Hello? Is not the clue in the name? This user is THINKING. Dude's name is not Meposts, Mecomments, Me-asks-mefi, Me-rocks-out, or Mejobs-it-up. Dude is like, THINKING. Most of you people never had a goddamn thought in your lives that you didn't immediately type out on some website, but when a genuine THINKER turns up, it's all "WAAH WAAH WAAH THOUGHT IS AN ILLUSION ONLY ACTION IS MEANINGFUL!" Jesus fucking Christ. I'm just waiting for the thoughtful one, the supreme penseur, to... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by the quidnunc kid at 2:04 PM on October 6, 2008

Very interesting podcast - many thanks for posting. I'm still pushing through it (while doing a bunch of other things this AM), but a few key points.

Well, we have seen the Commercial Paper market starting to seize up; a headline last week that should have grabbed everyone's attention and the podcast didn't explain in sufficient detail - Warren Buffett invested $3B into GE.

Why was this significant? Doesn't Buffett invest in lots of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mutant at 12:20 AM on October 6, 2008

As a follow up to delmoi's point and in response to a couple of questions I got in email, I can provide these references that might help folks understand just how simple a Credit Default Swap is.

Investopedia has a fairly decent two page explanation.

Here is illustration of how a Credit Default Swap is structured. In this image, the Reference Asset is owned by the Investor, who is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mutant at 1:00 AM on October 6, 2008

PenDevil -- "...but was not unaware that it caused institutional investors to buy up mortgage backes securities because the low interest rate had reduced the yield on US treasury bonds. So the fire was burning from both ends..."

That point actually captures the origin of the problem succinctly and in it's entirety; because yields on US Treasuries were kept so low for so long, Institutional Investors such as... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mutant at 4:14 AM on October 6, 2008

This is just the result of everyone sobering up and admitting it.

What about all the people like me, who were perfectly sober, perfectly willing to live within our means, invested in some of the most perfectly safe options available for retirement -- and are now jobless and with a decimated financial portfolio because a bunch of drunken pirates took off with the economy while aided and abetted by our own government? I never touched a drop of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by melissa may at 2:27 PM on October 6, 2008

languagehat: "If you were a 14K'er, you'd know better than to make a suggestion like that.
I miss the days when user numbers mattered. It was childish and divisive, but there were some downsides as well, I guess.

If you changed it, it wouldn't be MetaFilter. I like it just the way it is. Warts, lessions, pustules and all.
posted to MetaTalk by dg at 1:47 AM on October 6, 2008

You know something, though, I can understand why some folks are so mistrustful of the intellectuals. ...Just take a look at how much we're picking on them in here.

Seriously. Look, Sarah Palin is not "dumb." Sarah Palin, of all people, reminds me of my Mom -- common-sense, trying to be perky, not too well-read in foreign policy and governance, but very experienced in keeping a home together. THAT DOESN'T MAKE HER DUMB. It makes her inexperienced in a field,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by EmpressCallipygos at 2:35 PM on October 4, 2008

I remember some of WWII, because we saved the silvery stuff that was covering every stick of gum that I bought then. Some kids saved enough of that stuff until it became the size of a softball and then turned it into the scrap collector for the "war effort".
The neighborhood looked rather odd in those days since many patriotic Americans gave up their wrought iron fencing for the "war effort". As I recall everything was blamed upon the "war effort" then.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by toebonian at 5:49 PM on October 4, 2008

I've been a vegetarian for 24 years, and veganism still strikes me as madness,a nd vegans seems mad to me. On top of that, while I have been able to maintain my diet without difficulty, vegans seem often to manage thair vaganism for a year or two at most, and then, bam, right back to meat.

I often think the impulse to become vegan is the same impulse that causes everyone who is an infufferable prig to latch on something that will give their priggishness form, and, were... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Astro Zombie at 11:45 AM on October 1, 2008

Oh, I'm way down here where nobody bothers to look!

Once upon a time there was this tiny little Polish restaurant on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago called Home Bakery. Two eggs with pancakes and bacon cost about five bucks. And they cooked the bacon in the deep fryer.

Two eggs, two big fluffy pancakes with plenty of butter, coffee, and a handful of DEEP-FRIED BACON for five bucks! And if you tipped with folding money, you got treated like royalty!... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mountain_william at 1:23 AM on October 4, 2008

I really hate the fact that any time a user says, "Those naked breasts that you linked to without any warning aren't actually SFW, could we get a 'NSFW' tag, thx," the group responses are always going to include:

1. If you think that's NSFW, you're a prude (never mind that you personally don't set the NSFW standards at your workplace).

