Comments on: Five years of Ask.MeFi book suggestions from Human Relations and Work & Money

Five years of Ask.MeFi book suggestions from Human Relations and Work & Money

WCityMike — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:01:14 -0800

Ask.Metafilter is over 5 years old now, with volumes of suggestions and helpful ideas. philosophistry sorted through the years of posts categorized as Human Relations and Work & Money, and created ranked listings of the books people recommended the most often: Human Relations, Work & Money. Note that each little thumbs-up icon is a link back to the post which referred to the book in question. Posted originally in Mefi by filthy light thief, but deleted.

[via mefi projects]

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:08:14 -0800

Taking a deleted post from the blue and reposting it to the gray seems like bad form, regardless of the quality or provenance of the original post.

But what do I know? I really like Chicken McNuggets. They're shaped kinda like chicken feet, you know.

By: prefpara

prefpara — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:17:40 -0800

Wait, this is so bizarre. Is anyone else seeing this? Every comment in this thread until gman is not showing up with the time and username as a link. I thought at first it was a giant comment by gman impersonating other users.

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:18:00 -0800

gman - why did you just paste in the deleted thread? It's already linked.

By: cortex

cortex — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:19:14 -0800

If it's deleted primarily for being too metafilter-specific, reposting it in Metatalk is generally okay.

Reposting the entire content of said thread into the new metatalk is kind of weird, though, since the thread is linked in the post, and it's an ugly and distracting pile of text to boot, so I'm nixing gman's initial comment here.

By: prefpara

prefpara — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:19:25 -0800

Um... oh.

By: dersins

dersins — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:20:01 -0800

They're shaped kinda like chicken feet, you know.

You've either never had chicken feet, or the McDonalds in Alabama are deeply, deeply fucked up.

By: epersonae

epersonae — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:21:30 -0800

Feeling Good FTW!

You know how some people open up the Bible to random pages for life advice? Sometimes I do that with the Feeling Good book. And dammit, it's almost always helpful.

That may have been TMI. YMMV.

By: He Is Only The Imposter

He Is Only The Imposter — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:26:52 -0800

I'm a little disappointed that Refuse To Choose by Barbara Sher didn't make the cut. It's the one self-help book I actually bought based on an AskMe recommendation, and I love it.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:30:14 -0800

You've either never had chicken feet, or the McDonalds in Alabama are deeply, deeply fucked up.

While your first assertion is definitely true and your second is probably true, I still think that if one were to batter and deep-fry a chicken foot it would sorta resemble a McNugget. You know, if the batter clung to the webbed area between the digits so that the whole thing was more blob-like.

By: iamkimiam

iamkimiam — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:39:15 -0800

OMG FOR POSTERITY!!!!!!

By: gman

gman — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:39:31 -0800

gman - why did you just paste in the deleted thread? It's already linked.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:43:28 -0800

epersonae: You know how some people open up the Bible to random pages for life advice?

That's how I use the "random" button on MetaTalk.

By: netbros

netbros — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:46:16 -0800

Authorities report that an Alabama woman called 911 three times after McDonald's employees told her they were out of Chicken McNuggets®. The cops said they could not respond to such frivolous calls... unless donuts were involved.

By: gman

gman — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:50:52 -0800

It's tough to decide which colour background this post looks best on.

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:54:03 -0800

I have had fried chicken's feet. Thankfully, they looked nothing like McNuggets^®.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:19:35 -0800

Is the theme of this week chicken feet? I was discussing stock-making on Tuesday and mentioned that I was now craving chicken feet, went downtown Wednesday and bought a bag of feet, spread them out on a cookie sheet this afternoon to individually freeze before sticking them in a freezer bag, and now everyone here is talking about chicken feet.

No, I don't have enough for everyone. Get your own damn chicken feet.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:22:32 -0800

(Oh, this post is about recommended books from AskMe? That's pretty damn cool, actually.)

By: ignignokt

ignignokt — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:30:20 -0800

As a whole, I like the advice in AskMe a lot, but man, that looks like a pretty insufferable chain of books.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:52:45 -0800

OK, OK.

