838 MetaFilter comments by Neale (displaying 1 through 50)

It's election time once more in the Antipodes, so let's consider the cream of this season's political comedy. Have you missed the last three years? Catch up with this helpful Honest Government Ad from the 'Australien Government'.
comment posted at 1:49 PM on May-21-22


It’s the distant future and the earth is in ruins. Machines have replaced mankind, and therefore they must be destroyed. [Polygon] “And there are a lot of reasons to play Nier: Automata [YouTube] [Trailer] beyond its fusion of melee action and bullet hell shooting. It makes one hell of a first impression for one thing, seizing control of the camera to stage sweeping scenes that make 2B seem no bigger than an insect, then squaring her off against a living oil rig that feels bigger than the buildings themselves just to rub it in. And remarkably Nier only ever builds on that opening scene, moving from spectacle to spectacle, impression to impression, as if to say "Oh, you thought that last thing was cool? Well how about this?" Even after finishing the first ending and pursuing the others, the stakes kept rising.”
comment posted at 6:18 PM on May-10-17

John Clarke, celebrated Australian/New Zealander actor, satirist, and comedian, died of natural causes while hiking in Victoria’s Grampians National Park at the weekend. Obituaries: ABC, Guardian, Radio NZ.
comment posted at 10:17 PM on Apr-9-17

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword [Trailer] [YouTube] “The young Arthur runs the back passages of Londinium with his crew, not knowing his royal lineage until he draws the sword Excalibur from the stone. Instantly confronted by the sword’s influence, Arthur is forced to decide where to become involved with his power. Throwing in with the Resistance and an enigmatic young woman named Guinevere, he must learn to master the sword, face down his demons and unite the people to defeat the tyrant Vortigern — who murdered his parents and stole his crown — and became king.”
comment posted at 11:48 PM on Feb-8-17


Taking a holiday break from the usual dispiriting revelations, The Intercept's latest release from the Snowden files is an internal Christmas cryptographic competition from Britain's Government Communications Headquarters. Take the quiz and see if you can outsmart Her Majesty's codebreakers!
comment posted at 4:18 AM on Dec-27-15
comment posted at 2:00 PM on Dec-27-15

The Verge has developed a way to game the New Yorker cartoon caption contest (previously: 1 2 christ what an asshole 4), in the sense that roulette and chuck-a-luck are games.
comment posted at 9:40 AM on Aug-30-15


Starting in the late 70s and throughout the 80s, Australian Rock strode the earth like a tiny, screaming colossus. Whether Hard Rock (drummer convicted of death threats), Pop Rock (lead singer dead from autoerotic aspyxiation), Pub Rock (lead singer's kids no longer forced to play), or what we'd now call Indie (they broke up, get over it) the 80s was the high water mark in Aus/NZ music history.Then the nineties and naughties ushered in an ero of reality-TV driven drivel...
comment posted at 3:40 AM on Jul-16-15


ANNA: I’m always so happy when I’m here, and never feel strange or despondent.
SARA: Me, too. So happy. The sound of all the kids laughing and screaming is so joyous, and doesn’t sound anything like nails on a chalkboard.
ANNA: I’ve never cried behind that tree.
SARA: Me neither.

(SLNewYorker)
comment posted at 7:07 PM on May-14-15


Why I have resigned from the Telegraph; an open letter by Peter Oborne, until now the chief political commentator of the Daily Telegraph, alleging that the conservative-leaning British broadsheet has allowed advertisers to veto its editorial policy, a process which culminated in the suppression of stories about the recent tax avoidance scandal involving the HSBC bank, itself a major Telegraph advertiser.
comment posted at 4:20 PM on Feb-17-15

The Chocolate Wars... Begun, They Have. The Great Chocolate War began when Hershey sued two food importers, claiming that they infringed on the trademarks that Hershey has had since acquiring Cadbury’s US operations in the 1980s. Hershey said it noticed the British versions were starting to show up on the shelves of bigger US retailers, and not just the specialty shops, as demand for the imported chocolates grew.
comment posted at 7:47 PM on Feb-16-15

Global news sources are reporting a what appears to be a hostage taking at the Lindt Chocolate Café in Martin Place, Sydney, also home to the Reserve Bank of Australia.
comment posted at 9:43 PM on Dec-14-14
comment posted at 10:03 PM on Dec-14-14

