#define: props to astronomer

Welcome to another awesome episode of #define, our game of obscure jargon, fake definitions, and expert tomfoolery. Our contestants checked their imposter syndrome at the door, because they either know what these words mean, or they’re going to fake it till they make their peers think they do. Adam, you’ve played this game a lot…

I’ve lost every time, Jerod.

Are you feeling like you’re going to win today?

Oh, my…

Feeling good?

Well, I’m not on video, so at least – maybe in the clip, but my face is sad, because I have not won yet. But maybe today. Maybe.

You did have a nice accolade. I think our last time we played, one particular listener said your answers were always his favorite.

Yeah. Well, you know…

So that’s kind of a win.

You’ve got to win somewhere, right?

That’s as good as winning everything, yeah.

Yeah.

Put that on a dagger. Okay, so for this particular game we decided “Let’s get some of our Changelog++ supporters, some of our diehard fans and our listeners to hop on the mic and play with us.” So I put out a call and asked if anybody had a good setup, if they were free this afternoon… And I can’t remember what else I said. Likes playing silly games…

And we got three respondents. They are all here today. One of them you may know, because he’s been on the pod before… It’s Jamie Tanna. Jamie, what’s up, man?

Hey, great to be back. Been a while…

Here you are. You’re here now. Are you good at making up fake definitions for real words? We’re going to find out… [laughter]

I was going to say, that’s perfectly real-time “No.”

Okay… Audio listeners only out there - he was not sure what to say.

He’s like “Gosh, do I go for it or not? Because I’m going to be found out here…”

“Should I boast, or what…?”

We’re also joined by Spencer Lyon from Orlando. Welcome, Spencer.

Thanks. Happy to be here. Hopefully – I’m rooting to maybe extend Adam’s losing streak, I don’t know. We’ll see if Jamie, David and I can make it happen.

I think the odds are in your favor.

Three to one, if you’re just playing blind.

That’s true. There’s also the spread, because I do get to participate in kind of a strange way… But we should introduce E. David Aja. Welcome, David.

Thank you. Happy to be here. First time, long time…

Happy to have you as well. So how this game works is we have 10 rounds, if we need them all, but we also have a goal of 15 points, which you can score in multiple ways. So I will provide for each round a word, with a couple of rounds that aren’t quite standard… But a standard round is a word which comes from the broad-ranging world of STEM. I’ve been extending it beyond STEM. There’s some music, there’s some video games… There’s anything you might imagine a nerd would love in the mix. And these words are obscure, and sometimes old and quite jargony… If you know the word’s definition, you submit to me that. If you submit that correctly right away, you get three points, and you get to sit that round out, because you know the definition. If you don’t know the definition, you make one up, you submit that, and then I gather them all together and I read them along with the actual definition, and you all take your turns trying to identify which one is the correct definition. For each person who guesses it correctly at that point, you get two points. And for each person you trick into selecting your definition, you get one point. If nobody after the end of the round actually lands on the correct definition, I, your humble moderator, get four points. First one to 15 points wins. Any questions?

Let’s rock.

I guess I just explained that so well, there’s no questions. Okay, let’s start then. Hopping right in to round one, where the word for round one is myoclonus. Myoclonus. That’s M-Y-O-C-L-O-N-U-S. Please submit to me your definitions for the word myoclonus now.

Do we get points for making Jerod laugh while reading? That’s the question.

In here, yeah. He would give you a pat on the back.

Get some cred. Some street cred.

No real official points, but [unintelligible 00:07:31.28]

You get docked points, by making my job harder.

I was going to say, and then you also have to watch people’s faces as they’re being read out, to see if someone’s like “Oh yeah, that was mine. That was a good one.”

That was funny.

There are some social cues, yeah, that you can look out for… Unless you’re me, and I do nothing. I have a stone face here. There’s no giveaways. This is poker to me.

“This is poker to me…”

There definitely is a giveaway in one of the rounds, and I’m looking forward to taking advantage of that.

Hm… I have Spencer’s, David’s and Jamie’s, which means we’re just waiting on Adam.

Shocking.

[00:08:10.14] Yeah, I know. Sorry. I don’t know how to describe it… I’m working on it.

So one suggestion that we’ve had is to post all the definitions to you all, and then read them once. And that cuts down on the people asking to repeat. Now, I think the asking to repeat is kind of funny, but it does get old. That’s kind of the funny part. My fear with – the reason I haven’t done it is because there’s a certain amount of tells, even in the text, whether it’s misspellings, or the way that I present things, that can sometimes lead to you knowing whether or not it’s real. So I’m curious, as we are here in the first round, what you all think about that.

I mean, if you had some kind of tokenizer that like stripped all the punctuation and things, that might be a way to quickly homogenize things a little bit… But the misspellings thing is probably harder to capture.

Right.

I kind of like the spontaneity… It’s funny to hear, as a listener, people’s reactions. Maybe it’s not the best for game integrity, but maybe for entertainment value it’s a good choice.

The reason why I would lean towards leaving it alone is because as a listener, you don’t get the advantage of being able to look at the sentences… And so having them be repeated for you is actually helpful, because you’re like “I don’t remember what that one was either.” And so there’s a camaraderie to that, you know… But I fully admit that it’s not efficient at all, because you’re like “Can you say that one again?” and it gets to be like “Dude, I’ve said it six times, Adam. Come on, stop.”

Oh, my name’s in there?! [laughter]

Well, you might be the most requester of them all.

I’ve played the most. I’ve played the most.

Right.

Yeah, I think no definitions in the chat makes sense.

Okay. It’s been a few people that have said this, so not like a major complaint or anything. Alright, I have all five definitions for myoclonus. That’s your four, as well as the correct definition. They are, number one, a term that defines the family of different forms of life that undergo mitosis. Number two, an eye disorder that results in double vision. Number three, a pre… [laughter] It’s been a while since I’ve done this. Okay. Number three, a precursor to the monocle, an ancient Mayan seeing aid used to magnify small objects. Number four, known as a sibling of restless leg syndrome… [laughs] Sorry.

