MetaFilter

[Okay, so I've come upon a flagged linkme comment here (saying it was linked) and found another via the linkme tag, and just spun this style up as an indicator: [⇔ Linked] (with the "Linked" text pointing toward the post where it was linked).

This convention may change as we go along and refine, but that's what there is for now! Yay, linkage!]
posted to MetaFilter by taz at 11:16 PM on June 9, 2024

Thank you for this post. None of this had made it in a big way to the news sites I usually check, or (more oddly) been shared on my social media. These are good to know about, and I was particularly interested/worried to see the AFD's gain. After reading about the 2023 Potsdam far-right conference, which I might (?) also have learned about on MetaFilter, my antennae have been a bit more elevated.
posted to MetaFilter by cupcakeninja at 5:50 AM on June 10, 2024

My French SIL is a definite RN supporter, and particularly a fan of Marine Le Pen. Le Pen has been running a strategy for years now of making RN look like just a normal right-wing political party. Macron is pretty unpopular, not least due to an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, and ramming through the rise in retirement age without getting it approved by the Assembly.

There's also a hefty dose of xenophobia there, particularly against muslim and north african immigrants.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 4:39 AM on June 10, 2024

So, probably the 2 issues I have with reactions to my posts (mostly on the Blue) is either a) getting very few responses at all* or, occasionally, b) people riffing on something loosely connected to the post**. This used to bother me, but I kept plugging away, because I want people to know about these podcasts. If a couple of people of the howevermany who looked at the post listened, and it made their day better, well, I figure that's a win, even if I never know it. And the creators whose work I... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by GenjiandProust at 1:02 PM on June 8, 2024

[Hi, back for the day, and am catching up with the thread.

Rhaomi's suggest is interesting, made a front page post to try it out.

Will respond it a bit with #pleaseanswer questions. ]
posted to MetaTalk by Brandon Blatcher at 8:17 AM on June 8, 2024

I’ve been working on responses and reviewing this thread alongside other site tasks and responsibilities. Unfortunately, only a portion of what I’ve drafted will make it into this reply. Your patience, if any is left, is appreciated.

The last thing I want to be is your designated “aloof customer service bot” (thanks for the remark, no offense taken). So, let’s take a different approach.

I understand that there are urgent questions that require... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by loup at 2:27 PM on June 6, 2024

this thread is basically an existential threat to the site and the owner is[...]

I'll probably leave it at this, because I don't want to get into a whole back and forth about it, but:

1) Maybe I'm being naive, but I don't think this is the existential threat to the site some of you think it is. (Only 10% of active users are even active on the gray, at least month by month.) It was all badly... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by nobody at 2:06 PM on June 6, 2024

i refinanced a mortgage entirely on my apple watch.
posted to MetaFilter by mullacc at 4:06 PM on June 5, 2024

I think another important thing to foreground is how much we are performing for our in-groups. (And how rapidly this spirals out of control when it's monetized for clicks.)

Whenever someone says something incredibly, obviously stupidly harmful on tumblr/twitter/etc, they are doing it for pats on the back from their social circle and in order to shore up the social circle - "we're all like This, except those Feahful Outsidahs who are like... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 10:05 AM on June 5, 2024

One of the programs that saved my life in high school was peer counseling. A select group of sophomores would spend a summer studying some pretty basic counseling material. At the start of their junior year, they’d be paired with another student counselor of the opposite gender and then freshmen could apply to join their weekly discussion group, and the group would continue to meet until the counselors graduated. This was way back in the 2000’s. It was the first experience I ever had with what... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by 1024 at 9:30 AM on June 5, 2024

Almost all of the policing of young men comes from other young men (and older men), not from women or progressive feminists. I'd really like to hear from articles like these or from comments by men some specific examples if they're having the opposite experience.

My loved one was raised by a lesbian mother who constantly shamed him for having sexual urges as a teenager, telling him "you men are all alike" and such. He died at age 30 due to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by sockerpup at 9:03 AM on June 5, 2024

> The progressive ideal is that men take up too much space, are aggressive, unsensitive, and likely to hurt people if they express themselves - and so they should always be watching themselves for any sort of taking up space, and avoid taking up that space.

Ohhhh right, thank you for helping me connect the dots here. It might seem obvious to you all but it was not, to me, until this second.

I can see how the constant... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by MiraK at 8:37 AM on June 5, 2024

Started in evangelical fundie extreme conservativism, passed through a bunch of spaces that were well below “incel” but deeply misogynistic and incredibly toxic, ended at Metafilter, intersectional marxism and FALGSC.

My lived experience is that it is a far fucking cry from 1:1, but it is way, way more than a few social media randos. YMMV.

