Is this sweet or what? Well? Is it?

OMFG ACCOUNT-SHARING! BRING OUT THE BAN HAMMER!

*sharpens pitchfork, pops popcorn, sends up the hatsignal*
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:28 PM on June 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

IRFH IS TEH HAWT!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:30 PM on June 4, 2007

You mean the 'Hat Signal.
posted by The Deej at 3:32 PM on June 4, 2007

Haha! They wasted their question. (hey, that works whether it's a couple OR a split personality!)

AskMe: it's the saddest.
or AskMe: the result of split personality?
posted by JMOZ at 3:32 PM on June 4, 2007

Awww! (Assuming it's account-sharing and not split personality, in which case: See a doctor! No, see two doctors!)
posted by languagehat at 3:33 PM on June 4, 2007

Weeow! That Hat Signal really works!
posted by The Deej at 3:34 PM on June 4, 2007

Who marked the best answer? The asker personality or the answerer personality?
posted by JMOZ at 3:36 PM on June 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

If I melt dry ice, can I swim without getting wet?
posted by jonmc at 3:38 PM on June 4, 2007

Well, it's either time for a cold mechanical speech about password security, how to choose one that can't be guessed easily, the importance of not using the same password everywhere, and so on; or it's time to go Awwwwwww. I choose the latter.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:39 PM on June 4, 2007

I had sex with dios last night.
posted by dios at 3:39 PM on June 4, 2007 [8 favorites]

The best part of all of this is that the shared-account self-answer (assuming it is that) includes a suggestion to call next time. Suggested in AskMe.
posted by Tehanu at 3:45 PM on June 4, 2007

Why would you share an account named 'true' when you could have the awesome 'true' and 'false' pair?
posted by smackfu at 3:52 PM on June 4, 2007

We all did.
posted by dg at 3:52 PM on June 4, 2007

Good thing it wasn't "Should I remain in love with my overweight partner?"
posted by brain_drain at 3:55 PM on June 4, 2007 [12 favorites]

Dios, think of how dios would feel if he, she, or it knew you were spreading that sort of information around!
posted by yohko at 3:58 PM on June 4, 2007

But was dios bragging or confessing his/her/its shame?
posted by Midnight Creeper at 4:15 PM on June 4, 2007

Why does dios' sex life always revolve around dios?
posted by cortex at 4:15 PM on June 4, 2007

Centripetal force.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:20 PM on June 4, 2007 [4 favorites]

This is why we need anonymous questions for stuff that seems innocuous.
posted by Mitheral at 4:20 PM on June 4, 2007

No, you're the shmoopiest!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:28 PM on June 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

Looks like somebody has earned themselves a little dry hump tonight.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 4:32 PM on June 4, 2007 [2 favorites]

This sort of underscores the point I've always made that in the old days, when we didnt have the Internet but did have telephones we could get at most information just as easily.

I might call a few friends and if they didnt know they might "check with a friend of theirs" who might know. A couple hops and you'd inevitably reach someone who knew the answer. The process was one of intelligently crawling the network rather than say, shouting your question out at a busy intersection which is what goes on here. The right people may or may not be around but you're playing a numbers game. Loudness over quiet intelligence.

Yeah, I know, ...plate of beans.
posted by vacapinta at 4:36 PM on June 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

"This sort of underscores the point I've always made that in the old days, when we didnt have the Internet but did have telephones.... I might call a few friends and if they didn't know they might "check with a friend of theirs" who might know."

Is that something I would have needed a telephone and friends to understand?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:38 PM on June 4, 2007 [5 favorites]

Awww, I love you guys!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:39 PM on June 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

We love you too!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:39 PM on June 4, 2007 [4 favorites]

we could get at most information just as easily

Yeah, that's the interesting thing: the most attractive thing about the net (and e.g. Askme), and the thing that I think leads to the most compelling bits of Q/A interaction, is the ways in which the exceptions to that "most" get served. So the question that a couple phone calls or a trip to the library might not have cleared up can now, at least maybe, get answered, promptly and well, by this great big pile of willing answerers and authors.

But the power that comes from that—the more or less instant gratification of these internet resources—becomes comfortable, taken for granted, seen as the most obvious way to do things. Everything becomes a nail, and it can take a surprise to remind us that we've only lately come to have such a hammer as this at our disposal.

