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What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

- What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it?

I like word sounds.

- If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

I've been around MeFi longer than my account would indicate.

- I like these:

Mefiquote; Unfavorite for metafilter.com; MeFi comment numbering; open mefi links; highlight heavy links; While we're here, can somebody make me a Greasemonkey script to replace any reference to that stupid-ass "We are the knights who say 'NI!'" semi-joke with the phrase, "We are the knights who say 'NI!'"? that way, it would still be a cring-inducing, overplayed, embarrassing injoke, but at least it would be something that was once funny.

Scratchpad:

If I could favorite these a hundred times, I would. But I can't. So they're here.

dejah420: His was a tragic, almost Shakespearean life of absolute peaks and utter valleys in the landscape of absolute genius.

"You just heard the drums. It seemed like he kept them going forever."

Kid Charlemagne: I've seen this before. I used to work with someone who was on the fast track to being everything her parents dreamed she might one day be. Married - check. House - check. Entry position in a not too shabby carreer - check. Then, at about age 26 or 27, flamed out and crashed spectacularly. Picture a B-70 Valkyrie bomber running flat out and hitting the ground at a fourty-five degree angle - oh, and hauling nukes - and you'll have a pretty good idea how the situation changed.

So when I get to this: "they don’t know who they are because they’re allowed to be anyone they want." I pretty much have to put this in the box labeled recycling and move on.

So yes, a huge number of people, mostly white, mostly middle class, mostly in their mid 20's don’t know who they are. But I think it has a lot to do with the fact that for the first twenty years they were shuttled from this highly structured activity to that highly structured activity by overprotective parents who wanted them to be well socialized, incredibly normal and better than average in every respect. They don't know who they are because if who they are has been crammed into a narrow mold and life was going to be really unpleasant if they didn't make themselves fit.

After about 10 years out of that mold, well, the crater can be spectacular.

crabintheocean: Spend less time joining feel-good student organizations, more time learning to organize.

How to get to work on that million-dollar idea?

Oh man, I should totally make this website when I have a free weekend...

How can I finish strong?

I have too many projects I have started. I must pick one and finish it.

It's Raining Florence Henderson: Where only the absolute lowest of the low are deserving of our sympathy, as if pain were inherently noble, and the downtrodden were morally superior.

billyfleetwood: I'm a huge boxing fan, and throughout this whole election it seemed to me like first Clinton and then McCain were going for a knockout every round. And every round that goes by where you don't put the guy on the mat, the more desperate you get for that next round KO. Meanwhile your opponent is solidly landing jab, and showing off for the crowd, because he decided going in that the only way he could win was on points.

The biggest pitfall in campaigning is believing your own stories. You decide that your best attack is to say your opponent isn't ready, and eventually you start to believe it, even if it's not true. Once they got it in their heads that a rookie couldn't win, was when they lost.

Simply put, they underestimated him.

This is so painfully, awkwardly true. Kat Allison: I can remember what it was like to be a 14-year-old girl

It was only through sheer dumb luck that I made it to adulthood intact, without becoming a victim of predators and of my own stupid vulnerability.

I'd never have had a clue about where to set my own boundaries, or how to draw any sort of line. I'd have been toast.

SinisterPurpose: It's about that moment when you feel complete and total alienation from your culture and every other person, regardless of gender.

Think back, some of you. You remember that moment. The moment you thought had some sort of art to offer the world.

I, for one, will now sit back and wait for this author to share that second most important moment in the life of the artist. In that second moment, the budding artist realizes their connection to absolutely everything.

It's really the only story there is to tell.

GilloD: A marriage is hard work, yo. There are always two parts to a great marriage: The "I love you" part and the business-y part. The second part is not fun and not romantic, but it is probably the more necessary of the two. There are whole weeks when you're married when it's like, "I do not know who this person is or why I married them!" and that's the failure of that first, cute part. And if that's all you got, then shit starts backing up.

A sensible conclusion to 99% of MeTa callout threads: shmegegge: ok, i have a great fucking idea. it's brilliant. it goes like this:

we make a new subsite of metafilter.com. the address would be youvegottabefuckingkiddingmeineedafuckingdrink.metafilter.com.

and whenever threads like this one come along and there's just way too much... metafilterosity... coming from all sides to even consider dealing with, you just go to the site and click a button that says something like "beer me!" you then are entered into a database that figures out if anyone else from the site near you clicked the button. if so, you get an email, or a text if you prefer, telling you to get your ass to a newly created thread where you and everyone else in your area who clicked the button can enter and say "ok. grassroots in 15 minutes?" and then go there. cause right now i'd much rather get fucking hosed than be involved in this discussion.

scrump: But if you see inequity, speak up. That's one way you can make a difference, every single day. If you see someone being treated unfairly, say so. If you see a problem, open your mouth. "Doing the right thing" isn't some epic moment where the heavens part and you have a total conviction that this is the morally pure thing to do. In fact, it's almost never like that. Doing the right thing is more often you making a small choice, and one where you have no idea whether it's going to have larger ramifications. You just make the choice because you believe it's the right one, and you agonize over it later, and then maybe a few years down the line you realize "oh, hey, that was one of those lifechanging thingies".

But you're not going to get anywhere if you never act, and your thoughts never get out of your head.

The answer to every online debate over fair use: schoolgirl report: It's almost certainly fair use. But the problem with fair use is that it's a defense to infringement, and very fact specific, so you won't know if you're right until you've already been sued and have to defend yourself.

I'm looking for a website about/for people that like to collect data about themselves.

