MetaFilter

"grunt" is one of the few words in the english language that gives me a visceral squick reaction. *shudder*

ointment
posted to MetaFilter by kersplunk at 9:42 PM on June 28, 2012

NYT has finally put up a breaking news ticker: "Supreme Court Allows Health Care Law to Largely Stand"

06/28/12: the day everything was so crazy, the NYT split an infinitive
posted to MetaFilter by saturday_morning at 7:22 AM on June 28, 2012

I hate Conic Sans.
posted to MetaFilter by hal9k at 6:52 PM on June 24, 2012

"That's good. Lead with the pelvis. Get that pelvis out in front. Fantastic! Give me more pelvis. More! That's it. Alright, I think I've got what I need here. Take five and stretch a bit.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhomboid at 6:50 PM on June 22, 2012

How many fat race car drivers have you seen?
posted to MetaFilter by VTX at 6:23 PM on June 10, 2012

In every article where some journalist drives an F1 car, I always see the same thing. No matter who they are, even if they raced cars for living before becoming an automotive journalist, they aren't physically able to drive the car fast enough to get the tires warmed up.

I always love when they bring out the safety car. They have a professional race car driver in a VERY high performance sports car driving almost as fast as he can and the F1 drivers... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by VTX at 4:54 PM on June 10, 2012

Yet whenever I listen to it, I kind of like it for reasons I can't articulate.

1) They're not out to cheat, hustle or scam anyone. They're not pushing product, they're actively helping. They readily call out dishonest dealing by mechanics and product marketing.

2) Laughter is infectious. My toddler loves that show, because when they laugh, she laughs. It doesn't matter if it's forced sometimes, or over... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Slap*Happy at 9:43 AM on June 8, 2012

Unless you have an employment agreement which calls for you to receive a percentage of fees, which is almost certainly illegal in every U.S. jurisdiction as fee-splitting with a non-attorney, you have no basis to expect a share. If he chooses to pay a bonus as a thank you for work you have done and to share his success, that's his choice. Does he still pay you when he doesn't win? Do you offer to forego your salary?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by uncaken at 9:09 PM on June 7, 2012

While some of these operations are regrettable...

Governmental abuses of power are always "regrettable" or a "waste of resources".

They need to become "dangerous", "immoral", and "unacceptable".
posted to MetaFilter by Trurl at 6:40 AM on June 4, 2012

I am an IP attorney, but I am not your IP attorney. This is not legal advice. I assume you are asking purely hypothetically and are not planning or considering writing such a program. If you are, you should consult a competent attorney in your jurisdiction.

An open source program can infringe a patent just the same as a commercial one. There is no requirement that the infringement be for profit, since infringement may consist of making, using, selling, offering to... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jedicus at 8:44 AM on June 3, 2012 marked best answer

Bring them home.
posted to MetaFilter by mollweide at 6:16 PM on May 26, 2012

Twenty or so minutes, and the machine nearest me seems to do a great job with kicking foreign coins, etc out of the way.

My main advice is to be patient. Don't overload the machine and instead feed it a cup or two at a time instead of just dumping all the money in. Wear rubber gloves if you don't want your hands to smell like you fingerbanged the Terminator.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by beaucoupkevin at 7:45 AM on May 14, 2012 marked best answer

I work in information security, but I am not a forensic analyst by trade. I do read a lot about it, though, and have a very strong background in network forensics and incident response, so I think I'm at least moderately qualified to speak to it.

Not getting caught in a high profile case like this often hinges on who is doing the investigation. Your standard law enforcement digital forensics jockey is incredibly, incredibly dependent on his or her tools to do the... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by bfranklin at 5:44 AM on May 10, 2012 marked best answer

I wonder if your parents might be open to meeting with a trust lawyer or a case manager? To me, the problem is not that your parents are buying your sister a home, the problem is that they have not done the math re how to best care for your sister over her lifetime. If they are really trying to create a safety net for your sister, they should be meeting with a trust lawyer, and thinking about investments that will help her over the next 40 to 50 years.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by ClaudiaCenter at 6:37 PM on April 29, 2012

Just as an historical aside, I thought I'd throw in a video of one of the progenitors of the whole concept of looping music, from all the away back in '79, complete with awkward introduction—Robert Fripp, demonstrating his Frippertronics rig.
posted to MetaFilter by sonascope at 9:35 AM on April 4, 2012

This has nothing to do with energy transfer so much as it, like all Rube Goldberg contraptions, is about pushing systems with a lot of potential energy past an activation threshold. It may have justified an engineer's pet project to call it educational, but if the purported lesson truly is energy transfer, it's doing a bit of a disservice to its ostensible audience.
posted to MetaFilter by clarknova at 7:53 PM on April 2, 2012

Isn't this mostly adverse selection? If every American were required to buy cable, the increased price for sports programs would be distributed more evenly. Instead, we increasingly divide into people who must buy cable to see the games live and people who think that sports is irrelevant. The must-watchers are then stuck with spraling costs, while those who are indifferent flee to a la carte programing.