Iain Banks and the Culture novels sometimes get brushed off as “progressive training wheels for Star Trek... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ryvar at 7:43 AM on June 5, 2024

Yeesh, this thread is such a perfect example of what the article is talking about that it's almost self-parody.

There's a reason adolescent and young men are being drawn to the Andrew Tates and Joe Rogans of the world. Sure, part of that is misogyny and racism and privilege and the like. But there really is a deep, genuine need in boys and young men for help and guidance in a world where you're still raised to believe that emotions are weakness and to never show... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by star gentle uterus at 7:15 AM on June 5, 2024

What I never hear is what the fuck MEN are doing.

They’re going to therapy more. They’re building support groups. They’re reaching out to friends and family and seeking out information on their own.

And they’re still killing themselves at an astronomical rate. I work with these men (as well as women and others) every day. It is so easy to assign all of the worst traits of the group to those struggling the most, but I can... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by brook horse at 7:09 AM on June 5, 2024

So I've glancingly mentioned this before, but back when Napster and Kazaa and it's ilk first appeared I was a young punk of 25 working in the R&D division of a major entertainment company. I was, for a period of time, that company's "official pirate" - as in I was the only person authorized to have a machine running all this software to better understand it. What it was enabling, how it worked, what was available, what risk factors it created, etc.

I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by drewbage1847 at 9:30 AM on June 3, 2024

On the very off chance that someone out there is attributing today’s #USPolitics MeTa to anything nefarious by mods or whatever, I suspect it’s spurred by a request I made via the contact form the other day. I wanted to see if there were a way to try to remind folks about the tag being essential to making the #USPolitics filter work. Perhaps others have asked about it, too, but I did it because I really appreciate the filter, and I’ve been a little frustrated of late by how many posts have... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cupcakeninja at 3:47 PM on June 4, 2024

It appears to me that loup conflated it. This was never to anyone's knowledge about private communication between these two users.

I think loup put that forward as a sensible explanation for hippybear's erroneous claim, I assume based on communications with the mods which aren't, and shouldn't be public in most cases. There's been talk before about blocks on specific MeMails, so whether hippybear thought that was some kind of site wide policy or not... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by GenjiandProust at 3:45 PM on June 4, 2024

Two years ago, I was working from home in my living room. Out of all the benefits that WFH brought to my (and my pooch’s) quality of life, perhaps the greatest of all was that I no longer had to even pretend to hide Metafilter on my second monitor anymore.

As I was browsing the blue, a bird flew in through my open window and alighted on top of my Metafilter. I was stunned for a few moments as it adjusted its wings, and then an instant later it was gone.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by 1024 at 8:02 AM on June 3, 2024

I have the copy of Ethan Frome that I was assigned to read in high school.

At the top of each page, it says "ETHAN FROME" next to the fold, and then the page number is next to the page edge.

Alongside that, every single time, I have scribbled something silly next to it. "ETHAN FROME II: Electric Boogaloo." "John Jacob Jingleheimer ETHAN FROME."... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 7:53 AM on June 3, 2024

I keep my copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide Omnibus (the big black Bible-looking edition) handy at all times, but somewhat pointlessly because after reading it cover to cover 53 times plus countless random open-and-begin-readings, I can more or less quote enormous sections of it verbatim or at least recall nearly every word starting with just a few. I no longer actually need the book, but I’d never give it up.

Heh. Funny thought: somewhere inside my 30... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ryvar at 7:26 AM on June 3, 2024

I forced myself to read the entire Osterweil piece on Civil War (beyond the opening paragraphs I'd engaged with above) so that I couldn't be accused—by myself, mainly—of criticising something I hadn't even read. I kept track of some thoughts along the way...

Texas teaming up with California is, as hermanubis says above, not at all beyond the realm of possibility. Mefites often remind us that Not All Texans are like their politicians, and that its... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rory at 2:29 AM on April 22, 2024

OK, I feel like if I leave it at that, it's sour in a way I don't want to be.

So what I will say about this film is that it is not at all about the before or the how or the why of a civil war in the US; it is about the during. It is about making that chaos and violence a hell of a lot less abstract for Americans. It's about the JC Penney having been bombed out. It's about war crimes at the car wash. It's about a sniper trying to... [more]
posted to FanFare by DirtyOldTown at 8:56 AM on April 17, 2024

Many years ago I played World of Warcraft (it was not good for me). One evening, for whatever reason, I decided to swim along the edge of the continent, which had significant play regions at the north and south ends of the continent, but was just a mountainous coastline with nothing in between. To be clear, the rest of the continent was packed with stuff to do, but this particular coastline was just empty. No quests, no mobs, no NPCs, no paths, just impassible mountains running directly into the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by biogeo at 8:48 PM on May 30, 2024

