MetaFilter posts by Mo Nickels

Salmoning: a bot-initiated two-way chat surprise

Mo Nickels — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:42:07 -0800

Have you been salmoned? I just met a stranger from Denver via the process of salmoning, in which a chatbot initiates an unexpected two-way conversation between two (apparently random) nicks, giving them both aliases ending with "salmon," and leaving both parties confused.

Can you trust a television military analyst?

Mo Nickels — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:32:25 -0800

Television military analysts are wooed, courted, and privileged by the Pentagon. An in-depth investigative report by the New York Times uncovers logrolling, shilling, touting, back-scratching, and just plain bias on the part of the experts that television networks put on the air to talk about the war. Some of them appear to be as good as owned by the Defense Department. "The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves."

They're judging your hardbone.

Mo Nickels — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:11:20 -0800

At colleges across the country, students judge meat. Eighty-plus years of meat-judging contests.

Chi-Tonw. You read that right. Want a tattoo?

Mo Nickels — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 16:16:30 -0800

Two years ago, a mistake was made: The tattoo read "Chi-Tonw" instead of "Chi-Town." Now, in an act of solidarity, more people are getting tattos spelled Chi-Tonw on purpose. This fellow had it spelled that way on his neck. Chicago Tribune news and blog coverage, and audio on NPR.

Duclod man uncovered.

Mo Nickels — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:51:16 -0800

Duclod man uncovered. Sarah Aswell uncovers but does not name the author of bizarre letters. "As early as 1992, students at Grinnell College, a small liberal arts school in Iowa, began receiving strange, anonymous letters in the mail. The letters contained homemade greeting cards with crudely drawn pictures—men crawling on the ground, toilets and trash cans, twin closet doors—and jokes that didn’t make any sense." Previously on Metafilter, plus this blip.

Io schiavo in Puglia. I was a slave in Puglia.

Mo Nickels — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:57:34 -0800

I was a slave in Puglia. A long first-person exposé, in English, about immigrant slave labor in Italy, from Fabrizio Gatti writing in the Italian newspaper L'Espresso. "I can hire you. Tomorrow," he promises. "Do you have a girl friend?" "A girlfriend?" "You have to bring me a woman. For the boss. If you bring him one, he'll put you to work right away. Any girl will do." He points to a twenty year-old woman and her companion, working on the conveyor belt of a huge tractor that is being used to gather tomatoes. "Those two are Romanians, just like you. She slept with the boss." "But I'm alone." "No work for you then." Photo galleries. Italian version (includes additional sidebars not found in the English version, including local and government reaction to the exposé and more photo galleries under the sidebar "Reportage Fotografico.")

Sperm Dress

Mo Nickels — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 16:10:57 -0800

The seller called 'em polkadots. "When I got the dress, my eyes about popped out of my head. These were NOT creamy white polkadots. My mind raced. This was a novelty print, yes, but not of balloons or cheerfully wriggling tadpoles. There's no way…could it be!? Could the 1950's designer Mark-Robbins been so devious as to devise a blue dress covered—literally covered—in…"

Anti-Valentines: We met drunk and we abandoned each other drun

Mo Nickels — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:17:25 -0800

Anti-Valentines: "She said, 'I've been tapping my foot under my desk so that you'll be my friend again.' Then she started crying."

Migrating Birds and Oil Platforms

Mo Nickels — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 06:13:11 -0800

Interactions between migrating birds and offshore oil and gas platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico (PDF, 5.9MB). A scientific but engrossing look at bird migration over the Gulf of Mexico, describing, in part, death by starvation of migrants who have metabolized all their bodily fat, “overshoots” that inadvertently travel past their intended destinations and find themselves unexpectedly over water at first light, and a suggestion that peregrine falcons not only recovered from near extinction due to the presence of oil platforms in the Gulf, but that they may eventually establish a breeding population on the Gulf platform archipelago. Summary. Full report (PDF, 5.9 MB).

Calling all animals

Mo Nickels — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 08:46:34 -0800

Ideophones are words that are usually spoken but not written and are often onomatopoeic, including (but not limited to) the calls—often reduplicated—with which we beckon domestic animals, kindred to our animal imitations. In the States there are many more pig calls beyond soo-ee. Maxim Gorky wrote that the sound tse tse is used to call pigs in Russia. In Spanish coch is used. Americans use pipi and biddy to call chickens and turkeys. In Ambon Malay chickens are called with kurrrrr or pan kur. In Kiswahili you call chickens with gurúgurúgurúgurú, call dogs with aháháhá, and straying cattle with ishiyeeyeeeeee or ngoyéeeeee. In Sweden, they call cattle with a loud, high-pitched kulning (akin to yodeling). Cervantes wrote that they use tus tus to call dogs in Spain. One source says in Coolderry, Ireland, they use gen-gen to call pigs to ford, puddly pudde to call ducks, peopeo to call horses, and geg geg to call geese. In Iceland, kibbakibb is used to call sheep. In the Hiligaynon language of the Philippines, they call cats with míming. In the parish of Nantcwnlle in Wales they have their own set of calls.