That said, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it; it's just a change of method, and it's interesting to consider how this sort of argument will sound to people who grew up with the Internet as an absolute given, rather than a Recent Development. I'm barely even outside of the crowd, really—I remember doing pre-Internet research, but I was still getting my pubes.
posted by cortex at 4:47 PM on June 4, 2007

I had sex with dios last night.

Why in the hell did you do that? Were you drunk?
posted by loquacious at 4:49 PM on June 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

Maybe he was lonely.
posted by Catfry at 5:08 PM on June 4, 2007

Jesus H, cortex. More beans?

j/k
posted by disclaimer at 5:09 PM on June 4, 2007

vacapinta writes "This sort of underscores the point I've always made that in the old days, when we didnt have the Internet but did have telephones we could get at most information just as easily."

Either you weren't as curious as I, or you had much more forgiving friends. So far, today, I've used the net to find out the answers to the following questions:

What's a "嶺上開花" in Mahjong?
How much better has the Wii been selling than the PS3, and how do the PS3 sales compare to Dreamcast sales for the same period of time?
Does salmonella exist in live chickens, or is it a product of their packing and shelving?
What anagrams are there for "Your call is important to us"?
What did Trixie in Speed Racer look like?
Is the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo going to be shut down or moved?
Was there really a guy in Belgium who booby-trapped his house with 20 different traps to kill his family?
Who is Emile Hirsch?
What is the drop-out rate at my former high-school?
What's an html 502 error?
Why does fish smell?
Why does my sage reader keep dropping contents from my feeds, and just give me the titles instead?

There's no way I could have gotten all this information just as easily by phoning friends and trawling the informal network. Sure, in the old days, you could get really crucial information just as easily as today. But the internet allows me to find the answers not only to Really Important Questions, but idly curious questions which, if I trawled the informal network, would soon have me killed by my friends (at 10 questions a day, we're talking 3,650 trawls per year!)

Admittedly, none of this stuff is the stuff of AskMe, but I interpreted your statement to be about finding info on the net in general, not about question services like AskMe (and if you meant it only in relation to AskMe, I agree somewhat: if my question were remotely in line with my friends' or their friends' interests, I could get an answer just as easily, but even then, my first AskMe question was about a timepiece used in Elizabethan times, which I've wanted to know the name for since the early 1990's, before I was using the internet, which my friends and friends-of-friends network failed me on, and yet which AskMe answered in 4 minutes).
posted by bugbread at 5:13 PM on June 4, 2007 [7 favorites]

“Why does dios' sex life always revolve around dios?”

Ever since he invented this, he's been very self-centered.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:29 PM on June 4, 2007

8. Who is Emile Hirsch?

If you had had my phone number, and if this were a perfect world (well, perfect for me), I could've answered that question with "My poolboy. He's lounging in the yard right now, shall I fetch him for you?"
posted by CKmtl at 5:46 PM on June 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

omg sweetest story evar.

Bugbread's Belgian boobytrapper is a very interesting story, by the bye.
posted by exlotuseater at 6:00 PM on June 4, 2007

Why does dios' sex life always revolve around dios?

Gravity.
posted by Krrrlson at 6:05 PM on June 4, 2007

To answer the original q, it's the saddest, cuz ...

there's not a dry ice in the house!!!
posted by rob511 at 6:24 PM on June 4, 2007 [10 favorites]

Answerer (account holder) here. Mrs true asked the question from our home computer, which I leave logged in. And I would never mark myself as best answer -

I asked her to do it over the phone. After all, it WAS a pretty good answer.

Also, if it will tip in the favor of awwww and away from ACCOUNT SHARING BURN THEM she wants the dry ice because she's donating breastmilk and needs to keep it frozen during shipping.
posted by true at 6:28 PM on June 4, 2007 [5 favorites]

If it gets jostled too much will it turn to ice cream on the way?
posted by Space Coyote at 6:34 PM on June 4, 2007 [2 favorites]

Why does dios' sex life always revolve around dios?

