Blue Impressions is what I think of when I think moody late-night jazz. Since it's a Japanese import and probably difficult to track down, I'll list some of the artists on the compilation instead: Donald Byrd, Bobby Hutcherson, Ronnie Laws and Bobbi Humphrey. Some of these are more likely to violate the "no cheese" rule than others, as they're all fusion-y jazz artists from the 70s and I tend to think of that stuff as bordering on cheese. I have since heard Byrd's Ethopian... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 7:59 PM on August 30, 2008

The Lenovo X61s or X200? If you don't mind the lack of a trackpad, that is. The X200 has better specs, a bigger keyboard (though I guess this doesn't matter so much), and very good reviews; the x61 is the older model (and rumour suggests the x200/x200s will replace the x61 line eventually). Either one meets your basic specs, but I'm guessing the x200 will be more viable a few years down the road. The x61 is slightly smaller, though, and of course a few hundred cheaper.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 2:54 PM on August 10, 2008

Oh, except the x61 doesn't come with an optical drive and the x200 seems to only have one if you get the docking station (though the Lenovo site is somewhat unclear on this). If you only need the DVD-ROM drive for installing Naturally Speaking, you can always pick up an external USB optical drive or somesuch, but otherwise you may want to consider something like this Asus 12" laptop. Asus isn't quite as good a brand as the Lenovo Thinkpads, but they're pretty solid machines, and $1000 is a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 3:07 PM on August 10, 2008 marked best answer

Oh, and if all else fails, Notebookreview.com's "what laptop should I buy" forum should get you set up.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 3:11 PM on August 10, 2008

I think the real question is why you thought it should have a specific release date. The norm is for consumer electronics to have a vague window of release like "late August." It's probably not worth the cost and effort to arrange a proper simultaneous release across a territory—it's not like a whole lot of people are going to line up for a midnight release or anything like that.

unless you're Apple, in which case any product you release has... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 1:46 PM on August 9, 2008

Best karaoke surprise I've ever seen was two guys who nonchalantly walked on stage when it was their turn, then announced they were doing a duet, then pulled the girl they had planned to serenade on stage. It turned out they had been practicing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" by the Righteous Brothers all week in preparation. I think what really got her was that the guys had obviously put way more thought and effort into the surprise than anyone else singing karaoke that... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 10:48 AM on August 8, 2008

abdulf's solution looks to be a recipe for taking one blog and splitting it into two columns; it's a purely visual treatment, and doesn't actually involve two separate blogs or a blog with two authors.

If you were to use something like Wordpress for your dueling blogs, what you would do is create a theme that had two "loops" (this is Wordpress parlance for the code block that decides what posts to display on a page), each set to spit out content from a single... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 9:57 PM on July 29, 2008 marked best answer

Looking at the theme some more, it's a bit clunky in that you need to specify the proper author by filing your posts in a category devoted to that author—a bit silly when Wordpress already has the concept of authors built into the system. Keep that in mind when testing the theme out.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 10:01 PM on July 29, 2008

I don't know if this fits your template, but the most mindboggling one I've heard is in "The End is the Beginning is the End" by the Smashing Pumpkins, now stuck in my head thanks to that blasted Watchmen trailer:

"and now I'm with you now"

Same-word rhyme in the same line. I guess this isn't entirely unexpected, considering the song also contains the tragically unfortunate phrase "the guns of love disastrous."
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 1:15 AM on July 21, 2008

Dreamhost won't let you have files outside the document root

Unless something has changed really recently, that's not true. The document root for each domain on your account is the directory with the domain as its name (ex. ~/sub.yourdomain.com/). You can put anything you like in your home directory, which is not the document root for websites served off your domain(s). I have Trac and Django installs running in separate directories off my home directory that work just fine.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 11:09 AM on July 19, 2008

Since the answer's basically been covered, some trivia: during U2's Pop Mart tour, they would play M's "Pop Musik" right before the band came on stage. So it does seem like the bigger bands (or at least U2) determine what plays before their set.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 9:41 AM on July 18, 2008

Lush, 500. I remember a Pitchfork or sumother review moaning about how odd the lyric "they call you little mouse by name in Rome and Turin" was, and wondering if they ever figured out "500" was all about a tiny Fiat whose name actually did translate to "little mouse" (Topolino).

