i have a suggestion i've trotted out for friends when they hit this quarter/mid/post/life crisis (or whatever). (but beware, it is a double-edged* sword).

pick up a decent biography of someone whose work/life you admire for some reason. don't limit yourself to artists/politicians/incredible_athletes - look for lifes further afield or closer to something you're in the midst of. read a couple of these. heck, even try reading a biography of someone you think you... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 2:13 PM on July 8, 2008

please try:

-portishead
-radio dept. (spinoff from new order)
-revenge (also spinoff from members of new order)
-blond redhead (the early stuff perhaps more relevant than the recent stuff)
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 8:34 PM on June 3, 2008

three syllables, like so many upthread say: mee-ahn-mar.

[and in case you're curious, "myitkyina" up north in kachin state: mitch-EEN-ah; "shinbwyiang": sheen-bwEE-ang.]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 1:46 PM on May 23, 2008

i picked up a basic "white sangria" recipe from a cooking magazine a few years ago, and it's a standby now whenever the summer weather gets unbearable. key ingredients: champagne or club soda for bubbles, chardonnay for sweetness, peach schnapps for more syrupy sweetness, vodka for extra kick, dash of OJ and pineapple juice, sliced strawberries, kiwis, bananas.

serve well-chilled, over ice. YRMV (your ratios may vary).
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 4:45 PM on May 19, 2008

seconding Ray Monk's The Duty of Genius for good biographical details. i also recommend wittgenstein's poker for some good social-scene probing.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 2:10 PM on May 14, 2008

if this turns out to be hepatitus (A through K, i believe we're up to), you don't want to waste any time getting something done about it. you could wait six weeks and find out it's cost you a liver. not cool.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 2:06 PM on May 14, 2008

damn, you guys are good. checking on the Mac unicode font now. thanks!
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 4:41 PM on May 13, 2008

actually, i use a scanner all the time at work, and just couldn't deal with waiting 1 minute/page for the scans. photos are darn quicker, and from what i've seen nearly equal in quality. (i also don't want to go out and buy a scanner at this point).
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 2:02 PM on April 25, 2008

lunchbox: thanks for the idea -- but i'm particularly looking to grab some of the side-margin doodles and such, so OCR probably won't do.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 5:41 PM on April 25, 2008

Sitegeist: thanks for the DjVu tip -- i'm checking that out.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 5:41 AM on April 26, 2008

4000-level geology course: "The History of Life," Richard Bambach.

started with the formation of the solar system, day one, followed by earth's crust and first evidence of organic life (strombolites) on day two. then went chronologically through all the geological/scientific evidence pertaining to evolution up to homo sapiens. mass extinctions and asteroids played a big role. brilliant readings as well as excellently edifying slides for some of the lectures.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 5:37 PM on April 25, 2008

...or if I should begin [to date her] in the first place.

there's your problem right there. i'm inclined to say this is a horrible, horrible path down which to tread.

however, to answer your question about minimizing risk -- i would say try to meet up at a happy-hour, without other co-workers, where you might be able to figure out if the feelings are indeed mutual. heck, even if that doesn't work out, a happy hour never hurts.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 5:13 PM on April 24, 2008

i lived in b-burg for 11 years (let's just cal it "grad school").

i can tell you that the winters will NOT be pleasant in a heavy-tent. i've seen 3ft snows, 4 inch ice-storms, pretty severe winds, and even the residue of a hurricane that passed through.

a yurt might be an interesting option for a weekend adventure, but dood, you have to be a special kind of hippy to dig that year round.

if, for some... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 4:43 PM on April 21, 2008

i've had some slight fun with jamglue, although i'm not sure how quickly the turnaround is. you might want to test out a file transfer just to see.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 12:53 PM on April 11, 2008

in my city i would place the origin on workout habits / hygiene developed while the folks were in college. sometimes if i head over to a trader joes after work i'm shocked to find the isles populated by 70% sweaty youngsters who've just come from yoga / the gym / running, etc. the stench is palpable. chundertastic, even.

i remember seeing this trend escalate when i was in grad school a few years back, with lots of workout- (body image?)-obsessed kids going straight... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 3:13 PM on April 7, 2008

from that era i would try the Social Security Death Index . if the person your looking for was a veteran, i'd also have a look at the VA gravesite locator.

of course, none of these would be relevant if the person you seek is still alive.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 10:53 AM on April 6, 2008

jessamyn has it: by switching the mouse to a left-hand position (which i did to alleviate a neck/shoulder injury), you can not only work on your ambidexterity, you'll also find there's an incentive for learning the keyboard shortcuts to most things.

the power of the keyboard shortcuts lies in the overlap of (some of) them across a few programs.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 6:10 PM on April 2, 2008

a couple more suggestions:

