MetaFilter posts tagged with Slate

"She screamed: 'You have rejected me? You have dared to reject me? Me, your highest value?'"

Lacking Subtlety — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:06:04 -0800

Two new biographies examine the life and legacy of Ayn Rand. Johann Hari of Slate reads them both responds with a crystaline and scathing evisceration of Rand's philosophy based on the context of the events of her life. Editorial note: I typically despise Slate for their overtly contrarian bent, but found this to be rather good.

Whoops

shakespeherian — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:53:06 -0800

How my factual error found its way into Obama's health care speech.

Saving Face

Iridic — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:12:01 -0800

Dahlia Lithwick (pr e vi o us l y) is trying to write a chick-lit novel in nineteen days.

Loosening up locked-down corporate IT

porn in the woods — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:40:10 -0800

Over on Slate, Farhad Manjoo writes that corporate IT ought to allow users more freedom in web browser selection and installation rights on their work computers. John C. Welch responds.

Slate takes on the bullies. It also takes on the trolls.

Cool Papa Bell — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:39:21 -0800

Slate gives you effective strategies for taking on bullies. It's a good article. More interesting, though, is the sidebar, aimed at an altogether different kind of bully. The article links to a sidebar piece where the author anticipates what a forum troll might say, and offers a handy, sarcastic template for doing so. Comedy gold! 'Now, go for the big finish that pulls together all the threads: "That's the obvious and perfect method for dealing with the problem that every single person in the universe employed with complete satisfaction until people like you came along and ruined everything."'

It's the end of the world as we ... think it might happen

desjardins — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:47:58 -0800

Choose your own apocalypse! Futurists discuss: How is America going to end?

contraception riles up pro life NRLC

garlic — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:57:49 -0800

William Saletan has been writing about abortion for a while. In Slate he recently discussed the Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion, and Supporting Parents Act, and some hard line pro-life groups resistance to this bill. Doug Johnson, the National Right to Life Commitee's legislative director responds stating that the bill is a "prop in a political charade" to "provide camouflage for pro-abortion politicians". Saletan tears holes in Johnson's stated objections, calling out the NRLF's unstated objection to contraception.

fuck yeah too much time on your hands

Lutoslawski — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:18:44 -0800

There is a subgenre of single-themed tumblelogs that aim for hagiography—they want to celebrate rather than tear down the subject at hand. These often go by the prefix "Fuck Yeah"—as in, among others, Fuck Yeah Rachel Maddow,Fuck Yeah Skinny Bitch, Fuck Yeah Puppies.

Slate article on single-theme blogs. Some of the better ones: look at this fucking hipster, it's lovely i'll take it, Owl Tattoos, fuck you penguin, happiest people ever, stfu marrieds.

Could you please explain why it is

Potomac Avenue — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 08:59:19 -0800

The bottom of Slate's Explainer mailbag. Part of their Holiday Tradition. Perhaps, as in previous years, the Hive Mind would like to take a crack at some of them?

Daily Routines of Notable Persons

Korou — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:41:47 -0800

Daily Routines features how writers, artists, statesmen, and others go about their day. Kafka was a night owl, Kant woke early, Issac Asimov was not a folyack. Marx's smoking got to him; George Bush eats fast, but exercises often; Napoleon Bonaparte enjoyed chess. Haruki Murakami enters a deep state of mind, Vladimir Nabokov creams his mail, Roald Dahl kept up his farm. Emily Post stayed in bed, Alice Munro had little time, Marie Geoffrin dined with the king. Paul Erdös drugged himself up. Routines are collected from books, newspapers, magazines, and websites. [via Slate]

Steamroll this!

jourman2 — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:40:06 -0800

Eliot Spitzer is back in the public spotlight as a biweekly columnist for Slate. His first column argues against bailouts. More background info.

Aboot time those hoosers let us in EH!

afu — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 21:02:34 -0800

Are you a Democrat who drinks lattes? eats arugula? Does the thought of another Republican president fill you with dread? Canada's E.L.I.T.E. immigration plan is right for you! Check this out if you actually want to immigrate to Canada.

