Displaying comments 1 to 50 of 71
MeTa post:
'I am not a Microsoft "fanboy"'...
The question could definitely be a plant.
But from my point of view as a long-time web developer who has worked with a variety of technologies on both sides of the IT Iron Curtain, I would not say that Silverlight is simply a joke or otherwise something that can't be taken seriously. I don't think it's the wave of the future by any means - it doesn't have any sort of fundamental technological superiority to the alternatives - but for some developers it's more... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 7:07 PM on March 13, 2008
MeTa post:
Hmm, you might know the answer to this...
This pony would be an innovative variation on a recommendation engine. If you guys implement it well (With panache and zest and formidable acumen? Are things on MeFi done any other way?) you should cash in the self-promotion points and see if you can get some journalistish outlet to do an article or case study.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 4:51 PM on March 12, 2008
*pukes & cries* Oh God, I hate that term so much. The Wikipedia article is right, “Folksonomy has little to do with taxonomy…” Pet peeve and whatnot.
But you're right Rock Steady, that's a great thing about MeFi in particular, that thorough tagging can remedy a misspelling etc. via the related words.
MeVo… how about MeFlix? MeMazon? ;^)
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 7:20 PM on March 12, 2008
But with the system as it is now, that'd only work if the poorly-tagging asker has contacts that they've both linked to and been linked by, which isn't always the case.
In the current system, if subsequent posters on the same topic (or a retro-tagging project) find and include the misspelled tag / synonym / alternate spelling in their own post, eventually the misspelled tag appears as a "related tag" for the proper spelling.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 7:32 PM on March 12, 2008
That tag getting linked up with functional "related tags" two months from now wouldn't have helped notify the MeFite with the kickassest moussaka recipe when their input was needed the most.
Good point... it wouldn't be useful until after the related tags make it in.
Hmmm... how about having people carefully write up (and group) the tags they're interested in answering, and build related tags off of that? That... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 8:34 PM on March 12, 2008
MeTa post:
Response to a point about the best way to answer an AskMe.
Have you even been to an American embassy or consulate in a foreign country?
I have, actually. Though I wasn't claiming to have any experience with it. I was basically claiming to have read some of the documents that came along with my passport when I got it. If there had been any challenges to what I'd said I would have dug up references.
I'm still puzzled by the people who think that my initial response was noise,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 2:18 PM on March 7, 2008
(On the other hand, I appreciate it that people are at least hanging back from accusing me of misleading the OP's friend into trying to use the U.S. embassy as a hotel, as alidarbac did.)
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 2:25 PM on March 7, 2008
If you had stopped and waited for the first 10 answers, and nobody had mentioned hiding out at the embassy, then you could mention it.
It has to do with the order people prefer to read answers in? Sheesh.
I have to imagine that if I had simply told the OP's friend what to think: "Don't panic, whatever happens you can be safe at a U.S. embassy and there will be people on your side with Vietnamese... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 3:30 PM on March 7, 2008
If you know, or have a good/informed guess, great; if you don't but are interested in the topic, bookmark the thread and wait to see what actual information turns up.
I suppose this has probably been brought up a million times before; but if the person who wants to give a supplemental or "tangential" answer can be expected to just pass by, why can't you cranky thread readers be expected to? If I can go to the effort to mark my post with an... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 6:00 PM on March 7, 2008
You know what another thing I just realized is: some of the people in the AskMe thread and some of the people here are probably interpreting "in a worst-case scenario" to mean "the worst that could happen is" and that's perhaps why alidarbac thought I might actually be able to convince someone to try to use an embassy or a military base as a hotel. And I guess that it has actually taken on a meaning like that, languagehat can tell us all about it I'm sure.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 6:14 PM on March 7, 2008
I would also point out that technically you didn't come close to answering the OP's questions.
Thanks. I thought I kind of made that obvious in the post itself by not talking about how to renew a visa or bribe your way through immigration.
However your reply (get thee to a US embassy) misreads the questions to be
I did not misread the question and I did not tell the traveler to... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 6:20 PM on March 7, 2008
You do know that it's not your embassy that issues visas right? It's the immigration department (or equivalent name) of the country your are in or going to visit. Your embassy only comes into it if there's a problem with your passport. The question as it was laid out had nothing to do with the passport; it was a visa problem, pure and simple.
Yep, I know that. Nothing I have written is inconsistent with or incompatible with that.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 8:03 PM on March 7, 2008
loiseau: Accept that there is a wide variety of opinions on what's a useful answer (probably somewhere around 65,000 of them) and that every comment you make is probably frowned upon by someone reading it.
Didn't I just say that? "But sure, anyone who is really determined to see them as witless crap is going to be able to."
If someone makes me out to be an idiot, I find it better for my mental health to point out... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 8:31 PM on March 7, 2008
You seem overinvested in this discussion.
Overinvested in a discussion about me? (I think I can say it's about me without any hubris, can't I?) That's pretty impressive, I didn't know I could do that. ;^)
I'm urging you to leave it alone and relax. As I now shall. Promise.
