MetaFilter

The best part about this is that it's probably going to drive a run on Margaret Atwood books at bookstores and libraries.
posted to MetaFilter by Pope Guilty at 6:34 PM on June 4, 2014

None of this is real. Its clickbait.
posted to MetaFilter by sfts2 at 5:48 PM on June 4, 2014

Never go full Dowd!
posted to MetaFilter by Reversible Diamond-Encrusted Ermine Codpiece at 5:40 PM on June 4, 2014

Google has become the gateway for evil.

I enjoyed this tweet from Brent Butt:

Google motto 2004: Don't be evil
Google motto 2010: Evil is tricky to define
Google motto 2013: We make military robots

posted to MetaFilter by mhoye at 7:30 PM on June 4, 2014

I don't think it's that far out of line for me to assume that a physical strike is coming and respond accordingly.

Too late, my personal drone has already detected your potentially threatening response and begun countermeasures.
posted to MetaFilter by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 6:31 PM on June 4, 2014

How is this not a fuck you statement right out of the box?

So is wearing Google Glass in public.
posted to MetaFilter by mhoye at 6:26 PM on June 4, 2014

Next up: David Brooks tries jazz music for the first time.
posted to MetaFilter by drezdn at 1:17 PM on June 4, 2014

I hope she at least got to expense that.
posted to MetaFilter by jcking77 at 12:44 PM on June 4, 2014

But where shall I inquire on matters of Pretend Estate?
posted to MetaTalk by Rhomboid at 4:05 AM on June 4, 2014

This dude's writing makes my skin crawl and he's hanging out with my friends!

(I've never met him and I should really ask them if he's much better in person than on paper, or if they just hang out cuz that's what members of the academic/media - personality kinkster community do)

His first article when he showed up in Chicago was about the city being uptight because a random sampling of women he met at bars didn't know the term "sex... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by elr at 10:15 PM on June 3, 2014

To me, pressing the issue of being uninvited to a sex event has more to do with boundaries of consent, and less to do with discrimination. This ain't no damn country club.
posted to MetaFilter by oceanjesse at 7:54 PM on June 3, 2014

No - no they aren't. George R. R. Martin novels as nuclear metaphor? Sorry, no.

Actually, the article struck me more as "here's a cool way to link up a pop culture phenomenon with some rather important concepts relating to nuclear weapons. Let's see if we can get people interested."
posted to MetaFilter by AdamCSnider at 8:41 PM on June 3, 2014

The Unsullied as a metaphor for drones: The Happy Slave: or, Khaleesi’s American Dilemma
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 8:23 PM on June 3, 2014

Due to the poisoning of the king, the show trial against Tyrion, and the recent exile of one of Daenerys' most trusted advisors, the dragon clock has been moved forward to eleven minutes to midnight.

Nuclear winter is coming.
posted to MetaFilter by markkraft at 7:43 PM on June 3, 2014

"For what it's worth, Barry has issued an apology for the article."

And he's getting skewered in the comments.

The comments are worth reading - members of the leather community, including people who were in attendance, some of whom were working the event and dealt with Mr. Barry personally have much to say.
posted to MetaFilter by louche mustachio at 5:41 PM on June 3, 2014

Being trans doesn't necessarily mean you don't have a penis that matches your male gender identity?

Ok, fair enough.

How did we even get on this topic, though? What happened was two straight, cis people tried to go to a gay orgy and then got mad when they couldn't go in.

"This is a party for men. Women aren't allowed," he retorted.

"We'll leave. But... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 5:58 PM on June 3, 2014

I wonder where the White Walkers fit into this theory, and how dragonglass stops them.

Biological weapons. They can spread their curse to any they kill, can expand indefinitely, alter their environment to make it unsurvivable in the long term, can lie dormant endless ages and emerge again to kill, and only weapons aspected by fire in some form can 'sterilize' the infection.
posted to MetaFilter by AdamCSnider at 6:48 PM on June 3, 2014

I think it's transphobic to not be sexually interested in a trans person if the reason you are not interested is because they are trans, but there's no accounting for personal turn-ons/offs, etc. but what a derail THAT conversation would be right here, right now.

I think this guy taking a shy woman to a men-only event, only to go into High Dudgeon when the woman is turned away at the door because it might have been transphobic to do so, is crappy.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by disclaimer at 5:06 PM on June 3, 2014

So it's "transphobia" to not be sexually interested in a trans person?

If you were interested in them until you found out they were trans... yes.

Pretty sure that isn't an interaction contained anywhere in any of the links of this FPP.
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 4:47 PM on June 3, 2014

littlesq: Riker is riding that chair. Hard.

