Displaying comments 1 to 50 of 403
MeFi post:
It's time to play the music.
I'm glad to finally have a canonical transliteration of "Yenggoosveer de hoop-de-diskee-doo Yee-boom de hurdee yer humm! Børk! Børk! Børk!"
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 6:55 AM on July 21, 2008
MeFi post:
Glass trombone
And although it is hard to judge from the audio, I can't imagine something as thick and comparatively stiff as Pyrex (if the flask the glassblower started with was normal lab glass Pyrex) is going to make for a sound rich with harmonic overtones.
Don't be so sure — apparently a flute made of concrete is not easily distinguishable from a wooden one.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 8:56 AM on July 12, 2008
MeFi post:
Just the facts Ma'am
naturalist language is buck naked
No, naturist language is buck naked. Naturalist language goes tramping about in the woods looking for interesting insects.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 5:39 AM on July 10, 2008
MeFi post:
Are the seams in your hose often crooked?
Wow, the husband got a merit, even in 1939, for being an "[a]rdent lover--sees that wife has orgasm in marital congress."
Not only that, but it's worth the largest number of merits that can be received on either scale.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 9:00 AM on May 14, 2008
MeFi post:
Told You So
What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway. No, I mean we shouldn't have to do this, it makes no logical sense, why is it here?
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 6:30 PM on March 29, 2008
MeFi post:
a and buying heaven she's stairway to
a about act ah all an and are around as be body bug but can carefully come could do doesn't don't be better easy Em ends face fast feel fine for forever forget free friends friendship from future G get give go goodbye got gotta handle hasty have here's how I if in is it I'll just know lady last listen like likes love lover make MC me my never now on past place precious real really say see she's slam so taking tell that that's the then think time to too together try V wanna want wasting way we... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 9:41 AM on March 19, 2008
MeFi post:
Neither technology nor magic was sufficiently advanced.
From 2010:Held there by curiosity, and a growing fear of the long loneliness that lay before him, that which had once been David Bowman, Commander of the United States spacecraft Discovery, watched as [its] hull boiled stubbornly away. For a long time, the ship retained its approximate shape; then the bearings of the carousel seized up, releasing instantly the stored momentum of the huge, spinning flywheel. In a soundless detonation, the incandescent... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 7:08 PM on March 18, 2008
MeFi post:
The end of the bus timetable
Chicago started a pilot program along these lines for one of its routes a year or two ago. Unfortunately, it's for a route that I never have reason to ride. I had hoped that they would expand it to some of the routes I ride, but at this point I would guess that they're more concerned with spending their money on not making crippling service cuts.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 8:06 AM on January 27, 2008
MeFi post:
The Year of Flops
I've quite enjoyed Mr. Rabin's column for the last year, although I do agree that he could use an editor. My personal favourite of his reviews begins thus:An entire generation knows Josh Logan’s Paint Your Wagon primarily as the movie the Simpsons rent expecting a typical Clint Eastwood bloodbath, only to discover, much to their shock and horror, a toe-tapping musical about the fun of painting wagons. ... Alas, the real Paint Your Wagon is far stranger than... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 6:02 AM on January 25, 2008
MeFi post:
Like Tetris, but chain-y
At some point in my last game I ended up with 1111111 along a row, with at least one row of grey tiles under it. Don't be like me.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 3:48 PM on December 2, 2007
MeFi post:
That's it! Back to Winnipeg!
Ah, Winnipeg. Despite myself, I still miss the place sometimes... I have fond memories of spending the summer there, home for the summer from college in Philadelphia: randomly reconnecting with an old elementary school buddy at the U of M while I was there, going out to movies & parties with elementary school buddies, my college girlfriend visiting for a week... one of the times in my life when I was truly happy.
I still don't think I'm ever going to go back to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 6:56 PM on October 12, 2007
MeFi post:
Where's my flying car?
I totally assumed this was about the futurists and their intellectual marriage to fascism.
Relax, you're not the only one. You & I can revel in our esotery.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 5:56 AM on September 10, 2007
MeFi post:
Last call
Very sad; I had not heard that he was suffering from Parkinson's (although the article doesn't explicitly say that's what killed him, it's mentioned in his Wikipedia article.) Those of us who enjoy excellent, flavourful beer owe a lot to him.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 3:20 PM on August 30, 2007
MeFi post:
oscillate
Let me see if I understand it correctly: he used the techno track as a carrier wave, and superimposed correlations in the left and right channels (fed into the X-Y inputs on the scope) to get the nifty patterns? Or did I miss something?
In any case, it's a pretty cool (and wonderfully nerdy) use of an oscilloscope.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 1:09 PM on August 30, 2007
MeFi post:
How to win the Nobel Prize 101
Can you imagine what this brilliant man could do when paired with someone who can build a decent webpage?! The mind boggles.
Indeed! Instead of having just a Nobel Prize in Physics, he'd have a Nobel Prize in Physics and a decent webpage!
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 5:41 PM on August 29, 2007
MeFi post:
There once was a girl named Lenore
A knight-errant, looking quite pale,
Was asked, "Sir, from what do you ail?"
"I've been duped by," said he,
"La belle dame sans merci,
And I fear I shall soon kick the pail."
Rhyming "pail" with "pale" doesn't quite work, does it?
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 12:34 PM on July 23, 2007
MeFi post:
100 words every high school graduate should know
"abstemious" is only on the list so they know a word with all the vowels in alphabetical order. You'd be surprised how often that comes up, and you don't want to look like a fool without a quick answer.
You're being facetious, right?
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 8:47 AM on June 13, 2007
MeFi post:
People will live for *50 years!*
I find it interesting how someone looking at the state of technology in 1900 could predict the essential features of the internet and wireless communications, which didn't really get going until eighty or ninety years later) and yet entirely miss the advent of the airplane, which was common & almost mundane fifty years subsequent.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 7:38 AM on April 19, 2007
MeFi post:
Travellers lost in the wilderness were nursed to safety through our music
Anyone up there ever hear of Rush?
Seeing as Neil Peart was behind the drum kit on one of their tracks ("Guns", off of Whale Music), I'd venture that the answer is yes.
The Rheos were one of a rare breed: a truly unique band. I was half-tempted to head up just to Toronto from Chicago to see their farewell show, but it was not to be. I guess I'll just have to listen to all their albums on loop all day tomorrow instead.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 8:57 AM on March 29, 2007
MeFi post:
What's up with you, Doc?
From the article: Alter’s misdiagnosis resulted from the use of a heuristic called “availability,” which refers to the tendency to judge the likelihood of an event by the ease with which relevant examples come to mind. ... For example, a businessman may estimate the likelihood that a given venture could fail by recalling difficulties that his associates had encountered in the marketplace, rather than by relying on all the data available to him about the venture; the experiences most familiar... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 8:45 AM on March 22, 2007
MeFi post:
Biocentrism: putting ourselves (back) on a pedestal
I haven't read such a load of pseudo-scientific philosophical claptrap since someone linked to that "Tenth Dimension" Flash site a few months back. And at least that one got to the point fairly quickly.
His central thesis seems to be that time and space are merely functions of consciousness, and that there is no objective way to measure how we perceive time. He dismisses the notions of space and time that physicists have come up with as "tortuous... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay
at 9:47 AM on March 10, 2007
