MetaFilter

Joi Massat has collected every cartoon show bible they could find on archive.org and collected them here. Some of these were used to pitch their shows, some were used during production, but all offer an insight into the making of their shows. A handful of highlights (many more links at the site and inside this post): Adventure Time, Dungeons & Dragons, He-Man internal and selling to networks, Batman TAS, Gravity Falls early and later, The Real Ghostbusters Season 2 and Ren & Stimpy (very thorough).
posted by JHarris to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 12:39 PM
56 users marked this as a favorite

There are four traditional Roman pasta dishes, all made with Pecorino Romano - a strong sheep's milk cheese aged until it's firm enough to be grated.  The most basic of the Roman pasta recipes is cacio e pepe (text recipe, video) using only cheese (cacio) and (e) black pepper (pepe).  Add cured pork and you get pasta alla Gricia (text recipe, video).  Add egg to alla Gricia to make Carbonara (text recipe, video); adding tomatoes and white wine (and in some recipes chili pepper or red pepper flakes) to alla Gricia instead of egg gives you pasta all'Amatriciana (text recipe, video). Recipes posted up front, but many more details below!
posted by Greg_Ace to MetaFilter on Jan 15 at 8:44 PM
56 users marked this as a favorite

To show where the Nostromo landed on LV-426, Ridley Scott needed onscreen visuals for the ship's computers. 20th Century Fox contacted Alan Sutcliffe at System Simulations in London, who hacked together some code that generated the vector landscape and computer interface using the Frolic graphics library running on a Prime 300 at SRC and rendered the animated sequence to film using a FR80 from III. Luckily for us digital archaeologists, Sutcliffe also wrote an article for Creative Computing a few years later describing his fourteen pages of FORTRAN that created the iconic view of the landing site terrain on an distant planet.
posted by autopilot to MetaFilter on Jan 16 at 3:23 AM
47 users marked this as a favorite

Due to recent events, my wife and I have decided to stop using Amazon. For many years I have been in the habit of buying things for the house, etc. from Amazon on a regular basis. We live in a small community where local shopping options are quite limited. Major shopping meccas are an hour away. What do you recommend to replace Amazon, especially for home goods and such?
posted by Rivvo to Ask MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 9:12 AM
45 users marked this as a favorite

"Six People to Revise You" by J.R. Dawson, a short and moving science fiction story published January 2025 in Uncanny Magazine (available in text and audio), begins:

A parent or guardian
Someone who has known you since childhood
A mentor or teacher
An employer or coworker
A spouse, partner, or close intimate friend
Someone who does not consider themself a loved one

posted by brainwane to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 10:46 AM
45 users marked this as a favorite

There Is No Safe Word. How the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades. [Non-paywalled link.
Content warning: contains graphic descriptions of child abuse and sexual assault and emotional/sexual abuse.]
posted by fight or flight to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 9:19 AM
43 users marked this as a favorite

"In Hong Kong, skilled armies of scaffolders can erect enough bamboo to engulf a building in a day — even hours — using techniques that are thousands of years old, and have been passed down through generations."
posted by moonmilk to MetaFilter on Jan 12 at 7:55 AM
39 users marked this as a favorite

Kate Wagner (many prevs), of McMansionHell and many other projects, is not feeling optimistic about the future of journalism. "Really, what other word is there to describe what is coming our way than atavism? I don’t feel like waxing poetic about the good old days of getting work because there is enough of that and those days are over. The only way out of this bind is the hope that such competition does not foreclose us from building together something new, something stable, something that is large-scale rather than a gaggle of one’s old friends; perhaps most importantly, something formally organized. The time is running out for what is left of social media to be utilized to this end."
posted by showbiz_liz to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 2:17 PM
35 users marked this as a favorite

FANFARE THIS WEEK... New movies: everyone's Criterion Closet buddy Pamela Anderson stuns in The Last Showgirl; "Holocaust tours, with lunch" in A Real Pain; a Hungarian-born architect immigrates to the US in bladder-busting 215 minute epic The Brutalist; running, quips in hit sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 3; a biopic of UK pop star Robbie Williams with a CGI chimp in the title role in Better Man; Sean Wang's critically acclaimed coming-of-age dramedy Dìdi; and dead-eyed Philomena Cunk asks the worst possible questions in Cunk on Life. And, in TV: Star Wars spinoff Skeleton Crew; post-apocalypse drama/mystery Silo; the serial-killer-in-his-youth prequel series Dexter: Original Sin; Netflix's buzzy new western American Primeval; post-COVID ER dramaThe Pitt; and the highly anticipated Abbott Elementary/It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia crossover.
posted by DirtyOldTown to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 8:25 AM
35 users marked this as a favorite

We Don't Need More Cynics. We Need More Builders.

