The
Global Language Online Support System (or GLOSS), produced by the Defense Language Institute in sunny Monterey, CA, offers over
six thousand free lessons in 38 languages from Albanian to Uzbek, with particular emphasis on Chinese, Persian, Russian, Korean, and various types of Arabic. The lessons include both reading and listening components and are refreshingly based on real local materials (news articles, radio segments, etc.) rather than generic templates.
posted by theodolite to MetaFilter on Oct 11 at 1:27 PM
175 users marked this as a favoriteMy sweaters are pilled. My shoes are scuffed. My skirts have random threads coming out. My thin knit tops have pulls. My favourite shirt has a small salad dressing stain just to the left of my belly button. Your sweaters look new, your shoes look immaculate, you generally look pulled together. How do you do it?
posted by Kololo to Ask MetaFilter on Oct 7 at 9:46 PM
134 users marked this as a favoriteThe broth is just chicken and onions, with a confetti of vegetables added at the end where their flavor remains bright. The noodles are wide and winding... But, for me, the real triumph was giving the chicken parts and onion a saute... before adding water to make the soup. This deepened flavor base makes for magical soup, with a bronzed color, more robust flavor and significantly reduced prep time. ... With all of the blustery, cold days to go this winter, everyone... deserves to have a homemade, from-scratch chicken noodle soup that can be pulled off in just about an hour in their back pocket.posted by Egg Shen to MetaFilter on Oct 10 at 3:57 PM
110 users marked this as a favorite
I'm looking for a novel that strikes a tone between the strange and the intimate/everyday. I've been watching a lot of Fringe lately and I've been in the mood for a book that provides characters interacting with Lovecraftian, Lynchian, or Cronenbergian horrors while the characters themselves remain (or attempt to remain) relatable and slice of life.
posted by sendai sleep master to Ask MetaFilter on Oct 12 at 4:10 PM
85 users marked this as a favoriteA visit to the underworld: the unsolved mystery of the tunnels at Baiae "In 1932, the entrance to a hitherto unknown tunnel was discovered in the ruins of the old Roman resort of Baiae, on the Bay of Naples. Packed with rubble, wreathed in choking gases, and heated to more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit by nearby magma chambers, it was difficult and dangerous to excavate. But when, after 10 long years of work, the amateur team exploring it finally broke through to lower levels, they uncovered something truly remarkable: a complex, pre-dating the Romans, built around a boiling underwater stream that seemed to have been designed to ape a visit to the Greeks’ mythical underworld." (
A Blast from the Past)
posted by moonmilk to MetaFilter on Oct 8 at 8:13 PM
70 users marked this as a favorite
On a winter night in 373 or 372 BC, a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami destroyed and submerged
Helike (or Helice), the principal Greek city on the southwest shore of the
Gulf of Corinth. Also destroyed was
the temple of the Heliconian Poseidon, the god of earthquakes and the sea. The destruction of city was foretold by several events, including the appearance of some "
immense columns of flame" (Google books), which have since been classified as a type of
earthquake lights. The submerged ruins of the city disappeared slowly, as centuries later tourists could still see the walls beneath the water. Silt finally covered the ruins, turning the ocean into land again. The city, once a founding member of the
Achaean League, was lost and remembered only in writings.
A coin from Helike was discovered in 1861, but it wasn't until
2001 that not one but two ancient cities were discovered, including an entire Early Bronze Age town, dating from about 2400 BC.
posted by filthy light thief to MetaFilter on Oct 6 at 9:18 PM
69 users marked this as a favorite
The Clothesline Paradox: A Conversation with Tim O'Reilly - "The thesis is simple: You put your clothes in the dryer, and the energy you use gets measured and counted. You hang your clothes on the clothesline, and it "disappears" from the economy. It struck me that there are a lot of things that we're dealing with on the Internet that are subject to the Clothesline Paradox. Value is created, but it's not measured and counted. It's captured somewhere else in the economy."
