MetaFilter

I think I've listened to every song my fellow Mefites have posted here, but I haven't yet seen anyone posting MetaFilter's Own excellent candidate for the Space Force theme:

Moon Patrol!
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 6:58 PM on September 21, 2022

A strange glimpse from an alternate, better universe.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 5:43 PM on December 9, 2021

I got his book "I Want To Thank My Brain For Remembering Me" when I was young. It's about his experiences after surviving a stroke. I'm glad he survived that stroke and lived the long life that he did.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:33 AM on March 20, 2017

I have a feeling that the next Republican president to meet basic standards of decency will develop an undeserved reputation for greatness by simple virtue of the comparison to the ones elected in 2000 and 2016.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 9:36 AM on March 8, 2017

Now I'm curious about the comparison between the accident rates of stairs and escalators. You can trip and get hurt on stairs, but when riding an escalator you just stand there, which is presumably safer.

The danger of escalators comes from malfunctions and the occasional foot or article of clothing getting wedged in the escalator.

I wonder if anyone has collected meaningful statistics on this. Probably public works engineers and escalators manufacturers have this information.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:20 AM on February 23, 2017

Here's a comparison of escalators and elevators:

There are about 33,000 escalators operating in the U.S. – far fewer than the number of elevators. But injuries occur more frequently on escalators, about 15 times more frequently than elevators. Although entrapment – in which a body part or piece of clothing becomes wedged in the gaps between the moving parts of an escalators – is often a high-profile issue because those incidents typically involve small children, falls on… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 1:10 AM on February 23, 2017

Is the fact that I am a green card holder a bad thing in terms of calling?
posted by Poldo at 3:30 PM on February 9 [+] [!]

I'd say it might very well be. Members of Congress are predisposed to pay attention to only those who they believe affect their reelection. So the totem pole of importance to them would have big donors and lobbyists at the top, voters in their district below that, American citizens who can't vote for them near the… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:45 AM on February 11, 2017

...They weren't there to start with and George Washington warned allowing them to form would eventually destroy the system of checks and balances...
posted by saulgoodman at 5:39 PM on February 9 [1 favorite +] [!]

I learned something new from the Vox piece:

In his farewell address, George Washington warned, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 11:37 PM on February 9, 2017

I logged onto Metafilter to make a post about this, and was happy to see that I didn't have to.

Hans Rosling was a good man who did good, important work.

.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 9:47 PM on February 7, 2017

I'm actually not sure what FAP stands for in this context. Care to explain?
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 2:21 AM on February 5, 2017

BEWARE THE WHEELERS
posted by dephlogisticated at 9:02 AM on February 3

There definitely is a strong whiff of the Wheelers here.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 2:27 AM on February 5, 2017

It's an unusually good show. It really captures a feeling of 1980s nostalgia, with a dose of Dungeons & Dragons and hint of the film ET later on. Season 2 is probably going to be out this summer or fall. I'm looking forward to it.

My girlfriend who dislikes horror and gore loved it. The scariest part is probably in the first 10 minutes of the first episode. Once you get past that, it's pretty much just adventure.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 11:19 AM on January 30, 2017

This is important. Thank you for sharing it.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:20 AM on January 9, 2017

Having gone through the process of acquiring a history degree in the last 6 years, I've come to feel pretty concerned about this phenomenon.

Particularly, I'm worried that leaders in the field don't realize how grassroots, in a sense, this co-option is. There is a disturbing segment of folks who sign up for history degrees that are either extremely vulnerable to modern far-right ideologies, or active proponents of them. My fear is that, through their focus and… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 7:14 PM on January 2, 2017

I really do not understand the storyline of Prometheus, but perhaps that's because I haven't seen it since it came out. I mean, doesn't it basically come down to Weyland wanting to live forever, and then for some reason the Engineers want to destroy humanity? But didn't they create humanity with that goo? Maybe I should just rewatch it.
posted by gucci mane

The film was partially incoherent not because of any failing on your part in grasping… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 11:58 PM on December 24, 2016

I read Apocryphon's comment but I didn't realize David Fincher was the director of Alien 3. Well, I'll be.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:56 AM on December 25, 2016

> Is "noodle with broccoli shoved up hairy ass" an Croatian saying? Oddly specific if you ask me.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:20 PM on December 5 [+] [!]

