Thanks for your patience as I have worked through talking with lawyers who talk with their experts. This is a substantive update with some news and some questions for the community. The short form is: everyone on the team of people I spoke with agrees that MeFi could potentially be a non-profit organization (with the ultimate determination being made by the IRS). Now we need to decide how to move forward and make MeFi into a community-run organization. I'll give some backstory and a "where we are with this" situation inside.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:52 AM on October 3, 2023 (181 comments)

Dan Olson's This is Financial Advice, a two and a half hour deep dive into the Gamestop meme stock phenomenon and the resulting cult that sprang up in its wake.

I tell you what, when you try and tell this story you either sum it up in ten minutes with the broadest strokes or you settle in for a rabbit hole made entirely out of onions and ogres. Conspiracy theorists flock together and constantly try and rope each other into the orbit of their personal hobby horse conspiracy, so once you break the surface suddenly you're digging through endless side stories, each with their own cast of characters, trying to figure out if some tertiary claim is true, was maybe true in the past but is no longer true, or was never true, and discover that the only sources on the matter are the same three people quoting each other in an endless circle of false legitimacy.

posted to MetaFilter by Pachylad at 6:59 AM on October 1, 2023 (61 comments)

"By me, Richard Heege, because I was at that feast and did not have a drink."
posted to MetaFilter by brundlefly at 12:30 AM on September 29, 2023 (19 comments)

Half-million-year-old wooden structure unearthed in Zambia
posted to MetaFilter by brundlefly at 12:02 PM on September 21, 2023 (20 comments)

The Marx Brothers Duck Soup (full movie on the Internet Archive): Groucho portrays the newly installed president of the mythical country of Freedonia. Zeppo is his secretary, while Chico and Harpo are spies for the neighboring country of Sylvania. Here's your Monday Morning free thread!
posted to MetaFilter by seanmpuckett at 7:10 AM on September 18, 2023 (119 comments)

Here's a bee. It's a freebie, like this free thread. That is all.
posted to MetaFilter by Greg_Ace at 9:50 AM on September 11, 2023 (106 comments)

72 years ago in Iowa, a worker named Mary Foss wrote a message onto an egg. She put the egg into a carton and sent the carton out for distribution. Last month, someone responded.
posted to MetaFilter by gauche at 7:34 AM on September 5, 2023 (34 comments)

Apparently the "infectious" choreography for Jungle's "Back on 74" has been going viral on TikTok, with everyone from the international touring cast of West Side Story to Emily Ratajkowski getting in on the trend, but I learned about it from this LA Times interview with Shay Latukolan, the choreographer, who has previously lent his talents to videos for Rosalía's "SAOKO" and Stormzy's "Vossi Bop".
posted to MetaFilter by sigmagalator at 12:30 AM on August 31, 2023 (11 comments)

Japanese band Number Girl played their last show on November 30, 2002, performing "Omoide In My Head" as their final song. The bittersweet finale was captured on video and you can hear the crowd let out their last scream for the band. 20 years later, Number Girl played the song again for the first time in front of an audience and it feels just as ephemeral.
posted to MetaFilter by donuy at 3:40 PM on August 29, 2023 (5 comments)

"Well, one day I found out he was actually coming into town to play as the featured soloist with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra." A sweet story by a pianist about a risk she took when she was much younger, and what happened next. Told in a Mastodon thread, 8 posts long (you'll have to tap/click "Read more" to read each post in its entirety).
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 3:32 PM on August 22, 2023 (15 comments)

Instead I was cast as the villain whose feminism betrayed the integrity of the show
posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 6:33 AM on August 19, 2023 (31 comments)

Mashup Master Bill McClintock has appeared on Metafilter several times before, most recently here. I recently stumbled across his mashup of James Brown and Judas Priest which may be one of the most amazing things I have ever seen!
posted to MetaFilter by wittgenstein at 9:50 AM on August 16, 2023 (15 comments)

It's okay to be bad at games [EX | Substack]

“The thing that I eventually came to realize is that it's all about people's expectations. Everything when you're talking about difficulty in games has to be framed in terms of, how do people expect this run to go? And how did it actually go? And are the points of difficulty in the places where I expected them to be? A game is marked out as hard if you expected to be able to do things and you couldn't do them. And it is marked out as easy if the things you expect it to be able to do you could do even if there's a lot of repetition.”

