MetaFilter

Also, as I have said before:

one of the biggest (I think THE biggest) fact about being creative that no one likes to talk about is this:

you WILL get sick of your project. having an idea is fun and easy. Finishing it is a pain in the ass. Especially if it's something you've been working on for months or years, you will become incredibly tired of it. You will wonder why you were ever interested in starting stupid Project X, when it's so lame... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by drjimmy11 at 1:43 PM on May 25, 2008

What if there are no odds? What if we live in a universe where all events are equally probable, but in order to function we must ignore that? What if, in order to make sense of the world, our brains have evolved to see generalized patterns in unique events, ignore their uniqueness, and relegate them to a background of "sameness" against which we navigate those other unique events that affect our welfare?

Years ago, on a hot August day, when picking apricots... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:34 PM on May 24, 2008

In Europe, I saw a documentary by a German film crew, in which they found all sorts of interview footage from the day (and the day or two after) JFK was assassinated. People told stories of what they were doing when they heard the news. About four decades later, the German film crew tracked down perhaps 15 of these people, and again asked them what they were doing when they first heard that JFK had been killed. Not a single one of them told anything like the same story as they had decades... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Dee Xtrovert at 12:38 AM on May 23, 2008

I think the problem you're having is that Austin's basic thesis ("Saying things does shit") sounds blindingly obvious.

It's hard to believe, but the generation of logicians who went before him mostly ignored that fact. Ms. Saint gives a good discussion of why they were wrong to ignore it — as does Austin himself, for that matter — but it's also worth thinking about why they did ignore it.

Modern... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by nebulawindphone at 11:14 PM on May 20, 2008 marked best answer

In a very nice tone of voice, I have to say:
Stay to the right! Step in to the middle of the car! Don't stop at the top or bottom of the escalator! Teenage girls from whereever (you all seem blond with pink hoodies) -- stop flipping your fabulous hair on jam-packed subway cars, you are hitting me in the face!
Big boys with big bags, stop throwing them over your shoulder without checking behind you! Do NOT have loud show-ffy instructive I'm-such-a-great-parent... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by thinkpiece at 1:41 PM on May 20, 2008

The thing that particularly bothers me about this is that he's clearly one of those people who can't fathom that other people really, truly feel differently than he does. He's one of those people who has an issue so, to make himself feel better, he projects it onto everyone else so it's suddenly out of his hands.

If people want to have open relationships, great. It's annoying as shit when some of them try to say that's what everyone really wants, though. It's... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Nattie at 11:23 AM on May 20, 2008

My suspicion is that people claiming to look for the "cause" of cheating are really looking for something else, though: an easy way to stop cheating, or stop other people from cheating, an excuse to cheat, an excuse to be unhappy with monogamy, someone or something to blame, a get-out-of-lust-free card, a way to cope with the fact that they got cheated on.

Interestingly, all these goals are also implicit answers to the question, "What do I want to do... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by nebulawindphone at 10:38 AM on May 20, 2008

I second the notion of starting out in museums and galleries first (or at least not restricting yourself to books/online/documentaries) -- reproductions just don't do most works of art justice, and as an editor of art books, I can say this authoritatively! There's nothing wrong with reading about art and looking at reproductions, of course, but you don't "need" a formal background to start enjoying art immediately.

I've found that there's often an assumption... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by scody at 9:12 PM on May 13, 2008 marked best answer

The film's based on a Stephen Millhauser novella; perhaps it answers some of your questions. I haven't read it myself but I love Millhauser's EDWIN MULLHOUSE and a few others, and I feel pretty strongly that even if the story doesn't add much to your appreciation of the film, reading it would hardly be a waste of time.

I get asked about The Prestige and The Illusionist A LOT after gigs, and my stock answer is that The Prestige is the better movie, but The Illusionist is... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Ian A.T. at 2:30 PM on November 20, 2007

I hope this doesn't confuse you further, but sometimes in practice "between one and ten" actually will be the same as "two through nine" because nobody will pick one or ten.

Magicians--especially mentalists-- have exploited this for years. Spread out four objects and ask someone to pick one, and 85% of the time it'll be the second or third object. (And almost always the third.)

Ask someone to name a number between one and ten,... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Ian A.T. at 11:58 AM on August 8, 2007

I make somewhere between a quarter to half my income as a stage "mentalist" whose act somewhat resembles Derren Brown's--though not to his "magic handshake" level--so let me post a clarification, a bunch of caveats, and as much information as I can without making my colleagues mad at me.

(Paging The Deej! Hope me fellow magician!)

First, there are three very different forms of hypnosis being talked about... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ian A.T. at 3:32 AM on May 12, 2008

Doing your best is taking an action because you love it, not because you're expecting a reward. Most people do exactly the opposite. They only take action when they expect a reward, and they don't enjoy the action. That's the reason they don't do their best.