I guess that doesn't change the fact that it's an awkward lyric. Still, lovely song.

Also, not only do we a) have... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 4:28 PM on July 12, 2008

One maybe-important note: you can mod a PS2 (either with a modchip or using a softmod, though I don't know how well the latter works for slim PS2s). You can't mod a PS3 yet. So playing PS2 games from other regions is out of the question for the PS3. This may or may not affect your decision.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 9:37 PM on July 11, 2008

From a financial perspective, the Wii was about $350 (Canadian).

I think you got ripped off, friend. The Wii is supposed to retail for about $270, and that's how much I paid when I bought mine last February. (Of course, I did line up in the freezing cold for it. Possibly the worst game-related mistake of my life, now that I own a PS3.)

The 360 Pro/Premium/whatever it's called nowadays will drop in price to $299, so now's a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 9:43 PM on July 10, 2008

Toronto streetcars have a similar box. Apparently it's specifically used to help with braking.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 4:17 PM on July 9, 2008

should've posted this with the last comment!
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 4:18 PM on July 9, 2008

The likely reason why your purchase failed is because though you were buying from the European Playstation store, your copy of Singstar was purchased in the States. In order to use European downloadable content, you'll have to purchase the European version of Singstar. The PS3 has no region lockouts for games, so at least you won't have to modify or hack your console.

Make sure, though, that the Belgium scheme will actually work; I don't know for sure but based on the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 10:33 PM on July 6, 2008

You didn't specifically mention Beijing, so I'll toss out an old favourite I originally found on the blue: the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics through the eyes of a volunteer at the speed skating oval. I wish I could tell you it inspired me so much that I scored a volunteer gig at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, but instead you'll have to settle for "so good it made me wish I was a volunteer at the 2010 Olympics.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 11:03 AM on July 4, 2008 marked best answer

For your hopelessly vague details, a perhaps hopelessly vague suggestion: if you don't already, get clothes that fit better. You don't even necessarily have to change up the style. To illustrate, take the fairly standard t-shirt/jeans/sneakers look. Three basic items that can either make you look like a handyman, a geek, or ready for a casual night out. One thing that the hacker look seems to rely on is baggy clothes; wear slimmer shirts and jeans, while keeping in mind your body style (i.e.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 7:09 PM on July 2, 2008

About the interview: offer the reporter and photographer whatever you like. They won't be offended if you don't offer them anything—they are, after all, on the clock. As for your appearance, if you decide not to take the "no photos please" route, I think your best bet is to tell the photographer upfront about your worries. It's a nice feature and it sounds like the angle is favourable, so no one's out to get you here. It's in the paper's best interests to get a good photo of you.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 4:55 PM on June 26, 2008

The plugin your daycare seems to use is made by Speco, who make integrated DVR and camera products. A brief review of their product documentation shows the software makes no provision for use outside of Internet Explorer, and because they control both the hardware and the software, it's unlikely they've unwittingly made the stream available in an easy to use format like a Windows Media or Quicktime stream. I'm guessing the only way your daycare will ever support Macs or anything besides IE is if... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 12:04 PM on June 26, 2008

No can do; after installing two ActiveX plugins against my better judgement, it's now asking for a login and password that I don't have.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 12:20 PM on June 26, 2008

I took the Megabus from Toronto to NYC. The trouble was at the NYC ends of both legs; I arrived about half an hour late in NYC (7:30am on a Thursday—our bus driver took a wrong turn on the NJ Turnpike and ended up at the entrance to a parking lot just off the Lincoln Tunnel). My bus back to Toronto was supposed to leave at 9pm three days later on a Saturday, and both my bus and the Philadelphia bus leaving at the same time were late by forty minutes (again, the Turnpike). Strangely, the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 8:46 PM on June 24, 2008

Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. A really neat book that looks at how Chicago dealt with the 1995 heat wave that killed 700 people, written by a sociologist. It's not exactly new journalism, though, so it might be a bit dry if he's not into urban issues or the sociology of cities or things like that.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 8:33 PM on June 24, 2008

Firefox 3's little star is not the only way to add a bookmark (though this does seem like an unfortunate UI oversight). With the site open in Firefox, drag the favicon (the little icon in the address bar to the left of the URL) into either your bookmarks toolbar or the Bookmarks menu, and then into the folder/place you want to store it. Voila!
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 10:54 PM on June 20, 2008

