Danf: It had me at the pith-helmeted cop!

Well, I am amused that his line was pure Han Solo from Star Wars.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 11:30 AM on November 13, 2009

Well, just sat through the 63-minute video.

It was one hell of a lot better than I expected, given the comments here. Just out of curiousity, did those who commented negatively on it watch the whole thing? In our short-attention-span culture, I think we tend to not give things time to develop: we want instant quality now, damn it! And if you gave time to this to let it bake, it really turned out to be pretty damn decent by film's... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 11:28 PM on November 13, 2009

You've been the conduit for a lot of good to enter this world, via this website you crafted and built. The universe better pay attention and pay some of that back to you. Add me to the list of people sending good vibes in your direction, Matt.
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 7:55 PM on November 12, 2009

Yeah, you can accomplish this using A Better Finder Rename and "Advanced & Special > Rename from File List".
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 6:54 PM on November 12, 2009

Companion FPP to this one.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 3:20 PM on November 11, 2009

quin: while it's called a "pilot", it deals with events after the conclusion of the events of the first season and was clearly a if-we-don't-get-picked-up-this-will-give-closure effort.

"Epitaph One" wasn't either of the two pilots. It was a thirteenth episode produced because ... well, Wikipedia: "20th Century Fox needed thirteen episodes for the first season's DVD... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 3:33 PM on November 11, 2009

Ask Metafilter has an inherent policy: if it isn't responsive to the question, and if it challenges the actual initial scenario of the question, it doesn't belong there.

I.e., if a woman is going to have an abortion and wants advice as to safe providers in her city, a response challenging the abortion itself doesn't belong in that thread, and will be deleted.

That's not because the admins censor viewpoints they disagree with; it's because admins... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 9:31 AM on November 11, 2009

Just, by the way, as a case study of this principle: there was an Ask Mefi thread where the posted mentioned that they'd just fallen into rather delirious love and they were wondering why this motivated them to do things like write poetry.

I posted a message saying something to the effect of "I don't have much to answer your question, but: awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! I'm so happy for you! Congratulations!"

It was deleted.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 9:45 AM on November 11, 2009

Let's look at the problem from the perspective of looking after your own self-interests.

From that perspective, this has the power to massively affect your life for the worse – and I'm talking on a scale of not only your current job, but your ability to be an employable human being.

You are never going to become pale. You are never going to get sick. You are never going to have your hair fall out from chemotherapy. When you show almost... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 9:29 AM on November 11, 2009

churl: Just to throw out my two cents: Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) is a charity I endorse very heavily.

I gotta second that, deeply. When I was researching a FPP about a particularly heinous crime against humanity, those folks were part of who were doing what they could to repair the damage. I think most of them are doing the work of the saints.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 3:42 PM on November 9, 2009

You know, I don't know if this'll land with a huzzah or with a resounding thud, but I have to admit, I'm a bit enamored of Wikipedia's watchlist ... it would be quite nice to be able to 'watch' and 'unwatch' various threads, even if we have not participated in them.

For example, let's say I see an Ask Mefi hit the RSS feed about a really interesting topic -- but I go and there's no answer there yet. Well, I definitely can manually check back. I can even add the RSS... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 1:55 PM on November 9, 2009

Just out of curiosity, aside from installing User Agent Switcher on Firefox, any way to manually switch to this view in a non-iPhone browser?
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 8:50 PM on November 8, 2009

pb: But if you want to get close to the iPhone version you could install the current iPhone stylesheet as a local user-defined style. You would lose some additional page-level formatting, but using that stylesheet would be very close to the iPhone experience.

Well, I tried setting that up as a Stylish userstyle, which pretty much got it near there, but some of the UI differences that I was looking... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 9:53 PM on November 8, 2009

Favorites are searchable?!?! That makes them about 40 times more useful than I had thought them ...
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 9:09 PM on November 8, 2009

as HTML
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 8:47 PM on November 8, 2009

I'd strongly, strongly echo those who suggest you need to have your doctor verify you didn't have a ministroke.