But since we all benefit from the externalities of baseball and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by anotherpanacea at 11:35 AM on April 1, 2012

If we don't organize, we will be the only ones not organized.

...and?

No cakes
posted to MetaFilter by mattoxic at 12:28 AM on March 24, 2012

"More harm than good" depends on what the desired result was.

I believe that the program's architects are quite satisfied.
posted to MetaFilter by Trurl at 5:40 AM on March 23, 2012

I'm sorry, just to clarify: a postal service worker was rude to you and you want to "blow the lid off this?" You are not entitled to any compensation because someone hurt your feelings. Unless you can prove that you were discriminated against on the basis of your disability or that the USPS worker violated the ADA (and it does not remotely sound like that occurred), you have zero recourse.

You need to:

1) Take a deep... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by libertypie at 8:11 PM on March 22, 2012

pic

Oh it's a meth house. This all suddenly makes a lot more sense.
posted to MetaFilter by 2bucksplus at 3:41 PM on March 9, 2012

Hopefully the next kid that tries this is as lucky.

Still seems incredibly irresponsible as well


Please. Luck doesn't really have a lot to do with this awesome young women's accomplishment, and I guarantee you that she has more sense of responsibility than most college grads these days.

Sure shit happens at sea, but her ability to plan and execute this remarkable... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by PareidoliaticBoy at 7:21 PM on January 21, 2012

Obligatory Onion article
posted to MetaFilter by XMLicious at 6:47 PM on January 20, 2012

I don't think there'd have been any hand-wringing about the case is these men weren't white.
posted to MetaFilter by ShawnStruck at 7:00 PM on January 20, 2012

You're like a laptop, and having sex with you is like installing an older version of Windows. On the outside you look sorta like other laptops, and I should just be able to stick this round thing in your slot and click OK a few times. But in reality, you've got some obscure fucking wireless card or a video card they only made 100 of or a special kind of trackpad. You have special driver requirements.

And that's great. Diversity is good. I'm willing to persist,... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by obiwanwasabi at 4:55 PM on June 22, 2011

Sure he has an immensely privileged view and upbringing but I don't think he needs to be called a troll by some 22 year old blogger who stumbled across a piece of his in the times.

How dare a 22-year-old blogger call him names! That person has both the wrong age and the wrong profession necessary to be allowed to call him names!

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the internet.
posted to MetaFilter by Fizz at 7:08 AM on January 8, 2012

Santorum surges from behind in Iowa.

I see what you... oh wait. That's the actual headline?

I see what they did there whether they did or not.
posted to MetaFilter by Saydur at 1:44 AM on December 30, 2011

My political prediction for 2012 (based on very credible inside information): the GOP ticket will be Romney/Leiberman, sending Gingrich into a frenzy that culminates in him locking himself in the Reagan Library in a stand off with police. Ron Paul will be called in to try and talk Newt down via megaphone. A sheepish Newt will emerge a few hours later, and Romney will promptly drop Leiberman and put Paul on the ticket. Leiberman will shrug and go back to doing whatever he does. Meanwhile, a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:37 PM on December 28, 2011

Washington types have been bloviating about this lame-brained fantasy for years.

Reich must have been desperately short of material this week.
posted to MetaFilter by Trurl at 8:25 PM on December 28, 2011

“If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you? Just paste http://www.natwilson.com/stuff/whistle.html into your browser window and follow the instructions."
posted to MetaFilter by ricochet biscuit at 4:12 AM on December 25, 2011

Well, in programming, experience often translates to "I already made the mistake you're about to make."
posted to MetaFilter by benito.strauss at 5:06 PM on December 24, 2011

Fascinating. Reads like a review of Ted Chiang's Understand.
posted to MetaFilter by spasm at 2:01 PM on December 24, 2011

Terms of venery...or, more generally, collective nouns.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by neroli at 8:53 PM on December 20, 2011 marked best answer

Apart from making a known lethal virus insanely contagious for shits and giggles, it was completely ethical.

Never before have I been so tempted to deploy a FTFY. Far from being for shits and giggles, they did it to improve our ability to monitor and prevent potentially deadly flu outbreaks:

The research by the Kawaoka and Fouchier teams set out to answer a question that has long puzzled... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by en forme de poire at 7:57 PM on December 20, 2011

Bell and her boyfriend admitted they were aware but thought this would never happen to them.

This "didn't think it could happen to us" attitude is what's causing the erosion of the social contract. Sickness can never happen to me, so we don't need universal health care. Joblessness can never happen to me, so we don't need job security or unemployment insurance. And why is the city getting "heat"? It's the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ralston McTodd at 7:01 PM on December 8, 2011

You know why there aren't any demands? Because that implies negotiation. It implies, if forcefully, asking for something.

