Ninety-two percent white implies a certain degree of cultural homogeneity, which people probably assume equates to xenophobia.

Ninety-two percent white describes the population of pretty much any European country.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:07 AM on November 14, 2008

The result is a great time lapse journey.

The result is surprisingly dull.

Sorry, I wanted to like this. I really did.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 8:33 AM on November 10, 2008

That was an excellent brief summary of the financial crisis.

Brief? Brief! It's nearly 10,000 words long. It is a good piece and I like Niall Ferguson . But I do often wonder if the reason the US population is less given to reading than so many other developed - and developing - countries is because its media never uses 3,000 words (a medium-long UK article) when 10,000 will do.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 4:31 AM on November 7, 2008

I'd have thought a pit bull with lipstick would be the obvious choice.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:49 AM on November 6, 2008

Not only is it total bollocks (Europe, East of the Mississippi, etc) it's egregiously over written bollocks. Even the title doesn't make sense when you think about it for, oh, three seconds.

I'm off to listen to some death metal. Bah.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:56 PM on November 3, 2008

The overqualified letters they did were clever, funny and original.

As for the rest, I'm in the vaguely-unsettling-comics-don't-really-do-it-for-me-camp. I expect more from my comics than being slightly left-field and peculiar.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:16 AM on November 2, 2008

She says "fuck" a lot so we know she's telling it like it is.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 3:58 PM on October 31, 2008

What a way to go!
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 10:44 AM on October 31, 2008

We need a pluto probe

Let's probe Uranus too. Thank you, I'm here all week.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 6:20 AM on October 30, 2008

what keeps the sea kittens up at night?

Dynamite fishing.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 10:28 AM on October 22, 2008

Government forced to drop 42 day detention plan

I guess it worked.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:38 PM on October 13, 2008

I'm missing the point too. Kneading dough takes five to ten minutes and it's like playing with a stress ball. Plus you can listen to music or watch TV while you do it. If you're going to go to effort of making bread in the first place, I can't see why you wouldn't do it properly.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 7:39 AM on October 9, 2008

Somewhere there must be an example of an extractive industrial project that actually kept its pre-drilling / digging promises rather than just leaving a God-awful mess that eventually costs taxpayers far more than the project ever made. But I won't be holding my breath.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 3:57 AM on October 9, 2008

Last night's interview with Channel 4 news where Jon Snow takes Martin Lewis to task.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 6:56 AM on October 8, 2008

Cool signs. Although, having shopped for art in Nepal myself I would like to know how much of the $250+ goes to the Nepali artist in question.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 1:29 AM on September 26, 2008

I am going to accuse you of hyperbole. It probably only changed popular music forever if you belong to that largely-US based demographic that likes to drip melted wax on its skin.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 3:59 AM on September 24, 2008

Peoples’ lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like...running water.

It's true. I didn't have any access at all to clean running internet for two weeks last month and I developed dysentery and typhoid from using contaminated, standing internet.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 12:07 AM on September 16, 2008

33 years: your baby is now the size of a world champion pumpkin and weighs in at over 900lbs. He hasn't been to the toilet unassisted for years and TV channels are queuing up to make "educational" documentaries about him.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 12:40 PM on August 20, 2008

Who is this "Naomi Klein"?
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 7:06 AM on August 17, 2008

This guy is in the unfortunate position of being not quite clever enough to realise he's not quite clever enough.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 3:27 AM on August 17, 2008

(from his site) Zac's adventure will be highly publicized as he sails the world striving to break the record for the youngest solo circumnavigator. This will provide your company huge international publicity including the following:

1. Running articles in Sail Magazine, Soundings Magazine, Latitude 38, Cruising World and possibly other yachting literature
2. TV and radio news interviews and coverage

And upon his return,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 6:14 AM on August 15, 2008

OK Fortine, you're right. I'm pulling my punches a bit.

The whole thing seems like something a management consultancy would put together after lunch with a branding agency. I don't give toss either.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 6:50 AM on August 15, 2008

I mean "a toss".
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 6:54 AM on August 15, 2008

It was 15C and wet in London yesterday - do you have anything that'll make my soul sizzle?
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 1:49 AM on August 14, 2008

We Brits have definitely been seeing the downside of "mild and damp" this summer.

Still, I'm on holiday from the 22nd to the 14th which will probably mean three weeks of sun for you. And a mysterious cold monsoon in Malaysia where I'm going. By way of succour, I suppose can spend the time listening to flapjax's music.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:41 AM on August 14, 2008

This - Andrew Collins on his happy childhood ('they tucked me up, my mum and dad') - is a nice counterpoint to misery lit.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 1:29 AM on August 13, 2008

I had a black and white TV until I was nine. And my parents didn't let me watch it very often.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:47 AM on August 13, 2008

The purpose of an economy is to meet human needs in such a way that life becomes in some respect richer and better in the process. It is not simply to produce a lot of stuff. Stuff is a means, not an end.

But stuff = joy. Duh.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 9:08 AM on August 12, 2008

Hmmm...makes no mention of flesh eating zombies or winged armies of trained monkeys.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 9:46 AM on August 8, 2008

Blah... Another Georgian London facade with something completely radical and modern and interior designed to shit behind it. Can you smell the amazing juxtaposition of old and new? Is the house surprising you with its playfulness yet? Is it statement about, like, wow or, like some shit, or something?

