MetaFilter

Wow, so fighty.

Anyway, I admit it all the time. Here's a search for me saying I'm sorry in comments.

If you've really read MetaTalk closely for 11 years you've certainly seen us reverse decisions, admit mistakes, and say we're sorry many, many times.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 7:57 AM on July 11, 2011

What a horrible post.
posted to MetaTalk by erebora at 7:56 AM on July 11, 2011

I miss Miguel too. But I'm always glad to see people I remember from the early days like stavros, and jonmc, and eyeballkid. We all keep coming back, even more than a decade later, and there's a reason for that.

Thanks, Matt (and everyone else).
posted to MetaTalk by gd779 at 8:51 PM on July 7, 2011

I deliberately stayed out of that thread, mainly because I like Kevin Smith a lot.
posted to MetaTalk by jonmc at 5:17 PM on July 7, 2011

I much prefer this article on Chasing Amy from The Criterion Contraption, which is reviewing each of the Criterion Collection DVDs in numerical order by CC's spine numbers. It's a better approach to the Criterion films and a better discussion of this film in that context.
posted to MetaFilter by crossoverman at 4:52 AM on July 7, 2011

Hüsker Dü, Minutemen, or Black Flag: You fucking hate the smug, winking clubbiness that passes for humor on McSweeney's, and you can't help but imagine the piece being read by some braying ass wearing deck shoes and a blue blazer.
posted to MetaFilter by BitterOldPunk at 11:58 AM on July 5, 2011

Hello, MetaFilter. I'm the Powazek in question. And yes, I'm a MeFite, though I haven't posted in forever. Hi! How've you been?

I've read the whole conversation here and agree with pretty much all of it. Except the butthurt part. I've had butthurt. This was not butthurt.

In hindsight, I agree that my post contained a little too much resume (I thought that it might help if Bob saw he was speaking to someone with relevant media experience - it... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by fraying at 2:23 PM on July 2, 2011

THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT
posted to MetaFilter by waxpancake at 12:57 PM on June 23, 2011

Hi, I'm the guy who drew the cover.

I drew the image by hand (mouse) one afternoon after Andy mentioned the project. It's intended to be viewed at CD-cover size, where the pixels appear much larger than in these thumbnails.

Perhaps I was too close to the creation process, but copyright violation never crossed my mind; I was crushed when Andy told me about the suit. He's a stand-up chap and took all responsibility, but I'll never shake the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by SnackAdmiral at 12:54 PM on June 23, 2011

thecjm: If he thought that digitizing something was transformative enough to qualify for fair use, why did he bother licensing the chiptune tracks?

The U.S. Copyright Act of 1909 allows anyone the right to record a cover song, as long as you pay a standard mechanical license, which I happily did; the "fair use" doctrine simply doesn't apply at all. I didn't try to license the photo, because I never believed (and still... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by waxpancake at 10:46 AM on June 23, 2011

▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▀ ▄ ▄
▄███████ ████████ ▄ ▄ ▄ █ ▄ ▀▄▀▀ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▀▀▀ ▀▄ ▀
███▀████ ████████▀ ████▀ █▄ ▀▄▄ ▀▄ ▀▄▄ ▀ █ ▀ ▀ ▄▀▄▄
... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by grouse at 9:08 AM on June 17, 2011

All that you need to know about Michael Ignatieff.
posted to MetaFilter by docgonzo at 2:35 PM on June 14, 2011

I assume it means clavdivs has been posting semi-coherently since 2001.

Yeah, yeah, rub it in. We've been trying to get him to cohere for nearly ten years, but as you know, we were working on the cyanide system. Well, earlier today it ate itself. But, these little set-backs are just what we need to take a giant step forward. Right? Needless to say, I was a little despondent about the melt down, but then, in the midst of my preparations for hari kiri,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by loquacious at 3:16 AM on June 10, 2011

Apparently one can use Kanye West's Twitter feed as an automatic Tracy Morgan quote generator by appending "Liz Lemon!" to the end of every "tweet" whilst reading them aloud.

"I didn't know Howie Mandel was part of Train, Liz Lemon!"

"Mick Jagger is crazy fresh, Liz Lemon!"

"I might walk in Nobu with no shoes, Liz Lemon!"
posted to MetaFilter by infinitywaltz at 3:08 PM on June 9, 2011

come gather round friends
and i'll tell you about
the great Mefi Brawl
i won't leave nuthin' out
it was at a big meetup
everybody was there
with a drink in their hand
and a story to share

now things first went amiss
when Faze said to klang:
"that punk rock you like,
man it ain't got that swang"
then delmoi stepped... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by flapjax at midnite at 6:29 AM on June 9, 2011

Metafilter, you never fail me! Jscott likes this.
posted to MetaFilter by jscott at 9:33 PM on June 8, 2011

emjaybee: “And I really don't understand this idea that Facebook's failure to archive our blather is stealing something from us. Prior to Facebook, our blather wasn't archived either. My many prank calls to my brother over the years are not recorded anywhere (to my knowledge). And they don't need to be. Nor Aunt Carlene's thoughts about the Cowboys, or Bubba's favorite Rush Limbaugh jokes.”

