MetaFilter

Look, it depends on what you mean by "race". But claims that there are no racial differences on a genetic level are provably false.

There are no individual genetic tags one can use to unambiguously place any given individual into one of a small number of "race" baskets. But the groups we refer to as "races" do have statistical differences genetically. To claim that there are no differences at all is also wrong.

You... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Steven C. Den Beste at 3:44 PM on November 5, 2007

Wow at this link.

Um... I was a raver in 1989. It was my senior year of high school. I can attest to the immense sense of freedom and future social benefits that this culture had on me.

I attended my first warehouse party in November 1989. I remember every fiber in my being telling me that this sound, this music, was the future. I was listening to "Welcome to Techno City" by the legendary Juan Atkins. At this time, ecstacy was legal and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Unicorn on the cob at 11:00 AM on October 24, 2007

INSTRUCTIONS FOR POSTING ASCII ART TO METAFILTER SO THAT IT'S NOT BALDERDIZED:

1) Open up your artwork in a text editor.
2) Add <blockquote><pre> to the beginning of the first line
3) Substitute a
for every newline in the original artwork. To reiterate: get rid of all newlines. This step is easier if you gin up a macro to do the work for you.
4) at the end of the artwork, close out your blockquote and pre.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by killdevil at 10:00 PM on June 14, 2007

Tied up in moral knots?
posted to MetaTalk by Abiezer at 7:47 PM on October 15, 2007

“Rev. Aldridge considered himself a man of god, fighting to keep America pure - yet he himself had a HUGE rubber kink.”

Everyone assumes that this man was a hypocrite. That assumption is based upon the assumption that all cultural ultra-conservatives abhor any sex that's not with a partner and in missionary position. And while this may be true for most of these folks, there's no reason to suppose that it's true for each individual. Because the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ethereal Bligh at 4:38 AM on October 13, 2007

Believe it or not, five fresh fish, there is a good chance they DON'T want to harm you. I'm an atheist now, but I was raised in Montgomery, Alabama in a Southern Baptist church, and yes, it is a suffocating environment. But I'll tell you this, as awful and as misguided as their actions may seem, a lot of them believe they're doing it for your OWN GOOD. That doesn't make what they're doing right, and that doesn't mean that there aren't some fundamentalists out there who aren't motivated by hate.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Evangeline at 2:19 PM on October 14, 2007

When I was about 18, my lame soon-to-be-ex boyfriend & I took a road trip to Mexico together. We were at dinner and he had clearly drank too many margaritas. We ordered our food and suddenly he turned to me and slurred, "How much money do you have on you?" I stopped and looked at him and said, "Why, how much money do you have?" He proceeded to get mad at me and I realized that he didn't have money for our dinners. I calmly said, "It's okay if you... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by miss lynnster at 1:49 PM on October 6, 2007

I was once you. I am not anymore!

Here's what I discovered after a lot of self-reflection. Somehow, perhaps through that "self-esteem building" crap that was so popular when I was growing up, I got it into my head that other people are responsible for my feelings. If my feelings were hurt, then it was because other people were being mean, and it was their fault for being mean, and they should stop. And also, for some reason, I was convinced that every time... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by AV at 6:17 AM on October 2, 2007

I find the occasionally blow nose less annoying than the constant sniffle. If I am out of tissues, I'll excuse myself if possible and try to get out the there without using the sleeve. What can you do? You have a cold. If I know ahead of time that I'll be in a public area, I'll take some over the counter stuff to dry me out so that I can make it through the lecture or plane ride.

True story, years ago, I was afflicted with allergies that resulted in lots of runny nose... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by typewriter at 7:15 PM on September 19, 2007

flabdablet, sotonohito: yes, I expected this kind of rebuttal, and ultimately I'm not interested in defending theism or qualified to do so...it's not a part of philosophy I'm terribly familiar with and anyway I am and always have been a non-believer. I suppose if I had any reason for my long rant, it was this: on the one hand I don't like certain people in this thread calling theism idiocy or a mental deficiency, and on the other I don't like people, like the writer of this article, saying that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by creasy boy at 6:06 AM on September 3, 2007

One really common cognitive bias people have is that feeling that what they are good at is more important than it is and feeling what they are bad at is less important than it is. I am good at crossword puzzles and and bad at driving a car. I think being good at crossword puzzles is a good proxy for being smart and I think being smart is more important than being strong or having a good immune system or being able to drive a car without taking forever to pull out into a not so busy four lane... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by I Foody at 7:01 AM on September 2, 2007

"...nowhere near the necessary evidence for stuff like evolutionary psychology."

