I'm a big fan of Paul Reiser's comedy, both performed and written... but his audiobook version of _Couplehood_ was *beyond* phoning it in.

It's his own comedy, fercrissake, and he couldn't be bothered to perform it instead of reading it.

*I* can read the book aloud, and be funnier then he is. :-)
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 10:41 AM on July 10, 2008

If what you want to do is *write programs to process mail*, your choice will be made for you by and large, as several people have noted, by *which languages already have the best implemented library for handling mail*.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 5:13 PM on March 2, 2008

Great links, jferg; and thanks to Lisa G for the pointer to Pitch -- I'm almost embarassed about the once and former Creative Loafing after seeing that and the Stranger, which someone was so kind as to send me a paper copy of once a couple years ago -- it was an entire fiction issue...
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:30 PM on April 28, 2007

Flipping through my list of old favorited posts; left a hanging chad here: that was our very own Mars Saxman who sent me that copy of the Stranger...
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 3:24 PM on March 2, 2008

Walmart. Fishing vest.

Or, alternatively, cop-shop. Tactical vest.

But yeah you have to be Mr. Vest-with-too-many-pockets Wearer.

It doesn't bother me; I'm a photographer. Some people can't handle it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 3:14 PM on March 2, 2008

I understand Anon's position entirely; I too am into what I would call Taco Bell kink (it is to real kink what Taco Bell is to Carmelita's, or Taqueria El Maguey).

In my case it's more body-part fetishism (I'm a boob man, but that's the only one of mine you can really get a read on while the other person's dressed). What an informative thread; thanks all.

> Also, I should point out the obvious: attractive women only go for attractive men.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 3:09 PM on March 2, 2008

For what it's worth, on top of all that other good advice, it has always seemed to me that your overall morale in life is based not on the *size* of your wins and losses, but on their *number*.

If you haven't already, and you can, you might want to find a way to arrange your life so that you can win, not lose, at lots of little things: even things as small as "cuphook by the door for my carkeys, so looking for them never makes me late" type stuff.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 2:31 PM on March 2, 2008

MythTV?
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 2:11 PM on March 2, 2008

If you are running WIndows, 98-XP, you should make sure your swapfile is preallocated, and 1-2x the size of your RAM, and that your OS hasn't pushed your boot drive into PIO mode due to too many errors.

(On the swap file thing, turn swapping off entirely before turning it back on to a fixed size, and on the latter one, there are lots of different approaches to it, but that's the one that works for me.)... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 2:11 PM on March 2, 2008

In general, what *most* mail senders are looking for is that your IP be RDNSed to something that does not look like a dialup block, and that what it reverses to is then valid as a forward lookup for the same name.

The extra level some mail admins go to, which will indeed screw all of you, is requiring that those two lookups also match the HELO from your mail server.

Can't do that with multiple servers...
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 1:06 PM on March 2, 2008

Whaaat?

No folo on the slider contest?
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 10:48 PM on January 24, 2008

Me too. I'm 42, she's 25. (and he's 43, but this is an age thread, not a poly one...)

Age doesn't have to be a problem.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 10:27 PM on January 24, 2008

And, not to freak you any worse, but remember that *almost anything* that's hemisperic could be related to a stroke or related condition.

Manage your care, even if it's at the Free Clinic. I'd escalate this...
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:43 PM on April 29, 2007

I actually meant to say "asymmetric" rather than hemispheric.

(And I'm not a doctor, I just play one, yada yada...)
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:43 PM on April 29, 2007

There is one point about EDI that *everyone* seems to miss, that I'd like to point out here (though it's not strictly germane to your situation, I don't *think*, which is probably why paulsc didn't mention it in his typically complete reply :-):

Part of the *point* of the system architecture of 'traditional' EDI is that the inter-company documents land in transit at the location of an independent third-party organization.

This... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:39 PM on April 29, 2007

An "artificially low" speed limit, I would assume as someone who's dad spent 30 years as a traffic engineer for the City of Boston, would be one that was lower than was indicated for the zone by a traffic engineering survey for that area.