You were expecting him to deal with chairs in any other fashion?
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 1:50 PM on June 3, 2014

Riker is riding that chair. Hard.
posted to MetaFilter by littlesq at 1:31 PM on June 3, 2014

Why is excluding people on the basis of self-gender-designation OK, when excluding people on the basis of genitalia is not? What if it was a No-Jews weekend? No-Blacks? No-People-Who-Consider-Themselves-Mixed-Race-Or-Nonwhite?

Oppressions may rhyme, but they are not identical. The kinds of harm that are done to women in a misogynist society are not the same as the kinds of harm that are done to Jews in an... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 2:00 PM on June 3, 2014

"regarding the notion that that people excluded from an event due to x-phobic reasons should just like, create their own event: Just, straight up, this is not a good solution. It decenters the inappropriate behavior of the event organizers..."

I'm sorry, but in what way are you not arguing that its transphobia to not be allowed to party in someone else's private hotel room? Just because I identify as pansexual, that doesn't mean I'd feel... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by markkraft at 2:39 PM on June 3, 2014

a naturally shy and reserved person

I am perhaps the world's least likely attendee at a leather event, and even I know that this describes a poor fit.

Why is excluding people on the basis of self-gender-designation OK, when excluding people on the basis of genitalia is not? What if it was a No-Jews weekend? No-Blacks? No-People-Who-Consider-Themselves-Mixed-Race-Or-Nonwhite?

This... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dip Flash at 2:55 PM on June 3, 2014

Can you be dedicated? Work with people? Build a community around your vision? Never, EVER flake?! Then yes, you should be organizing events, because the community as a whole needs you.

And the great thing is, such dedication and community can -- and does -- come from every part of the community you can imagine. There's room for your vision too, but you need to do the hard work to get people to build upon the community and get people to show up.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 11:49 AM on June 3, 2014

Yeah. I'm all for inclusion and queer solidarity, but for a woman to try to crash the door at a private men-only sex party is pretty tacky in my book. And for a man to try and take his shy female friend into a setting like this and then blog about his offendedness is insensitive at best.

I say this as a cis woman who does the majority of her socializing in a community that was founded by and still is majority gay men.

Shaming and blaming men... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ottereroticist at 9:46 AM on June 3, 2014

beefetish: I wouldn't put too much stock in those off-the-cuff remarks about trans/genderqueer people. Remember, the context is that a guy is complaining to a {bouncer? host?} about his female friend getting kicked out of an all-male orgy. A seemingly pretty annoying guy. I doubt the response was actually very representative of any actual policy or animus, and more just an expression of "GTFO of my sexy party with your decidedly non-sexy-to-me friend."
posted to MetaFilter by tkfu at 10:02 AM on June 3, 2014

I think you missed the point of the original article.

I got it, I just think it's nonsensical in this specific content.
posted to MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 11:10 AM on June 3, 2014

Except this post was about excluding everyone that does not look like one guy's definition of a man.

No, it was about excluding a woman. The theoretical possibility that this specific orgy might also have turned away a female-bodied man might be worth discussing if it had actually happened, but it didn't.
posted to MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 11:04 AM on June 3, 2014

"What about gender queer people? What about trans people? What about femme men?"

Why do I think these people didn't really give a shit about the party's policies on trans* people until the straight cis person was asked to leave?
posted to MetaFilter by sevenyearlurk at 10:59 AM on June 3, 2014

FFS, doesn't the article writer know how to use google?

IML is International *Mr.* Leather (NSFW). Held in Chicago every Memorial Day Weekend, about 10,000 attendees. IML 2010, Tyler McCormick, was a (wheelchair-using) transguy. The first "out" transman to compete in IML was Billy Lane, in 1998.
IMsL is International *Ms.* Leather. Currently in the SF Bay Area close to Easter weekend, about 500 attendees. While several IMsLs have transitioned to ftm... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Dreidl at 10:09 AM on June 3, 2014

ARC is one of the great pleasures of writing objc code for iOS right now. Best of both worlds memory use for a really minimal conceptual overhead every cocoa developer has already paid for. It feels like a damned clever solution. That said, my desire to bet against Mike Ash is limited. March of technology / certain class of apps / etc.
posted to MetaFilter by ~ at 6:00 AM on June 3, 2014

Everything else, I use the xbox 360 for. The interface for the AppleTV is awful, and I'd almost always rather just use the xbox controller to navigate around.