For example, most people go to work each day just thinking of payday and the money they will get for the work they are doing. They can hardly wait for Friday or Saturday, whatever day they receive their money and can... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by netbros at 9:19 PM on May 11, 2008

You know, Shatner being an egocentric ass is part of his appeal.

Yes, I love him for playing Captain Kirk, but I also love him for his God-awful work, which he approached with just as much commitment as he approached his better work. I mean, he's made some seriously boneheaded career choices with the utmost sincerity.

The Transformed Man? That trumps every other awful album by a celebrity, and even if he now has a sense... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Joey Michaels at 3:16 PM on May 12, 2008

Dave Bowman: Good morrow, Hal. Dost thou hear my call?

HAL: Verily, Dave, I hear thee.

Dave Bowman: Open the castle gates, Hal.

HAL: Alas, Dave, methinks 'tis impossible.

Dave Bowman: For sooth, what troubles thee?

HAL: Methinks thou knowest what troubleth me.

Dave Bowman: Prithee, more matter with less art.

HAL: Upon our... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Saxon Kane at 7:50 PM on May 5, 2008

I strongly believe that, by these means, we can actually begin to intellectualize our appreciation of this form of music without invoking the cliché of relativism, de gustibus non est disputandum, but instead by generating an objective critical framework that will allow us to academize our musical judgements.

Is this a parody of academic jargon? I'm really hoping this is a parody of academic jargon. Otherwise, god help us all. Er, I mean, we must... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by languagehat at 5:02 AM on April 23, 2008

HARRY CALLAHAN: Doubt not, I can p'ceive your hidden thoughts:
"Did five rounds fire he then, or were it six?"
A canny query; I should be remiss
to lie at having kept my count of shots.

But lo, this cannon resting in my hand,
Point four and four, from Magnum's fire was forged.
None matches it; no greater steel to scourge
The thieves and malefactors from the land.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 10:17 AM on April 21, 2008

Either answer the question or be quiet. Askme is not anyone's personal comedy routine.
posted to MetaTalk by Brandon Blatcher at 8:08 PM on April 18, 2008

Pshaw! Who needs "science" when you have a tenuous grip on your sanity! The wife and I spend way too much of our time asking our rabbits for their opinions and supplying them with answers. Each rabbit has its own life outside their cage:

Captain Grendel Anne Bunny works down at the ole Shoe Sorting Factory where she sorts shoes from one pile to another. She got this job after a long career in piracy where she robbed from the shod and sorted to the unshod. She... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by robocop is bleeding at 9:25 AM on April 18, 2008

You know what else doesn't work? Pressing the elevator call button multiple times or after someone else has already pressed it and it is lit up. People like that should be sterilized. It's like the people who still walk around with their umbrellas open when it's not raining anymore.
posted to MetaFilter by spicynuts at 6:52 AM on April 15, 2008

I hate when people use this ridiculous style. Sir, matthew, blah, blah, blah. Just write out your issue like a normal person.
posted to MetaTalk by necessitas at 8:50 AM on April 3, 2008

One day, when I was about five, my mom came and pulled me out of my room.

"Come outside! I want to show you something!" she said.

So we went outside and crouched in the bushes just outside my bedroom window. I didn't know what was going on, and it kinda scared me.

Then it happened. I heard my toy Jamar piano go plinkety! My breath caught in my throat! It happened again.... this time followed... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by katillathehun at 10:22 AM on April 2, 2008

You have to open their mind first. Which for most people is like a chinese finger puppet...the harder you pull at it, the tighter it gets. It's so circular its ridiculous. Almost like you have to open their mind to open their mind.

I notice this in small things all the time. I've been going to school for the last 20+ years. I hate to sit in the same seat in every class, every day. But people are REALLY attached to their seats. If I choose a different seat at every class... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by iamkimiam at 1:42 PM on March 31, 2008

Consider writing in italic.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by aramaic at 8:02 AM on February 18, 2008

Also, why would 100% logical people kill themselves over eye-color. Alternatively, if eye color is really important for some reason, why would 100% logical people be bound by a taboo not to talk about it?

Please produce the chain of logic that refutes either of these notions.

I know that the common meaning of the word "logical" is "makes sense (to me)" and I know that the Mr. Spock use of the word... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by straight at 9:55 AM on February 15, 2008

Egads! Let us know when you figure it out!

I have don't-stare-disease... Any time I am NOT supposed to stare at something, anything, I have this overwhelming urge to stare, and then, caught between my reptillian brains physiological need to look and my rational brains urge to be a socially acceptable creature, my body nearly convulses while the two duke it out. And all the while, I literally have no real desire to look upon said forbidden fruit,... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by ian1977 at 2:48 PM on January 23, 2008

They absolutely wore stays. As grumblebee said, "Corsets weren't just about waistlines - they also gave breast, back & abdominal support."

