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By trig in "Disorderly conduct charge for impeding capitalism" on MeFi

trig — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 16:19:25 GMT

at my old job, we only got 15 minute breaks
so, she comes off as a little privileged when she says that

More broadly there's an issue where a lot of new technologies and market consolidations and worker exploitations and environmental destruction and so on do offer some valuable conveniences and mini cost savings, so you get discussions like "this technology is setting the world on fire but it helps disabled people" (cf a lot of Frowner's recent writing about this; I'm disabled and have benefited and still agree) and "I don't see what's so bad about billionaires, they've made my life better" (cf this thread for just one example).

The problem is the larger picture. I'm disabled, I'm under the poverty line, I rely on conveniences and cheapness, but what would really make my life better would be a stronger welfare society, a respite from climate change (you should see what high temperatures do to my ability to function, and I'm lucky enough to live in an area that hasn't been ravaged (yet) by extreme weather or fires), way more medical research, global peace, human rights not being under threat everywhere, governments that are able to tax excessive wealth so that it stops destroying things to perpetuate itself, and so on.

I'd be willing to give up so much for that.

Instead we're giving up a lot of things we can't directly see or directly see the connection to (other people's jobs, any hope of reducing emissions and pollution any time soon, privacy, jobs, security, human rights, jobs, etc.) for the equivalent of sops thrown our way, and told that we shouldn't complain because hey some people are helped by those sops. Even though those sops could be provided in other, less destructive ways, if there were any political will for it. Imagine mandating more than 15 minutes for lunch.

I used to dream of self-driving cars. That seemed like it could open up so much for me. Now I see more of the broader package they'd come in, and what all that would entail, and I can't be enthusiastic anymore.

Robotic deliveries offer some benefits and some harms, and it seems more than a little privileged to just ignore the harm side of the equation.

By hydropsyche in "Disorderly conduct charge for impeding capitalism" on MeFi

hydropsyche — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 15:30:11 GMT

She didn't block a delivery driver. She blocked a robot. She wasn't impeding a real person from getting paid for their labor. She blocked a robot.

By trig in "Did I overreact to an uncomfortable encounter with a former friend?" on Ask MeFi

trig — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:25:38 GMT

I'm trying to work out how to stop feeling so anxious about running into them and move on from the situation.

Therapy's a cliche answer but it seems like a good option here.

What are you actually anxious about? Experiencing awkwardness? Feeling guilty? Being in danger?

Do you find that you often have strong reactions to other people's behaviors, or generally attribute feelings of discomfort to external causes rather than or in addition to your own anxious tendencies? I ask because some parts of this story seem surprising to me. For example,

Afterwards, I sent my former friend a message saying that I'd felt extremely uncomfortable with the atmosphere, particularly her husband's demeanour, which I'd found hostile and intimidating. I said that his lack of acknowledgement had been especially upsetting given what I'd shared about my brother, and that I didn't want to experience anything like that again while simply walking in my neighbourhood.

That - I don't know, that seems extreme and something I can't imagine doing in the scenario you described, unless there's a lot more going on that you didn't mention. It reads to me like a very hostile act. Honestly, I'd find it somewhat disturbing to be on the receiving end of.

(Imagine it from her perspective: She (let's call her W) had a friend, the friend seemed not so enthusiastic and kind of let the friendship die out, W took the hint and didn't pursue or force any kind of confrontation or drama, then one day many months later W happens to run into the friend, feels awkward saying nothing because she knows the friend's been having a hard time so mentions it briefly, the friend starts sharing some pretty intimate news, the friend shoots all kinds of weird looks at W's husband but never says a word to him, conversation ends, and next thing you know the friend goes off on W because her shy husband is bad at eye contact and she "never wants to experience anything like that again". W decides to let this drama pass as mildly and politely as she is able. Maybe because she's a class act. Maybe because she's a no-drama type. Or maybe her anxieties are similar to yours, and now she's feeling threatened and afraid of what might set you off next, and whether you're going to start causing actual trouble for her husband, and so on.)

Were you actually afraid of some kind of future harassment from the husband? Have you ever been afraid of him before? You said he's occasionally been cold or uncomfortable; do you have any reason to think he's not just someone who presents socially that way in general, maybe because of social awkwardness or other things unconnected to you? Even if he was avoiding eye contact because he didn't like how you'd treated his wife (or because he'd sensed that you don't like him), that's different than being threatening. He's allowed to dislike you, if in fact that's what was going on.

Maybe there's more to the story that you're not telling. Your gut is your gut, and regardless it's perfectly fine to draw away from people when you don't like the relationship you have with them. But at the same time, it's not realistic or, I think, healthy to expect to live in an environment perfectly tuned to you. Nobody is entitled to that. The world is for everyone, which means it's also for the people we don't enjoy or who don't always know the perfect way to act. Sometimes people will say hello even if you're not in a mood to stop and talk. (You can end the conversation quickly. But people saying hello is not an assault and they can't read your mind or know your mood.) Sometimes people will not have the facial expressions or body language you want them to have. (Maybe because they're hostile towards you. Or for a thousand other possible reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with you.) Sometimes people you don't feel like seeing will exist, visibly, in your neighborhood. That's life. Maybe they also don't feel like seeing you.

