MetaFilter

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

"Tribute to the 'filter, August 31, 2002 [after Don Mclean]:
It wasn't a long time ago,
I can still remember how those posters used to make me smile
& I knew with that phone line
I could make them all see mine
(Maybe we'd take AOL on trial)

Now clavdiv's prose is all a quiver
'n bas67 has her webcam with 'er
Good news on the server
But spellchecks causing murder

Now I can't remember, how i found
the 'Filter, on the first time round
Something on the 'Net was sound
And then,
The T1 downed.

And we were cringing
Bye Bye Metafilter we sighed,
drove my Segway to the Cafe but the Cafe was tied
to a Network backbone,
whose connection was fried,
Singing
'This'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die.'

posted by dash_slot- at 5:22 PM on September 1

My favourite smiley - (",)

First as tragedy, then as farce.
February 10, 2006 12:13 AM GMT
This great picture was taken in the French Pig-Squealing Championships. This pic was alleged by Danish imams to be offensive to Muslims, and was included in the recent tour of the Middle East. The Brussels Journal asks some pointed questions. The Beeb belatedly explains - and (sorta) apologises.
SAFETY POST.

If you read beyond here, please realise I do not need any feedback. However, those with useful commentary can locate my email above.
A memoir.
I was once offered to be adopted by an American family. I guess that is the genesis of my fascination with the states, in that if things had taken a different turn, I could be typing this from there, rather than from here.

It began in 1974, when, through circumstances I can barely remember, let alone comprehend, my family moved from Oxford to a village 25 miles away. My schooling was somewhat disrupted, but I eventually returned to my class. I got friendly with the two nearest families in the village - USAF service members, stationed at the base in Heyford - and began to be a regular babysitter. They were particularly kind, generous and caring, something I certainly did not appreciate. The family opposite - we'll call them the Wise's - were frequently inviting us to BBQs and other lovely family events,
something we poor English folk had had no experience of.

They paid me for the time I spent looking after their two boys, and I saved that in my piggy bank. Despite my mum persistently stealing it from me (at least, I always assumed it was my mum, she was the one with the sherry habit), I kept putting the money from that and from my paper round in the piggy bank. I still have that wish that people will do the right thing.

I was long suffering, because of the awful tragedies that had befallen my family in the recent past. (My mother had remarried after my dad's death in 1964, and had 4 kids with Bill. Through what I've been told was gastro-enteritis, all 4 died before they got to age 2. Tara, Liam, Wayne & Kerry: I haven't forgotten you) I protested that I was working hard to make the money, but saw no benefit from it when it went missing. No-one seemed willing to investigate where the money went.

School went on, and I put up with it. I didn't work hard - I barely worked at all, as i recall - but surprised all, including myself, by attaining 5 O levels at 16. (Junior High - this determines if you go on to complete the next 2 voluntary years at school.) I left school, only to fail to find work.
School willingly took me back in for the 2 years of A levels, and I remained the favoured babysitter for the Wise family.

In the long, hot summer of 1976, when England suffered a year with no rainfall (well, almost: the drought was unparalleled, and the summer went on forever), I was invited to stay the 6 weeks of the school holidays at the Heyford home of my host Americans. It was fun - visits to the Brown Derby, lots of food I wouldn't have had at home - but I was in a quandary. Why was I the recipient of such generosity? Why should I yet again be singled out for attention?

That bit didn't seem fair: and I let my sense of fair play interfere with my potential to get the most from the situation. I wasn't even that close to my brothers - one, a year older than me would team up with another, a year younger, to beat me up. They didn't like that I went to the grammar side of our school, nor that my primary form of attack or defense was verbal, rather than fisticuffs. My 3rd brother, who I am these days a lot closer to, was a terror, very angry and misunderstood, I guess still grieving, as we all were, for my dad. My sister had left home 2 years previously, to ease the pressure on space in a ridiculously sized Irish-Catholic/English secular family – to live with my step-grandmother. Bill's family were unnecessarily kind to us, as ever.

I often felt like I was the only one, and growing up gay in that family just underlined it. For many years after I was convinced that my whole family hated me, and I separated from them deliberately for a decade at least.

Back to 1976:
The summer ended, and I went back to school. The incomprehensible set books for English that I read in the breaks between full-time babysitting - The Inheritors was one - were studied in class, and the scales fell from my eyes: allegory, symbology and biblical references became clear, and my education became real. My host family were coming to the end of their tour of duty in the UK, and I went on to get a passing grade B in English one year later, but not before a bombshell was dropped on me: would I like to go to the States with them, become adopted by them, and live forever in the US?

Sheesh. My first reaction was – who the hell do I talk to about this? The offer was clearly genuine, they weren't the types to take the piss like that. How do I even work out what this is about? How do I talk to my family about it – what would that do to our loyalty, our cohesion, what little affection we had for each other? My poor mother? What would she do? I could hardly talk to her about going away – just a few years prior to meeting these friendly Yanks, I – at 8, 9 years old, often off school – I was her crutch, her unquestioning emotional scaffold. When she was taking overdoses, I was calling ambulances; when she was too sick to collect benefits, I was off school again, running down to the Post Office to collect the money. How would she cope without me?

