this thread is really fascinating stuf, complete with actual non-hostile debate!

April 19, 2005 3:40 PM

Despite some snarking here and there, this thread is really fascinating stuf, complete with actual non-hostile debate! I learn something new every day. Kudos.
posted by xmutex to Etiquette/Policy at 3:40 PM (28 comments total)

Yes, MetaFilter at its best. And I should know, I've been a member for, like, days now.
posted by sveskemus at 3:44 PM on April 19, 2005

That thread was boring as hell. I skimmed half of it and gave up. ;-P
posted by mischief at 3:53 PM on April 19, 2005

I truly hope that this thread is a really, really bad joke, xmutex.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 4:12 PM on April 19, 2005

Not enough time has been sunk into the discussion. I offer this time-consuming analysis of a time consuming discussion:


posted by tomharpel at 5:59 PM on April 19, 2005

From the Malachy Prophesy page linked from the thread: Does this name automatically fulfill this prophecy? Will the papacy of this 78 year old pope be short lived? Is this the beginning of Tribulation? Will the next pope be the last pope? Will the next pope be a Roman and choose the name Peter?

Tune in this week for the next exciting episode of PopeWatch!
posted by Doohickie at 6:00 PM on April 19, 2005

Whoa, Tomharpel, how'd you do that? Teach me!
posted by NickDouglas at 6:49 PM on April 19, 2005

It made Gawker and Sploid, too.
posted by amberglow at 7:10 PM on April 19, 2005

the Malachy Prophesy, bah, the next pope would have to be stupid to choose that name. Like a version of test awareness
posted by edgeways at 7:22 PM on April 19, 2005

isn't Gawker & Sploid the new cop comedy on Fox?
posted by quonsar at 7:26 PM on April 19, 2005

hey wow! that's awesome! I don't think I've ever been graphed before.

Thank's for that Tomharpel, it's really interesting to see that on a graph... do you know if you're the first one to graph a metafilter discussion?
posted by Kattullus at 8:10 PM on April 19, 2005

I truly hope that this thread is a really, really bad joke, xmutex.

Agreed, especially considering xmutex's contributions to another thread.

On review: apparently the worst of his comments have been deleted. Or I'm going insane. Or blind. Or something.
posted by deborah at 9:03 PM on April 19, 2005

More importantly, do you know if you're the first one to use Papal Headgear as the header graphic for a chart or graph?
posted by 27 at 9:03 PM on April 19, 2005

On review: apparently the worst of his comments have been deleted. Or I'm going insane. Or blind. Or something.

Yeah, at least two were deleted.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 9:36 PM on April 19, 2005

I pasted the thread into a text editor, grepped for lines begging with "posted by" and piped the output to a new file which looked something like this:

posted by deborah at 9:03 PM PST on April 19 [!]
posted by 27 at 9:03 PM PST on April 19 [!]
posted by Armitage Shanks at 9:36 PM PST on April 19 [!]
etc...

I pulled that into Excel and did a little find/replace + text to columns work to get a list of names and times. Ran the result through a pivot table to wind up at the charts. Took about 15 minutes total, plus 30 seconds to find the papal headgear.
posted by tomharpel at 9:53 PM on April 19, 2005

Not as cool as tomharpel's, but more accessible for those of us who have no idea what grepping or piping are, is this graph-making tool: http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/Graphing/
OK, yeah, so it's part of the No Child Left Behind thing, but it's fun! You get to make graphs!
posted by almost incandescent white tuxedos at 11:10 PM on April 19, 2005

deborah writes "On review: apparently the worst of his comments have been deleted. Or I'm going insane. Or blind. Or something."

If you used the MetaFilthy firefox extension, each deleted comment (if you'd previously seen it) would be noted, along with its author's name, like this:

---

deleted comment by xmutex

---

And now MetaFilthy works almost 100 times faster than in the previous version!
posted by orthogonality at 11:42 PM on April 19, 2005

Yep. New version of Metafilthy out as of (I believe) today!
posted by Bugbread at 1:54 AM on April 20, 2005

Just for anyone too lazy to google: MetaFilthy.
posted by sveskemus at 4:35 AM on April 20, 2005

Drifting more and more off topic here, sorry, but:

I can't get it to install! I click the Download MetaFilthy link, but instead of installing it, Firefox gives me the choice between saving the .XPI file or opening it with a program. I've tried opening it with Firefox, but to no avail.

What am I doing wrong? I'm on Windows XP with Firefox 1.0.3.
posted by sveskemus at 4:54 AM on April 20, 2005

Save it to your desktop (or somewhere else convenient). Then open up the Extensions window from Firefox. Drag that XPI file onto the open Extensions window, and it will install.
posted by Bugbread at 4:58 AM on April 20, 2005

sveskemus writes "I can't get it to install! I click the Download MetaFilthy link, but instead of installing it, Firefox gives me the choice between saving the .XPI file or opening it with a program. I've tried opening it with Firefox, but to no avail."

bugbread is right, but a slightly more devious approach is to selected "Open with a program" and then specify Firefox as the program. So then Firefox will download the xpi to a temporary file, and open that with a new copy of Firefox. Straightforward? No. But sometimes the fun is in the tricyness. ;)
posted by orthogonality at 6:43 AM on April 20, 2005

People who are really good with Excel scare me.
posted by Cyrano at 6:45 AM on April 20, 2005

We're all good at something. And, since no one pointed it out, the analysis leads to no useful or suprising conclusion. It is noise, just like the thread itself. Amen.
posted by tomharpel at 7:21 AM on April 20, 2005

Was that analysis based on number of posts, number of words, or number of characters? I feel confident you can give us a graph of each of those.
posted by anapestic at 9:07 AM on April 20, 2005

Thanks, Armitage Shanks!
*wipes brow*

tomharpel - ow, now my brain hurts. Or what Cyrano said.

Thanks to all for the Metafilthy info. It's now installed.
posted by deborah at 10:21 AM on April 20, 2005

bugbread writes "Save it to your desktop (or somewhere else convenient). Then open up the Extensions window from Firefox. Drag that XPI file onto the open Extensions window, and it will install."

Thanks, that worked perfectly.
posted by sveskemus at 2:20 PM on April 20, 2005

Worked perfectly for me too. Thanks bugbread.
posted by Tarrama at 6:39 PM on April 20, 2005

No problemo.
posted by Bugbread at 6:15 AM on April 21, 2005