I don't know why they couldn't come up with a normal turn of phrase instead, like we have in English. Whoever came up with that term really screwed the pooch.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:45 PM on December 6, 2016

I should note that basically all life on Earth will be destroyed in ONE billion years, as the sun is already very gradually heating up. The oceans will boil away in one billion years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

Things will be far worse in 7 billion years, but life will have already ended.

Fortunately, one billion years is plenty enough time to figure out what to do about it.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 1:22 AM on December 3, 2016

So did the ancestors of the dinosaurs, those of the passenger pigeon and the mastodons and the dodos as well as, of course, our own.

Which ancestor are you referring to?

I mean microorganisms will likely survive for billions of years after multicellular life goes extinct, but are you referring to something else?
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 10:02 AM on November 29, 2016

I don't know if it will come back, but the video is currently not working.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:56 AM on July 20, 2016

The SNP warned during the campaign that if - as has happened - the UK overall votes to leave the EU but Scots vote to remain, Scotland would be taken out of the EU "against its will" and this could be the trigger for another independence vote.

from the BBC.

I guess they could go back on their word, but it seems like another independence vote for Scotland is more likely now.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:28 AM on June 24, 2016

This is an excellent post.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:36 AM on May 30, 2016

Best of all is when you play them all at once.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 2:26 PM on May 20, 2016

I'd like to see video of the actual guy playing the ocarina, and some details on how he set up his system to be controlled by the ocarina's notes. But I don't see that anywhere. Am I just missing something obvious?

The only information I can find is this in one of the Youtube video notes:

"The way this works is through a short program written in C# that translates specific pitches to keyboard inputs. We use http://pitchtracker.codeplex.com/… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 10:15 AM on May 7, 2016

If 60-90 days use of claritin/allegra/zyrtec is included then I'm already way fucked.
posted by sbutler at 8:44 AM on April 25 [+] [!]

None of those drugs are anticholinergics.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 8:49 AM on April 25, 2016

Allegra isn't on here either, but my zyrtec is a 'maybe' ;(
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:49 AM on April 25 [+] [!]

Hey, good link. I was thinking about going and getting a list of anticholinergics. Thanks!

It's only a correlation, so e.g. it could be that those taking sleep aids are more likely to develop dementia because they often don't get enough sleep, not because they take… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 8:58 AM on April 25, 2016

This seems like a great idea, but there really should have a better interface than just a Search function.

robocopisbleeding, you mentioned looking by subject. How do you do that?
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 2:52 PM on March 15, 2016

Completely absolutely fascinating! This post is why I read metafilter.
posted by lemonade at 11:50 PM

Just what I was going to say! This is amazing.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:01 AM on March 15, 2016

Interesting side note:

I just read that Mikhail's son Anton apparently used some of the millions of dollars Mikhail misappropriated through the Russian government to finance four major Hollywood films starring Brad Pitt, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert de Niro, and so on.

His films include: Dirty Grandpa (2016), Sabotage (2014), Fury (2014), and Fading Gigolo (2013).

I first read about this in the BBC's article today about… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 10:28 AM on March 11, 2016

Oh, he also produced 2015's Rock The Casbah and the 2014 horror film Haunt.

Honestly, we have just over zero information here, thus the rancor.
posted by lupus_yonderboy

I agree. I'm very interested in this, and I've been impatiently waiting for more information to come out. I'm surprised this isn't being treated as huge news.

As oheso and phearlez point out, the most interesting part of this… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 10:41 AM on March 11, 2016

Notice nobody's trying to make a robot cat.
posted by Naberius at 11:32 AM on March 1 [+] [!]