"Here’s a more charitable reading of cynicism: it’s not an intellectual position. It’s an emotional defense mechanism. If you expect the worst, you’ll never be disappointed. If you assume everything is corrupt, you can’t be betrayed. But this protection comes at a terrible price. The cynic builds emotional armor that also functions as a prison, keeping out not just pain but also possibility, connection, and growth."

posted by otherchaz to MetaFilter on Jan 14 at 2:43 PM
34 users marked this as a favorite

Nearly everything you own, including the clothes you're wearing and the device your're reading this on, was delivered by a container ship.
posted by Lemkin to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 5:34 AM
31 users marked this as a favorite

Sakiori is a hobby of making new cloth out of strips of old fabric salvaged from worn clothes. It comes from a time and place when cotton was a scarce commodity, but it lives on today because the result is a fabric with a unique aesthetic.
posted by ambulocetus to MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 9:19 AM
30 users marked this as a favorite

The Transcendence of Turiya: Alice Coltrane
posted by Lemkin to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 4:37 PM
30 users marked this as a favorite

What healthy meals feel indulgent to you?
posted by ambulanceambiance to Ask MetaFilter on Jan 11 at 2:39 PM
30 users marked this as a favorite

Indefinite Backpack Travel. "In 2015 I got rid of everything I owned that didn’t fit in a laptop backpack, and I’ve been living at this level of minimalism since. The idea is to only own what I need, which allows me to focus more, spend less, travel spontaneously and simplify my life." Jeremy Maluf posts yearly summaries of his backpacking adventures. In this overview, he lists the contents of his one travel bag.
posted by storybored to MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 9:19 PM
29 users marked this as a favorite

In Coinage and the Tyranny of Fantasy ‘Gold’, historical blogger Bret Devereaux takes a dive into historical coinage and accounting to explain why, when you get down to it, Dungeons & Dragons and most other historical/fantasy RPG settings are out of their goddam minds if they think people were lugging gold coins around on a daily basis.
posted by cortex to MetaFilter on Jan 12 at 8:41 AM
29 users marked this as a favorite

John Sheppard's Media Vita is a monumental work of choral music written in the 1500s. It has been recognized as such only relatively recently with the 1989 recording by the Tallis Scholars led by Peter Phillips. The music and its composer are shrouded in mystery. Only five of the six vocal parts survive and the original manuscript has been lost. Sheppard died in 1557, likely in a flu pandemic. A history, background and musical analysis. Says Phillips: "“It’s seductive, it draws you in, and you just can’t leave it alone; you have to go with it.”"
posted by storybored to MetaFilter on Jan 11 at 2:58 PM
27 users marked this as a favorite

We need to talk about the doomers and the attention economy they’ve built. Not because they’re entirely wrong — from climate change to political extremism, a lot of their concerns are valid — but because they’ve created something extraordinary: a perpetual motion machine powered by anxiety. Let’s call it the Doomscroll Industrial Complex (DIC). It operates on a simple principle: bad news is good business. But unlike traditional doom-peddlers who simply predicted the end times and waited to be proven right or wrong, today’s digital prophets have discovered a much more sustainable model. from How Anxiety Became a Business Model [Joan Westenberg]
posted by chavenet to MetaFilter on Jan 12 at 2:58 AM
27 users marked this as a favorite

Homeowner captures sound and video of meteorite strike on camera, and scientists believe it's a first.
posted by jacquilynne to MetaFilter on Jan 14 at 10:27 AM
27 users marked this as a favorite

The chili cookoff is so profound an American culinary tradition that one would assume its origins to be lost in the mists of history. Instead they trace clearly not just to a single man but to a single piece of writing: “Nobody Knows More About Chili Than I Do", by H. Allen Smith
posted by Lemkin to MetaFilter on Jan 11 at 6:27 AM
26 users marked this as a favorite

[more posts]

This story is much worse than what was in the Tortoise podcast. If you're thinking that the previous stories pretty much covered what happened, I can tell you they did not. Like, when I initially read about this, my response was, "so it turns out that this cheesy guy creeps on and coerces vulnerable younger women like other cheesy... [more]
posted by Frowner to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 9:56 AM
131 users marked this as a favorite

I want to offer this part from Dan Radcliffe's open letter on The Trevor Project re: Rowling, if Gaiman's writing was important to you in the past, or saved your life, or offered you a hand when you needed it (emphasis mine): To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for... [more]
posted by Lyn Never to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 11:21 AM
101 users marked this as a favorite

Actually If there’s a single word that can sum up the vibe of social media, that must be a strong contender. [view]
posted by Inkslinger to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 3:06 PM
96 users marked this as a favorite

I read it this morning. I mean, I've believed it since it broke back in March 2024 and I have/had been a fan of Gaiman since I was a teenager. It's not coincidence that the victims are female, and it's also not a coincidence at the level of misogyny leveled at them by Gaiman's detractors and supporters. I am hoping this gets a lot of... [more]
posted by Kitteh to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 9:35 AM
90 users marked this as a favorite

