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I had stopped playing video/computer games entirely from about 2003 to 2017 when my wife, inspired by I don't know what, bought me a switch + breath of the wild for christmas. I don't know if she was expecting the dam would break open and I'd end up getting a ps5 too but Breath of the Wild was just *so good* that I've been chasing that high ever since. Really high hopes for this one!
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:27 PM on March 29, 2023

the guy who decided retirement was time to both become a slumlord and study philosophy is a special kind of evil to me. funding the pursuit of otium and the understanding of truth, beauty and virtue by exploiting the poor is really something else.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:04 AM on March 26, 2023

> So what is stopping people from forming strong unions and demanding pensions, I guess, if everyone acknowledges this?

Having worked to form a union and won the election: 100 years of antiunion propaganda, legislation and did i mention propaganda. Even very intelligent people (this was a union for adjunct profs) believe some very strange things about what unions are, what they do, and about their own individual magical power to "negotiate" with management… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:26 AM on March 27, 2023

this album is a lot more listenable than their first one (to me), but i came of age rocking venetian snares. Anyway I quite like the Gecs, they seem cool. I hope their next album is 1 million gecs.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:24 PM on March 26, 2023

the wired piece is trying to be a little too hunter s thompson but i suspect i’d have a similar reaction to him. he’s a committed mormon so you can take for granted that he thinks i’m destined to burn (or whatever mormons thinks happens to sodomites), so i would struggle to paint a sympathetic portrait. but we’re really burying the lead on his books. dean koonz, john grisham, dan brown, lee childs, they unload reams of trash on the world for sure, but sanderson is on a whole other level. the… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 9:03 PM on March 24, 2023

not gay. He’s just an odd person

My grandma said the same thing about my uncle for years but we all knew better.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:29 AM on March 23, 2023

> (Zelda is the princess, but that’s not an answer to your question.)

I dunno I think Zelda is the boy
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 12:33 PM on March 23, 2023

what! it's the #1 place i go to ogle digital cameras i can't justify buying. but honestly it's one of those cornerstone websites that make the web good. what a shame.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 3:03 PM on March 21, 2023

last night i was out at a bar eating dinner and saw the chyrons scroll by that the international criminal court has issued a warrant for putins arrest and the first thought was well what about old painter of tub toes, mass murdering yankee George W Bush. I bet he goes to bed every night with a smile on his face and a conscience clear as a desert sky. the bastard
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:34 AM on March 18, 2023

I knew nothing about the early origins of VB so this was pretty fascinating. I think it would have been great to continue it with a discussion of the bizarre longevity of one version of VB: VB6. VB6 was end of lifed in 2008, I think, but still runs on Windows 10 and is still widely used, (in pirated versions since you can't buy it for any amount of money today), by a dedicated almost cult of application developers who see at as the pinnacle of "RAD" environments. It's one of those… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:15 AM on March 17, 2023

i do firmly believe a martini should have gin and generally i think you should just put in a tiny bit of vermouth in the glass, swirl it around, then pour it out. you should smell but not taste the vermouth. if it has anything other than gin and dry vermouth it's not a martini, and while i've enjoyed some drinks called "tinis" they still are relegated to the profane.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 3:20 PM on March 16, 2023

I've had this printer for about 10 years and am only on my second toner cartridge so I can cosign this
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:56 PM on March 15, 2023

Combine this with going back to draconian migrant detention and Biden seems determined to make sure everyone disillusioned with politics can find new reasons to argue themselves into a "who cares, they're all the same" apathy

Stay winning old man! C'mon jack.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:49 AM on March 14, 2023

the company i work for had their payroll money deposited there. payroll is next friday, and I guess we'll see???? capitalism is so fucking dumb
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 4:58 PM on March 10, 2023

> What a world these people live in.

To be fair this was the venture capital bank, headquartered in the place with the highest concentration of billionaires in the world, so you'd think the CEO would be chummy with some people who could have shored up their liquidity issues easily and quietly long before things exploded. honestly you do have to be pretty stupid to fuck up running a well established bank. people literally knock on your door to *give you money* (yes, i… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:29 PM on March 13, 2023

i got this album on cd in the 90s when i was 13 or 14 (along with raekwons debut) both blew my mind. pink floyd seemed like perfect rebellion against my father’s endless listening to pre sgt peppers beatles and james taylor, bubblegum harmonies by immaculate boys. here i could say i also appreciated musicianship and melodies but by a band that fucked, that sung about more than just silly love songs. i know the beatles were more but they were dad music to me and pink floyd was the ultimate anti… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:05 AM on March 3, 2023

I read gravity’s rainbow over a summer in college and did find it really amazing. i think it takes about 100 pages to really get going but it did become a page turner eventually. the whole book, much like ulysses, is in fact a dick joke, in case you are concerned it’s all too high brow and pretentious. it is very masculine though. i’m curious about how it will strike me now with 20 years more of maturity though.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 3:52 PM on February 27, 2023

Something really disgusting happened

GR is full of scatalogical content, early on featuring a jazz club dive through the toilet into the sewer (defying all physical laws) and also some nazi s&m with a side of copraphilia. “eat shit” sounds meaner in german. i started rereading it again last night and it’s also quite horny to boot. the book is about lots of things, the movement of history, late stage capitalism, the transmigration of souls, but… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:25 AM on February 28, 2023

Also I loved my paperback edition

I have that same mass-market sized edition, although the spine is held together with tape (so not in "good" condition). But $34 for that used! Yow. I wish they would put out more "literary" fiction in that size instead of the 8.5-9 inch "trade" sizes. Gravity's Rainbow is a little fat but it still fits in my back pocket for walking to the park to read without carrying a bag as well. And… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 9:55 AM on February 28, 2023

Someone please explain this to me.

