Show That It's Awesome On the List, Not Just the List Item

December 17, 2010 7:54 AM

Duck request (because horses scare me). Some sort of indication on the main projects page telling me if a project was posted to the blue.

That pretty much sums it up. We have the nice "This project was posted to MetaFilter by" box on that project's individual page. But something on the list of projects would be nice.

Maybe slide that out, maybe give it a trophy or thumbs up or other appropriate graphic.

posted by theichibun to Feature Requests at 7:54 AM (65 comments total)

How about a little duck head next to the title.
posted by exogenous at 8:08 AM on December 17, 2010 [4 favorites]

Yes. Yes. Picture of tasty tasty duck next to the project. It'll represent the success of the project and the celebrations soon to be held at a nearby Chinese restaurant.
posted by Ahab at 8:09 AM on December 17, 2010

Wait...these ponies...you eat them?
posted by routergirl at 8:21 AM on December 17, 2010

Mmm duck.
posted by kmz at 8:27 AM on December 17, 2010

Duck are better. Ducks fit in breadboxes. You can't do that with a pony. Unless it was a like a giant breadbox, but giants died a long time ago in Bible times. Plus I don't think giants ate bread that you would put in a bread box because they didn't have grocery stores - also they were too busy fighting to even think about the importance of proper food storage.

But really if you want to store your bread so that it will last a long time, you should probably put it in the refrigerator. It slightly alters the crumb of the bread, but for sandwiches it's not very noticeable. If you don't like the ends of bread you should put them freezer to save. You could save them to make some bread pudding or to give to the ducks. Because ducks are better.
posted by Brent Parker at 8:32 AM on December 17, 2010 [12 favorites]

Somewhere in the world, in all of human history, I suppose there was or is some child who nagged her parents incessantly for a duck.
posted by rtha at 8:38 AM on December 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Really like this idea, but please not a "trophy" icon. IMO, the object of posting to Projects shouldn't be the "Reward" of being posted to MeFi.
posted by zarq at 8:38 AM on December 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

rtha: "Somewhere in the world, in all of human history, I suppose there was or is some child who nagged her parents incessantly for a duck."

That never ends well. :D
posted by zarq at 8:40 AM on December 17, 2010

zarq: "Really like this idea, but please not a "trophy" icon. IMO, the object of posting to Projects shouldn't be the "Reward" of being posted to MeFi"

Honestly, I couldn't think of anything and figured trophy would get that kind of response and suggestions for things that would work better.
posted by theichibun at 8:42 AM on December 17, 2010

You can't do that with a pony.

Depends on the size of the piece.
posted by nomadicink at 8:43 AM on December 17, 2010

Ducks Vs. Ponies

Whoever wins, we loose.
posted by The Whelk at 8:59 AM on December 17, 2010

Doesn't this already exist? As long as the project was posted to the blue using the "post to" link it gets a "this project was posted by" next to it. Or am I missing something?
posted by cjorgensen at 9:23 AM on December 17, 2010

I got hit in the head by a duck once. I was out on a midnight roast pork and beer run. The roast pork shack was full of rowdy soldiers so I went to stand outside on the street while my pork got chopped. It was a street full of three-four storey shop-houses, and I was just standing there, hoping none of the soldiers were drunk enough to want to pick a fight, when the duck plummeted out of the sky and knocked me to the ground.

I didn't know what had hit me, and thought for a moment that I'd been shot. I felt for blood, but there was none, so I got up, a bit dazed, and noticed a beautiful iridescent miniature duck at my feet. My first lucid thought was "this duck is so frikkin beautiful that it has to belong to someone". I picked it up and offered it to the crowd gathering around me. They refused and backed away from me as if I was mad. I didn't want to be carted away, so I went into the pork shack with the duck under my arm, picked up my pork, jumped on a motorbike taxi and took the duck home.

My girlfriend and I had a long hard look at the duck over roast pork and a beer or two, and decided that it looked like no duck we'd ever seen on the lakes and rivers around town. So we kept it in the kitchen and fed it garlic chives (which was all it wanted to eat) for a week or so while we tracked down a local animal rescue group. Once we got it to them they confirmed it was indeed a fairly rare duck, and took it in, with a view to eventually releasing it somewhere.

But finding a home for the duck was not the most fulfilling part of the story. The best part was that the elephant expert at the wildlife rescue group (who for some reason was the man who dealt with our duck) was the former elephant keeper from my home town zoo. And we got to reminisce about the days when he used to walk three baby elephants past my front door every morning. Apparently baby elephants need to see the world or they grow up depressed. I'd always wondered why they'd been coming past every day. Fifteen odd years after they stopped, there was the man himself, taking my duck in, and explaining everything I needed to know about elephant psychology.

