and here is a citation for the paper by McRobbie and Garber, "Girls and Subcultures", full text of which is available via your university, library, or intrepid web searching. -- Too Much Not Enough This is a podcast about the obsessions of two very intense people. toomuchnotenough.site Emma: emmawinston.me @deer_ful Darius: tinysubversions.com @tinysubversions

This week, Emma and Darius talk making music on the tiny computer you probably carry around everywhere in your pocket. We cover the history of making music on mobile devices going all the way back to the retro Palm Pilot, consider mobile music as an on-rails, beginner-friendly way to get into the sometimes intimidating world of music production, and ponder why there are so few music apps available for the mobile operating system used by nearly ninety percent of the world. Links: An interview with Emma on mobile music-making, a discussion of the history of mobile music-making on Palm OS devices, and Emma's list of apps to get started making music on mobile. -- Too Much Not Enough This is a podcast about the obsessions of two very intense people. toomuchnotenough.site Emma: emmawinston.me @deer_ful Darius: tinysubversions.com @tinysubversions

We're back, and it's time for a math(s) episode! We're talking about the Fourier transform, a seemingly magical thing that most people haven't heard of but that everyone who's ever adjusted the bass on a stereo has at least briefly encountered. This is a Darius topic and he goes a little into the history but mostly into dodgy metaphors about Fourier transforms that seem to help Emma understand so maybe they're not all that bad. We talk about frequency, amplitude, audio filters, computer vision, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, and of course poop. Links: a short and confusing video about Fourier transforms, a long and possibly less confusing video about them, an interactive toy that lets you play around with them, and another interactive toy. -- Too Much Not Enough This is a podcast about the obsessions of two very intense people. toomuchnotenough.site Emma: emmawinston.me @deer_ful Darius: tinysubversions.com @tinysubversions

This week we discuss the work of Darius's favourite author, Thomas Pynchon. Darius has read Pynchon's entire output multiple times; Emma has read one and a bit of his books, and seen an excellent film adaptation, but has an alarming number of opinions anyway. We talk about the roles of paranoia and intertextuality in Pynchon's work, his life and creative output, and whether it's really fair for The Crying of Lot 49 to end the way it does. Emma cries laughing at the name of a character in Gravity's Rainbow, and Darius talks about the compassion, beauty and social justice underlying Pynchon's prose. Content warnings: fairly dark and extremely irreverent (but not detailed) discussion of suicide, and a brief mention of Naziism, both in relation to Pynchon's characters. This will be the last episode of the first season of Too Much Not Enough, because life happens (and sometimes it happens all at once), but we'll be back in December with a regular weekly schedule again. -- Too Much Not Enough This is a podcast about the obsessions of two very intense people. toomuchnotenough.site Emma: emmawinston.me @deer_ful Darius: tinysubversions.com @tinysubversions

Darius and Emma talk bots: definitions, a potted history, and inspirations. Along the way, we touch on platforms (including the recent Twitter crackdown on art bots), delve into our own projects, and what it means to make software that hangs out in spaces meant for humans. Links: Eliza, a Vice article about Smarterchild, Everest Pipkin's Tiny Star Field, Tiny Astronaut, Tiny Mission Control, Tiny Seas, The Tiny Gallery, Metaphor-A-Minute!, how to make your own ebooks bot (Twitter permitting), Cheap Bots, Done Quick! (which Emma's emoji bots run on), Emma's worst ever bot. -- Too Much Not Enough This is a podcast about the obsessions of two very intense people. toomuchnotenough.site Emma: emmawinston.me @deer_ful Darius: tinysubversions.com @tinysubversions

Darius introduces Emma to the world of scratch DJing, a 90s music scene replete with creatively spelled names (Invisibl Skratch Piklz, anyone?) but even more creative use of turntables and vinyl records. We go on a journey through the history and origins of the scene, and Darius explains a few crucial techniques, from the 'Flare Scratch' to using your turntable 'Hamster Style'. We look at the technical innovations that emerged from the scene, and listen to some seriously ambitious tracks along the way, causing Emma to experience many feelings about the work of virtuoso DJ Kid Koala. Links: Kool Herc's beat-juggling technique, Invisible Skratch Piklz vs Da Klamz Uv Deth scratch battle, Amar Ediriwira's Brief History of Turntablism, the 'baby scratch' technique, the 'forward scratch', a history of 'hamster style' and some more advanced techniques from DJ QBert . Music heard: Cut Chemist - The Garden, Mixmaster Mike - Ill Shit, D-Styles - John Wayne On Acid, Mixmaster Mike - Gravity, Kid Koala - Moon River, Kid Koala - Drunk Trumpet -- Too Much Not Enough This is a podcast about the obsessions of two very intense people. toomuchnotenough.site Emma: emmawinston.me @deer_ful Darius: tinysubversions.com @tinysubversions

Darius talks a lot about the decentralized web and in particular ActivityPub, a newish web specification that is trying its best to make it possible for social network sites to talk to each other in a standardized way. You might be familiar with Mastodon as a kind of Twitter replacement, and we talk about that but also PeerTube and a few other things. Emma has many questions about this uncharted territory of the web, and Darius answers them by saying "well, in theory" a lot. Like a lot a lot. Things mentioned: the Friend Camp code of conduct and that time Facebook bought Instagram and then disabled Instagram's Twitter compatibility. -- Too Much Not Enough This is a podcast about the obsessions of two very intense people. toomuchnotenough.site Emma: emmawinston.me @deer_ful Darius: tinysubversions.com @tinysubversions

Emma dives into one of her current all-consuming obsessions: ixi lang, a programming language for creating and performing live music. She talks about how she came to learn about the language and what it's like to perform with it. Darius has questions about the language's affordances as a tool, and we both agree that limitations are great because they help you both rein it in and break the rules. And Emma took the time to write up a guide to getting started with ixi lang! -- Too Much Not Enough This is a podcast about the obsessions of two very intense people. toomuchnotenough.site Emma: emmawinston.me @deer_ful Darius: tinysubversions.com @tinysubversions