MetaFilter

When I was a teenager, my dad had a plow on his truck, and if we were driving somewhere and he saw someone shoveling out their driveway, he'd always offer to plow it for them. I don't do this because I don't have a plow, but I do offer to help dig when it seems warranted.

I do the shopping carts, and also always make sure the baskets are stacked neatly in the express lane so no one trips over them and there's room to stack more. Pick up as much trash on a beach/park... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by dizziest at 6:55 AM on February 17, 2024

It's not a thing anymore because I'm in private practice but when I had agency jobs I tried to volunteer if there was stuff that required attendance on Christmas eve because I'm Jewish at to me it's just Thursday.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by less-of-course at 9:40 PM on February 16, 2024

When I have finished reading a graphic novel in good condition, I donate it to my local public library, which almost always adds it to the permanent collection.

As a result, my local library is now choc-full of graphic novels featuring
a) LGBT people
b) Disabled people
c) people of colour.

(This is in Australia, so it won't lead to anyone asking for a librarian's head on a spike.)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:58 PM on February 16, 2024

-- be a poll worker in every election possible. It's easy, pleasant, and in many locations they pay you.

-- if someone drops their mitten or hat, I put it on a taller thing like a sign post so it doesn't get buried in the snow.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by blnkfrnk at 7:08 PM on February 16, 2024

I should confess that I want to be the unfailing yielder of seats but more often I am the spacer-out does not notice anything person.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by spamandkimchi at 5:30 PM on February 16, 2024

I was the roadie for the Sons of Champlin from 1968 to 2010. I quit, but they are still performing. I have smoked a joint with Jerry Garcia, and when I met Janis, she was wearing red panties and sandals.

Here is my website about the experience.
posted to MetaFilter by Repack Rider at 10:49 AM on February 20, 2024

Anyway, pay for Consumer Reports if you really want good product reviews.

Or see if your local library subscribes.
posted to MetaFilter by unknowncommand at 2:37 PM on February 20, 2024

As someone who watched 13 Dracula films last October, I must mention Guy Maddin's Dracula: Pages From a Virgin's Diary from 2002. He filmed the Winnipeg Ballet company in the style of early 1900s silent movies. A very surreal movie that includes hand-tinted colors, interstitial titles and a lurid Victorian presentation of sexuality (including some suggestive set decorations and doorframes).
posted to MetaFilter by JDC8 at 5:38 PM on February 18, 2024

When I paint, I hate the prep work and just want to get painting! But every minute of prep work I put in shows in the final product: it looks smooth and consistent and it doesn't fail prematurely.

The Board's careful, detail-oriented work here will pay off down the road -- so thank you all for putting in the time when you'd probably rather be looking at cat pictures on the Internet or whatever.
posted to MetaTalk by wenestvedt at 6:27 AM on February 20, 2024

If it's carved from a jawbone, it's Bone; Ivory is from a Tooth.

Melville is very slippery about categories. He spends a full chapter arguing that whales are fish.

Melville knows that whales are not fish. Doesn't he?
posted to MetaFilter by mr_roboto at 6:24 PM on February 19, 2024

Thank you all for the work you are doing. I know from my day job that this kind of thing always takes much longer than anyone thinks it will, and ends up being much more complicated than anticipated, but it is truly foundational work and decision-making. You are doing good things!
posted to MetaTalk by rpfields at 10:08 AM on February 19, 2024

This post brought to you by the lovely production I saw yesterday of the Stevenson version, performed by the Richmond Ballet.
posted to MetaFilter by cupcakeninja at 4:02 PM on February 18, 2024

In fairness to the Crimson, they actually do some solid reporting, but yeah, the Boston area does have some other fine institutions of higher learning that just don't get the same level of scrutiny, not even that other school for which Cambridge is noted (I admit on my own little Boston-area blog, I will link to Crimson articles, even if it's just so I can run yet another headline playing off the old joke: "You can always tell a Harvard man, you just can't tell him much").
posted to MetaFilter by adamg at 7:39 PM on February 16, 2024

I do like how "Harvard" in the Zeitgeist has shifted from "school for really smart kids" to "school for really privileged kids."

I am far from an uncritical booster of my employer, but my experience of Harvard students has uniformly been that they are really smart. (By coincidence, I worked on a project last semester with this particular student, and she was really smart.)
posted to MetaFilter by Horace Rumpole at 1:30 PM on February 16, 2024

Hiring an actual ASL interpreter for a silly throwaway gag in a weird sketch is SNL at its best.

Hitting the host is hot button 4 times in one night (monologue, short kings, AA stud, Acting Class) less so. I think I read someone on the AV Club pointing out that is the kind of joke/reference that you can make once per show. It looses impact when you keep going back to the well.