Barry Spurr, an expert on T. S. Eliot and the Virgin Mary, is Australia's first Professor of Poetry and Poetics. Appointed as one of two English subject specialists to the new Australian Review of the National Curriculum PDF, his concerns that "the Western literary canon" has been neglected and "the impact of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on literature in English in Australia" overemphasized in the existing curriculum are quoted liberally in the final report, which recommends that: "There ... needs to be a greater emphasis on dealing with and introducing literature from the Western literary canon, especially poetry," in Australian schools. The report has met with approval in the right-wing Australian press. Now, emails leaked to the New Matilda show that Spurr has spent the past several years sending messages from his University of Sydney email account referring to Native Australians as "Abos" and human "rubbish" and Asians as "chinky poos," calling Nelson Mandela a "darkie," Desmond Tutu a "witch doctor," and his own Vice Chancellor "an appalling minx," comparing Methodists to "serpents," and referring to women generally as "whores." Now, in the wake of the New Matilda exposé, the University of Sydney is investigating the emails and the Australian Education Minister is denying that the Abbott administration had anything to do with Spurr's appointment. Spurr, meanwhile, maintains that the emails were nothing more than "a whimsical linguistic game" and "repartee" shared with friends, which went right over the heads of the New Matilda journalists. There is also a petition to dismiss Spurr from the Review Commission.
comment posted at 2:09 PM on Oct-16-14

I do not say this to make the people of #Gamergate seem any more important, or effective, or powerful, or to give any sort of new credence to their ideas. Rather, this is just a structural designation: as immediately dismissible as their tactics and stances might be (at least to anyone who has not become victim to them), I believe it's important to note that group was formed like a hate group and functions like a hate group in every way.
Social researcher Jennifer Allaway examines the ways in which #GamerGate functions as a hate group, using a 2004 study by Linda Woolf and Michale Hulsizer called Hate Groups for Dummies: How to Build a Successful Hate Group as her framework. In it, she identifies four essential elements to any hate group:

  • the leadership which originally inspired the movement,
  • the recruitment strategy it uses to appeal to insecure and impressionable gamers,
  • the social-psychological techniques by which it spreads its message and enflames its members' beliefs,
  • and, finally, the process by which it dehumanizes its victims, and turns them into targets whose attacking earns group praise.

    comment posted at 10:01 PM on Oct-13-14

    Person Swap (SLYT) This is one of those "awareness test" things but done more with more of the flare of a magician's trick. There are a lot of interesting details in how they pulled it off.
    comment posted at 4:01 PM on Jul-20-14


    Two 14 Year Olds Hack Winnipeg ATM. "Matthew Hewlett and Caleb Turon, both Grade 9 students, found an old ATM operators manual online that showed how to get into the machine's operator mode.... Hewlett and Turon were even more shocked when their first random guess at the six-digit password worked. They used a common default password."
    comment posted at 6:28 PM on Jun-17-14

    What if we admitted to children that sex is primarily about pleasure?
    I realized why my son was confused. He was thinking “accidentally getting pregnant” was like accidentally burning yourself because you didn’t realize the stove was on. “Sweetie,” I explained, “most of the time that people have sex, they’re not having it to have a baby. They’re having it because it feels good. So you can get accidentally pregnant if you’re having sex for pleasure and you don’t use effective birth control.”
    The consequences of talking honestly with children about sex, by Alice Dreger.
    comment posted at 3:47 PM on Jun-2-14


    The results are in for the 2014 elections. While the EPP and S&D retain the lion's share of the seats, the shocking results have been in Britain, where the UKIP have scooped up a plurailty with 27.5% of the vote and in France, where the similarly veined far-right National Front came in first. The two combined would present a 48 seat anti-EU block within the European Parliament and when figured with the EFD's other gains (of which National Front are not currently a part of) a total of 61 eurosceptics will be seated in total.
    comment posted at 10:51 PM on May-25-14


    As the term suggests, the Dark Enlightenment is an ideological analysis of modern democracy that harshly rejects the vision of the 18th century European Enlightenment—a period punctuated by the development of empirical science, the rise of humanist values and the first outburst of revolutionary democratic reform. In contrast, the Dark Enlightenment advocates an autocratic and neo-monarchical society. Its belief system is unapologetically reactionary, almost feudal.
    The many bloggers who constitute the movement style themselves as “Dark Lords of the Sith,” self-described fearless truth-tellers, who—mixing their cinematic metaphors—offer Matrix-evocative “red pills” of awakening in the form of sulfurous conclusions about the state of the world. Indeed, questioning the prevailing Western narrative is typically a Dark Enlightenment writer’s modus operandi, skewering the values of the liberal establishment.
    comment posted at 9:44 PM on Dec-29-13

    For the first time, photographs have leaked out from inside the Nauru immigration detention centre. Reopened in 2012, the detention centre houses between 500-600 people, mostly of Iranian background, who are attempting to seek asylum in Australia. The centre was most recently in the news following riots that destroyed much of the facility's infrastructure. Conditions at the center have been criticised by the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights as "unbearable".
    comment posted at 11:27 PM on Dec-5-13

    Australia in 2013. We have forgotten our origins and our good fortune, we are blind to our own selfishness. In place of memory we cling to a national myth of a generous, welcoming country, a land of new arrivals where everyone gets a fair go; a myth in which vanity fills the emptiness where the truth was forgotten. -- Julian Burnside writes on refugee policy and alienation in Australia
    comment posted at 11:41 PM on Sep-18-13

    Anyone who tells you their rules for a happy marriage doesn't have one.

