My wife and I are on the tail end of a month of visitors who came to help with the baby.

The baseline for helpfulness is to make your life simpler, not more complicated.

Given what you've described I would tell your family you want some alone time with the new baby, and then from there set aside blocks of time for each of the sets of family to come. It will be VERY helpful to have people around who can help look after you while you look after... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 7:49 AM on July 22, 2008

I used to have the same trouble, and I found a rotation of shoes helped a lot, but I am also pretty sure I was hastening the disintegration by using a lot of foot powder - You don't happen to sprinkle any salycylic-acid based stuff in there?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 1:24 PM on July 14, 2008

Broadcast quality means different things to different people. Many of the "prosumer" cameras don't qualify on paper. Depends on what you want to do with it.

also, it's "pony up."
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 11:14 PM on July 11, 2008

Which computer do you have? Almost all Macs I know of have an actual line in that you can use with a cheapo wired mic (like those built for audio chat), and many have actual built in microphones. I have recorded directly into the line-in ports with pretty solid results, despite what you'll read online about needing a USB or firewire interface.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 11:02 AM on July 9, 2008

Cheap powered computer speakers plus omnifi dmp1. You can find the latter used on eBay and they have been spotted at Tuesday Morning for $5. You will need to be running a uPnP server somewhere though. It comes with a version of SimpleServer which works ok, or you can try fuppes or mediatomb.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 12:52 PM on July 1, 2008

Oops - DMS1. The other one is for your car.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 12:53 PM on July 1, 2008

Depending on what kind of buzzing, I would say you have tinnitus and you don't notice it until you block out external sound.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 2:51 AM on June 23, 2008

I also put some garlic in the ground recently, and my research has lead me to believe you can trim the tops for eating as long as you leave most of it intact (75% was the number I saw). Also, I would not just leave the garlic in the ground through until next year - If it forms a head at all this year, you'll have a whole mess of small heads clustered together. If it never differentiates into cloves, however, you should have one big head out of it next year. But you can pull it out of the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 6:49 AM on June 12, 2008 marked best answer

I have ordered from here and here. Sizing advice on both sites was accurate.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 7:24 AM on June 10, 2008 marked best answer

I have a similar background, but nowhere near the depth that you do. By perusing php.net, I went from zero to incorporating a variety of php xml-parsing utilities into a couple of web sites. It only took a a number of hours. I would just set aside a week and try to whip up some web site app you have been thinking about.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 7:07 AM on June 10, 2008

The way you know to fix it is the correct way. It's twisted pair, not twisted mess of bare wire ends and electrician's tape. With all due respect to Fuzzy. You could even take the opportunity to put a biscuit block there!
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 7:00 AM on June 10, 2008 marked best answer

This used to happen to me with a girlfriend (I'm a dude). It is weird thing to say to people who are romantically involved, but you may be overthinking the homophobic connotation.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 9:57 PM on June 4, 2008

I use slightly soured wine in pasta sauce all the time. Not usually more than a week or two after I have opened it though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 9:19 AM on June 1, 2008

No.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 3:30 PM on May 11, 2008

Seconding "Imperial San Francisco" - worth seeking out, though it appears to be out of print.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 8:02 AM on May 6, 2008

It was very popular in my junior high school in Washington DC in the late 80's during gym class and recess. One person would flip first and if the other person matched the first flip in their own toss, they got to keep both coins (or bus tokens). There was a lot of discussion as to which was the favorable position.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 4:48 PM on May 3, 2008

I am also trying to figure what to put in the ground that I can later eat, but the whole dirt quality thing takes me aback a little. Is there any way to figure out if its safe through testing?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 11:18 AM on April 27, 2008

Don't forget property taxes and the cost of selling the house down the road. Income tax savings depend on your income level and how much you can write off already.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 10:01 AM on April 20, 2008

In that calculator make sure to add your base tax rate in the general advanced settings. Though the whole thing is a guessing game - Where you believe the housing market is going during the time you own the house is the main thing, next to the actual cost of the home.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 10:07 AM on April 20, 2008

The Los Angeles Conservancy runs walking tours downtown that are ten bucks a head and generally really interesting, especially if the weather is good - Oh hey, it's LA, so that's a given! Lunch at Phillipe's or Langer's would be nearby if you're downtown when they're open. You could also head over to Union Station for a quick peak in, and see if there is a tour of the Disney Hall. The Central Library is another neat building (though doesn't take too much time to soak in).... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 5:25 PM on April 19, 2008

Thirding righty tighty, lefty loosey. Be careful not to do what I did and break the plumbing in the wall getting an old showerhead off! Depending on where you live, the showerhead may have a water-saving device in it. Take that out!
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 9:40 PM on April 16, 2008 marked best answer

I have seen them at IKEA, though as noted, size varies.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 6:51 AM on April 16, 2008

I was aware of macports but has it really replaced fink? I thought they were sort of concurrent, but I may be wrong...
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 3:25 PM on April 14, 2008

I think you have a few words missing or in the wrong place and you might not be correct that you are not required to show your receipt in certain retail situations.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 7:36 PM on April 12, 2008

Broadcast quality means different things to different people. If you want to be able to have a piece run in an HD news program, you would need HD. In general, that's prohibitively large to provide via download. Some stations don't consider DV (miniDV and DVCAM included) to be broadcast quality, even though is it arguably a better standard-def format than BetaSP.

