MetaFilter

McSly: "Apparently, you are declared a felon only after the sentence has been entered, which should happen in July. So right now, he's just a felon-elect."

"STOP THE (34) COUNTS!"
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 8:28 PM on May 30, 2024

Speaker Mike "Appeal to Heaven" Johnson is unsurprisingly a fan of deus ex machinas:

Johnson urges Supreme Court to "step in" on Trump verdict

"There's a lot of developments yet to come, but I do believe the Supreme Court should step in, obviously, this is totally unprecedented," Johnson said Friday in an appearance on Fox and Friends.

"I think that the Justices on the court – I know… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:28 AM on May 31, 2024

It's a joke from an old Last Week Tonight episode where Oliver used it to not only undercut Trump's name-based branding, but point out how his is an immigrant family. Even he thinks it's pretty played-out at this point though.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:25 PM on May 31, 2024

Nelson: "One Jan. 6 defendant who already served time in prison for his role in the Capitol attack also weighed in on X, posting a photo of [District Attorney] Bragg and a photo of a noose. “January 20, 2025 traitors Get The Rope,” he wrote, referring to the date of the next presidential inauguration."

...also referring to a violent neo-Nazi trope, but I guess that's to be assumed at this point.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 4:28 PM on May 31, 2024

Note that they do have a collection of films by Indian directors, though it's hardly comprehensive.

Personally I wish they gave more love to animation (only 8 films!), though their excellent treatment of WALL-E recently helped.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:10 PM on May 19, 2024

neuracnu: "I haven’t gone through all of these, but a memorable highlight for me was Bill Hader pulling out the copy of Salo and calling it a great date night movie."

My favorite from that one was Hader gushing about how much he loved House for 10+ seconds before realizing that he was in fact wearing a T-shirt with the exact same cover art under his hoodie.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:21 PM on May 19, 2024

Latest entry in the series: Tim Blake Nelson!
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:37 PM on May 21, 2024

Next up: Cheryl Dunye!

(Also, wow, they put these out more often than I thought)
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:43 PM on May 24, 2024

DEVO: Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh’s Closet Picks
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:40 PM on May 31, 2024

Count 1: GUILTY
Count 2: GUILTY
Count 3: GUILTY
Count 4: GUILTY
Count 5: GUILTY
Count 6: GUILTY
Count 7: GUILTY
Count 8: GUILTY
Count 9: GUILTY
Count 10: GUILTY
Count 11: GUILTY
Count 12: GUILTY
Count 13: GUILTY
Count 14: GUILTY
Count 15: GUILTY
Count 16: GUILTY
Count 17: GUILTY
Count 18:… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 2:14 PM on May 30, 2024

This is hilarious. Who are these videos even for? I can't imagine a sophisticated threat actor would be swayed to turn state's evidence based on some Matrix-ass motion comics.

Maybe it's designed to drum up support for more funding in Congress?
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:51 PM on May 30, 2024

Sato has a new post on the memorial event full of photos! Translation:

Kabochan's farewell party was full of smiles

Messages on Kabo-chan's departure have been pouring in from around the world on the blog, Instagram, and X. Since the day of Kabo-chan's passing, we have been busy with interviews from several countries and preparing for the farewell ceremony. I haven't had the time to slowly go through the messages we've received, but I am deeply… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 6:35 PM on May 29, 2024

outgrown_hobnail: "This was completely new to me. Got about 10% of the way through that unrolled thread and honestly had a real hard time caring about much. I do like the art style."

I suppose that it will be more inherently interesting to people who were fans back in the day (and even Karella talks about how boring and repetitive it gets a few times). But one thing that makes it worth being aware of, even if you're ignorant or appalled by it,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 4:46 PM on May 23, 2024

seanmpuckett: "If I had to guess what drove tats mad it would be reading the comments on his strips and pandering to the majority to get more ego boost. For decades now."

This seems... unlikely, given the massively disruptive tonal and ideological shifts. In the early days of the radfem era he made a point of fucking with fans who missed the old comic, making mocking strips about them and replacing the old forum wholesale. This took a big… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 1:12 PM on May 24, 2024

artlung: "I remembered that I had highlighted a few strips on my website years ago. Before I went looking I feared I'd find I blogged strips with hints of nastiness and hate. What I found instead was what appealed to me then (2006-2008) still pretty much appeals to me now. I was hoping and yet dreading some insight but found none.

