MetaFilter

There are some really nice people in this thread that I like very much who are upset, so I am going to say what I say next carefully.

My understanding of how things work with our current staffing levels is that moderation is driven primarily by flags, but also by MeMails and the Contact Us form. On top of this, state of the site and likely-to-be-contentious MeTas are often read and monitored (though sometimes flags and messages drive moderation on those, too).... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DirtyOldTown at 8:22 AM on May 17, 2024

I can't remember the exact line, but in the episode Bluey asks her teacher 'Why do stories always have happy endings?' and her teacher replies 'Because real life gives us enough sad ones'. I felt like this was a little in-episode recognition of the fact that the ending was unrealistic, but happy. This is one of a number of times the dialogue in Bluey seems to address real-world criticism. One of my favourites is when Bluey goes to the movies and asks all sorts of questions and her father... [more]
posted to FanFare by unicorn chaser at 6:35 AM on April 17, 2024

In the video game Warframe, there are these scattered tablets with test questions (from a spaceship that the main characters were previously on and theoretically taught these things as children). You get to choose an answer and it will tell you if you’re correct.

We have a number of basic world-building questions such as:

1. What event concluded the Eighteenth Radiation War?
A. The destruction of the Arctic Hive Cluster (correct)... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by brook horse at 4:21 PM on May 6, 2024

The amount of willful self-blindness from MetaFilter's doom-and-gloomers here would be funny if it wasn't entirely to the detriment of the causes they performatively claim to embrace. Here is presented actual evidence that powerful state forces are exerting tremendous effort to bend and twist your perceptions of the present and future, and people who maaaaaybe didn't RTFA are proudly sounding off here "No, I definitely came to all my opinions entirely by myself, I've never been influenced,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:22 PM on May 9, 2024

I have never been interested in watching Spongebob, and would prefer not to be in the same room with people enjoying it, as I find the soundtrack extremely annoying.

I flagged this post.
It is fantastic.

I still don't like Spongebob, but Rhaomi put together a post that is so in-depth and copious that even *I* was persuaded to click a couple links, and I will forward this to people I know who will be ecstatic.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by BlueHorse at 6:21 PM on May 1, 2024

Rhaomi, I don’t have weeks and weeks to go through this beautiful encyclopedia of SpongeBob goodness. I’m just going to say that SpongeBob remains to this day one of my favouritest things ever. If only the world was more like SpongeBob…..sigh…..
posted to MetaFilter by ashbury at 4:26 PM on May 1, 2024

Rhaomi! This is an AMAZING post, and you are an amazing person for having crafted this with so much care and joy.

I have no idea how it is possible that I have NEVER seen an episode of Spongebob Squarepants; it seems like it'd be right up my alley. I mean, everything in your entire pull quote from "SpongeBob Made the World a Better, More Optimistic Place" just is me all over.

So thanks to your utterly fabulous set of links at the end,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kristi at 4:12 PM on May 1, 2024

Ohhh... this fills my cup at a very, very deep level.
When I was nine years old my folks took me to the Getty and I got real weird real quick over the "Visions of the Knight Tondel" illuminations from the 15th century.
Being also-weird professor-types, they didn't hesitate to buy me a very lovely bound copy from the museum gift shop.
I read it daily, pouring over the images and reading and re-reading the translation notes. Even learned a little... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Baby_Balrog at 11:58 AM on April 30, 2024

Does it have a page for bloody horses running wild through the streets of London?
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 1:18 PM on April 29, 2024

I tried this, and spent 3 hours in the rabbithole. Luckily, though, somehow I am not addicted; I just stopped that evening, and picked it up again two days later. I may post siomething to MeFi music, because it comes up with very unexpected stuff when placed on manual mode and given instructions to go experimental. Tonight, I'm having it recite passages (in what it thinks is an Irish brogue) from a manual on meat processing, against an airy ambient backdrop of melodicas, pianos, etc.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by not_on_display at 8:43 PM on April 25, 2024

