1012 MetaFilter comments by thanotopsis
(displaying 1 through 50)
A Million Wisconsinites Petition to Recall Scott Walker: "Petitions with the names of 1 million Wisconsinites were submitted to state elections officials today, in a move that will jump-start the process of removing the nation’s most notorious antilabor governor from office... In all, close to 2 million signatures were submitted Tuesday, building the historic in-the-streets popular uprising that rocked Wisconsin in 2012 into a electoral uprising that has the potential to rock the politics not just of the state but of the nation in 2012. The movement to oust Walker will have secured the support of a higher percentage of eligible voters than has ever before sought to recall an American governor."
comment posted at 6:18 PM on Jan-17-12
"With a little help from the internet, the genre grew because it was so unique.
But in growing, it also evolved. The relaxed, dubby vibe got pushed aside to make way for more. More wobble, more sounds, more everything. Maximize to maximize."
Liquido asks:
Who killed Dubstep? (more)
comment posted at 3:28 PM on Jan-16-12
... [Sarah Orne] Jewett's gifts have always been recognized by a select few, and continue to be. [The Country of the] Pointed Firs
, especially, was immediately recognized as a major achievement. Henry James called it, perfectly, “a beautiful little quantum of achievement.” Willa Cather listed it as one of her three great American novels...
comment posted at 8:30 PM on Jan-13-12
After 30 years, Peter Frampton had been living without 2 critical pieces of his legacy: 1) his hair and 2) the Les Paul that he used in Humble Pie and on the (in)famous Frampton Comes Alive album. But now Frampton can rest easy, as one of those things
has been returned to him.
comment posted at 2:09 PM on Jan-4-12
A new form of wireless network known as
White Spaces will come online next month, the
FCC announced today.
White Spaces has been called "WiFi on steroids". White spaces are unused spectrum between broadcast television channels. It is faster than WiFi so it can handle more data. It can bring (nearly) free Internet access to the most remote areas of the country, places that can't get WiFi. Because it uses broadcast television signals, any place that can pick up a broadcast TV signal should be able to tap into
White Spaces.
comment posted at 6:06 PM on Dec-22-11
“Those who stay in rural Iowa are often the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in educated) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that ‘The sun’ll come out tomorrow.’”
Just ahead of the
Iowa Caucus, New Jersey native turned University of Iowa Professor
Stephen Bloom has published a
piece in The Atlantic that
has caused quite a stir in the heartland. The piece, which is very critical of the Hawkeye State and her inhabitants, has a lot of
Iowans on the defensive, with one article calling Bloom the
"Michelangelo of hick-punching." Stephens has said the
"feedback has been frightening," but he stands by his story. Perhaps a
1971 Harper's piece on Iowa captures the state with a bit more nuance.
comment posted at 7:27 AM on Dec-14-11
comment posted at 2:23 PM on Dec-14-11
Toward the Within is the only official live album of the eclectic music group,
Dead Can Dance.
Recorded in one take in November of 1993, the performance was later released as an album and video. The latter includes short interviews with the heads of the group, Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, interspersed with the songs.
Video track list:
comment posted at 10:30 AM on Dec-8-11
One of the most radically original TV shows in recent memory is
Louie. It's written, directed, edited, and produced by comedian
Louis C.K., who stars as a (thinly) fictionalized version of himself.
The A.V. Club recently sat down with Louis C.K. to talk through the show's second season, episode by episode. He sheds light on many aspects of the show, including the much-discussed
Dane Cook episode.
Part 1,
Part 2,
Part 3,
Part 4. (Louis C.K. previously:
1 2 3 4)
comment posted at 1:01 PM on Sep-22-11
The
artists of
Draw2D2 are given two "geeky things" based on a monthly theme, and then have two weeks to create mash-up illustrations. Art is posted every other Thursday at 12:00pm EST, with a poll for the public to vote for their favorites. Artists with the most votes can show their process in a
spotlight post.
comment posted at 1:58 PM on Sep-12-11
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela wants to
bring his country's gold back home. Eleven billion dollars worth of Venezuelan gold (
211 tonnes ) is currently deposited among a number of US and European banks, at least
some of which will have difficulties meeting the call. Transporting the gold will be
expensive and
complicated - not because of the physical
volume but because of its immense value. (
via)
comment posted at 7:45 AM on Aug-29-11
Actor Jim Meskimen reads Clarence's monologue, slightly adapted, from Shakespeare's Richard III [
text] in
25 celebrity impressions. Bonus points for using Ron Howard's voice for the line "Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days," and Barack Obama's for "Such terrible impression made the dream." (via
@craigyferg)
comment posted at 7:06 PM on Jul-21-11
"The conventional wisdom, promoted by government and echoed
by the subservient media, is that UFOs are mysterious objects
which by definition are unknowable. Anyone attempting to explain
them is a charlatan perpetrating a hoax and using 'junk physics' .
That may not be so."
comment posted at 7:35 PM on Jun-19-11
The Survivor.
"When your family is murdered, and the home you had made together is destroyed, and you yourself are beaten and left for dead — as happened to Bill Petit on the morning of July 23, 2007 — it may as well be the end of the world. It is hard to see how a man survives the end of the world. The basics of life — waking up, walking, talking — become alien tasks, and almost impossibly heavy, as you are more dead than alive. Just how does a man go about surviving such a thing? How does a man go on? ... Why does one man come undone while the next finds a way to make it through?"
comment posted at 3:58 PM on Jun-2-11
After over seven years, Stephen R. Donaldson, has stopped taking questions for his monumental and amazing
Gradual Interview.
"After May 21, 2011, the Gradual Interview will no longer accept new questions or messages. I will continue to work my way through the questions which have already been accepted, but I can't do more. I'm too far behind on too many things, and the strain is affecting my concentration. Discontinuing the Gradual Interview is one of several things that I'm doing to simplify my life."
The Gradual Interview is a fully-searchable question and answer session with his readers that currently contains over 2600 exchanges on topics including minutiae about his novels, his writing process, and many other interesting subjects.
comment posted at 2:37 PM on May-29-11
On April 12th, prior to the Alabama outbreak and about 6 weeks before a tornado tore through the middle of mostly basement-less Joplin, MO, Colleen Bogener wrote a
short editorial on the need for public storm shelters in Joplin. There was a short bit of discussion in response.
comment posted at 8:28 AM on May-25-11
Rick Hill was vacationing in Hawaii.
So was Joe Parker. The two lived within one town of each other in Massachusetts, but discovered on that Hawaiian beach, when Joe offered to take a picture of Rick with his fiancee, that they have the same father.
comment posted at 10:32 AM on Apr-28-11
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