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5/5 and I expected nothing less. In fact I have a [correct] cup of tea just like this in front of me right now; a hot drink made strong with a mild stimulant, and milk to provide sugars and fats. It's the workplace drug of the Industrial Revolution and I can almost hear generations of my ancestors complaining about boring jobs.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:06 PM on April 2, 2024

Keep your water bottle antiseptic by adding 1:25 hand sanitiser in it. Adds a certain zing to the work morning.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 6:07 PM on April 2, 2024

My mother had a t-shirt, in the 1980s, with the slogan 'it will be a great day when the air force has to hold a cake sale to buy a bomber'. Since February 2022 I've often been thinking of that t-shirt.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:27 PM on March 26, 2024

I am begging you, Americans, please stop doing this. When Ukraine-supportive watchers (as I am, and as there are a lot of in this thread) express concern about the fucking Azov, please don't jump in to say 'but actually America does this too'. At the moment there is no equivalent to a hard-right ultranationalist militia fully integrated on its own terms into the US Army, nor has any military arm of the United States---probably since the Civil War---had such an overt political affiliation of the… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 7:57 PM on March 27, 2024

This is all set for a years-long playoffs-style knockout tournament to find the Best Rougon-Macquart novel of them all. (It’s Germinal FWIW)
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 6:54 PM on March 25, 2024

who owns the 'land' rights to the moon?

There is a Moon Agreement, which is in force with power given by the United Nations, but neither the USA nor China (nor any other country that would realistically be engaged in moon rail) is a signatory.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 6:27 PM on March 21, 2024

Elsewhere a friend suggested that the lunar environment (low gravity, no wind) would make aerial ropeways and gondolas a viable technology for this. So what we’re really talking about is spies fighting Lunar Nazis on top of a cable car; Where Eagles Dare On The Moon. And that’s awesome.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:53 PM on March 21, 2024

Everyone wants to reintroduce koalas. Real heads want to reintroduce diprotodon.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:06 PM on March 19, 2024

One of the most carefully used, and historically consistent anti-western propaganda tropes is that only the West ever has agency, such as that Ukraine is reduced in this to a proxy force fighting on behalf of NATO, which in turn is a paw of the United States, and so on and so forth. In this model, populist opposition to dictators in e.g. the Arab Spring and post-Soviet republics are only ever CIA-linked 'colour revolutions', once again, maximising Western agency and eliminating that of the… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 8:51 PM on March 18, 2024

This is all extremely silly. To the comparison that the US had slavery which retains profound effects, you can easily say that Alexander III emancipated the serfs, and wind up in favour of Tsarism. This kind of relentless comparisonism robs any conversation about what is right and what should be done of any power.

If you want to talk about American exceptionalism, I’d offer as an observation that it’s very frustrating, as a citizen of neither the US nor Russia, for… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 2:54 PM on March 19, 2024

Even then the comparisonism of prison to prison society fails, and serves to elude the genuine differences. The US has an extensive prison industrial complex. It does not yet offer pardons at a mass scale, to inmates willing to join storm-Z units for meat infantry attacks. The rest of the world really does draw a distinction here.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 3:20 PM on March 19, 2024

[non-American reading] oh right, not *that* IRA
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 2:16 PM on March 13, 2024

I am a huge Davies fan. For readers new to him, a great entry point is his Lying for Money, about the history (and economic-sociological theory) of frauds.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:16 PM on March 12, 2024

On December 29, armed with binoculars, his PI badge, golf clubs, Nicorette lozenges (for during), and weed (for after), he began a stakeout in his black SUV. His legion of off-duty security guards, out-of-work 20-somethings, and ex-cons took relief shifts

Can't decide if this is more Dashiell Hammett or Elmore Leonard. Or maybe Coen Brothers.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:12 PM on March 12, 2024

Consider the characteristics of the Royal Family. They're they're to talk about, and for people to tell tall stories about, they're very famous but essentially local symbols (to the UK, and to England more specifically), they straddle the line between being objects of mysticism and mystery of monarchy and being prosaic ordinary human beings like you and me, they have an extraordinarily large variety of different formal names, roles, and titles, and nicknames, and so on, and people will spend… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:14 PM on March 11, 2024