Anyway, later I saw a documentary on discovery channel about a man who claimed to have been the only person ever hit in the head by a duck. He was not telling the truth. No, he was not.

So I still vote for a duck icon. Even if it's not a roast duck icon. Because ducks are cool, and they lead to adventures.
posted by Ahab at 9:27 AM on December 17, 2010 [243 favorites]

o<
posted by Curious Artificer at 9:29 AM on December 17, 2010 [5 favorites]

That indication is inside the thread, though. The OP is asking for an indication on the main Projects page. Something subtle, like how the "Best Answer" checkmark on AskMe indicates "this question has best answers marked," would be a nice little thing for Projects. Heck, it could just be another little checkmark.
posted by Gator at 9:30 AM on December 17, 2010

That sounds like a good idea to me. pb is doing some travelling today and so isn't his usual speedy-with-the-features self, but that seems possible. Check mark sounds like a good idea.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:31 AM on December 17, 2010

Who likes the little duckies in the pond? I do, I do, I do, a-chika-quack-quack.

forgive me my sports racer indulgence
posted by pts at 9:54 AM on December 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

pb is doing some travelling today and so isn't his usual speedy-with-the-features self

I managed to read that as "...doing some time-travelling today and so isn't his usual speedy-with-the-futures self."

And this morning, on the cover of O-is-for-Oprah magazine I read

Intant Beauty
Boosters

as "Instant Booty."

Better not operate any heavy machinery today.
posted by Zed at 9:56 AM on December 17, 2010

pb is currently time traveling to get his future self some Instant Booty. 

Please leave your pony request tied to the front page, and he'll get back to you yesterday. 

Thank you.

posted by zarq at 9:59 AM on December 17, 2010 [8 favorites]

pb's automatic booty operations do rock the nation.
posted by The Whelk at 9:59 AM on December 17, 2010

Heck, it could just be another little checkmark.

A checkmark already means something on MeFi. Adding checkmarks implies that the purpose of Projects is to get your stuff on MeFi, rather than to showcase stuff what we did. How about a star instead?
posted by zamboni at 10:09 AM on December 17, 2010

I'm fine with ducks and horses.

It's rabbits I hate. It's the reason I can't hang out at that other site. Too many rabbits.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:18 AM on December 17, 2010

We could go crazy an use some words, like "Posted to mefi!" as a hyperlink to said post.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:39 AM on December 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

ebk, would you mind saying the words "rascally rabbit" for me? I have a theory I'd like to test out.
posted by Curious Artificer at 10:40 AM on December 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

I am sorry you are afraid of horses, ichibun. You may wish to hide your eyes from the story I am about to tell, for it involves a real-life pony who liked to make people afraid of her.

SCARY PONY STORY FOLLOWS

When I was little, I had a pony. She was a crabby little hag, and we had many spirited debates about things like which way we would go, or whether or not we would jump a fence, or whether she felt like wearing a saddle or bridle. She was fond of 'accidentally' stepping on my bare foot and grinding her little pony hoof, all the while blinking like an innocent illustration from some hopelessly twee children's book. She liked to try to scrape people off her back by walking very.close to fences and overhanging tree limbs.

Naturally I adored her for her foul temper, since it made us a perfect pair. But alack, my best friend was not the sort of person who liked people better the more unpleasant they were, and the pony knew it. She would bite at her and toss her head menacingly, or as menacingly as a little pinto pony can flip its head.

But the day that capped my friend's terror of horses was the day that my pony bit her on the bottom as we climbed over the fence out of the pasture. I have never seen an animal so pleased with itself in my life as the look in that pony's eyes as she gravely regarded my friend breaking the land-speed record for an eight-year-old girl as she ran from my savage steed.

END SCARY PONY STORY

My friend did have ducks, though. It must not be as uncommon a preference as I'd thought, to prefer ducks to ponies!
posted by winna at 10:48 AM on December 17, 2010 [11 favorites]

winna, that is an excellent pony story. It also perfectly encapsulates why our first riding animal was a horse, and not a pony. We had already had all our pony misadventures on other people's ponies anyway.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:59 AM on December 17, 2010

My aunt was a dressage instructor and thus had both horses and ponies at her house. I was a bookish rules-obsessed kid, and my cousins told me girls were supposed to ride ponies, so I tried it. Damn pony bit me and then chased me through the paddock until their German Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix got between us. 20 years later, my aunt asked why I'd never wanted to learn to ride - my cousins started to choke with laughter and I said "Because C tricked me into riding Cinnamon."

