Displaying post 1 to 50 of 82
My son lives four hours away. I'm trying to do phone support for him on his PC (XP pro), which won't connect to the internet. In asking him to try various things and report what (if anything) happened we discovered that ipconfig /all is reporting his MAC address as 00-11-22-33-44-55. Nuh-huh! Fuller violently shakes head until pea brain rattles.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 12:50 PM on March 8, 2008
(13 comments)
I have a new little alien on my home net, namely my daughter's xbox 360. I don't know what this will do to network security hereabouts.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 8:16 AM on December 23, 2007
(7 comments)
I'm searching for a utility that monitors the speed of an internet connection from a hospital on this side of town to one on that side of town. There is a special consideration. (I didn't think it would be so special when I started looking, but apparently it is.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 11:21 AM on December 2, 2007
(10 comments)
Ignorant spreadsheet question: do most (or any) spreadsheets have the ability to tag cells with an arbitrary name or label and then do operations on only the cells with that tag?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 10:24 AM on September 2, 2007
(8 comments)
Single Japanese Male. Rather than yammering in Meta about what "best of the web" means, let's have an object-lesson in astonishing obscure excellence. Introducing every last one of you to the
Virtual Wilbye Consort.
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 3:53 PM on August 4, 2007
(19 comments)
Is there such thing as a stand-alone editor for browser bookmarks files? Mine are large and unwieldy with many sub- and sub-sub-folders, they're on several different machines, and it's becoming painful keeping them synced up.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 7:55 AM on August 2, 2007
(15 comments)
I love my friends...My friends love me...We're just as friendly...As friends can be...And just because...We really care...
Whatever we get, we share.
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 7:00 PM on June 29, 2007
(24 comments)
I have an old record turntable (in excellent shape) that I would like to use, but I'm stumped regarding to power it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 4:40 PM on May 24, 2007
(6 comments)
Turntable help from vinyl geeks, please! Low-end but adequate direct-drive turntable recs?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 12:45 PM on May 2, 2007
(17 comments)
Compu musicians: what's the best software (if there is any) to use to make continuously variable swoopy-pitch sounds using a soundcard? I'd like to control and edit the actual roller-coaster profile of the pitch changes pretty closely.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 1:18 PM on April 8, 2007
(10 comments)
Is there a decent antivirus for MS server operating systems that doesn't cost a breathtaking amount?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 5:51 PM on March 11, 2007
(11 comments)
December 2006: carbon credit market to crash-land? One problem, most of the countries submitted emissions plans that allocated permits for more than is currently being emitted--in other words, instead of reductions, they proposed increases. Collectively, EU countries have allocated permits allowing emissions 15 percent higher than actual emissions. February 2007: Splat. The collapse in the price of a tonne of carbon dating back to May last year when it emerged that most countries in the scheme had set their carbon caps far too high, resulting in fewer firms than expected having to buy credits and causing the price of a tonne of carbon to plummet from over €30 to less than €10. SPLAT!:
A year ago, CO2 was changing hands in the ETS at 30 euros (33 dollars) a tonne, triple that at the market's launch in January 2005. Today, a tonne of CO2 can be bought for little more than one euro. I'm a good greenie, I'm buying enough credits to offset my coal-fired barbie and my Bradley Shopping Vehicle for the rest of eternity. That should cost me about fiddy cents. (Buy yours
here.)
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 8:11 PM on February 27, 2007
(18 comments)
Are Africans Black? The population of African immigrants in the United States is rapidly growing. Since 1990, about 50,000 Africans have come to the United States annually, more than in any of the peak years of the international slave trade, which was abolished in 1807. They add to the steady influx of black immigrants from other continents and the Caribbean, and those who have been in the United States for generations but who don't racially and culturally define themselves as African American. These blacks feel cramped by the narrowness of American racial politics, in which "blackness" has not just defined one's skin color but has served as a code word for African American.
Maybe Not. After all, Obama's mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan. Other than color, Obama did not - does not - share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves.... when black Americans refer to Obama as "one of us," I do not know what they are talking about. In his new book, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama makes it clear that, while he has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own - nor has he lived the life of a black American.
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 7:59 AM on February 18, 2007
(161 comments)
I observed that I have saved more comments from ROU_Xenophobe as favorites than from anyone else. Having noticed that, I checked
ROU's profile, saw "contributions from ROU_Xenophobe saved by others 135 times" and tried to look at these to see if there were any pearls I had missed (aside: yes.)
First page of favorites saved by others displays 30 comments. The "next page" link at the bottom apparently goes to page 2 of the favorited comments (the url changes, anyway) but the same 30 comments are displayed. No matter how many times I click "next page" I keep seeing the same 30 comments. Same result in IE6, Mozilla 1.7, and Foxfire 1.5. Darn it, I want to read the rest of prof. Xenophobe's greatest hits.
posted to MetaTalk by jfuller
at 6:00 PM on November 22, 2006
(9 comments)
Charlie Darwin joins the fray. Yes,
The formation of vegetable mould, through the action of worms, with observations on their habits is there.
