MetaFilter

There is certainly someone out there who will hire you, despite the structural defects in the economy. Somewhere in that haystack sits the needle you seek. The proof of course, is that after a while, most folks find work.

It isn't true that there is someone out there who will hire "you," person who is thus far un-hired. Maybe that's because you've had bad luck and/or the deck is stacked against you. Or maybe you just aren't that employable,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rue72 at 12:58 PM on November 17, 2013

Get rich scheme:

1. Borrow $1,000,000
2. Let it go to collections
3. Buy the debt via a 3rd party for $250,000
4. Enjoy $750,000 profit.
5. Repeat.

Billionaire time-share mogul David Siegel has already used a similar tactic to his advantage:

"As Siegel tells it, he owes the bank $18.5 million, and he can't pay. But the bank won't write down the loan.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by compartment at 8:49 PM on November 13, 2013

Get rich scheme:

1. Borrow $1,000,000
2. Let it go to collections
3. Buy the debt via a 3rd party for $250,000
4. Enjoy $750,000 profit.
5. Repeat.

So, who wants to start a kickstarter?
posted to MetaFilter by blue_beetle at 2:53 PM on November 13, 2013

Is alright, Doctor - I sit here and eat sandvich.
posted to MetaTalk by Smart Dalek at 6:17 PM on October 28, 2013

Downtime is good for writing anyway.
posted to MetaTalk by ersatz at 10:21 AM on October 29, 2013

So... we create... another Metafilter... elsewhere... that people don't know about? That wouldn't generate revenue to keep this site alive? I may be missing something, but... you are not selling me on this idea.
posted to MetaTalk by GenjiandProust at 7:19 AM on October 17, 2013

I actually thought you hated almost everyone in this thread, including the people who agreed with you.

I thought so too, because of the tone and substance of most of samofidelis's posts up until that one. But the general accusations of racism and bigotry that the man was hurling before just got specifically narrowed down to yours truly in the latest comments. Which is probably more convenient.

Anyway, samofidelis has now... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by flapjax at midnite at 8:37 PM on October 15, 2013

What made this conversation so ugly was the people who insisted that it wasn't.
posted by samofidelis at 17:10 on October 15 [+] [!]

One of the greatest contributing factors to the *ugliness* of this post was your near-hysterical, strident, bossy and overbearing presence throughout.
posted to MetaTalk by flapjax at midnite at 5:16 PM on October 15, 2013

stavrosthewonderchicken: " Fair enough. We'll disagree, then. I'm OK with that."

*hugs* man. Me too. :)
posted to MetaTalk by zarq at 9:39 PM on October 8, 2013

"There's no need to call it 'moral purity' to make it sound ridiculous."

I didn't intend "moral purity" to sound ridiculous. It's not ridiculous to me.
posted to MetaFilter by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:10 AM on September 30, 2013

Do you know the version by the Leslie Spit Tree'o, I believe they are (were?) called

All hail Toronto! The Tree'o were alt-country before alt-country was cool, back in my student days in TO. So called because they lived on a filled part of Lake Ontario called the Leslie Spit.

Submitted a request, but it's pretty offbeat. Hoping somebody rises to the task.
posted to MeFi Music by Shepherd at 5:42 PM on September 12, 2013

Alright, the updated contribution index is now using the Infodump data and will grab the updated files every Sunday.

I added a new top list for most Meta posts, which number one dominates. I noticed a user dropped out of the CI index and, thinking there was a bug, I dug into the files and found their user id was obfuscated. I believe that's what happens when a user requests to be kept out of the infodump, so in lieu of displaying the stats for a user with an invalid... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jaden at 10:00 PM on September 10, 2013

What's so good about MetaFilter, and why should people join?

Most people everywhere (in real life and online) are pretty nice to others, and there are lots of smart and interesting people everywhere. Relatively few people are stupid assholes. Unfortunately, those few can make life (real and online) tedious for everyone else.