Well I thank you for your charity and concern, I really do. But feel free to continue posting, or not, as... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 8:52 PM on March 7, 2008
Well, like I've said above, I still don't see why anyone regards what I said there as speculative. But jess, if you really do think that was throwing the signal to noise ratio, I definitely take your opinion as pretty near objective and so thanks for commenting.
Also, sorry for the four posts in a row, I kind of crossed my wires trying to reply to both vacapinta and alidarbac at the same time. If not for what appeared to me as claims that I was speaking dangerous... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 11:00 PM on March 7, 2008
cowbellemoo: Yes, I'm in fact completely uninterested in striking a pose or putting on a likeability campaign. I expected people to not care about my justifications or this topic in general - I thought I made this clear in the MeTa post.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 5:44 AM on March 8, 2008
A few thoughts about what has occurred in this thread and why:
This thread is a consequence of the community rule that if a dispute breaks out in an AskMe thread, due to the purpose of AskMe that dispute can't be allowed to widen and completely overwhelm the thread. So, at a certain point, a neutral observer (jessamyn in this case) has to call a stop to it and direct that any further discussion of that sort be moved to MeTa.
Everyone who reads MeTa knows this.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 5:52 AM on March 8, 2008
languagehat: You may find you don't actually need to write six paragraphs in response to everything everyone else says.
Of course, I might still do it simply because I find it enjoyable - or if it puts this behavior in a more understandable light because you wouldn't do so yourself call it for my "mental health". Or because I consider making sharply disagreeing one or two-sentence responses to be sniping, so I try to avoid doing it.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 6:49 PM on March 8, 2008
Okay... yes and no. Suggesting skipping over a post for length is a bit of a red herring if the issue that has been questioned is not quantity but quality. Also, how does one determine the "sort of posts one wants to read," without reading them?
I intentionally began that AskMe post with "I don't know anything about Vietnamese visas" which immediately signals to the reader that it's not a direct answer to the question. This is... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 12:03 PM on March 10, 2008
MeTa post:
Cultural Biases In Education
I think the real question is, would a Middle-Earth balrog or Fidel Castro in a speedo win in a fight?
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 5:12 PM on February 22, 2008
What an anticlimax.
posted by Devils Slide
(Epony-innuendo-ties-into-my-infantile-joke-isterical)
Did you expect to climax in a thread about Fidel Castro in a speedo?
*Goes and tries to explain that joke to a group of sixth graders and they beat me up and steal my lunch money*
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 8:28 AM on February 24, 2008
MeTa post:
Wo bist du, Peter?
So has anyone actually come back from the Great Beyond yet? I think that a little animated shambling zombie icon should show up next to their name everywhere, because they're the LIVING DEAD of MeFi.
“Brains… nice, fresh, brains…”
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 11:40 PM on February 14, 2008
❊ drives stake through vronsky's heart and stuffs his mouth with holy wafers ❊
❊ drapes garland of garlic bulbs around the corpse's neck ❊
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 12:35 AM on February 15, 2008
MeTa post:
MeFi Baracks the vote.
John McCain=Windows 98
No, McCain would have to be something POSIX-compliant. DoD regulations and all.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 9:36 PM on February 4, 2008
MeTa post:
LOLMIDGETS
If overweight folks or people with down’s syndrome were organizing into thematic gangs and coming up with unique ways to rob folks, or being exploited into doing it, I think that’d be a valid post.
I belong to an all-white gang in New England. We lie naked on top of snow banks and mug passing non-Caucasians, who cannot see us because of the camouflage.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 12:59 AM on February 1, 2008
MeTa post:
GiveWell, or Give 'em Hell?
YES Duncan! Amen guilty as charged. I will now happily go throughout my day regarding myself as a swaggering Han-Solo-esque resident of Mos Eisley. Ah, blissful ignorance of reality.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 11:18 PM on January 1, 2008
This just in from the GiveWell blog thread: Holden says:
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 am
The Board is meeting about this as soon as we can. The exact date is still being set, but we are aiming for this week. We will decide on the appropriate action regarding my astroturfing then, and we will post our decision online.
After that, we will also go methodically through the Metafilter thread, noting valid questions and concerns... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 3:14 AM on January 2, 2008
To be fair Lucy is sounding somewhat chastened and less antagonistic to MeFi in her later blog comments.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 4:44 AM on January 2, 2008
It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Holden G. Karnofsky, Executive Director for a respectable philanthropic company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Holden0" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 5:24 AM on January 2, 2008
"What are we to do about technology?" or "How are we preparing for technology?" with no more specific focus than that, as though technology was one big robot about to burst through the wall.
