Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

I was promised a recession.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

I really should read my own blog.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

T R E 4 5 O N

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

This blog will pay for itself.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread and Head’s-Up – Your Input Needed

Open Thread and Head’s-Up – Your Input Needed

by | 153 Comments

This post is in: 

I’m going to post Friday, so this is a head’s-up:

  • I’m going to seek recommendations for quotes to add to the random quote function. Suggestions will be run by the front pagers and selections will be added to the rotation.
  • Also, due to a few inquiries (as well as my own interest!), I’m going to request additional pie sayings to add to the list. Again, this is a head’s-up so when I ask on Friday, you don’t have to scramble. I’ll add these to our list and send them on to Cleek so that he can add them to his. Thus your suggestions will amuse and improve the experience of many folks beyond Balloon-Juice readers.

 

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

153Comments

  1. 1.

    Starfish

    You used bullets in your post, and the spacing between the lines in those bullets is insufficient. The text is all crammed together.

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    I vote for fewer extraneous apostrophes.

    (Sorry, but my inner copy-editor twitched at each “head’s”)

  4. 4.

    J R in WV

    Alaain,

    We don’t know what’s already in those datasets, to avoid repeating existing items.

    Perhaps a web page or pop-up box that shows current content of those lists? Without update capability that shouldn’t be to hard…

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    Rotating (updated, if at all possible) entries from the Lexicon might be a good way to go, and might not be too much work? Ala the “Unabashed Dictionary”.

    For pie sayings, dunno. Maybe taking 5-10 year old posts from some of the more colorful posters here and substituting as appropriate?

    You must not have followed the link. It had nothing to do with national sovereignty. It has to do with what happens when your country is run by bad pie makers. The country’s economy is collapsing, since it refused to pay its pie bill it will have no pie this winter.

    Yeah, it would take some work. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  7. 7.

    piratedan

    well.. because we seldom follow the rules in our commentary… I’ll just throw out some pie commentary now…

    1) pie! It’s not just for breakfast anymore!
    2) if you wanted pie, you should have said so…
    3) sure, you can filter for pie, does that mean we have to sieve for cake?
    4) do turnovers count or are they an abomination?
    5) is there cream in cream pie? I don’t know, but I eat them all the same
    6) some people like the flaky crust, but I eat pie because I collect the pie tins!
    7) If Star Wars is pie, does that mean Star Trek are tarts?
    8) I think the creator of pie should be on a lower pedestal that the folks who discovered alcohol, but not by a lot….
    9) pie is pie, pop tarts are weird
    10) its weird that pot pies are so close to casseroles, but not quite….

    ty for your consideration…

  8. 8.

    gbbalto

    Alain –
    Thanks for all the hard work on this website.
    The pie filter bar doesn’t appear in Windows Explorer on either my work computer (part of a network) or my home computer (stand-alone). It does appear in Chrome on my home computer. Is there something I can tweak?
    Thanks!

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    Re bullet item 1: they don’t need to be actual quotes from somebody, you know. Feel free to throw in your own creations if you come up with anything suitably BJ-insidery/intriguing/silly enough.

    Re bullet item 2: How about pie sayings in various languages? I’ll pitch in a couple in Malay, for a start:
    Pai kastad durian … mmm, enak!
    Saya suka makan pai!

  18. 18.

    debit

    1. It puts the pie in the oven or it gets the hose again.
    2. The Pie of Liberty must be filled from time to time with the blueberries of patriots and tyrants. Mmmm. Tyrannical blueberries.

  20. 20.

    frosty

    Rotating tag: every so often a Valued Commenter has suggested a phrase be added to the tag line. I don’t suppose one of you programming wizards could figure out a search through years of comments to find those?

  23. 23.

    DCrefugee

    My favorite quotes of late:

    — ’cause I speak of the pompitous of covfefe

    — We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the #covfefe began to take hold.

    — No point mentioning those #covfefes. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

    Maybe you sense a theme…

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    My suggestions for quotes:

    “Puny God.”
    “I understood that reference”
    “I don’t see how that’s a party”

  27. 27.

