MetaFilter

My Parents Are Dead: What Now? A resource (aimed at Millennials, but useful to people of any age) for those who have no idea what to do when their parents die. From the last days through the funeral to probate and beyond, useful advice and links for folks who are working through one of the awful parts of adult life. US-centric.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:48 PM Aug 16 2023 - 55 comments [290 favorites]

Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn at 8:48 AM Jul 14 2024 - 179 comments [178 favorites]

I’ve known since I was 11 who these people, this Eyebrows McGee and this languagehat, are. After graduating from college, I still thought of Metafilter as a rarified club of experts that I’d somehow snuck into. I also thought of Metafilter as a perfect window onto the world. I was sure I could better understand different life experiences because I read strangers’ thoughts, freed by anonymity to be honest. I knew I lived in a tiny bubble, and Metafilter seemed my best defense against that insularity. [more inside]
posted by mecran01 at 5:15 PM Oct 21 2023 - 238 comments [176 favorites]

You need to do a thing - NOW! For when you need to calculate a thing, or look up a thing, or be able to do the thing in your Browser without any faff. Most of the tools listed are NOT from https://freetinytools.com/ but I had to put a link in the description.... [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 9:15 AM Aug 29 2023 - 48 comments [172 favorites]

Most of us will experience the death of a parent. That experience is unique for everyone, yet there is so much we can learn from each other. Sumana Harihareswara has created an extraordinary collection of resources about Eldercare, Family Caretaking, and End-of-life Logistics: Stuff I Learned. It is full of detailed advice, good sense, and compassion. (created by brainwane, found at MeFi Projects)
posted by kristi at 11:11 AM Dec 7 2023 - 20 comments [161 favorites]

--about a question that has been plaguing me for months: Why is this bridge here?" The deepest of deep dives into the history of a seemingly trivial phenomenon: a footbridge over a suburban freeway south of Minneapolis. At the same time, an amazing piece of citizen research and reporting on a bit of pre-internet local history. (via)
posted by Kat Allison at 7:18 AM Aug 29 2023 - 58 comments [152 favorites]

Wired's Steven Levy writes about MF in his newsletter (archived): This month, the venerated site celebrates its 25th anniversary. It’s amazing it has lasted that long; it made it this far in great part thanks to West, who helped stabilize it after a near-death spiral. You could say it’s the site that time forgot—certainly I’d forgotten about it until I decided to mark its big birthday. Metafilter is a kind of digital Brigadoon; visiting it is like a form of time travel. To people who have been around a while, Metafilter seems to preserve in amber the spirit of what online used to be like. The feed is strictly chronological. It’s still text-only. Some members may be influential on Metafilter, but they don’t call themselves influencers, and they don’t sell personally branded cosmetics or garments. As founder Matt Haughey, who stepped down in 2017, says, "It's a weird throwback thing—like a cockroach that survived.”
posted by Bella Donna at 8:47 AM Jul 12 2024 - 143 comments [133 favorites]

Te shares scripts one can use in a medical setting to make it more likely one will get adequate pain medication and mobility devices; other Tumblr writers share additional tips on bringing a patient advocate ("medibuddy"), bringing written notes and defending using notes, etc. "Remember not to use too *much* *correct* medical jargon — they get suspicious about that."
posted by brainwane at 4:54 AM Jan 12 2024 - 43 comments [125 favorites]

Surprising detail is a near universal property of getting up close and personal with reality. You can see this everywhere if you look. For example, you’ve probably had the experience of doing something for the first time, maybe growing vegetables or using a Haskell package for the first time, and being frustrated by how many annoying snags there were. Then you got more practice and then you told yourself ‘man, it was so simple all along, I don’t know why I had so much trouble’. We run into a fundamental property of the universe and mistake it for a personal failing.

