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I have a weird association with scurvy and it's history. Whenever I read or hear something about scurvy I always associate it with what at the time was a life changing bit of enlightenment to the ways of the world.

I first learned about it in Brownies on a snowshoeing outing on a local mountain in Vancouver. We were learning some basic survival skills and our guide told us all about this disease that used to make sailors in the olden days really... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Jalliah at 10:37 PM on September 29, 2013

she insists, "No, I love it."

Christ, dude! Take her at her word! You've been together for 30 years and are gaga in love with your wife. Don't change anything.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by phunniemee at 2:14 PM on June 13, 2013

Grumblebee, I learned a lot from your comments and all the ensuing ones from my original comment. I think the set of criteria established is probably the most effective and honestly critical (i don't mean negative criticism, necessarily, just "important") that can reasonably be agreed upon between two people( l I don't recall after reading this if you said this or someone else did) Nonetheless, it more rare that two people on roughly the same intellectual plane can... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Seekerofsplendor at 7:18 PM on May 21, 2013

For you, grumblebee: “The problem of the criterion” seems to me to be one of the most important and one of the most difficult of all the problems of philosophy. I am tempted to say that one has not begun to philosophize until one has faced this problem and has recognized how unappealing, in the end, each of the possible solutions is....

You're aces, Charles.
posted to MetaFilter by anotherpanacea at 5:58 AM on May 21, 2013

grumblebee, "Enlightened" writer/co-creator/actor Mike White (here on Twitter) has been encouraging people to tweet @HBO or otherwise let HBO know that viewers hope for third season. To their credit, HBO appears to be giving the series a lot of promotion and encouragement. I do hope it gets another season instead of being one of those legendary "gone too soon" critical darlings that people discover after it ends.

This thread encouraged me to start... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Elsa at 1:24 PM on February 28, 2013

Your partner is trying to employ "active listening", or "reflective listening" which sounds great in theory, and can be great when someone objective--a mediator, for example--uses the techniques to help those who are too emotionally invested themselves to actually hear each other.

When employed by a partner, though, it is *maddening*! You don't want objectivity and distance from the person you are trying to vent to, converse with... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by misha at 1:01 PM on February 9, 2013 marked best answer

The Athenian Murders
Ash: A Secret History
Q
The Shadow of The Wind

I think all of these clear the erudition and imagination bars, with the added bonus that they are eminently readable.

Robert Graves' Claudius novels are also excellent, if your criteria permit imagined history as opposed to alternate... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Jakey at 2:30 PM on February 7, 2013

Because it's a blank-verse line with a trochaic first foot, similar to "Now is the winter of our discontent."

Not quite. It's either an iambic-pentameter line with the unstressed syllable removed from the first foot, or it's a trochaic-pentameter line with the unstressed syllable removed from the fifth foot.

Iambic pentameter with a trochaic first foot would read: "Harken to th'iframes I have coded here!... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rustic Etruscan at 2:53 PM on February 7, 2013

Wolf Hall as a suggestion is actually really smart, even though on the surface is does not fit your criteria. I generally do not like historical novels, but this reimagining of Cromwell's life was riveting and modern.

I second Chiang. I thought How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe was terribly glib . A lot of talk about isolation and loneliness, but very little literary exploration of those emotional states.

If you like Borges... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Falconetti at 12:27 PM on February 7, 2013

From working at a history museum:

-I have infinite patience for repeated questions. This was hammered into us during training; someone will ask a seemingly obvious or stupid question, but they ask because they don't know. That knowledge alone helped me be empathetic when the thousandth visitor asked if Henry Ford invented the car.

