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Kickpuncher

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Posts posted by Kickpuncher

  1. Posted

    the local alternative rock channel will play along with their traditional alternative rock tunes, rap songs by white artists inlduing eminem, beastie boys, or any other white rap artist. That in my eyes is certainly racist.

     

    The Beastie Boys are (sigh...were) rock-oriented and alt-ish enough that I can understand that part (and the alt station I grew up with definitely played them), but yeah, playing Eminem or any other pure hip-hop by white artists only is incredibly racist.

  2. Posted

    With a pop station though, a lot of them have changed over the years to include more rap and less pop, etc. (It happened here where 93.7 was the pop station and Hot 98 was the all hip-hop station, and then they started playing rap on 93.7 after 10 PM, and then eventually all day.)

     

    I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that this coincided with hip-hop's gradual rise to 'mainstream' pop status. I guess part of the issue is whether 'pop' is defined as a genre of music in and of itself, or simply a catch-all for whatever is popular at the time (probably specifically based on Billboard charts and the like).

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    So, just because Hardwick likes to mention he took Latin in highschool, the "m" in mandroid is kinda' gilding the lily, since the definition of "android" is something like "humanoid robot."

     

    http://www.etymonlin...hp?term=android

     

    Interesting. I thought 'android' more generically meant robot, and thus 'mandroid' would be akin to 'cyborg'. So is 'droid' meant to be different from 'android' (and not just short for it), or is R2-D2 incorrectly called a 'droid'?

     

    Also, Hardwick's special was really good.

  5. Posted

    Picking this years top 10 is going to be tough. I wish there was reference to Garry's marraige to Gillian Jacobs (especially since Garry mentioned his assumedly dead wife), but irritating pedantry aside, this episode was fantastic.

     

    I know people constantly mispronounce her name, but I'd expect better from Mr. Marshall, er, Garry, er, Pony boy now that they're married.

  7. Posted

    I think Andrew and Max overlooked a key sentence in the first call.

     

    "I don't really like hanging out with black people."

     

    At face value, pretty racist, no? I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she meant "I don't really like hanging out with any of the black people I know", which is understandable if she only knows a small number of black people.

  8. Posted

    As soon as Bill Cosby was mentioned I just knew Daly was gonna get in on that action.

     

    And when he did, it was glorious. He could just say "Roo-dee!" all day and I would never stop laughing.

     

    It's a shame that none of these guys are familiar with Scott's classic character Internet Borat.

     

    "Hello, I'd like to rent a room."

     

    "Okay, just fill out this form."

     

    "Do you get good 4G data service?"

     

    "Why do you ask?"

     

    "I want to make sure I can use MY WIFi hot spot."

  14. Posted

    Side note... I thought what Matt said about suicide was really interesting. Someone in my family also shot themselves in the head and it was fairly traumatic. It's crazy to think about how often people make the "gun to head" motion or say things like, "god, someone shoot me in the face."

     

    Yeah, I think this is one of those things where you really need to have it explicitly pointed out for it to sink in. I had a former boss whose father had committed suicide, and hearing that sort of turned a light on in my head that this could be almost anyone you come across and you wouldn't know it unless you knew that person pretty well, so you're better off just never making light of it.

     

    As far as the developmentally disabled characters discussion, there was an episode of I4H just a few months ago where one of the guests (a woman who has appeared semi-regularly on the show, can't remember specifically who) played a girl who kept popping up throughout the show. I thought she (and the other performers) did a great job of mining humor from that character/situation without actually making fun of her/it.

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    Has anyone else had trouble downloading shows from the site/libsyn this week? I've been having this issue pretty persistently all week, both with different shows and different devices. Sometimes downloads are extremely slow, sometimes they're not connecting at all. My best guess is that libsyn has servers somewhere that is affected by Sandy, but I was hoping someone else could confirm they've had problems (surprised there wasn't already a thread, actually) and/or someone from Earwolf might have an explanation.

     

    EDIT - On second thought, I think this is fine now. There was definitely a problem earlier in the week, but the one this morning that prompted this post was something specific with my phone. Sorry.

  17. Posted

    Am I just silly for not caring for any of those three podcasts

     

    A little bit, yes.

