MetaFilter

Yes. But, oh god. But, yes.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 11:04 AM on August 5, 2013

For comparison: list of longest novels
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 2:10 PM on August 5, 2013

I'm at 30.959% of a Les Miserable
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 2:12 PM on August 5, 2013

I want to sign up for this... but I haven't even finished listening to all the CDs from the LAST time! Shouldn't have signed up for two swap sets...
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:40 PM on August 5, 2013

OH also here's a story for you all: last year I mentioned to a guy I was seeing that I sometimes swapped mix CDs with people from the internet. His response? "Wow, I bet you hear a lot of bad music that way."

I'm not gonna say that's the reason we broke up, but it so perfectly encapsulated the irreconcilable differences between us that I still remember it.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:42 PM on August 5, 2013

The same thing comes up a lot with cooking. Why don't poor working people make nutritious food at home? Because the time and money required to develop the skills, buy the equipment, find the recipes, take time to do the constant shopping and food prep, and throw away the inevitable initial failures are not available to them. But since many people have ALWAYS had access to all of those things, they don't even see them.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 12:56 PM on July 30, 2013

Maybe you're not a parent because you know you can't afford diapers.

Maybe the fact that we live in the sort of broken society where something as simple and critical as diapers is financially out of reach for poor people didn't occur to these women. Maybe they got pregnant accidentally and couldn't afford an abortion, or it's functionally illegal where they live. Maybe they lost their jobs because it's twenty-fucking-thirteen. Maybe their financially… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:37 PM on July 30, 2013

Between this thread and the thread about the woman getting her ipad back i'm starting to get the feeling that this site is slowly filling with assholes like reddit did when it started to suck a few years ago(not that it was ever amazing, but jesus christ it used to be 1000x better)

It makes me really sad, and also gets me truly wondering about the future of this site. The moderation is tight and good still, but i see more and more of these types of shitty… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:45 PM on July 30, 2013

But the only people who said "oh yeah it's all the poor people's fault for doing it wrong" we're the ones who were sarcastically attributing it to some general attitude which I didn't actually see anywhere. No one was saying people should be doing anything.

The first comment to bring them up was "So the woman mentioned in the FPP would apparently rather starve than wash a soiled cloth diaper. I can't get worked up over this..."… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:48 PM on July 30, 2013

the thread-- which I found very upsetting to read, for my own banal reasons-- consisted of repeated doses of received wisdom ala Metafilter: no contact with your ex, twenty minutes is fine for a breakup notification (!), think of the conversation like an exit interview, move on immediately, and get the hell over it within a couple of weeks. The monolithic quality of those answers, which were pretty much unvarying, caused me to feel a bit contrary. I know that these answers reflect the… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 6:09 AM on July 24, 2013

That's not what this was and the hyperbole isn't helping. 2 or 3 (or 4 or whatever) "Hey don't do this and this is why" answers are fine. Once you see that the ground is covered in the disapproval department, do not answer. The mods usually delete extraneous dismissive answers like these, I wish they had done so more aggressively in this case (cupcake's further off-topic complaints notwithstanding.)

I don't agree. Say three people say… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 8:08 AM on July 24, 2013

Oh for the love of god.

If a famous baseball player used his fame to spread medically dangerous knowledge, and someone said "OH LOOK AT ME I CAN HIT A BALL WITH A STICK SO EVERYONE SHOULD LISTEN TO ME RE: MEDICINE" and then someone else came into the thread and said, um, exCUSE me? Are you saying that JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE PLAYS BASEBALL, their opinion is INVALID? Then that would be dumb.

No one's saying, oh, a woman got naked SO… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 7:26 AM on July 16, 2013

I'm sure somebody has written a feminist criticism of Jenny McCarthy but the unfounded assumption here is that her entire career is built on her looks.

Her career as a... model?
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 7:38 AM on July 16, 2013

Similar to the way that I think I can take Clarence Thomas' views down without having to result with a pithy ending of 'and he speaks so well'.

This is so extraordinarily dissimilar to the comment that was actually made that it's sort of blowing my mind
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 8:45 AM on July 16, 2013

Like if I posted something about how Hillary Clinton shouldn't be taken seriously because boobs, then that would be significantly different than daring to point out that a model became famous because of her appearance.

Think what you want about the comment. But don't be disingenuous.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 8:52 AM on July 16, 2013

It's stupid, of course, to take advice from people who don't know what they're talking about, as is the case with McCarthy. But that has nothing to do with her modeling, her acting, or her breasts. Treating it as if that's the only reason anyone's listening to her -- even just to mock them for it -- signals, to me at least, that the mocker's incapable of seeing McCarthy as an actual person, and, by logical extension, incapable of seeing any woman with large breasts or any woman who… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 11:53 AM on July 16, 2013

I think it's unlikely you can point to a comment in this thread making that argument.

