MetaFilter

Still alive!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by MrMoonPie at 6:27 AM on May 30, 2014

I just wanted to throw my 2¢ here to say that I will miss Jessamyn as a mod. The second meetup I attended was primarily because Jessamyn was in attendance; I was somewhat of a noob at the time, and still taking in all that was meFi. As a BBS user (and erstwhile co-sysop) in the 80's, I found it mind-boggling that someone could cosys a BBS as large in scope and userbase as MeFi. And it was primarily because of the great moderation combined with the self-policing community that I've stayed on... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by not_on_display at 1:39 PM on May 19, 2014

Reminds me of my old "Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief" vinyl, which had a "three-sided" LP -- one of the sides would play a completely different set of tracks depending on where you set the needle down.
posted to MetaFilter by Celsius1414 at 10:31 PM on May 6, 2014

So if you're careful about timing, you can now control the volume of your output. And you can control the volume of each of the two voices independently.

If you're really careful, you can do interesting things with pulse width modulation of a supersonic carrier to get the equivalent of a multi-bit DAC.

I once wrote a working DTMF phone dialling tone generator for Apple II speaker, to help us manage long... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by flabdablet at 12:35 PM on May 6, 2014

Unicode character recognition is occasionally useful.
posted to MetaFilter by zamboni at 8:48 AM on April 25, 2014

If it is like the old postcards I have from relatives at that time it probably says "Having a fine time. We are well. Hope you are well. These people sure eat a lot of fish."
posted to MetaFilter by interplanetjanet at 8:09 AM on April 9, 2014

My grandmother's been feeding lemons to the babies in our family forever. The Lemon Test is a bit of family lore, but no one's really sure what it means or what the reaction says about the baby's personality or temperament. With a new great-grandbaby recently, the subject came up and we asked her about it. What's the point? "No point," she said. "I just think it's funny."

Bubbie's been straight trolling babies for decades.
posted to MetaFilter by yellowbinder at 7:54 AM on April 7, 2014

I couldn't finish. It was too depressingly accurate.
posted to MetaFilter by Scattercat at 10:52 PM on April 1, 2014

Our 25-month-old just unlocked the prestigious One Pinto Bean in Each Nostril achievement a week or so ago. She was the proudest I've even seen her.
posted to MetaFilter by kirkaracha at 3:12 PM on March 26, 2014

Do any of them begin Dut DWEEEE Dut Dut Dut Dwee Dow?
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 8:14 PM on March 26, 2014

I thought Don LaFontaine was the only one.

No, there are a couple of voice over guys.
posted to MetaFilter by MartinWisse at 12:25 PM on March 13, 2014

Egads, I would have thought Bea Arthur would have had better judgement.

Star Wars Christmas Special.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 10:56 PM on February 24, 2014

I'd go with something like an Arduino plus a Wave Shield. You'd end up paying a total of around $50 for all the kit, but it'll get you good-quality sound, ample storage (i.e. hours of audio if you need it), reliable controls, and the whole thing will be reusable for other projects. The learning curve depends a lot on whether you've ever done any (fairly basic) programming before. The online resources to help you get it working are plentiful.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by pipeski at 2:11 PM on February 20, 2014 marked best answer

WF usually has a basket of cheese ends. Great way to try new stuff, grab a hunk and a baguette. The Smjor is astounding. If they have beans and rice on the hot bar, it's sometimes much cheaper. Ask for salt for anything from the prepared foods. Be nice to the employees, they take a lot of abuse.

I know, since Mrs. Underflow was a department buyer there for three years. When she started, employees were encouraged to try a product a week for free. There was a 25... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by underflow at 7:01 PM on February 19, 2014

Nope. I call marketing stunt.

Spend some time googling penis hoax. I am not saying I disagree with you, just that you'll have a lively time googling.
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn at 4:42 PM on February 17, 2014

My Cousin found a 3 foot rattlesnake in his yard. Instead of taking a shovel to it as per protocol, he pinned it with a stick and grabbed it just behind its head. He did this because he wanted to prank a friend. Holding the snake the whole time, he drove his manual transmission truck to the other side of the mountain. This was a good two hour trip, and the snake was trying to escape the whole time.

