MetaFilter

I’m sorry, while I get the argument that Strava’s users should be smarter and not sync their data (or mark it public) if they’re concerned about this - I still think that Strava has a responsibility not just to adhere to the minimum requirements of its terms and conditions, but to help people protect themselves. It’s possible to identify the start and end of individual runs on this map, since presumably - like me - they rarely change up their routes. I just don’t think Strava should have done... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by adrianhon at 3:28 PM on January 28, 2018

Exhibit A: the Tesco Just Ham Sandwich comprising bread, ham, and nothing else, yet supposedly "developed with care by dedicated sandwich chefs". 'Nothing terribly fancy' is still very much an option.

The "dedicated sandwhich chefs" must be the people who put together the ham (sorry, the reformed ham) sandwich from this impressive list of ingredients:

Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 1:51 AM on November 24, 2017

“When you talk to people, if they are honest, a large number of people eat the exact same sandwich every single day, all their life,” he said. Even as it facilitates a faster and more solitary life, the sandwich provides a kind of security. We seek it out because we have enough to contend with as it is. “People don’t want to be disappointed,” said Whiteside. And in a way, that is the very British secret of a very British industry. The sandwich is a national pastime of modest... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by AW74 at 1:20 AM on November 24, 2017

This is one of like three eps of this show I've ever seen.

Vitti: I "wrote" the Mr. Plow jingle . . .

" "Wrote" " ?!
 
posted to MetaFilter by Herodios at 2:32 PM on November 17, 2017

I'm also fond of the quote from Malcolm's brother Angus: "I'm sick and tired of people saying that we put out 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've put out 12 albums that sound exactly the same."
posted to MetaFilter by jonp72 at 7:52 AM on November 18, 2017

I think it's just the annual reddit big public scrub of ugly indefensible shit that they do whenever they're being scrutinized. After the scrub is over, let a hundred shit blossoms flower.

They did this when the jailbait subreddit came under scrutiny. After the storm passed, a hundred subreddits serving the same function as jailbait but with weak covers appeared and still exist.
posted to MetaFilter by Karaage at 3:54 PM on November 3, 2017

They left all the misogynist hate groups untouched (r/incel etc). Beyond the fact that they clearly just don’t give a shit about women (I mean, there are subs that masquerade as being about violent sexual fantasies that straight up give tips on how to assault sex workers), as long as they keep those they’ll grow the others back. Misogyny is like the ...scoby starter of violent bigotry.

Fuck. Reddit.
posted to MetaFilter by schadenfrau at 3:46 PM on November 3, 2017

I refuse to be in any way impressed with the social responsibility equalivant of wiping ones ass.
posted to MetaFilter by RolandOfEld at 3:45 PM on November 3, 2017

JoeZydeco: "Slack killed AIM usage inside AOL, and that killed AIM."

AOL also got acquired by Verizon, who are systematically winding down the vast majority of AOL's products, and laying off most of the staff.

AIM usage inside AOL declined rapidly because there's barely an "inside AOL" any more.
posted to MetaFilter by schmod at 12:12 PM on October 6, 2017

Aww! I my wife and I "met" on AIM back in college. She just randomly messaged me one day because my profile blurb sounded interesting....our 8 year anniversary is coming up on Tuesday!
posted to MetaFilter by Captain_Science at 11:53 AM on October 6, 2017

My just now paypal (one time) donation got me a receipt from mathowie's email address -- given the other news is this something that needs to be fixed?

