MetaFilter

In other words, he didn't wanna grow up, he's a Toys-R-Us kid.
posted to MetaFilter by credulous at 7:18 PM on April 30, 2024

“If you draw a doughnut around that Circuit City,” a Charlotte police captain later said, “I bet he talked to everyone within a mile.”

I'm sorry, what? A doughnut? That's what we're drawing?
posted to MetaFilter by charismatic megafauna at 3:20 PM on April 30, 2024

The vacuum it leaves is going to be hard to fill.
There’s Bing, but it’s a) Bing and b) likely to disappear into AI and other bullshit while chasing money even worse than Google will.

There’s duckDuckGo, but that’s just dressed up Bing.

So the golden period of the entirety of the web being easily searchable is just going to disappear and who knows what comes after.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 12:04 PM on April 23, 2024

I often think the metaphor of the tightrope is not a good one, since it implies that there is a safe path through that can be seen, and with sufficient care, skill etc can be navigated. Often situations seem more like overlapping minefields, where there is no ostensibly safe route, or at least not one you can see, and whether you step on a mine is dumb luck (or possibly inevitable with time). This often seems to apply to situations where women are caught between two opposing camps, and behaviour... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by biffa at 4:15 AM on April 23, 2024

Melissa. Always and forever, Melissa.
posted to MetaFilter by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:37 PM on April 18, 2024

Every morning, I run a sort of diagnostics test on my brain and eyes and fingers by solving Wordle, Connections, Strands, and two or three mini crosswords.

For Wordle, I always just start with some five-letter word and see what happens. If I have a strategy, it's kinda soft, like try to get some common letters in there. Audio and yeast are pretty good, but I don't have a favorite first word. Anything more than that would start to feel like actual work.
posted to MetaFilter by pracowity at 1:46 PM on April 14, 2024

I use hard mode, and always start with SLATE. My goal is to get through RSTLNE as quickly as possible. So if SLATE doesn't work, I'll try BRUIN. If both of those are no-hitters it gets a little tricker. Otherwise I proceed based on what matched from the most recent word. My stats are:\

1 - 0
2 - 23
3 - 146
4 - 175
5 - 112
6 - 23

Current streak is 175.
posted to MetaFilter by grumpybear69 at 1:21 PM on April 14, 2024

I remember the Dancing Itos on TV and my dad saying flatly, “two people were murdered.”
posted to MetaFilter by girlmightlive at 8:34 AM on April 11, 2024

I was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist back in the 90s, which means when I was in my 20s, and if you think it's probably a bad idea to give a 20something straight white man a nationally syndicated newspaper column, boy, I'm here to tell you, you are right. These days, I describe my writing mode as a columnist as "professional mansplainer." I am here to tell you that these columns did not age well, and that I'm pleased one has to make a real effort to locate the vast majority... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jscalzi at 11:20 AM on April 11, 2024

Oh man, I would have thought I was the only kid who wanted to be a columnist. I read a lot of Dave Barry and Lewis Grizzard (why? he was terrible). I came to realize that being a columnist involved being a journalist first, and when I came to it, journalism was a sinking ship.

Now being a journalist, or even a sapient being, doesn't seem to be required. But I am no longer in love with my own opinions.
posted to MetaFilter by Countess Elena at 11:20 AM on April 11, 2024

I finally installed Consent-o-Matic in Chrome, it tries to fill in the forms on a bunch of sites. It sort of works but is not perfect.

What would be better is if the websites respected the Do Not Track header which was standardized back in 2007. But the surveillance capitalism industry refused to honor our explicitly expressed preference. So now it's a long slow battle with websites performing malicious compliance to make us all mad about what should be a very simple... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Nelson at 1:48 PM on April 8, 2024

Did you feel the EARTH MOVE this morning? That is but a TASTE of MY POWER. If MY DEMANDS are not met within the next 72 HOURS, then I shall BLOT OUT THE SUN. The clock is ticking.
posted to MetaFilter by 1970s Antihero at 11:21 AM on April 5, 2024

For the last 40-plus years, business and government has pushed a tax cut frenzy that was covered up by massive deficit spending. Most people had in good in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. You could do OK on a middle class wage. The tax cuts, the safety net cuts, those didn’t affect most of the working class. People had new cars, plenty of toys, and healthy stock returns. It was paid for by defunding education, public services, and pensions, while normalizing high amounts of personal debt. Student debt... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by azpenguin at 8:36 PM on April 1, 2024

The instant you have convict disenfranchisement, you have an incentive to criminalize people who vote against you. We have repeatedly demonstrated an inability to refuse that incentive.
posted to MetaFilter by Pope Guilty at 9:08 AM on March 29, 2024

THANK GOODNESS. The fact that this woman who made a genuine error just trying to participate in democracy had to fight so hard for her freedom, while people literally trying to destroy the US are getting off scot free, is an absolute travesty.
posted to MetaFilter by obfuscation at 5:37 AM on March 29, 2024

In 1978 we had a portable television. It probably weighed the same as this thing. You pushed down on the top and a black and white screen (probably 3 inches or so) would pop up. When I was recovering from a car accident in the ICU my mom brought it to the hospital so I wouldn’t miss that week’s episode of Battlestar Galactica. Since no one had a VCR at that point.