Ahem.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:40 PM on March 1, 2016

Good post, Wordshore.

I've been expecting a Republican victory this year because of lukewarm support for Hillary Clinton on the Democrats' side and rabid opposition to her on the Republican side.

As the "cautious about assumptions" 538 link notes, Hilllary Clinton is "quite unpopular". (I think she'd do a great job as president, but I'm just one person). As we get closer to the election, her approval falls and disapproval… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 1:40 AM on March 1, 2016

Hey, this is pretty good.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:23 AM on December 23, 2015

Has Ouroborous, the snake that encircles the world in Norse mythology, ever been depicted in film or television?
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 4:56 PM on October 26, 2015

Hurricane Patricia has now fortunately subsided to a Category 2 hurricane.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 1:10 AM on October 24, 2015

It was easy to miss, but Jim Webb dropped out yesterday.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 10:37 AM on October 21, 2015

If it's true that certain fungi are always present is Alzheimer's patients but not others, it's amazing that we didn't realize it before.

It's possible that this is an error of some kind. I hope there'll soon be many others checking to see if they can replicate these findings.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 4:52 PM on October 16, 2015

This is a valuable thread. Favorited.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:32 PM on October 13, 2015

Hey, I just noticed that the The Week article that Wintersweet posted is written by Tim Kreider, the artist behind the comic The Pain, which has been popular on here before.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 10:16 AM on October 2, 2015

These days, more provocative than the Black Panthers would be a group of Muslims who wish to openly carry firearms.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 10:28 AM on October 2, 2015

This trailer made me a little less excited for the show, but I'll still watch it to see if Kumail can hold his shit together in his scenes.

Kumail Nanjiani, the guy who's been doing the X-Files Files podcast? I've only listened to the older episodes, so I was unaware that he was actually going to be in the new XFiles series.

Neat.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 10:04 PM on September 30, 2015

My favorite capsule review recommendation is happyroach's 16-word comment, "My favorite is Mr. Cranky's five-word review of Spice World: 'Three words: no fucking way.'"
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 11:14 PM on August 9, 2015

I had to find out what a catfish getting stuck in a person would look like, so I DuckDuckGo'd it (as opposed to Googling. Googleing?).

Here's a video where a woman gets slapped in the thigh with a catfish, whereupon its venomous spines get stuck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16iNEH-3kc

A continuation with no resolution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quF8wITJHgU

It's… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 11:26 PM on August 9, 2015

In 1998, a quick-witted park employee avoided a mass goring by playing dead. Kariann King was on a nature walk with three seven-year-old boys when two bison — pelted with rocks by other park visitors — thundered their way. King instructed the kids to lay on the ground and play dead until another park employee nudged the bison out of the way with a pickup truck, according to the AP.
posted by jayder at 3:25 PM on July 23 [1 favorite +] [!]… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 8:16 PM on July 23, 2015

This is awesome, Wretch729.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 11:54 AM on June 9, 2015

It's all explained here ...

I thought this was the explanation

That sounds a lot more plausible.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 6:03 PM on May 7, 2015

I had heard of this show, but hadn't seen it yet. This is awesome. Thanks, Fizz.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 3:27 AM on February 7, 2015

This is funny: Last night I searched Metafilter to see what posts there are about Twilight Struggle. And here boom the very next day here's another.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 10:43 AM on January 16, 2015

So Twilight Struggle had a Kickstarter launched in the middle of last year, but I haven't been able to find any updates on their progress.

The GMT Games Web site is currently broken: There's no new information there, and almost every single link takes you to a 404 page.

It's hard to find Twilight Struggle for sale anywhere. I've found a few copies on eBay for around $70. It sounds like an interesting game, but I don't think it's worth it just yet.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 11:20 AM on January 16, 2015

This is very good stuff. It strikes me as similar to opensecrets.org and ballotpedia in terms of usefulness for transparency and involvement in politics.

Does anyone know of other, similar projects?
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 12:57 AM on December 11, 2014