Important If True 26: Get Hype

[Chris]

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

 

• Listen on the Episode Page
• Listen on Soundcloud
• Listen in iTunes

[richardco]

Ooo baby, you can pay what it's worth

[infamous space turtle]

yes. i mad.

 

edit: also hype

[WickedCestus]

AFAIK, "cupping" is a medical treatment that used to be used as a pain reliever. The way I heard it (which may not be how people do it nowadays) was a flame was lit inside of the cup and then removed, so that when it suctioned onto the skin it created a vacuum of hot air, which was supposed to help blood flow or some other thing. I heard about it from a woman who grew up in Russia and said she experienced it as a kid, and it was painful as hell. 

 

I don't know what people in San Francisco are doing with it, but I'm going to assume you're right that it has something to do with toxins. 

[WickedCestus]

BTW, I loved the extra bits of post-production in this ep. The millennial news broadcast cracked me up. This ep was a great mix of hilarious bits and also some interesting future-discussion at the end. Probably one of my favourite episodes so far! 

[SecretAsianMan]

5 hours ago, WickedCestus said:

AFAIK, "cupping" is a medical treatment that used to be used as a pain reliever. The way I heard it (which may not be how people do it nowadays) was a flame was lit inside of the cup and then removed, so that when it suctioned onto the skin it created a vacuum of hot air, which was supposed to help blood flow or some other thing. I heard about it from a woman who grew up in Russia and said she experienced it as a kid, and it was painful as hell. 

 

I don't know what people in San Francisco are doing with it, but I'm going to assume you're right that it has something to do with toxins. 

 

This is somewhat correct.  The version using a flame is known as fire cupping and is a part of traditional Chinese medicine.  You rub the inside of a cup with a small amount of alcohol which is lit on fire very briefly then immediately placed on the skin.  As the air inside cools it creates suction.  The theory is that it helps to promote circulation by allowing stagnant blood to flow.  It is still commonly practiced today in China even at modern medical facilities.  In fact just a couple months ago my wife visited a hospital in China for some arm pain and received this very treatment.  Medically speaking there's really no evidence to support the treatment as effective but anecdotally my wife did feel better.

[twmac]

Okay, as a person who works in the games industry and that has worked in QA for the last 14 years with people within the age ranges of 18-28 - that entire bit in the middle with 'Hype' and 'mad' being bandied around actually made me grit my teeth.

 

All of this stuff is just common day-to-day shit that everyone either posts in the common slack chat or actually saying this stuff in the hallways to each other.

 

"You done goofed" and "Cool story bro" are among others that I fucking hate.

 

Thank you.

 

 

[Cleinhun]

5000 Years of Heaven is my favorite romantic comedy.

[Halfloaf]

After the end of this episode, I have one burning question: Should I stay spicy?

[Jake]

Nah.

[Crunchnoisy]

Okay, this episode reminded me powerfully of a piece of nonsense I did last year.  

 

Even as I was drawing this, I remember thinking to myself, "I'm an old man; nobody says this anymore..."

 

 

[Kyir]

I feel like Nick is actually stealthily just as much of an old man as Chris is but makes an effort to hide it. It still leaks out.

[Chris]

1 hour ago, Kyir said:

I feel like Nick is actually stealthily just as much of an old man as Chris is but makes an effort to hide it. It still leaks out.

Oh Nick is just as old an old man as I am.

[SuperBiasedMan]

17 hours ago, Halfloaf said:

After the end of this episode, I have one burning question: Should I stay spicy?

You may stay spicy, but you will always be a dentist.

[Robyn Haley]

A podcast made by adults for adults, where you can go from irritation over current trendy nonsense to questioning immortality and the meaning of existence. I love this show. 

[Robyn Haley]

On 8/25/2017 at 10:49 AM, twmac said:

"You done goofed" and "Cool story bro" are among others that I fucking hate.

 

 

 

 I know that feel bro, I mean GG. Oh that's just a e s t h e t i c s. 

[Dr Mario Kart]

I've been around the internet, and I dont recall anything about some kind of YOU BIAS

[Nappi]

On 25.8.2017 at 6:26 AM, infamous space turtle said:

i mad.

(in chorus) He mad.

 

Thank you Chris for the Hunt for the Wilderpeople endorsement. I would probably not have watched it based on the cover and description alone, and I hadn't heard anyone talk about it before. Man, what a fun, heartwarming movie!

 

Also, I'm pretty sure William Gibson's next book is about procedurally generated slogan fashion.

[twmac]

On 8/26/2017 at 10:01 PM, Robyn Haley said:

 

 I know that feel bro, I mean GG. Oh that's just a e s t h e t i c s. 

 

I guess I deserved that.

[Robyn Haley]

10 hours ago, twmac said:

 

I guess I deserved that.

 Heh, meant more for sympathy really. I don't know about you but I'm glad "good times" has faded and I'm slowly accepting that epic has taken roots in the common vernacular. I used to say awesome a lot, which some old stand-up routine highlighted as an annoying word. As well as hilarious. Forget who the comedian was though.  

[Turgid]

Cupping came to the world's attention during the Beijing Olympics, particularly when a bunch of swimmers like Michael Phelps showed up with red circular marks all over their arms and backs. I was sad that the TV commentators had to explain what they supposedly did without any real criticism. It's similar to the athlete's tape stuff popular among certain tennis players. (Also completely unproven, and with wacky bs theoretical mechanisms.)

 

Hey, Phelps did win all those gold medals...too bad that has no correlation with the cupping whatsoever.

 

 

BTW, "hype" is just a playful synonym for "excited" as far as I can tell. Personally I mentally substitute "excited" in all cases.

Edited August 28, 2017 by Turgid
hype

[Vasari]

I think there's another side to this auto-generated merchandise. My previous job title was "Systems Tester", and at one point I started getting these ads on facebook:

 

 

Job titles on facebook actually have their own pages, so presumably this tshirt store is just scraping facebook for job titles, creating the post/tshirt, and then purchasing an ad targeted at people who have that job listed on their facebook profile. Most of them don't get any hits but occasionally there's one with a comment where someone is tagging all their work friends.

 

I guess sometimes people also put dumb things as their job title on facebook though:

 

[marginalgloss]

Jake's app ideas were so good (all of them). 

 

The only app I want is a version of the personal AI concierge that Facebook et al are trying to create that actually works -- the one which will call your cable provider for you to re-negotiate your package, or call your energy company to give them a meter reading; or just find and book any kind of service while reading and responding to my calendar in a sane way. Basically something that will super-efficiently navigate the pointlessly arcane customer service systems of the modern world where other companies (or local government) haven't been willing or able to invest in bringing their user experience up to date.

 

Of course at the moment this kind of thing is, AFAIK, essentially reliant on outsourcing your 'life admin' to a call centre employee, or someone on the gig economy. Somehow neither of those is especially appealing to me, but I would be okay with a robot doing it? Though the amount of data I'd have to trust Facebook (or whoever) to hold about me in return for such a thing is kind of terrifying to contemplate. But it would be so helpful! I don't want to call anyone!

[thelonegoldfish]

Yeah, these are fun:

 

 

Though I think I'm missing a dithering step.

[RubixsQube]

Every time I read an article that references something discussed (or tangentially related to something discussed) on Important if True, I wonder just how many people think they're going to be the only people who email that article to the podcast. 

 

For instance, here's an update on the self-driving car impersonator:

 

https://gizmodo.com/ford-funded-that-weirdo-in-a-car-seat-costume-who-prete-1807402996

 

How many times will this appear in the Important if True email inbox?