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TVTropes: The Artifact

Sometimes, a character or gimmick seems to no longer fit with the mood or design of a story according to a writer, but is kept because there seems to be no way for the writer to get rid of them without causing some serious disruption (unrelated to Retcons).

Sometimes it's due to being tied in closely to the mythos or that The Artifact has just been around so long that removing it seems like overstepping bounds. And if it's… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 4:57 AM on March 11, 2019

Fifty Nifty United States and the Animaniacs songs for US presidents are both fun and pretty useful (though the latter is a bit outdated). Ditto Tim Lehrer's elements song, though anybody who could manage that countries of the world song is probably up to the challenge.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 6:11 PM on March 10, 2019

Other than MeFi and various subreddits, ResetEra is the only community site I actively seek out on a regular basis. (Most of the rest of my internet browsing comes to me through my RSS reader, Feedly).

ResetEra started out as a popular message board called NeoGAF, which could have once been described as the MetaFilter of video game forums. Tightly controlled registration process, decent moderation, regular participation from prominent people in the industry, and an… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:55 PM on March 6, 2019

Sorry for keeping everyone in suspense -- I'd started writing an update last night but got sidetracked looking at AAA's site. Tl;dr: jumping again did zilch, and there were at least two blown fuses, including the 100A one for the alternator. Had to carpool this morning, and I'll see if AAA can do a battery test and replacement. Hopefully that and new fuses will get it working again, but no clue if there was more electrical damage beyond that. Fingers crossed...
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:21 AM on January 2, 2019

Hey all, sorry for not updating -- as you might imagine, this ended up being a bit of a hassle.

So the fuses were pretty much useless, and even that brief surge was enough to damage the battery, alternator, starter, and a lot of the internal wiring. The first guy AAA sent couldn't jump it or diagnose it (due to the fried starter), so I had them tow it to a local Express Oil Change shop (note: always double check where they recommend towing it -- they… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 3:13 PM on March 4, 2019

Read this relevant Futility Closet post recently and thought of this question:

The 1967 version of Casino Royale, starring David Niven, set an unlikely milestone: Its soundtrack album became famous among audio purists for the quality of its sound.

“The legend is that the original master tape had ‘mad’ levels on it,” audiophile Harry Pearson told the New York Times in 1991. “Once the meters pass zero, it means that you’re saturating the tape and… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 2:05 AM on March 2, 2019

Lexica: "This is not an employment or housing situation, however, so that doesn't seem to be relevant."

Maybe not in federal law, but NYC law hits closer to home here:

Place or provider of public accommodation. The term "place or provider of public accommodation" includes providers, whether licensed or unlicensed, of goods, services, facilities, accommodations, advantages or privileges of any kind, and… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 10:37 PM on March 1, 2019

Have you tried calling their customer support line? A real-time conversation with an actual person might be better at addressing this than largely automated email replies. This number should work for free accounts (they specifically recommend calling it to deal with closing a deceased family member's account, which sounds like a similarly frustrating situation):

AOL Account Support
1-800-827-6364 (Mon-Fri: 8am-12am ET; Sat: 8am-10pm ET)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 10:07 PM on March 1, 2019 marked best answer

I guess it would depend on how you define "English." The most recognizable Middle English "memes" would probably be archetypes from Chaucer's Canterbury tales, or perhaps some of the better-known Arthurian legends -- you still see joking references to the Lady of the Lake by way of Monty Python, for instance. Going back to Old English, your best bet is probably Beowulf.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:19 PM on March 1, 2019

If any of your photos are associated with an interesting story about a specific place ("the hidden and wondrous [...] stories that will surprise us and article ideas that would never have occurred to us but that we won’t be able to stop thinking and talking about"), you could try pitching a piece to Atlas Obscura. They welcome offers from freelance writers and photographers, and their current guidelines specifically request "articles reported from China,… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 1:07 PM on March 1, 2019

It strikes me as the 70s equivalent of "whatabout Benghazi, ACORN, unmasking, Uranium One, Fast & Furious, IRS-gate, her emails," etc. Pointing to controversies on the other side of the aisle, real or (more usually) imagined in order to distract or excuse one's own conduct. Not really surprising coming from people directly involved with Watergate crimes (or those writing sympathetic articles about them today).

