March 2011
0 posts
Worst Best Interview
scody relates this crushing story of acceptance.
When I graduated from college, I moved out to NY to live with my then-boyfriend and to try to break into publishing. The job market was terrible, and I was getting increasingly desperate for work. My resume (such as it was) showed that I had done “PR” for various cultural groups and political organizations in college (i.e., I wrote...
February 2011
3 posts
A Christmas Mystery
Did I get forwarded a letter from eastern Europe, or is this the most beautiful gotcha ever?
timsteil heads to AskMe to ask this burning question, about a letter he describes as thus:
Obviously chewed up in the mail, and missing some pages, all I got was the last one. It is possiblly the most wonderful, genuine thing I have received in a long time. My address is clearly done with a printer,...
They get things undone
Dear Tiger Woods, Christopher Lee, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Hugh Grant, Mark Sanford, and all other public figures who not only can’t manage marital fidelity, but fail on a spectacularly public stage:
There are people for this. Sometimes we’re called handlers. Or fixers. Body men. Executive assistants. Personal assistants.
It doesn’t matter what title you use, but the...
July 2010
1 post
Oh That Movie Industry
It seems that when you get unSane started on the Movie industry, like he was in this post about the current difficulties screenwriters have finding work, you can keep him on the topic for hours. This tour is about some of what he said, good reading for anyone wondering why movies are terrible right now:
Well, I dunno if I’m A-list, but I suppose I’m at least high B-list and...
June 2010
1 post
The Queen of Comic Sans
Metafilter has an abusive relationship with Comic Sans, a popular font that has received its fair share of abuse from many designed focused people. A few Metafilter users are like this, willing to espouse on their hate of the font when it comes up. This most fameously happened in this thread, a link to a rather essential article from the creator of Comic Sans on how the font came about. After a...
March 2010
6 posts
Let us come to respect one another
war wrath of wraith asks in this Ask MetaFilter post a question that seems to come up a lot on MetaFilter in general: “Can one truly respect an opinion that s/he disagrees with on a profound level?”
In learned, polite circles, we learn to agree to disagree, and respect the other’s opinion even if we don’t share it.
But is this really possible? One can of course...
Advice for a 21 year old
I turned 21 last week and I want to know; what do you wish you’d known when you were 21? What do you wish you’d done but didn’t, or what did you do that you think was an unmissable experience?
In a similar vain to the last post about advice for going into your 30s, I now present advice for people going into their 20s from this MetaFilter thread on the subject. Polystark...
What are your 30s like?
I really wish someone would have sat me down when I was 20 and told me some of the things to expect during that long, winding decade. I probably wouldn’t have listened, but I am all ears now. Most developmental advice is to teenagers, it seems, e.g., you will fall in love, but it probably won’t be forever. That sort of jazz.
What I am looking for is advice or wisdom that you wish the 40...
Investment Green is People!
A recent post on MetaFilter linked to a somewhat amusing news report of about Kjerstin Erickson, the 26 year old founder of a successful non-profit refugee support charity who is opening her life up for investment. That translates into 6 percent of her life’s income for $600,000.
The thread began with a couple of crude jokes (“Only if I get to pick the 6% rimshot (#)”) and...
Shitting In A Death Thread
One of the strangest phenomenon on MetaFilter the obituary threads which are created to announce someone’s death. At their best also include links to things that they did while they were alive. While there are generally obit threads when people who are famous die, because the interests of MetaFilter members generally lean towards the obscure figures who aren’t necessarily recognizable...
A little state of the blog post
MetaFilter Guided Tours is a little over month old at this point, and it’s only up to 15 posts, and a lot of those from the first week. I’m okay with this, because doing these posts once a week works for me and I’m really happy with how the posts have turned out so far. This blog is as much for me as it is for anyone, I’m really enjoying having a quick way to read comments...
February 2010
4 posts
Think About War
This tour is through a thread about an article called Losing the War, a ponderous essay about World War II that claims the general story of the war told in movies and books is a lie and looks for the real story. A comment early on by Dee Xtrovert isn’t impressed:
I found that piece very hard to read - self-serving and smug in the sense of looking for romanticism. I reckon that, if the...
What is giving birth about?
There is a little list of things that most people agree that MetaFilter does not do well. Circumcision and cat declawing are the top of the list; two decisions that people make for emotional and practical reasons that can end up with muddled thinking. Another discussion that could easily end up in a similar dead end is this anonymous AskMe where a pregnant mother’s plans for her baby’s...
