MetaFilter

I picked up masto easier than I thought I would, given my liberal arts background. I have a low threshold for frustration but a self taught high one for coming back and trying again later.

It reminds me of Web 1.0 in a lot of ways. Idiosyncratic, doesn't always work right, kludged together, still figuring out what it is and how it functions. Is it harder to get started than Twitter was? Yeah, I can see where it is. For me that's not a deal breaker. I got time. I'm... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cmyk at 8:00 PM on August 2, 2023

I am on team It Is Good And Desirable That No Single Central Social Network Should Again Exist, And We Should All Go Separate Ways. My second team (who I support when my team isn't playing) is Get A Website With RSS
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:52 PM on July 31, 2023

Yeah, if you are a Mefite and want to cut to the chase on all the “choosing an instance” / “finding people to follow” business you have a readymade answer right there.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 4:46 PM on July 31, 2023

OMG put that thing away this is a family website.
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 4:45 PM on July 31, 2023

People who go to Bluesky will be moving again eventually. The lesson to learn is that no corporation can run a big public service without eventually enshittifying it. Mastodon has problems, and individual instances can and do shut down randomly, but at least has the advantage of group continuity, like the Web itself does.

Everything on the internet has a limited lifespan. I couldn't even begin to talk about all the great sites that have died over the decades. Large... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 4:39 PM on July 31, 2023

I agree with most of the points already raised about the film trying to do perhaps a feewww too many things at once, and that I loved it anyway on a level I did NOT at all expect to. I haven't stopped thinking about it since I saw it.

This is because, in addition to its achievements as a piece of art, I'm also finding the movie an eerily accurate test of the attitudes of cis men in my personal and professional lives (these are verbatim, or as near as one can get in... [more]
posted to FanFare by peakes at 6:13 AM on August 1, 2023

Forgot to mention that our house basically started watching 30 Rock because of Paul as Prince Gerhardt Hapsburg.
posted to MetaFilter by oneirodynia at 2:46 PM on July 31, 2023

The post:

For those of you who live/lived in San Rafael, Marin county, you might remember a great little indy music store on 4th Street, Maximum Music. The owner, Claire, was a sweetheart, and her main employee is this cool guy, Jim Harris. Think of "High Fidelity", and you've got an accurate picture. Jim was a MAJOR Pee Wee Herman fan, and one of the things hanging on the wall, behind the counter, was a HUGE pair of Pee Wee briefs - like a size 90, they were... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dbiedny at 12:24 PM on July 31, 2023

Cinco Paul on the Schmigadoon season 2 finale, Patti LuPone, and potential season 3 plans
posted to FanFare by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:25 AM on May 5, 2023

Okay... I have a story that must be shared in this context.

When I was in college in the late 80s, I needed a TV. A young lady I was friendly with sold me an old family TV of theirs, a 1970s JCPenney model, for $20, and it served me well enough. The remote control had been long lost -- according to her, dropped into a glass of Coca-Cola years prior and rendered inert -- but the onboard buttons still worked, so that was fine.

Cut forward to the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by delfin at 7:56 PM on July 30, 2023

Bob Adler was my dad's boss at Zenith. We had all sorts of experimental tvs and stereos that came home to test. Oddly enough I don't remember having one of those remotes but my father rigged a guillotine switch to silence ads. Dad also had a patent on an automatic volume increaser so that if something loud like a plane overhead happened the tv would automatically increase the volume until the noise was gone. I don't think Zenith ever built that into any tvs though.

In... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by leslies at 6:19 PM on July 30, 2023

The TV at my grandmother's house was a Zenith with one of these. I used to amuse myself by trying to press the buttons as gently as possible so as not to cause the channel or volume to change.

Also not mentioned in the linked to article, a channel change also resulted in a the activation of a servo motor in the TV that turned the actual channel selector by one detent. I recall it being a very satisfying mechanical "ker-CHUNK."
posted to MetaFilter by Insert Clever Name Here at 2:44 PM on July 30, 2023

We finally got to watch this one here tonight after I'd been itching to see it for days (my wife was out of town.) LD and SNW are our favorite things Trek has going right now (though I lean more LD and my wife more SNW) andhot damn but this absolutely nailed it. Frakes deserves a lot of credit for recognizing how to direct towards both shows' existing comedic sensibilities, but it mostly works because of a perfect script from Kathryn Lyn, who writes for both shows and was the exact right choice... [more]
posted to FanFare by Navelgazer at 10:24 PM on July 29, 2023

I can’t wait for the inevitable lizard’s POV episode.
posted to FanFare by not just everyday big moggies at 12:02 PM on July 28, 2023

I really liked this episode. It subverted my expectation that we would end on a stereotypical platitude about forgiveness being necessary for moving past your trauma and getting closure.

