Amazing!

And from such vague clues too (a fantasy book with a wizard, well I never...)
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 9:54 AM on June 9, 2008

According to this

You can receive free NHS hospital treatment if you:-
...
-have come to the UK to work, either as an employee or self-employed person. This does not include people on short business trips
...

So NHS treatment is free for you. As to who to contact, in the NHS you usually register with a General Practitioner of your choice nearby, they would in turn refer you to a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 7:03 AM on March 19, 2008

Seconding having the clothes tailored locally, but I would work with your tailor to find the cloth, different fabrics work best for different types of clothes. A suit jacket is primarily made of wool and some of the world's best is made in the Britain from British wool.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 12:48 PM on February 27, 2008

Maybe a combination of small photovoltaic cells and batteries?
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 12:43 PM on February 23, 2008

Elites stop believing in the empire.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 12:59 PM on February 21, 2008

GCC countries (UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, etc.) are quite easy to immigrate to for Westerners (USA/European). Find an employer to be your "sponsor" and the rest is taken care of with very few questions asked.

For some questionable values of immigrate. You will never get citizenship of permanent residency (except if you buy land) in the UAE. Oman is much easier (I think three years residency) and I don't know about the others.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 11:54 PM on February 6, 2008

It's sort of true. In the absence of predators, deer numbers in many US states (like WV) are much, much higher than they should be. It's not just a winter die-off of deer, it's the enormous damage that this does to the windflowers in the forests.
Unfortunately the reproductive capacity of non-monogamous animals like deer is determined by the number of females, and hunters preferentially kill males. So actually, hunters need to kill more deer and in doe in particular.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 8:26 PM on February 2, 2008

Health issues with using rainwater [...] on edible gardens concern me.

You what?
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 3:26 AM on January 9, 2008

An anthropology professor of mine once said that there was a tribe of people (in Asia? Africa?) that raised cows and claimed to subsist entirely on three foods: milk, blood taken from live cows, and milk mixed with blood. He also said that when they were observed, it turned out that they actually did eat some other things, too. Maybe someone's done some studies on them?

The Masai
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 1:10 AM on September 19, 2007

What do the Masai whose diet includes a lot of cow's blood do?

Actually they mix cow blood and milk and ferment it. I guess that does something important.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 12:32 AM on September 11, 2007

I'm looking for jokes like you would expect two posh british gentlemen in the gentlemans club to tell to each other.

I think Meatbomb got banned for asking for those sort of jokes.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 4:15 PM on July 20, 2007

upper class accents are also called received pronunciation

No. RP is an 'educated' accent, one which like the upper class english accent has no connection to a particular region but they're quite different.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 3:47 AM on July 16, 2007

The map is not the territory and the grammar is not the language.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 8:28 AM on June 28, 2007

London underground uses one-man operation on all trains, and some lines are totally automatic (but there's still a driver-in-the-loop).
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 7:36 PM on June 14, 2007

The US currently uses about 100 quads of energy a year. A quad is equal to 1x10¹⁸ Joules. So we need to generate 10²⁰ Joules a year. If we assume (incorrectly, but this is only an order of magnitude calculation) that power demand is constant, then we need to produce 10¹² Watts of power.
A nuclear power plant produces about 1000 MW of powers, so we require 1000 nuclear reactors.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 3:43 PM on June 6, 2007

Your reply should be clearly hand written (ideally on headed paper, but that isn't essential), and in the third person. Like so,

Mr Ascullion thanks [inviter(s)] for their kind invitation on [day of week] [date and month] and has much pleasure in accepting.

Did the invitation include a guest, and is it just for drinks or also dinner? These will change the form slightly.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 3:01 AM on May 23, 2007

Maybe you friend is a character in a book?

What is his nationality?
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 3:18 AM on May 21, 2007

Dutch is a rather similar language to English, but it can be quite hard to learn all the same. This is because the majority of Dutch people speak English as well, so there's a small market for Dutch as a 2nd language material.
It seems like a bizarre language to learn, especially as a first 2nd language.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 5:49 PM on May 20, 2007

If someone truely feels the need to steel someone else's girlfriend to make up for their own inadequacies then I think that is a pretty bad state of affairs

Well, he didn't say anything about doing it to make up for his inadequacies, maybe he just wants to fuck her?
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 6:44 AM on May 17, 2007

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." Albert Einstein
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 4:10 PM on May 15, 2007

nobody round here eats soft boiled or over easy eggs, right?

I certainly do. From what I've heard though, I wouldn't risk it with American eggs.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 2:48 AM on May 13, 2007

This site has assyrian language tutorials. Numbers are in lesson 23.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 7:13 AM on May 11, 2007

Yes, if you're looking for something Christian in nature, then it's Syriac (aka Eastern dialect) that you want.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 9:19 AM on May 11, 2007

I had a similar situation when I first came to London, instead of giving the landlord a massive deposit, I made a deal where my parents put money equivalent to the six months rent in a high interest escrow account.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 5:09 PM on May 4, 2007

There are a lot of things that work a little (steering the boat, don't eat greasy food), but the only thing that will really help you is anti-nausea drugs like dramamine.
Unfortunately, they also knock you out pretty good. I can heartily recommend the combination dramamine/amphetamine patches, but of course you will need a prescription for those.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 2:55 AM on May 4, 2007

whoops, the patches are scopolamine, not dramamine.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 3:23 AM on May 4, 2007

Most moroccans I know speak excellent French and know quite a bit about French culture, but I have never been to Morocco and all my Moroccan friends are from the Moroccan upper class. According to wikipedia though, French, which remains Morocco's unofficial second language, is taught universally...