It is very satisfying to see one's cousin receive a much deserved, albeit delayed, scolding at the holiday table - especially when it includes the line "How could you? Cinnamon was a BAD PONY!"
posted by catlet at 11:15 AM on December 17, 2010 [10 favorites]

I am really glad that I know catlet in real life so I can actually exclaim "Cinnamon was a BAD PONY" at her now. I encourage all other ATL mefites to do the same.
One thing I love about MeFi is that I pick up weird expressions, turns of phrase & stories all the time. Some of them aren't even from GregNog
posted by pointystick at 11:19 AM on December 17, 2010

Pony And Ducky
posted by galadriel at 11:25 AM on December 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Though, oddly, love rabbit stew.
posted by eyeballkid at 11:46 AM on December 17, 2010

ebk, would you mind saying the words "rascally rabbit" for me? I have a theory I'd like to test out.

Be vewy vewy quiet.
posted by eyeballkid at 11:47 AM on December 17, 2010

Cinnamon was a BAD PONY!

I am adopting this as my non-sequitur for at least the next month. It can be used in so many situations!
posted by winna at 12:25 PM on December 17, 2010

"You never hear about a bad horse."
posted by The Whelk at 12:29 PM on December 17, 2010

Apparently baby elephants need to see the world or they grow up depressed.

There is something haunting and heartbreaking and beautiful about that sentence.
posted by dersins at 12:33 PM on December 17, 2010 [19 favorites]

That is why they are so prone to taking walks. Cf. Mancini et al, 1961, Wanderlust in the Infant Pachyderm.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:38 PM on December 17, 2010 [6 favorites]

As you wish.
posted by Lou Stuells at 2:22 PM on December 17, 2010

    o<  -KWAAAAAAAAAAAK
  \</
   L
  

posted by aubilenon at 3:19 PM on December 17, 2010 [8 favorites]

Because ducks are cool, and they lead to adventures.

How do you know if it's a duck pond if it's got no ducks in it?
posted by The Whelk at 5:06 PM on December 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

y'know what they say^{[WeaselWords]}. If it looks like a duck, acks like a duck, quacks like a duck.
It may be a pony.^[Cite?]

Horses as you've never seen them before

ALSO; Pony that might just fit in yr bread-box.
_{Worlds Smallest} Reckless Equus
But, British Tv is kinda weird amibeingfair?
posted by infinite intimation at 5:40 PM on December 17, 2010

Adding checkmarks implies that the purpose of Projects is to get your stuff on MeFi, rather than to showcase stuff what we did.

Yeah, I agree. And I'd take it further and say that an indication on the front page (no matter what symbol we use) makes this an explicit goal of Projects. Once you have a visual system like this I think there'd be a trend toward getting things to be complete. It's a great motivator for Ask—we want every question to have a best answer. I don't think that motivation would work as well for Projects.

If we do go this route a star already has a meaning on MeFi too—it represents highly favorited items in contact activity. Maybe a MeFi favicon?
posted by pb (staff) at 9:07 PM on December 17, 2010

Meh.

An important part of posting to the Blue is ensuring your post is not a double by doing a search of pre-existing posts. This takes approximately ten seconds.

BREAD DOES NOT GO IN THE FRIDGE!!! That just makes it all dried out and awful. If it goes moldy, you're buying too much and/or eating too slow.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:48 PM on December 17, 2010

How do you know if it's a duck pond if it's got no ducks in it?

The immediate vicinity is coated in a generous layer of duck shit.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:50 PM on December 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

Wait...these ponies...you eat them?

Well, they shoot ponies, don't they?
posted by AugieAugustus at 3:52 AM on December 18, 2010

rtha: Somewhere in the world, in all of human history, I suppose there was or is some child who nagged her parents incessantly for a duck.

Hello, I was one of those kids. My duckling was called Dandy and started life dyed pink. He came with a gentler friend called Daffodil, who belonged to my younger sister (who'd have preferred a pony), and died. Dandy lived.

In those days (it was 1989 and I was 9) we lived in Karachi, in an elderly house on a quiet street. You could see the sea from the balcony. My grandfather and dying grandmother lived downstairs (she took another seven years to die). We had the two bedroom flat upstairs. Since there were three of us children, and two parents, there wasn't much space or much money. We did have a very large balcony, though, so my mother with her customary ingenuity found some Bangladeshi illegal immigrants who built a Bangladeshi-style reed roof over about half the balcony, enclosed it with greenhouse matting, and voila, we had a room which stayed cool even in the summers, and faced the sea.

