MetaFilter

JHarris, if the threshold for "evil" is "anything I don't like," it's a meaningless term. There are a lot of things I don't like that aren't evil. Meditate on that.

Ah, but why don't I like it? Is it right to dismiss that opinion as mere whim? Your flat rejection of the possibility this could be evil is a simple assertion, made with the assumption that it's so obvious that naturally people would agree with you. But there are... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 1:52 AM on November 8, 2011

Changing syntax is not evil.

But the reason for changing syntax might make it be, due to the transitive property of evil.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 1:53 PM on November 7, 2011

In related news, "Do no evil" slogan replaced by "Do evil"
posted to MetaFilter by mcstayinskool at 1:31 PM on November 7, 2011

An excellent in-depth analysis from the Asia-Pacific Journal.
posted to MetaFilter by Busy Old Fool at 3:40 AM on November 1, 2011

It's neat stuff, iotic. It got me to thinking about the idea of expressing typeface characteristics in a sort of high-dimensional vector space way: looking at all the specific variations in how a letterform can express the abstract notion of a letter, in terms of both broad decisions like the presence or not of a serif or the x-height of a character, on down to more atomic things like the shape and width and so on of each individual bit of serif or the horizontal and vertical width of strokes,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 10:34 PM on October 30, 2011

... I think my first couple of years on the internet I was upset by things people said to me but since then, seriously, forget it Jake, it's strangers on the internet.

The same is true for us all in time. But I was surprised in the beginning at how mad I could get and how long I would stay in the fray, punching away and getting punched. I remember getting into a fight with stavrosthewonderchicken early in my time here over something really stupid... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by y2karl at 1:53 PM on October 26, 2011

To Lovecraft in Brooklyn:

If I've learned to know you at all, you'd be reading this thread or checking in on it some point. That's not a value judgment. If I just buttoned, I would be too.

We've crossed horns a lot and I've often bludgeoned your outlier opinions and attitudes with my own outlier opinions and attitudes with not a small amount of expertise in arguing with people on the internet - but let it be known I do give a shit because I see... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by loquacious at 12:00 AM on October 26, 2011

I don't know if the SA over there is the same/associated with the Socialist Alternative we have here, but if they're similar, I have to say this: as an anarchist, but more importantly as a Jew and a Russian emigrant, I find modern-day Marxism more or less offensive. Every single place on Earth it's been tried it's led to at most death camps, and at least massive disenfranchisement and censorship. I don't see how anyone with the slightest knowledge of history can still actually support Trotskyism... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cthuljew at 4:46 AM on October 21, 2011

I very much agree with Alison. (although I disavow any sort of generational theory) As an overly degree'd and now fully tenured public employee, I feel like I personally lucked into about the best possible roll of the dice in a lot of ways. All of the stuff about (to paraphrase) being into computers at the right time really resonates with me as well. It's like I got the last batch of tickets out of town before things fully melted down, or the economic charts went hockey-sick in the wrong... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by absalom at 6:34 PM on October 18, 2011

Husband received an ecstatic call from a friend who's there; apparently thousands of union members showed up in support at the last minute. "It was like a movie!" Perhaps that had a bit to do with it.
posted to MetaFilter by emjaybee at 5:50 AM on October 14, 2011

Maybe if you said hello to us occasionally you'd get to know us.

(SOBS, RUNS OUT OF ROOM.)
posted to MetaTalk by subbes at 5:21 AM on October 14, 2011

This whole MeFite Club has gotten awesomely totally out of control. Witness the number of people who are involved from all over the world, the main forum and multiple side projects and the hard work that's gone into maintaining them (thanks, stav!), the crazy meetups around the country, and the supernice things its members have done for each other. Like mailing baked goods to each other. Or gifting games, or hardware. Or raising money for charity.

