$5 to $8 per 100-word abstract wouldn't be bad, but not great either.

But $5 to $8 for working on spec (you do the work first and then they'll decide if they want to pay you for it) is not good.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 8:39 AM on April 3, 2008

They were speaking Finnish with German accents?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 6:53 PM on March 15, 2008

So, dirigibleman, you're saying they're children of the devil?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:51 PM on February 22, 2008

The Error of Comedies.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:50 PM on January 25, 2008

They haven't built one yet, cortex
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 2:10 PM on January 18, 2008

Hm. But if we could survive on a moon base, we could just build the same type of base on earth. couldn't we?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 4:01 AM on October 7, 2007

Scientists hold bake sales?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:51 PM on September 9, 2007

To save others the bother of going through the whole process, it's for residents of USA only.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 2:16 PM on September 5, 2007

They're kids. It's not like they're long on choices on what country to party in.

Kids from Britain and Sweden.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 10:55 AM on August 6, 2007

pywacket, be sure to click on the "1000 Teachers" link on his web site.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 5:21 PM on July 15, 2007

Why didn't they do the whole song?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 9:50 PM on June 13, 2007

Hm. It says $85 on the page but shows up as $285 in the shopping cart
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 11:28 AM on June 8, 2007

Why do the pillows burst like water-balloons on the first hit?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 9:36 AM on June 6, 2007

That's a standard YouTube error message so there's no telling what's wrong and hacking is not the most likely explanation.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 4:50 AM on June 6, 2007

In my experience most beach towels for small kids have a hood built in like this. What's new here?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 10:54 AM on May 31, 2007

Riki tiki: There's no new precedent here, nothing specific to blogging and nothing that prevents people from doing all the good things you describe. "Don't make public comments about the case" is very basic advice that any lawyer will give to their client in this situation. The only new angle here is that he thought he could get away with it on his "anonymous" blog. Even if the commentary on the case is important to post publicly, he just had to wait until the trial was over... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 8:32 AM on May 31, 2007

"But based on the descriptions from the linked article, he wasn't discussing the merits of the case itself"

It says he "ridiculed the plaintiff's case."
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 8:35 AM on May 31, 2007

"in all time zones" meaning in five of the six time zones in Canada.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 12:23 PM on May 20, 2007

Only three of the eight choices are performed by American artists.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 10:28 AM on May 19, 2007

flapjax, in this case they are keeping out a non-native species, not driving out a native one.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 6:51 PM on May 18, 2007

Here's Harry Knowles' comments
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:42 AM on May 16, 2007

MetaFilter: American car company faces extinction; here's what the Canadians think.

More cars are built in Ontario than any other jurisdiction -- that is, more than any US state (including Michigan) or Japanese prefecture or German state, etc. It's a really big deal here.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 6:46 PM on May 14, 2007

One of the comments on the site says that if you know that Faulkner hated commas and just mark everything with commas as the machine and no commas as Faulkner then you'll score 92%
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:50 PM on April 24, 2007

How unusual is it for this company to make such an announcement on a Sunday?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 4:29 PM on April 3, 2007

If they delivered a copy of every issue ever published to every house in the country for free with no advertising, they still wouldn't have lost hundreds of billions.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 4:58 PM on February 5, 2007

in which some of the powers of the Executive were extra-constitutionally usurped by the Office of the Vice President

um, unless it's contrary to GWB's direct orders, it's neither usurping nor extra-constitutional.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 6:20 PM on February 4, 2007

Margaret Wente takes a position contrary to what is commonly believed and/or to the position of The Globe & Mail on just about everything. What's new here?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 8:09 PM on January 31, 2007

schroedinger, when will the screenplay be finished?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 11:48 AM on December 15, 2006

All it takes to run for mayor of Toronto is fill in a two-page form and pay a $200 fee ($100 to run for a seat on council).

(There were 38 people on the ballot for mayor this year)
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 1:11 PM on December 10, 2006

I have the Yuletide Disco LP. The best 99 cents I ever spent.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 9:27 PM on December 4, 2006

Any free service like this is obviously out to harvest some ripe personal data for to spam with.

