For me, "caught" rhymes with the first syllable of "daughter," showbiz_liz. So yeah, "cawt."

But isn't that also how you pronounce cot?
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 8:50 AM on May 2, 2008

Ooh, ooh. Someone who pronounces cot and caught differently: Please, please record the following sentence and upload it on the internet somewhere:

"I caught my daughter sleeping on my cot."

That should clear up the confusion over how you strange people pronounce those words.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 8:52 AM on May 2, 2008

Also, from that last link: Coastal Southern....They call doughnuts cookies.

We do no such thing. Cookies are those delicious baked flat things with chocolate chips in them.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 9:01 AM on May 2, 2008

OK, and by way of comparison, here is how I pronounce cot, daughter, lot, pot, and cot. I live in the upstate of South Carolina, and rated as 70% Dixie in that test.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 9:11 AM on May 2, 2008

Some days I really wish for an edit function on MeFi. Strike the first "cot" and replace it with "caught."
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 9:12 AM on May 2, 2008

m0nm0n: Ah-ha! Now I understand. Thanks!
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 10:22 AM on May 2, 2008

Hey, if serial abortions can be art, why not a lice infestation?

(Yes, I know, the story turned out to be a hoax.)
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 6:57 AM on May 2, 2008

WYFF-4! Yay! My local station gets to report on... oh.

A South Carolinian doing something spectacularly stupid.

*sigh*

South Carolina: We're not all idiots.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 2:22 PM on April 30, 2008

Like Yhbc, this post doesn't do much for me. Old hat video. And not even in terms of the date but old on the internets...

Really? I had never seen it before. I searched the Metafilter archives too, and I didn't see any references to it.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 2:50 PM on April 29, 2008

I was brought up in right-wing fundamentalist churches and attended Bob Jones University.

Kyleg is right. The people I associated with think that the Pentacostals are, at the very least, in error doctrinally. They condemn most televangelists as crooks. They do not speak in tongues, and they do not handle snakes.

They don't subsume their sense of logic to this sense of groupthink that Taibbi describes--in fact, they get into long logical... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 10:13 PM on April 27, 2008

Where are all the Christians speaking out about the hijacking of their religion?

In their churches and schools. Where else would they be?
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 10:14 PM on April 27, 2008

And if that wave carried big game fish, it would be a Marlin Rouge wave.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 2:35 PM on April 23, 2008

Unscrew America!

[Insert snide remark about George W. Bush here.]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 9:07 AM on April 22, 2008

digaman's got a good point too. We tried replacing the three bulbs in our ceiling fan with CFLs, but we got some weird kind that take about a minute to get up to full brightness. You flip the switch, and the room is only slightly less dark than it was before.

And they made our couches look green.

A different brand of CFLs that I put into my bedroom light fixture failed within a month, when the selling point of CFLs for me is that I don't have to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 9:11 AM on April 22, 2008

Bunnytricks: No kidding. I still go back and look up quotes from SMAC. I love the narrators, as well as the playable characters.

In all, it was kind of a disappointment coming from that to Civ 4. You have Leonard Nimoy, who may be a great many things but is not a terribly good narrator, at least as compared to SMAC's. Then you give him terrible quotes to work with, whereas the SMAC quotes were long bits of genius.

Compare: "You should... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 9:54 PM on April 19, 2008

Also: anyone who thinks that "right" and "wrong" apply to art may need to go back to school, maybe take an art class, do a little water color... I don't know. Something.

So, As long as I call it "art," I can do whatever I want? Sweet!

"And here's my latest piece. I call it 'Four-year-olds hit by sledgehammers.' I'm hoping it will generate a dialog."
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 9:30 AM on April 17, 2008

Gman: I wouldn't want my embarrassing surgeries videotaped and posted to the internet, and neither would you. And neither does this man, as he explicitly states in the story you linked to. What kind of a jerk sees that and posts it anyway?