That was cutting edge tech!
posted to MetaFilter by Ishbadiddle at 10:51 AM on March 30, 2024

what a clusterfuck.

so excited to see maersk dodge it's responsibility for the hundreds of millions (billions?) of dollars of longterm economic damage (not to mention injuries and likely deaths) by using its subcontractor and flag of convenience jig as excuse

remember many of the "privatize the profits, socialize the losses" games in late capitalism originated with shipping.
posted to MetaFilter by lalochezia at 7:42 AM on March 26, 2024

>they were so out of date then that I assumed the author had already been long dead.

It sounds like the guy who died is the SON of the guy who did the first books, who died in the 1930s.

"Writer and illustrator Laurent de Brunhoff, who continued his father’s legacy by producing dozens of original books for his “Babar the Elephant” series, has died aged 98.

De Brunhoff was just 12 when his father died of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sing Or Swim at 5:07 PM on March 25, 2024

Babar was always one of my favorites, growing up. He sits side by side with Madeline in that his world was so alien compared to, say, the Berenstain Bears--I was either too young to understand the concept of books being written in other countries, or no one bothered to explain it to me--I was about to say I treated it as fantasy, but well, yes, you would treat a talking elephant as fantasy. But that was different than talking bears who clearly lived in America!... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mittens at 3:49 PM on March 25, 2024

But the epidemic of loneliness and depression that has swept society reveals that many of us are now walled off from one another in vats of our own making.

Balderdash.

The loneliness epidemic isn't going anywhere until we stop a) blaming lonely people for being lonely and b) thinking that insisting that lonely people stop being lonely is a solution.

The loneliness epidemic is caused by the fact that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by MrVisible at 7:09 PM on March 24, 2024

Consider: moon trains imply moon train heists.
posted to MetaFilter by BungaDunga at 7:40 PM on March 21, 2024

moved the bird...to better habitat

As opposed to a bettor habitat.
posted to MetaFilter by Greg_Ace at 10:06 AM on March 7, 2024

Always wondered if Copeland borrowed GenX from Billy Idol and crew and.. at least according to Wikipedia - he did.

In turn, Idol says he borrowed the moniker from a 1964 book titled "Generation X", about British youth culture. So even the term Generation X is squarely from the baby boom years. GenX shafted again!!
posted to MetaFilter by senor biggles at 8:02 PM on March 6, 2024

(i swear to god i thought it meant explosions)

How do you do, fellow space marines.
posted to MetaFilter by mhoye at 11:46 AM on March 4, 2024

I though they were Gen-X shooters.

/cue “Don’t you forget about me”
posted to MetaFilter by MrGuilt at 11:38 AM on March 4, 2024

Guster is for Lovers.
posted to MetaFilter by knile at 7:05 PM on February 28, 2024

Basic tradecraft failure.

You don't call it FacialRecognitionApp.exe. You call it DBBackupMgr.exe
posted to MetaFilter by seanmpuckett at 8:19 AM on February 24, 2024

Seen from one pole, it looks like the planet is rotating anti-clockwise; this is the "north" pole.

This leads to a fun little conjecture: most planets with intelligent life, when viewed from above, rotate the opposite direction as a typical clock on that planet. This sounds silly because both "above" and "typical clock" seem arbitrary. But...

1) The first tool that an intelligent species will... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Hatashran at 11:29 AM on February 23, 2024

buying magazines we love, closing their print operations, turning them into digital-only, laying off the actual journalists who made us trust in their content in the first place, and hiring third-party companies to run the affiliate arm of their sites

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall'
You thought they were all... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by snuffleupagus at 4:23 PM on February 20, 2024

> But I'm absolutely terrified at the power and utility of the tools that LLMs have handed to public relations.

and because of this we have a moral responsibility to spread the idea that search engines are useless and that the only reliable method of finding information is to ask specific people rather than attempting to search the entire web. i think if i wanted to go all science and technology studies here i'd start with the idea that knowledge is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 3:49 PM on February 20, 2024

I got this in my email recently and why yes, it is relevant to my interests. (Also what Avelwood said.) Alzheimer's/dementia run rampant in my gene pool on both sides along with neurological disease, and given my "I can't remember how to do things at work any more" problems continually coming up during the very few days I've worked over the last few months, I was wanting to get that issue checked out.

During my neurology appointment, he asked if I could... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jenfullmoon at 9:35 PM on February 17, 2024

"i guess teaming up with MBS is one way to get a head in the movie business"
posted by "They sucked his brains out!"

