MetaFilter

John McGahern, I think. In his youth.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Phanx at 4:24 AM on April 6, 2024 marked best answer

I think it's easy to get wrapped up in the aspects relating to the dog/gogs in general, but really, I think this experience helped you (correctly) ID out this guy as the kind of person who thinks rules meant for everyone can be rewritten as suits an exceptional person such as himself, but nevertheless also has rules for everyone else. Those guys kind of suck, and if I'm reading you right that you broke it off, I think you did yourself a solid.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 2:32 PM on March 12, 2024

Let me be negative for a moment: I hated the Louvre. Worst experience I've ever had in a museum. It was a light crowd day and we got there very early and it was still such a shitshow that it was impossible to really commune with anything that anyone else wanted to see. So, as far as tips for the Louvre? Find joy in unpopular things. Get really close to some ancient sculptures (you can get really, really close) and appreciate the artistry that went into carving translucent lace out of marble.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by uncleozzy at 6:21 AM on March 8, 2024 marked best answer

But, mx bombastic lowercase pronouncements — ah no, it's my mistake — I completely messed up the editing of my first sentence.

To correct myself: the problem, especially in Germany, but also as described in the article in Britain, is callousness in the response to the killing of Palestinian people and to their relatives.

So yes, I totally undermined what I wanted to pick out of the article: that a lot of the response in Europe is very much... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ambrosen at 8:26 PM on March 6, 2024

so about five minutes ago i found myself bored with metafilter and the rest of my standard web loop (which i really should spend less time in) and instead of doing the sensible thing and getting off the Internet, i flipped over to the “ask historians” subreddit and displayed top all time, which has historically been if not a useful then at least an enlightening way to spend a few minutes.

anyway, most of the entries at the very top of that list are meta posts about (for... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:02 PM on March 6, 2024

This is a very tricky article with which to discuss what has, in much of Europe, led to a very callous response to the killing of people in the Israeli invasion of Gaza and to their relatives, and a failure to condemn the war crimes which the IDF are committing, but which have also led to the flipside failure to acknowledge the October 7th attack as something which also causes existential fear and lasting trauma.

As a European who tries to sit with the history of the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ambrosen at 5:22 PM on March 6, 2024

If you haven’t yet seen The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, please consider it. It’s a Ghibli film but from the ‘other one’: it was Isao Takahata’s final film and he really went out with a flourish. The story from an old folk tale may be familiar, but it’s absolutely heartbreaking and rendered with such exquisite beauty. I’ve only watched it once but I think about it often.

Yes, I would definitely second watching all of Takahata's films if you haven't... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jb at 2:10 PM on March 6, 2024

I was promoted (not in title or compensation) to team lead

Is it clear to them what you’re responsible for?

When I was managing in a situation where the supervisor (in title and compensation) wasn’t the manager (hire/fire/performance/compensation), I made it crystal clear:

1. Supervisor is responsible for the quality of the X (our X was a program but yours could be a product)
2.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by warriorqueen at 6:14 AM on March 1, 2024

Yes, they often used to feature women as part of the RLM on-camera talent crew, but they stopped because the fan community became obsessive, creepy and disgusting about the women. Doxxing them, their relationships (or lack thereof) with other on-camera RLM crew, and exposing stuff about their personal lives, postulating weird shit, I think even stalking them. RLM is just a handful of people with very normal lives in Milwaukee, it ain't some professional show business outfit.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by SoberHighland at 5:59 AM on February 23, 2024

So back in my Limo days, I was working at the planning desk and received this call from Vince McMahon's personal assistant, who wanted to schedule a limo to pick him up at International Arrivals to transfer him to the rental car lot to pick up his car.

I explained that this was a waste of time, money, and resources, as the car rental lots at the YVR at the time were directly across the roadway from the International Arrivals concourse. We're talking a zebra-striped,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by PareidoliaticBoy at 12:54 AM on February 13, 2024

How would you respond in this situation?

I would offer to pay.

She mentioned that it was a lot of money, and if she's "guess" culture, that's as close as she can come to asking. She is doing a favor for you. Shipping stuff is a big pain in the neck. You don't say anything about your relative financial situations, but if you're planning bucket list travel as one reason not to offer to pay, you can probably afford to... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by FencingGal at 8:00 PM on January 20, 2024

I think maybe you just need to remind yourself that you can grieve and still do the stuff you need to get done. The grief will be there, but you don't always have to do anything with it, and you don't have to shove it down, you can just let it hang out in the background. The comedian Rob Delaney, who lost his son (a toddler) to cancer, has said that sometimes, when he was really in the thick of immediate grief, he would remind himself, "It's OK, you'll be sad forever." I found this so... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by mskyle at 7:00 AM on January 16, 2024

Gabe Newell (Valve CEO, creator of the Steam platform) on piracy (via the Escapist, 2011):
“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem,” he said. “If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 2:27 AM on January 15, 2024

No group recommendations, but the absolute best way to learn grammar is just to read a lot and pay attention to the syntax of what you read. Language is one of those weird basic skills, like walking or chewing, that's so integral to our function as organisms that we do best just working with our inbuilt learning mechanisms (modeling, practice, imitation) rather than trying to impose a lot of artificial rules or formal instruction.