I've met and made a lot... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by herrdoktor at 7:21 PM on October 13, 2011

They are wonderful people who were generous to me in my time of need. Even though I can be an asshole sometimes.
posted to MetaTalk by ColdChef at 10:58 AM on October 12, 2011

MeFightClub is one of the Good Places of the Internet. Without it I'd probably not play computer games online at all. It's such a wonderful community full of enthusiastic, mature gamers. It's pretty much the gaming community of my wildest dreams. I've had a lot of fun playing Arma II, Men of War, Civ IV and especially Minecraft. The Aporkalypse is the single greatest computer game thing I've ever participated in.
posted to MetaTalk by Kattullus at 3:18 AM on October 12, 2011

In the Spirit of Rotato and giving and other happy shit like that, I have a spare minecraft gift code (dates back to Alpha, so it's one of the Good Ones) for the first person to MeMail me (Preferably to be used for you and not to re-gift, but I guess givers can't be choosers).
posted to MetaTalk by toomuchpete at 10:46 PM on October 11, 2011

Because it started out right here in Meta, MeFight Club felt like a community from the get-go, even when we just had a Steam group and a server where we met to play TF2 three times a week or so. Now the forums are busy enough where I can't even keep up, we have several servers for all kinds of games, we have thousands of hours and hundreds of different games played together, and have held all kinds of meetups, Secret Santa's, cookie exchanges, charity drives, etc.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by gemmy at 9:44 PM on October 11, 2011

It's funny because Middlesex is probably better than any fiction DFW wrote.

'Probably'? Like, you haven't read any fiction DFW wrote, so you aren't sure? Or you haven't read Middlesex so you aren't sure? Or like there's an objective aesthetic scale at the core of the universe that hasn't been discovered yet but you're confident once it's uncovered Middlesex will be three notches higher than Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
posted to MetaFilter by shakespeherian at 9:29 AM on October 10, 2011

From David Foster Wallace's interview answer about Bret Easton Ellis comes some great lines about the function of art in dark times:I think it’s a kind of black cynicism about today’s world that Ellis and certain others depend on for their readership. Look, if the contemporary condition is hopelessly shitty, insipid, materialistic, emotionally retarded, sadomasochistic, and stupid, then I (or any writer) can get away with slapping together stories with characters who are stupid, vapid,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mbrock at 5:18 AM on October 5, 2011

Let me know the next time a president sends armed militia to raid his own Attorney General's office to destroy evidence.

Indeed. Though truly, the thirst for power is almost a universal, and the urge to sate reactionary passions exceedingly common. The key difference is that Nixon operated in an era when the political institutions would not accept his ends, so his means became corrupt to bypass and subvert the institutions: He was a crook. Today, the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dhartung at 12:34 AM on October 2, 2011

Reddit is a circlejerk of clueless white manchildren. The child porn and racism and misogyny are just the most obvious symptoms. You also got highschool libertarianism, endless nostolgia for 80s juvenilia, absurd sentimentality alternating with internet tough guy poses, social ineptness, nerd pride, and pendantry. Basically, take the worst parts of being fourteen and package it in a self reinforcing culture that is also scared of black people and angry that women won't sleep with them and you... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ictus at 3:20 PM on September 30, 2011

This is just my personal opinion, not mod stuff, but, so:

I often find emoticons annoying not because I don't understand what they're for but because I feel like people don't really agree how they should be used and "reading tone on the internet" doesn't actually get substantially easier when you put all the interpretive pressure on a couple bits of line noise. You could as soon argue that every human smile means the same thing as that :) or ;) or :p... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 8:52 AM on September 28, 2011

She wouldn't happen to be married to John, would she?

Because that guy is all jizzed-up.
posted to MetaTalk by P.o.B. at 11:43 PM on September 8, 2011

So, time for a perverse tale of adolescent woe. Ender's Shadow was the first novel I read in English, independently, after working up the courage to think that I can read an entire novel in English. I read Ender's Game immediately after I tore through Shadow. Then I reread the two novels side by side, keeping careful mental note of how the timelines in the two novels overlapped and diverged.

I was in the seventh or... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Nomyte at 11:02 AM on September 8, 2011

To me, the word "entrepreneur" is loathsome because it tends in modern parlance to imply that any economic activity whatsoever is by necessity beneficial to society. People may wish to examine what the word means. It's really just making money off of other people. Sounds less noble that way, but there you are.

Your family doctor is an entrepreneur (he has to run an office, right?). The guy who mows your lawn is an entrepreneur. The nice... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by KokuRyu at 8:47 PM on September 7, 2011

One of Jack's favourite quotes, from Tommy Douglas:

"Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world."
posted to MetaFilter by aclevername at 7:22 AM on August 22, 2011

Aliens will arrive with the purpose of snorflaxing their jurbulators and the next day we'll wake up without our fingernails and all chickens will have four legs and ovipositors and we'll be all lol wut and that will be that.
posted to MetaFilter by BitterOldPunk at 4:28 PM on August 19, 2011

I'll be, owillis comments for the first time in ages. I kinda thought you had gone away for good. Hope you stick around... you were one of the first MeFites I got a sense for personality-wise back in the far off days of my lurkdom.

