MeFi Favorites by ftrain

MeFi: Embrace the Troll

troll — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:54:59 -0800

James "The Colossus" Thompson shows us how to deal with internet trolls.

MeFi: Psychopathy's Double Edge

anotherpanacea — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:26:50 -0800

"What I'm planning is a psychopath makeover, to find out firsthand, for better and for worse, what it's like to see the world through devil-may-care eyes."

MeFi: I lost my heart to a ...

Wordshore — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 09:03:21 -0800

Sarah Brightman, multi-million selling singer, actress and songwriter, has taken her medical and will soon start training to become the 7th or 8th 'Space Tourist', visiting the ISS in 2015.

Ask MeFi: B2B or not 2B? Wetting beak in manufacture.

evil holiday magic — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 01:50:16 -0800

New to manufacturing. How do I go from making things to having something made?

MeFi: friendship bracelets

flex — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 18:01:46 -0800

Friendship bracelets! A photo tutorial for chevrons and another photo tutorial for basic stripes, chevrons, & diamonds. More basics with simple patterns & advanced. The BeyondBracelets thorough video tutorials (& on her blog is a bracelets 101 to gradually progress your skills). For complicated patterns check out these, and also these (with alphabet patterns & instructions), and also this crowdsourced free pattern-sharing site (patterns & tutorials), and finally this dollar-a-pattern pay site. If you're not interested in bracelets you can use the same idea for tangle-free headphones or wrapping tech cords & cables. (previously: lanyards)

MeFi: Flamingos are a go.

shadow vector — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 14:17:58 -0800

Last October, the newly rebranded Miami Marlins released an artist's rendering of a tacky home run celebration structure that would be built in their new stadium, to widespread derision. With the offseason nearing its end, the structure has moved from concept sketch to reality. Initial reactions note that the structure is mind-bogglingly enormous, and maybe actually kind of awesome. Recently, stadium staff gave the structure a test run.

Ask MeFi: Looking for a short story on copyright micropayments

evadery — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:01:38 -0800

Looking for a dystopian short story that made the rounds around half a year ago about intellectual property. It was (I believe) a father and daughter who go through emails and have to make micropayments for copyright infringement, trademark infringement, etc. Any thoughts? I may have seen it on MeFi or Boing Boing, and my google-fu is failing me.

MeFi: Buzzing about network graphs

Blazecock Pileon — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 02:07:51 -0800

A hive plot (slides) is a beautiful and compelling way to visualize multiple, complex networks, without resorting to "hairball" graphs that are often difficult to qualitatively compare and contrast.

MeFi: That all-important "■"

WalterMitty — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:17:41 -0800

I do not enjoy Facebook - I find it cloying and impossible - but I am there every day. Paul Ford writes about social media, the ceaseless flow of time, and narratives - or, "Facebook and the Epiphanator".

MeFi: The Age of Mechanical Reproduction

foggy out there now — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:57:57 -0800

The Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Paul Ford.

When it comes to IVF, in-vitro fertilization, nothing is normal. Your world is upside-down. Your doctor compliments your wife on her monkeys. Then, when every dollar and exertion has gone toward a single hour of hope, it begins to snow.

Ask MeFi: A cure for narcissism in twenty-five words or less...

kitcat — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:32:34 -0800

I'm looking for quotes that basically convey - it's not about you / get over yourself.

MeFi: The History of Cartography

Stan Carey — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 09:09:45 -0800

Free PDFs of The History of Cartography, vol. 1 and 2, from University of Chicago Press.

MeFi: Should we stay or should we go?

joannemullen — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 15:28:43 -0800

In After Earth Ben Austen looks at "Why, Where, How, and When We Might Leave Our Home Planet" while Jared Daniel asks, if given a chance to found the first human colony on Mars, would you go? Maybe we could turn it into a home away from home or perhaps we should terraform Earth first.

MeFi: Every one a little lawyer.

kipmanley — Sun, 15 May 2011 21:43:49 -0800

“Watching the video I thought that it was wise of Major League Baseball to combine this sort of sentimental moment with mass speculative litigation. It kept brand values strong. I felt strangely grateful that I could have a moment to remember that afternoon. Surprised by the evidence of both copyright violation and father-daughter affection.” —Paul Ford, “Nanolaw with Daughter”

MeFi: Tractatus Digito-Philosophicus

geoff. — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:44:31 -0800

"This is a somewhat odd venture: a translation of Wittgenstein's Tractatus into the domain of software development." Wait, not so crazy, Harrison Ainsworth explains, "Central in the Tractatus is the concept of the ‘proposition’: a statement about the world that can be true or false. It is a logical artifact used to describe the world (and so links logic and world together). This maps straightforwardly to software: a proposition becomes a program. Where a proposition describes the world, a program constructs the imagination, or intended-world – an artifact. A program is like an executable proposition."