MetaFilter

The 14th does not say you must be convicted.
posted to MetaFilter by Dashy at 7:46 AM on February 8, 2024

Roko's basilisk is 3 Pascal's wagers in a trench coat and not a good one either.

Look I was going to sit this one out but "Turbo Pascal's Wager" is right there
posted to MetaFilter by phooky at 4:10 PM on February 7, 2024

Wishing for rich parents and getting Elon Musk is some real monkey’s paw shit, imo.
posted to MetaFilter by ryanrs at 3:07 PM on February 7, 2024

sure, rothko’s chapel seems great — until you remember that all the large fields of color that seem to shimmer and glow from within all around you are being tortured through all time
posted to MetaFilter by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:01 PM on February 7, 2024

I also want gravity to be real again.

Are you experiencing a significant gravity shortfall?
posted to MetaFilter by GCU Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall at 3:04 PM on February 6, 2024

I have extremely low expectations that this will lead to consequences for Mr. Trump, who for reasons both semi-sensible and (to me) utterly incomprehensible, seems to be largely excluded from responsibility by our entire legal system, by virtue of being a Very Special Person or Some Bullshit Like That

Probably because every time he does suffer consequences, lots of people fall over themselves to loudly declare he could never... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 12:19 PM on February 6, 2024

Another TL mefite here. I had some things to say but skinnylatte said them better.

Any other SF residents on here getting sick of GrowSF’s absurd political mailers?
posted to MetaFilter by hototogisu at 2:56 PM on February 6, 2024

I don’t think I’ve really commented before, but given that it talks about the city I now live in, I feel compelled to provide a different perspective to some of the doom loopers here.

I’ve mostly lived in cities with 5-15M people, so San Francisco feels like the smallest one I’ve ever lived in. Parts of the west side feel like suburbs to me; and the actual suburbs feel like, well, deeply uncomfortable. While I’m a transplant, from another country no less, the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by skinnylatte at 1:29 PM on February 6, 2024

(On preview, I want to be clear that this is not directed at you, The otter lady! I think it's fine to say "this is not for me.")

I'm struggling to put words to how grossed out I am by the conflation of car break-ins with actual violence or unsafety. We live in a society! Imagine encountering staggering wealth inequality and thinking the most important thing to talk about is how you can't leave your $5K laptop on your passenger seat in the Tenderloin. Imagine... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by c'mon sea legs at 9:15 AM on February 6, 2024

I thought it was kind of a weird article. Empty office space is endemic across the entire US, because NIMBYs shot down housing in the SF area for the past 50 years in favor of offices where the people leave at 5:00. That was a choice made by the governments, partially due to CA's tax law Prop 13 but also because business taxes are higher, so property tax for housing can be lower.

SF itself is becoming a wealthy suburban enclave, not a major city, nor a crime haven... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The_Vegetables at 7:54 AM on February 6, 2024

Country music before 9/11/Country music after 9/11
posted to MetaFilter by praemunire at 10:18 AM on February 6, 2024

the amount of paranoia you have to have to be in a city is scary

I've lived in cities - including SF - for my entire adult life, and this is a weird take. You don't have to be paranoid. You merely need to be aware of your surrounding. You can't just sleepwalk through the day. I honestly feel safer in densely populated areas because there are always, like, people around.

But literally everywhere you go there are signs... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grumpybear69 at 6:34 AM on February 6, 2024

90% of the problems that people have with the Times could be solved by paywalling, or better yet just axing, their opinion section. Nothing is a bigger drag on the paper than two pages of bloviating assholes. I have never, ever heard someone say "oh, I just read it for the columnists". When it was all about eyeballs, it made sense, but angry clicks don't translate into subscriptions.
posted to MetaFilter by phooky at 5:31 AM on February 4, 2024

Second the obliteration of opinion columns, those are some terrible people they have. I suppose it's necessary in order to serve as a propaganda mouthpiece for the powers?
posted to MetaFilter by nofundy at 5:42 AM on February 4, 2024

Before any of you are allowed to leave a comment, you must first condemn the actions of the Omelas hole kid murderers.
posted to MetaFilter by AlSweigart at 12:03 PM on February 4, 2024

I want to record an album just so I can start it with the sample of the guy saying "I believe you will agree that a new peak in low-downness has been achieved."
posted to MetaFilter by credulous at 10:57 PM on February 3, 2024

If you look at it, what these people devising instruments like this were trying to circumvent was the need for a human to exert themselves other than moving their fingers.

The piano did this pretty well, and harpsichord, etc, but were limited. Although the invention of the hammer system of the plano is one of the most amazing inventions ever in the pursuit of having a mechanical instrument exhibit the same range possible in breath or direct control instruments.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:59 PM on February 3, 2024

ITT: If you don't understand why anybody would bother to vote in the D primary this year, why would anyone care what you think?

I hear a whole lot of bitching about what the D Party does, from people who proudly refuse to take step 0 in getting those bitches tended to: namely, voting in the D primary.