How simple are we talking? I'm currently looking for a barebones CMS as well and from my trawling of AskMe and other places, the best solution I've found (though not optimal) is CushyCMS. Major issues include the inability to add new pages without the intervention of a designer/developer, but there honestly doesn't seem to be very much in the space between CushyCMS and, say, Joomla/Drupal unless you either roll your own or attempt to shoehorn Wordpress into the role of a general CMS (which I... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 11:03 AM on June 20, 2008

I can't find the interview I read this from, but for 24, the period between writing an episode and filming it shrinks over the course of a season, and generally over the course of the series. I believe it was something like a month's lead time at the start of the first season, with several episodes plotted in advance, down to maybe a week at the end of that season; subsequent seasons have been even shorter, with a choice quote being something like "we'll finish writing... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 10:03 AM on June 16, 2008

I've lived near Toronto most of my life, and I didn't even know what a stag and doe was until I looked it up one day because my friends were going to them in increasing numbers. I thought it was like a theme party or something.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 9:41 AM on June 10, 2008

But Vista has been out since Nov 06. Thats almost two years of "VISTA IS TEH SUCK". XP "TEH SUCK" only lasted a few months as I recall.. I couldn't wait to roll XP at work. Now I burn Vista CD's as they come in the door.

For what it's worth, I held out on XP until halfway through 2006, even after abortive attempts to install it and use it as my daily OS. That's a lot of "2000 works just fine for me!" in my books. On the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 3:32 PM on June 8, 2008

If by Halo 2 you mean multiplayer stuff, your best bet is Warhawk. It's plenty fun and has airplanes to boot (hence the title "Warhawk"). I don't know of any edutainment titles for the PS3 so far (or indeed for any console besides the Wii/DS), though.

About the media server: the PS3 doesn't read shared drives on the network like another computer might. Instead, it supports the DLNA protocol, which is designed for sharing media across a network. You'll have to... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 3:07 PM on June 8, 2008 marked best answer

For what it's worth, Gamespot thinks the GH3 guitar IS compatible with Guitar Hero 80s. Are you trying to playing all these games on a PS2 (as opposed to a backwards-compatible PS3)?
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 8:05 PM on June 6, 2008

A post on the official Guitar Hero forums seems to confirm that someone got your guitar working and someone else didn't. The GH3 FAQ posted on the old Guitar Hero forums suggests that the guitar should work. You might want to try the official questions/comments forum to see if someone's either answered this question already, or to get some assistance; you might also want to talk to Activision's customer support. It sounds like there's a problem with your guitar, as opposed to a broad... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 8:19 PM on June 6, 2008

This suggestion might be a bit left field, but if namewithoutwords' My Bloody Valentine reference sounds right to you, along with the "disco horror movie" thing, you might try some early Curve. The main reason why it might not fit your parameters is it's not so much indie as it is shoegazer-meets-old-school-goth. But then Helium was kinda goth in their early days, and actually Toni Halliday sounds a bit like a more emotive Mary Timony... try Horror Head and see if it hits the sweet... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 9:30 AM on June 6, 2008

So I had the form redirect all e-mails to me, instead of our mailman instance, and strangely there's been practically no traffic—just one legitimate signup, and nothing else. So perhaps it was a false alarm. Nevertheless, I'm going to try some of the less obtrusive measures and keep the ones requiring user input in mind if the problem resurfaces or grows.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 12:58 AM on June 5, 2008

The 1976 picture looks really weird to me, almost as though it were a composite—it's the tracks on the right that make the whole thing look weird. That said, the building behind the smokestacks on the right is the Toronto Star building at One Yonge Street. If you look really carefully you can just make out the words "Toronto Star" on the top-right of the tower.

The vantage points of the two photos are quite different, actually; at the bottom of the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 1:57 PM on June 2, 2008

More pictures of the railyard. It does look like that long bridge is Spadina.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 2:02 PM on June 2, 2008

There are two sets of webisodes: one labelled "Resistance" and another that go along with Razor.

