February 2013 Archives (all archives)
February 28
Surely This
The level of naked bigotry in the comments to this thread is absolutely appalling to me. Is it really okay on MetaFilter to flat out claim that transfolk are just making it up?
cornbread
Hey, do you know what an unproductive comment looks like?
Can we have less comments like this, please? It doesn't really add anything to the discussion, and I'm glad that most people ignored it, but I'm having trouble just letting it go. [more inside]
Mefites on Twitter
Apologies if this has been asked before, but is there any easy way of discovering which Mefites are active on Twitter (easier than checking 10,000 user pages)? [more inside]
February 27
Oreo Blue
Oreo Blue? Really? [more inside]
A video like that, you don't fake it all at once
Little pig at a petting zoo rescues baby goat. Suspicion: "This is setting off all my bullshit alarms. Seems an awful lot like a trained pig performing a trick." Rebuttal: "Is a petting zoo going to purposly strand a goat in water every day, and then train a pig to go rescue it, and not advertise? ... The whole idea of contriving small animals to be in peril and rescue themselves as a spectacle seems too complicated and beyond the expertise of a run of the mill petting zoo. This is a petting zoo you'd find in a Chuck Palahniuk novel, is what I'm saying." Reality: Not a Chuck Palahniuk novel. A Nathan Fielder series on Comedy Central. [more inside]
February 26
David Bull's Setup
MeFi's own David Bull gets interviewed for The Setup, and gives a shoutout to MetaFilter too. [more inside]
Putting the "Meta" in "MetaFilter"
Based on the front page, I can tell that other posters use some of the same resources to find potential FPPs that I do. I'll lay my cards on the table, and hope you do the same... [more inside]
Survey: Metafilter Retreat!
A group of us excited about planning a possible Metafilter retreat have put together a survey and a tentative planning timeline. [more inside]
February 25
App.net Mefites?
Today, app.net announced a free, invite-only tier. I know there's a bunch of MeFites on G+ (as we had a thread when invites for that went around) but what about this ad-free, you're-not-the-product social network? Any MeFites use that service? Any of you have any of the newly minted invites? Can y'all make it possible for Metafilter to represent?
What happened to elizardbits?
Did elizardbits migrate to a new account? I saw that her account is disabled and that makes me sad.
There's a mod on every corner
Is Matt diversifying the site further than we previously thought possible? I was surprised to see this on my receipt after stopping for coffee today.
Will there be a free pony with every 12 cups? Are our beans now being served in venti mugs?
February 24
EVERYBODY GETS A PONY!
Pony Request: a search function for MeMail. We're able to search our activity and favorites, and I'd love to be able to do the same for MeMail. I know MeMail isn't meant to replicate the features of services like Gmail, but I think this particular function would be really useful.
Previous and Next Links While Browsing by Tag
When browsings by tag the only page nav links are numbers which takes careful aim to hit on a Nexus 7. "Previous" and "Next" links would greatly ease finger-based navigation.
Are there some metafilter scripts?
I find lately there have been numerous interesting threads, and comments to those threads. Is there a way to have the most favourited comments show up at the top? I don't generally partake in discussions and prefer to read.
AskMe To The Rescue!
stupid computer movies
Looking for a post about glaring errors in hacker movies. I am not sure if it is the post itself or if it came up in the comments, but I'm sure I remember a thread about stupid errors using IT in films, especially 'hacker' type films. Sorry, my search-foo is weak today.
Happy Birthday, John!
Hey MetaFilter, please join me in wishing a happy, healthy 40th birthday to your friend and mine, the master of the megapost and the bottomless well of relevant information for any damn thing you can think of: JHarris!
February 23
Swap Me Maybe Mailing Deadline Reminder - Thurs Feb. 28!
Swap in those last few tracks and get those discs a-burnin! The mailing deadline for MeFiSwap 2013-1, Swap Me Maybe, is coming up quick! [more inside]
February 22
Sometimes the universe is just creepy.