I'm still thinking about all the facets of the story: the irony of how the weapon was used as evidence, the callback to storing people in the transporter buffer, and the way that the final reveal instantly changes how we see both M'Benga and Dak'Rah, and how absolutely... [more]
posted to FanFare by confluency at 11:19 AM on July 27, 2023

Anybody had eyes on Mona Lisa recently?
posted to MetaFilter by flabdablet at 8:17 AM on July 27, 2023

Elsewhere:
* the bad guy was a Ken in the Barbie movie, and, uh, I don't know. Bad Ken! Bad!

It was impossible to take Gravik seriously as Ken!
posted to FanFare by ellieBOA at 6:18 AM on July 27, 2023

This whole series felt like the writers’ strike started early.
posted to FanFare by sixswitch at 11:35 AM on July 26, 2023

The only aspect of the movie I didn’t wholly love was the opening montage of 1000 years before.

The opening montage serves an important point other than setting up the world, though.

Because as we find out later in the movie, that history we see in the montage is false. Gloreth isn't some noble hero vanquishing a rampaging monster, she's a scared kid who doesn't know who to back and winds up siding with... [more]
posted to FanFare by NoxAeternum at 3:57 PM on July 26, 2023

I saw a comment elsewhere pointing out the downstream costs this imposes, forcing folks to update marketing materials, advertising, websites, brochures, packaging, etc. with the new logo & name.

Given Musk's volatility, it's probably cheaper to remove those references entirely, rather than have to change them all again when some new design catches his fancy.
posted to MetaFilter by cheshyre at 6:50 PM on July 25, 2023

tbf 'x' is certainly not a very common letter

I dunno, it's in the top 30.
posted to MetaFilter by saturday_morning at 1:43 PM on July 25, 2023

Dr Lesbian on Twitter (with photos): just realized when patriarchy came to barbieland weird barbie got transformed into a radical guerilla fighter lesbian feminist bc that’s how women who don’t bow to the patriarchy are viewed by men
posted to FanFare by ellieBOA at 12:13 PM on July 23, 2023

This was an overstuffed, messy delight. It's absolutely not perfect but it's a masterpiece. It just goes for it. It's trying to do too much but I liked that about it. It's a ride.

Gosling is amazing and I wonder how many times they had to do that dance sequence because he did look like he was about to break a couple of times (which absolutely made it more charming).

Robbie is perfect here. She brings such a sweetness to Barbie that feels informed.... [more]
posted to FanFare by edencosmic at 7:55 PM on July 21, 2023

I saw it last night: there are things I want to discuss, but I don't want to spoil anything.

If you liked the Lego Movies, this one is on-par among the best, if not better because it's not directly mostly at small children. It's an adult movie. It's also hilarious.
posted to FanFare by The_Vegetables at 8:18 AM on July 20, 2023

Barbie suffers a crisis that leads her to question her world and her existence.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero

You win the internet today.
posted to FanFare by briank at 8:56 AM on July 20, 2023

(Your reminder that Mastodon has 25x as many active users as BlueSky and MeFi has a thriving little instance.)
posted to MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 10:01 AM on July 25, 2023

A fascinating thread [Mastodon] from @Garius


To understand Musk's renewed obsession with X and focus on financial services, you REALLY need to understand the X/Confinity merger that became PayPal.

And, particularly, the Peter Thiel-led coup that kicked Musk out as CEO/Chief Strategist.

Here's how that happened. 1/🧵 #history #technology

...... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Buntix at 8:04 AM on July 25, 2023

Or: Boimler flat-out radiates ensign energy to those trained to notice it. Like, it should cause sensor interference, the energy is so intense.
posted to FanFare by CheesesOfBrazil at 11:45 AM on July 24, 2023

Bluesky eventually rebranding as Twitter would be *chef's kiss*.
posted to MetaFilter by mazola at 2:39 PM on July 24, 2023

IANAL, but I believe the trademark abandonment clock starts today for the name Twitter and its blue bird. The said clock is three years long.
posted to MetaFilter by humbug at 2:26 PM on July 24, 2023

Teslax has a nice ring to it

As in "smooth move, Teslax"?
posted to MetaFilter by flabdablet at 1:48 PM on July 24, 2023

