How do I move towards starting each day feeling grateful for the day and eager to get out and embrace the day (instead of wanting to burrow further under the covers and hope the day just passes me by, day after fucking day)? I know that on my death bed, be it tomorrow or 50 years from now, I will *profoundly* regret a life wasted feeling sorry for myself. I know that, and yet I can't stop feeling sorry for myself.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by segatakai at 5:35 AM on February 17, 2013 (25 comments)

Earthflight is a BBC nature documentary narrated by David Tennant that takes a breathtaking flight on the wings of birds across six continents and experiences some of the world's greatest natural spectacles from a bird's-eye view. There are some full episodes up on YouTube (including South America, Africa, and the Making Of), but in particular these two clips caught my eye: Feral Cat Hunting and Peregrine Falcon Hunting.
posted to MetaFilter by lazaruslong at 1:53 PM on February 14, 2013 (9 comments)

How do I change my extremely destructive work habits?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 8:00 PM on January 31, 2013 (30 comments)

In 1984, Grenada Television produced a television series called Sherlock Holmes. The famous detective has been portrayed by numerous people including Robert Downey Jr., Basil Rathbone, and Benedict Cumberbatch, but British actor Jeremy Brett played one of the most holmesian detectives ever put to screen. Brett was known for his passion and skill as Holmes, as well as the humor and grace that he brought to the role. He was accompanied by a Watson played by David Burke, no slouch himself in accompanying the consulting detective. Granada was able to adapt 42 of Conan Doyle's stories during the show's ten year lifespan. Below is the entirety of the series on various youtube channels.
posted to MetaFilter by holmesian at 3:47 PM on January 30, 2013 (84 comments)

I have recently been introduced to the concept of pseudoreplication as a mistake that people often make when using inferential statistics to evaluate treatment outcomes. My field (evolutionary and conservation biology) makes heavy use of inferential statistics, including techniques that are vulnerable to pseudoreplication, yet nowhere in my formal education have I been taught about how poor experimental design and lack of statistical rigor can lead to fallacies like this. My personal statistical proficiency is poor, but I am working to remedy that. To that end, could folks help me by identifying and ideally explaining whatever other potential pitfalls you can think of, and explaining how they can be avoided through careful experimental design and data-analysis?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Scientist at 12:17 AM on January 26, 2013 (5 comments)

I am done with letting limerence rule my life. Tell me your stories of conquering limerence. How did you cope? Is it even really possible to say "no more limerence" if you're prone to it?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 2:03 PM on January 23, 2013 (15 comments)

This week the FDA announced that they were approving a new kind of flu vaccine. Nestled in the articles was an odd fact: unlike traditional flu vaccines, the new kind, called Flublok, is produced by the cells of insects. This is the kind of detail that you might skim over without giving it a thought. If you did pause to ponder, you might be puzzled: how could insects possibly make a vaccine against viruses that infect humans? The answer may surprise you. To make vaccines, scientists are tapping into a battle between viruses and insects that’s raging in forests and fields and backyards all around us. It’s an important lesson in how to find new ideas in biotechnology: first, leave biologists free to explore the weirdest corners of nature they can find.
posted to MetaFilter by Blasdelb at 1:46 AM on January 19, 2013 (7 comments)

I think it is high time that MeFites meet Michael Forsberg, a Lincoln, Nebraska based Conservation Photographer who works primarily in the Great Plains of North America, once one of the greatest grassland ecosystems on Earth. (His bio.) His goal has been to try to capture the wild spirit that still survives in these wide-open spaces and put a face to the often overlooked native creatures and landscapes found there. His hope is that the images can build appreciation and go to work to inspire conservation efforts on the land far into the future. Here is a great 48 minute presentation that Michael gave at the California Academy of Sciences after completing his most recent book simply entitled "Great Plains". In the video he unselfishly shares not just his photographic images but also his equipment and techniques.
posted to MetaFilter by spock at 11:46 AM on January 10, 2013 (9 comments)

How do you get over perfectionism?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by mermily at 4:54 PM on January 7, 2013 (14 comments)

How do I make friends with corvids?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by digitalprimate at 2:17 AM on January 6, 2013 (12 comments)

