Let's do a little choose your own adventure, shall we?

Are you prepared to invest a lot of time and money into this?

If yes, turn to page 2.
If no, turn to page 1.

Page 1

Previous Ask MeFi answers to questions like this try to dissuade you from digitizing all of this, buying a series of 300 or 400-disc DVD changers and calling it a day. I believe Sony ones let you daisy chain them... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 4:22 AM on July 21, 2008 marked best answer

Oh, and obviously if you have multiple TV's/projectors, you'll need multiple players (HTPC, xbox, popcorn hours, apple tvs).
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 4:24 AM on July 21, 2008

I had an expired license at LAX last year and they just made me go through the secondary screening. On the plus side, I got to skip the long line for security and go straight to the front. It made me want to keep my expired license solely for flying.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 9:22 AM on July 1, 2008 marked best answer

Don't just smoke pot and hash, also get some shrooms and peyote at the various smart shops. Then, proceed to wander around. I stumbled upon a giant chessboard and a coffee shop with a tree growing in it. At least, I think there was a tree growing in it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 8:54 PM on June 27, 2008

Couldn't you just tag the item "toread"?
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 10:33 PM on June 20, 2008

I've lived in the Czech Republic, Thailand, and am currently living in Laos. These are good countries to try to stretch your dollar, although one tip I would recommend is renting by the month. A room in Prague for a month will be considerably cheaper and nicer than renting hotel rooms/hostels for 30 days. When I was in Thailand, my girlfriend and I rented a 3-bedroom house for about $175 a month.

If you stick to the local food where you are, it'll be far, far cheaper... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 4:31 AM on June 15, 2008

Canon SD1000, buy it on Amazon. It's cheap and it takes good pictures.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 4:10 AM on June 15, 2008

If you end up buying fake DVD's, these will play in U.S. DVD players because they're region-free.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 11:37 PM on June 6, 2008

When I have no connectivity, I used this "Host Only" feature you guys are referring to, but I do want my virtual machine to be on my main network still when I'm at home, for example, if I want to access shared network drives from my virtual machine. It's good to know that you can set it up such that it still has internet access though, I thought it was isolated when it was in that mode. Any other ideas?
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 9:51 AM on June 5, 2008

meta: How does the NAT mode work? It says, "Used to share the Host's IP address", how would I connect to that virtual server then from my host machine? Or are you referring to the "Host Only" mode that Good Brain talks about (and that I referred to as "private network" in my original question). Thanks!
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 9:54 AM on June 5, 2008

Thanks for your help guys, I just added a second Ethernet interface for a host-only and set it to static instead of DHCP and it looks like it's still connected to the Internet.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 12:25 AM on June 6, 2008

Seconding Rackspace, you can defer almost all problems to their excellent tech support, so you won't have to bog down your own people for that. It is rather expensive though - some clients may balk at the price but like the previous poster said, these are not clients you want to have. These are the clients that call you up at 2 AM because they accidently deleted public_html with their ftp client.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 1:42 PM on June 5, 2008

If said site is Youtube you could use Greasemonkey to start the player since it now has a javascript API. If not, maybe a sample link and I can try to help you?
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 10:22 PM on June 2, 2008

One trick I used during finals week was to have my roommate set a BIOS password on my computer and not tell it to me.

My advice is to learn some web development languages, I taught myself PHP during college and the real world experience that I gained from creating personal projects did more for my career than anything I learned in 4+ years of computer science classes.