Restless leg syndrome is serious.

I know it is. And I’m offending somebody… Known as the sibling of restless leg syndrome, is when your muscles twitch and have sudden movements. Number five, the brief involuntary twitching of a muscle or group of muscles. There you have five definitions, read perfectly, each one…

Hah…!

[unintelligible 00:11:11.21]

First try! First try!

Yeah, I’m warming up still; still warming up… And we are going to see if we can identify which one’s real. We’ll start with Jamie.

What was the second one again?

The second one was an eye disorder that results in double vision.

Yeah, I’m going to go with that one.

Okay, Jamie takes double vision. We go now to David…

Uh, the fifth one. The muscle one.

The muscle one. Okay, David takes the muscle one. We go to Spencer…

I’m going to stick with David here. I’m thinking twitchy muscles, but not necessarily restricted to the legs.

Okay. It goes beyond legs. Spencer takes number five, that’s the muscle one. And now we go to Adam. Are you going to pile on? Are you going to spread it out? Are you going to –

[00:12:03.10] I don’t know. I guess, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know.

Well, do you need me to repeat any of them for you?

Well, that – was it four or five that made you laugh? Which one made you laugh?

The sibling of restless leg syndrome. [laughs]

I’m kind of liking that one…

Not because it’s unbelievable, just because I think it’s –

I’ll pile on. I’ll pile on.

Okay.

I’ll pile on.

So we have a pile on.

That’s early for a pile on.

Nobody thought it was the sibling of restless leg syndrome… Probably because I didn’t read it very well. I apologize.

Adam, you had that one. That was yours. You also misspelled known, so I was trying to overcome that… I had to add the N in my head as I tried to read it, and so you really stumbled me right at the front… And then I thought, “Why does restless leg syndrome have a sibling?” [laughter]

For the arms, or…?

Yeah. They have like restless arm syndrome, or what…? So you just got me with that one, and you got nobody else, probably because of that. However, Spencer also didn’t trick anybody with his precursor to the monocle. Nobody picked that one. That was Spencer’s. And Jamie didn’t get anyone, with “a term that defines the family of different forms of life that undergo mitosis.” So it’s not looking very good for me, because those are three fake ones. The other fake one that was selected was an eye disorder that results in double vision. Jamie guessed that. That was David’s, so one point to David for the eye disorder. I thought that was a good one; double vision, mono…

Mio for like myopic…

Yeah, exactly.

There you go…

Yeah, well played. However, once I read the actual definition, it seems like you guys knew what it was… “The brief involuntary twitching of a muscle or group of muscles, that is myoclonus.” So David, Spencer and Adam all get two points each. So after round one, David’s in the lead with three, Spencer and Adam tied with two, and Jamie and I not quite yet on the board… But there’s lots of #define left to play.

We move now to round two, where your word for round two is eigengrau. That’s E-I-G-E-N-G-R-A-U. Eigengrau. Submit to me your definitions just as soon as you have them. Is restless leg syndrome a thing?

Yes… I guess while we’re here in the break - I thought I was on the money with that one, because I learned about that, because for a bit there I thought I had it… And that’s when I learned about myoclonus, or however it’s pronounced… It’s twitchy stuff, so I thought I had on the money, but maybe I was off a little… Because that’s how I learned about it. Because for a bit there I had this this thing where I thought I had – like, I just had twitches for a bit. It was when my thigh was a little off. And it was kind of caused from that because there’s a – when you have like a thyroid issue, you can also have like versions of arthritis, but it’s not like full on arthritis; it’s kind of like arthritic things… And that’s kind of a sibling to restless leg syndrome, because I thought I had that… So they described several things, and that was in my memory from that…

Yeah.

And that’s why I described it that way.

Yeah, it wasn’t bad. I’d never heard of restless leg syndrome.

It’s pretty bad.

But yeah, it’s just basically like your leg twitches uncontrollably, huh?

You can’t stop moving it, yeah. It’s like, it just moves without you wanting it to. And it’s usually during sleep, when you’re trying to sleep. And so obviously, your sleep sucks. I can see how that reads funny, though… Especially since it says kno, versus known.

Yeah… That’s what got me first. Then I started thinking “Sibling?” and it just got me giggling.

[unintelligible 00:15:38.26] Somebody asked… Who was it that asked? Was it David? Was there extra points for making Jerod laugh?

That was my question, but so far you’re in the lead. You’re in the lead.

I got him to laugh, round one.

So you’ve got a fun speaker lined up for the weekend in Denver, and then other activities… What else is happening in the live show?

Well, we’re going to do our Kaizen episode with Gerhard, and we’re going to be launching – cutting over Pipely to go live, so that’ll be interesting… That’s basically it. It’s a two-parter. So an interview and then a Kaizen.

[00:16:14.00] That sounds great.

And whatever else we make up on stage. We have all the definitions for eigengrau. Number one, the dark gray color that people perceive in complete darkness, rather than seeing pure black. Number two, “When naming the beer Ziegenbock…” [laughter] Dude, you can’t laugh while I’m – I’m going to have to mute you. When naming the beer Ziegenbock - this name was also in the running - it describes a patent pending process for mixing beer, so they considered it for the name of the beer. Number three, the deeply primal feeling of fear, driven by a heightened increase of cortisol as if hearing the blood curdling cry of a beast while on the hunt.

These are amazing definitions.

That’s intense.

Yeah, these are good. The imaginary counterpart to the eigenspace of a matrix for complex valued matrices. And number five, from the German, for singularly gray. There you have five definitions of eigengrau. David, we start with you.

Sorry, could you remind me of the first one?

Number one was a dark gray color that people perceive in complete darkness rather than seeing pure black.

I mean, I think as appealing as Adam’s beer definition is – [laughter]

Hey, you can’t out him like that…

I don’t think I did… I’m going to go for the first one.

Okay, the first one. Spencer, what are you thinking?

I’m thinking number five, the German word for singularly gray.

Okay. So far we’ve got gray and gray. Adam?