The most precious thing on the internet, for me, are the contents of the old PhpBB forums for cars and motorbikes, before about 2008 or so, full of the advice and knowledge of the weird old guys who'd tell you, for example, exactly how to replace the steering stem bearings on a Yamaha SR400, and why a tapered bearing kit is superior to the OEM. That was when all the old guys got onto facebook, moved the advice-asking there. Anything before 2008 is precious.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:51 PM on March 11, 2024

Ctrl-F ‘Avara’
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:47 PM on March 4, 2024

Arthur pulls a sword from a stone, famously, yes, but there’s a lot of ambiguity here in the Arthurian canon: Excalibur is also a gift from the Lady of the Lake and includes a special scabbard, which has healing powers; literally a magical vagina.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 11:02 PM on March 1, 2024

My father, who learned to cook in the Australian 1940s and 1950s, used to make a ‘curry’ which involved lamb, butter, curry powder, sultanas, apple, flour, all kinds of things. Obviously it bore absolutely no resemblance to any food from SE Asia or the subcontinent, and was more like a big French sauce or meat curry gravy. It was only as an adult studying that I found a recipe from the early 19th century that was supposed to teach English people ‘curries’ and Indian food, which looked very very… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 12:42 PM on February 29, 2024

I can believe that the whole thing was a well-funded artificial campaign by a secretive set of bad-faith actors, using disinformation and black propaganda to advance the causes of autocratic governments and dictatorships, because let's face it international relations works this way now, but I have never had a good explanation for 'why Heard'. Why this particular actor. I don't get it.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:46 PM on February 27, 2024

Mostly I’m sorry for Flava Flav who needs his catchphrase back, and the KLF who *really* know what time love is
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 7:55 PM on February 24, 2024

This is an amazing blog, thank you for posting it.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:26 PM on February 23, 2024

Have we forgotten the romantic-supernatural-fantasy, apparently referred to by the publishing industry as ‘grave throbbers’
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 12:52 PM on February 22, 2024

Nice notes like these go into my special hey, you're not a piece of shit.md file. Everyone should keep a you're not a piece of shit.md.

Yes. Yes that's exactly right. [Opens a text editor]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:49 PM on February 20, 2024

One is a loose-leg, the other is a fast-leg. Ahab is an opening bowler for the Nantucket XI.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:37 PM on February 19, 2024

I don't think there's any context for The Muppet Show within American or UK culture anymore

I think this is more true than not true, but not sufficient. It's true that the Muppets, like a lot of late-20thC comedy, had its roots in vaudeville and variety theatre, genres which don't exist any more, and which are culturally outside most adults' experience. Mel Brooks is in this category too, all his best jokes are fading into the past. The Muppets really were were… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:22 PM on February 12, 2024

OTOH, God Emperor of Dune, filmed live-action with all the pompousness and Jason Momoa of it all, except that Leto II is a felt sandworm muppet. Make it happen Hollywood.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:25 PM on February 12, 2024

I remember from military first aid training, you have to check a patient for bleeding

Aside: this is fascinating; it is absolutely true, since there’s little point in beginning CPR/defibrillation if a person is going to bleed out, but the only two groups of people I’ve encountered who actually train this way (check for bullet holes!) are former soldiers and Americans. Otherwise it’s DRSABCD.

Not aside: In the other thread cassowaries linked to I… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 1:45 PM on February 11, 2024

Judging size is difficult, it really depends on your monitor
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:44 PM on February 9, 2024

The thing about insurrection is that uniquely, by definition isn’t tried in the courts, it’s tried in the streets and on the battlefield; Trump is an insurrectionist because he tried it and failed on insurrection’s own terms. Those same terms applied to Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, both disqualified, neither tried or convicted.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:08 PM on February 8, 2024

Owning a Kaweco Sport is the closest to a full on Cult of Personality I'm ever likely to fully and consciously appreciate, and this is due to the infallible leadership, hard work, inspiration, and historical inevitability, of Comrade Chairman Kaweco Sport!
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:18 PM on February 6, 2024

W/r/t the sacredness of ibises in ancient Egypt, I am absolutely convinced that a species fixated on humans, that creates spaces in highly public places only it will inhabit, driving all other life away, and that smells like death, has something otherworldly going on
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 7:23 PM on February 5, 2024

RED PANDAS
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 12:30 PM on February 5, 2024

The order is; 'engage the caterpillar drive'!

