Displaying post 1 to 50 of 392
Just wanted to drop a quick note to let everyone know I'm leaving Metafilter, and wish you all the best.
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike
at 10:37 AM on July 23, 2011
(86 comments)
A website I came across recommended paying half your minimum payment on a credit card every two weeks (instead of one monthly payment) in order to reduce your average daily balance. Does this work, and what kind of savings would this yield?
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 12:13 PM on July 10, 2011
(11 comments)
Didn't see this in the FAQ: is there an online venue where one can chat live with fellow Mefites? I know there's nothing official sponsored by the site, but what's the most popular of any home-brewed solutions?
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike
at 10:49 AM on July 3, 2011
(37 comments)
Excel question (debt management/budgeting): what formula gets me the first instance of something in a row, and then how I can pull the date from the top of that column? More inside.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 4:32 AM on June 23, 2011
(8 comments)
Take less than a minute out of your life to listen to
Christina Aguilera in the original Klingon, and in the process learn why you should knock before entering on the starship
Enterprise.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 5:49 PM on June 9, 2011
(20 comments)
"Sixteen Tons of Work" –
MP3 by
mastgrr;
music video by
HalfMastHat. Bringing new meaning to "old school" by combining
originals: Tennessee Ernie Ford with
Gang Starr.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 8:02 PM on May 29, 2011
(21 comments)
When I read Cory Doctorow's "
I, Row-Boat", a character (Olivaw) says that human beings "have to be born half-gestated because its head would be so big if it waited for a full term, it would tear its mother in half." I had not heard of this viewpoint before, and am wondering where Doctorow heard of this idea. I tried sending him an e-mail, but received no response.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 8:57 AM on May 1, 2011
(10 comments)
I'm looking for two free Windows applications: a full-screen randomized slideshow, and a random file opener. Slightly more detail inside the fold.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 2:45 PM on April 15, 2011
(4 comments)
MetaFilter IRL's "+googleCal" links -- as well as the
Add to Google Calendar keyword detailed in this article -- have stopped working on my machine in all browsers, but seemingly just for me.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 5:00 PM on March 20, 2011
My understanding is that keratosis pilaris essentially is keratin plugs of my hair follicles. Were I to treat my keratosis pilaris with one of the various suggested treatments, would hair grow from the unplugged follicles?
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 10:01 PM on March 6, 2011
(5 comments)
Pony Request: Adding Health Month to the external profiles one can add to their profile.
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike
at 9:23 AM on March 5, 2011
(6 comments)
Without necessarily agreeing with the beliefs the character espouses, Steve Ditko's
Mr. A seems like a very interesting read. Are there ways by which I could read the stories, either online or in print?
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 10:07 AM on February 26, 2011
(5 comments)
This may be so simple as to be a waste of a question, but help me out: I have a bunch of dress shirts that are traditionally hung up, but due to a (favorable) change in my dress code at work, I’d like to take them down and put them away to free up some closet space. I seem to remember there being some sort of framework/insert that you could buy and insert into such shirts that would help them keep their shape better or not get permanently irrevocably wrinkled. Any idea what these things are called and where I could buy them online?
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 3:11 PM on February 17, 2011
(7 comments)
What inhabited place in America has the biggest temperature differential? On Earth?
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 7:51 PM on February 9, 2011
(19 comments)
LL Cool J v. The Prodigy: Momma Said Kick Ass," a mashup by
DJ Top Cat of LL Cool J's "Mamma Said Knock You Out" and from
Kick Ass, The Prodigy's "
Stand Up", which itself heavily samples from the trumpet melody line of Manfred Mann's "
One Way Glass."
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 1:18 PM on January 30, 2011
(34 comments)
A Day in the Future. "I don’t live in Philadelphia, but my friend has a machine that lets us see what’s happening there. I have one too. Almost everyone does. The sun won’t rise for another hour, but I don’t need to light a fire or candles. I have artificial ones, mounted on the ceiling. Hit a tiny switch and I can see everything, any time of day."
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 7:34 PM on January 12, 2011
(78 comments)
I have, to aid in not permitting myself to stay up too late, set Windows 7's Task Scheduler to automatically hibernate at a certain time in the evening that varies according to weekday. However, if I manually hibernate the system beforehand (
i.e., go to sleep earlier than the deadline), when I wake it the next morning, it hibernates shortly thereafter. However, importantly, I do
not have the "Run task as soon as a scheduled start is missed" checkbox turned on. I've seen
this, but Richard's suggestion of only letting the task run after a certain idle period – I don't think it'd be suitable as I don't want activity (either mine or the computer's) to be able to push things past the deadline. Any ideas as to what I can do?
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 5:32 AM on January 5, 2011
(10 comments)
With
mattdidthat's permission (and with mathowie's kind hosting), I wanted to share the Metafilter
user ID card — and,
especially, the insane and utter brilliance of the included
old-comic-ads-style insert — both of which mattdidthat provides free of charge to people who donate to any one of a handful of organizations which he lists
here.