Every person who works for the D Party knows of the existence of a group of people called "supervoters." These are voters who vote Every.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:29 AM on February 4, 2024

Oh, and to follow on to that last: how do you suppose the R Party came to be such a shitshow of conspiracy-mongering? Because people working to shape the R primary electorate were selecting for the most gullible, greedy, easily-angered 30% of the voting population.

The policy preferences of a Party are shaped over decades by the composition of the Party's primary electorate. If you are smart and compassionate and humane and want a Party that embodies those... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:34 AM on February 4, 2024

Turns out the ‘nobody opposition candidates’ were indeed insignificant, and unworthy of ‘debate’.

Some people are bitter about this.
posted to MetaFilter by chronkite at 7:13 AM on February 4, 2024

I feel like this article mixes up two things - one, the idea of selling out, and two, the problem of promotion in a digital age. And that’s fair, they do seem like they have a link. But I would also say that record companies, galleries, and other cultural institutions seem to have abandoned their artists to wander lost. And speaking of abandonment, much of the problem is caused by the post-90s collapse of cultural funding after the end of the Cold War. It turned out that once we (the west)... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The River Ivel at 4:02 PM on February 3, 2024

One thing that is very convincing is taking spatial videos on the iPhone 15 Pro Max and watching them in 3D on the Vision Pro. I took some videos of my daughter at the zoo and around Christmas time, and like any dad, I could probably watch them over and over again forever. They play back in a sort of ghostly white haze, and the overall effect is incredibly bittersweet — you can relive a brief memory, but you’re alone in the headset and can’t share it with anyone else.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jedicus at 3:05 PM on January 30, 2024

They're just not funded well enough to actually do a good job. It's been done on purpose, but I'm preaching to the choir.
posted to MetaFilter by VTX at 7:06 PM on January 29, 2024

I actually do think it's interesting to ask why Americans keep voting for Trump in the Republican primaries. I don't think it's really interesting to ask why they vote for him in the general election (that one's mostly covered by "he is the Republican candidate", though admittedly not entirely) but there is a contest currently underway where everyone must pick a Republican, they have other options, and they are picking this guy.
posted to MetaFilter by capricorn at 12:27 PM on January 29, 2024

some very loose thoughts on the huge gap in south korea, from the point of view of a member of the diaspora:

korea has been, at core, a phenomenally patriarchial, neo-confucian society for as long as anyone can recall; it's so entrenched that one folk etymology for the common korean word for "wife" (아내) is from the word "inside", as in "inside the house". as one can imagine, the introduction of christianity during late joseon dynasty and it... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by i used to be someone else at 9:57 PM on January 28, 2024

Feminism in general posits that men are fully capable of decency and emotional maturity and wants them to achieve it.

I agree. And yet, there are many people who claim to be feminISTS who will cheerfully trot out "men are trash", because while they may claim virtue, they're terrible people who, just like a lot of conservatives, profit (financially and/or discursively) from that sort of rhetoric

I'm very glad I'm a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by outgrown_hobnail at 3:50 PM on January 28, 2024

this seems like it would make finding dating/relationships harder for everyone

Yeah, this is one of the two major problems here - the other big one is that unpartnered men cause enormous social instability.

It's not actually a good thing when you have a major portion of the population - it's hard to guess, because that population is averaged, but even 1/5 of the heterosexual population unable to be partnered is a major, major... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by corb at 7:24 AM on January 28, 2024

How about a recruitment campaign targeting Gen-Z conservative men:
"You're already broke. Go woke! It's where the women are!"
posted to MetaFilter by otherchaz at 1:59 AM on January 28, 2024

> I feel like that's maybe a better statement of the problem

Noted Silicon Valley dimwit Paul Graham posted on Twitter on this trend of increasingly conservative men: "If people choose spouses with similar beliefs, as they tend to do, then straight women who don't identify as liberal will have a huge advantage."

To which someone replied, "Funny how he doesn't frame this as conservative men being at a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by AlSweigart at 6:10 PM on January 27, 2024

Hey, does anyone else who wants Israel to have to change their behaviour due to these provisional measures object to contextually similar provisional measures in regards to the Uyghur or Armenians or Rohingya or Kurds? India? Yemen?

If any of you have the pull to make that happen, please do. Please put UN blue-hats in the NT, if the world deems it necessary.
posted to MetaFilter by Audreynachrome at 4:07 AM on January 27, 2024

I don't wanna thread sit, but "If we lose physical print books we lose our history once our ability to recharge batteries or run server farms is gone." is both a valid concern, and...

Among my interests, I'm also a square dance caller. As a newer square dance caller, I've ended up with boxes and boxes of material, and this past weekend I went through some of those boxes. Ancient copies of American Square Dance magazine, books written by callers whose names are... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by straw at 3:51 PM on January 26, 2024

Israel has been explicitly found to be taking actions that are potentially genocidal, by the international court that literally rules on genocides.