Eponysterical! Also, a "Monkey Island" reference! That's a twofer!
posted to MetaFilter by techSupp0rt at 3:15 PM on February 18, 2024

North Korea has never had so much money flowing into its economy as it has had during this war. They are utterly thrilled and doing everything they can to be the manufacturing center Russia doesn't seem to be able to conjure within its own gigantic borders.

North Korea's recent stance that they no longer are looking toward peace with the South is a direct result of this cash infusion.
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 2:26 PM on February 10, 2024

Are we evil at the core, surrounded by a social shell that guilts us into being good? Or are we good at heart, with a hardened shell of evil hiding our true natures?

I'm going with, "we're apes who need love and close bonds but frighten easily."
posted to MetaFilter by tiny frying pan at 6:09 AM on January 29, 2024

If this is true, then the body does keep the score.
posted to MetaFilter by snortasprocket at 3:32 PM on January 18, 2024

a certain subset of stylish guys—Andy Warhol notably among them—haven’t concerned themselves with correct timekeeping for decades.

In the future, everyone will be famous for an indeterminate period.
posted to MetaFilter by box at 7:32 AM on January 13, 2024

Does top 20 matter in a chronological list?

Quality point, except that Yes and also No.

…in a list of arbitrary length, Echo & The Bunnymen will always appear at a point below n=20. You can go back to pre-Mesopotamian music, and the relationship holds.

It’s sort of like Pi, except very extremely not like Pi.

There’s an entire SCP division focused on this kind of math; if you... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by aramaic at 8:03 PM on January 3, 2024

My kids (9 and 12) probably know 30 songs from this list. If you had asked a kid in 1984 about a similar list of songs from 1944 I wonder how many they'd know.
posted to MetaFilter by any portmanteau in a storm at 7:34 PM on January 3, 2024

I hope (not sarcastic!) that this is a more helpful response!

It really isn't. Because it hinges (ironically) on not understanding what the word "understanding" actually means. LLMs like ChatGPT store statistical relationships between tokens: small words (4~5 letters) or partial words, or individual symbols. The way that they store this is a complex web of billions of weighted connections between layers of nodes, which are intended to mimic... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ryvar at 2:48 PM on December 28, 2023

the AI doesn't know or care it's been robbed.
Yet.

Roko's Patentrisk
posted to MetaFilter by Greg_Ace at 9:52 AM on December 20, 2023

So, a mother is a necessity for invention.
posted to MetaFilter by Gyan at 9:08 AM on December 20, 2023

I went to bed the night Trump beat Clinton thinking that was the beginning of the end of the United States. Not much since then has shaken that belief, and now things are almost certainly too far gone for there to be a positive resolution.
posted to MetaFilter by The Card Cheat at 7:17 PM on December 19, 2023

It's "surely this" all the way down.
posted to MetaFilter by CynicalKnight at 4:16 PM on December 19, 2023

Ah, yes, Gung Ho, a movie about a Japanese takeover of American industry, titled with an American bastardization of a Chinese word. I mean, Hollywood in the 80s, when “Asian #2” was a perfectly acceptable role to cast.

I remember liking the movie as a kid, but I can’t imagine how bad it would be on a rewatch.
posted to MetaFilter by Ghidorah at 4:56 PM on December 18, 2023

What's American for Nigel?

We're only making plans for him delaying the inevitable.
posted to MetaFilter by tommasz at 9:38 AM on December 18, 2023

.

Raymond Holt: Every time someone steps up and says who they are, the world becomes a better, more interesting place.
posted to MetaFilter by Kitteh at 3:49 AM on December 13, 2023

Something touched me deep inside
The day the blue bird died...

So...
So long,
Soon Twit-ter will be gone
I kicked X off my lawn
And switched to Mastodon
Still Nazi boys put their MAGA hat on
Sayin' this will be the hill they die on
This will be the hill they die on
posted to MetaFilter by Greg_Ace at 10:30 AM on December 12, 2023

A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that website
Used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people glance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
But November made me shiver
With every favourite I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his SpaceX... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Lanark at 10:20 AM on December 12, 2023

somehow we are to believe that the exceptions written into these laws will be enough, that surely people's health will never be endangered, that those who write and impose these laws truly just care about life

This is what happens when a person is in this kind of terrible situation and has the resources available to take her case to court, to appeal for a TRO, to fight for her rights and her health, knowing all the while that the clock is ticking and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by delfin at 7:26 AM on December 8, 2023

Should any of this make me break my habit of just sending emails to myself?

Nope.

I watched someone on Mastodon excoriating themselves for not "settling on a single note-taking system" because of all the lost opportunity it represented, and it made me sad for them. They drank the ridiculous Kool-Aid around Zettelkasten, convinced that if they'd only picked one thing to capture their thoughts those many years ago,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Pudding Yeti at 8:39 PM on December 1, 2023