I’ve gotta say, those two definitions make me think something’s in a shade of gray here, so I’m thinking number five as well, the German version of gray.

Piling on gray, the German gray. Jamie, are you going to pile on?

I’m going to go for the other gray…

[laughs] Okay, so if we’re piling on gray… You’re going to pile on the other gray.

So I’ll go for one.

Okay. So number one, we have David and Jamie on one, and we have Spencer and Adam on five. Both definitions about gray. One of them is correct, one of them is incorrect, I’ll tell you that much. And the definition that is incorrect is literally true though, from the German for singularly gray… So that’s just knowing the compound word, I suppose, and not the definition.

The definition actually is the dark gray color that people perceive in complete darkness, rather than seeing pure black. So that one was the actual definition. And David and Jamie both picked that. So David gets two, Jamie gets two… However, David was so close because he also knew from the German for singularly gray - that was his, so he also tricked two people… And so he scores four.

That’s a big round.

Congrats, David. You must feel good about yourself…

I do. I lived in Berlin for like half a year, and so in that time – I’m just like, “Yeah, that’s enough to–”

That’s enough to put that word together, Eigen… Does eigen mean singular?

That actually, I just kind of went with the mathy eigenvector value, or whatever.

Right. According to Wikipedia, eigengrau is the German from intrinsic gray. And so maybe eigen means intrinsic. Also called eigenlicht. I can’t speak German… Dark light, or brain gray. It’s the uniform dark gray background color that many people report seeing in the absence of light. The term eigenlicht dates back to the 19th century, and has rarely been used in recent scientific publications. So there you go.

[00:20:09.03] How would they all be reporting it as gray? Like, there’s no – I’m sorry, that’s a philosophy question.

Yeah, they think they’re seeing black, but they’re not, basically… Because it’s just like “Well, it’s dark, so it’s black.” It’s actually not black.

It’s the absence of light.

It’s eigengrau.

Yeah, that’s interesting. We have a cave here in Texas that you can go to as a tourist, and go to the pitch black part of it…

Oh, yeah.

So they’ll take you deep enough that you’re not in danger… They’ll turn the lights off, and it literally is pitch black, or what they call pitch black. And so maybe I should go back there and test this eigengrau.

Yes.

Did you know this is actually eigengrau?

That’s right.

There you go.

This is not pitch black. I’ll correct them. The tour guide.

You’ll just yell “Das ist eigengrau!” [laughter]

“Das ist eigengrau!” And be really angry.

Yes. Alright. Well, you should be really angry, because you’re getting whooped by David at this point… As is all of us, because he has seven points after two rounds.

Wow.

The rest of you all are tied with two. There’s plenty of #define left to play. I’m still in the eigengrau, with zero. Let’s move now to round three, where your word for round three is klystron. That’s K-L-Y-S-T-R-O-N. Please submit to me your definitions for the word klystron. So I was debating in my head whether I should just give David the three points for being correct, because he was so close… And I decided to let him play, because he wasn’t exactly right… But man, you actually scored way more points because I let you play, than you would have if I’d just given you the three points.

You came out on top.

I’m not mad about it.

That definitely paid off for you, so… Good job. I do like the sound of that…

It’s a clickety clackety.

It sure is.

It’s really emphatic.

I pressed Enter, and you all knew I pressed Enter.

During COVID, my partner and I – so we were living at her house, and we were sharing an office, which was.. So it’s a two-bed Victorian house, and so the office bedroom that we were sharing was not very big… And we both had mechanical keyboards. And it was the sort of time that – like, at lunch we’d talk a little bit about work, and I wouldn’t even need to tell my partner what was going on that morning… Because she would know if I’d been arguing with people on Slack, because it was very, very clear in that small room.

You were just emphatically typing.

Yeah.

But how does she know? You could have just been like in the flow state, coding like a madman; just really going after it.

I think she learned pretty quickly, yeah.

It’s different? [laughs]

Yeah. Yeah, many more pauses when you’re coding, to like think of the next thing.

Right. When you’re ranting, you’re just raving.

Was she like “Who are you arguing with? Are you winning?”

Okay. There - five definitions for the word klystron. Number one, a device that converts the kinetic energy of an electron beam into radio frequency power. Number two, the process of moving swiftly through water. Number three, the nickname for a grouping of subatomic particles, including the gluon and muon. Number four, a lesser used term in scientific vernacular, to denote a grouping of potassium heavy entities. And number five, a subatomic particle with negative charge and spin. These are all believable to this layman over here… Let’s see what y’all think, starting with Spencer.

I’m going to have to hear those first two again, Jerod.

Sure thing. Number one, a device that converts the kinetic energy of an electron beam into radio frequency power. And number two, the process of moving swiftly through water.

[00:24:14.25] Hm… I think I’m going to go – there were two subatomic particles, so I’m drawn to one of those ones… And the question is which one? I think I’m going to go negative charge and spin. Number five.

Okay. Number five, a subatomic particle with negative charge and spin. Locky in right there. Adam, to you.

You know, five sounds pretty awesome, but…

[laughs] But…?

But –

Not quite awesome enough.

…I really feel like there’s something to number two. But there’s a lot of people talking about protons, and [unintelligible 00:24:53.09] and stuff like that, and the potassiums…

Right? Charges…

Can you read number four for me again? Just so I can have clear – that one was similar to five. Close

It’s a lesser used term in scientific vernacular to denote a grouping of potassium heavy entities.

Let’s go with five.

Five. The one that Spencer went with.

That’s right.

You’re going to pile on with Spencer.

He’s got the points, I’m following him.

It’s not been a winning strategy yet, but… Adam and I are sticking together. It’s going to pay off.

I was gonna say, you’re going to have the same score. Alright. Now to Jamie.

I was hoping David would go first…

He went first last time.

What was number three? That was the other subatomic particle one.

Yeah, the nickname for a grouping of subatomic particles, including the gluon and muon.