The free service is a demo for the paid service. You can send up to 500 messages a month for free. It appears their goal is to make money by charging businesses for using the service to communicate with employees/customers/etc.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:57 PM on December 2, 2006

Are we trend setters or trend followers?

Yes.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:59 PM on November 23, 2006

Metafilter is one of the sites indexed by BlogPulse, and pretty highly ranked. It might well be that the mere fact that the video is linked on MetaFilter (regardless of anything else) is what causes the video to be highly ranked on BlogPulse.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 8:37 PM on November 23, 2006

I remember seeing an interview with him on CNBC Europe when he was announced as the new CEO of Microsoft and I thought "now there's a weirdo." I feel history has borne me out.

The video is from before he was CEO.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:31 PM on November 18, 2006

Do you usually watch Youtube videos after bedtime?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 8:20 PM on November 12, 2006

On the whole, the older stuff is far weirder, stranger, and even darker than the new kids stuff.

Like Dick and Jane? I think that is a more typical example than the story of the Google.

So your ridiculous suggestion is that the quality of different mediums does not change over time

No. It's that it will always seem that an earlier era produced better stuff (because much of the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 1:44 PM on November 12, 2006

It's hilarious how that story is titled "Security arrests innocent nine year old and treats him like a criminal.", but starts off plainly stating that he stole something from the store.

On two separate occasions.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 5:10 PM on November 6, 2006

They did? Aren't there exceptions to these things when there's an ongoing sexual assault of a minor?

Perhaps. But in any case, at the time of the incident the police did not know the guy's address. There has to be some sort of process (if only the police visiting the ISP in person) -- if you just call up the ISP and ask for the info, how do they know that you really are the police and not a stalker?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 6:55 PM on November 2, 2006

How the fuck did he get a preschooler?

The man's identity is not being released in order to protect the identity of the child. I am inferring from that the he is at least a relative, if not her father.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:41 PM on November 2, 2006

Must be daylight savings time
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 10:17 AM on November 1, 2006

"As a result of this study, the elephant now joins a cognitive elite"
should be:
As a result of this study, humans have figured out that elephants are part of this cognitive elite.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 2:21 PM on October 31, 2006

Because, you know, those babies who are more likely to have autism just like TV more!

More like: parents who are likely to have autistic kids are more likely to live in regions where more kids watch TV.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:18 PM on October 16, 2006

Are there a lot of toddlers who don't watch television?

The main finding of the study is this: The rate of toddlers watching television increased dramatically when cable and VCRs became common. The rate of autism increased dramatically at the same time. In places where cable television became common earlier, the rate of autism became common earlier.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:28 PM on October 16, 2006

oops. The rate of autism increased earlier
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:29 PM on October 16, 2006

I believe I would eat some of those gamer shirts before I wore them.

I think that it looks like some of the people wearing them did exactly that.

(sorry, couldn't resist)
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 10:07 AM on September 22, 2006

Michael Ondaatje (author of The English Patient, In The Skin Of A Lion, etc.) has done a book-length interview with Walter Murch called The Conversations (illustrated, of course). It's one of the most fascinating things I've ever read.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 12:17 PM on September 19, 2006

I don't get it. What's the point of all the running and leaping when the problem is solved by 5 seconds of work that he could have done in the first place?
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 7:04 AM on July 31, 2006

"The Cat Came Back" is a lot of fun.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 6:40 AM on July 16, 2006

Watch "The Big Snit", everyone.

If you think I did then you're just one of those people who... who... who thinks... I... did.
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 10:00 AM on July 16, 2006

When I lived in NYC, I knew a guy who lived in an old building on the East River in Brooklyn. He turned his bedroom into a pinhole camera by covering the window with black garbage bags and then poking the hole. This resulted in an image of the downtown Manhattan skyline being projected on the opposite wall (upside-down).
posted to MetaFilter by winston at 11:05 AM on April 24, 2006