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It was riveting watching this. Thank you for the link. If anyone else is in the mood for more live rescue audio, here's a 2018 post about air traffic control helping a 17 year old solo student pilot who loses part of her landing gear at takeoff.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 9:10 AM on April 6, 2023

What a rollicking barrel of fun. I'm so happy to have enjoyed these. Thanks for the link!
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 6:30 PM on April 4, 2023

"four primary activities appeared over and over: anticipating a need, identifying options for filling it, deciding among the options, and monitoring the results."

A helpful framing! Glad to know this in particular. This may help me divide up domestic work proactively and delegate or own different bits.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:10 PM on April 3, 2023

I have been involved in an ongoing family chore (now concluded) where supplies needed to be bought regularly, and inventory needed to be kept so family could monitor when supplies were running low and could order more. (Note that not everyone involved in this work lived in the same household.)

One person set up a shared online spreadsheet, and did data entry for the various supplies, and the rate at which they would be consumed, and how much inventory the household had… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:47 AM on April 4, 2023

Reading this reminded me of Patrick McKenzie's assessment of his experiences with VaccinateCA, and the comments that Johnny Sanphillippo at Granola Shotgun (updated link to blog post) has made about housing policy around construction requirements. Well-intentioned regulations sometimes have unfortunate unintended consequences, especially depending on their execution.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 4:44 PM on March 27, 2023

As BungaDunga wrote:
That's the thing, the NY law was ostensibly supposed to ameliorate that: steering cannabis licenses to people who had themselves spent time behind bars for a prior weed conviction, and to nonprofits.

Is New York's licensing process more (on paper) focused on social equity for people previously hurt by the drug war than are/were the processes in British Columbia and Ontario and Michigan? Did cannabis dispensaries open… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 4:55 AM on March 28, 2023

The first CAURD in Queens will open tomorrow.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 12:06 PM on March 28, 2023

Looks like that lawsuit from the Michigan resident will no longer block a bunch of areas in NY from letting dispensaries open.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 1:23 PM on March 30, 2023

And, because that lawsuit is no longer blocking issuing licenses, the state just issued 99 new licenses including "53 going to New York City applicants." So maybe the logjam has broken. I'm inclined to go with Pitachu's and Kitteh's explanations for what happened in NY state & city so far.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 5:19 PM on April 3, 2023

What a neat, informative piece of writing! Very instructive and I'm glad to have read it.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 4:23 AM on April 3, 2023

jenfullmoon, did you read Henry's description of the outings she was recommending?

So what would I suggest in the cases where someone is visiting and has limited mobility, but no assistive device other than our friend, the automobile? I suggest the following, because these are things that I like to do, and can do, when I’m not walking well but also not using my wheelchair (usually because I don’t feel like loading a giant power chair in and out of the car trunk).… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 3:24 PM on April 1, 2023

Do y'all think e-bikes should be subject to the same stop sign rules as legbikes/conventional bikes? My current thinking is that people on ebikes should have to stop at all stop signs, because

they can go faster and accelerate faster than conventional bikes, and they're heavier, so collisions would hurt pedestrians more, and so it's more important for pedestrian safety to avoid those collisions
since it takes less effort to get going from a full stop, it's… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:13 AM on March 28, 2023

From the author bio:

She is the author of the upcoming "AP's US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up)."

OH EXCELLENT. I bet I will devour this while laughing bitterly and heartily, as I did with America: The Book (the textbook-shaped satire by The Daily Show).
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:07 AM on March 28, 2023

The speech and this thread are also an argument for ALL literate adults picking up a bit of skill in children's reader advisory, so we can be of more help to the children in our lives. Including the kids who just pass through unexpectedly.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 3:14 AM on March 28, 2023

I believe Zed informed me that Woodrow Wilson, while in grad school, was friends with the dude who wrote The Clansman (the book that the film Birth of a Nation was based on). There's probably something tiny along the way to that coincidence that could easily have been different.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:47 AM on March 26, 2023

(I think I tracked down the interview mentioned in the previous comment.)
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 2:48 AM on March 28, 2023

Did anyone try the Analytic vs. Synthetic Listening test?
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 10:37 AM on March 27, 2023

This visualization is several months old and I haven't looked up more recent data.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:24 PM on March 21, 2023

Eagle also created a similar data visualization for desktop operating systems starting in 1978 which is fun to watch. OS/2 Warp! Various DOSes!
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:06 AM on March 22, 2023

Yes, I like the animated pie chart presentation! It feels more immersive than a line graph, like a story with suspense. And I like the music too.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 10:08 AM on March 22, 2023

Here's something I wrote 9 years ago (while I was working for the Wikimedia Foundation, which I haven't in many years):

If You Log In To Wikipedia You Can Customize A Bunch Of Stuff

I bet most people reading this often read Wikipedia articles but don't log in. That's fine. I love that you don't have to register to read or edit. But here are a few reasons you should try logging in:


Read how you want. You can… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:43 AM on March 20, 2023

(BTW Farrell is Irish.)