Yeah, that turns out to be one of the most annoying details of all the business transfer stuff we've had to do. Change bank accounts? Sure! Swap corporate account ownership? No problem! Change the contact email field with PayPal? Hooboy, we've been working on it for a while. Will get it nailed down... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:32 AM on July 31, 2017

[A couple deleted. Sorry, but if there are reasonable sources for multiple accusations of various bad behavior and/or crimes committed by these band members that people should know about, it's best to provide links rather than "I heard" sort of stuff – the internet and people being what they are.]
posted to MetaFilter by taz at 6:30 AM on April 4, 2017

Just watching May's speech and the servile response to it from commentators on BBC News. No mention, of course, of this additional context (from the Guardian live blog):
The Crown Prosecution Service is due to make a decision quite soon about whether to charge Tories in relation to alleged over-spending at the general election in South Thanet and in other constituencies. An election now would eliminate the risk of prosecutions leading to byelections in these seats.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sonny Jim at 3:21 AM on April 18, 2017

I do screencasts and video tutorials for a state university. My captioning solution is to upload my video to YouTube, let it auto-generate the captions (usually about 75% accurate), then I download the caption file (which includes timecode), fix the errors and re-upload. Couldn't do my job without YT's help.
posted to MetaFilter by porn in the woods at 10:52 AM on March 18, 2017

What is "too expensive"? What if wheelchair ramps were "too expensive"? Would they just say "screw you, wheelchair users"? What is the budget for the football team?
posted to MetaFilter by AFABulous at 10:45 AM on March 18, 2017

The "Alien" franchise is an American horror film series that depicts majority-white populations in their battles with undocumented alien lifeform(s), portrayed as extremely violent and sadistic animals (with insectoid and lizard-like attributes) that attempt to infiltrate majority-white American societies, mutilating the inhabitants thereof in order to breed and feed their young. The film series makes extensive use of (and develops an advanced mythology around) fears of invasion by,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by the quidnunc kid at 4:27 AM on February 23, 2017

pashdown: The same thing has happened to Reddit to a large extent, and you can't blame the platform for the users.

You most certainly can blame the platform for the users. If it wasn't for MetaFilter's excellent moderation, it could have easily become as toxic as Reddit.

4chan and Reddit both have a history of extremely hands-off moderation, which led directly to them becoming cesspools. At least Reddit is trying, if not... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by SansPoint at 11:13 AM on February 17, 2017

That's you, that is.

(Sorry. Off the read TFA now...)
posted to MetaFilter by billiebee at 4:45 AM on February 8, 2017

So let me tell y'all a little story. Tonight there was a Muslim Solidarity rally on the campus of Texas A&M.... So it turns out this was an event planned not by any group or organization but by one student.... She expected maybe 30 people and made a FB event. Then local activists got a hold of it and promoted it all over, made press releases, got the word out. Estimates of turnout are at least 500.

This is exactly how the Sacramento Airport... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mudpuppie at 8:59 PM on January 30, 2017

WaPo Spicer earns Four Pinocchios for false claims on inauguration crowd size “This was the first time in our nation’s history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall. That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past the grass eliminated this visual.”

False. Floor coverings were first used in 2013. It’s actually astonishing a White House press secretary would get such a basic fact wrong in a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:29 PM on January 23, 2017

My typical response to most news stories in the last two months.
posted to MetaFilter by octothorpe at 5:44 AM on January 14, 2017

I feel like they are burying the lede: it might be possible to recover DNA from the cloth, clone Elizabeth I, and then have the Commonwealth be ruled by a succession of her clones for all eternity. Either that or open up a theme park populated solely by Elizabeth I's.

Nice try, Steven Moffat.
posted to MetaFilter by Celsius1414 at 12:49 AM on January 10, 2017

In six months we'll realize that the people who died this year were the lucky ones.
posted to MetaFilter by enn at 1:24 PM on December 26, 2016

whoa, platinum status

does that mean Microsoft gets to see the source code?
posted to MetaFilter by indubitable at 10:14 AM on November 16, 2016

Angry protest of a presidential election is a dangerous trend

I would be embarrassed and ashamed if there weren't protests after a politician was elected who had proclaimed that American citizens of the wrong religion should be put on a government registry and that there should be special police patrols of neighborhoods inhabited by citizens of that religion, and that their freedom to leave and return to their country should be... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by XMLicious at 12:40 AM on November 12, 2016

Portland seems so laid back. Or at least it does from a distance. For those with a more intimate perspective, is the clearly passionate response in character?

