MetaFilter

I do not believe that St. Alia is a very clever troll. I think she literally does not know better than to enter discussions the way she does and have discussions the way she does. Okay. If that's true, where do we go from there? No one is asking you to pretend that anyone is not a bigot. We're asking you to not get in big huge fights with people who you think are bigots because you don't like the way their minds work. You, and others, can email St Alia. You can engage with her on... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by afu at 8:37 PM on January 7, 2010

I made it through this whole thread and I am glad the mods consider themselves adequately compensated.
posted to MetaTalk by cjorgensen at 8:04 PM on January 7, 2010

Late to this, but I wanted to say something about OC- it's difficult for me to look at his site contributions objectively because he's a good friend who has been there for me and has babysat my kitten and done a million other things. Having said that, when I try my best to look at these threads objectively it really does seem like it's often the case that a bunch of people will be all over the map, with a whole bunch of comments that could be construed as borderline offensive, or tricky for the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Dormant Gorilla at 7:34 PM on January 7, 2010

I've had personal beef with konolia/St.Alia ever since she popped into a friend's anonymous question about getting an abortion--a question that at no point ever evinced an iota of ambiguity about the decision to get an abortion, only a question about the medical procedure itself--with the groundbreaking news that a couple in North Carolina were looking to adopt. And I honestly don't know how I should treat someone with civility when they espouse abhorrent views such as hating people based on... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zoomorphic at 7:00 PM on January 7, 2010

My big thing with konolia lately is that she doesn't really seem to want the Brand New Days she's had. She's still konolia, she still acts like konolia, and that she has stopped telling homosexuals that they're going to hell shouldn't be to her credit any more than feeding your children or not punching people in the face should be to your credit: it should be a basic condition of human interaction. As far as I can tell, her idea of the Brand New Day isn't a way of getting away... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Pope Guilty at 4:58 PM on January 7, 2010

Yeah, it's pretty bad when I'm tempted to stick up for someone who is pro-life and anti-gay marriage.

If that was the problem... there wouldn't necessarily BE a problem. Because one can address those issues like adults. With reason. I know plenty of people who hold those positions.

The problem is her argumentation is thoroughly dysfunctional and in practice dishonest. Whether by nature or by design (and that's the BIG... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by tkchrist at 4:47 PM on January 7, 2010

something I can appreciate as coming off as weird or needling or shaming or something. (cortex)

As hermitosis said, one of the things that comes off this way the most is when OC's comments disappear, even when their content isn't objectional or confrontational. I don't know how often this has happened exactly, but it's happened enough that I noticed it (sometimes because a comment I favorited disappeared).

I know y'all... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by ocherdraco at 3:39 PM on January 7, 2010

St. Alia has a point of view that is not-so-very-uncommon outside of the screens we're staring at, and she's capable of stating her point of view in a relatively intelligent and civilized manner.

Actually she's not, and that's one of the problems and, at least the way I perceive it, one of the reasons she gets people so riled up. When people try to engage with her in a respectful manner and address her with points, backed up by facts, that counter her... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Caduceus at 3:00 PM on January 7, 2010

she's just the most prominent because of (a) the volume of comments she makes (b) the number of people that react (maybe they're seeking her out? I don't know) and (c) her relative infamy and opinions.

I don't think she comments much at all. I think point (c) is really the issue. She gets flack because she's quite vocal when it comes to being anti-abortion and hating on the gays -- or whatever the 'hate the sin not the sinner' way of saying hating on... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by chunking express at 1:19 PM on January 7, 2010

The catch with the law is that the ELSE IF is in a service pack, and the whole thing is made by Microsoft. Le sigh. Also, le arf.

But, IANYLawProfessor, if there's anything that anyone takes out of this thread, let it be that you always--at the very least--need to look for the regulations that are promulgated under whatever statute you're looking at. The regulations are where the action is, I assure you. Statutes are enacted under light of day under the auspices of... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Admiral Haddock at 6:44 PM on January 4, 2010

isn't the American Way all about multiculturalism?

I just watched The Good Shepherd, which is a movie about a CIA spy in and after WWII. Granted, this may not be the best place to learn about said American way, but there is a line in it that I thought really encapsulated what is probably still on or barely beneath the surface of a lot of people's minds.