She had other plans, it turns out.

Not long after that endless summer crashed into an autumn of brown lawns and naked, near dead trees, but before I had to make my choice, she left. No note, no 'Goodbye” was all she wrote '- nothing. Three days after my sister got married – she'd met and fallen for an insurance salesman – my mum left forever.

That was October 12th, 1976. My ship was sailing, as you might say, in 10 weeks time. My world was falling apart.

I could only talk to my schoolmates – and they, being 17 like me, had no context, no experience, no principles with which to guide us. I had experienced my first full blown depression that year, which, in the tumult of my family's career, was totally unrecognised, and undiagnosed. What my friends made of me, I do not know. With periods of unexplained absence not uncommon, with moodiness above & beyond the norm for teenagers, with the lack of resources and lack of social graces that living a unstructured life will bring, I was happy that there was anyone left at school that would even entertain my dilemma.

I received no encouragement, nor deterrence from my stepfather: I don't recall even being able to talk to him about the issue. I'm sure we must have – but I don't recall it. I don't recall ever being able to talk about it with my older sister, or my brothers, or my many aunts and uncles. It became like a dirty secret, but one which entailed a life changing decision, that I had to make on my own.

Should I accept the kindness of strangers, as it were, to change my identity, my allegiance, my entire future - or should I stay in this chaotic, loveless, meandering, unambitious birth family? Leave the sinking ship, like a rat? Or tough it out, like I was trained to do by all my previous experiences? There was no real decision to be made.

I stayed.

I saw my mother the following summer, quite by chance, in Banbury town centre. I almost walked past her, and I'm sure that she would have preferred that.
“Where are you going, Johnny?”, she said.
“To sign on the dole, Mum, I've left school now.”
“Oh”, she said, disappointed. “I always thought you were much better than that.”

I've not seen her since. If she's alive, she doesn't know that one of her sons isn't, that she has several grandchildren. And that she is still missed.

Update:
Last year I found out that the family that were so kind to me back then may still be around. I have waited till I got up the gumption to do it, but I just emailed a possible contender for Mrs. Wise (a pseudonym) that I tracked down to Nevada. I will put here any news that may come of this. April 2006: no reply as yet.
31st December 2005 [prompted by http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/47943]
If you've read this far lemme say: I trust this community. I trust it to appreciate that I've said what I've said, and that it informs folk - but I still feel vulnerable. I have only just realised that I've probably revealed more than most members do here. In fact, you, reader, know more about me than in fact my employer and many of my mates do. "I'm asking for trouble". But I wanted to say it, and was inspired to do so by a story here. I hope I don't regret it.

More personal disclosure:
I wonder if you are thinking what I am, anonymous: these guys posting here don't really know me, so for all they know, I may really be evil, still. If only they knew the real me.

"...I'm convinced I am unlovable. I have a lot of trouble asking for help with anything, because why would anyone ever want to help me? (I may be the only woman in the world who refuses to ask for directions.) I have a low-level background conviction that I'm a fraud, just getting by pretending to be a good person, and someday I'll be found out and exposed for the monster that I am."

It's painful to see you write what I could have written myself. I never get so far as to think I am evil, just worthless. I wasn't sexually abused. Just neglected, unprotected, unguided and oppressed by the incompetence of the adults around me.
I have learnt to accept the gifts of affection and acknowledgement that my friends and colleagues offer me, but I know that I have to do this last bit on my own. I like to think rationally and sceptically, and hope this tiny bit is helpful: if you were evil (accepting for the sake of discussion that evil does exist), would you even have asked this question? Wouldn't an evil person have such confidence that their evilness was ok that they would not wish to risk the discovery that may occur after posting this question? At the risk of seeming to appeal to authority, mathowie for one clearly wouldn't have permitted this anon question, if he thought you were actually evil.

It's probably too much of a stretch to see if you can abandon the concept of evil, though there are a good many people who do not think it exists - as a useful description of human behaviour, anyway. In my view, your dad's behaviour was weak, immoral, callow, stupid, hurtful and bullying. It is likely (if 'the girl is mother to the woman') that you were beautiful, young, lively, bright, upright, sensitive, caring and intelligent. He wanted the things you were, because he needed it. Then, he gave you something that you did not need - a faulty self-image.
I'm sorry - on preview, that just seems too much 'in the brain', and not in the heart.
So I'll tell you how I diminished the power of the resentment I felt towards my mum. Those feelings, though not of the magnitude yours seem still to be, were hurting me and tying me to a past no-one else seemed to know. Two years ago last Sunday, on Mothers Day 2004, I did a ritual: I gathered some friends, some family that I trusted, and located a place of significance from my childhood. I found something that symbolised my resentment - a large piece of silk, the same shade of emerald green that my gorgeous cardigan was, before my mum threw out when I was seven.
My friends and family held hands whilst I lit the first piece, and they helped me destroy it by throwing snippets onto the flames.
Then we had a wonderful lunch, to celebrate the letting go (I realised a couple of months ago - I hardly think of her at all these days - a blessed relief).
My mother gave me things that I didn't need, and she is not around to take them back. So I gathered up my personal power, and, for once in my life asking for help from people (and crikey - I received it!), I destroyed what I didn't need any more.
I'm not happy. I'm not 'fixed'. But I don't have that which I hated - a feeling that I knew was past it's sell by date.
Apologies for the cheesy last section, but that's how it happened. If it assists anyone, or if you wanna know more, my email is in my profile.
posted by dash_slot- at 8:44 PM GMT on April 10


"let me remind the good citizens that Man will
never be free until the last king is strangled
with the entrails of the last priest"
posted by adamvasco at 3:28 PM GMT on September 15

amnesty international - uk

amnesty international - us

amnesty international - worldwide

Because of this thread, I was moved to join. Please give it a thought,
a pound or a euro or a dollar, or whatever you can. Thanks.