As for why it never seemed prevalent to you,… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:58 PM on March 1, 2019 marked best answer

Radiohead - "Four Minute Warning" (a B-side from their 2007 album In Rainbows, named after the British alert system for Soviet nuclear attacks)

Running from the bombers
Hiding in the forest
Running through the fields
Laying flat on the ground
Just like everybody
Stepping over hills
Running from the underground
This is your warning
4 minute warning

posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 9:30 PM on February 28, 2019

Shot in the dark, but have you tried logging into your account from another browser or device? It's possible you're using deprecated hardware/software that can't properly display the site, or have extensions or scripts running that might interfere with the account page loading completely. This help forum post from 2012 had a couple people resolving an issue with the same error message by disabling DoNotTrackPlus and AdBlock for Firefox on Google domains, for instance.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:50 PM on February 27, 2019

Was going to recommend AMSP, but I see you have that covered. Another all-time favorite that fits your criteria is Alabama Shake's sophomore record, Sound & Color. Lead singer Brittany Howard is a generational talent, and the album expands the band's sound from the rather traditional roots rock they were famous for into a kaleidoscope of genres -- bluesy soul, psychedelic funk, garage rock, acoustic ballads, electrifying solos -- that fully explore her incredible range.… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:44 AM on February 27, 2019

College student starts interview with John Cusack by confusing him with Kevin Spacey

Investigative reporter Carl Monday confronts a library "self-pleasurer" in front of his parents
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:49 PM on February 26, 2019

The tour is hosted on the proprietary Real.Vision platform, which streams the imagery from their servers like Google does for their Street View stuff. While it's possible to extract the 360-degree images (see below), you probably won't be able to make the entire UI for it work independent of their platform without some kind of bespoke program. If contacting Real.Vision isn't helpful -- and I imagine they'd rather everyone be forced to go through their servers instead of making it easy to… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:37 PM on February 26, 2019

Interpreting "influence" to mean "referenced by", those aren't the best examples -- the plane gremlin showed up in the movie version as well as countless parodies, and the broken glasses guy was parodied in one of Futurama's "Scary Door" segments off the top of my head.

Your best bet is probably to trawl through the episode lists on both Wikipedia and the Twilight Zone wiki and keep your eyes peeled for ones without any other… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:32 PM on February 23, 2019

The iceberg that (probably) sank the Titanic

This is the only confirmed authentic photograph of Billy the Kid; the Wikipedia article goes into more detail on other possibilities.

The only living photograph of the (now-extinct) quagga

Lincoln at Gettysburg

And here's an Oddee.com article on more "one of a kind" photos, including Einstein's original lecture on e=mc^2, "Father of the… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:57 AM on February 23, 2019 marked best answer

Flickchart! It's a long-running movie-ranking site (run by longtime MeFite Zampa) that works on pairwise comparison -- it shows you two posters, and you click the one you like best over and over until you have a list of all the movies you've seen from best to worst. I use it every time I see a new movie, partially since it keeps track of when you added a title, but mainly because its fantastic filtered charts (which cross-reference year/genre/studio/actor/director/etc. by your own rankings) make… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 5:34 PM on February 22, 2019

Shattered Glass (2003) is a docudrama about how the prestigious beltway magazine The New Republic was brought low in the 90s by a breathtaking case of journalistic fraud, all exposed by the then-upstart online outlet Forbes Digital Tool. It's a surprisingly compelling study of pathology, manipulation, self-destruction, and office politics, and takes place almost entirely inside the offices of the two magazines (including a lot of scenes about how their articles are… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 5:15 PM on February 22, 2019

Also, once you're safely away and (preferably) in another job you may want to leave a suitably anonymized review on Glassdoor or similar giving future prospective employees there a head's up (assuming this place is big enough to have a review page). If the turnover's as high as you say, you should be able to leave honest feedback without it being traceable back to you as long as you keep your description sufficiently broad.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:10 PM on February 16, 2019

Left-wing anti-semitism that demonizes Jewish people based on anti-capitalist economic resentment instead of explicitly religious/racial/cultural hate. Like the most virulent, eat-the-rich rhetoric against the 0.1%, except it equates the 0.1% with a shadowy Jewish cabal and takes it as a given that eliminating Jewish people will eliminate the evils of capitalist inequality. So, the same old hate with a thin veneer of economic logic.

