MetaFilter

It's the damndest thing. I've got his essay open in another tab, and it's clearly, clearly something that I should be able to read. I mean, it's made of words and sentences. Undeniably. I know all the letters he's using and there's no punctuation more exotic than a question mark employed. He's not great at paragraphs, but hey, I made it quite a ways through Timecube before giving up, so I should be able to handle writing from a guy who doesn't know what a paragraph is for. And yet, I just can't... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by EatTheWeek at 3:40 AM on August 1, 2009

Believe it or not, straight men have many of the same kinds of worries and issues about masculinity that gay men do. Do you have any straight male friends? Maybe you should try making some. It might make you feel a little less afflicted.

Hi, straight boy over here. Straight boy who obsessively reads Apartment Therapy and spent the better part of last night hauling furniture around to open up his bedroom, and proceeded to draw up diagrams for better... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Tomorrowful at 8:51 PM on July 29, 2009

aren't these just young people having fun, and wearing slightly dumb clothes, which if I remember it correctly is the perogative of youth?
posted to MetaFilter by johnny novak at 10:57 AM on July 30, 2009

Look at this fucking hipster basher.
posted to MetaFilter by billysumday at 10:42 AM on July 30, 2009

This whole thing was so odd in the campaign, given the fact that McCain was born in Panama.

That explains why, during some of the debates, he seemed to be running a little bit hot that night. You could barely seen the stage, from the heat coming off.
posted to MetaFilter by drjimmy11 at 3:15 PM on July 29, 2009

But while Pipes is very cool, has anyone actually done something proper with it?

Pipes is sort-of a first-generation product- the real money is in YQL, which is a SQL-like system for querying data from almost anywhere on the web. I highly recommend you check it out.

Disclosure: I am a Yahoo! employee, and today's news is less than thrilling. It feels like we're throwing a lot of talent and research down the drain.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by potch at 11:57 AM on July 29, 2009

The fact is, each and every one of you is a net loss for the human race. The thousands of pounds of garbage you produce and barrels of oil you consume every year will lead to global catastrophe and to the partial or total obliteration of the human species, Waxman-Markey or no. "Contribution to society" my ass.
posted to MetaFilter by nasreddin at 4:41 PM on July 26, 2009

Apologies to Mr. Suelo, but modern western civilization is the shit

I am by no means a rich man, but in comparison to most of the world and most humans who lived in any age preceding ours, I live like a king. By the mere accident of birth, I came to live in a country that bombards its citizens with comforts. I woke up this morning and put two cups of fresh, clean water into a metal pan and boiled it on my electric stove. I then stirred in some 7-grain... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by EatTheWeek at 2:00 PM on July 26, 2009

Some more observations:

• The bride, groom, and officiant are the only ones not in sunglasses aside from the ushers, who are a whole four minutes before the bride. It reinforces their primacy, and makes the "backup dancer" role more defined.
• Everyone's got a slightly different outfit. Ties and suits the same, dresses the same style. But not the same glasses, flowers, corsages, or shoes. Individuality. Non-tuxedoed individuality. And they... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mdonley at 1:31 PM on July 23, 2009

headache relief for programmers :: regular expression generator
posted to MetaFilter by shoesfullofdust at 10:10 AM on June 24, 2009

Lord Wolf Presents: The Perpetual Article or Blog Entry of This Type, Good For All Kinds of Music

I think part of the problem with [insert name of genre here] is that there's so much more of it nowadays than there used to be. I can remember when you were hard-pressed to find a radio station that had even as much as a special programming block dedicated to playing [genre] for a few hours. (College and high school stations were your best bet.)... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lord_wolf at 7:20 PM on July 21, 2009

there is about an hour and a half of her saying she wants me to be there but doesn't want to lead me on, etc.. She doesn't want to hurt me, doesn't want me to hate her, et al.

I'm female and haven't done anything like this since high school and even then I'd put out. The crazy thing about getting a little attention/lovin' is that it releases oxytocin into your brain which makes you feel

1. incredible and sort of... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jessamyn at 6:02 PM on July 21, 2009 marked best answer

Mark Bittman of the NYTimes just released a list of 101 simple salad recipes. If what you want is cooked food, try his 101 simple summer meals. One last compendium for more specific health-conscious recipes is the NYTimes Wellness section. I've been using all three and it's helped my diet greatly, with a caveat: individually, these recipes are not gonna fulfill your 100% daily value of everything, so you need to rotate dishes throughout the week.