Reneé Rapp was pretty fantastic in The Sex Lives of College Girls.... [more]
posted to FanFare by mmascolino at 7:53 PM on January 23, 2024

Congrats and welcome to everything being your fault, you're gonna love it!
posted to MetaTalk by DarlingBri at 8:16 AM on February 10, 2024

as someone who has played the "insect overlords" card a couple of times myself, I, umm, salute my MeFi overlord who originated the thing. Welcome to the role!
posted to MetaTalk by martin q blank at 7:30 AM on February 10, 2024

*Happy🌼Dance*

A very warm welcome to you, kirkaracha!!
posted to MetaTalk by taz at 12:45 AM on February 10, 2024

HARVARD
posted to FanFare by eckeric at 7:18 AM on February 9, 2024

[A few removed. Don't use slurs (FAQ). Also don't assume the site is "cool" with using slurs because of nefarious reasons and go off on some rant on that. We have moderation gaps, but we will always delete that shit. Finally, try to stop fighting and slinging insults back and forth about Bernie Sanders, leftist vs liberal, etc. etc. Maybe you could find a Reddit community dedicated to that purpose, or you could create one. On Metafilter it's a disruptive derail that interferes with discussion.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by taz at 12:39 AM on February 5, 2024

because the distance from the center was larger than floating point precision the position for everything in their floorplan had a couple inches of random jitter every time anything changed

Horrifying new explanation for quantum uncertainty just dropped.
posted to MetaFilter by dephlogisticated at 4:57 PM on February 1, 2024

Every once in awhile I see something and think I ought to send it to boo_radley and he's not there anymore. Every once in awhile I see his username someplace and I still get upset. He was a funny and caring and kind person and I'm gonna miss him as long as I remember him.
posted to MetaTalk by Pope Guilty at 9:31 PM on January 27, 2024

[Several comments deleted. One member banned temporarily. If you are not willing to allow others to express themselves and be sensitive to context please give your fingers a rest, take a step back and allow other to move on with the conversation.]
posted to MetaFilter by loup at 1:48 PM on January 30, 2024

I was a classmate of Will and when I saw him logged into the blue I asked him what his username was - and he REFUSED TO GIVE IT UP. We had some great conversations.

For me it's Leslie Harpold. Who simply possessed endless kindness and I think of her every time I see an advent. We talked everyday for years but I could never afford to travel to NYC/Michigan, and when I finally could it was too late.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zenon at 10:21 AM on January 19, 2024

RIP jbickers, too.
posted to MetaTalk by DirtyOldTown at 7:47 AM on January 19, 2024

I miss DanF. Among others, but I remember him fondly the most.
posted to MetaTalk by annieb at 2:43 PM on January 18, 2024

[one deleted. Never ok to call someone’s comment dumb even if you don’t agree or if it’s incorrect. Let’s rephrase in the future. ]
posted to MetaFilter by travelingthyme at 3:13 PM on January 18, 2024

I think about pax digita often. We were coworkers for a time, fell out of touch, got back in touch and remained so until his death. He is the reason I am on Metafilter. I miss him.
posted to MetaTalk by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 2:51 PM on January 17, 2024

my friend Will was a dick on the internet, less so in the world, but especially toxic here. We talked about it from time to time, but rarely, we had other things to talk about.

He was younger than he thought he was and he was working to be a better man in the world. Maybe he would have grown out of being a dick on the internet. I like to think so.

He's been dead just over ten years now; the bus I ride most often stops right outside the cemetery... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by crush at 4:33 PM on January 17, 2024

The Correspondent on the Continent was my friend of 40 years. Words fail me on how devastating his sudden loss last summer has been.

Actually, thinking of it now, there's a secret I'm no longer obligated to keep: Almost a decade ago he maneuvered it so he was the sole moderator of several subreddits related to interest in fascism, made them private so the enemies of humanity could not use them to spread their filth, and defended them against all attempts to pry them... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by ob1quixote at 2:56 PM on January 17, 2024

One of the things that surprises me here is how many MeFites' participation waxes and wanes. I think nothing of someone not commenting in a while -- and then suddenly their silence is revealed as permanent and not temporary. Too late for good-bye, too late for thank you.

So a serious "thanks" & hug/high-five to all of you, while we can.
posted to MetaTalk by wenestvedt at 12:52 PM on January 17, 2024

God damn, bradlands still hurts. I didn't even know him from here, really, but seeing his name on the list reminded me.
posted to MetaTalk by Lyn Never at 10:41 AM on January 17, 2024

Chuck has been reinvited and has declined. Good on him. I also am not a tingler or a horror reader (I did read Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt, his Hugo-nominated work, and I respect the hell out of it) but he's out there doing good work and has a firm grip on his principles and I commend him for it.
posted to MetaFilter by restless_nomad at 7:47 AM on January 11, 2024

This is good news! Thank you for the report, and thank you to everyone who is doing the work to keep MetaFilter MetaFiltering.
posted to MetaTalk by cupcakeninja at 12:48 PM on January 11, 2024

Hi folks - I don't speak for the group, but I'll reply, and I'm part of the group of volunteers and I did the financial review. If my Interim Board colleagues disagree or want to add anything, I hope they will.