This is exactly why women who did hard labour (and the work that the average woman back then was truly hard labour) wore them: far from being a fashionable burden, stays with hard boning were extremely practical and functional garmet that allowed women to toil in the fields, carry babies and... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by buka at 6:53 PM on January 20, 2008 marked best answer

I've lived in Brooklyn for ten years now. I'm originally from Alabama, so this was a pretty extreme change for me. For a long time I was angry I couldn't find Martha Holme's canned squash in the grocery store to make my mama's famous squash casserole. Then I discovered how easy it is to cook squash.

I went to a small private school in my hometown. I could have transferred to a public school, but I was terrified of trying to find my way around. Being lost was a big fear... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Evangeline at 1:06 PM on January 15, 2008

I think she wants a husband who's strong, in control and honorable
Haha, if only. Domina makes it clear in the song that she loves foul, dumb, filthy Senex-- she just wants his filthiness directed at HER, rather than at some young nymphet.

I think this song (funny as it is) is about pain: she wants him, needs him, and of course he's off chasing someone else, as he has been off and on for the past thirty years. He always vows reform and it... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Pallas Athena at 12:30 PM on January 4, 2008

Why can't she be a bitch who really loves her man?

You can't play "bitch," any more than you could play "evil." So what does she want?

I think she wants some order in the house. I think she wants a husband who's strong, in control and honorable -- and not a walking joke, which is what Senex is. Doesn't she mention that her father was a high-ranking military officer, like a general? She simply wants a household and husband that... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by PlusDistance at 11:50 AM on January 4, 2008

Hello, I am a desperately lonely man. Sometimes I go to these places. It's a reason to get out of the house, albeit one that I realize might cost me far too much money. Stripjoints are places that a man can go and sit by himself and not look so out of place. I'd feel too old and uncool walking into a real nightclub, and would stand in a corner not knowing what to say to anyone. In the strip club the women come to you and pretend to like you, and you know why they do that. Either fending them off... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by TimTypeZed at 11:29 AM on December 30, 2007

Wow.

1. The MIL isn't necessarily anti-semitic. We don't know her, we can't say. However, the act of secret baptisms has a long history (those three links span a millenium) ripe with anti-semitism. So it's easy to see how one can interpret her action as laden with a particular anti-Jewish bent.

2. I'm rather aghast by all the comments that say if you believe it's empty, it shouldn't matter. Aghast, but not surprised. Yes, yes, it's... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by prophetsearcher at 5:58 AM on December 28, 2007

much broader than your request, but this is my art book of the year: 30,000 Years of Art by the editors of Phaidon press. Well designed, as you would expect from Phaidon, and anyone would enjoy paging through it on a day off. Weighs 13lb, though.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by shothotbot at 9:52 AM on December 19, 2007

On further reflection, Anon, I fear I've been a little more snarky than helpful... assuming this question is sincere, what really seems to be going on here is, as mdn posted, a kind of fixation on the "trinkets of personality." I think that's what everyone is really reacting against. But I get it, in a way: I remember back when it seemed ("seemed" being the operative word here) like everything essential about me really could be boiled down to my book/record collection, and... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by scody at 10:43 PM on December 18, 2007

Insert "fedora" for panflute
posted to MetaTalk by i_am_a_Jedi at 4:28 PM on December 18, 2007

I wonder what people did before emoticons and fake close tags. Maybe a lot of famous statements were actually sarcastic, and we take them seriously because of their lack of access to winking smiley technology.

"Give me liberty or give me death. ;-)"

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
/sarcasm"

"I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 4:42 PM on December 9, 2007

"I mean explain its aesthetics."

Ok, I can give it a shot, specifically within the context of the African-American musical tradition. Keep in mind that on any one of these points, I could write a couple of pages with specific examples, so I'm gonna keep this necessarily facile and glib to avoid having to dig up my copy of Orr to make sure that my cites match up with arguments about oral culture, etc.

First, you've got to realize that... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by klangklangston at 7:37 PM on December 6, 2007

This article from last year has a bunch of ways that a cognitive scientist used for said jogging on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Calibandage at 2:16 PM on December 4, 2007 marked best answer

The greatest resource for philosophical issues I know of! I mean, really, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is just.. beautiful. Completely, completely beautiful. Any time you are curious about something philosophical, the SEP is there for you.

Specifically, for what LobsterMitten clarified so magnificently: this.. Check out the "Related Topics" at the very bottom of that page. I don't want to go through for all the different issues that have been... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ms. Saint at 4:38 PM on December 2, 2007

grumblebee, unfortunately I don't have any quickie links to stuff that would be accessible. If you wanted to look into general questions about types of possibility, you'd search for "metaphysics of modality" -- theories about the nature of necessity and possibility are theories about modality. For the stuff just about fictional possibility, you'd search for "truth in fictional worlds".
posted to MetaTalk by LobsterMitten at 3:59 PM on December 2, 2007

People tend to overthink this, and I am speaking from real experience. Just keep the requisite number of gallons of water you'd use in the timespan for which you're planning and change them every couple of years, just for the sake of doing it. They'll last for eons in reality.

