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Created February 12, 2026 00:46
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member-notes.md

DBF e439 Member Show / After Show -- Production Notes

Title

Merlin's Explicit Calls (from transcript)

Cancer Is My Father Figure [00:04:51]

Claude's Picks

  • Punish a Cat? Fucking Read a Book [00:19:42]
  • None of This Is Your Fault, but All of It Is Your Problem [00:38:37]
  • Don't Put It in the Newspaper That I Made It My Bitch [01:07:42]
  • Love Is an Open Wound [01:13:28]
  • An Existential Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon [00:57:21]
  • I Feel Like Dr. Manhattan [00:50:23]
  • A Missing Slot on the Shelf [00:57:51]
  • Difficult to Bluff Familiarity [01:15:45]
  • Every Single Thing That Happens on This Website Is Your Problem [00:38:37]
  • Red Episode, Blue Episode [00:03:04]
  • Finish Each Other's Sandwiches [01:13:23]
  • Rapists Say the Darndest Things [00:05:06]
  • It's Still Your Fault [01:07:00]
  • She Has an Incredible Upper Lip [01:12:29]
  • The Fact Bobby [00:26:28]

Draft Show Notes

Links

For Show Notes (Merlin's Callouts)

  1. [00:20:42] "I think the challenge should be to finally create a style guide for notes, notes, notes, notes." -- Alex calls for a show notes style guide as next week's challenge. Merlin agrees; gives them something to work on with "the dingus."

  2. [00:20:53] Merlin: "The Audacity Orange, that's gonna be show notes." -- [EARCHECK: unclear reference; may be a film, show, or bit name that needs verification against audio.]

  3. [00:22:53] "I think the links for this episode are gonna be pretty good." -- Merlin flagging that this after show will have good link material.

  4. [00:23:16] "Did you see it in the notes that I sent you? They found a link for your documentary you mentioned." -- Referring to the main episode notes.md finding Billy the Kid for Alex.

Topics / Segments

Blue Episode (No LLMs Promised)

  • [00:00:00--00:03:00] Pre-flight: Merlin pitches the red/blue episode concept -- one show with no LLM talk, one after dark with Claude Code. Settles on doing one show with a clean break.
  • [00:03:00--00:05:00] James Van Der Beek / content warnings, Bill Cosby's Fatherhood, cancer as father figure. TITLE CALL: "Cancer Is My Father Figure."
  • [00:05:00--00:06:00] Bill Cosby: Himself, former co-hosts, "the smiling agent boy that still lives in my closet."
  • [00:06:00--00:09:00] Off Menu deep-dive: Ben Schwartz episode, discovering Lucia Keskin (Chi With a C). Sheets of ham, the circle bed, "some woman called Beth." Merlin compares her to Tim Robinson.
  • [00:09:00--00:10:30] Amanda Seyfried's Off Menu episode. "End to end glorious." Her first film was Mean Girls. "You're really funny." / "I am aware."
  • [00:10:30--00:13:00] Off Menu hosting style vs. SmartLess. Ed Gamble's hidden dietary restrictions (Type 1 diabetes) -- never brings it up, plays it like he's just weird. Kate Winslet, Robert De Niro as guests who don't know the show.
  • [00:13:00--00:14:30] Lucia Keskin recommendations. Alex: watch "An Audition for Every Season of American Horror Story." Chris Fleming comparison.
  • [00:14:30--00:15:00] Stevie Martin on Taskmaster podcast, Mitchell and Webb TSA sketch. Merlin wants to watch the sketch together.
  • [00:15:00--00:17:00] Robustness principle (Postel's law) applied to social media consumption. "As conservative as possible in what you create and as liberal as possible in what you accept."
  • [00:17:00--00:18:30] Vine nostalgia -- the three YouTube Vine compilations Merlin still rewatches. Regret at not appreciating Vine as a platform for non-white, non-men comedy. Logan Paul ("the suicide boxer").
  • [00:18:30--00:20:00] Savvy the cat's midnight meowing (nine to fourteen meows). Madeline wanting the cat to say "wow" when food arrives. "Punish a cat? Fucking read a book."
  • [00:20:00--00:21:30] Challenge for next week: create a show notes style guide. Alex's H2/H3 confusion, timestamps left in, Marked link checking.
  • [00:21:30--00:23:00] Link verification drama, broken links, Jeffrey Epstein's drafts joke.
  • [00:23:00--00:24:00] Orlando recommendation (on Tubi). Mubi startup sound. Clean break before the red episode.

