3227 MetaFilter comments by furtive (displaying 1 through 50)

Chewing gum sales plunged during the pandemic as consumers stepped back from contexts in which they needed fresh breath. They still haven't recovered, and gum manufacturers are pivoting to marketing gum as stress relief. No matter what, we'll always have Annie's 2004 classic "Chewing Gum".
comment posted at 11:35 AM on Mar-10-24
comment posted at 5:26 PM on Mar-10-24

In Canada, the maple trees are roaring early; some producers started tapping in early February. But not all of that syrup hits the shelves. Some of it winds up in the world's only Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve. What do you use maple syrup for, or do you prefer an alternative plant extract? Or, talk about anything you like!
comment posted at 8:10 AM on Mar-4-24

SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court to decide whether insurrection provision keeps Trump off ballot
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Thursday in what is shaping up to be the biggest election case since its ruling nearly 25 years ago in Bush v. Gore. At issue is whether former President Donald Trump, who is once again the front runner for the Republican nomination for president, can be excluded from the ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Although the question comes to the court in a case from Colorado, the impact of the court’s ruling could be much more far-reaching. Maine’s secretary of state ruled in December that Trump should be taken off the primary ballot there, and challenges to Trump’s eligibility are currently pending in 11 other states. Trump warns that the efforts to keep him off the ballot “threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans” and “promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead.” But the voters challenging Trump’s eligibility counter that “we already saw the ‘bedlam’ Trump unleashed when he was on the ballot and lost.”
Wikipedia: Trump v. Anderson and the 2024 presidential eligibility of Donald Trump - Politico: Who is Norma Anderson? The 91-year-old lawmaker who could have Trump disqualified - 6 key questions in Supreme Court fight over Trump’s ballot eligibility - ResetEra's annotated list of the many amicus briefs - Tune in to official live audio of oral arguments in about an hour (starting at 10 a.m. Eastern)
comment posted at 11:25 AM on Feb-9-24

Alta ski area this year retired its military howitzers used for avalanche control over the last 75 years. They have produced a short 7 min movie - "The Last Gunners" - on the history of using military artillery for avalanche control at Alta - where it was pioneered in the US.
comment posted at 1:08 PM on Nov-15-23


I’ve known since I was 11 who these people, this Eyebrows McGee and this languagehat, are. After graduating from college, I still thought of Metafilter as a rarified club of experts that I’d somehow snuck into. I also thought of Metafilter as a perfect window onto the world. I was sure I could better understand different life experiences because I read strangers’ thoughts, freed by anonymity to be honest. I knew I lived in a tiny bubble, and Metafilter seemed my best defense against that insularity.
comment posted at 8:15 PM on Oct-21-23

Biking the Goods - A recent & approachable white paper out of the University of Washington's Urban Freight Lab, looking at the potential for cargo e-bikes to improve urban logistics systems & recommended policies to encourage their use. It looks at five case studies & six types of cargo e-bike to make the case for making them a part of city infrastructure in North America.
comment posted at 11:39 AM on Oct-18-23

Happy 20th anniversary to the unofficial British National Anthem (now over 380 weeks on the charts!) How The Killers made Mr Brightside, one of the most enduring rock songs of all time - The Independent (more links below the cut)
comment posted at 9:48 AM on Oct-2-23

Top 10 Arcades Games Every Year From 1980-1989 (100 Games) [25m] offers without commentary a list of each of the 100 games, showing gameplay and those delicious sound effects. Right away I was struck by "oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that one!"
comment posted at 12:04 PM on Sep-25-23
comment posted at 12:15 PM on Sep-25-23

Burger King must defend its Whopper size in court. Other fast food chains may follow [CBC] Includes a quote by "the Vanilla Vigilante" lawyer Spencer Sheehan.
comment posted at 2:08 PM on Aug-31-23

The University of Michigan, a community of over 120,000 people, has gone offline in response to a security incident.
comment posted at 9:23 AM on Aug-29-23
comment posted at 9:29 AM on Aug-29-23

Rather than actually booking women stand-ups and comedians, a club in Quebec decided to take a different approach. The club owner made up a fictional woman and added her to the regular lineup (and then "cancelled" all of her appearances). But it's all fine. You see, this way, he is "promoting the cause" of women comedians.
comment posted at 1:39 PM on Aug-28-23



The Ideal Viewport Does Not Exist - the results of a little investigation into how fragmented browser sizes are across users, with some fun visualization.
comment posted at 11:36 AM on Aug-22-23