Reading carefully has the additional... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Bardolph at 8:22 AM on January 12, 2024

I think there are two parts to this

- people who want or have a pet
- people who are good at pet ownership
- people who don't like or enjoy companion animals of other

I feel that, unlike people who have or want children (or don't), it's a little more normative to be someone who doesn't have or want a pet. That is, people don't usually have to defend their choices for not having or wanting a pet the way I think many people... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 9:31 AM on January 10, 2024

Your body needs to fight off the cold virus regardless. You're not really "staving" anything off, you're just making it easier on your immune system to do its job with rest, hydration, etc. The symptoms of any virus are caused by your immune system trying to fight off the infection, and they can be worse if you are unrested, etc.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by rhymedirective at 8:11 AM on December 15, 2023

You'll get a thousand different anecdotes, but as far as actual scientific evidence, there is none that indicates you can do anything at all about the course of a cold, other than to treat the symptoms.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by ssg at 7:57 AM on December 15, 2023

You are coming up against macro-decisions that your country/national health board has made largely in response to health economics. There is a cost/benefit calculation at play on the national level. You are not a national administrator, and you are not involved in the production of these guidelines, which are there to guide medical professionals in their actions.

On the micro-level you have good reasons for getting vaccinated. You have acted ethically in discussing these... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by einekleine at 3:36 AM on November 14, 2023

I predict Mastodon users might have better things to say about Mastodon.

Well, Mastodon user here, but when Kissane says "the most common—but usually not the only—response [...] had to do with feeling unwelcome, being scolded, and getting lectured" she is, and they are, not wrong at all.

During the first few major Twitter exoduses there was a shit-ton of gatekeeping, a lot of it explicitly anti-black. Like, people... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mhoye at 8:38 AM on November 13, 2023

After years of trying Mastodon clicked with me. But my tribe is tech people in the US (with a queer-friendly requirement), which is Mastodon's #1 community. I think the criticisms in this post are accurate, although none are novel.

The "got yelled at, felt bad" is a sort of in-group hazing where people are very eager to enforce their perceived Mastodon cultural norms. It's not all bad and will seem familiar to Mefites. Other aspects of it are worse. I've... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Nelson at 8:11 AM on November 13, 2023

For example, does evidence show that it'd be a net positive or negative for their future flu resistance?

There's a very simple line of reasoning in support of the idea that it pretty much has to be a net positive:

Every year, any given location in the world will typically see novel strains of flu going around. Typically those novel strains will be from different lineages than last year's, unless last year's circulating... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by flabdablet at 9:13 AM on November 13, 2023

I would gently point out that washing hands is easy, and takes a few moments. Most sex that uses a condom also takes a few minutes. For some, wearing a mask for hours is, indeed, difficult. I don't know an equivalent health mitigation.

This question is NOT about wearing a mask or not, the OP asked very nicely not to debate that. It is about managing anxiety.

My advice for managing anxiety over this is that if you can remain calm during the... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by tiny frying pan at 5:29 AM on October 19, 2023

Do you think she's being unreasonable not to mask?

I am clearly in the minority, but yes. I would move heaven and earth to do what made my beloved feel safe and cared for because I fucking love him. I kinda feel like I'm the healthy horse in this relationship - I am fat as fuck with shitty joints but haven't been especially sick in 15+ years, after a teenage and young adult plague of sinusitis - and yet I gladly briefly stick... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Lyn Never at 7:39 PM on October 18, 2023

Do you think she's being unreasonable not to mask? I feel like I can't make her and any more pushing on my end will only worsen the situation.