    Ryan

    Two of my favorites:

    “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”

    Donald Rumsfeld

    “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet!”

    Donald Trump

  28. 28.

    The Red Pen

    “Dude, if you’re reading this, you’re a carbuncle on the face of humanity and an obstacle to civilization. Feel the shame.”

    “life’s single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and still stay sane.”

    “He treats reality like it’s out to get him.”

    “I don’t have pet peeves. I have major, psychotic hatreds.”

    “I use the dentist test. If going to the dentist feels like a vacation from your job, you’re done.”

    “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

  33. 33.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Pi r squared?? Noooo! Pie are round! Corn pone are square!

    (Junior Sample, Hee-Haw)

    And here I repeat my much-ignored plea to include location information for each comment/commenter.

    I’m beyond disgusted with reading “It’s 135 degrees & hailing big as basketballs here” & having to post And where in the FUCK is “here”??? – & hardly ever getting an answer.

    Could be as simple as adding a data-entry window to the comment form between “Email” & “Website” It could be set to default to a home location provided by the commenter when s/he signs up.

  34. 34.

    ThresherK

    @dmsilev: Hey, we were asked for our input. If copyediting the Internet isn’t “needed input”, I don’t know what is.

  36. 36.

    Another Scott

    @Uncle Cosmo: Some of us don’t like giving up too much of our anonymity (but bits and pieces slip out).

    You could always look here if someone mentions extreme temperatures somewhere and do some extrapolations. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“Who is glad he’s not in Abadan right now, for more than one reason!”)

  41. 41.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    Not a real one, and not real original, but…

    “Donald Trump is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”

    Also:

    “A jackal den of crime and villainy”

  43. 43.

    Yarrow

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    It could be set to default to a home location provided by the commenter when s/he signs up.

    So I’d get to choose my own home location? I could put anything? Like, “My estate in Switzerland” or “On my yacht sitting next to Scarlett Johannson”? Cool!

  44. 44.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    Possible inspiration source for both lists: the Pixel Scroll titles at File770. It’s fairly easy to ID the original quote that’s been mangled for the post titles.

  45. 45.

    The Red Pen

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    And here I repeat my much-ignored plea to include location information for each comment/commenter.

    Voluntary ID of location would be nice. This could be done several ways including having the browser ask for permission.

  46. 46.

    p.a.

    Big plans for later today: clear some S5 memory by populating the SD card. Need to ‘how to’ online every time, as it’s apparently an 11 step process for each item. Fun times…

  47. 47.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Since this is both a tech thread and an open thread, I think my techie question fits nicely here.

    I am a brand-new “retiree”, whatever “retire” means. I’m hoping to build a life not necessarily of non-stop leisure, but of fun and fulfilling work/vocation. A clear indicator to myself that I intend to keep a hand in the tech world is that one of my first actions was to buy myself a new Mac Mini, intended to be a development platform. So now I’m casting around for what I feel like developing.

    My first thought was iPhone apps. Much to my surprise (though knowing Apple, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised), I’ve discovered that iOS is not programmed in something standard like C++ or Java, but a language I never heard of called Swift. Anybody have any experience developing in this environment? My most recent experience has been a lot of C++ and C#, never got around to doing anything in Java (it’s on my to-do list).

    What surprised me I guess is that it seems to mean apps are not transportable. How do people develop cross-platform apps? Do you have to write it twice, once in Swift and once in something else? Or are there cross-platform tools of some sort?

  49. 49.

    Immanentize

    @dmsilev: Betty Cracker called those the “Greengrocer’s apostrophes.” One of her all time greatest hits!

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    Alain, how about just giving use link where we can suggest something for the rotating tags. Ads it is, someone wills see a great comment in a thread and say something like “rotating tag, please” or “I nominate that for a rotating tag”, but there’s no reason to think anyone ever sees that.

    So a link we can click when one of those gems appears in a comment would seem like the best way to keep our rotating tags balloon-juicy rather than just fun sayings. Not a link on every comment, just somewhere easy to find on BJ.