I imagine it's getting a bump from… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 5:21 PM on February 15, 2019

The Animaniacs Presidents Song is a fantastic mnemonic device that saved my butt in more than one high school history test.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:56 PM on February 13, 2019

FWIW, I would feel pretty embarrassed if I went out of my way to be helpful to somebody like that and they rejected it for no clear reason. Like, did I do something wrong? It's not a huge offense but it would definitely gnaw at me.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:15 PM on January 26, 2019

I rather like that Sparkling Ice flavored sparkling water that comes in the tall, skinny bottles. Most of the other brands I'd tried (Pepsi's Bubly comes to mind) had a very bitter aftertaste, but these go down smooth. No sugar, no calories, etc. It does have some artificial sweeteners though (sucralose), in case that's a dealbreaker.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:45 PM on January 19, 2019

Well that sucks! I had it bookmarked and was just browsing it earlier this week.

It's not available on desktop, but the mobile app version of Periscope has a very similar interface for its live streams, and it has roughly the same level of global popularity. (Hopefully it has fewer QVC-style channels than FB did).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:45 AM on December 22, 2018 marked best answer

Also, if you really want the same experience on desktop, you can use an Android emulator to get a copy of the app working on your PC or Mac.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:47 AM on December 22, 2018 marked best answer

One more option: an unofficial YouTube live map. You have to click around to get videos instead of seeing dots on the map, but it works pretty much the same beyond that.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:00 PM on December 22, 2018

First thought: Francis Bacon's "screaming pope" paintings

Almost all of the popes are shown within cage-like structures and screaming or about to scream. Bacon identified as a Nietzschean and atheist, and some contemporary critics saw the series as symbolic execution scenes, as if Bacon sought to enact Nietzsche's declaration that "God is dead" by killing his representative on Earth. Other critics see the series as symbolizing the killing of a father… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 3:58 PM on December 19, 2018

Looking through this list, I'd say Tomas is a good bet.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 1:33 PM on December 18, 2018

The Fifth Element (1997) - funky, fantastical gonzo sci-fi comedy with a very off-kilter aesthetic and a bit of a mystical streak. Some action-movie violence, but largely comedic.

School of Rock (2003) - bighearted wannabe rockstar hijacks a stuffy prep school classroom and inspires it into becoming a passionate rock band. Sounds cheesy, but Linklater is a first-rate director and Jack Black's performance is earnest and endearing (plus the kids rock).… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 4:10 AM on December 8, 2018

The modern incarnation re:inspiring content can be traced to the Buzzfeed article 21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity that went mega-viral in June 2012, though as a contemporaneous Slate piece shows, it only popularized a usage that already had some currency on the web.

(As a hackneyed phrase, it's far older than the Internet -- dialogue database Subzin shows usage, both serious and sarcastic, dating back to the 1930s, and Google Books goes all the way… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 5:04 AM on December 4, 2018

The Internet Archive has a searchable database of TV captions going back to 2009.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:44 AM on December 2, 2018

My personal favorite is /r/politicaldiscussion. It's an order of magnitude smaller than the main political subs (<500K subscribers) but each post still gets a few dozen or hundred substantive answers. Topics run the gamut from elections to legal issues to world politics to history. Examples:

How will the landscape of Right-to-Work laws change due to this year's gubernatorial elections?

