“Patchett: I remember meeting Paul in [manager] Bernie Brillstein's offices. Bernie didn't know Paul at the time. This was before. He got very upset. "What's this f*cking puppet doing here?" He represented Jim Henson and didn't want any other puppets around. Then he saw ALF and said to me, "Tom, I have one word for you: Merchandising." That's show biz.“ Jake Rossen for Mental Floss.
posted to MetaFilter by bq at 4:35 PM on July 6, 2024 (19 comments)

Stephen Malinowski is a YouTuber who makes animated scores, usually of Bach's music, but today I discovered something completely different: his spectacular score for Teruna Jaya, a classic of Balinese gamelan music (12 min.).
posted to MetaFilter by mpark at 4:21 PM on May 17, 2024 (10 comments)

Does the Irish language / culture have a particularly philosophy of viewing emotions as fleeting? Or is it just the way its grammar works?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by iamsuper at 12:45 PM on May 11, 2024 (3 comments)

The Hideous Spectacle of Vince McMahon Tim Marchman and Tom Scocca discuss Vince McMahon + The WWE, what makes a scandal, and what it means that the ringleader of wrestling has been an absolute monster this whole time. (SL: The Indignity on Substack) [CW: sexual abuse]
posted to MetaFilter by wowenthusiast at 9:17 PM on February 12, 2024 (16 comments)

I've been buying onigiri a lot but they seem makeable to me, so I bought some nori and a little triangle mold thingy. I'm looking for ideas and recipes for fillings to put in them. I'm not vegetarian but I don't much like cooking meat. (The place I get them has some really good ones like shishito peppers in some kind of miso situation.) Got any ideas for me?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by less-of-course at 9:58 PM on January 29, 2024 (16 comments)

Hello. I am a huge old cinephile and I love collecting a lot of old films and Criterion Collection/good Blu-rays. I also love writing and I think I would like to start a film blog and delve into some old films/musicals/old film stars back in the day.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by RearWindow at 5:36 PM on January 12, 2024 (9 comments)

For work I love to make myself instant soups for lunch by putting bean threads, broth base, and other goodies in an insulated container. They travel well and there's no chance of spilling in my bag. I cook them by boiling water in a kettle and pouring it into the container, then covering it and waiting a bit. I would love to try other fresh noodles for this. I live a block from a Chinese grocery with a huge assortment of fresh noodles. When I pick up my bean threads, I always eye the dan dan and lanzhou noodles which I know I love, but I don't know if they would get sufficiently cooked by this method. Other than bean threads (and instant ramen I guess), which fresh noodles will be tasty after pouring boiling water on them, covering, and waiting a bit?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by dbx at 9:37 AM on January 8, 2024 (6 comments)

As part of his Factually podcast, comedian and WGA representative Adam Conover interviews Defunctland's Kevin Perjurer about what drew him to theme parks and their history, how such parks factor into our culture, and how services like YouTube are enabling a new breed of fandom documentarian. (SLYT)
posted to MetaFilter by NoxAeternum at 11:14 AM on August 30, 2023 (24 comments)

I'm looking for stories about men who used to be abusive, but are trying not to be anymore.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by birthday cake at 3:25 PM on August 24, 2023 (8 comments)

The news came out of nowhere as WWE Chief Content Officer Paul "Triple H" Levesque tweeted: "Windham Rotunda - also known as Bray Wyatt - unexpectedly passed earlier today". Bray Wyatt -- one of the most charismatic and creative professional wrestlers of the current era -- was 36 years old.
posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 5:26 PM on August 24, 2023 (28 comments)

Linus Tech Tips has long been known for forthright tech review videos, even if Linus himself is a little clumsy. Linus Sebastian got his start doing product demo videos for now-defunct retailer NCIX in the early days of streaming video content, and has turned that into a YouTube empire, with 100 staff and multiple channels producing daily video content for his Linus Media Group. But recent events, brought to light by YouTube tech peer Gaming Nexus, show a disregard for truth or good journalism, and has turned the fandom against them.
posted to MetaFilter by thecjm at 3:17 PM on August 16, 2023 (45 comments)

Where should I go for a quick trip to Provence from Paris in early October? I'm reading older questions, but I'd like more up-to-date ideas.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by PussKillian at 8:54 AM on July 28, 2023 (6 comments)

White people food is the latest social media trend in China, with posters presenting minimalist lunches of raw veggies, crackers, slices to cheese, cold cuts and other staples, as Chinese young people discover the "lunch of suffering."
posted to MetaFilter by chrchr at 10:18 AM on June 28, 2023 (94 comments)

