A prediction--this MeTa thread will continue the bothersome trend of softposting politics topics in the gray that don't cut it on the blue.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 12:48 PM on May 29, 2008

If this is the soft-posted politics thread of the moment, then I'll post a link to this memo by Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) (20 pp. PDF) assessing the GOP's chances of retaining power in this election. There's been very little coverage of it at the sites where I usually hang out online, but I found it to be an interesting document. Unfortunately, since its importance is temporary, it's not quite FPP material IMO (though I had to talk myself out of tarting it up with secondary links so I could post it... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 11:43 AM on May 17, 2008

This thread reminded me that while we're discussing Roger Ebert yet again, it's been about 36 long hours since MeFi's last FPP on Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or John McCain. I'll get right on that.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 10:19 AM on April 2, 2008

Ah, beaten by burnmp3s.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 10:19 AM on April 2, 2008

Do I see soft-posting of Politicsfilter in Metatalk? I think I do.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 2:38 PM on March 24, 2008

Whether you think the writing is funny or not, in many cases it pretty clearly differentiates between racial whiteness and cultural whiteness. For example:

But what about the white people who study Science, Engineering or Business [as opposed to the arts]? Unless they become doctors, they essentially lose white person status (and can only be regained by working at a non-profit).

If you read that as discussing racial whiteness,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 12:41 PM on February 15, 2008

Wow, Bill Clinton is "culturally black"? Is that because he plays the saxophone?

You'll notice that I didn't mention blackness anywhere in my post--I merely claim that Bill Clinton isn't considered culturally white in the way that the blog under discussion seeks to define it. The idea that if one isn't culturally white one must therefore be culturally black is a false dichotomy.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 3:54 PM on February 15, 2008

Is this the post you were looking for?
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 6:23 AM on February 13, 2008

The best AskMe answer I've ever given--the one for which I without a doubt knew the best answer--was this one.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 11:58 AM on February 11, 2008

If it's at the Tap Room I'm likely to make it.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 7:23 AM on February 7, 2008

I've learned a lot since I started working my way through the MeFi finance threads.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 5:02 AM on October 17, 2007

Also--haven't we heard before that some corporate filters consider AskMe not worksafe?
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 12:27 PM on October 5, 2007

I've got the same problem, too.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 1:06 PM on July 25, 2007

The three FPPs I’ve linked center primarily around recent events in three different serialized works: Battlestar Galactica, Marvel Comics, and Heroes.

It seems to me that readers of these FPPs would fall into one of three categories:

--people who don’t follow these works, for whom the FPP is meaningless;
--people who follow these works, but not up to the minute, for whom the FPP is a spoiler before the thread is even... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 2:04 PM on March 12, 2007

um, i think people are complaining that the spoiler is IN THE TEXT OF THE FPP, not that it's inside the thread.

Yes--I should have made that clearer in my original post.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 10:02 AM on March 13, 2007

Also, for the record, I actually have nearly no problem with frogan's post, as I think I said in the thread itself. (I posted in frogan's thread after skimming it with one eye open, for fear of spoilers, duh. And I don't want to go back to look at it again.)

And I certainly don't have a problem with threads on popular culture at MeFi--I've made at least two pop culture FPPs myself (1, 2) (though in both those cases I wanted to link to a particular website that I thought... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 10:16 AM on March 13, 2007

While we're all here, does anyone know what this was about?

This is the only chance I'll get to point out that the word for a sea-faring vacation has six letters, not five. I was stuck on that for at least a minute.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 10:31 AM on December 19, 2006

Slightly OT, but what the hell: So last week I was talking to a friend of mine about Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ--it turned out she had never heard of the movie, nor of the controversy that surrounded its release. I said it's just about the only movie made about the life of Christ for which you could spoil the ending. She said, "Well, duh, Christ dies in the end, right?"

I said nothing and loaned her my DVD... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 8:54 AM on May 25, 2006

As long as we're here, it's worth noting that Viswanathan seems to have lifted from two other books in addition to those written by McCafferty--Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella, and, as cited in the NYT article in ericb's post, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie.

This makes editing the book for re-release additionally problematic, I'd guess.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 5:57 AM on May 2, 2006

And apparently she borrowed from The Princess Diaries as well, according to the Harvard Crimson.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 6:42 AM on May 2, 2006

After an hour, one of the very few AskMe questions posted by anonymous that couldn't be legitimately answered by "see a therapist" has yet to receive a response.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 12:54 PM on March 27, 2006

I really do wish that the admins would replace the text of deleted comments with "[comment deleted]", or something similar. No need for explanations--just a notification that the admins have taken action. (That's the practice on every other moderated board I visit online, at any rate.)

I don't know if this requires writing code--if so, then it'd be code worth writing.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 9:38 AM on March 20, 2006

If we're talking about a waiting period before users can post to MeFi Projects, then it might be better for it to be in terms of total comments to blue + green (say, 50 or 100) rather than time. That would make it too much trouble to pay the $5 for a sleeper account.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 12:21 PM on March 8, 2006

Look at the happiness in this thread (announcing that new signups were turned back on). It's probably the happiest thread in the history of Metatalk. It's hard to say no to that.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 10:32 AM on February 22, 2006

As long as we're wishing for moratoriums that could never possibly be enacted, I'd also like to see one on posts whose sole purpose is to notify the community that you've flagged a post. The reason that flags were implemented in the first place was to cut down on exactly that kind of noise.

