Popular Comments Across MetaFilter

By signal in "More LG SmartTV shenannigans." on MeFi

signal — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 22:24:22 GMT

Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future!

Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.

By phunniemee in ""Of course I'm not deceiving you."" on MeFi

phunniemee — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 20:16:14 GMT

aiglet: "need to finish these reviews but just got to note, it's kind of rich calling anyone else 'the most studied liar of the century' when Elon Musk is standing literally right there"

I would love to see the depth of scrutiny Elizabeth Holmes has received applied to Elon or also literally any other grifting man. Books, television shows, documentaries. Let's do it. Yes. Legal consequences next, please.

By jjderooy in "Let's Argue Over Something Other Than Music..." on MeFi

jjderooy — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 11:04:53 GMT

What, no 'Midvale School for the Gifted'?

By CynicalKnight in "More LG SmartTV shenannigans." on MeFi

CynicalKnight — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 22:37:25 GMT

buy whatever TV you want and then simply never allow it access to the internet

A friend of mine just bought an LG against my recommendation. He thought it would be ok since he only uses a Roku stick and has no interest in the built-in apps.

He found the HDMI ports would not function unless the TV was connected to the internet

By your postings may, in fact, be signed in ""Of course I'm not deceiving you."" on MeFi

your postings may, in fact, be signed — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 23:29:30 GMT

I never paid attention to Holmes and the whole Theranos story. I just asked ChatGPT to explain why people care. "Isn't it just another example of rich investment people being stupid?" And they cut me off and didn't answer because that violated some model apparently.

Theranos was ostensibly in the business of selling automated blood tests that operated on supernaturally tiny samples. Like, do a thumb prick and get a full CBC.

This was obviously impossible, like, with two minutes thought by anyone in the field. No one bought the machines, because they could not possibly work.

To "prove" the machines worked, Theranos started operating as a blood laboratory, in partnership with Walgreens. So real-life patients who went to their local Walgreens for a bloodtest had their blood sent to a bogus blood laboratory that could not perform the test, then received completely bogus results. Tens of thousands of Americans relied on falsified blood test results to make medical decisions. People might have died.

That said, Holmes and Balwani and their various co-conspirators ended up going down for defrauding investors. That case was easier to prove than the diffuse and complicated criminality of harming consumers. I do not think they would have gotten such long prison sentences without the public harm element, though.

By subocoyne in "More LG SmartTV shenannigans." on MeFi

subocoyne — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 22:45:48 GMT

2006 metafilter: Is this something I would have to own a tv to know about?
2026 metafilter: What does my own tv know about me?

By mhoye in "More LG SmartTV shenannigans." on MeFi

mhoye — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 23:12:04 GMT

"the Verge by way of /. A Gamers Nexus investigation"

The Gamers' Nexus people deserve a direct, above the fold link for this, they did one hundred percent of the investigative work and created the detailed two hour video showing it off. "Reports The Verge" is a four paragraph might-as-well-have-been-autogenerated summarythat doesn't do this effort justice at all, or send much in the way of any ad revenue in GN's direction.

One of the things Steve points out a few times was how expensive this investigation was for them.

By 2N2222 in ""Of course I'm not deceiving you."" on MeFi

2N2222 — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 20:23:16 GMT

need to finish these reviews but just got to note, it's kind of rich calling anyone else 'the most studied liar of the century' when Elon Musk is standing literally right there

FFS, hasn't anyone ever heard of Donald Trump?

By Jra in "Let's Argue Over Something Other Than Music..." on MeFi

Jra — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 11:53:11 GMT

Cat Fud or GTFO.

By signal in "I'm being hustled by clankers" on MeFi

signal — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 14:54:33 GMT

I wrote "I am alive" on a piece of paper, and placed it into a photocopier. What I saw next has shocking implications

By foursentences in "Doing something for others who would not do the same for you" on Ask MeFi

foursentences — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 03:46:01 GMT

You can be one of two people here: the person who goes out of her way to enjoy as much time as possible in the company of old friends, knowing she'll always "have a great time" and "have a blast" and "make great memories" with them. Or the person who's so hung up on the accounting that she's still citing perceived imbalances from 20 years ago as a reason to avoid her friends now. One of those people winds up happier.

By aiglet in ""Of course I'm not deceiving you."" on MeFi

aiglet — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 20:00:23 GMT

need to finish these reviews but just got to note, it's kind of rich calling anyone else 'the most studied liar of the century' when Elon Musk is standing literally right there

By phunniemee in "More LG SmartTV shenannigans." on MeFi

phunniemee — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 22:33:35 GMT

Some of the best advice I've ever got from MeFi is to buy whatever TV you want and then simply never allow it access to the internet.

I've got my TV HDMI'd into a computer for streaming content, it works great, and I've experienced zero hinky shit.