(Now if only I could... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by chalbe at 8:27 PM on July 21, 2009

Oo! I thought of something else we've been eating a lot of recently, and it would be so great adjusted to cooking-for-one. Here's what you would do: make the entire recipe of tomato-based broth some weekend or evening, but don't add the fish, and then freeze in one-cup portions. Buy some white, firm fish (haddock, hake, etc.) and some good bread on the way home from work (or buy frozen fish from Trader Joe's and put in in the fridge the night before). When you get home from work, heat up the... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by palliser at 7:34 PM on July 21, 2009

But it seems to me at that point he would be yelling even more. So it makes me question the report a bit.
...
It begs the question, if a white man was breaking into his own house would there have been a call?

posted by Rashomon at 9:15 PM on July 20 [+] [!]

So you're saying the truth is hard to ascertain from all these conflicting narratives, which may have issued from biased or ignorant narrators?
posted to MetaFilter by rkent at 8:52 PM on July 20, 2009

I'm going to say that this had nothing to do with race and everything to do with class. I mean showing your Harvard identification card? Telling the cop he's going to regret this? Making a phone call and loudly asking for the chief of police?

The police report is incredibly bias, in so much as it makes the professor look crazy, absolutely crazy. I've been enough airports to know that when someone is frustrated it doesn't take much for some people to go... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by geoff. at 3:18 PM on July 20, 2009

Took me a while to figure this out. I guess Pearls Before Swine is a strip that runs in the paper? And often mocks Family Circus? They both seem profoundly unfunny, with Swine being somewhat more tolerable (although with 10x the text and thus easier to skip).

That said, this one is good.
posted to MetaFilter by DU at 7:15 AM on July 20, 2009

Zero RoI? Is that a dumb joke? According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, total traffic fatality numbers are at their lowest point since 1961, because during that time traffic fatality rates per 100 million passenger miles traveled have dropped by nearly 80%.

Traffic accidents continue to kill roughly a hundred people every day in the US, and reducing distracted driving would probably save many of those lives, but perhaps the Times could have... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by roystgnr at 11:06 AM on July 19, 2009

Being a human being, I sometimes say absurd or fragmentary or dunderheaded things; I ask questions I've asked before; I misphrase things so that they mean the opposite of what I expect them to mean. My wife, bless her, gives every impression of rooting for me, so that she gently fixes my errors: She answers the question she assumes I mean to ask, or she answer my question a second time without pointing out that it's the second time, or she asks clarifying questions, like: "Do you mean... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by argybarg at 11:12 AM on July 17, 2009

You people with your right and wrong drive me crazy. Sometimes you just gotta do shit.
posted to MetaTalk by ND¢ at 10:16 AM on July 16, 2009

One of of our forum members at Beatking. put together A Guide To Getting Classical. You can check it out HERE
posted to Ask MetaFilter by DudeAsInCool at 8:27 PM on July 5, 2008

Here's a nice list from wondeful New Yorker critic Alex Ross.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by neroli at 6:14 PM on June 16, 2008 marked best answer

10? Yeeesh. Check out the Basic 88.

If you like to read, Classical Music for Dummies by David Pogue (yes, the David Pogue) is a good intro. The awesome book is The Lives of the Great Composers.

I started learning about classical music 10 years ago, with Lives as my main guide. I took a chronological approach, which I think was a good choice.

Here... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by neuron at 5:22 PM on June 16, 2008 marked best answer

"From a subway train driving simulator."

LINJK PLS!@!

Does that say "link please"? Well, OK, it was the NXSYS Subway Simulator, which is even geekier than you might imagine. The actual subway driving is only incidental to the main purpose of the simulator, which is to define tracks, switches, and signals, and then program all the relay logic to simulate a complete interlocking.
posted to MetaFilter by FishBike at 9:59 AM on July 14, 2009

The intro sounds like the title screen of an unreleased NES Megaman title. Then when they get around to playing, they sound like one of those awful death metal bands where the singer basically puts the microphone in his mouth. If God were real, he would not feel honored by this. He would be offended and make all the band members get crabs.
posted to MetaFilter by Mayor Curley at 12:54 PM on July 13, 2009

And somebody buy that bass player some frets.

A non-musician friend who was hanging out at a rehearsal a few years ago asked me in all honesty whet the difference was between my two basses.