I appreciate people being careful here -- I know this is a really thorny set of topics. I also noted the lines that yasaman and abulafa mentioned, along with:

Some unsavoury women had also burned. and People still burned, mostly though not entirely men.

at least eighty-three percent of the burned had materially and repeatedly harmed the bodies, minds… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:18 AM on March 13, 2023

mikurski, you asked: in this universe, once a few waves of conflagration have happened,

For the people of this world, who do they think is a woman? Who do they think is a man? Who is fair game, because you know justice is going to come for them with the same surety as gravity?

...and if you know that, why wait?

I think that transphobes might well seize on an opportunity to try to further their agendas,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:44 AM on March 13, 2023

Here's a reblog of the dalekteaservice post on a different Tumblr that's set up so it won't demand you log in. Argh; evidently some public Tumblr posts are now behaving weird depending on the blog owner's setup.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 10:33 AM on March 13, 2023

Maria Farrell, thank you for dropping by and sharing your thoughts and plans!

If you're open to sharing it: in "Burning Men" did you intend to use the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. waves of burnings to reflect on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. waves of feminism?

what could we achieve in a world without rape?

I appreciate this thought experiment and am looking forward to reading what you do further with it.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:30 AM on March 20, 2023

Can't find it now, but I read one person noting that startup founders from other countries (not sure whether she was discussing immigrants/expats or people living in non-US countries) have been particularly affected by this, as Silicon Valley Bank was fairly unique in its openness to business accounts where the accountholder does not have a Social Security Number. I did read Nadia Eghbal (who I have often disagreed with), who notes that SVB was more willing than other banks to, for instance,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 5:37 AM on March 12, 2023

Previously on MeFi: How deposit insurance works:

So eventually, on a Friday, the supervisor (which is not the FDIC) tells the bank that it has failed. Concurrently with this, the FDIC swings into action. The micro-mechanics of this are fascinating; they resemble a police raid on the bank headquarters except mostly conducted by people who look like accountants (and in some cases, are).

That action is, in almost all cases,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 6:19 AM on March 12, 2023

Advice for startup founders from accounting provider Pilot.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 9:16 PM on March 12, 2023

Dan Davies writes: "Call it what it is":

...if the FDIC had operated normally and not extended insurance to people who hadn’t paid the premium – then the bill would have arrived at the VCs’ door. They are the owners of the tech startup companies, and they would have been the ones responsible for ensuring that those companies could make payroll if they had lost money in a bank failure through no fault of their own. It might not have been… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 9:24 AM on March 13, 2023

I enjoyed Morning Brew's humorous short videos (under 2 minutes each) satirizing the crisis, posted to Twitter:

Part I

Part II

Viewable through the nitter proxy in case you don't want to/can't view tweets:

Part I

Part II
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 12:09 PM on March 14, 2023

There is infinite political will and bottomless appetite for money creation when VC-backed companies face distress, but when the death of your parents is followed by years of brutal debt-collector armbreakers chasing you from phone number to phone number, it's just crickets.....

Upton Sinclair said, 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.' It's even more difficult to get a one… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 3:45 AM on March 16, 2023

One reason some companies banked at SVB: competing banks took up to 6 weeks to actually approve and create a bank account.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 8:00 PM on March 16, 2023

This makes me miss my old workhorse HP printer that my family bought in the 1990s and that I used through university -- on Linux in the early 2000s, as I recall. Robust, an oasis of stability. I remember specifically jesting that, after the apocalypse, the landscape would be cockroaches and HP printers. Why did I ever part ways with it? It did weigh approximately the same as a baby elephant so maybe I left it behind in a move....
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 5:02 AM on March 16, 2023

Tad Naff, how is the command line UX guidelines website attempting to make a profit? I also took a look at the C4 model website and it doesn't seem to be a commercial endeavor, either.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 1:38 PM on March 14, 2023

I did already know the joke. Every time I have seen anyone use or refer to it, they have been implying that the initiative they are mocking is trying to make a financial profit.