  52. 52.

    realbtl

    I’d kind of enjoy a random selection of BIRDZILLA’s (I think the poster used caps) unhinged rants. Or was that another of dougj’s aliases?

  53. 53.

    mali muso

    @Amir Khalid: Saya tidak suka durian! Durian ice cream was bad enough…pie…shudder.

    Can we have links to the blogroll on the mobile version of the site?

  56. 56.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Damn, just had a post silently eaten by FYWP. Trying again.

    Since this is both a tech thread and an open thread, I’ll post this question for the tech gurus. I’m a recent (< 1 month) retiree, whatever "retire" means. Clearly it will have some element of continued tech work (where "work" is redefined as "play") in it, since one of my first actions was to buy myself a new Mac Mini for use as a development platform. Now I'm casting around for what to develop.

    I thought perhaps iPhone apps. Much to my surprise, iOS apps are not developed in a standard language (i.e. one available on other platforms) but in something called "Swift" which I never heard of. Anybody have any experience with it? How's the development environment? How hard is it to test and debug on your actual phone? What do you do when you want to build an app that will also run on Androids?

    Also open to suggestions on where to look for project ideas. I think GNU has a forum for projects looking for contributors, and I'm pretty sure Mozilla has something similar for people who want to fiddle with Firefox. It seems to me I've seen a forum for app wish-lists, but I don't remember where.

    My daughter (artist turned web developer) suggests I start using Git and investigate the GitHub. She says there is a request-for-projects place there somewhere. I'm familiar with Git as a source code repository though I didn't use it much, but not GitHub. My former employer (the Federal Government) has their own government-owned collaboration sites.

  57. 57.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Major Major Major Major: WHY THE FUCK NOT????

    Shit, we already know where his worthless arse is. I doubt it would take even half an hour for anyone with an IQ>80 to dig out his street address.

    @Another Scott: I really don’t give (as the late Frank Perdue might have put it) a frying flock where you live or work or happen to be t the moment – until&unless you start posting crap on the order of “Here, it’s…” without a clue as to where “here” is. I promise that as soon as I notice you’ve done so I will come stomping down on you with as near the electronic equivalent of golf spikes as I can muster. Capeesh?

  58. 58.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: GitHub is a place where a lot of game modders upload their mods and work on them. That’s about the extent of my knowledge of GitHub. So I guess I wasn’t that helpful. I just know it’s something that’s used quite a lot among programmers.

  60. 60.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @mali muso: Isn’t the whole concept of durian that it smells horrible to people around you but tastes great to the person eating it? I’ve had durian-flavored drinks and they were pretty good. What was the issue with durian ice cream?

  61. 61.

    Immanentize

    It is so odd and strange when a thread that is mostly good-natured and clever turns to hateful vitriol. The Intertubes have a long arc that seems to bend towards cra cra.

  63. 63.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Uncle Cosmo: So you are saying that your little pet peeve should cause everyone to be required to disclose his/her location in order to comment? Seems a bit extreme to me.

  65. 65.

    Jeffro

    Since this is an OT…just thought I’d note that my new standing desk arrived today and the thrill has worn off in just 20 minutes. Nevertheless, I will persist.

  66. 66.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Omnes Omnibus: Uncle is only asking that people provide some definition of “here” when talking about the weather “here”. That seems reasonable to me. A few extra words like “here in the Pacific Northwest” or “here in the 4th circle of Hell”. I don’t waste a lot of emotional energy on this particular issue, but I can see how it could be a pet peeve.

  67. 67.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Omnes Omnibus: I really couldn’t care less where you, Uncle Cosmo, or the imaginary sky faries commenting here live, honestly. If they wish to disclose where they live, that’s their choice. I’ve only given out a general area (ie. Suburbs of a city in a certain state). I’m not losing sleep over it if they don’t

  68. 68.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Every day is March 14.
    It’s always after 3:14 in my spiritual home.

  69. 69.