Lots of the early super-active ones are now gone. I did a double take the other day when I thought skallas had commented but I had misread a username.
posted to MetaTalk by Kattullus at 8:32 PM on August 19, 2011

Oh, good, we're doing this again.

I'm the atheist black sheep in a very large, very Catholic family. I grew up devout, and drifted away from my faith in college: first to a sort of vague deism, then wishy-washy agnosticism, and finally hardcore Hitchens-style atheism, all hail Dawkins, etc. etc. etc.

When I say "fuck the Church", I'm not talking about my mom, who's a prison chaplain and pretty much the last kind person a lot of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Zozo at 9:49 AM on August 19, 2011

@resurrexit "Ah, the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic."

If that's the case, and I didn't say it was, then it's the fault of the Church for making doing good forbidden.

@Jahaza Bill Donahue is my go to example for people mindlessly attacking any criticism of the Church as somehow being criticism of and bigotry against all Catholics everywhere. When you act like Bill Donahue I'll compare you to him. If you don't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by sotonohito at 9:34 AM on August 19, 2011

I think this is worth posting again. I don't know the source of it. I guess the idea is to mail it to whatever church you were raised in or maybe send it to your Congressperson. Or send it to relatives you want to tweak.

I, (Your name), having been subjected to the Rite of Christian Baptism in infancy (before reaching an age of consent), hereby publicly revoke any implications of that Rite and renounce the Church that carried it out. In the name of human reason, I reject... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by longsleeves at 11:45 PM on August 18, 2011

stavrosthewonderchicken: "...this self-regarding tally of favorites is dire and depressing, pointless as some kind of measure of social worth, and ultimately destructive to real community."

It can be, yes. Completely agree. But they're good in some ways. Especially in Ask, where seeing a bunch of passive support for a helpful comment can be a subtle, positive reinforcement without turning into a pile-on.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zarq at 7:22 AM on August 19, 2011

"Wow. As a Jew, I say that there is a lot of really upsetting anti-Catholic mockery in this thread."

Meh. It's magical thinking from a crazy nomic institution that's out of step with modern values and mores. It's kinda exactly the sort of self-important puffery that should be mocked — that Madrid priests can tell kids zim-zim-zalabim you're back in the Church because the abortion doesn't count anymore is a goofy proposition and one that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by klangklangston at 10:33 PM on August 18, 2011

What I find interesting about the reportage here is that the government has not exactly lied, but allowed people to believe all kinds of nonsense that has been both reported in the media and repeated in this post and its thread.

Take the idea of "lost honours." Plainly put, this is total bullshit. DEUs (uniforms distinct to each service branch) have been around since the 1980s, and distinctive regimental ceremonial dress has always existed. In the case of the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mobunited at 6:06 PM on August 17, 2011

First of all, since I worked with him pretty much non-stop on Andre the Giant has a posse—infinitely better known as OBEY—from '92-'05 (albeit often in different parts of the world and with different approaches to OBEY Giant (especially after he and Amanda got together/clicked/found one another), I occasionally but not usually chirp up on these conversations. If I have something that fleshes out the understanding of it all, I do.

I don't know if I do or don't here but... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mike Mongo at 8:49 PM on August 15, 2011

Glad to see someone's already enlightened our American cousins as to the particular species of douchebag we're dealing with here. To add a little more shading to the portrait, Americans should think of Neil Reynolds as a sort of hybrid of Steve Forbes and David Brooks, somehow libertarian and authoritarian at the same time.

Basically Reynolds is for whatever defending whichever status quo will pay him more and make him seem more heroic, even if he can't actually seem to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by gompa at 9:02 AM on August 10, 2011

This is total shit.

False hope. Fake science.

Science is based on being able to re-create results.

This is not...and it comes off as "oh its a miracle"...that happened with one person, and 2 that don't want to be known.

Not science, just bullshit in the hopes that we click on their ads and make them money.

Gross.

Hi.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by drpynchon at 8:26 PM on August 10, 2011

Sorry about the mealy-mouthedness! I just felt like a chump being the only one to air a grievance over a fairly innocuous post. I mostly didn't want to offend the OP. I'd be upset to discover a post complaining about something I said or asked in good faith over here.. I agree the poster did genuinely want insight into the supposed phenomenon, and I hope they receive/d that.

