MetaFilter

Things that will absolutely happen in the next 14 days:

1. Trump will announce that he's feeling great and not sick at all.
2. Trump will blame the deep state for intentionally giving him the virus because that's the only way he could have gotten it since he obviously was washing his hands a lot.
3. Trump will announce his recovery from the disease after very mild symptoms because he took hydroxychloroquine and not because he received the best... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Room 101 at 9:06 AM on October 2, 2020

I'm really looking forward to "An Oral History of How Saturday Night Live Re-Wrote Their Entire October 3rd, 2020 Show On The Friday Before Air."
posted to MetaFilter by bondcliff at 8:49 AM on October 2, 2020

What are the chances he tries to use this as a pretense to delay the election?

He can try all he wants, that’s simply not a thing that can happen. I’m comfortable calling that shot.
posted to MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 8:30 AM on October 2, 2020

I don't think you announce this at 1am unless you expect to be making a trip to Walter Reed today.
posted to MetaFilter by cmfletcher at 8:23 AM on October 2, 2020

I'm too old to live long enough to explain 2020 to my grandkids.

No matter how long I live, I won't be able to explain 2020 to my grandkids (and I don't have any yet). But worse, I fear that 2020 marks the beginning of a new age rather than an unfortunate outlier in a succession of normal years. So 2020 may someday seem like a quaint harbinger, bad as it seems now.

I've occasionally used the phrase "the beforetimes"... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by swift at 8:22 AM on October 2, 2020

I want to know if the Russian embassy is doing any panic testing of the agents who handle their Republican assets. It'd be pretty hilarious if they had an outbreak at the same time.

It'd probably also be interesting from an espionage perspective if the American security apparatus could use viral DNA to establish contact and transmission chains.
posted to MetaFilter by srboisvert at 7:29 AM on October 2, 2020

***Trepidatiously opens Flap #2 of my October Surprise Advent Calendar***
posted to MetaFilter by reclusive_thousandaire at 5:53 AM on October 2, 2020

When Hope Hicks tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday morning, the White House should have notified those she had been in contact with, and Trump should have quarantined himself. Instead they tried to keep it a secret, and Trump went to an indoor fundraiser in New Jersey, and didn’t wear a mask. Now he has tested positive. That is how little Donald Trump cares about the lives of other human beings, even those who give him money.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:44 AM on October 2, 2020

There was a lot of shouting and spitting though right? 😷

Like two llamas at a blowjob competition.
posted to MetaFilter by atrazine at 5:31 AM on October 2, 2020

It's like the writers knew this fuckkking shitshow wouldn't get renewed another season and are just blowing everything up for the finale.
posted to MetaFilter by seanmpuckett at 5:22 AM on October 2, 2020

I'm worried that if Trump is incapacitated, the entire country will be plunged into stability.
posted to MetaFilter by yankeefog at 4:22 AM on October 2, 2020

I really don't care. Do you?
posted to MetaFilter by Faint of Butt at 3:52 AM on October 2, 2020

Given the reports from his previous medical checkups, I would want confirmation from a trusted third party. While he certainly could have it, just saying he has it takes a lot of oxygen away from his campaign woes.

No decent person would fake having a serious illness for personal gain, but if there’s one guy who hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt, it’s him.
posted to MetaFilter by cardboard at 2:51 AM on October 2, 2020

I stopped at Emacs. I've tried some of your new-fangled Atoms and the like but they aren't an old friend.
posted to MetaFilter by rdr at 5:57 AM on September 23, 2020

Seconding Candleman. I don't think plain-text-only is realistic, there will always be some cases where you need images (e.g. tickets to events), but "show me plain text only until I specifically enable other stuff for this message" is very doable. I use Mozilla Thunderbird and it offers this.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by equalpants at 5:58 PM on September 19, 2020

Very difficult to say without a picture of the cat in question.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by sebastienbailard at 10:49 AM on September 19, 2020 marked best answer

The FDA encourages these dates to be labeled 'best if used by'. The date is a discretionary guess about quality, not food safety.

A safe and sealed jar of pickles never becomes unsafe if the container is intact, nor does a properly canned tin of fish. Indeed according to the USDA "most shelf-stable foods are safe indefinitely".

I can find no evidence of sealed fermented bean curd ever becoming unsafe due to passage of time. Indeed many... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by SaltySalticid at 8:22 PM on September 16, 2020

Kerbal Space Program. You can use the in-game tools to estimate fuel/weight/thrust/etc costs needed for various maneuvers and orbits, but if you don't want to trial-and-error or over-design your rockets, you need to dig into the math a bit. There are add-ons/mods you can download to do the calculations for you.