I'm getting a start making jewelry and am looking for suppliers for inexpensive beads and pendants. Most of what I've been using has been cheap stuff from Fire Mountain and I've been really happy with the stuff I've gotten for them in the 75 cents to 2 dollar range but am looking for more variety. I'm more interested in pendants and other focals than beads, but I'm addicted enough to the bead part that I'll look at sites that focus on those too :)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by NoraReed at 10:34 PM on January 3, 2013 (8 comments)

What will the next type of major land conversion in California be?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by agentofselection at 2:16 PM on January 3, 2013 (5 comments)

I'm coaching a basketball team of 9 and 10 year old boys. It's just a community league, everyone plays, there are no cuts, and it's not hyper competitive. However, I do want to do the best for the players. Two specific questions: (1) In terms of the games, is there a fairly simple offense or set of plays that you think I could teach them and use? I played in high school, and we ran the flex, but that seems to complicated. But at the same time, I think it's good to have some concrete schemes so the kids don't end up standing around and watching. (2) Any suggestions for practices? Drills, how to use the time, etc? I'd love first hand advice – I've done the web searches and can find a lot of information, but I'd like to hear from actual coaches and how it's worked from you.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by visual mechanic at 11:30 PM on January 1, 2013 (9 comments)

If you think you can magic us out of the progress trap with new ideas or new technologies, you are wasting your time. If you think that the usual “campaigning” behavior is going to work today where it didn’t work yesterday, you will be wasting your time. If you think the machine can be reformed, tamed, or defanged, you will be wasting your time. If you draw up a great big plan for a better world based on science and rational argument, you will be wasting your time. If you try to live in the past, you will be wasting your time. If you romanticize hunting and gathering or send bombs to computer store owners, you will be wasting your time. And so I ask myself: what, at this moment in history, would not be a waste of my time?
posted to MetaFilter by latkes at 11:16 PM on December 31, 2012 (149 comments)

I have been struggling to figure something out. There are certain types of questions I have trouble with, and I would like to understand what types of questions these are, why am I so uncomfortable with them, and what can I do to make dealing with them less unpleasant.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by matrushka at 7:36 PM on December 29, 2012 (58 comments)

Movie showing ground motion of four earthquakes propagating across a high density seismic array in Long Beach, California.
posted to MetaFilter by Confess, Fletch at 10:27 PM on December 28, 2012 (12 comments)

What are the best forums for asking questions about electronic projects and related things?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by primethyme at 4:27 PM on December 25, 2011 (4 comments)

Frost Flowers: "...they are made of such thin sheets of ice, they will melt away as the sun rises higher in the sky. You may get frost flowers again the following day, but unless the conditions are just right the chances are your first glimpse may be your last."
posted to MetaFilter by OmieWise at 11:08 AM on December 18, 2012 (30 comments)

Soon, I'm going to have a nice cash bonus at work and about two weeks of vacation time. I don't have enough money for a travel-vacation, so I figured I'd turn it into a learning-vacation: I'm going to focus on playing guitar, but also, I'd like to learn some 101-DIY electronics projects. I adored Lego Mindstorms as a kid, then kind of gave it up for awhile. Now I'm looking for something similar. More inside!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by GilloD at 10:38 AM on June 18, 2009 (6 comments)

Give me better rules of thumb for dealing with mundane failure: missing deadlines, losing things, and so forth.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by LogicalDash at 8:16 PM on December 11, 2012 (12 comments)

Environmental and Native American activists in Flagstaff, AZ face federal charges for allegedly "interfering with a forest officer" after a protest action in which they "quarantined" the Coconino National Forest Service lobby to protest a decision permitting the expansion of the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort onto the San Fransisco Peaks – a site regarded as sacred by the Navajo, Hopi, and Havasupai people. The proposed expansion entails the use of treated sewage effluent, aka reclaimed wastewater for snowmaking operations. These events occurred on the same day that the USDA and Forest Service issued a final report (pdf) which outlines recommendations for working more closely with Native representatives surrounding sacred sites issues.
posted to MetaFilter by Scientist at 7:46 PM on December 11, 2012 (17 comments)

Mavelous is an open-source web/HTML-based ground control station for amateur UAVs/DIY drones. It is the first open-source ground control station that lets you control your drone from your tablet or even your phone. (Related: 1 2 3) [via mefi projects]
posted to MetaFilter by double block and bleed at 10:10 PM on December 8, 2012 (23 comments)