There is nowhere near the necessary evidence for some/many claims in evolutionary psychology. You're recklessly claiming that an entire field and every bit of research in it is unwarranted by the evidence. I'm a little, shall we say, skeptical of the correctness of your point of view.

And, as it happens, if I take you... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ethereal Bligh at 4:35 PM on August 26, 2007

I ask myself this question all the time, mostly in the context of why I want to have a "romantic" relationship with some people and a "friends" / "friends with benefits" relationship with others. I have no idea, despite frequent heart- and soul-searching, what happens when my feelings change from non-romantic to romantic, nor why it happens in some circumstances and not in others.

For example: I have a "friends" relationship with J.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jesourie at 12:38 PM on August 20, 2007

I've been in a lot of workplaces where sexism — not just jokes about sex, but the honest belief that women were inferior beings whose only real job was to get men off, and who certainly didn't belong at work — fell into the same category as farts. They were both things to keep quiet about when clients were around, and it was acknowledged that a few people "couldn't take a joke" about either, but between friends they were both fair game for conversation.

I have... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by nebulawindphone at 10:47 AM on August 5, 2007

In my family, nobody farted. Well, at least everyone tried really f'n hard to not fart in front of everybody. It just wasn't an issue.

Then my mother started dating a man that eventually became my step-father. And this guy and his sons had a completely different take on bodily functions. Not only was farting glorious, he left the bathroom door open while taking a dump. I mean, you could hear... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Cool Papa Bell at 1:17 PM on July 29, 2007

Oh, come one. Hard drives are perfectly fine for archiving, especially if you already have professional redundant server backups. This application does not call for tape backup, and optical media are not are reliable as hard drives. The key with any hard drive backup solution is redundancy. So you should always have *two* backups (at least), made alternately and stored in different places.

There is no reason to prefer one hard drive over another, all specs being equal.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by spitbull at 1:24 PM on July 19, 2007

I'm actually very glad you've asked this question. I've been faced with a similar choice - and it is, ultimately, just that. It's a choice to do something that doesn't sit well with you, or else you wouldn't have asked your question in the first place.

So......all of this is based on e-mails? This whole thing is based on things you've read? Okay, let's back up for a second.

Since you're considering all of this based on... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by TryTheTilapia at 7:56 AM on July 17, 2007

This is also a good resource on the topic.

That is not "a good resource on the topic," it is the website for the "Apostrophe Protection Society," a crackpot organization that is exactly as good a resource as any random blog you happen upon. The only good resources on this topic are dictionaries and (professional) style manuals. Proper style is not a ninja battle won by the person with the most indignation.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by languagehat at 10:39 AM on July 14, 2007

I've got some advice original to this thread, Strike.

Wear clothes that accentuate your certainly ripped upper body. Tailored dress shirts, snug T-shirts. Go out. You stand out in the scene already, make that a positive. Smile big and just be as charming as you can. I think I've just tapped into a "type" I didn't know I had: the handsome, suave disabled guy. The combination of setback+confidence=AWESOME as a first impression.

By... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:14 AM on July 8, 2007 marked best answer

I used to be a pudgy guy who was into women who look remarkably like my wife. Now I'm an average-build guy who is into women who look remarkably like my wife. In a few years I hope to be a particularly fit, athletic guy who is into women who look remarkably like my wife.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by mendel at 7:01 AM on July 3, 2007

why does it matter if other people read "classic" literature? Why is it better if they read watered down versions of literature than not at all?