Any game that benefits from optimization. I think of MMOs, here, in terms of what your DPS or heal skill rotations should be to maximize the utility your... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by curious nu at 10:24 AM on September 16, 2020

I have not seen the publicity for this movie, but have watched the movie itself. The unambiguous message I got was that, no matter how much you are bombarded by sexy images on instagram, tiktok, and youtube, trying to act like an edgy, sexy dancing girl when you are only 11 years old will not bring you happiness or the admiration of anyone.

There is nothing in the movie that your average 11 year old will not have seen already, which is sad in itself, but I'm really not... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by maggiemaggie at 4:48 PM on September 13, 2020

Your TP will tell you.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by HotToddy at 11:00 AM on September 12, 2020 marked best answer

This is dumb. There is a very old and well established process here. No one worthy of a castle runs it by a Review Board first. You gets your vassals together and you just build the thing. If Review Board doesn't like it, it's their responsibility to retain sufficient trebuchets to lay siege to it, as it is a castle owner's prerogative to retain a company knights to protect it from such.

It's basic castle etiquette. I would expect as much from a modern city but Mr.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Phobos the Space Potato at 4:40 PM on September 11, 2020

They're probably most concerned that he'd never finish building it.
posted to MetaFilter by Abehammerb Lincoln at 4:00 PM on September 11, 2020

Some folks I know briefly did a rent strike. Then their live-in landlord (who owns a total of one house, the one she lives in) sat them down and showed them spreadsheets mapping exactly where their rent money has gone/goes/will go, and then they all voted to give themselves a rent increase.
posted to MetaFilter by aniola at 7:54 AM on September 11, 2020

Meh. I don't think it changes anything in practice.

Those who hate him will point out that he was denying publicly available knowledge in order to keep the stock market up.* This merely moves the needle a bit further away from the "Incompetence through Denial" and closer to "Malice."

Those who support him will claim it was faked, that COVID "only kills 6%," and their liberties not to wear a mask and carry an AK-47... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by MrGuilt at 9:03 PM on September 9, 2020

LOL what kind of idiot would plan to release a book about Trump at Christmas, a point past which he would potentially have been voted out? He timed it to maximize sales.
posted to MetaFilter by axiom at 9:03 PM on September 9, 2020

You should charge a living wage for your time while driving and doing the task, plus the IRS standard for mileage.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by rockindata at 2:47 PM on September 5, 2020

The speed with which the elites will be outgunned, out-brutalized and quickly dead minus the consent of the governed and in a state of actual societal collapse hasn't really dawned on them broadly yet, I guess.

Has on at least one of them. Not sure how many others are listening.
posted to MetaFilter by flabdablet at 9:59 AM on September 2, 2020

Thursdays are the best. The thing I love about Thursday (and often Sunday) puzzles is the fact that crosswords have pretty strict rules, and a Thursday is pretty much guaranteed to break a rule - but it's going to break it using some other logical rule in its place, and once you've deduced the new set of rules it's not going to break those. Figuring out the particular way in which the regular rules of crosswords have been broken is very satisfying and lots of fun. I love... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dfan at 8:17 AM on August 30, 2020

And removing a few strokes from the record, that's golf lying 101.
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 11:33 AM on September 1, 2020

Like moonmilk, I've also taught some intro courses on this sort of thing, in my case to college students. And I agree with them that the Circuit Playground Express is a great option. So to echo and synthesize what they and others have said:

The Raspberry Pi is much closer to your family member's laptop than the other options discussed here. It can do some of the circuits and electronics stuff, but it's not as easy to use in that capacity, in my opinion.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by whatnotever at 8:14 AM on August 30, 2020 marked best answer

Not sure what's LOL about that?

"Single-piston engine" vs. "single piston-engine".
posted to MetaFilter by phliar at 4:01 PM on August 27, 2020

It's not a single piston engine. It's a v-12.

Lol! Good one.
posted to MetaFilter by clawsoon at 3:54 PM on August 27, 2020

Let's take the best mileage figure of 25mpg. In more common L/100km units that's 9.4L / 100km. In fuel per seat terms that's 1.56 L / 100km per person. That compares quite badly with commercial passenger aircraft, which typically range from ~2 - 4.5 L / 100km.