The PS3 Netflix client is slick as hell and certainly makes the AppleTV Netflix client look stodgy and inelegant but I still use the AppleTV client for two reasons:

The AppleTV uses 6 Watts of power when active. The PS3 uses 189.
I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by whittaker at 9:19 AM on June 3, 2014

Yes, as long as you're not wearing a cummerbund.
posted to MetaFilter by Greg_Ace at 8:43 AM on June 3, 2014

Also...the leather bar here is predominantly gay. So it's exactly no surprise to me that it's generally filled with gay men. What happened to common sense?
posted to MetaFilter by fluffy battle kitten at 9:23 AM on June 3, 2014

My husband belongs to the second oldest gay motorcycle club in the world (see profile for more details, feel free to ask questions in memail if you want). Every year, the oldest motorcycle club (60 years) holds a camping trip that all of the gay clubs are invited to attend. This will be the camping trip's 51st year. It has always been all men. For 51 years.

I am pretty involved in the club. I go to events all the time. I go to their installation of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sophie1 at 9:32 AM on June 3, 2014

From the comments on the Dan Savage piece:

I have yet to see a gay male pornographic film to which the Bechdel test can even be applied, let alone expect to pass. And then you pop over to the lesbian side of the video site and it's like they never talk about men at all!
posted to MetaFilter by donovan at 9:43 AM on June 3, 2014

If there are 150 people in a room watching you have sex, I don't think it really, honestly matters what gender one of them is.

Hey, just because you decide to participate in an orgy, doesn't mean you suddenly don't get any say in what goes down at that orgy. If I wanted to have an all-female orgy I'd be pissed if a man showed up to watch. If I wanted to have an all under-30 orgy I'd be pissed if a bunch of 60 year olds showed up to watch.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 9:39 AM on June 3, 2014

Good news for those of us worried about privacy and online tracking: Apple will let you ditch Google search for DuckDuckGo in iOS 8 and OS X.

As a big fan of DuckDuckGo this is pretty awesome.
posted to MetaFilter by Rory Marinich at 5:12 PM on June 2, 2014

I'm just glad they're unifying AirDrop to work between iOS and OSX.
posted to MetaFilter by peeedro at 6:10 PM on June 2, 2014

SWIFT BIRD DEVELOPERS FOR TRUTH
posted to MetaFilter by ardgedee at 12:48 PM on June 2, 2014

[drops mic]
posted to MetaFilter by ardgedee at 11:59 AM on June 2, 2014

Tim Cook is well on his way to becoming a serious iconic figure. He's killed it today.
posted to MetaFilter by naju at 11:58 AM on June 2, 2014

165 comments before the Keynote even started. Only one about the actual Keynote.
posted to MetaFilter by cjorgensen at 10:18 AM on June 2, 2014

This is pretty much the best Keynote since we lost Steve.
posted to MetaFilter by entropicamericana at 10:41 AM on June 2, 2014

I happily shop at our local kitchenware store, knowing that their markup pays for convenient retail space and helpful staff. However, my happiness does not extend to their 300% markup on mixer attachments, sheet pans, etc.

Are you going to avail yourself of the local kitchenware store's convenient retail space and helpful staff to look at and discuss these products before purchasing them through your wholesale supplier? That's the part that is unethical. The rest is fine.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by alms at 9:09 AM on June 2, 2014

If you have a free computer (found in your breakfast cereal box).. why should you pay $40 to be allowed to write/run a program on it that makes it a cell phone?

It does not matter what the computer costs. Either there is value to granting a temporary right to exclude others from practicing an invention or not. It doesn't matter whether practicing that invention requires additional expensive inputs or not.

Now, if you don't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jedicus at 7:34 AM on June 2, 2014

If you have a free computer (found in your breakfast cereal box).. why should you pay $40 to be allowed to write/run a program on it that makes it a cell phone?

Because some smart people worked for long periods of time to figure out non-shit ways to send bits via radio (a truly non-trivial thing) and they occasionally like to eat.
posted to MetaFilter by Talez at 8:02 AM on June 2, 2014

WilmerHale is one of the largest IP law firms, why would they publish this?

It's one of the largest firms of any kind. But anyway, defendants need law firms, too. Defendants like Intel, which is being defended by WilmerHale in Ericsson Inc. v. D-Link Sys., Inc.. WilmerHale is known for being more of a defense firm when it comes to patent litigation. In 2012 it had 45 district court cases for defendants and 18 for plaintiffs... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jedicus at 7:08 AM on June 2, 2014

> it reads more like the djs were introducing him to the music, and he was just tracking it down for them.

Sounds like it went both ways after a while: Once he learned from them how to spot good breakbeats, he was recommending more records for them.
posted to MetaFilter by ardgedee at 4:39 AM on June 2, 2014