    Roger Moore

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    And here I repeat my much-ignored plea to include location information for each comment/commenter.

    I don’t see a problem, so long as people are allowed to lie and/or give an answer that’s sufficiently vague as to be meaningless, i.e. Location: Earth. Many posters here don’t want to reveal too much information about themselves.

  70. 70.

    Jeffro

    Also black bears are running amok in NoVA and while I know empirically I have nothing to worry about…the non-empirical side of me is not convinced…

  72. 72.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Immanentize: In the past, I’ve only directed my ire at the rich and powerful that routinely ruin others’ lives by doing illegal and unethical things in our names. There is a difference between that and getting all hot and bothered about something so trivial

  73. 73.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Yarrow: So long as you don’t mind being ID’d for posterity as a fucking arsehole. Doesn’t seem to have bothered Dougj/Doug! or whatever the fuck that terminally annoying FPer is calling himself now.

    @The Red Pen: Voluntary, no problem (but see immediately above). Let Alain slap a data-entry window without an asterisk labeled “Location” in the comment form between “Email” & “Website”. Put in your location with as much or little precision as you want. E.g., I make no secret of living in Baltimore MD – pardon, that’s “Bawlmer, Murlin, Hon” in the local palaver – but I’m not about to provide anything much more specific than that. I mean fuck, who knows how many of you bozos have bad tempers plus access to drones with GPS guidance & warheads?

  74. 74.

    Spanky

    @Jeffro: A small stepstool to put a foot up now and then helps a lot. And you certainly want rugs/padding under foot.

    Frankly, I find standing around to be hard on the back.

  75. 75.

    Yarrow

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    So long as you don’t mind being ID’d for posterity as a fucking arsehole.

    That ID has already been made, so have at it.

  76. 76.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Uncle Cosmo: You’re asking for a change to the database schema and several API’s and the introduction of a privacy leak, just so you can know what the weather is like on the occasion that somebody posts about the weather. It doesn’t matter that you can find out where Cole (or me, I don’t pretend to be anonymous) live. You’re asking for default behavior that will collect and display the location information of e.g. a not-fully-out trans person.

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I hear very good things about Swift, actually, and that iOS development is supposed to be pretty straightforward if you can make XCode run. Web development too is always a fertile place to let the imagination run wild, and you can make near-native apps with that. Want to write a website in Fortran or smalltalk? The world is your oyster.

    Git (and to a degree mercurial) are the main collaboration tools of the open-source community right now.

  78. 78.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Voluntary, no problem (but see immediately above). Let Alain slap a data-entry window without an asterisk labeled “Location” in the comment form between “Email” & “Website”. Put in your location with as much or little precision as you want.

    That would be acceptable

  81. 81.

    Roger Moore

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Isn’t the whole concept of durian that it smells horrible to people around you but tastes great to the person eating it?

    Not really. Some people really love the taste of durian and other people think it tastes as bad as it smells. It’s a very individual reaction.

  83. 83.

    mali muso

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Having grown up in SE Asia, my take on durian is that it tends to be very polarizing…you either love it or hate it. I happen to hate it, but I tried it plenty of times as a kid so it’s not like I didn’t try to overcome my dislike. To me it tastes a little like rotten onions crossed with very pungent stinky socks. Perhaps if you held your breath while eating, the rotten/pungent thing wouldn’t matter, but I find that the flavor profile carries through in derivative products like ice cream and the sweetness overlay almost makes it worse. Like Roquefort cheese ice cream or something like that. YMMV.

  84. 84.

    Another Scott

    @Uncle Cosmo: I can understand why it might be annoying, but you need to understand (and I’m sure you do) that everything we post here is effectively public and public forever. We may “know” who certain people here are IRL, and we may “know” where they work and have worked and so on, but we can’t demand that people tell more than they want. A “tell us your location” widget would drive people away, and rightly so.

    I don’t remember where all the regulars live, either. But it really doesn’t matter if “it’s 135F and hailing” in Zip Code 30001 or 39999, does it? It’s just conversation. If one is worried about the weather, one needs to look at their own favorite site to get that particular information.

