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A few questions related to Trance Music.
posted to Ask Metafilter by wildrain2008
at 7:03 PM on June 7, 2008
(6 comments)
On Having A Black Name
"I am a white woman, a blond, blue-eyed white woman, and I have a first name strongly associated with black women. My mother, a southerner by birth, never stopped telling me she made the name up. The fact that she truly could not remember ever hearing the name before, is a testament to the strength of southern segregation. It is likely she heard it once or twice, and simply forgot it until later. And so, even at 50 years old, I have a name that makes people do a double-take. "You're _____?" is something I have heard all my life. "Yes, that would be me," is what I say, as they look confused. I have upset the social order. Names, I have learned, are a big, big part of it."
posted to MetaFilter by nooneyouknow
at 9:06 AM on April 24, 2008
(260 comments)
What is the iconic (or just "your favorite") dead-tree product catalog (listing of merchandise for mail-order sale) for your hobby, industry, or trade?
posted to Ask Metafilter by cadastral
at 9:23 AM on April 1, 2008
(73 comments)
What sweet, silly gift can I give to a sweet, silly boy? This question isn’t as cliché as one might think.
posted to Ask Metafilter by fiasco
at 11:06 AM on December 25, 2007
(46 comments)
Map Paintings
by
Paula Scher: “These are absolutely, one hundred percent inaccurate,” Paula Scher declares of her colossal map paintings. Then, after a pause: “But not on purpose.” Another pause: they’re actually “sort of right.” [
via]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva
at 4:58 PM on November 12, 2007
(10 comments)
Is there anything good about men?
In
this address to the American Psychological Association, psychologist Roy Baumeister suggests that women have historically had a much greater chance of reproducing than men, and that this has had a profound influence on the way their respective roles in society have evolved:
For women throughout history (and prehistory), the odds of reproducing have been pretty good. Later in this talk we will ponder things like, why was it so rare for a hundred women to get together and build a ship and sail off to explore unknown regions, whereas men have fairly regularly done such things? But taking chances like that would be stupid, from the perspective of a biological organism seeking to reproduce. They might drown or be killed by savages or catch a disease. For women, the optimal thing to do is go along with the crowd, be nice, play it safe. The odds are good that men will come along and offer sex and you’ll be able to have babies. All that matters is choosing the best offer. We’re descended from women who played it safe....For men, the outlook was radically different. If you go along with the crowd and play it safe, the odds are you won’t have children. Most men who ever lived did not have descendants who are alive today. Their lines were dead ends. Hence it was necessary to take chances, try new things, be creative, explore other possibilities.
posted to MetaFilter by Turtles all the way down
at 4:34 AM on August 22, 2007
(131 comments)
What Brazil tells us about torture today.
A thoughtful discussion by Clive James of torture in the context of the movies in general and Terry Gilliam's
Brazil in particular. Warning: occasional descriptions of awful behavior, and the reader may have his opinion of humanity lowered. "The historical evidence suggests that on the rare occasions when a state begins again in what a fond humanitarian might think of as a condition of innocence, a supply of young torturers is the first thing it produces... In the Nazi and Soviet cellars and camps, people were regularly tortured for information they did not possess: i.e., they were tortured just for the hell of it."
posted to MetaFilter by languagehat
at 6:45 AM on February 25, 2007
(50 comments)
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