The solution you're undoubtedly alluding to is of course insurance against robot attacks.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 6:18 AM on January 2, 2008
I think the key to whether this is an old boys' network or privilege thing going on is: what if Holden wasn't the Executive Director, what if he was just a kid recently out of school who was doing some copy writing and web promotion for GiveWell? Would there be any question about whether the organization should abruptly and forcefully sever its association with him? I think that's the sort of situation that many of us can more readily identify with and the suspicion that things may work out... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 9:27 AM on January 2, 2008
Miko, sorry if I wasn't clear - that's what I was trying to say, that if he was just a web flunkie he'd be axed immediately for doing something like this. If as the Executive Director he gets the second chance Tim Ogden and the Philanthropy Hub guy want it seems pretty clear he's getting special treatment.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 10:01 AM on January 2, 2008
can someone just bullet point for me the issues aside from astro turfing or posting without revealing connection to givewell?
Not to say that there aren't other issues, but is the discrimination your question entails because you've decided that those behaviors are acceptable behaviors for the director of a charitable foundation or at least deserve nothing more severe than a slap on the wrist?
Are you going for high ethical... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 2:48 PM on January 2, 2008
Oh! I've got it: "The wheels of the philanthropic machine are oiled with the blood of the hedge fund managers."
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 6:42 PM on January 2, 2008
Wow. Is that phil site the Mad Hatter's Tea Party or what? I should NOT have followed the white rabbit.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 11:47 PM on January 2, 2008
PeterMcDermott, Miko made a good post up above suggesting one reason why the more experienced board might have hesitated to put him in his place more firmly.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 4:50 AM on January 4, 2008
That's gonna cost you. $20, same as in town.
Does it seem to anyone else like the scientists who authored that study maybe don't get laid much? It seems obvious to me that the reason that the reason why female monkeys are more likely to have sex after being groomed is because being groomed is sexually stimulating, not because it's some kind of bartering system. This almost sounds like something that would appear in The Onion.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 2:53 PM on January 5, 2008
MeTa post:
I don't like your language, young man.
The word "promiscuous" does not automatically mean "slutty". It doesn't even contextually refer to sex and it has the same meaning whether you're talking about sexuality or otherwise. Simply using that word does not constitute a value judgment and hence simply using it does not constitute sexism.
It's like the word "expensive". Saying "You have an expensive car" is a value judgment. But asking "How expensive would getting... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 3:35 PM on December 13, 2007
MeTa post:
Are Questions Okay When They're Based Around Finction Worlds
mdn - I don't understand why you're making such a hard link between consciousness and free will. Couldn't we either have consciousness, but no free will, or both consciousness and free will? (And of course, each consciousness might suspect that others have neither free will nor consciousness...)
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 3:11 PM on December 6, 2007
Heh, it occurs to me that, if our consciousness is something that doesn't arise from nature, but is "bolted on" after the fact by God or aliens etc., that the feeling of free will, of latitude in decisions, is just there to keep us from getting bored... an existential laugh track, if you will.
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 3:17 PM on December 6, 2007
grumblebee - yeah, the virtual particles that vacapinta mentions are what I was thinking of when I mentioned uncaused events. Especially the particle-antiparticle pairs that (may) cause Hawking radiation, since a "balanced" event like that would avoid violating conservation laws of physics. See also quantum foam, though I think that's purely conceptual and not employed in any explanatory theories.
But whether or not that specific case is "real",... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 10:16 AM on December 7, 2007
grumblebee, I have to agree with vacapinta that you're getting rather heavy-handed in asserting conclusions based upon the nature of science.
Science works by assuming X is matter and playing with it (making predictions, etc.)
Science does not assume any given phenomenon has a material cause. Even in physics, for example, phenomena are often attributed to non-material causes like patterns - wave mechanics or some artefact of... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 11:22 AM on December 7, 2007
Hmmm... I could endorse something like "science assumes that its objects of study are governed by some sort of consistency or rules."
But the way you say "Natural Laws" and "material universe" makes it sound like science asserts a single, unified, overarching system of rules that any object of study must be placed within before it's acceptable, and that's not so. Psychology asserts rules for human thought and behavior without requiring that... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 12:04 PM on December 7, 2007
vacapinta - In that sense you and Susan Blackmore are taking non-scientific leaps of faith, bolstered by this odd reductionism, that if we understand how things work in simple cases then we know how they work in complex cases.
You're doing the same thing grumblebee is, to dismiss his approach as "unscientific" because you don't like his conclusions. You're simply saying "it's really complex, so you're wrong" without engaging his... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 12:14 PM on December 7, 2007
Would the world be exactly the same if there were no minds in it?
mdn, the way that you're interchanging the word "mind" with "consciousness" makes me think that you might not realize that they're different in the context of this "what is consciousness?" question. "Having consciousness" is not the opposite of "being unconscious" here.
Consciousness in... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 6:19 AM on December 8, 2007
You seem to be saying that consciousness and free will are just a particular kind of behavior or a particular kind of decision-making.
But the robot can't choose whether to tell mom why Peter's not in his room.
When I said "a really complex robot that behaved exactly like a human" I wasn't talking about climbing stairs or something, I was talking about a robot that can choose to tell mom why Peter's not in his room.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by XMLicious
at 10:13 AM on December 8, 2007
