The idea of infiltrating Anonymous is amusing, but naive. Infiltration of Anonymous is as effective as infiltrating the set of people who are fond of the color "eggplant": you do not know who they are by looking at them, befriending them gains you little additional information, and controlling them is impossible. There's no cell network to break, just an uncoordinated mass that occasionally twitches in one wrathful direction or another for the lulz.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by adipocere at 11:51 AM on September 17, 2008

Sigh.

Here's how you hack a VIP's email. Upon successfully accessing someone's email account:

1. Do absolutely nothing. Now that you have the password, disconnect.

2. Go to a public access point with your laptop, like an open wifi or a library. Install Thunderbird or some similar program. Login to the email account again. Remember that the clock is ticking, and that everything you are doing is logged. Don't click... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Pastabagel at 11:57 AM on September 17, 2008

Butterflies. Insanely complicated but very friendly butterflies who had secrets from my childhood to give back to me.

They want to ban the butterflies?!?

But I've only met them once! They didn't do anything wrong! *I* didn't do anything wrong! I just...I just breathed in, had a moment, and went back to cleaning the house.

Poor butterflies.
posted to MetaFilter by batmonkey at 3:32 PM on March 11, 2008

It's like saying drinking gin in moderation is ok. yeah it is,but you shouldn't encourage it.

Woman #1: (pours gin from giant jug into dixie cups)

Woman #2: "Wow, you don't care what the kids eat, huh?"

Woman #1: "NOPE"

Kids: "Oh choice they are giving us more gin again"

VO: "Gin."
posted to MetaFilter by Greg Nog at 12:52 PM on September 9, 2008

The roll call was great, well-executed political theater. The disputed Florida and Michigan delegations were given crucial opportunities to cast their full votes, New Mexico honored the Illinois delegation by yielding the floor to them that allowed them to symbolically yield to New York in turn, and Sen. Clinton made the motion herself to nominate Obama by acclamation as expected. I'm certain that for more than a few supporters of Sen. Clinton, the way the ending was choreographed made the whole... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DaShiv at 6:06 PM on August 27, 2008

I have no proof that ANY of you all are real.



Yes you do

Well, actually that particular comment was a bit facetious....sorry.
posted to MetaTalk by konolia at 10:15 PM on March 11, 2008

Some people read McCarthy and Murakami and Roth and Eggers and Rushdie and yes D. F. Wallace and the ever-hated S. King and Calvino and Eco and Updike and sometimes even People magazine and Ecclesiastes all in the same day and also manage not to get in sissy slap-fights on the internet about whether or not the 973rd most widely-read writer in the U.S. is more or less twee or noteworthy or hipster than the 976th most widely-read writer in the U.S., then drawing some ridiculous conclusions about... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Optimus Chyme at 2:34 PM on August 6, 2008

unique ideas

The core of WotW is right out of the Invasion Literature genre which was popular in the period between the Franco-Prussian and WWI. I thought WotW reads like an imitation of the 1871 Battle of Dorking, except instead of Martians it's Germans. And Dorking is more enjoyable and more influential, but few read it anymore.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 8:44 PM on August 9, 2008

Come to think of it, the only President I'd probably enjoy drinking with would be Ulysses S. Grant. That dude knew how to party.

What about Andrew Jackson?

Jackson was the first President to invite the public to attend the White House ball honoring his first inauguration. Many poor people came to the inaugural ball in their homemade clothes. The crowd became so large that Jackson's guards could not hold... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Comrade_robot at 6:42 PM on July 29, 2008

i worked as a PSO several years ago. there's plenty of decent info on the internets, dearie. join a few boards, (especially PSOChatandSupport), and read the archives. the links for resources and reputable companies are out there--phoneslutdiary.com has a few places listed that, from my experience years ago, are worthwhile to check out--if they still are operating. (she--Doxy Wringer-- quit the biz some time ago, but was really the smartest and most honest PSO i ever ran into, and worth reading... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by RedEmma at 3:19 PM on June 11, 2008 marked best answer

And the next time you trespass into my bedroom, I will spit my disease into your eyes.


