I am about your age, though considerably heavier, and I had this exact same problem a bit after I first started doing squats, and I feel for you, it really sucked. I ended up taking 2-3 weeks off from squatting, just because it was so painful and I didn't know what else to do. After talking to my doctor and confirming that nothing was actually wrong with my joints, I started doing unweighted squats in my room while messing with my stance. I eventually found that I was standing far too wide.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 10:49 PM on July 4, 2008

Based on the best answers you've selected, you're open to this, but one thing you should be aware of is that people living in the country live there because they enjoy doing this sort of thing. It's nice to be able to just ride around on your ATVs right around your house, rather than having to put them up on a trailer, haul them out to somewhere else, and then that whole process in reverse at the end of the day.

I point this out because my parents live out in (what used... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 2:05 PM on July 1, 2008

I'd agree that there's no need to go into any details about this. It's not uncommon at all (at least in the US) to take a bit of time to figure out what to do with yourself at school. A lot of employers would also probably appreciate having someone a bit older and more mature, as 22 year olds can be a bit rough around the edges.

So, as I see it, the most truthful but private way to talk about this is just that you had a rough couple of years (be vague) away from home.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 10:03 PM on June 15, 2008

I absolutely recommend this. I went to Germany my senior year of high school, and it was totally awesome. Both of my host families treated me largely like an adult, so I was mostly able to travel and do what I wanted.. (Think like a college kid living at home in the US.) Really though, the travelling isn't the best part. People who recommend travelling instead don't understand exchanges, IMHO. An exchange is about learning how another country lives, what their philosophies are, how they educate... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 8:39 PM on June 15, 2008

I love my 2006 Scion XA.

SmartCar.

Why are you guys suggesting cars that are 15 times the OP's price range?


Sorry.

I would look on craigslist and in your local paper for an older Honda Civic hatchback or CRX. They can be had for about $1500 around these parts and get around 40 MPG. (Source)

One... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 9:57 PM on June 14, 2008

Oh, and you should definitely look for a car that's been well-maintained and had few owners. You should also take any car you're considering buying to a good mechanic. You can just tell them you're considering buying the car and ask them to look at it. If you don't know any mechanics in your area, and don't know anyone who does, head over to cartalk.com and put your zip code into the Find a Mechanic box. It looked like there might be a few rated ones in your area.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 10:05 PM on June 14, 2008

If you hit Ctrl+enter, it puts in the www and the .com for you, by the way.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 9:26 PM on June 14, 2008

Wow, lots of bias in this thread.

Alright, so here's the deal. PHP, Python and C# are all popular, modern languages which support the object-oriented programming paradigm. If you are working with skilled programmers whose aim it is to write solid, well-designed and maintainable code, the results in all three will be similar (with some differences, e.g., due to slightly different object models, C#'s static type checking, Python's better support of lambda calculus, and the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 8:23 PM on June 11, 2008

Also, by the way, if after learning C#, you still hate it (nothing wrong with that), then just keep looking for jobs in languages you like, because they are certainly out there.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 8:24 PM on June 11, 2008

One thing that might help you is to work out a process you go through in order to solve the problem. This can be helpful particularly if it's the physics, rather than the math that's giving you trouble.

A process that is basically universal for mechanics-type problems is as follows:

Read\understand\sketch scenario posed by problemDraw free-body diagram, being sure it includes all forces and moments (if you're not sure how to do this, you can... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 1:06 AM on June 6, 2008

Slice in half, put some olive oil\butter on it, put tomatoes, onions and cheese on that, add any other veggies or toppings you like on stuff, and stick it in the oven for like 5-10 minutes. MMmm mmm.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 12:02 AM on June 4, 2008

I've had this problem, and as others have said, a large part of it is that you're not eating lunch. You're body takes some time to establish your blood sugar levels after you eat, and since they're so low beforehand, it takes even longer. During this time, you still feel hungry.

It's almost impossible for you to not have time to eat lunch. If you have time to spend on metafilter posting this question and reading the answers, you have time to eat lunch. I'm not denying... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 1:04 AM on May 30, 2008

Have you tried using the SetStyle method on your custom control? MSDN seems to suggest this should be done for custom controls.

There's also a couple forum posts.

Note sure if this'll help, but I saw no one was really answering, so I looked around a bit.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 1:00 AM on May 20, 2008

Yes, no.

I also sometimes sing or groove along, but not because I'm curmudgeonly and hating on their music, but rather because music is awesome, and it would be a good thing if we removed some of the barriers to enjoying it in public.