Upon arrival at his friend's house, he went over to an empty trash... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The Power Nap at 6:19 PM on February 15, 2014

Hi. I'm your wife.

One day, maybe six months from now-- after you've thoroughly cheated on me with this woman, you slip up. It doesn't matter how I found out, but I found out.

As I happen across the proof of your tryst, I am filled with dread. It hits me like a sucker punch in the gut... I can't help but look -- and unable to pull away, I start to pore over all the details of your affair, even though each thing I uncover feels like daggers.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Dimes at 10:59 AM on February 10, 2014

How many of people around you are infact, secret Swiss spies?

True story! When I was a kid I was subjected to summer French tutoring at the largeante-bellum mansion of a kookie old Swiss lady, Madame Feldman. In the beginning I was horrified, I was 8 or 9 and would rather have been doing something involving mud and my parents basically handed me off to this woman as her valet and footman several days a week in exchange for some supposed French... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:32 AM on May 11, 2012

OK, so that's more color than should be there. It's really all green, right?

Second, these units had 52 column screens (and Zenith monitors). Your monitor is probably OK. It has raster and hi voltage, but it looks as if the unit has character gen/video issues. the major failure mode of the monitor was a 2sd313 power transistor cold solder joint and that I think was a vertical amplifier, so yours is OK.

There was an upgrade kit from 52 to... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by FauxScot at 4:43 PM on January 21, 2014 marked best answer

Being born in 1959 and being raised as a sixties child in Cleethorpes, this was often mentioned by my family and friends, and I spent many hours playing on the sea defence walls that had been built as a result of the flood.

One of the things that's always interested me is that the physical legacy of the 1953 Flood for London was immense, but it had barely any cultural impact. I suspect this is because London got incredibly lucky - the East End and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by garius at 4:46 AM on February 1, 2013

My 7 yo has a similar temperament to yours. Have you played Scribblenauts? My two children love it, and spelling is essential to the game. We also recently got bananagrams. Scrabble Jr. is boring, don't bother with it.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Cuke at 5:35 AM on January 6, 2014

I have more stories about exploding corpses. Lots more.
posted to MetaTalk by ColdChef at 7:54 PM on January 5, 2014

OK, so.

Another 65816 extensions to the 6502 instruction set was PEA (push effective address). Like so much of the '816, this one promised more than it delivered: the 6502's address generation logic was really very flexible, and a true Push Effective Address instruction that allowed for all the address modes available to, say, Load Accumulator would have been tremendously useful. Unfortunately there really wasn't room for one in the opcode map, and all PEA actually did... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by flabdablet at 11:40 PM on January 5, 2014

I have a relative that has never been able to speak. When we were kids she had a "word board." It said things like "Mom" "Dad" "Hungry" "Sad" "Angry." Then she got this speak & spell type thing that had a couple hundred words. Then she got an assistive device that allowed her to do sentences, but she was always upset that it only had a "boy voice" and that it sounded like the talking moose. It wasn't until the 90s when she... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cjorgensen at 3:52 PM on December 12, 2013

Missing: salmiak, an almond roca recipe that looks good, unknown unknowns. This is an evening's worth of recipe hunting and I figured it would be more fun to share an incomplete list than leave y'all wanting. Because YUM.
posted to MetaFilter by aniola at 1:50 AM on December 13, 2013

I wonder about exploitation and the nature of storytelling in these regards sometimes, largely as I've been writing about the stretch in which I became the primary caretaker for my poet mentor as he was undergoing treatment for advanced stage lung cancer.