Perhaps "Because look at the literal reading you're giving the comment: Only contemptible people would actually listen to anything said by a big-breasted woman"? Which is a shockingly inaccurate interpretation of what people are actually saying.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 12:10 PM on July 16, 2013

edit: everyone in this thread, including me, is responding to imaginary worst-case-scenario interpretations of what everyone else said and I'm gonna stop participating in it
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:08 PM on July 16, 2013

I'd love to read (or even write) a post about the whole radfem-anti-trans issue, but... I'm not sure how I'd ensure that it wouldn't be deleted. I'd worry that I would spend a long time putting a post together, and then someone would say something mildly antagonistic and it would be deleted for being possibly too much work to moderate.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 10:10 AM on July 11, 2013

Now I wonder whether it would be considered impolite to secretly attach clothes pegs to guys' clothing during sex.

Oh no no no, you don't attach the pegs to their CLOTHING during sex. You attach them to their nipples!
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 8:32 AM on July 10, 2013

Clothespins shouldn't be placed on the nipples but on the aureoles, technically.

Hey, different strokes for different folks and by 'strokes' I mean 'searing nipple pain'
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 10:06 AM on July 10, 2013

Other than that I haven't been aware of any harassment at or stemming from meetups in the last couple of years--at least not by mefites. Nor have women drifted away leaving it just men attending, which IME happens when it is an unpleasantly unwelcome atmosphere for women.

Funny- I came in here to say... and this is not meant to reflect on that site as a whole, but... I went to a few Reddit NYC meetups when I first came to this city and BOY OH BOY DID… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 6:16 AM on July 8, 2013

Our talking about it here, and perhaps some kind of statement elsewhere, and our continuing to talk about it, will help nurture a social environment where, when someone is feeling harassed, they won't feel like they have to suffer through it in silence because they'll know it's not "normal" and they'll know that other people are more likely to take their concerns seriously. There's no magic bullet and these changes can't be made to happen instantaneously everywhere, but… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 12:40 PM on July 8, 2013

How would this be done? Not everybody reads the grey. What are you picturing when you talk about this? I just....I'm having a hard time picturing how one would establish a clear and explicit "don't harass people and feel free to speak up if you are harassed" either before an event is held or at the start of an event that wouldn't be....off-putting, is I guess the word I'll use.

Well... whenever you make a post on Metafilter, it says under… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:07 PM on July 8, 2013

Everyone at Chicago meetups knows my real name but they call me shakes anyway because my real name is boring.

To be fair, if I was named 'boring' I wouldn't want people using my real name either
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:52 PM on July 8, 2013

I'm not sure if I think blatant, Antebellum-South plantation-style racism is a good thing or a bad thing. By all means, please link me to some "open letters" to help me make my decision. I'm sure they will all be the critical social documents of our time that will be studied by historians, and not at all cheap grubbing for page views.

Did you... read it? Because it was actually really good and not 'cheap grubbing' at all.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 5:57 PM on June 28, 2013

I understand that the adversarial legal system can lead to appalling injustices. But it's the best system we've got. Accused people are considered innocent until proven guilty, and yes, that means accusations are considered untrue until proven true. Which does kinda suck, but I know of no better alternative.

People frequently seem not to understand the difference between 'found guilty by a court of law' and, well, any other definition of the word… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 8:52 AM on June 28, 2013

A2: (relevant response) Science shows there's no such thing as bodily humors, so leeches can't balance them. I'd go with multi-vitamins instead.

A2 (irrelevant response): Science shows there's no such thing as bodily humors, so leeches can't balance them.

The assumption that people must automatically know that they're expected to follow this frankly extremely pedantic requirement or get their answers deleted is pretty ridiculous to me.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:47 PM on June 13, 2013

I never said it was a punishment- I said it was ridiculous. Because good, helpful information can be deleted for what seems to me to be a pretty dumb and pointless reason.

IF that comment had started a larger fight over reiki, then sure, delete comments 3-100 about reiki.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:55 PM on June 13, 2013

Or, as we've seen in this thread, it might be "this community clearly places no value on what I have to say, even when I'm genuinely trying to help."
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:59 PM on June 13, 2013

Well, you said you deleted it because it didn't answer the question, but it seems like you actually deleted it because it seemed likely to start a derail.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 3:07 PM on June 13, 2013

I think it might work better as a discussion group format, like a Google group.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 1:54 PM on June 11, 2013

I got offered a new job literally today. Goodbye 'Assistant,' hello 'Associate'!
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 12:05 PM on April 25, 2013

Surely there are times when sustained anger is justifiable? A close relative of mine stormed onto my property, physically and verbally assaulted his sister and his girlfriend screamed abuse at me and my mother as they drove away. A few days later the girlfriend basically called my son retarded. Being angry about that for longer than 20 minutes is not unwarranted, I think.

