Favorites from ftrain

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MeFi post: Then a hurricane came, and devastation reigned.
As a Gulf Coast resident all I can say is: as always I'm grateful that it's not us, and heartbroken that it has to be someone else. If you're evacuating without pets and New Orleans is within your travel distance, give me a shout.
posted to MetaFilter by komara at 2:17 PM on October 8, 2018
MeFi post: Compile… Run… Load.
A friend of mine, big into Zelda (to the point that he wrote his own NES emulator to run it) had some thing he made that would allow editing the Zelda map, and one of the features of it was that it would show all the "rooms" (for lack of a better word) modelled as masses connected by springs and they would slowly spread out as the physics model for the springs dictated. Well, since I know very little about Zelda, and don't see the thing on his public github, can't really elaborate... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by smcameron at 7:39 PM on August 31, 2018
MeFi post: Favrd's down
Shit. Dean did some of the first truly lovely stuff on the web that I used.
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn at 9:24 AM on January 19, 2018
MeFi post: Book of the Month Club reinvents itself for the 21st Century
From June, here's a Track Changes* episode in which they talk with Maris Kreizman, BOTM's editorial director. As I remember, they talk about BOTM's reinvention/rebranding for the modern era, the future of books, etc. It was, again as best as I can recall, a pretty good episode.

*Track Changes being the podcast of Postlight, hosted by the company's co-founders, Paul Ford and Rich Ziade.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by timdiggerm at 8:07 AM on December 23, 2017
MeFi post: single and writing sad poems//on the internet.
Huh, I've been dethroned and forgotten, apparently. Oh well, it's been long enough.
I hope that Mr. Yost leans into the curve, and strives each day to be the best MacGonigall that he may be. Long may your stanzas wax purple and tendentious, my young friend...best wishes and see you at the Bulwer-Lytton awards afterparty.
posted to MetaFilter by LeRoienJaune at 12:50 AM on December 2, 2017
MeFi post: FAIL
You know, all these image macros remind me of a good friend of mine - let's call him 'Stu'. Stu was a normal guy that I've known since seventh grade. Normal that is, until he became the 'Penis Goes Where?' guy.

PGW is another one of these unexplainable image macro things, but not a terribly well known nor liked one. If you've spent any time on fark, you may have seen one or two of these. They generally feature some random woman making any manner of surprised,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by unixrat at 3:04 PM on January 29, 2008
MetaTalk post: mathowie transfers ownership of MetaFilter to cortex
Can we get stickers now? Yes I will go chip in over in the other thread.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 9:22 AM on July 31, 2017
Josh covered much of what I wanted to share, but I wanted to add my angle on the transfer.

I ran MeFi day-to-day for 16 years but by the end, I was pretty well ground down. Over the years, a combo of depression, exhaustion, and anxiety from managing MetaFilter took its toll on me, and one of the major turnarounds for me was to change careers entirely. I took a new job in a field that wasn’t remotely about community management and found it creatively satisfying. It was... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 9:15 AM on July 31, 2017
MeFi post: Al fit into one category: Al.
The secrets he must've taken to his grave.
posted to MetaFilter by oneswellfoop at 9:03 PM on June 10, 2017
MeFi post: Wakanda king do about it
I really love this trailer, and after Creed, Coogler and Michael B Jordan can do no wrong. I did not see Fruitvale but I heard that was also very good.
posted to MetaFilter by Lord_Pall at 8:33 PM on June 9, 2017
MeFi post: A brief history of the UUID
I like that clock skew isn't enough to screw up uniqueness here, just ordering. Once your systems get big enough, something is going to have a bad clock, always.

Time is the worst dimension.
posted to MetaFilter by The Gaffer at 3:52 PM on June 9, 2017
MeFi post: The American Archive of Public Broadcasting
dun dunna da da da, da DAH da!
daaaaaaaaaaaa
posted to MetaFilter by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:11 PM on June 3, 2017
MeFi post: Which is Better for TV Graphics, Mac or Windows?
I had no idea that combing an 8 bit and a 24 bit graphics yields a 32 bit image, but the math does seem to work out.
posted to MetaFilter by maryr at 7:13 PM on May 31, 2017
MeFi post: Counting at $20 per second
Apparently the hole that the nanoballs fall through has to be so precise that only a human eye can get the job done. A measurement device would harm the glass, according to Hodinkee.

Meh. I'm no optical engineer, but I work with lots of people who are ... Making optics that can accurately place and measure features down to 7 nanometers (billionths of a meter), or about 70 atoms.

I call bullshit.
posted to MetaFilter by ZenMasterThis at 6:11 PM on May 25, 2017
MeFi post: JSON Feeds
Ok, I've been out of the XML/JS loop for a decade now, but... the big problem that developers are facing with feeds is it's too hard to read XML? Hasn't XML-JSON conversion been a one liner for ages? It's 2017 and that's the hard part? What am I missing here?
posted to MetaFilter by phooky at 6:25 PM on May 17, 2017
MeFi post: Joe Miller was a "snapper up of unconsidered trifles"
My name is Joe Miller. I once met another Joe Miller, and when we were introduced I said "what is this, some kind of joke?"