What's next for Mexico with the upcoming inauguration of… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 3:41 PM on November 29, 2018 marked best answer

POCKET CANNONS! (previously) Looks underwhelming, but it packs a punch.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 9:01 PM on November 23, 2018

Do you have, or have you ever had, luxuriant, flowing hair? Is your work science-adjacent (including engineering and social sciences)? Then may I introduce you to the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists and its sister organizations. All you need to apply is an email with photo, link to academic credentials, and a short bio statement. New entries appear here (latest was November 6th).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:19 PM on November 9, 2018

Crapulence!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:46 PM on October 19, 2018

The Cloister
The Alcove
The Atelier
The Snuggery
The Cubby(hole)
The Sequester
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 10:49 AM on October 11, 2018

germinal
incipient
fledgling
inchoate
rudimentary
foundational
prototypical
pioneering
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 10:54 PM on October 10, 2018

Alabama Shakes has a fantastic vocalist in Brittany Howard and is heavily influenced by the roots rock style that was more popular earlier last century.

Some highlights:

Hold On
Sound and Color
Gimme All Your Love
Guess Who
I'm In Over My Head
This Feeling
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 6:17 PM on September 28, 2018

Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 played a huge role in defining '00s console gaming. The first pioneered compelling, well-balanced gameplay in an evocative universe, the second popularized online multiplayer and machinima and greatly deepened the mythology, and the third had a perfect ending and a refined set of social sharing and content creation tools that IMHO have not been surpassed by any other console title since.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 6:01 PM on September 28, 2018

I skimmed the series when I was a kid. If anything, the Carpathia of the early novels was more like Obama -- young, charismatic, inspiring, wanting to peacefully unite the world. He becomes a diabolically evil supervillain later, but it's more in the biblical mode of slaughtering innocents and demanding idol worship than Trump's vulgar reality TV style.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 1:37 AM on September 24, 2018

Any of Larry Gonick's "Cartoon History" books, specifically the Cartoon History of the Modern World series and The Cartoon History of the United States (which helped me get through AP US History back in high school).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 4:37 PM on September 4, 2018

We Made a Mistake
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 10:38 PM on September 3, 2018

The best resource I haven't seen mentioned are the geography quizzes on PurposeGames.com, specifically the ones by user David. There are continent-level quizzes for all the countries in the world along with US states, Canadian provinces, cities, rivers, deserts, etc. The best feature is that it color-codes your answers: right on first try = green, two tries = yellow, three = orange. After four tries it highlights the right answer in purple and then colors it red once you click. When you're done… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 3:33 PM on August 31, 2018

Digg is a good modern example, specifically the enormously unpopular v4 redesign back in 2010. After a brief period of heavy protest, there was a mass user exodus to Reddit, traffic collapsed, and the company was sold off for scrap less than two years later.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 10:55 AM on August 30, 2018 marked best answer

It was originally posted as a thread to the VivaLaVinyl message board; here's a mirror of the whole thing in its original format.

Special bonus: eight lost stories rescued from a long-defunct Google Reader feed, from that time I tried helping Dave compile them into a book of some kind. See also his (normal caps) missives from living in China.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 1:13 PM on August 20, 2018 marked best answer

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, by MeFi's Own localroger.

edit: here's a direct link to the story, plus the side-story "A Casino Odyssey in Cyberspace." Also, word is he's (slowly) working on a sequel.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:23 AM on August 20, 2018 marked best answer

Speaking of PTA, he directed the beautiful and enigmatic video for Radiohead's haunting 2016 track Daydreaming

The music videos that stand out most in my mind:

Lady Gaga - Telephone, in which Gaga gets bailed out of the slammer by her best friend Beyoncé and goes on a hyperkinetic road trip/cooking show that ends in a mass poisoning. (It's way more fun than it sounds.)

LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem is a great slice of… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 2:56 AM on August 14, 2018 marked best answer

Returning to say you might like this compilation of "nostalgic" music from the early 2010s. It packs the catchiest ~10 seconds of 100+ pop hits into less than 26 minutes, with artist/title and footage from the music video included. Some of the videos are pretty generic "singing in random locations," but it's a great overview of the era, and if you see anything distinctive it's easy to track down the source video.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:51 AM on August 19, 2018