Anyway, have any of you tried Elm or Rust? I've been enjoying the error messages and finding them really helpful as I start learning the language.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 3:11 PM on March 14, 2023

Oh that takes me back -- In The Beginning Was The Command Line was the first Stephenson I ever read, 20+ years ago.

I started learning Rust using the Rustlings game-type tutorials which uses the error messages as a teaching tool. You get some broken code and use the in-terminal errors as a guide to help you fix it up (in your own preferred text editor), then move on to the next wee bit of code to fix, over and over.

I feel like… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 5:37 PM on March 14, 2023

That put a smile on my face.

Was I dressed like Xerxes?

And I'm pleased this person has found a good environment and activity to help him get/stay healthy:

Middle-Aged Michael practices yoga because he wants Old Man Michael to have the strength, mobility, and mental resilience he needs to keep doing the things that Michaels of all ages have always valued.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 5:55 PM on March 11, 2023

Absolutely wonderful. A joy.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 5:17 PM on March 10, 2023

I looked up more about Do and learned that he is a gay man, and the child of Vietnamese refugees to the US. And he "enjoys riding his bike" so (as a bicyclist in NYC) I hope that means he'll be better at watching out for bicyclists than some other car drivers are!
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 5:55 PM on March 9, 2023

Probabilitics -- there's a strong chance you're joking, but in case you are not: as a cabbie, Do is not allowed to accept fares or tips.

A TLC spokesperson said Do was cleared by the city’s Conflict of Interests Board to obtain the license, but he is bound by several rules: He’s not immune from disciplinary measures if a passenger files a complaint against him; and he cannot collect fares or tips.

So, any passenger who happens to hail his cab —… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 5:14 AM on March 10, 2023

THIS ROCKS!!!! Much thanks for bringing this to my aural facets of perception!!
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 2:59 PM on March 9, 2023

Adrian, thanks for writing the story and sharing it -- it was a treat! If you have other published prose fiction pieces I would like to read them (I couldn't figure out on your website whether they are all collected in one place, tagged, or something like that).

I imagine that Appendices A, B, and C are, respectively, the negotiated agreement itself (written in a Federation legal domain-specific language along the lines of Catala), the vanishingly few… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 3:56 AM on March 8, 2023

I appreciated reading this and better understanding the industry -- thanks!
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 10:10 PM on March 6, 2023

mightshould, since Medicaid is run by the individual states, the specific documents Medicaid requests will vary by state. The American Council on Aging summarizes:

Proof of income may include copies of alimony checks, SSI or VA benefit award letters, tax forms, and pension statements. A letter of self-declaration of income may be acceptable when there is no other way to prove income. Requested documentation related to proof of resources might include statements from… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 5:21 PM on March 6, 2023

I emailed the Clickword and Squareword maintainer to share the link to this thread a few weeks ago, and the other day I got a response that included thanks for how helpful the discussion here was:

"I incorporated quite a bit of the feedback into a big update yesterday. Word list and letter distribution should be much better now."

So if you were dissatisfied when you tried the game before, say, March 5th, consider trying again.
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 4:27 PM on March 6, 2023

The March 5th update to Clickword, per the text on the website:



Hello! Based on your feedback I have made a few important changes to ClickWord.

First, words will no longer disappear automatically. Instead, they turn green, and you have to click on them to claim them. If you don't claim a word, it stays on the board, and you can add letters to make it longer. This makes it easier to build long words!… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 4:43 PM on March 6, 2023

Another possible directory: "COVID-Conscious Therapist Directory: Find mental health support that’s sensitive to the realities of living through COVID-19"
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 4:03 PM on March 6, 2023

From the first link:


And I realized, as I was going on about how invigorating it was to see this busy mix ... in what is so often a lonely and isolating place, that I’d got the Galleria all wrong. It wasn’t this weird, empty wasteland unworthy of an extraordinary dumpling shop. And it wasn’t that no one ever went there. It’s that I never went there.


I am going to take this as further reminder and… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 3:24 AM on March 4, 2023

chavenet, I too marveled at that quote.

The Holdout - "The very last restaurant in NYC's once-bustling East Broadway Mall is hanging on, one tray of dumplings at a time."

Thanks for this link -- based on this, my spouse may go check this place out. (We live in NYC.)

Also, I like that Eater shares, in the credits at the end of an article, the names of the fact checker and copy editor!
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 9:47 AM on March 4, 2023

Susan's a friend of mine and she is great, and I recommend "We Apologize To The Birds".
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 1:07 PM on February 28, 2023