Mafioso (Joe Pesci cameo): We, the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by nosila at 2:45 PM on January 4, 2010

On my high school debate team, we loved throwing out radical feminist arguments because our opponents, in general, weren't ready for their extremity, and tended to fumble their responses. So we had a (frequently consulted) copy of Gyn/Ecology on the shelf, along with pretty much the complete run of Kick It Over.

It was a wealthy Catholic all-boys school. I think the exposure to stuff like Daly's work really helped nudge some of us... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mr_roboto at 3:34 PM on January 4, 2010

Nuclear shit scares me.

Well if it SCARES you... obviously we ought to quit using it as a source of power.

Some more scary things:

Literacy: ideas are transmitted silently! What I write will survive my death and may be misinterpreted!
Photographs: is it my image or my soul that you have captured?
Genetically-modified crops: man was not meant to engage in selective breeding, I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by anotherpanacea at 10:46 AM on January 4, 2010

Oddly, if I was asked to identify a single moment that defined the turning point when digital technology took the direction he decries, I would point to his own presentation at SIGGRAPH in 1989. Nothing about him, or the content of his presentation, just that it was the first time I'd seen standing room only spilling out into the hallway for a panel discussion, instead of a technical paper. Prior to that time, things were driven by programmers focused on how to build new tools, after that time,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by StickyCarpet at 6:26 PM on January 3, 2010

Oh god, far be for the Internet to not be quirky, small collective that it used to be.

You say you love the internet and are part of the “loyal opposition” within the industry you’re criticizing; you even currently work with Microsoft. So what’s the way forward? If you could re-route the metaphorical boat, where would you point it?

The architecture of the internet must support a global, universal micropayments capability. In this... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by zabuni at 4:47 PM on January 3, 2010

My own friend list is quite multicultural, thankyouverrymuch.

Some of her best Facebook friends are black.
posted to MetaFilter by grouse at 5:01 PM on January 3, 2010

"White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook."

Compelling Use of the Question Mark? How Colons Became So 2004 in Academic Paper Titles
posted to MetaFilter by nosila at 4:11 PM on January 3, 2010

The cast members are all from New York.

Oh, thank the maker.

Not to start an old, snobby war, but Long Island-Party-Club-Beach culture is really fascinating. It's so insular and self-supporting and manifests itself in these exaggerated, distinctly identifiable displays. Like a cultural version of Australia, allowed to evolve brave new orange people - and keep creating new ones, every year, without outside interference. I feel... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The Whelk at 10:11 PM on January 3, 2010

This was one of the sidelinks from the Bobby Bottleservice vid mentioned above. At least The Situation is able to take the piss out of himself a little.
posted to MetaFilter by Sparx at 8:17 PM on January 3, 2010

For them, clearly, the long boring bits were overshadowed by the exciting bits -

You know, I think (based on not much evidence) that for many of those who had a "good war" that the opposite is true. The "boring bits" were full of camaraderie, of being part of a team, united against a common enemy (your own officers, usually), of bumming smokes and stealing drink, in a state of suspended animation. I think this suits a certain... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rumple at 10:10 AM on January 3, 2010

I love it when people extrapolate the meaning of a 60 page article from one sentence.

It's great that you love it, but no one's doing that, Allan. Do I need to cite fifty sentences more? Tad's added several examples; there are many more.

Let's ignore the countless examples he uses of how the war was ill-planned chaos where so many died due to not doing the proper due diligence. I don't really see how you can call... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dee Xtrovert at 3:56 AM on January 3, 2010

Yay! Someday, I will fuck all of you as thanks.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 3:12 AM on December 30, 2009

I'm always afraid of using codewords.

