my boyfriend made a theremin from one of those build your own kits a couple years ago, and the first cool thing that happened was our cats swished their tails around it. cats and theremins really do go together.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 6:39 PM on May 22, 2008

the laika one is wonderful.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 10:12 PM on May 11, 2008

Berger is my hero. Love love love him. Thank you for this.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 9:54 PM on April 30, 2008

At Hot Doug's in Chicago, the sign for men is a hotdog in a bun and the sign for women is an empty bun. Uh huh.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 12:17 PM on March 29, 2008

Deathalicious is correct. If you're interested in the economic theory behind this stuff, this article from The New Yorker on microfinancing is excellent. And I can't believe no one has mentioned Amartya Sen yet; he's the go-to guy when it comes to this stuff in pop economics and political economy. I spent the second half of my time in university studying what makes third world development stagnate and what can and can't be done about it. It's fascinating stuff. And as... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 11:30 AM on March 1, 2008

ahem.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 4:49 PM on February 27, 2008

this makes my day!! it's like early christmas. yay.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 11:15 AM on December 8, 2007

my favorite sex scene is in bertolucci's stealing beauty when liv tyler finally loses her virginity. it's probably the only movie portrayal i've seen where losing one's virginity doesn't suck, but is rather a nearly spiritual social-yet-intensely-personal/private epiphany, and is positive without being gratuitously explicit or cheesy. i think the nerve write up about emily watson's performance in breaking the waves sort of explains what i mean, but i think... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 8:31 PM on September 10, 2007

seriously, this is better than anything else i have ever seen on mefi. better than pessoa even. oh my god!
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 9:08 PM on April 17, 2007

my boyfriend read slaughterhouse-five for the first time a while back, and i really enjoyed seeing how much he loved it. then we were talking about vonnegut in general, and i mentioned that when i was stuck in the hospital as a teenager the only book they had in the commons area that wasn't like, woman's day recipes from 1972 or something was this bizarre telecast based on vonnegut's writings. and i remembered enjoying it, a lot, but since then i had forgotten its name and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 9:20 AM on April 13, 2007

i got wayyyy too excited when i misread an early comment thinking it said the dream of the red chamber was on there rather than essays ABOUT the dream of the red chamber. i'd do anything to be able to get the entire classic as beautifully translated and readily available as the three volumes still in print. sigh.

but yay to tu fu. god, i love chinese classic romance literature.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 3:14 PM on May 14, 2006

what everyone else already said...i was eagerly expecting, you know, fruit head monstrosities and crotchless pants or something, only to find things like "oooh, her jeans are caught in the back of her boots!" and "her bag's too big for her frame!" wtf. and yeah, some of those people look hot even. huh.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 1:16 PM on May 7, 2006

i remember something about how geertz dislikes guns, germs, and steel...i may have even found out via mefi. my experience with historians' and anthropologists' response to the book (from my own college period, and my sibling's, and my friends') is that they tend to dislike it and get annoyed because diamond's lack of actual formalized anthro training shows through.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 10:32 AM on September 10, 2005

thanks dirtynumbangelboy, for calling people on their essentialism about rape. rape is now defined mainly by who penetrates who? uhhhh, no. try again.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 8:51 AM on July 22, 2005

great post!
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 10:26 AM on July 15, 2005

For me it's the opposite. I'm very Paula Begoun about it...I don't wear any makeup or do anything beauty-related except for my obsessive daily effective sunscreen regimen. Because yeah. Sun damage overtime just ain't pretty, dangerous or no. Yick.

And even immediate effects...quite frankly I think if you're geared towards being pale you look best more as yourself than trying to prove you're some super tan entity. Every spring in college a fair amount of my... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 3:16 PM on June 23, 2005

i loved the gopnik/new yorker one. yes.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 3:29 PM on March 31, 2005

Metafilter: We've got a big bottom to scrape.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 9:22 PM on March 31, 2005

i'm annoyed i didn't have it while in college. as one of my chums said (who's still to graduate), "it helps a lot when you want to know if that hot guy two rows in front of you in psycholinguistics is gay or straight." i suppose in that regard it strengthens shy and asocial habits, but...but...
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 8:59 AM on March 19, 2005

everything 1016 said. i've been twisted and turned in both directions academically because i like economics a lot but also became very taken with critical theory and cultural anthropology. yes, legislation is idiotic and there's clearly more going on there than just a desire to foster openmindedness. that said, there ARE departments and faculty commonly that are very, very out of touch with the fact they likely alienate some of their students with, as 1016, their blatant acknowledgement of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 3:51 PM on February 15, 2005

i must live under a rock, because i had no idea poe was mark danielewski's sister. i like both of them. you learn something new every day...
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 12:12 PM on February 12, 2005

potted meat! my boyfriend's grandfather lives on potted meat, wonder bread, and mashed up bananas. he's a great guy, but i can never quite get over that.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 8:32 AM on February 2, 2005

this just in: time magazine soothes the anxieties of their core readership and their children, just in time for the new semester.


spot on. soooooo spot on.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 11:46 AM on January 22, 2005

rochester garbage plate, represent!!
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 8:18 PM on January 21, 2005

this is great! i loved the program, even if it did result in a shouting match between me and my father about whether hip hop slang is "real" language :b
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 6:38 PM on January 20, 2005

Everybody loves a (premature, wedon'thaveallthefactsyet) pile on to make themselves feel self righteous. Thank you agatha_magatha.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 4:20 PM on January 18, 2005

(perches down with a parasol and some tea sandwiches, waiting with bright eyed anticipation for the mudwrestling between pomo relativists and those staunchly supporting the search for a "baseline truth scale." woo!)
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 11:37 PM on January 15, 2005

On preview: ifjuly, that's exactly the sort of thing that makes me the crankiest. What a waste of fucking time.

sure, it can be amusing/fun to dismiss if you feel as you (and, upon reading your longer comment explaining your view) and i do--that it's comical to toe the line to ridiculous extremes in either camp, and much more useful to understand aspects of both sides add value to any approach of history. i think you're spot on with... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 10:32 AM on January 16, 2005

[insert obligatory dismissive "tucker carlson's brun prick" comment to maintain ratios. aw, the caliber of the whole site goes down a notch, even if it is equalized. lower, but equalized...]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 8:30 PM on January 5, 2005

this is making me a very sad panda.