Portland is generally pretty laid back, but the city has a history of political demonstrations in the last couple decades. Occupy, the Bush/Iraq era as a couple of memorable periods on that front. G. H. W. Bush's staff years before is where the nickname Little Beirut came from.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 11:00 PM on November 11, 2016

The people smashing stuff were not the same people organizing the peaceful protests, or even necessarily affiliated with them or sympathetic to them.

And I think I'm going to repost this here since it's probably buried deep in the election thread by now:

>Before the Trumpists try and spin this into "priveleged liberal elites throwing a tantrum" I need to put this out there as a Pacific Northwesterner.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Zalzidrax at 10:53 PM on November 11, 2016

MetaFilter won't load for me or let me post comments.
posted to MetaFilter by radicalawyer at 10:29 AM on October 21, 2016

When it came to deciding what third-party code we wanted to use to handwave over some of the ugly syntax of just-use-pure-javascript, we asked one question of each of the options first: is this a library, or is this a framework? If it was a framework, we immediately took it out of consideration. Because we wanted something we could pick and choose from, something we could use when we felt like it, something we could - potentially - move away from at some point in the future. An application... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fraxas at 2:45 AM on October 7, 2016

I understand that it's supposed to be satire. But the funny thing is, a lot of beginner-level coders I know started freaking out, because they thought it was serious.

It's 2016. Satire is obsolete.

Put another way, this *is* serious. The satire is only the thinnest layer of arch suggestion. The arguments satirized here are out wandering in the wild in complete earnestness.

But you'd better... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by wildblueyonder at 10:34 PM on October 6, 2016

Most days I don't get much above C and the past few days I've been writing some real-mode 16-bit x86 assembly to bring up Linux and Xen on a new platform since the CPUs still boot up like its 1979. Once in a while it is necessary to learn a different architecture, although I haven't had to program an Alpha or MIPS machine in years and should probably garbage-collect those neurons eventually. For the most part the tooling has been consistent for years.

I don't know how... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by autopilot at 8:10 PM on October 6, 2016

I can't believe those two Life of Brian lines were ad libs! Comic genius.
posted to MetaFilter by The Underpants Monster at 10:01 AM on September 23, 2016

From years ago:

A trans friend calls to make an appointment to consult his gyno about surgery—a hysto-ovo. Let's say his name is Brian.

Friend: "Hi, I'm calling to make an appointment with Dr So-and-So. My name is Brian X."

Receptionist: "So, you're calling to make an appointment for your wife?"

Friend: "No, I'm calling to make an appointment for myself. I need to talk to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by not that girl at 9:14 AM on September 23, 2016

Hey companies!

this is what happens when you don't consult with the workers that ARE your business - about major changes. Your business may become worthless.
posted to MetaFilter by lalochezia at 6:03 PM on September 13, 2016

very offensive.

These were the dark days before everyone realized that it's not okay to make fun of nuns, alcoholism, jive, paedophilia, women, war, Jesus, basketball, Hare Krishna, disco, mayonnaise, and airport security.
posted to MetaFilter by sfenders at 10:45 AM on August 14, 2016

*long, sad whistle*
posted to MetaFilter by EarBucket at 11:22 AM on August 13, 2016

In various Middle Eastern markets around my area they sell large bags of 10"-12" fresh pitas which I freeze and then use for making thin-crust, mostly-cheese-and-toppings pizzas (spreading the sauce, cheese, and toppings on before putting in the oven) which are about as fast to prepare as a frozen pizza but taste much better with fresh toppings and no preservatives in the crust. Alternatively if no stores near you sell them, if you have a bread machine you could probably make pizza... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by XMLicious at 1:14 PM on June 3, 2016