I’m not sure about the water one, but as it came out, I was like “Hmm, I don’t know…” But I also don’t know any of these words, so…

I think it’s clear that none of us know what this definition is… [laughter] So it’s a guessing game at this point.

Yeah. I think I’m going to, again, try and split the vote, and go for number three, the other subatomic particle.

Okay. So you’re liking subatomic, but you’re going to go for the other subatomic. Alright, David, you are last to guess this round.

I almost – it’s like the subatomic particle thing seems so obvious that it feels like a trap.

Hm… Cue Admiral Ackbar.

Whereas… I don’t know if – there’s no klystron for water… It doesn’t sound right. The potassium thing is like [unintelligible 00:26:30.29] No, that doesn’t work either. I don’t know. What was the first one?

That was the device that converts the kinetic energy of an electron beam into radio frequency power.

The kinetic energy of an electron beam.

Correct.

Yeah, I don’t – I’m going to go for the… [laughter] I mean, yeah…

This is that scenario when like you’re sold something, and you just want the salesperson to sell it to you… Can you just tell him which one to pick, Jerod?

Yeah. You know, all I have is money [unintelligible 00:27:04.21]

“Just tell me what I should buy.”

Yeah. I’m going to go for the water one, just because I got –

The water one?

Yeah, I don’t know… I don’t feel strongly about it, but… Yeah, that’s what we’re doing.

But if you had to pick one, you’re going to pick the water one. The process of moving swiftly through water. Adam did say there was something to that one… There’s something special about that one. Wasn’t there, Adam?

Pretty special… [laughter] Tell him what he won.

He won one point for Adam.

There you go.

Because there was something special about that one. For a second there, Adam, I thought you were going to do the “People are talking about” thing…

“Everybody said…” This boat, it moves through the water with the klystron, you don’t even know.

Right? People are talking about that water one. It’s like, no, you’re the first person to go. No one’s talking – okay. So yeah, Adam gets a point there. The pile on was to the subatomic particle with negative charge and spin - two points, because Spencer and Adam both selected that one… It goes back to David. So he’s still scoring.

That’s why I didn’t believe it.

[00:28:09.23] It was cool, I liked it.

It was a good one. I liked the gluon and muon the most. Jamie liked that one as well… And that was Spencer’s. So the subatomic particles was too good to be true. Neither of those was the right answer…

Oh… Is Jerod on the board now?

…which means I score four points, because a klystron is a device that converts the kinetic energy of an electron beam into radio frequency power. Often called a klystron tube, if you’re going to look up the actual thing… And - there you go. Surprised you guys didn’t know that. I didn’t know that either, but I knew it before you guys did, because I looked it up this morning.

[unintelligible 00:28:50.18] 1937. It’s been around.

Yeah, it’s been out there. There’s lots of YouTube videos. I watched them, because I wanted to figure out how to pronounce it. And I’m not sure if I pronounced it right, because I did see both klystron and klystron.

Is it related at all to vacuum tubes, or is that just like a completely separate technology? No, it’s not. I don’t know. Yeah, never mind.

It’s a tube, I don’t know. I’m not a physicist.

I was attracted to that one, too. I almost picked that one. It was close.

Well, people were talking about that water one… [laughter]

There’s something to it.

There’s something about it. There’s something about that water one. Alright, so we’ve all scored now, we’re all feeling good… Jamie didn’t score that round, but you are on the board. So after three rounds, David’s still in the lead with nine. I guess I move into second place with four… Wow. This is the closest I’ve ever been to winning. Adam and Spencer - tied, of course, because they select the same one every time, with three… And Jamie win two. So David’s still out to a resounding lead, but I think we can catch him.

We’re moving now to round four. This is a special round. We call it “Give it a goog.” Give it a goog!

Ah, give it a goog…

Break: [00:30:00.13]

I went out to google.com in an incognito browser… I did not use a VPN, so yes, you can probably triangulate some stuff, because I was too lazy, even though I knew that might happen… And I googled “How does.” Just those two words, “How does”, and then I hit Space, to make sure it knows that does is over… And I stopped, and Google suggested some autocompletes. I have jotted down the number one autocomplete, and your job in this round is either to guess what Google autocompleted for me, or of course, come up with what you think it might autocomplete for most humans around the world. Please submit to me your autocompletes now.

And this is – you’ve googled this today?

Correct.

And to confirm, you’re in Omaha, Nebraska?

Correct. Well, you can stereotype me, and then you can guess some stuff. [laughter] Feel free. It’s fine.

I was gonna say, yup.

You have all of your false ideas about what we’re like…

How does corn grow…?

No - see, we already know that. We’re not going to be asking Google that. You have to think of what we’re ignorant of. Adam, are you thinking, or what are you doing over there?

I’m thinking…

Okay, because it looks like you’re just staring at the camera, just like deeply breathing…

Well – oh, sorry. Am I breathing deeply? Maybe I’m excited. Oh, man. I think I’m excited. Now I’m self-conscious about my breathing. Who wants a little TMI? Do you want some TMI? [laughter]

That’s not normally how that works… [laughter]

I don’t know how to answer that…

I know exactly how to answer that. No. The answer is no. [laughter] But I’m going to hear it anyways, I’m sure.

No, I will not tell. I’m keeping it.

Okay. Wow, it worked.

It worked.

Can it be like a Plus Plus special?

Yeah. Just bleep it for the regular people, and we’ll unbleep it for Plus Plusers. I mean, this is a Plus Plus special right here. Okay… [Changelog Plus Plus. It’s better!] Well, we gave it a goog and we tried to guess how people were googling “How does” stuff. That’s not even a good sentence. I’m going to roll with it… And here’s what we came up with. Five potential autocompletes for “how does”. Number one, how does a bill become a law? Number two, how does farming work? Number three, how does astronomer make money? Number four, how does Ozempic work? And number five, how does the world end? How does the world end?

Five… Four…

We just took a dark turn there.

Like a dramatic countdown…? Alright, Adam, you are first this round, my friend.

Gosh, man, there’s like two in there that were really good.

Oh, which ones were they?

