Displaying comments 1 to 50 of 55
MeTa post:
Burning the black book
I like the basic idea of this project, it's good and it's interesting. But, with all due respect, the way you have it set up sounds like the old chain letter thing, in which you will get postcards or money from all over the world, as long as you don't break the chain. Which never worked very well, either. You just have no control once you give them out.
So I think what you need is a way to track these in real time by having participants e-mail you when they've... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 2:53 PM on July 5, 2008
MeTa post:
5 minutes of great reading.
That post got more favorites (135 so far) than the total comments on this page (85 so far), of which a goodly number agree with allkindsoftime. So it looks like the ayes have it. Good job, forrest. Next item on the agenda, please.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 11:53 AM on July 3, 2008
MeTa post:
Memorial fund?
By the way, there's an AskMe thread related to this incident.
And, C17H19NO3 [good grief, what a handle], I'm a Vermonter also but I agree with Jess. Once a fund is set up locally, why not MeFi mail me, Jessamyn, SirStan and anyone else who chimes in here with the details.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 8:04 PM on July 2, 2008
MeTa post:
Oh shit, it's a walk-off!
I like the cloud. Ideally, you'd offer the option of a faceted cloud -- take the top 10 or 20 tags, and show with each their top 10 or so related tags. This probably displays the same 150 tags but in logically organized way, rather than just alpha.
But if you go with A or B, some indication of relative popularity would be nice, if not essential. Why not, in B, just put the number of cites after each tag, as you do in the related tags column during a tag search?... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 11:09 AM on June 18, 2008
MeTa post:
Mustn't offend China!
You know for a fact that it doesn't go there.
I knew that too, I commented there, so, sorry.
But anyway: "FREE TIBET" is absolutely a valid response to that question, and ought to be re-instated. It's unrealistic, sure. It might prematurely end the band's tour, I'd guess. But, especially given the situation of the last few days, when there are serious suggestions for the US to boycott the summer Olympics in China,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 1:41 PM on March 21, 2008
By the way, this comment ("FUCKING CIRCLE PIT NOW"). still live, is as unrealistic, but valid, as the one in question.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 1:48 PM on March 21, 2008
I'm back. Look, "FREE TIBET", while LoCarb says he meant it as a joke, is a political statement that was a valid answer to the question. The OP could take it or leave it; he actually favorited it (generic or not). Ragma's link just above puts it in context. Deleting it was a pretty ironic piece of censorship.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 7:32 PM on March 21, 2008
And again, if it weren't a joke it would be godawful advice, because of how deadly serious the Tibet issue is in China.
Sure (and I recognized that from the start), but there's godawful advice being given in most AskMe threads (especially the ones on interpersonal relationships) which is not deleted. Instead other posters say, I disagree with So-and-so's advice, for these reasons, and here's my suggestion. Given that this was in Beerfilter's... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 5:22 AM on March 22, 2008
The latest apparently non-godawful advice in the thread is:
"They tell me people in Shanghai like to get HIGH!"
"Don't eat the brown acid!"
These gems, in the mods' judgment, must be serious advice, non-jokes and politically correct, while "FREE TIBET" is a joke, not serious and politically incorrect.
I'm not suggesting they be deleted, because by my own arguments... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 7:31 AM on March 22, 2008
Thanks, mods, for your explanations. Whether the original comment was a joke, or not, this MeTa question was worth some serious discussion, and we've had that. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. I yield the remainder of my time.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 10:50 AM on March 22, 2008
MeTa post:
Askme Snowclones?
Thanks Jessamyn, and your post has more details on the 36, 20, 7, 3 and 1 than my link. Apparently we will never know the 69 plots because Kipling didn't specify what they are.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 9:19 AM on March 16, 2008
MeTa post:
Round Numbers!
Not to worry, the Singularity will happen before that, in 2030 (according to Vinge), or 2045 (according to Kurzweil).
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 9:15 AM on March 14, 2008
MeTa post:
LanguageHat on PRI
My segment is about 20 minutes in; they boiled down almost an hour's worth of interview to six or seven minutes, and did it very well
It would be nice if The World did what NPR does in some cases -- post the entire uncut interview online; I'd like to to hear the rest of it. Any chance they might do that?