Also, this may or may not apply to you, but a significant amount of my peers... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 11:09 AM on June 2, 2008

Wario Ware is an amazing game if you're into that sort of thing, and I've been playing Mario Kart obsessively all week. There is no co-op Grand Prix but you can set it to do "in series" for the 2 player mode which means you can technically play all 4 races in a cup, I'm not sure if that's much different than Grand Prix, although I guess you wouldn't unlock anything.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:26 PM on May 29, 2008

I have two pairs of Koss headphones, and for the price of shipping, they'll replace them, no questions asked. I've probably sent them in about 4 or 5 times, although this may be more of an indicator of the quality of them - the speakers like to break off the band.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 10:24 PM on May 23, 2008

One trick that sometimes works for me is placing the camera on a flat surface and setting a short self timer.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:26 AM on May 20, 2008

Tucker Max
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:19 PM on May 19, 2008

Oh, and the Comedy Goldmine section of the Something Awful Forum.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:23 PM on May 19, 2008

This is tricky, but I'll give it a shot:

When I lived in SF, I used a combination of Yelp, Upcoming, and a couple mailing lists like Laughing Squid and Flavorpill to keep me informed. Yelp was a really great resource for finding restaurants, my co-workers and I usually spent some time on there deciding where to go for lunch daily. Upcoming was more hit or miss, there's a lot of nerd stuff on there and depending on your music tastes there will be a lot of shows you want... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:05 PM on May 19, 2008 marked best answer

I've read that you don't even need active service on a cell phone to call 911, but perhaps someone else here can clarify that.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 3:55 AM on May 19, 2008

Maybe you should compare with co-working spaces, although those are for shared work environments. I think the small size of the room might be the tricky thing.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 9:19 AM on May 14, 2008

Have you tried calling Lacie and explaining the situation to them? I would say I've gotten about 50% ratio of the company just offering to mail me a missing part, other ones tried to either price gouge or make me RMA.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 12:05 PM on May 7, 2008

I think we played this a little differently at my junior high. Two people have quarters and one person gets to call. When you flip, they either call "match" or "mismatch", if they're correct, then they get both quarters. For three people, you all flip and odd man out wins, if they are all the same you flip again. Of course, one way to cheat the second game is to have a double-headed quarter and an accomplice has a double-tailed quarter. Then you can just go around the school... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 9:10 PM on May 3, 2008

If you really want to run Windows and Linux at the same time, I think you're better off running XP and running a virtual machine with your chosen Linux distribution. I tried to go the Vista route but eventually just gave up and switched back to XP.

Get a copy of VMWare Server, it's free.

The other great thing about this is you can test out a bunch of different Linux distributions without even having to reboot. I run Centos5 which is the free... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:04 AM on May 2, 2008

If you roll your own, go with the Antec MX-100, it's an awesome enclosure. I have two and an offbrand enclosure that was cheaper, the offbrand one is already dying.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:16 AM on April 30, 2008

Generation X by Douglas Coupland is frequently referred to as a modern Catcher in the Rye.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 5:59 AM on April 28, 2008

The Man from Earth, the acting is pretty terrible but the script is well written in my opinion. It's another one of those entire movie in a single room with people talking movies.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 5:02 AM on April 28, 2008

In PHP:

$startdate = mktime(0,0,0,2,26,2006);
$enddate = mktime(0,0,0,4,26,2008);

$daysbetween = floor(($enddate - $startdate) / (60 * 60 * 24));

$targetdate = $startdate + (rand(0,$daysbetween) * 60 * 60 * 24);

header("Location: http://blog.jason.hammond.net/blog/_archives/" . date("Y/n/j", $targetdate);

exit();

I didn't test it so your mileage may vary. Give it a shot?
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 9:38 AM on April 27, 2008

Yes, you should probably put this in a separate file. Wrap the code I wrote in <> and save it as something like random.php and upload it to your webserver. If your host doesn't support PHP, then you'll probably have to host it somewhere else or do it in JS, if I'm bored I might write that for you, mefi mail me.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:11 AM on April 28, 2008

One thing you can try is going to the IRC channels #ansi and #acid on EFNET and ask around. I have some ACiD contacts like RaD MaN because I used to do PCBoard mods for acidic back in the day, but nothing for ice. If you want those, let me know.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 11:07 AM on March 27, 2008

Install Adblock and hit List Blockable Elements. Select http://www.bugmenot.com/favicon.gif and clear your cache.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 6:35 AM on March 25, 2008 marked best answer

