I don't know exactly how to resolve this, since it sounds like there's a lot of problems in the organization if your absence alone is really pissing people off. However, as someone who volunteers for a couple of time-intensive things and is always... [
more]
favorited 3 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Okay, I'm not trans but I have a lot of trans friends. I'm not speaking for trans people; I'm basing this on what I would do if I were to date a girl under these circumstances (except that I wouldn't actually care whether my girlfriend was trans -... [
more]
favorited 88 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Just because a problem affects only a small number of people doesn't mean it's not a problem.
I always figure they go after fairly small producers because the big criminals are good pals with the government. Seriously, which is worse for... [
more]
favorited 1 time
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
I figured out why I hate the "I heart Nerds" branding
Just yesterday, but
before I even read the article, I realized why I hate the this - it's because when I was a pint-sized nerd, being into Dr. Who, or robots, or science... [
more]
favorited 14 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
nadawi: I totally agree there are women whom date geeks out there. I fell in love with one of them and we were together for over a year, until unrelated problems involving physical distance ended it. We still talk daily though. The problem is the... [
more]
favorited 10 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
(Oh, if worst came to worst you could probably set up a conference call or request a letter from the funder to get them to reiterate that you spend the money the way you wrote the grant - that would tip your hand about the disfunctionality of the... [
more]
favorited 1 time
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Your comments could just as easily be coming from someone who into a band "before they were cool" or any other situation where something becomes popular.
Just idly, since this thread is long and rambly - I'm old, or at least I'm... [
more]
favorited 3 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
It's not targeted at white dude-bros. It's targeted at offending hypocritical liberal-moralists. Their denunciations are what drives the campaign, and pushes it out into the smaller niches where it finds people who are willing to think about the... [
more]
favorited 6 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
yes, Frowner! exactly! "why does popular girl only date jerks?!" - well, doofus, she's a jerk. that redhead dude i lap grinded on? he spent any time he wasn't talking about gaming talking about the girl who would never, ever notice him.... [
more]
favorited 1 time
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Do many people think like this? I kinda got in the habit of hiding my nerdiness.
Many people are shallow, yes. I mean, he also went for someone much younger and...er...blonder than, um, him. (No, really, he's about my age; she's got to be... [
more]
favorited 2 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
I'm nearly sure this relationship has no long-term future
Now that I think about it, what's the point of asking? If someone told me "Frowner, I'd totally see a relationship with you as long as you can confirm that you're... [
more]
favorited 4 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
PETA's motto is "BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY", and for that I respect them.
Dude, if PETA's motto really were "by any means necessary" I would totally respect them. But their motto is really "we get off on being... [
more]
favorited 20 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
It can take a really long time to figure out this whole sexuality thing. In fact, people who are completely straight often don't "figure it out" very fast either; their sexuality just matches the default assumption, so it appears that they... [
more]
favorited 16 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
If she says "about what?" then you can say, "well, I'm confused about why you didn't show me recognizable pictures." Then wait for her to say something.
I do not think that this approach is a good idea. You're not a... [
more]
favorited 30 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
(As a side note, we had to try several home aides for an older relative before we found one - who was great - who clicked with my relative and could do the work. If you have the funds to hire someone, absolutely keep trying until you find someone... [
more]
favorited 7 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
For all that I (as a white dude-bro, I guess) enjoy the slightly titillating nature of their naked protests, I've always wondered about that. Surely there are as many or more people who find the highly bro-ness of it offputting, relative to the... [
more]
favorited 5 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Where are you? You need to find other gay/queer/lesbian folks. If you're not near a big city, you can google around for queer youth services in the nearest city and they will probably have some suggestions. There are probably coming-out support... [
more]
favorited 18 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
(In short, the sugar boycott failed because it was
shallow and media-driven rather than a sign of anyone's lived commitment.) [
more]
favorited 2 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
It's not targeted at white dude-bros. It's targeted at offending hypocritical liberal-moralists. Their denunciations are what drives the campaign, and pushes it out into the smaller niches where it finds people who are willing to think about the... [
more]
favorited 3 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
It's more like 'Anecdoes are not data.'
Besides, we also have literally centuries of historical anecdote about how bisexual men, gay men, transgender folks, and a number of other kinds of people are miserable, unhealthy, disease-ridden, and... [
more]
favorited 2 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
There was an FPP a while back about " obvious science " and the point was made you have to study boring clearly obvious things cause testing What Everyone Knows is the day to day work of science.
None the less, it's still pretty... [
more]
favorited 16 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
(or rather "It doesn't mean "all the diaries and novels and reporting and medical records of the past should be treated as
total lies".
I will go on to add that there's this
entire discipline which publishes sometimes... [
more]
favorited 1 time
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
So this year I have 1. a big increase in property taxes; 2. a HUGE increase in insurance premiums because my work is screwing us over; 3. a significant increase in phone/internet; an increase in my taxes (because after all the other increases I need... [
more]
favorited 2 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
This, by the way, is the book that the young woman's guardians (not her parents...two roving great aunts, perhaps?) protected her from.
Now, my parents forbade a great number and variety of books, from
Bleak House to
Red Harvest,... [
more]
favorited 3 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Mooncakes are delicious, but 1. extremely calorically dense (ie, like 800 calories a cake) and can have some unusual flavors and contents, like hardboiled eggs. The red bean and the melon ones are very tasty, but it's tricky to restrain yourself... [
more]
favorited 2 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
The story referenced above is The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas [PDF!!!!] by Ursula Le Guin.