2. If you think that's NSFW, you're an uneducated rube who can't appreciate art and/or beauty (never... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by pineapple at 6:48 AM on September 30, 2008

So i herd u liek Toledo Mudkips
posted to MetaTalk by klangklangston at 5:05 PM on October 2, 2008

“Nobody likes a know-it-all...”

This explains why I am so universally beloved. Damned if I know anything really.

“ ‘Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a question of the reconciling and combining of opposites,” he once wrote. “Even progress, which ought to superadd, for the most part only substitutes, one partial and incomplete truth for another.’”

I’d like a tatoo of this.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman at 1:57 PM on October 1, 2008

You know what really pisses me off? The Mets. WTF.
posted to MetaFilter by poppo at 11:53 AM on September 29, 2008

> Regarding parachutes of any color --- with the impending loss of jobs in our economy we'll likely see a spike in purchases of Richard Bolles' classic job hunting book 'What Color Is Your Parachute?'

That book is a useless piece of shit. I'll sum it up for anyone who might consider buying it:

"Do you know anyone you can hit up for a job? If yes, ask them for a job. If no, go around and introduce yourself to people... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The Card Cheat at 3:12 PM on September 29, 2008

FDR, First Inaugural Address:I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kirkaracha at 9:15 AM on September 30, 2008

Wow lots of very curious stuff going on.

And I don't mean Monday's selling - although some of us were talking about it at University and one of the researchers casually mentioned the curious coincidence of The Dow dropping one point for every billion of the bailout plan - ha ha very odd don't read too much into it. Interesting though.

And not the fact that the ratings agencies are starting sovereign downgrades in response to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mutant at 1:14 AM on October 1, 2008

Well, now this is very, very interesting - the SEC has just been granted authority to relax FAS 157.

I wrote about FASB 157 last January, mentioning how it's implementation was causing "... large portions of the balance sheets at many institutions are being sharply marked down. "

It will be interesting to see how much of 157 they pull out of current accounting standards, and how -... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mutant at 8:20 AM on October 1, 2008

I'm not sure if that letter to Sam Hamill came before or after this letter from Hamill, but I love the way this letter to Carruth from Hamill ends Yes, poetry saves lives.
All wars begin at home
within the warring self.
No, our poems cannot stop
a war, not this nor any war,
but the one that rages from
within. Which is the first
and only step. It is
a sacred trust, a duty,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn at 5:45 PM on September 30, 2008

Sad this. But it makes me think of another poem about death from an unlikely, to me anyway, source

Old Men
People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when…
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.

Ogden Nash
posted to MetaFilter by donfactor at 9:23 AM on October 1, 2008

I think you don't like this kid very much, and it might be coloring your perception of events. Imagine if you liked this kid and she had pulled the same stunt, what might your reaction have been? It's stressful living with other people's kids - please take that into consideration before jumping to conclusions.
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Light Fantastic at 2:12 PM on September 30, 2008

First, they came for the people wearing cow suits and peeing on front porches, and I did nothing...
posted to MetaFilter by strangeleftydoublethink at 3:24 PM on September 30, 2008

You have a Master's Degree and are living at home? Europe is nice for finding yourself and getting freaky with a French guy or girl, but there are much more pressing matters at hand.

Screw the trip. Use the money to get your ass out of the house PRONTO. Get an apartment in a city on the other side of the country. Leave! Now!

Stand up from the computer.
If you own it, unplug it and put it under your arm. It will come in handy.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by paanta at 1:46 PM on September 30, 2008

"keyboard" is the English word for what is referred to in German as "clavier."

Actually that's not true at all.

I have a 7-foot grand piano sitting here in my living room and I would never say something like, "Hey, there is my KEYBOARD."

Similarly, a church organ, a harpichord, or a clavichord would never be referred to in English as a "keyboard".... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by flug at 3:43 PM on September 30, 2008

We remove it the way we'd remove a 911 conspiracy thread.