Rosalind.info is a website with bioinformatics problems inspired by Project Euler (previously, previouslier.)
posted to MetaFilter by lizarrd at 8:24 PM on December 8, 2012 (21 comments)

A new DOE-funded study has concluded liquified natural gas exports will help the US economy. (PDF) In this report, the word "environment" occurs four times -- none of them with respect to impact on, or cost to the environment of either extraction or transportation.
posted to MetaFilter by dylanjames at 9:49 PM on December 7, 2012 (58 comments)

What are the best non-Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories, collections, and novels?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jsturgill at 4:18 PM on December 7, 2012 (20 comments)

Due to my dad, I feel like I am stupid and can't do anything right. How can I rebuild my self-confidence?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by stedman15 at 6:24 PM on December 4, 2012 (16 comments)

I'm feeling burnt out. Help me recharge for finals.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by DoubleLune at 6:26 PM on December 3, 2012 (6 comments)

Can you help me with my terrible case of imposter syndrome?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 4:20 PM on December 3, 2012 (8 comments)

YANMD, but I'm always on the wrong sleep schedule. Can you help me finally get some sleep?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Seeking Direction at 6:44 AM on November 30, 2012 (20 comments)

Science grad school application filter: I have informally (but explicitly) accepted a graduate assistant position (in conservation biology) at my current undergraduate institution. I am now having second thoughts and am wondering what, if anything, I should do about it. Help me, Hive Mind! I don't know what to do!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 2:57 PM on November 28, 2012 (8 comments)

Is it appropriate to cold call a professor with a cover letter and resume when looking for lab tech/research assistant positions?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Slackermagee at 12:04 AM on November 28, 2012 (7 comments)

Bees and a species of bird can solve the traveling salesman problem "It’s Saturday; you’ve got errands to run. Your spouse wants bread from the bakery, you need to pick up the dry cleaning, your kids need new shoes, and you’ve got a dentist appointment. None of this is any fun, so you might as well do it as quickly as possible by calculating the fastest and most efficient route that takes you to each stop... Menger and Whitney both discovered that the number of possible routes between stops increases exponentially with each additional destination. In a typical model, for instance, three stops yield six routes, while eight stops yield 40,320... By setting up five artificial flowers in a pentagon shape and tracking each bee’s path, researchers discovered that every bee optimized its route, visiting the highest-reward flowers in the shortest possible amount of time."
posted to MetaFilter by bookman117 at 3:11 AM on November 19, 2012 (33 comments)

The Onion's great for a witty skewering of current events. But its historical editions, as collected in the book Our Dumb Century, are a gem all their own, full of razor-sharp satire, trenchant social commentary, period-accurate advertisements, running gags, historical irony, photoshoppery, and even some editorial cartoons for every year of the twentieth century. Luckily for history (and humor) buffs, nearly the whole run of the series is available piecemeal on their website. Click inside for an organized timeline of links to all the front pages from this brilliant work (plus a bonus!).
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 4:32 PM on October 25, 2012 (51 comments)

I want to watch more shows like How It's Made. I like that it's dry and information dense. What do you suggest?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by gregr at 8:30 PM on October 14, 2012 (18 comments)

With the possible exception of the Nobel awards, physicists seem to get all the press these days, whether they're doing quantum level work at the LHC, or cosmology via the latest satellite data. Biologists, not so much. It's too bad, because Richard Lenski is running one of the great evolutionary experiments of our time, and it's producing interesting results.
posted to MetaFilter by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:25 AM on October 8, 2012 (34 comments)

I work at a business of a type that gets rated on sites like yelp and google. My boss has always been concerned about the low ratings we get (which are honestly not that bad). I'm pretty sure the boss is taking it personally and I have trouble believing that the business could be losing money due to low ratings. Yesterday, at the boss's orders, all the lower-downs in the clinic, including me, were handed instructions to post positive reviews on some specific sites, pretending to be clients. We were each assigned a day to do it and told which sites "really needed" a positive review and which ones didn't matter so much. I think this is pretty pathetic, also against these sites' policies obviously, and I absolutely don't want to do it. What can I say to the boss or to my manager that will get me out of this assignment?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by srs airbag at 10:24 AM on October 2, 2012 (21 comments)

