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I can't find it at the moment, but I recall academics saying it was better to use cats as examples when teaching genetics instead of humans, to avoid the situation where a student finds out during class that someone they thought was their biological parent cannot be due to genetic factors.

I was visiting the University of Washington Genetics Lab and asked them if they did a test on a student as part of school trips. They said no, for basically the same reason.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 1:20 PM on March 19, 2024

That 1 in 7000 number is *highly* misleading as an indicator of how common incest is, because of how tiny a subset it is of the real number.

I don’t think it was ever intended to be used that way?

We already know how bad the child sexual abuse problem is. There is no need for such an indirect indicator.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 1:41 PM on March 19, 2024

I had a conservative Israeli friend who was fond of saying that American Jewish people were by and large anti-semitic. I'm sure he's feeling smug right now.

Strangely, the “Hamas” they’re responding to sometimes looks an awful lot like children with their limbs blown off.

Sometimes. Other days it looks like 1200 people killed and 253 hostages taken in a single day. It's hard to get these things right, but very very easy to get them wrong.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 9:19 PM on March 14, 2024

The previous policy of "no I/P threads" is looking less paternalistic and more like self-preservation.

Yup. Nothing is resolved in these threads and there are a lot of people who want someplace to vent rather than participate in a discussion. It’s ugly and tedious and despite the good intentions of many participants frequently devolves into the worst that Metafilter (and possibly the Internet) can offer.

At the… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:30 AM on March 15, 2024

Even if these threads go nowhere and convince no-one, I'm glad they exist, because to block these discussions would be to tacitly accept the status quo, and the status quo is obviously unacceptable.

Not every single place in the world is the right one to have every single discussion.

When it comes to AskMe and communication the site is overwhelmingly in favor of setting boundaries and choosing to step away from conversations… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:50 PM on March 15, 2024

"American jews are antisemitic" and somehow you think he would be feeling "smug right now" for undisclosed reasons tee hee I won't say why.

Umm, ok. If you are unable to understand why a conservative Israeli who contends that American Jewish people are antisemitic would be feeling very vindicated in their beliefs right now I'm not at all sure how to help.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:58 PM on March 15, 2024

Summary: We’re all going to be replaced by generative AI.

Even at smaller sites like Metafilter, humans.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:18 PM on March 11, 2024

The unfolding saga of Reddit's IPO highlights a dilemma in the cyber age: the exploitation of community-driven content for corporate profit.

Why is this a problem again? People get a thriving community but if someone makes a buck off it the well is poisoned and everyone goes home?

Reddit was not shy about declaring it was a company and that it intended to make a profit one day. So they provided free services for 20 years.… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:08 PM on March 11, 2024

>>It brings with it a different problem, that of the accursed final drop, which no matter what you do, will not fall until after you stand up and pull your pants back up.

>There is toilet paper. Right over there. Boychild potty training could use some improvements.

Unless you’re sticking it three inches up your urethra that’s not going to help.

Pee dribbling and nose hair both need more coverage in the Guide to Old Age.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 2:19 PM on March 8, 2024

Nothing really matters, anyone can see.
Nothing really matters, to me!

A bicycle accident left me partly incontinent. Those last drops no longer an issue...if the rest of it goes where it's supposed.

So I'm guessing you no longer want to ride your bicycle?
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 2:26 PM on March 8, 2024

This thread needs over and under 50 years of age sections.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 4:18 PM on March 8, 2024

If we’re doing piss facts, though, don’t bet on your penis against someone’s vulva in a distance competition. That extra tubing adds a lot of resistance, and so while you may have aim on your side, you may be astonished at the gap in raw firepower.

The university I went to had all coed bathrooms in the dorms. Stalls, of course. The distinct difference between the sound of men and women peeing was often commented on.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:43 PM on March 8, 2024

And this was in the 00s

Mine were in the 1980s, but admittedly we were a fairly hippie/crunchy school.

However, I heard from an MIT graduate in the early 90s that they were doing the same thing there.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:28 PM on March 8, 2024

Standing also keeps you out of the cold toilet water.

Oh man. We once arrived after midnight at a campground in Eagle Pass, Idaho and when I went to sit on the campground toilet I dipped my testicles into 40°F water. Inside I’m still screaming.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 2:48 PM on March 9, 2024

I suspect Haley will stick in it until it is absolutely certain that Trump won’t be convicted before the election.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:38 AM on March 5, 2024

A conviction doesn’t preclude Trump from being in the election. Eugene V. Debs famously ran for President from a prison cell.