Dandy lived on the balcony just outside this room. The pink disappeared, to be replaced with brown. His favourite foods were ramen noodles, which had only just appeared in Pakistan in 1989, and boiled barley. His greatest enemies were the pigeons who lived in a dove cote a few metres above his head. When fed up of the pigeons, Dandy would leap off the balcony into the garden below, peck at ants for a bit, and then quack until he was taken back upstairs.

Eventually, I discovered Dandy was a girl. This was because she started laying eggs and eating them. She attacked anyone who came onto the balcony: people, crows, neighbourhood cats, pigeons. The only person she didn't chase back into the thatched room, waddling and quacking, was my grandparents' cook who inspired great terror in her (some years later he tried to corner me in the library, so I should clearly have paid attention).

Once I took Dandy to school for a pet show. She had a special cage in a special corner and made such a ruckus and smelt so bad that no one approached that corner all day, not even the four-foot-high-at-the-shoulder German Shepherds everyone in Karachi had those days. I felt both embarrassed and proud.

Then it was 1990. My parents were fed up of Karachi's gang wars, curfews, electricity breakdowns, and having to call us children to wreak havoc indoors in our tiny flat whenever there were gunshots outside. We moved to quiet, green Lahore -- this was years before the bombs began. Dandy was given away to a Pathan chauffeur in the neighbourhood. She got a special meal of ramen noodles, and that was the last I saw of her. My parents, with the urban Pakistani mistrust of people from the tribal areas, thought he'd probably eat Dandy. This didn't bother me especially: I had grown up seeing goats slaughtered for Eid.

The next pet was a vicious rooster who brought companionship to one of the loneliest men I knew.
posted by tavegyl at 3:59 AM on December 18, 2010 [8 favorites]

Never in my life have I heard so much about ducks until these last three months. I just moved to York, and the uni here is positively mad about ducks. There is a giant lake/river that runs through campus, and over 20 species of ducks inhabiting it. Signs everywhere! Ducks everywhere! Bird shit all over! You can't walk anywhere without tripping over ducks. And it's indoors too...as every powerpoint presentation, every "catchy" name, the publicity photos...variations on the same theme. Even our fire safety briefing had duck jokes in it.

We are bracing ourselves for a phenomenally harsh winter here. The lake has frozen over early. Twice. The ducks are put away (somewhere?) for the winter, but the whole campus still smells like a giant shit popsicle.
posted by iamkimiam at 5:12 AM on December 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

BREAD DOES NOT GO IN THE FRIDGE!!! That just makes it all dried out and awful. If it goes moldy, you're buying too much and/or eating too slow.

I actually thought that too (and still kind of do), but it is actually very interesting:

The rate of staling reaches a maximum at about -5° C and decreases linearly till about 50° C. This results from a change in the starch fraction of wheat flourinvolving crystallization called retrogradation. [...] The starch crystallization reaction can be reversed, which explains why stale bread can be softened by a gentle heating process.

posted by Chuckles at 10:33 AM on December 18, 2010

So this duck walks into a bar, goes up to the bartender and says, 'Hey, can you give me some duck food?' The bartender says, 'What? We sell beer here, not duck food, and even if we had any, I don't do handouts. But if you go across the street, there's a pet store, and they'll probably have some.' Then the duck quacks a bit, then wanders out of the bar.

Next day, the duck shows up again, and asks the bartender if he can give him some duck food. This time the bartender says, 'No, I told you yesterday that we don't have any damned duck food! Go across the street and go to the pet store.' The duck says, 'Are you /sure/ you don't have any duck food?' Bartender: 'No, we don't have any. Now get out of my pub, and if you come in here asking for duck food again, I'm gonna nail your bill to the bar.' The duck then waddles its way off the stool, and heads out to the street.

The next day, the duck walks into the bar. The bartender just glares at it. The duck gets up on to a stool, and says, 'Hey, have you got a hammer and nails?' The bartender says, 'No.' Then the duck says, 'Well in that case, can I have some duck food?'
posted by kaibutsu at 10:50 AM on December 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ducks are awesome. There are drawbacks, sure. But on the plus side, DUCK!
posted by JHarris at 7:35 PM on December 18, 2010

Somewhere in the world, in all of human history, I suppose there was or is some child who nagged her parents incessantly for a duck.

One of my friends had a pet duck. She proffered this information to me one night over drinks with no prodding whatsoever. "I had a duck." she said "It lived in my bathtub." Dumbfounded, I asked if it ever left the tub "Of course," she responded, "ducks like to walk around, you know."

