Precision is not the same as accuracy. I like my privacy, but I also want Mefites to have some idea of where I live, so I just chose the closest intersection as my location. It's close enough, and the fudge factor is entirely under my control. Forcing inaccuracy through imprecision is a heavy-handed and unnecessary solution. We're all adults here (or close enough), and the information is voluntarily self-reported, so I see no reason to cripple the map feature "for our own good."... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 5:55 AM on January 17, 2006

Oh yeah, and AskMe too (although the implementation there would seem a little less straightforward, because of the More Inside field)?
/pony
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 6:31 AM on August 28, 2005

Aw, but it's so pretty and kewl...
Okay, I concede.
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 11:53 AM on August 30, 2005

logged in as: [username] | your recent comments | comments on your posts

That would be sweeeeeet!
Dude!
Sweet!
Dude!
etc.
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 10:22 PM on August 25, 2005

If bad behavior doesn't get smacked down in public, then "younger", more impressionable users might get the idea that it's okay.
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 5:27 AM on August 10, 2005

Did anyone mention how this is not jonson's first time using this exact same joke?

Why does it bug so many people, this East Asian R/L confusion humor, when (for example) Italian "add an A at the end" linguistic humor doesn't spark as much of a reaction? Maybe because Asian Americans are more clearly marked by American society as the Other, and at the same time lumped together with East Asians as a whole. Thus, these stereotypes tend to sting more, because... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 7:59 AM on August 10, 2005

[يہ اچھا ہے]

And I don't think we'll have a flood of Chinese/Thai/Russian posts that offer nothing to Anglophones. On the contrary, I think the one we've had so far was at least as transparent as some of the other (sometimes totally opaque) puzzle posts that have been allowed to stand. That slight risk of non-comprehension is a small price to pay to be able to use non-Latin alphabets without cursing at the screen.

ありがとう まあつ！
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 2:09 PM on July 29, 2005

Testing non-Latin characters:
(a) Straight Unicode:
????????????

(b) HTML character entities:
私の名前はスクシユです。

(a) looks fine in Live Preview. I'm guessing it will turn into ???? and (b) will look correct after posting.
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 8:01 AM on July 21, 2005

Actually, both (a) & (b) looked correct on Live Preview. Neither of them looked right after, though. Hmmm...

Let's try:
(c) Hex code HTML entities:
私の名前はスクシユです?

(c) displays Japanese in Live Preview as well.
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 8:03 AM on July 21, 2005

Oops... I thoughtlessly tagged on a Japanese period without running it through the Character Converter first. That's not really supposed to be a question mark. I know my own name, dammit!

[this is cool]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 8:06 AM on July 21, 2005

김치 pancakes for everyone, y'all!
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 6:31 AM on July 14, 2005

(btw: here's a useful page for converting text into Unicode/HTML escape characters, for the next time we have a party like this).
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 6:34 AM on July 14, 2005

Look, that post does not need a legalistic safety-warning tag edit. It needs scare quotes put around the words "smokeless tobacco" (and all subsequent instances of "tobacco" and "nicotine" in the answers). That way, it clearly indicates that the phrase is not to be taken literally, which should be enough of a tip-off as to what's actually being discussed.

This is just another one of those times where the nuance and inflection that would... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 1:14 PM on March 28, 2005

dash_slot-: try dragging the xpi file into a Firefox window. You should get the install dialog then. Windows doesn't recognize the file extension because it isn't associated with an application yet (I don't know it works with XP, but with WinME at least, you can make those associations yourself). However, Firefox does recognize the .xpi extension and can handle it internally.
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 1:01 AM on September 26, 2004

In case it wasn't clear above: I mean, drag the xpi file into an open Firefox window after saving it to some folder or the desktop.
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 1:04 AM on September 26, 2004

findarticles.com often comes in handy for referencing magazine articles that aren't too recent (like, in last month's issue).

And I'd love a gmail invite, thanks. :-)
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 11:47 PM on August 26, 2004

namespan: Your shoutout is flattering, but it also led me to discover that I left out the source for my "capitalism is a prerequisite to socialism" quote. My bad.

For my part, I think the single most valuable thing said in that thread was from MzB: "History does not repeat itself; just the events are alike.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 4:07 PM on May 9, 2004

Hey caitlinb, wherever did you get that idea?
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 6:54 AM on May 2, 2004

I'm not trained in thisort of thing either, but the fonts didn't even strike me as being indistinguishable at first glance. The similarities stem from the fact that they're both bold, italicized sans-serif fonts. Upon closer inspection, one can see that the e's are quite different - MeFi's "e" has a horizontal crossbar, while MetaPress's "e" has a diagonal one. The MetaPress "t" does this as well - possibly in order to stay tangent to the long swoop coming out of... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 2:17 AM on February 26, 2004

Now I gotta laugh out loud. I, for one, like the Bacon bit.

So how many other posts/comments have gotten two MeTa complaints in a row? Within 15 minutes of each other? On a weekend, even?
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 9:29 PM on October 4, 2003

I don't think any white person has a license to tell a black person if and when they can use this word.

nthdegx: How do you know alicesshoe is white? Also, why do you assume that when s/he says "rapper" s/he means "black person"? Finally, why do you think that someone's license to define what sort of language they find acceptable in polite company depends on their "race"?... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 9:15 AM on October 5, 2003

I have to agree with you on this one, h7. How did that happen? And I'll be damned if you like Morrissey, too.

It was a weak post to begin with, for all the reasons that mr_crash_davis so succinctly spelled out, but inserting deliberately inflammatory language to get a rise out of people just makes this one stand out as especially bad.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 9:22 PM on October 4, 2003

I was one of 33 Mefites to sign up on 4 September 2001 (10966-10998). It's not the most exciting cohort in the world, I have to admit - only a handful of us have even commented in the last six months, two of us only became members to comment once that same day and then promptly disappeared forever, and maybe 20 or so members from that day never posted or commented on anything. Some of them don't even have contact info or websites - they are complete and total ciphers. I can only assume they... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 7:48 PM on September 1, 2003

Sorry for not saying anything for a day; I only use MeFi from home, as a rule. I added a comment right after posting this, to the effect that I wasn't saying it was necessarily bad, but simply pointing it out and asking how people felt about it. Unfortunately, that comment disappeared somewhere along the way.

ook: No, I am not so paranoid as to read the source code of every page I visit. I only discovered the 1x1 pixel image because I have a dial-up connection.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 5:06 AM on March 8, 2003

Economic Left/Right: -8.75
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -8.97

No surprise there.
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 3:33 PM on February 20, 2003

This is awesome, if only because now I can write link titles without fear of being cut off. I've always found them a great way of adding a new dimension to webpages - putting little tidbits of information away in a slightly hidden place, to be revealed at a touch. I just have one tiny little request - that the background color of the tooltips be slightly different from that of the sidebar. Just a shade or two lighter or darker would help to distinguish the tooltip from the sidebar when they... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 5:35 PM on February 12, 2003

Ah, the social minefield that is ethnic humor. I find Engrish.com funny. I find jonson's two titles offensive. Why? Is it because I found about Engrish.com from two Canadians of Korean descent? Is it because they show actual signs in actual places? Is it because jonson's titles are not so grounded in specific instances of language errors, but are a framing device that points a finger at the people carving pencils and making invisible cloaks and says, "Look! Those people are Japanese!... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by skoosh at 4:54 PM on February 12, 2003