Jean - thanks for that, like the excellent Boston Central, most of the activities are really for slightly older kids, 3 and up, who can handle more organized events and understand them a bit better.

And I should clarify that any suggestions of fun father-daughter projects that would work with a two year old would be great, not just organized activities - I was a bit jealous of the father of the five-year old who was able to bake a cake with his kid in my MeFi FPP.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 1:27 PM on July 22, 2008

As far as food is concerned, Oleana is quite good, middle-eastern influenced food.

But close to Kendall, you can also try the hot new Hungry Mother, fusion Appalachian-French food, if you can believe it.

My favorite Cambridge restaurant, though, is Craigie Street Bistrot, which has good veggie options, insanely good wine, and terrific, if moderately pricey, very inventive food.

There is also a great Afghan place right by... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:58 AM on June 19, 2008 marked best answer

Oh, and if you stay Sunday, brunch at the Blue Room is excellent, and a short distance from your hotel.

The best thing in Cambridge on a Sunday morning is to walk along the river at Memorial Drive by Harvard. The street is closed to traffic and bikers and walkers take over. You can then wander through Harvard Square and walk back to your hotel along Mass Avenue, about 45 minutes, that will take you through Central Square and MIT.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 9:03 AM on June 19, 2008 marked best answer

Yes. (Academy of Management, for those who aren't in with the supercool lingo)
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:53 AM on June 18, 2008

Take the T to Davis Square. Bike Linear Park to the Minuteman trail.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 12:24 PM on June 16, 2008

Yes. Buy index funds. A couple things:

1) Pick a couple index funds from the Money 70 list of mutual funds. A key element of an index fund is the expense ratio. That is the percent of your money used to maintain the fund. Index funds have low ratios, think .1%-.2%, no more. Also, buy no-load funds, so that you don't pay any fees upfront. Otherwise, the funds for a particular index are quite similar.

2) Ignore the post about the US economy... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:39 PM on June 15, 2008

After seeing all the conflicting advice here, I am going to agree with Justinian. Talk to a financial advisor first.

I know that Justinian, kindall, and myself are giving you the conventional, and smart, advice on this subject (put most of your money in US index funds, allocate a smaller amount to riskier foreign funds), but you have no way to know which of the many posters here are correct, and you shouldn't take it on faith.

Go to your... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:51 PM on June 15, 2008

Aside from all of the good advice above, read Jan Morris's The Venetian Empire, a short, beautiful nonfiction book that will give you a wonderful taste of what the city has been like through history. Really, it is great.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 6:04 PM on May 29, 2008 marked best answer

I had a Comcast TiVo in January, it failed in February, and the replacements also didn't work. The Comcast guy told me that they were failing at an incredibly high rate, and he had switched at least one other person back to the Comcast old DVRs that day (he switched me back as well). I don't know if they are better now...
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 10:15 PM on April 30, 2008

You should be able to do it with WinPwn, the equivalent of Pwnage for Windows. If you bring it back to the store, they may deny your request for warranty repairs...
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 1:23 PM on April 24, 2008

A Million Miles Away by David Byrne? (And yes, that is the Flying Blind opening credits, for those who remember "classic" early 1990s Fox TV)
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:37 AM on March 20, 2008

Yes. We use a 2-year old Dell Pentium Coe Duo as our main machine and media center machine (using Media Center XP). With a decent graphics card, I can play most games (HL2, Neverwinter Nights 2, etc.) at near highest resolutions. It also streams nicely to the Xbox in another room.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 11:00 AM on March 4, 2008

Spring is wonderful on the higher end, with a very tranquil spa-like feel and lovely service. (And the food is terrific too!)
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 5:20 AM on February 25, 2008

A mini-board game, say something from Cheapass Games?
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 12:53 PM on February 15, 2008

How weird, this seemed like a joke, I mean cafestrol? After reading a bit up on it The short answer seems to be that drip coffee has little effect on cholesterol, while French press (and Turkish coffee) raise cholesterol by something like 10%. So your friend was wrong.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 9:57 AM on February 13, 2008

Sorry, article from the Journal of Internal Medicine as back-up.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 9:58 AM on February 13, 2008

Sorry, xmutex is right, I didn't read the sentence correctly, your friend is right, not wrong. The information I provided is still correct though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 10:05 AM on February 13, 2008

You have to unlock the phone. If you have jailbroken it using jailbreakme.com, then you have a new icon called "Installer" on your phone. Run the Installer application, and choose AnySim and click install. Now tap the new AnySim icon. That will unlock your phone.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:53 PM on January 7, 2008

The King of Thailand was born in Cambridge, MA, apparently he is the only US-born monarch.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:15 PM on January 7, 2008

Except for Queen Noor of Jordan.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:15 PM on January 7, 2008

Dasein - You're right, I just wanted credit for coming up with two US-born members of royalty off the top of my head.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:32 PM on January 7, 2008

To disagree with Skorgu, gold is a bad idea. It is both speculative and not an effective hedge in smaller economies.

