It's MetaFilter time!

September 29, 2007 11:09 AM

Thank you, MetaFilter, for being the fastest site to load over a dial-up internet connection.

Jagshemash! I didn't know where to put this, so I figured MetaTalk would be the best place.

My wife and I are in Kostanai, Kazakhstan for the next month or so, and are limited to dial-up internet. With everything now embedded with flash- and Java panels, normal websites take forever to load. Except MetaFilter, whose austerity allows for the fastest way to keep a finger on the pulse of the internets. We are grateful.

posted by scblackman to MetaFilter-Related at 11:09 AM (26 comments total)

We're the austeriest!
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:13 AM on September 29, 2007

Austeriest? I thought you were USian.
posted by wendell at 11:17 AM on September 29, 2007 [3 favorites]

Have you tried changing your preferences to PLAIN view? White downloads so much faster than blue. And it looks much more professional.
posted by Roger Dodger at 11:19 AM on September 29, 2007

Metafilter make benefit internets of glorious nation Kazakhstan!
posted by dw at 11:20 AM on September 29, 2007 [3 favorites]

Be sure to enable the youtube inline player, so you can avoid the links with little play buttons next to them. They are bandwidth killers (as I found out on my iPhone).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:23 AM on September 29, 2007

Don't forget some websites have a low-graphics or plain text version. Like BBC News.
posted by ALongDecember at 11:29 AM on September 29, 2007

And disable Flash entirely if you're on dial-up. And get an ad-blocker.
posted by smackfu at 11:49 AM on September 29, 2007

NOW WE KNOW WHY MATT BANNED THE IMG TAG
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:10 PM on September 29, 2007

AND THE BLINK TAG

Oh, wait.
posted by DMan at 12:22 PM on September 29, 2007

White downloads so much faster than blue. And it looks much more professional.
posted by Roger Dodger
White background = white bread. Ordinary and uninspiring, not fitting for colorful Metafilter.
posted by Cranberry at 1:10 PM on September 29, 2007

If you're using Firefox, don't forget things like the Adblock/AdBlock Plus and Flashblock plugins. They might make your Internet experience a little more bearable.
posted by mrbill at 3:01 PM on September 29, 2007

Less is more.
posted by dabitch at 4:21 PM on September 29, 2007

tags needed: hints, low_bandwidth, plain_text, and_the_like
posted by dash_slot- at 4:42 PM on September 29, 2007

Apparently the Terrorists have always enjoyed Metafilter.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:12 PM on September 29, 2007

White background = white bread. Ordinary and uninspiring, not fitting for colorful Metafilter.

I believe that Mr. Dodger was making a reference to the "professional white background" thread.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:14 PM on September 29, 2007

Be sure to enable the youtube inline player, so you can avoid the links with little play buttons next to them.

You mean 'disable' here, right?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:20 PM on September 29, 2007

I get MetaFilter via smoke signals. And I post my comments via hobo signs.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:28 PM on September 29, 2007

No, they mean 'enable'. As in, turn it on so that the youtube links will have little icons next to 'em, the better to avoid 'em by.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:36 PM on September 29, 2007

Right. I open all links in new tabs but I still enable the youtube inline viewer as it's a great visual indicator of youtubery ahead.
posted by Rhomboid at 9:02 PM on September 29, 2007

Yes, stuck as we USAians are, out in the boonies of this great nation, miles away from broadband, we, too, salute MeFi for the same reasons as scblackman & mrs scblackman. Adblocker, noscript and other things are enabled!
posted by Lynsey at 9:13 PM on September 29, 2007

I'm also finding out who streamlined metafilter is as this month I accidentally used my data allocation in a week, leaving the whole household with a throttled connection for three weeks. Whoops. Obviously I need to stick with metafilter in the future and eschew those tempting video files.
posted by shelleycat at 12:55 AM on September 30, 2007

Anybody with data allocation issues needs Net Usage Item.
posted by flabdablet at 1:49 AM on September 30, 2007

Don't forget lofi.mefi, which doesn't include any of the javascript cruft used for favoriting and flagging.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:56 AM on September 30, 2007

Cranberry writes 'White background = white bread. Ordinary and uninspiring, not fitting for colorful Metafilter.'

Regardless of professionalism, white is the only way I can read at the site without my eyes watering in protest. (I think I have some sort of eye problem, though: AskMe's yellow/green combo in particular actually hurts to read.)

Anyway, hope Kazakhstan is treating you well, scblackman. A friend of mine found that every business meeting there, whatever the hour, involved multiple vodka toasts, to the extent that he ended up requesting a transfer to somewhere less boozy for the sake of his health. Fun place, by the sound of it.
posted by jack_mo at 9:20 AM on September 30, 2007

I read Oracle Night, but I didn't like it so well.
posted by Kwine at 10:02 AM on September 30, 2007

I've only gone over my data allocation three times in six years, and each time it was pretty obvious what was happening. I just misjudged where I was in the month this time and did it way too early. We generally use about 60% of our allocation and I'm traveling a lot this year, when I'm gone we only use 20%. So it's not usually a problem.

Is still nice to see that some of the web still works at dialup speeds though.
posted by shelleycat at 12:39 PM on September 30, 2007