I think this common urge comes from the horrible notion that a great book has to have a lesson, a moral, a useful insight into real life, something that can be summarized, interpreted, learned, and applied. Kundera: To be without a feeling for art is no disaster. A person can... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by pracowity at 2:22 PM on May 8, 2007

i did this thing a long time ago, which freaked me out a bit - but i think was worthwhile in the long run. essentially our brains cache images - rather than reassess them each and every time. so when you look in the mirror your brain doesn't actually process the vision of you then, it provides a composite - the you that you expect to see. often when we look in the mirror we are focusing on a single point of reference, doing lipstick, plucking eyebrows, shaving or an overall impression of... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by dnc at 4:32 AM on April 30, 2007 marked best answer

I've hear voices, and have talked to these voices, since childhood, although I consider myself a perfectly normal, well-adjusted person. From my earliest memory to about puberty, the experience was as if I was Gulliver in Lilliput, talking to an assembled crowd of thousands of invisible, tiny people. They would appear when I was alone. They would ask me questions and I would answer them, and in a way, this process helped me synthesize learning and information. Very often, I would... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Cool Papa Bell at 10:46 PM on April 28, 2007 marked best answer

The Russian Turkish Baths! Went last week for the first time, after dying to visit after reading about it on AskMeta constantly (it always get a mention in threads like this)- it was so great!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:01 PM on March 19, 2007

trying to play to any hypothetical crowd will merely breed falseness and mediocrity. You have to create from the wellspring of genuine fascination. True or false?

False, false, false, a thousand times false.

I'm a technical writer. I sometimes find myself having to write about things that are not particularly interesting to me. At this point in my career, I can be more picky (for example, focusing on API documentation for a... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by kindall at 11:20 AM on February 24, 2007 marked best answer

Yes, there are studies on this sort of thing. I did a few papers in my last year of my undergrad in Linguistics that touched on some of these issues.

Let's talk about how you store words in your brain, and how you translate that into speech or writing. And let's remember that no one really knows how our brains do this, and there are a few competing theories that have great evidence to back them up, but which contradict each other.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by heatherann at 3:08 PM on February 23, 2007 marked best answer

Once you have a good handle on number theory, take a solid statistics course. Then take a basic calculus course (at this point, it will make much more sense to you than it did in high school or college), and finally move on to information theory. Lots of people skip right to information theory, but a solid foundation will help your understanding.

I would actually recommend that you take a good introductory probability theory class before you take... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Blazecock Pileon at 8:56 PM on February 15, 2007 marked best answer

"Why is it so hard? It it an alpha-male thing?"

I don't think so. I think it's more an "I don't actually believe that I'm [much, if at all] in the wrong" thing. Some people hardly ever think they've been wrong, even when people around them are unanimous in the opinion they were. Of those, some learn to insincerely apologize as a social necessity; others do not.

My father never, ever apologized for... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ethereal Bligh at 10:33 AM on February 14, 2007

Special Relativity established the theoretical basis for atomic power. His paper on the "Photoelectric Effect" (for which he got his Nobel Prize) laid the foundation for the development of Quantum Mechanics, which has yielded many things, not least of which were semiconductors and modern polymer chemistry (i.e. plastics).

That said, your question is misguided. Einstein was a scientist, not an engineer. Scientists try to learn about the world; engineers try to... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Steven C. Den Beste at 2:10 AM on February 14, 2007

The song's origins might be more interesting that at first glance. Here's a recording on wax cylinder of The Laughing Song (mp3) via the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project. According to them it's from a wax series made somewhere between 1896-1901. It features George W. Johnson, the first popular African-American recording artist who also recorded other laughing songs (mp3). If I'm hearing this correctly The Laughing Song and The Laughing Policeman are the same music and melody,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by massless at 2:24 AM on February 12, 2007

Can I be considered a worthwhile member of society without having a career?

This is a classic case of the passive voice creating a problem. Considered by whom? Some will consider you such, others won't. Myself, I tend to feel that anyone who doesn't actively hurt or oppress other people is a worthwhile member of society; others feel you need to Contribute. What you need to think about is whose opinion you care about, and why. You say you feel... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by languagehat at 9:11 AM on February 11, 2007

I removed a few comments from that thread that were better placed in this one. AskMe is not supposed to work like jury deliberations. You give the OP some advice, possibly discuss the topic some with other people in the thread, but at the point at which you're posting in AskMe to berate the other people posting in AskMe for their bad advice, then you should take it here. I put a link to this thread in that one.

I was also a little surprised the question got approved.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:33 AM on October 21, 2006

One of my proudest zing! moments came on the T when a man asked a middle aged woman if she could please move her lone bag off the seat next to her so that he could sit down. She was pissed that someone dare ask her to move her shopping (a bag containing a shoebox), so pissed infact that she stood up and offered both seats to the man in question shouting "I didn't know The King of the Train was here!"