Honestly, I'm surprised this post survived for a whole hour.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 5:18 AM on April 17, 2008

Here's the way I see it: if you're absolutely the most skilled, amazing, one of a kind person in your field, and you get paid the most ridiculous amount I could possibly condone under any circumstances, it would come out to, say $200 an hour. And that's ridiculous but I'm being generous. And if you're crazy and work 70 hours a week that's $14,000 a week. And if you work 52 weeks a year and skip out on your taxes, as any good rich person will, that's $728,000 a year. Therefore my conclusion is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 12:36 PM on April 14, 2008

At least one of those systems is pretty broken in a certain wealthy nation I could name.

True enough, but it isn't as badly broken as it is in, say, Togo, West Africa.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 12:42 PM on April 14, 2008

John Oliver is hilarious on The Bugle Podcast.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for introducing me to the Bugle Podcast. That is some hilarious stuff. I loved hearing The American explaining football celebrations to Britain (Episode 15).
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 7:23 PM on April 11, 2008

Mullingitover: Really? I think that they're doing a lot of innovative stuff, especially with regard to geotagging. What features are you seeing on other sites that you wish you were seeing on Flickr?
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 8:40 PM on April 8, 2008

I think that the 90 second limit is a great idea. Youtube videos usually suffer from a lack of editting, taking two or three minutes to get to the point. This forces uploaders to show only the important bits of their video.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 5:23 AM on April 9, 2008

I'm reasonably certain that this is parody.

I mean, the fundamentalist Christians believe all this stuff. I was raised in a fundamentalist church, and certainly they believe that you should avoid sexual temptation, that homosexuality is evil, that women should dress modestly, etc. I even heard an evangelist say that you should turn off a television show if you hear the Lord's name used in vain once.

On the other hand, this is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 5:10 AM on April 3, 2008

That shouldn't be a red flag at all, fundamentalists are serially dishonest about that sort of shit.

Yes, but they aren't this bad at it. Even the most naive member of the flock would have trouble believing these quotes.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 6:14 AM on April 3, 2008

On a related note, there's an awesome TED lecture about using geckos and roaches to design a robotic foot.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 6:36 PM on April 1, 2008

Also, this kind of stuff underscores the need to keep as many different species of plant and animal as possible alive. Every extinction means the loss of a unique set of solutions to a lot of different physical and chemical challenges, the loss of a mystery box full of potential treasure for researchers and engineers, the loss of potential cures for diseases and potential inspiration for machines.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 6:41 PM on April 1, 2008

Here's where I get off the crazy train:4. Emotion. The insecure man will be repulsed by an emotional woman, and the confident man will be attracted. Remember, this isn’t about faking anything, like tantrum, emotional outburst etc. etc. but rather just allowing your yin nature to flow through you. Emotion is spontaneous. The unemotional yang is attracted to its polar opposite the emotional yin by the force of magnetism.See, I find that to be pretty resistible. One of the first things I look for... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 10:41 AM on April 1, 2008

The one person I felt the most sad for was Gerda:Gerda couldn’t believe that cancer was cheating her of her hard-earned retirement. “My whole life was nothing but work, work, work,” she told me. She had worked on the assembly line in a soap factory, and had brought up her children single-handedly. “Does it really have to happen now? Can’t death wait?” she sobbed.

On one visit Gerda said, “It won’t be long now”, and was panic-stricken. Her daughter tried to console her,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 10:01 AM on April 1, 2008

Ooh, ooh, are we posting bizarre YouTube videos today?

Here's one that I like: Super Smash Brothers: Brawl characters dancing to a Swedish song called "Caramelldansen."
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 9:18 AM on March 27, 2008

That's really cool. I love that last photo.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 5:08 AM on March 21, 2008

* Fourth from the last, rather. The one with the cute kid giving a thumbs up.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 5:09 AM on March 21, 2008

I listened to the first track or two, and I love it so far. When I imported the MP3's into iTunes, it couldn't find any album art, so I cropped the first page of the book into the appropriate size and uploaded it here in case anyone else wants to use it.

(Hopefully this doesn't violate the "no self-links" policy. Sorry if it does; I promise not to be offended if the comment gets deleted.)
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 11:51 AM on March 20, 2008

konolia: If he would only change his position on abortion, I could see myself voting for him.

I'm in a similar position of liking pretty much everything about Obama but abortion. I'm going to vote for him anyways, because the President doesn't have a lot of say on the abortion issue.

