Do you remember Demi Adejuyigbe making a simple video in 2016 celebrating the date mentioned in Earth, Wind & Fire's classic "September?" He did increasingly elaborate followups in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, and previously
posted to MetaFilter by kirkaracha at 10:58 AM on September 21, 2024 (22 comments)

"It never helps historians to say too much about their working methods. For just as the conjuror’s magic disappears if the audience knows how the trick is done, so the credibility of scholars can be sharply diminished if readers learn everything about how exactly their books came to be written. Only too often, such revelations dispel the impression of fluent, confident omniscience; instead, they suggest that histories are concocted by error-prone human beings who patch together the results of incomplete research in order to construct an account whose rhetorical power will, they hope, compensate for gaps in the argument and deficiencies in the evidence." Working Methods, an LRB essay by historian Keith Thomas on the joys and horrors of note-taking. (h/t Gavin Jacobson)
posted to MetaFilter by mittens at 9:55 AM on September 6, 2024 (11 comments)

With semi-finals today at the 2024 Paralympics, you might want to get caught up through the 3rd day of scheduled matches . Are you like me and wondering how this incredible feat of human ability is played? NBC has answers for you:

Each team is made up of four outfielders, all of whom must be visually impaired, and a goalkeeper who must be partially or totally sighted. Because there is variability in vision impairments (some athletes are totally blind while others have a low level of vision), all outfield players wear blackout blindfolds during play. Only the goalkeepers can see, allowing them to block shots and shout directions to nearby teammates.

Or head over to the International Blind Sports Federation for more feats of living jedi.
posted to MetaFilter by rubatan at 11:54 PM on September 4, 2024 (2 comments)

According to Publishers Weekly, three months after Small Press Distribution’s failure (previously), only about a quarter of affected presses have moved to new distributors, though the Poetry Foundation has given out $130,000 in aid of a $150,000 bridge fund for poetry presses, and 21 presses in New York State have received $500-1,000 grants from the NYSCA-CLMP Forward Fund.
posted to MetaFilter by joannemerriam at 1:26 PM on July 12, 2024 (4 comments)

Fiber artist and dancer Nick Cave is best-known for his elaborate head-to-toe Soundsuits, the first of which originated as a metaphorical suit of armor in response to Rodney King beating. He also has celebrated Black queer culture through "The Let Go" installation. Forothermore is a short documentary about his work. Previously on Mefi.
posted to MetaFilter by spamandkimchi at 2:38 PM on June 30, 2024 (14 comments)

The Longform podcast has ended after 12 years. The final two episodes have been posted, including an interview with John Jeremiah Sullivan and a bonus mailbag episode in which the three hosts - Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, and Evan Ratliff - discuss the end of the show and receive some questions and messages from the audience. The New York Times talked to the hosts last week. The web site, Longform.org, from which the podcast sprang in 2012, was known for recommending longform writing from 2010 to 2021. As discussed in the mailbag episode, their plan is to leave the archives of both the web site and podcast up and available for readers and listeners to enjoy.
posted to MetaFilter by Jeff Morris at 4:22 PM on June 26, 2024 (5 comments)

窓からは柔らかな光が射し込み、
[Soft light streamed through the window]
窓の外では鳥たちが歌う美しい朝に、
[Outside, birds were singing on a beautiful morning]
私に撫でられながら眠るようにそっと逝きました。
[As I petted her, she passed away gently, as if falling asleep]
長い間かぼちゃんを愛して下さったみなさま、本当にありがとうございました。
[To everyone who has loved Kabo-chan for a long time, thank you very much]
かぼちゃんは世界一幸せな犬だったと思います。そして私は世界一幸せな飼い主でした。
[I believe Kabo-chan was the happiest dog in the world, and I was the happiest owner]

Kabosu, the beloved Shiba-Inu behind the globally popular Doge meme, has passed away peacefully at home today at the age of 18.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 5:00 AM on May 24, 2024 (60 comments)