-Similarly, I'm able to quickly shift trains of thought when interrupted by a question while "bookmarking"... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Turkey Glue at 11:50 AM on February 7, 2013

As a composer/musician:

I can tell if someone is a classical guitarist by the nails on their right hand
I can tell if someone is a violinist by the presence of an irritated spot on the left side of their neck where the chinrest rubs against them
I can identify how a synth sound was constructed with moderate accuracy, or what effects an instrument is being played through
I can sing a counter-melody to just about anything
I... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by invitapriore at 11:24 AM on February 7, 2013

Also related to the above skill, I've become really good at asking questions on places like Stack Overflow. Which sounds like it should be easy, but it really isn't. It helps to : define every process that may be unfamiliar to the reader; give clear, unambiguous examples; provide only the relevant code snippets; outline a step-by-step guide to reproducing the problem; and, finally, describe all my attempts to solve the problem. On forums like SO, this is a necessity, as someone may not visit... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Afroblanco at 10:09 AM on February 7, 2013

I'm a computer programmer, and this may sound obvious but I am an insanely fast typist now. I was pretty good before but I am crazy fast now. And I type better and faster when I'm not looking at my hands. And I can type one thing while I'm talking about something else.

I also always have about six different ways every thing going can play out and can come up with a lot of scenarios for how/why something ended up the way it did. I've become extremely good at "being... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by PuppetMcSockerson at 9:53 AM on February 7, 2013

Also, I learned that if you sound confident about things (regardless of your actual confidence,) people will be a lot easier to deal with than if you're obviously confused. "It's usually X, Y or Z, but this is a special case, so I'll have to call you back" fosters considerably better relationships than "I guess it might be X or maybe Y or sometimes Z, sort of, kinda." People feel a lot better about dealing with you if you can clearly say "I have no idea, let me find... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by griphus at 9:20 AM on February 7, 2013

An important habit of mind to develop in computer programming is the ability to look at a piece of code or a design and see what under circumstances it will fail, or act in an unexpected way—since there is generally no way to fix oversights in your code on-the-fly, you have to be able to anticipate strange edge cases in advance.

At least for me, this tendency to look for weaknesses and potential problems in systems and processes definitely leaks into my daily life,... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by enn at 9:20 AM on February 7, 2013

I have seen thousands of people ask questions (here and at the library) that appear to them to be asking one question but are actually asking another question. I can sort of model what a group of astute, nitpicky people are likely to see as "the question" in many sorts of requests and can use this to help people ask better questions and also help myself phrase my questions, requests and information needs in ways that help me solve my actual problems.

So people... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jessamyn at 9:16 AM on February 7, 2013

Wow - grumblebee, that was fantastic!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by kristi at 9:45 AM on February 6, 2013

Speaking as your personal Stoic philospher: there are things in life we can control, and things we cannot control. There is no utility in feeling pain over what we cannot control, and what we can control, clearly we should do something about without worrying further. On the other hand, we can try to excercise personal virtue and feel joy in doing what we know to be right.

Therefore, it is correct and good that you exercised boldness and perhaps even a new skill in... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:05 AM on February 5, 2013 marked best answer

Tips on how to effectively create a pseudonymous persona, as answered by someone who's worked with many people who needed to do this and, ultimately, failed.

First, don't tell anyone. Not a single person in real life should know that you have a blog; not a single person online should be told about the real you. This is the number one thing that I've seen people mess up--they tell someone they've gotten friendly with over email, and that person slips up somewhere, or... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by MeghanC at 10:09 PM on February 1, 2013

When I read "A parody version of The Tempest with extra characters," I guess I was picturing, like, a version where they had too many actors so there are just sort of added parts.

MIRANDA

You have often
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding 'Stay: not yet.'

FRED

That's true.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by FAMOUS MONSTER at 6:15 AM on October 15, 2012

I'm curious if anyone has had the experience of both hating (or being totally uninterested in) and bad at sports -- and then being turned around by a great gym teacher. If so, I'm curious about what that teacher did.

There was a teacher who was split between our school and others who was an Olympic coach, and clearly was not only a cut above in terms of training but also attitude, and was absolutely the kind of person who drew students to him and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Durn Bronzefist at 11:21 AM on October 9, 2012

I think all kids come to a point in their lives when they realize that other people - adults in particular - aren't invulnerable punching bags that can absorb negative energy without consequence. It's like a switch that clicks, when empathy kicks in for the first time, like breathing kicks in outside the womb.