That only happens when I'm in an exceedingly good mode though, which, since I'm riding the bus, is almost never. I do it in the car too, though, much more frequently.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 1:46 AM on May 10, 2008

I hope this isn't offensive, but when my sister was trying to be taken more seriously as a professional, she read Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers. I'm pretty sure some of the stuff in that book applied to her, and she definitely has experienced a lot of success at work in the past few years, basically moving from secretary position she got stuck in as an intern, to a supervisor on a trading floor. That's not to say it was... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 11:57 PM on May 9, 2008

It's quite brief, but The Economist ran this piece that talks somewhat about some of the other issues surrounding farming (tariffs, etc.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 10:22 PM on May 4, 2008

Around these parts, Jack in the Box has the biggest straws I think.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 6:50 PM on April 25, 2008

This youtube has a bunch of them.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 1:54 AM on April 20, 2008

Not to point out the obvious, but the first picture you linked is released under a creative commons license, and is 1024 x 768 (click the "All Sizes" link above the image). How large do you need it, and what for?
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 3:42 PM on April 12, 2008

I also don't know if there's a name for this, but I've experienced the same thing, and also that often my memories of conversations take place in whatever language I'm most comfortable with at the time. When I was living in Germany, I would remember conversation with my mom (who only speaks English) in German, because for a while, I was more comfortable with German.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 8:03 PM on April 9, 2008

Mini helicopters or similar RC aircraft
Delicious food out with good friend\SO
Gym membership if you don't have one
Lego Mindstorms kit (if available for around this price)
Other sorts of legos
GPS unit
New cellphone\PDA type device
Wood or metal to build some sweet furniture
Parts to build some kind of weapon (paintball turret, missile launcher, potato gun, etc.)
New rifle
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 3:09 PM on April 9, 2008

Based off of a glance at the products homepage, the main things this thing would do are limit RPM and limit maximum speed. This is basically what ctmf was saying, where you don't necessarily change the engine, you just change your driving patterns, except that this device does it for you. To me, that would be very irritating, as there are times when I expect my car to respond quickly to certain input.

Probably the only other thing it does that would really matter... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 7:14 PM on April 6, 2008

I think it's unusual for an adult to give the half-inch. If you want to sound tall, say 6', if you don't care, say 5' 11''.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 11:20 PM on April 5, 2008

Great answers all-around guys, it'll be good for Metafilter to have a good chicken recipes thread. Best answers are ones that sound good for dinner this week.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 2:38 PM on March 31, 2008

There are nootropics which which do not require prescriptions, piracetam being the first that comes to mind. I haven't checked yet, but I've heard that you can buy choline supplements at health food stores. If you MeMail me, I can find a link to the place online some folks I know get theirs. THere's no reason to keep it secret, and I'm not worried about legality, but I don't have the link right here, and I'll likely forget.

That all being said, I've personally had the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 12:26 AM on March 27, 2008

FWIW, I had a lot of problems with CS2 on Windows XP being really slow. CS3 has been much better for me in that regard. If you have access to them, you might try different versions of Photoshop to see if you experience the same problems with all of them.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 12:20 AM on March 27, 2008

Second peacheater. Here's what I did:


Insert equation
Pick from the menu the item that looks like abc (except the "a" and b are aligned - this isn't because it's HTML)
Put an "a" in the bottom-left subscript box.
Put a "b" in the normal-sized box
Highlight this entire unit
Pick the regular right-side subscript from the menu.
The ab is placed inside of the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 12:44 AM on March 20, 2008 marked best answer

You and your friend are having the wrong argument. Research has found that 1 hour of HIIT is more effective at burning calories and maintaining fitness than 1 hour of moderate intensity exercise. The key part is that you're doing the exercise for the same amount of time, but at different intensity levels. I don't know what the exact breakdown is, but consider that the intensity level you could maintain over 3 hours is a lot less than the maximum intensity you'd reach doing HIIT.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 2:20 PM on March 19, 2008

Doing HIIT for an hour, that is.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 2:21 PM on March 19, 2008

There are actually roads made of some kind of mix of asphalt and rubber. They're in fairly wide use in the freeways around Phoenix. They apparently have the advantage of being longer-lasting and definitely are much quieter to drive on. link to an article about them. You can also google "rubber roads".
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 10:09 AM on March 13, 2008

IAAE student (end of my junior year, Aerospace). All I can really say is that you have to be able to do basic math and physics to get an engineering degree. Everything you do later builds on those skills. You really don't need to be great at them, but you need to be able to pass classes.

My largest problems with math are the minor mistakes I make when writing exams (I forget a lot of –ves and drop the occasion 0).

How honest... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 2:05 PM on March 5, 2008

I'm not a native speaker, but I lived in Germany and spoke German fluently. I would guess that the "That was weird!" translation was either a poor one, or an effort to convey the sentiment moreso than the actual meaning. I would translate "Das war ja toll!" to "Wow, that was cool!".

That's all I got, but no one else was answering. Hopefully some others will pop on in.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 9:31 PM on February 25, 2008 marked best answer

The hot thing now really is .NET. I think people usually have it on their computers by now, but I guess some may not. If you like Delphi, .NET is more along the same lines of what you've done than something like C++.

I've found .NET fairly easy to get into as someone who started doing GUI stuff with Visual Basic 5 or 6. It has similar types of conventions for creating forms and defining actions for them. I've found that .NET also scales really well. I've created very... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 10:21 PM on February 24, 2008

Why is it "kinda retarded"? I think it's "very retarded" to think they would. Why don't other computer brands or independent computer shops put in a hard drive for free?