Last month, an apparent error in Feedburner caused several of MeFi's legacy RSS feeds to not update for up to a week (at least in my popular feed reader, Feedly). The problem has been fixed -- for now. But it's an important reminder that the Feedburner platform is increasingly unreliable -- if it were ever shut down by Google, the thousands of readers who rely on those feeds to keep up with the site may lose contact without even realizing it. The good news is that the site has a new set of self-hosted feeds that should remain active no matter what Google does. So, if you read the site using an RSS reader, please take a moment to update your reader to the new feeds -- and check the related posts on MetaFilter and Ask MetaFilter for a list of posts you might have missed during the outage.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 9:59 AM on March 11, 2024 (2 comments)

The Getty museum has released a huge trove of images under a CC0 license (essentially waiving copyright). Images can be downloaded in high resolution.
posted to MetaFilter by adamrice at 1:00 PM on March 9, 2024 (16 comments)

PSA: Like a lot of MeFites, I keep up with the site via RSS -- specifically Feedly. In fact, their stats show there are nearly 2,000 subscribers to the same MetaFilter feed I use on Feedly alone. Unfortunately, this feed is hosted on Google's aging Feedburner platform, which is increasingly unreliable as a service. This manifested last month when Feedly was unable to update the MeFi feed for several days. If Google eventually shuts down the service, then anyone depending on that feed to stay engaged with MeFi may lose contact with the site without even realizing it. The good news is that the site has a new set of self-hosted feeds that should remain active no matter what Google does. So, if you read the site using an RSS reader, please take a moment to update your reader to the new feeds -- and check inside for a list of FPPs you might have missed during the outage.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:09 AM on March 9, 2024 (6 comments)

Private equity firms are utilizing public trust in long-standing publications to sell every product under the sun. In a bid to replace falling ad revenue, publishing houses are selling their publications for parts to media groups that are quick to establish affiliate marketing deals. They’re buying magazines we love, closing their print operations, turning them into digital-only, laying off the actual journalists who made us trust in their content in the first place, and hiring third-party companies to run the affiliate arm of their sites. While this happens, investment firms and ‘innovative digital media companies’ are selling you bad products. These Digital Goliaths shouldn’t be able to use product recommendations as their personal piggy bank, simply flying through Google updates off the back of ‘the right signals,’ an old domain, or the echo of a reputable brand that is no longer.

Indie air purifier review site HouseFresh does a deep dive into the incestuous world of top-ranking Google product search results.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 1:22 PM on February 20, 2024 (91 comments)

Alex Chan: I was browsing social media this morning, and I saw a claim I’ve seen go past a few times now – that there’s a maximum size for a PDF document: 381 km × 381 km... Eventually I ended up with a PDF that Preview claimed is larger than the entire universe – approximately 37 trillion light years square. [via BoingBoing][
posted to MetaFilter by ShooBoo at 1:33 PM on February 1, 2024 (31 comments)

Tim Cluff and the Parnassum Mountain Boys.
posted to MeFi Music by MNDZ at 8:47 AM on January 28, 2008 (7 comments)

The MeFi interim board met Jan. 3.
posted to MetaTalk by NotLost at 9:34 AM on January 11, 2024 (14 comments)

Paralympic athletes answer some of the most searched questions about disability.
posted to MetaFilter by ellieBOA at 1:09 PM on December 3, 2023 (6 comments)

Palestinian books shared this week by their publishers. These are free to read at the publisher sites, and cover a diverse array of genres, ideas and languages, with more activities planned and shared from over 400 publishers. As Kazuo Isiguro said: "But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it feel this way to you?"
posted to MetaFilter by dorothyisunderwood at 7:08 PM on November 30, 2023 (4 comments)

It's the 7th MeFi Holiday Card Exchange!
posted to MetaTalk by needlegrrl at 5:10 AM on November 9, 2023 (16 comments)