In the meantime, practice the arts of cutting short conversations you don't want to be in and acknowledging people with a brief nod and not stopping to talk. And think about how to evaluate when there's a threat of real danger, versus when what you're anxious about is the "threat" of occasional, brief awkward, uncomfortable, or annoying interactions - which are a part of life, a really normal part, and having a decent level of tolerance for them is a really important life skill and one of those things that lets the world keep spinning, for everybody.

By star gentle uterus in "Whose keys, whose coins?" on MeFi

star gentle uterus — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 14:27:30 GMT

Bitcoin Stolen in Binance Hack Is Likely 'Gone,' Ballet Says

It's nice they can still find fresh things to do with the art form.

By solotoro in "Kyle can be a verb too" on MeFi

solotoro — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 00:10:03 GMT

brb gotta go to the horace

By Seven Deadly Gins in "Carpe Codex - Seize the Code" on MeFi

Seven Deadly Gins — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 03:22:40 GMT

I have been having these conversations at work. In the last year my very small team successfully reverse-engineered Salesforce to get our company off of it. The bosses are already like "What if we pivoted and sold this internal tooling as a service" and I've been trying to explain to them that if a half dozen backwater engineers and some AI tools can build it, nobody's going to pay for it. Similarly, indy game devs are having a problem right now where if they post too much about their games, a half-dozen reverse engineered clones crop up on Steam before their original version gets to market.

I have no idea what the world of software dev looks like in a year or two- I'm finding it impossible to predict right now, and it feels like a real singularity event is here. I do think that what will remain valuable is the creative and technical knowhow required to design and build new systems- AI is still not building software de novo. But once you've built something original, once you've made the pattern, how do you prevent the software equivalent of a universal replicator from just... copying it?

On the one hand I am absolutely delighted at this forcible destruction of SaaS and the enshittification industry, and the return to radical open-source movements. On the other hand, we haven't even *begun* to see the legislative/judicial backlash to this yet. I'm betting copyright law goes absolutely batshit in the next 12 months.

By Paul Slade in "Meet Lucy" on MeFi

Paul Slade — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 14:49:38 GMT

Lucy is an intelligent, sociable, and active middle-aged woman

No she isn't: she's an elephant. If you want this misdirect to work in the OP, I suggest using "female" instead of "woman".

By at by in "Whose keys, whose coins?" on MeFi

at by — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 14:02:59 GMT

> They didn't necessarily compromise Anthropic. It's possible they compromised Open VSX, allowing the extension to be published as an Anthropic employee.

You know what? Either way this is the fucking stupidest thing on earth. Whichever way it happened.

When I've had to do work for financial companies (and even companies that aren't), absolutely nothing was allowed on my computer -- other than what I created myself -- that hadn't been vetted for security. Hell, at one place I wasn't even allowed to connect the company-issued computer to their own internal network until it passed a security audit and I completed relevant security training. And that was for a job writing CSS for help documents.

And here Binance allows its devs to drop anything they like into any coding environment they like? Are they fucking idiots? Does the entire history of data security not apply to them or fucking something?

They are a bunch of dipshits who Walmart couldn't trust as greeters, but somehow they're billionaires. And they're going to continue living the high life while the rest of us pay for their fucking around. Christ I hate this.

By eschatonizer in "Disorderly conduct charge for impeding capitalism" on MeFi

eschatonizer — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 16:18:49 GMT

"she said something about it not being a big deal that someone would have to wait for their lunch for 15 minutes

at my old job, we only got 15 minute breaks

so, she comes off as a little privileged when she says that"

Thank you for this. This is going to be my go-to example for a while of how easy it is create in groups and out groups instead of critiquing the system itself.

By BlackLeotardFront in "Kyle can be a verb too" on MeFi

BlackLeotardFront — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 21:37:44 GMT

Thinking about this, what's crazy to me is that there's a perfectly normal and constructive ad that they could have made with the same story.

Kyle looking forlorn with VO: I'm not usually competitive, but the new guy is so good I feel like I can't keep up.

(Daniel getting praise in person and on Teams)

Kyle approaching Daniel by coffee: All right, that presentation was amazing. How'd you do it on such short notice?

Daniel: Copilot, man! Here, look.

(Montage of prompts and results, with Daniel VO: I start with my own ideas and figures, and Copilot helps organize it, polish it, and keep me on task.)

Kyle: Wow, that's actually really cool.

Daniel: Right? Why don't the three of us collaborate on the next one!

Like... if you saw that ad, you might not believe it, because it's an ad, but it's pretty normal and positive. You might come away from it thinking ugh, AI... but it probably can help with some drudgery. Actually, I didn't know it could generate powerpoints.

Instead we have this weird corporate rivalry, ego and theft... this is such a basic messaging failure.

By Silvery Fish in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Superintelligence" on MeFi

Silvery Fish — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 04:46:53 GMT

It asks a different question — assuming we get there, what mechanisms could push machine intelligence beyond human level, what could stop them, and what would we need to measure to tell the difference?