Forgetting Equatorial Guinea

dead_ — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:38:35 -0800

Equatorial Guinea is more than your average headline-making, human rights-eschewing African nation. Likening the country’s uneasy street-silence to that of Pyongyang, deported journalist Peter Maass reveals an unparalleled culture of fear blanketed by an international media blackout. But for the Whitehouse, ExxonMobil and Teodoro Obiang—Equatorial Guinea’s torturous leader—the poverty, abuse and dead-quiet are business as usual.

Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound Was Mostly Bears

rooftop secrets — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:59:20 -0800

The short films (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) of Scott Blaszak.

The Nutcracker Suite

jonson — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:46:23 -0800

Michael Lewis gets a vasectomy.

Free online games, courtesy of Slate

cerebus19 — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:29:04 -0800

Just in time for Flash Friday, Slate lists the best free online games. The first one they mention, The Tall Stump, has been on MeFi previously, but there's more—even an Infocom-style text-based game.

Made to be Broken: laws you can ignore

ND¢ — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 07:19:22 -0800

American Lawbreaking. "This series explores the black spots in American law: areas in which our laws are routinely and regularly broken and where the law enforcement response is … nothing. These are the areas where, for one reason or another, we've decided to tolerate lawbreaking and let a law—duly enacted and still on the books—lay fallow or near dead." The first two entries are prescription drug abuse and internet pornography.

Can't we just go Dutch?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:25:38 -0800

If European and North American societies are morally responsible (print-friendly) for safeguarding free speech, should we also take financial responsibility for its proponents' safety (pf)? Hitchens seems to think so.

Today's moral dilemma is brought to you, of course, by the West's favourite Voltairian nightmare: prominent Islam critic, former Dutch MP, and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Team Mitt to America: Create Our “New Official” Campaign Ad!

ericb — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:51:39 -0800

Taking a cue from Doritos (Frito Lay) which sponsored a contest for a user-submitted video ad to be aired during Super Bowl XKL, Mitt Romney’s campaign decided to follow suit, challenging “…you to make his campaign’s new official TV advertisement...using images and materials supplied on the campaign website.” “An online vote will help determine the winner.” Folks create ads. Folks vote for their favorite ad. “Way! He'll Set America Straight” [video] (produced by Bruce Reed) garners more votes than the other top nine finalists combined. “[T]he campaign promised 10 finalists, but today it posted only nine...” Guess which one is missing? Another entry from Slate, “Five Brothers” [video] didn’t make the finals, either.

“Our fearless leader promised us online democracy, not a Soviet-style election run by totalitarian Mittistas.”^*

Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography

PostIronyIsNotaMyth — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:09:27 -0800

Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography From the writers of Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography. [via]

Ingmar Bergman's Soap Commercials

Kattullus — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 13:47:24 -0800

The 9 soap commercials Ingmar Bergman made are a little known part of his oeuvre. Slate's Dana Stevens explains how they came about.

Im in ur congress, monitoring changes to ur legislation

grobstein — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 07:22:13 -0800

Slashdot poster has brilliant legislative reform idea: "Source Control for Bills in Congress." What if sneaky changes to pending legislation showed up as soon as they were made instead of in ominously worded media reports months later?

I want to buy my own food critic, mommy

grobstein — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 16:18:12 -0800

Restaurant crybaby lashes out at NYT's Frank Bruni (pdf). Jeffrey Chodorow's new restaurant (where each diner is constantly threatened with impalement by samurai sword, apparently) got a (funny and) decidedly lukewarm review in the Times. So he took out a full-page ad to complain about it (pdf linked above), price tag: at least $30k. He also whines about it on his new blog. The word "critic" is deployed in scare quotes.
[via this Slate piece by a former NYT food critic; interesting in itself]

AskMe vs Slate's Explainer?

nevercalm — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 19:41:20 -0800

Slate's Explainer is generally a pretty entertaining and interesting read. Now, they've posted a list of the questions they couldn't answer this year. I was wondering whether some of the AskMe crowd might just be able to knock a few off the list.

Paranoiac Party Time!

Iridic — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 18:11:12 -0800

Slate's ongoing "Survivalist" series lays out the steps that you can take to prepare for the disasters threatening to snuff out civilization in general (and, apparently, New York City in particular). Find out how to survive nuclear terrorism, an earthquake, a skyscraper collapse, an electronic apocalypse, and global warming.