This is the gamble every wrestler makes: that someday he or she might be the one flat on their back watching the world collapse upon them. Everyone knows this. Everyone’s seen it. Nobody stops working. (archive.today link)
posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 5:59 AM on June 5, 2023 (3 comments)

Wrestling turned me cis, then it turned me trans by Abraham Josephine Riesman [Polygon] “Wrestling is built around masculinity, but in its own way it is also transgressive — even queer. Men in wrestling wear bright colors. They intimately touch other men in public. When they’re allied, they speak of each other in the warm terms of life partners; when they’re at odds, they issue ambiguously sexual threats such as “I want your ass.” Most importantly, they show pain. The essential, irreducible element of a wrestling match is the ability to show suffering — the very thing drummed out of every boy by high school, if not earlier. It’s the heart of the art form. No matter how skilled a wrestler is technically, it doesn’t count at all unless they can make the audience believe they’re being hurt. Every wrestler has to spend a significant amount of every match showing nothing but raw, visceral agony. They have to show their secret face, the most vulnerable one of all. Wrestling is an art form, one that turned out to have also planted seeds in my mind about how fun it is to dress up, show tenderness, be vulnerable, and do the things you’re not supposed to.”
posted to MetaFilter by Fizz at 6:08 AM on May 30, 2023 (5 comments)

I really like watching cooking videos on Youtube, but it's hard not to notice certain demographic similarities, and I'd kind of like to expand a little bit.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by kevinbelt at 12:17 PM on May 4, 2023 (23 comments)

How an Alleged Con Man Tore Apart One of the Nineties’ Biggest Bands
Live had some of the alt-rock era's hugest hits, but in recent years the former bandmates have been bitterly divided by legal drama and interpersonal conflict
posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 7:54 AM on February 22, 2023 (124 comments)

Professional wrestler Jay Briscoe has died at age 38. Briscoe (real name Jamin Pugh) and his brother (IRL and on-screen) Mark were mainstays of the Ring of Honor promotion, appearing at its first-ever event. They would go on to hold the ROH Tag Team Championship 13 times over the next 20 years, including reigning as champions at the time of Jay's death. Jay also won the ROH World Championship on two occasions from 2013 to 2015.
posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 9:03 AM on January 18, 2023 (6 comments)

I'm looking for a new .cbr reader for iPad. Willing to pay a little bit to avoid ads in-app, but would love something free that works well, as Comic Zeal seems to be dead/off the App Store.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Ghidorah at 12:47 AM on January 18, 2023 (6 comments)

These are the (mostly harmless) Spiders in Your House. Travis McEnery has posted three videos so far, about the most common spider species found in some American homes: cellar spiders, common house spiders, and yellow sac spiders. He also talks about how each rates in three "politeness" areas: webs, movement, and biteyness (spoiler: none are that dangerous).
posted to MetaFilter by amtho at 2:33 AM on January 7, 2023 (36 comments)

Please enjoy the many adventures of Matt. [Twitter] [Threadreader]
when i was a movie theatre projectionist, the other projectionist, Matt, would bring clam chowder for lunch every single day, refusing to put it in the fridge even though the projection hallway was well over 100° ...
Matt's favorite thing to do (after seeing FIGHT CLUB) was cut a single frame of a titty into kids movies at a random spot and not tell anyone, so the rest of us projectionists would have to wait until he left for the day then run the entire film to find and cut the frame back out
posted to MetaFilter by Countess Elena at 5:49 PM on November 20, 2020 (112 comments)

"I still love this place as is, because I saw this place grow from not having a [garden] centre, not having a conservatory, and a protea garden and so on ... So I saw this garden grow, but I didn't really grow with it. White people, they took ownership of it, and we didn't [do] that as yet. And there's a difference, because once you take ownership of anything, something changes: 'No, this is ours. We should look after it better.' And no one really explains that to you."
posted to MetaFilter by smcg at 11:33 AM on October 29, 2020 (2 comments)

Lacrosse Ireland have surrendered their slot in The World Games 2022 men’s lacrosse tournament with the explicit intention of clearing a path for the Iroquois Nationals (representing the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) to participate at The World Games in the sport their ancestors were the first to play.
posted to MetaFilter by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 11:18 AM on September 7, 2020 (16 comments)

I just got this little Akai midi keyboard so I can easily write music in MuseScore. What other free software can I get to use this thing to make music? Assume I know nothing about any of this.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by something something at 6:50 AM on January 29, 2020 (6 comments)

