Displaying post 1 to 50 of 149
Why am I getting a PhD?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Weng
at 7:38 PM on October 6, 2008
(9 comments)
Need recommendations for personal website as hub to internet life for a first time page creator.
posted to Ask Metafilter by grieserm
at 11:21 AM on October 4, 2008
(4 comments)
Why do I refuse to go to sleep, even though I'm tired, I need to get up early, and I'm not even doing anything fun? (long description follows)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Anonymous
at 6:10 AM on October 2, 2008
(34 comments)
How cheap is it to build a small house in the middle of the woods? Can someone with no carpentry skills do it?
posted to Ask Metafilter by history is a weapon
at 6:13 PM on September 23, 2008
(19 comments)
Modista
"I can't believe how intuitive and effective this is." Shop for apparel (men's and women's shoes, handbags, eyewear) in a totally novel way. Click on something that catches your eye, then instantly see more items that look similar. There's also some variety thrown in so that you can explore related looks. This open-ended browsing is supposed to be easy and fun! This project, based on computer vision algorithms, won the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition this year. We're just releasing the beta now. I'd love to get some feedback on it... thanks!
posted to Projects by ajshankar
at 6:31 PM on September 18, 2008
Hey dudes! I want to mount a big, ridiculous engine to this racing bike I have. Tell me about that.
posted to Ask Metafilter by borkingchikapa
at 9:04 PM on September 14, 2008
(5 comments)
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.
And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.
First reported by
an anonymous tip to a blog, the
Los Angeles Times has confirmed that
David Foster Wallace has hung himself.
posted to MetaFilter by gerryblog
at 5:34 PM on September 13, 2008
(487 comments)
What proportion of books in the library will never be opened again?
posted to Ask Metafilter by escabeche
at 1:28 PM on August 7, 2008
(29 comments)
AquaticNecromancyFilter: Combined, the cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley employ about 3500 uniformed police officers. Do they outnumber the army that could be raised by dark magic from the floor of the San Francisco Bay? Approximately how many entire sets of human skeletal remains are there in that body of water, considering disasters, shipwrecks, bridge jumpers, tidal movement of sediment, etc.?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Ambrosia Voyeur
at 5:51 PM on August 13, 2008
(29 comments)
What to put in a modern day emergency kit in the event of Katrina like situation? I realize there are lists that cover this, but I'm looking for what people who have been through this situation have personally found useful.
Yeah, I've looked through
previous similar questions.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Brandon Blatcher
at 7:07 AM on March 16, 2008
(20 comments)
This is a gear nerd thread soliciting your ideas and favorite equipment, related to hiking/trekking and traveling in third world nations. Here's a list with URLs of stuff I currently use, any ideas are welcome!
posted to Ask Metafilter by thewalrus
at 3:36 PM on August 10, 2008
(9 comments)
How do I kill the perfectionism, the precious and fearful impulses, and the self-doubt that keeps me from completing my creative writing projects.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mizrachi
at 2:20 PM on August 2, 2008
(50 comments)
I'm looking for a piece of software, either for my Mac or online: I'm a philosophy major, and there's a huge number of thinkers, schools of thought, and concepts to manage in the area. What I want, ideally, is something that holds terms and definitions and allows me to drag them into categories (i.e. a page for poststructuralist writers.) Tags are better than hierarchies because I want each term to appear in several areas. I'm sure something exists but I don't know what to call it to do a good search. (I already use Evernote for notes and it might roughly work, although I really want something more focused and lightweight.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by poorlydrawnplato
at 6:24 PM on August 2, 2008
(6 comments)
HikingCampingNaturalBeautyFilter: I'm new to NYC. I'd love to escape the city and do a bit of hiking or camping in the great fall weather we're having. I'm looking for stuff that is a) beautiful and b) accessible by train. I have "sometimes" access to a car for weekends, though, so just spill your favorite camping or hiking area, even if it requires a car. Hitchhiking into and outa town is also ok by me. [MI]
posted to Ask Metafilter by zpousman
at 10:42 AM on October 5, 2004
(8 comments)
NYC filter: What sort of fun cycling type things can I do when I'm in New York City (and/or NY state) for a few days this June (15th-19th sort of time)? Are bikes a good way of seeing the city? It will be my first time in the U.S. I like road bikes.