I'm using that next time I have to break up with someone.
posted to MetaFilter by vrakatar at 1:28 PM on July 8, 2008

Pink noise is where it's at, man
posted to MetaFilter by yort at 12:29 PM on July 5, 2008

I wonder how the booze biz is doing? I'll bet they're doing well too.

Well, funny you should ask:

"Bourbon producers see amber-colored future"

"... Distillers are expanding their bourbon production and storage and dispatching sales teams around the world, bullish for a traditionally Southern beverage gaining popularity worldwide. Surging exports, the weak U.S. dollar and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by aldus_manutius at 9:43 AM on July 3, 2008

Here's a true story about how awesome Pixar is.

As some of you know, when the trailer first came out, my girlfriend, Courtney, burst into tears at the trailer. She was emabrrassed but somewhat amused by this, as so she made a video of herself watching the trailer on her computer, knowing she would start crying every time that little robot said his own name.

After a few months, she started to get trickles of emails from people at Pixar who said... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Astro Zombie at 12:18 PM on July 1, 2008

Certainly Justine Joli is beautiful, but for a real blow-your-mind experience, listen to Sir Richard Burton read all of Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood here:


http://www.undermilkwood.net/prose_umw1.html

Put on a set of headphones, close your eyes, and have a real mind movie.

...To begin at the beginning:
It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tw33z at 7:11 PM on June 27, 2008

This seems like a good moment to say WHAT THE FUCK CNN.COM ASPECT RATIO.

For like three years you have continued to shovel out 4:3 video in a 16:9 box FOR NO GOD DAMN REASON.

What, does your market research find that most of your clientele LIVE IN SPORTS BARS and would find correctly-displayed unstretched video to be disturbing images of a parallel universe populated by WAIFS? Are you trying to make Americans wake up to the national obesity... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:43 AM on May 1, 2008

The Most Photographed Barn in America.
posted to MetaFilter by plexi at 12:02 PM on June 13, 2008

I love this idea. I too wondered why they never made lightweight foam (or Nerf) cars and took an elaborate (but inexpensive) bumper-car concept and applied it to daily travel.

There's no logical reason to continue to use extremely thin, expensive, painted sheet metal as the skin or shells for cars. Frankly, you drivers and car owners really need to get over having shiny, curvy cars where the styling is the main selling point. It's a sick, destructive fetish at this point,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious at 5:20 PM on June 5, 2008

Apparently when I was one year old I knew the alphabet. So, my grandmother (I was told later) would go around to her grandmother friends and say "My grandson knows the alphabet" and the other grandmothers would say "Well my grandson or daughter knows the alphabet too" which apparently would piss my grandmother off and she would say "No, your grandson or daughter probably just knows the song. My grandson actually knows the alphabet." Then the other grandmother would... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ND¢ at 8:40 AM on June 5, 2008

This looks like it might be the manual. Let's all visit it and give the US a scare!
posted to MetaFilter by Citizen Premier at 2:32 PM on May 26, 2008

I have a solution. An adorable solution.
posted to MetaFilter by Countess Elena at 6:22 AM on May 17, 2008

He's an idiot, but that doesn't mean he's a pedophile.

As someone who just took a ride in an elevator without remembering to choose a floor, I am very relieved to hear this.
posted to MetaTalk by mullacc at 4:51 PM on May 15, 2008

I'm kinda cheating OS, because rhubarb is one of the few things I won't eat if I can help it. And I eat snails, squid, eels, durian and snake (not at the same time of course). But TasteSpotting, which I discovered via AskMe, has a decent list of ideas, several of which I'd be game to try if offered an invitation.
posted to Ask Metafilter by dawson at 9:35 PM on May 16, 2008

Also...whoa, dude.
posted to MetaFilter by Dasein at 8:37 PM on May 11, 2008

Yeah, well I return to apologize to semmi for blowing my cool at his/her comment; I have a quick temper on this issue in particular because of my line of work (thank gawd we aren't discussing country music, or things might get really intense).

