Apart from Sony's VAIO laptops, you could consider giving Lenovo's ThinkPads a glance. As Lenovo were already the manufacturers of the units before IBM sold off the division, the quality and customer support are still there. The units include a touchpad area for users who may not wish to fiddle with the red Trackpoint controller. Displays will range from 12.1" to 14", depending on your options. As far as SCSI is concerned, USB adapters exist, but can be finicky when it comes to OS... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 6:57 PM on June 11, 2008

Those were real, but short-lived. Jove Books ran a series of "No Frills" titles back in 1981 (three years before Repo Man was released). The books were sold in a variety of locations, including Jewel-Osco stores.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 7:29 AM on June 2, 2008

It should also be noted that timory didn't say what type of "muscles" the friend was supposed to build. In fact, I'd bet the trainer had sidestepped this deliberately, or would've said something about "toning". Unless the friend was planning to find work as a female corrections officer, or performed vigorous warehouse work, she probably wouldn't need to exchange body fat buildup into lifting/pulling strength. 60 lbs. of muscle buildup from a fitness spa... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 8:39 AM on April 15, 2008

"You knew we weren't gonna close without an encore, didn't you?"

"We want to see some dancing out there!"

"Alright, now here's the chorus-"
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 3:38 PM on March 21, 2008

Hershey's to the rescue!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 10:24 AM on March 19, 2008

Have a "Ruptured Duck" rally: build some simple planes, with dimes taped in as counterweights/"pilots". Deliberately throw the craft against a wall, and with minimal uncrumpling, see how well the planes can continue to perform. Winner takes all dimes.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 5:55 PM on March 16, 2008

You could check out MediaWiki and its available extensions.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 5:49 PM on March 16, 2008

I'll play Devil's Advocate and recommend the Mac platform:

Hardware - PowerPC units. G4 (Sawtooth) towers can be had for under $200 at PowerMax and a number of other outlets. The nice thing about these units is that they can use ATX power supplies without modification. Throw in ethernet cables and a bridge.

Software - OSes 8.6-OS x Leopard. take your pick. Download the available parallel cluster apps from Project Appleseed.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 9:08 PM on March 1, 2008

Dog Furniture of the World.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 8:35 PM on March 1, 2008

3-Dog Monte: the sign and business cards could feature a spoof of E. C. Coolidge's "Dogs Playing Poker" paintings, with a depiction of a kitten dealing to three puppies.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 8:46 PM on March 1, 2008

Ken's Labyrinth was a DOS title from 1993, but has been updated to Win32 and Linux. As long as your son's not afraid of spiders, he'll be fine.

If you have an extra machine with Windows 95 or 98, there's the Carnivores series; it was a variation of the Deer Hunter series, and involved dinosaurs on an alien planet. There was no gore involved, though the dinosaurs would charge (or even eat) your characters, which... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 4:42 PM on March 1, 2008

Fred Grandy played Herman the German in Death Race 2000 and appeared in the film adaptation of The Lincoln Conspiracy. His most recognizable role was on television - as Gopher on The Love Boat; Grady later became a Congressman for 4 consecutive terms.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 7:08 AM on February 24, 2008

First, You Make a Roux. The two easiest ways to go about this are:

1) Mix oil and flour for about hald an hour, adding spices along the way, or

2) Buy a jar of Kary's and save yourself some trouble.

Other than that, it's up to you. You want beef 'n bacon? Fish 'n mudbugs? Rabbit 'n rice? Y'all make the call.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 10:19 PM on January 27, 2008

Whoops, bad link. First - You Make a Roux.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 10:21 PM on January 27, 2008

You could consider larimar or labradorite instead - both have a certain sci-fi quality.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 3:58 PM on January 23, 2008

And of course, you could get her a geode.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 4:06 PM on January 23, 2008

When my license came in, the address was misspelled; though I had it corrected, my jury duty and voter registration notices were mailed to me with the typo, as were my state IRS forms. It took awhile for things to settle down, but not without standing in line at the county clerk's office, and fielding phone calls at home. As a form of ID, a license is very much part of a paper trail.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 1:17 PM on January 23, 2008

A compound bow uses axles and pulleys. Seesaws take advantage of lever and incline principles.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 6:28 PM on January 21, 2008

And here's a third I forgot to include: A spinning top is basically a screw and pulley.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 6:30 PM on January 21, 2008

Drives are part of a bus route.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 6:29 AM on January 20, 2008