I really have to ask you to read four of them again. Or three of them.

These are the shortest ones ever. How do you not remember them? Okay, I’ll read them – do you want them all?

The middle three were the ones that stood out most to me. So like two, three and four. Can you read those, please?

Two, three and four. Okay. Number two is how does farming work?

Okay, that was not the one.

[00:35:59.25] Number three, how does astronomer make money?

That was awesome.

Okay. Number four, how does Ozempic work?

Okay, listen, I think it’s number four, but I’m going to give it to number three, because damn, that’s a good answer. [laugher] That is spot on. Whoever’s that is if it’s not real, they’re awesome.

Okay.

Forever friend.

Okay, Adam goes with number –

Date of recording might be relevant for that particular answer.

Right?

Astronomer, yeah.

Inquiring minds want to know, “how does astronomer make money?” Okay. Next up, it’s going to be Jamie.

So I was going to say, we’ve heard the middle three…

Yeah. [laughter]

How about number one and five…?

Yeah, one of them was how does a bill become –

How does a bill become a law?

That was the first one.

And then what was the other one?

And the last one was how does the world end? So there’s your five. So you’ve got farming – well, in order… You’ve got a bill, you’ve got farming, then you’ve got astronomer, then you have Ozempic, then you have the world.

I think Ozempic. I mean, astronomer is like written perfectly how someone would search for it… But yeah, I think Ozempic.

Alright, Jamie picks Ozempic. David, do you?

I’m going to go with Ozempic. I think that – yeah, that seems right.

What are you guys trying to say? [laughter]

It’s very popular. People want to know how it works.

That’s right.

That’s true.

That’s fair. Okay. Spencer?

I’m torn… I feel like Adam and I have hitched our wagons together, and I’ve got to give props to astronomer. I mean, the reason I’m a Plus Plus subscriber - I like to support things that bring me happiness, and I like it, and that answer brought me a bit of happiness… So I’m going to go for astronomer.

There you go.

Well played. Okay. So Spencer and Adam, hitched again, and…

Ride or die, brother.

Right to the bottom.

Some people want to know how astronomer makes money. I want to know how David makes money, because he is scoring left and right. That was his. Good job, David! And there’s a funny backstory on that one, because without the capitalized A, I thought he was trying to say, “How do astronomers make money?” Also I’m curious, how do they? And I’m like “Do you want me to pluralize for that?” And he’s like “No, man.” I was like “Oh, I get it.” I didn’t get it at first.

No, man.

Yeah, I was like “Astronomers. Yeah, how do they make money? I don’t know.” So two points for him. And then “How does farming work?” Well, Jamie already made a joke about that, so that was his… How does a bill become a law? Nobody cares, Spencer. I mean, come on. Nobody wants to know.

I mean, you had to have seen the video when you were in grade school, no?

Oh, for sure.

“How does a bill become a law?”

For sure.

Not my favorite schoolhouse rock, though, honestly.

That is a good one.

Conjunction Junction.

Conjunction Junction.

There it is.

What’s your function? Hooking up words and –

Phrases and clauses.

Phrases and clauses.

Yes…!

Alright. Meanwhile, Adam, the world ending one - didn’t you do that similar last time around, something about the end of the world?

I don’t know what else to say, okay? I have a limited vocabulary…

He’s got one thing on his mind… [laughter]

Does Adam have a doomsday device somewhere? Should we be worried?

You know, I just don’t have a good brain like you, David, because that was an awesome answer… And I guess I’m just bland. I could be more sparkling, I’m just a little bland, unfortunately.

Well, the correct autocomplete, or at least for my incognito tab on this side of the Earth, is “How does Ozempic work?” And Jamie and David both picked that, so two points each. That’s two for Jamie in the round, four for David in the round. Other autocompletes that didn’t quite make it as high, but were still on the list… Number two was “How does a HELOC work?” A HELOC. That is confusing. A home equity line of credit. A very complicated, but sometimes useful investing vehicle. “How does Plan B work?” “How does Zelle work?” You know, that thing where you can send money between banks… I don’t know. I don’t know how it works. And how does hail form? That’s straight out of Nebraska right there, because we get hailed on so much.

[00:40:15.29] And Texas, bro. Oh my gosh, yeah.

I got a particularly Orlando response in my how does… So number one, also Ozempic.

Okay.

Number two, “How does Lightning Lane work?” The Disney World FastPass system. No one knows.

Oh… No one knows. [laughs]

They keep changing it.

It’s like magic. It’s dark magic.

It’s like magic you pay for, and then you don’t know what happens.

Yeah… It’s magic for them. Hilarious. Alright. Well, after just four rounds, we have like a world record pace here. David with 13 points. He’s in striking distance of a win after four rounds. Wonder why I created 10 rounds… And tied for second is me and Jamie, with four. That’s how far back we are. And tied in last is these two hitched together with three, Spencer and Adam.

Can we go for a rule change and just like pool our points together? [laughter]

Just team up on him? I make the rules… So I can make up whatever I wanted to, technically. I mean, it’s our podcast, but… He might not come back, and maybe that’s what we want. I don’t know.

[unintelligible 00:41:20.13]

We move now to round five… This is a new style round, even newer than the Google style round. This is called “Weird Flicks, But Okay…” I’ve scoured the internet for one of the oldest, most obscure, weird movies, and I’ve grabbed the title, the year it was released, and the synopsis. A brief one-sentence synopsis of what the movie is about. Your job is to write your own brief one-sentence synopsis and try to trick your friends into thinking yours is real. And of course, I guess if you know the actual movie and you tell me what it’s about, you’ll still get your three points.

I think if I were you guys, I’d start teaming up against David… Just saying. Just saying.

So just like like the oldest possible movie is what we’re going for?

They’re pretty old. So this first one – I have two of these rounds. The first one - this is a 1945. So it’s an old movie. And the title of the movie is The Reckless Moment. The Reckless Moment. And your job is to come up with, or to know by having seen it, the synopsis of what that movie is about. So there you go. The Reckless Moment, from 1945.