Favourite quotes or posters:
Offsite:

Twenty Alternatives to Punishment, by Aletha Solter, Ph.D. [Aware Parenting Institute]
1. LOOK FOR UNDERLYING NEEDS.
example: Give your child something to play with while waiting in line.
2. GIVE INFORMATION AND REASONS.
example: If your child colors on the wall, explain why we color on paper only.
3. LOOK FOR UNDERLYING FEELINGS.
Acknowledge, accept & listen to feelings.
example: If your child hits his baby sister, encourage him to express his anger and jealousy in harmless ways. He may need to cry or rage.
4. CHANGE THE ENVIRONMENT.
This is sometimes easier than trying to change the child.
example: If your child repeatedly takes things out of the kitchen cupboards, put a childproof lock on them.
5. FIND ACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVES.
Redirect your child's behavior.
example: If you do not want your child to build a fort in the dining room, don't just say no. Tell her where she can build one.
6. DEMONSTRATE HOW YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO BEHAVE.
example: If your child pulls a cat's tail, show her how to pet a cat. Do not rely on words alone.
7. GIVE CHOICES RATHER THAN COMMANDS.
Decision-making empowers children; commands invite a power struggle.
example: "Would you like to brush your teeth before or after putting your pajamas on?"
8. MAKE SMALL CONCESSIONS.
example: "I'll let you skip brushing your teeth tonight because you are so tired."
9. PROVIDE FOR A PERIOD OF PREPARATION.
example: If you are counting on company for dinner, tell your child how you expect him to behave. Be specific. Role-playing can help prepare children for potentially difficult situations.
10. LET NATURAL CONSEQUENCES OCCUR (when appropriate).
Don't rescue too much.
example: A child who does not hang up her bathing suit and towel may find them still wet the next day.
11. COMMUNICATE YOUR OWN FEELINGS.
Let children know how their behavior affects you.
example: "I get so tired of cleaning up crumbs in the living room."
12. USE ACTIONS WHEN NECESSARY.
example: If your child insists on running across streets on your walks together, hold his hand tightly (while explaining the dangers).
13. HOLD YOUR CHILD.
Children who are acting aggressively or obnoxiously can benefit from holding, in a loving and supportive way, that allows them to channel their pent-up feelings into healing tears.
14. REMOVE YOUR CHILD FROM THE SITUATION, AND STAY WITH HER.
Use the time for listening, sharing feelings, holding, and conflict-resolution.
15. DO IT TOGETHER, BE PLAYFUL.
Many conflict situations can be turned into games.
examples: "Let's pretend we're the seven dwarfs while we clean up," "Let's take turns brushing each other's teeth."
16. DEFUSE THE SITUATION WITH LAUGHTER.
example: If your child is mad at you, invite him to express his anger in a playful pillow fight with you. Play your part by surrendering dramatically. Laughter helps resolve anger and feelings of powerlessness.
17. MAKE A DEAL, NEGOTIATE.
example: If you're ready to leave the playground and your child is having fun, reach an agreement on the number of times she may go down the slide before leaving.
18. DO MUTUAL CONFLICT-RESOLUTION.
Discuss ongoing conflicts with your children, state your own needs, and ask for their help in finding solutions. Determine rules together. Hold family meetings.
19. REVISE YOUR EXPECTATIONS.
Young children have intense feelings and needs, and are naturally loud, curious, messy, willful, impatient, demanding, creative, forgetful, fearful, self-centered, and full of energy. Try to accept them as they are.
20. TAKE A PARENTAL TIME-OUT.
Leave the room, and do whatever is needed to regain your sense of composure and good judgment (example: call a friend, cry, meditate, take a shower).
Copyright © 1996 by Aletha Solter. All rights reserved. A previous version of this article appeared in Mothering Magazine, Vol. 65, 1992.



The Gazette

December 19, 2004

The idea that Sharia law should be allowed a foothold in Quebec is floating around this month with talk of a proposed meeting between Montreal Muslim Council president Salam Elmenyawi and Justice Minister Jacques Dupuis. Sharia in Canada is a thoroughly bad idea that should be rejected promptly and permanently - along with any other impulse to tailor Canada's justice system to individual cultures.

The cornerstone of a modern, multicultural nation such as Canada is an impartial legal code that governs everyone equally, no matter what their ethnic origin, religion, sex, race or age. Aside from immigration law, our statutes and regulations apply equally to aboriginals, United Empire Loyalists and the newest refugee claimants.