"Are you a friend of Matt Haughey?"
"No, I'm not gay, if that's what you're asking."
"No you don't understand. Like... are you a MeFite?"
"NO. My wife and I aren't into swinger parties."
"Metafilter. It's a website."
"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR SCAT FETISH"
posted to MetaTalk by naju at 5:52 PM on December 29, 2009

I keep waiting for Katie Roiphe's cultural moment to be over, for her readership to drift away to nothingness as people realize that her penchant for blaming every perceived negative cultural change on "The Feminists" is incredibly intellectually lazy. In Roiphe's world, there is apparently no room to reflect on the effects of younger authors coming of age in an era reacting against the '60s, after near-pornographic writing in literature was losing its power to shock (as Stitcherbeast... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by EvaDestruction at 10:13 AM on January 2, 2010

#include <unistd.h>



int main (int argc, char **argv)

{

  unlink (argv[0]);

  return 0;

}

posted to MetaFilter by Rhomboid at 9:38 AM on January 1, 2010

The pertinent question is do you regret the legal position you took in the memos. Make him justify his legal argument rather than just acknowledge that he wrote some arguments in the course of his job.

But to take it even further, the fact that he's conservative only helped him get the job in the Bush cabinet. Any attorney worth their salt can argue either side of a case convincingly. In other words, he *was just following orders. Frankly, I can't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by njbradburn at 5:47 PM on December 29, 2009

"They say they’re only trying to preserve the way it’s always been. They claim that their radical agenda is somehow conservative. But what they really see is a future in which the electronic culture market grows by leaps and bounds and they get to be at the centre of it. They claim that this is about ethics, but anyone who thinks about it for a minute can see that it’s about profit."

BoingBoing, Kindle Edition. $1.99/month.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ratio at 12:09 PM on December 29, 2009

Doctorow can be a sloppy writer sometimes:

"Designing a book reader so that books can be removed from it without the reader’s knowledge or consent violates Chekhov’s first law of narrative: any gun on the mantelpiece in Act One is bound to go off by Act Three."

If it violated the law, people wouldn't have to worry about the gun going off, would they?

I think it's probably fairly well... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by le morte de bea arthur at 11:35 AM on December 29, 2009

Nonetheless, I just did a Google news search for "Mutallab accomplice Haskell" and got 57 separate results. This is what I find interesting, weird, and a more than a little disturbing.

Yeah, if the terrorists ever catch up to modern functional programming techniques we're really going to be in trouble. After all, if this guy had properly encapsulated his explosives in the Underwear monad, he would have been free of the side effect of his dick catching fire.
posted to MetaFilter by Dr Dracator at 11:41 PM on December 28, 2009

people of any orientation can be noble, brave, wise or heroic

Or nasty, brutish, and petty. That's sort of the point of equality. Gay revisionism makes me sick. So what if Lincoln got it on with men? The 'identity' of being 'gay' in North American terms is mostly a post-1968 construction and is largely irrelevant in discussions of historical homosexuality.
posted to MetaFilter by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:27 PM on December 28, 2009

Look at those fuckable hipsters.
posted to MetaFilter by 0xdeadc0de at 6:18 PM on December 27, 2009

This is "geek" like having a tattoo is "bad-ass".

(has a tattoo)
posted to MetaFilter by edgeways at 5:09 PM on December 27, 2009

I really hate to rip on someone's work, but it must be said: Violet Blue's output is vacuous, unsexy gibberish with a patina of tech shimmer (what the hell is "Open Source Sex" anyway? can you download a legal .ISO? is there peer review?) and I can't believe that she's still writing for the SF Chronicle.
posted to MetaFilter by porn in the woods at 4:51 PM on December 27, 2009

Can we retire the word "geek" now? It means nothing. Just because you're interested in computers and the internet now in 2009 doesn't make you any different from anyone else. Yaaaawn.
posted to MetaFilter by xmutex at 4:50 PM on December 27, 2009

I'm pretty sure that if I tried to duplicate Violet Blue's general internet modus operandi, I would be dubbed an incredible creepster-douche, but somehow because she's a tiny girl with blue hair, she's able to make a living at it. Tell me Metafilter, is this justice?
posted to MetaFilter by Caduceus at 2:24 PM on December 27, 2009

I found this while poking at the sexylist.
posted to MetaFilter by Minus215Cee at 2:04 PM on December 27, 2009

This reads exactly the way you'd imagine one of those Us magazines would read if you were to take one down and read it rather than standing there looking at it in a faintly baffled way for lack of anything else to do in the convenience store checkout line. But apparently this is hipper and edgier in some way. Is it the haircuts?
posted to MetaFilter by George_Spiggott at 12:21 PM on December 27, 2009

I could bitch about how dumb this list is, but I'd like to instead point out how broken the premise is. I happen to know a lot of sexy geeks, and they'd hate to be on this list. I'll let you in on a secret: getting away from bullshit high school popularity contests is a major motivating factor for many geeks. Some of the more attractive geeks I know have labored for years to be recognized for their skills and accomplishments rather than their eyes or... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by phooky at 12:21 PM on December 27, 2009

Why can't I meet a recklessly handsome man? ....Sigh.

