MetaFilter

Re Frisian and English being mutually intelligible, vacapinta, I always understood it was Frisian and particular dialects of English, to wit, Northumbrian (Pitmatic?). I've been looking for a story I think I read on the BBC website about a fishing boat from Northumberland being stranded in Frisia and the fishermen from each country discovering they could understand each other, but I can't find it now. Couple of references to it though: Second post here; and this youtube... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by glasseyes at 5:05 AM on August 24, 2023

This sent me back to Gardiner's book on Bach, Music in the Castle of Heaven, and his discussion of Bach's famously short temper (which on one occasion led him to pull the wig off an unfortunate organist and throw it at his head). Gardiner discusses this at some length and suggests that Bach believed his anger was justified, even necessary, in the service of his art and vocation. In the light of what we now know about Gardiner's temper tantrums, this reads like a self-serving excuse for his own... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by verstegan at 10:11 PM on August 23, 2023

Three quick thoughts:

1. This echoes a right-wing talking-point that has been around for years. 'Liberal parents make their kids eat tofu and quiche, triggering eating disorders in later life.'

2. Blaming this on schools, rather than on cultural and peer pressures around diet and appearance, seems a curiously selective explanation.

3. If we're talking triggers, the single piece of research cited in the article suggests... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by verstegan at 11:57 AM on August 21, 2023

BBC interviewer: Mr. Pigeon despite your enormous intellect, are you ever frustrated by your dependence on people to carry out actions?

Mr. Pigeon: Not in the slightest bit. I enjoy working with people - I have a stimulating relationship with Dr. Doolittle and Dr. Wood. My mission responsibilities range over the entire operation of the scalp so I am constantly occupied. I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by clavdivs at 2:29 PM on August 21, 2023

Personal opinion: as is the case with so many other things, the (real) dangers of ultra-processed food need to be handled at the policy level rather than at the "individual responsibility" level.
posted to MetaFilter by splitpeasoup at 10:45 AM on August 21, 2023

They also had to pass an examination of their capacity to exercise public rights and duties.

Not 100% sure what he's referring to here. Certainly not anything like a modern-day civics test. If he's talking about the dokimasia, that was a question of parentage (and physical capacity to fight), not competence, and I am casting a stern side-eye on anyone who would confound the two. Either he believes they're... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by praemunire at 8:37 AM on August 21, 2023

Lidl - McEnnedy - "American Way" (Google image search) - for a great idea of the horrors the European industrial food market lumps under the label... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by protorp at 6:41 AM on August 21, 2023

Dysk: I just know how I, as a Dane, react to some of the stuff that Danish-American communities call "Danish"

Danes emigrated to the US largely in the 1860s and 70s. The traditions modern Danes consider especially Danish were constructed considerably later. I don’t know the particulars of the Danish example, but as a rule European emigres were generally from rural, marginal areas, and their customs tended to lose out when it came to the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:00 AM on August 21, 2023

In the Netherlands, in a car-bike collision, the driver of the car is always presumed at fault. ALWAYS. The cyclist would have to have done something really, really egregious to be found responsible.

Point is: it's not that hard. Change the law. Yes, the Netherlands backs it up with the best cycling infrastructure in the world, but let's start by putting drivers on notice that they are going to be liable.
posted to MetaFilter by liam665 at 5:04 PM on August 17, 2023

Ban private cars, yes I'm serious, no I am not taking questions or criticism at this time, thanks
posted to MetaFilter by Krawczak at 4:09 PM on August 17, 2023

The article has a section for "What they get" for certain backers but not others, so I'll take this chance to air my strong belief that many individual investors and probably a healthy portion of banks bought into this deal because they saw the Arab Spring self-organize on Twitter and wanted to eliminate the possibility of that happening again, and the easiest way to do that if you have stupid amounts of money is to just buy the platform.

Because of this I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Pickman's Next Top Model at 8:50 AM on August 16, 2023

I've been busy away from here but did want to respond to Jessamyn's and Brandon's apologies on behalf of MeFi. That is meaningful and I appreciate it very much.

I will just add that it wasn't just me who experienced hurt at the actions of previous mods. I think there are more apologies due, and more of a sincere inward-looking reckoning with how to treat people going forward. I hope everyone who is still feeling puzzled, hurt, and dismissed can get a similar moment of... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Miko at 7:29 PM on August 13, 2023

Thank you everyone for stepping in and helping with the fundraising.