It's not anti-semitism to:


point that out
be horrified and disgusted by it
point out that Israel's government has been explicitly pursuing the annihilation of the Palestinian people for literal decades, a fact that has been so saliently obvious that people have... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:56 PM on January 26, 2024

where I take issue with the repeated depiction of Israel as a monolithic stereotype that "deliberately sabotaging all gestures toward unity" by pointing out that the greatest chance for peace in the Middle East was in fact spear-headed by Clinton, Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, who worked so hard for it it cracked his own coalition and cost him his life... which you decided to toss off as "well, they failed".

well, they did fail. nobody... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by busted_crayons at 4:35 PM on January 26, 2024

(There is no singular government of Palestine because Israel has spent 75 years preventing that from happening, and deliberately sabotaging all gestures toward unity between the various factions of the Palestinian liberation movement.)
posted to MetaFilter by adrienneleigh at 12:07 PM on January 26, 2024

The destruction of the state of Czechoslovakia did not cause the people of that country to burst into flames. Maybe I'm misreading things here but when I see "destruction of the state of Israel" there's a "and creation of..." that would follow.

Now I can see why the concern exists, given the slow destruction of the West Bank and Gaza (AND the people within) as those spaces are turned into Israel.
posted to MetaFilter by Slackermagee at 11:34 AM on January 26, 2024

It's pretty clear that if the world had their vote, there wouldn't be any more Jews.

no, that's not clear; that's antisemitic propaganda. for instance, because it logically follows from that claim that Jews have an inherently oppositional relationship to "the world" and an inherent interest in opposition to global democracy, both of which are insane conclusions, so anything that entails them is also insane. of course, it is also the sort of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by busted_crayons at 8:53 AM on January 26, 2024

Have we asked the authors if they agree with the Rust Cohle theory concerning time being a flat circle?
posted to MetaFilter by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:44 AM on January 26, 2024

An author acquaintance of mine said, "The British are so territorial about a drink they got through imperialism."
posted to MetaFilter by Kitteh at 8:13 AM on January 25, 2024

"47-year-old bongo enthusiast wins science competition!"

You could say this one about almost anywhere:
Meet the senior citizen who runs an entire country!
posted to MetaFilter by pracowity at 12:24 PM on January 24, 2024

But what if these patronizing headlines were applied to everyone? Wouldn't it be more fun to read "47-year-old bongo enthusiast wins science competition!" than "Richard Feynman awarded Nobel Prize" ?
posted to MetaFilter by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:28 AM on January 24, 2024

without having read TFA I have been thinking that exposing pro-social people to a constant firehose of everyone's individual and collective misery all the time (the Internet) is kinda leading to a memetic zeitgeist kinda thing that like, yeah it includes feeling guilty for having a nice time while people are suffering, but I think it actually goes further than that

like I don't think anyone consciously chooses to do this but actively being miserable... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by taquito sunrise at 12:30 PM on January 24, 2024

"Why are young people depressed?" ponders the man who supposedly has the ear of the President's advisors yet (among a host of other assholery) joined a thinly-disguised transphobic harassment campaign and still promotes dangerous transphobes, and called for Trump to crack protesters' skulls on Pennsylvania Ave during the 2020 protests?
posted to MetaFilter by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 12:18 PM on January 24, 2024

Hey guys, guess what? The movie length derail has been picked up by Apple TV and it's going to be an eight episode prestige series with an option. I can't wait!
posted to MetaFilter by The Bellman at 2:17 PM on January 23, 2024

I have no real opinion about proper movie length, but this derail has certainly gone on way too long.
posted to MetaFilter by Atom Eyes at 2:09 PM on January 23, 2024

I’m surprised that John Williams isn’t decomposing by now.

This is either a mildly insensitive or quite clever comment.
posted to MetaFilter by gwint at 1:33 PM on January 23, 2024

it's hard to deny that there are many, many more ways for someone who doesn't like social interaction much to get rich

Yeah, I think this is actually really kind of...hmm, how to say it...conflating a lot of different issues together, shall we say.

So for example: extroversion is very apparent, and people who are extroverts often have an easier time getting along with others when they first meet them than people who are... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by corb at 1:11 PM on January 20, 2024

"This decision was made after a careful evaluation of Pitchfork’s performance, and what we believe is the best path forward for the brand so that our coverage of music can continue to thrive within the company."

Translation: Your favorite brand sucks.
posted to MetaFilter by swift at 10:49 AM on January 19, 2024

I am constantly thinking about this tweet from PerthshireMags:

climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it

For me, it was the July 2022 flooding in St. Louis, in which we got the most rain we had gotten on record ever. I was unable to get to work that day because the roads were washed out, and the light... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by gc at 9:54 AM on January 19, 2024

I think it's naive to expect bootcamp graduates to be performing as anything other than extremely junior developers - particularly in a codebase that's new to them, and when they have seemingly not been assessed for competency before bringing them on in development roles.

With developers at the level you describe, I'd expect to need to pair program with folks a fair bit of the time, to coach them through things they don't understand, and to be running regular training... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by quacks like a duck at 11:21 AM on January 17, 2024

The amount of parking seems reasonable. That would be one car per apartment and two cars for each of the three businesses.

I would attend and ask questions such as how they will manage traffic, whether they could change their plans to cause less impact to the businesses etc.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by kinddieserzeit at 7:15 PM on January 16, 2024