    "Marriages are made of lust, laughter and loyalty - but the three have to be kept in constant passage, so that as one subsides for a time, the others rise”
    comment posted at 2:16 AM on Apr-2-13

    Her parents were skeptical that her two year old sibling could really be doing this, so they set up a webcam to see what really happened in the night. Here's the proof. More details at the local news site - the girl locked her own door to try and keep her brother out, and he's using a pair of nail clippers to pick the lock.
    comment posted at 12:31 AM on Mar-28-13

    Google's beloved RSS aggregator, Google Reader will be powered down on July 1, 2013 (previously).
    comment posted at 1:17 AM on Mar-14-13

    Ageing poseur with unhealthy interest in spanking and the works of Jean Baudrillard seeks recently bathed human. Australian radio presenter, writer and professional curmudgeon Helen Razer writes about her recent break-up and announces an experiment.
    comment posted at 7:54 PM on Feb-28-13


    The European Commission is resisting pressure from US firms and public bodies designed to derail its privacy proposals, which include a limited 'right to be forgotten' that would allow users to demand their data be removed from Internet sites. Facebook claims it would actually harm privacy by requiring social media sites to perform extra tracking to remove data which has been copied to other sites. Google says it's unworkable. Others say it would be a threat to the American right to free speech. Big Data hates the idea because privacy is bad. Meanwhile, advertising may soon follow you from one device to the next -- privately. (Via)
    comment posted at 9:09 PM on Dec-6-12

    The Magic School Bus: The Movie [SLYT]
    comment posted at 11:24 PM on Nov-11-12

    Undecided on election day? Sat through all the debates and still not sure who's right and who's wrong? What you're really looking for is an endorsment by people you can trust completely, you can look up to, true heroes? Well, J. Caleb Mozzocco has taken the trouble to interview a representative cross section of superheroes and is starting to see a pattern.
    comment posted at 1:36 AM on Nov-6-12


    For three days, the world's best 'Magic' players battle it out in Seattle Three weeks ago, Seattle hosted the Magic: The Gathering Players Championship. Noah Davis writes about one of the most prestigious M:TG tournaments from an outsider's perspective. It turns out, Magic is still around, and it's a big deal.
    comment posted at 2:34 AM on Sep-21-12

    Number simulation , because it is Friday.
    comment posted at 8:10 AM on Sep-14-12


    The collectible card game Magic: The Gathering is Turing complete.
    comment posted at 2:08 AM on Sep-12-12

    Tens of thousands of protestors have been gathering outside the Hong Kong government headquarters every night since the start of the new school year to protest the introduction of "moral and national education" classes at primary and secondary schools. At the forefront is Scholarism, a student group led by 15-year-old Joshua Wong.
    comment posted at 3:57 AM on Sep-8-12

    The Political Persecution of Australia’s First Female Prime Minister "Can it really be the case that a tax – a carbon tax – could spur so many people to such levels of hatred? I find that impossible to believe, so I have to conclude that the persecution of Julia Gillard has to be about something else." Warning - some text and imagery may be NSFW or offensive - a "Vanilla" version is available
    comment posted at 8:50 PM on Sep-6-12

    The NHL is facing the possibility of a lockout and Mexican fire hockey is still in the early stages of a comeback, so what's a hockey fan to do? Humor and/or Humour blog Down Goes Brown has your back with extensive archives and a new book. If you get desperate, you could even try their long-running series analyzing Obscure Moments in Toronto Maple Leaf History.
    comment posted at 2:42 AM on Sep-6-12

    By late May, more than ten million copies of E.L. James’s Fifty Shades trilogy, an erotic romance series about the sexual exploits of a domineering billionaire and an inexperienced coed, had been sold in the United States, all within six weeks of the books’ publication here. This apparently unprecedented achievement occurred without the benefit of a publicity campaign, formal reviews, or Oprah’s blessing, owing to a reputation established, as one industry analyst put it, “totally through word of mouth.” [Grey Area: How ‘Fifty Shades’ Dominated the Market]
    comment posted at 10:49 PM on Jul-30-12

    I born in factory. They put me in wrapper. They seal me in box. Three of us in box. In early days, they move us around. From factory to warehouse. From warehouse to truck. From truck to store. One day in store, boy human sees us on shelf. He grabs us, hides us under shirt. He rushes outside.
    comment posted at 1:28 AM on Jul-26-12

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