    If you’re not getting an answer about “where is here“, it’s more likely than not to be due to the poster not checking the thread after your query.

    Hang in there.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  85. 85.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Immanentize: That’s fine. Just wanted to make the difference clear for interested third parties

  87. 87.

    Spanky

    NPR tweets the Declaration of Independence, and WaPo captures the carnage:

    The blowback increased when the tweets reached the portion of the Declaration that outlined, in unsparing detail, all the ways Britain’s George III had wronged the then-Colonies.

    “He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers,” read one line of the document.

    “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people,” read another.

    Some people — presumably still in the dark about NPR’s Fourth of July exercise — assumed those lines were references to President Trump and the current administration

    So, NPR is calling for revolution.
    Interesting way to condone the violence while trying to sound “patriotic”.
    Your implications are clear.

    — D.G.Davies (@JustEsrafel) July 4, 2017

    “Propaganda is that all you know how? Try supporting a man who wants to do something about the Injustice in this country #drainingtheswamp,” tweeted one user whose account has since been deleted but whose messages were captured by Winnipeg Free Press reporter Melissa Martin.

    *heavy sigh* pic.twitter.com/Pb35SNdKqe

    — Melissa Martin (@DoubleEmMartin) July 4, 2017

    Upworthy writer Parker Molloy took images of several more indignant replies to NPR, including one who told the media organization to “Please stop. This is not the right place.”

  89. 89.

    p.a.

    @mali muso: I’ve had durian bubble tea, so god knows how much it was doctored up, but the smell was unpleasant, and the taste I can best describe as ‘generically fruity with a strong raw garlic component.’

    ETA: I’ve found a Chinese product; bottled fermented tofu in a sesame/chili oil that I love spread on toast. Like a (really) funky cheese/hot pepper mix. It also serves as a marinade. yum

  92. 92.

    Spanky

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I hear very good things about Swift, actually

    Trump said the same thing, adding “he is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice,” He was responding. of course, to a question about “A Modest Proposal”.

    I’ll just let myself out ….

  93. 93.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: FTR, whippersnapper, I don’t much care where anyone is either, for the most part. But when a comment is location-specific – i.e., it can’t really be understood without knowing where whatever’s being reported has occurred – it’s only considerate to the readers to include at lest general position information. Otherwise it would be like posting a photo of some obscure locale in an “On The Road” thread without letting anyone know where it’s from.

    E.g., a (hypothetical) post in mid-October: It’s not even noon here & the temperature is 100.

    Saudi Arabia: Balmy autumn day.

    Phoenix, AZ: Slightly warm for the season.

    Baltimore, MD: Usual disgusting summer continues, damnitall.

    Yellowknife, NWT: Jeebus Cripes, we’re all dooooooomed!

    (Capeesh?)

  96. 96.

    The Pale Scot

    The quotes, do they have to real?

    Because the starting chapter epigraphs in Robert Asprin’s Myth series are great and unfortunately often relevant.

    “Numerical superiority is of no conse-
    quence. In battle, victory will go to the
    best tactician”
    -G.A. Custer

    “One need not fear superior numbers if
    the opposing force has been properly
    scouted and appraised”
    -S. Bull

    “What is this, a Chinese fire drill?”
    -Sun Tzu

    “Choose your friends carefully. Your ene-
    mies will choose you!”
    -Y. Arafat

    “Petty crime is the scourge of business today”
    -D. Lorean

    “I just need to pick up a few things”
    -I. Marcos

    “How come I get all the hard questions?”
    -O. North
    Edit: grammer

  98. 98.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @catclub:

    Fer instance, I was born in a state of innocence.

    As opposed to a state of outnocence?

    When someone asks me what my sign is (not terribly frequently since the early 1980s, mind you), I like to reply that I know what sign I was conceived under:

    PARK CLOSES AT DUSK

  103. 103.

    rikyrah

    The New York Times‏Verified account @nytimes

    A white coin maker strode across the Mint to an African-American colleague’s workstation. In his hand was a noose.