I mean, we've had a Republican president and Congress for a long time; if they could have moved the country away from abortion, they would have.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 8:32 AM on March 19, 2008

I drove around a little, and then drove my car right off the map into the uncharted white expanse of an unloaded map square.

Here be dragons.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 9:10 PM on March 18, 2008

If you follow the advise in these books, you'll get more of what you want.

As long as what you want doesn't include respect from those around you or long-term relationships.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 8:27 PM on March 15, 2008

You know, somebody made almost everything around us. Pens, ketchup packets, the tiny screws that hold my laptop together.

The internet is wonderful for these creators, because it means that these people who once labored in obscurity can now have their work cataloged by one devoted follower and shared with everyone in the world.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 6:39 PM on March 5, 2008

At long last, America could be safe from LED's attached to circuit boards!
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 1:32 PM on February 29, 2008

Dude, you don't fill this with *lettuce*. You fill it with *mashed potatoes*. And you put cheddar cheese and sour cream on top of it.

Mmmm.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 5:02 PM on February 28, 2008

I really, really want to try Polarity, but it won't let me. It plays the little intro song and shows me the logo, and just when I'm ready to try playing it, it disappears, as if to say "Ha, ha! I've got this awesome game in here and you don't get to have *any* of it. *tbbbbspt*."
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 10:29 PM on February 24, 2008

Is he claiming that Montana will succeed if not satisfied?

It will probably succeed, unlike your attempt at spelling "secede." </grammarnazi>
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 4:50 PM on February 21, 2008

He's probably not using a headset mike. I've used the Vista voice recognition before, and it's nigh worthless if you're using a mike that's built into the case of your computer, but it works OK if you're using a really good headset mike.

Of course, trying to code anything with voice recognition only makes sense if you're a quadriplegic.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 5:31 AM on February 17, 2008

Upon further viewing: He *is* using a headset mike.

Ouch.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 5:38 AM on February 17, 2008

The church decided to come up with its own lottery and so the feast of St. Valentine featured a lottery of Saints. One would pull the name of a saint out of a box, and for the following year, study and attempt to emulate that saint.

See, this is what happens when you let a guy who’s sworn never to marry run your religion. “Hey kids! You know what’s even more fun than girls? That’s right, studying!”
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 6:19 AM on February 14, 2008

"I HATE the color pink. This catalog is reinforcing too many stereotypes, Ms. Cooley, and we need to do something about it!"

There is no way that a normal fourth-grader said that.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 6:31 PM on February 12, 2008

Astro Zombie: I just assumed that that was a before and after shot.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 8:06 PM on February 10, 2008

religion can provide a moral backbone

Let me rephrase that part of the speech. You, as an atheist, cannot provide "moral backbone".

If atheists don't feel offended by that insinuation, then maybe we do have no backbone.

He isn't insinuating that atheists are amoral; in fact, that's a huge part of the speech, that atheists are moral people too.

For some people,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 11:09 AM on February 10, 2008

Great. Now I've got "Teh-el me, Teh-el me, dadadadadaada" stuck in my head. My subconscious keeps going back to the beginning of the song, and I can't get out of the loop because I don't understand Korean and can't move on to the next line.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 9:58 PM on January 31, 2008

*KILL THEM ALL!*

This is enough to make me want to buy an SUV and start cutting down rainforests. Why are we trying to save nature if this is how its gonna treat us?

::shudder:: giant acid-spitting hornets.... Boy, I'm sure glad I'm reading this just before bed.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 10:10 PM on January 18, 2008

My understanding is that Leno, Stewart, Colbert, et al. can write for themselves, but they can't have a whole staff of writers work for them.

And then you've got folks like John Oliver, one of Stewart's fake anchormen who's in America on a work visa, which means he'll get deported if he goes on strike.

As a consumer of media, I'm just glad to be getting my funny election coverage again, and I don't rightly care if I'm "crossing the picket... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 10:28 PM on January 14, 2008

Super funny money? Sounds like hilarious money to me.
posted to MetaFilter by JDHarper at 8:30 AM on January 14, 2008