Thanks to zachlipton, and, of course, cortex, I do understand now!

Ha,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Mael Oui at 11:17 PM on July 28, 2011

butts lol
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 10:59 PM on July 28, 2011

Here's why I, a fellow community member, would have seen it as a possible derail: I have no idea why everyone is dancing around this, but maybe they fired you because they thought you might be Muslim.

Framing it in a way that accuses fellow community members of being disingenous in their replies. Of saying what they don't really mean, of hiding what they're really thinking, etc. It irritates people to be accused of something like that. That kind of irritation, of being... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ashley801 at 7:58 PM on July 28, 2011

I felt that MetaTalk was my only recourse
Posting this instead:

'Was the employer aware that you wear a headscarf for medical reasons? Maybe they thought it was for religious reasons, which would explain why they are nervous about telling you.'

Would have saved you 23 words and a lot of keystrokes. Plus, you know, that whole 'every time someone starts a MeTa thread, god kills a kitten' problem.
posted to MetaTalk by dg at 7:50 PM on July 28, 2011

I've been having to read a lot of Ernest Becker recently, and it's been putting all this Republican and Tea Party nonsense through a weird lens.

All these appeals to the fear and disgust of "liberal weakness" are happening as the USA-as-sole-hyperpower era is ending, and as much of the blame can apparently be laid at George W. Bush's feet, and as much of the decline happened during his tenure. So much of George W. Bush's reign was devoted to traditional... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sticherbeast at 9:54 AM on July 24, 2011

You lose your job. Your mother gets cancer. Your dog gets hit by a car. I understand and respect that you and your family may use humour as a coping mechanism for these horrible events at some point. It might not be immediately after a tragedy, but in the days and weeks to come.

I lose my job. My mother gets cancer. My dog gets hit by a car. My family and I may also eventually choose to use humour to cope. But if you make jokes about these events as they're occuring,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by maudlin at 3:15 PM on July 22, 2011

stark meaty stank is a trademark of wonderchicken industries™

You'll be hearing from my solicitor shortly.
posted to MetaFilter by Meatbomb at 8:21 PM on July 22, 2011

Peter Parkour. In retrospect, this was obvious.
posted to MetaFilter by Drastic at 7:19 PM on July 20, 2011

It's about 11,000 people being out of work. It is not about you.

No, see, that was Borders' mistake in Australia. If you want to keep people in work, then it has to be all about me.

They thought it was all about them. They figured they'd built it, so I would come - that I'd be knocked out by their many, many shelves, their in-store Gloria Jeans outlet, that I'd be willing to pay anything, do anything to bask in their glory,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by obiwanwasabi at 3:57 PM on July 18, 2011

This isn't a sad day, these store swooped in and pushed out all the mom and pop bookstores. Now that there's a slightly longer-than-expected economic downturn they throw in the towel and leave this huge vacuum. Good riddance, bring back mom and pop.
posted to MetaFilter by splatta at 2:28 PM on July 18, 2011

I think there is a much, much larger problem looming.

First, automation has increased the production output of many workers dramatically since 1980. Every sort of physical object has dropped in price, not only because we are outsourcing manufacturing to people with a much lower standard of living, but because advances in manufacturing have led to serious output increases per man hour without any matched increase in pay. Quite simply, we don't need as many people as we... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by notion at 9:04 AM on July 16, 2011

And it's a go! Here's the site with everyone's collected stories of MeFi Memories.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 12:25 AM on July 14, 2011

I'm aware that kimonos are worn by both sexes by tradition in Japan. But that fact is not widely known among the white middle-class business and finance jocks who use the phrase.

When they say "kimono," they picture a demure female sex slave. That's why they like the phrase, because it's salacious, as well as implying control. The speaker is in control of whether or not the kimono is opened. It's never "Don't open my kimono" or "let's keep the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ErikaB at 1:28 PM on July 13, 2011

It's sexist because Americans tend to culturally associate the kimono with women, regardless of how the word is technically used elsewhere or what the denotation of kimono is (as opposed to the connotation). That, and opening a kimono is an invitation to sex, with the gendered cultural association of women dong the inviting in, and not the other way around. (Although, the other way around has a creepy interpretation too, but for entirely different reasons.)
posted to MetaFilter by iamkimiam at 1:28 PM on July 13, 2011