6309 MetaFilter comments by mathowie (displaying 1 through 50)

One of the surprises of the 2020 Presidential election was that Trump’s percentage of immigrant votes grew. By this I mean that my white friends were surprised. I was not surprised. Let’s talk about immigrant racism. To look at me, I am white. I have certainly benefited from my skin color throughout my life, but that whiteness was a suit I had to learn to wear. When my family moved to Philadelphia in 1970, they were moving into one of the most racist cities in America at the time, presided over by racist mayor Frank Rizzo. Mike Monteiro on Medium: My People Were In Shipping.
comment posted at 10:18 AM on Dec-1-20

Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
comment posted at 3:04 PM on Jul-14-20

She was the “queen of the mommy bloggers.” Then her life fell apart. Where Dooce.com founder Heather Armstrong is today.
comment posted at 4:34 PM on May-10-19

Kyle Korver of the Utah Jazz in the Player's Tribune: What I’m realizing is, no matter how passionately I commit to being an ally, and no matter how unwavering my support is for NBA and WNBA players of color….. I’m still in this conversation from the privileged perspective of opting in to it. Which of course means that on the flip side, I could just as easily opt out of it. Every day, I’m given that choice — I’m granted that privilege — based on the color of my skin.
comment posted at 1:41 PM on Apr-8-19

The first scene from Werner Herzog's 2016 film about the internet’s history and future, “Lo and Behold“:
Prof. Leonard Kleinrock describes how the first message on ARPANET was sent from Boelter Hall 3420, on the UCLA campus, October 29, 1969 .
(Lo and Behold previously)
comment posted at 3:53 PM on Apr-1-19

Rapper 2 Milly is suing Epic Games for including his signature dance moves in Fortnite without his permission.
comment posted at 3:22 PM on Dec-6-18

I hope a FPP from mathowie doesn't cause some sort of weird self-link ban loop that destroys the site, but his account of visiting the Whitney Plantation/Slavery Museum is absolutely the best of the web.
comment posted at 4:05 PM on Nov-16-18

Inside the 20 year journey of The Meg, from a novel pretty much explicitly designed to be the basis of a movie to a movie starring Jasom Statham with a 47% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Previously. Science and stuff.
comment posted at 1:54 PM on Aug-9-18

Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
comment posted at 2:21 PM on Jul-14-18

I stopped in my local bike shop (lbs) today, and noticed that all of the bikes were starting to converge on the same set of features: disc brakes, dropped handlebars, somewhat aggressive position: gravel bikes, adventure bikes, cyclocross bikes, all-road bikes.... what happened? What The Hell Is A Gravel Bike?
comment posted at 10:16 AM on Jul-1-18
 comment posted at 10:28 AM on Jul-1-18

Every book/play title should be written in the form of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
comment posted at 1:25 PM on Jun-26-18

The Adapter Museum hasn’t seen a new post in years but it’s still a lovely trip down memory lane that examines, celebrates, and perfectly lightbox captures those random connectors we all keep in a box somewhere. Entries earnestly describe the technology and ingenuity required for each adapter with a reverence that elevates the seemingly mundane into what it truly is: a curated museum.
comment posted at 8:26 AM on Jun-9-18

"Domestic conversion - the metamorphosis of a jetliner into a home" just one of the many sections of the FAQ of airplanehome.com the site Bruce Campbell created to explain how he converted a Boeing 727 and turned it into his home. Too many words? Just watch this short video tour. [via]
comment posted at 2:25 PM on Feb-23-18

How to Take a Picture of a Stealth Bomber Over the Rose Bowl
comment posted at 10:29 AM on Jan-3-18

Abandoned States is a fascinating project by Pablo Iglesias Maurer, who found 1960s matchbooks with images from an idyllic resort in upstate New York. He revisited the condemned site and not only recaptured subjects of original illustrations exactly, but combined them into compelling animated GIFs.
comment posted at 7:27 AM on Aug-31-17

Because it's stupid to throw away that kind of brand recognition, the modern Toyota RAV4 is a bloated, anonymous, mall-going crossover. Things weren't always that way. The Original Toyota RAV4 Was Better And More Important Than You Think
comment posted at 7:33 AM on Aug-31-17

Glitch (née Gomix, née Hyperdev) is a new service/community from Fog Creek Software "where anybody can build the app of their dreams."
comment posted at 1:49 PM on Mar-27-17