Before I could answer, the drummer very drily replied "This one shows him where to put his fingers, and that one, he plays out of tune."
posted to MetaFilter by Devils Rancher at 11:12 AM on June 26, 2009

I have to admit I'd have been ready to forgive pretty much everything if Palin had ended her resignation presser by throwing her hands in air and shouting "WASILLA HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!"
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 8:55 AM on July 7, 2009

Everyone does coke on the weekends.

In the words of Aurthur Miller:
"Look, we're all the same; a man is a fourteen-room house --in the bedroom he's asleep with his intelligent wife, in the living-room he's rolling around with some bareass girl, in the library he's paying his taxes, in the yard he's raising tomatoes, and in the cellar he's making a bomb to blow it all up."
posted to Ask MetaFilter by McGuillicuddy at 6:11 PM on July 5, 2009

Or just track her down and tell her yourself:

Hello? Is this Anita?
...
Yeah, I just want to give you a heads up: there's some creepy dude on the Internet who seems to be stalking you.
...
No, not me. Some other dude.
...
Fine, two creepy dudes.
Whatever, bye.

posted to MetaTalk by ryanrs at 1:04 AM on July 1, 2009

(I predict a viable third party candidate next time around.)

Maybe. 2012 is a long way away. I think it's more likely there'll be a VERY hotly contested primary between a Jesus Candidate and an Anti-Tax candidate. The one who wins will be barely tolerated by the loser's base and will lose the general election. That's when the infighting gets serious. 2016 has the "viable" third party candidate, either Jesus Party or We Hate Poor People... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DU at 6:11 PM on June 30, 2009

Most of the time, I see involved, hostile critiques of XKCD and think, "wow, these critics sure take this comic strip pretty seriously! Time to relax, people!"

Man, I tried to bite my tongue on this, but really, I don't think it's always hostile critiques on the merits of the comic alone or that they're taking the comic itself too seriously. I know it's hilarious that I'm about to go on a mini rant in response to someone saying something is... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by kkokkodalk at 2:58 PM on June 29, 2009

Any time a female gets involved in a male dominated area there are going to be uncomfortable situations.

You mean any time we want to do anything that's not raising the kids, doing the laundry, or reading Jane Austen, which is an approved activity for smart women? That's a cop out. By saying "shit happens" you're basically absolving yourself and anyone else of responsibility for their personal actions or lack thereof in the situations you describe.
posted to MetaFilter by Medieval Maven at 4:54 PM on June 26, 2009

One thing is clear – if a person rejects the policy of a tax on height, he must also reject, or significantly amend, the standard utilitarian approach to optimal taxation and income redistribution.

But that aside, I think the “smorgasboard” argument is a confused way of thinking about moral reasoning. A great many crucially important questions in normative ethics are easy. Is it okay to murder Greg Mankiw to steal the money in his pocket? No,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by delmoi at 10:52 AM on June 24, 2009

I like the keyboard cat videos where the show the cat briefly before tragedy arrives. It sort of changes the whole meaning behind the keyboard cat videos. Instead of just celebrating human tragedy it seems as though the keyboard cat anticipates it, like he's this omniscient trickster just looking on, aloof and smug, as people wander unwittingly towards misfortune. It's as though all of life that came prior to an accident was just an elaborate trap, bait meant to draw fools towards an accident... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by I Foody at 8:06 AM on June 22, 2009

I'll try to be as brief as possible, but I had an ALMOST-perfect car buying experience recently. I'll post what I did, and then throw in blurbs where I felt I could have improved. It's long, but I needed to type this up for a friend who's about to buy a car anyway. Take it all with a grain of salt.

DANGEROUS GROUND

My dad is a pretty smart fellow. One thing that he recently told me has stuck with me during my car buying experience.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by cebailey at 9:34 PM on April 25, 2006 marked best answer

"The biggest change you'll notice in your life is that, from now on, you'll be mostly known as X's father rather than Y. No neighbor, teacher or parent will ever know your real name."