Because he used to be really fat. Now, it's just a habit.
posted by heresiarch at 6:34 PM on June 4, 2007

THE ANSWER IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!
posted by empath at 6:37 PM on June 4, 2007 [22 favorites]

we could get at most information just as easily

I would dispute that straight out. Certainly you can get to the same information, but it's so much easier nowadays. I mean, there was a time where you had to buy a book to look up the details of old movies. A book!
posted by smackfu at 7:05 PM on June 4, 2007

If it gets jostled too much will it turn to ice cream on the way?

Butter. Nipple butter.
posted by loquacious at 7:08 PM on June 4, 2007

she wants the dry ice because she's donating breastmilk and needs to keep it frozen during shipping.

My AskMe: Is there any way that it can end up carbonated?
posted by Durin's Bane at 7:08 PM on June 4, 2007

Platform Double Talk.
posted by niles at 7:17 PM on June 4, 2007

Awwwww.
posted by gomichild at 7:27 PM on June 4, 2007

"If I melt dry ice, can I swim without getting wet?"

At STP? Yes and no. I wouldn't exactly call it swimming, and watch you don't suffocate.
posted by Eideteker at 7:34 PM on June 4, 2007

This is my favorite kind of MeTa thread, too honey. You could have just asked me instead of checking my favorites.
posted by trip and a half at 7:43 PM on June 4, 2007

Oops! Wrong login. Sorry, The Deej. (Whoever you are. Not that I would know.)
posted by trip and a half at 7:47 PM on June 4, 2007

That question and answer is awesome. Thanks for the smile true (and Mrs true).

The dios sweaty and naked self-fucking derailment - not so much.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 8:11 PM on June 4, 2007

Hey, the of people who don't know me forms to the left. It's the long one. The really long one. You two (or one and a half) have fun.
posted by The Deej at 8:13 PM on June 4, 2007

er. "line"

line of people.

that's line.

put "line" in there.

if you would please.

thanks

as you were

posted by The Deej at 8:35 PM on June 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

bugbread, that crazy/angry Belgian Boobytrapper story is awesome and is just begging to be FPP'd along with some links about Langley Collyer!

And on-topic, that AskMe was to my heart what -78.5°C is to dry ice.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:53 PM on June 4, 2007

Thanks for the followup true. You too, true.

Now, a confession. I would have bet that the answer came from the female half of true. I must have an anti-male bias, because I always think it's the guys who need help.

I read the thread to my teen daughter (whose response was "awwww!") and her immediate thought was also that it was the guy-true who asked. I have successfully imprinted my anti-male bias on her. I'm a good dad.
posted by The Deej at 9:47 PM on June 4, 2007

Dear ask Metafilter, I guess the queererst feeling someone is using my account when I am not around. Is there any way to check on that.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:10 PM on June 4, 2007

I'll check on it for you honey.

Aha. The answer is yes.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:11 PM on June 4, 2007

Will my arm continue to heal on its own?
posted by NortonDC at 10:11 PM on June 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

Astro Zombie... there are no less than 3 of you already! Now you are doubling up?
posted by The Deej at 10:15 PM on June 4, 2007

I would have bet that the answer came from the female half of true.
It never occurred to you that there may not be a female half? Or a male half?

i think you're right, though
posted by dg at 11:47 PM on June 4, 2007

It never occurred to you that there may not be a female half? Or a male half?

Actually... no, not at all, although it would have been possible. And since the account holder's profile says his name is Paul, and he referred to "Mrs. True" above, then, yes, I was correct that both genders were represented.

No specific insight... the odds were in my favor.
posted by The Deej at 11:57 PM on June 4, 2007

I was pretty sure that it was a woman who asked and a male who answered.

And I was right.

So I win. in your face the deej!
posted by liquorice at 12:27 AM on June 5, 2007

It's funny 'cause it's true.
posted by Smart Dalek at 2:31 AM on June 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

I just need to chime in here and say bugbread makes MUCH better use of the internet then I do.
posted by cavalier at 4:14 AM on June 5, 2007

Dammit liquorice!!!!!

:: sigh ::

OK, what's your PayPal address?
posted by The Deej at 5:02 AM on June 5, 2007

Good catch on this Deej, it made me smile and I would have missed it otherwise.
posted by quin at 10:23 AM on June 5, 2007

Thanks quin. I hope this means there's no hard feelings for the whole "killing you" thing. It was a weird time for me.
posted by The Deej at 1:53 PM on June 5, 2007

I'm over it. Loud violent explosive deaths are not the impediment they used to be.