By Nossidge in "Exceeds eggspectations" on MeFi

Nossidge — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:21:33 GMT

my name is Egg,
and wen its day,
or wen the milk
is pord my way,
and all of you
haf gon to sleep -
i stay up late.
i swim so deep.

By saeculorum in "How Babylon 5 Changed Television Forever" on MeFi

saeculorum — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 13:32:53 GMT

"This is Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw, or be destroyed."
"Negative. We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ship."
"Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else."

By sewellcm in "How to get money from roommate who owes it" on Ask MeFi

sewellcm — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 20:15:46 GMT

+1 for small claims court. My friend had to deal with this. He completed the paperwork to file in court and sent a copy along to his former roommate with a letter essentially saying "hey can you verify your details here before I file this?"

His former roommate very quickly paid what was owed. No filing ended up occurring.

By rrrrrrrrrt in "Mamdani Administration Opens City's 9/11 Records to the Public" on MeFi

rrrrrrrrrt — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 02:35:17 GMT

This is proper fucking government behavior.

By EmpressCallipygos in "Is anal sex now considered standard for heterosexuals? " on Ask MeFi

EmpressCallipygos — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 19:51:20 GMT

Disagreeing with phunniemee above - personally, I don't think you should ever lie about what you like and dislike sexually, even if it's to be a "gotcha" tactic like that. If you're old enough to have sex, you're old enough to talk honestly and frankly about it, and you 100% have the right to say "I don't like that" and if someone is disappointed that's their problem. (Plus, being misleading about stuff like that is just tacky.)

As to whether this is a "thing" today - I don't think that it's more of a "thing" today, I think it's more of a "who's left over to date" kind of situation. And the alarming thing in your case isn't that your two dates were into butt stuff - the alarming thing is that you told them you didn't like something and they tried to twist your arm into doing it anyway. Which probably explains why they're still single, if "trying to persuade partners to do stuff they don't want to do" is their approach.

By warriorqueen in "IANAL but I may need one." on Ask MeFi

warriorqueen — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 14:30:57 GMT

What do I do next?

I've been through something similar with my oldest son and I'm not sure anyone will like my perspective on this but I have decided to share it in good faith. It's fine to skip it.

So first, I want to acknowledge your feelings. It is scary when our kids have these non-optimal encounters. And I can understand, especially given the section of Protecting The Gift on security guards, why you have the worries you do. They are legitimate at their base.

But dude...there is a lot of "what if" in your post here. You seem to be implying that your daughter and her friend would have been molested or something. And of course R is scared and I suppose that it could be traumatic - not the word I would choose - and that's something to support R in. I think there's a bit of disaster thinking going on for you now. Understandable, but breathe a bit eh?

I'm not in the US so can't speak to the legal issues/lawsuit - that's better commented on by someone else. Personally, I don't understand why you would need a lawyer or what result you would be looking for. I think the store reacted pretty well.

But as a parent who's had a kid accused of shoplifting, which is remarkably common because, quite honestly, kids in groups do pull this kind of shit and security knows they're not going to get punched in the face about it...if you're going to let your 10 and 9 year old kids go to the mall or plaza on their own, you need to help them be a bit more prepared for this kind of thing. My kid is a male teenager and gets stopped at the grocery store regularly for bag checks (they also only let 4 students in at a time at lunch.)

I'm not saying it's great and police state and all that. However I know the owner of my local grocery store and I know why they instituted that policy. The discussion about it continues in our neighbourhood with lots of people with various perspectives. But we also live in a time where the grocery carts lock if you don't spend long enough at the self-checkout.

I see my job as a parent to advocate, yes, but also to help my child navigate in the meantime.

Your 10 year old needs reassurance more than defence, I think.

So now you all know what it's like for kids in stores. It's a good time for you to chat with your daughter about it. Of course she was scared - it's scary!! Of course she didn't know what to do - she'd never been in that situation before. But it was okay, she is okay, the truth was revealed - she didn't steal anything - bystander mom helped, because that's what we tend to do in society - and there was a good outcome. You may pursue things with the store a bit but she is okay, she will be okay and future her will know more about shopping at the mall.

That might be letting her do some rehearsal. She can say "I can't go anywhere with you without my parents' permission, but I can stand here and wait for them." It might be making sure she has a cell phone so she can call you. It might be deciding that for a bit you'll hang in the parking lot during shopping time.

And it could, I suppose, be deciding that she's not ready yet to handle when situations go wrong. Because they do.

Anyways, this is all said supportively - I hope that tone comes across. I hope you all are going okay today.

By edward_5000 in "More LG SmartTV shenannigans." on MeFi

edward_5000 — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 23:53:08 GMT

"just understand how everything works and how it all fits together and all of the bad things that might happen and keep up on the research forever and do this for every problem"

What about solving this problem for everyone all at once by making it illegal? What's the 15 second summary I can tell my reps?