She shuffled over to the pole where I was... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by robocop is bleeding at 9:48 AM on September 21, 2006 marked best answer

I use the (mostly) free online resource flashcard exchange. Works great for me, and it can use pictures... Check it out. (you may have to pay to use the picture function... I'm lazy & not sure)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by tdreyer1 at 8:03 AM on August 24, 2006

I am a woman and a philosophy teacher. There are a number of issues you are asking about all at once. Let's separate them.

1. Who are the great women philosophers?

Here are several lists.
Medieval era, 500-1600
Modern era, 1600-1900
Geocities page that covers 600 BCE - 1500 CE
Wikipedia has a mixed list of historical and contemporary women philosophers
A page with photos and portraits... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by LobsterMitten at 1:03 AM on August 12, 2006 marked best answer

Ideas on CBC Radio 1 might be a good suggestion - they'll usually pick pretty interesting subjects for one-hour radio documentaries. Subjects have ranged from the Cathars to virtuality to philosophies of pain to someone's doc they did on their experience being in a coma.

Usually thought provoking, passive (one can listen while doing dishes or whatever) and the voices are soooothing :)

Oh, and they do webcasts.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by poweredbybeard at 5:09 PM on July 31, 2006

At around twelve years of age my father's catholic upbringing finally overcame him and he went from spiritual apathist to devout catholic, dragging the rest of the family along with him. I was around twelve at the time, had been an atheist for years, and had no desire to convert. Despite my protestations I was force-enrolled in confirmation classes and given a daily browbeating at home from whenever he got home that night until whenever he got hoarse.

Given the... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by little miss manners at 11:33 PM on July 21, 2006

I totally know what you mean, convex - really, seriously, ultra-beautiful women and men have the same effect on me, and it's exactly the same thing as when I encounter people with severe burns, or dwarves (sorry, I know saying that is spectacularly politically incorrect, not to mention wrong, but... er, nope, no excuse, I'm just a bad person). I assume this is a combination of wanting to look, because disfigured/beautiful people are out of the ordinary, but knowing that we... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jack_mo at 2:03 PM on July 20, 2006 marked best answer

When I was a kid I was afraid of the things in the dark, not the dark itself.

I got a hammer and stood around in the dark for awhile. I practiced seeing in low light and moving in no light.

I became one of the things in the dark.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by ewkpates at 6:40 AM on July 14, 2006

Mmkay. I'm 13 (almost 14). If you started a sentence with most of those things, I'd prolly "think" I have you figured out right away cuz I'd tell myself "He understands TIME but not me and my friends and what we live." (That might not be true, but it's what I'd think.)

Mmkay. Here's the deal. We like adults who DO stuff with us and open up the world to us. We don't really like it when they criticize the world we live in. We live in it cuz people... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by FeistyFerret at 11:55 AM on June 19, 2006 marked best answer

Where to start?

The whole process is surreal, from beginning to end, and I personally often lost track of the fact that, at the end of this overwhelming experience, would be the start of the REAL overwhelming experience!

I gave birth to twins in August 2005. I went 37 weeks with them until a placental abruption forced an emergency c-section (I had been planning a natural vaginal birth all along, so the c-section was not at ALL what I had in mind)... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by OhPuhLeez at 5:51 PM on May 19, 2006

A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the accordion, but chooses not to.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by AmbroseChapel at 3:44 AM on May 19, 2006

I don't know if anyone is still reading this thread, as someone who longs for well-written SF, I want to thank everyone for their recommedations. I went through the whole thing this morning and compiled the following list. Disclaimer: I didn't include a couple of the so-called "masters", like Asimov. Sorry, I don't consider him worthy of the list. Just my opinion. Also, I snuck in a few additional recommendations that I thought of today, having scanned my bookshelves.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by grumblebee at 9:25 AM on May 3, 2006 marked best answer

Three points:

* My perception of time has changed dramatically in the past twenty years. At 17, time seemed to randomly shift between fast and slow periods -- sometimes it seemed as if time stood still, that I wasn't in control, while other times it seemed as if time was rushing forward and I had to get things done rightnow. I realize now that I'm in control of these perceptions, and I should've recognized the awesome amounts of time I had back then... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by frogan at 11:10 PM on May 10, 2006