I started blogging in the late 90s and posted regularly for many years. But then a few years ago I decided it was too much work and moved that daily activity over to Google+. Which obviously wouldn't go anywhere ever. Poop. So now it's gone and I'm restarting my blog. I looked around for some OG bloggers from the 90s and early 2000s. And found..... only Kottke???
posted to Ask MetaFilter by y6y6y6 at 9:37 AM on August 27, 2019 (91 comments)

Welcome to SubwayNut.com, a website that is dedicated to rail based transit systems and trains in the United States and Canada, and whose goal is to have a photo essay of every station on every system. A very Web 1.0 site, capturing the sights and sounds of these systems. Sorry, no coverage of Mexico City Metro, the second largest metro system in North America (Wikipedia x2), or any other systems in the west.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 9:14 PM on August 8, 2019 (16 comments)

I haven’t written JS in anger since JQuery was the hot thing and VBScript stalked the Earth. It seems to effectively be a different language now. Can you recommend a good book on JavaScript as it stands in 2019?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by a device for making your enemy change his mind at 11:15 AM on July 27, 2019 (12 comments)

Where to start for a person with zero abdominal strength? I can't do a plank. I don't think I can do a sit-up. But I want to have abdominal strength both for general health and to help with lower back issues. Where can I start?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by BlahLaLa at 3:23 PM on December 24, 2018 (26 comments)

FUTURE ZONE is a YouTube channel devoted to full length science fiction movies, many of which are Italian - but not all, I think. Of course there is
posted to MetaFilter by wittgenstein at 2:07 PM on January 14, 2019 (12 comments)

I need to brush up on my Chinese (mostly Cantonese) cooking. Give me your recommendations for cookbooks and other resources!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by backseatpilot at 12:23 PM on January 4, 2019 (18 comments)

Maybe you are in the Wrong Time Capsule? Deerhoof understands. Do you like a tightly-locked rhythm section? They have got you covered. Maybe you appreciate totally committed drumming? Maybe you won't believe, but if you don't, just look away. If you catch a live show there's a very good chance you will hear a rendition of Panda Panda Panda.
posted to MetaFilter by sjswitzer at 3:46 PM on January 5, 2019 (16 comments)

Kant didn’t believe a dog like Mu could think or distinguish between bad and good because she isn’t self-aware. For this reason, she is not moral. This view—which is known as human exceptionalism—persists today. But increasingly philosophers and scientists argue that animals are moral and that we humans may just be insufficiently aware of their inner lives to understand how or why they decide to do what they do.
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Wallflower at 11:58 AM on June 23, 2018 (47 comments)

Pure CSS Vignes, Zigario, and Francine are a series of projects where Diana Smith (GitHub) creates art using only CSS and HTML under the following constraints:

1. All elements must be typed out by hand
2. Only Atom text editor and Chrome Developer Tools allowed.
3. SVG use is limited, and all shapes can only use hand-plotted coordinates and bezier curves - without the aid of any graphics editor.

(best viewed in Chrome)
posted to MetaFilter by juv3nal at 1:27 AM on May 1, 2018 (31 comments)

If you have watched so much anime you're starting to pepper your speech with the six or so words you're confident you can pronounce correctly, than the NHK's Easy Japanese series might be just the thing to level up your Japanese.
posted to MetaFilter by MartinWisse at 2:18 AM on May 11, 2018 (21 comments)

Muppet Guys Talking is a documentary from Muppeteer and film director Frank Oz, featuring interviews with a number of present and past Muppet performers: Dave Goelz (Gonzo, Bunsen Honeydew), Jerry Nelson (Floyd, Emmet Otter, The Count), Fran Brill (Prairie Dawn, Zoe), Bill Barretta (Pepe, Big Mean Carl) and Oz himself. The film will be available to the public tomorrow, but you can get a sneak peek of it today.
posted to MetaFilter by briank at 10:48 AM on March 15, 2018 (21 comments)

I'd like to read some reviews of Black Panther written by African film critics. Who should I read? Podcasts are also good. The reviews need to be in English.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by The corpse in the library at 8:44 AM on February 27, 2018 (7 comments)

"DESCENT MAGAZINE was a fanzine published between 1994-1999 by Stephen O'Malley [Sunn O)))], many issues were in great collaboration with Tyler Davis (The Ajna Offensive). You can now download a free PDF portfolio (360mb) compilation of all five issues of DESCENT MAGAZINE. The issues are also individually available for download [on his site]. Please read the notes on each issue as well. There are related goodies on that site as well."
posted to MetaFilter by OmieWise at 8:58 AM on December 11, 2017 (3 comments)

