Small Press Distribution, one of the last remaining independent book distributors in the United States, has closed. In an announcement made March 28, SPD executive director Kent Watson said that the closure is effective immediately, and that the staff is in the process of winding down the business. Founded in 1969, SPD was the only nonprofit literary distributor in the U.S. What the closure of SPD means for readers.
posted to MetaFilter by cupcakeninja at 4:01 AM on April 2, 2024 (23 comments)

We attempted and succeeded in, as far as we know, the first ever wireless drive-by attack on a truck. In the paper Commercial Vehicle Electronic Logging Device Security: Unmasking the Risk of Truck-to-Truck Cyber Worms [PDF], researchers from Colorado State take over a transport truck and outline the risk of self-spreading fleet-wide infections. An article in Fleet Maintenance Magazine puts this risk in broader perspective.
posted to MetaFilter by clawsoon at 5:39 AM on March 23, 2024 (39 comments)

Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED One of the main reasons we have blue LEDs, and therefore white LED light bulbs, is that a brilliant Japanese scientist spent a miserable year working in a lab at the University of Florida, where the only thing he was allowed to do was repair an old, broken vapor deposition machine.
posted to MetaFilter by Artifice_Eternity at 5:21 PM on February 12, 2024 (35 comments)

Mr Bates vs. The Post Office (video preview) is a dramatised account of the Post Office Fujitsu Horizon scandal [previously]. Full background of the case is available in 'The Great Post Office Trial' a series of BBC Radio podcasts from 2020. At the end of 2023 not a single postmaster has been given full financial compensation, making the compensation scheme a second scandal in itself. So few claims have been processed that the compensation pot has been reduced by half. Meanwhile as the Post Office Horizon inquiry concludes, lawyers say enough evidence has emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives, which may include Paula Vennells CBE, the former CEO of Post Office Ltd.
posted to MetaFilter by Lanark at 3:03 PM on December 30, 2023 (41 comments)

Hi there, MetaFilter!

Welcome to your monthly Site Update! You can find the last Site Update here.

Reminder: I will be the only mod actively monitoring this thread so please be patient. I’ll reply to your feedback and questions at least twice a week. I’m looking forward to your feedback and questions!
posted to MetaTalk by loup at 2:45 PM on December 20, 2023 (131 comments)

Welcome, new grill trainee, to the Waffle House family! Today in this training video, recorded by Area Vice President Greg Hall, you will be introduced to the "Magic Marker System," the only approved method of "marking" orders at Waffle House, and is absolutely used in all of its restaurants really honest. It isn't at all what those heathens at Huddle House and IHOP would call "batshit insane." Ready? Let's begin!
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 12:41 AM on November 11, 2023 (151 comments)

Ex Astris Scientis has identified over 160 different commercially-available chairs that have appeared in Star Trek productions. So many classic modern chairs. (via)
posted to MetaFilter by Pronoiac at 9:00 PM on October 19, 2023 (52 comments)

BANDCAMP Acquired By SONGTRADR as Epic Games Sells Bandcamp Amid Layoffs
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 4:44 AM on September 29, 2023 (82 comments)

It’s that time of year again. Research that first makes you laugh, then makes you think.
posted to MetaFilter by rubatan at 4:44 PM on September 15, 2023 (16 comments)

Eric Meyer's kind remembrance of his friend. If you came up as a designer or webmaster in the early days of the internet, it was very likely you knew Molly. I didn't see anything about this posted here on the blue, one of the last places on the web that espouses the values Molly fought for—openness, extensibility, and putting humans before algorithmic or financial motive. She will be missed.
posted to MetaFilter by littlerobothead at 11:03 AM on September 7, 2023 (37 comments)

The Incredible Edible Egg, the symbol of life. There's been a long debate about the health benefits and negative effects of the humble egg, but for many, the scrambled egg is the go to breakfast choice. The real question is which scrambled egg? Milk? Cream? Nothing? Salt? No Salt? Again, as with all things culinarily inclined, this list is short sighted, full of gaps, holes, glaring errors and misconceptions, etc. Feel free to scramble over any and all bare spots!
posted to MetaFilter by drewbage1847 at 9:47 PM on August 28, 2023 (92 comments)

Karawynn Long on looking for the reason why the ability to recommend a book to your library’s buyers disappeared from all OverDrive web portals. On the KKR sale: the ones who (like me, usually) pay no particular attention to the world of “high finance”, don’t recognize the moniker, and so had zero reaction, and the ones like my friend, a NYT business journalist, whose reaction as soon as I said “KKR” was the aural equivalent of the Munch scream emoji. (SL Substack). Bonus: a librarian on their experience purchasing for a single branch library that is part of a state wide consortium.
posted to MetaFilter by spamandkimchi at 10:55 AM on August 9, 2023 (40 comments)

