Does the wear occur on both shoes? The heel on my right shoe tends to wear down as you describe because of the pivoting that foot does between the gas and break pedals in my car, but the heel of my left shoe tends to not wear in that pattern.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 8:47 AM on July 8, 2008

John Hay was a diplomat, author and poet.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 11:23 AM on January 12, 2008

Re (1): Be careful about putting money into the 401(k) too quickly. It's possible to hit the upper limit in a 401(k) without getting full advantage of the 3% matching, at least where I work. My employer does the 3% matching on a paycheck by paycheck basis. Which is to say, they'll match up to 3% of my salary from that particular paycheck. But, if my salary on the first paycheck of the year were $20,000 and I put all of that into the 401(k), I'd only get $600 from the matching and essentially... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 7:52 AM on July 7, 2007

I've seen people buy wallpaper-based, whole-wall pictures and then glue them with spray adhesive to some foam core and tack that up on the wall. This way they can take the mural or whatever with them when they move out and don't damage the wall by putting wallpaper up in the traditional fashion.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 1:40 PM on October 31, 2006

Perhaps I'm being naive here, but it seems like it might be a good idea to ask someone from HR what was intended with this release. Especially if your friend plans to otherwise not sign the document. Admittedly, their description of the document and the intentions behind it would be of no value in court, but I'm assuming your friend doesn't really want to sue them anyway.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 11:43 AM on May 25, 2006

I'm not sure that unemployed is what you're going for. To me, unemployed means not working but actively looking for work. This is also the definition that economists use when they put together unemployment statistics. (This makes sense when you consider that the US unemployment rate is currently a bit less than 5%. If you factored in all the retirees, students, and those simply too young to work, that number would be considerably higher, probably in the range of 30 - 50%.) Slacker seems... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 7:25 AM on May 25, 2006

I've had good luck using this collection of css and js hacks to get things to render the same way in IE and various other browsers. It doesn't take much effort to put in place, so you might want to give it a try and see if it helps.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 9:37 AM on April 25, 2006

You don't say whether you're in the US or not, but if you are you're also losing out by not having your employer pay FICA. Your employer should by making Social Security payments both through withholding and as employer-side payments. Social Security uses your 30 highest years of reported income to calculate your Social Security payout, so without your employer making contributions for you, you are losing quarters of eligibility.

There's also an... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 6:45 AM on March 22, 2006

Yeah, I too have looked for a solution to this issue and not found one. I spent some time looking at the amazon web services in relation to this question, but that was a dead-end. The amazon web services let you search by merchant id, but they don't seem to make a distinction between amazon itself and its partner companies like Toys 'R Us.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 7:48 AM on January 4, 2006

Some information on the construction and age of your home would be useful. It's my understanding that older, brick homes (which aren't uncommon in the St. Louis area) don't perform well when earthquakes hit, for example.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 7:49 AM on December 28, 2005

Perhaps the Noguchi Filing System would meet your needs.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 8:28 AM on December 25, 2005

Wild_Eep: Gamefly might be the netflix-style service for video games that you were thinking of.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 9:31 AM on December 12, 2005

I've had good luck using IE7 to fix IE display issues.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 6:31 AM on November 9, 2005

Digging a trench around the outside of the foundation to waterproof it is usually not feasible because dry stacked foundations can become unstable if they're open to the air on both sides. These aren't the most stable structures and the earth on the outside is providing it with some support. Remove that earth to waterproof and part of the foundation could collapse.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 1:43 PM on November 4, 2005

Smearing is the number one issue you'll have with cleaning up the soot, especially from more porous surfaces. I cleaned up after a minor fire recently and found that what worked best was a pretty strong mix of bleach and hot water. But even that didn't work extremely well. I'd second the recommendation to have ServiceMaster come and clean -- it's just not worth doing yourself.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 1:54 PM on September 25, 2005

They are unrelated, but A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson and Night by Elie Wiesel seem to fit the bill. I read the latter in high school and have never regretted it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 10:24 PM on September 23, 2005

It isn't a full circumvention, but it looks like the Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive is still archiving his columns, including today's -- which you needed a TimesSelect subscription to see on the NY Times website.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 5:09 AM on September 19, 2005

Could your SysAdmin be blocking the sites because he doesn't want his computers contributing to a DDoS attack? Perhaps his thinking is, if one of my PCs gets owned it will be less of a problem if it can't participate in the DDoS attack that it is programmed to participate in.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 11:12 AM on September 13, 2005

I'd second the City Museum recommendation. It's an incredible place. Evenings and nights are best for those of us over the age of ten, but I don't think they're open late on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. It's worth going to anyway though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 9:33 AM on September 1, 2005

I'm no athlete, but I've been known to throw a football around. Does this mean NFL quarterbacks aren't athletes?
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 8:49 AM on August 29, 2005

How about a wireless doorbell? You mount it to the bottom of the paper tube and when the paper goes in the weight of the paper pushes down on the switch and rings the doorbell.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 1:51 PM on June 3, 2005

If you really feel strongly about this and don't get a satisfactory answer from the Census Bureau, you might try to contact your Rep or Senator and see if they can intervene on your behalf. Acting as an intermediary between their constituents and the federal agencies is one of the things they're often good at.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 3:44 PM on May 27, 2005

Does your lease have any language about when the landlords are allowed into the apartment?
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 1:40 PM on May 9, 2005

If you're sure you want a private student loan (see the advice above), I'd recommend sallie mae. I used them for a loan and had no regrets.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 2:08 PM on March 28, 2005

Although this doesn't answer your question specifically, I've found that using Dean Edwards' IE7 product to be a great way to get a similar look-and-feel between IE and other browsers. I typically just add it to my page, design for Firefox, and everything will look fine in IE.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 4:34 PM on March 16, 2005

I don't have any personal experience with this, but years ago on a This Old House episode they put in a series of out-swinging French doors and had these screens inside to keep the bugs out. They are essentially two rolled up screens (think of old-fashioned, roll-up blinds on their sides) that met in the middle and were held together by magnets. Like I said, I don't know much about these, but Norm seemed pretty impressed.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 8:53 AM on March 9, 2005

I don't have any personal experience, but David Pogue, the NY Times technology columnist, claims that Dragon NaturallySpeaking is both the best and the only real option out there.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 1:31 PM on February 18, 2005

As others have pointed out, Born Rich might fit the bill. It isn't fiction, but Born Rich is a rather eye-opening peek into the lives of the young, super-rich set.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 8:44 AM on February 17, 2005

I haven't dug into your html at all, but in general I find that Dean Edward's IE7 is really useful when dealing with CSS layout issues in IE. IE7 is basically a set of javascript files and stylesheets that makes IE's layout work more like the layout in Firefox.
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 9:56 AM on January 6, 2005

The CWE or Clayton? I've lived in both over the last year so I'm hoping I can answer some questions for you.

First, Clayton is about half-again as far from downtown as the CWE. And the MetroLink is currently being extended to Clayton but doesn't yet run there. The CWE has a few MetroLink stops and it's pretty easy to take the MetroLink downtown to work. When I lived in the DeBaliviere neighborhood (a few blocks from the CWE; the CWE is east of Forest Park and... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by HiddenInput at 9:13 AM on December 28, 2004