GENERAL #1: "The missiles have been launched. They're heading our way."
GENERAL #2 (picking up red telephone): "Get me Sasha and Malia's father!"
posted to MetaFilter by Fuzzy Monster at 10:02 AM on May 16, 2009

My phosphate brings the gents to the square, verily, tis finer than theirs. Verily! Tis better than theirs. I could instruct you, but I'd have to levy a fee.
posted to MetaTalk by The Whelk at 9:09 AM on May 15, 2009

Note to all:
I am a Black Person® and have over 30+ years experience in being one, encompassing a wide knowledge of class types, ages, cultures and stereotypes. Should you wish to discuss black issues, interact with a real black person, get a black perspective* or simply be able to say "I spoke with a black person" without any internal guilt, please see attached for rates**

*Born and raised middle class heterosexual, prefers rap from the '80s... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Brandon Blatcher at 8:17 AM on May 14, 2009

What a depressing thread. OMG, notjustfoxybrown didn't phrase her callout in the exact perfect way so that everyone would understand exactly what she meant and not feel defensive and derail the discussion! Completely unlike all other MetaTalk callouts, which are uniformly polite and thoughtful and expressed in objective, unemotional terms!

The poster had good reason to be pissed. She expressed herself effectively, and anyone who thinks she literally doesn't want white... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by languagehat at 12:58 PM on May 12, 2009

I'm not saying nobody will ever beat it, but this is probably the worst story-telling mechanism I've ever seen in the wild.

I can top that. Carved into marble blocks, one word at a time. You choice of: a) shipped to you COD, or; b) lobbed at your house with a trebuchet.
posted to MetaFilter by Meatbomb at 10:02 AM on May 11, 2009

Wow, these are great. Added to daily does of photo hilarity; now I have 5.

1 - I can has? (and related, including Goggies, Failblog, etc.)
2 - Cakewrecks
3 - WTF Pictures
4 - This is Photobomb
5 - OP link. BEAUTY.

(Thank you, and you're welcome.)
posted to MetaFilter by ZakDaddy at 10:52 AM on May 8, 2009

This is a total misrepresentation of libertarianism. As the crank who runs the used bookstore explained it to me, it would be like Somalia without the bad stuff.
posted to MetaFilter by Astro Zombie at 11:12 PM on May 7, 2009

now that I've gotten that stupid snarking out of the way:

bru: Twitter is becoming my first surface signal toward content on the Web

Can you explain this to me? Twitter is the great divider, in that it seems to instantly divide the world into 'people who get it' and 'people who loathe it'. I am one of the latter, but I suspect this is because I just really don't... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by koeselitz at 2:37 AM on May 7, 2009

I thought MeFi was the best of the web, not that stuff that digg and reddit posted a while ago.
posted by SouthCNorthNY at 8:59 AM on May 6

SouthCNorthNY's profile
MeFi: 0 posts

*plays keyboard cat*
posted to MetaFilter by Optimus Chyme at 9:07 AM on May 6, 2009

- you stare at the thread, trying to balance the gimmicky pointlessness of the post against the joyful lightheartedness and community-defining exegetic self-analysis coursing through the resulting thread, finding yourself hewing first toward closure, then away from it, paralyzed for long minutes by the antlers-locked beasts of implication vying figuratively for adjudicative dominance. Ultimately, you realize you are, like many of those who have commented already but in a far more direct and... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 2:57 PM on May 4, 2009

..u no ur additcted 2 Yahoo Answers When?????? .....10 POINTS BEST ANSWERRRR!!!!!!!!!
posted to MetaTalk by Metroid Baby at 2:52 PM on May 4, 2009

People will respectfully offer differing opinions in threads and that's okay whether it's about Christianity, pet care or therapy. I think the biggest thing is to be cognizant of the fact that the OP said they don't want advice in that direction and you're suggesting it anyhow, so what are you trying to accomplish. If you think there's a super book on how to deal with things like that (the OP is asking for things to read so "go to church" is actually off topic) that happens to have a Christian... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 10:09 AM on May 4, 2009

>At least it's not hockey. What a stupid sport.
>(Although these are my true feelings, to say this publicly in Canada is close to something like sacrilege, and I'm not exaggerating.)

I spent a decade or two of my post-pubescent life, times when I was actually in Canada at least part-time and it seemed to matter, telling people how much I fucking didn't care about hockey, because, you know, that's what a certain kind of guy does. But... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:51 AM on May 2, 2009

You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, mathematically, by definition, half of them are even dumber than that.

I love this quote because it immediately tells me which "half" the speaker is in.
posted to MetaFilter by DU at 5:46 AM on May 1, 2009

In next month's Wag's Revue:

Pirates vs Ninjas: Splendiferous or Magnificent?

Linux is for Dorks

Why I Spent $9.50 on a Notebook

Epistemology and Other Words with which I Have a Nodding Familiarity
posted to MetaFilter by Mister_A at 1:14 PM on April 30, 2009