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike
at 10:11 AM on December 29, 2010
(36 comments)
Does anyone know of a somewhat minimalist Windows program (or perhaps even a website) that would let me merely type a Facebook status update with little distraction on the screen aside from a countdown of characters left -- a sort of WriteRoom or Q10 for updates, although it doesn't necessarily need to hide menu bars and taskbars and so on? Ideally an application I could bring up by clicking on a system tray update. I'm uninterested in Facebook notifications. Basically, I'm just looking for something that would let me quickly update my status with little visual distraction and then move on to whatever else I was doing at the time.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 10:06 AM on December 11, 2010
(20 comments)
As far as I can tell, there's three factors at play with deleted posts – moderator opinion, initial crowd opinion (comments), and initial crowd opinion (flagging). And I'm kind of seeking to understand how it interplays,
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike
at 10:38 PM on September 24, 2010
(29 comments)
If there is ever one song that you should not listen under the influence of hallucinogens or other mind-altering substances, it would be "
Pizza Song," quite possibly one of the creepiest-sounding tracks in existence.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 9:05 PM on September 24, 2010
(55 comments)
The Barenaked Ladies perform their perennial favorite "If I Had $1000000" (originally composed as
a call-and-response when they were camp counselors) – but
this time, things get weeeeeeeeeeeeeird (slyt).
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 7:26 PM on September 17, 2010
(101 comments)
Matt, I just wanted you to know that
the Dawson's Creek version of you (analogy source) has been guest starring in recent episodes of SyFy's "Warehouse 13." Unless it's just me. But the character can spout technobabble at the drop of a hat, and the way they've got the character costumed has been reminding me of those photos I've seen of mathowie.
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike
at 7:10 PM on September 9, 2010
(37 comments)
Earlier this summer, a little-known '80s singer named R.P. Astley, responsible for a few blips on the radar such as "
Eternally Conjoined" and "
Under No Circumstances Will I Ever Release You"
(the latter of which created a brief meme in which one would "PaulTumble" one's friends by pretending to point them to the video, but instead sending them to something quite interesting and novel instead) has released
*fist clench, drawing-in gesture aimed at camera* a new track, "
Lights Out," his first new song in 17 years
*hand gesture at camera*.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 6:42 PM on September 9, 2010
(89 comments)
Pickle Surprise (SLYT).
More videos from the same artist. For when you haven't had your daily recommended dosage of Vitamin
WTF?.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 7:45 PM on August 26, 2010
(22 comments)
Is there a way to get Firefox to use Google Calendar as its default handler for webcal links?
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 9:42 AM on August 21, 2010
(1 comment)
I
agree with Artw – Jessamyn, I respectfully opine
this was a bad call.
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike
at 5:22 AM on August 16, 2010
(210 comments)
Descwibe what Mawcewwus Wawwus wooks wike (SLYT).
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 6:48 PM on August 8, 2010
(31 comments)
A 136-person Senate. A 1,000-strong House. A 12-person Supreme Court. A President with a line-item veto whose one term is six years. Mandatory national service. A balanced budget requirement. Some of the
23 measures that Prof. Larry Sabato proposes be enacted at a Second Constitutional Convention in his 2007 book
A More Perfect Constitution. (And
readers' suggestions for the 24th measure.)
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 6:44 PM on August 7, 2010
(105 comments)
DJ/musician
Mr. Fab and RIAA (no, not
them) have released
USA, a four-hour-long mix album with 335 different sources, many of them fairly unusual and most of them previously unused. It's ... fairly brilliant.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 2:39 PM on August 1, 2010
(16 comments)
I'm seeking to write a shell script (probably using sed) that will be given some text and will abbreviate it for me. I've no need to reinvent the wheel, if such a shell script already exists. More inside.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 8:37 AM on July 26, 2010
(6 comments)
Yet Another YouTube Script, by
eugenox. Unlike nearly every other predecessing YouTube userscripts that erratically worked or broke with site revisions, this userscript interfaces with the
YouTube Player API to globally control autoplay and playback quality to stop the repeated web annoyance of YouTube autoplay. (It also lets you pick a lower or higher quality video as your default.)
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 7:44 PM on July 18, 2010
(8 comments)
"
Knock Out Eileen," a rather cool mash-up by
Thriftshop XL of "Come On Eileen" (Dexy's Midnight Runners) and "Mama Said Knock You Out" (LL Cool J).
(slyt)
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 7:22 PM on July 17, 2010
(47 comments)
David Collier has discovered a
pleasant trick (requiring
Firefox and
AdBlock Plus) that brings the mighty Facebook Connect empire to its knees.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 7:06 PM on July 13, 2010
(97 comments)
The music video to "
Boom! Shake the Room," by D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (SLYT).
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 2:11 PM on July 12, 2010
(44 comments)
io9 decided that
Firefly needed a "tight-ass killer 1980s intro." So they cut one together:
the article, or just
the intro itself.