Box Office Bombs: Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ is a Deeply Personal Requiem for the Superhero Era
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 3:19 PM on August 2, 2023 (84 comments)

“At four in the afternoon the streets can feel like dealer central,” Funding for Measure 110’s promise of increased services comes from Oregon’s marijuana tax revenues. After a slow start, more than $265 million has flowed to programs that try to make drug use safer by providing clean needles and test strips, offer culturally specific peer support and provide shelter for people newly in recovery. But residential treatment for addiction has yet to be substantially expanded.
posted to MetaFilter by mecran01 at 6:26 AM on August 3, 2023 (103 comments)

Anger over an astronomical increase in Reddit's API prices [prev.] boiled over this week as multiple third-party app developers were forced to close down, with one -- Apollo dev Christian Selig -- posting a scathing exposé detailing the company's shady dealings... including a recorded phone call disproving CEO Steve "spez" Huffman's claim that Selig blackmailed them. Huffman took to the site's vaunted AMA format to do damage control, only to double down, ignore tough questions, and reap thousands of downvotes. In response, the community has organized a massive subreddit "blackout" to protest the rate hike that will bankrupt popular apps, hamper critical moderation tools, and exclude blind users. While such protests are not new, this one is unprecedented in scope: 20,000+ mods from over 7,000 subreddits with more than 2 billion collective readers, from familiar mainstays like /r/aww, /r/videos, and /r/todayilearned to niche subs like /r/Eragon and /r/Panda. Facing layoffs, a major pre-IPO valuation cut, and a runaway user revolt reminiscent of Digg [prev.], could this be the end of the "front page of the internet"? Watch the site wink out in real time [livestream], join the fight on /r/Save3rdPartyApps and /r/ModCoord, backup your data, or check out some up-and-coming /r/RedditAlternatives.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 8:36 AM on June 12, 2023 (704 comments)

Stanley Kubrick scholar Filippo Ulivieri shares a hidden, almost subliminal aspect of Jack Nicholson's performance in The Shining: quick, unsettling glances that break the fourth wall. (SLYT)
posted to MetaFilter by swift at 10:07 AM on June 6, 2023 (66 comments)

Street chess player explains the rules of chess to someone who might just have played before.
posted to MetaFilter by Sebmojo at 5:14 PM on May 11, 2023 (36 comments)

New editions of the works of Roald Dahl are having some words changed or omitted and some readers and writers are displeased.
posted to MetaFilter by twsf at 12:04 PM on February 20, 2023 (144 comments)

The Corsi-Rosenthal Box: or, how to build a DIY portable air cleaner with four filters and a box fan
posted to MetaFilter by box at 3:30 PM on January 13, 2023 (53 comments)

Farewell to Benedict XVI: ‘Humble worker in vineyard of the Lord', Former Pope Benedict XVI dies at 95
posted to MetaFilter by kmt at 4:23 AM on December 31, 2022 (57 comments)

Someone is pretending to be me. [via.]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 4:29 AM on October 12, 2022 (25 comments)

The Gender Pay Gap Bot caused chaos on Twitter yesterday (International Women's Day). Every time a UK business tweeted using the hashtag #IWD2022, the bot retweeted with the organisation's gender pay gap (using data from gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk. Businesses started deleting their tweets, some reposting without the hashtag, others amending their message and others not posting again at all, but other Twitter users were quick to screenshot the tweets and call them out. Here's an interview with the creators, Francesca Lawson and Alastair Fensome, where Lawson says: “I want employers to stop treating International Women’s Day as a Hallmark holiday and start taking responsibility for the inequalities in their organizations”.
posted to MetaFilter by atlantica at 5:13 AM on March 9, 2022 (59 comments)

11 year-old drum prodigy Nandi Bushell plays Everlong live on stage with the Foo Fighters. Video from backstage. Previously.
posted to MetaFilter by mokey at 5:04 AM on August 28, 2021 (37 comments)

I fucking hated it.
posted to MetaFilter by Foci for Analysis at 11:29 PM on July 27, 2021 (151 comments)

David Kelley’s idea of making a company where he could work with his friends took on new meaning. When you don’t consciously design a workplace to include, develop, and support diverse employees, working with your friends can mean promoting primarily people just like you; young, white, cis-male designers without apparent disabilities. Not only does this create a difficult and even soul-crushing work environment for people who don’t match the dominant archetype, but how can a homogenous group competently design for our diverse world?