SPOILER - the idea is that when you're a teen they show you this room where a child is imprisoned in solitude and pain, and if you accept it you just go... [
more]
favorited 4 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
I don't know; when I was a kid there were a number of books I read that kind of upset me
I certainly read books that
upset me (even to this day, I read books that upset me - but that's not the same thing, I admit). And I certainly... [
more]
favorited 5 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
(I find the whole "why can't you be creative with your cursing like they were in the good old days/on television" thing extremely horrible. I would rather hear many hundreds of regular curse words than have to listen to one of those people... [
more]
favorited 4 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Think about how you want to remember this in the future. What action will make you feel best about how you handled it? If you're polite, will you look back and regret that you allowed your bully to get away with it, just like he always did for... [
more]
favorited 4 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Okay, as an anarchist I officially do not endorse beating people up in cold blood.
However, this whole business of "who hates peace?" is a bit silly. Seriously, "peace" is what rich first world centrist people point... [
more]
favorited 20 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
One thing - who has the most financial resources here? Is Ernie able to afford his own place? If he's not, kicking him out (of a house he maintains!!) is pretty cruel, especially if your little group of neurotypical friends could find their own... [
more]
favorited 17 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
I am not skinny! But I
am extremely broke and trying to eat as much protein as possible as cheaply as possible, purely so I go through less food. A toasted whole wheat english muffin with 2 table spoons of nut butter is easy, cheap, and... [
more]
favorited 1 time
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
And Botton thinks he's dealt with this by saying, "With no evident awareness of the contradiction they may, in the same breath, gruffly dismiss a belief in angels while sincerely trusting that the combined powers of the IMF, the medical... [
more]
favorited 1 time
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
I ask because: everything I've heard about full-on transgenderism (which I'll admit is not much) seems to indicate that they always knew something was "wrong" about the gender they were born with. But somehow I'm getting more of a latter... [
more]
favorited 5 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Probably fine. I imagine that this is similar to swallowing glass (only less sharp!) - virtually always, your stomach, which is very tough, sort of massages the swallowed thing along rather than poking it into the sides of itself. Consider that... [
more]
favorited 2 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
As I understand it, women classical musicians are policed for being insufficiently feminine/"attractive" and then they're policed again if they're
too feminine. (And didn't the number of women hired for orchestras go right up in... [
more]
favorited 2 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
You know, I once got in a car with a strange man. Didn't know him from adam. I was 26, he might have been 40 - older, anyway. Of course, my car had run off the highway in the snow, and I didn't have a cell phone and I really needed to get to a... [
more]
favorited 33 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
I've got to say, this thread surprises me. It's the first metafilter thread I've read that's a general "organizing against sexual assault" thread (I'm sorta-kinda new here) and yet we're discussing whether women should "take... [
more]
favorited 20 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Oh, I had a pair of sparkly leopard round-toed ankle-strap maryjanes from Steve Madden with enormous chunky platforms; I used to wear them with fishnets and the more neutral of my vintage dresses. I still have some Na-Han low platform maryjanes... [
more]
favorited 8 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Reading this thread, it strikes me that people have
much higher expectations for poetry than for most other genres - for instance, I read a lot of fancy-pants snob science fiction, but it does not bother me in the least that there's far more... [
more]
favorited 10 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
I'll echo the "don't".
I'm sort of troubled by the way "diverse" seems to be code for "people of color" and "poor people" in your question, and the way those things translate into "likely to rob me with... [
more]
favorited 9 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Maybe instead of, oh,
blaming a bunch of low-income kids raised in terrible circumstances for rioting when those circumstances get worse, people could say "why the hell can't we have a functioning society where we
don't have... [
more]
favorited 6 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
And:
When you have problems at the population level, the solutions are at the population level. It's like public health - you do more good with large-scale, organized solutions (clean water! accessible medical care!) than you do with any amount... [
more]
favorited 5 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
(The more I think about this, the more I think that it's the wrong approach to
pick sides, ie to think "yay rioters, let's smash shit up!!!" or to think "look at those working class thugs selfishly stealing things!" The... [
more]
favorited 4 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
I've had a couple of fairly good relationships with people like this guy, largely because I've been able to treat their crabbiness as an endearing character trait rather than as something I engage with. It doesn't work with someone who is actually... [
more]
favorited 4 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
For one thing he's a rapist, which is where this line of discussion started.
I think there are several factors:
1.
The Book of the New Sun is so much better written and constructed than the Thomas Covenant books that it gets an... [
more]
favorited 2 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
"Big" and "vigorous" are also insults in Dahl-speak. He means to suggest that Mrs. Bixby is grossly physical and grossly present, plus she can't or won't regulate her physicality (the mouth). The mouth probably also stands in for... [
more]
favorited 10 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
You know, I just had a thought on this whole violence-in-SF versus rape-in-SF thing: average men and women are far more likely to suffer sexual assault than murder, to perpetrate sexual assault than to commit murder and to know someone who has... [
more]
favorited 3 times
MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Go to the ER! My immediate IANAD guess is that the persistent diarrhea (for almost a month, right?) has caused some bleeding (which it can) because you are on what seems to be (based on your past question) an extremely unsuitable diet.
But... [
more]
favorited 3 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
Just as a follow-up comment - in my social circle it would be far weirder not to tell people than to tell people. In fact, you'd need to do some explaining about why you hadn't mentioned it for the past three years.
Maybe you could say something... [
more]
favorited 3 times
Ask MetaFilter comment -
Last year