     

    But seriously, I agree with this and the other constructive criticisms of the new main page lay-out in the thread in the General Earwolf section. I also don't understand the logic behind the schedule. The only explanation I can come up with is that CBB is essentially the flagship show, and Hooch and Sklarbro are the next most-tenured, so their days are kept relatively light (although that really isn't even true of Friday anymore, especially weeks when there is a Ronna & Bev episode), but Tuesday has become way too crowded. The top display does scroll through 5 episodes, so it's not necessarily totally off the front page even if it's not in the 3 comedy listings, but even that doesn't seem definite, and it lasts a day at most.

  18. Posted

    I am apparently the most nervous person in the world. Thank you all for putting up with my stammering and stuttering. Thank you to Matt Besser for letting me on one of my favorite shows. I was wondering who I was talking to on the phone, so thanks to Matt Walsh, Seth Morris and Brian Huskey for the call.

     

    Don't sweat it, you were fine.

     

    Excellent scene. And we got to hear the lady robot voice say "blowjob", so that's a plus.

  21. Posted

    Do I need to point out that Canada is American? North America and South America are ALL American?

     

    Bye Bye

     

     

    Hmmm...Yeah, it's not "Nigerian-American" or "Ghanaian-American", is it? So if the first part just refers to a continent, I suppose the second part should as well. I do think some Canadians are a little sensitive about being mis-identified as Americans or by Americans just treating Canada as an extension of the US (Yo, is this racist?), so I can see why they'd resist that formulation.

     

    Anyway, came in to chime in with what everyone else has apparently already said. I actually really liked the daily format, both as a change of pace and as a nice quick show that I could listen to during lunch or something, but there were enough through-lines here to show why the longer format is superior. And of course, PFT is the best.

  23. Posted

    Denialist's post reminds me of another thing that bugged me that I forgot to mention yesterday. At one point, someone mentioned that temperate areas becoming too hot to inhabit could be offset by Arctic areas becoming habitable. I don't remember if they presented that as a serious solution, but they certainly didn't mention that a large-scale population migration to account for this would literally be the largest undertaking in human history. More importantly, it ignores the more significant effect of coastal areas (which are where virtually all of the world's major population centers lie) would become uninhabitable due to flooding regardless of their latitude.

     

    Bottom line, it's all about risk assessment. The potential negative consequences of a 'skeptical' approach are far more dire than the potential negative consequences of an 'alarmist' approach.

    • Like 3

  25. Posted

    I try to just enjoy the comedy value of PB and ignore the frequent scientific misinformation and logic gaps (mostly on David's part), but this episode was kind of infuriating.

     

    Steven, you say "Citing 'nearly universal consensus' is another technique used to argue the point without addressing the science." I think NE's point is that WE don't need to address the science because most of the brilliant people who study this for a living are doing that for us. Why would that level be reached if evidence wasn't strongly on their side? If "nearly universal consensus" isn't acceptable, what is? 'Vast majority'? 'Majority'? Which of those levels is enough of a burden of proof to demand action? And what are the negative consequences of taking mitigating action? I agree about the politicization being shameful (and find it really sad that it's come to a point where no one wants to touch it, as evidenced by the debates), but I also think that framing this sort of discussion strictly in 'global warming'/'climate change' terms is reductive. Granted, that was the topic of this episode, but still.

     

    I've seen a lot of data about the cyclical nature of weather (I actually created/adapted the figures for a book which is largely about this subject, and some related papers), but those medium-term drops don't negate the fact that the long-term trend is upward. Steven also brought up the complicated nature of CO2/temperature data, effect on oceans, etc. Regarding the oceans, I think the accepted view is that there is a sort of avalanche effect where higher temperatures in the oceans melts polar ice, which 1) releases even more CO2 into the atmosphere, and 2) causes the ocean to absorb more light/heat from the sun rather than reflecting it, both of which amplify the temperature increase.

     

    Anyway, I'm sorry if this is coming across as too strong of an 'attack mode', because I do appreciate the opportunity for discussion and have always enjoyed Steven's appearances on the show. I'm also directing this at Steven because David isn't going to come in here and defend his views, many of which seem to come from ignorance or misinformation more than a difference in informed opinions. But I'd also love to hear an opposing view from an expert on the show given that I'm a little rusty on all of this and that only a very small fraction of Blastronauts will see what any of us say in the forum.

    • Like 1
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