I thought I'd mention that I'm off to Wimbledon again this year, and relate a few of my experiences from last year.

1. We drove and managed to find a parking space on the street right outside the queue. This took more than an hour and we were astonishingly lucky to sneak in at the right moment. Finding a parking space is a billion-to-one shot and we pulled it off, but I wouldn't like to try it again. We're going on the train this time.

2. A... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 7:49 AM on June 27, 2008

The Calendar FAQ recommends The Oxford Companion to the Year, which appears to be exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 9:01 AM on March 2, 2008

The Ugly Truth About Online Anonymity.

In short, no, you can't be perfectly anonymous, but yes, using somebody else's Wi-Fi is likely enough to divert an ISP's attention away from you.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 7:41 AM on March 2, 2008

I'm not sure what you mean by democratic institution, but I'm guessing it's run by run-of-the-mill managers. So speak their language: explain in detail how much more productive you will be under your new proposals; count the number of hours wasted by the limitations of the old system, and put a figure on that cost. Tell him you understand it might mean extra chores for the network administrators, but that supporting your work is their job, and that any switching costs will be outweighed by you... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 4:11 AM on January 14, 2008

What's wrong with taking the "stand-alone" option? What does their network have that you need?
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 4:50 AM on January 14, 2008

You seem to be telling us that your organisation doesn't respond to rational discourse, so what makes you think they'll cave and let you use your Mac if you have a "killer software-based argument"?
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:57 AM on January 15, 2008

Thanks everybody. I parked in the O2 car park which was indeed a rip off, but there were no trains back at the time we wanted to return (and even if we had been able to return earlier, for three people, the cost of petrol, parking and congestion charge is still £40-50 cheaper than the train; so sad that it works out that way really). Then I went to see the crack at the Tate Modern! I know it's just a hole in the floor, but I really enjoyed it for some reason, as well as all the other cool things... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 1:48 AM on January 7, 2008

So, genghis, what does it mean for the copyright term on a sound recording to expire if the song author can still claim royalties on it? I know that in the specific case of Hound Dog, the songwriter was not the person who made the recording in question. Is that what makes the copyright term effectively life+70?
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 8:45 AM on July 31, 2007

OK, thanks. It was this paragraph that confused me:

For example, the Beatles' first LP, Please Please Me, was released in 1963. Under the present 50-year rule, the album would cease to be covered in 2013, meaning that it could be re-released freely by any organisation.

Is that not strictly true?
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 9:47 AM on July 31, 2007

Thank you for your suggestions, everybody. I found something out that may change the situtation: the guy on the bike left a suicide note before leaving home last night. Damn.

That actually made my friend feel a hell of a lot better.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 12:22 PM on June 19, 2007

Agreed that the language of science is mathematics. How much math are you comfortable with? You could read through the syllabus of a mathematics for scientists course and brush up on anything unfamiliar. But if you learned your high-school math really, really well, you will get a long way without being forced to learn calculus.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 11:22 AM on June 13, 2007

You don't have to dismiss people as potential friends just because they're conservative or religious. Politics and theology are a tiny part of most normal people's lives, and it's only in online flamefests that these little differences get magnified into impenetrable barriers to friendship. I mean, I have never in my life met anyone who's agreed with me on every single intellectual issue, and that would be completely irrelevant to them being my friend were it not actually half the fun.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 3:20 AM on June 10, 2007

I want to see markets responding to supply and demand, shortages, depressions, slumps, black markets to start growing when taxation gets too high or corruption is endemic...

Those are all the emergent phenomena of millions of individual decisions made in a marketplace. Yes, that is far too much for a computer game to simulate.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 4:10 AM on May 31, 2007

Yes, on second thoughts, an MMORPG might have a realistic market, because the millions of individual decisions that form an economy would be made by real players rather than the computer. But then this would be a real market, not a simulated one.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 4:30 AM on May 31, 2007

Sin City was a comic, not a book, but the film version used the comics as storyboards, and hence was extremely faithful.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 6:04 AM on May 21, 2007

I should make it clear that when I ask whether it's true, I mean is it true that the research existed, not whether the Han really are a different species, which is obviously loony.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 7:22 AM on May 18, 2007

Thank you roomwithaview, that would be awesome.