D. Boon died 32 years ago today. Please enjoy this 1985 Public Access TV acoustic set from The Minutemen.
posted to MetaFilter by Slarty Bartfast at 6:57 PM on December 22, 2017 (18 comments)

I want to learn to sketch. Not interested in color per sé. I just want to learn to draw on a basic level with a pen or pencil. Nothing fancy. Any book suggestions with an easy learning curve?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by captainscared at 7:06 AM on December 28, 2017 (10 comments)

When everyone's using it as a second language and very few as a first, some odd usages crop up, to wit: "The Committee urges the Commission ... to precise which period before confinement is meant. Without further precisions, this could lead to support for poorly justified financial instruments." Mental Floss has 11 examples from EU documents, including to precise (meaning: to make precise), dispose of (to use), important (significant), opportunity (opportuneness), punctual (periodic), actual (current), eventual (possible), expertises (expertise), planification (planning), comitology (having to do with committees), and actorness (the quality of being a party which is taking an action). If that's not enough for you, the European Court of Auditors has prepared a glossary (PDF) with explanations that will assist you in translating EU English to standard English and vice versa.
posted to MetaFilter by Eyebrows McGee at 1:32 PM on October 3, 2017 (50 comments)

My son, 15, is difficult to find books for. Despite the saying, he tends to judge them by the cover. He'll be away for a few weeks, with limited access to computers, so I'm looking to find some science fiction books for him.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by bondcliff at 7:31 AM on June 26, 2017 (49 comments)

Multiple groups of academics have come to the same conclusion: Borrowers in the middle and top of the distribution are the ones that contributed most significantly to the increase in mortgages in default after 2007. During the whole time period, even at the height of the housing boom, sub-prime was never more than 20% of the market. And while it’s true that these types of borrowers usually default at relatively higher rates, they didn’t after the 2007 housing collapse. ... It was wealthy or middle-class house-flipping speculators who blew up the bubble to cataclysmic proportions, and then wrecked local housing markets when they defaulted en masse.
posted to MetaFilter by clawsoon at 10:02 AM on September 10, 2017 (67 comments)

THE RADICAL COPYEDITOR’S STYLE GUIDE FOR WRITING ABOUT TRANSGENDER PEOPLE
posted to MetaFilter by Joseph Gurl at 5:13 PM on September 1, 2017 (19 comments)

55 of the best free fonts for designers. Sometimes in the world of free fonts, you get what you pay for. But Tom May (at art and design blog Creativebloq.com) has found the best free fonts by professional designers from a range of countries including Spain, Argentina, Indonesia, Brazil, Sweden, Greece, Latvia, the UK, Uruguay, Finland, the US, Ireland, and Canada. The fonts are arranged into eight categories: serif, sans serif, handwriting, vintage and retro, brush, tattoo, graffiti and "unusual".
posted to MetaFilter by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:17 PM on September 2, 2017 (12 comments)

Opera Singers Dubbed With Dial-up Modems. (this is a link to a single 19-second YouTube video. Don't @ me.)
posted to MetaFilter by bondcliff at 7:19 AM on September 5, 2017 (28 comments)

Last Sunday, Jinder Mahal won the WWE World Championship. This is of note not just because Mahal had never before won any championship in WWE, but mostly because he was considered to be "enhancement talent" (a wrestler who loses to more popular wrestlers) who was only being "pushed" to the top of the card because WWE wants a greater presence in the Indian market. And despite his being booked as a "heel", some say he "isn’t a wrestling villain to western millennials of colour".
posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 8:50 AM on June 1, 2017 (24 comments)

Journalists and ex-journalists of MeFi: What did you do for a career change? I'm a reporter in my mid-thirties with an established career in journalism. I'm thinking more and more about a career change, but public relations doesn't appeal to me. Specifics after the jump.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 1:21 AM on May 6, 2017 (17 comments)

In what will certainly go down as one of the most memorable exits in show business, Col. Bruce Hampton collapsed at the end of a tribute show honoring his 70th birthday. He was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead a few hours later.
posted to MetaFilter by TedW at 7:19 AM on May 2, 2017 (29 comments)

Give me your diamond-in-the-rough podcasts that you've never been able to recommend to anyone because the subject is too specific.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by book 'em dano at 12:47 PM on April 22, 2017 (33 comments)

Charlotte Wilder, who has never followed pro wrestling, liveblogged the year's biggest event for SBNation.
posted to MetaFilter by Ipsifendus at 8:12 AM on April 4, 2017 (23 comments)