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 6:12 PM on October 18, 2006
(19 comments)
Has anyone had any experience with
IPodResQ or any other iPod repair outfit? Is there one you can recommend?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 4:25 PM on June 28, 2006
(2 comments)
Please help me start to search for volunteering opportunities for a high-tech worker in Asia.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 2:15 PM on May 24, 2006
(6 comments)
I'm presently working on a set of Pimsleur Mandarin CDs, and the Pimsleur system is spoken-only. I'm dying to write down what I've learned (I'm addicted to practicing with note cards, I don't feel that I'm really working hard on a language until I have a thick deck of dirty, dog-eared note cards.) But I'm nowhere near ready to write stuff down in Chinese characters. Is there a standard or widely used way of transliterating Mandarin into Latin characters, and somehow also indicating the tonal content?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 2:05 PM on May 9, 2006
(9 comments)
Some RAID questions about what happens if you lose not a disk but the controller.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 7:26 AM on April 27, 2006
(11 comments)
I missed the joke pointed out by
this post. The flikr 7-day random wasn't all cats when I looked. However, it did net up
this pic of a
well-known mefiite which will interest many others. (The ones who are
most interested, of course, will surely have seen it already.)
posted to MetaTalk by jfuller
at 1:17 PM on April 1, 2006
(34 comments)
Peak oil? Yesterday's news. Global warming? You won't live to see it. Today's end-of-the-world-as-you-know-it message is mad cow disease
in the human blood supply.
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 5:57 AM on March 27, 2006
(68 comments)
From
Foreign Policy,
Patriarchy's Big Comeback. Maybe you didn't believe it had been away. But
Societies that are today the most secular and the most generous with their underfunded welfare states will be the most prone to religious revivals and a rebirth of the patriarchal family. The absolute population of Europe and Japan may fall dramatically, but the remaining population will, by a process similar to survival of the fittest, be adapted to a new environment in which no one can rely on government to replace the family, and in which a patriarchal God commands family members to suppress their individualism and submit to father.
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 4:23 PM on March 2, 2006
(58 comments)
De Villepin: The French riots
didn't happen. Riots? What riots? There were no riots. (Jean Baudrillard: "That's right, Dominique, you're
getting the idea.)
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 5:21 PM on November 30, 2005
(49 comments)
Tejas to Sony BMG: "
Reach for th' sky, varmint. Now turn around reeeeal slow. And keep them hands where ah can see 'em."
The rest of the necktie party is forming up over here. Popcorn?
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 3:16 PM on November 22, 2005
(31 comments)
Is there a way to back up just the local username/password list in Windows (specifically Win2000 server) and copy it from machine to machine?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 3:44 AM on August 19, 2005
(2 comments)
I don't understand buying an ebay replacement for a busted cell phone.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 2:23 PM on July 3, 2005
(7 comments)
Increasingly many e-commerce sites and ebay vendors seem to be using paypal as the outfit that also handles their ordinary credit-card (i.e. non-paypal-account) purchases. This doesn't work, and blows the transaction. How can I evade this yet-another-paypal-gotcha?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 9:38 AM on June 6, 2005
(25 comments)
Red State/Blue state France.
Les résultats département par département. Remarkable that the U.S. isn't the only country that's split down the geographic middle. No translation, but the picture speaks for itself.
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 7:38 AM on May 30, 2005
(22 comments)
It's exactly one week to
The Referendum. Will there be a Europe this year or won't there? The European Union was more France's project than anyone else's; if the French suddenly say Non there's going to be lots of polyglot arm-waving and excitement.
The media are all a-twitter, all the
European ministers are breathing heavily,
Libération, in the person of Jean Baudrillard, sees state fascism approaching
(but then Libération always sees fascism approaching, it's their gig.) My magic 8 ball points to
Oui. Oh wait, it changed its mind, now it says "reply hazy, ask again later."
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 10:22 AM on May 22, 2005
(30 comments)
In
Neverwhere Neil Gaiman describes a Christian abbot thusly:
The abbot had known that this day would bring pilgrims. The knowledge was part of his dreams; it surrounded him, like the darkness. So the day became one of waiting, which was, he knew, a sin: moments were to be experienced; waiting was a sin against both the time that was still to come and the moments one was currently disregarding.
Is anyone aware of any Christian teaching that anticipation is to be avoided? To modern ears Gaiman's passage sounds so be-here-now Buddhist. I am aware of the passage in Matthew where Jesus says "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself," which is pretty explicit, but has this notion ever been taken up and turned into formal doctrine by any branch of the church, or has any historically important theologian ever grabbed this particular ball and run with it?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 7:16 AM on March 20, 2005
(7 comments)
Can anyone recommend a moderately priced (i.e. less $ than an iPod) MP3 player that has BIG, EASILY-MANIPULATED CONTROLS? I have 20 CDs worth of Mandarin language instruction that I want to rip to MP3 and use as a companion on a daily walk. Because I'll be playing language instruction instead of music, I expect to need to pause, back up, and restart a given section frequently. I'd like a player that can be manipulated easily by feel without stopping to look at it. If it can be set to loop a particular track over and over that's a big plus (though I expect that's an uncommon feature because how many people want to hear the same song again and again?) Thanks very much for any and all suggestions!