You also are probably overthinking the idea that if you make it easy to use it will be more likely to get... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 2:03 PM on April 9, 2008

Wordpress certainly can be used for things other than blogs, but that's the basic functionality it was designed to provide. You might get some useful advice by linking to examples of of websites you think you want to emulate.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 5:40 PM on April 8, 2008

If you have no interest in a blog on any part of the web site, uninstall Wordpress and start with the "free drag and drop site builder" advertised on Bluehost's homepage.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 5:51 PM on April 8, 2008

Quonsar
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 8:57 AM on March 26, 2008

I believe reventlov gets me what I am after with the least fuss... Paradoxically, the GUI's of all the tools I have tried (including dvd::rip, acidrip, and k9copy - I have not tried k3b as the description in the add/remove tool does not even mention dvds!) have only confused me.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 8:28 PM on March 24, 2008

Bad batch of media?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 9:08 PM on March 19, 2008 marked best answer

what drezdn said. Brockles is sort of making up things up that presumably align with his negative opinion of the current US administration, but are not particularly true.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 7:53 AM on March 18, 2008

Danelectros are said to be very noisy. Not in a good way, humming and hiss.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 9:24 PM on March 17, 2008

Try Quikbook - I got a room at the Park South relatively last minute for less than $200/night. There are cheaper places too - This one was very tight quarters, but very nice overall, with many boutiquey touches.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 9:59 PM on March 2, 2008

I have run both DamnSmallLinux and VectorLinux on a laptop with half that much memory, though I would hate to have that be my everyday computer.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 8:51 AM on February 21, 2008

I usually advise eating when 90% of AskMe advises chucking. Do not eat the rotten-egg pork.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 5:02 PM on February 14, 2008

I don't think that is conventionally defined. You could find the slope of the projection of that line onto an arbitrary plane, or more meaningfully you could find the slopes of the 3 projections onto the planes defined by the x, y, and z axes. Been a while since I did math in a classroom, though. It might be more interesting to generally find the function that defines a line, given any two points on it. It will be of the form z=ax+by, I would guess.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 6:08 PM on February 8, 2008

There is a red-tinted contact lens that you wear in one eye only that makes the differences between colors more stark. It doesn't work if you have severe enough color-blindness. There was also a regular lens being marketed that was supposed to do some kind of active thing to boost the intensity of reds, but I have never seen it come to market in the US.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 4:25 PM on February 7, 2008 marked best answer

Hop Li on Pico is pretty good. Stick with the daily specials and the chef's specialties. Seafood is generally good there, especially whole fish, shrimp, and crab dishes.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 5:03 PM on February 4, 2008

For food suggestions, check out lthforum.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 6:23 AM on January 29, 2008

I believe you ought to be able to make sure the router always hands out the same ip address to the hosts, and then add entries to the hosts file on each of your machines on the lan.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 7:53 AM on January 26, 2008

There is an article in a recent New Yorker that touches on this on page 6, but I don't know if that will get you much closer...
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 7:03 AM on January 14, 2008

Washington DC
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 10:27 PM on January 4, 2008

Why don't you search completed auctions for the items you are interested in to see what the average winning bid is? The starting price has no correlation to the ending price, except it's usually lower. Wholesale price and opening bid have even less relationship. Sorry I don't have any suggestions for how to get things cheaper, though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 7:24 AM on December 28, 2007

I'll go ahead and say I was very happy to have gotten an ocean view condo when I had my honeymoon in Kauai. We would make breakfast and sit on our balcony. We didn't see any other people unless they were walking by the beach...
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 2:31 PM on December 5, 2007

I like Etta's as well.

Matt's in the Market at Pike Place is not cheap, but oh so delicious.

Also at Pike Place: Down and dirty fried seafood and various steamed bivalves of all stripes at Emmett Watson's Oyster Bar.

If you are willing to stand outside for a little while, you could hoof it on over to Salumi for some great sandwiches and bring your parents a salami. The wait is usually formidable, however.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 4:16 PM on December 4, 2007

Please ask your doctor.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 7:52 AM on December 4, 2007

If you can get access to Disk Warrior, that would definitely be my next step. I have a problem drive that freqently gets hosed up and only DW can get it to mount. Then it is fine for a while.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 6:44 PM on December 3, 2007

They take a while to load because there is a lot to load on those pages. Streaming video is just like a text web page - When enough video has been downloaded to start watching it, it starts playing. Just as you see the top of those text pages while the bottom is loading, you watch the beginning of the streaming video while the end is still loading.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 3:22 PM on November 25, 2007

(also some pages are being generated on the fly, so there is no reason to think that serving "only" text is somehow always easier than streaming video. Not to mention that sites that serve video are engineered to serve video, so they may actually be able to serve much larger files faster than other servers can serve text.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 3:24 PM on November 25, 2007

Don't contradict the officers unless you have incontrovertible proof they are incorrect. You don't understand why the officers don't see it your way? Neither will the judge, and the judge will assume you are lying.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mzurer at 11:28 AM on November 25, 2007