Technically it could happen, realistically I doubt it. On the other hand I would have said the same thing about Trump being elected the first time.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 2:29 PM on March 5, 2024

It was a long shot to begin with and the decision is well reasoned and supported. I disagree with it, but I'm not surprised that the federal government came up with a way to keep control in their domain.

The only thing they really went off the rails with was insisting on the idea that founders were really big on every citizen getting a vote for President. Call me when we get a popular vote, folks.

I actually have some optimism on the immunity… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 1:37 PM on March 4, 2024

>> on the idea that founders were really big on every citizen getting a vote for President.
>"Of the 16 states that took part in the 1800 election, six (Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia) used some kind of popular vote."[1]

Yeah, it used to be much worse. But given that virtually every state still does winner-take-all for their slate of electors, and then of course the states… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:17 PM on March 4, 2024

Article ii, section 1, clause 2 gives the choice of presidental electors to the state entirely.

Amendment 14, section 2. [emphasis mine]


Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:39 AM on March 5, 2024

Cool. I’m glad he’s able to cover costs.

(On the other hand, one of my evil plans is to open a tire repair shop and to sprinkle caltrops randomly across nearby roads. Now I’ll need to make them of something non-ferrous)
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 6:44 AM on March 1, 2024

Yeah, yeah, everything is terrible, the world is ending, we're all gonna die.

Why is no one talking about how horrible the presentation of that article is? A map I can slowly scroll up and down on while factoids pop up and slide at vastly different rates? I don't need inrushing ocean waters, I got seasick just trying to read about it.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:01 PM on February 29, 2024

[Spoilers]



Given that the Fremen follow their victory on Arrakis with a jihad that slaughters half the known universe, maybe editing out their Arabic connections is a good thing?
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 10:08 AM on February 28, 2024

I wish we could trust movies to lean in hard into the nuances that are made explicit in the book

And of course to trust viewers to recognize those nuances.

But in this case I’m not sure it matters. Frank Herbert was merely echoing the prejudices of his time. Those prejudices haven’t an aged well.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:36 PM on February 28, 2024

b) he intends to show Paul as the cynical manipulative warmongering genocidal bastard he is not as some white savior good guy.

[braces for Starship Troopers levels of audience missing the point]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:40 PM on February 28, 2024

I wonder if the estimates of how much a language changes over time are still relevant. Mass literacy and more importantly the internet means that millions of people can speak the same dialect, something that was never possible until now.

I don't know if that will speed up or slow down drift, but it's definitely a way of mass interaction with language that is relatively new.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 3:45 PM on February 28, 2024

>> the Fremen follow their victory on Arrakis with a jihad that slaughters half the known universe
>>
> بول، هل نحن الأشرار؟

Yeah, with that vibe going on I suspect that people will soon be claiming that the Fremen are *too* obviously Arabic in the movie. Certainly if the second book gets adapted.

[meme reference]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 6:01 PM on February 28, 2024

There was cheap mockery Dune; it was called Doon and suffering from tryhard syndrome was sadly not even up to the not particularly high level of Bored of the Rings.

It tried too hard, but it had a few brilliant moments.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:07 AM on February 29, 2024

Given the ease with which AI images are generated it seems likely that the friend not only created the prompt but also sifted through multiple images to find the one they thought would be most appropriate.

All and all slightly more thoughtful than randomly picking something off the shelf, so that's good. Add a note saying why they thought this particular image was the right one and that would be a bonafide thoughtful present.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 11:29 PM on February 23, 2024

Given that a lot of people really dislike LLM generated art, giving it as a gift is a pretty risky move,

Not really. Righteously hating AI art has reached the level of veganism and crossfit in terms of people letting you know they're Into It.

Now that I think of it a special term would be useful. "Luddite" is a bit of a bludgeon and not really accurate anyway.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 6:47 AM on February 24, 2024

some who know that their work was stolen for one or more LLMs

Excellent. The entire world has been waiting for someone who can provide proof. The evidence they provide in court will become legendary in the history of AI.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 11:02 AM on February 25, 2024

What's the right insult to use against someone who doesn't like the current internet trend because it ripped off their intellectual property and destroyed their livelihood?

Fair argument. Historically people who have lost their jobs to machinery and are viscerally angry about it have been called "luddites". We'll stick with that then.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 11:12 AM on February 25, 2024

I'm just glad that I have a lot of friends who are artists and writers who make the world a beautiful place. I feel awful for people who don't know any creative people who make amazing art. That must suck (way worse than it sucks to be called a luddite).

As you say, it depends on who you know. There a few artist friends of mine who are hanging onto to the status quo for dear life, but most of the people I know have have accepted that the technology… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 6:44 AM on February 26, 2024

And ChatGPT has completely lost its calm. Coincidence?
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:02 PM on February 22, 2024

Unfortunately for Alabama voters, the state lacks a public referendum system, meaning any reforms must pass through the state legislature's Republican supermajorities.