I thought the AV Club community had decamped for the-avocado.org anyway.
posted to MetaFilter by amk at 11:10 AM on April 26, 2024

Yes ... ha ha ha ... yes!
posted to MetaFilter by RobotHero at 8:59 AM on April 26, 2024

Likewise a little surprised that Clickhole still exists. It was a perfect sendup of Upworthy, et al, when those were the dominant force in social media, but when those dropped away, I thought Clickhole ended. Seeing something like the Boo Berry piece linked above, it feels like ClickHole is doing great shifting their satire toward something like hot Substack takes, though they're still continuing with parodies of BuzzFeed quizzes and other lost internet forms.

Very... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by msbrauer at 8:16 AM on April 26, 2024

[[btw, this wonderful post has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]]
posted to MetaFilter by taz at 3:56 AM on April 23, 2024

The remarkable preservation of the art of Dendera has led to various folks to get confused by the elements they see, leading to pseudoscience concepts of like the ancient functional lightbulb "depicted" as the Dendera Light. Luckily, sassier researchers like Miniminuteman are here to debunk the nonsense.
posted to MetaFilter by FatherDagon at 7:46 AM on April 22, 2024

I hope it will not be too silly to provide in this context a link to Why I Buried the City of Luxor.
posted to MetaFilter by praemunire at 5:36 PM on April 21, 2024

Excellent post! No notes. Thank you for putting this together.

Paul Smit's website with all his Features from around the world is beautiful and I really appreciate the fact that he captions everything in pleasant detail.

Berrera's scan of the ceiling at Dendara is a wonderfully clean piece of photogrammetry. Just looking at the physical arrangement, I'm guessing there were no fewer than 22 camera setups. And the only hint of software/visual... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cult_url_bias at 12:04 PM on April 21, 2024

Incidentally, Savage appears to be "MeFi's own", and he recently mentioned reading "a MetaFilter thread" in this clip from a January 2024 stream.

At least I assume it's January, because the date made it look like it was recorded in September and I guess that has to just be weird unsorted US date formats.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rum-soaked space hobo at 8:53 AM on April 20, 2024

you on the other hand appear to be in some academic field related to legacy ML, which I consider more or less completely irrelevant to current discourse

I’l feel like I’ve written about this too many times, but I’m on break with a full engine rebuild kicked off, so here’s my very stupid story (a lot of you might want to skip this comment):
I was in RPI’s Minds & Machines cognitive science program in the late 90s because I basically got... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ryvar at 11:04 AM on April 12, 2024

Amazing. Also, the creator of Trimming The Herbs apparently confessed to using a tool assisted run to create his completion video in the first place, something previously thought not possible on the Wii U. From the site:

101% Clear
Originally, it was believed that a level called Trimming the Herbs would be the final uncleared level. However, after over seven years, the creator of Trimming the Herbs revealed that the level was, in fact, a convoluted sort of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jermsplan at 8:41 AM on April 11, 2024

𓅦 𓌝

👍
posted to MetaTalk by lalochezia at 6:12 PM on April 7, 2024

Trimming The Herbs now has been manually cleared!!! \o/
posted to MetaFilter by anastasiav at 6:46 PM on April 5, 2024

Did you know that you don't do enough housework? It's true! Experts recommend that you do more cleaning than you are doing now. Run your finger along the top of the nearest picture frame. See all that dirt and dust? Living inside of that dirt are six trillion bacteria, and they're all judging you. When was the last time you disassembled and disinfected your thermostats? Last month? Last year? God help you, never? Do you even own an erotic robot vagina that keeps your phone... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by phooky at 2:58 PM on April 2, 2024

And people will be rationed the amount of things they can have, because if they had too many things, they'd just squash their houses and there just wouldn't be room for them.

Gosh, the British kids are ... look, I don't want to indulge in national stereotypes, but I will say they are remarkably clear-eyed and know not to expect the best.

I've heard it said that the best science fiction "isn't about predicting the car,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Countess Elena at 10:58 AM on April 1, 2024

"Severely reduced pay all around!"