This equal treatment under the law is at the heart of what it is to be a Canadian. Religious-based laws - Christian, Muslim, Jewish or any other - have no place in our system. The state is the font of justice, and strives mightily, if sometimes imperfectly, to make that justice - from criminal sentencing to child support - uniform. Equality under the law cannot be sub-contracted to religious, or any other, organizations.

In recent years, there has been increased interest in the idea, for example, of alternative sentencing for native offenders. The same concern applies to alternative sentencing as to Sharia law, which is that there be uniformity in justice. It is true some religious-based arbitration has been accepted in business dealings. Both Ontario and Quebec, for instance, allow Catholic, Jewish and Muslim arbitrators to rule on commercial matters. Petitioners can then go to a secular court to have the judgment registered.

This has been part of a trend to "alternative dispute-settlement mechanisms," which are not a bad thing. Any time a compromise can be reached on a fair basis and short of a costly court case, everybody wins, at least in theory. And if such a process breaks down, for any reason, there is always recourse to the courts.

But Ontario made a mistake in 1991, passing an Arbitration Act that allows religious groups to resolve family and other civil disputes through binding arbitration. The arbitrator's decision is final unless it is found to be in violation of Canadian law.

That sounds fine in theory - and Sharia courts here might work the same way. But this system is not so simple in practice. It could easily open the door to systematic injustice.

Consider a hypothetical immigrant wife from Pakistan, who speaks little French nor English. She has no money of her own; she has no idea that she has legal rights other than those her husband or imam choose to tell her about; she believes that her legal right to reside in Canada is entirely dependent on her husband.

Taken to a Sharia court and divorced, she might be left with almost none of the family's assets. There is little or no chance that this woman would know how to complain, or to whom.

In such a case, a settlement reached in the privacy of a religious institution runs a risk not only of running counter to Canadian law - which usually provides for equal division of family property in the case of marriage breakdown - but also of replicating the very social inequality that Canadian law has been at such pains in the past two decades to eradicate.

Muslim Council president Elmenyawi told The Gazette this week he wants to meet the justice minister only to discuss the matter of regularlizing the status and training of Muslim arbitrators. But this is a matter for the Muslim community to decide. It has nothing to do with Quebec secular society or legal system.

Far from allowing Sharia law to operate, Quebec and other provinces should exert themselves - in whatever languages necessary - to make sure all immigrants understand what rights they have under our laws, and how to take advantage of such laws. A number of counselling groups for Muslim women exist, trying to do this work with few resources. Significantly, there is strong opposition in this milieu to the idea of Sharia in Canada.

Family matters are of public interest. They require the state's careful oversight. For that, uniformity in the public court system is a necessity.
This story is no longer available...though a Google search confirms it once was.

I understand that [the Log Cabin Republican's new strategy] might be succesful in the long-term, say 20 to 30 years, but who is that helping now? How is that helping gay and lesbian Americans now? Like the poem from Langston Hughes said, I'm tired of being told to wait. My family doesn't need equal rights and protections in 20 years. We need them now, or as soon as possible. Sitting and waiting just makes the interim harder on our families and easier on the bigots.- The Republic of T

onsite:

Maybe they have nicer people in germany, or whatever other country you want to choose.
I've met my share of Americans, and plenty of them are nasty, mean, scumbags. It's the people. It's not the guns.
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 10:17 PM GMT on March 26

I have plenty of areas in my life to fight, yell, scream, shit, laugh, roar and cry.

Metafilter is a small part of that, true, but is it unreasonable to ask that it remain civil? It seems that the existence of Metachat, rather than acting as an outlet, has given people the idea that Metafilter should be more like that - people just speaking immediately whats on their human mind - rather than taking the time to bundle it with eloquence or civility or grace. Farting is human but you make it sound like repressed self-denial when we ask people to not fart loudly at the dinner table.
posted by vacapinta at 6:18 PM PST on January 2

You're seeing the tree in front of you, but not the forest. If even a small minority of users here, old and new, committed to 1) reducing their own asshole index and 2) politely calling out bad behavior when we see it, without simply derailing the thread, then MeFi would improve. I say dramatically, but whatever.

The particulars of this callout aside (and Wolfdog nailed it), why on earth would anyone who cares about the site *not* sign on for that?
posted by mediareport at 5:37 PM PST on January 2

It may be a naive and outdated notion but the US is supposed to be the pillar of justice and liberty of the world.

Yanno, it might actually help if you guys snapped out of it and realized that this is your national myth, and has absolutely nothing to do with the international community. I'm starting to think that Americans are so committed to this belief that they simply can't see their foreign policies for what they are. All we get are these splutterings of "well, that's not our fault, we're blameless, we're the pillar of justice and liberty in the world."

And the constant "there are so many worse people/places in the world" argument, which is so nonsensical (what, you want to compare yourself to Rwanda now? Because people get slaughtered in other places, you don't need to be responsible for your own government's actions?), but makes it sense if you imagine that these people are trying desperately to hold on to a national (masturbatory) fantasy of being the pillar of justice and liberty in the world, an argument that's prominent in this thread. As long as someone else's behaviour is demonstrably worse, why then, you can hold on to this title you're so darn proud of and stop worrying.

