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Facet Browsing
Nice. If I had a lot more energy, I'd try and make an elastic lists plugin for Wordpress archives.
Everything I see on the net lately, I'm seeing through Wordpress-coloured glasses. I got to cut down on the WP-ing a bit.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 3:15 PM on December 15, 2009
Not Afraid of Americans
One of my few brushes-with-famous-people was with Bowie.
It was the second week of September, 1983, and he was playing at the Coliseum in Vancouver. I'd just started at UBC, and was drinking rather a lot, as was my wont. One night there was a mixer at Place Vanier with free booze, and a friend of mine who I'd graduated with and who was also a freshman at UBC took great advantage of the freebies (white wine, for some bizarre reason, as I recall, something I'd never really... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 11:10 PM on December 14, 2009
Free applications, one click.
I found and lost this URL a while back, and couldn't remember it, courtesy of idiotic-made-up-domain-name-itis. Thanks for reminding me.
There are a few of these kind of sites now. AllMyApps is another, uglier one. They are a kind of bridge transition to netbook/device complements like Jolicloud and the Google OS, sort of like the (now generally virus-propagating) serialz websites of a decade ago were a bridge to the full-on peer-to-peer app pirating of today. But you... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 9:51 PM on December 14, 2009
calibre e-book management software
Calibre's pretty crappy, but as Mwongozi said, there's not much else out there that does the same.
Windows software for managing ebook libraries and reading the books themselves is in a pretty depressingly bad state, actually. The market is wide open for someone with coding and design skills to step up and fill the niche -- I wish someone would. Hell, as someone who's read longform writing exclusively on screens for 10 years now, I would, if I has... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 4:38 PM on December 12, 2009
People who use PDF for text-based, noon-illustrated books should be hung up by their heels and beaten with dirty keyboards until they repent.
This is a personal hobbyhorse of mine.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 8:21 PM on December 12, 2009
Your favorite decade sucks
"See the canyons broken by cloud/See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out"
Jesus spelunking christ, bono can't write lyrics to save his life anymore, can he? I suppose it could argued that he never could, but the first 4 or 5 albums had some good stuff, I thought, back in the day.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 5:44 PM on December 10, 2009
Pirates Paying for Downloadable Content: a Viable Niche Market
Well, I'd say L4D2 is a completely different game to play than L4D1, and a much, much better one.
I am an unrepentant Valve fanboy, even if I disagree with some of their decisions and curse their sometimes slipshod QA, so take it for what it's worth, but I have no problem with Valve deciding to release the new one as a retail game. (Also, it was gifted to me, so I can't really complain about the cost, either.)
I really didn't care for L4D1. It... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 12:18 AM on December 10, 2009
Nah, don't take the easy sarcasm cop-out. Hell, I've launched more than a few scorching screeds in their direction myself, as fellow Mefighters will attest. Like I said, we shall see, but so far, from (again, like I said before) this fanboy: thumbs way up.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 1:26 AM on December 10, 2009
Fair enough, be a dick of the unrepentant variety. All good.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 4:48 AM on December 10, 2009
Bizarre Lights over Norway
This doesn't look all that different from Northern light pix I've seen though--and isn't it the right time of year for them? What makes the difference?
I'd say that thing looks nothing like the aurora borealis. I've watched the aurora hundreds of times, if not thousands, growing up in the far north, and I've never seen anything like that.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 9:12 PM on December 9, 2009
I got it wrong about a lot of things, not just the testicles on my chin
I like Mike.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 5:10 AM on December 9, 2009
Just to offer a counteropinion, I've had office jobs, and I've had manual labor jobs. It's true that I don't like coming into the office, but nothing fills me with dread like showing up every morning to the construction site/lumber yard.
To offer a counter to the counter, I've worked in sawmills, I've dug ditches, washed dishes, pulled wire, picked fruit, all the rest. And for the last couple of decades I've had a variety of jobs that had me sitting... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 6:58 PM on December 9, 2009
Cannibal holocaust
I'm not certain why this would be 'controversial', unless the word is intended to mean that there is scientific disagreement about it.
There are many accounts, into historical times, by both Maori and colonists, of cannibalism amongst Maori in New Zealand. Far from being a slander, some tribes positively revelled in the reputation of being eaters of men.
Fijians as well. And nicer people you will never meet, these days at least.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 9:44 PM on December 6, 2009
Remembering the Montreal Massacre
No matter how many times we say 'never again', terrible things like this keep happening, don't they?
Writing words about heartbreakingly wrong things like this always feels to me like trivializing them, somehow. That's probably a counterproductive feeling, or at least so we're told.
I don't know. I get older and I start to think more often that the default mode of the human animal is damaged and deranged.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 8:53 PM on December 6, 2009
Thanks for clarifying, AZ. In future as in past, I think I will try to avoid these kinds of threads. It's just too damn harrowing to see people respond to tragedy by going at each other.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 9:38 PM on December 6, 2009
The Hanoi that Rocks will rock the world
Also, Nasty Suicide cleaned up his act, and with his vast experience with various substances, he studied to became a pharmacist. He is currently a publishing researcher on pharmacology, esp. toxicology and nervous system affecting chemicals.
Heh. One of the most drug-addled friends of my young life (story embellishments notwithstanding) became a pharmacist. I wonder how common that actually is...
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 4:04 PM on December 6, 2009
Stop animation vs CGI
You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see a good director, a smart one, one with some love of the source material -- kind of a Peter Jackson/Lord of the Rings deal -- make some movies out of Dan Simmons Ilium/Olympos books. I'd like that, if the movies were good.
Fake edit: Huh. Having actually just read the Wikipedia article for the link, I see that it's being done. I hope it's good.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 12:16 AM on December 3, 2009
The Ugly Side of Crafting
When the apocalypse finally comes, it's going to be the people who have experience making slightly-more-useful-crap out of slightly-less-useful-crap that will rule the hardscrabble barter economy. Then we'll be laughing out of the other side of our vagina tea cozies!
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 8:01 PM on November 22, 2009
Oriental Angel
I've lived all over the world, and I've never been anywhere where there weren't people who were racist.
I suspect that the only thing that varies is the proportion of racists that feel comfortable voicing their prejudices. Whether the number of racists as a proportion of a populace at large in a given country varies, I am still uncertain.
I say this not to defend the barefaced racism in NEAsia, where I've lived... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 4:58 PM on November 12, 2009
"It will cost you a piece of yourself."
I'm a hell of a lot more offended by the developers disallowing dedicated servers and otherwise locking down and consolizing the game, pooping all over us proud, doomed PC-gamers, than I am by the latest handwringing over ingame violence.
To them I say: suck it, Infinity Ward! I'll still play the game, though, probably. Sigh.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 6:02 PM on November 10, 2009
Won't somebody please think of the chickens.
Indeed.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 6:06 PM on November 10, 2009
gorno movie
Ohh, shiny neologism. I like that -- hadn't seen it before.
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 8:11 PM on November 10, 2009
Pants Pankuro: Toilet training in Japan
My personal paean in two parts to a number of things Japanese, including the glorious toilet technology, from a few years back.
Bumwash Gadgetry has since appeared all over Korea as well (even the toilets at my office, for goodness sakes), and it is bitterweet that I will never recapture the sphinctery bliss of that first encounter. [NOT... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 9:21 PM on November 5, 2009
Biscuits in Heaven
I will listen to some Hardcore '81-era DOA tonight with my Friday Beers, whether or not the hoax is true.
I probably would have done that anyway
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken
at 4:34 PM on October 29, 2009