I've met plenty of men (and a few women) like Gaiman in kink/queer/polyam circles. Usually I met them during consent workshops and at parties where everyone had to agree to a long list of rules about boundaries before being allowed inside. They would do all of the work. They would say all of the right things. They would call themselves... [more]
posted by fight or flight to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 10:08 AM
87 users marked this as a favorite

Those of us old enough to remember the Iran hostage release are having flashbacks about timing right about now. [view]
posted by straw to MetaFilter on Jan 15 at 12:07 PM
83 users marked this as a favorite

I'm incredibly impressed with Vulture for publishing this. It is very graphic, but I think it needs to be, in order to really convey how horrific his acts were and are. The details about the tremendous amount of emotional and physical abuse he endured as a child (by his parents, in the name of Scientology) of course in no way excuse his actions.... [more]
posted by anastasiav to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 10:16 AM
81 users marked this as a favorite

America, have you tried some form of mental health care other than giving ill people guns and then shooting them? [view]
posted by happyinmotion to MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 2:21 PM
76 users marked this as a favorite

One of the things that was pointed out to me, and honestly made me look at things in a very, very different way, was the trend towards minimalism, towards getting rid of clutter, is, in a really insidious way, incredibly aspirational. Most of the people whose homes are breathlessly profiled as having nothing unnecessary are just doing without a... [more]
posted by Ghidorah to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 3:37 AM
74 users marked this as a favorite

All I can say is: don't form parasocial relationships with men One victim had never read Gaiman's work. If anything she had a parasocial relationship with Palmer. Another lived on a property he purchased. He was her landlord. Avoiding parasocial relationships with men did exactly zero to protect these women from his assaults [view]
posted by thecjm to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 8:20 PM
65 users marked this as a favorite

I have talked about this a little in the previous thread, but I knew Gaiman back in the 90s, in the context of my job at a store where he did frequent signings.I wouldn't say we were friends, but, if we encountered each other on the street or in a club, we would stop and chat a bit. I met his wife and kids. He was kind, funny, self-deprecating, and,... [more]
posted by GenjiandProust to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 12:59 PM
64 users marked this as a favorite

Honestly I think we could all do well to assume that people do things and go places for reasons that make sense to them, even if we think it's technically unnecessary bullshit, unlike the technically unnecessary bullshit WE do, which is obviously better. [view]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese to MetaFilter on Jan 14 at 10:30 AM
64 users marked this as a favorite

I don't believe that he could have been ignorant of what he was doing or the way that his actions not only violated norms of decency but also of BDSM If he were unaware of what he was doing, he would have done it at cons, where he was in the eye of everyone. He would have done it to writers, who would have told people. The fact he did... [more]
posted by corb to MetaFilter on Jan 14 at 10:03 AM
63 users marked this as a favorite

1) fuck this guy 2) any cop who uses is allowed to use any kind of force under the color of law - but particularly deadly force - should have a body cam running, whose unaltered contents are immediately available to a 3rd party with prosecutorial powers independent of the state that police department is run by. no body cam?... [more]
posted by lalochezia to MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 2:39 PM
61 users marked this as a favorite

If you didn't know about the chili thing, I will (sadly) enlighten you. There was a long-time twitter poster, Chinchillazilla IIRC, who posted a tweet about how she had made chili for her neighbors. I'm not looking any of this up, it's too depressing, but the deal was that they seemed like students or otherwise poorly organized young guys and... [more]
posted by Frowner to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 8:50 AM
59 users marked this as a favorite

AP was feeding up victims to him. She knew how awful he was! And she did it anyway. [view]
posted by Kitteh to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 9:37 AM
58 users marked this as a favorite

I’m not sure if it’s a relief, or if it’s even more disturbing that all of the so called leading lights of the right, all the guys with all the money and connections, those who always seem to have an open invitation to sit down for a puff piece interview, or easy access to any half assed op-ed they manage to squeeze out, they’re all, deep down,... [more]
posted by Ghidorah to MetaFilter on Jan 12 at 4:58 PM
57 users marked this as a favorite

I have not read the article and probably will not. I've reached certain point in my life where reading or seeing reminders of just how awful people can be is something that is avoided. Make of that what you will. But another reason I'm not getting into the details on this, at least for now, is that I remain dumbstruck about some of the earlier... [more]
posted by Brandon Blatcher to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 10:25 AM
57 users marked this as a favorite

Ryan Grim: "From 2020 to 2024, Democrats saw a staggering dropoff in support at the presidential level, with some 19 million people who voted for Joe Biden staying home (or not mailing in their ballots) in 2024. Now, a new survey conducted by YouGov suggests Biden’s support for Israel’s unrelenting assault on Gaza played a surprisingly large... [more]
posted by mittens to MetaFilter on Jan 15 at 1:06 PM
57 users marked this as a favorite

Also noting that the article reveals Gaiman's horrifying abuse of his and Palmer's child. I really, really hope that someone is intervening there. [view]
posted by Il etait une fois to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 10:05 AM
56 users marked this as a favorite

[more comments]