"The corner… of course!"

"I've *not* heard of them" remains one of my favorite line reads of all time. It shouldn't work, but Billy West… he found a way. [sorry for yarn.io link]

"She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro."

"Once again, the conservative, sandwich-heavy portfolio... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Eideteker at 1:59 PM on March 29, 2024

Futurama is a massively significant show to me because when I was getting started with writing science fiction it showed me that good science fiction didn't have to be a didactic room-temperature demonstration of a vaguely interesting thing à la Asimov and Clarke. Sci-fi could have character and colour and comedy and heart. Ken Keeler in particular is a real inspiration to me.

The first four seasons of the show are just one unforgettable banger of a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by qntm at 6:05 PM on March 28, 2024

Wernstrom in italics - nice!
posted to MetaFilter by Greg_Ace at 2:43 PM on March 28, 2024

Thank you everyone for your excellent suggestions! The party went smashingly—I like to think it was due to all the banana-themed music. Here's the final playlist in case anyone is interested.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by miltthetank at 8:35 AM on March 29, 2024

About a week ago I wrote a long post on social media (to friends only) lamenting this final death of Twitter, and expressing my sadness over the four accounts that I was now cut off from regularly checking. Immediately after posting that, I discovered that TWstalker is still working. For example, here's my #1 destination, for space launch updates.

TWstalker is not a Nitter instance per se, so is using a different mechanism, and I don't know if That Techbro Guy will... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by intermod at 1:41 PM on February 28, 2024 marked best answer

Ian is the living embodiment of 'You're not wrong, but you're just an asshole.'

um... Ian is also an occasional poster on MetaFilter (me).
posted to MetaFilter by Peevish at 2:59 PM on March 21, 2024

Things I get free with my library card other than the right to check out books:
e-books & audiobooks through Hoopla, Libby, and Boundless
special e-book collection access through O'Reilly, LOTE (for kids), and Biblioboard
free streaming movies through Hoopla, Kanopy
free streams of music docs and concerts through Qello
more kids stuff from Kanopy Kids, Hellosaurus, ABCmouse
eMagazines through Libby &... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 9:55 AM on March 20, 2024

I saw a thing that said:

If you don't remember the moon landing, you're Gen X.
If you don't remember the Challenger disaster, you're a Millennial.
If you don't remember 9/11, you're Gen Z.
If you don't remember Harambe's death, you're Gen Alpha.

I thought that was kind of an interesting way of doing it.
posted to MetaFilter by nushustu at 7:49 AM on March 20, 2024

(This post is great thanks)
posted to MetaFilter by tiny frying pan at 8:44 AM on March 20, 2024

Thanks for a great post. Classic Metafilter long-form
posted to MetaFilter by xtian at 4:51 AM on March 20, 2024

hippybear, that makes sense, and I'm sorry if I came on too hard. You contribute a lot to MetaFilter and make it a better place. I'll try to read and respond a little more generously myself.
posted to MetaFilter by cupcakeninja at 4:41 AM on March 21, 2024

Regarding the framing of this post, always a fraught practice here on MetaFilter:

Mary Beard was not known to me before I watched this video. That's why I included a link to her Wikipedia profile, because she's a giant in her field and I was ignorant of her and didn't want anyone else approaching this post to also be ignorant about her. I tried [and failed] to make a joke about how Mitchell isn't a scholar but instead read a few things and wrote his book. I was striving... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:31 PM on March 20, 2024

I had seen this poem on Twitter and saved it. I'll spend some time this week commiting it to memory. It perfectly captures the feelings of helplessness and spiteful hope that many activists feel.

This may very well be the greatest post I've ever seen on this website. Thanks.
posted to MetaFilter by AlSweigart at 3:22 PM on March 18, 2024

Full poem at the end of the post: We Lived Happily During the War
By Ilya Kaminsky

And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not

enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.