Internet Archive links to these bookmarked strips. God's Got Skills, I guess that covers it, Cheer up, Jesusman & Buddha Boy,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 5:38 PM on May 26, 2024

Here's the direct image link; personally I don't ever link to the site itself to avoid giving him even a modicum of traffic.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 8:25 AM on May 28, 2024

Reallllly curious to know what the vibe is like in the Crooked office right now. Co-founder and primary funnyman Jon Lovett has been out for a few weeks, supposedly on some kind of vacation ("Eat, Pray, Lovett!"), but then the most recent episode of Pod Save America opened with about the most out-of-left-field possible explanation. The other hosts surely knew ahead of time and must have okayed his absence, but there is a definite edge to the jokes that suggest this… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:08 PM on May 27, 2024

As a regular host/cohost, I'd be shocked if he didn't tell them -- they were probably just making a joke at his expense -- but they're clearly not thrilled about it. It just struck me as a super weird thing for him to do. They've always been in the weeds with organizing and volunteering -- his speech to canvassing volunteers in Pennsylvania in 2018 was incredibly earnest and heartfelt -- so to fuck off to some reality TV island for weeks or months in the middle of a much more crucial election… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:22 PM on May 27, 2024

I try not to be too judgy about people's choice of platform on this fallen internet of ours, but you have to admit it's kind of hilarious that he's popping a monocle over people daring to discuss a list published by a company with an ad that's cRuShInG aRt... while posting on a platform that does revenue sharing with literal Nazis.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:32 AM on May 27, 2024

The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal.: "A review mentioned on Wikipedia complains that Phoenix's character is an "idiot". This is missing the point. We will all be idiots when confronted with superhuman AI. That's why it's so scary."

There's a... discourse in certain fanfic circles about what "qualifies" as a consensual relationship, line-testing stuff like "but what if they're another… [more]
posted to FanFare by Rhaomi at 12:10 AM on May 27, 2024

I'll Be Gone in the Dark, an investigation into the then-unsolved Golden State Killer published posthumously by Michelle McNamara, was quite good. Bonus: the book and the effort to complete it by her husband Patton Oswalt got turned into an HBO documentary.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:45 PM on May 26, 2024

HearHere: "looks fun. unfortunately, not ported for mobile. "

It has limited support, but it's hinky -- there's an Android port I haven't been able to try, and the itch.io page loads on iOS but the controls apparently only work if you have a mouse or keyboard accessory. A shame because it would definitely make for a great mobile game.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 4:27 PM on May 25, 2024

Faint of Butt: "The link for A Crown of My Own takes you to a blog entry, but the link to actually play the game takes you to a dead page."

It's not ideal, but Archive.org has the standalone downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux! (The web player might work too, but I'm on mobile so can't check for sure).
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:03 PM on May 25, 2024

Tbh I wasn't very familiar with him or Paizo, so I googled the site for his name and it made me smile:

Gary Teter is the man!

This guy has been RELENTLESS ALL WEEKEND in answering questions and keeping the faith amongst the unwashed Paizo-zombies.
Gary Teter Fanboi Love Thread

Give it up for our resident PostMonster General! The Master Monster of the Mainframe, the Sultan of the Servers, the King of Kode, the… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 6:49 PM on May 25, 2024

Strangely, this is actually the second artsy film about a white guy stuck inside an apartment slowly going mad called "Inside" released in the last three years.