He didn't get it.
posted to MetaFilter by HighLife at 8:17 AM on April 20, 2017
MeFi post: The art of constructing an entire fictional universe
I just wanted a fictional apple pie.
posted to MetaFilter by Wolfdog at 7:14 AM on April 17, 2017
MeFi post: webshit weekly
This reminds me of vintage NTK: sharp, bitter and brilliant
posted to MetaFilter by scruss at 6:16 PM on April 15, 2017
MeFi post: In Birmingham They Love The Governor
Republicans: Thank God it wasn't little boys.
posted to MetaFilter by sammyo at 6:22 AM on April 11, 2017
MeFi post: Robert Silvers (1929–2017)
I am 87 and subscribed after buying the very first issue, which came out to offer book reviews during a NY newspaper strike. Still get it.
posted to MetaFilter by Postroad at 4:26 PM on March 24, 2017
MeFi post: Sail Away... Sail Away...
Also, on an Enya–related note: her (pretty fantastic) album Dark Sky Island, out earlier this year, taught me what dark sky preserves were, in time for me and my roommate to rent a car, trek out to the darkest part of southern New Jersey, and watch the Pleiades from a field so dark, it wasn't until the moon set past two in the morning for us to truly see the sky as it could be seen there.

It was beyond stunning. The sky looked the way it does in... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rorgy at 4:29 PM on August 25, 2016
MeFi post: Replace all your Esses with Dollar-signs
9 Things Microsoft Could Do With LinkedIn by Paul Ford
posted to MetaFilter by jeremias at 10:42 AM on June 13, 2016
MeFi post: Make America Rage Again
Is the attempt at summoning a portal back to the 90s that we've all been hoping for?

Needs more Bill Laswell. Only he has the key to the '90s.
posted to MetaFilter by octobersurprise at 7:13 PM on June 6, 2016
MeFi post: If they don't own the press, they will destroy it.
This should disturb everybody. Gawker does some shitty shit now and again, but has done it in the name of frequently-misguided-but-still-genuine ideals. I'm grateful that its new iteration seems to pick its targets more carefully and seriously, and the Hogan/Conde Nast scandals were shameful, but as a fan of the last two years of Gawker it's evident that it grew pretty directly out of its frequently-awful origins.

When you look at the sorts of people and groups that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rorgy at 6:38 AM on May 25, 2016
MeFi post: drop it like it's hot
“Laughter Doesn’t Scale,” Medium Track Changes, 01 April 2016
posted to MetaFilter by ob1quixote at 1:58 PM on April 2, 2016
MeFi post: Happy New Year from the manufacturers of economic inequality
Today, Paul Graham seems very satisfied with himself

"Y-Combinator" is actually named after the days Paul Graham is satisfied with himself. They're the ones with "Y" in.
posted to MetaFilter by Jon Mitchell at 7:55 PM on January 3, 2016
MeFi post: How to Get a Real Education, by Scott Adams
Welcome to Metafilter, Scott!
posted to MetaFilter by StrikeTheViol at 1:38 PM on April 14, 2011
Ask MeFi post: How to get over my ex-boss "hating" me?
I had a similar "this person hates me" feeling that got worked out recently. I performed a wedding and got (a small) part of it wrong. I wrote the bride a letter afterwards basically wishing her well and apologizing for the mishap. Never heard back. Assumed she hated me, more or less justifiably, and moved on. Didn't think about it except in a "Oh well, that will happen" sort of way. Thirteen months later, I got an email from her basically saying "Oh hey I forgot to write back to you, thanks so... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jessamyn at 12:19 PM on October 21, 2015 marked best answer
MeFi post: Reddit, Florence 1400
(which disappoints me a bit, because the Parliament one is so so good)
posted to MetaFilter by stebulus at 10:51 AM on October 10, 2015
MeFi post: And then I realized, Maybe I can buy my way out of this one.
I was recently wondering about what the world is going to be like once the "Tumblr Generation" gets older. Well, now I have an answer to that question a bit sooner than I expected.
posted to MetaFilter by DrAmerica at 8:31 PM on September 8, 2015
MeFi post: America's national vacation problem
We really need a white collar labor movement.

I'm in a (largely) white collar union, a wall-to-wall legal services union that includes attorneys, paralegals, social workers, and support staff. We get 28 days of vacation a year and 18 sick days. The vacation days cap out at 60 to accrue, and 40 to be paid out if you leave. Sick leave accrues indefinitely but isn't paid out at all when you leave. It's suprisingly easy if you stay several years to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mavri at 8:18 PM on September 7, 2015
MeFi post: amusements and anarchism
The VP in charge of my department is obsessed with Disney. He's been to the parks 40+ times and went through the Disney leadership training (did you know that was a thing? I had no idea until it was too late to escape the meeting.) Our last departmental meeting involved matching up positive character traits to Disney characters (as a team!) and solving magic eye type puzzles of Mickey Mouse (as a team!) while Disney music played in the background.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Lemmy Caution at 7:48 AM on August 20, 2015
MeFi post: It's not all joy and kisses
Other studies, such as that by Fälschung (2012), suggest that German babies are among the most difficult to raise in the world. Falsch (2013) suggests that this is due to their unquenchable desire for order that new parents have difficulty dealing with.