It's just a bit weird and counter-productive, if you see what I'm saying.
posted by Hildegarde at 6:06 PM GMT on December 30


Single-link drudgefilter self-link unmarked NSFW... Shit; this post might deserve some kind of award.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:28 AM GMT on August 13 [!]

And all in his first (and last) post a week after joining. Live fast, get banned young.
posted by octothorpe at 2:50 AM GMT on August 13 [!]


This young man, who has lived a peaceful life in suburbia, raised by good wholesome family values, played in the high school band, did charity work at old folks homes, blah blah blah, all american good boy (imaginary, remember), is handed a tray of metal implements. Spikes, blades, corkscrews. A hacksaw. He is told he is to deliver his punishment to the prisoner, who was convicted of killing the boys parents. He is escorted into the room of the prisoner, who is tied to a chair with a hood over his head. Now let your imagination go for a few minutes on that thought.

Now we will take you to the scene after the screaming has stopped. The boy is no longer the nice young man who had suffered from losing his parents to a random act of violence by another. He is now the deliver of pain. His role is no longer that of the agreived. He has had his retribution. Now please imagine what that would feel like. Before, he had never harbored the thought of harming another human, except in acedemic competition, where you can always play again, and there were no marks to leave. Now he has felt flesh rended by metal, under his own will. He has stepped over the line of simple citizen of the society. He will never fit in again. He will always be one of the few, those chosen at random by fate, to perform an act of vengence upon one who murdered his family.
..."Never let someone who preaches death to be your leader in life." - me
posted by daq at 4:27 PM GMT on March 18 [!]


Most people I know, including some of the most liberal lefties on the planet, have admitted to feeling the same way. As someone says, there's a part of just about everybody's mind that craves violent revenge when wronged. I've even said to people that I can certainly agree that when confronted by a Bin Laden or a Dahmer, that we shouldn't give in to that blind rage, but I have difficulty relating to people who don't, at least for a moment feel that rage...
posted by jonmc at 3:14 PM GMT on March 18 [!]

"Gay people are just people, not magical woodland creatures, for Pete's sake."
sez you! ; >
Heh.
I think it's an important point to make (and I think that recognizing it is the key to the absorption of the gay population into mainstream acceptance). Despite what either Fred Phelps or Larry Kramer would have you believe, gays & bisexuals people are no worse and no better than straight people, they're just attracted to different people sexually. That's the only difference. End of list. Otherwise, they're prone all the same nobilities and foibles of being human. I could be wrong, but I imagine most queerfolk look forward to the day when most Americans will look at them as just another person.
posted by jonmc at 4:27 AM GMT on March 15


We are born atheists. Religion and god are concepts that must be learned.
posted by mischief at 8:55 AM PST on March 14 [!]


People always try to filter current movements through historical analogies.

Yes, it's called learning from your mistakes. It's what makes us smarter than, say, fish. Unfortunately, I long ago came to the conclusion that intergenerational lesson-learning is next to impossible with humanity.

The first time you put your hand on a lit stove, you quickly learn not to do it again. But tell a child not to put their hand on a stove, and they won't listen. They need the direct experience that comes with making their own mistakes in order to learn. This is civlilization's problem writ large, and why we're probably doomed to extinction.

So if it takes conservatives to convince other conservatives that Bush is taking this country in the wrong direction, possibly irrepairably so, more power to this fellow.

Completely agree.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:37 PM GMT on February 6


I don't know why some people bother with laxatives. With enemas like this, who needs blends?
posted by DrJohnEvans at 9:18 AM PST on June 3


me:

This thread at first totally mystified me, but it has clarified something:

- Shilling for PepsiBlue, BAD;
- Shilling for a Burger Chain*, GOOD.

Now, if it was only manufactured by Apple, Inc., I woulda got it straight away. Silly me!

*Well, they may need to concoct a seasonal holiday's press release, get it onto a Business News Site and publicise their phone numbers thereon. If they can pass that strict test - voila! Metafilter will suspend all pretence of avoiding overt commercialisation for that seductive combination of cheesy burger and cheesy 'holiday'.

Result!
posted by dash_slot- at 12:48 PM GMT on January 23


"fuck you, you corporate shill?" What the fuck is that?

Can people calm the fuck down and try and attempt, just this once, to act like civilized human beings?

Seriously, I think a week's worth of time off for many folks that are shitting in every thread is in order.


Posts can sometimes mention a product, or even hinge on a product, but that doesn't automatically make them bad, or shills, or fake, or worth shitting all over and insulting others. Every single post that is remotely about something will inevitably have a comment of someone making a pepsi blue joke.

If you're making a pepsi blue joke, don't. Stop. Back away from the keyboard.
posted by mathowie at 9:42 PM PST on January 11


If someone were to do the same with a Microsoft product, shit would hit the fan pronto. But Apple?

Show me an inventive, clever, or just plain original Microsoft idea, and I'm sure a decent post could be written about it. I can't recall ever deleting anything MS related, so I think the "double standard" is in your head.

I'd be perfectly happy to ne'er see another product-centric front page link.

And a lot of others seem to feel that way, so they mock the poster and the post incessantly in every thread about a product.

I'm stating that it's wrong to do that

and brings the whole site down when people openly shit on others for supposed shill-ness.