Personally, it struck me as a more refined take on the fantastically horrifying middle third of Mexican film El Incidente, specifically the whole "descent into ritualistic madness when trapped indefinitely in one place" thing.
posted to FanFare by Rhaomi at 2:04 PM on May 24, 2024

zamboni: "There doesn't seem to be a specific TV Tropes for this"

One candidate: One-Winged Angel

Classic Big Bads have the tendency, when push comes to shove, to turn into big honking monsters. A Mad Scientist, in a fit of urgency, might down his own Psycho Serum, or a practitioner of Black Magic might mutate himself into an Eldritch Abomination, and so on. Bets are good they'll become way more bloated, ugly, or… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 1:57 PM on May 24, 2024

Interesting stuff, thanks. Some things that stand out:

- The overall graph seems to inversely track the growth of mobile social media, particularly the rise of the Facebook app in tandem with the growth of iOS and especially Android circa 2010-2011. MeFi has always been a desktop/laptop-tailored experience so the overall shift towards smartphones has not been kind, though I imagine it would have been a lot worse without the responsive redesign in 2014. There are… [more]
posted to MetaFilter Projects by Rhaomi at 4:37 PM on May 22, 2024

Klipspringer: "What I thought was interesting was that activity trends are not just about having fewer active users — it's also that the average active user now makes 6-8 comments a month (across all sites), compared to a fairly steady 12 a month over 2006 to 2016. It may be that the same users are commenting less, and/or high-activity users have left and low-activity users joined."

First thing I thought was maybe the end of the politics… [more]
posted to MetaFilter Projects by Rhaomi at 7:31 AM on May 23, 2024

The post omits that the company came out with a statement a few days ago claiming that they hired real voice actors in an audition process that started before Altman approached Johansson. They could be lying about that (they say they're not identifying the actors for privacy reasons) but then again it would come out in discovery if she sued. The voice is also similar to her performance in the film but not an exact copy. They discussed researching voice cloning tech a few months ago, but haven't… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:59 PM on May 21, 2024

Ryvar: "P.S. Rhaomi: I hate writing new threads but at some point this week we should probably have something about the senior members of OpenAI’s safety faction quitting a month into the safety and compliance phase of their brand new model, which is supposed to be their first babystep towards goalpost-shifted “AGI”. Let me know if you want me to take it."

Be my guest, I haven't been following that drama as closely. If it's anything like your… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 2:14 PM on May 22, 2024

figurant: "I've never seen Her, but on a move review podcast at the time there was a clip of a conversation between roboJohansson and Joaquin Phoenix. I don't remember the substance of the dialog, but I definitely remember that you could hear Scarlett Johansson breathing as she spoke. I thought it was a fantastically creepy choice for the film to make, although in retrospect it may not have been intentional. A very definitely non-biological system purposely mimicking the aspects of… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 2:26 PM on May 22, 2024

WaPo: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show

On Monday, Johansson cast a pall over the release of improved AI voices for ChatGPT, alleging that OpenAI had copied her voice after she refused a request by CEO Sam Altman to license it. The claim by Johansson, who played a sultry virtual AI assistant in the 2013 movie “Her,” seemed to be bolstered by a cryptic tweet Altman posted to greet a demo of the product. The tweet said, simply, “her.… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 9:33 PM on May 22, 2024

The man himself! Had no idea you were on MeFi lol -- thanks so much for making this game so accessible!
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:28 PM on May 21, 2024

hippybear: "Exactly how much storage will these devices come with? And how much will I be allowed to use vs the ever-growing database of screen activity that will be stored locally?

Honestly just that one detail tells me it's bullshit."

It ain't nothing:

The minimum hard drive space needed to run Recall is 256 GB, and 50 GB of space must be available. The default allocation for Recall on a… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 4:14 PM on May 20, 2024

News: Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist deeply involved with last year's board drama, announced that he is leaving OpenAI
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 5:25 PM on May 14, 2024

Ars Technica: Disarmingly lifelike: ChatGPT-4o will laugh at your jokes and your dumb hat

At this point, anyone with even a passing interest in AI is very familiar with the process of typing out messages to a chatbot and getting back long streams of text in response. Today's announcement of ChatGPT-4o—which lets users converse with a chatbot using real-time audio and video—might seem like a mere lateral evolution of that basic interaction model.… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 2:35 PM on May 16, 2024

Bwahaha, looks like Altman fucked up by indulging in the "Her" hype, and they're now having to backpedal, saying that their default voice is not based on Scarlett Johansen (sure) and that they'll be "pausing" use of "Sky", the ChatGPT voice that sounds like her.