An extended family member had a stroke. They described it in similar terms to what you just described, except for them, they couldn't process numbers. They were working a register at the time, and suddenly, it just went a bit off. When they punched out, the timeclock required number entry in order for them to punch out properly, and they couldn't do it.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 8:20 PM on November 8, 2009

Haven't tried it, but Restore Window Focus After Flash. It sounds like it may not be a good solution, since it sounds as if it would disable keyboard usage inside Flash.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 6:51 PM on November 8, 2009

By the way, this is Bug #78414, which has been around since before 9/11.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 6:53 PM on November 8, 2009

Sorry to have spread this over three messages – there's a Greasemonkey user script cited in the comments of #78414. I installed it on my machine. Grooveshark still grabs the Ctrl-PgUp/Ctrl-PgDwn keystroke as I'm traversing my tabs, but I can do Cmd-T to get out of that keyboard-grab, or Cmd-L to go to the address bar. (See this.)

Also, there's this: Plugins: Advanced Key Handling: "Status: Accepted, ready for implementation. Assigned NPAPI version 25.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 7:27 PM on November 8, 2009

Amanda, I think that the problem lies in the cognitive dissonance between how FOX News viewers perceive FOX News, and how the rest of the world does. If you are a FOX News viewer, you buy into what the channel is selling: that they present fair and balanced reporting, that any Democrat is the most evil person in the world, and that every Democratic proposal will destroy the Earth's iosphere.

What you're essentially asking us is how one might convert a FOX News viewer... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 12:13 PM on November 8, 2009

Also, just as an FYI, this might be useful. Quite literally, and with no hyperbole nor bias whatsoever, it is FOX News suing for the right to broadcast false information.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 12:17 PM on November 8, 2009

Hey, listen, I don't want to sound like I'm Pepsi Blue-ing my FPP, but if you're looking to counter-introduce some positive news sources into her life, I put together a FPP for that purpose (basically, because of the same thing Meg_Murry says: I found my own news sources to be really overwhelming in their pessimism, and I needed some counterprogramming to convince me the world wasn't truly going to crap).

They're not particularly liberally biased, either, so I think your... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 12:20 PM on November 8, 2009

Rupert Murdoch owns not only FOX News, but the paper that printed the article to which you linked. The Wall Street Journal is most definitely not an unbiased source. And while I'm not personally familiar with Ms. McCaughey's work, I note she's a Republican, so her position isn't exactly likely to be unbiased either.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 5:09 PM on November 8, 2009

Yes, it's a gross violation. See American Psychiatric Association, American Psychiatric Association: The Principles of Medical Ethics, With Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry:

Section 1, Annotation 1: "A psychiatrist shall not gratify his or her own needs by exploiting the patient. The psychiatrist shall be ever vigilant about the impact that his or her conduct has upon the boundaries of the doctor–patient... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 6:55 PM on November 7, 2009

> it seems like section 2 is there to prevent psychiatrists from being invested at
> all in their position as social/political actors.

Psychiatrists, in their role as people who are supposed to help, both therapeutically and pharmaceutically, aid the patient in the healing of mental problems and aberrations from the norm, should not be social/political actors. A psychiatrist should not be acting on their beliefs about abortion when treating a daughter... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 7:29 AM on November 8, 2009

Relevant, I think:Joining Gold’s Gym is a lot like sitting down and negotiating a deal at a used car lot — it’s high pressure and the first dollar figures presented to you, um, don’t really matter a whole lot. They originally wanted me to pay $249 as an “initial investment” (what exactly is that?) and $59.95 a month. After telling both the salesman, assistant manager, and then the manager that I didn’t want to pay more than $39.95 with no “initial investment,” I got my way.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 6:29 PM on November 6, 2009

dates prices
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 6:29 PM on November 6, 2009

...bottles.

Truncation humor ... the newest and most unique form of humor I've ever seen!
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 9:52 AM on November 6, 2009

Saydur: Goatse jokes? That's humor I can get behind.
YoBananaBoy: I think that is stretching it.
Sidhedevil: Try not to be huge assholes, OK?
gman: you are so... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 4:56 PM on November 6, 2009

Rectum? I nearly killed 'em!
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 5:04 PM on November 6, 2009

While it's not an automatic adjustment, browser.zoom.sitespecific would remember on a site-by-site basis any adjustments you make. There's also NoSquint, which amps up zooming abilities.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 4:59 PM on November 6, 2009

Malor: You know, Jon Stewart's recent deconstruction of Fox News, while very funny, was also brilliant.

