MetaFilter

I have noticed an increasing trend on MeFi, especially relating to issues of feminism, gender relations, etc, that threads quickly divide into us vs. them camps, where the "us" camp is defined by strong outrage and criticism, and the them camp is everyone else. This is problematic enough, but what then naturally occurs is any sort of deviation or criticism of anyone in the "us" tent immediately casts one into the "them" tent, and attacks that the person is pro-rape,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by ArkhanJG at 1:12 AM on September 2, 2014

Hawaii can be very expensive when you take into account:

- Roundtrip airfare
- Hotel / condo PLUS accommodations tax (13.416%, but 13.96% on Oahu) PLUS any parking or resort or cleaning fees (ouch).
- Rental car (including all of the taxes and fees) and gas (also much more expensive on the islands than the Mainland)
- Any entertainment & activities (luaus, snorkeling trips, whale watches in the winter, helicopter tours, surfing... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by kathryn at 3:05 PM on July 23, 2014 marked best answer

Am I the only one annoyed at the whole 'Murica thing?

Yeah it can be obnoxious, but they've been around for over two centuries now and and generally mean well, so what can you do?
posted to MetaFilter by Alvy Ampersand at 2:23 PM on August 26, 2014

Looks more like varying scientists wondering who farted.

---

PHOTOGRAPHER CAPTURES SCIENTISTS' FRIGHTENED RESPONSES TO FARTS

We've read the daunting headlines. We've seen the bleak predictions. We know in our minds that farts are putting our Earth's future in danger. And yet there's something uniquely frightening about this artist's attempt to transform the smell of farts into visceral, human... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Going To Maine at 10:44 PM on August 25, 2014

Marc, if you're reading this thread--and we know you are you glorious narcissist--don't listen to these bozos complaining about your monologue or that you're abrasive. Sometimes I'll download a show and skip the interview (usually if it's an actor I never even heard of), but never the monologue. They're nearly always entertaining and insightful. Just keep doing what you're doing.
posted to MetaFilter by king walnut at 3:58 PM on August 24, 2014

Glad to know I was ahead of the times.

Don't worry, there have always been plenty of other people who sneered at this amazing little book. It seems like the book has really fallen out of favor these days, people love to hate on it. Maybe that will just make it mean even more to the kids who need it, but it makes me sad. I'm not saying you have to love the book, but if you treat it with smug contempt that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ursula Hitler at 4:55 PM on August 2, 2014

Also, am I the only person that now has a strong suspicion that potsmokinghippieoverlord and cortex

dun dun dunnnn

ARE THE SAME PERSON?


no_O
posted to MetaTalk by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 1:50 AM on August 1, 2014

I've actually hung out and talked with a few of the local (and alarmingly numerous) ICP ninja kids here in Seattle, and the kids - as they say - seem to be alright. Yeah, they're undereducated little hellion drug fiends, but what else is new?

They're often the products of poor single-parent families running a generation or two deep growing up in environments rife with substance abuse, alcoholism and often violence or abuse. These are the overmedicated ADD kids,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious at 9:29 PM on September 27, 2011

I'm an epidemiologist, and my work in the past has crossed over a fair amount into nutrition and health outcomes (mostly related to a very specific subset of carcinomas). I read commentaries like this one with some difficult confusion. There is a feminist (humanist?) issue here, for sure, because no one deserves foul treatment because of their body. And yet, talking about weight and its implications is a very real and pressing endeavor. In many instances, clinical presentation of a number of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 10:27 AM on July 15, 2014

I am compelled to speculate that any insults might have been launched not so much because of your being a government employee but conceivably that people could sense that they were being dismissed at 'pudgy, dough-faced burghers'.

Nah, when I went up there I was excited about just being there. Nobody from my agency had ever bothered to go to Fort St John or Terrace or wherever. My job was to connect the dots. Of course, people just wanted money,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by KokuRyu at 6:48 AM on July 9, 2014

stavros - not a response, exactly, no, though your comment did send my brain off on a musing sort of tumble that informed that comment, so thank you! I didn't (and don't) intend to indict you or what you said at all - it was a springboard.