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The last public writer for the Vietnamese postal service passes away at the age of 94. In 1990, he retired but was given special permission to continue to work in the Saigon central post office as a "public writer," a position he retired from in 2020. From 2019: Every morning, he tapes a piece of paper with the words “Public Writer” in French, Vietnamese and English near his table at the Saigon Central Post Office. Ngo has written letters for hundreds of people in Vietnamese, English and French in the past 28 years. From 2007: A Day with Saigon's Last Public Letter Writer.
comment posted at 10:55 AM on Aug-11-23

Bram Moolenaar, the Dutch software engineer, creator and maintainer of long-lived text editor Vim, has died.
comment posted at 7:46 PM on Aug-5-23

cashews on pizza, a salty, buttery, crunchy topping that has gained a cult following in the Inland Empire The city of Redlands, located over 60 miles east of Los Angeles, is where cashew pizza originated in the 1960s, eventually spreading to neighboring cities like Riverside and Yucaipa.
comment posted at 8:15 AM on Jul-13-23

Musician Gurf Morlix tells an amazing story about the time he had a heart attack right before a gig in Florida. (SLYT)
comment posted at 1:54 PM on Jun-15-23

Anger over an astronomical increase in Reddit's API prices [prev.] boiled over this week as multiple third-party app developers were forced to close down, with one -- Apollo dev Christian Selig -- posting a scathing exposé detailing the company's shady dealings... including a recorded phone call disproving CEO Steve "spez" Huffman's claim that Selig blackmailed them. Huffman took to the site's vaunted AMA format to do damage control, only to double down, ignore tough questions, and reap thousands of downvotes. In response, the community has organized a massive subreddit "blackout" to protest the rate hike that will bankrupt popular apps, hamper critical moderation tools, and exclude blind users. While such protests are not new, this one is unprecedented in scope: 20,000+ mods from over 7,000 subreddits with more than 2 billion collective readers, from familiar mainstays like /r/aww, /r/videos, and /r/todayilearned to niche subs like /r/Eragon and /r/Panda. Facing layoffs, a major pre-IPO valuation cut, and a runaway user revolt reminiscent of Digg [prev.], could this be the end of the "front page of the internet"? Watch the site wink out in real time [livestream], join the fight on /r/Save3rdPartyApps and /r/ModCoord, backup your data, or check out some up-and-coming /r/RedditAlternatives.
comment posted at 8:40 AM on Jun-12-23
comment posted at 9:20 AM on Jun-12-23

Even if you don't know the name Daniel Lanois, you know his work. He produced The Joshua Tree, So, and Time Out Of Mind, to name just a tiny few from his broad ranging career. If you like hearing all manner of music-making tidbits from one of the best, Rick Beato sat down with Daniel for a three-hour conversation. Everything is discussed from music personalities to recording techniques and equipment to songwriting to simply the joy of finding the vibe. It's an astonishing interview that even at its length feels like it is too short.
comment posted at 9:15 AM on May-23-23


Dune 2 [Trailer][YouTube] The saga continues as award-winning filmmaker Denis Villeneuve embarks on “Dune: Part Two,” the next chapter of Frank Herbert’s celebrated novel Dune.
comment posted at 1:21 PM on May-3-23

Samantha Irby on being basic An excerpt from her new book Quietly Hostile
comment posted at 9:31 AM on Apr-17-23

Intel and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced today that company co-founder Gordon Moore has passed away at the age of 94. An era-defining inventor and engineer, his work laid the groundwork for our modern world of computing (and helped create Silicon Valley along the way).
comment posted at 8:58 AM on Mar-25-23




Women have been misled about menopause Hot flashes, sleeplessness, pain during sex: For some of menopause’s worst symptoms, there’s an established treatment. Why aren’t more women offered it? or maybe we should talk about extending reproductive longevity. After all, we don't fully understand the purpose of menopause as most mammals don't experience it. There are theories.

Or perhaps we should Cancel Menopause altogether?
comment posted at 11:52 AM on Feb-1-23


Best ways to reduce city car use, a researched listicle
comment posted at 10:58 AM on Dec-27-22

The Super Mario Bros. Movie | Official Trailer [YouTube] A plumber named Mario travels through an underground labyrinth with his brother, Luigi, trying to save a captured princess. Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (collaborators on Teen Titans Go!, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies) from a screenplay by Matthew Fogel (The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, Minions: The Rise of Gru), the film stars Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike.
comment posted at 12:29 PM on Nov-30-22