The trouble with my friend is that he was catalyst for delight, exasperation, anger, and humor at his best, and this proved to be true at his worst, too, as the combinations of drugs brought on dementia in a guy who was... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by sonascope at 9:58 AM on December 8, 2013

I once wrote a computer game on the C64 that used the Life rules. The idea was to nudge the system into meeting certain requirements (total population, specific spaces having counters, killing everything off, etc) by dropping in or removing new counters in real time. It tried to help the player by using the "extended background color" mode of the hardware to give the player a hint as to which spaces to place counters, but I think ultimately the game was kind of a failure, even though... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 12:31 PM on November 5, 2013

Today I am Mary Poppins.

Happy Halloween!
posted to MetaTalk by kimberussell at 10:41 AM on October 31, 2013

I think it is still at the Goat too but will check it out to be sure and take a picture. Probably next Wednesday.

For those unfamiliar , here's the Metatalk thread about the picture itself. (I, for one, am so feebled by technology that I typed 'cortex last supper' in Google Image search expecting it to just return it.) And yes, this picture, whether it is hanging at the Goat or not, is pretty much Metafilter for me in that it fills me with great, great joy.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by MCMikeNamara at 7:41 AM on October 30, 2013

Actually much preferred the poor adorable baby octopii. I felt too guilty about them to ever eat them again.

I used to frequent a crappy izakaya in Tokyo where the cab drivers used to hang out all evening to drink and eat, that's how I knew it was cheap and decent food. They used to send over strange foods and to see if the weird gaijin would eat it. I would always eat it. And then they would talk about me eating it, and they didn't know I could... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by charlie don't surf at 11:19 PM on August 21, 2013

What happened to the daughter is terrible, but a little more information is needed before the teacher is roundly castigated.

No one has "castigated" the teacher. Not here, not in the open letter.

Actionable, constructive suggestions pointing towards solutions have been given. Constructive criticism is necessary in order to clarify the far-reaching negative consequences of facile ignorance of harassment. (And yes! Just... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by fraula at 2:36 AM on September 10, 2013

I'd love to hear ColdChef weigh in on that funeral director post.

Sounds like he works for a greedy corporation and doesn't care much for the work he does. Comparing corporate funeral homes to family funeral homes (like mine) is like comparing Chili's to your local steak house. I feel sorry for the poster. My job brings me a lot of joy. It's a sacred honor to help families through their worst days and I take the responsibility seriously.
posted to MetaFilter by ColdChef at 7:35 AM on August 19, 2013

You know, by the time Gauss was 0.7, he only pooped on prime-numbered days.
posted to MetaFilter by Nomyte at 8:27 PM on August 11, 2013

I am going to give you the best gift ever. I have a super-easy way to set a zipper, it's fool-proof (and I'm the fool that proved it.)

Sew your back seam (or side seam) all the way up. Then on the inside of your garment, pin the zipper in. It will be all sewed up.

Then, without changing to a zipper foot, just use the regular seam foot to stitch the sides and bottom of the zipper. (If you want to use a zipper foot, you can, but that seems... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Ruthless Bunny at 1:22 PM on July 24, 2013

Count me as another American who can't ever picture using these on strangers. Of course, they are always appropriate for friends who need to buy the next round anyway.

I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10.

Seven.

Right, now go get another pitcher.
posted to MetaFilter by anotherbrick at 3:13 AM on November 3, 2007

Mr dbmcd has kept bees on a 'hobby' level for about 7 years. I've got a lot to say about this, but briefly:
- misskaz is right about smoke and bees; we use a spray of sugar water. The bees are all "wow! food from the sky, right on me! Gotta clean up and store this stuff" We think they are less 'panicked' (but that's probably anthropomorphizing)
- we mostly keep bees because: bees! and pollination. Any honey we get is kept until we're sure they don't need it... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dbmcd at 11:59 AM on July 8, 2013

This was pretty much the definition of early threadshitting as the first comment in the breastfeeding post:

"Wow, way to SCARE THE STRAIGHTS, there. My monocle? Popped! I mean she all but said "DON'T MY TITTIES SHOCK YOU? AREN'T I AN ICONOCLAST?" Look. I get that kids have to eat. But you're doing it to make a point. The same kind of dumb point I would make by wearing a Slayer shirt to some church."