The difference between other sites and here is that MetaFilter won't put up with the stupid assholes.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by pracowity at 5:05 AM on August 22, 2013

Rap Battle, really? I guess this could be fun,


...Aww shit here we go,


Dude, Dude, you're always going off on trivial shit without warning,
What the fuck led you to post this at 3:30 in my morning?
I don't have time for you,
Honestly, I feel like I've got much better shit to do,
But so long as we're here,
and you seem so ignorantly sincere,
Lets... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Blasdelb at 6:44 AM on August 20, 2013

I've started a thread on MeFightClub for anyone interested in making their way over. I agree that if this is to happen it needs to stay in the forefront of our minds - I've lost track of how many opportunities pass me by because I don't take the time to get it organised. I hope you'll see me over there and we can get something off the ground. Adulthood shouldn't mean the end of our hobby :)

If you find the time to do so, join up and list your availability and physical... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by longbaugh at 6:27 AM on August 9, 2013

Man, MeFightClub is seriously the most welcoming place on earth so everyone needs to stop being so afraid of going in and floating threads about gaming stuff. It's crazy how much of the prickliness and snarkiness and kind of low grade dismissive meanness that sometimes characterizes the blue evaporates when all you're doing is playing games together and not preening for favorites or debating your deepest held convictions. My participation there has improved my life immeasurably, and I know... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by absalom at 4:57 PM on August 8, 2013

Earlier in this thread mention was made of links to the really old UseMod-based wiki that preceded the one one we just replaced. We've gone through the entire MetaFilter archives (MeFi, MeTa, AskMe, etc.) and extracted every link to the old UseMod-based wiki. We also used archive.org and some old page listings to identify articles. We believe we've identified every article that ever existed in that old wiki, circa 2003-2007.

With regards to those old links, we now... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by RichardP at 4:19 PM on July 11, 2013

I wonder how much damage Google has done to itself with this and other moves, not only in the public eye, but to its reputation as a refreshingly open and innovative place to work.
Google's magic has been fading for me very slowly as of late, but killing Google Reader has pretty much entirely killed the magic for me. I look back at the last decade, and am supremely impressed with Google's marketing. It's not marketing geared towards the masses, it's marketing geared towards geeks... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Llama-Lime at 8:41 PM on July 2, 2013

Once a week I teach at a preschool here in Tokyo and to get there I take the Nippori-Toneri Liner, a relatively new (just built a few years ago) monorail. So for those wishing to get a glimpse of a bit more *ordinary* Tokyo automated travel experience, here's my humble documentation.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 1:49 AM on June 22, 2013

This technique is actually wavelength-independent, but sharpening the results at whatever base wavelength you use. I'd expect it to be called something "overlap" related.

Ray-Ray^TM

The whole universe is information. We just need to figure out the codec.

e^iπ + 1 = 0
posted to MetaFilter by lordaych at 1:14 AM on June 21, 2013

2. Don't work out *until* you've reached equilibrium. Working out is *not* for losing weight: it's for maintaining fitness.

I totally disagree with this. Working out has many benefits in addition to fitness. It's a huge fighter of depression, it helps you sleep better, feel better and look better, it changes your appetite in good ways, it moves weight from fat to muscle, and it increases your overall metabolic rate. Losing weight while working out is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by unSane at 9:10 AM on June 19, 2013

I wish the weather was as consistantly good and fair as Springsteen. I wish the sun shone like his smile, and the snow sheltered us like his songs. I wish, like Springsteen, the warm weather favored the crops of the poor and the lightning struck at the unjust in positions of power.
posted to MetaFilter by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:18 PM on June 12, 2013

I strongly suspect that the collocation of "cyberwar" and "nuclear war" is part of a dialectic of militarizing the broader Internet. One of the outcomes is a constant state of war in every domain of public life and increasing public acceptance of government monitoring of personal communication, thus giving up other freedoms in the name of defense against existential threats.

Basically, I'm seeing too much synergy between related threads to take this... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Nomyte at 9:08 PM on June 9, 2013

I'm seriously considering hosting my own altogether via a hosted virtual server, but all the webmail apps I've looked at still rather suck - gmail is a really nice bit of software, and having been a mailserver admin for a long time, I don't really fancy dealing with spam tuning any more.