Sadly, there is no more to this story than the scant information I am now sharing with you. But rest assured, indeed someone has longed for a for a duck as a companion... and got one.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 7:43 PM on December 18, 2010

I wanted a duck and I got a kitten. This is why, my parets would later explain to people, why I had a cat named Duck.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:12 PM on December 18, 2010 [3 favorites]

The March of The Sinister Ducks
posted by atrazine at 1:17 AM on December 19, 2010

Somewhere in the world, in all of human history, I suppose there was or is some child who nagged her parents incessantly for a duck.

I was one of those kids too. My parents told me that if I built a house for the duck, and fenced off a run and made a pond for it I could have one.

So I drew up plans for a house (pencil and and a ruler) and my dad cut the wood according to my plans. I built the house (it turned out a little oddly because I didn't realize that 2x4s are not 2"X4") and a run and dug a hole and put one of those little kiddie pools in it.

And then my parents got me not one but TWO ducks (so they wouldn't be lonely) and they were awesome!

They quacked and swam in the pool and got really excited and waddled very fast in that hilarious way ducks have when I went out to feed them.

They also laid greenish eggs that were good to eat but got mad when I took them away.

So yay for ducks!
posted by dolface at 1:07 PM on December 20, 2010 [2 favorites]

I must confess that, when a certain Asian restaurant was still open in town, I became tragically addicted to their Siamese Duckling. It was a tasty curry with veggies, and, ummmm, duck. I started eating there every Friday after payday, and the weekend library run.

I would walk in and the elderly Asian lady that invariably worked Friday nights would look at me and say either "Duck!" or "No duck."
posted by Samizdata at 2:29 PM on December 20, 2010

On the strange paths of the Internet there are services which will turn your likeness into a bobblehead duck. My friend wants one quite badly. To add to her voluminous collection of same. Never forget the inanimate ducks, the sonorous cry of "Rubber Ducky". It applies to you, and me, and all of us:

Rubber Ducky,
You're the one,
You make bathtime
Lots of fun!


And indeed, there is a spirit running through all of us and a quack in all our hearts at our educational establishment, for such is the duckiness of these ducks.
posted by curuinor at 9:40 PM on December 20, 2010

I am pro-duck, personally (they are pretty much like the ultimate evolution of the velociraptor, which makes them 9 kinds of awesome), but this made me see horses in a whole new light [warning, EddieIzzard, lego horses].
And lotsa people love ducks.
Dun dun, dun dun, dun dun dooooooo
posted by infinite intimation at 10:45 PM on December 20, 2010

duck is delicious.
posted by yeoz at 6:37 AM on December 21, 2010

first get a duck

into any situation, insert duck!
posted by The Whelk at 7:24 AM on December 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Proper English ducks give you a tour of their stately home. (more in the related links!)
posted by Askr at 8:08 AM on December 21, 2010

The house we just moved from had a duckpond just the other side of our fence. Every year, we get these huge broods of baby ducks, but male mallards tend to kill off 90% of them. Except then year when we had Canadian geese decide to winter in the pond. One of the geese adopted this huge brood of ducklings. She would parade up and down the entire half mile pond, looking like a queen surrounded by courtiers. Twas adorable.
posted by dejah420 at 7:26 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

BREAD DOES NOT GO IN THE FRIDGE!!! That just makes it all dried out and awful. If it goes moldy, you're buying too much and/or eating too slow.

Where is this magical land where they sell bread in quantities smaller than a loaf?
posted by edbles at 2:52 PM on December 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

Make your own, then you can make it smaller.
posted by theichibun at 7:03 PM on December 29, 2010

Where is this magical land where they sell bread in quantities smaller than a loaf?

Um... any magical land with a supermarket or bakery? (There are indeed many kinds of bread that do not come in loaf form) Really though, the "buying too much" was meant for people who get several loaves at a time.

If that's not you, see the bit after the "and/or." If you can't finish a loaf before it goes moldy, you are eating it WAY too slowly.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:51 PM on December 29, 2010

Make your own, then you can make it smaller.

You people with your "time to accomplish things."
posted by edbles at 10:27 AM on December 30, 2010

90% of bread making is unattended.
posted by The Whelk at 10:30 AM on December 30, 2010

Basic break recepie (no amounts, because that depends on what you're making)

Get yeast, flour and something for the yeast to eat, usually sugar. Leave that unattended for about 5 minutes.

Add more flour and flavoring stuff and mix it all up. The fancy word is kneading, but the idea is to move every bit of the dough.

Put it in a covered bowl and leave it for a few hours so it doubles in bulk.

Punch it and shape it.

Put it in the oven.

Pull it out and amaze people you know because they think making bread is hard.
posted by theichibun at 12:13 PM on December 30, 2010