One of my older colleagues, someone who'd started out as a journalist in the electronics trade press in the 1960s, had covered the whole rise of Silicon Valley pretty much from the beginning - at least as far as the UK was concerned. He's now long past retirement age but has never bothered to stop working. In particular, he runs a blog for the title that's been his home since forever. It's a niche blog in the niche world of the Uk electronics components industry; full of goocness that probably... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Devonian at 4:39 AM on March 23, 2016

When I worked at Intel in the late 70's, my cubicle was about nine feet from his. He was a complicated guy. He thought that engineers had no discipline so he implemented the Late List. If the number of people who arrived between 8 am and 9 am exceeded something like 3% of the total building population, the late list turned on for three days. You arrive between 8 and 9 you sign the list. In the software engineering department, the usual behavior was to sign as Donald Duck or other sundry... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by njohnson23 at 5:47 PM on March 22, 2016

I give this takeover a 7.6. Its not bad, but it is awfully predictable and kind of surprising they waited so long to go in this direction.
posted to MetaFilter by lownote at 11:07 AM on October 13, 2015

The myth that Corbyn (or indeed any genuine leftwing politician) is unelectable really should die and frankly any leftist repeating such bullshit is doing the tories' job for them. He has real populist policies (renationalising the railways for instance is favoured by the whole population including a majority of tory voters) and has proven to be a charismatic, authentic speaker. His smug tory and vacuous blairite rivals have nothing of substance to attack him with so just repeat the mantra of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by iivix at 12:29 PM on September 12, 2015

As somebody in the UX field, this hurts. I've never been a fanboy of good ol' Jared Spooge, but I would have expected that as someone in a female-dominant field, and as someone in a field that is all about empathizing with EXPERIENCES THAT PEOPLE FACE IN THE WORLD, that he wouldn't be so tone-deaf about the experiences of conference attendees. Sigh.
posted to MetaFilter by joan_holloway at 11:29 AM on September 3, 2015

Instead of an illustration or animation of the subduction zone, the New Yorker uses 3 paragraphs to test your ability to follow strange hand/arm motions and imagine what the plates do.

The web enables so much interactive media, and the only images on this article are not-funny 'cartoons'. What a strange place.
posted to MetaFilter by stobor at 8:07 AM on July 13, 2015

I am sure there is backlash coming, or maybe it already arrived, but damn, Taylor Swift is pretty awesome. She keeps surprising me in utterly pleasant ways.
posted to MetaFilter by Kitteh at 6:04 AM on June 23, 2015

I would love to work in a holacracy, as it would make it much easier to hide my laziness and disinterest.

It probably sounds like I am kidding here.
posted to MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 1:55 PM on March 30, 2015

Ok, just to recap, today you had your first Ask MeFi comment deleted. You made a small joke about snakes & the Occupy Movement in a thread where someone was looking for non-chemical alternatives to fixing their slow draining plumbing.

Below the Ask MetaFilter comment box, there's a small reminder message: Note: Ask MetaFilter is as useful as you make it. Please limit comments to answers or help in finding an answer. Wisecracks don't help people find answers. Thanks.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 4:32 PM on February 6, 2015

JESSAMYN IS
STILL A MOD

[watch very closely for the deletion of this comment]
posted to MetaTalk by griphus at 11:02 AM on May 29, 2014

Coping with war and natural disaster serves to distract us from the obvious: that our individual lives are empty and meaningless and that aspiring to some state of happiness and contentment is futile.
posted to MetaFilter by Flashman at 8:39 AM on June 3, 2013

So, I mean, isn't it just another version of Cracker Barrel, maybe with more butter/lard or whatever?

I still can't help but laugh at the name of Cracker Barrel, I mean, my god, can you get more descriptive of the clientele?
posted to MetaFilter by symbioid at 11:14 AM on April 4, 2014

It's odd that Obama had such a crack team of technologists put together to get him elected and re-elected, but when it came time to do the main thing he was elected to do, the IT component was a practical failure.

His election team didn't have to deal with Federal contracting rules.
posted to MetaFilter by empath at 4:44 PM on March 3, 2014