I'm really not an expert here, but I'm pretty sure that when you flip from miles per gallon (i.e. distance per amount of fuel) to liters per 100km (i.e. amount of fuel per distance) you also... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by firechicago at 2:55 PM on August 27, 2020

Lol.The figure of merit isn't mpg, its mpg per PERSON you fuckwits. This is making niche private jets more efficient, but still much less efficient than large passenger jets per person

Have you actually done the math? Because my back of the envelope math, using numbers from wikipedia, has the most efficient medium haul airliners fully loaded coming out at about 100 passenger-miles per gallon, while this (assuming it lives up to the promises) would be... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by firechicago at 2:42 PM on August 27, 2020

So: 180,000 dead from an out-of-control virus and the president* suggesting drinking Clorox; an “unsurvivable” hurricane on its way to the Gulf Coast; the Senate waving off further relief packages; the post office under orders to shut itself down to stop mail-in voting; protesters being straight-up murdered by cops as well as freelance white supremacists; people being stuffed into vans by secret police; half the sports teams looking at a general strike; and fifty million people facing eviction.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ricochet biscuit at 7:39 PM on August 26, 2020

I'm on day 151 of my covid-induced NYTimes crossword streak... (my one self-allowed cheat is 'reverse-lookup' for answers I'm not 100% sure of when trying to find the one wrong box somewhere in the grid.) obvs, I am like ten times better at the crossword now than at any other time in my life. The joy of nailing a long answer in a saturday puzzle without any cross clues is profound. (and then quickly discarded as I attack the next problem.)

I find the rebus puzzles to be... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kaibutsu at 8:13 PM on August 26, 2020

I promise to read the article but this seems like the place to confess that in the before-time when I rode on airplanes I’d do a very bad thing which was inking either nonsense or plausible-but-wrong answers into the in-flight magazine’s crossword and I’m both sorry and desperate to do it again
posted to MetaFilter by Caxton1476 at 5:44 PM on August 26, 2020

I'm pretty sure I saw it in the documentary about the NYTimes crossword puzzle, but I'm still flabbergasted when I think about the one they ran on election day 1992 with the clue: 42nd president of the United States.

It turned out you could fill it in with BOBDOLE or CLINTON and there were vertical answers that would work in both cases.
posted to MetaFilter by nushustu at 4:30 PM on August 26, 2020

I sometimes muck around with crossword construction for fun, and a couple of years ago I made a puzzle that consisted entirely of the most common/laziest Shortz-era answers - ELI, ALOE, ESAU, stuff like that. To make it interesting and an actual puzzle, though, I either used an unusual clue for a common answer or I combined multiple common words into one answer.

As examples:
One of Cirque's Las Vegas hosts.ARIA
Abbé de L'____, the French 'Father... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ZaphodB at 3:53 PM on August 26, 2020

As I've said before, a future or extraterrestrial civilization reconstructing our via analysis of crossword puzzles -- an unlikely scenario, I grant -- will know Melville not for Moby-Dick or Billy Budd but as the literary giant beloved for Omoo.
posted to MetaFilter by ricochet biscuit at 3:40 PM on August 26, 2020

I wonder what aliens would think if they came upon these temples to religion which are always surrounded by fields full of dead bodies.
posted to MetaFilter by JackFlash at 10:58 AM on August 21, 2020

I'm confused - if the fridge is not for storing condiments, jams, sauces and produce... what is it for?

Alcohol and cheese.
posted to MetaFilter by betweenthebars at 11:02 AM on August 17, 2020

The real treasure was the microbes she made along the way.
posted to MetaFilter by wellred at 10:10 AM on August 17, 2020

Recall that John Yoo not only wrote the memos authorizing Bush's human torture policies, he also once argued in a debate that the president had the authority to order the crushing of the testicles of a person's child to get the parent to talk.

He's just the kind of guy you want to help you write new presidential emergency action documents.
posted to MetaFilter by JackFlash at 5:07 PM on August 16, 2020

John Yoo - what a malevolent little chuckle-head.
posted to MetaFilter by bonobothegreat at 2:06 PM on August 16, 2020

From the description, I was expecting a mask that had a .45 sticking out it. Colored red with white lettering, of course.
posted to MetaFilter by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:47 AM on August 16, 2020

I wish them success in overturning this and pushing Lukashenko out of office. I'm readying myself to follow in their footsteps come November.
posted to MetaFilter by jzb at 9:04 AM on August 15, 2020

No discussion of ice cream truck music is complete without mention of the talented Philadelphia musician Doug Quattlebaum, who hooked a guitar up to his Mr. Softee truck's loudspeaker and played Piedmont blues for the clientele. Please enjoy Softee Man Blues, from 1964.
posted to MetaFilter by Richard Saunders at 12:48 PM on August 14, 2020

My theory for how James Bradley managed to hear WAP accidentally (as he claims) is that he was doing a Google search for the term “wet ass pussy” unaware that there was a song.

Not enjoying the song one bit, his next search was for “wet ass pussy (white)”.
posted to MetaFilter by Parasite Unseen at 4:55 PM on August 11, 2020

"When asked about this news, Jerry Falwell, Jr. responded that he's not at Liberty to say."

-Charlotte Clymer
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:20 AM on August 8, 2020