The other option I'm looking at is hushmail, based in Canada; you can bring your own domain, but it's a little pricy for a solo user. But full encryption for your... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ArkhanJG at 11:41 PM on June 9, 2013

spitbull: "Yeah, well I think it's true. Metafilter was always a snarky place. But it didn't use to be so PC and it didn't use to entail such a hectoring, shaming, bullying tone on the subjects of gender and sexuality, very specifically. Of course some would say it was a boyzone back then too. Precisely because I have been here that long, I feel confident in my own impression that the discourse here is both less open-minded and freewheeling, and more PC and policed for cultural... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by koeselitz at 1:49 PM on June 8, 2013

Precisely because I have been here that long, I feel confident in my own impression that the discourse here is both less open-minded and freewheeling, and more PC and policed for cultural conformity to a narrower ideological spectrum of views on several major topics.

I have extremely mixed feelings about this.

I will acknowledge that the change you're describing is real, it's not just you. It definitely happened. Almost... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by emptythought at 1:24 PM on June 8, 2013

So, I've noticed your comments too. To me, it seems like you're engaging in the Cargo Cult School of Argumentation. You know what a high-level academic argument LOOKS like, with primary sources and a logical structure, but you don't know how to actually judge the content of those sources, or how to put together a logically structured argument where you provide support for your assertions and one point leads to the next and so on. You also are doing this thing where you don't seem to be actually... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Eyebrows McGee at 9:34 PM on June 7, 2013

A time travel conspiracy? Nah, that's what they are going to want you to have thought.
posted to MetaTalk by Apoch at 7:55 PM on June 6, 2013

Just to briefly explain why a lot of people list Fez (myself included!) as an avant-garde game:

The basic game is a perspective-switching platformer where you collect "cubes." Nothing groundbreaking there. Cute, well-designed, etc.

The glory in the game is that there's a secret *other* game embedded in the game, collecting "anti-cubes." It involves secret codes in the blocks you see and other such stuff. Like, you might need... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by flibbertigibbet at 9:49 PM on April 30, 2013

'please consider keeping things from getting too grrary. have a hug cookie!'

Seriously, stop. That is not happening. You are tilting at windmills. No one gets banned for not being nice enough. No one even gets the night off for failure to be nice. Enforcement is like this: stop being a dick please, it's sucking all the air out of this discussion and we've asked you privately to stop and you seem to either not be listening, or you don't care, or you... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 6:25 PM on May 30, 2013

Obscurejokefilter
posted to MetaTalk by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:40 PM on May 30, 2013

"It's something that I've always found to be true for me -- I'm often not exactly sure what I think until I say it or write it, and when I express something that seems to be true about what I think and is pithily stated, it's almost as if I want to go back and memorize it. Weird. But I am self-absorbed that way, I admit."

I wrote something about this last night but decided not to post it, but Mizu's and yours and others' comments here, and my... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:31 PM on May 30, 2013

I'm feeling an urge to express my full range of emotions.
posted to MetaTalk by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:09 PM on May 29, 2013

A 100% accurate summary video of the conference
posted to MetaFilter by Pyry at 5:36 PM on May 21, 2013

stav, I think that the reason why it's been so tough to launch offshoots of MeFightClub is that MFC wasn't just the first big MetaFilter offshoot related to gaming, but that it started off with a small but very strong sense of community. The way MFC's site is set up is very different from the other projects you've pursued, but you put so much work into making it work. And it works terrifically.

It's attracted a whole bunch of people interested in all types of games, and... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by herrdoktor at 12:02 AM on May 20, 2013

You understand that we're talking about a large corporation making an offer on a dot com, right?

I should have been clearer that I meant recklessly fiscally irresponsible even by those standards.

Like, investing a ton of money in an untested new tech company? That's a bit reckless by cautious standards.

Investing a ton of money in a guy who knits sweaters for balloon animals? That's... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 8:54 PM on May 19, 2013

What ever happened to rodii... HOLY SHIT IT's rodii!
posted to MetaTalk by eyeballkid at 6:42 PM on May 17, 2013

you'd better CUT THAT HAIR, TAKE YOUR MEDS, AND GET WITH THE PROGRAM

It's not that bad (yet) in the Netherlands, but it was there, only slightly more mellow even when I was in my twenties, 1-2 decades ago. We still have a functioning health care insurance system, which helps a lot, as well as a somewhat decent social security system, though it has been consistantly downgraded in the fifteen years I've been a paid up and productive member of society.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by MartinWisse at 9:49 AM on May 17, 2013

The thing is, with the puffed chest doughy bag of resentment running the show here, the thing is that everything revolves around tar sands oil and getting said tar sands oil to market somewhere on the damned planet.