As the previous Secret Quonsar threads have been closed, I thought I'd share the weird coincidence our giftenating hath wrought. (Anyone else have odd MetaFilter connections to share?) [more inside]
Proposed IRL Update Alerts
A few weeks ago we had a discussion about adding MeFi Mail alerts to IRL when an event is updated. We have some proposed changes that we think could help keep everyone informed if an IRL event is updated. [more inside]
February 21
A New Baby Bunny
The legion of MeFites born to the title has increased! treehorn+bunny has given birth to a daughter! Please join me in welcoming Lilly, 7 lbs 7 oz and 19 inches long. May her reign be long and her justice swift!
February 20
A new preferences option to hide titles on Mefi
We're putting together a new preferences option to toggle off titles on the front page of Mefi specifically, and we'd like some input on wording. [more inside]
What would Bill do?
So, I neglected to favorite a user's comment pointing to a certain Easter Egg they buried in a news website before they left the job there. This "feature" led to a page which collected all the articles about what proposed legislation intended to do ("Bill would..."), to hilarious results. Can anyone point me to it?
February 19
#RWModeration
I am not sure how elusive the Metafilter moderator GUI screenshot might be to the average MeFi user, but I have always wondered about it's efficiency and I was pleasantly surprised when I finally caught a (blurry) glimpse of it during Matt's SxSW 2011 talk: Lessons from 11 Years of Community
A thread from another time
This post and its subsequent thread from 2005 is hilarious. To anyone who registered after that (as I did) I recommend you read it. It's like Metafilter from another dimension. Warning: inline images and broken links to Tripod.com hosted media.
Our friend, WolfDaddy
It's with great sadness and an unbearably heavy heart that I share the news that MeFite WolfDaddy (and most recently, PapaLobo) has died. [more inside]
Has Metafilter been targeted by China?
Given recent events in the news, how safe is Metafilter from foreign cybersaboteurs?
Discourse and MetaFilter
We love the MetaFilter audience to bits, but we're not sure where Discourse -- a next-generation, 100% open source forum -- can fit in, if anywhere, in the existing MetaFilter empire. Are there any super-technical folks willing to dive in and host a Discourse instance for mefites? [more inside]
February 18
Deleted post question. Was OP banned?
I have the greasemonkey script that allows me to see deleted posts, and I saw that this post was deleted. [more inside]
Insert Title Here
This maybe just me with a particular writing hangup, but does anyone else find it difficult, sometimes have a "mental block", to come up with a title for the FPP they have constructed? End up sometimes spending more time on the title than constructing the rest of the FPP? Have abandoned FPPs as cannot come up with a decent title? Or have a fear that, no matter how good the FPP, a rubbish title will mean everyone will pass over it? Highly related; any tips for coming up with "good" (subjective, yes) titles. [more inside]
Help me find the story about a hilarious/offensive conference intro...
I'm going bananas trying to find a comment that I *think* I read on the green. The story was about an intro at a conference, or maybe at just a business meeting? And the person giving the talk lead with a pretty raunchy or out-there joke or anecdote, after which half the people balked and left and the other half stayed and had like, the best conference ever. I seem to remember that the joke-teller was a woman in a male-dominated field, but I could be wrong about that. IIRC, this story was told reverently, not disparagingly, and I think it appeared within the last two years. Is this ringing any bells?
— D R A F T C O P Y —
Pony request. Essentially re-asking this after a seven year gap: what are the chances of having a draft mode for posts so they can easily be built up or refined at different times and locations?
February 17
WHY CAN'T I HAZ MOAR ANGRY TOADZ?
I enjoy the sidebar and the Best of Metafilter subsite that draws from it. I can't help but notice, though, that arguably the most popular posts are not well-represented there. [more inside]
February 16
Link Change?
Rhomboid asked this question about a link on the blue which switched from liveleak to YouTube. I'm curious about this as well, and a little ... concerned? Anybody know what's up there?
February 15
So you think I'm racist?
What is the MetaFilter etiquette concerning trollish remarks to an innocuous comment? [more inside]
How does wasting away together in Metafilterville sound?