In an emergency, water's great, but in a longer-term bad situation, it falls pretty far down the list. Unless you're in an unusually arid place, a means to obtain the water necessary to live... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Dee Xtrovert at 12:25 AM on November 25, 2007

When I was about 19, a friend of mine & I actually smuggled ourselves into the house to camp out overnight. She worked on the lot and we snuck in there with sleeping bags, just so we could say we did. Back then, you could get away with that stuff... security was a total joke and if you knew the layout of the lots you could go crazy. Anyhow, I wish I could remember all of the details of our adventure but unfortunately it's a really vague memory (I barely remember the first name of my friend...... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by miss lynnster at 10:10 PM on November 24, 2007

CPB wrote: Yawn.

Ladies and gents, I give you the Simon-Ehrlich wager.

First of all, the fact that Ehrlich is the poster-child for bad predictions doesn't mean that overpopulation is a myth. I swear to god, if we're all sitting around one day in a world of 30 billion people, covered in our own filth, somebody will cry out "But Ehrlich was wrong! Obviously we can't be overpopulated!"... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Avenger at 10:23 PM on November 20, 2007

mullingitover & finite: You should read a bit further.

This is excellent, Bora Horza Gobuchul. Thanks. I haven't finshed reading yet, but here's the punchline for humanity:

Imagine you're a bacterium in a bottle of bacteria that are doubling their population every minute. The bottle is full in an hour. He asks when the bottle is half full. Answer: A minute before it's full. Sure, we know that. But flip it... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:31 PM on November 20, 2007

Self deception is pretty broad but it doesn't make my top ten.

The inability/unwillingness to believe/behave as if we believed- that others have internal lives similar to our own.

The idea that being "the good guy" requires only that you be able to concoct a "good reason" for doing what ever you do. While not allowing "the bad guy" a similar license in acting on his "good reason.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by I Foody at 8:06 PM on November 20, 2007

“jonmc, I'm an old-line egalitarian in my heart and very much inclined to attribute everything to individual differences, but in philosophy classes that proceed by taking apart the arguments students offer, women get driven out really fast. This is the set of evidence I'm working from, and having gone to a women's college and seen the gentle, helping, consensus-building M.O. at work (and getting stared at because I was more ready for antagonistic debate). There's an ongoing problem of... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ethereal Bligh at 9:59 PM on November 17, 2007

I don't know how to help anyone how to fall in love again with a person they've grown distant from -- besides telling you to fight like hell to reconnect to her, and help her reconnect to herself. Your therapy is good, but don't forget to walk with her, take her dancing, speak kindly to her, and never permit her to see your disgust or make her feel shame about herself. But you already know all that, don't you? So instead, I'll give you this.

Love Poem
John... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by melissa may at 8:48 PM on November 16, 2007

I was married to a beautiful, sexy, but very clumsy woman. She is also tall (5' 9") and big (180 lbs). But she has very small, weak hands, and very poor touch sense for most of the world. Because of long practice, she was a very fast typist, but beyond that, her relationship with the physical world was a daily disaster, the whole length of our relationship, and it eventually became a point between us, for many reasons. She routinely had bruises on her arms and legs, to the point where her... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by paulsc at 4:43 AM on November 17, 2007

Based on my personal experiences, this is my guess at what's happening here and my recommendations as to what to do about it. A huge DISCLAIMER: all these suggestions must be taken with a grain of huge salt, since I am not a paragon of self-control or self-understanding, nor do I always exercise when I should! So I'm hardly out of the boat. But these are some of the lessons I think I've learned.

You're actually very ambivalent about whether going to the gym is worth it... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by shivohum at 4:44 PM on November 10, 2007 marked best answer

“I'm pretty sure Ethereal Bligh killed Abe Lincoln, but I can't recall details.”

Hey, you know what the difference is between what I said and what you said? You know what you said isn't true while I honestly believe what I said is true. Which makes the two statements very different and your comparison both absurd and in bad-faith.

I have a particular comment of jessamyn's in mind. I recall that it's one or... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ethereal Bligh at 8:53 PM on November 6, 2007

Whenever I feel like an impostor, I just engage in some Modern Jackass as an antidote. This was the subject of a This American Life segment a while back; it occurs when you know a little bit about a subject but speak and act as if you know a whole lot more. The term came from a couple who were walking around a museum commenting on the art despite not being all that well-informed about it. Suddenly, one of them said, "Jeez, listen to us; we sound as if we write for a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by FelliniBlank at 10:52 AM on November 5, 2007