Which is to say, "at the bidding of our Illuminati puppetmasters, long may they rule from darkness, ia! Ia! Google Ron Paul!"
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 7:49 AM on September 30, 2008

If you're going to crack on people for their feelings, don't be surprised when they hit back.
posted to MetaTalk by Brandon Blatcher at 5:53 PM on September 29, 2008

The idea of mentioning the social good one performs as an excuse for getting insanely aggressive is such a good one I'm going to start using it in my own correspondence:

"I HATE this fake glurge about Boy Scouts! I once bought a FUCKING CHRISTMAS TREE from them and they were PERFECT LITTLE GENTLEMEN. So don't go LYING about the GODDAMN SCOUTS or I will EAT your HEART."
"Saccharine tales of BONE MARROW DONATION? I've got my donor card RIGHT... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by melissa may at 3:36 AM on September 30, 2008

Some of you have the heart of a slumlord.
posted to MetaFilter by nola at 7:53 PM on September 28, 2008

I guess this just goes to show that the old saying is true: there is no free verse.

You think we should keep a metre running?
posted to MetaFilter by roombythelake at 5:15 PM on September 28, 2008

I think Safe as Milk is one of the top 10 greatest rock records of all time (I would include on that list Muswell Hillbillies by the Kinks, Happy Nightmare Baby by Opal, and Double Nickels on the Dime by the Minutemen, so maybe I'm just willfully eccentric).

I love all of Beefheart's records, even the ones no one likes. I understand why people think Trout Mask Replica is his... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ornate insect at 9:14 AM on September 28, 2008

Don't be downhearted, Faze, I agree with you. Back in the day, I used to persuade some of my hippie-dippie folk guitar playing friends to perform Sweet Thing, but only because it was the most hysterical thing that I'd ever heard in my life. We'd spend the whole song, vainly trying to suppress our laughter as they did that whole yowling, hooting caterwauling.

Man, you remind of those die-hard folkies who never forgave Dylan for going electric in July... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by philip-random at 11:12 PM on September 25, 2008

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please settle this dispute for us.

Charge the First: You made a bunch of dick assumptions about the case and called them criminals. BP called you out on that. Guilty.

Charge the Second: Unwilling to live with being a dick, you tried to get BP to give you a pass. He refused. Guilty.

Charge the Third: Unwilling to live with being an even worse dick, you posted to MeTa.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DU at 6:13 AM on September 24, 2008

What's funny is that this thread is a request for special treatment. You want to be able to post inane, cold-blooded shit without being called out for it, and when you are, rightly, taken to task, you whine that people are being mean.

But if Hessamddin Norani and Sedige Khazravi ask to not be shipped back to a country where they will be brutally murdered, well - you just can't abide by that.

Where the fuck are your priorities?
posted to MetaTalk by Optimus Chyme at 6:38 AM on September 24, 2008

>I'm this* close to just going back through all Metatalk history and creating a Restatement of Good Policy from all of the "commonlaw" handed down in this type of thread.

>>That is a fucking good idea.

No, no it's really not. As has been said in discussion after discussion over the Metatalk years, requiring rules in order to enforce good behaviour is something that children do. Intelligent adults acting in... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:30 PM on September 24, 2008

In any case, I certainly don't think BP is responsible for the tone of this site. I think that responsibility lies with the mods. If the mods think rudeness has its place here and are permanently unwilling to listen to arguments to the contrary (I'm not saying that they are, I'm saying IF) then that's that.

It's more that rudeness has a place in the natural flow of conversation, and that one of the things that has been very, very clear from the mefi... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 10:32 AM on September 25, 2008

Part of it comes down to the sort of tone you mods want to foster. I'm betting that if you, Matt and Jess all strongly wanted less flaming, you'd find ways (or try to find ways) to make that happen. And you'd have members here who'd be willing to help.

I cringe every time someone suggests something like this. There are already a ton of moderating decisions made on this site with regards to content and there is the corresponding hue and cry about... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by The Light Fantastic at 3:39 PM on September 25, 2008

Parent of three kids here.

nthing the notion of "if you don't trust your mother's judgment enough to be comfortable with her making decisions like this, then you probably should find someone else to watch your kids."

Either you trust her with your child or you don't.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DWRoelands at 10:15 AM on September 25, 2008

Apparently reading the article and understanding it are two different things.

Let's set out whatever facts can be gleaned, along a timeline:

pre-1984: Uncle living in US, presumably as a citizen or some kind of permanent resident.

1984: Kids sent to US on tourist visa, ostensibly to seek medical treatment for one of them. Note that this was after the Islamic Revolution. This will be shown to be relevant later.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by UbuRoivas at 8:12 PM on September 24, 2008

I think it may seem less international because everyone in the US is crapping balls over the election and the economy melt-down, so the front page is kind of reflecting that.