I do not care how many geese there are flying about - let me onto this rollercoaster!!
posted to MetaFilter by UbuRoivas at 11:42 AM on December 27, 2009

The self-described genderqueer geek and “web slave” quietly hacks on everything within reach

I just hacked my ham sandwich by adding brown mustard! A jawdropping feat of breadcraft!

This mechanical pencil? Also a zit-popper. Hackery!

Yesterday on the bus I was a little sleepy so I wadded up my coat and used it as a pillow! Hackariffic!

That ham sandwich I mentioned before the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ratio at 11:41 AM on December 27, 2009

This doesn't seem to be peer reviewed.

Heh. Given who her peer is...

"I hate you!"
"I hate you!"
"I really hate you! You don't exist!"
"Wht th fck? I ht y!"
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 11:41 AM on December 27, 2009

It's like I'm watching Hackers with one eye and reading Boing Boing with the other!
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 11:08 AM on December 27, 2009

"Crystal Williams is the penultimate Hot Hacker Girl"

So there's another girl who's hotter or more hackery or something? Why isn't she #1?

Hint: note who said list was compiled by. Either she's being coyly narcissistic or she doesn't know what the word "penultimate" means--neither reflects well on Ms. Blue.
posted to MetaFilter by Sidhedevil at 11:03 AM on December 27, 2009

Can I just say one little thing?

IF IT HAS A DRAGON IN IT IT ISN'T SCIENCE FICTION! THE SOLE DIFFERENTIATOR BETWEEN FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION IS THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF DRAGONS!

Okay, I feel better now.
posted to MetaFilter by mmoncur at 10:45 AM on December 26, 2009

Wait, Avatar needs spoilers?!
posted to MetaTalk by Brandon Blatcher at 5:13 PM on December 25, 2009

It's hardly out of context. Google's whole existence as an ad machine would evaporate if there were any semblance of real privacy law in this country. Its CEO recognizes and embraces the transparency of online activities because its whole business model is predicated upon it.

I don't understand what google uses that privacy law would protect.

The way I see it, google has a couple of sources of data from me personally that are... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Netzapper at 11:47 PM on December 24, 2009

Sometimes the process is less important than the outcome. This is one of those times.

Well . . . I don't know. The problem with the whole thing is that there's a very good chance that the demise of Ceausescu was a coup d'etat planned by his inner circle rather than a popular uprising. The timing of this, if true, was superb, because there were already some unusually ardent signs of unrest occurring (initially related to the state oppression of an... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dee Xtrovert at 10:58 PM on December 24, 2009

Before it turned out that Lawrence Lessig was the George Washington of copyright reform, that is, a beloved, cared-for figure who, if you look up the facts, turns out to have been incompetent and kicked upstairs at critical junctures....

...wasn't this the great idea that he was pushing for some time, that the copyright law would be modified so that if you didn't file every 10 years or so, you'd lose your copyright?
posted to MetaFilter by jscott at 5:12 PM on December 24, 2009

AlsoMike" "Because:"
...
The open source movement is open, yes, but only to programmers. Many closed-source, proprietary, profit-driven companies are more open to non-programmers -- they actually listen to their users -- than many open source projects, which are exclusive clubs run for the benefit of programmers. The commonplace phrases "RTFM" and "scratch your own itch" are evidence of that.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mullingitover at 3:11 PM on December 24, 2009

Since its inception, the Web has been thought of as a more or less unregulated place-- a virtual world without a government. Governments, as we know, rule ultimately through force, and except insofar as real-world law enforcement takes an interest in things likes kiddie porn, force doesn't play much of a role on the Web. Force and fear aren't the Web's driving impulses-- on the Web, force and fear are replaced by desire, interest, hunger.

The most important commodity is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by darth_tedious at 1:58 PM on December 24, 2009