I would suspect it's a type of tonkatsu sauce. What dirtdirt described is roughly similar to duck sauce, but without tomato. The soy sauce could've been mixed with some sesame oil for something similar to terriaki sauce, but too much roasted sesame essence can overwhelm any "sweet, but not syrupy sweet" taste. Most likely, it was a soy, apricot and applesauce combo, with maybe the faintest hint of orange or lemon zest with ginger.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 6:17 AM on January 20, 2008 marked best answer

["I meant "rather than sauce made from tomato." Not that people would generally use it as an ingredient for duck sauce.]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 6:20 AM on January 20, 2008

Speaking from intimate knowledge, the chief means of getting lung cancer from an oral infection would entail infection through the bloodstream. The inner lip tissue, where living cells exist, would have to be affected by carcinoma; from there, the outbreak would have to spread to the lymph nodes in the neck, before coursing throughout the body into the lungs. (No mean feat, as any other number of body regions could get infected instead.) Though dendrite mentioned the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 5:16 PM on January 12, 2008

I should add that untreated lips can become vulnerable to cancer, though they'd have to be chapped and bleeding over a prolonged period, while simultaneously exposed to a catalyst. Again, the inner tissue would be affected.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 5:26 PM on January 12, 2008

Which laptop (manufacturer/model)? It's possible the pre-installed utilities are conflicting with Vista's settings.

As for iTunes, try right-clicking the Taskbar, scroll up to Toolbars, then uncheck iTunes. It's a short-term workaround, but it'll clear space while keeping your sanity in check. In iTunes' preferences, you may have to adjust the default player settings for various formats in order to get WMP to behave.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 4:59 PM on December 26, 2007

Here's a tutorial form Essential Strategies, which compares common data models to multidimensional equivalents. It can be though of as a streamlining process:while hierarchical model can be thought of as a linear grouping (as in the case of a network tree), a multidimensional system can focus on a variety of factors, such as unfinished tasks, or search strings. Multidimensional systems are often expected to draw data from more than one data source, so they employ flowcharts that focus on... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 1:18 PM on December 26, 2007 marked best answer

Rates have also increased because of weather conditions and holiday demand. As a whole, however, the airline industry is reacting to news of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act's effect on fuel prices.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 12:46 PM on December 26, 2007

I have QuickOffice on my Palm PDA; as the name implies, it includes a word processor and spreadsheet. VersionTracker's PalmOS downloads are also worth checking for other odds and ends.

Regarding Orb2069's opinion: there's plenty of devices out there which still run Garnet (Palm OS 5.x). Apart from being limited to the mobile version of Flash 5, the Clié can still import and export files compatible with Windows and *NIX variants.

Though I don't... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 6:05 AM on December 25, 2007

Charley Horse? Dead Leg?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 12:42 PM on December 11, 2007

The above are excellent choices; while most of the acts I can think of are in line with the aforementioned AskMe thread, I'd also like to suggest:

1) Gun Club. Try Fire of Love and The Las Vegas Story.
2) Inca Babies. Cowpunk with haunting/creepy/weird lyrics.
3) The Jonses.
4) Rank & File.
5) Lazy Cowgirls.
6) The Embarrassment's God Help Us.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 8:37 AM on December 3, 2007

E-brakes can slip over time. Frequent use can loosen the tension, though the grade of the incline and amount of gear in the storage area can influence the amount of resistance against inertia.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 8:18 AM on December 3, 2007

1) Belkin made some USB-PS/2 adapters awhile back, when the CRT iMacs were still king.

2) Iogear Miniview KVMs work especially well with Macs.

3) One caveat to KVMs is their reliance on generic USB drivers to ensure ideal connectivity with assorted systems. With your Kinesis Ergo, you shouldn't have any troubles, but as I learned the hard way, more elaborate boards tend to lose their higher features. Should you have no issue with desk space,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 8:15 AM on December 3, 2007

Sounds like a refresh issue with your display. I'd try hitting Alt-Command-P-R, and resetting the screen preferences following the chimes. If it still goes wonky, you may be suffering from the same issue that's plagued a number of MacBook owners; in that case, you'd want to hit the Genius Bar for service.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 7:21 AM on December 2, 2007

Assume quantum theory is bullshit

Okay - one possibility would cause your other self to die some time after entering the room, in addition to being a few centermeters tall. Under conventional models of the universe, your other self would have to come from a universe that wouldn't jeopardize the integrity of our own. One such realm would be a -Ɲ continuum, which would be smaller and shorter-lived than ours. For you and your... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 5:48 AM on December 2, 2007