The OWS protesters aren't in the business, so to speak, of asking for something. They're not convinced of the legitimacy of the system we have now, for good fucking reason. You know what's anti-Democratic, Fox News? Regulatory capture! A hydra-like political duopoly, with two parties funded and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by clockzero at 6:46 PM on November 13, 2011

They did. AskMe told them they shouldn't eat it. And to get therapy.
posted to MetaFilter by ctmf at 12:43 AM on October 30, 2011

Cobalt 60 is known as "the peaceful atom" and it is widely used in commercial applications. It's used to sterilize everything from milk to bandages. It is one of the things you are expressly looking for when doing a scan like this so it is a bit odd that the Italians were flummoxed by the "mystery."

Yeah. I wonder how much of this was embelishment from the wired writer? How 'mysterious' was this to the people doing the actual work,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by delmoi at 9:21 PM on October 29, 2011

Under the right conditions, just 20 milligrams of cesium-137—roughly the amount found in gadgets that hospitals use to calibrate their radiation therapy equipment—could contaminate 40 city blocks.

Compared to a nuclear explosion, a dirty bomb would be a hiccup in terms of destructive force. The real problem would be panic. A light coating of radioactive dust raining down on Manhattan might cause only a minor increase in cancer rates, but it would definitely... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by heathkit at 9:15 PM on October 29, 2011

Wired is awesome now
posted to MetaFilter by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:09 PM on October 29, 2011

If you're a New Yorker, you could email the prosecuting D.A.'s office, thank him, and maybe ask to be notified when he's next campaigning so you can obtain and put out signs. Can anyone comment on the history and politics of people involved in making this happen?
posted to MetaFilter by jeffburdges at 9:07 PM on October 28, 2011

I'd argue that high executive pay isn't a problem in and of itself.

If the rest of us were free, happy, safe and financially secure, I wouldn't give two shits what the top 1% were making. The problem is, we're increasingly not free, happy, safe or secure. And when we gripe about it, the ones on top talk about austerity and self-discipline and tell us it's inevitable, we all just have to tighten our belts.

So... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by nebulawindphone at 12:26 AM on October 18, 2011

"In their defense, fraud 101 wasn't mandatory at university."

Any sufficiently advanced business strategy is indistinguishable from fraud
posted to MetaFilter by Blasdelb at 10:06 PM on October 13, 2011

The new normal, thanks to stagnant middle-class wage growth: Can't afford to have kids, can't afford to get married, can't afford to live somewhere without roommates, can't afford to not move in with the girlfriend, can't afford to get a bigger place, can't afford to get divorced, can't afford to move out of the parents' house. New household numbers are way down - it's not that many people don't want to be a nuclear family, it's that they simply don't have the money for the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by 0xFCAF at 6:12 PM on July 20, 2011

"We both know that neither one of us could afford to own a home without a second income so we're determined to make this shit work even if it means eating and sleeping in different rooms while waiting for the other to die in a fire. If we didn't have anything I'd be gone in a hot minute."

I just love that you wrote your own vows.
posted to MetaFilter by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:15 PM on July 20, 2011

Look, sometimes you're one of the guys in the back of the plane with the $2.4 billion in unmarked, untraceable bills and you're bored or whatever, it's a long flight, and you figure you'll take home a block or two of hundreds, just shove them down the bottom of your backpack, kind of souvenirs of war. People do it from time to time, we know people do it, we've all known someone who's done it, our grandfathers used to do it, they'd bring back a Luger or a Jap flag or a bunch of teeth or whatever.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tumid dahlia at 10:14 PM on June 13, 2011

Is there a psychological term for someone who is a relentless self-promoter yet who's real accomplishments are noticeably lacking?

Boing Boing Editor.
posted to MetaFilter by ten pounds of inedita at 6:11 PM on June 5, 2011

Isn't it the very goal of businesses to have as few people on the payroll as possible?

I think you're confusing means and ends with this part of your comment, but I think you're absolutely correct that automation is one underlying cause among the "structural issues" driving unemployment rates.

Sometimes I'm reluctant to mention Marshall Brain's Manna because the writing is, well, in the awkward hard SF tradition,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by weston at 4:10 PM on May 17, 2011

Stagger Lee: "This seems like desperation to me, more than anything, and I find the state of our economy and the role of education in it to be totally heartbreaking. Education shouldn't come with a crippling cost, and it should provide more than just training for a job.

...for a lot of people I'm concerned about the soundness of the discipline, the quality of education, and the possibility of low returns after graduation.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Phire at 4:08 PM on May 17, 2011

I think the question might be who is (a) taking the risk and (b) buying the upside.

An interesting question. Normally it's the banks that take the risks. But since college debt is entirely non-dischargable (THANKS A FUCKING LOT, CLINTON) the risk is entirely upon the individual taking the loan, and what they are risking is their future solvency (and thus, happiness).

Also, I really wish people would stop blaming "THE... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Civil_Disobedient at 1:33 PM on May 17, 2011