(a full text transcript of a video interview)posted by flex to MetaFilter on Oct 9 at 4:34 PM
64 users marked this as a favorite
I love songs of any musical genre that feature multiple musicians sitting in a room together, playing upbeat music, and clearly having a very good, very playful time doing so. The musicians’ pleasure is infectious, and I can listen to these songs on "repeat" endlessly. Can you recommend some songs like this? (Examples within.)
posted by waldo to Ask MetaFilter on Oct 12 at 6:14 PM
59 users marked this as a favorite
I've been thinking a lot about this too, because I just rolled back on to the "expulsions" committee, and two things hit me my first week, making rulings on the approximately one expulsion every school day that we see: For the first time, I re-expelled a student whom I had already expelled two years ago (the maximum a student can be... [
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posted by Eyebrows McGee to MetaFilter on Oct 10 at 9:41 PM
333 users marked this as a favoriteI never text or initiate contact with him first because i decided I won't be doing that chasing ish any more.
Gosh, maybe he is aware that you're not into him and he's not interested in subsidizing your entertainment anymore? [
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posted by psoas to Ask MetaFilter on Oct 10 at 1:38 PM
259 users marked this as a favorite Reply-All can get even more fun when multiple timezones are involved.
In a previous job for a multinational, I found myself seconded to the States to help hand-hold the newly created US office through their incubation period.
Now whilst we were indeed a multinational, we were very much an old school organisation and privately owned by a... [
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posted by garius to MetaFilter on Jan 12, 2009 at 6:36 AM
150 users marked this as a favoriteShe found just about the quickest way to make me not take her seriously.
Actually, I think it's pretty cogent to say that taking photos of someone without their consent because you think they're sexy, is treating women as sexual objects whose objections can be ignored. And if you're okay treating a human being as an object whose consent... [
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posted by litleozy to MetaFilter on Oct 11 at 5:58 AM
149 users marked this as a favorite Um, you date other guys, you never initiate contact, you're not interested just talking to him, and it offends you that he ONE TIME asks you to pay for something. I suggest he's not the guy for you and you would be doing him a large favour by stopping seeing him. [
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posted by unSane to Ask MetaFilter on Oct 10 at 1:38 PM
147 users marked this as a favoritePeople do this to kids all the time - you're tone-deaf, you're a math person, you're a language person - and, at the right age, it works like the Judgement of Minos; the kids will readily absorb these beliefs into their identity. The atmosphere of intellectual snobbery that I was raised in - the whole community, the schools, not just my family -... [
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posted by thelonius to MetaFilter on Oct 8 at 12:24 PM
102 users marked this as a favoriteTo be fair, we only have 200-odd years of history, and most of it isn't very interesting.
Incorrect. We have 40 000+ years of history. And I think you've illustrated the main point of that article very nicely, thanks. [
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posted by Jilder to MetaFilter on Oct 8 at 2:01 AM
92 users marked this as a favorite donjumplarry:
The principal value of Rothko is it allows admirers to distance themselves from the lower classes, by flaunting their cultural capital.
Now who's being dismissive?
I work at a museum that, by virtue of its educational outreach programs, is essentially the only source of art education for whole swaths of the LA Unified... [
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posted by scody to MetaFilter on Oct 7 at 10:37 PM
91 users marked this as a favoriteIf you're willing to lose a guy you've been dating for several months over ten bucks, you're probably not that crazy about him. So maybe now would be a good time to break up. Or, if you're really into the "s/he who invites, pays" rule, perhaps you could think of an event, invite him and pay? There's no "nice" way to talk... [
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posted by ThePinkSuperhero to Ask MetaFilter on Oct 10 at 1:37 PM
91 users marked this as a favoriteThe question of humanness ties at least in part to the Butlerian Jihad, which was a human revolt against computer oppression about ten thousand years before Dune took place. Sort of a classic sci-fi premise, man uses machine to improve his life, machine acquires responsiblity, machine acquires agency, machine starts calling the shots.
The... [
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posted by cortex to MetaTalk on Oct 12 at 11:37 AM
82 users marked this as a favoritePlease pardon my bluntness, especially during such a difficult time for you. You must tell someone and he needs to know you have done so. In the chance he is serious, you must consider it is not his suicide he is researching. [
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posted by Feisty to Ask MetaFilter on Oct 7 at 12:07 PM
80 users marked this as a favoriteFOX News calling Biden a big bad meanie poo-head is essentially the same as saying Ryan doesn't have the chops to make it in the White House. I mean they're literally saying that Ryan got stomped by this dude. If a nigh-70-year-old Democrat who buys the press corps bagels is a threat to you, how can we believe you're qualified for the #2 spot of... [
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posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing to MetaFilter on Oct 12 at 8:32 AM
80 users marked this as a favorite