They don't just pull speed limits out their ass, you know. :-)
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:24 PM on April 29, 2007

And the expansion of the money supply, if I understand the critiques of Heinlein's "For Us, The Living" correctly, comes from banks and non-100% reserve requirements.

See also: Social Credit.

(IANAME)
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:22 PM on April 29, 2007

mcwetboy: Ken Rockwell(.com :-) says that the old lenses will not *meter* on the -40; who's right?
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:20 PM on April 29, 2007

Be careful to make sure that your new laptop comes with, or can create *a Vista install CD*.

Not a recovery CD: if your plan really is to dual boot, a recovery CD typically won't permit that, since they wipe the drive completely.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:38 AM on April 27, 2007

Ah, yes, the old "can your computer injure its own hardware" question.

This has been a popular question to ask since the TRS-80 Model 1 came out in about 1981 or so. ;-)

Short version: no.

Longer version: about the only thing that is under programmatic control of a PC that can cause any physical damage to anything is the sync controllers in the video adapter.

Early non-multisync... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:36 AM on April 27, 2007

Don't let 'em dis you, amtho... That was good material.

For someone for whom sense of humor is Job One, they'd be a good filter...
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 6:29 PM on April 15, 2007

The most prominent vendor is TM Century; they'll sell those libraries (I think they have 6 or 7 formats) on audio CDs, data CDs, or hard drives.

Google them.

They have mechanical relicensing rights from the labels for DJs and radio.

Unsurprisingly, they ain't cheap.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 5:56 PM on April 15, 2007 marked best answer

and, again... Webgui. Hosted.

Do people search anymore? Third time /this week/.
:-)
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 7:41 AM on April 15, 2007

Or you could hit up some ex-cow-orkers of mine at 4batteries.com
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 12:43 AM on April 15, 2007

Oh, yeah. I love this question.

'More than Words', by Extreme.

When I worked at MOR Music TV back in the 90s, I so wanted us to do our own album of this kind of stuff-particularly the ballads from rock and metal bands...
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:02 AM on April 14, 2007

I am not, actually, an exorienced designer... But I didn't have too much trouble with webgui, as mentioned a few threads back.

No, no interest; JT actually doesn't like me much...
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 3:57 PM on April 13, 2007

Webgui. Plain black. Agency hosting.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 11:02 AM on April 13, 2007

Kinda surprised no one mentioned mplayer.

But yeah: codecs.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 6:06 PM on April 10, 2007

Damnit... Someone did the Goofus joke already.

Yep, 'children' here, too. Early 70s, for me.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 6:00 PM on April 10, 2007

I would say... Something to do with vidalia's, myself.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 11:31 PM on April 9, 2007

What tim_in_oz said. I'd bet cash that more harm, collectively, has been done to children by scary 'mr stranger danger' stories, than by all the actual Messrs stranger danger combined.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 10:07 PM on April 9, 2007

If you're accustomed to a film camera, you might want to scout eBay for a used Olympus e-10.

Only 4mp, but that 59mm lens front and f2 glass are really, really nice.

Got mine for $330 2 years ago; quite pleased.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 7:38 PM on March 29, 2007

I note that I repeatedly forgot to say "from separate Windows programs simultaneously". I regret the error.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 3:06 PM on March 21, 2007

Wow. Either no one likes me, everyone's ignoring me, or I'm just real good, this year, at asking questions no one knows the answers to -- or questions that have no answers. :-)

No way to get Direct{X,Show} to sit still for this sort of re-patching?
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 8:45 AM on March 22, 2007

> Don't worry. No one harasses a mother feeding a hungry baby.

Someone's an optimist.

Oh, and don't let anyone take pictures.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 3:19 PM on March 21, 2007

What spicynuts said, but too, you might want to think about montaging several different clips, and throwing in some interesting reverb (like maybe a reverse gate?)