I took a chair outside and watched the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by foxfirefey at 1:24 PM on March 18, 2024

Text version:

there’s laundry to do and a genocide to stop

there’s laundry to do and a genocide to stop.
I have to eat better and also avoid a plague. my rent went up $150. I’ll need to pick up more shifts.
Twenty people died in Rafah this morning and every major news outlet is stretching the limits of passive voice to suggest whole families may have leaped up through the air at missiles that otherwise had the right of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Lanark at 1:51 AM on March 18, 2024

Also: holy shit everyone should see Lola (2023). Set in 1941, it's a bout a pair of sisters who invent a device they call the chronovisor that lets them pick up radio and TV broadcasts from the future. Initially, they use it to rock out to David Bowie and win at bets, but then they decide it will best be used to help fight the Nazis. Butterfly effects abound. Extra bonus fun: this is a found footage style film shot on vintage Bolex cameras.

Just look... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 12:01 PM on March 15, 2024

Game over! Unsatisfying, but here's the statement from Ahoyo, the creator of Trim the Herbs:

TTH was made to be unreasonably difficult and to cause a ruckus. I put effort into promoting it in 2017 so that it could be played, dissected, and scrutinized. Once that would happen I would announce that TAS existed for SMM. I did not expect that it would go unnoticed or perceived as easy from watching the video, or that it would take nearly seven years to be uncovered.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lubujackson at 3:03 PM on March 22, 2024

Blogger Fred Clark writes about Senator Britt's State of the Union Response in a recent post in his Slacktivist blog. Clark, who writes about social and religious issues as viewed through the lens of his own evangelical upbringing, covers a lot of the ground we've already gone over but does it well and has a few things to add that I think make his post worth the read, particularly his conclusion:It was an audacious, bald-faced lie — one that involved further exploiting a woman who was horribly... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Nerd of the North at 11:39 PM on March 10, 2024

my naym is pee
an wen i drip
frum wiggly wobbly
weener tip
i mayk u think
of probably how
u should have gone
and dropped the trou
posted to MetaFilter by grumpybear69 at 12:36 PM on March 8, 2024

so about five minutes ago i found myself bored with metafilter and the rest of my standard web loop (which i really should spend less time in) and instead of doing the sensible thing and getting off the Internet, i flipped over to the “ask historians” subreddit and displayed top all time, which has historically been if not a useful then at least an enlightening way to spend a few minutes.

anyway, most of the entries at the very top of that list are meta posts about (for... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:02 PM on March 6, 2024

An interesting article. I remember the erosion of the private register becoming evident to me in the earlier days of the knitting website Ravelry. It had a pretty robust discussion forum. Registered Ravelry account holders could become members of individual discussion groups (kind of like subreddits), but as long as you had a Ravelry account you could read or post as a guest in any group.

There was a group called Rubberneckers whose members would read other groups’... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:06 AM on March 4, 2024

”I feel like people don't talk enough about how James Bond is controlled by the Broccoli family, of broccoli fame. They're not named after broccoli, broccoli is named after them!!!!!!!!... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rongorongo at 3:08 PM on March 2, 2024

There's apparently a movement afoot to name an Aubrey Plaza Plaza in Wilmington, DE and I am sad this hasn't happened yet.

You’ll be pleased to know that after a change.org petition, Edmonton City Hall was renamed to honour a hometown hero: the Nathan Filllion Civilian Pavilion. Looks like it was just for 24 hours, though. Booo.
posted to MetaFilter by ricochet biscuit at 2:41 PM on March 2, 2024

If I were the editor, I would have gone with the caption "Ferrous Wheeler's Pay Off"
posted to MetaFilter by milnak at 9:38 AM on March 1, 2024

[[btw, this post and Kathryn's comment have been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]]
posted to MetaFilter by taz at 3:13 AM on March 5, 2024

[I]n January of 1998 a complaint was filed by the Dubai Islamic Bank alleging Sissoko had bought his jumbo with funds that were stolen from the bank using black magic.

Yeah, that definitely needs a bit more elaboration.

And here it is! (holy fucking shit!!)
posted to MetaFilter by Naberius at 2:23 PM on February 26, 2024