(By the way, I've flagged every single comment in this thread, including the OP's, and a couple of random posts in other threads for good measure.)
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 9:53 AM on February 6, 2006

@fandango_matt: You now have a "plaintext" option in your Preferences profile that changes the color scheme.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 12:56 PM on January 11, 2006

I've found that for my questions, the longer the [more inside] is, the better answer I get. It also helps if I pre-emptively describe what a bad answer to the question would be, and describe the form that I believe a good answer will take. Questions on "serious" subjects fare better for me than questions on lighthearted topics. I've never asked any personal "DearMe" type questions here.

This question was successful for me, but not because of the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 8:13 AM on August 22, 2005

In defense of nicwolff's comment--I didn't actually know about the nature of Lansbury's character before I saw The Manchurian Candidate (I thought, "Hey, that's the lady from Murder, She Wrote and that's it), and the film was much better for that.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 11:39 AM on June 25, 2005

I had this conversation with a friend last night:

"Have you seen The Manchurian Candidate?"
"Yes--the Frankenheimer one, not the remake."
"If someone had said to you beforehand, 'Hey, see this movie--Angela Lansbury makes a great villain,' would that bother you?"
"That's a spoiler. Whoever said that ought to be stabbed."

To be fair, I used to be as... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 11:05 AM on June 26, 2005

Actually, a significant portion of the 14kers joined during the first big MeFi close, which I think is related to the level of devotion shown by these magnificent specimens.

Yeah--I remember thinking, "If signups are closed, why is the number of total members on the front page upticking by one or two each day?" When signups were visibly open, I didn't even bother with signing up, but once they were closed, signing up became a challenge.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 9:42 AM on June 3, 2005

Is there an easy way to reach this place by public transportation (say, the Northeast Corridor of NJ Transit)? Otherwise, I'm in for an hour's drive.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 9:20 AM on May 13, 2005

Ooh--that's nice. I should be able to make it, then (but remind us again closer to the date, please).
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 9:38 AM on May 13, 2005

I was all ready for this, but it turns out that I have tickets for Hamlet that evening, so I can't make it.

Next time, Gadget. Next time.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 6:22 AM on May 16, 2005

Jon says I look like prospero.

Well, in that case, perhaps it's a good thing I didn't show--the resulting confusion might've been too much for the rest of you to take.

I thought about coming in from Jersey for this one, but ended up going to a Bill Frisell concert last night instead. Maybe I can make the rumored meetup in May.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 8:27 AM on April 16, 2005

I get e-mails from other MeFites now and again and it's no problem (though I only check my Hotmail account every two or three days).
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 5:54 AM on March 26, 2005

The influx of new members is making me so freakin' happy.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 1:52 PM on November 18, 2004

One possibility is this weekend (the evening of August 28, or afternoon/evening of August 29) at the Triumph Brewery, in Princeton--they brew six varieties of beer on site, and they’re all tasty. NYC-area MeFites might even find that it’s worthwhile to leave their precious home for a few hours.

Different venues or times might be more convenient for others, though.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 11:58 AM on August 23, 2004

Oops--make that August 27 or 28: misread my calendar.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 12:01 PM on August 23, 2004

Saturday would be best for me.

If this Saturday (8/28) can't garner a sufficiently large turnout to merit people getting on the road, we could postpone the meetup to a later Saturday. I could probably make 9/4, but after that I'm booked until 9/25.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 10:07 AM on August 24, 2004

Well, if we can't round up enough people, then it's probably best to postpone until some unspecified but more fortuitous time. Let's say we'll count heads on Thursday at noon.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 12:42 PM on August 25, 2004

I don't know if anyone's still reading this thread, but it turns out that I myself have an engagement that's cropped up that'll take me out of town for the weekend, which is going to prohibit a meetup for me. *sigh*
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 9:36 AM on August 26, 2004

You're welcome. Other MeFites are here, so send an invite once you join.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 10:59 AM on August 17, 2004

I just want to point out that the T-shirt for sale above isn't intended by its merchants to be satiric.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 8:35 AM on June 28, 2004

And the fake posted by line incorrectly has a period after it.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 5:04 PM on June 21, 2004

I have several more invites to give away. If you want one, e-mail me at the address in my profile before I leave work today (4 p.m. EST) or before I run out, whichever comes first.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 10:28 AM on June 16, 2004

(My first MeTa callout--today, I have become a man.)

Joining the two threads is all well and good, but the question this brings up is--what should be the proper protocol for updating AskMe threads until Matt implements all the new gewgaws? To summarize the problem:

--several posters within the original thread asked me to update it once the problem was resolved;

--posting within the original thread itself wouldn't have... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 11:50 AM on May 17, 2004

I watch the morning news while I getting ready for work, and I'll turn on the TV at 6:30 for evening headlines if I'm in the house. But other than that, I almost never watch broadcast TV (and I don't have cable). My Gamecube and DVD player get a workout, though.
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 5:03 AM on May 17, 2004

Um... "I'm getting".
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 5:04 AM on May 17, 2004

Hey--Lou Rutigliano wrote back.

Thanks for letting me know about the thread, and I'm at work right now but wanted to just say something quickly to you and the rest of the crew reading this discussion. The fact is, I'm a fan of MetaFilter, and the rest of the weblogs I studied. In that same paper, I complimented the fact-checking work of the membership, and in the paper's conclusions I suggested applying this sort of model to the mainstream. At a recent... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 2:33 PM on May 13, 2004

Lou Rutigliano wrote again with more that he wanted to post to the thread, but I've been away for the weekend, and so didn't get around to it until now. Anyway--

I just wanted to add a few more things. Sorry about the long post, but I can only reply occasionally. Anyway maybe it's not up to weblogs to save democracy, but many people believe they will, and I wanted to take a closer look at that with this paper. I emphasized group weblogs because I think blogging... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Prospero at 3:59 PM on May 16, 2004