1123 MetaFilter comments by Carol Anne (displaying 1 through 50)

A treasure trove of queer publications from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s are now available through Reveal Digital’s open access collection “Independent Voices.” Check out this JSTOR article for some starting points."Fifty years ago, when a popular New York gay bar called the Stonewall Inn was raided by police, patrons fought back. The moment came to represent the beginning of the modern LGBTQ movement, but as Jules Gleeson explains, the fight for LGBTQ civil rights had actually been building for decades. Evidence of the emotional richness of this movement, from joy to righteous anger, can be found in the many LGBTQ publications, both pre- and post-Stonewall uprising, digitized by Reveal Digital in their Independent Voices collection. The LGBTQ series—which is open access and freely available to all—is a tremendous resource for scholars of LGBTQ history and the curious casual reader alike."
comment posted at 6:23 AM on Jul-15-19

Behold Owlkitty! You don't know Owlkitty? She's only been in all you favorite movies! John Wick! Titanic! The Matrix! Iron Man!
comment posted at 9:05 AM on Jul-12-19


These TV shows were ruined by stray shoes: A rogue sneaker is all it takes to smash through the suspension of disbelief.
comment posted at 5:15 AM on Jun-22-19

The new exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage gets everything right—and fixes nothing. Dara Horn reviews “Auschwitz: Not Long Ago, Not Far Away" for The Atlantic.
comment posted at 9:45 AM on Jun-17-19

Naming John Wick for Baba Yaga instead of Koschei places him inside a lineage of feminine power, feminine wrath, and feminine antagonism to the governance of men. John Wick is not wronged like a man. John Wick is wronged like a witch. John Wick is wronged like the only woman the king fears, and the only person who can truly hold the king to his word.

comment posted at 12:10 PM on Jun-7-19

In which NPR examines the concept of "The Song Of The Summer" and provides a Spotify playlist of their 100 songs of the summer since 1962, plus a list of the top songs (2-6 per year) they they've defined as one of that year's Songs Of The Summer.
comment posted at 1:35 PM on May-25-19


Just as the quest for the perfect NCAA Basketball tournament bracket is about to end for this year, you can still try your hand at the perfect population bracket. Which city will win? More importantly, how well can you do so that you can humblebrag about it in the ensuing thread? One of a zillion data visualizations available via the US Census Burueau's Data Visualization blog. [Previously]
comment posted at 6:34 AM on Mar-29-19

It's milk and coke together, as a drink and allegedly popular in Birmingham. Other Brits try it, to differing reactions, but is not unknown to distant (eponysterical) MeFites. Irish News: “The best mixture is one third milk to two thirds coke. You have to pour the milk in first otherwise it’ll curdle. You’ve got about 10 minutes to drink it once you’ve made it, before it separates” - something like this (chemical equation). Variations allegedly include Ribena and milk, limeade and sterilised milk, and Mountain Dew and milk (America). Here is a complicated video recipe containing coke and ice cream. But this is unquestionably Birmingham cuisine.
comment posted at 2:20 PM on Mar-2-19

How well can we sense each other’s loneliness? [study abstract] "As the correlation scores show, the participants’ partners tended to be better at judging their loneliness than did their friends and parents.  In fact, there was no significant difference in statistical terms between participants’ ratings of their own loneliness and the ratings given to them by their partners. In contrast, parents and friends tended to underestimate the participants’ loneliness."
comment posted at 6:03 AM on Jan-27-19

Since late January, Tm Breihan has been writing a long-term project for Stereogum: starting with The Platters' "Smoke Gets In My Eyes" - the first ever Billboard #1 Single, in 1958 - Breihan is going through each #1 single, in order, posting a write-up, review, reassessment and musical history lesson, every single weekday. He's now into 1970. The latest is "American Woman," by the Guess Who?
comment posted at 10:00 AM on Dec-22-18

The Offside Rule and The Guardian name the best 100 female soccer players of 2018.
comment posted at 6:52 AM on Dec-8-18

Two women have spoken to independent reporter David McAfee about inappropriate behavior by Neil deGrasse Tyson. A former assistant "says she decided to quit after the negative interactions with Tyson, and that she told the story to at least one supervisor in hopes that he wouldn’t hire more female assistants for the astrophysicist."
comment posted at 1:28 PM on Nov-30-18

Friendsgiving seems to have evolved in recent years from a sort of ad hoc Thanksgiving replacement (implemented when people found themselves far away from family on the holiday but near friends) to a common in-addition-to-Thanksgiving event, one that’s exclusively for friends. In other words, Friendsgiving has become a widely celebrated American holiday in its own right—and while it’s hard to know in real time what cultural shifts or forces have led to the rise of Friendsgiving, there are a few compelling theories as to why you may be seeing the term pop up again and again in Venmo transactions this week. (SL TheAtlantic)
comment posted at 11:32 AM on Nov-19-18