June 18, 2001 / http://web.archive.org/web/20011030120821/www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999881

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94: Richard Feynman said "If you think you understand /b/, you don't understand /b/".

Bueller: The number one goal of all nonprofits is to keep its employees employed and itself running. This often is a direct conflict of interest in actually helping the people/element it is purporting to help. / Insights gained via one's career

Every feminism thread on MeFi summed up? jokeefe: Sigh.

All the usual arguments (though calling them arguments is giving these comments credit they don't deserve):

Those women complaining are crazy/insane/hysterical! Check.

Those women complaining are sexless prudes! Check.

Sex sells, QED! Check.

It's only a picture, and you think is actually means something, you silly girl? Check.

If you don't like it, register your displeasure the very useful gesture of not buying anything! I'm sure the Ad company responsible for this will be knocking at your door in record time to ask you opinion! Check.

Har har, it's so cute when they get mad. Good thing we never have to take them seriously! Check.

Leaving thread now.

davejay: I spent the next few months making sure that I followed up on every askme question that I could remember responding to, even two that that I answered with a lame joke.

As it happened, the askme commenting extended to a casual comment about a very small thing to someone I barely knew at all -- and the followup on that comment led to the wonderful wife and two terrific children (not to mention dogs) that I have in my life today.

milarepa: I am older than you. My life is unutterably odd. I have destroyed it many times over. But the pain and efforts have never been wasted. There is another side to your struggle. It does lead somewhere. Keep fighting to be you. I have no doubt you will succeed.

Bageena: There's not enough time! ARGH! I HATE YOU MEFI! Every day of my life is spent torn between deciding whether to blog, watch a movie, catch up on a television series I like, read all of these threads (just added to my list), try to find new bands to listen to, or, finally, sit down and actually draw stuff in the hopes of one day not having to work in a cubical anymore. You know what wins out? Me playing video games on one screen while I try to watch a movie on another and 5 hours of sleep a night. I CAN'T KEEP DOING THIS.

help teach an old bag some new tricks

aeschenkarnos: One of the defining characteristics of a hell, is being trapped in it.

lodurr: But these forgivers -- it's not good enough that they've learned to forgive. Everyone's gotta do it.

It's like they feel guilty about and need to get everyone else in on the act or something.

http://www.metafilter.com/83349/What-do-you-want-an-armed-guard-to-follow-your-kid-around#2656678

prefpara: Oh, and: your personality is not destiny.

koeselitz: What's moronic is that this guy Mike Mongo was the only freaking person in the entire thread with enough emotional detachment to stand back and look at an image and think about what the hell it meant without letting his assumption about who created it and why to rule his assessment of it.

breezeway: I dream the world down to a blade of grass every morning just before I awaken.

nebulawindphone: Tomorrow morning, the phone's going to ring, and it'll be NASA on the other end! Your lifelong dream's come true! You get to be an astronaut! And then it'll ring again, and this time it'll be the World Wildlife Foundation telling you your other lifelong dream's come true! You get to be a zookeeper! There's just one catch: whichever job you take, you'll have to turn the other one down.

When this happens — and I promise you, it's going to happen — there are two things you need to do. First, you need to think long and hard about which job is right for you. And once you've done that, you need to let the other one go.

fritley: I say let go of these expectations that your life is compartmentalized into several periods of 3652 or so days, each distinct. Instead, live and grow and learn however you like. Take care of your present and future self, and forgive and learn from your past self...You are not embarking on a new journey because you turned 20. You're embarking on a new journey because it's a new day, just like every day."

ricochet biscuit: One of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned is that happy endings depend on where you end the story.

Baby_Balrog: He smiled and said that while I did have an exceptional class, the past decade had seen some incredible advances in civil studies at the high school level and that, yeah, really - we're winning this fight. The word is getting out.

Danila: It's the facile notion of "karma". I'm not talking about the actual religious belief of which I am mainly ignorant, but the idea of karma that Westerners frequently toss around, that everybody gets what's coming to them in this world.

cmoj: Also, anyone who is physically capable of making marks on something can learn to draw.

You say Goodbye, I say Hello

Redhush: Seems to me that much of our social strife stems from a lack of communication across barriers. Barriers whose roots are in these tiny snubs that some folks here almost seem to take pride in. It doesn't cost anything to extend a few polite sounds out of your mouth. Same effort as being rude or cold and distant. Communication takes practice...Get that practice where you can, because someones life my hang in the balance. Some days that water tower calls really loud

Feminism calls for gender revolution: Tangentially, one thing I've always had trouble with, too, are the arguments that people who are gay or trans should be accepted because that's the way they were born. While I wholeheartedly agree that people are born they way they are, I also think that people should be treated equally even if they CHOOSE to identify a certain way, for whatever reason. That is, even if "gay" were a choice and not an orientation, that's OK! / It's a debate that supporters of gay rights mistakenly believe will clinch their position. They're not thinking about things from the other side's perspective. If you really believe homosexuality is just plain bad, it doesn't matter if it's a choice or inborn. Compare: even if research shows that a pedophilia or alcoholism are inborn, does that make them socially acceptable? No. The reason gays should be accepted isn't that they have no choice (which would call into question how to deal with bisexuals!). Gays should be accepted because there's nothing wrong with homosexuality -- no matter why people are gay. / Gays should be accepted because there's nothing wrong with homosexuality -- no matter why people are gay...This. So much. I've always hated the biology/choice argument because it's framing the discussion in the bigots' terms. I fully believe homosexuality is not a choice. I also firmly believe it shouldn't fucking matter if it is or not...Choice should not be a dirty word.