I guess the perspective I am accustomed to is one in which I have trouble getting my head around the value of foregrounding things like race and gender in online discussions which aren't explicitly about race or gender (for... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by rtha at 7:57 PM on July 1, 2014

stavrosthewonderchicken, when I was crunching the numbers to figure out how many women posted FPPs, there were a bunch of times I couldn't figure out someone's gender from their posts and it was DELIGHTFUL. I mean that unironically in the fullest. I am very clearly female from my askme and mefi posts in general - I talk about being female a lot but it was so neat and reassuring in a "gender is part of us but not all of us way" to find that people I liked and read on mefi were just... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by viggorlijah at 5:39 PM on July 1, 2014

Thanks for the clarification fraula, I knew there had to be some angle on the language to explain why no French users had pointed out the nickname meant something like "danger", hearing it was a language from Nice makes a lot of sense.

On selling the name, keep in mind no one offered money, the $10,000 number was plucked out of thin air while discussing it with friends as well as a few here coming up with 100,000 Euro as a price. Selling a twitter handle is... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 6:40 AM on June 25, 2014

Usually.
posted to MetaFilter by mochapickle at 3:56 PM on June 19, 2014

First giving up on my idiotic fanciful dream of SLId 780ti and now abandoning 144hz? What's next, you guys suggesting I don't have the case electroplated with 24k gold?
posted to MetaFilter by Justinian at 5:04 PM on June 18, 2014

Sure, whatever you say.
posted to MetaFilter by Flunkie at 6:15 AM on June 10, 2014

totally unrelated to anything at all but stav i dreamed you kidnapped my dog to weaponize her farts

in this dream you were an actual chicken and also a supervillain
posted to MetaTalk by elizardbits at 4:34 PM on June 2, 2014

if you are not actually a chicken i am going to be very disappointed
posted to MetaTalk by elizardbits at 6:50 PM on June 2, 2014

Go fuck yourselves

Just to be clear, that is not actual moderation policy.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 7:18 PM on May 31, 2014

Somewhere in a box, I have tape of Bill and Kevin making their really insane kung fu movie...and the ensuing movie. Bill did all sorts of crazy non-Hicksian stuff. And don't get me wrong, I loved Bill. Bill made me laugh. For as long as I live, whenever I pass a field of Texas wildflowers; I'll remember summer days spent lying in clover and wildflowers, listening to the trains, watching the sky kaleidoscope, and laughing my fucking ass off while Bill went off on one thing or another. I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dejah420 at 7:51 AM on May 29, 2014

Bill was a friend, and I've met Alex jones. Alex is no Bill Hicks.
posted to MetaFilter by dejah420 at 5:30 AM on May 29, 2014

Stav, I knew that I had arrived as just another person in the community a couple of winters ago (we spend about 3 or 4 months a year in small-town Japan).

I was out for my morning walk down the covered shopping arcade towards the main shrine in town, and I noticed two junior high school students contemplating a dead cat.

It was lying dead in front of a property management company's office. While there are a lot of stray cats in Japan, this cat... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by KokuRyu at 5:59 PM on May 27, 2014

Frist Psot!
posted to MetaTalk by the man of twists and turns at 11:10 PM on May 26, 2014

I'm out, you guys have fun justifying why it's okay to insult mentally ill people. Removed from my recent activity.

This is a pattern - somewhat juvenile and super unhelpful to the mods. I'm pretty sure you actually will continue to read this thread (as you have "bowed out" of several others only to bow back in), and I would urge you to think about how and why you interact with the site this way. This "new day" and the way you... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by smoke at 4:00 PM on May 24, 2014

Jessamyn's medium here may have been moderating (and man, typing that in the past tense sucks), but what I've learned from watching her work over the years has very little to do with the internet.

