The one-and-a-half-millionth comment

November 28, 2006 9:36 AM

The one-and-a-half-millionth comment was posted to the blue last week without notice. And for good reason: it's a throw-away tagline in a quickly-deleted thread. So let's all laud the 1,499,999th comment instead. It took us just fifteen months to get from one million to here.
posted by Plutor to MetaFilter-Related at 9:36 AM (18 comments total)

There were an average of 40 comments per thread in the past 479 days, and more than 1000 per day. We should hit 2 x 10⁶ right around New Year's 2008.
posted by Plutor at 9:45 AM on November 28, 2006

I know that people really like big round numbers of things that are counted, but I don't know why. This post demonstrates why the affinity is silly.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 9:55 AM on November 28, 2006

Nice. But commenting the blue is overrated.
posted by cortex at 9:55 AM on November 28, 2006

If I was lauding any harder I'd laud myself back in time.
posted by Cyrano at 9:57 AM on November 28, 2006

It's going to take us a really long time to get to affinity if people don't start commenting faster.
posted by Plutor at 9:57 AM on November 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

Pah! 1.5 megacomments? Just wait'll you see what happens when we hit 1.21 chigacomments.
posted by XMLicious at 9:58 AM on November 28, 2006

I know that people really like big round numbers of things that are counted, but I don't know why.

You don't? Really?

Creating arbitrary demarcation points is how humans get around the Sorites paradox.

It's why we celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and use terms like "millionaire" and "centenarian" and "marathon-runner", etc. even though we all know not much has changed from the day before your birthday to the day after.
posted by vacapinta at 10:14 AM on November 28, 2006 [3 favorites]

Is there a greasemonkey script that can care about this for me?
posted by Eideteker at 10:18 AM on November 28, 2006 [2 favorites]

vacapinta, I don't know much about heaps, but I know one when I see one.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:24 AM on November 28, 2006

You don't? Really?

Creating arbitrary demarcation points is how humans get around the Sorites paradox.

Oh, yeah, the Sorites paradox. You are so right about that.

But gas stations are antithetical to resolution of the Sorites paradox, by their capricious and willful usage of nine-tenths of a cent. Clearly gas station attendants are mentally unbalanced.
posted by XMLicious at 10:24 AM on November 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

At what point did MetaFilter become the heap that we now recognize it as?
posted by Mister_A at 11:26 AM on November 28, 2006

In any case, I'm a 10k'er so you guys should listen to me.
posted by vacapinta at 12:41 PM on November 28, 2006

Sorry, bud, I tune out anyone between 9K and 13K. Those weren't good years.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 1:24 PM on November 28, 2006

I like the 1.5 millionth better than the 1,499,999th, but I'm funny that way.

Plus it's unfair to compare most comments to a dhartung comment.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:09 PM on November 28, 2006

ask mefi has about 750k and metatalk is running over 360k, so we're over 2x10^6 system wide.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:17 PM on November 28, 2006

Plutor: "It's going to take us a really long time to get to affinity if people don't start commenting faster."

Affinity? We're already there, guy. We're already there.
posted by koeselitz at 4:22 PM on November 28, 2006

10000 years to Chairman Matt!
posted by Pollomacho at 5:50 PM on November 28, 2006

Not to change the subject, but doesn't "dhartung" look like it should be the name of a town in India?
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:40 PM on November 28, 2006