Man, people are way off on Crooked. I have been listening for years and am a paid subscriber, which means I get to be on the Discord server and participate in political discussions that are usually a lot better than Metafilter is lately. I'm also on the Vote Save America Slack, which is a hub for people to get out there and volunteer instead of just listening to podcasts. I agree that some of the content (like this interview) are a little inside baseball, but do we not want to know how... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by caviar2d2 at 6:34 AM on May 29, 2024

I mean, it's been three days, an amount of time one could still count in hours. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I'm hoping that you are not expecting a child to be able to easily take this information in, process it fully, and be ok any time soon. You've just given him information that has upended his whole concept of what his family is, and introduced a level of insecurity that I'm guessing he's never known until now. He probably doesn't understand his own levels of sadness at this point.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Molasses808 at 10:53 PM on May 25, 2024

[[The reader wishes to inform you that after considering the consequences, we have chosen gee_the_riot and this post for the sidebar and Best Of blog.]]
posted to MetaFilter by taz at 2:44 AM on May 25, 2024

The retro-read thread was an eye opener. I listened to much of the podcast detailing that history. Kind of amazing how much I've missed in the last ~15 years.

In the 2000s I liked the strip. I had it in my RSS reader. I don't recall whether the feed was official or fan-made.

Aside: It seems there was a vogue for turning newspaper strips or web strips into things which were delivered by RSS. It was amazing to find good webcomics and have them... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by artlung at 9:02 AM on May 25, 2024

And yea, it's an absurd absolute tone shift, as Django deals mostly in one-liners, in contrast to Schultz's endless banter. And unfortunately, there's not a lot of plot left here, just an hour's worth of trading bullets with random henchmen and a very upset Samuel L Jackson, punctuated with an explosion. Easily the weakest act.

My Grand Unified Theory of Tarantino is that all of his movies are, on some level, about people's formation of identity... [more]
posted to FanFare by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 9:36 AM on May 22, 2024

Tarantino has described there being two forms of violence (basically: bad violence done by bad people, and good violence done by good people) but the film seems to have three kinds of violence: traumatic, revenge, and dramatic.

Traumatic violence I largely associate with slavers. Whipping, branding, being fed to dogs, locked in an oven to sunbake, mandingo fights. It's singular and personal. Designed to humiliate. You feel sick to your stomach watching it. Ebert's review... [more]
posted to FanFare by pwnguin at 11:45 AM on May 21, 2024

As to why - I always consider this kind of a strange question. This is an extremely common aspect of the human experience, one that every one of us experiences multiple times a day, and it would extremely strange if it never made its way into art of all kinds.

In addition to the fact that it is a common/universal experience, it is one that comes pre-loaded with all sort of rather strong feelings and emotions. It's got a strong taboo attached, shame,... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by flug at 2:49 PM on May 23, 2024

Hi, long time lurker finally inspired to sign up just to say this thread is blowing my mind.

I was really into webcomics in the early-mid 00s. I had aspirations of making my own, but alas I was not motivated enough and too shy to join and reap the benefits of the surrounding community. For the most part I stopped reading them after high school, although I still was/am somewhat familiar with Penny Arcade, as I am an on and off attender of their PAX... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ersatzsapience at 11:04 PM on May 23, 2024

Alas. I was heavily entrenched in the webcomics culture of the late nineties and early aughts. My longtime companion and bestie was a mod on the keenspot IRC server I practically lived in back in the day; metafilter was linked to me there and some longtime mefites are my only other remaining connection to that subculture. But it was formative, and my late highschool and early college years are all anchored around my positive yet sometimes cringey memories of meeting webcomics people, going to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mizu at 8:29 PM on May 23, 2024

I hear you kittens for breakfast, I too bounced off of Sinfest back in the day, it was a little too sarcastic and nihilistic, even when it was supposedly good. I didn't get into Goats either for that reason.

I don't intend to keep leaving these remembrance stones for oneswellfoop in every webcomic thread, but he would be here writing full-page comments on the history of the medium were he still around. I don't know if I'll ever stop missing him.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 3:57 PM on May 23, 2024

OpenAI cuts deal with NewsCorp (Fox News Parent Company) to provide “news” to ChatGPT

Jesus fuck no. (Click)

…Other publishers, including Politico parent company Axel Springer, the Associated Press and the Financial Times, have signed deals with OpenAI.

Oh okay. So not like the exclusive provider. Still, though: fucking gross.

Be my guest, I haven't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ryvar at 3:23 PM on May 22, 2024

[We're making a batch of popcorn as we add this post to the sidebar and Best Of blog! ]
posted to MetaFilter by Brandon Blatcher at 6:13 AM on May 22, 2024

I believe the credit for the gruntwork on unearthing Consider the Consequences as a part of the history of gamebooks should go to James Ryan of Aleator Press, who posted a thread about CtC on Twitter back in 2017. I know he was able to track down a descendent of at least one of the creators, and was thinking of reissuing it as a print book.
posted to MetaFilter by Hogshead at 3:38 AM on May 22, 2024

But I haven’t finished solving Cain’s Jawbone yet!
posted to MetaFilter by bendy at 12:38 PM on May 21, 2024

Great post--thank you!