Geraldine "Jerrie" Mock, the first woman to fly solo around the globe, has died. She was 88 years old. In 1964, housewife and amateur pilot Jerrie Mock took on the task of completing what Amelia Earhart had attempted over a quarter century earlier: flying around the world. To the surprise of many, she was successful.
posted to MetaFilter by 1367 at 2:07 PM on October 1, 2014 (12 comments)

"Be in this world as if you are a traveler, a passerby, with your clothes and shoes full of dust. Sometimes you sit under the shade of a tree, sometimes you walk in the desert. Be always a passerby, for this is not home.” I was alerted a week ago to Dylan's passing by a brief mention on his employer's website and wanted to make sure that those of you here who knew him were aware that he is gone. I can't find an official obituary notice posted anywhere and have more questions than answers myself.
posted to MetaTalk by Ceridwen at 7:37 AM on July 29, 2023 (90 comments)

"Writing for the Bad Faith Reader" by Susie Dumond (Mar 30, 2023) discusses how easy is is for writers today to get discouraged or preoccupied by the potential reactions of "the person who is looking to invalidate the art that you’re making" (quoting Melissa Febos). Dumond shares "some of the ways I avoid writing for the bad faith reader these days." Her advice to write the first draft for yourself as a way to channel the "best faith" reader, and to accept that your work is not for every reader, reminds me of two of the five laws of library science: "to every book their reader" and "to every reader their book".
posted to MetaFilter by brainwane at 9:51 AM on June 29, 2023 (14 comments)

The 1970s Librarians Who Revolutionized the Challenge of Search
posted to MetaFilter by box at 10:28 AM on June 7, 2023 (6 comments)

What's a song that reliably conjures up a very specific time/moment/place/person from your past?
posted to MetaTalk by the primroses were over at 5:38 AM on May 6, 2023 (42 comments)

Don't Stop We're Leavin' (SLYT) By the Y-Studs (h/t to MissCellenia)
posted to MetaFilter by Gorgik at 9:02 PM on April 8, 2023 (2 comments)

Back in the day when copy editors couldn't correct mistakes after a newspaper had already been printed on paper and distributed house-to-house physically—but also after the advent of Web2.0—comes badnewspaper.com: an extinct volcano of these ossified mistakes, captured by digital cameras and posted on blogs for fogies like myself who used to buy trade paperbacks containing this sort of bathroom-reading-content (at least before Jay Leno cornered that lucrative market). Here is a typical entry.
posted to MetaFilter by not_on_display at 11:56 AM on April 9, 2023 (17 comments)

I apologize for the vagueness of this post. I had this blogger in my RSS feed and they seem to have disappeared. Here are some clues.

• His name seems perhaps Southeast Asian, something like Venkatesh Rao but Googling that brings up nothing.
• He blogs about design thinking and systems thinking, among other topics
• The blog is fairly popular, but not insanely so
• He has a number of smaller books (100-150 pages?) with somewhat provocative titles but not at the level of clickbait-provocative. They are sort of about productivity and perhaps design thinking, but not overtly so
• He graduated from, I think, MIT with a degree in something like "systems thinking" or some other, similar, interdisciplinary degree
• He seems like someone who would guest blog at Crooked Timber once in a while

posted to Ask MetaFilter by mecran01 at 10:00 AM on March 31, 2023 (6 comments)

I need to overcome my Twitter addiction. For me, it's not really outrage porn so much as an opportunity to have fun with language and humor and get the dopamine from my narcissistic and childish desire for recognition of being clever or witty. Especially when I'm lonely working at home, it can feel impossible not to get sucked in. Would appreciate any sources of inspiration that making the effort to resist will pay off in the end...
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Jon44 at 7:11 AM on March 23, 2023 (19 comments)