Pursuant to this comment I made on the blue, (and ignoring what happened to the cruise passengers in that thread,) what does everyone think of our arranging a Metafilter cruise, resort or mountain cottages week-long getaway sometime? [more inside]
Chrome for iPad not obeying title size set to 0
I'm logged in and using Chrome on an iPad 3. I have title size set to zero in my preferences. That works on my laptop and elsewhere, but not on my iPad; I see the titles exactly as a non-logged in user would do. [more inside]
attaching photos?
is there a way to attach a photo to askme?
February 14
Meta-Meta-Nitpicking
Is it time to update the "About" section of the Profile pages?
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.Certainly we oldsters can remember the advent of the internet, and there was a time when we may have thought it was for freaks. But for many you may as well ask "When did you first use electricity?" [more inside]
Another crazy deletion
Sorry, but this is a dumb deletion, IMHO. A lot of people like Newsfilter type stuff, and those are almost always the most interesting and longest threads. This is big news in the sports community, and the deletion reason is just silly.
February 13
I/P discussions....
I know it's a hard subject to discuss civilly. I have a modest suggestion on how to improve such discussions. [more inside]
Cheezburger scraping content from Cortex
Garkov posted on Cheezburger dot com: Garfield comics randomly generated by a spambot algorithm
Unpopular Tags
The page Popular tags on MetaFilter has a list of the 150 most-used tags. What about the least-used tags? Is there a list of tags that have only been used once? What about a list of tags only used by one user?
Chatty Cathy
Since chat.metafilter.com is still active, why is it not linked anywhere on the main page?
Which are your favorite comments to tell at parties?
Lots of comments and answers make for good cocktail party stories, bon mots and so on. For instance, this one is a personal favorite of mine to relate when people start talking about Dune. What are your favorite comments that make good telling-stories (and not just reading-stories)?
February 12
Want to play now that my computer's better
Old post filter: trying to find a post from within the past two years or so that featured a very weird little game. All I remember was that the animation was VERY high-quality (the game took a really long time to load on the computer I had at the time), and I want to say that the animation for while the game was loading featured a sheep on a hamster wheel.
[more inside]
Is there something to record where I've been?
I often read threads without commenting and thus they don't show up in recent activity. Is there a greasemonkey/firefox plugin that can show me which threads I have read and record my place in them - other than opening history up every time?
Metafilter et al Rocks! and yet.. Pony request for short-story subsite
So Metafilter right now consists of *
Metafilter / MetaTalk- launched in 1999. Askmefi - launched in 2003. Projects - launched in 2005. Music - launched in 2006. Jobs - launched 2006. IRL - launched ??
Now I love, love, love, Meta and all associated sub-sites but I was wondering if perhaps a writing / short story sub-site (for original works) was also possible.?**
[*all dates taken from wikipedia]
[**apologies if this has already been discussed, I searched and couldn't find reference to a writing sub-site on MetaTalk] [more inside]
[**apologies if this has already been discussed, I searched and couldn't find reference to a writing sub-site on MetaTalk] [more inside]
February 10
Show us what you swapped!
Have you gotten your MeFi Swap mixes yet? Are they awesome? Have you found new favorite songs? [more inside]
Internet Spaceships
So, thanks to seanmpuckett and ryanrs, I'm playing EVE Online again. I know that a few others have started (or started back) recently as well. Metafilter used to have a space corporation (by the name of Hurf Durf Moon Eaters) but it seems to have gone by the wayside. Anyone interested in getting the band back together? [more inside]
February 9
Lost in the archives...
On the monthly archives pages it is much easier to find out the time of day a post was made than the date a post was made. I think time of day and date should be equally accessible by listing both on the "posted by" line. [more inside]
I am Adaptive Systems' wife.
Unfortunately, "ransom" was not on the list.
MeFites attending or presenting at SXSWi 2013?
What are people's plans for SXSWi this year? Anyone presenting? Can someone more on top of things than me organize a meetup? Looking forward to see y'all soon.
February 8
Podcast Transcripts Are Here!
We'd like to say a big thanks to the volunteers who have transcribed the MetaFilter podcast for your reading enjoyment. At this moment, they have transcribed 31 of the 77 episodes. To celebrate, we're adding a visual indicator on Podcast posts to let everyone know a transcript is available. [more inside]
February 7
When I was your age, this space was for jokes.