Their job page is just an email address now. I assume they fired their hiring team entirely. As a contrast: Facebook's job page
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:06 PM on February 24, 2023

Here's what the page looked like in January. I imagine Musk finally noticed the tinge of "wokeness" (purpose, a woman looking like she's having fun?) and nuked it.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:23 PM on February 24, 2023

ahh, the green revolution *takes a deep breath, dies*
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 11:53 AM on February 24, 2023

when i was a kid i got an electric guitar for christmas and i played it endlessly for about a year until i became curious how it worked. turns out it’s very easy to take a guitar apart and get it into a state where it’s very hard for an 11 year old to put it back together. this put a several year gap in my musical development. but i did have fun trying to use the pickups to amplify other things, like the strings on my grandma’s baby grand or the sound a saw makes when you run a wire against it.… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 10:16 AM on February 23, 2023

The slow gradual increase in support just draws out the war and cost hundreds of civilian lives, tens of thousands of soldiers lives (on both sides), billions of dollars in infrastructure damage, billions of dollars of military spending and unimaginable environmental damage.

It's arguable that this is the Western goal. Nobody can convince me that the coldblooded realpolitik freaks in the department of defense and the CIA really care about the lives of… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:12 AM on February 22, 2023

NY sure is a different world since from where I'm standing, Tock won the reservation wars.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 1:26 PM on February 21, 2023

I lost my mind at the "never be impressed by anyone". It's dehumanizing to be impressed by someone???? To be sure, I promise not to be impressed by Pete Davidson. But when I meet someone who has done some cool shit I'm going to be impressed by it! Oh, you went to the moon? Cool I guess idk. Like what the FUCK is he going on about?

There are a few things on this list that I'm really glad are here. But then so much is complete batshit.… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 3:49 PM on February 12, 2023

the 400k a year people are building generational wealth, in their home equity, primarily, although it’s unlikely that they do not also own stocks which just don’t show up in these weird reports of “scraping by” because they don’t count as income. generational wealth doesn’t have to mean the kind of stuff that anderson cooper was born into because 100 years before he was born his ancestor murdered striking workers, it can also just mean that your parents are able to come up with the cash for a… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:56 PM on January 29, 2023

did an ai write this? is it a joke? it’s so confusing
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:31 PM on January 29, 2023

Everything after 1950 is really easy for me to get within a few years but man are older photos harder to nail down. They all look the damn same!
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:41 AM on January 28, 2023

they didn’t even dare weigh in on the refrigerate your pizza or if it’s fine to leave it out all night and eat it in the morning (it’s not!!!)
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 12:07 PM on January 26, 2023

my girlfriend made me watch clerks and mallrats back to back in 99, and we would quote from it all the time as our own inside jokes (she loved to tell me not to suck any dick on the way to the parking lot) so in a way that memory is incredibly formative, but rewatching them i can’t help but think their appeal stopped at the teenage years, and indeed maybe only teenagers from a certain era, of which i was the tail end. kevin smith certainly seems to have a peter pan thing going on. so now i only… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:03 AM on January 26, 2023

What on earth was this supposed to offer? As i found out and will probably have to pay for, (although it’s been so long now, who knows), it’s extremely easy to get student loans. You just typey typey clicky clicky and before you know it, you can afford to go to college. it’s shocking really, given how much the risk/reward center of the brain was still forming, that it was so easy. then if you stay in grad school you can keep taking out loans to eat and pay rent and you don’t have to pay them,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:13 AM on January 26, 2023

Feel like there’s no way the network didn’t know about this when he was arrested in 2020 which makes this all seem much more cynical than principled. But i guess it’s good that the many smart and funny people working on the show don’t lose their jobs because the creator is a predator
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:21 AM on January 25, 2023

> Now [UNC athletic director] Cunningham doesn’t have that money to spend

having taught at a d1 basketball institution in the past, the happiest outcome would be if this starved the athletics departments of cash entirely. why are our colleges part of the pipeline to professional sports? the nba and the nfl should have to build up their own minor league systems instead of living parasitically off the tuition and public revenues of higher education. and while some of… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 10:59 AM on January 24, 2023

i absolutely gravitate towards these editions when i see one in a used book store. i’ll buy it just because it’s one of these styles, without knowing anything about the author. usually is not a bad decision. beautiful books. it seems in general book design is in a low point these days, mirroring the general decline of publishing i guess.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:27 AM on January 24, 2023