Where are you reading the free part? I've always assumed that the genius bar is like Geek Squad, but nicer and Mac-ier.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 10:05 PM on February 24, 2008

I hate to be such an echo, but please do be sure to talk to your cardiologist about this. What was true for someone on a TV show may very well not be true for you. Heart problems are probably not one of those things you want to mess around with. You can probably just call and talk to your cardiologist on the phone (I would think, anyway), since he's already seen you.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 9:24 PM on February 21, 2008

I think you're sort of a jerk for leading her on, but it was obviously a mistake, so don't beat yourself up too much over it. I don't think the passive "Hung out with my gf" thing is really right here, because that sort of makes it seem like a slap in the face to me. That would work if the flirting was one-way, but it hasn't been.

I also don't really like the idea of changing your relationship status, because it seems a bit too indirect to me, plus that thing... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 11:05 PM on February 19, 2008

Regarding the Engineering Technology type of degrees, I worked for a giant engineering company in the aerospace sector, and can confirm that were many people doing engineering type work employed by that company who had such degrees.

That company has positions called stress engineering and manufacturing engineering that were often filled by people with engineering technology degrees. The stress engineering folks basically do (among other things) modeling and... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 9:04 PM on February 17, 2008

I notice some grammatical stuff: the frequent incorrect use of whom (generally hypercorrection), the use of the plural when the present would be more correct IMHO, including when I do it ("None of them are coming" - none, singular, is the subject, so it should be is, to my German-trained brain). I also notice accents, even light ones, and can tell similar accents apart. I notice weird little speaking affectations people have, and mine too sometimes.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 11:43 PM on February 12, 2008

I've a feeling that JScript differentiates between this and me, or between this and self.
Hopefully, I'm wrong and they all do the same thing.

this in javascript refers to the instance, just like anywhere else. There is neither a self variable nor a me variable in javascript, although apparently some people advocate the use of a variable called self to simulate private members.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 11:19 PM on February 12, 2008

Spore isn't supposed to be a very demanding game because the creatures are generated procedurally rather than from objects. If I'd venture a guess, I think all your other specs will be fine.

This actually goes against what I've heard, which is that it'll be a fairly taxing game. The fact that it's procedurally generated means that memory and CPU may be more important than they usually are, and really, they're already pretty damned important. What you... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 7:31 PM on February 11, 2008

This is maybe a non-answer, but what happens when you don't use a system at all? I've tried various systems, but time and time again, I come back to the fact that it's much simpler to just all that stuff in my head, or have it written down where I can easily find it.

For example, right now I keep track of school-related responsibilities (4 classes), work responsibilities (2 clients\employers), extra-curriculars (2 clubs, one of which I'm an officer in), and then all... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 12:58 PM on February 6, 2008

In other words, I think you need to reword your question.

It's odd wording, but the question does actually say meaning *looks* like an SLR.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 11:48 AM on February 3, 2008

I disagree with phred182 and Kololo, if you think you can express yourself well enough in English, there's no reason to assume otherwise.

What I would consider is that there are probably more English-speaking than French-speaking therapists, so you have a better pool from which to find someone you're compatible with. If you're comfortable with your English level, I think finding someone you click with would be far more important than the language issue.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 11:38 AM on February 3, 2008

I have loved the Office 2007 from day 1. The interface is weird, but I have found it to be very welcoming, and makes it way easier to find the stuff I need. For me, clicking a tab on the ribbon, and then locating the correct icon only took a few times to get used to. I've written fairly long technical papers in both Office 2003 and Office 2007, and have found that finding and accessing things I need such as references, equations, tables, etc. is easier and requires far far less clicking in 2007... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 10:26 PM on January 31, 2008

I would do whatever you need to do to feel closure about and feel like you've appreciated your aunt. For me, this would mean going to the funeral. Take your sisters entirely out of the picture. I have been to funerals where I had to avoid contact with certain close family members, and it's definitely do-able.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 3:10 PM on January 30, 2008

The fact that both Clinton and Huckabee are way ahead means that your vote is not likely to "count" (meaning: be a real influence on the outcome of the primary or the general election).

This is incorrect. Democratic primaries use a proportional voting system to apportion delegates. I say vote for whoever you want to be president. Personally, of the democrats, I think Obama has a much greater chance of winning, but that's just my opinion, and... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 2:59 PM on January 30, 2008

For me, it was anywhere from like $0.50 to $2.00, always in fairly loose change (having more things made it more fun). I would say if you want them to be able to buy some gum or candy, maybe make it a bit more than a dollar, in case of tax. On the other hand, they don't always need to be able to buy something with it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 1:34 PM on January 28, 2008

Slim timer is a pretty decent webapp for this sort of thing. It doesn't exactly have a notion of projects and clients, but you can emulate that with tags.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 2:07 PM on January 19, 2008

I had no idea they did this and have been making small adjustments to my own (metal, or plastic, with metal wire inside for support) frames by hand for several years. I've never broken a pair doing this.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 8:29 PM on January 15, 2008

Milkrate just missed an awesome opportunity to rickroll a bunch of people, while also being helpful.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim at 9:33 AM on January 11, 2008