So, all the available resources of this great, deaf mute giant of a country must harnessed to that goal. It's what short fingered vulgarians and the shekel huffing gee gawers in Alberta want and they fund the whole Harperoid enterprise.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Phlegmco(tm) at 12:17 AM on May 14, 2013

Last week, I finished cleaning out my dead friend's house.

I'd been working at it evenings after work for almost a month, sorting through a basement packed with immense collections of memorabilia that he collected in an obsessive drive to document the joys he found along the way, in a way I've collected such things, because once, a long, long time ago, we were inseparable and life was a constant reservoir of adventures and misadventures and things... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by sonascope at 9:14 PM on May 1, 2013

I know I said I wasn't going to say anything else, but I wanted to add that I'm mostly very happy with the moderation here. I'd just like a little bit more space for contentious conversation in news threads. I'm totally fine with mods stepping in and saying 'enough' after the topic is hashed out or if it turns into a one person vs metafilter thing. I just think mods are getting too active with deleting possibly problematic comments just because people flag them. I know... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by empath at 11:59 PM on April 17, 2013

I think of chemtrails as one node on a network of conspiracy theories that, in sum, represent one of the greatest collaborative storytelling projects of the 20th century.

It's told in real democratic hypertext, arranged in weird rhizomatic parallel to itself. After exposure all the academic po-mo stuff just comes off as a weak attempt to capture its self-reflective scope and madness. Pynchon almost did it, but his work still ends when you close the book. This story,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by metaman livingblog at 8:58 PM on April 11, 2013

It's like some of you have never taken a literary criticism course in your life. Or a symbolic logic curse. Or a philosophy course.

Hint: Miko has.
posted to MetaTalk by cjorgensen at 10:43 AM on April 10, 2013

The other day I saw a guy eating a sandwich and he said, aloud, 'I love this.' The sun was shining, there was perhaps the first warm breeze of the season blowing in a nice aroma from a bakery a block over. Next to him sat a young woman, a few flyaway hairs pinned to her forehead for a brief instant.

I beat him to to death with a shovel because who knows what he was referring to.
posted to MetaTalk by shakespeherian at 10:15 AM on April 10, 2013

Theres a weighty post somewhere in all of that - but not at that precise moment.Hopefully the situation calms down as I'm rather concerned about Stav and the logistics of organising a mefi airlift.
posted to MetaTalk by sgt.serenity at 4:01 PM on April 3, 2013

As long as any random individual, acting on the basis of his (or her) single viewpoint, can posit a structure and intent to the universe and use it to manipulate the emotions and rights of other people, I cannot afford it the same qualities as science, which at its core simply seeks to understand the interconnections of the components of the universe, using a useful, proven method of inquiry. I will not extend reverence to fantasy, nor credit wisdom when it is self-granted.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by FauxScot at 11:14 AM on March 31, 2013

I am not too surprised.

I got an email enquiry from a VC-type equity person about 4-6 weeks ago, asking about how I thought it might be possible to monetize GoodReads -- he was one of their backers, looking at what to do next. I couldn't suggest much; he was thinking in terms of turning GoodReads into an ebook storefront, but I had to point out that this would be an uphill battle against the entrenched might of you-know-who. I guess an AMZN acquisition was the path of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cstross at 4:33 AM on March 29, 2013

Science fiction, as a genre, is mostly dead.

Meh.
posted to MetaFilter by jscalzi at 7:38 AM on March 26, 2013

mistersquid: In Confucian cultures, it is taboo to reject the opinions and machinations of elders, regardless of enlightenment, status, and rationality.

shoesietart: That doesn't make it any less bullshit.

mistersquid: That doesn't make it any less bullshit..

...the Westerner said from a convenient ethnocentric vantage.

I really appreciate your pointing this out, mistersquid.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cairdeas at 1:47 AM on March 26, 2013

If you'll bear with me for a moment here, I'd like to make a self link. That is, a link to some of my music. But it's not my post, someone else posted it to YouTube. The reason I want to link to it, though, is because it is one of the most startling examples of having something (in this case, musical sensibility) "in the blood". It's like this:

I made a record back in 1995 with Korean-American guitarist Hahn Rowe. Hahn's parents are Korean, but he was born and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 4:48 AM on March 25, 2013