> Were some cutbacks needed? Probably

but were they? Google spent like 50 billion or something on stock buybacks (which honestly should be illegal) last year. I'd bet almost all these publicly traded companies spent more on buybacks or other benefits for shareholders than the cost of these employees. Really this all strikes me as irrational investor appeasement. Stock prices are in the doldrums, so something must be done! A few % points in short term stock gains is… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 10:02 AM on January 23, 2023

> so, cuts are absolutely necessary at Google/Alphabet... but there were also a lot of cuts in "businesses" that have no possibility of breaking even, much less turning a profit

You can reorganize, move people into other parts of the business and even (god forbid!) offer retraining. You hired these people for a reason, at some point they were considered a good bet (and everyone I've met working at a FAANG tends to be very smart, well credentialed, well… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 11:07 AM on January 23, 2023

Eh, you have to have control over capital, not just some measly stock compensation. There's no doubt they're well paid, but they're still just upper-middle class at best. A staff engineer might make 300k but they don't mean shit at a shareholders/board meeting.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 4:14 PM on January 23, 2023

it’s a huge loss of life and likely an undercount, excess mortality figures are at least double that globally.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 2:24 PM on January 20, 2023

covid isn’t over and people are still dying but i hope we’re past shaming people for looking around and seeing all the precautions falling away and deciding to live their lives again. i go out in the world and share the air with others and i’m not ashamed. this moralizing about it when nobody else is masking and no western governments are taking even vaccinations seriously anymore is a bit much. i got my shots, all4, will get another one when recommended ,and i stay home when i’m sick , i wore… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:44 PM on January 20, 2023

> Here, flu vaccines have always been offered to people over sixty and all healthcare workers. Now, everyone can get all the vaccines at their doctor or the nearest pharmacy.

This is the same case in the US. Flu and covid vaccines are free at most pharmacies. They don't even ask for an insurance card. I'm part of the shockingly small group that has received 4 shots, and for the first 3 I just walked into a clinic set up at a church basement in my neighborhood, here in… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:20 AM on January 23, 2023

Work on bounded rationality or behavioral economics is really important in countering the model of homo economicus that once and even still prevails in understanding of behavior in markets. people do not, never have, never will act as rational utility maximizers, choosing always the action with the “best price” when faced with multiple options. Instead all kinds of environmental factors and biases collude to push individuals towards irrational behaviors. All that is well and good.… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 1:00 PM on January 22, 2023

As annoying as Baldwin's public statements are about this, it's really nuts to me to think that he could be found culpable here. Why would an actor know anything about guns or have any expectation of verifying the safety of the gun someone handed to them to play/rehearse a scene? The chain of people who handled the gun before they handed it to him and told him it was "cold", sure. But Baldwin?

There is this whole thing about how he was a producer, and yes then… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:18 PM on January 19, 2023

there's something weird going on here about "gun safety" that doesn't seem right to me. This isn't like you've been handed a gun on the street and told not to worry it's not loaded. Of course you should verify that the gun is not loaded in that case. Here there is an armorer and after the armorer an assistant director, two people whose job it is to ensure the safety of the set, which in this case means ensuring the gun does not have live rounds in it. They're there so that you don't… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:06 PM on January 19, 2023

What about pyrotechnics? If the actor is given a button that will trigger an explosion, and it ends up being much more powerful than expected, killing members of the crew, was it the actors responsibility to inspect the explosives to ensure they were safe, that everyone involved was at a safe distance etc.? Seems like that's the job of the pyrotechnics crew. There's something about the fact that guns are so common in american life that seems to be influencing the thought process here. Like… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:24 PM on January 19, 2023

> Slate: The Manslaughter Charges Against Alec Baldwin Truly Make No Sense

Bizarrely Tre Lovell echoes almost verbatim a number of the arguments found here in this thread. Tre, if you’re lurking here give us a wave.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 11:50 AM on January 21, 2023

Declines happen little by little before they happen all at once faster than seems believable. just imagine the Politico article from Rome in 50BC, Senators and Aristocrats gathered at a villa on the via appia are bullish on the roman republic, see no limit to its future. Meanwhile Caesar is on the march
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 11:23 AM on January 21, 2023

When I first saw this I thought it was 100% sincere. This is exactly the kind of thing I expect someone posting to Hacker News to come up with. Dating spreadsheets but as a service, surely something like this would have been acquired for $50mm by Match Group back in the age of zero interest rates.

Casanova the Calculator, rating a prospective mate from 1-10 is primitive, outdated, we need a multipoint matrix to calculate a histogram of love that can also be resold to… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 1:44 PM on January 19, 2023

extremely cursed to imagine facebook is still around in 2090, but this was cute
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 2:55 PM on January 18, 2023

Is this meant to be sarcastic

yeah.. jan 6th was the dumbest coup attempt in history until brasilia, jan 8th. you can't overthrow a gov't by taking a shit on the senate floor. figured they would've learned from recent events and adopted a more effective strategy than the Sea-Doo Salesman Putsch.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:31 AM on January 9, 2023