January 2015 Archives (all archives)
January 30
How you know you're living in a Mallory Ortberg Toast article
when there are three links to her stuff on the front page [more inside]
January 29
Recent Activity Comment Length Po[...]
Sometimes comments in recent activity get truncated with a "[...]" when they run too long. Could we allow MeFites to customize this aggressiveness?
For instance, I've currently got a thread at the top of Recent Activity that contains a number of comments such as this one (9,414 characters over five paragraphs) and this one (11,121 characters over six paragraphs). These walls of text make it difficult to navigate.
If I could choose the point at which comments are truncated (say, two paragraphs or 1,000 characters, whichever comes second) I -and maybe others?- would be a happy camper. Is this a cool and reasonable idea?
January 27
New MetaFilter Bookmarklets
I've been working on some new bookmarklets for MetaFilter. They’re designed to add bits of functionality to the site and can be used individually or in tandem. [more inside]
January 26
Happy Community Manager Day!
It's the 4th Monday in January, and thus, it is Community Manager Appreciation Day! Felicitations and appreciation to our mods, both past and present: Mathowie, Jessamyn, cortex, vacapinta, restless_nomad, LosterMitten, taz, pb, and goodnewsfortheinsane. [more inside]
January 25
🙈 🙉 🙊💩
🐘💦 [more inside]
Perhaps a deletion was not the best solution in this case.
January 24
MeFi advice on buying glasses
Several years ago, I remember there was some discussion on MeFi about some places to buy eyeglasses on the web at extremely low prices - like, $20 for a complete set with frames and lenses and everything. I'm looking for an update on these sources. [more inside]
January 23
Are product catalog pages now "best of the web"?
Am I missing something, or is this post -- literally a link to two product catalog pages for bread and to their parent bakery -- now considered good enough to be FPP material?
Can we talk about the dumb show I like?
I am interested in writing about a show on FanFare. Now what? [more inside]
January 22
Please tell someone to remember to tell MetaFilter when you die
This MeTa is inspired by a conversation in the chat room in which we realized that despite our wishes to know when other members of the community died, most of us didn't yet have a plan in place to ensure that our fellow MeFites would be notified of our own deaths. I've since told my husband how to find the Contact Form, and if he forgets I have a few MeFites as FB friends (he won't forget to update my FB, at least) -- what's YOUR plan to get your dots?
Thanks, MeFi
I just wanted to thank MetaFilter for expanding my view of feminism and helping me become more of a feminist myself, inspired by this thread. [more inside]
We Can Do Better Than Bad Science Journalism By A Weasel
There are lots of articles like this one posted to Metafilter where journalists try to aggregate scientific research and end up screwing up the conclusions. But this one is by Johann Hari, who is a deeply malicious falsifier. He's the British Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass. Normally I think we should evaluate articles without regard to their author, and indeed this article is being ably dismantled in the thread. But here we have a very smart person who has often bent his intelligence to unethical and self-serving ends. What's more, he's now doing the "overblown science reporting" thing that is harder to catch because we want it to be true. Let's stick with the actual neuroscientists on this topic, like Carl Hart.
January 19
'Tis a tiny mail pony...
Firefox should highlight MeFi's pinned tab on new mail like it does on new comments. [more inside]
Feature request: add "Add to Favorites" on the /favorited page.
Hello!
I have clumsy fingers and clicking the plus sign to "add to favorites" often leads me to the /favorited page for that post, because I miss. It'd be neat if the option to "Add to favorites" appeared on that page, so that I wouldn't have to go back to the original post/moment and try again (often missing again).
Thanks for your consideration.
January 17
Metafilter TMBG Flood Tribute Album
After months of joyful toil under the expert and unflagging stewardship of Faint of Butt, I am proud to announce that the Metafilter Flood Tribute Album is now complete, just in time for the mid-January 25th anniversary of the release of They Might Be Giants' now classic record. [more inside]
January 16
A new Diplomacy game is about to begin ...
There's been too much real-life nastiness on this site in the past day or so. So I am proposing some make-believe nastiness instead: A new game of MeFi Diplomacy is now open for entrants. [more inside]
January 15
Achievements Galore!
Per Rotato Ad Astra! MefightClub's 2014 annual charity donation drive has come to an end for another year [2013][2012][2011][2010], and I'm proud to announce we've collected US$4300 for Child's Play and charity:water. [more inside]
Threadshitting and Intolerance
I really enjoyed the link in this post and was looking forward to the discussion of comics, their depictions of women, choices that are kid-friendly, etc. I did not feel like this post was framed in an inflammatory way or that it was posted as outrage filter. [more inside]
January 14
Almost-paywalls, not quite subscription only.