Ass Smoking
This guided tour is a little different. It’s about a thread I posted, and it’s a thread that got deleted from the site (though thankfully the way post deletions work on MetaFilter is that the post is still around at the old URL). I totally understand why it was deleted, but I still think it’s a cool story.
====================
My ass smoking post started with a idle thought by...
2 tags
Warm hands, strong people!
Today’s tour is through a thread about Simo Häyhä, the deadliest sniper in history. As a Finnish soldier he is credited with killing hundreds of soviets during the successful defense of Finland from soviet invasion. Many of those he killed were looking to kill him specifically, and one managed to shoot him in the face. He survived, though.
The thread is mostly people coming to talk about...
January 2010
12 posts
3 tags
It is time now to talk about The Wheel
The basic gist of the psychiatric study covered in this article for New York Magazine is that praising a child for being smart only teaches the kid to avoid any effort that might fail. When the article was posted on MetaFilter a wide range of responses sprung up. “Frankly I think a lot of psychologists just make crap up off the top of their heads,” claims Delmoi, while MrMoonPie goes...
2 tags
Below the 500th floor
A thread about skyscrapers getting bigger and bigger (“Hooray for phallic symbols!”) inspires this short story by freebird:
It’s been a long time since I rode the elevator down below the 500th floor. My papers are in order, and my passport is current, but there’s still that moment of uncertainty as you leave America. Not worried if you’ll be able to leave -...
This is just to say... →
MeFi user Jofus collects a the best comments that take the form of the poem This Is Just To Say. It’s a thing.
2 tags
PENIS also VAGINA
Update: I’ve added few more comments to this post. New stuff is after the first big quote.
“Rejoice, parents of Southern California! Your classrooms are now free of…dictionaries.” anigbrowl informs Metafilter in this post. Mathowie notes that it’s “it’s one crazy ass (conservative, mostly christian) school district in a sparsely populated town”...
1 tag
Bring to our attention that which we may have... →
If you want to read more great MetaFilter comments Greg Nog lists a bunch of comments that he feels were overlooked in a great post over in MetaTalk. Commenters follow up with even more, so there is plenty to read. Some recent posts here were taken from comments there.
2 tags
The sex lives of bluegills
In a post about trying to control the spread of Asian Carp up the Mississippi (or, as explosion calls it, “fish racism”) caution live frogs wonders “[W]hy does it seem that all the invasive species are Asian? Just to balance things out, I hope to god that somewhere in Asia some farmer is in his field cursing about the goddamn American beetles eating his crop.” Baby_Balrog...
2 tags
D&D and demons
In a post by yours truly that mentions the rather crazy controversies surrounding Dungeons and Dragons Cool Papa Bell submitted this story:
True story. My friend’s mother once claimed that if you burned a D&D book, you could hear the demon inside the book screaming in pain. “OK, Mom, tell you what,” my friend said. “I paid $20 of my lawnmower money for this here...
2 tags
Samuel L. Jackson says yes
This comment comes from a post about Samuel L. Jackson signing a crazy deal that will have him appearing in nine upcoming Marvel comic book movies as Nick Fury. The first comment notes that “Much as I love him, the man really does take a shotgun approach to what parts he’ll play.” Later on a commenter asks “Has Jackson ever turned down a role?”
Astro Zombie plays...
4 tags
That comment about disposing a body
“Suppose you killed somebody… How would you dispose of the body without getting caught?” goes the most famous hypothetically asked question on Ask MetaFilter. Since this question was posted the deletion policy on AskMe has changed, making it almost a sure thing that a question like this would be deleted.
For a while in the thread people just joked around, not really answering...
2 tags
I was a raver
In this MetaFilter post linking to a collection of photos about the North Carolina rave scene Unicorn on the cob shares her experiences as a raver and growing out of it.
Wow at this link.
Um… I was a raver in 1989. It was my senior year of high school. I can attest to the immense sense of freedom and future social benefits that this culture had on me.
I attended my first warehouse party in...
2 tags
Ask Culture and Guess Culture
“One of my wife’s distant friends has attempted to invite herself to stay with us, again,” writes the exasperated owner of a prime 2 bedroom apartment in New York City in this Ask MetaFilter question. “She did this last March, and we used the excuse of me starting a new job and needing to do x, y, and z as well as the “out of town” excuse for any remaining dates. This got us off scot-free, but we...
What is MetaFilter Guided Tours?
MetaFilter Guided Tours takes great comments from the community weblog MetaFilter, as well as its subsites like Ask MetaFilter, and presents them as blog posts that can be read separately from its context as a comment or answer. The resident blogger is MetaFilter user The Devil Tesla.
Why make a site like this?
Comments on MetaFilter are affected by their context and in some cases the...