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 4:26 PM on February 29, 2008
MeTa post:
Metafilter minus Garfield minus Garfield
Has this ever happened before? Or are we in completely new territory here? Will we now have MeTa fights about whether deleted thread should have been undeleted? What's next? Deleted, undeleted, deleted AGAIN!!! Will it stay deleted???? There's a MeTa flag on the play! Mods are conferring. They want a replay. (We'll be right back after this!) OK! the mods have reviewed the tape and we have decision! Upon review, the call is reversed, the thread is undeleted!! But wait, here's another... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 4:17 PM on February 26, 2008
MeTa post:
Listen.
It really wasn't a legal question. (a) The OP admitted the mistake was his/her own, (b) the amount in question was maybe a few hundred bucks, which anybody knows is not worth starting a legal fight about. So the question was, or should have been, can I wrangle a few bucks out of this airline for the inconvenience they were at least partially responsible for? "Legal action?" was asked as an afterthought only. So it was a request for practical advice. Later in the thread the OP... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 6:26 PM on February 20, 2008
MeTa post:
White people on Metafilter
BinGregory:
white boy after white boy, with very few exceptions to that rule (and none in the mass shooting category), decides to use their classmates for target practice
That was written in 2001, dude. Since then, just since 2005 we have had: the Virginia Tech shooter (Cho Seung-Hui, Korean, 33 dead), the Delaware State shooter (Loyer D. Brandon, black, 2 wounded), the Tacoma, WA shooter (Douglas Chanthabouly, Laotian, 1 dead), the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 7:28 AM on February 16, 2008
MeTa post:
GiveWell, or Give 'em Hell?
I can personally vouch for the unimpeachable intentions of Holden and Elie in starting GiveWell (Tim Ogden, GiveWell board member, above)
Let me try to impeach them, anyway. Here's the way it looks: Holden and Elie are each making $200,000 at a hedge fund and "quit" those jobs to start Givewell and make $65,000. Now, nobody in their right mind does this, unless (a), they actually got fired, or laid off, from the hedge fund, or (b) they... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 8:04 PM on December 31, 2007
On the more pressing issue of this excessively long thread, perhaps one of the admins would bite the bullet and start a continuation thread?
At the rate this thing is going, we're going to need more than that -- we're heading toward a whole new site section. Call it MeGive. Or maybe GiveMe.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 1:25 PM on January 6, 2008
MeTa post:
MeFi Mail Feature Request
I figured it'd be confusing and annoying if you clicked on a message to read it and instead ended up on someone's user page
Maybe just a little "Sender's User Page" button before or after the sender name, instead of linking the name itself?
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 9:24 AM on December 21, 2007
MeTa post:
Meh
I agree with tkolar. "Meh" is a useful expression.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 7:25 AM on December 21, 2007
MeTa post:
this is the TITLE box, isn't it?
Titles aren't RSS/browser title-only. You also see the title in Recent Activity, All Activity, Popular Favorites, and probably several other places. Titles serve a useful purpose beyond the front page, so I don't think axing them is a good option
Agree. Lots of titles are quite creative. I have often wondered why they are put in all of those places but not on the front page. This whole confusion problem would be solved if the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 8:55 AM on November 12, 2007
MeTa post:
More inside picky?
A somewhat related bug, in IE:
"More inside" doesn't work the same across all the AskMe tabs:
In MyFavorites and Answered, it doesn't show at all. In Not Answered, it shows but doesn't link. In Popular Favorites, it shows and links correctly.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 10:29 AM on September 7, 2007
MeTa post:
I do not like green links and numbers
So why not just duplicate the blue sidebar on the green.
Or, put a blue-heavy sidebar on the green, a green-heavy sidebar on the blue. Cross-pollination. And a popular tags list on both, if that's something people use.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 10:33 AM on August 29, 2007
MeTa post:
Absurd Questions, Hopefully Unabsurd Answers
my consciousness, my "me," inheres in this one particular body, and if the body's gone, it's gone.