Also, as Jessamyn mentioned above, our goal this time around is to make up for the annual revenue churn and, hopefully, geting back to our usual Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) level.

– Full-time moderation coverage seems like a luxury
Yeah, Jessamyn and I agree, we don't need 24/7 moderation but we need eyes on the site and smaller gaps in... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by loup at 9:04 AM on August 9, 2023

This post is very relevant to my interests! I became slightly obsessed with this article when it first came out (as any right-thinking person would, really). I have now made The Sandwich twice. It was good both times, but the second time around it was transcendent. This was my method:

At least one hour and up to one day in advance, drain one 12 oz. jar of marinated artichoke hearts. Reserve marinade. Spread artichoke hearts on a parchment-lined... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by la glaneuse at 11:00 PM on August 8, 2023

hanov3r made a nice donation and asked for six films on time travel. bent back tulips also donated and specified I didn't need to post for them, but mentioned a time travel movie they liked. So I thought, why not just go hog wild and do a supersized Time Travel batch?

And so I did. 13 moves about Time Travel. It's got everything: historical fantasy; Hong Kong madness; high concept big budget WWII stuff; '70s UK kid stuff; Czech absurdism; Japanese... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DirtyOldTown at 1:00 PM on August 3, 2023

Thank you Brandon, and, on preview, thank you jessamyn. I don't think of Metafilter as an entity that can apologize. Eyebrows and cortex behaved badly, appallingly, really; jessamyn organized a peaceful takeover. Should jessamyn apologize for the bad behavior of the previous owner & staff? She just did. I think individuals should be accountable for their actions, the owner and mods should be accountable for the site, but how do they resolve old issues? I suspect jessamyn paid a fair... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by theora55 at 8:53 AM on August 3, 2023

People who love front page posts about short sf/f you can read for free online: For sufficient stakes I could be persuaded to do another little series.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 2:12 AM on August 3, 2023

Full respect for him keeping his illness private.

Wackiness doesn't always get the respect it deserves. The obits I've seen are inadequate. Really a brilliant artist. PeeWee's Playhouse was full of hilarious touches, broad strokes, and was never mean. He played a child, really, with energy and sly innocence. The movies were utterly whack. It was all totally original. He's an outsider and I don't know if the movie and tv industries really recognized his creative... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by theora55 at 7:41 AM on August 3, 2023

If humans have evolved into such a liability, there must be a benefit to balance the risk.

That's not really how evolution works, though, is it? As long as a trait isn't too much of a hinderance / detriment, it can persist.
posted to MetaFilter by Dark Messiah at 9:33 AM on August 1, 2023

> Singing songs about the alphabet is a bit more complex than sleeping.

*Is* it, though? I doubt it. ChatGPT can make up alphabet songs but it doesn't need (i.e. can't) "sleep". And the way these articles are describing "sleep" - as exposure to broad spectrum white noise - doesn't match the articles' own flamboyant descriptions of everything that happens in human sleep, not even nearly.

All this talk... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by MiraK at 8:59 AM on August 1, 2023

Open Borders: The Case Against Immigration Controls
Human beings have migrated throughout their history. People and their rulers have at various times and in different ways tried to exclude others from their territories, or to expel them once they are there. Most people now appear to take immigration controls for granted, at least in the rich industrialised countries of the West. But comprehensive controls to stop immigration are a recent phenomenon. A hundred years ago they did not... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by eviemath at 8:16 AM on July 31, 2023

Bob Adler was my dad's boss at Zenith. We had all sorts of experimental tvs and stereos that came home to test. Oddly enough I don't remember having one of those remotes but my father rigged a guillotine switch to silence ads. Dad also had a patent on an automatic volume increaser so that if something loud like a plane overhead happened the tv would automatically increase the volume until the noise was gone. I don't think Zenith ever built that into any tvs though.

In... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by leslies at 6:19 PM on July 30, 2023

The TV at my grandmother's house was a Zenith with one of these. I used to amuse myself by trying to press the buttons as gently as possible so as not to cause the channel or volume to change.

