I’ve never used Ask Metafilter before, even though I paid them the $5 lifetime registration fee* over a year ago. Yesterday, finally, I asked my first question, “What was the first movie to feature an altered studio/production logo?”, and it’s been getting great replies. Being able to tap into the hive mind when you haven’t managed to attract a hive mind of your very own is incredibly cool. Terrific community they have over there.

* (Genius move on their part, not as a moneymaker, but because it turns out trolls are deterred by an incredibly small barrier to entry. By way of illustration, check out the Metafilter comments vs. YouTube comments side-by-side.)

I was sorry the question of a good science birthday present for a six-year-old girl got an answer so quickly; I would have liked to see that one continue on for a bit. I was going to suggest a Hexbug, which were hits here at Christmas (even if calling it a science toy is a stretch), but I have to admit the Eyeclops Bionic Eye does look pretty interesting (can’t link to the specific product, stupid Flash site).

Evil genius: ditch 10 Facebook friends, get a free Whopper. And this is not your typical silent Facebook de-friending. The Whopper Sacrifice app sends the poor de-friended sap a note! Twisted. Begrudging respect to Burger King. Burger King! Closing in on 30,000 sacrificed friends at the time of this writing. Unbelievable. (via waxy)

Go Fug Yourself is funniest when doing fake conversations. Evidence:

• Jennifer Lopez and Angelina Jolie
• Kate Winslet and Leonardo Decaprio
• Will Smith and Rosario Dawson

For example, J.Lo on Brad Pitt’s mustache:

He looks like an outrageous French pastry chef who solves crime. Which is STUPID, because everyone knows good pastry chefs have no time to detect things! My pastry chef works 23 hours a DAY to make me things I can sniff and then throw away!

Todd Levin on wine:

Drinking wine is like reading. There are only a select few of us who know how to do it; those of us who do find it boring and disgusting but continue because we think it might impress pretty girls. Many of us even need to do it in order to fall asleep, wake up in the morning, or escape from our loveless marriages, but most of us wouldn’t be able to recognize a good bottle of wine or book even if it was being smashed repeatedly against our faces to extort an unpaid gambling debt.

Nice usage of “you miserable cur,” too. I need to work “cur” back into my arsenal (although I think it pairs slightly better with “contemptible”).

Despite its obvious quality, I wasn’t going to link up The Onion’s Macbook Wheel report because EVERYBODY already did, but it makes for a nice two-fer with this xkcd strip.

My Great Fake Bake Experiment by Daniel Nester:

After the session, I spend the rest of the day meeting with students. They compliment my darkening tan. Later, while lunching at a nearby bar, I notice that every waitress and prepster’s skin glows from lamp-born UV radiation. I sing along to Steve Miller Band’s “Jet Airliner,” a song I can usually only tolerate in the summer. Perhaps it’s because my face is emitting its own sultry heat.

If Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi could see me now, he’d compliment me on my tan, just as he did our president-elect shortly after the election.

Bonus, I learned a bit of new(ish) slang: tanorexia.

I’ve been trying, trying, trying to understand Twitter’s appeal from the outside looking in, which ain’t gonna work, according to this excellent NY Times piece of a few months ago (if nothing else, read the section where he talks about “ambient awareness”). I still wasn’t sold, but then I found out that Stephen Fry twitters, and makes it interesting. Is there anything that guy can’t do? Anyway, here I am, if you want to drop in. Can’t imagine this experiment will last very long solo!

Crowdsourcing an Ethical Dilemma describes the results of using Amazon Mechanical Turk to pose variations of the Trolley Problem to a bunch of strangers. For example:

…a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

They varied the scenario and the number of people one would save, and charted the results. (via waxy)

Donald Westlake, veritable owner of the comic crime caper genre, has died. I loved the Dortmunder books. There’s one more to look forward to, and then that’s it. Sigh. RIP.

Netflix makes a nice adjustment to their shipping process:

Now, if your first choice is not available in your local shipping center, we immediately send the next locally available movie in your Queue. And whenever possible, we also send your first choice from another of our 55 shipping centers throughout the U.S. When this happens, you end up with a complimentary extra DVD rental.

Terry Pratchett knighted:

There are times when the phrase “Absolutely, totally, gobsmackingly, mindbogglingly amazed” just doesn’t cover it, but I find that in the Queen’s New Year Honours list I am now a Knight, for services to literature. This means that fans, while not calling me Sir, must now refrain from throwing things. Regrettably, no sword is included in the box :)

Ook!