(backing up various online notebooks now)
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 10:39 PM on January 4, 2005

languagehat has my heart for this discussion.

the laundry list of "inane rituals people do across the world" cited above especially made me sigh. meh. it's one thing to criticize the political ramifications of religious practice--i can stand behind those concerns easily--but making fun of a global, diverse human need to ritualize and mythologize as if there's something inherently broken about it and we're all past there here is, mm, naive at best.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 5:10 PM on December 19, 2004

cannibalism/human sacrifice rituals in religion, specifically in South and Central America, have actually been cited in arguments for the notion that religious "back story"--the myths and dogma that supposedly tell believers what to do ritually--comes as a result of, not an explanation for, ritual. that is, people tend to think of ritual as the reaction, the practice in response to dogma. some theorists (kluckhohn and to a less obvious extent turner) have argued it is the other way... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 11:18 PM on December 16, 2004

I think Christians are sometimes nostalgic for the days in which they were actually persecuted. I wonder why it's important for people to feel victimized?
posted by quadog at 4:21 PM EST on December 16

A friend of mine's doing her dissertation on the everprevalent "victimhood and persecution" motif in Christianity (specifically, Catholicism), especially with regard to the Female Saint as Victim (you know--the virginal body being... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 10:59 PM on December 16, 2004

people who still think China is easily dismissed crack my shit up. incidentally, this is also one of the biggest reasons i lovelove the economist; they've been very matter of fact about this issue for years now. wake up, people. no empire lasts forever, though it seems inevitable for whoever's on top to go about their business as if they're the globally mandated exception. i'm not placing sure bets, but i would not be at all surprised if the shift of superpower status from... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 7:40 PM on December 16, 2004

i love this poem, for a couple (the one about lending someone a book and the person returning it ruined and crappily "fixed" comes to mind) in particular but especially because of the perfect ending. i even own the print version... thank you for this! :D
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 1:33 AM on December 16, 2004

aside from some gross trolls messing it up ("lick a n...pussy"), this is a great idea.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 1:21 AM on December 16, 2004

oh numlock. :)
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 9:46 AM on December 13, 2004

Scott taught one of the first ling courses at UPitt I ever took, and it was his first year teaching there too. He's a great guy and if this is interesting to you you should check out his dissertation (analyzing fraternity speak) and some of the work he's doing with Professor Curtin on how soon babies recognize male versus female voices.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 9:04 PM on December 9, 2004

Warning, careful as you peruse through people gawking at a murder confession, because you might see a picture of a stretched rectum, and that would be offensive.
posted by Space Coyote at 5:35 PM EST on November 27


strangely astute.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 2:53 PM on November 27, 2004

quonsar makes me very happy sometimes.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 2:56 PM on November 28, 2004

what, not a single remark on the fact they have a (tossed) salad section?!
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 8:54 PM on November 18, 2004

cute.

"elle a chaud au cul!" yeah, i bet she gave the look of disdain at that...
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 10:52 AM on October 23, 2004

OMG WTF GYOBFW TANSTAAFL BYOB BBQ SFW STFU IIRC IAMAL IAMAD MI !!!!!!!11111ONEONE11ONE1!!!!!11
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 10:19 PM on October 21, 2004

does anyone remember alexandra nechita? she created a bit of pop culture media buzz nearly ten years ago...
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 12:57 PM on October 15, 2004

and sometimes it makes me sad
when I think of how long it takes
for new ideas to catch on, because,
yeah, deconstruction might have saved us.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 11:54 AM on October 9, 2004

what taz and others have said. tipping in america is hellish. there are people like mkultra and Civil_Disobedient who have experience with the way waitpeople get shafted and with asshole customers, and it makes them angry and a little bit scary for those of us who go out to eat ever. what they say makes sense, and as people have said inthread, the problem is with wage laws. it's inexcusable that waitstaff can end up getting nothing at the end of the night because their wages are so dependent... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 2:52 PM on September 13, 2004

how anyone ever came up with butthole lane without even a smirk is beyond me. this explains monty python (must be that the jokes write themselves), almost. and yeah, as said above: it awes and amuses me that someone took the time to do this. :)
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 9:03 PM on June 28, 2004

should i be flattered that so far, people are on average exactly on the money? hm.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 3:37 PM on May 9, 2004

signal, i read it more as making fun of the manipulated image created in the ads...not so much the women but whoever's designing them, the person who's sniffing out the provocative implications of each image and its setup.

and yes, it's pretty hilarious. wish i'd thought of it; it's perfect for the format--a format which WANTS you to form subconcious, instant "cool" narratives based on a page flip.
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 10:54 AM on April 29, 2004

did anyone see in praise of love? that was one of the biggest disappointments i think i've ever sat through...but of course, the bar was high. if anyone did, i'd be curious what they think of anthony lane's (old) review at the new yorker. thought he was right on with the following:

At least, when Chaplin inveighed against mechanization, in "Modern Times," he saw fit to trap himself in the cogs of a particular... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ifjuly at 5:43 PM on April 22, 2004