Assuming we bio-engineer flying pigs, what are the four scenarios and their uncertainties:

a) collective feces mitigation for urban populations;

b) feral sky-hogs and targeted avian protective efforts;

c) trichinosis as a cross-vector in H5N1 global pathogenetic epidemiology;

d) pre-pigs and sky bacon.

By mrjohnmuller in "He made it so..." on MeFi

mrjohnmuller — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 20:53:18 GMT

.

"There was never a moment where I made an intellectual choice that I would be a supporter of gay civil rights," he told The Advocate in 2015. "It was always a natural and uncomplicated choice."

Or, to quote a Bluesky user: "Yes Star Trek, Yes X-Men, but I cannot tell you what it meant to see Patrick Stewart in Jeffrey in 1995. To have someone at the top of a hugely popular science fiction franchise appear in an indie comedy about gay men with AIDS meant so much to me as a closeted teen."

By mod_adrienneleigh in "Nothing wrong with using "post comment" as a period" on MetaTalk

mod_adrienneleigh — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 21:10:59 GMT

Hey, folks. I want to be really clear that okayturnip is absolutely not in trouble; there's not some kind of escalating process that's going to happen because they sometimes do a thing that is mildly annoying to some people. Everyone is, in fact, allowed to be mildly annoying on MetaFilter, like it or not.

Sometimes folks get het up, or dysregulated, or just overenthusiastic, and that's ultimately fine! We all do it sometimes! But in my opinion, issuing reminders to folks in-thread about site norms and prosocial behavior is an important moderation technique. Not least because we don't want it to be the case that anytime folks see a mod note they think "oh shit, somebody is in trouble". Nobody has to be in trouble for a gentle reminder to be warranted or useful!

By Lorc in "When should I say yes to an upsell?" on Ask MeFi

Lorc — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 21:25:21 GMT

Access to the flight lounge at large airports. Major airports are stressful, noisy, crowded and shit. The lounge is worth it just for a guaranteed somewhere quieter to sit. But you also get complimentary food and drink a step above cafe food. Tried it once, was surprised how much better it made the experience.

Paying for convenience parking rather than hunting for cheaper/free street parking further out. One day I realised that I was an adult making enough money that a couple of quid for a day out was no longer a significant financial setback, whereas stressing over finding a unicorn parking spot was as unpleasant as ever. Not thinking about parking and eating the convenience cost has been a net positive to my life.

Decent seats in the theatre. I don't mean box seats or front row or anything, but not sitting in the back row or the wings just save a few quid. Surely it's false economy to pay to see a show and not enjoy the experience for the sake of pocket change. Even cheaper to not go see it if it matters that much.

Adding breakfast onto the hotel booking. They're more expensive than I like. But it's miserable hauling myself out of bed in the early hours and going outside to hunt for somewhere to eat when I'm still blurry first thing in the morning and in a city I don't know.

I feel silly saying this stuff. I know I'm lucky that I can afford luxuries like this. But surely this is the thread about where we choose not to economise? Please don't judge me.

By gauche in "He made it so..." on MeFi

gauche — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 19:51:01 GMT

.

I learned more of what kind of a man I wanted to be from his Picard than I did from my own father.

By sciencegeek in "Did I overreact to an uncomfortable encounter with a former friend?" on Ask MeFi

sciencegeek — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:21:54 GMT

It sounds like her answer to your note gives you exactly what you want:
" She replied politely, saying that her husband was taken aback and apologised if he'd inadvertently made me uncomfortable. She offered not to stop and speak to me again if I preferred."

She won't stop and talk to you and her husband didn't intend to be threatening. If you take her at her own word, she's offering to not bother you again. Which is what you want.

By hototogisu in "There's nothing like seeing a cult right up front" on MeFi

hototogisu — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:23:58 GMT

Speaking as a Primus fan, he is the most Primus fan-looking man I have ever seen.

Then the guy said he's with Secret Service, and I said, oh, is this about the concession stand? and he said, what'd you do at the concession stand? I said nothing, but it was closed super early and I'm starving. And uh, he didn't like that. And then they walked me out.

This interview just gets better as it goes on.

By Catblack in "Kyle can be a verb too" on MeFi

Catblack — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 16:20:44 GMT

Kyle wouldn't say he's racist... out loud.

By Phobos the Space Potato in "Kyle can be a verb too" on MeFi

Phobos the Space Potato — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 20:00:37 GMT

Now I kinda want to know what Daniel has up his sleeve.

For my sins, I can speak from experience. My forecasting dashboards have been called beautiful.

It's because I went to art school and took classes in storytelling, color theory, and visual composition.

Humanities education, in other words. Go figure.

By Jon_Evil in "He made it so..." on MeFi

Jon_Evil — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 02:28:23 GMT

There is a tweet I've quoted several times on here but it always bears repeating:

Captain Picard was important because he was the last man on TV who could say "let's try and solve this without violence" and it's not because the writers wanted to show he was a piece of shit coward