  104. 104.

    Aaron Baker

    I have no idea who first said it, but I’m partial to this one:

    “Awful people don’t know they’re awful.”

  107. 107.

    MattF

    @p.a.: Hmm. I belonged to a ‘garlic dinner club’ for a while, so I may be a candidate for trying it. And with stinky cheese, while you’re at it. Red Hawk Forever!

  108. 108.

    rikyrah

    Mike Pence: The servile schemer who would be president

    \By Richard North Patterson July 03, 2017

    ON THE EVIDENCE of a lifetime, America’s vice president is not a complex man. Instead he is three extremely simple ones: an incompetent ideologue, an obsequious toady, and a self-serving schemer.

    When Donald Trump selected Indiana’s governor to run with him, local observers were dumbfounded. They knew Pence as a comically ambitious, rigid, and inept right-wing evangelical — a climate-change denying, Darwin-doubting zealot who, before leaving Congress, had left no mark beyond his sulfurous opposition to reproductive and gay rights. And his accession to the governorship, meant to position him as presidential timber, had foundered on the fundamentalist verities that define his mental cul-de-sac.

    A signal embarrassment was his embrace of a “religious freedom” bill designed to propitiate business owners who wished to discriminate against gays. This antagonized the state’s business community at large, a setback exponentially amplified when, interrogated by George Stephanopoulos, Pence issued a tongue-tied nonresponse so mortifying that it rewards a look on YouTube. Shouldering Pence aside, the legislature reached a compromise to salvage Indiana’s reputation.

    Facing electoral doom, this ostentatious Christian — who calls his wife “Mother” and refuses to be alone with another woman — prostrated himself to become Trump’s running mate, the bridge between evangelicals and a blatant libertine. Trump, not Jesus, became Pence’s personal savior: Cravenly, Pence proclaimed Trump a model paterfamilias and man of deep faith. To cognoscenti, the reflexive alacrity with which Pence swathed Trump in pieties confirmed a surreal obliviousness to his own moral smallness.

  110. 110.

    gvg

    hi Alain,

    Just a comment that I have been missing the pie filter all wee both mobile ipad safari & android 4.1.2 and desktop firefox 45.5. I had it on ipad switched to desktop but that quit working last week. today the desktop mac has it but the others still don’t. happened around when it was announced that mobile was getting it…the android has never had it.

  112. 112.

    Amir Khalid

    @Uncle Cosmo:
    It’s no problem at all to disclose in a comment — if you feel like it, and you reckon it’s safe — that you live in Brisbane or Kuala Lumpur or Florida or wherever. If you really need to know where Commenter X is when they’re griping about the weather, reply to them and ask. There’s really no reason to impose on commenters’ privacy and demand to know their location.

  117. 117.

    HeleninEire

    There’s a “random quote function?” I donut even know what that means.

  118. 118.

    Alain the site fixer

    @mali muso: yes, that’s on the list. I’m trying to replicate functionality on the mobile site, or if I can find a good plugin, I’ll move to that to work on both sites.

  120. 120.

    Alain the site fixer

    And yes, to all pedants, I’m trying to un-learn “head’s up”. No idea where I picked it up, but it has stuck hard. Heads up makes sense.

  121. 121.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m considering some kind of voluntary “I’m here” function with a map so we can see roughly where folks are, if the want to share. For now, nothing, and anything location-related would need approval by John and the general community.

  122. 122.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Gin & Tonic: Oh, you must be mistaken – I’m in Palo Alto right now, not San Francisco. I live up there but I work down here.

    If we had some sort of user geotagging this wouldn’t be an issue! Unless I forgot to put my updated location in the little box, of course.

  123. 123.

    Amir Khalid

    @HeleninEire:
    Perhaps I can help:
    Deep down in the engine room of the good ship Balloon Juice, there is a collection of quotable quips, statements and other verbal whatnot. A doohickey plucks a random item from this collection and displays it under the BJ logo every time you load/reload the front page or a post.