Blogger John Salvatier talks stair carpentry, boiling water, the difference between invisible and transparent detail, and how paying closer attention to the beguiling complexity of everyday life can help you open your mind and break out of mental ruts and blind spots. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 1:28 PM Mar 18 2024 - 48 comments [120 favorites]

• How to draw Ronald McDonald
• How to be a Playboy bunny
• How to care for your Pet Rock
• How to run the Haunted Mansion
• How to fly to the Moon
• How to commit sabotage

A selection of digitized manuals from the Internet Archive curated by Jason Scott posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:07 AM Aug 25 2023 - 46 comments [116 favorites]

I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again
posted by signal at 7:27 AM Jun 19 2024 - 99 comments [102 favorites]

Ex Astris Scientis has identified over 160 different commercially-available chairs that have appeared in Star Trek productions. So many classic modern chairs. (via)
posted by Pronoiac at 9:00 PM Oct 19 2023 - 52 comments [100 favorites]

Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump's vision - "Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president's return — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024." [link-heavy FPP] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 1:56 AM Sep 21 2023 - 60 comments [99 favorites]

A jargon-free explanation of how AI large language models work - "Want to really understand large language models? Here's a gentle primer." [link-heavy FPP!] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:59 PM Sep 26 2023 - 28 comments [99 favorites]

Sleep With Me has put me to sleep for 10 years and 1200 episodes, entertaining me and helping me feel better about the brain bots that keep my mind busy at night. Northwoods Baseball announces games for a made-up league in northern Michigan. Everything Is Alive is back for another season, this time exclusively interviewing animals. And EIA's sister-show In The Scenes Behind Plain Sight rewatches a fictional show about a nudist colony, as an homage to rewatch podcasts (and it drives my husband up the walls).
posted by rebent at 2:40 PM Oct 4 2023 - 47 comments [99 favorites]

Rice is one of the world's most important crops. Chicken is one of the world's most consumed meats. (In the US to the tune of 100 pounds per person per year). Naturally, there's an large variety of combinations of the two across the world, so let's try a few! Again, as with all things culinary, this is woefully incomplete, short sighted and missing a bunch of other combinations (plus some of these combinations are seen with different meats! [more inside]
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:39 PM Sep 18 2023 - 35 comments [98 favorites]

While hunger may be the best sauce in the world, most prefer something with a bit more taste. And since it's summer and beautiful herbs abound, let's look at many ways of bringing a "green" zip to the plate. (Plus it's Hatch Chile season!) As with all things culinary, this will be woefully incomplete, short sighted, lacking the complete picture and not the way your nana made it and that's great - more green sauces! [more inside]
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:10 PM Aug 21 2023 - 40 comments [97 favorites]

On May 15th Google released a new "Web" filter that removes "AI Overview" and other clutter, leaving only traditional web results. Here is how you can set "Google Web" as your default search engine. If you want to give people easy access to an AI-free Google search, send them to [udm14.com]. [more inside]
posted by zamboni at 1:01 PM May 22 2024 - 66 comments [96 favorites]

On Lit Hub, Rebecca Solnit writes about how to comment on social media:

1) Do not read the whole original post or what it links to, which will dilute the purity of your response and reduce your chances of rebuking the poster for not mentioning anything they might’ve mentioned/written a book on/devoted their life to. Listening/reading delays your reaction time, and as with other sports, speed is of the essence.

[more inside]
posted by yasaman at 1:50 PM Jan 31 2024 - 57 comments [93 favorites]

Hi, MetaFilter moderator here, posting an experimental thread, based on a recent suggestion by Rhaomi. Here's the idea, paraphrasing:

"Find a neat article, video, blog, etc. but don't feel up to the work of cobbling together an FPP, tags, title, and otherwise putting yourself out there? Just comment "LinkMe:" followed by the link and maybe a one sentence description for context. Everybody has tacit permission to turn your link into an FPP if they'd like, first come first serve, with a nod back to the original LinkFilter comment"

An example of the type of comment to make is inside, but don't feel bound to that exact format! [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:15 AM Jun 8 2024 - 110 comments [92 favorites]