posted to Ask Metafilter by takeyourmedicine
at 4:40 AM on May 12, 2008
(11 comments)
Where can I go to have a bonding experience with elephants?
posted to Ask Metafilter by inactivist
at 7:30 AM on July 24, 2008
(17 comments)
What is the closest thing now in production to old mopeds like
this?
posted to Ask Metafilter by everichon
at 10:51 AM on July 9, 2008
(11 comments)
2 July 1863, second day of
Gettysburg. Sickles has pulled his III Corps -- without orders -- off of Cemetery Ridge and positioned it a half mile in front of the rest of the Union lines. Longstreet smashes the hapless III Corps and its men are in full flight. Hancock rides back and forth inside the gaping hole left by Sickles. Below him, almost 2000 men of Wilcox's brigade are charging up the slope. They will gain a foothold on the ridge and be reinforced by Lee. As Longstreet pins down the Union left, Lee will roll up the center and right of the Northern army and chase them from the field. He will then march on and take Washington before turning north along the eastern seaboard. Lee will capture and burn Philadelphia and Boston in his March Along the Sea, chasing the Northern government from city to city until Lincoln finally sues for peace and the union is no more.
Suddenly, a line of blue-coated soldiers comes into Hancock's view. "My God, is this all the men here? Who are you?" "
1st Minnesota, sir." "See those colors?", says Hancock, pointing at the flags of the oncoming Confederates, "Take them."
posted to MetaFilter by forrest
at 5:45 AM on July 2, 2008
(82 comments)
Why are sine waves considered "pure" tones? Why do we consider sinusoids the building blocks of periodic functions?
posted to Ask Metafilter by phrontist
at 7:00 PM on June 28, 2008
(35 comments)
I'm a single guy living alone. I need to start cooking for myself because I spend too much money on food, and most of what I eat is kinda bad for me. However, I hate doing dishes and don't have much time to cook. What foods/recipes would you suggest?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Afroblanco
at 12:03 PM on June 18, 2008
(39 comments)
What is the most readable translation of Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason?
posted to Ask Metafilter by limon
at 5:10 PM on June 19, 2008
(10 comments)
Any lists of super simple meals?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jesirose
at 12:24 AM on June 7, 2008
(44 comments)
AskMefi Followup: I asked you guys for tips in Seoul, and the response was very helpful, I'm still here for 5 more days, but
here are pictures of the awesome places you led me to!
posted to MetaTalk by nile_red
at 5:11 AM on May 8, 2008
(46 comments)
I've been trying to make chicken dishes that don't rely on the usual pasta or rice+sauce+chicken combination. I have not been successful. I'm looking for chicken recipes and techniques that rely less on pasta and rice, and more on imparting flavor to the chicken itself.
posted to Ask Metafilter by !Jim
at 1:24 AM on March 31, 2008
(50 comments)
How do I learn to speak a language I already (sort of) know?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Anonymous
at 7:29 AM on April 30, 2008
(17 comments)
What is the term for the sentence construction used in this quotation: "time and her aunt moved slowly"?
posted to Ask Metafilter by sciapod
at 8:38 PM on April 28, 2008
(8 comments)
I'm looking for a particular magazine article. It was about how chef's use uncommon ingredients to separate their food from what home cooks are generally capable of. Not ingredients that are prominently featured on the menu. The little dash of this or that which the diner can't identify. The article seemed to suggest that the ingredients were a crutch or a cheat at least in some instances. Finally, one secret ingredient was something that the chef drizzles over (raw?) fish.
posted to Ask Metafilter by stuart_s
at 1:14 PM on April 26, 2008
(14 comments)
I am trying to compile a list of medical school dropouts who later went on to do great things in other fields. The term "med school" here is used loosely to allow some flexibility. So anyone who abandoned his medical training and accomplished something notable in some other field would work.