$OB_COPYRIGHT_COMMENT
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 3:14 PM on March 21, 2007

One off-beat possibility, since the machines have recently undergone provocative maintenance:

Any possibly that the fan causing the beat is on a video card?

I have a video card fan dying at a clients'; it's fairly common, since they hang upside down from the card.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 3:11 PM on March 21, 2007

Rockport Walkers have a great rep, but I've never owned a pair. Sperry deck shoes in leather, well broken, and properly fitted, might work well too -- *those* I *can* vouch for. :-)

Good socks and tie them properly.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 3:09 PM on March 21, 2007

Yes, some spammers do dictionary attacks on popular domains (and occasionally on less common ones). If the mailbox names are common strings, or combinations thereof, you might have that problem.

Security by Obscurity works as poorly for mailbox names as for other things... :-)
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 3:08 PM on March 21, 2007

J-Train: while Wikipedia is certainly not authoritative, it disagrees with you on usage.

It is *damned* difficult, sometimes, to locate the full, formal titles of things, government offices not least. The meta text on the HHS website for the office, surgeongeneral.gov, reads as follows:

> Virtual Office of the Surgeon General of the United States, the nation's leading spokesman on matters of public health.

though that... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 1:57 PM on March 21, 2007

Hard disks aren't "backup".

I know you know this, but it seems to bear mention anyway.

If you *must* use that, as opposed to tape, for the nonce, my personal advice is go with Seagate, the pricier the better; I have had bad luck with both Maxtor and WD; the former the more recent.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 1:32 PM on March 21, 2007

I strongly dislike fantasy, but I give the incarnations an A- and the Modes about a B, overall.

Never read any Anthony when I was younger than 25.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 7:54 PM on March 12, 2007

How does this thread have no
Replies that mention mythtv?
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 11:02 PM on March 11, 2007

I'm clearly going to have to hit the law library and *read* Bridgeman, because Commons cites it too, and I can't see how it applies to the issue at hand.
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 9:06 PM on January 23, 2007

Oh, and RichardP: I had *not* heard about the Public Place exemption, but I *did* understand that the interpretation of that clause applied to commercial exploitation.

And there's another issue there: Me selling a single framed and possibly modified copy of a photograph is -- is it not -- a different issue than *either* of the issues that would be involved in me selling such a photo to, say, a postcard company?
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 9:09 PM on January 23, 2007

> Absent this language, commercial exploitation of photographs of buildings could only be done with either the cooperation of the building's copyright holder or under fair use (which is very limited in most commercial settings).

Yes, and much of the advice to photographers which I see seems not to realize that this exemption exists -- as I didn't. How, exactly, does that extra extension of copyright do anyone any good? Are many buildings built which no one can see?... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 10:37 PM on January 23, 2007

> Under existing copyright law a copyright holder has the exclusive right to control the creation of derivative works.

and that's the issue I need to shepardize, right there. What *has* been held to be derivative, and why, and what hasn't and why.

Time to sign up with Versuslaw, I guess...
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 10:33 AM on January 24, 2007

> Here is the Microsoft policy on use of screenshots containing their widgets.

Yes, clearly Microsoft would want me to think they're entitiled to a copyright in screenshot of their programs.

Luckily, Microsoft is not (yet) the US government.

Thanks for the link, Richard; there's a bit more meat there, but no one seems to be going far enough in the direction of photographic-style works to bear on ths issue I'm trying to... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 7:58 PM on January 24, 2007

Obligatory WebGUI plug.

Setting up a website with WebGUI will probably take a good designer a *little* bit longer than traditional methods, but then it looks spiffy, and you're done with them -- you can do your maintenance yourself, from anywhere, without knowing any HTML or having your entire website stranded on One Guy's Laptop.

You can get it hosted for as little as $10 a month, or Plain Black, the creators of the package, will host it for you... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 9:18 PM on January 23, 2007

I don't mean to diss blag here, but ... OP is already "legit"; don't *encourage* them. :-}
posted to Ask Metafilter by baylink at 9:05 PM on January 23, 2007