A favourite amongst many Canadians since 1924, Red River Cereal was a victim of pandemic cuts by the owner of the brand since 1995, the American company Smuckers. Thanks to the new owner, Arva Flour mill near London Ontario Red River cereal is back! Arva Flour Mill is also the oldest commercial water-powered mill in North America, the oldest food-processing company in Canada, and the 6th-oldest continuously-operating company in Canada at over 200 years old.
comment posted at 12:03 PM on Nov-21-22



The Naphtha Engine: "After steamboats got a reputation of danger from explosion, the Coast Guard required operators to be licensed, thereby removing steamboats from small owner/operator utilization. The outboard motor would solve this problem eventually, but in 1885 it didn’t exist. In 1883 Frank W. Ofeldt took out a patent on a naphtha engine which was essentially a closed loop steam engine that used naphtha instead of water." A Twitter thread on naphtha launches from Dreadnought Holiday. Some extant examples: "Anita" and "Frieda." See also: Powered by Boiling Petrol.
comment posted at 5:54 PM on Jun-29-22

Later in the hearing, Martin broke down the costs per flight, which will apply to at least the first four launches of the Artemis program: $2.2 billion to build a single SLS rocket, $568 million for ground systems, $1 billion for an Orion spacecraft, and $300 million to the European Space Agency for Orion's Service Module. NASA, Martin said, had checked and confirmed these figures.
comment posted at 10:13 AM on Mar-4-22

Part two of the Russia orders troops into Ukraine thread. Also on mefi: Ukraine, Russia and space and the story of the Ghost of Kyiv. Over in metatalk, for mefites directly affected and ways to help, a metatalk thread, and remembering the Shire, a quiet respite thread when you need a break.
comment posted at 7:54 AM on Mar-1-22

"On August 2, 1909, Mr. Edwin A. Grozier, Publisher of the Boston Post, a newspaper, forwarded to the Board of Selectmen in 700 towns (in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine) in New England a gold-headed ebony cane with the request that it be presented with the compliments of the Boston Post to the oldest male citizen of the town, to be used by him as long as he lives... and at his death handed down to the next oldest citizen of the town. The cane would belong to the town and not the man who received it." While eligibility has, since 1930, been extended to women, and in some towns the cane is not presented to but merely named for the town's oldest citizen, this tradition still continues today. One website (slightly out of date) attempts to track who's name is on the cane in each participating town. While not every town is still keeping good track of the location of the cane or the age of its oldest resident, many do. Stow MA, Bethlehem NH, Sunderland MA, Foster, RI, and aptly, Livermore ME and Gray, ME.
comment posted at 7:39 PM on Feb-14-22

The decline of war in human history is now at stake The decline of war didn’t result from a divine miracle or from a change in the laws of nature. It resulted from humans making better choices. It is arguably the greatest political and moral achievement of modern civilisation. Unfortunately, the fact that it stems from human choice also means that it is reversible.
comment posted at 6:55 PM on Feb-11-22

Back in in 2020, in the midst of the BLM demonstrations, a media figure who for a loooong time has staked out the “curmudgeonly” view of Canadian politics, and who has been invited time and again to share his views on the national broadcasting system, wrote a National Post editorial, asking questions about how racist Canada actually was. In December, Deputy Minister Daniel Quan-Watson decided to answer those questions from his personal point of view. It's a half hour long but worth watching. If you don't feel inclined to sit through it, there's a transcript.
comment posted at 8:57 PM on Feb-8-22

Those who grew up with the Commodore 64 will certainly remember Impossible Mission – a brutally difficult and platform-defining puzzle-platformer. Now it's been faithfully recreated in JavaScript, and you can play it in your web browser.
comment posted at 7:23 PM on Feb-3-22

Imagine a personal heating system that works indoors as well as outdoors, can be taken anywhere, requires little energy, and is independent of any infrastructure. It exists – and is hundreds of years old.
comment posted at 2:23 PM on Jan-21-22

Carol of the bells Trans Siberian Orchestra live. There are two kinds of people in the world. This goes out to one of them. Happy Merry. [Strobe warning]
comment posted at 2:41 PM on Dec-25-21


Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm. A consulting architect on UCSB’s Design Review Committee has quit his post in protest over the university’s proposed Munger Hall project, calling the massive, mostly-windowless dormitory plan “unsupportable from my perspective as an architect, a parent, and a human being.” 97-year-old billionaire and amateur architect Charles Munger donated $200 million toward the project - an 11-story, 1.68-million-square-foot structure that would house up to 4,500 students, 94 percent of whom would not have windows in their small, single-occupancy bedrooms - with the condition that his blueprints be followed exactly.
comment posted at 12:15 PM on Oct-29-21

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