Looking back upon all the mailing lists, bartered services and thankless efforts of my punk rock enriched youth, I'll concede that social currency, however altruistic, is still capitalism. If not for you, certainly for others. You're merely replacing promissory notes and coinage from an officiating government body with a more immediate, yet nonetheless tangible form, such as an ideal, the anticipated immediacy of a reciprocated service, or the satisfaction of attaining a goal for some... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 5:05 AM on December 2, 2007

Or you could run to the videostore. "The Roaches" and "The Crate" appeared in Creepshow.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 5:02 PM on December 1, 2007

I can think of two pictures: Invitation au Voyage, and Berlin Alexanderplatz; the latter was originally a TV miniseries, but I remember some art houses featured it. Both pictures were New Wave updates on the characters Siegfried and Sieglinde from Wagner's Ring Cycle.

Invitation, from France, featured the brother and sister as brunettes: there was a recurrent theme of driving along the countryside with a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 1:03 PM on December 1, 2007

Whole Foods at Union Square. Either color corn works well, though yellow retains oil and moisture better.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 2:47 PM on November 26, 2007 marked best answer

Oh, that's easy. You're referring to "showpiece" numbers, or available standbys for aspiring violinists. Here's only a scant a few which I feel others (but not these performers) have beaten to death:

"Scherzo Fantastique in G Major, Opus 25: La Ronde des
Lutins", by Antonio Bazzini. It's alternately known as "Dance of The Goblins", as well as "Goblin's Rondo"

Nikolai... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 6:05 PM on November 20, 2007

alto - good catch on Bruch, but some soloists have adapted the Glinka work for use in busking, or for showing off at recitals.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 5:57 AM on November 21, 2007

You might want to consider outlining your work in a stream-of-conscious fashion; simple jot down ideas, phrasings, or terms on a few sheets of scrap paper. As you review your work, you can consider forming a rough outline or timeline of who you'd like your piece to progress. After that, you can experiment with writing complete paragraphs, then tailoring them to fit the continuity of a coherent page.

That's how some writers hash out ideas, particularly during (or even... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 10:30 AM on November 4, 2007

Unless you're already familiar with German, it can be tricky to master; the varying infinitives and conjugative rules can be frustrating for anyone wrestling between colloquial and formalized sentence structure.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 10:59 AM on November 4, 2007

KAWS style Skull and crossbones.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 4:17 PM on October 31, 2007

Voila.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 4:14 PM on October 31, 2007 marked best answer

Your referring GP can arrange for you to get a second opinion. Explain what happened to them about your session, and they can take the necessary steps.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 6:24 AM on October 31, 2007

Mac users on several forums have observed a number of issues concerning Leopard, which can be attributed to, ah, opening-night jitters. Test builds which were seeded out to developers were intended to resolve conflicts between programs and hardware accessories, but even under the best of conditions, a few glitches can escape unnoticed.

I would consider the option of using an inexpensive wired mouse until Apple releases an update, which is likely to be distributed within... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 5:54 AM on October 31, 2007 marked best answer

The sound's the result of friction. When leather is processed, it undergoes a series of steps which stiffen the material; afterward, it's chemically softened. When it's ready to be sewn, it's no different than upholstery - a layered, polished segment of embalmed skin.

When it comes in contact with itself or similar material, or merely folds in on itself with pressure, voilà! You get a sound reminiscent of squeaking or an air bladder.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 6:05 PM on October 8, 2007 marked best answer

You could sent your unit to TechRestore, who could not only inspect the problem for you, but could install a new, larger capacity hard drive.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 1:11 PM on August 9, 2007

1999, you say?

Step 1: Get Thee a copy of the Not-for-Tourists Guide to New York City. The subway routes have changed quite a bit since your last stay, and the guide offers a thumbable overview of locales categorized by subject (ie., bars, restaurants, ATMs, movie theaters).

Step 2: Subway? MetroCard. You'll find them near the turnstiles. The only place that still carries tokens is the MTA Museum at Grand Central.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 11:04 AM on August 9, 2007

The song's about race. "Brown Paper" denotes skin color, a reference to the Children of Ham. That Johnny wasn't a baker would infer he wasn't resigned to supporting oppressive labor. Though he lived in modern civilization (Babylon), he hadn't allowed his soul to be corrupted.

"Jah" is God in Rastafarian culture (derived from "YAWEH"). Selassie ("Duke"), the former ruler of Ethipoia, is considered to have ben the Earthly embodiment... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Smart Dalek at 1:15 PM on July 31, 2007 marked best answer