(Luckily I chose "Ember", the voice that sounds like a narrator from 90s edugames.)
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:15 PM on May 20, 2024

AP: Iran’s president, foreign minister and others found dead at helicopter crash site, state media says

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and others have been found dead at the site of a helicopter crash Monday after an hourslong search through a foggy, mountainous region of the country’s northwest, state media reported. Raisi was 63.

posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 10:04 PM on May 19, 2024

Dearly departed Bella (an Australian Terrier), first as a fuzzy sausage link in the mid-00s and then getting a sink bath at her mom's in the mid-10s

Mattcat, watching his stories

Bratcat, covering his shame
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 11:33 PM on May 18, 2024

The Holiday Doors from The Nightmare Before Christmas

The gates of Hell in Dante's Inferno

The featureless black door that appears in the living room wall that leads to the labyrinth in House of Leaves

The tunnel entrance to Toon Town in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 3:22 PM on May 16, 2024

The first trailer dropped last night and it is a trip and a half. Also increasing to see how much it leans on late Roman Republic history, including references to Crassus and Clodius Pulcher.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:26 AM on May 14, 2024

Reviews are polarized, to say the least:

IndieWire: Wild and Delirious Fever Dream Inspires New Hope for the Future of Movies

The Times: A head-wrecking abomination

The Telegraph: Like Succession crossed with Batman Forever and a lava lamp

Collider: Coppola’s Sci-Fi Is a Big, Bonkers Swing

The Guardian: Passion project is megabloated and… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 1:03 PM on May 16, 2024

Mother's Day is always a little melancholy in my family because my grandmother passed away that day a few years ago -- losing loved ones makes you more appreciative of the people in your life, but it's hard to celebrate with your mom when she's got that memory of losing her own mom weighing on her.

My grandfather was a small-time farmer in northern Alabama -- he kept horses and goats and worked the field with his dog and the house was perpetually the home of at… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:37 AM on May 12, 2024

Recently I've been giving the side-eye to that story about the teacher who allegedly framed his school principal with deepfaked racist comments -- according to the police report:

Detectives allege that Darien used his Large Language Models, such as OpenAI and Bing chat, to create the recording. The charging document claimed that Darien has a paid OpenAI account, which gives users more features than the free version.

I'm 100% certain that you… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 3:22 PM on May 11, 2024

Another possibility from MobyGames:

Boxes (1996) - "The story behind the game is that the player has been left alone on a space station and has been left alone to stack the colour coded boxes. All the boxes come in pairs are the same shape and size. The playing screen starts with some fixed boxes scattered around and it is the player’s job to stack four blocks of the same colour together at which point they are removed from the screen, the level ends when all the… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:01 PM on May 10, 2024

a faded photo of their beloved: "One interesting aspect of the partly-self-generated media spheres we find ourselves in is that bad things like Obama's use of drones rightly receive clamorous condemnation, even worse things like Trump's ramped-up use of drones oddly received very little comment, and Biden's having greatly reduced the use of drones only incrementally more."

That's not even a political thing, necessarily, more of an artifact of… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:02 AM on May 10, 2024

Pseudonymous Cognomen: "This is seriously a Clown World take. [...] You have to be delusional or living in a bubble to think that this has anything at all to do with "neo-fascist troll farms"."

The provenance of the meme in your first sentence kind of undercuts the argument of your last one there.

The online discourse is marinating in engineered memetic warfare more than most realize.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 9:50 AM on May 10, 2024

Pseudonymous Cognomen: "I've never been exposed to that meme and was not referencing it. (The phrase "clown world" predates that significantly; see here from 2000, for instance.)"

Not saying you were consciously using it in the alt-right sense, just that spending time in spaces where it's common could be inviting other bad influences as well. (And it may have been said as a one-off phrase in the past but the capitalized version of… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 10:10 AM on May 10, 2024

No, but I've read about the strategies they use. And it's not (just) about spreading fascism explicitly, but also non-fascist attitudes that happen to serve fascist aims, including the kind of fatalistic cynicism that makes people give up on reform.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 10:33 AM on May 10, 2024

I'd comment on the article, but seeing the author's name triggered a memory of the "Ned! RYERSON!" scene from beloved childhood film Groundhog Day which left me so verklempt that I had no choice but to join my local patriots militia.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 5:23 PM on May 4, 2024