Speaking of satire and Stewart, have you seen the Glenn Beck bit he did last night? It is utterly, utterly brilliant.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 2:52 PM on November 6, 2009

Ah, nola already posted the link. Sorry.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 2:53 PM on November 6, 2009

Forums are a tantalizing siren. But there is the rare occasion when Mefites can be engaged on a level beyond annoyance, if they have a sentimental bond with the venue they're talking in.

My first time in MetaTalk, I was there with this old Mefite admin, grizzled, named Mathowie.

And Mathowie told me the most important idea in MetaTalk was 'venting.' Lets off steam. You simply give them a venue to do it, and it soothes the itch to argue, like... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 2:40 AM on November 5, 2009

I sorted through this thread to get a list of titles, so just for future visitors:

Top 3: Primer (8), Memento (7), Syriana (6)

Four: Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Three: Donnie Darko, Fountain, Lost Highway, Miller's Crossing, Mulholland Drive, Pulp Fiction, Usual Suspects

Two: 12 Monkeys, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Big Lebowski, Blade Runner, Brazil, Deadwood, eXistenZ, Eyes Wide... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 7:09 PM on November 4, 2009

I'm not ashamed to say I'm goin' through the Kleenex over on this end. Took me about five seconds to well up. I think it's that you can just see the emotional changes show so clearly on her face ...
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 11:07 PM on November 3, 2009

Went to college with the first host of Blue's Clues. Met Cmdr. Sisko. Asked a question of Carol Burnett at a Q&A thing.
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike at 8:09 AM on November 2, 2009

And for something not quite as scary yet a bit more relevant to the day, the nonetheless bonechilling "The Raven," by Mr. Walken.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 12:42 PM on October 31, 2009

bread-eater: Thanks! This and Cartman's cover has suddenly made "Poker face" tolerable in my book.

This was a related video to your link, and I must admit I was highly impressed with the sync – plus it seems to have him singing the whole song ...

Why did I have this belief in my head somewhere that Lady Gaga was as bad-looking as Amy... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 5:12 PM on October 31, 2009

Horace Rumpole: A forum for recursive people.

Reminds me of Google's 'did you mean?' suggestion if you type in "recursion.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 9:58 AM on October 31, 2009

There are many things I dislike about Katy Perry, but the one thing I particularly dislike is that Jill Sobule's earlier, far superior, identically titled song is now semantically lost in the shuffle.

But, yeah, kind of finding the post's video to be weak sauce.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 5:35 PM on October 30, 2009

My landlord uses PropertyBridge.com. Quite happy with it as a tenant. Seems to be a subsidiary of MoneyGram, so it's got that going for it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 12:00 AM on October 30, 2009

In my mind, when I go to the placeholder for Schwarzenegger, this is what occupies it.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike at 2:22 PM on October 28, 2009

> rm -rf /Volumes/$DRIVENAME/*

But sweet Jesus watch out with this one. 'Cause:

rm -rf /

will pretty much completely nuke everything -- and I do mean literally every single file -- on your computer. So, if you were to somehow end up with:

rm -rf / Volumes/$DRIVENAME/*

( ... note the space ... )

Then goodbye, drive!

A... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 1:33 PM on October 26, 2009

It's not worth typing out the whole thing in story form, given that it's identical to stuff from the above, but I fell victim to the hardship con twice: once with a family whose house had burnt down, and once with a contractor whose car wouldn't start. Obviously, both weren't the case. I also fell victim to the shoe-shine scam someone described above, although I think I remember that being only a very minor hit.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 7:16 PM on October 25, 2009

Two other recommendations, BTW:

(1)
Look in Reddit's IamA subreddit, as it's good (a) for people pretending to be someone they're not just for the hell of it; and (b) I imagine that a few con artists have already done IamA's there.

(2)
House of Games, dir. David Mamet. Definitely, definitely, definitely something you need to watch given your question's nature.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 7:22 PM on October 25, 2009

KokuRyu: However, I've heard that it is possible to get slightly sick as a result of the H1N1 flu vaccination, which is something I don't want to experience.

Think about it for a moment. The disincentive for you – the thing you don't want – is to become slightly sick.

If you don't get the vaccination, then you run the risk of coming down not just with... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 6:09 PM on October 25, 2009

I'm not entirely sure, but I believe you'd like Seasonality.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 2:27 PM on October 25, 2009