- james lipton's book on unique category descriptors (more entertaining than it might sound at first, e.g. "a slouch of models")

- the dictionary of cliches, an entertaining archaeology of common english phrases

- and, heck, why not have a go at the tractatus logico-philosophicus?... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 4:30 AM on March 31, 2008

i've actually had great results using a small setup that fits well within your budget, although this is for recording a single acoustic guitar+voice (not sure how the setup would work for a smallish room).

here's the key bits: Nadia condenser cardiod mic ($100, although i have an earlier model than the one linked), powered by a small 12AX7 tube pre-amp ($30) with phantom power.

go forth and rock out.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 7:32 PM on March 29, 2008

Looking forward a bit, I would say the TV series Lost (2 seasons from now, that is).
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 1:48 PM on March 28, 2008

pracowity: thanks for excellently articulating the ambiguity in usage that led to my question!

i suppose the intended meaning (initially) could be resolved if we could find some early uses in sports publications somewhere. lacking the lexis-nexis right now, not sure how to best go about that...
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 10:17 AM on March 23, 2008

one thing to add to the excellent advice above: about 1 minute into the flight (after the gear have stowed, or gone "clunk"), there will be a brief pause where the airplane seems to nose down a bit and it may also sound like the engines slow down.

this freaks most first-time-flyers The Hell Out. don't worry.

this happens because the pilot is leveling off a bit in order to reduce drag by drawing in the wing-flaps (basically making... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 3:06 PM on March 15, 2008

one thing i've seen used quite nicely for small odds and ends: on the back-side of a door (front door?) hang one of those clear plastic shoe racks (where the shoes go in vertically). put your keys, cell phone, and any other odds and ends in this so you don't have a table-top or junk-drawer cluttered with stuff that you can never find.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 10:57 AM on March 13, 2008

i would recommend testing.

from what i understand of (some) enameling processes, it's like applying a pottery glaze to the metal (glaze being minerals suspended in solution), which is then dried and fired up to a temperature at which it melts and gets all glassy/glossy. lots of low-fire pottery glazes with bright colors these days that show up from china are being found to contain lead. good luck.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 4:22 PM on March 12, 2008

one factor not mentioned thus far, but i've found to be crucial for me--temperature in the office. if it's over 75F, i will absolutely have a crappy afternoon and be nodding off. by the time i get home i'm near collapse.

on the lucky days when the HVAC is actually working in my cube, and the temp is in the high 60F's, i'm alert all day. i mean sharp. hydration helps, caffine can be a crutch, but there is something inherently tiring about being in hotter air than... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 9:54 AM on March 8, 2008

well, holy google, i just found the patent for the machine. it references an earlier patent application for the coding scheme, which doesn't seem to be available in the google patent world. hrrmmm..

Patent
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 9:48 AM on September 22, 2007

From the patent I linked above, it appears that setting the 2D barcode initially, as well as "searching" for a match for it later, was one using a punchcard that the machine would read. So, to amplify phrontist's concerns, the punchcards used to initially encode keywords may have reflected some numerical list.

One interesting sidenote--an Archivist once told me that the subject classifications used in the index were probably derived from a WWII set of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 11:23 AM on September 22, 2007

wow guys, thanks for the analysis and useful tips. i'm definitely leaning toward finding a human that may have been involved with the original company, hopefully to find the one key piece of information: whether the FileSearch system used a numbered list of keywords, or somehow represented the keywords more directly in the 'barcodes' themselves.

if that doesn't pan out, i've also got an inter-library loan request in for a publication in a journal called... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 12:59 PM on September 23, 2007

ah, thanks.

On a different note, i'm wondering if there may be something to the "case 3, upper" set that you drew out above--that's the only set that contains a series of only 2 digit numbers. Not that that really connects to an alphabet scheme or anything...

Or perhaps the set that contains the widest spread of numbers is the preferable set, as that would correspond to the largest set of itemized keywords (if that's how it were done)?
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 4:18 PM on September 23, 2007

I'm scanning a couple more examples from the microfilm transfer next week. However, in correspondence with someone who once wrote an article on CDEC and the indexing arrangement, I can now confirm that the binary barcodes are in fact coding numbers, specifically numbers from the Defense Intelligence Agencies wartime Subject Classification codes. These are apparently reproduced at the National Archives, similar to the Decimal Filing System in use by the Army in WWII (in which "201"... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 2:49 PM on September 24, 2007

...may have been reading along, ahem
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 2:50 PM on September 24, 2007

Alright, here's the first image of a larger set of codes, for two documents that appear in sequence.

I can tell now from a look at Patent No. 3342978 that the scanner reads from left to right, starting at the top lefthand corner, and zig-zagging down the page. There's a sequential number buried in here somewhere, folks...I think?
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 8:35 AM on September 26, 2007

****UPDATE: Lots to report.

I located a manual for the defunct machine in the library of a military history office in Pennsylvania, of all places. According to WorldCat, it's the only copy available to the public in the known librariverse.