Besides, coming back means that we can just kill each other again in the future.
posted by quin at 2:47 PM on June 5, 2007

What's an html 502 error?

This one would have been particularly hard to answer before the internet.
posted by moss at 2:59 PM on June 5, 2007 [3 favorites]

As someone who has spent way to much time navigating phone trees and then waiting for automated fax-backs from technical support and chemical companies; the internet kicks the ass of the old way of getting information 16 ways from Sunday.

And that doesn't even figure in the specialized information exchange that forums of all types allow. When it came to stuff like this and this you were essentially on your own unless you were lucky enough to be located in a local hotspot for the activity.

There are thousands of activities like this that might only interest a few thousand people world wide. Few if any of those people in most cases are going to live near or know each other in RL resulting in much duplication of effort and little information exchange.
posted by Mitheral at 7:08 PM on June 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

“There are thousands of activities like this that might only interest a few thousand people world wide. Few if any of those people in most cases are going to live near or know each other in RL resulting in much duplication of effort and little information exchange.”

Yeah, with all due respect and generosity to vacapinta, I think this "we could get all this info before the 'net" is a tempting contrarian argument that just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I'd guess that someone like vacapinta would come to this idea by way of realizing that one or two information gathering net activities he was doing could have been done, or he had previously managed, using pre-net technologies even though he was feeling a sort of "info at my fingertips" rush that we all often feel when looking up stuff on the 'net. When you realize something like this, you're often all "Aha! Maybe that conventional wisdom I've been taking for granted isn't true!"

I think this happened with some folks with regard to the relative amounts of appearance discrimination between men and women debate I was involved with in a thread on the blue. There's anti-conventional wisdom evidence that men are discriminated against more than women on the basis of appearance and, for some people coming across that data, it's very tempting to generalize it into a contrarian "I'm more objective than most people" position. (Additionally, of course, some people have even more compelling motivations for arguing against a position that is conventional wisdom, such as a vested interest in the contrary position.)

I think all of us do this to some degree. I'd guess that I do it more than most, even. It's pretty exciting, in a way, to investigate something that most people take for granted and to discover things that contradict conventional wisdom. It's only a hop, step, and a jump from pointing out the exceptions, to pointing out the exceptions as discomfirming evidence, to arguing for a contrarian position. A lot of us want to be smarty-pants.

An example of me doing this, even though I think I'm correct in this instance, is the "catnip isn't psychoactive" thing in the other MeTa thread. While I think I'm right in this particular example, the basic psychology is the same: it bugs me that conventional wisdom is that it's the cat version of marijuana, and I take a certain kind of (sordid? self-serving?) satisfaction in correcting people about it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:33 PM on June 5, 2007

If it gets jostled too much will it turn to ice cream on the way?

There were lots of contenders in this thread, but space coyote wins, with dios a close runner-up. Hmmm, dios having sex with himself next to dry ice cream breast milk.

I think that's the strangest sentence I've written in a while.
posted by ashbury at 8:37 PM on June 5, 2007

I used to (through over-engineered means, and for over-thought reasons) share email addresses with some friends. This once resulted in what appeared to be a hearty argument with myself (really Friend #1) on a mailing list about the nature of a vulnerability in a software application.

Friend #2 (then a coworker) was also monitoring the list, and came over with a weird look on his face. He offered to take the research off of my plate, as he thought maybe I might need to go home and get some rest. I just so happened to be pretty tired, and he owed me one, so I took him up on it.

Many years later, all three of us were reminiscing over drinks about the crazy old days, and Friend #2 tells the story about that one time I snapped and had a full-blown argument with myself on a mailing list.

After some laughter, Friend #1 and I explained what had actually happened, but though we remembered the subject of the debate, we couldn't remember which of us took which position, nor what the answer actually ended up being. This led to a re-enactment of the debate.

At one point, Friend #2 cut in with, "That just what..... somebody said on the list!"

Friend #1 and I replied, almost simultaneously, with, "Who?!?"

Ah, the Internet.
posted by rush at 3:10 PM on June 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

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Is this sweet or what? Well? Is it?
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