A Q&A with Bennett Foddy, the high priest of videogame difficulty.
posted to MetaFilter by Fizz at 5:27 AM on August 15, 2023 (33 comments)

cortex has a new job and was hard to track down and we had a few months of missing each other. We found some time on August 14th and tried to play catch-up. Runs about 97 minutes.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 1:05 PM on August 14, 2023 (19 comments)

Human Genome Recovered From 5700-Year-Old Chewing Gum [Smithsonian Magazine]. The piece of Birch tar, found in Denmark, also contained the mouth microbes of its ancient chewer, as well as remnants of food to reveal what she ate.
posted to MetaFilter by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:57 AM on August 10, 2023 (29 comments)

Tim Blais is a Canadian science communicator and edutainer from Hudson, Québec. He reworks hit pop songs into educational and entertaining videos about science on his channel A Capella Science: Evo-Devo (Despacito) is a favourite, The Science of Love (Queen) is masterful, and his latest - Leukocyte (BTS Dynamite) - represents another level of his talent, skill, and dedication.
posted to MetaFilter by narcissus_and_ambrosia at 4:55 AM on August 8, 2023 (9 comments)

The math around creating a fair and fun set of bingo cards is a lot more complicated than I thought. Anyway, here's your free thread for the week!
posted to MetaFilter by seanmpuckett at 9:18 AM on August 7, 2023 (64 comments)

SuperEyepatchWolf details Roman Reigns' journey from The Shield to The Bloodline , perhaps one of the most bizarre and disastrous stories in pro wrestling.
posted to MetaFilter by Pachylad at 6:59 AM on August 2, 2023 (13 comments)

Hi MetaFilter

We are thrilled to announce the launch of MetaFilter's Fundraising Month, a time when our community comes together to support the site we all hold so dear. This particular year, our goal is clear: To continue on the path towards more stable and robust site finances that we started with 2022’s fundraising.
posted to MetaTalk by loup at 10:43 AM on August 1, 2023 (116 comments)

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes? More like Earth’s Mightiest MENACES! It’s no secret that the Avengers cause a lot of collateral damage — so they have to prioritize who to save and when. Ever since Thor flew through the local Halal Guys, I’ve found myself thinking about which ones I can count on to have my back if they know I’m Muslim. Here’s my best guess, arranged in a neatly ranked list based on existing reports.
posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 12:04 PM on August 1, 2023 (35 comments)

Here's your Monday Morning cup of free thread. Fly! Be Free! (Mork & Mindy clip).
posted to MetaFilter by seanmpuckett at 9:48 AM on July 31, 2023 (127 comments)

John Boyega, Teyonah Parris and Jamie Foxx. (YT Trailer) Tyrone Fontaine is a regular drug dealer in a retrofuturistic neighborhood, until a series of eerie events leads him and his unlikely companions down a rabbit hole into a conspiracy.... RT: 93%. Wikipedia Page
posted to FanFare by rebent at 6:08 AM on July 22, 2023 (17 comments)

My disability makes my body feel unpredictable A brief and impactful comic about living with a dynamic disability and chronic pain. A lot of disabled people live in the liminal space between health and disability, trying to navigate fluctuating abilities. Making peace with that is hard.
posted to MetaFilter by Bottlecap at 7:28 AM on July 12, 2023 (8 comments)

I got to know a man willing to discuss nearly anything but his own literary significance. Openly sharing the most intimate minutiae of his life—finances, hookup apps, Depends—he recoiled with Victorian modesty whenever I asked why he’d written his books or what they meant to his readers. “I write, I don’t speculate about what I’m writing,” he reminded me a bit sharply after an interpretative question. For Delany, decency entails remembering that the author is dead even when he’s sitting across the table.