I judge what stays and goes, always have

, and I delete stuff that is over the top. I've found dozens of folks connected to their posts and removed them all. The other stuff that is about a product isn't necessarily a shill and if you want to raise the issue, do it in MetaTalk, not metafilter, please.
posted by mathowie at 9:46 PM PST on January 11


I put my dick in the Doritos!
posted by orange cock at 8:18 PM PST on December 16
posted by dodgygeezer at 6:28 AM PST on December 17


...even a broken hippie is right twice a year.
posted by biffa at 6:43 AM PST on December 18


Historically, there was every reason to believe in an afterlife, because people had no idea what our human behavior and intelligence was caused by. It seemed quite possible that there was an ethereal object which allowed for life to exist, which we called a soul. Although that soul was temporarily assigned to a human body, there seemed no need for soul and body to be tied inextricably, and for both to die at the same time. God could choose to do whatever he wanted with the soul when it left the body, punishing or rewarding it depending on its past behavior, since it existed based on the same mysterious unknowable ruleset that he did and was not bound by any laws of science.

The study of psychology has destroyed this myth. There is no place for it any more except in fiction and history books.

The reason is that we now know our behavior is dependent on our chemical makeup. I'm not just talking about DNA here. Every new memory you make is recorded chemically. Every changing aspect of your personality is recorded chemically. The world is chemical, and you interact with it chemically. Many MANY people appear not to realise this, or choose to ignore it as an inconvenient or depressing concept, and it stuns me.

When you break down the chemical system in part of the brain, that part ceases to function, and the person's personality changes. Let's say someone is involved in a car crash that destroys the part of their brain that deals with a sense of smell. It previously allowed the person to smell odours because of an amazingly complex and fragile chemical pathway. Now it is destroyed by the collision, it can't do it's job. It's that simple. It's that obvious.

This fact, that you are your molecular configuration, applies to every aspect of you. Your memories, your personality, your consciousness. For a soul to "be" us, allowing us to live after death, it would have to be an exact encoded copy of our molecular configuration at the point of death.

When a person dies, is his mind encoded in soul form at the point of death? If you think that's the case, bear in mind that the destruction of the mind is not an instantaneous thing. If you have a momentary brain process, a thought, after part of your brain is destroyed, is that included in your soul? Or is your soul just the brain in its perfect state, before any damage occurs to it? You're going to have to go for the latter option, otherwise you're going to end up in heaven braindead. Of course, by that logic, going back to the person without a sense of smell, their soul would have to be encoded before they damaged that part of their brain. On the other hand, maybe the sense of smell part is encoded in soul form when it's destroyed, and bums around in heaven sniffing things and waiting for the rest of the brain to arrive. That can't be true of course; it's not like you can mix and match these mystical brain-blueprints from different points in time, because the brain grows and changes and really isn't LEGO-brick simple.

The human body isn't a binary on/off machine, and death is gradual, and so a soul would have to be encoded gradually, each part of the brain and spinal cord being recorded just prior to destruction. The resulting "time-lapse" image of the brain would not function. The soul-encoding event gives off no heat or light or any evidence of its existence at all, and by all the laws of physics is impossible. Quite simply, you are your chemical configuration, and when that is destroyed, the memories and personality that you consist of are destroyed, and so you are destroyed.

In this post I'm being very patronising, and I'm stating the obvious. I apologise, but these facts are so very, very self-evident to me, that I don't quite know how to express them otherwise, to people who can't see them. If you can think in any serious depth about the scientific mechanics that would be necessary for an afterlife, and still believe in one, you need psychiatric help (in the case of konolia, extra sessions).

Please, I beg you, point out any flaws in my argument, because all I'm interested in is finding the truth.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:22 AM GMT on November 27

I just wanted to add that this thread is so entertaining that I had to go pee but I waited and waited in order to read it and I ended up peeing myself AND IT'S ALL METAFILTER'S FAULT

carpet's ruined. I'm gonna sue mathowie. it really tied the room together
posted by matteo at 4:01 PM PST on November 19


? ) Remember, in posts, and especially in comments, it's better with THE LINKS. This is the web, so use links to bolster arguments you make, bring up related shit, or to make fun of someone. Links people, links.
posted by zpousman at 1:51 PM PST on November 18


Why don't we all agree that marriage is something that Christians get to do, and pass a law that forbids Jew Marriage? Don't get me wrong, Jews can have civil unions, which are exactly like marriage except in name. It's just that marriage is defined as a special union between a man and a woman, blessed by Jesus. Why try to change the definition?

And hey, if a major player in the anti-Jew-Marriage (please note, this is anti-Jew-Marriage, not anti-Jew) campaign turns out to be a Jew himself, then I don't see what the big deal is. Because you can be a Jew and against the idea that Jews should be allowed to marry. That's perfectly logically consistent.

And you can be assured that everybody who supports these anti-Jew-Marriage proposals are doing so because they agree that government shouldn't be in the marriage business and the fact that they've started their crusade against the Jews is only a convenience. You gotta start somewhere, right? Might as well start with the Jews.

And as for the Jews who are complaining? Geez, don't even get me started. They are sooooo in love with their self-appointed victim status. I can't understand why they would want to use a forum of highly intelligent people (stop snickering) as an opportunity to spread their message. They should just accept that the world isn't ready for Jews to marry and get over it.

