MetaFilter

It's Phil Dick's world. We just live in it.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:47 AM on February 24, 2024

Speaking of students and facial scanning, one of my Chinese students told me a good story.
When they were in 9th grade, they all had their faces scanned for ID purposes. They got used to facial scanners for going in and out of buildings, etc.
But in 12th grade, the scanners started malfunctioning. Why?
Turns out the sheer amount of biological aging the students experienced in those years changed their faces enough for records to no longer work.
The school ended up re-scanning everyone.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:53 PM on February 24, 2024

French official in 1916? Once again, WWI is hard to escape.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 9:03 AM on February 24, 2024

Thank you for this post. I've been looking into religious and spiritual responses to the climate crisis and the Tarot angle is a new one.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:59 AM on February 24, 2024

he's heard the last of First World War bombs in Belgium should be cleaned up in another hundred years. WTH?!?!

Yes indeed. Belligerents plastered Belgium pretty thoroughly in fall 1914.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:54 AM on February 24, 2024

Arg. I've used Google News daily for years, both the front page and for search.

Is anything comparable in the front page side?
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:01 PM on February 23, 2024

Thank you, Half Language Plant. Trying it out now.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 4:59 PM on February 23, 2024

Thank you, sardonyx. I'm amazed Yahoo hasn't killed it yet.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:40 PM on February 23, 2024

Thank you for this post, clavdivs. Including it in one of my space updates.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:18 AM on February 23, 2024

Like 43rdAnd9th, I recently lost a parent. Death has been on my mind.

Several years ago a friend's father died, and apparently he was surrounded by his favorite books. That appeals to me so much.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:06 PM on February 16, 2024

I've thought of doing that for someone, mollymillions.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:40 PM on February 17, 2024

Judge Arthur Engoron:
"Defendants'... complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological."
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:14 PM on February 16, 2024

(to keep the spiders safe.)

I love that note. Because we might supply other reasons:
-to scare the hell out of people
-to further the arachnid empire
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:48 PM on February 16, 2024

"the constant coverage has its benefits: One Mathematics concentrator, Abe Lowell ’24, learned about his upcoming midterm from a New York Post article."
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:45 PM on February 16, 2024

What a great last line for TFA: ‘I spend all my time reading or writing crimes in the Museum. Nice life, isn’t it?’
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:16 PM on February 14, 2024

Jacques Tourneur directed a movie adaptation of "Casting the Runes" in 1957, Night of the Demon. People usually criticize the ending for revealing the monster, but I think the rest holds up very well.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:19 PM on February 14, 2024

MR James is one of the greats. Such stories! Precise, deeply detailed antiquarian materials; gentle satires of academics; tiny, achingly precise drops of horror.

"Ash-Tree" is sometimes my favorite.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:20 PM on February 14, 2024

And now we are in his bedroom, with the light out and the Squire in bed. The room is over the kitchen, and the night outside still and warm, so the window stands open.

There is very little light about the bedstead, but there is a strange movement there; it seems as if Sir Richard were moving his head rapidly to and fro with only the slightest possible sound. And now you would guess, so deceptive is the half-darkness, that he had several heads, round and… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 7:26 AM on February 15, 2024

VR or XR version of Gashlycrumb Tinies.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 7:17 AM on February 15, 2024

The Chameleon podcast has started a season investigating the attempted Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping. Fascinating so far.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:34 PM on February 14, 2024

braguette is a fantastic word.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:31 PM on February 14, 2024

Fun post, cupcakeninja. Takes me back to my young grognard days.

Also: shouting with nerdy glee when the tv series Babylon-5 showed a military command using hexgrids.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 6:14 PM on February 12, 2024

In the decades that followed, after any revolutionary challenge, one counterrevolution after another has restored the authority of elders, and displaced the youthful pretenders.

I recently heard that unhappy Mexicans sometimes referred to their parliament as "the museum of natural history" early in their revolution.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 1:41 PM on February 10, 2024

One thing I despise is when Amazon sends me bullshit metrics on my reading

I love it when Amazon recommends books I've written. "We think you'd be interested in this."
Well, so I am!

I still travel with a book
Me too, always, either print or digital. Heck, today I just went to see a movie and made sure my phone's Kindle app was topped off in case I got there early and could sneak in some reading during the pre-trailer nonsense.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 1:21 PM on February 10, 2024

Novels are a comparatively new art medium

I'm sorry to be pedantic, but that's really true only for Britain, which figured out novels very late in the game (then made up for lost time in a hurry). Roman literature has book length prose fiction. Japan has The Tale of Genji circa 1000 CE. The middle ages offered a bunch of these, like romances of chivalry. Some Icelandic sagas read like novels. China's Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh are… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 1:28 PM on February 10, 2024

I enjoyed your "The Acceleration of the Age of the Idiot," chavenet.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 4:28 PM on February 8, 2024

Great post.

