MetaFilter

I just looked back at my FPP history and saw: 1 in 2013, 1 in 2015, 3 in 2016, 3 in 2017 which is only a few weeks long so far. (And I submitted 1, maybe 2, over the years, that got deleted for being too close to the self-link line or for being accidental duplicates.) Clearly I'm becoming more comfortable posting to the front page, and even though I haven't yet participated explicitly in a women's month effort, I think the encouragements I heard in women's month initiatives probably served to… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 4:22 AM on February 7, 2017

I put a protest & organizing moment into a political thread on the blue but in retrospect I think it belonged in this thread!

I'm happy that today I ran across both quisling.club and -- thanks to Bella Donna -- Knock Every Door. I'm strongly influenced by Betsy Leondar-Wright's work (like her book about class culture differences among left activists in the US) and I am interested in putting those lessons into practice via Knock Every Door.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 9:25 PM on January 31, 2017

Squeak Attack, we may end up wanting to move this to Ask, but regardless I want to reply to you:

* My word, you're having a tough time, and I wish you well. Taking care of yourself and the people who depend on you is really important. We want you to be around in the future. Everyone needs to take breaks and that's ok.
* You are already helping by donating money.
* Email can work.
* Can you research? Bella Donna's note above said that… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 10:45 AM on February 1, 2017

Thank you all so much for the MeFi United team. I signed up to make calls a few days ago. I kept saying I'd do calls in the evening, East Coast time, calling the Midwest and the West. And then I was taking care of this friend, and that responsibility, and I was exhausted...

And then today -- thanks to a FPP -- I heard David Rees yell at me to get off my ass and start making calls. And he was right, and I made a few calls to the Call Guides who were very reassuring to me… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 10:04 AM on November 5, 2016

Thanks yasaman for details about text (SMS) banking (including the fact that you can only do it from certain campaign headquarters offices). hillaryclinton.com/events/ mentions "Text Out the Vote!" events coming up at the Manhattan field office, for instance.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 6:48 AM on November 6, 2016

.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 7:23 AM on November 1, 2016

The spouse and I have enjoyed several episodes of Season 2 of Twin Peaks today. Also I made myself a bit of stovetop popcorn with cumin, turmeric, cayenne, salt, pepper, and sugar. We have about 70 more minutes till sunset here in NYC so maybe I'll use that grey light to help me do a bit of filing and closet-digging.

A Motherboard reader figured out what that song was on Paul Ryan's livestream. Sarah Jeong:

WHAT I REALLY… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 12:51 PM on January 23, 2016

sidereal, I love a savory popcorn!

INDIAN-STYLE POPCORN

In a stockpot, dump, say, half a cup of popcorn kernels and a bit of vegetable oil, enough so that when you shake it around, every kernel gets coated. Add your spices, such as a not-quite-heaping teaspoon of cumin seeds, a heaping teaspoon of curry powder, a quarter-teaspoon of extra turmeric if you want a really bright color on the spiced popcorn (will stain your fingers), sugar and… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 2:36 PM on January 23, 2016

I'm so glad, sidereal! What spices did you choose? I forgot to mention that I've taken to tossing some brown mustard seeds into the oil as well.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 7:00 PM on January 26, 2016

Thanks to everyone who's been working on voicing and balancing everyone's different needs in this situation. I appreciate it.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 8:39 AM on January 12, 2016

SO COOL

AM SO HAPPY

Congratulations, Eyebrows McGee, and congrats to the MeFi staff and community that we get such an awesome member as a mod!
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 1:03 PM on December 29, 2015

Another person here eagerly anticipating the next 5 Useful Articles newsletter.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 12:30 AM on July 26, 2015

Yay!
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 6:44 PM on June 2, 2015

Thank you - this was a lovely gift.

jhc: Maybe throw all the URLs into a wiki page and link it as "Photo Credits" next to "About" and "Hide"? That won't make it any less Pinterest-y as far as I can tell, and it seems like good karma.

Sounds good to me! Or just put the monster list into a comment in this thread (already linked as "About").
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 11:00 AM on April 1, 2013

I know the woman who made up a fake blogging interface for a movie that had blogging in it. She's also done fake mobile phone UIs for TV shows. It feels like knowing a spy or wizard.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 10:45 PM on March 3, 2013

the lady whose husband wouldn't shower ever

I request a link. Or an Oliver Sacks book.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 11:18 AM on February 14, 2013

My home "office". I got the spinner rack from a bookstore that was remodeling. Love having my paperbacks so accessible!

Enjoy the Commons category that my non-San-Francisco colleagues and I have: "Wikimedia Foundation remote staff offices".
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 1:54 PM on January 30, 2013

MattMangels, does it really get your goat when someone says "USian"? I'm seriously asking. I use it fairly reflexively because people from South & Latin America have mentioned that it's annoying when people in the US just use "American" to mean "from the US". Originally it was a choice and now it's a habit. I use it in Wikimedia circles without trouble and I've seen others there do so as well.

PhoBWanKenobi, thank you for sharing… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 8:04 AM on November 21, 2012

I was born and raised in the United States as a daughter of immigrants from India. If I were talking aloud to people from the other side of the world then I would simplify my wording radically in general, including saying "American" when I mean "from the United States of America," because it's better for them to understand me than to be properly respectful of people from Latin and South America. When I'm speaking aloud to fluent English speakers and I want to say… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 7:08 PM on November 21, 2012

As I said, I'm going to cut back on using "USian" on MetaFilter since some other folks here feel unhappy with it. I'll substitute "from the United States" or a similar locution. If anyone discovers a reasonable one-word replacement for "USian" after this thread is closed, please memail me.

