Numlock Sunday: Jason Eppink and Mike Lacher on The Oscar Cough-Geist

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.

This week we have something fun for Oscar Sunday. I talked to Jason Eppink and Mike Lacher, two of the minds behind the earth-shattering, ground-breaking, definitely not tongue-in-cheek, not peer-reviewed study Chalamet Coughs, Dune Wins: Predicting Best Picture Winners Using Coughs and Sneezes, which they made with The Pudding’s Russell Goldenberg.

It’s a straight-on look at some silly data that somehow manages to bring Oscars, sneezes, Dune, Batman and more into one package.

It’s also an outstanding example of their work, which you’ll recognize. This project is an outgrowth of their Every Movie Cough database, an early pandemic project built with support from the Museum of the Moving Image. Eppink’s responsible for the MOMI exhibit The Reaction GIF: Moving Image as Gesture, the delightful Seconds Since Last Injury and projects like Mask-O-Vision. Lacher created the viral How Bad Is Your Spotify bot at The Pudding, the ShadyURL link shortener, an…