In addition to doing all of her normal work, our programmer also had to train two new hires. These new hires didn't have any of the required technical skills. But once she trained them, which took about a year, they stepped up into management roles. Their trainer, meanwhile, was demoted into an assistantship below them. She succeeded at her job, only to fail in her career.
That the trainer was a woman, and that her trainees were both young men, was no coincidence.
comment posted at 7:45 AM on Nov-1-18

Ross MacDonald is a creator of fake period paper props - books, documents, packaging etc - for use in movies and television.
comment posted at 1:00 PM on Oct-29-18

Sans Forgetica! The Font That Helps You Remember? Brought to you by Australia's Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, the idea behind the new font was to create a slightly more difficult reading experience, forcing the reader to absorb each word as they stare at it. Wait until you see it.
comment posted at 6:49 AM on Oct-8-18

7 October brings the debut of Series 11 of Doctor Who with Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor and Chris Chibnall as showrunner. The changes have been greatly anticipated and warmly received: Doctor Who Season 11 Marks a New Era — and It's Been a Long Time Coming (Maureen Ryan, TV Guide); How Doctor Who could change the way women are portrayed in sci-fi (Danush Parvaneh, Vox); and The unimaginable joy of finally seeing a woman as 'Doctor Who' (Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY);
comment posted at 12:44 PM on Oct-7-18

Two-time WNBA championship winner Devereaux Peters in an Washington Post op-ed: I’m a WNBA player. Men won’t stop challenging me to play one-on-one.
comment posted at 7:51 AM on Aug-3-18


There is a . . . tension running through this year’s Pride celebrations . . . it’s becoming harder for people who don’t present as the “right” kind of queer-identified person to feel welcome "The contrast is clear in triumphant, ecstatic celebrations of marriage equality, when trans people still can’t use the bathroom that matches their gender identity. Corporations are cashing in on these identities by selling gay-themed products during Pride Month — often referred to as 'rainbow capitalism' — but too often, the rainbow begins and ends with masculine gay men. 'There is a sense now of compulsory gayness,' said Josh Burford, the director of community engagement at the Invisible Histories Project."
comment posted at 5:29 AM on Jun-24-18



George Takei’s Accuser Has Changed His Story of Drugging and Assault. "...[U]nlike like Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein and other accused celebrity sex offenders, Takei was known in Hollywood as a good guy. There had been no whisper cloud, no trail of payoffs or suppressed claims of higher-ups shrugging off allegations to protect their businesses. Was this an uncharacteristic lapse? Or was it the first hint of a hidden pattern, a dark side Takei kept from public view for decades?"
comment posted at 5:44 AM on May-28-18
comment posted at 6:56 AM on May-29-18


World War II made paperback novels popular in the U.S. thanks to Armed Service Editions, which evolved from earlier failed book drives. G.I.s came back home with their little books, and wanted more. After pulp magazines died off (because of the war efforts), pulp paperbacks flourished, first with hardcover titles repackaged for an audience grown used to portable Army editions, but soon came the "lascivious and streetwise stories that made steady work for a generation of writers," including potboilers and pin-ups that showed gay and bisexual women they were not alone.
comment posted at 6:08 AM on May-26-18


The West Chicago Tower Mystery
Most of the radio towers you see each day are cell towers. There are 215,000 of them in the US. They differ from other radio towers in that they will almost always have one ore more triangular structures with three or more directional antennas on each side of the triangle. A grid of cell towers covers an area with roughly hexagonal cells so that you get a good signal everywhere. The West Chicago tower had no triangular structure, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t a cell tower. And these antennas were huge compared to regular cell tower antennas. I could literally see them 1/2 mile away. Some cell towers do have microwave dish antennas when it’s hard to bring fiber to a site, but shortwave antennas didn’t seem to go together with microwave in my mind. Mystery #1: If this wasn’t a cell tower, what was it?

comment posted at 12:55 PM on May-10-18

@hillarydale:
life update: i recently made a claim that lorde & jack antonoff are 2gether & it's taken me on a strange journey to the Truth, which i present to u in the way i best express myself - powerpoint:
Someone made a PowerPoint to prove Lorde and Jack Antonoff are dating and it's...remarkable
comment posted at 4:35 AM on May-9-18


No time to binge watch? Too busy to catch single episode? No problem! Just take in a compilation/montage/supercut/marathon video and be on your merry way! Not to be confused with the hair salon, thanks winterhill. Start with: Parks and Recreation: Ron Swanson's Best Moments (Supercut)
comment posted at 10:23 AM on Apr-10-18


Doing okay. In the Winter Olympics just concluded, Norway (pop. 5.3 million) surpassed USA's record of most medals won at a single Winter Olympics with 39 (14 gold, 14 silver, 11 bronze). “This is our moment, when we can show the world what we are. Although without boasting too much about it, of course. That wouldn’t be very Norwegian.” Their success is based on grass roots sports, and a “no jerks allowed” team policy. “We’re a small country and we kind of all know each other”. Curling pants and when to steal a painting. 'He also admits Norway is blessed with many advantages for Winter Olympics dominance, like snow, a history of excellence in sports like biathlon and cross-country skiing, and free health care, which helps keep young athletic talent in good shape.' (Fanfare)
comment posted at 5:57 AM on Feb-26-18