According to the CIA world factbook, French [is] often the language of business, government, and diplomacy.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 8:32 AM on May 2, 2007

I can't remember where I read this now, but apparently Kubrick was such a perfectionist that he even selected the fonts that would be used on the posters. Someone was going through his archives and found references on thousands of fonts, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was something very obscure.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 10:03 AM on April 11, 2007

This thread over at Cosmic Variance may be worth reading. The comments especially.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 10:17 AM on April 8, 2007

Well, unlike undergraduate programs, where admissions are handled centrally, postgraduate admissions are handled within the department itself. I'm not an American, but I think that GRE scores are use as well. If you were to have:

a) very good GRE results

b) outstanding resume (highlighting experience equivalent to their usual undergraduate requirements)

c) a very well thought out cover letter stating exactly what you want... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 5:53 AM on March 28, 2007

Muhammed married and had sex with a 9 year old
The koran is actually not very clear on this, there a number of contradictory statements regarding his first wife's age.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 2:35 AM on March 5, 2007

oh dear. Of course, a cell array.
swordfishtrombones, no, not homework. I'm moving a whole bunch of matrix manipulation code that was inadvisably written for MAPLE to MatLab, and I'm not really very familiar with the latter.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 12:15 PM on March 1, 2007

Isn't actually knowing the whereabouts of a terrorist but not reporting it a federal crime?

That's funny, I didn't know that Southern Europe was in the United States.

Also, a private citizen isn't required to report knowledge of a past crime to the government.

...We were pretty close friends...
what I have to write might shed some light on what is now the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 5:29 AM on January 31, 2007 marked best answer

My flatmate and I routinely use the expression with 'ovaries' substituted for 'balls'.

The roots of the expression are obviously deeply patriarchal. What people disagree on is whether it's allowable to use it for its metaphorical content while disregarding the misogyny of the wording.
I would say no, no it's not acceptable. Not for people who know better.

So your husband and you are both right. The meaning of the expression is of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 10:35 AM on January 21, 2007

You might want to look into components for marine and small aircraft radars as a starting point, though I don't know where you'll put the radome, maybe on the car's roof?

This is a fantastic idea by the way.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 3:39 AM on January 11, 2007

creepy pictures
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 3:18 PM on December 9, 2006

awenner: You can probably have multiple passports issued that are simultaneously valid. I have known people with multiple Dutch passports for precisely this reason. You should contact whoever handles passports in Canada.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 11:16 PM on December 6, 2006

According to Wikipedia, The UK & The US will also issue multiple passports if you can explain why you need them, but I can't find anything online about Canada.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 11:22 PM on December 6, 2006

*new* invention that is explicitely anti-technology (index cards and clip)

Neither of those are anti-technology in any way though, index cards and paper clips both require an industrial economy to manufacture.
Maybe what you are looking for are things that might be classed as appropriate technology, where one technological solution is replaced with one that *seems* more primitive, but is actually much more suitable for the application.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 11:19 AM on November 26, 2006 marked best answer

Also, should someone called Eattheweak be so disdainful of martial arts using raw power?

Possibly because little girls don't have much of it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 1:39 PM on November 25, 2006

atrazine: is there actually any truth to this?

i know it's certainly perceived to be true, but if we're talking about an early age (say 3 to 10), are there any studies/figures to back up this stereotype?

You're right, I apologise to any five year olds present for questioning their brute strength.

Seriously, what? Little kids are weak. No, I am not going to dig up any studies to back up this 'stereotype'
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 2:40 PM on November 25, 2006

On thinking about it, maybe you were assuming that I said that little girls were weaker than little boys. I wasn't, maybe they are, but I think that there isn't much difference before puberty.
Still though, little kids are weak.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 2:43 PM on November 25, 2006

Saucy Intruder, to be a natural born citizen you just have to have citizenship by birth (American parents OR born on US soil), not both.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 5:46 PM on November 23, 2006

Its hot, its so incrediblely fucking hot. It makes Arizona feel like Wisconsin in January. It's hot.

This time of year it's great.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 5:31 AM on November 21, 2006

at the same time it suggests your only possible way of avoiding income tax is by leaving the United States for a country that doesn't have any.

Not even. Americans living outside the US still pay US income tax. Suckers.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 4:17 AM on November 6, 2006

because you'd have to get it up on the ceiling first, F1 cars have very little ground clearance, so any ramp would have to be really big. Also, if something goes wrong, that's a really expensive car to wreck.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 7:11 AM on September 11, 2006

Oh, also, it may not actually be possible. An F1 car does create enough downforce to support its own weight, but only at high speed. I don't know if there is enough 'spare' downforce to maintain traction (and thus, speed) with the weight of the car pulling the wheels away from the surface.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 7:14 AM on September 11, 2006 marked best answer

Shouldn't there be a list of people working on classified projects?
Shouldn't we be able to look up the medical records of people on MedicAid and MediCare?

No, there is no such website.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 8:32 AM on September 2, 2006

The 'b' with three dots is also informally used by arabs to represent a 'p', I think that this is a result of many arabic speakers these days being bilingual in languages with 'p' sounds.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 7:44 AM on July 15, 2006

Just nthing the Lomberg book. I'm fairly convinced of the reality of global warming and the human role in it, but Lomberg is honestly skeptical rather than being an oil company shill.
posted to Ask Metafilter by atrazine at 4:25 PM on June 28, 2006