I've known Buddhists who like to say we should be grateful for the difficult people in our lives, because they present an opportunity to practice the hard stuff. In the grand scheme of things, dealing with hot tempers online is not exactly a spiritual... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Zozo at 8:24 AM on May 21, 2014

I'm shocked and reeling from all of this. And my mind naturally thinks about the ways the old internet is struggling to hold on - an internet that was around back in the innocent "utopian" days of the web that are resolutely behind us. Back before all the kinds of tactics that the new sites follow just as par for the course to survive in the ruthless capitalist web (clickbait, monetizing userbases, exploiting ad models...) I wonder if lots of MeFi-style sites should've been employing... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by naju at 5:06 PM on May 19, 2014

Here are two good articles about the Korean community in Northern Virginia: Mappers' Delight and Koreans make their mark in Fairfax.
posted to MetaFilter by candyland at 5:15 AM on May 16, 2014

his dialogue is too self-indulgent and Profound, with every line a Deep and Meaningful Statement; his visual style looks like a TV show, and not one of the contemporary "Golden Age of TV" series either

Wow, I don't think either of these things is remotely true, to the point where I'm not even sure how one could possibly get those ideas from watching his work.
posted to MetaFilter by eugenen at 6:42 AM on May 12, 2014

Like many, I learned about being a more respectful person in general, but more specifically about not making assumptions regarding trans* people. I don't think I'm even close to a feminist, but I have a much better understanding of the challenges that many women face every day due to sexism and like to think that I'm no longer contributing to the stereotypes that create some of those problems. Also, I've learned never to put my opinion forward as an absolute fact, because its probably wrong... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by dg at 9:42 PM on May 8, 2014

frag it and move on

(do you have t-shirts that say this yet?)
posted to MetaTalk by Eideteker at 6:36 PM on April 30, 2014

His gleeful puppet revues still rank among my most dearly beloved things to ever grace late-night television. In memoriam, here's an updated version of my original 2010 FPP with all the links fixed (again):

It's a great day for America, everybody

After David Letterman signs off and the Worldwide Pants production logo fades, viewing audiences are oftentimes treated to a cold open of an empty talk show set... one that quickly becomes the impromptu... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 9:46 PM on April 29, 2014

Somewhere, an ad exec tries desperately to make a breakfast cereal ad campaign around Soundgarden's "Spoonman"
posted to MetaFilter by hellojed at 6:42 PM on April 26, 2014

I was filled with wonder and enjoyed the chicken. 5 stars and a gazillion favourites.
posted to MetaTalk by infini at 1:30 AM on April 18, 2014

Anyway, thanks. I hope too that when the gaming stuff comes to MeFi that it works more as a complementary thing than a competitive one. MFC really truly has been one of the best things in my life this past 7 years, and it would just kill me if it withered on the vine.

That's absolutely my hope, too, that it'd be if anything a nice complementary thing, and I say that as an enthusiastic mefighter as much as anything. MFC and mefi both do gaming talk... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 5:12 PM on April 16, 2014

Also, I can't believe I'm going to be on vacation for the next two weeks away from TV and the Internet starting on Sunday. Poor timing for me.

stavrosthewonderchicken: "It's the worst possible news for me. I have a very strong feeling it's just going to suck the air out of something I've put heart and soul into for the past 7 years."

I think you can trust mathowie to be rotato, stav. If FanFare does expand beyond TV,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rock Steady at 4:15 PM on April 16, 2014

I wanted to rep for MeFightClub, too. I have found MeFightClub to be an incredible community, a great place to find people to talk about games and find people to play with who are awesome and not awful.

MFC is particularly valuable to me, because being publicly female online and in gaming can be... difficult, to say the least. But everyone at MeFightClub has been wonderful and welcoming and helpful and amazing all around.

I would be very sad if... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by ErikaB at 4:52 PM on April 16, 2014

Stav, I want to be clear, gaming would be way down the line (months if not years), and would likely not be much beyond news or reviews. I don't have a MeFightClub login but I was under the impression you do tons more than that, and host game servers, etc. so our hope was overlap was minimal and wouldn't cannabalize from your site. I meant to contact you months ago about this idea, super sorry you heard about it now and feel gut-punched, that was the last thing we wanted.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 4:05 PM on April 16, 2014

What Happened to Canada?
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 11:44 AM on April 9, 2014

I don't mean to be pedantic or imperious, motty. I'm sorry if it came off that way.