–How Samuel R. Delany Reimagined Sci-Fi, Sex, and the City by Julian Lucas.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:31 AM on July 4, 2023 (40 comments)

In only eight weeks time, Christmas puddings, mince pies and other seasonal foods, plus cards and wrapping paper, will start to fill the supermarket shelves. Christmas spirit? It's never too early as Boston hope to do better than last year, Fakenham reveal their plans, sensible people have completed shopping, and the Christmas birth is anticipated. Some tree advice and potato advice. So throw a log on the fire, put on your wooliest jumper, pour yourself a glass of mulled wine and type into the freethread, or Free Thread, or #FreeThread, for this week. Bonus: some pleasant Holst.
posted to MetaFilter by Wordshore at 7:26 AM on July 10, 2023 (107 comments)

It's been a long difficult week. Do you need to laugh? Matteo Lane: Hair Plugs & Heartache [47m] is a stand-up set released last month. It's queer comedy with adult ideas and language. It's also, I think, very very funny.
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:09 AM on July 7, 2023 (16 comments)

Because many MeFites have a day off this week, and because for many OTHER MeFites Tuesday is just Tuesday - here is your Free Thread for the first week of July!
posted to MetaFilter by EmpressCallipygos at 7:00 PM on July 3, 2023 (88 comments)

While entering associate classes have been comprised of approximately 45% women for several decades, in the typical large firm, women constitute only 30% of non-equity partners and 20% of equity partners ... [and] the number of lawyers named as new equity partners at big firms has declined by nearly 30% over the past several years ... The critical question, of course, is why? What is it about the experiences of women in BigLaw that result in such different outcomes for women than men, and why do even senior women lawyers have so many more obstacles to overcome? These core questions drove this first-of-its-kind study ... through the perspective of more than 1,200 big firm lawyers who have been in practice for at least 15 years.

(direct link to the report [pdf])
posted to MetaFilter by jedicus at 2:18 PM on June 30, 2023 (15 comments)

Anthony Vincent recently wrote a lovely song about his cat. (SLYT)
posted to MetaFilter by zaixfeep at 2:36 PM on June 28, 2023 (9 comments)

"Together, they might be the two worst college golfers in America, but that’s only if you can’t look beyond the score." With the viability of their D-III college golf team and their conference's automatic qualifying bid to nationals on the line, two women--neither who ever played a full round of golf before--chose to help. They shot a combined 434 in a single round, and that was only the start of their journey.
posted to MetaFilter by mixedmetaphors at 6:30 AM on June 27, 2023 (33 comments)

Hi there, MetaFilter!

Happy Solstice and welcome to your monthly Site Update! The last update can be found here. You’ll find some updates regarding the site below. I’m looking forward to your feedback and questions.

Reminder: I will be the only mod monitoring this thread so please be patient as I reply to your feedback and questions.
posted to MetaTalk by loup at 1:31 PM on June 21, 2023 (17 comments)

Going through a parent's hoard after their illness or death or can be daunting. For five exhausting years, Thalia and Tara blogged at Tetanus Burger about whittling away at the 78 junk cars and mysterious piles left by their father at their family's residential lot. Reader beware, there are truly horrific stories about their childhood. But there are also cute kittens (scroll to the bottom of the linked post)!
posted to MetaFilter by spamandkimchi at 2:05 PM on June 17, 2023 (48 comments)

After my mother died, my father had a choice: Give up or reinvent himself. (NYT gift link)
posted to MetaFilter by praemunire at 8:16 AM on June 16, 2023 (20 comments)

Archie McPhee, Seattle novelty store, wholesaler, manufacturer, and mail order purveyor of weird gifts, the "Outfitters of Popular Culture" with catalogs cool enough to be collected by the Smithsonian, sellers of rubber chickens and devil duckies, is 40 years old. The Seattle Times did a short piece on them and their history. Some of their catalogs are collected on their website. They got a blog, and a podcast called "Less Talk More Monkey" (iTunes, Google Play), which explains why, for awhile, PayPal wouldn't let them sell tardigrade-themed merchandise through their payment service.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 5:08 AM on June 2, 2023 (38 comments)

How an algorithm solves Wordle Through a modeling method known as Exact Dynamic Programming, the researchers devised an algorithm that solves the game in the optimal manner without fail. In Wordle, players have six tries to guess a five-letter word. After a word is entered, colored tiles reveal whether the letters are in the word and if they are in the correct spot. The model solves the game in just two guesses 4% of the time and in three guesses 57% of the time. It only needs a fifth guess 3% of the time, and it never relies on that sixth and final round.
posted to MetaFilter by andrewmc at 7:41 AM on May 23, 2023 (63 comments)

Jourdon Anderson, a formerly enslaved person, responds to a request from his former master to return to work for him.
posted to MetaFilter by adept256 at 9:04 AM on May 20, 2023 (17 comments)

Hi there, MetaFilter!