Some people have it from the start. Mine was slapped into action when I was an early teen, after I got caught distributing some extraordinarily, personally... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by bicyclefish at 9:08 PM on September 24, 2012

It is possible to both be snarky and to honestly enjoy things.

- jeather

I'm sure it is. But snark makes the enjoyment of those things by others into some irrevocable social faux pas. Usually - occasionally there are wonderful interludes where the snark is simply dismissed or ignored. But that initial snark is not aimed at furthering anyone's enjoyment, or continuing the discussion. It is simply a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by geek anachronism at 11:21 PM on September 1, 2012

Maybe having spend decades as a programmer has trained my brain to think differently. Dozens of times a day, I see x = 5 and then, later, in another context, x = "foo," so I'm used to reading labels in a very contextual way.

Well, I teach logic so I'm generally capable of thinking in terms of variables and arbitrary assignments of meaning. But as you point out, that's a bit more difficult when the term has emotive value. In rhetoric there... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by anotherpanacea at 12:49 PM on September 1, 2012

Being snarky means you always have your transmitter tuned to "broadcast" but very rarely to "receive."

It is precisely this claim that I am challenging. Snark, in the traditional sense, does not mean a refusal to listen or learn from those who do or may know more. Barnes has redefined the word to mean that. The thing he describes is bad, but why call it snark? I can't help feeling that it's because it allows him to tar... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by anotherpanacea at 9:36 AM on September 1, 2012

Snark is not sarcastic ignorance.

No but snark culture is training people that it's more valuable to get in a few good jabs than it is to actually explore a topic or admit that you know less about something than someone else does.

Being snarky means you always have your transmitter tuned to "broadcast" but very rarely to "receive." It implies that your opinion is more relevant, salient, or entertaining than... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hermitosis at 6:56 AM on September 1, 2012

I find myself in a difficult place...

While I read, enjoyed and understood Mr. Barnes sentiment, I am also a person filled with much snark. I am a great, white snark. The problem isn't that I don't take things seriously; it is that I took too many things seriously. From our youth (at least my youth) we were told to love one's country, respect the police, respect teachers, obey authority, salute the flag, believe in God, the four food groups, never tell a lie, America... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by FrankBlack at 6:09 AM on September 1, 2012

"One point perspective" seems an odd term to use for the Kubrick ones, by the way. All ordinary camera shots are "one point perspective." That's just the way lenses work. There will be only one vanishing point. What's common to the Kubrick shots is that the vanishing point is in the center of the image. He should have called it "Kubrick: Central vanishing point."
posted to MetaFilter by yoink at 11:30 AM on August 31, 2012

grumblebee: “I'm confused. I'm nearly 50, so maybe your "we" doesn't apply to me. I don't hate hipsters, though (to the extent that I understand what they are), I don't identify with them. I listen to music, but mostly stuff written prior to 1940. Mostly classical. The people I recognize as hipsters seem more interested in contemporary music. I have never for a second thought I was cool. I'm not cool. I don't wear cool clothes. Well, maybe you'd think they were cool. I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by koeselitz at 8:55 AM on August 31, 2012

Next time people ask why sociology is important, I'm going to show them this video.

On its own, when you see one person slip, you automatically assume that person slipped, was clumsy or not playing attention. But when you look at the aggregate, you realize that the failure isn't on the individual at all, rather the structures that cause certain people to fail with almost no fault of their own. And yet, without this data, they will very quickly ascribe the mistake to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JimmyJames at 5:19 PM on June 27, 2012

I suppose it's living in Japan and being over-familiar with it that makes me jaded, but I can't stand it when some obscure concept or term that originated here is trotted out and used as evidence as to how humans can think in wildly different and exotic ways if they're not beaten down by the overbearing tropes of "western" culture.