I personally think she could suck it up and mask for a few hours at the theater to make you feel better--she's sitting still, it's not like she has to eat or drink or talk or anything where having a mask on is harder, for godsake--and if I'm around someone who masks or needs to mask more than I do, I will... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jenfullmoon at 2:42 PM on October 18, 2023

The Great British Sewing Bee and the Great British Pottery Throwdown to a lesser extend have not suffered from the same fate as GBBO. They fit the niche of what GBBO did in terms of low key, friendly competition from seemingly good humans.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by furnace.heart at 7:46 AM on October 16, 2023

Great Pottery Throwdown (by the same producers as GBBO, I believe) is incredibly touching and warm. 5 seasons available.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Pantengliopoli at 7:44 AM on October 16, 2023

As a MarComm head, you should be able to hire somebody to stage manage, in the same way you'd hire sound guys or lighting people to work the gala. That's your contribution to ensuring the stage management part of the night goes off swimmingly. Yes, it's an expense, but there are lots of one-time expenses associated with hosting gala events and this is just going to have to be one of them this year (and maybe in the years to come). I'm sure there must be some sort of events production company who... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by sardonyx at 6:23 PM on September 17, 2023

I'm always in favor of whatever drives participation in FF so a voting mechanism sounds good to me. Lurking is a longstanding tradition at MeFi and if people want to participate in terms of a simple vote even if they're not up for a review/discussion, that sounds cool. It might not be a bad idea to have a watchlist function either, so that people could make a list of things they intend to see later.

As a follow-up to the thing on the relative number of posts by me (and... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DirtyOldTown at 11:34 AM on September 9, 2023

In the opposite direction, medieval+modern Kilkenny is less train time and a different small town vibe compared to Dublin. There is a castle, caterdral and a nice low-key walk out of town along the river. The tide of tour bus tourists should have ebbed by October. As Macdara notes, Irish Rail is comically under-serviced across the whole country but inter-city buses take up some of the slack.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by BobTheScientist at 6:00 AM on September 2, 2023

The CobbleStone in Smithfield should be good for trad music every night, it’s walkable or you could take the LUAS

For day trips you can take the DART from Connolly station to Howth, it’s well worth doing the cliff walk around the head, having a pint at the summit and eating fish and chips at Beshoffs in the village.

Newgrange is an interesting prehistoric monument that’s a short drive from Dublin.

In the other direction there’s Glendalough!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by TwoWordReview at 8:42 PM on September 1, 2023

Quite frankly, it boggles my mind that someone walking on a trail who knows cyclists also use it wouldn’t think to glance behind for a moment to see if anything else might be coming. Like, it’s basic situational awareness?

Oof, I wish. I commute to work on a bike five days a week and roughly half of my route is a mixed-use trail in a busy urban setting. I have a close call probably once every two or three weeks, and an actually dangerous near miss... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by pullayup at 12:15 PM on August 16, 2023

(For fellow pedestrians on multi-use trails, I’d recommend glancing behind you when a bike passes to see how many people are in the group, rather than assuming. We also share some responsibility as pedestrians for sharing the trail in the sense of not taking up the entire width of the trail - it’s not just bicyclists who might want to pass, but also joggers, or even faster-paced walkers.)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by eviemath at 7:33 PM on August 15, 2023

It's unrealistic to expect someone to lecture someone else about the etiquette of a fairly niche sport

So, the thing is, my understanding is that "on your left" in the context of a paceline is directed primarily at other cyclists, who understand how it's used, not pedestrians. Also, pacelines and brisk group rides, or at least the ones I've participated in, acknowledge they are not super pedestrian-friendly and take... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by pullayup at 8:34 AM on August 15, 2023

My 12th grade high school English class was given the assignment to write an essay on why we thought John Hersey wrote the piece. While it seemed fairly obvious to me, I was a lazy student, and when I saw in the About The Author page (this was the book version) that he lived in West Palm Beach (I lived in Jacksonville), I decided to see if I could get him on the horn.

Found his number through Information (ahhh 1988), and he answered. He was quite elderly at this point,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Optamystic at 1:53 AM on August 2, 2023

→ Obligatory "Simpsons did it first" comment

Obligatory "did you even watch the opening seconds of the main video?"
☺
posted to MetaFilter by scruss at 6:03 PM on July 29, 2023

Obligatory "Simpsons did it first" comment
posted to MetaFilter by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:13 PM on July 29, 2023

I'll chime in for Clonmacnoise also, despite having been quite reduced by making it into tour-bus friendly raree show: installing a gift shop and information film-show and replacing the high cross with a fiber-glass replica [original preserved in the basement of the Natl Museum in Dublin!]. Blotting that out, it is a fantastic, evocative place: you can stand on the little rise and imagine the long-ships rowing round the last reach intent upon plunder.

Further East,... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by BobTheScientist at 3:12 PM on July 10, 2023 marked best answer

Clonmacnoise would be my choice. It's a fairly short drive south of Athlone which is also a pretty logical place to stop for lunch or coffee.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by knapah at 2:19 PM on July 10, 2023 marked best answer

To the question: I find that people confuse and conflate shyness and softspoken-ness with introversion for themselves and others.