Welcome to your monthly Site Update!

You’ll find some updates regarding the site below. I’m looking forward to your feedback and questions.

Reminder: I will be the only mod monitoring this thread so please be patient as I reply to your feedback and questions.
posted to MetaTalk by loup at 2:29 PM on May 17, 2023 (49 comments)

Growing up, I thought being named after Connie Chung made me unique... (SLNYT)
posted to MetaFilter by praemunire at 10:08 AM on May 12, 2023 (30 comments)

A List of Things People Blamed on Flappers (SL Mastodon)
posted to MetaFilter by RobotHero at 2:48 PM on May 5, 2023 (28 comments)

150 African Workers for ChatGPT, TikTok and Facebook Vote to Unionize at Landmark Nairobi Meeting:

More than 150 workers whose labor underpins the AI systems of Facebook, TikTok and ChatGPT gathered in Nairobi on Monday and pledged to establish the first African Content Moderators Union, in a move that could have significant consequences for the businesses of some of the world’s biggest tech companies.

The current and former workers, all employed by third party outsourcing companies, have provided content moderation services for AI tools used by Meta, Bytedance, and OpenAI—the respective owners of Facebook, TikTok and the breakout AI chatbot ChatGPT. Despite the mental toll of the work, which has left many content moderators suffering from PTSD, their jobs are some of the lowest-paid in the global tech industry, with some workers earning as little as $1.50 per hour.

posted to MetaFilter by Pachylad at 9:14 AM on May 2, 2023 (10 comments)

'Almost 30 years ago, a group of Kaktovik students invented a numbering system that reflected the way they counted in Iñupiaq and made math more intuitive for them.' The numerals are now part of Unicode (PDF).
posted to MetaFilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:08 PM on April 17, 2023 (20 comments)

Samantha Irby on being basic An excerpt from her new book Quietly Hostile
posted to MetaFilter by PussKillian at 8:33 AM on April 17, 2023 (28 comments)

The books of my life: Colson Whitehead Pulitzer prize-winner Colson Whitehead on Ralph Ellison, Ursula Le Guin, and why he loves World War Z.
posted to MetaFilter by joannemerriam at 8:26 PM on April 15, 2023 (17 comments)

Everything I, an Italian, thought I knew about Italian food is wrong (ungated) - The man I’m dining with is Alberto Grandi, Marxist academic, reluctant podcast celebrity and judge at this year’s Tiramisu World Cup in Treviso. (“I wouldn’t miss it, even if I had dinner plans with the Pope”.) Grandi has dedicated his career to debunking the myths around Italian food; this is the first time he’s spoken to the foreign press.
posted to MetaFilter by cendawanita at 11:18 PM on April 14, 2023 (44 comments)

The theft device is designed to be connected to the control CAN bus (the red bus in the wiring diagram) to impersonate the smart key ECU.
posted to MetaFilter by curious nu at 2:15 PM on April 9, 2023 (45 comments)

Mykki Blanco recites Zoe Leonard's 1992 poem I Want a President.
posted to MetaFilter by Westringia F. at 5:27 AM on April 4, 2023 (4 comments)

Thinking About AI - "So where do I think we are? At a place where for fields where language and/or two dimensional images let you build a good model, AI is rapidly performing at a level that exceeds that of many humans."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless at 7:42 AM on April 2, 2023 (110 comments)

Following up on some concerns raised in MetaTalk threads from a few weeks ago about the role of the Steering Committee and having volunteers working for a for-profit company. This is not the outcome we were hoping for, but it's the one we got.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 2:26 PM on March 29, 2023 (89 comments)

My guy on the tooth picks: "I was skiing a zone with a partner when I passed by a snowboarder upsidedown and buried in a tree well. I only caught a glimpse of his board but it was enough to get my attention."
posted to MetaFilter by inflatablekiwi at 10:32 AM on March 31, 2023 (34 comments)

Wednesday is a Q&A with Ryan North, webcomic writer. Friday is a Q&A with Drew Curtis, founder and maintainer of Fark. Learn more here.
posted to MetaFilter by NotLost at 6:13 AM on March 28, 2023 (9 comments)