The key issue is that the Lat is likely to be devalued soon (it is pegged against the Euro). Put your money in Euros or dollars, and you may find yourself in good shape when the currency corrects, although there may be some economic issues in Latvia as a result
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 5:51 AM on December 13, 2007

Around 24% of Palestinians and 6% of Jews support a binational state. There is a collection of good, if older, Ha'aretz articles on the subject, which represent mainly left-wing Israeli sentiment.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 1:54 PM on December 11, 2007 marked best answer

I should mention that iTunes lets you take any part of the song to use as a ringtone, up to 30 seconds, if that helps.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 6:43 PM on November 27, 2007

There is no song which is an appropriate ringtone in a business setting.

Yes, which is why I don't want the actual music and lyrics of a song by Nickelback or whatever blaring from my phone. But the iPhone has few serious ringtones anyway, and they are all too quiet. The only easy way to add new ringtones is through iTunes (though thank Adam for the tip), and, since you can select any segment of a song to turn into a ringtone, I should be able to... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:17 PM on November 27, 2007

[continuing from anaelith]
...Well, we fired our cannon til the barrel melted down,
so we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round.
We filled his head with cannon balls and powdered his behind,
and when they tetched the powder off, the gator lost his mind.

...okay, not helpful, but awesome.

Also, this:
Willy, Willy, Harry, Stee,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry three.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 6:45 PM on October 15, 2007

As someone who studies entrepreneurship, organizations, and innovation, two angles:

For practical use, Crossing the Chasm is a great introduction to high-technology sales, Influence is a really fun (and short) applied psychology book, and the Innovator's Dilemma is a great guide to technological change.

For the more academic, Eric Von Hippel's Democratizing Innovation (free online) is a great discussion of distributed innovation and open source,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 1:42 PM on September 11, 2007

parmanparman - Thanks, I can use a college transcription service, but they are pricey. I am hoping to find something less expensive using the power of the internets.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 11:51 AM on September 4, 2007

Sorry, should have made it clearer. I am looking for recent science fiction and fantasy, not Guttenberg-style classics.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:56 AM on May 10, 2007

Anyone have any suggestions of particularly good books at InfinityPlus?
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:56 PM on May 10, 2007

I am not in the military, but I have heavily involved in research on training and interactive education, and, as part of that, recently observed Marines training for duty in a simulated Iraqi town populated by role-playing "residents".

I can say that there is a large emphasis on counter-insurgency tactics in heavily civilian areas - how to search houses, how to set up and run a roadblock, how to communicate with civilians in both of these cases - and what to do... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:13 AM on May 3, 2007

Here is a good article on the training I observed that also mentions specifically that concern over Haditha has been incorporated into Marine training..
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:26 AM on May 3, 2007

To clarify, there are three ways this could work:

Way One: That some relatives or family members may know who I am 20 generations hence. As in "one of our ancestors was blahblahblah"

Way Two: That there is a good chance some group of people, however small, will know that there was this guy named blahblahblah who lived 1,000 years ago.

Way Three: That lots of people know blahblahblah, ala Newton or Dante.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:50 AM on April 9, 2007

The good thing about NYC: lots of restaurants.
The downside: lots of restaurants.

You are going to need to be a bit more specific to get good advice. Where in NYC? And, if in Manhattan, where in Manhattan?

Do you want something ethnic? Comfort food? Haute cusine? Something challenging?

...help us help you...
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:29 PM on March 8, 2007

I have a possibility: though the food isn't stellar (its simply good), the view and location are wonderful, and it would match your literary theme and price range, if you had lunch at the Bryant Park Grill, in the back of the Public Library overlooking the Park.

I also happen to love Lupa (one of Mario Batali's first restaurants), wonderful Italian food in the village, for lunch.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:56 PM on March 8, 2007

In addition to my suggestions, above, some thoughts on some of the other ideas, YMMV:

Skip Katz's - too loud, too rushed, too messy. But grab some pastrami there late night if you are still in the city. And a knish from Yona Shimmels. And a pickle from Russ and Daughters.

The Round Table Room is pretty, but, if I remember correctly, relatively expensive, and the food wasn't very good. It may have a new chef, however.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 9:25 AM on March 9, 2007

I have had the whole gamut of PDA phones, and you are looking for either a Treo running Palm or else a Windows Mobile-powered phone (not Windows Smartphone), both will do what you want.