Saying that kishoutenketsu is a Japanese approach to story telling is like saying Harry Partch's 47 tone music system is an... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ebisudave at 12:20 PM on July 2, 2012

From the last part of the video - "......because if they're getting harassed in pursuit of their silence and you tell then that all they can do is just don't feed the troll, in that scenario, it might be you who is helping the trolls win."

I like JS as well and 99% of the time I agree with him, but in this case not completely. The part that he does not address is that in true trolling, no matter what the response is, the goal is to shift the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lampshade at 1:16 PM on June 25, 2012

"As I started piecing everything together I didn’t think he intended to kill himself when I left that Friday morning."

This was the sentence that clanged most inauthentically for me. I commented on the "My FIL lost his faith because of me" thread chiefly to assure holdkriss99 that our views and conversations seldom have that much power over others although it was also a chance to write a bit about my own crisis of faith, which is a very human... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Anitanola at 2:16 PM on May 27, 2012

The rule about using the comma if it's the only brother/son/cousin/whatever is a running joke where I work.

Someone will write something like, "He learned from his deadbeat brother that their one-legged aunt had embezzled the funds."

An editor, seeking more detail, will then ask for the names: "He learned from his deadbeat brother KOMING that their one-legged aunt KOMING had embezzled the funds."... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stargell at 8:27 AM on May 27, 2012

My storytelling hero, Jean Shepherd, is an interesting case in the concept of empirical truth versus story truth, in that his long career as a radio novelist had him telling stories over and over, with details emerging and fading, connections made and broken and refashioned, and by the end of his career, it was hard to know what was fact, what was fiction, what sort of happened and what didn't. Because there are literally thousands of hours of tape, carefully made and archived by the people who... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by sonascope at 11:45 AM on May 22, 2012

I can actually put an approximate price on the pleasure various experiences give me, and going to see a good play is worth about two bottles of decent wine at best...The theatre is for rich people, again.

Or maybe theatre is for people who enjoy theatre more than a bottle of wine. CRAZY, I KNOW.
posted to MetaFilter by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:33 PM on May 3, 2012

I think this does get at a deep asymmetry between the two sides of politics, and why there are often speculations that homophobes are secretly homosexual, and even that aggressive atheists or islamophobes are secretly attracted to the objects of their scorn. It's often argued that the two sides are fundamentally similar or different (see the Haidt discussion), but here is one way in which they seem pretty different:

Conservatives, for the most part, really do understand... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by chortly at 2:34 PM on April 28, 2012

The conclusion is consistent with common-sense, but I'll wait for the meta-studies.

How things will ultimately turn out: some really anti-homosexual folks will turn out to be closeted. Some will turn out not to be. Not everything people are averse to is something they're attracted to. Islamo"phobes" aren't secretly attracted to Islam.

Some degree of aversion to homosexual acts is common even in those who aren't at all opposed to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fists O'Fury at 8:09 AM on April 28, 2012

Yes, absolutely. I have a master's degree, publish art books, and have lately been reading the collected letters of Samuel Beckett for fun. My boyfriend -- who is, just as you describe, "smart, but not a brainiac, and has every other quality you would want in a man: kind, generous, funny, hard-working, full of character" -- didn't go to college.

We recently celebrated our five-year anniversary -- the longest relationship for either of us. It's the happiest,... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by scody at 1:29 PM on June 29, 2010 marked best answer

Programming has stuck to the old text file paradigm for surprisingly long. I thought by this time we'd be manipulating interactive flowcharts and stuff.

This just doesn't make sense. It's like saying human literature has "stuck to the old written word paradigm for surprisingly long." We have evolved from stone tablets to fountain pens to movable type to Selectrics to iPads; and similarly from ed to [IDE of your preference]. The tools change... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kjh at 11:14 AM on April 16, 2012

I have no idea if the letter reflects reality, but no question Gibson is a scumbag. There are recordings of his voice - released - calling his ex-girlfriend Oksana, wherein he uses slurs against black people and Mexicans, so there is no doubt about the authenticity of that.