PSA: This week is the last call for user nominations to the second Steering Committee, which will be setting policy and overseeing the budget for the year ahead. Do you want to help chart a course for this community (or know someone who would make a great pick)? Send in your nominations today! Or check inside for more details and questions answered.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 1:00 PM on March 22, 2023 (52 comments)

Hey, I’m Alex Hollender. For the past few years I led the redesign of the Wikipedia desktop interface, which launched this past January. Below are some notes on the project and process.
posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 5:18 AM on March 20, 2023 (25 comments)

I read a lot of biographies about great people because I find such books fascinating and inspiring. Almost all of the ones I've read have been about men. Help me change that!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by underclocked at 1:28 AM on March 18, 2023 (22 comments)

About a week ago I was reading FPP 'X', and it made me think about a specific user whose input I would have appreciated, and whose comments in the past had helped shape, for the better, how I understand the world. The user in question died a couple years ago though, so that was that, but it put me on a path of thinking about them and - not to be morbid but, well - death.
posted to MetaTalk by From Bklyn at 10:14 AM on March 16, 2023 (50 comments)

I'm a long-time cyclist and am in pretty good shape. During my last two rides, I have just flown on the bike. It has been so easy. I have a ton of energy and am not a bit spent when I get done with my ride. What in the world might be the source of all this energy? My eating and sleeping habits have not changed. (I googled, and the only results I could find were ways to conquer low energy.)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by SageTrail at 7:49 PM on March 16, 2023 (22 comments)

I have to go to a medium-large (20 people?) business dinner at a well-known upscale steakhouse chain tonight. I’m accustomed to fine dining, but I’m not a steak person (I tend more toward farm-to-table vibes) and have never eaten at a place like this. What/how should I order so as to 1.) reasonably enjoy my meal, and 2.) not be a weirdo. This will be hosted so money is no object (outside of #2.)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by juliapangolin at 12:19 PM on March 16, 2023 (35 comments)

James O'Keefe was removed from ethics-challenged right-wing ambush muckrakers Project Veritas over allegations of misusing donator funds. And Now: Mike Huckabee's Show Looks Like Fun. Main story: Artificial Intelligence, the dangers it poses and the ways that it falls short, for now at least, of its promise. On Youtube (28 minutes).
posted to FanFare by JHarris at 12:12 PM on February 27, 2023 (12 comments)

A modem (modulator/demodulator) is a device that converts analog to digital signals and vice versa. Is the coax cable bringing internet into my house really carrying an analog signal? I find that surprising in 2023.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Winnie the Proust at 5:37 PM on March 4, 2023 (15 comments)

From the creator of Best of Nextdoor comes Best of Dying Twitter, a chronicle of the bird site's current Elon Era. While Best of Dying Twitter retweets some informative threads (Threadreader links here and here), most of the account is devoted to the lulz.
posted to MetaFilter by May Kasahara at 9:19 AM on November 15, 2022 (92 comments)

In Norse mythology, the earthly realm of Midgard and the divine plane of Asgard are connected by a shimmering rainbow bridge -- the magnificent Bifröst. Though scholars debate whether the legend of this lustrous path was inspired by the famed aurora borealis or the star-studded arc of the Milky Way, there is perhaps another possible candidate: nacreous clouds [timelapse]. Also known as polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), these breathtaking formations can be seen (quite rarely) in the high polar latitudes in wintertime at dusk, when a mass of super-cooled water ice forms so high up in the stratosphere that it reflects light from a sun that's well below the horizon at ground level. The result: diaphonous pearl-white sheets and iridescent streaks that light up the bleak twilight landscape with an otherworldly glow. (It's not all sunshine and stratospheric rainbows, though -- when mixed with nitric or sulfuric acid, these 10-15 mile-high clouds can contribute to ozone depletion over the polar caps [video].) Not a fan of winter weather? You may chance to see their more temperate cousin, the spectral and blue-tinged noctilucent cloud, which sometimes forms in summertime months north of 50° latitude (and north of 50 miles straight up). Or if you live near a space coast, you might see one of a menagerie of "twilight phenomenon" -- artificial light-clouds formed by multi-stage rocket plumes backlit by the sun -- including the spectacular space jellyfish. Just make sure to keep your eyes on the road...
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 12:13 PM on November 3, 2022 (13 comments)