There's nothing unfortunate about that for Alabama voters.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 4:29 PM on February 21, 2024

I am filled with too much despair to look deeper into this bullshit but I am curious: at any point in this process was a single woman ever involved?

The constitutional amendment garnered 59% of the vote, so presumably yes.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 8:16 PM on February 21, 2024

Ever since the whole abortion thing started, I’ve wondered about how the anti-abortion people with their metaphysical arguments would deal with miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies

Who are we to question God’s will?
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:26 AM on February 22, 2024

I am filled with too much despair to look deeper into this bullshit but I am curious: at any point in this process was a single woman ever involved?

Of the nine justices the two women concurred with the majority opinion. The only person who actually wrote a dissent was a male justice who specifically called out the chaos this would cause around IVF.

Ovaries are not going to head this off.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 6:40 AM on February 22, 2024

TI’m surprised at the number of people that seem to be arguing that consistency is or even should be a major concern for theologically driven people. Maybe Jesuits, but for most of the laity it’s just not how they think about things.

I wrote above "Who are we to question God’s will?" God’s will is contradictory and that’s okay. He’s supposed to work in mysterious ways.

As a pastor friend of mine is fond of saying, religion gives… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:16 AM on February 22, 2024

The failures and losses do add up though. Trump's big selling point is that he is invincible, and he will always prevail despite the forces aligned against him. Sure, there's a nice story where he overcomes the setbacks on appeal or whatever, but he was never supposed to touchable in the first place.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 1:36 PM on February 16, 2024

Looks like TFG either doesn't have the money, or hopes this filing puts a stay on the ruled amount?

I suspect they’re just setting up their grounds for the appeal.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 6:50 AM on February 22, 2024

In theory "making the office more comfortable" was supposed to win you employees a long long time ago. And yet most offices continued to be terrible. I'm not sure what has changed that employees are going to feel they have a choice now.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 12:16 PM on February 19, 2024

This time for sure!

I lost my faith in dark matter after the first 50 years. If the "missing mass" is ever found it will likely be running a perpetual motion machine.

Time to give up and recognize that our traditional model of gravity doesn’t cover all the angles at very large scales.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 5:11 PM on February 18, 2024

The Law of Cosines is a lot tougher to explain than the Pythagorean Theorem, and yet it gives us the tool we need to move beyond the simple case.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 6:26 AM on February 19, 2024

That doesn't mean it's Definitely Wrong, but with all the evidence coming down on the other side, the hill modified gravity theory has to climb is getting steeper and steeper.

There’s no question that dark matter is a better explanation, but we’ve been theorizing and gathering evidence and in general spending our intellectual resources on it for 50 years now with no substantial process on actually finding it.

I’m not… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 11:21 AM on February 19, 2024

I'm confused by the terms of the lawsuit.

Is the statement that if you sign up for a subscription service the terms can never be changed as long as you have no breaks in your subscription? What about raising the price of the subscription? Would that be misleading advertising to the people who subscribed before?

And what would happen if Amazon just shut down the Prime TV service? Would that be actionable?
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 11:53 AM on February 14, 2024

>>I'm confused by the terms of the lawsuit.

>When one is confused by something, it is often helpful to read it.

I hear you, but in addition to the "halfway through the year they changed the terms" thing the following is also presented:


20. Amazon’s actions are also unfair. As discussed above, Amazon advertised “commercial-free” Prime Video for years, to… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 4:54 PM on February 14, 2024

One thing the article leaves out is that until extremely recently most of the world has been illiterate. Not only did the elders carry the tribal legends along but they carried the extremely import current state -- like who was who's child and who had rights to what land. They were actually present when events happened and their experience was valuable.

With literacy (and more recently video) that experience has lost a great deal of its value to the community. There… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 7:13 AM on February 10, 2024

>Not only did the elders carry the tribal legends along but they carried the extremely import current state -- like who was who's child and who had rights to what land.

I thought this was an interesting point, but I can't help but come to the opposite conclusion from the same premises. Less literate times perpetuate the status quo in a very familiar fashion.

We're not in disagreement. I was trying to point out why… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 4:17 PM on February 10, 2024

It's crazy how much generalising there is from the US to "the West" or "white culture" in this thread

MetaFilter is as MetaFilter does.
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 2:03 PM on February 11, 2024

These fierce, tiny marsupials drop dead after lengthy sex fests – and sometimes become cannibals.

If they're doing it in that order does that make them zombies?
posted to MetaFilter by Tell Me No Lies at 6:44 AM on February 10, 2024