One things for certain - many people are going to be making careers out of insuring something like this NEVER happens again figuring out how to do this all over again.

Fixed that for you.
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 2:16 PM on October 9, 2008

According to a recent New Yorker article, Buckminster Fuller believed we came here fully formed from outer space. There aren't really that many different fundamental answers to the question. Either we were created, or we evoved, or we came here from somewhere else (which sort of avoids the question). There's also the Boltzmann brain idea, which you may or may not consider a valid answer to the question.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 4:17 AM on September 29, 2008

Is that good? I don't know. I gave up after a minute and a half.
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 2:15 PM on September 24, 2008

Thanks for your help. I guess it was *only* one and a quarter hours on the phone and 5 operators. But I think it is accomplished. I think I only burst a few blood vessels in the process. Sorry, but buddha like calmness was not achieved. The main problem was actually getting someone on the phone. I doubt they staff their "cancellation" number at all. You have to call their "setting up a new account" to get any response at all. And yes, you have to make... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 9:50 AM on September 24, 2008

writing them a certified letter

Someone else suggested that too.

Will that really work? Does it have any kind of legal force?

I really like the idea, since it avoids having to deal with their phone nonsense.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 11:52 AM on September 24, 2008

A long shot, but try matching the laptop out screen resolution to the native resolution of the projector, and set the refresh to 60Hz.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 1:35 PM on September 21, 2008

Some [older?] projectors don't always auto-select their input signal. Could this one be currently set for s-video rather than auto or vga? You said that the projector works with another laptop and the laptop drives an external monitor. Is it easy to verify that those things are still working right now?
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 1:41 PM on September 21, 2008

turned the image upside down

That could be the ceiling mount setting.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 1:46 PM on September 21, 2008

Manual

The Source button should select the various sources. There will probably be some on-screen indication as you cycle through the source settings.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 1:54 PM on September 21, 2008

no macbook listed under "compatibility modes" on this page mean it won't work with my computer?

I doubt it, if the laptop will drive a standard vga monitor.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 1:59 PM on September 21, 2008

No problem (I used to work for a projector company).

I identified the source button. Pushing it does nothing.

Isn't there even any on-screen message telling you which source you've switched to?

I see the projector came with a VGA to M1-A cable. Are you using the cable that came with the projector? Does the laptop properly identify the projector (as the name of the external monitor)? It should... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 2:24 PM on September 21, 2008

You might try the r-sync (resync) button (you've probably already tried that). I'd also try turning off the projector, leave it off for a minute and then turning it back on again, leaving the cables connected as they are, in case the projector's hung trying to sync. I've seen that happen. You might also try switching sources when the computer is not connected. It bothers me that there's no on-screen indication of switching sources. That makes me think the projector might be hung. You could try... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 2:45 PM on September 21, 2008

What kinds of problems are you having? Neglect and blindsight are interesting topics in vsual processing. I'd be doubtful of any supplements claiming to help.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 7:38 PM on September 6, 2008

This is a private video. If you have been sent this video, please make sure you accept the sender's friend request.

What's up with that?
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 6:28 PM on September 4, 2008

Funny, I ran across this book in a store this morning and was really struck by how beautiful it was. Thanks for this post.
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 6:05 PM on August 31, 2008

You might be interested in looking at Michael Pollan's book "In Defense Of Food" and shifting your diet in that direction, if you are worried about processed foods and sugar. I don't think fasting or teas will do anything to remove "toxins" from your body. Your body is already doing that. Just put better food into it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 2:39 PM on August 29, 2008

Thanks, husky, but it's none of those. I did like this one though.

In the painting I'm looking for, Mary is reacting/recoiling very strongly to the news, as if in pain or as if trying to shut it out.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 1:55 PM on August 22, 2008

Thanks, peachfuzz. Neither of those is it. I'm pretty sure it's a profile.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 2:27 PM on August 22, 2008

iconomy: no, though it fits the description. Thanks. I recall the background being very nearly black.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 4:09 PM on August 22, 2008

flibbertigibbet: It was unconventional (in my entirely uneducated view) in its starkness and contrast between the dark background and the sharply defined foreground figure. There was nothing in the picture other than Mary herself. The degree of pain and recoil in her face and pose was what struck me. I think it was an oil painting. Definitely not Leonardo, more modern (to my uneducated eye). I was hoping the story about it being cropped from a larger painting would jog someone's memory of it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 4:25 PM on August 22, 2008

iconomy: no, though that one is interesting...
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 4:26 PM on August 22, 2008

davemack: Yes, thank you!
Didn't quite match my memory, but that's definitely it...
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 4:36 PM on August 22, 2008

Are duels allowed? Sometimes both participants are killed:
1609: Sir George Wharton and Sir James Stuart; fought a duel over a game of cards in Islington; both were killed
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 1:45 PM on August 22, 2008

Can it drive an external monitor without problems?
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 9:12 AM on August 7, 2008