Metafilter depends almost entirely on user contributions. The community needs your help to stay up and running and to improve in the future. Contributions, especially recurring contributions, are what pay for servers, moderators and technical support. Please contribute through the Metafilter funding page!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jacquilynne at 8:36 AM on October 25, 2022 (3 comments)

Metafilter depends almost entirely on user contributions. The community needs your help to stay up and running and to improve in the future. Contributions, especially recurring contributions, are what pay for servers, moderators and technical support. Please contribute through the Metafilter funding page!
posted to MetaTalk by tavegyl at 1:25 PM on October 24, 2022 (288 comments)

Tell me of your favorite poem to welcome the autumn.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jammy at 7:25 AM on September 20, 2009 (22 comments)

So ... just based on your innate skills, talents, interests, and preferences, and other odd little clues and coincidences that have popped up along the way this trip around, you are pretty sure that in a previous life, you must have been _______.
posted to MetaTalk by taz at 2:50 AM on September 24, 2022 (74 comments)

How many Level 4 Vital Articles would a gender-balanced Wikipedia have?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by aniola at 4:02 PM on September 7, 2022 (8 comments)

Older Mefites enjoying a happy, healthy older age, please share your secrets with me.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by unicorn chaser at 12:33 AM on September 3, 2022 (26 comments)

The Squeaky Wheel: your top news source for disabled people, by disabled people.
posted to MetaFilter by MetaFilter World Peace at 12:04 PM on August 30, 2022 (12 comments)

For any particular topic, what video (or video channel, etc.) is the best at that topic?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by NotLost at 8:49 PM on August 27, 2022 (15 comments)

Convert exported Metafilter comments to HTML, JSON, or MBOX "I wrote a little utility to convert the massive text file one obtains from the Export Your Comments page into a variety of other formats suitable for various purposes. Currently converts to HTML, JSON, or Unix-style MBOX (mailbox) format. " more @ mefi projects
posted to MetaTalk by aniola at 10:02 PM on August 27, 2022 (2 comments)

Diseases can be idiopathic. Archaeological artefacts can be for ritual purposes*. What are some other technical-sounding terms from other fields that means "we're really not sure"?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Lorc at 12:42 AM on August 26, 2022 (61 comments)

I'm creating a new exercise playlist, after getting burned out on the ones I have. I came across the song Ring of Fire, originally by Johnny Cash, covered by Social Distortion. I was blown away by how good it is! What is your favorite song that was covered by another band? Thanks!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by racersix6 at 12:11 AM on August 15, 2022 (83 comments)

We got rid of the Ask post limit half a year ago. It's been great. Now let's do Projects.
posted to MetaTalk by wesleyac at 8:10 AM on August 5, 2022 (56 comments)

A person in the United States is planning for their death. Their primary stipulation is that as little money be spent on the disposal of their body as possible. Ideally, their survivors will not have to pay anything at all. Presumably, state or local governments have plans for what to do with the remains of, e.g., a homeless person who is found dead and whose body is never claimed or identified. Can anyone take advantage of these programs on request, or will the survivors be stuck forking over thousands of bucks to somebody?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Faint of Butt at 2:40 PM on August 4, 2022 (21 comments)

Bill Russell, winningest champion in American pro sports history, first Black head coach in the NBA, outspoken advocate for racial justice, has died. (Washington Post obituary)... The family's announcement from his twitter; His friend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's tribute (substack)... 1987 NYT article by his daughter Karen Russell about the racism they faced in Boston when he was bringing 11 NBA titles to the city.
posted to MetaFilter by LobsterMitten at 9:15 AM on August 2, 2022 (40 comments)