If we revisited this in December, I'm sure it'll return to normal.Come December, it will be all international posts, because all the U.S. members will be lined up in soup lines, dressed in rags, and being photographed in sepia tones.

Vacapinta will be... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JDHarper at 9:10 PM on September 23, 2008

I enjoy this stuff (lousy at it tho). When I was in collich I took a course in Chaucer and we had to learn to speak middle English a bit. And I’m getting tested in this professors office on it (speaking it) and I’m thinking (fresh out of the military) I can drive, fly, jump, shoot, I’ve been places this guy’s never even heard of, been in charge of multimillion dollar operations with lives at stake - why the hell do I have to learn middle English from some cowtown professor when it can’t... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman at 12:11 PM on September 23, 2008

Oh, good links to the bards, languagehat. I've been listening to Aleksandr Galich a lot recently. One fantastic song is called "A story about how Klim Petrovich spoke at an assembly in defense of peace"--not only is it funny, but also an incredible indictment of Soviet society.

You can ask my wife, Dasha,
Or ask her sister, Klavka,
I hadn't drunk even a tiny drop--
Well, maybe I was a little bit hung over.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by nasreddin at 10:24 AM on September 23, 2008

Shankar Vedantam wrote a brief article in his Department of Human Behavior column that touches on this; it basically comes down to cognitive dissonance. If you believe that you are a good person (and most people believe this about themselves), and you also believe that people who do X are bad people, you can't square that thought that you did X with your own perception of yourself as basically good. Hence, you downplay or forget what you did.

In a way, it's the exact... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by iminurmefi at 2:47 PM on September 22, 2008 marked best answer

I wonder about this all the time. Both my parents do this, not about things as serious as sexual abuse, but not about totally minor things either. I think the thing that's so jarring to me is the basic assumption I make that if they say they don't remember something -- in that way that implies strongly that they think it didn't happen -- it must mean that *I* am misremembering it, and I resent the hell out of that.

My mother often stays away from disturbing books or... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by jessamyn at 6:11 PM on September 22, 2008

"In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by desuetude at 1:48 PM on September 22, 2008

When I was moving through high school, he was moving through old age—I can't recall how old he was when he finally passed away, but he could not have been young and the brutish conflicts that seemed to take up his nights could only have shortened what span he had. He had the look, by the end, of a cat who had somehow cadged a tenth and eleventh life off someone who owed him, and who was taking only marginal care with those.

I remember sitting one night on the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:42 PM on September 22, 2008

TomMelee, I suspect all of us are coming into this discussion with good motives, but I have big problems with two things you wrote:

1.
I'm seeing that you're missing the forest for the trees in my comment, which is generally that racial descriptions just aren't necessary.

2.
if you're saying things about people that you wouldn't say to their face, then you're saying things you shouldn't say.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by grumblebee at 8:20 AM on September 22, 2008

hootie and the bowlfish.

Best typo I've seen since Tower Records in Shibuya wrote "Eric Crapton",
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 5:19 AM on September 22, 2008

This morning I got up and started reading through my feed reader and came across this post. I immediately talked to my Step-Father Rich, who is a jazz drummer and was a close friend of Jaco's.
Here is what he had to say after reading your comments:
Thank You for all the beautiful things you said about my friend Jaco. I was his first drummer on the very first day he played the bass. That was in 1966, we went to high school together and we would play together drums and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by goodwillstacy at 12:50 PM on September 21, 2008

bettafish - you might need to understand that in the entire context of the Stalinist purges & show trials. It doesn't necessarily mean that Cyrankiewicz believed what he said or even had an option. It might have been like "Well, we're gonna kill Pilecki anyway, whether you testify or not will decide if we kill you too"

Yuri Dombrovsky's The Faculty of Useless Knowledge is a darkly humourous look into how all that kind of stuff worked.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by UbuRoivas at 1:44 AM on September 20, 2008

Excellent work. And it is beautiful...but...
It makes me think of “ Chronopolis ” by J.G. Ballard. The city does not keep time, there are no clocks, they’re outlawed. Someone obsessed with time keeps re-inventing timepieces, clocks, etc. Furtively checking them when he’s working, etc. And the authorities discover them and put him in jail for 20 years. He’s pleased to notice there’s a little clock just over the door of his cell. At first.

So time is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman at 12:25 PM on September 19, 2008