I thought I was being precise
Both rational and fairly nice
But I hear consensus
That I'm building fences
With my little lexical vice
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 4:10 PM on November 22, 2012

P.o.B., will you allow me a little artistic license in using "precise" in that limerick to rhyme with "nice" and "vice"? Not sure what the equivalent of "causa metri" is when it comes to rhyming. "Causa rhymi?" I was kind of hoping a limerick would lighten the mood. :(

(Or maybe you were responding more to others' talk of precision throughout the thread?)
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 4:34 AM on November 23, 2012

Absolutely fine here in Astoria in Queens, NY. Never lost power or internet - congrats and thanks to the overtime workers who made sure I could stay warm, cozy, and connected.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 8:07 AM on October 30, 2012

iotic, I'm happy to file a bug/enhancement request myself regarding our mobile site. Would you say that the desired functionality here would be that, when you are copying and pasting a link from the URL bar of your mobile browser, the link should be to a standard Wikimedia URL such as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo , rather than a mobile link? I don't know whether MediaWiki (the software Wikipedia runs on) can do that; that might require magic from the browser makers. Perhaps instead you'd simply… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 5:18 AM on May 25, 2012

I brought this conversation to the attention of Wikimedia's product manager for mobile, Phil Chang, in an IRC office hour we're holding right now (#wikimedia-office on Freenode).

[sumanah] I'd like to help bring this conversation into Wikimedia's awareness: http://metatalk.metafilter.com/21752/Strip-mobile-tags - request for the regular URL to be 1 tap away rather than 2 (while on a mobile site page), to make it easier to copy, and also following up on the issue with… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 11:47 AM on May 25, 2012

You can quote me on this.

Like so many others, I'd been lurking for a while, and then I just had to answer a question on Ask.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 11:03 AM on April 11, 2012

There was a Canadian guy on Ask who wanted to move to Perth, Melbourne or Sydney to surf (and be an accountant or something) and needed advice on which to pick. It was worth the five dollars to warn him how crap the surf is in Perth and Melbourne.

I once met up with the friend of a friend as she was passing through my city, and gradually grew to dislike her as she and I had dinner and I walked her a little through my neighborhood. She lived in Perth… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 11:26 AM on April 16, 2012

I was really confused, and I assumed I didn't understand... It took a surprising bit of back-and-forth before I realized (to myself), "Oh, you're just wrong!"

I was just thinking about self-assurance, expertise, confidence, risk assessment, trust, and how it takes a certain amount of healthy self-confidence to see an incongruity and presume "they are wrong" rather than "I'm not getting it." Christopher Kimball said:… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 8:42 AM on April 10, 2012

I'd heard about Hoder before but hadn't gotten such a full picture; I'm with arcticseal in hoping that this publicity positively affects Hoder's situation.

Re: Jimmy Wales, the main beef with him is the appearance that he has taken a massive cooperative enterprise among $#!+loads of contributors and made it too much 'all about him'. Because if you were looking for a true 'face of Wikipedia', his is a poor choice.

Disclaimer: I… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 6:46 AM on January 31, 2012

Awww! That's so great! Thanks for sharing.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 8:49 AM on January 28, 2012

In 2011, the Wikimedia Foundation hired me as its volunteer development coordinator, to work with the MediaWiki development community. In May, I met for the first time two of my colleagues who had related jobs in the engineering department: the bugtracker manager, Mark, and the technical communications manager, Guillaume. Our team needed a name, and my boss Rob and I together decided on Technical Liaisons and Developer Relations, or, the TL;DR group.

I am now the team… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 8:41 AM on January 4, 2012

mippy -- perhaps you'd like to use the old-school engineering version of TL;DR, "Attention Conservation Notice".
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 6:35 AM on January 5, 2012

edgeways, "facebook -duh" sounds like a command-line variation that will allow me to read Facebook while minimizing its cognitive load.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 2:56 PM on January 3, 2012

but you don't want the surgery and you like it when they come by.

nobody, you made me tear up a little.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 10:38 AM on December 8, 2011

Another thank-you for the link to Agre's "How to help someone use a computer."
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 4:02 AM on December 5, 2011

SpacemanStix, I'm amused to see you quoting that line from Breaking Bad because of what Gus is trying to get out of the other person in that conversation....
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 4:01 AM on December 5, 2011

Spolier!
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 7:24 AM on November 12, 2011

.
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 6:10 AM on June 2, 2011

Zed, did you and I ever go together to see Will Franken? "O great wonderful earthgodmotherfather, you who have no gender, race, or sexual orientation, o multicultural and diverse entity, o nondescript & intangible being, please help us to be more nonspecific." (I find some of his PC-backlash satire distasteful now; I wonder how much I've changed, or whether I'm just reading into his old work the neocon stuff that started appearing in his new stuff.)
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 10:04 PM on November 30, 2010

Netzapper's And it pleases me greatly to see the offense and emotional injury I've inflicted against an enemy with a really well-turned insult, more than anything else in this thread, reminds me how different we MeFites are; I don't think I've ever deliberately and successfully made someone feel appreciably worse by insulting them.

One reason people have been talking at cross-purposes in this discussion is that they approach insults with different… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by brainwane at 5:14 AM on October 22, 2010