What is the best way to get through/past/over the rush of emotions that come up when I think about abuse that happened to me in my adolescence? Also, how to deal with ambivalent feelings towards a relative who treated you badly in the past? Are there any books about this, fiction or non-fiction?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 9:55 AM on October 2, 2012 (9 comments)

I think I'm genderqueer / agendered. Now what?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Vatican Cameos at 5:19 PM on September 17, 2012 (16 comments)

Looking for a thin, light, rectangular device on which to read scientific papers... which one?? I know nothing about tablets, except that they exist.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by munichmaiden at 3:30 PM on September 16, 2012 (19 comments)

If I feel like I "have" to do something, or that I'll get something out of doing something, I immediately lose interest. How can I learn to enjoy tasks for their own sake, even when I know that's not why I'm doing them?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jumelle at 9:59 AM on September 15, 2012 (9 comments)

Looking for your favorite works of environmentally conscious and ecologically focused science fiction and fantasy. Obscurities preferred!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by gerryblog at 10:06 AM on September 15, 2012 (29 comments)

There are things that I genuinely want to do and like doing, but something in me rebels. Help.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by summer sock at 4:07 PM on September 14, 2012 (21 comments)

Icky face-pooping flesh mites are only the tip of the iceberg. You've heard that your gut bacteria are necessary to help you digest, meaning not all germs are bad. Without them, we couldn't digest healthily. But stop and look at how far our interconnectedness with other forms of life goes: 1. Human DNA itself is at least 8.3% ancient viruses; without one of these viruses you could never have been born. 2. Mitochondria in human cells originated when the same type of bacteria that causes typhus disease raided one of our cellular ancestors and instead of hijacking it was pressed into service. (The same origin as chloroplasts in plants from cyanobacteria). 3. Far more of the cells in your body are non-human microorganisms than actual human cells. This relationship is not just interconnectedness. This is integration.
posted to MetaFilter by Sleeper at 3:37 AM on September 13, 2012 (59 comments)

What one book could pretty much give me a new, useful superpower if I follow it and put the methods inside into practice? In my life, I've come across a small handful of books that have really allowed me to learn to do some things that were previously unthinkable to me, and which I'm able to use all the time in my life. I'm most interested in a book that has actually worked to change your life, rather than one that seems like it would be good if you one day got around to following it. Thanks.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by surenoproblem at 7:54 AM on September 12, 2012 (77 comments)

I can't think properly when people are looking at me! Please help.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by btfreek at 4:20 PM on September 7, 2012 (20 comments)

Dr. David Morrison is the senior scientist at NASA's Astrobiology Institute in the Ames Research Center in California. For the past eight years he's also run the Ask an Astrobiologist feature on the institute's website. "Started by a civic-minded intern, the column has become the go-to place for concerned citizens to write to NASA and ask if, as they'd heard on the internet, the world will truly end on December 21, 2012. Before he took the helm on Ask an Astrobiologist, Dr. Morrison hadn't heard anything about such theories. Now he can't escape them." Meet NASA's unofficial answerer of apocalypse emails -- at least until December 23rd.
posted to MetaFilter by zarq at 9:51 AM on September 5, 2012 (31 comments)

Help me increase my metacognition. How can I best guess when my understanding of a task is adequate to the task?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by LogicalDash at 4:36 AM on September 4, 2012 (15 comments)

Have you ever wondered what the water temperature off the Kamchatka Peninsula is? What about the wind speed in the Andaman Sea? Or maybe you’re losing sleep over the chlorophyll levels in the South Pacific. Fortunately, all of that information –- and 450 million other data points collected from oceanographic instruments around the world –- is freely and easily accessible thanks to the Marinexplore project.
posted to MetaFilter by Egg Shen at 4:13 PM on August 28, 2012 (2 comments)

I find day to day life really stressful, and I'm not sure what I can do about it.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 4:21 PM on August 27, 2012 (15 comments)

In 2011, in front of a sell-out theatre at the BFI in London, Charlie Kaufman delivered the final lecture in BAFTA's Screenwriters' Lecture Series. Eliot Rausch took snippets of the lecture and set them to apposite visual clips and produced this video: What I Have to Offer (single link vimeo). [via]
posted to MetaFilter by AceRock at 4:43 PM on August 26, 2012 (10 comments)