IDEO, one of the world's foremost design firms, has a serious diversity problem. Former employees such as George Aye and Elizabeth Johansen say it is an unsafe workplace for women, PoC and WoC and detail years of abuse by colleagues and managers. Rachael Dietkus, a licensed clinical social worker and design researcher, offers advice on the matter and workplace trauma.
posted to MetaFilter by Foci for Analysis at 4:17 AM on May 28, 2021 (20 comments)

The Kilobyte’s Gambit 1k chess game: I adapted an impressive 1.25KB chess engine to remove display code and get it down to 1024 bytes, then created a separate interface using pixel art of The Queen’s Gambit. It won’t win any tournaments, but if you’re a chess novice brace yourself for a challenge. [via mefi projects]
posted to MetaFilter by not_the_water at 4:31 PM on March 5, 2021 (51 comments)

"Proctoring software is some of the most outrageous "cop shit" in schools right now." Educational technology critic Audrey Watters on school surveillance.

These tools gather and analyze far more data than just a student's exam responses. They require a student show photo id to their laptop camera, then match that data that to the student's 'biometric faceprint'. They capture audio and video from the session — the background sounds and scenery from a student's home. Some ask for a tour of the student's room to make sure there aren't "suspicious items" on the walls or nearby. Some also capture a student's keystrokes, track location data, pinpointing where the student is working.
posted to MetaFilter by spamandkimchi at 11:41 AM on January 10, 2021 (43 comments)

At the beginning of this year, the UK formally left the EU, initiating a transition period that will end by January 1, 2021. Before the end of the transition period a deal between the UK and the EU was needed to prevent total chaos. Today that deal has been made.
posted to MetaFilter by Kosmob0t at 8:02 AM on December 24, 2020 (169 comments)

Cory Doctorow discusses implementing danah boyd's "email sabbatical" A week in advance, she warns everyone again that she's going offline and shuttering her inboxes. Close family members and her network administrator are given instructions for reaching her while on break, but no one else is.
posted to MetaFilter by mecran01 at 10:04 AM on December 16, 2020 (132 comments)

A website showing the real faces of real people used to train This Person Does Not Exist, without their knowledge or consent.
posted to MetaFilter by wesleyac at 1:37 AM on December 9, 2020 (32 comments)

Did you know you can use a browser window as a basic scratch pad/text editor with one simple command? Wait, you didn't? In that case, Serge Zaitsev shows you how.
posted to MetaFilter by carter at 11:35 AM on November 20, 2020 (29 comments)

The criminal case against him is already in the works — and it could go to trial sooner than you think. To assess the odds that he will end up on trial, and how the proceedings would unfold, I spoke with some of the country’s top prosecutors, defense attorneys, and legal scholars. For the past four years, they have been weighing the case against Trump: the evidence already gathered, the witnesses prepared to testify, the political and constitutional issues involved in prosecuting an ex-president. Once he leaves office, they agree, there is good reason to think Trump will face criminal charges.
posted to MetaFilter by Ahmad Khani at 11:52 AM on November 13, 2020 (205 comments)

It's Election Day in United States. Some 95 million people have voted early. For people voting today or helping voters: the Election Protection Hotline is run by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and partner organizations and has staff available to help in several languages. If someone has a problem voting, call 866-OUR-VOTE.
posted to MetaFilter by LobsterMitten at 7:25 AM on November 3, 2020 (1830 comments)

Yet another oral history, this time from MEL magazine: “An Oral History of ‘Steamed Hams,’ the Funniest ‘Simpsons’ Scene Ever Recorded”
(Previously, previouslier, previouslierer)
posted to MetaFilter by Going To Maine at 6:32 PM on August 18, 2020 (17 comments)

After 50 nights of sustained protest in Portland, Oregon, President Donald Trump has sent in federal police agencies to “quell violence”. The response has been immediate, with protestors and passers by being “disappeared” into unmarked vans by militarized federal police forces.
posted to MetaFilter by gucci mane at 12:20 PM on July 17, 2020 (456 comments)

Fired over zoom. There’s no good way to be fired, but this new way sucks.
posted to MetaFilter by w0mbat at 7:01 AM on June 30, 2020 (83 comments)

The international foot is exactly 0.3048 of a meter, whereas the U.S. survey foot, 1200/3937 of a meter, has an unending decimal. This means that anyone working in multiple U.S. locations or with different agencies must keep careful track of which foot is in use.
posted to MetaFilter by Chrysostom at 9:41 PM on July 3, 2020 (127 comments)

Do You Even Bake, Bro? How the Silicon Valley set fell in love with sourdough and decided to disrupt the 6,000-year-old craft of making bread, one crumbshot at a time - Eater Longform, Dayna Evans

“[In tech], we call it iterative testing because you gradually improve a thing until it’s optimized,” he explained. When a few years ago a friend asked him which recipe he was using, he sent the recipe he’d been keeping in his notes. He had titled it, “Sam’s Version of Michael Ruhlman’s Version of Jeffrey Steingarten’s Version of Jim Lahey’s (According to Steingarten) ‘Miracle Bread.’”

