eriko: "Mr O'Leary is expected to announce plans to buy more than 50 extra aircraft, as part of plans to beat the recession by undercutting more expensive rivals."

- from the last link. I'm assuming that means they'll buy something capable of the distance?
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 4:56 PM on November 2, 2008

The Minus Five
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 8:20 AM on October 27, 2008

Just wait until camphones that embed GPS data in the photo are the norm. Can you imagine the Google Maps mashups? (The inevitable march of technology is going to privacy a charming anachronism).
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 8:02 PM on October 17, 2008

...going to make privacy...

Stupid brain.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 8:07 PM on October 17, 2008

Um, like what?

The one about murder?
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 8:28 AM on October 10, 2008

How many items are we talking, do you think? At what rate are you adding? What proportion are physical?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 3:32 AM on September 23, 2008

I thought about doing this the last time carbon credits came up on metafilter... based on the technically-not-dry states in the US that give out liquor licences to local churches who then sit on them. But like DU, I figured if I was successful at gaming the system, they'd change the rules. I really need to get off my backside and do something with my bright ideas occasionally.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 6:32 AM on September 19, 2008

I did a craft fair once where the guy next to me was selling 2ft-lengths of branch that had been seeded with Oyster mushroom mycelium. He sold out his entire stock the first day of the fair, and spent that night cutting, drilling and plugging a whole bunch more branches.

I also heard tell of a decorative candle-seller who's story was very similar Fuzzy Skinner's friend. Splice is right. Renting a cheap pitch never, ever pays.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 7:32 AM on September 17, 2008

mumkin: I am. Re-reading, I think you're right.

To reiterate, a poor location is a false economy.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 8:19 AM on September 17, 2008

It's a towel, so it's not like you can damage it. Boil-wash it, and leave it on a washing line for a couple of rainy/windy days.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 6:44 AM on September 17, 2008

Hg - Mercury - Hoegaarden
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 4:32 PM on September 16, 2008

Zinc (Zn) boils at Kronenbourg 1664degF. Or is that pushing things too far?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 4:16 AM on September 17, 2008

Tim Collins
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 8:54 AM on September 16, 2008

Does anyone know why expertexchange hasn't been blackholed by google yet? It seems like such an obvious candidate for blackholing.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 7:39 AM on September 15, 2008

Jesus, that's a messy interface. Each post has Votes, Answers, Views, Title, Tags (which are replicated in the side-bar and is therefore superfluous), Last Update Time (I assume - it might be Post Time, it's not labelled), Username (again, might be last posted or first posted), then some random number I have to mouse over to find out is "Reputation Score", Silver Badges and Gold Badges (WTF?). And that's for every post on the front page. I had no idea it would be that bad.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 9:02 AM on September 15, 2008

You're smart to reverse the interview and ask them some questions. Don't do too much though lest you come across as arrogant.

Gotta say, I think this is completely wrong - if the last guy I interviewed had taken control of the process and started selling himself and asking me probing questions, I would have been delighted - that's exactly the sort of person I want to be working alongside. God knows I gave him enough opportunities, but he just sat... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 1:19 PM on September 12, 2008

Did you know I'm feeding half my RSS feeds through Yahoo Pipes to remove posts with the word "chrome"? Enough, already.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 8:14 AM on September 11, 2008

Does Chrome do something that firefox doesn't do? What is it's great must-have feature?

Tabs sit in their own processes, so a dead tab doesn't take down the entire browser. Consequence of that is that it eats lots of memory. With Opera/Firefox's "restart with all your old tabs open" already in place, that doesn't seem like a great trade-off to me.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 8:26 AM on September 11, 2008

It looks to me like you have two problems - refactoring code to extract common components, and moving to a sane SVN/project layout. How you do that... well, it might make sense to start with the low-hanging fruit.

Lowest hanging fruit are brand-new projects. They go in the new repo. Simple.

Next come the 3rd party components that have made their way into your current repos. Extract them into their own playpens, use svn:externals to pull them back... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 2:12 PM on September 10, 2008

Try we make money not art. It's not quite what you're asking for, but I think you'll find interesting stuff there.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 5:22 AM on September 10, 2008

On #2, the LHC uses graphite blocks as beam dumps.

"Each beam dump absorber consists of a 7m long segmented carbon cylinder of 700mm diameter, contained in a steel cylinder, comprising the dump core (TDE). This is water cooled, and surrounded by about 750 tonnes of concrete and iron shielding."

The beam has to be played across the block to stop it vaporising the graphite - even dispersed, it raises the target area to 700degC. I think... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 4:21 AM on September 10, 2008

delmoi: I don't think it's a plan so much as an observation.

I have a throwaway address that begins with an underscore. I've used it all over the web for... must be getting on for ten years now. Usenet too. It receives a trivial amount of spam in comparison to my "real" addresses.

I suspect that the lists get scrubbed by poor regexes before they're resold.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 2:31 AM on September 4, 2008

Vanilla is forum software that doesn't look too much like phpBB. I haven't used it, though, and every time I look at the screenshots they look a bit more crufty.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 1:14 AM on September 3, 2008

AbnerDoon - they put that stuff on t he google.org domain, instead of google.com
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 5:29 AM on August 28, 2008

ActiveCollab isn't OSS. The open source fork is Project Pier. I don't think either are exactly what london302 is looking for, though
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 4:45 AM on August 28, 2008

Would you believe... I've done this? MeFi-mail me, and I'll see if I can help.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 8:46 AM on August 26, 2008

When you become a {{nurse|doctor|physiotherapist|dentist|whatever}}, you are explicitly giving up the right to withhold treatment. Your job is to provide medical services to other human beings, period. There is no negotiation, there is no wiggle room. Your job, and you know it before you go in, is to heal.