This is what Jason meant, I think, when he said... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by koeselitz at 7:15 PM on June 8, 2011

I had typed up a long comment last night about personal experience and overprescription, but then I deleted it because it was just too painful and weird.

But others in the thread have nailed much of what I wanted to say. But I should still share something.

Background: I'm dealing with severe chronic anxiety, PTSD and the related depression that was caused by severe child abuse/trauma. For me it's not the depression that really gets to me, it's... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious at 1:22 PM on June 7, 2011

If only you had included more context with your post.
:_-(
posted to MetaTalk by ryanrs at 4:30 AM on June 3, 2011

I wanna thank stav for going to all the work for us, but I can't! There's just this stupid 'favourites' nonsense....
posted to MetaTalk by Phire at 6:48 PM on May 26, 2011

Oh, duh. It was asking for my username, not my email address. I'm in. Sorry.

I kan reed gud.
posted to MetaTalk by zarq at 9:23 AM on May 25, 2011

OK, am in -- thanks, Stavros

Everyone else -- jump in, the water's fine!
posted to MetaTalk by unSane at 9:53 PM on May 24, 2011

Gosh, stav, the GameFilter site is gorgeous. I'll be signing up as soon as unSane gets through.
posted to MetaTalk by Phire at 9:07 PM on May 24, 2011

Ooh, it seems stav has had a change of heart. If he's interested in helping set up the space, and already has a lot of infrastructure in place, it sounds like it would be a PERFECT FIT! Like the platonic ideal of MetaFilter-GameFilter synergy.
posted to MetaTalk by Meatbomb at 8:16 PM on May 24, 2011

Nitrous at Thanksgiving dinner, are you insane? Whippits are the drug I'd least like to do with my parents. Jesus fucking christ.

Well, yes. I'm insane, but that was a joke.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious at 11:42 PM on May 20, 2011

Jesus Christ, the "mathematics" is based on this: According to Camping, the number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven"?

He really should listen to the Pixies more often; he's got it all mixed up.

Because Man is five and the Devil is six and GOD IS SEVEN!
posted to MetaFilter by jokeefe at 5:24 PM on May 19, 2011

My dog has pants like this post!
posted to MetaFilter by Alvy Ampersand at 11:13 PM on May 16, 2011

Best known for "Stair-diddley-airway to Heaven" and "Whole Lotta Lord".

Other hits include:

- Sermon on the Misty Mount
- Praised and Confused
- Houses of the Holy Mary Mother of God
- Communion Breakdown
- D'Yer Sav'yer
- Good Times End Times
- The Psalm Remains the Same
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 2:52 PM on May 17, 2011

Anyway, no need to chastise my any more, I'll leave the rest of you to it.

Yeah, I don't think babysitting applies to metatalk. Stay and talk as long as you need to.

But I'm not really on your side in this argument. A post is a lot better when it doesn't assume everyone already knows everything about the subject of the post. I had to use Google, YouTube, and Twitter to get an idea of what was going on, which as far as I... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by pracowity at 4:59 AM on May 17, 2011

ok, I'm picturing a bookmarks file that includes all posts and comments. The posts will have tags, the comments won't. And they'll be separated within the file by subsite. I'll mock up an example and post here for comments.
posted to MetaTalk by pb at 10:24 AM on May 16, 2011

I thought the folks who commented here might like this tip. As part of the Split Enz kick that inspired this post, I checked out a couple of the remastered versions of their albums that Eddie Rayner did in 2006, after reading online that Corroboree/Waiata and Frenzy were substantially different from the originals. The Corroboree one is good, although I always liked the original album and can take or leave some of the changes.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rory at 5:01 AM on May 10, 2011

PlusDistance writes (and links) : Well, they're getting closer.

Bulgaroktonos answers : Right, because two people without political power...

Well, there's all kinds of power these days. A media personality and political commentator with an enormous fan base/viewership can be said to have a certain kind of political power, which is not inconsiderable. He influences people's ideas about politics, he influences... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 8:04 AM on May 7, 2011

Benjamin Franklin:“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” -- Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758

“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.”

“I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies.”John Adams:“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.”

“But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ericb at 9:18 AM on October 7, 2009

FWIW, the census form does still include a comment box. Here's what I put in mine. I had to edit it down because of course the box is tiny!