posted to MetaFilter by CrystalDave at 2:56 PM on November 19, 2018 (103 comments)

The invention of the chilled packaged sandwich, an accessory of modern British life which is so influential, so multifarious and so close to hand that you are probably eating one right now, took place exactly 37 years ago. Like many things to do with the sandwich, this might seem, at first glance, to be improbable. But it is true. In the spring of 1980, Marks & Spencer, the nation’s most powerful department store, began selling packaged sandwiches out on the shop floor. Nothing terribly fancy. Salmon and cucumber. Egg and cress. Triangles of white bread in plastic cartons, in the food aisles, along with everything else. Prices started at 43p.
posted to MetaFilter by ellieBOA at 12:31 AM on November 24, 2017 (76 comments)

RIP Sir Ken Dodd, comedian and entertainer, one of the last of the musical hall generation and dodger of the tax man right up until the end.
posted to MetaFilter by fearfulsymmetry at 1:34 AM on March 12, 2018 (20 comments)

Do you use google calendar? Do you buy a dayminder every year? Do you wake up in the morning and write: "7:00-7:30 breakfast. 7:30-7:40 get dressed. 7:40-8:10 commute. 8:10 pick up paperclips before work" or something like that? I'm interested in details--specific tools, philosophies, etc.!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by redwaterman at 6:45 PM on February 13, 2018 (23 comments)

Plagiarism Software Unveils a New Source for 11 of Shakespeare’s Plays (SLNYT)
posted to MetaFilter by jjray at 8:58 PM on February 7, 2018 (45 comments)

David Welsh breaks down how Star Wars was saved in the editing room during the three months leading up the the release in May 1977. In February of that year, George Lucas had screened a rough cut of his new science fiction epic for some of his closest friends including Brian DePalma and Steven Spielberg. The reviews were bad, very bad. Lucas and his editing team headed by his wife Marsha Lucas went back and massively re-cut for the next ninety or so days to produce a coherent and exciting film from what had been confusing and flat.
posted to MetaFilter by octothorpe at 7:05 PM on December 11, 2017 (97 comments)

'A tale of decay': the Houses of Parliament are falling down As politicians dither over repairs, the risk of fire, flood or a deluge of sewage only increases. But fixing the Palace of Westminster might change British politics for good – which is the last thing many of its residents want. Behind the scenes in Britain's crumbling Houses of Parliament – in pictures
posted to MetaFilter by fearfulsymmetry at 2:16 AM on December 1, 2017 (98 comments)

A week from now, we'll be updating MetaFilter to always serve https pages instead of http! You most likely don't need to care at all that this is happening, but I'll explain what it means below. Come on in!
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:58 PM on November 16, 2017 (96 comments)

"The idea, that Homer buy a massive truck and pay for it by becoming Springfield's snow removal hero, was born out of a single desire: Writer Jon Vitti wanted to meet Adam West. " Mr. Plow at 25: How 'The Simpsons' Classic Pushed New Boundaries and Helped Cement Show's Legacy
posted to MetaFilter by bondcliff at 7:43 AM on November 17, 2017 (31 comments)

Reddit has banned several hate groups in the past couple of weeks, including r/Nazi, r/EuropeanNationalism, and r/pol. Also gone: r/NationalSocialism, r/whitesarecriminals, r/Far_Right, and r/DylannRoofInnocent. The new policy explanation says,

Going forward, we will take action against any content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people; likewise, we will also take action against content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals. This applies to ALL content on Reddit, including memes, CSS/community styling, flair, subreddit names, and usernames.

posted to MetaFilter by ErisLordFreedom at 3:36 PM on November 3, 2017 (100 comments)

The generosity of the MetaFilter community has been invaluable in keeping this place up and running for the last several years via community funding. We’re in a position right now where we need to ask for a little more of that help to ensure that the site remains financially secure.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:04 AM on July 31, 2017 (422 comments)

Big news: a few days ago Matt Haughey and I signed paperwork to transfer ownership of MetaFilter from him to me. This is sorta huge and sorta not a big deal at the same time: things are fine and basically nothing is changing on the site as a result, we’re just keeping on as before. I’ll talk about the whole thing below the fold.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:04 AM on July 31, 2017 (340 comments)

On the eve of their sophomore album release came numerous accusations of sexual assault and harassment by PWR BTTM's Ben Hopkins. Since the news came out on May 11, PWR BTTM: have been dropped by their management, dropped by their label (which offered full refunds to anyone who had purchased the new album), lost touring band members, have seen their openers drop out of their tour, been dropped as festival headliners, and reportedly canceled their entire tour. (tw: sexual assault)
posted to MetaFilter by palindromic at 10:34 AM on May 15, 2017 (51 comments)