I believe that last paragraph is an example of irony, folks.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 7:48 AM on June 16, 2000

Is it ironic that two people posted the same thought in the same minute?
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 7:49 AM on June 16, 2000

Infoplease definition of Irony: "a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated."

That last paragraph intentionally violates the whole premise of the essay. Sure looks like irony from my vantage point in North Florida.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 7:07 AM on June 17, 2000

Personally, I think Slashdot's moderation system works for reading messages but not for participating in discussions. If you only read the 3-or-higher messages in a topic, you often find useful information, especially if it's a technical subject rather than a religious one. I don't post there any more for the same reason I gave up on Usenet years ago -- too much, too loud, and too stupid.
posted to MetaTalk by rcade at 12:17 AM on June 17, 2000

<>>

ZachsMind: When you intentionally break the rules while making it clear you know the rules, you should expect a hostile response. Now that you're trotting out all the tired rhetoric about topic police and stifling creativity, I think people have been way too kind.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 9:02 AM on June 16, 2000

Where were you all when Jason Kottke did the same thing? ... I can deal with trolls and little sissy tattletales, but I can't stand hypocrites!

I don't think anyone should be linking to their own sites, but the issue didn't pass my why-give-a-shit threshold until Zach fiercely defended the practice of using MetaFilter as a vanity press.

(In other words, if loving Jason Kottke is wrong, I don't want to be right.)
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 11:56 PM on June 16, 2000

I can see how this snowball got started down the hill, years ago. If someone murders an African-American, Jewish person or homosexual in a community with prejudice as the primary motive, it does a special kind of injustice to all members of the community who belong to that group. Intent does matter in crimes -- planning to kill someone and carrying it out is a lot more serious than unintentionally and thoughtlessly doing something that results in a death.

Now that the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 9:18 AM on June 16, 2000

If a murderer hates you personally and kills you for it, I don't have anything to worry about. If a murderer hates you because of a group you belong to, and I belong to the same group, I have something to worry about. That's the reasoning behind hate crimes. I can understand some of the logic behind this category of criminal justice (though as I said, it's painted far too broadly, primarily for political gain).

As for "thought crimes," a person's intent is always given... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 11:08 AM on June 16, 2000

Sudama: The headline makes you think of black people in a negative way, so it therefore is racist? White teens have been wearing look-at-my-ass baggy pants and backward caps for many years, making it one of the easiest ways to stereotype Gen-Xers of all skin tones.

Considering the life-threatening peril you are reading into a headline that had no racist intent, I can't believe you have not considered the danger inherent in the other part of the article's headline: "Are... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 8:50 PM on June 12, 2000

It was named in honor of the movie -- Bell Labs loves to pick weird names for its projects (see also Inferno and Limbo). See the FAQ.

posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 4:01 AM on June 9, 2000

I've always thought that Salon should extend that naming strategy and offend some other classes of people by launching Jews Who Spend Money and Southerners Who Marry Outside the Family.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 10:17 AM on June 8, 2000

After reading around 30 pages on the site, I think it's legitimate -- there's an amazing depth of detail to the files. Just to pick one example of many, there are ICQ logs in which Garst discusses sending spam as part of a stock market pump-and-dump scheme with a client named Mark Rice. Two months after the date in the ICQ logs, Yahoo shows that Mark Rice sold 50,000 shares of the stock involved and made more than $468,000.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 4:14 PM on June 7, 2000

A headhunter who is only in it for the money? Now there's a shocker.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 4:35 PM on June 6, 2000

Am I the only one who is tired of oblique hyperlinks?
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 10:07 AM on June 3, 2000

Gee, y6y6y6 -- you sure are reading a lot in a person not saying hello to people. I wish I had known it was so easy to piss off my coworkers at some of the drudgework jobs I have held over the years.
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 4:32 PM on June 1, 2000

Feh. People always act like they're better than TV, but most of us end up watching (and enjoying) the same dreck as everyone else. Never seen a sitcom that you liked? Criminy. That's like saying you never read a funny book.

I watched the first Survivor and it was great, 100 percent contrived fun with some beautiful long shots of the remote ocean setting and an African-American woman whose breasts should publish a weblog. It merged the look-ma-I'm-on-TV feel of Real World... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 10:31 PM on May 31, 2000

I would like the Young Scientist Anatomy Set, a 20-inch-tall toy that sells for around U.S. $11.87.

On May 19, British artist Damien Hirst reached an undisclosed settlement in a copyright infringement lawsuit with the toy's manufacturer, Humbrol. It seems that Hirst's 20-foot-tall bronze sculpture Hymn is an exact replica of the Young Scientist toy with the optional rib-cage cover removed. Before news of the infringement broke, Hirst sold his sculpture to Charles Saatchi... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rcade at 10:06 AM on May 31, 2000