I accept now that McNuggets do not look like chicken feet.

From now on I will try to imagine them as BABY feet.

By: jacalata

jacalata — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:23:12 -0800

oh wow, they DO look like baby feet...I wonder how I can mention that to my nephews without having my sister in law kill me.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:06:57 -0800

I'm married to a SE Asian and have seen more chicken feet than I ever thought I'd see. They remain...articulated...even after cooking. So, a bowl of chicken feet has lots of secondary movement when you shake it. It's rather unsettling but I'm told they are delicious. Believing is better than tasting, I say.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:33:29 -0800

As children growing up in rural Canada, my mom and her siblings would pass the time by brandishing severed chicken feet and chasing one another around the yard, tugging on the exposed ends of the tendons so as to make the talons contract and unclench in an unholy game of perished and portioned poultry puppetry.

By: krautland

krautland — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:18:59 -0800

I think I am responsible for all but one recommendation of "Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines" ...

By: Phire

Phire — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:27:46 -0800

Can't be, krautland, it's one vote per user per book. Though it is an excellent book.

By: dirty lies

dirty lies — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:57:47 -0800

What you do, is you put the severed end of the chicken foot in your mouth and, while holding it with your teeth, alternately suck as hard as you can and push the tendons out with your tongue, causing the claw to spasmodically clench and unclench.

When your mom asks you what the fuck do you think you are doing, it being Christmas and all, you bite down through the bone, pretend you are chewing 3 pounds of something crunchy, make a show of swallowing and say: "I was waiting for the chicken to suffocate before I chewed it, it's more humane".

The only problem is that the spanking* will mess up the many times rehearsed setup in your underwear and no one will get to see your "farting feathers" routine.

*We could not afford Ritalin, spankings are free and OTC

By: MasonDixon

MasonDixon — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:58:32 -0800

This is a great idea, but I can't help thinking that there have been an awful lot of other book recommendations: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Horror.

I might be willing to cobble a "most recommended" list out of Science Fiction AskMes if given a place to post it. I'll leave the other categories to someone else.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:59:56 -0800

Dried goose tracheas make fine peashooters.

By: kittyprecious

kittyprecious — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:08:20 -0800

I'm struggling with the discovery that there are twice as many recommendations for He's Just Not That Into You as for Man's Search for Meaning.

Smaller problems = more frequent discussions, I s'pose.

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:33:20 -0800

He's just not that into meaning.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:57:19 -0800

This is a great idea, but I can't help thinking that there have been an awful lot of other book recommendations

I think the reason philosophistry did this was 1) these are areas he's interested in, and 2, they kinda tie back to his self-help blog. Sadly, I can't see much Sci-Fi being referenced in self help discussions. If you do the work, I'll get off my lazy duff and make my website useful, or at least offer the hosting space.

As a note (which will probably get overlooked), I was trying to figure out how to make the story less directly related to MeFi, but I got lazy. I'm kind of glad this got bumped somewhere beyond Projects, but I don't know how many more folks check MeTa than MePro (is that even the right abbreviation?)

By: MasonDixon

MasonDixon — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:17:19 -0800

Filthy,

I've already begun. It won't be as useful as the other philo's list, but there's definitely a few books that get mentioned over and over. I can tell you right now that by my quick scanning Ender's Game and Neal Stephenson seem to be very popular here.

Probably will take a little while to finish. This is a holiday weekend here in Boston.

By: geoff.

geoff. — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:53:26 -0800

"What Color Is Your Parachute?" and "Feeling Good" ??? What are we, Oprah? Ugh.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:42:40 -0800

You know, if the batter clung to the webbed area between the digits so that the whole thing was more blob-like.

"webbed"? Are we talking about a different sort of chicken than the, like, normal terrestrial chicken that runs around pecking things and taking awkward flopping dust baths under the porch?

By: dirty lies

dirty lies — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:16:32 -0800

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and has webbed feet like a duck, it is a Chicken McNugget.