[Everyone starts singing the Soviet anthem]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 8:12 PM on February 4, 2024

There's also the Fortean approach, in which the objective truth of the content is irrelevant, but the journalism is rigorous, and the investigations serious. (The Blue Mountains Panther is real)
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:52 PM on January 31, 2024

[sings] Cod liver oil and the orange juice
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 7:45 PM on January 30, 2024

Ford pardoning Nixon ought to be far higher. In retrospect, it should be first on the list, as we're discovering now it's been a world-historical error to give American political leaders the notion that they'll be exempted from legal consequences if there's a political basis for pardoning them.

It’s easy to argue that losing the presidency was a pretty fitting punishment for Watergate. Throwing Nixon into a prison cell on top of that wouldn’t have accomplished… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 3:51 PM on January 30, 2024

There's a common joke, which is not a joke, about country towns in NSW, which is that they'll accept anyone as a local, as long as their great-grandparents weren't blow-ins from the city. (A second to stop to think about it, and you'll understand why lots of people in country towns don't laugh). I see James Cook mentioned in the article, and yeah, he's part of my country too.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 6:48 PM on January 29, 2024

I (gen x) also find the dating sidebar in this thread fascinating. It's the sign of a profound cultural shift, I think. To me it's totally alien for there to be such a strong social norm against people joining volunteer activities with the potential to make friends or romantic attachments---if what you want is to find people with a specific set of values and behaviours, how else will you find places where they're required to show them? In other words, to let you know who they are?
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:03 PM on January 28, 2024

Let's see we've got [spins wheel] Dune 2 in the style of [wheel ticks slowly to a stop] Eddie Murphy buddy cop comedy, with Eddie Murphy playing all the characters
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 8:18 PM on January 23, 2024

Literary awards are essentially political, though, and always have been. Boris Pasternak's Nobel, which the Soviet Writers Union forbade him from accepting, was precisely for writing honestly about his own country's past. So was Solzhenitsyn's. Often the award of prizes on explicit political grounds is desirable and justified, it's just that what (as I understand it) Chinese participants may be doing is not good---because it's censorious, not because it's political.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 10:01 PM on January 21, 2024

[for what it's worth, I read very little science fiction because it's not my thing, but anything that's earned the disapproval of a government as illiberal as China's is a recommendation in itself, so Babel is now on my to-read list]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 10:13 PM on January 21, 2024

I am not surprised that brushtail possums are smart puzzle solvers. Little bastards are too clever, whenever I see one I feel the urge to pat myself to make sure my wallet and keys and phone are still there.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 8:56 PM on January 16, 2024

This is an excellent post
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 10:47 PM on January 15, 2024

I don't agree that there's a distinction for people who for whatever reason don't involve themselves in a community. My own country is notoriously parochial and hostile to newcomers, whether they want to be a good neighbour or not; and there's nothing wrong with associating, wherever you are, with whoever you want to. Sometimes leaving itself can also be a form of deep participation in the politics and culture of a society, as many Russians of military age have done, and sometimes---thinking of… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 7:42 PM on January 14, 2024

This is fascinatingly English in a way I think only non-English people will see; the author jumps straight to gender and some kind of elaborate Darwinian metaphor when what is obvious, so so obvious, is that all these jokes are ways of performing class. He even notes that 'middle class men' are the most positive (though the jokes are fascinatingly double-edged and ambiguous as only the English middle class can be).

The findings may also be relevant to the great… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:10 PM on January 14, 2024

I'm going to pat it
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:57 PM on January 10, 2024

This tracks with my experience (and I suspect bald pale skin is significant). I have hair, and don’t get swooped when walking much, but have been swooped a lot wearing a white motorbike helmet, once to the point where a bird took a chunk out of the plastic.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 2:12 PM on January 10, 2024

If the President of the United States is immune from prosecutions for murder, then the only way to get away with murder is if you kill the current President and become the new one. And that’s why [closeup on Nic Cage’s face] we have to steal the Declaration of Independence.
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 1:39 PM on January 9, 2024

I KNOW YOU PLANNED IT
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 7:58 PM on December 26, 2023