  126. 126.

    mali muso

    @Alain the site fixer: Hoorah, thanks! I am a lazy websurfer on my phone and often want to pop in on some of our friend blogs without having to memorize their URLs or keep them on my favs list.

  128. 128.

    Alain the site fixer

    @p.a.: take a pic and submit it! I’m curiosus and have access to good stores near me.

  132. 132.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Amir Khalid: you are correct. And I’m glad to add some Malay to the filter and quotes, so do consider more for Friday’s noon post/Saturday morning for you I guess.

  134. 134.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Major Major Major Major: first sounds interesting, second bears consideration. I’m leery of adding lots of reads or writes to the DB, but let’s add to the list and do some pre-figurIng so we don’t reduce performance. Could always maintain a secondary index table or something on the test server and use some of that bandwidth.

  137. 137.

    Another Scott

    @Amir Khalid: You don’t even have to reload the page now. At least on the desktop, it will fade out after a while and a new one will appear. I think that’s one of Alain’s recent enhancements.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  139. 139.

    Alain the site fixer

    @gvg: pop me an email and let me ask some questions. Please copy your comment so I know what the issues are.

  140. 140.

    Alain the site fixer

    Ok, I’ll check this thread later and note the quotes and pie suggestions and issues. I’ve got a few things to finish before evening hits. Thanks to all, and do keep ruminating as I’ll be making a dedicated post Friday at noon Eastern.

  141. 141.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Major Major Major Major: planned for that on the quotes, and using SQLite is the plan. If you want to start mocking something up, feel free, just don’t invest too much time until we have clear guidance from John.

  144. 144.

    Gravenstone

    @Uncle Cosmo: You seem nice. And tell us again, Mr. Temper Tantrum, why we should share any remotely identifying information with you? Seriously, I’ve seen you go from 0 to apparent homicidal frothing rage in the span of a single sentence a few too many times here.

  145. 145.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Another Scott: I put it on the mobile site too, at the top. Trying to remove the “mobile neglect” I inherited and perpetuated!

  146. 146.

    the Reverend Lowdown

    “How come the dove gets to be the peace symbol. How about the pillow. It has more feathers than the dove, and it doesn’t have that dangerous beak.”
    -Jack Handey

  147. 147.

    Tenar Arha

    @Roger Moore: Yep. (Though they are not the best version of Cap, if I were having a full length marathon, I’d probably include both Avengers movies, & even the short bit from Thor Dark World. I’m more than a bit of a completist ?).

  150. 150.

    dance around in your bones

    Pie suggestions from 2013(?)
    – some have already been entered into the pie filter. Cleek used to have a pie suggestion feature on his blog which I am afraid I used probably far too often. Thanks Cleek!

    I think that I shall never spy
    a poem as lovely as a pie.

    and I whose hungry mouth is prest
    against a pie’s sweet flowing breast

    Bubba’s mama baked pie, and her mama before her baked pie, and her mama before her mama baked pie, too

    I’m not a smart man….but I know what pie is.

    You want a pie? I can get you a pie, believe me.There are ways, Dude.

    The pie abides. I don’t know about you but I take comfort in that.

    Blessed are the piemakers.

    One thing only I know, and that is that I know pie.

    An unexamined pie is not worth eating.

    I can believe anything provided it is pie.

    I have always depended on the kindness of pie.

    Two pumpkin pies are in the oven, and one pie says to the other pie, “Are they really going to eat us?” and the other pie says, “OH MY GOD A TALKING PIE!”

    We ought to make the pie higher. G.W.Bush

    Give every man thy ear, but few thy pie.

    If it be a sin to covet pie, I am the most offending soul.

    It’s ok to eat pie ’cause it don’t have any feelings.

    Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but pie and water.

    So long as you have pie in your mouth, you have solved all your questions for the time being.

    That’s a big goal of mine, to try and grow as much of my own pie as possible.

    Everything has been figured out, except how to live without pie.

    I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to eat pie. This makes it hard to plan the day.

    Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right kind of pie.

    So long, and thanks for all the pie!

    The thing’s hollow–it goes on forever–and–oh my God–it’s full of pies!

    Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well. To what do I owe the extreme pleasure of this surprising pie?

    Appy-polly-loggies. I had something of a pain in my gulliver so I had to eat some pie.

    Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made pie. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I ate such lovely pies!

    In theory, there is no difference between theory and pie. But, in practice, there is.

    I find that when I do not think of pie I do not think at all.

    Man, get out of my face with that shit. The motherfucker who said that never had to pick up itty bitty pieces of pie on account of your dumb ass.

    Uuummmm, this is a tasty pie.
    Mind if I have some of your tasty beverage to wash this down with?

    One can fill a pie with anything from berries to blackbirds. When a blackbird pie is opened, it may begin to sing; some find this disconcerting.

    You don’t understand! I coulda had a pie! I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.

    I AM big! It’s the pies that got small.

    One morning I ate a pie in my pajamas. How it got in my pajamas, I don’t know.

    Mother of mercy, is this the end of pie?

    The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of pie. I, however am quite loquacious on the topic; I find it endlessly fascinating.

    I would stop eating pie.. but I’m not a quitter!

    I wish my pie was emo so it would cut itself.

    Brother, can you spare a pie?

    I visualize whirled pies.

    Mip! The pre-designated time coordinates for mass consumption of pie has long since passed!

    A pie is a terrible thing to waste.

    Reason is pointless in the face of the power of the primal scent of pie.

    Man’s life seems to me like a long, weary night that would be intolerable if there were not occasionally pie.

    And in the end the pie you make is equal to the pie you bake

    All pies are equal, but some are more equal than others.

    No more pie? The horror, the horror!

    Pie is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything.

    Well, here’s another nice pie you’ve gotten me into!

    Uneasy lies the head that wears a pie.

    Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the best short word is pie.

    What’s this? I seem to be submerged in some sort of deep gooey substance surrounded by a flaky crust!

    Pie became pie when people found wild berries and things like that. Then they would roll the dough and start getting things to make it over a fire. And that’s how pie became pie.

    Nothing beats a chunky wodge of pie when the weather starts to cool down.

    Seriously, pie! Why would a food so ubiquitous make me so excited?

    Is Baby Pig Pie as delicious as it sounds? Mmmm, I’m feeling hungry, and I’m not even a Big Bad Wolf.

    Yeah so I pretty much think pie is the greatest thing ever invented to put in one’s mouth.

    This little pie went to market, and this little pie stayed home. This little pie had fruit filling, and this little pie had none. And THIS little pie went wee-wee-wee all the way home!

    I like to eat pie. And I want to rub it on my face.

    Hey, you want some pie? Pie is goood. Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I’d never know ’cause I wouldn’t eat the filthy motherfuckers.

    You know what divine intervention means? It’s when God comes down from Heaven and makes a beeyoutiful pie.

    Sawdust pie has a funny name but a great flavor. It’s easy for me to make because my head is full of sawdust.

    Just so you know, somebody broke into my house and killed my pie.
    What makes me think my pie was killed? Didn’t just die?
    Well, generally pies don’t hang themselves.

    I just want to say one word to you. Are you listening? PIE.

    It’s like I was playing some kind of game, but the rules don’t make any sense to me. They’re being made up by all the wrong people. I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make only pie.

    Pie. Okay? Pie.If I ever see a pie on a bed in this house, man, like you’ll never see me again. I’m gone.

    Most people don’t know how they’re gonna feel from one moment to the next. But a pie fiend has a pretty good idea. All you gotta do is look at the labels on the little pies.

    You know, with all that makeup and pie and stuff, I actually thought I was SMART for a second.

  151. 151.

    J R in WV

    @HeleninEire:

    Mine too, smarta… well anyways, mine too. Helen. In Ireland. Dublin, right?

    Hot, humid, raining here. Well very warm at least. Likely to rain all evening off and on, looking at the radar.

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