Our mandate, as I see it, is to help Metafilter LLC (a privately-held corporation) become a non-profit organization (possibly/likely a 501(c)3 under US tax law), which can be accountable to this community and a public... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mrmcsurly at 12:33 PM on January 11, 2024

Just seeing Author Chuck trot his trot makes me so happy. It sucks that they did this, but hopefully this will also incite enough backlash that something good can come out of it.
posted to MetaFilter by smirkette at 2:11 PM on January 10, 2024

Thanks for this post, I was waiting for the British Library website to come back up after it was taken down last year as part of an extensive cyber attack. I did know about the exhibit, but didn't know about the archive of talks.
posted to MetaFilter by Faintdreams at 6:53 AM on January 10, 2024

I'm absolutely filled with questions and concerns but frankly I deleted all of them. Because this is lovely and good.
I wish the world was filled with people like this and I'm going to read these books.
posted to MetaFilter by Baby_Balrog at 3:56 PM on January 9, 2024

This is lovely, Becky Chambers books are a delight and something very different in the world (and about other worlds).

We need fiction so that we can imagine creating better factual experiences. Here's Becky Chambers & Annalee Newitz on resisting dystopia [youtube - hosted by Long Now].

Lost opportunity here: ".. being mentored by someone seasoned steeped in the process"
posted to MetaFilter by unearthed at 4:31 PM on January 9, 2024

The "could write a check to buy down the national debt right now" argument doesn't really work for the same reason that a whole lot of the discussion around individual climate change actions is bogus: If I change my energy use patterns, that's great, but it generally has the impact of lowering the costs to other people who use the energy sources that I've eschewed, and as we see in electricity generation, and natural gas, there are a ton of other people willing to step in and take... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by straw at 11:07 AM on January 9, 2024

I am supportive of these sorts of initiatives but also suspicious of them.

There are lots and lots of steps that wealthy people could take to increase their tax burden, and never really any sign that the wealthy people who support higher taxes on the wealthy are taking those steps.

At least in Canada, you can literally write a cheque to the government to reduce the National Debt -- and some people do -- but not many and not generally in huge,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jacquilynne at 10:12 AM on January 9, 2024

Just chiming in to share what I can about the BIPOC Board minutes. They are pending approval. The reason the most recent minutes haven’t been updated is because they haven’t been approved, because we had to cancel our meetings the last two months, which further delayed our timeline in getting together and having the board approve minutes. First meeting we missed was because I had a family emergency and the second was because multiple members of the board including myself could not meet during... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by travelingthyme at 3:34 PM on January 4, 2024

I'm not doubting your sincerity, I just mean that the site leadership has already thrown in the towel and is trying to hand the site off to new leadership ASAP, so asking the outgoing leadership to institute process improvements, new disclosures, etc. just seems like a recipe for frustration all around. They're trying to do basically the minimum, not more, and I think they've been pretty upfront about it. We can all not like it, but it's temporary, and chasing Loup around about it seems to... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Mid at 2:03 PM on January 3, 2024

My Jewish heritage tells me "never again, for anyone".

I'll stop commenting so I don't become one of the people dominating the thread with a one-person show. But Jews are not a monolith and suggesting that we all have the same beliefs is actually anti-Semitic in a very straightforward sense (although I would never say that my fellow Jews should lose their jobs for saying that we do).
posted to MetaFilter by latkes at 10:34 AM on January 3, 2024

The problem, outgrown_hobnail, is that the answer she gave to the question was actually correct - it depends.

She wasn't asked if it should be a violation. She wasn't even asked if it could be. She wasn't asked if people calling for the genocide were awful people/annoying edge-lords. She was asked if it was a violation.

When it comes to constitutional freedom of speech (which is not the issue here, but is at least analogous),... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by It's Never Lurgi at 8:31 AM on January 3, 2024

Claudine Gay may be a delightful person and splendid neighbor, but she’s a college President and wouldn’t hesitate one minute to fuck me or any other faculty or staff member over and then hand everything off to the team of lawyers, so fuck her. My solidarity ends at the admin.

Something bad didn't just happen to her. She didn't trip and fall. Something bad happened to her AND to higher education and US politics. Whoever comes after her will still be... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by MisantropicPainforest at 7:57 AM on January 3, 2024

If new features are still possible, maybe someone on staff could check with Frimble on how technically feasible a request is and post their response in the thread?

Speaking purely from a software development background (with no special knowledge of the Metafilter situation): Figuring out the technical feasibility of something - or rather, the cost, since pretty much everything is feasible if you have enough money - can be very time consuming. It... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by quacks like a duck at 11:35 AM on December 29, 2023

This damn show!! It has the ability to make me forget about the passage of time and then BAM! it ends. I literally said, "Oh HELL NO!" when the episode ended.

Poor Douglas! I hate Duffy.
posted to FanFare by cooker girl at 9:18 AM on December 21, 2023

I think the objection to this train of thought is that its centering the discussion around the geopolitical and local political effects on the USA.

Wait, I know that's the objection, because I'm raising it.
posted to MetaFilter by Jarcat at 2:24 PM on December 27, 2023

[Several comments deleted. Please don't derail an entire conversation to make it about whether the topic / length / format of a link is the ideal for you personally. If you actually think it's a bad post that shouldn't appear on the site, just flag the post and we'll have a look. And other folks, please just flag or contact us rather than make the thread about that one comment instead of the post itself, thank you. Also one deleted for spamming. Don't include unrelated / spammy links in your... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by taz at 10:12 PM on December 16, 2023