So, since it's pretty much common knowledge that Gibson is such a person, how is it, that he's not a social pariah? How is it, that whether you're a Jew or not, you associate with this person at all?... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by VikingSword at 11:18 AM on April 13, 2012

As the article recognizes though, specificity is not the only reason for using obscure words. Sometimes, writers do it to convey a sense of importance or intellectual depth that isn't there. It's also done to limit an audience, and try to cash in on the prestige of exclusivity. Worse, it happens by mistake, when authors don't realize that they're really failing to reach their target audience.

I have an interesting perspective on this, actually.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by EmpressCallipygos at 10:34 AM on April 12, 2012

I broke up a subway fight one time. BY DANCING.

I was riding between Times Square and 72nd St. on the 2 train, when a subway performer came in, put down his jukebox, and started dancing. He did some... uh... popping & locking (?), and then used the bars to swing himself around, hang upside down, do cool flips &c. He had some completely inoffensive music on, and a buddy there to clap in time. It was actually a pretty cool show.

He passed... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by davidjmcgee at 8:55 AM on April 10, 2012

After years of lurking on the blue, I finally signed up to say: this analysis of O'Brien's article is, well, terrible. I mean, O'Brien's argument is terrible, too, but that's not the point here. I've taught logic and critical thinking for years, and I can attest to the fact that you can't get very far in argument analysis with the fallacy approach--and this conclusion is not idiosyncratic to me. Every now and then someone will commit a textbook fallacy, but you can almost never fruitfully... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fists O'Fury at 6:13 AM on March 30, 2012

Extrovert here. At least that's how I always test in the MBTI. Anyway, as I understand it, the extrovert/introvert dichotomy is not a label to excuse antisocial neurosis or boorish needy blabberiing. As well-formed adults, we all need to have the capacity to get along with people and work in groups as well as get along by ourselves and spend time in solitary thought. Neither is superior, either can be appropriate or inappropriate given the situation.

As I understand it,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cross_impact at 9:59 AM on March 13, 2012

There's a whole lot of hate and spite towards this old man in this thread. I understand how he is yet another holy roller fleecing people who don't know any better, and I get his apology is mostly damage control and spin to keep the money coming in, but damn. Even if he is a nasty, infirm old man, I wouldn't be in such a big hurry to outdo him in the nastiness department.

And I wouldn't call all the people who've sent him money 'gullible fools',... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by KHAAAN! at 2:12 PM on March 12, 2012

what the movie *thinks* it's saying, and what it's *actually* saying, are so very, very different

YES. Like, if Williams's character was a good teacher then at the end of the movie the students would love poetry, not just him.
posted to MetaFilter by shakespeherian at 6:52 AM on March 2, 2012

Not only should you tell your girlfriend, before you do it you should call or email her parents and tell them that you have given it deep thought and much consideration, and that you cannot honor their request, because your commitment to your girlfriend is primary. She is the person you love and trust, and the person that you want to trust you.

They have put you in a nasty position, one where you are going to feel damned if you do and damned if you don't. This is... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Leta at 9:31 AM on December 26, 2011

Falconetti: “Is everyone, no matter how heinous, deserving of ‘respect?’ Is there no threshold that can be crossed where an individual no longer should be afforded any respect? If that is the case, as seems to be implied by some commenters' arguments, then the word ‘respect’ is basically meaningless.”

This question always gets asked about these things; and understandably there are people on both sides of it. Tell... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by koeselitz at 12:10 PM on December 19, 2011

Question b:

Get a bucket and a light plastic object shaped like a mug (even bottom of a 2l milk jug will do; you want a capacity of at least 500ml). For added luxury, a small plastic stool so you don't have to bend down. Fill bucket with water, use mug to pour water over body. I gather you don't have an actual water shortage, but using this method you can have a reasonable bath with one bucket of water, and make the most of every mugful by using your other hand to scrub... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by tavegyl at 6:41 AM on December 16, 2011 marked best answer