I like the sidebar on the front page, and how it shows nifty stuff and contact activity. When I'm on my phone, I don't have that, and it makes me feel sad inside. Would the powers that be consider adding a line to the menu on the mobile site that would link to the sidebar content? In my head, this looks exactly like what we have on the front page, except tinier and by itself.
February 6
NoScript? YesScript!
Has there been a change in rehosting some javascript? [more inside]
Meow Shoutout
I would like to point out the superhelpful answers to this wonderfully bizarre question:
which in turn reminds me of this even more wonderfully bizarre question.
Meowlectronics. It is a thing.
Homework Filter
Do we do homework? Seems like we should be able to flag a post as such.
February 5
The Heat Is On
So thanks to this MeTa I found (and "Liked", of course) the MetaFilter Facebook page. Upon reading said page, however, one of the terms from the "Related Searches" section stood out: "metafilter convection oven". I am very curious to find out now why this is apparently a popular enough search to show up on the Facebook page. Is this merely a glitch on Facebook's end or is there something about ovens that I really should know and y'all can tell me about? What am I missing out on here?
Sidebar Drought
There hasn't been a sidebar post of a non-administrative nature in over a month. Are we flagging fewer posts? Are the moderators occupied with something more urgent? Is the sidebar deprecated in favor of the best-of blog? Has the content quality gone down? Something else? I look at the sidebar regularly and would appreciate seeing new content there.
Inconsistent Preview/Post buttons
The position of the Preview and Post buttons is inconsistent. [more inside]
February 4
Bad Delete: Justfacts presentation
I understand the post was removed for the reason that it seemed likely to start fights. However, I'm not sure this post calling the banners for BDS activity against Israel, or this post attacking the Daily Express, or this I-hate-the-rich post wouldn't also qualify. What is the standard for what makes a post contentious, and is the standard lower for minority-view postings? [more inside]
February 3
Malware warning on almost all links including contact form
Just an FYI, anything I click link-wise, although NOT the new-post button, returns this warning in chrome. [more inside]
Can we get some edit window stats?
How many people have used it, average edits per post, how many the person with the most edits has used, etc (not naming names), how often its used the various subsites, how many flags/complaints you've gotten over editted posts, etc?
Just curious how it's working out.
February 2
All the therapy?
Did anybody ever do an analysis on what proportion of Ask questions get answered in some way with a suggestion to get therapy? [more inside]
Notification of Changes to IRL Meetups
Is it possible to get a memail if there have been date/time/location changes to an IRL event they've RSVP'd to? And as an extension, possibly a notification when a proposed event is confirmed? [more inside]
February 1
Irresponsible Medical Advice And What To Do With It
If you see medical advice given in an AskMe and it seems irresponsible, is it better to refute the advice in-thread, ignore, flag? [more inside]
Metafilter n-gram viewer
The recent meta post about weird tags got me playing again with the infodump, and I was finally motivated to create something I've wanted for a while: A clone of the Google Books N-Gram viewer, but for Metafilter: http://mefingram.appspot.com/. [more inside]
What constitutes a thin post?
This post, a single-link recipe, was killed for being a bit "thin," yet innumerable SLYTs of cat--and, to be fair, dog--videos are allowed to stand. Lots of MeFites love pets, and lots of MeFites love food. What's the qualitative difference here?
We love seeing where you work, now show us where you play!
Where's your hangout, your hideout, your favourite place to have fun? Show us pictures of the places you go and the things you do to relax when you get away from your work.
comment box boldface/italics/links on an iPhone
Is there any way to make boldface/italics/links easier when posting comments from an iPhone? [more inside]
Titles are back, despite title font size being set to zero
I just noticed that setting the title font-size to zero in my user preferences no longer prevents titles from being displayed with posts. [more inside]
Mefi to Kindle toolchain
What is the killer solution for getting mefi threads, including comments, onto a plain wifi Kindle. [more inside]
Racial Slur
No matter how interesting I find the topic, I find the title of this thread incredibly problematic---is it just because i am canadian?