As someone who used to have major anger problem which are under control but not… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 7:08 AM on April 12, 2013

Think how much social justice is powered by anger at injustice.

Thinking "this thing upsets me and therefore I am going to take action to change it" and thinking "this thing upsets me so I am going to scream until I pass out" are not actually the same emotion at all, and it's the second thing that the OP of that question was asking about.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 7:09 AM on April 12, 2013

Always remember - are you angry or just hungry?

For me, the anger spot-check is, am I one of the following: hungry, thirsty, tired or hot? Nine out of ten times when I find myself about to punch things, if I actually stop and think I realize I'm not so much angry as just physically out of whack.

(Hangry = best neologism in English)
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 11:54 AM on April 12, 2013

No. The '.' is a moment of silence, not a hurrah. Read the wiki.

A moment of silence is a gesture of respect. Must we suddenly begin respecting people when they die, if we didn't before? I don't see why.

Mods are saying that this whole thing got blown way out of proportion and I tend to agree, but I think there should be some sort of coherent policy in place to prevent such out-of-proportion-blowing. Shitty people will keep dying, after all.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 7:00 AM on April 9, 2013

I'm curious what Cool Papa Bell's connection to the Coast Guard is that he thinks it's such a great job.

It would be pretty funny if he had no connection at all to the Coast Guard but just thought it sounded neat.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 8:16 AM on April 2, 2013

"Noël Coward suggested that the ideal martini should be made by "filling a glass with gin then waving it in the general direction of Italy"(which along with France is a major producer of vermouth). Luis Buñuel considered it enough to hold up a glass of gin next to a bottle of vermouth and let a beam of sunlight pass through. Winston Churchill was said to whisper the word 'vermouth' to a freshly poured glass of gin."

If you just… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 2:07 PM on March 23, 2013

I once started a friendship by accidentally shooting someone in the eye with a vodka filled water gun.

Sure, it worked once, but your later attempts to recreate the magic have had mixed results at best.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 8:39 AM on March 24, 2013

Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but I feel our role as Answerers is to Answer the Questions. Not lecture people that they're not listening to the answers we've given.

Sure, but if the questions are just the same goddamn thing over and over and over for years at a time and they all basically say the same thing, which is "I am utterly filled with self-loathing and misery, anyway should I get a haircut to fix it?" Then an answer of 'stop asking… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 9:42 AM on March 20, 2013

I should set up a site where mefite children can ask quesrions they dont want rhier patents to see.

It appears a child with questionable spelling has already taken over your account
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 9:36 PM on March 4, 2013

I think we've all had our little "Portabello Moments" in the supermarket. Mine came when I asked the Produce Manager at our local Harris Teeter where the fennel was, and he said, "What's fennel?"

"Where'd you find this giant, red celery? I think there might be something wrong with it!"

Rhubarb.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 7:45 AM on February 20, 2013

What if I said that I think that most of the rap/hip-hop that I hear is violent and misogynistic? The qualifier being "most". Does that make me racist?

Depends. Are you assuming that most rap you hear represents all rap, and are you judging people who say they like rap based on that fact?
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 8:34 PM on February 15, 2013

A timely Racialicious post about the messages in rap...
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 8:37 AM on February 19, 2013

However, it turns out that reading a bunch of human relations questions one after another is actually super-depressing, and I think I gave up on the project after tagging less than two weeks' worth of questions.

You could crowd-source it, like the tagging-old-posts project. I, for one, LOVE reading reams of depressing human relations questions.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 10:25 AM on February 3, 2013

If it wasn't like 20 degrees out I'd be up on my roof looking out at the harbor. Can't wait for summer!
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 3:41 PM on February 1, 2013

Mm, I don't think that's precisely the case. A racial slur is a derogatory term intended to cause offence. As far as I can tell, the racists who use the term "Canadian" as a secretive way to refer to black people while attempting to avoid raising the hackles of those of us in the PC brigade are using "Canadians" as a cryptonym.

Wait, I hate to derail, but is this an actual thing?

I first heard of this… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 11:38 AM on February 1, 2013

Have other people had this experience of harassing emails to throwaway addresses they use with anon questions?

I asked an anon question about a sexual issue, and got several helpful responses. But like a month later, when I checked the account out of idle curiosity, someone had sent me a several-page-long rambling missive about how exactly they would love to do [sex thing] with me. In EXHAUSTIVE detail. I did not read it.
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 6:34 PM on November 28, 2012

I feel so Al Gore right now
posted to MetaTalk by showbiz_liz at 9:48 AM on November 26, 2012