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 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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

The load's trivial, but mass emails can be tricky - they're likely to get tagged as spam.

Is there any way you can push people towards an RSS feed of the same information? Offering both services will help lighten the load on the email service.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 3:47 PM on July 21, 2008

Build it, run it. If you get problems, shift from mail() to another method. If you're worried, mail support at your host, let them know you want a PHP script to send 500 emails, and ask them if that will trigger any alarm bells at their end. I think you'll be fine.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 1:14 AM on July 22, 2008

Sturgeon grow big, can live in fresh water, and look kinda alien, so I'm going to use them as the starting point for some estimates. I've just done some clicking around, and found that sturgeon can eat 2-3% of their bodyweight per day. I'm going to assume we can drop that to, say, 1% in very cold water.

Anyone care to take a stab at the Minimum viable population for such a fish? I'm going to go for 750, and an average weight of, say, 100kg.

That... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 7:39 AM on July 21, 2008

Some more random guessing with numbers. The surface area of the lake is 490km^2. Lets say that a hypothetical population of bottom-feeding fish live in the deepest half, giving them a range of 245km^2. If the 750kg figure is reasonable, each square kilometre of lake bottom would have to produce 1120kg of food per year. That seems to be on the high end of feasible to me, but then I don't know much about lake bottoms.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 8:58 AM on July 21, 2008

Hate to say this, but for novices, select some white stilton with fruit embedded. Eg while stilton and apricot. It's the cheese equivalent of Budweiser, but it'll do.

Add a couple of types of fairly plain cracker, and, as SansPoint suggests, fruit. Especially grapes.

(Personally, I like Stilton and Roquefort. Many people don't like blue cheeses, but you should have at least one.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 7:24 PM on July 19, 2008

You can also set up a Yahoo Pipe to do filtering on keyword. I block cities and countries I've no interest in, as they arise. A couple of weeks, and you've nailed all the common ones.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 7:41 AM on July 18, 2008

Kipling. The Man Who Would Be King.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 3:58 AM on July 18, 2008

I'm most concerned with how/if it lowers my desire to go out there and meet real women. Porn is damned convenient, whereas dating is a lot of hard work.

Internet port is like having a crack dealer in your living room. I'm sure I read that somewhere, once.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 2:12 AM on July 18, 2008

Ok, this is gonna come out as very harsh, and it's not meant to, as your heart is obviously in the right place. But bear with me, because i know of what I speak.

Under the assumption of gaining a fourth partner, he/she would receive compensation, as the rest of us would --- after the applications are launched and sold.

I'm a mobile developer, more-or-less, and that sounds to me something like "Hey, why don't you do all... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 12:48 PM on July 16, 2008

provide an app for free is to have an advertiser sponsor the app. That sponsorship doesn't happen on its own. It has to be sold. And that's where someone like myself comes in.

Bootstrap it. Sell the advertising space before you have an application ("This [shows web mock-up] will be ready in n months. Interested?"). Then you can use the agreement with the advertiser as "collateral" (for want of a better term) to raise capital to... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 1:59 PM on July 16, 2008 marked best answer

Leon's next post is a good idea too

Jeez. I'm starting to think I should do this for a living. Any business types out there want to partner with an experienced developer? ;)

drkrdglo: you'll encounter a lot of naysaying. Don't ignore it, overcome it. For every negative we can throw at you, figure out a comprehensive answer - if you can't, there's a hole in your business plan. For example, if I say "it's hard to get apps... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 3:22 PM on July 16, 2008 marked best answer

The ratio of "content" to "noise" (tags javascript etc) can have an effect, apparently. I doubt removing a couple of dashes is going to make more than a tiny difference, though.

SEO is black magic when you get down to this level. The real question is "will removing the symbols improve the site for visitors?". IMO, the answer's yes. SEO's just a convenient justification. If you speak in an authoritative voice, and say "Removing these... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 8:19 AM on July 16, 2008

Gotta tell you, the site design/coding aspect of it pales in comparison to the SEO/marketing side. Like bristolcat, I think you might be best-off looking for a managed service that you can point a domain name to. I don't have a recommendation; but I spent far too much time tweaking an e-commerce application when I should have been concentrating on SEO.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 6:01 AM on July 16, 2008

(misread bristolcat's suggestion - sorry about that).
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 6:02 AM on July 16, 2008

Narrow topics are great. If I were you, I'd start with a password-protected wiki, and worry about letting others edit once I had a decent amount of text in it. I'd be surprised if there weren't a few wiki platforms out there that had a "all changes must be approved by an admin" option.

Once you're at least part-way there, please post to Projects - we love narrow topics around here.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 6:18 AM on July 15, 2008

The problem is that when you start making big changes to geological time, it's hard to build a counterfactual where humans still turn up.

I think "no New World" is a fairly common one (Terry Pratchett's Strata springs to mind, but it doesn't really fit your question). Maybe some of the "what could the dinosaurs have evolved into?" stuff?

This might be of interest. It has maps. This partial article seems to be going in the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 6:05 AM on July 14, 2008

Ooh. Sort by divergence. Neat.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 8:05 AM on July 14, 2008 marked best answer

(after googling). Madeline Iris?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 7:01 AM on July 14, 2008 marked best answer

""drowning man" covers u2" for the record. Hope you find an answer, there's nothing out else out there under that name, which I find odd.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 7:14 AM on July 14, 2008

Thr opposite sometimes happens (speaking of the UK market here). The agent convinces the seller to accept a lower offer, and the buyer rewards the agent with a bribe.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 3:49 PM on July 11, 2008

Sounds like PKD to me, or maybe someone writing in his style (think Pohl maybe did that at some point... hm. Off to search. Race you, Jedi :)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 3:05 PM on July 4, 2008

Animal's hurting. Report.

I'd do it for a cat. And I hate cats.

(Your writing is weird. I think I'm infected.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 3:01 PM on July 4, 2008

Not an expert, but that sounds like a sick dog who's trying to eat grass to me.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 8:06 AM on July 4, 2008

To piggyback... what's GoodReads got over LibraryThing?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Leon at 6:58 AM on July 3, 2008