Also not mentioned in the linked to article, a channel change also resulted in a the activation of a servo motor in the TV that turned the actual channel selector by one detent. I recall it being a very satisfying mechanical "ker-CHUNK."
posted to MetaFilter by Insert Clever Name Here at 2:44 PM on July 30, 2023

Don’t blame him, we voted #1 quidnunc kid.
posted to MetaTalk by Kattullus at 5:31 PM on July 24, 2023

Big Moby Dick Energy is a fun podcast that comes from a feminist point of view.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by rikschell at 5:47 AM on July 24, 2023

Have been reading the site since ‘99 but didn’t actually join until ‘04 because the Powers that Be closed signups just before I decided to create an account. One of the infamous flood of newbs who joined in the brief screwup that was supposed to allow a handful of new accounts but actually let in a whole bunch before mathowie et al fixed the bug.

Realizing today that I got married a little less than a year prior to the launch of MeFi, and here I am... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by caution live frogs at 6:43 AM on July 22, 2023

Seems like this thread is in desperate need of a tl/dr, so:

It is not 22 minutes on the dot. That's the average, but there's a wide error bar on that (close to 7 minutes). Sometimes, such a period even passes entirely with no bursts.

Also, that's not the only highly variable thing about it: The length of any given burst can vary (30 seconds to 5 minutes). The intensity of the main burst can vary. And I say "main"... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Flunkie at 4:46 PM on July 22, 2023

WaPo ran a wonderful story today about Bennett's experiences in WWII [gift link]. He was at the Battle of the Bulge, helped liberate a concentration camp, and was punished after being seen spending the day with a Black fellow soldier he knew from high school when they met in a German town in Nov 1945. All of that, Bennet said, informed his civil rights activism later:

On Thanksgiving Day, Bennett was in Mannheim when he bumped into his old friend Frank Smith.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mediareport at 1:28 PM on July 21, 2023

Is it on bread? Then yes. Is it on pastry? Then no.
posted to MetaFilter by Dysk at 8:58 AM on July 20, 2023

Squaredle and Squardle are different words games. Also Wordiply.

Also Nerdle and Mathler for number games. I don't have links at hand because I stopped playing them, but they should be easy to Google.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jacquilynne at 7:51 AM on July 20, 2023 marked best answer

Does anyone else from the late 70s early 80s see Budokan and immediately think Cheap Trick?
posted to MetaFilter by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:03 PM on July 18, 2023

Edinburgh
Copenhagen
Delft
Maybe Bordeaux, I haven't been there
Heidelberg
Antwerp
Stockholm
Helsinki
Bonn
Geneve
Basel
Verona
Modena
Tarragona

Oh my, the possibilities are endless.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by mumimor at 12:25 PM on July 18, 2023

In theory, every dog has at least one.
posted to MetaTalk by y2karl at 5:03 PM on July 17, 2023

Despite being ancient - born in September of '68 - am still somehow here.

11 and a bit years active as a MeFite, and several years lurking before. Personally I've matched that only with Flickr and Twitter, the latter of which is useless apart from messaging the few friends still active on there. So guess my two constants this last few decades have been Flickr and MetaFilter.

I wax and wane on here for many reasons, but keep coming back to it,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Wordshore at 9:16 AM on July 17, 2023

So I lurk here all the time, I have an account and I post every now and again. I'd like to post more but I try to ensure that I have a fully formed thought and that I'm able to follow through with this.

TwitterGPT takes any public Twitter handle and generates a quick, questionably accurate report and then helpfully suggests a book as a gift.

I hate this. I reject it entirely as a premise. I don't think this is cute or... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Neronomius at 6:50 PM on July 16, 2023

I miss Miguel, stavros, quonsar. So, so many others also. I joined MeFi 7,693 days ago and, like many, I do drop in and out occasionally, but the people here have shaped my thinking to the extent that, even if I'm 'away from MetaFilter' for a time, I often think about what people here would say on all sorts of topics. In that way, people here continue to shape my thoughts even when I'm not here, which is kind of weird and slightly scary.

My life in the 21 years and... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by dg at 5:26 PM on July 16, 2023

We used to take pictures at Metafilter meetups. I was fortunate to attend two of them, the 8th anniversary meetup and the 19th anniversary meetup, both in Portland, Oregon USA. Check out the faces from the past!
posted to MetaTalk by Lynsey at 8:35 AM on July 15, 2023

I stopped participating, but I still read it every single day, as I’ve done for about 21 years.