The Merci Train was a train of 49 French railroad boxcars filled with tens of thousands of gifts of gratitude from French citizens sent to the US in 1949. They were showing their appreciation for the 700+ American boxcars of relief goods sent to them by Americans in 1948 via a project calledFriendship Train. Each of the 48 American states at that time received one of the gift-laden box cars. Many of those boxcars still exist.
comment posted at 7:07 PM on Mar-23-17

The Internet Movie Database, one of the oldest sites on the Internet, will disable its message boards on Feb. 20. IMDB, which was purchased by Amazon in 1998, says the boards are “no longer providing a positive, useful experience” for the vast majority of its users. The Film Stage laments the loss of "critical cinema discourse."
comment posted at 1:20 PM on Feb-3-17

Spanish architect David Romero is rebuilding lost Frank Lloyd Wright masterworks in new color visualizations, created using 3D rendering software and Photoshop. So far he has posted highly realistic color pictures of Wright's Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, and the Rose and Gertrude Pauson House in Phoenix.
comment posted at 11:26 AM on Dec-22-16

Earlier this week, Ranger Lee Snook took a morning stroll down to Taft Creek, a tributary of the Hoh River, to look for salmon that were spawning. But when Snook arrived at the river, she wasn’t alone. A female bobcat was out fishing, which is not your everyday sighting in the park, since the cats are usually elusive.
comment posted at 7:28 PM on Dec-19-16

The New York Times Company recently acquired The Wirecutter and The Sweethome, "product-recommendation services that serve as a guide to technology gear, home products and other consumer services." Some guy without a blog thinks that is awesome news, and that Brian Lam doesn't get the credit he deserves for building a successful business that doesn't have to cater to either advertisers or investors, but relies instead on "a combo of trust and earnest nerdiness".
comment posted at 4:05 PM on Oct-25-16

Make your own LaCroix flavor.
comment posted at 1:45 PM on Sep-14-16

On May 7th, 2016, Joshua Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio, was driving via the Autopilot feature of his 2015 Model S in Williston, FL, when it collided with a tractor-trailer making a left turn. This marks the first known fatal accident involving an autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle, and is being investigated by NHTSA. Tesla declined to answer if it will disable Autopilot, noting that, "...[t]his is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles.” In light of recent accidents (Wired, Geekwire), who's to blame when a self-driving car crashes? And how should autonomous vehicles respond to an impending collision (Science, open access)?
comment posted at 4:54 PM on Jul-1-16

The Best Show on TV Is ​Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
comment posted at 11:26 PM on Jun-29-16

Virtual Reality, a tech geek dream for decades, was long hobbled by high latency, clunky hardware, and perennially absurd reports on network news. That all changed in 2011, when Palmer Luckey, then 18, built the first Oculus Rift prototype in his parents' garage with iPhone repair money. Awed by its powerful sense of presence, developer John Carmack became a fan and demoed it at E3. The ensuing Kickstarter campaign shattered all fundraising goals, and Facebook controversially bought the rights for a whopping $2 billion -- alienating erstwhile partner Valve Software, the iconic creators of Half-Life/Portal/Steam. A Cambrian explosion of headsets followed: Morpheus, HoloLens, Google Cardboard, Gear VR. But perhaps most interesting is Valve's own counter-project: a breathtaking "room scale" VR set-up with Tron-like "Chaperone" and tracked motion controls called the HTC Vive. With this week's commercial launch of Rift and Vive bringing us to the threshold of a new interactive medium, look inside for guides, notes, and killer apps for this, the stunning arrival of consumer VR.
comment posted at 12:04 PM on Apr-5-16

One man is replacing guns with sex toys in photos of GOP politicians. That man is Matt Haughey.
comment posted at 9:49 PM on Dec-7-15
 comment posted at 10:14 PM on Dec-7-15

On Sunday, Jenny Lawson (AKA The Bloggess) shared this embarrassing exchange on Twitter: Airport cashier: "Have a safe flight." Me: "You too!" I CAN NEVER COME HERE AGAIN. Very quickly, Lawson’s followers were tweeting their own embarrassing exchanges at her, and she began to retweet them en masse. The result was a stream of cringingly awkward hilarity.
comment posted at 10:55 PM on Nov-4-15

The Web We Have to Save. SLhoder: "The rich, diverse, free web that I loved — and spent years in an Iranian jail for — is dying. Why is nobody stopping it?" (h/t mkb, via ...uh... facebook.)
comment posted at 11:56 AM on Jul-14-15
 comment posted at 12:58 PM on Jul-14-15
 comment posted at 2:37 PM on Jul-14-15

Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
comment posted at 12:06 PM on Jul-14-15

A self-proclaimed insufferable asshole named Matt complains about his new luxury watch. Turns out it's the most personal device ever, only not in an insanely great way. Still, he has hopes for the future of his new wearable computer. (MeFi's own mathowie at medium.com.)
comment posted at 10:23 PM on Apr-27-15

Good news for fans of the now-defunct Dear Sugar advice column (previously on Metafilter): Sugar is back!
comment posted at 11:13 PM on Mar-8-15

"It was the first step to uncovering what he says is a $134 million scam by the Oregon Lottery." Once upon a time, Oregon resident Justin Curzi was playing video poker on a Jacks or Better machine. He was playing draw poker, which allows you to discard cards. However, the game's "auto-hold" feature recommended that he discard a different card than he was considering--which he thought was terrible advice and would cut his chances of winning.
comment posted at 7:42 AM on Mar-6-15

Your Internet Friends Are Real: A Defense of Online Intimacy, by Kyle Chayka for TNR:
The perception that online relationships are somehow less real than their physical counterparts exemplifies what Nathan Jurgenson, a New York-based sociologist and researcher for the messaging platform Snapchat, calls "digital dualism." Contemporary identities and relationships are no more or less authentic in either space. "We're coming to terms with there being just one reality and digital is part of it, not any less real or true," Jurgenson said. "What you do online and what you do face-to-face are completely interwoven."
(Keep an eye out for a brief in-article cameo from our once and always fearless leader!)
comment posted at 12:27 PM on Mar-5-15

"Blake has owned up to much of what he’s done, both publicly and in an extensive interview session with the Kernel. He has admitted to spending a full decade of his life claiming the ability to channel the souls of fictional and real people, allegedly up to 168 different beings at once, including Hollywood actors and World War II veterans." (Kernelmag)
comment posted at 12:25 PM on Mar-5-15

When a female student sued the University of Oregon over their manipulation of the punishment of three basketball players for gangraping her in order to allow them to compete in the NCAA Tournament, the university came up with a novel defense strategy: they released her records from the campus health center from when she sought therapy after the rape to their legal team. Without either consent from the student or a legal order opening the records to discovery. The scariest part: they may very well be in the legal clear.
comment posted at 9:21 AM on Mar-5-15

That’s how I feel about the web these days. We have a map, but it’s not for me. So I am distanced. It feels like things are distorted. I am consistently confused. — Frank Chimero, on What Screens Want
comment posted at 9:16 AM on Mar-5-15

What color is this dress? is a really strange phenomena currently seen taking over twitter, as people see a blue dress with black lace while others insist it is white with gold. So far, no one can tell why exactly it is happening, other than it is baffling for both sides.
comment posted at 5:07 PM on Feb-26-15
 comment posted at 5:08 PM on Feb-26-15
 comment posted at 5:10 PM on Feb-26-15

Football fans – and here I naturally include myself – act as if they are mentally ill. This is an article that is nominally about football, but is just as much about the pressures of modern life and the plight of men (in particular, but not exclusively). This is both a very personal account and an observation of how others behave. It is about being a football fan, but also the impact of social media on our appreciation of life (and sport), and how constantly striving for more can lead to increased unhappiness – even if you attain it.
comment posted at 11:12 AM on Feb-26-15

Last night at the Oscars, Patricia Arquette, after making an impassioned statement about wage equity for women during her speech, said, backstage, "The truth is: even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America, right under the surface, there are huge issues that are applied that really do affect women," she mused. "And it's time for all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we've all fought for to fight for us now."
comment posted at 11:35 AM on Feb-23-15
 comment posted at 11:52 AM on Feb-23-15

The Nest thermostat, as described by usability expert Kara Pernice: "When I turned the dial to increase the heat to 66 degrees, rather than responding by making the house warmer . . . the next day the house temperature plummeted to a punishing 50 degrees. So I pull on another sweater and mittens and a hat. Indoors. And I wait until my thermostat decides that I am worthy of radiant warmth."
comment posted at 4:12 PM on Feb-23-15

Wired's first-ever sex issue:
comment posted at 8:18 AM on Feb-19-15

Oliver Sacks, on learning he has terminal cancer.
comment posted at 7:09 AM on Feb-19-15

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