So yeah, I don't think we need a FPP for every anti-Jew-Marriage guy who doesn't "eat teh pork". Especially because they always remind me that people are not only opposed to my way of thinking, but also thinks the fact that we're passing laws to support these views is one of the biggest injustices that our country is perpetrating on its citizens today.
posted by turaho at 10:32 AM PST on November 12


So if you've already thrown off one article of faith (Christianity) in favor of materialistic evolution, it's fairly natural to throw off the other article of faith (equality) at the same time.

I have come to the conclusion that evolution provides the best explanation for the existence of human beings. I find that evolutionary theory makes sense on a simple mathematical basis, and I find that mathematics seems to provide an excellent foundation for a lot of scientific (logical) thought.

I've come to the conclusion that equality serves the best interests of the human race because it takes us a step toward global peace and a reduction in suffering. Again, I find this makes sense on a mathematical basis: less suffering equals a greater ability to propagate the species. I can't see us surviving as a species if we don't all pull together.

I fail to see any need for faith or religion to come to these conclusions. Evolution is right. Equality is right.
- posted by five fresh fish at 10:32 PM GMT on November 10


You lose your ability to go without sleep. You can't drink or take drugs as much as you used to. If you eat lots of crap, your body will feel bad and gain weight immediately. Minor injuries take longer to heal. Your muscles get stiffer. If you're a man, you have to wait longer after orgasm to have another go. Hair will start growing out of your ears.

Sounds horrible, right? Actually, there are a lot of compensating psychological things that happen. You stop being so self-conscious and taking things so seriously. You learn how to take better care of yourself, and discover that it's not that hard and it's very satisfying. You figure out what it is about your relationships that's important, and you start to focus on that more. You start concentrating on changing the world around you, where you can actually make a difference to people, rather than torturing yourself with big impossible ideals about changing politics and society.

I miss the feeling of physical indestructibility I had in my 20s. But overall, getting older isn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be. When I was younger, I was convinced that life was short and I had to be in a hurry to do things. Now, I'm starting to realize that life is actually very long, and that there are a billion little things that I can appreciate a lot more than the grandiose dreams I had before. It's not that hard to age without getting old, as long as you're not afraid of change.

On the other hand, it really pisses me off that I'm going to need reading glasses soon.
- posted by fuzz at 4:15 AM PST on October 29

Meh... I'm more about banning the Koran... then work our way up to the Bible...
posted by wfrgms at 6:20 AM GMT on September 26


a performance that could probably be duplicated by the second-string editorial writer at any alternative weekly in America.

So much material, so little time. Bush is really easy I agree. Even I can see that. Nothing there to match wits with.

To call a lot of this Bush hating is incorrect. I don't hate Bush, as a person he could be rather harmless. The machine behind Bush, however, is evil incarnate. Bush is the sock puppet of the machine, much as Raygun was.

Does the fire get directed at Bush? Certainly, taking the fire is one of the jobs of being a sock puppet of the machine. The machine is equally ruthless to adversaries as to its own so perhaps that's where we get the "party of morality."
posted by nofundy at 6:25 PM GMT on August 30
He's far too modest, but I love NoFundy's radical leftist opinions.

Dwarf rapes nun, flees in UFO.
- posted by troutfishing at 9:06 PM PST on September 9
[Usually trout is - like a lot of us - a very political guy, but absurdist quips always make me smile.]

"I've spent the day gathering my kid's used baby clothes, toys, and books to give to a battered women's shelter. It makes me feel good. Does that make me some shitty greedy person? Are you going to crap all over that, too?"
aacheson, no. in fact, you are far nobler than that television fool. i'd fucking stand in the street and applaud your passing, but i can only sneer at pontiac/oprah's phony, manufactured telemotion (whose only reason for being is to reinforce a paradigm of materialism, greed and subliminal self-promotion).
what you describe yourself doing is going out of your way to make things better for others - doing things you weren't already going to do anyway. you do them sans spotlight. sans self-promotion. sans any attention whatsoever. it costs you on a personal level.
neither oprah (the production company) nor pontiac are altruistic. they are not persons, nothing costs "them" on a personal level. they are carefully choreographing, packaging, and distributing televised autofeelgood. the audience gets to bask in altruist emotion and it costs them nothing. they don't have to move their asses an inch.
now oprah the person may be an angel - i don't know. perhaps she's fucking mother teresa off-camera. if so, good for her. but this circus? it's nothing but one big fat advertisement. i just don't see how you can be so moved. it's just a game show stripped of the pretense of questions, rules, winners and losers, a format that skips the prelims and takes us straight to the part where we're supposed to leap up and down yelping like hyperexcited puppies and our wonderful sponsors shower us with fabulous booty.
- posted by quonsar at 3:00 AM GMT on September 14
[quonsar often makes pointed and sarcastic rejoinders to blinkered souls with no heart: here he cogently and kindly makes sense of two differing acts of genorosity - one anonymous and personal, the other massive and public. ]