And to confirm, is this the official one-line synopsis?

This would be the one liner that is on the IMDb page. So it’s not like a tagline. It’s a synopsis. But IMDb people wrote it, not the movie creators, I don’t think.

What does Adam have in his – what’s he watching behind this…

Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley…!

Is it always on? Always?

Well, whenever we’re recording. I think he might turn it off in between, but… It’s just loops, different scenes. Yeah, he’s just trolling.

I was trying to work it out from earlier, I thought it was Community… [unintelligible 00:43:11.16]

I thought it would be cool if he would do some different things, different episodes. Like, it could be Star Wars, it could be Silicon Valley, it could be Predator, you know… And he’s just like “Nah. Only Silicon Valley, all the time.”

You want me to change the show for you? “Yeah, I want to watch something different.”

No, we were very excited when you left, because we could actually catch up on an episode we missed.

Yeah…

That doesn’t generate like a copyright problem from HBO? They’re not like [unintelligible 00:43:40.25]

No, it’s obscure enough. Yeah, it’s in the background enough we don’t ever get a takedown request, thankfully.

Do I remember we talked about there maybe being like a Changelog watch-along of Silicon Valley? Do like an episode a week?

Yeah, that’d be cool. I never executed on that, because I didn’t want to re-watch it, I guess… Or be forced to.

We also almost did a… So the last time we played this game – what was that? He Who Gets Slapped? Was that the name of the movie, Adam?

Yes, yes.

[00:44:09.13] We actually were going to watch that in Denver, as like a group activity, because it’d be hilarious… But the joke is funnier than the reality, so we’re not going to do it. Because it’s public domain. John Henry found out it’s in the public domain, because it’s like 1928. And so like “Man, we could like put it on a projector and watch it outside”, or something. But… Too lazy.

I see David’s guitar’s in the back. He may even need to start thinking of a victory jingle you can play for us. We’re closing in.

Can you improv? Musically?

Not well, no.

Not well. But you’re definitely closing in on a win here.

The hubris of asking… Has anyone ever won in five? [laughter]

You know, there’s a reason it feels hubris. Not that I can imagine, or remember… I can imagine it, I can’t remember it.

This is our sixth time playing, isn’t it? I think this is round six, and I think there may have been a win in five, but that was back when we played less points. I think we were going to 12 for a while, and we extended it to 15. So you would have already won in four, 12. Now, I think you’re definitely on pace for the fastest W of all time. Or the greatest collapse in history…

Or the greatest stroke. [laughter]

Yeah, that’s true.

The greatest collapse in the history of #define. Alright, we now have everybody’s entry for a plot synopsis of 1945’s The Reckless Moment. Are you guys ready to hear what everybody had to say? Alright. Number one, “Well-to-do Howard Douglas makes a careless decision to leave his bowler hat at home.” Number two, “The untold, untrue story of what Emperor Hirohito really told President Truman upon the Japanese surrender in World War II.” Number three, “The harrowing story of how the invasion at Normandy almost had to be called off.” Number four, “After discovering the dead body of her teenage daughter’s lover, a housewife takes desperate measures to protect her family from scandal.” Number five, “With the keys to his new Plymouth, Ben takes a drive to the lookout with his friends, where he met Betty.” Hold on, I’ve read it wrong… “Where he met Betty, this knockout that sits next to his wife.” [laughter]

How is this funny, Jerod?

Try reading it in a transatlantic accent. That might flow a little bit more naturally…

Yeah, exactly. If I could. “Ben takes a drive to the lookout with his friends, where he met Betty, this knockout that sits next to him in chem class. They hit it off well, but when this mysterious woman shows up, everything changes.”

Was that all one sentence?

No, there’s one break in there. After chem class there was a period. Okay. Five potential synopses for The Reckless Moment, starting with Jamie. Which one do you think is real?

So I’m wondering… Emperor Hirohito and Normandy sound like they may be of the time period, but also could be quite near to already get a film out about Normandy. So I’m not sure. The very long one sentence makes me wonder if it’s either not real, or is maybe –

Or real.

The other two - I’m not sure - sound… Yeah, I think a little bit too far-fetched.

Which ones are far-fetched?

The one about the bowler hat, and the housewife scandal. The bowler hat one just sounds a little bit out there. And the housewife scandal sounds like it could be more contemporary.

Right.

I can’t imagine that sort of thing happening…

In the ’40s.

So you’ve eliminated all five.

Yeah, I think that’s all five. [laughter] One of which you wrote.

[00:48:11.02] But which one…? Yeah, I don’t know.

That’s his strategy.

I’m not going to say. He’s just trying to make sure he doesn’t pick David’s.

I’m just casting doubt widely.

Yeah. So having said all that, what are you going to do? I think I’m going to go for Normandy.

Normandy.

Yeah.

Alright. That’s number three, by the way. Jamie goes for Normandy. David.

You said the movie came out in ’45… I think – sorry, what was… So it was the bowler hat…

Yes. Number two was President Truman…

Sorry, President Truman did what?

“The untold, untrue story of what Emperor Hirohito really told President Truman upon the Japanese surrender in World War II.”

It’s untrue and untold.

It’s untold and untrue.

Now it’s told, though.

In ’45…?

Yes.

Alright. Okay.

And then number three is the Normandy, which Jamie just picked.

This is my way of backing into asking you to repeat all of them, so thank you.

And number four - do you want the full sentences or just the summaries? My summary of the summary?

The full sentence, if you don’t mind.

Okay.

Yeah, we’re doing it. Sorry.

All of them?

No, just the last two. Sorry, the last two.

The last two. Okay, number four was “After discovering the dead body of her teenage daughter’s lover, a housewife takes desperate measures to protect her family from scandal.” And number five is “With the keys to his new Plymouth, Ben takes a drive to the lookout with his friends where he met Betty, this knockout that sits next to him in chem class.

They hit it off well, but when this mysterious woman shows up, everything changes.”

Okay, I think I’m going bowler hat.

He’s going bowler hat. Okay. Spencer.