Watch the Resistance webisodes first, then season 3, then Razor (with or without the webisodes; half of them are included in Razor itself), then Season 4. Razor's a bit of a standalone, so I think you'd be okay to watch it pretty much any time after season 2, but most people will have seen it in between seasons 3 and 4.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 7:32 PM on June 1, 2008

Yeah, the Adama webisodes tiamat mentioned are the Razor ones (just so the OP's clear).
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 7:42 PM on June 1, 2008

I've had a couple people over to play Rock Band, though not explicitly in a party setting. Strangely, the people I've played with often start out by singing—the guitar and drums look like they require more coordination and rhythm than they can muster, and the first couple of tries on the instruments only solidifies this reputation. So my suggestion is to set everything to easy, figure out the easy songs to play on guitar and drums (not so much vocals), and be prepared to fill in as... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 7:41 PM on June 1, 2008

I would sell it, personally. The only reason I haven't sold mine is because my brother loves it to bits (maybe I should try selling it to HIM). Chances are you've already got a PS2, if you're the type of gamer I think you are; Okami and Resident Evil 4 are available for PS2, and I've heard mixed things about the Wii Okami, so I don't think it'd be worth keeping the Wii for those games. The Strongbad game is coming out for PC, so I wouldn't keep the Wii for that either.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 2:31 PM on May 29, 2008

Sometimes I think people get seduced by the traditional idea of great artistry through great inspiration: they have to want to create something so badly that the desire almost takes on a life of its own, as though the artist becomes something of a conduit for otherworldly powers. When they don't feel that burning desire to create anything, it suddenly doesn't matter how much talent they have—it just feels like going through the motions unless they feel utterly possessed by inspiration.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 10:55 PM on May 25, 2008

Welcome to low-light photography. There's really only a couple of things you can do to improve your shots on a dSLR like a Rebel, assuming you can't change the ambient light level:

1) High ISO. This is the easiest (and cheapest) way to reduce blur on your photos, though you pay the price in terms of increased sensor noise. Your Rebel can probably shoot ISO 800 without any appreciable loss in image quality (unless you're one of those people who's very sensitive about... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 2:10 AM on May 20, 2008

No One Lives Forever 2 has a co-op campaign. If your sis liked the original, I bet she'll adore the sequel, as I thought it was a much better experience than the first game. I haven't played the co-op campaign myself but if it's got the unicycle mission, it'll be totally worth it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 9:42 AM on May 17, 2008

Heard it about publishing but fairly sure it didn't originate there.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 9:44 AM on May 16, 2008

I got myself a Crumpler Part and Parcel a while back for my laptop, and then separately bought a 2 Million Dollar Home for my camera (a Fuji s6000fd—not a dSLR but similarly built). I got both on sale so it came out to quite a bit less than the $200+ the combo would cost off the website, and it's pretty nice since I can either stuff the camera in the messenger bag, or stuff it and my laptop into my backpack for road trips, or take the camera on its own without the bag screaming STEAL MY CAMERA... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 8:13 PM on May 13, 2008

System firmware updates can be downloaded to a USB key/external hard drive via the Playstation site (you'll probably need to use a different link if you're not in North America). Some games will also require you to update your system firmware to the version available on the game disc, which requires no internet access at all. I don't know what, if any, games come with updated firmware, though.

Game patches are a different story; usually those auto-download when you try... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 11:23 AM on May 9, 2008 marked best answer

Just in case you decide the LowePro doesn't work for you, I find the Crumpler 2 Million Dollar Home bag fits the S6000 like a glove. Perhaps too much so, if you're the kind of person who likes to slip the camera in and out of the case often, but other than that I have no complaints. Try to find one on sale, though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 4:50 PM on May 6, 2008

You can convert a DVI output to an HDMI one using an adapter; because HDMI is backwards compatible with DVI there should be no loss of quality.
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 5:41 AM on April 28, 2008

Here's a bunch on NewEgg. (Sorry for not including that in the previous comment!)
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 5:43 AM on April 28, 2008

Perhaps, perhaps not: though later in the book he becomes a bit breathless about how bad factory farming is, Thomas Pawlick has some interesting nutrition stats about factory-farm veggies in The End of Food that suggest today's vegetables aren't nearly as good for us as they used to be. Of course, whether that means organic vegetables are any better nutritionally is hard to say, since some of the issues Pawlick raises (seed variety, for example) isn't necessarily solved... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by chrominance at 11:20 AM on April 25, 2008