Which raises the question, what is your body? Your body of today is largely not the same body you had, say, 20 years ago, or the one you were born with. The cells in most body tissues are continually replacing themselves. Brain cells are the exception, but even there, fluids are continually replaced so very little of the cell stays with... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 7:11 PM on June 25, 2007
MeTa post:
Detailed description of farm history; MeFi relatives get in on the act.
That is fabulous. My grandfather was a farmer in Holland from the 1910s through the 1950s, and what Ontic's father describes is very close to what I remember visiting, as a boy, in the 1950s. At that point he was still in the MacDonald's farm mode -- not just dairy but hogs, chickens, sheep, geese, orchard and vegetables. Still farking manure by hand. And horse-power for everything, he never got a tractor or drove a car in his life. I am fortunate to have experienced all that during my... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 1:55 PM on May 3, 2007
MeTa post:
You should see my fridge
why on Earth do you care?
Because I think the value of this site depends in part on the profiles or "personalities" that are built up on user pages by means of the accumulated history of postings and comments by each user, whether or not that user puts their actual identity on their user page. Anonymous posting of questions is an obviously useful thing in many situations, but if there are essentially no limitations on the granting of anonymity, and it... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 6:44 AM on May 3, 2007
aren't we all anonymous anyway?
Yes, most of us are anonymous, I would guess. But by reading a user's posts and comments over time, we get some idea what kind of person is behind the handle. Anonymous posts (like sock puppet posts, which used to garner plenty of criticism) block that ability.
I don't get how this is applicable to the moldy microwave. The listing of a moldy microwave post on one's user profile might... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 7:29 AM on May 3, 2007
Who the fuck cares what the questioner's "other interests and views" might be
I do, for one. And, "Identity is important in a community." So sayeth No. 1, in a similar context. It has nothing to do with just the mold in the microwave; the issue I'm raising is how much incremental anonymity do you allow before it becomes a Bad Thing.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 10:12 AM on May 3, 2007
Cortex, thanks, I think the question has been answered fairly.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 10:13 AM on May 3, 2007
That is, I take your questions as being rhetorical. At least, you are right, there are no easy answers here. The whole thing is just something to keep in mind. Identity, whether it is "pseudoanonymous" or actual, is one of the things that make this site work.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 10:20 AM on May 3, 2007
MeTa post:
Recent Activity Newness
Very cool. Somebody just favorited one of my posts from 2001, which I never would have known, otherwise.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 6:43 PM on April 20, 2007
MeTa post:
Warning: the project posted Dec. 16 entitled...
Jess: Windows 2000, IE (hold the sarcasm out there). Clicking the link opens a download window I can't close, the only option seems to be to click Next. That was at work. Am home now and using XP/IE7, which fails to open the link at all.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 10:46 AM on December 17, 2006
Well, whaddaya know, localhuman, with that flasch 8 file, it now works for me.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 3:15 PM on December 17, 2006
MeTa post:
One down. [mo' in....
Someone has posed the question of where the 800 researchers will go after the shutdown. The question will probably be deleted shortly, so here's the text:
Subject: Next steps?
Category: Miscellaneous
Asked by: aidan3211-ga
List Price: $2.00 Posted: 29 Nov 2006 16:53 PST
Expires: 29 Dec 2006 16:53 PST
Question ID: 786788
I assume that Google's announcement of the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 5:08 PM on November 29, 2006
Sorry, meant to link to the above.
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 5:10 PM on November 29, 2006
Seem to be having trouble linking, so:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=786788
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 5:10 PM on November 29, 2006
One possible very simple reason for closing up shop is that the potatoes are just too small for Google to bother with. The above is question 786788; some questions get deleted, so they've probably had 750,000 questions in 4 years, under $200,000. If half get answered at a price that looks to be around ten bucks, then the average researcher makes maybe $50 a week. Meanwhile, Google makes money putting ads on there, but probably the average question gets only a few hits, after a while, and... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by beagle
at 5:22 PM on November 29, 2006