Adam, it’s up to you, but I’m switching… I’m going with David. Bowler hat. Bowler hat it is.

[laughs] He’s going with the bowler hat.

No, I’m going with David. Let me clarify, I’m going with David. [laughter]

Are you apologizing? What’s happening here? Are we breaking up?

Yeah, he switched off Adam and onto David, is what he’s saying here.

Well, no, it’s Adam’s choice. He can choose to follow me on David’s bandwagon or not. But that’s up to Adam.

I gotcha. So it’s up to you if you want to pile on…

Well, David wouldn’t choose his own, so… But he only needs two points to win.

That’s right.

And if he gets the right one, he gets one, right?

If he gets it correct, he gets two. If he tricks you, he gets one more.

David could be choosing his own, you know that, right?

He could be presupposing a pile on.

Both of us are suckers to follow him for those two points, but maybe we are. We’re in the back. I don’t know.

He’s also going first though, so he’s kind of creating the current to follow… He’s creating the pile on, and you fought for his trick.

Jamie did go first, technically, but…

Oh, sorry. Jamie went first.

But David would want you to know that.

David went first-ish…

[unintelligible 00:50:52.24]

If I fall into this trap that David laid, he’s playing checkers and we’re playing chess here. So he can win.

Oh, man…

The other way around.

Yeah, I think he’d be playing chess.

That’s why we’re going to lose right there.

Exactly.

Exactly. [laughter] That’s how confused he has Spencer.

I don’t know, Jerod, I feel like that last one needs one more read. What do you think?

Okay.

You’re just trying to make sure we use the full two hours.

That’s right. “With the keys to his new Plymouth, Ben takes a drive to the lookout with his friends, where he meets Betty, this absolute knockout that sits next to him in chem class.”

Was absolute there before?

No, I just figured it needed to be there. “They hit it off well, but when this mysterious woman shows up, everything changes.”

I’m going with that one.

[laughs] Alright. So Adam picks his own. We’ll just stop right there.

I’m safe. I’m giving no points away.

That’s right. David and Spencer - or I should say Spencer piled on with David onto the bowler hat. That was Jamie’s bowler hat.

[00:52:02.28] Damn it… I was like “The guy from England is not going to do a bowler hat [unintelligible 00:52:04.23]

I thought it was kind of on the nose, but…

Alright, yeah. He got me.

He sure did. And then he acted like it couldn’t possibly be right, which made you want to pick it as well.

Yup, yup.

He’s a good actor.

He is. And then Jamie went with the harrowing story of Normandy, and that was David’s, giving David one point, but not a victory. He approaches the precipice. Meanwhile, Jerod scores four points… Thank you very much, everybody… Because the correct synopsis of The Reckless Moment is “After discovering the dead body of her teenage daughter’s lover, a housewife takes desperate measures to protect her family from scandal.”

That sounded really spicy for ’45.

1945… That’s what I was thinking.

Yeah. Well –

That’s why I didn’t go with it.

1949.

Oh, did I do it wrong? 1949. I’m sorry. That might have ruined some World War II ones. Did I mess with World War II? I must have wrote that down wrong.

Yeah, I wrote down 1945 as well. What did I write down? Let me see what I wrote down here… Uh – yeah, ’45.

Ah. My bad, y’all. I award everybody except for David one point for my mistake. [laughter]

Which is exactly why I made up a story about a car named Plymouth… Because the Plymouth came out in ’41-’42.

So with bonuses applied, he still has more than twice as much as anybody who’s actually playing. David has 14 points. I have eight, still not really playing… Jamie has seven. Adam and Spencer, even though Spencer broke off that hitch, they’re still tied, with four points each.

Ah… It’s fun here at the bottom. [laughter]

Ride or die.

Yeah. Alright. We move to round six. We get to play around six. I wasn’t sure if there would be one. And this is back to a pretty normal round. It’s another word. However, this word’s an acronym, so it’s slightly different, because it’s not just any old word. It’s an acronym. So you have to come up with what the acronym stands for, and then that thing described or defined. So the acronym is WIMP. W-I-M-P. That’s the acronym. So you’ll come up with what it stands for, and then a definition of it.

Alright, so I looked it up… I remember Carol Lee, PhD, being quite dominant at this game as well. And it turns out she won after six rounds.

You missed it.

Pressure’s on.

Well, this is round six right here.

Oh, gosh.

So he could tie. He had a chance – and I had to go back and listen to the transcript, or read the transcript, and see if that went to 12 points or 15. Oh yeah, it’s 15 points, so it’s apples to apples. I have Jamie’s and David’s definitions, which leaves us with one person. One heavy breather. Are you trying to intimidate us?

Just giving good audio for the edit.

Or are you trying to give us a mid-90s R&B.

Loop that, Jason. Loop that.

Either pull out a lightsaber, or…

[laughs]

Of course. Or seduce us. What are you thinking, like Tony Braxton, or…?

The specific thing that was playing when I said that was Wait a Minute by Ray J, which is very – in the chorus there’s a lot of… But also, some of some the stuff by 112, I think, features that.

Oh, yeah. Room 112, where the players dwell. I remember them. Or at least I remember –

I’m zero informed by that.

…Biggie Smalls rapping about that. I’m not sure if I remember them specifically. Okay, everybody’s in. Five – what do you call them? What do you call the fulfillment of an acronym?

Expansion?

[00:56:04.24] Five acronym expansions, thank you… With definitions for the acronym WIMP. WIMP. Number one. WIMP. Worker Initialized Multiprocessing, a distributed computing execution strategy. Number two, Weekly Interacting Massive Particle - a hypothetical particle proposed as a candidate for dark matter. Number three. Wrought Iron Manifold Plateau - the culmination of the process for creating low-carbon iron alloys in which the maximum efficacy of the process is achieved. Number four. Windows Internet Management Platform - the Windows Internet Management Platform is a suite of tools used to manage the network’s internet access at the enterprise level. And number five, Windows Image Management Package - the closed source proprietary answer to the popular open source image manipulation library GIMP. So it’s like GIMP, but for Windows, if I had to put it in my own words.