This is just to say that I was disappointed I couldn't access the article linked in this FPP, and the link was essentially the entire FPP. [more inside]
January 13
Another thing Metafilter doesn't do well
Metafilter has a problem with anti-Semitism. That is, Metafilter has a structural problem that leads the moderators to silence discussions of and references to anti-Semitism, even when they are fundamentally relevant. As a consequence of this, its users (including myself) are forced into self-censorship: we are forced to either ignore attacks on Jews, or pretend that we can meaningfully discuss those attacks without referring to the motives of the attackers. The recent events in France make me feel that I cannot remain silent while engaging honestly with this website. [more inside]
What do you write your draft posts in?
Having a discussion on Twitter and I thought I could get some more answers from the community about what you use to draft your fpps in.
Ideally looking for freebies I can download.
Also somewhat interested in how people work, although this is just for curiosity's sake, and not really a problem to solve. (Particularly interested in 'heavy hitters' like filthy light thief, flex, the man of twists and turns, Rhaomi, etc.) [more inside]
January 12
Reading MeFi discussions on a Kindle?
I often queue up MeFi articles for my subway ride using Amazon's Send to Kindle tool. It'd be great if I could also send the accompany discussions to my Kindle, but Amazon's tool only picks up the post text. My usual trick of running Readability on the page first doesn't work: Readability also discards the comments. I realize Kindles are pretty far down the long tail of devices that pb could spend his time supporting, so I'm not expecting official support here, but have any MeFites hacked together a good way to send the discussions to their Kindles?
January 7
100: The Big 100
The big end of the year, end of the double-digits podcast episode was recorded yesterday and runs 1h51m as we chat about all our favorite posts from the previous month, highlight some winners from the mefites choice contest, and reminisce about the holidays. [more inside]
January 6
Metafilter group on Fatsecret
I started a Metafilter group on Fatsecret. Go here to join! You'll be asked to provide your Mefi username.
[more inside]
January 5
Dating Your Checks and Checking Your Dates
Happy New Year! The MeFi FAQ says "On the footer of every MetaFilter page is: © 1999-2014 MetaFilter Network Inc. All posts are © their original authors." Which is perfectly accurate; the copyright date hasn't been changed to 2015 yet. Just saying.
January 4
millenial milestone
Minor MeMail bug...or not!
I've noticed that, after sending a message, the Your Inbox "tab" link includes "sent=1" and the only way I've found to clear the "Your message was sent" message is to use the little (more difficult for me to click on) envelope link. This just seems like odd behaviour, is it intentional? [more inside]
January 3
Bring to Our Attention 2014's Best Underloved Comments
Most-favorited comments get highlighted throughout the year. Now it's time for their wonderful but overlooked cousins to shine. Which terrific comments made by fellow MeFites in 2014 deserve a little more attention? This is the place to share your own Best Of. [more inside]
Losing my place when rotating.
Since the using the new themes, which I love, on my Nexus 5, whenever I rotate to landscape and then back to portrait I end up back at the top of threads. [more inside]
January 2
Penis post
I am trying to find a post on the blue about men who have a penis disorder, something to do (AFAIR) about the urethra not reaching the end. It was in the last few months but a search for penis doesn't find it, although interestingly it did show that "peniscravat," "penisdecorations," and "penisfencing" have been used as tags. Urethra doesn't find it either, nor does genitals. Thanks.
tl;dr: he doesn't mention his time machine
User 191 aka pb describes the equipment he uses for The Set-Up. Mention is made of a solid steel mousepad and ColdFusion ("yes, it still exists") but not his time machine or ruggedized wilderness capabilities.
January 1
Guess My Word
I was just cruising through MeHistory and I stumbled on this old post about Guess My Word which I haven't played in a while and which was posted almost exactly two years ago and then I went and played and got it in 8 and I wanted to brag and also play with people some more as that was fun.
Metafilter fpp converted to yt
After reading the post on the "wreck of the Kulluk" I searched youtube to see if there are any more videos. First hit is a bizarre text scroll of the ffp and first few comments. Is this some sort of auto-generated yt to attract views?
MeFi Labs updates for 2014
As we pass into 2015, we've created year-in-review summary pages in the Labs area for the MeFi Stats 2014 and Popular Amazon Links in 2014. [more inside]
Mefites' Choice 2014 winners, Week Four
It's the final week of the December Best Post contest, and the winner is EvaDestruction's incredibly interesting post about underground Soviet records made from old x-ray films. For the win, capricorn will send some delicious coffee, tea, or hot cocca to keep them warm. [more inside]