A fan's end-credits, even with a nice slight soupçon of
MTM at the end.
Firefly fans might find it more interesting, though, that io9
noted a little later in the day that Nathan Fillion had
tweeted on Wednesday night a
picture of Joss Whedon, Alan Tudyk, Nathan Fillion, and Adam Baldwin all looking upward into a bright light, with the text "Together. Again." But ...
no, it doesn't mean
that, unfortunately. [Still, if you need your Simon or Kaylee fix, look to
Warehouse 13 next Tuesday, as Maher and Staite are guest-starring together in "Mild-Mannered" (
trailer).]
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 7:35 AM on July 9, 2010
(213 comments)
Greetings from the Twine Ball, wish you were here: "But you can't see out of the side of the car, because the windows are completely covered with the decals of all the places where we've already been: there's
Elvis-O-Rama, the
Tupperware Museum, the
Boll Weevil Monument, and
Cranberry World, the
Shuffleboard Hall Of Fame,
Poodle Dog Rock, and the
Mecca of Albino Squirrels. We've been to ghost towns, theme parks, wax museums, and
a place where you can drive through the middle of a tree ... "
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 7:30 AM on July 8, 2010
(41 comments)
"His fiancee smiled and commented, 'Isn't that cute. They have the spirit of giving.' That really set me off, as my regular readers can imagine. 'No!' I exclaimed [...] 'They're giving away their parents' things [...] It's not theirs to give.' I pushed the button to roll down the window and stuck my head out to set them straight. '
You must charge something for the lemonade.'"
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 7:19 AM on July 7, 2010
(124 comments)
Google makes Picasa, YouTube, Blogger, and Google Documents, Calendar, and Contacts available to command-line geeks with
GoogleCL, a new, official command-line tool. How to install:
Mac OS X,
Windows,
elsewhere.
Google's examples of what you can do; Lifehacker's "
five nifty GoogleCL tricks."
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 12:42 PM on June 29, 2010
(26 comments)
Funny, apocalyptic cultural-mashup stories circulated as text files from the hoary days of the Internet's early-'90s adolescence:
A Peanuts Halloween II: Electric Boogaloo1 and
Apocalypse Now (Or in That General Time Area): A Different Twist on the Final Judgement of Mankind2, both by Gary Achenbach
(a/k/a Subgenius Rev. Gar Drastic);
Day of the Barney3 and
Son of Barney4 by Brian Bull; and
Star Wars: the Purple Sith5, by Ali Hadden.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 3:11 PM on June 25, 2010
(8 comments)
I can't get Unicode character 0CAO -- which is a part of
a popular emoticon-based meme -- to correctly display in Firefox, despite, as far as I can tell, having the necessary fonts installed on the system. A picture speaks a thousand words, so:
These are my Firefox font settings.
This is how
this page looks in Firefox.
This is how it looks in Safari.
This page suggested I needed Arial Unicode MS (which
appears to already be part of the Mac OS X operating system?). I also installed a Kannada font from
here. No go. Any ideas? It's not so much that I really love the meme; moreso that I really detest seeing those Unicode boxes pop up everywhere on God's green Earth when the character fails to display in Firefox.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike
at 10:19 AM on June 23, 2010
(4 comments)
50 Impressions in Two Minutes and
Classic Movie Lines (neither of which are precisely what you think), followed by acting master classes with
Kevin Spacey,
Ralph Fiennes,
Michael Caine,
Al Pacino,
Robert DeNiro, and, last but certainly not least,
Marlon Brando. All by
Peter Serafinowicz, who you may know as
Spaced's Duane Benzie or
Shaun of the Dead's Pete.
(Thanks, iridic!)
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 5:32 PM on June 17, 2010
(26 comments)
Boom.
Boom.
Acka-
lacka-lacka-
goom.
Boom.
boom.
Acka-
lacka-
BOOM-
boom.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 8:09 PM on June 11, 2010
(44 comments)
You've heard cortex's quirky song stylings, before, but
now it looks like he's getting some competition from a fellow admin. (
Relevant Google Maps link.) Now all we need is for mathowie and vacapinta to do a duet on "I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Moderator" and we're covered!
posted to MetaTalk by WCityMike
at 8:07 PM on June 10, 2010
(99 comments)
Subnormality:
A Saturday Evening in the Future, or Stairs.
(Previously.)
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 11:12 PM on June 6, 2010
(13 comments)
There will be
a 12-14 minute epilogue on the
Lost complete series collection that will reveal a little bit of two characters being a "great number one" and "great number two". Also, a round-up of some amazing post-
Lost finale observations from around the Web, beginning with
a Bad Robot intern's pontifications on the finale and the meaning of the series. More inside ...
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 1:09 PM on May 27, 2010
(122 comments)
Diaspora: open-source Facebook.
posted to MetaFilter by WCityMike
at 7:01 PM on May 12, 2010
(145 comments)