As usual, nobody says that... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by taz at 4:16 AM on July 7, 2013

Why is it called HowlsOfOutrage?

A legit question. I, at possible threat to a few users' equanimity, will answer honestly. Unlike many goofy names I figuratively pull out of my butt, the reason for this name has layers: less than an onion, but more than two. It actually took me longer than the usual ten seconds to come up with the name, though not so much as ten minutes.

Prior to the original script's release, a utility of this... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mdevore at 7:22 PM on July 1, 2013

There's a very useful cartoon: The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield

I think it is also something where the internet is partially to blame for giving some sort of validation to what were previously isolated kooks, and for making it easy to disseminate bad information. If you wanted to know more about vaccines twenty years ago you had to go to a library and look at actual research; now, it's not very difficult to register, say, greatmothersquestioningvaccines.com.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by kmennie at 7:56 AM on June 20, 2013

It's actually pronounced "throat-warbler mangrove"
posted to MetaFilter by briank at 12:06 PM on May 30, 2013

Probably this Olduwan-period hand axe I use to crush herbs and the skulls of my foes
posted to MetaFilter by theodolite at 6:32 AM on May 24, 2013

So Google will never find your Teen Wolf slash art blog.

Thus elizardbits is performing an humanitarian service.
posted to MetaFilter by shakespeherian at 1:23 PM on May 23, 2013

Can a slashfiction tumblr about my addictions be far behind?

man why do you even says thing like that around me
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:57 PM on May 19, 2013

My 13-year-old son and I are watching every Star Trek right now and it is a fantastic experience. In fact it has repaired out relationship.

My son has been acting up in school and at home since he was 8 or 9. A nice kid but too smart for his own good, too easily frustrated, too easily distracted. And is it helpful that he loves attention and is great at making people laugh? No it is not. The last five years have been tough, with regular phone calls and notes home from... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by LarryC at 7:02 PM on May 15, 2013

Morse code is fun, I agree with Wretch729. However, using a Morse code tree like this makes things way, way easier.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by zoetrope at 7:36 AM on April 22, 2013

So, why *are* they all engineering graduates? Theories anyone?

Technicians, most notably machinists, create things from scratch but live in a world of accuracy and precision. Machinists make jokes about the difference between 0.01", 0.001" and 0.0005" and other machinists laugh at them. Scientists also live an die by measurement and usually get that 4.72, 4.517 and 5.02 might all be the same number depending on the system they're... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kid Charlemagne at 8:11 AM on April 30, 2013

I am a grown-ass man who works in film and television, and who moves about sets without even thinking twice. There is no magic left for me in any of this, in most cases. Generally I'm the guy right off camera, watching it all go down and maybe occasionally pinching myself, but most days waiting for lunch or end of day.

But I have endless, endless time to look at behind the scenes stuff from Star Wars. I'm not even a fanboy, it's weird. I just can't get enough. I'm... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by nevercalm at 7:10 PM on April 28, 2013

Lead developer for WordPress (the web app) here. The WordPress web app won't touch your full resolution files. Those will pass through. The intermediate JPEG sizes it generates (based on Settings — Media, plus any other sizes your theme or plugins may have added) are, by default, done at a quality factor of 90 (this is on a scale of 1-100). There is a filter where you can override this with a simple plugin (hook in and just return 100): 'wp_editor_set_quality'. As of WordPress 3.5, we also use... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by markjaquith at 2:21 PM on April 16, 2013

A good example of how our brains fill in a Bleep is this classic censored Count SLYT.

The whole ratings system is screwed up with such a low bar for sexuality and a relatively high bar for violence to get a PG-13 rating.
posted to MetaFilter by Mitheral at 9:45 PM on March 24, 2013

I'd love for an Etsy member to parody this video while making Finn's hat.
posted to MetaFilter by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 7:04 PM on February 25, 2013