Welp, @twitter name so coming off the building right now but @elonmusk didn’t get permit for the equipment on the street so @SFPD is shutting it down.
posted to MetaFilter by Nelson at 1:38 PM on July 24, 2023

If this is indeed a deliberate act of destruction, then the wealthy and powerful people who own Twitter wanted to destroy it because it was becoming too effective a medium with which people could organize. People were using it to start promoting unions as a concept and a movement, as exemplified by the fact that we now had actual superstar-level Twitterers who were very vocal organizers. If that was a bit too much of a threat, and certain wealthy and powerful interests decided to get Musk to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by MrVisible at 1:08 PM on July 24, 2023

MetaFilter's Own™ jscalzi made the WaPo!

“I’ve been reluctant to leave Twitter entirely, but I have to tell you I won’t have a problem leaving X,” tweeted Hugo Award-winning science fiction author John Scalzi, a power user who has tweeted more than 170,000 times.
posted to MetaFilter by slogger at 12:09 PM on July 24, 2023

The Hulu shop really missed a trick by not already having "YAS SEAN" and "AY, I'M BEIN' GAY OVER HERE!" t-shirts ready to go.
posted to FanFare by MrBadExample at 1:45 PM on July 23, 2023

Elon is about to learn how annoying it actually is when people insist on continuing to use your deadname.
posted to MetaFilter by mediareport at 6:58 AM on July 24, 2023

KLF Uh-huh-uh-huh-uh-huh
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 7:32 PM on July 23, 2023

Say this for Musk: he has done more to dispel the notion that billionaires are geniuses than anyone alive.
posted to MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 7:59 PM on July 23, 2023

Remember when that one band burned all that money as a stunt?

Yeah, IMO the KLF burnt their million quid in what seemed to be an attempt at ego death and to end something that grew outside of their control, while whatever Musk is doing seems to be literally the exact opposite.

(In a 2017 forum, over 20 years after the quid-burning, the former KLF invited a series of historians and journalists to a panel discussion in which... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by eschatfische at 7:45 PM on July 23, 2023

Kinda tough room! I thought it was perfectly serviceable, mind you, I went in with less-than-zero expectations so mere competency was enough to impress me. Way way better than Black Adam and about on par with Bullet Train IMO.

Random notes/quibbles:

1. My spaceship is destroyed and I am stranded, please help me being met with "great, just fly off-planet to this rendezvous location" seemed like... [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 9:28 AM on May 1, 2023

It mentioned aliens at the start but they never showed up: presumably there was originally some explanation of the wild coincidence of where and when the ship crashed, but it ended up in a digital recycle bin.

This was explained at the very beginning of the movie?? The dinosaurs are the aliens. Adam Driver & co. are not human and are not from earth, they are from an entirely different civilization that existed 65 million... [more]
posted to FanFare by selenized at 12:18 PM on March 17, 2023

Unrelated but not sure where else to put it: John Boorman says we should stop calling movies "films" now that they're usually shot digitally. He also has this anecdote:For the finale of my 1974 film Zardoz, I wanted to shoot a scene of Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling in which they age and die. This involved shooting with a fixed camera, so that we could take them out, age their clothes and faces, put them back in, shoot them a bit more, then take them out and age them further,... [more]
posted to FanFare by TheophileEscargot at 2:03 AM on March 17, 2023

Reminder: mefi.social
posted to MetaFilter by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:06 PM on July 23, 2023

X marks the twat.
posted to MetaFilter by mochapickle at 4:07 PM on July 23, 2023

It would be hilarious that after after all Elon has done to drive people off Twitter, the main reason they'll stop using it is because they can't find the app anymore.
posted to MetaFilter by meowzilla at 3:51 PM on July 23, 2023

glass onion.
posted to MetaFilter by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 3:26 PM on July 23, 2023

Malcom Twiiter is rolling in his grave
posted to MetaFilter by OHenryPacey at 3:20 PM on July 23, 2023

I assume he’s done this as it’s the letter that most closely resembles a swastika.
posted to MetaFilter by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:19 PM on July 23, 2023

On the up side, my imposter syndrome bothers me a lot less as of late.
posted to MetaFilter by NoxAeternum at 3:14 PM on July 23, 2023

[John Cleese voice] This is an ex-website

The most successful thing they’ve made this year has been ex-users, so it makes a certain sort of sense.
posted to MetaFilter by mhoye at 3:12 PM on July 23, 2023