Happy birthday to y’all

🎉🎉🎉🎉
posted to MetaTalk by growabrain at 3:21 AM on July 15, 2023

We should have a bunch of parties on as many continents as possible next year, when we hit 25. And we should get some media attention. 25 years in internet time is a hundred thousand years. Think of all the websites/communities that have come and gone since 1999.
posted to MetaTalk by vrakatar at 10:52 PM on July 14, 2023

to me, it makes sense to be anxious, and I don’t understand how to not be anxious logically

Anxiety has a cost. If I was more anxious, there are a lot of positive experiences I wouldn't have had. Anxiety can also be dangerous - if you're actual in a crisis, it doesn't help to feel anxious, it helps to have calm focus on getting out of the dangerous situation.

My partner is more anxious than me, and something I've realized is... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by coffeecat at 5:34 PM on July 15, 2023

There’s a bunch of us here who’ve lived a peripatetic life, for one reason or another, moving around the world, having to rebuild a social life in new places, with new people.

I think I can speak for all of us in that particular subgroup of MeFites that having an online community that’s stuck around and remained recognizably itself for nearly a quarter-century has been incredibly valuable.

It’s a third space I carry with me wherever I am in the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Kattullus at 4:04 PM on July 14, 2023

I am taking your question to mean specialty coffee, rather than just a more general "good coffee". Hopefully that's alright. Apologies I can't provide links, but they should all be easy to find on Google maps or by searching.

To the west of Hyde Park, you could try Kuro Coffee, Notting Hill Coffee Project or Lift Coffee.

To the south, Guillam Coffee House, Hagen Espresso Bar (several of these in South Kensington, Chelsea, Knightsbridge),... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by knapah at 1:25 AM on July 13, 2023

The Mission started out as a mix of immigrants from various places, from Germany to South America. In the 70's a wave of refugees arrived there too with the Sanctuary movement. It became more of a latin American enclave (with wonderful (and not so wonderful) taquerias, dive bars and alternative spaces). And then artists led the gentrification process, helped by proximity to the BART stations. The Slanted Door, the Flying Saucer, Radio Valencia were the places that put it on the map.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 9:00 PM on July 11, 2023

Book or newspaper. Do the crossword if you finish the paper. I don't remember being more bored just waiting for things. I think this guy just has a short attention span.
posted to MetaFilter by TheophileEscargot at 10:07 AM on July 8, 2023

I may be biased here, what with having run a Mastodon instance since 2017. I am almost certainly biased.

But more and more I am coming to feel that social media simply does not belong in the hands of for-profit companies.

Threads should be illegal. Facebook should be illegal. Twitter should be illegal. TikTok, YouTube, all illegal. Anything anywhere *near* the scale of these things should simply not be allowed to be in the hands of a for-profit... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by egypturnash at 1:16 PM on July 6, 2023

I don't get it. These are toxic social ecosystems run by genocide and nazi enablers and loads of people are like, "cool sign me up!" ... just, don't? There's no gun to your head.
posted to MetaFilter by seanmpuckett at 11:50 AM on July 6, 2023

[ More comments removed about the above mentioned derail. Stop it. If you have questions or concerns, Metatalk or the Contact Form should be used instead of replying to or asking questions about removals in this thread. ]
posted to MetaFilter by Brandon Blatcher at 8:08 AM on June 30, 2023

Frowner, thank you for so eloquently stating something that has long infuriated me when having discussions with people about affirmative action.

I know so many people, from across the spectrum of groups in these United States, who have exactly that understanding of AA: that it "steals" opportunities in business and academia from white people to give them to undeserving, unqualified people of color.

The progressive folks I know who hold... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lord_wolf at 6:36 PM on June 29, 2023

"race-based admission" seems extremely problematic in both theory and practice, and in so far as it constitutes a Good (or even just a Necessary Evil), after nearly 50 years, it seems the evidence of it being such a Good (or Necessary Evil) remains exceedingly thin.

Affirmative action was never about "find some random POC and admit them regardless of their abilities and regardless of the qualifications of other candidates in order to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 11:32 AM on June 29, 2023

Just chiming in to say (as an Asian American who's been a student/faculty member at selective universities nearly my whole adult life) that Asian Americans disproportionately support affirmative action. The figures: 74% of Asian Americans (who have heard of aff. action) say it's a good thing, and 21% of all Asian adults say race/ethnicity should be considered in college admissions. That 21% figure might seem headline-grabbingly low, but that figure is only 15% and 16% for White and Hispanic... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by bongerino at 9:43 AM on June 29, 2023