Not different but "superior". Guess what, the Germans tried to prove this too 60 years ago...

I guess it probably was their aim to demonstrate superiority, but the study as cited was specifically about Han being not just better than, but altogether biologically different from, the rest of humanity.

Polyregionalism may be what it's all about, but... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 3:32 PM on May 18, 2007

A break-up would be painful, complicated, and disruptive, and there aren't quite enough people ready to stomach the real consequences of that change, even if the polls suggest approving murmurs towards the idea of independence. The SNP failed to get a resounding mandate for independence in the latest elections, so a referendum is not going to happen any time soon. I expect the only thing that will propel such major constitutional reform to the forefront of public opinion is... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:18 PM on May 14, 2007

Is there a way to do that en masse? I can't see a bulk forwarding option anywhere.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 5:19 AM on May 8, 2007

Wow! Mere days ago I was going to ask if anybody knew what this film was, but my recollections were even hazier than czechmate's and I couldn't put anything into words beyond "little girl" and "live action/cartoon". Thanks.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 11:49 AM on May 6, 2007

I had the same problem. The solution was to change my MTU setting from 1492 to 1500. I have absolutely no idea why this worked, but it did. In my case, it was a Windows PC that could connect, and Linux PC that couldn't. I put

ifconfig wlan0 mtu 1500

in my /etc/rc.local file. I don't know what the Mac equivalent for this is, but perhaps somebody else will.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 8:16 AM on May 4, 2007 marked best answer

You could just wait for it to expire (check the WHOIS info for the expiry date), then register it afresh for yourself. If the site is unused, gets only two visitors a month, and is unusual/rare enough that you don't think anyone else will make an offer for it, then the current owner may not bother to renew it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 9:39 AM on May 1, 2007

You'll probably enjoy The Library of Babel.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 6:09 AM on April 25, 2007

I'm not sure how fair it is for me to date men.

If you like a dude, date him. If he thinks he's getting a bad deal, that's for him to decide. Maybe he'd miss the blowjobs, but maybe there's something incredibly cool and special about you that makes up for it. If you're worried that you're odd and will never find a partner, dating women exclusively is surely not the answer, as the pool of available gay/bi women is massively lower than the pool of available straight men.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 9:10 AM on April 20, 2007

Check the upload speed of your internet connection. Even the broadest broadband tends to have a weedy upload speed, and 17GB is a lot of data. I tried doing this with my photo collection, but gave up after calculating that I'd need to upload continuously for about 9 weeks.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 8:22 AM on April 3, 2007

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:nndb.com+%22sexual+orientation:+gay%22+oscar may help produce a shortlist. Not sure how you'd determine their enclosetment status at the time though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 8:17 AM on April 3, 2007

You say that for most women, the color line is a difficult one to cross, but maybe white women aren't attracted to you for the same reasons you're not attracted to black women.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 9:16 AM on March 29, 2007

You might want to replace "“Never risk a joke with someone who is unable to comprehend it."" with something like "Sorry."
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 8:18 AM on March 23, 2007

Listen to markovich, and choose his second option. Apply your rational mind to The Hacker's Diet.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 4:22 AM on March 21, 2007

I believe paper-in-landfills doesn't completely degrade, but locks something like 70% of its carbon in the ground. So if you can guarantee that your paper comes from sustainable tree farms, then not recycling it is an effective carbon sink (doubly so when you consider that recycling paper is a carbon-intensive manufacturing process).

However, Pressed Rat's links are worth reading, as is this comment.