There is not enough space in this box for me to fully express my outrage at the government's decision to eliminate the long form for the 2011 Census. Without reliable, representative, and comparable census data sets, the government's ability to create and maintain social programs and policies that reflect Canadian society is severely... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by just_ducky at 12:26 PM on May 3, 2011

You have mods that are put in place by some unknown process

restless_nomad: I am your mod!
Mefites: Well we didn't vote for you.
restless_nomad: You don't vote for mods.
Mefites: Well how'd you become mod then?
restless_nomad: The Mathowie of the MetaFilter, his arm clad in the purest shimmering hex colors, held aloft the Banhammer from the bosom of the server, signifying by divine providence that I,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by amyms at 4:25 AM on May 1, 2011

You ever been the moderator of a community you care about? It's a huge leap, and it's very difficult. You have to do the moderating, otherwise things catch on fire, and people get hurt. Every single decision (okay, maybe I wasn't such an awesome moderator) gets questioned. People tell you what your motivation is, your intent, and repercussions of your supposedly careless moderation (no matter how light handed you try to be). They threaten to leave, demand changes, claim prejudice. They wait... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by b33j at 3:28 PM on April 30, 2011

I dunno about all this 'Split Enz are the Beatles of NZ' business. I mean I'm sure the Beatles were very good in their own way, but to put them up against 'I Got You' or 'Six Months in A Leaky Boat' or 'One Step Ahead' let alone 'Message to My Girl' or 'History Never Repeats' just isn't fair to the Liverpool Lads.

On a good day, John and Paul were England's Finn brothers. On a *good* day.
posted to MetaFilter by tim_in_oz at 3:25 AM on April 29, 2011

Yeah, but at the same time, games that depend on authored narrative don't have much staying power. People play it once (maybe twice), and never touch it again.

Well, it may not have a ton of replay value, but that's hardly the only thing that "staying power" can mean. Portal 1 had huge staying power; a hell of a lot more people seem to have been touched/inspired/affected by that game than e.g. Just Cause 2, which also had an authored narrative and has... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 12:06 PM on April 26, 2011

To fill everyone in:

I'm in the very early phases of a project that superficially looks a lot like this, especially the cellular automation-powered flowing liquid effects. Rhaomi linked to the Kickstarter project further up. I have been feverishly working on it for about three weeks.

I've been actually trying to make it very different from Minecraft though. It's supposed to be a whole lot more roguelike, about exploring a dangerous, forbidding... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 5:52 PM on April 23, 2011

Please do something about this, because it really bothers me.

I could write you a script...
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 8:53 PM on April 21, 2011

So, despite the multitude of examples to the contrary out there, I would challenge the idea that gamers are embarrassing to anyone. Some of them, though, are embarrassing to the great many of us who are well-adjusted, good-hearted grownups. It's the nasty children, the maladjusted teens, the perpetually-adolescent adults who find in online gaming (or, equally if not more so, the rest of internet -- Youtube comments are a fine example) a place to vent their frustration and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:23 PM on April 20, 2011

This thread is now about your favorite pasta recipes.

We've already had to ask in the past that people not intentionally bomb metatalk threads with recipes. This is me asking again.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 8:11 AM on April 17, 2011

Victim of the Brain, a fine documentary on the ideas of Douglas Hofstadter (author of Godel, Escher, and Bach) is on Google Video and, I think, not really anywhere else.

Grabbed. 211mb, not bad. Just to mention, the ArchiveTeam Google Video Project Page has all the tools we're using, so feel free to grab anything you want that interests you.
posted to MetaFilter by jscott at 10:17 PM on April 16, 2011

Yep, yet another example of assbaggery that won't interfere with Harper's election campaign. As long as we have hockey, doughnuts, and beer not a goddam thing else seems to matter in this country anymore. And, here's a web comic with a nice summation of all the little things the Conservatives have done to erode what this country actually is.

Harper's Canada
posted to MetaFilter by Phlegmco(tm) at 2:27 PM on April 11, 2011

Station!
That is all. Bring me the red-framed glasses of Jim Martin, stat!
posted to MetaTalk by joe lisboa at 6:33 PM on April 11, 2011

Fabulous! One out of three! Now the Navy just needs to bring back rum, and the lash!
posted to MetaFilter by orthogonality at 8:14 PM on April 3, 2011

Also, just to pass this on, in his last coherent moments last night, Ryland's last words were written on a note to his family: "WTF?"
posted to MetaTalk by dreamattack at 10:49 PM on April 3, 2011

Stavros, we have awful pizza in Japan (think corn, mayo or squid as toppings) but we also have sublime pizza (Japanese wins pizza-making contest in Italy). The next time you visit, I'll bring you to my local favorites which are close to sublime (Napoli-stye.) There's even a great NYC-style joint in Tokyo too.
posted to MetaFilter by gen at 3:19 AM on April 3, 2011

An eternal hell isn't quite the universal, fundamental doctrine many Christian believers and anti-Christian atheists believe it is. Apokatastasis - universal reconciliation - kept popping up among Patristic theologians, including Origen and the Cappadocians, and that kind of hope for a universal salvation of everyone and everything can be seen repeatedly in the Orthodox Church as recently as Dostoyevsky's cosmic vision in "The Brothers Karamazov". Most recently, in 2008 Russian... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jhandey at 10:02 AM on March 29, 2011

ohhh, ok. I'm annoyed because when I signed up for Minecraft, I picked a username thinking that would be the "account" name, and that (as with most other games and online fora) I could pick a separate "display name."

I'm exlotuseater here and on MFC, GameFilter, and pretty much everywhere else . . . but my Minecraft name is james_sherwood . . . so whenever I go to 'pork, people know me ther by that name, but probably never make the connection that I'm... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by exlotuseater at 7:13 AM on February 18, 2011