An English couple adopt a German baby. He grows up seemingly healthy and thriving in all regards, except that he never starts to speak. The couple take him to see doctors and specialists who can find... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by sobarel at 2:15 PM on August 14, 2015
My son is hands down the best thing that ever happened to me, and i've had a pretty good life.

This is special pleading. Maybe it's even true, but parents are notoriously unreliable narrators. When asked directly about whether having a child has been worth it, they often say yes. But when asked more objective questions about their quality of life, they tell a different story.

Using data sets from Europe and America,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jedicus at 1:59 PM on August 14, 2015
MeFi post: More Philly than the Rocky Theme
I've also got a passion for fashion.

Take the wheel of the automobile...
posted to MetaFilter by MonkeyToes at 6:47 PM on August 12, 2015
MeFi post: The Opossum Banana Eating Choir
... and Rubio emerged the clear winner...
posted to MetaFilter by mattoxic at 2:02 AM on August 8, 2015
MeFi post: Ethereum Launched
Core War with stakes. Nice.
posted to MetaFilter by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 2:20 AM on August 7, 2015
MeFi post: What is Code? said jesting ftrain
Also: in lieu of him appearing here, Ford writes (in "footnote" 16):

Writing this article was a nightmare because I know that no matter how many people review it, I’ll have missed something, some thread that a reader can pull and say, “He missed the essence of the subject.” I know you’re out there, ashamed to have me as an advocate. I accept that. I know that what I describe as “compilation” is but a tiny strand of that subject; I know that the ways I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by progosk at 10:59 AM on June 14, 2015
MeFi post: I will what I want.
Who are we comparing her to, though?

Here's Natalia Osipova at 17. Sylvie Guillem at 14. Maria Kochetkova at 16. Diana Vishneva at 17; not sure of the age on this one, but this is her doing Grand Pas Classique while she was still in ballet school, maybe the best version I've ever seen, definitely top 3. Sara Mearns at 15. Alina Cojocaru at 15; same age in something more classical. Young Polina Semionova. Haven't had much luck finding any baby Zakharova... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The Master and Margarita Mix at 11:35 AM on June 30, 2015
MeFi post: What is Code? said jesting ftrain
This thread is basically a demonstration of why the article is necessary.
posted to MetaFilter by no regrets, coyote at 3:52 PM on June 12, 2015
MeFi post: "And we still lost the Cold War. Go figure."
[Let's stick to the athletic training angle here, rather than debating the overall question of US vs USSR, since the post is about elementary school gym classes?]
posted to MetaFilter by LobsterMitten at 9:08 PM on May 16, 2015
MeFi post: 1:35!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You prefer another trailer, a nostalgia-evoking trailer?! Then name the franchise!
posted to MetaFilter by petebest at 11:47 AM on April 16, 2015
MeFi post: Just Checking In
Pretty sure this is a double.
posted to MetaFilter by ftrain at 11:48 AM on February 23, 2015
MeFi post: Brain breakage
Paul Ford apologizes for writing a thinkpiece.
posted to MetaFilter by maudlin at 7:37 AM on February 27, 2015
Ask MeFi post: If you killed somebody, how would you dispose of the body without getting caught?
First, be smart from the very beginning. Pulverize all teeth, burn off fingerprints, and disfigure the face. Forcing a DNA test to establish identity (if it ever comes to that) might introduce the legal/forensic hurdle that saves your ass down the line. An unidentifiable body can, in a pinch, be dressed in thrift store clothes and dropped in a bad part of town where the police are less likely to question it. I don't reommend that disposal method, I'm just saying an easily identifiable body is an... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by scarabic at 6:27 PM on June 13, 2004 marked best answer
MeFi post: Just Checking In
Time: 08:30 Thursday May 24 2014
Subject: Your (JOURNAL NAME REDACTED) manuscript has been returned for correction

Time: 10:30 Thursday May 24 2014
Subject: Your (JOURNAL NAME REDACTED) manuscript has been returned for correction

Time: 11:30 Thursday May 24 2014
Subject: Your (JOURNAL NAME REDACTED) manuscript has been returned for correction

Time: 13:30 Thursday May 24... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by gingerest at 6:28 PM on February 23, 2015
Subject: Aunt Patty's friend's son
Subject: Activity Alert: Your Account Has Insufficient Funds
Subject: When you have a minute
Subject: Saw this on Fox
posted to MetaFilter by sallybrown at 1:49 PM on February 23, 2015
[A few comments deleted. The ones that were less funny. I'm feeling like could we just knock that off for a bit.]
posted to MetaFilter by sylvanshine at 12:14 PM on February 23, 2015
An Update On Metafilter.
posted to MetaFilter by GuyZero at 11:33 AM on February 23, 2015
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