The Treos are easier to use, but not quite as powerful, and the ease-of-use will matter less if you aren't doing too much email and web stuff. It also has the small keyboard, if that matters

I now have a HTC Wizard (also known as the T-Mobile MDA or the Cingular... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:02 PM on March 8, 2007

...And to answer the question in your header - yes, a dataplan is not needed to run Word, Excel, synch contact lists, etc. However, you may want to consider more strongly the phones with built-in WiFi, however, which can give you the equivalent of free data plans (8525, MDA, i730, etc.) or you can go with Sprint, which (at least used to) have a very cheap data plan.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:09 PM on March 8, 2007

We just produced a child, and got the SD700 from Canon as well. It has been wonderful.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:28 PM on February 21, 2007

For good nightlife, try walking Atlantic Avenue in Del Ray Beach, which is in the southern part of Palm Beach - great restaurants, clubs, and bars.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 6:12 PM on January 29, 2007

It is difficult to imagine that someone could beat Gates and be unnoticed - his wealth is equivalent to the GDP of Morocco - and that sort of money requires a lot of public scrutiny and public dealings to make. But you may be able to disguise a couple billion you got illegally. The best bet you have is the corrupt dictator approach - since you just steal from your country or its resources, and you keep the records. Saddam was estimated to have stashed away $8 billion or so by 2000. Here is... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:01 PM on January 1, 2007 marked best answer

Pollomacho: You never see Marc Rich, the billionaire that Clinton pardoned, on any of these lists.

Incorrect. He's #242 in Forbes Richest Americans list for 2006 with $1.5 billion. So I guess he is not under the radar.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 11:13 PM on January 1, 2007

I second FlamingBore - hotwire often works wonders. I would also include Cambridge in your search. Hotwire usually pulls up either the Hotel at MIT, the Sheraton, or the Marlow, all fantastic hotels, and the prices are $150 or below.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 9:31 AM on October 22, 2006

I cannot recommend HanGawi strongly enough - I am normally a carnivore, but this is a magical Korean vegetarian place.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:23 AM on September 19, 2006

This sort of improvised innovation (called user innovation) has been pretty extensively studied in the management of technology literature. You may want to read MIT Professor Eric Von Hippel's Democratizing Innovation (released online as creative commons).

That being said, there are many easy examples, and there are a bunch of researchers in Western Europe (mostly Vienna, Munich, and Copenhagen) studying this. You can find a massive directory of papers on this topic... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 11:44 AM on August 25, 2006

IANALOAA*, but from my experience, the number of shares depends on your exit and growth strategy. I took part in one S corp where there were 10,000 initial shares, but that number needed to be increased as a result of an employee option plan, otherwise employees would be receiving amounts like 12 or 20 shares, which looked bad. You want enough shares so that you can give away fine-grained amounts that look reasonable - I don't know of any downside to larger numbers of shares, except that it... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 11:38 AM on August 25, 2006

From the Federal Law Communications Journal article "Pornography Drives Technology":

Throughout the history of new media, from vernacular speech to movable type, to photography, to paperback books, to videotape, to cable and pay-TV, to "900" phone lines, to the French Minitel, to the Internet, to CD-ROMs and laser discs, pornography has shown technology the way. "Great art is always flanked by its dark sisters, blasphemy and pornography."... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 10:07 AM on August 24, 2006

You should go to Boston, no question. The reason? You want to go to grad school.

Top psych programs are hard to get into, and the best way to do so is to have made an actual face-to-face impression on the people you want to accept you. The best way to make an impression is to work on research with them. You already have done your best at Stanford (get reccomendation letters before you leave), and it would be good to do the same at Harvard (and MIT, if you are more into... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:48 PM on August 23, 2006

Addendum and full disclosure: I live in Cambridge, and love it here, so there is some bias. But trust me about the getting into grad school technique, if that is indeed your goal. If you decide to stay in Palo Alto, definitely make some face-to-face visits with professors at other schools, even if it means flying around the country.
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 7:53 PM on August 23, 2006

Look, I was born in Milwaukee, and I have to suggest a Very Important Pilgrimage for anyone who truly claims to love frozen custard.

Kopps frozen custard. There is nothing better. How good is Kopps? Ask anyone in Milwaukee what the Kopps flavor of the day is, and there is a good chance they will know. There is even a sign on the way from the airport that lights up the current flavor.

And you are in luck. Monday is the most hallowed of all... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by blahblahblah at 8:58 AM on August 23, 2006