I think where I'm coming from is intense frustration with the increasingly illusory character of democracy vis-a-vis effecting any meaningful distributive justice. I find it ever harder to talk about political remedies as a serious option for meaningful change, and it's terribly discouraging because I have both an acute sense of justice and a disinclination toward the idea of using bare... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by clockzero at 4:35 PM on April 6, 2014

"Venturebeat: The superfast rise of Oculus VR."

That interview makes a lot of things clearer to me. I don't really think this was "Facebook" buying Oculus, it was the enthusiast Zuckerberg, who was an early venture capital investor in Oculus, and who developed a personal relationship with the founders and became personally, emotionally invested in the success of Oculus, who bought Oculus. Which is to say, not to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:53 PM on March 27, 2014

No, no, really we're the best country! Sure, unemployment is high and the actual numbers are worse. There are companies/people predating on the poor, hopeless, destitute, and option-less. What had been standard full time jobs are now becoming piecemeal work. Cost of living is up while wages are down. Corruption in government and business, at all levels but the most basic person to person interactions, is frighteningly open. The political system is focused on maintaining the purity and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Slackermagee at 5:31 AM on March 19, 2014

Colour me surprised. While I disagree with the thesis as presented, I feel that the comment is completely germane, and am now unsure as to why it was removed.
posted to MetaTalk by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:48 PM on March 15, 2014

"What I don't understand is why China seems to be so sanguine about a batshit crazy regime on its doorstep that's developing long-range missile capability. "Oh, they're not pointed at us" doesn't seem terribly reassuring to me given the aforementioned completely batshit crazy part."

China is worried about several things, most notably (as someone mentioned above) the effects of millions of refugees coming to China. North Korea is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by klangklangston at 3:05 PM on February 17, 2014

I get a certain grim feeling of recognition whenever these "who's a real geek?" conversations happen, because I am, or was, most certainly some variety of fake geek. I mean, I am a geek, in some manner, in that I am finicky obsessive over atypical things, and I'm technical in a variety of ways, but back in '83, in the context of my Explorer Post at Goddard Space Flight Center, I was more geek-adjacent than actual geek.

I loved computers,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by sonascope at 4:14 AM on February 11, 2014

As 50 approaches rapidly

DRIVE THE OTHER WAY, STAVROS, DRIVE THE OTHER WAY!!! 50 IS A PAIN IN THE ASS! LITERALLY!!!
posted to MetaTalk by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:14 AM on January 17, 2014

Can you guys say exactly why you don't think that is the resolution? It's a very condensed and reductive summary, but it seems like a rough-and-ready description of the ending. I saw the movie but I didn't like the last half hour at all. Maybe you can save the movie for me by showing me that I misinterpreted the end.


. . . SPOILER WARNING etc etc.
.
.
.
.
.
.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:23 PM on January 13, 2014

What games does mefightclub play?

What have you got?

We like flying terrible airplanes.

We like driving cars.

We like being dragged into a war between our sisters, fighting our son in law, stabbing our cousins and accidentally becoming King of France.

We also love cards, crawls, Creepers, tiny balls, beards, hats and impenetrable UIs.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Mr Bismarck at 7:21 AM on January 3, 2014

The world is facing huge challenges that cannot be met with the economic and political tools we have at present. Take some environmental challenges, such as global warming and pollution.

One of the primary reasons why the state must have a substantial stake in the economy, is because without that, your entire national agenda is driven by private industry interests - and achieving a large common good such as an unpolluted environment and looming disasters like global... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by VikingSword at 11:41 AM on December 2, 2013

Yeah, Diamond is not unassailable but I'm pretty sure this David Corriea thing is utter drivel from start to finish.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 7:39 PM on November 19, 2013

I'll disclose I'm a Diamond fan, but I'm sure there is a lot of legitimate points that could be taken with his works. "Racist apologia" absolutely is not. Anyone who lobbs that claim is looking for a lazy slam, not understanding and not interested in understanding Diamond's work. The driving force behind Germs, Guns and Steel is a sincere and deeply-held anti-racism, and to try to twist that into it's opposite because it's currently popular to hate on him on the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by spaltavian at 7:29 PM on November 19, 2013