Extrovert: Someone who finds people energizing, generally. Prefers being around people.

Introvert: Someone who finds solitude or alone time / quiet time energizing, generally. Prefers smaller, quieter situations or being around fewer people, or none.

A lot of people conflate introversion... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jzb at 1:15 PM on June 15, 2023 marked best answer

People will tend to describe themselves using the easiest and most acceptable terminology that gets them what they need.

We've had enough "caring for your introvert" sort of popularization of the concept in the last 15 or so years that someone can self describe as an introvert in a way that 1) discloses zero stigmatizing mental health status and 2) gently gets them the alone time they need.

Introvert/Extrovert is sorta loosely/poorly defined... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by phunniemee at 12:08 PM on June 15, 2023 marked best answer

To clarify: I am looking for an Air because I want something lightweight. Also I suppose I should have mentioned that I had a 2020 M1 with 16GB at work that was great...I just want to future-proof as much as possible but hopefully balance that with cost. (I was just laid off, thanks #techjob.) I have an external monitor so the small screen of a 13" is not horrible, but my terrible vision would love a 15 to use away from my desk, so I will wait until the WWDC announcement. So glad y'all told... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by radioamy at 5:41 PM on May 12, 2023

I think the way to communicate your intentions to only pay for Tom's meal would have been to say something like, "I'm covering me and Tom, Josh do you want to Venmo or get the server to split it?" The way you handled it does seem a bit ambiguous (although many people still would have tried to pay their share). It mostly sounds like you need to stop hanging out with Josh.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by martinX's bellbottoms at 4:35 PM on May 9, 2023

I only get Jansport and they last for years and years. I still use my college one for travel, and I'm in my late 40s.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by fingersandtoes at 8:21 AM on May 9, 2023

I think part of the problem is that you will get easier responses if you try to answer the question they meant to ask, not the literal question they asked. Like, if someone asks where you moved here from, they want to know where you used to live, not the logistical details. Answering with somewhere you spent two weeks in would be bafflingly misleading to me. You don't have to lie! You could say "Oh I lived in City X but grew up in City Y, where are you from?" It... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by restless_nomad at 1:49 PM on May 3, 2023

For middle ground between the scenic route on the top deck of the 16 bus and taxi; take the Aircoach 700 service to Leeson Street Bridge for €10 one way: it's 1,000ft West along the canal to your hotel - about the same distance as the nearest #16 bus-stop. Unless you like trains catch the CityBus GoBus from Galway to Dublin Airport: more frequent and quicker and cheaper. If you do like trains The [Model] Train Museum in Malahide is midway between the Airport and Howth.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by BobTheScientist at 12:19 PM on May 2, 2023

If you accidentally get shipped a copy of a video game or a movie long before the review copy embargo is lifted is it moral to break that embargo and upload a bunch of clips and take away from the community members that would normally get the boost?

Oh damn did he sign an agreement with other youtube creators? No, that deal was made between them and Hasbro? Then he has no obligation. It's on Hasbro to make their fuckup right with the other parties.
posted to MetaFilter by axiom at 10:45 AM on April 26, 2023

For downloading video from youtube, use Youtube-DL.

Just to add on to that, these days you want to use yt-dlp, which is a fork of youtube-dl that's more actively updated. If you're not sure how to use it, ask here for help! (And in general, when looking for software to do some task it's often a good idea to start out looking for open-source software, which helps minimize (though not eliminate) the odds of downloading something that's trying to make... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by trig at 5:45 AM on April 16, 2023 marked best answer

As several people in the UK media have observed, the only way to dissuade desperate people from trying to find a better life in the UK (or anywhere else) is to make the destination less desirable than the place they came from. When that's Syria or Afghanistan, it's a pretty high bar, but the government really seems intent on making it that way.
posted to MetaFilter by pipeski at 6:46 AM on April 6, 2023

There are standing stones all over the place, loads of them are not mapped and they are all mostly just in some random farmer's field.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by DarlingBri at 4:48 AM on April 5, 2023 marked best answer

I apologize, that was the guideline I got taught. I didn't know it was so very wrong, I flagged myself for deletion.

Don't beat yourself up over it. If the people teaching you the rules didn't know the rule, there's no way for you to know it. I had teachers who said the same thing; I was just lucky enough that I had better teachers later on.

I really hope you meant you were flagging your post for deletion, not your actual... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by kevinbelt at 12:20 PM on April 4, 2023