IANA web junkie, but I did a couple of simple web scraping projects. I wrote code specifically for each site's page format to extract the data I wanted. I have the idea that web scraping projects are often done this way, unless the site you're interested in have web services to get the info you want. I don't think XSLT will be useful unless the pages you scrape use XHTML.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 3:29 PM on August 6, 2008

Guesstimation looks to me like a fun book when I've glanced at it in the bookstore. Maybe not exctly what you're looking for, but could sharpen your ability to deal easily with numbers and data.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 11:18 AM on July 28, 2008

Read about Laurie Anderson's early work in Stories from the Nerve Bible.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 4:08 AM on July 28, 2008

The Cyberiad - Stanislaw Lem
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 3:32 PM on July 19, 2008

Personally I feel that both facials and anal sex (at least male on female anal) is not about degradation, but about ownership. A buddy of mine said once, "I just don't enjoy anal - I don't like doing that to a girl." I responded, "You don't like paying your mortgage either, but your sure like owning your own condo, don't you?" End of discussion.

Can someone explain this one to me? You have to do these things to own your girl? What... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 5:25 AM on July 18, 2008

1 GB memory with Vista is not just "kinda light", it's pretty much unacceptable. Bump it up to at least 2GB if possible.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 5:56 PM on July 11, 2008

Something similar happened to me once a couple years ago, an error message flashed up for half a second or so and then it rebooted, and repeat. The error message was too fast to read so I used my digital camera to get a picture of it. It took 3 tries to get a picture. In my case, it said that gdi32.dll wasn't found or was corrupt or something. I replaced the file somehow, I don't remember now. Maybe using the recovery console on the original XP disk. Anyway, it was fine after that. Probably one... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 4:59 PM on June 24, 2008

Definitely reinstall if you have a real XP disk, and are comfortable reinstalling the necessary drivers. If all you have is a restore disk, it may or may not help, since it will have all those cruddy applications installed with it. Stay away from Vista unless you have, or want to install 2Gb of memory.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 1:42 PM on June 18, 2008

A
posted to MetaTalk by DarkForest at 6:34 PM on June 17, 2008

Randy Pausch's Time Management lecture (google video) or summary here.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 9:31 AM on June 17, 2008

Surely carbon trading schemes are really just a complex smokescreen

Agreed. It always looked like a big "shell game" to me, but I get the idea most people buy into it.
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 6:28 AM on June 7, 2008

A recent, short article critical of carbon trading, from Wired. via via
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 11:04 AM on June 13, 2008

The BBC has posted the second part of the series here (mp3).
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 5:57 AM on June 16, 2008

Yes, try a keyboard. It's easier, imho, than a guitar to get around to the different notes for a beginner. Your humming/whistling may not sound good because they aren't likely to be really on pitch or to get the intervals right. The black keys sound nice.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 2:23 PM on June 15, 2008

George Will doesn't believe in global warming, so I guess we can all relax now and forget about it.
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 10:40 AM on June 13, 2008

They missed the best one of all: Ripley vs Alien (youtube, about 3 minutes in).
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 5:50 AM on June 7, 2008

One problem is defining what one means by "benefiting society". Does it mean full employment, or protecting the environment? Some of each? Well, how much exactly; what's the trade-off? If it's making people happier, then perhaps one might want to emulate Denmark (the supposed happiest nation) or Bhutan's concept of Gross National Happiness. But since the rich and powerful have a greater hand in the economy than the rest of us, perhaps their happiness is allocated a greater degree... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 2:19 PM on May 31, 2008

If you can deal with plain text and are unix-savvy, look into m4.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 4:57 AM on May 30, 2008 marked best answer

You may (or may not) be interested in You Are Here. This is firmly on the "artistically rendering the experience" side of things, but might be good inspiration material.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 6:45 PM on May 12, 2008

What tool are you using to check the email for your regex patterns? That's important since there's no single regex specification. Different tools support different regex patterns.

I'm not sure that regexes are really the way to go with spam filtering; much of the spam I receive is garbled in ways that would defeat most regex filtering schemes. For example, a spam I recently received contained: Pre scriptionz. It would be hard to write a regex that... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 4:36 AM on May 12, 2008

In the print magazine, there was a nice before and after nude study. Quite a difference. Maybe too racy for the New Yorker web site(?)
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 4:55 PM on May 8, 2008

I'd say contour drawing. There's an exercise that could be called "blind contour drawing" in various books like The Natural Way to Draw. You look at your subject, but not at the paper as you draw. It can yield results like some of those drawings.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 1:57 PM on May 7, 2008

Marketing has buried its messages deep into your psyche.

Simply eating vegetables never has this effect.

There's your clue.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 8:30 AM on May 5, 2008

Probably too obvious to mention, but other Salinger stuff: Nine Stories, Frannie and Zooie, etc., might be of interest.

Or how about some of Joan Didion's work in Slouching Toward Bethlehem?
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 2:50 PM on April 26, 2008

Could it have been this "Sister Fuzz" article here?
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarkForest at 3:21 PM on April 21, 2008

This week in New Scientist magazine (and online):
Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions
posted to MetaFilter by DarkForest at 3:52 PM on April 20, 2008