Support Topic Lords on Patreon and get episodes a week early! (https://www.patreon.com/topiclords) Lords: * Chris * https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm * James * https://triplefox.itch.io/ * https://youtu.be/I8uStVXNf0M Topics: * An adopted microwave which is too small for popcorn, begging the question: what is it for? * https://compassandquill.com/2012/03/12/how-to-cook-microwave-popcorn-on-the-stove/ * What happened to Galapagos? (And recreating pinball in software.) * https://triplefox.itch.io/galapagos * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmg5WOvPKpU * The trade-off between customer satisfaction and worker safety * John asks "Skipping over links to music when your friends post them, and in turn posting links to music without a shred of self-awareness/the mental barrier to recommending or sharing music." * Relearning how to run Microtopics: * A shoelace knot that you are amazed by. * Whether somebody knows good ways of tying knots. * Not having any ads on the show but the same shoelace knot being independently plugged by three separate guests. * Looking outside and seeing someone furtively deposit the world's smallest microwave on the sidewalk. * A microwave that is awesome until you try to put popcorn in it. * A dollhouse microwave that can microwave popcorn one kernel at a time. * The Easy Bake Microwave. * That one kid you knew whose family was rich enough that he had a microwave in his bedroom. * The Easy Bake TV which is just a light bulb that you stare into. * Downsizing your lifestyle. * Ultra-miniaturized microwaves that are just big enough for a can of Coca Cola. * Hot Coke. * Deciding to try Hot Coke after the show because your microwave is too small to fit anything bigger than a mug of Coca Cola. * A hot tub with a volume of half a cubic foot. * Whether the Whirlpool hot tub actually spins. * Recording an entire additional episode of Topic Lords after this, that only we get to hear. * Deciding that your fantasy console should be linear without knowing what linear means. * Making software last a long time by targeting an emulator. * Deciding that your entire approach to your current project is wrong and inverting its structure and then deciding to make a pinball game instead. * Having to fake the physical pinball interactions because physics engines still aren't precise enough. * Not having a ball bearing bouncing around inside of your phone. * Applying an impulse when the ball hits a collision volume. * The actual electromechanical mechanism of those triangles near the flippers that push the ball back. * A physics solver that does mixed rigid and soft body deformation. * Ordering pinball flippers online so you can measure them because you can't find specs describing their exact shape and size anywhere. * How pop bumpers work. * The ball rolling over the skirt and triggering the thrusters. * Modeling an invisible cone that drives itself down. * Buying a nice plastic skirt and an extremely high-current solenoid. * Making a functional pinball table out of cardboard. * A pinball table inside of a wine bottle. * Pinball tables all having the common constraint that they need to fit through the door. * "Hercules," the pinball table where the gimmick is that it's too big to fit through the door. * How to draw the rest of the owl. * Pinball except instead of a ball it's water. * A PSP except instead of a portable video game system it's one of those games where you squeeze water to get rings onto posts. * Christmas except every present is just a box of avocados. * Pachinko except it's an oil timer. * Physically impossible but physically accurate pinball machines. * Pachinko except there's fire everywhere and what's falling through the pins is your dead body and all your individual bones. * Getting licensed to make scrambled eggs with an espresso machine. * A Big Black Egg Gauntlet. * A big black glove that smells but doesn't look like rotten eggs. * The pressure of an egg. * Whether an egg could be held aloft by a shop vac. * The video of an egg being sucked into a bottle that google shows you when it doesn't have any good results, because you can't stay mad when you get to see an egg sucked into a bottle. * The ethics of asking your wife to take a video of cafe workers making scrambled eggs. * The violence of recommendations. * Whether or not you can get mad about your time being wasted for twenty seconds. * Doing everything in your power to like your favorite band's new album. * Your first "Hero's Journey" vs. your hundredth. * The kind of media you consume while doing other things vs. the kind you actively study. * Mentoring teenagers and exhorting that they listen to as much music as possible before they get old like you, and handing them some Linkin Park CDs. * Getting better at stuff. * Each sport having a different set of recommended vitamin supplements. * Lurching forward on your ankles. * Looking up how runners run on Youtube and immediately realizing how you can run way faster. * Getting running shoes that force you to spring around on your toes rather than landing on your heel. * Getting it but not liking it. * Studying Full Tilt. * Taking your kick scooter on the freeway. * Pre-Stormdancer problems. * Googling your own name and finding erotic short fiction starring a gay lumberjack with your name. * The sound of probably not being able to hear anything * Whether a beverage can be both hot and carbonated. * Sadness when you can't carbonate soup. * The audio signature of Coke being microwaved. * A microwave% run of Super Mario 64 where you need to turn on the microwave next to the Nintendo 64 at the exact right frame. * Honey refusing to dissolve in tea no matter how much you stir. * Putting your mug of flat microwaved Coke in the Sodastream to recarbonate it.