FWIW I strongly suspect Consider the Consequences drew inspiration from the classic parlor game "Consequences." Here are some versions of the game:
Anne Lister's diary entry for Oct. 10, 1824, gives the earliest version I know: "Played at Les Résultats, in England called Consequences — each one wrote the name of 2 ladies and 2 gents. then 2 papers of où ils sont [where they are], then 2 of ce qu’ils... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Wobbuffet at 2:12 PM on May 21, 2024

Oh ha! That was me that did that TWINE port, lol. I'm super glad to see more information about this!
posted to MetaFilter by gee_the_riot at 12:22 PM on May 21, 2024

Anyone who enjoys the short Criterion Closet videos will probably flip over the Konboni Video Club series from JM Video in Paris, one of the city's last video stores, which gives actors and directors a full 20 minutes to play around and talk about their favorite films (previously). Jodi Foster does hers almost entirely in French.
posted to MetaFilter by mediareport at 3:28 AM on May 20, 2024

Oh, this is fabulous.

I love the Criterion Collection, and I love Criterion for sharing and boosting enthusiasm, for encouraging and enabling greater appreciation of great films with their outstanding bonus features, and for preserving and restoring so many great early films.

I have a saved search set up for my library website to find Criterion films.

I find the database wonderful and also a little confusing - it says... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kristi at 12:11 PM on May 19, 2024

(Rhaomi, thank you for your series of excellent and informative AI posts. We're in the middle of a hugely creative period in tech development in this area and it's great to be able to follow along on MeFi thanks to your research.)
posted to MetaFilter by Nelson at 7:11 AM on May 18, 2024

There are some really nice people in this thread that I like very much who are upset, so I am going to say what I say next carefully.

My understanding of how things work with our current staffing levels is that moderation is driven primarily by flags, but also by MeMails and the Contact Us form. On top of this, state of the site and likely-to-be-contentious MeTas are often read and monitored (though sometimes flags and messages drive moderation on those, too).... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by DirtyOldTown at 8:22 AM on May 17, 2024

I can't remember the exact line, but in the episode Bluey asks her teacher 'Why do stories always have happy endings?' and her teacher replies 'Because real life gives us enough sad ones'. I felt like this was a little in-episode recognition of the fact that the ending was unrealistic, but happy. This is one of a number of times the dialogue in Bluey seems to address real-world criticism. One of my favourites is when Bluey goes to the movies and asks all sorts of questions and her father... [more]
posted to FanFare by unicorn chaser at 6:35 AM on April 17, 2024

In the video game Warframe, there are these scattered tablets with test questions (from a spaceship that the main characters were previously on and theoretically taught these things as children). You get to choose an answer and it will tell you if you’re correct.

We have a number of basic world-building questions such as:

1. What event concluded the Eighteenth Radiation War?
A. The destruction of the Arctic Hive Cluster (correct)... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by brook horse at 4:21 PM on May 6, 2024

The amount of willful self-blindness from MetaFilter's doom-and-gloomers here would be funny if it wasn't entirely to the detriment of the causes they performatively claim to embrace. Here is presented actual evidence that powerful state forces are exerting tremendous effort to bend and twist your perceptions of the present and future, and people who maaaaaybe didn't RTFA are proudly sounding off here "No, I definitely came to all my opinions entirely by myself, I've never been influenced,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:22 PM on May 9, 2024

I have never been interested in watching Spongebob, and would prefer not to be in the same room with people enjoying it, as I find the soundtrack extremely annoying.

I flagged this post.
It is fantastic.

I still don't like Spongebob, but Rhaomi put together a post that is so in-depth and copious that even *I* was persuaded to click a couple links, and I will forward this to people I know who will be ecstatic.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by BlueHorse at 6:21 PM on May 1, 2024

Rhaomi, I don’t have weeks and weeks to go through this beautiful encyclopedia of SpongeBob goodness. I’m just going to say that SpongeBob remains to this day one of my favouritest things ever. If only the world was more like SpongeBob…..sigh…..
posted to MetaFilter by ashbury at 4:26 PM on May 1, 2024

Rhaomi! This is an AMAZING post, and you are an amazing person for having crafted this with so much care and joy.

I have no idea how it is possible that I have NEVER seen an episode of Spongebob Squarepants; it seems like it'd be right up my alley. I mean, everything in your entire pull quote from "SpongeBob Made the World a Better, More Optimistic Place" just is me all over.

So thanks to your utterly fabulous set of links at the end,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kristi at 4:12 PM on May 1, 2024