He'd have probably freaked the neighbours out a whole lot more if he'd left painted the house in tasteful period colours and filled it with antiques.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:44 PM on August 7, 2008

The 3,200-square-foot home overlooks an amphitheater, has 26-foot-high ceilings and interior finishes that include bamboo flooring, a Japanese soaking tub and granite countertops.

So "based" very loosely indeed on Tolkien's Hobbit village.

Actually, I'm really glad this ghastly blot on the landscape has failed. Number one, what kind of stupid "kidult" wants to live in a Lord of the Rings theme village.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 1:26 AM on August 5, 2008

If you really must build something along these lines, it should be done like this house from the UK series Grand Designs which is modest, beautiful and hand-built around an 800 year old piece of Oak. It's not to my personal taste, but I can certainly appreciate it.

The development in Oregon on the other hand, is plastic Disneyrfied trash. Artificial thatch? WTF? Seriously, who the hell looks at fake thatch, made of plastic (!!) and thinks "Wow,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:42 AM on August 5, 2008

Bear in mind that a celebrity's first book is 5000% more worthwhile and interesting than your first book would ever be. Even if it's a really crap book, it becomes interesting the second they they anoint it with their magic celebrity dust. You don't have that ability, civilian.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 7:46 AM on August 4, 2008

Who in the hell uses Sedgeways anyway? I live in London which I'm constantly told is a reasonably au courant-bleeding edge-of-now type place and I have never, ever seen one in the wild. Not even in the really wanky bits of Shoreditch.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 1:21 AM on August 2, 2008

What a fantastic idea - having a minister for culture who has actually done culture.

(as opposed to the norm, which is usually being a career politician with perhaps a stint as a lawyer or at a large management consultancy thrown in for variety).
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 3:25 AM on July 31, 2008

Awful. The worst thing is how laboured the jokes are. In most of them both build-up and punchline go on forever, eventually limping beaten, dispirited and utterly exhausted to the gag. This might be forgiveable if they were hilarious. But, as they are it's a bit like climbing a mountain to find a parking lot at the top and the view obscured by fog.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:21 AM on July 30, 2008

Waiter Rant is funny. But does anyone just "do" a mundane job anymore without one eye on parlaying it into a groovy media career? I swear I saw the guy who collects the garbage taking notes over the state of my bags the other day....
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 11:58 AM on July 29, 2008

Sharing their breakup has been a lot harder.

So don't do it. Please.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 7:21 AM on July 29, 2008

'"moist" has to be one of the creepier words in the English language.'

But it goes so well with "glistening"'
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 7:17 AM on July 29, 2008

Please let me know where I can get $40000 in exchange for £17000?

Where, I dunno. But given this news, when may be sometime in the last few months of the Bush Presidency.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 4:03 AM on July 29, 2008

Is that a bear as in a scary creature in the woods or a hairy homosexual man?

On such shades of meaning do thousand word rants rest....
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 5:33 AM on July 24, 2008

an English guy, lived most his life in London [...] out of his mouth, and out of nowhere, came a racist spiel as stupid and hateful and rabid as any I've ever heard here in the states [in this case directed at the Irish]

Well, what did you expect? As anyone's who's ever watched any historically accurate Hollywood movies can tell you, it's well known that the English are genetically predisposed to being the bad guys.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:50 AM on July 24, 2008

Napier in New Zealand is a centre for art deco as well. All thanks to a 1931 earthquake. Presumably if the earthquake had happened 40 years later, it would now be a centre for ugly crap.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 1:20 PM on July 22, 2008

90% of everything is crap, Film At 11.

True. But it is different this time as we've never had many to many crap before. Twenty years ago if you wanted to write adult fan fiction about Hello Kitty, it would probably only be seen by your closest friends. Now, anyone with a computer can see it; indeed they may be lucky enough to stumble on it without even looking.

I guess what I'm saying is that for better or for worse the crap... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 7:40 AM on July 22, 2008

If all moved within bike distance, you would be sort of like living in India.

No, it would be sort of like living in the Netherlands.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 1:10 AM on July 20, 2008

I'm so far ahead of the curve, I hate small independents.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 7:57 AM on July 19, 2008

That's one of the most fascinating things about India. You can have cities of a million people that very few people outside the country know exist.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 2:45 AM on July 15, 2008

It is quite interesting and a good post. But then you read down to the comments at the bottom. It seems she make about three quarters of them cry!

Sample: Wow. I’m glad I was alone when I read that, because I’m now crying like a big baby.

Heidi — that was an amazing story. Thank you so much for sharing it. Like others have said, it was a very courageous thing to do.

It's nice that she wrote it and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 1:33 PM on July 14, 2008

I absolutely believe there are people who weigh 530 pounds and are happy and healthy.

Happy perhaps. Healthy. No. No. No.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 1:38 PM on July 14, 2008

I really struggle with the whole fat acceptance thing. It's a bit like pretending that smoking 40 a day is a fantastic lifestyle choice.
posted to MetaFilter by rhymer at 1:50 PM on July 14, 2008