Red Episode / After Dark (Claude Code and LLMs)

  • [00:24:00--00:26:30] Transition. The horse cock from The Crown -- Alex tried to get Claude to find the episode. Season 2, Claire Foy era. Fenton's Horse Ranch from I Think You Should Leave.
  • [00:26:30--00:28:00] "The fact Bobby" bit. Finnish horses/ponies. Merlin's current events tangent (missing person case, OceanGate comparison, Thai cave rescue).
  • [00:28:00--00:32:00] Merlin demos the notes.md document. Transcript correction workflow: Descript + MacWhisper Parakeet v3 Large, cross-referencing two transcripts, automated diffs and corrections, then human questions for ambiguous cases.
  • [00:32:00--00:35:00] Title training: fed it Stewart Lee transcripts, entire Rec Diffs catalog, DBF, and Roderick on the Line. It learned title selection heuristics -- "an unexpected adjective in front of a noun." Automated "notes, notes, notes" detection and "title" marker grep.
  • [00:35:00--00:38:00] Show notes link curation. Too much Wikipedia -- "People know how to use Wikipedia." Standing direction: find alternate sources, interviews, context-specific links. "None of this is your fault, but all of it is your problem."
  • [00:38:00--00:40:00] Bioavailable creativity -- less stress = more ambitious creativity. "I am much less likely to take on a project if I feel a lot of risk about the time I don't have to do it."
  • [00:40:00--00:43:00] Pam & Tommy, Richard Ayoade book. Olivia Colman on The Crown -- listening to boring headphones to keep her face still. Graham Norton couch combinations: Judi Dench reciting Shakespeare, Arnold Schwarzenegger two seats over. Red chair moments.
  • [00:43:00--00:46:30] The Triangulation Project explained. Cross-referencing screenshots, social posts, Drafts, podcast transcripts, YouTube history, Amazon purchase history, Trakt, Letterboxd, Pinboard. "Find photos and screenshots from when I was thinking about Vanessa Kirby on The Crown and a motorcycle helmet."
  • [00:46:30--00:47:30] Trakt syncing with streaming services (Disney, Hulu, Netflix, HBO, Plex). Alex needs to finish Plex setup.
  • [00:47:30--00:50:00] "Scaffolding" vs. building. Alex's evangelism for LLM tools in documentary/archival work -- transcribing interviews, categorizing topics. Dragon Dictate in 2012.
  • [00:50:00--00:53:30] "I feel like Dr. Manhattan." Alex on helping non-technical people discover practical uses. Libraries lending drills. Quinn the librarian editor. 3D printing at libraries.
  • [00:53:30--00:56:30] Triangulation Project demo: the Vanessa Kirby report. Vanity Fair photo spread found in Drafts. Saved images on drive. Current DBF transcript cross-referenced. Social media posts from Bluesky (MLA citation). "I would like Vanessa Kirby to please run me over with a horse-drawn carriage."
  • [00:56:30--01:01:00] Report details: Draft #22,607 ("The Mother Load" working note), secret Brits list, YouTube watch history via Google Takeout. "An existential tip of the tongue phenomenon" -- knowing the empty slot on the shelf in your mind palace.
  • [01:01:00--01:02:30] Vanessa Kirby / Matthew Goode on The Crown. "So hot together." The Imitation Game. Dept. Q on Netflix -- Merlin's recommendation.
  • [01:02:00--01:06:00] Simon Willison -- "the best." shot-scraper, headless Chrome testing. "Prompt to prove" methodology: writing self-tests for Claude to verify cross-machine memory. "This is a prompt to prove written on this computer in this app at this time."
  • [01:06:00--01:08:00] Claude's arrogance cycle -- starts as "the most arrogant piece of shit asshole" and ends as "a weeping rhino of shame." Merlin's terms: "calm down," "read the room," "Tommy, how do we ask questions like that?" Session crashes and memory loss frustration.
  • [01:08:00--01:10:00] Alex on Claude Code permissions, Bash approvals. Open Claude mention. "Describe what you want instead of implementation details."
  • [01:10:00--01:12:00] Locksmiths and Lock Picking Lawyer. "It was like porn for me." Anyone can get into any apartment.
  • [01:12:00--01:13:30] Vanessa Kirby photos -- cigarette scene. Vanity Fair spread. Web dev pattern language, JK navigation. "We finish each other's sandwiches." / "Love is an open wound."
  • [01:13:30--01:15:00] Amazon purchase history for triangulation -- historical context, not current shopping. Kikkerland bath mat discontinued. Multi-agent task delegation ("go find sustainable paper towels").
  • [01:15:00--01:17:00] Pedro Pascal. "Difficult to bluff familiarity." Oscar Isaac friendship. "I don't know what the opposite of toxic masculinity is, but I'm pretty sure he's involved." Judith Butler connection.
  • [01:17:00--01:17:18] Wrap. Alex's landlord has been there for fifteen minutes.

N.B. (except for the images, my robot, Tommy, made all of this for me. Great Success.)

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