"And if I walked into a random Arab schoolhouse to avenge them, I'd be considered a murderous barbaric thug, and correctly so."
and if you sent people like Lynndie England and her buddies to a (not-so-random, thanks to Chalabi's "intelligence", Arab country) to beat up/torture/electrocute/rape a few car thieves and their kids, what would that make you? I'm curious.
or would a nice clean bombing from above raining on some Muslims' heads a more polite way to make a point about 9-11? what would that make you?
what so many US right-wingers are unable to grasp -- due either to racial hatred, stupidity or simply blindness -- is that it's not really about the 19 hijackers or the 15 Beslan butchers. it's about how many worldwide Muslims/Chechens live lives so fucked-up that they don't feel compelled to feel nauseous and condemn those 19 or 15 hitmen. it's about how many people watch Lower Manhattan burn on TV from some Gaza-like shithole and they just think, "well, our cities burn very often, today it happened to the Americans for a chang, tough shit".
saner individuals understand that the real achievement is to cut off popular support for the killers. like European countries did with the Red Brigades, Baader Meinhof etc. you've got to cut off political oxygen to the (they're not millions) Mohammed Attas of the Muslim world -- and to cut off their funds, just go to their Saudi employers, raise your voice and don't bend over in the name of that juicy cheap oil, for a change. but if you wage an ill-defined permanent war and thus turn a two-bit rich-kid cowardly asshole (and former happy CIA asset) like Osama into a Saladin (like Bush did, declaring all-out war on terrah for his military/industrial corporate masters joy) you play right into Osama's hands.
if the Muslim masses don't feel disenfranchised and if they do have something to lose, they won't follow the assholes who ask them to blow up shit. if you just bomb them, invade Muslim countries on trumped up evidence, torture them, you'll do wonders for recruitment. and just pray that after Osama they don't find a _real_ Saladin. with Pakistani nukes.
cut off their popular support (and funding) for real and you'll just have to arrest a few hundred thugs. the most powerful nation ever can certainly do that.
it sounds much better than to wage an unwinnable (Bush's words, not mine), useless war
- posted by matteo at 3:11 AM GMT on September 15
[matteo showing the connections between Western oil-thirst, arab & muslim discontent, al-q'aida and Beslan - all in a language not his mother tongue [if I've understood various comments he's made before]. Precision targeting, not a personal attack in sight. Thanks, matteo.

- Bizarre & Incomprehensible Thread of the Week Month Year:
the letter eth: right now i'm working on trying to find a way to get under 20 shirts made and ready by next weekend but besides that -- (mi if anyone wants to wait for it)
posted by ethylene at 1:45 PM PST

Just a bit o' fun, love, just a bit o' fun:
On my old blog, the first post - is a critique of possibly the funniest scene ever filmed in British movie history. Now, I know that dissecting comedy is like Schroedingers Cat: it's not there when you examine it - but here's a little quiz question for ya:

"If anyone can find a link between these two great cultural organisations [the film and who hosts this clip], one British and the other American, they win a beer from me next time they're in my hometown. Post your answer in my comments section."

BTW, if I've linked to you without a category, it's probably because how I see you is not how the categories allow me to see you. Categories I would add are: admirer, mate, pal, comrade, fellow-traveller, respected foe. You may well be one of those.

The Inaugural MetaFilter UK MeetUp is was on September 26th 2003, in the stodgy crusty historic city of Oxford. See the Wiki here.

Just to simplify things...more about me:
1. Left/Right: More left, with a drift to centre as I age ....
2. Religous: Nope. Fascinated with the concepts, but...still no. I self-anointed myself as what is now called a 'Bright' [hateful word, essential concept] when I was 13.
3. Smoker: Not any more. Oops!
4. Animals: Love them, but I couldn't eat a whole one.
5. Mac/PC: I'm not a graphic designer, so PC.
6. 'Transport should be as complex as the environment.'
7. Straight & Gay Rights: Absolutely - equality is not a limited commodity.
8. Death Penalty: In the UK - which has a somewhat more moderate legal system than the states - we have executed the innocent: that's an irreversible error, which when committed, should cause all right-thinking citizens to campaign for better detection training, techniques & evidence admissibility. Developing.
9. War: Generally, no.
10. Harry Potter Broom: Give the girls their twirls :) (and the boys their toys...)
10. Drug Decriminlisation: Weed, etc - definitely; XTC, LSD - possibly; Heroin, maybe; Crack - I doubt it.

B). To further the simplification...
According to the Political compass posted here, I'm in the same quadrant as most Mefites, only more so - I'm happily on the edge with, of all people, both Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone. And I've never voted Labour in my life! My other near neighbours are Charles Kennedy & Simon Brown of the (UK) Liberal Democrats, who I'm glad to say represent a left/Liberal party drifting South and West.

Wow! Today [22/08/04] I did the Political Compass again, having last tried it in february, 2003. The contrast in the scores really proves that first sentence -
2003: Economic Left/Right: -6.75
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -7.69
2004: Economic Left/Right: -4.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.59

So, if the test is credible, I am moving rapidly centrewards. Still am on the Left/Libertarian team, but christ - that is rapid change indeed.


There, that should take care of a lot, now let's discuss something interesting, OK? With thanks to Ufez Jones...

(",)



http://www.metafilter.com/username.mefi/dash_slot-