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 8:57 AM on February 19, 2005
(9 comments)
What with the Archbishop of Canterbury on the point of being vanquished by plain old
Doubt (not that it was much of a contest in Rowan Williams's case) I was reminded of a drama I once read as a book and later saw as a TV screenplay. An abbot of a particular monastery has secretly lost his faith, and so does not wish to lead the brothers in prayer; he always gets someone else to do this, to avoid a personal spiritual crisis caused by having to pray publicly to, as he sees it, nothing. The Catholic hierarchy of that future time, unbeknownst to him, has become entirely atheist. An agent of the curia is sent to force the abbot to the point of a self-destroying confrontation with his unbelief. The agent achieves this by manipulating him into a situation where he can't avoid being the one to lead the assembled brothers in a public prayer.
Can anyone tell me what this thing is that I remember? Title and author are entirely gone. Thanks!
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 2:43 PM on January 6, 2005
(4 comments)
When making software user instruction booklets for the Windows-based Compleat Idiot, in which you want to include screen captures of absolutely everything the user sees, is there a way to do screen caps of things like popup tool tips, right-click context menus and so forth that close automatically the instant you press a key? Can you do it without installing an additional screen-capture utility? If you have to have an additional utility, what's a good (= lightweight and cheap) one? I don't need any special features except one, what-I-see-goes-to-clipboard.
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 11:50 AM on October 16, 2004
(7 comments)
Turkey Rhubarb in the Low Countries. Since there's nothing interesting going on here in the US right now, let's enjoy a moment of EU fun. (y2-length post inside).
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 8:08 AM on October 3, 2004
(27 comments)
Firefox question. Unmodified, just-installed firefox opens a new tab behind the current tab, instead of on top as Mozilla does; and the right-click popup menu for tabs does not have "close this tab" first in the list, as in Mozilla. Are these two behaviors customizable? I know I'm being lazy but these two misfeatures are deal-killers for me. If you knowledgeable firefox users tell me they're fixable in userChrome.css or users.js or whatever I promise I'll rtfm-rtfm-rtfm and become as rabid a firefox zealot as you might desire. But if they're not changeable then it's all wasted effort and I'll stay with Mozilla (or whatever they're calling it this week.) Thanks!
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 5:58 AM on September 25, 2004
(11 comments)
Breeders are winning. "Conservative, religiously minded Americans are putting far more of their genes into the future than their liberal, secular counterparts." (WaPo link,
bugmenot says try fedup@mailinator.com and
fedup if you don't care to register. Definition of genetic fitness
here.)
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 10:04 AM on September 6, 2004
(77 comments)
The world's
ten worst dictators -- this year anyway. Saddam, who was No. 3 Worst last year, has dropped off the list. Charles Taylor of Liberia (No. 4), also out of power and gone. Moammar Gadhafi (previously No. 8) and Belarus' Alexander Lukashenko (No. 10) also miss the new A list not because, according to the compilers, "they have improved but because other dictators have gotten worse."
posted to MetaFilter by jfuller
at 3:54 AM on September 1, 2004
(20 comments)
DecoratorEyeFilter: what can I do about my bathroom? The pro is that the house is 50-ish years old and the wall and floor tiles are actual ceramic. The con is that they're PINK. Can anyone suggest some miraculous color for the non-tile walls above waist height that will reduce the atrociousness of PINK? I have considered grey, as one of the worst villains in the Rex Stout detective stories had an underground bunker/office with grey-stained wood panel walls and pink indirect lighting around the ceiling, but for all I know this color combo was chosen to show how warped and evil mr. villain was. Also, the way it's described, mr. villain's pink was a lot more subdued than the PINK I have to face each morning. Plaster and shower curtain are just white now. Should I just grit my teeth and live with it? The preferred solution (ripping everything out and re-doing it) is not a financial option. Hoping for a stroke of genius from of the many geniuses who hang out here. Thanks!
(PS, yes I also considered black, sorry, I'm chicken.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 5:15 AM on August 12, 2004
(24 comments)
I just gave up on two pages in quick succession; the first hung while it waited and waited on something from akamai, which was apparently taking a nap just then, and the second while it waited and waited on something from doubleclick, equally asleep. Like I care whether a page manages to do its dirty background business with doubleclick. Is there any browser that has a [SKIP IT] button you can click that means "give up on what you're trying to get right now, skip over it, go on and load the rest of the page"? Would such a button be feasable?Or have I been missing something that's been in front of me all the time?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jfuller
at 6:23 PM on July 28, 2004
(7 comments)