Two of my favorite books, The Teenage Textbook and the sequel, The Teenage Workbook, are written by Adrian Tan. They are both set in Singapore and are funny stories about relationships and college. The only problem is that they're difficult to find, you might want to try a used book search. They paint a pretty good picture of Singaporeans, I think.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 12:44 PM on March 22, 2008 marked best answer

Wow, thanks! I think it was actually this one, probably using that Big Text program.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 1:58 AM on March 21, 2008

Seconding a credit union for lower global ATM fees, the credit union I used would charge a flat $1.00 fee for any ATM. I also have a Wells Fargo account that waves their own ATM fees if I upgraded to a Premier account.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 1:52 PM on March 19, 2008

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but rsync =) Also, if you're using Windows machines, deltacopy.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 10:05 AM on March 19, 2008

Wear sweatpants!
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 12:55 PM on March 15, 2008

You can slipstream everything except the applications with nLite. If you're determined to not have to reinstall apps you should just make a Ghost image after you get your system the way you want it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 9:28 AM on March 15, 2008

Thanks, these are great tips, but I was hoping for some specific usernames as well.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 8:37 AM on March 12, 2008

Cygwin will get you a long way, but sometimes you need a full on linux server. The way I do this is run a Centos 5 image on VMWare Server, and then make a Samba share. Then you can use your Windows IDE's and TortoiseSVN but still test on a real linux server.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 12:50 AM on March 12, 2008

Some thoughts, although I haven't been for about two festivals:

The last one I was at they were denying some people from bringing in Camelbacks, but some people did get in with them, so YMMV with that. I remember Gatorade costing about $3 a pop and I went through at least $20 worth of those in one day. I doubt you'll be able to smuggle in actual water bottles.

I've camped and stayed at a really nice condo nearby, if you can go in with a bunch of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 8:15 AM on March 7, 2008

I lived on 18th and Capp, which is very close to 16th and Mission up till last year. There have been some shootings in that area, one outside my front door! I believe the Chronicle has a detailed map if things like that bother you. On the other hand, there's a lot of great restaurants and shops, you're relatively close to Dolores Park and the proximity to the BART is really nice. It's a fun place to go bar-hopping and then go to some breakfast places hungover the next day.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:59 AM on March 3, 2008

Not to derail but I think the Asus Eee PC is perfect for backpacking and costs about the same amount. Of course, it won't serve as a portable MP3 player, but it would be great for general web browsing and e-mails, and there are a lot of Internet cafes that don't have wireless but have wired connections.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:48 AM on March 3, 2008

I'm in Thailand right now and I second buying good sandals before you get here. I'd get a pair of zip-off travel shorts that become pants - this is useful for going into temples where you want to cover up out of respect.

Sunscreen seems to be abnormally expensive here, you'll probably want to bring that.

The general rule of thumb is limit yourself to things you absolutely HAVE to have, and then get rid of half of that.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 3:45 AM on February 27, 2008

If you send me your e-mail address through mefi mail, I'll send you a newzbin invite. I think it's worth the money, personally.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 10:38 AM on February 17, 2008

Play around with Dapper to get the data you want, and if you need to reformat it, you can use the RSS feed from that and work it into Yahoo Pipes.

Or, write a script to screen scrape it and parse it using regular expressions.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 10:31 AM on February 17, 2008

Type mortgage or home equity into google, and there should be an ad to the right where you can input your phone number for them to connect you.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 10:25 AM on February 17, 2008

I took some pictures when I went, you can analyze the crowd here. I wouldn't worry about it too much. The bar seemed to be a place where younger women could pick up older, umm, clients.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 12:38 AM on February 9, 2008

I saw a Clerks and Office Space double feature and it was awesome.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 2:16 PM on February 8, 2008

I use symfony for a lot of bigger projects, it might be overkill for small ones though. It has really good form validation routines and can automatically fill the form values back in by parsing the XHTML, in the case of an error. The documentation is thorough and well written. This page on forms might give you a good example.

If you'd rather roll your own, I've combined Smarty, a great templating engine with DB_Dataobject, a database abstraction library, and thats worked... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bertrandom at 1:36 PM on February 8, 2008