I've been exploring solitaire tabletop games, because it's hard to fine anyone in my family or community to play with. Also been sketching out some.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:34 PM on February 7, 2024

A nice way to rev up the article:

Walter Isaacson is the perfect writer for the biographies of our times because he appears to be a born sycophant, and fate decreed that he would be in the right position, at the right moment, to spread as much propagandistic bullshit as possible.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:30 PM on February 7, 2024

Good to see another ReclaimHosting fan here.

Coming in late, I can add: long-time blogger here who's still blogging. And commenting on other folks' blogs, and responding to comments on mine. Social media helps get the word out, but the blogospheric core still works for me.
(The backend: Reclaim Hosting and WordPress. I despise Gutenberg, though.)
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 11:38 AM on February 5, 2024

So much stems from the catastrophe of WWI.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:51 PM on February 4, 2024

Good lord.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:02 PM on February 4, 2024

What a line: "we usually don’t kill the kid in the hole, they usually die of old age or malnutrition."
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:01 PM on February 4, 2024

"a seven-night Times crossword–themed cruise" - there are many, many things in this world.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 4:49 PM on February 4, 2024

.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:00 PM on February 3, 2024

I really want a space opera window.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 1:20 PM on February 2, 2024

It's such a quiet and intense film. We were very surprised by it and appreciate the whole.

I agree with GenjiandProust about the MR James vibe. Which is a great thing to achieve.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 9:58 AM on January 31, 2024

number of majors is a horrible way to measure the importance of a discipline

True, it's only one metric. But a drop in the number of majors (and minors) can mean an important shift in a humanities program, from being a full degree department to a service one. In the latter case it's about providing general education classes and electives. Which is cool, but can make it harder to hire faculty who want to teach majors, and can represent a… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 11:09 PM on January 26, 2024

On TFA, I agree with much of it, as someone who taught in a liberal arts college and worked with hundreds of them. But there are some points I'd argue.

"liberal arts" doesn't always = "the humanities." A liberal arts college or program emphasizes the humanities and arts, but also includes social and natural sciences. (Ah, how do you define liberal education? That's a classic academic argument chestnut)

"a dip in the… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 11:15 PM on January 26, 2024

Bravo, first Martian helicopter. Send more indeed.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 3:22 AM on January 26, 2024

Oh no.

"Night of the Cooters" is a hilarious Texas take on War of the Worlds.

Them Bones is a fantastic time travel story with a plea for a simple life.

So much talent.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 6:44 PM on January 20, 2024

One more note: Waldrop reminds me of the late, mad RA Lafferty.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 7:04 AM on January 21, 2024

Tom O'Bedlam's reading is excellent, partly because he takes his time to draw out every phrase. Plus his gravelly voice works wonders here.

I learned from my dissertation chair the habit of always returning to Shelley's poetry. What an extraordinary talent.

(And just think of the family he married into! Mary Wollstonecraft, major British feminist. William Godwin, anarchist and author of an early detective/thriller. Mary Shelley, ah, of… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 6:42 PM on January 20, 2024

Amphibious invasions are very hard.

And what a war. You've got a hilarious alternative name for it, that battle where commanders offered their opponents the first shot, the last time a British monarch appeared on a battlefield, another bungled amphibious attack, the defeat of the Jacobites (and the last serious land battle in Britain), and more.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 1:39 PM on January 18, 2024

Oh no. He was fantastic.

Back when I was a teenager and trying to play the cello, Schickele was a revelation, a delight.

Later, Schickele Mix was something I played to my family whenever possible.

Oh man.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:30 PM on January 18, 2024

Metafilter: I know you basically needed to have had an office on Pearl St during a certain point in time to understand this, but
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:22 PM on January 18, 2024

Ah, I remember Ello. I made an account and posted a bit. Then forgot about it when interactions dropped off.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 12:24 PM on January 18, 2024

Have we not yet come to the conclusion that tailored news is inherently toxic?

Given the passionate followings of MSNBC and Fox News among older folks, and Tiktok among the younger ones? Quite evidently not.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 10:24 AM on January 13, 2024

But I also love tailored news, at least the way I do it.

I've tweaked Google News to show me more about certain topics I am interested in: geopolitics, climate change, AI, higher education, science fiction, horror. I've convinced it not to show me sports or celebrity stories. It's a win.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 10:26 AM on January 13, 2024

This essay means a lot to me today.
I'm dealing with the daily frustrations of climate change in general.
And also despairing about the very, very slow pace of academic transformation.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 10:23 AM on January 13, 2024

What a loss.

.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 5:50 PM on January 10, 2024