After a lifetime in music, I no longer believe musical value can be discerned from sound alone; the question for me is what music does for people, and in that respect, I start from the a priori position that all musics are equal... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by fourcheesemac at 3:45 AM on April 22, 2008

Disclaimers:
Although I am a former manager at one of the nation's formerly largest toxicology (specifically drug-testing) laboratories, I am not your former manager of a toxicology laboratory, and this is not drug-testing advice. Heh.

First, ignore anything a headshop tells you. They are like astrologers, gleaning information from barely perceived or anecdotal evidence. Ignore everything almost everyone tells you, unless they work in the industry.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by nedpwolf at 3:39 PM on May 5, 2008 marked best answer

Every time I see "rectal thermometer" I remember the first time I ever put one in my baby's butt. He hadn't pooped for two days, the nurse said putting a thermometer in might help him work his sphincter.

Hoo boy. That thing shot a full foot out of his ass when the explosion came, and I was holding on to it at the time. The shit actually cleared the diaper we'd put underneath him to catch it. It was the only thing he... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by middleclasstool at 2:58 PM on May 14, 2008

I love drug laws.

No, really. They're so brilliantly designed. Given the enormous percentage of the populace who either uses or has used The Illegals, they leave a large segment of the population feeling guilty, another chunk feeling guilty for not turning them in, and then a bunch of people suspicious of the rest.

Because these are laws regarding physical substances, all kinds of lovely search abilities are enabled to carry out enforcement of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by adipocere at 11:37 AM on May 11, 2008

Do these people just sit there, scouring the web for "evolution" keywords to put their propaganda into?

Apparently.

The forums to which anti-evolutionists post can be seen as a sort of ecosystem, in which the spurious arguments they post live. In some forums, arguments find more receptive readers, or are couched in a way that makes it more difficult to see the error, and those arguments are reinforced and prosper. In... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by aeschenkarnos at 11:26 PM on May 8, 2008

Never mind the 1950s. What about the 1850s!
posted to MetaFilter by binturong at 10:13 PM on May 8, 2008

Next Month: "A spokesperson for the military junta of Burma, also known as Myanmar, expressed his astonishment at the high number of Buddhist monks and pro-democracy activists amongst the casualties of last month's cyclone. Ye Htut expressed a near-supernatural belief that the storm, which claimed over 200 000 lives, was specifically targeting opponents of the country's military dictators, 'Using its formidable winds to propel small, lead-based projectiles into the back of their heads with... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Alvy Ampersand at 12:08 AM on May 10, 2008

ctmf: point taken, but the more awareness, the better.

I've been called a Pollyanna before, but I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck.

I can barely afford the airfare for my son to come visit me this summer, let alone give scads of money to Burma, but I have to do something, and something I will do. Your cynicism just puts a little more fuel on my fire, so thank you, man.

The pen is mightier than the sword, man, and awareness and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Marie Mon Dieu at 2:24 PM on May 10, 2008

Historically, the ratio of how much alcohol a man has drank is often directly related to how unlikely it is that he's getting into my pants.

Coincidentally, the less a woman knows about ratios and the past tense, the greater her chance of getting into my pants.
posted to MetaFilter by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:56 PM on May 9, 2008

Same pictures as Kronos_to_Earth's, but with discussion of the processes at work. More here.
posted to MetaFilter by Pastabagel at 7:54 AM on May 8, 2008

The feeling steam punk arises in me is not one of revulsion or annoyance. It's a very distinct feeling that the English language does not have a good expression for. In Dutch it's called plaatsvervangende schaamte which literally means "place exchanging shame". Shame felt on behalf of someone else, shame you feel someone else should feel. I'm embarrassed for them.
posted to MetaFilter by phrontist at 8:00 AM on May 8, 2008

So he took someone else's photos and essentially hid them for 60 years, so that they could have no effect on the aftermath of the second world war, the cold war, or US nuclear weapons policy? What an asshole.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:17 PM on May 5

"We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation."
- undisclosed CIA/Special Forces operative, Afghanistan,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Pastabagel at 12:50 PM on May 5, 2008

'round here the Irish run the plastering

Yeah, my mother's side of the family is all Irish, and they're pretty much the go-to group if you need to get plastered.
posted to MetaFilter by Parasite Unseen at 1:44 PM on May 5, 2008

I'm currently working on a video about the neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati. In one of our interviews, a woman who coordinates homeless shelters with relief agencies, told this story (this is verbatim from our transcript) about the working homeless:

***

As I mentioned, 60% of homeless people work, and the vast majority of them work at something called day labor or temporary labor industry. And the way day labor works - the best way... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by billysumday at 8:42 AM on March 23, 2008

I've been outside. It's overrrated.