If your goal is to be guilt... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 3:45 AM on February 23, 2007 marked best answer

I drove from Puerto Natales into the Torres del Paine park in some kind of non-4x4 sedan. We stuck more or less to the beaten track, and while we had no trouble, it wasn't pleasant. If you are going at all off-road you'll appreciate something with higher clearance. Caveat: this was 6 years ago, and I don't know what's happened to the roads since.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:25 PM on February 17, 2007 marked best answer

Detective Hartigan from Sin City is probably exactly what you're looking for.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 3:04 AM on February 15, 2007

since my last question

I mean well, but that sounds a lot like "since my last session". AskMe isn't a therapist; I don't think you'll find the answer you're looking for if you treat it like one.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 3:29 AM on February 12, 2007

OK, thanks everybody. If Paypal works just fine in the UK (and payment options would seem to be the biggest thing tying any of these solutions to a country), then the Yahoo store is probably best - by which I mean easiest.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 7:23 AM on January 30, 2007

Mark Shuttleworth bought a trip to the international space station for $20m. Probably more extravagant than stupid.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 3:22 PM on January 10, 2007

A person will dream about millions of events, images, sounds and feelings in their lifetime. In the real world, billions of different things happen every day. Through plain blind chance something will match up between dreams and reality.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 9:17 AM on January 5, 2007

It's very hard to measure what wealth means at the top; it tends to be in vaporous forms like stock. If you base your rankings on cash-in-the-bank, that excludes plenty of legitimate sources of wealth, but how wide do you cast your net? Must you be in possession of a title deed to own something? Plenty of people manage to control assets without owning them. The Pope arguably controls the Roman Catholic Church, whose assets could be worth more than $1tn.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 8:00 AM on January 2, 2007

The conclusion: we went to Eat and Two Veg and had a great time and a lovely meal. I will try the other recommendations as I get the chance. Thanks everyone!
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:11 PM on November 28, 2006

I just wondered if anyone knows if this is within my rights or can the professor unilaterally drop me from the course from one email telling her to get her act together.

All teachers try to give you the benefit of the doubt when marking. If you have already been receiving "atrocious marks on everything so far in this class", then removing that doubt might push your marks down even lower - possibly low enough to fail you.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 7:21 AM on November 18, 2006

Wind-blown seeds would get into the structure and the plant's roots would seek out tiny cracks and make them bigger.

I guess plants are a bit of a wild card. They might burrow and scrape, but they might also protect, like they protect soil from erosion. An ESB wrapped entirely in vines might even be strengthened.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 7:23 AM on November 17, 2006

Recently, the cream of the SF crop have been almost all British, with the possible exception of Stephenson, Bujold and Vinge. I think it's all Iain M. Banks' fault.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:41 AM on November 5, 2006

Nice work, languagehat. You couldn't draw up a list for Brazilian SF could you? I've read a bunch of Portuguese-language SF and it's fascinating in its own way - but I've not yet come across anything that's not thoroughly derivative of Anglophone SF.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 7:18 AM on November 6, 2006

It's very expensive to make large chips, partly because a greater area of silicon costs more, and partly because a single flaw means you have to throw out a larger area.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:37 AM on November 1, 2006

Give copies of your photos to all your friends, let them know it's for the sake of redundancy, and offer to keep some of theirs safe in return.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 5:59 AM on October 29, 2006

Uh.... young heterosexual men?

That sounds like the obvious answer, but I'm wondering whether it's actually true, or at least true enough that movie producers think they can use it to make some more cash. My circle of movie-geeks, for example, is unanimous that the romantic parts of action films are tacked on and pointless and at best serve as a kind of toilet break before the guns, explosions and death resumes. I don't buy that young men get off... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:05 PM on October 19, 2006

We used to think ulcers were caused by stress. They're actually caused by viruses and infections and such.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 9:26 AM on October 18, 2006

You could try getting legal advice, but unless there is a loophole or some special exemption you don't know about, you're not going to get out of paying your taxes.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 7:06 AM on October 17, 2006

Find a surrogate mother?
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 4:56 AM on October 16, 2006

If the transporter comes with an infinite power source, you can use it to continuously beam water from the bottom of a hydro dam to the top, creating an infinite source of energy. This solves most problems.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 10:14 AM on September 21, 2006

hoverboards-- if you have an infinite power source to run the transporter, why would you need to use the transporter to create another infinite power source? Just hook up another outlet to the first one.

If that's allowed, fine - any of them will do. I thought maybe it was some kind of Special Super Trek Energy that was unusable by 21st century humans.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:29 PM on September 21, 2006