Here's the solution to the code: flickr link.

Turns out the code at first looks similar to a standard IBM used in its punchcards, but on further digging, there are some big... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 12:14 PM on November 28, 2007

Not that anyone is still reading this thread, but I'll be giving a talk next week at the Vietnam Center's Annual Symposium on the successful decoding of this bit of history at Texas Tech University. Not sure what to expect of Lubbock, Texas, but if any mefites are in the area, drop me a note, eh?

Cheers
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 4:03 PM on March 6, 2008

Look for those opposed to "factory farming." Not sure how that works out to a negative category, but most of the serious folks I know who avoid the factory farms are doing precisely what you ask about.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 3:16 PM on March 5, 2008

just like heaven - cure

anything madonna (seriously)

acoustic version of "gin and juice" - there's an indie version out there somewhere's you can crib from. the kids, they love them some of that.

jaltcoh's radiohead suggestion is a good one.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 6:28 PM on March 3, 2008

in case i haven't been clear (likely): i'm looking for a sort of uber-mefi-music website, one that allows users to upload tracks, then mix them with the tracks submitted by others.

i first heard of jamglue on a random NPR piece eons ago, and as far as interface and mix-ability goes, it rocks. but the user-base seems to be 99.7% rap oriented, whereas i would love to collaborate with some folks posting simple guitar/electronica tracks. surely there's an 'analog' site... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 4:16 PM on February 27, 2008

Once the military decides to go with an alternatively-powered vehicle (heck, they may have already mapped it out), the strategic importance of that shift will wag the tail of a heck of a lot of other markets.

Which is probably why the R&D money is going that direction right now--be the guy with the patent on the process to fuel the next armada, and you're going to be the next goog. In that context, why work on tweaking a machine with a known expiration date? And a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 2:21 PM on February 18, 2008

i think the dream of scipio handles the century-shifts rather well.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 6:32 AM on February 18, 2008

nthing Admiral Haddock here. i've been on the press for 4+ years. doh!
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 12:25 PM on February 13, 2008

is your professor going to serve as managing editor? your question seems to suggest you're asking about that sort of process. here are some considerations from that angle:

do you have an editorial board? this can be a great thing. in exchange for listening to their "input" when setting up the mission statement of the journal, they get the honor of being listed as a member of the editorial board. from the journal's perspective, this indebts each member of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 6:06 AM on February 13, 2008 marked best answer

such bad editing in a post about editing? oy vey. preview is my friend.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 6:27 AM on February 13, 2008

another trick to consider: i once set up an automated reminder email system in Outlook that would ping reviewers/referees every week or so with a friendly reminder. the psychology of this fascinated me--it seems academics *hate* getting reminders that they're past due on something. from humans, that is. reminders didn't seem to work in the form of personal notes. but when i clearly labelled these messages as automated reminder thingies, everyone started getting things in... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 9:14 AM on February 13, 2008 marked best answer

well, as for the effects of persisting in a prison camp, i might suggest a look at the tractatus logico philosophicus, written by Ludwig Wittgenstein whilst soldiering in the trenches of WWI as well as time in a prisoner-of-war camp.

for the backstory on this amazing text, you might start with Ray Monk's Ludwig Wittgenstein, the duty of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 7:25 PM on February 7, 2008

i had a similar problem trying to run for longer than 30 minutes, just kept running out of breath. the advice i got from people who run regularly was to just *slow it down* and try to run at the slowest pace possible, for the longest duration possible. that's the way to start getting the cardio benefits.

so i slowed things down from 9 min. miles to more like 11-12 min. miles, and voila, turns out i can run for an hour.

i think... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 1:54 PM on February 2, 2008

one approach for this on OS X is Ctrl+Alt+Apple+8. pressing all those keys at once throws the color scheme to the "negative," which will usually switch white backgrounds to black, then with white text.

i just wish there were a way to do this on the PC at work. grrr.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 3:47 PM on January 15, 2008

i just got an e270 as a gift for someone. they're having lots of trouble using it with a Macbook. rarely will show up as a disk volume when connected through the USB cable. have tried a few things thus far, in addition to scouring the internet(s).

you don't mention what OS you're using, but beware if you're on a Mac.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 3:14 PM on November 28, 2007

try a re-firb model from someplace like eCost or tigerDirect.

of course, such places come with some significant risks, but i know people who have hit your specs in the $300 range.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 4:05 PM on November 20, 2007

i've often heard that the shoes need to match the belt (in color), and that if they don't...well, something ain't right.
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 4:42 AM on October 17, 2007

two three words: "leave-in conditioner"
posted to Ask Metafilter by garfy3 at 6:39 AM on October 13, 2007