There have been ten women who have given birth while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives; one of them was Tammy Duckworth in 2014. While she was on maternity leave, she decided to run for Senator. Now she slated to be the first member of the U.S. Senate to give birth while in office. Duckworth (D-Illinois), who turns 50 in March, is due in April.
comment posted at 5:40 AM on Jan-24-18

A Bucketful of Happiness... Merry Christmas from Lord Buckethead
comment posted at 7:31 AM on Dec-25-17

Today, I schooled some total dinguses who didn’t know which character was Zelda. [via]
comment posted at 6:19 AM on Dec-21-17

Pantone has named its color for 2018: Ultraviolet.
comment posted at 2:41 PM on Dec-7-17

David and Jonathan by Anthony Oliveira
David and Jonathan’s love is the apotheosis of this redemptive love; despite centuries of embarrassed and embarrassing exegesis, their relationship is explicitly romantic, explicitly “surpassing the love of women” (2 Samuel 1:26), and its power is the means by which God (in his usual manner of favouring the outcast, the second son, the marginalised) remakes and renovates the collapsing and decadent reign of the paranoiac Saul, bringing rain to a parched landscape.

comment posted at 6:54 AM on Nov-24-17

@Jack has been a busy boy recently: Twitter banned a popular account because dumb nazis fell for a prank (or pretended to). In fairness, so did fox. Twitter announced new rules to prevent abuse and harassment - the main outcome of which appears to be banning bisexuals. Nazis, an extremely favored user group on Twitters, are likely to be okay. A Twitter engineer identified Russian bots in 2015 and was told to "stay in lane". The thing Jack does want from employees, instead of raising obvious problems? Relentless optimism.
comment posted at 5:50 AM on Nov-7-17

Why the Lack of Indian and African Faces in Dunkirk Matters by Sunny Singh [The Guardian] “Knowingly or not, Nolan walks in the footsteps of both film directors and politicians who have chosen to whitewash the past. But why is it so important for Nolan, and for many others, that the film expunge all non-white presence on the beach and the ships? Why is it psychologically necessary that the heroic British troops be rescued only by white sailors? What would change if brave men fighting at Dunkirk wore turbans instead of helmets? What would alter if some of the soldiers offered namaaz on the sands before rising to face the advancing enemy for that one last time? Why is it so important that the covering fire be provided by white French troops rather than North African and Middle Eastern ones?”
comment posted at 6:42 AM on Aug-2-17

Most kids who grow up speaking English learn the "I before E" rule, complete with its subparts "except after C" and "or when sounding like A". And some people learn some of the major exceptions, like "weird" and "height" and "caffeine" (so many exceptions, in fact, that as Stephen Fry and QI point out, the rule is essentially useless). But not many people go as far as Nathan Cunningham and use their programming skills to see whether C is really the letter that should be cited as the main exception.
comment posted at 7:12 AM on Jul-24-17

Frances Gabe, inventor of the self-cleaning house, has died. This NY Times obituary is a lengthy tribute to a remarkable woman and includes videos and diagrams of her remarkable invention. [Previously]
comment posted at 10:43 AM on Jul-19-17

"Once a little old lady named Laura Scudder had a thing about potato chips" - an ad for Laura Scudder's Potato Chips, which really were made by Laura Scudder, a California entrepreneur who was the first to package potato chips in sealed bags to preserve their freshness, and was the first to add freshness dates to products. You can take the Laura Scudder Noise Abatement League Pledge, and view a short biographical recounting of Laura's life from Pauline Lemire, president of the Historical Society of Monterey Park.
comment posted at 9:33 AM on May-21-17

A lot more. Matthew "Megatoad" Kai Stonie is an American competitive eater and is the number two ranked competitive eater in Major League Eating. Matt won the 2015 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.
comment posted at 6:15 AM on May-20-17

The rise of modern virtual reality brought with it a nasty rash of discrimination and harassment issues, both inside the headset and out. Problem #1 is a tale as old as time: a high-profile lawsuit between Magic Leap and former employee Tannen Campbell, who sued the company for sex discrimination after originally being hired to help create a more female-friendly product. The second problem? A growing list of women who have experienced physical/sexual harassment from other users while inside multiplayer VR experiences, where being touched inappropriately can have the same emotional and psychological impacts as if they were harassed in real life. (CW: descriptions of physical/sexual harassment in the links)
comment posted at 10:34 AM on May-11-17

“You Don’t Own Me” is a song by Lesley Gore.
“You Don’t Own Me” (Featuring G-Eazy) is a modern cover by Grace.
This one-minute video in a tweet is the best music video for the cover.
comment posted at 2:16 PM on May-7-17

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