Don’t you smile like that, David… No, sir. No, sir. Okay, audio listeners, you didn’t see that smile, okay? I saw that smile… That smile was “That’s mine.”

“Stay away…”

I’m sure David was thinking, “But the GNU Image Management Program is cross-platform.”

Oh, I’m sure he was thinking that.

I hate that you are correct that that is what I was thinking. [laughter] I have definitely [unintelligible 00:57:37.04]

Didn’t we interview the guy who built GIMP one time, Adam?

We sure did. He also made CockroachDB.

Oh, that’s right. What a talented fella.

Yeah. He talked a lot about GIMP too, because I didn’t have a clue until I re-interviewed him.

You didn’t have a clue of what GIMP was?

No, I think I did up until like the day before. Like, in my research I didn’t know until then. It was a surprise to me. So like the plan for the call… And then the call was different because of it.

Alright, here we go… This is not GIMP, this is WIMP, okay? Five definitions of WIMP. I’ve read them all, and I won’t read them again, unless you ask me to. And David gets to go first. So David, you’re right here, man. The game is in your hands. All you have to do is identify the actual WIMP.

So there’s GIMP for Windows… Yeah, I’m going to ask you to repeat. You don’t have to go to the definitions, just the things spelled out.

The summaries. I will summarize. So number one is the worker initialized multiprocessing. That’s a distributed computing execution strategy. Number two is the weekly interactive massive particle, a hypothetical particle for dark matter. Number three was wrought iron manifold plateau. And number four was the Windows internet management platform, whereas number five was the Windows image management package. That’s your WIMP. Five WIMPs.

Wrought iron manifold plateau… I wish I knew more about ironworking. I think I’m going to go for two, so weekly interacting massive particle.

Okay. David goes for number two. And now we move to Spencer.

That also is going to be my choice. I know what it looks, guys…

[laughs]

I had it circled on my notepad. I was going to go for number two.

That just says David’s name. You just circled David’s name. [laughter] Alright…

But it does make me feel better about my choice, knowing that David had already picked it. So thank you, David.

Fair. There you go. Alright, Jamie, did you write anything down?

I mean, much as number five is like really selling it to me, I think I’m going to go for the multiprocessing. The worker initiated multiprocessing.

Okay. Number one.

Just to go with something different.

Okay, there you go. And Adam…

On my virtual notebook here I have also circled number two as a very plausible answer…

[01:00:25.06] Independently…

Is that what you chose, Spencer?

That’s what David chose.

It’s what I chose. Or, more importantly, it’s what David chose, yes.

Getting the band back together…

Yeah, you might as well pile on. I mean, if you guys are all wrong, I do win, though. Oh, no, I don’t. I only have 12.

I’m feeling like number four. I’m feeling number four is good. What’s that one, Jerod?

Windows Internet Management Platform.

That’s right. That’s it.

It’s missing [unintelligible 01:00:53.16]

You’re not going to guess that one, are you?

Of course. It’s a safe play. [laughter]

I don’t know, I don’t understand you sometimes… Alright, Adam picked his own again. So he gets zero points for picking his own.

I’m too scared of David. He’s going to win. I don’t want to, though. I don’t want to pick that one. It’s a cop out. I should have more fun. We’ll go with number two.

Which one are you doing?

We’ll go with number two. Yeah, let’s have more fun. Whoever earned that answer gets it, whatever it is.

Fair. It’s a pile on. That’s the best answer. Dark matter. Come on, dark matter…

Alright. Well, David, Spencer, and Adam all piled on. They followed David to the Weekly Interacting Massive Particles.

He’s so excited. Look at David.

He’s pumped.

He knows… And that is the correct definition for WIMP. It’s a Weekly Interacting Massive Particle. So David scores two, Spencer gets two, Adam gets two… Jamie picked Worker Initialized Multiprocessing. That’s David’s. Ugh, this guy… He just can’t do wrong. He can’t do wrong. [laughter] So above and beyond, he gets three points. Didn’t even need that many…

Gosh.

And he wins, with 17 points.

Oh, my gosh.

Congrats, David.

Thank you.

So good.

Tied for the fastest win in #define history. Perhaps the largest margin of victory, when second place was me, with eight. I’m not even playing, guys… Actual second place was Jamie, with seven, a full 10 points behind David. And then Spencer and Adam with six.

And one of those points was [unintelligible 01:02:44.12]

That’s right. So David, as is our new tradition that I’m just making up right now, you must improvise us a song. No, I’m just kidding…

Oh, hell no. [laughter]

I just mistook you for Mat Ryer for a moment there… No, we will not have you to do that. However, you can say anything you like, you could promote anything you like… You have a moment to just say whatever you want, man. Go for it.

Sure. I guess I’ll plug some stuff from the open source stuff from the company I work for. So the company I work for is Posit.co. We make software for data scientists and scientific computing. A couple of things that might be interesting to check out - there’s a project called Quarto, which is a sort of literate programming environment that lets you render R and Python code into websites, all kinds of documents… And we are also building an editor for data scientists called Positron. So check that out at Positron.Posit.co.

Very cool. We will link up all those things. Posit.co, Quarto.org, and Positron.Posit.co?

Posiron.posit.co, yeah.

There you go. We’ll link those up in the show notes so you don’t have to read them out loud and type them into your browser if you’re driving, or something like that. That’s it, that’s #define. This has been a fun one. I wouldn’t say it’s been a competitive one, but it’s had a lot of laughs… And of course, these are our Changelog++ people, so… I think we have 11 minutes. Is that fair, Jamie? You’ve got 11 minutes to the top of the hour? Alright, so if you are one of us, if you are a Plus Plus member, stick around for a bonus round, right after we say goodbye. Adam, any final words before we hit our bonus round just for the Plus Plus people?

You know, if you’re a Plus Plus subscriber, it’s better.

It’s been better for years.

That’s it.

Alright, bye, friends.

Bye, friends.

Bye, friends!