So a doctor shouldn't withhold treatment to hasten death in a terminal case? Terri's Law?

Or maybe you're going to tell... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 3:45 AM on August 24, 2008

But, you know, nice snark! Really, I give you a 9.2.

I just have this funny knee-jerk reaction against moral absolutism. I don't have all the answers, I certainly don't think anyone else does, so I think we need some give and take in the system to deal with corner cases as they arise.

To take an example from this thread, lets say there was a committed, Islamic female medical student, who wanted to study in Europe and then go... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 8:45 AM on August 24, 2008

And nothing is stopping you or anybody else from setting up a pharmacy in these areas to provide these things. No need to force others to follow your worldview.

Wait a sec. What about abortion clinic protesters?
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 3:13 PM on August 24, 2008

What about them? They can't stop you from opening a pharmacy to dispense abortion pills, and their protesting can't force you to follow their worldview.

You really don't see what will happen if you try to open the only pharmacy within 100 miles that dispenses RU486?
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 3:27 PM on August 24, 2008

True dat, well it still applies here, to both of you.

BrmP84: was that directed at me?
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 2:15 AM on August 25, 2008

0.01% of world population = 650,000 people.

How far apart can they be before we score a "hit"?

Lets say we're doing Day of the Triffids here - column of smoke by day, pillar of light by night. Then we can assume that, if you're in the same city, you'll find each other.

Population of New York = 19,300,000. 0.01% of 19,300,000 = 1930 people.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 10:22 AM on August 23, 2008

Sitemaps are supposed to be automatically generated off the database, really. What software are you using? Wordpress? Something like that?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 6:40 AM on August 23, 2008

"Could you blow my car over here?"

That would be a bit... socially unacceptable over here. Would you really get away with that in the US without someone calling the police?

(Not that I don't agree that the idea can be trivially worked around).
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 8:10 AM on August 19, 2008

Could the building have been the Fenice Opera House in Venice?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 10:07 AM on August 18, 2008

Beneficiary?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 4:10 PM on August 14, 2008

I'd dump the raw pics on the web somewhere, and re-use the card. Have you tried Google? If there isn't a found camera group on flickr, there should be...
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 4:21 AM on August 14, 2008

Did you have a chance to download any of the pictures off the card before you lost it? You can post a picture of Mr Lioness and you and ask if anyone's found the memory card with that picture.

Playing in this and my original "I'd publish them" thought, there are companies that will search the web for copyright-infringing photographs. I'm now clutching at (expensive) straws, though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 9:56 AM on August 14, 2008

SteveInMaine: His Callsign. Not saying it's true, but the name, address and hobby match.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 9:44 AM on August 14, 2008

Headphones on a bike? That sounds even more dangerous that headphones in a car.

I wonder what would happen if you added a touch of compression then mixed in some white noise in the background. That should really isolate you from your environment!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 4:14 AM on August 14, 2008

Third, the size of your customer base depends on the popularity of second life, and the economic means of users. The active spending population may decline due to boredom, the emergence of a competitor, or technical problems.

Content (skins etc) can be ported. Just sayin'. And conversion tools, in themselves, would be a money-making opportunity..
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 4:52 AM on August 13, 2008

If the coasters were important to the 4-year-old, I think you should gently suggest to your wife that she get over herself, and make a big show of unwrapping this present for her daughter's sake.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 8:55 AM on August 11, 2008 marked best answer

nasreddin: if you have some knowledge of the situation, it would be nice if you let the rest of us in on it.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 8:34 AM on August 8, 2008

And it's my birthday. Maybe I'll buy a lottery ticket.

There's a British Royal family minor child that was born on 8/8/88, too.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 1:33 PM on August 7, 2008

So in Britain you're considered a minor until at least 20 years old, then?

Charles is 59 and they still won't let him have a job.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 9:55 PM on August 7, 2008

Assuming whatever you guys are using is triggering on the eval() at the end of the page, it's just "window.status='Done';document.write('')" encoded. Weird, but not apparently harmful. I don't see anything deeper in the frameset, either.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 2:42 AM on August 7, 2008

Google "minibeasts" - it's the magic keyword for "learning about insects" in the UK's national curriculum. Caterpillars, stick insects, snails, tadpoles, feeder goldfish.

Environments for flying insects are simple - mesh cylinders.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 8:52 AM on August 6, 2008

I guess your problem is that the you're looking for discussion. On any given day the number of people who have just finished Moby Dick and are bursting to talk about it is going to be fairly small.

Maybe you're looking for an online book-club? This month we're going to read X? I don't know where you'd find one, but if you could get 20 or 30 people to commit, it would be fairly simple to set up (just some forum software and a schedule, really).
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 5:03 AM on August 5, 2008

I tihnk you might be looking for cognitive science. Douglas Hofstadter, maybe.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 9:45 AM on August 1, 2008

equilibrium. damn.
posted to MetaFilter by Leon at 12:05 PM on July 26, 2008