Traditionally Outside receives extremely high ratings by those who like to see others play it, and these people are in many cases comfortably ensconced Inside themselves. Outside was released many years ago, it was in fact the first massively multiplayer game, and yet it has always managed to avoid the double-edged Retro tag. In its favor, continual user updates have kept Outside current; there are always new things... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by aeschenkarnos at 4:19 PM on March 30, 2008

In the sub-basement of what was once an industrial park, the server continued asking questions to the void. The network was long-gone--the ethernet cables vaporized right where they emerged to the surface--but this didn't stop the server. It had a queue.

The third wave of bombings had collapsed the ceiling, destroying almost all the other racks in the room, but the server remained. It was closest to the large metal cage that held the enormous emergency power supply. It... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ian A.T. at 5:20 AM on March 17, 2008

Give him some time to chill, and then I believe there's a gun that needs some prying.
posted to MetaFilter by Schlimmbesserung at 9:54 PM on April 5, 2008

Poseable Thumbs. (Possibly NSFW - I really have no idea of standard workplace policies on looking at pictures of leather queen Action Man dolls engaging in BDSM orgies.)
posted to MetaFilter by jack_mo at 7:37 AM on April 2, 2008

When I was in 6th grade, as punishment for misdeeds, my homeroom/math teacher would assign people Fermi problems (how many nickels would it take to make a stack that reached the moon? How many basketballs to fill the Superdome?) as detention, and you could leave as soon as you got it (or your method was correct). However, one day he was on a vocab kick, and the kid being punished had to spell Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis from memory, in front of the class, and couldn't leave... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by krippledkonscious at 6:12 PM on March 28, 2008

I've fixed your kid for you davejay. I think it turned out great.

Send the restraining order to the usual address
posted to MetaFilter by meech at 8:36 PM on July 31, 2007

Too many damn guns in the United States.

Back in the mid / late 80's, I owned and operated two art galleries in New York, both in The East Village, first Skull Space, Essex Street for six months, and Anti Gallery, fifth street off Ave B for perhaps a year (yeh I know what you're thinking: I hadn't yet attended Business School, and the art biz is a tough biz).

The operating model was very simple: group shows (almost exclusively), which stay up... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mutant at 8:55 AM on March 24, 2008

“President Bush has rarely been disturbed while asleep”

While awake tho, he’s more obviously disturbed.

Meh. It’s just an ad, man. Beans, plate, all that. The specific answering a 3 a.m. call - and correct me if I’m way off here - would appear to be a metaphor for the broader concept that (valid or not) Clinton has more experience in executive decision making.
As opposed to her, say, having an amphetamine abuse problem or the fact... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman at 5:25 PM on March 17, 2008

Jimbob, you're right. The tech is too old; it's not under patent. Fujifilm has their own lines of instant film. The "professional" peel-apart Fuji film works fine in old Polaroid packfilm cameras. I shoot with an old Polaroid 100 camera and I must say that Fuji's film blows away Polaroid's in almost every respect. I'm hoping Fuji keeps making it. Fuji's consumer Instax line is not compatible with the square-format SX-70 and 600 lines that most people think of when they think Polaroid... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by zsazsa at 12:07 AM on March 13, 2008

The really funny part of this is that it wasn't just any ol' Hillary '08 ad, it was the infamous "3am and the phone is ringing" ad.
posted to MetaFilter by NoMich at 9:42 AM on March 10, 2008

Separated at birth?
posted to MetaFilter by gimonca at 12:25 PM on March 8, 2008

He's no Uncle Dirty (nsfw), that's for sure.
posted to MetaFilter by mr_crash_davis at 10:54 AM on March 7, 2008