So far I've found five persons. I've listed them below to show what I am looking for. I hope to find five more to fill out a Top Ten list.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Pantalaimon
at 3:11 PM on April 22, 2008
(23 comments)
All this talk on flickr lately of "long photos" reminded me of a VERY "long photo" I saw in SFMOMA probably around a year ago... it was a scene at a cafe, with someone at a piano, a man and woman talking, one holding a cigarette, and a couple of other people, all frozen for at least five minutes... the most noticeable movement was cigarette smoke trailing up into the air. Does anyone know who that was by, what it was called, and whether I can find it online?
posted to Ask Metafilter by BuddhaInABucket
at 5:03 PM on April 21, 2008
(6 comments)
Buying a house (vs. renting): How much more does it cost to buy than rent? Is it worth it (tax, asset, etc) in the long run?
posted to Ask Metafilter by arnicae
at 9:50 AM on April 20, 2008
(25 comments)
How does one socialize with the dead?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Anonymous
at 8:49 AM on April 9, 2008
(11 comments)
A society without power relations can only be an abstraction. Which, be it said in passing, makes all the more politically necessary the analysis of power relations in a given society, their historical formation, the source of their strength or fragility, the conditions which are necessary to transform some or to abolish others. For to say that there cannot be a society without power relations is not to say either that those which are established are necessary or, in any case, that power constitutes a fatality at the heart of societies, such that it cannot be undermined. Instead, I would say that the analysis, elaboration, and bringing into question of power relations and the "agonism" between power relations and the intransitivity of freedom is a permanent political task inherent in all social existence.
"Saint" Michel Foucault (1926-1984) transformed Western thought. Institutions --
prisons,
asylums,
clinics -- define the rhythm of our daily existence; Foucault found that they also determine the way we think. The search for the political and philosophical implications of this insight led him to
biology and economics,
linguistics and
the study of sexuality. In Foucault's eyes, intellectual activity, however radical,
could never be divorced from the techniques of
power. This is why some have accused him of
political quietism. Other critics say he was simply
a bad scholar. Who was the real Foucault?
"Anarchist, leftist, ostentatious or disguised Marxist, nihilist, explicit or secret anti-Marxist, technocrat in the service of Gaullism, new liberal," gay saint, charlatan, or something else entirely? Perhaps we have
posed the question incorrectly...
posted to MetaFilter by nasreddin
at 8:01 AM on August 17, 2007
(93 comments)
French
Theory. "This is drivel about drivel — “metadrivel” as some stucturalist, post-structuralist or deconstructionist might say."
posted to MetaFilter by Xurando
at 8:25 AM on April 7, 2008
(134 comments)
What is the happiest and catchiest (mostly) unknown pop song you know?
posted to Ask Metafilter by humannaire
at 10:15 PM on March 27, 2008
(115 comments)
I first stumbled across
Leoncie in open-mouthed disbelief about two years ago. When her
website disappeared I imagined that we'd lost her forever, but last month she returned with her own
YouTube channel.
While our unfiltered, unmoderated internet has pushed a lot of "outsider art" into the mainstream, Leoncie has remained firmly stuck in obscurity; maybe these gobsmackingly low-rent videos will change that? Until today, I'd only been able to imagine the full glory of songs like
Radio Rapist, or the beguiling
Man! Let's Have Fun, or indeed the frankly exhausting
Invisible Girl. But
Sex Crazy Cop and
Killer In The Park, with their carnivalesque spin on the grim world of law enforcement, are probably my favourites. Astonishing.
posted to MetaFilter by rhodri
at 11:21 AM on March 10, 2008
(25 comments)
Paradoxically, the power of the Chinese intellectual is amplified by China's repressive political system, where there are no opposition parties, no independent trade unions, no public disagreements between politicians and a media that exists to underpin social control rather than promote political accountability. Intellectual debate in this world can become a surrogate for politics—if only because it is more personal, aggressive and emotive than anything that formal politics can muster.
China's New intelligensia
posted to MetaFilter by anotherpanacea
at 8:47 AM on March 6, 2008
(22 comments)
I'm in the bottom the stereotypical bleak pit of a crushing depression. I'm doing the therapy. I'm doing the medications. But what do you do with your brain meanwhile? How do you keep going on?
posted to Ask Metafilter by beautifulcheese
at 5:29 PM on March 5, 2008
(58 comments)
What are your favorite things to put on pasta (besides tomato sauce)?
posted to Ask Metafilter by rev-
at 12:14 PM on March 3, 2008
(74 comments)
Explain Foucault to me like I was a 10 year old.
posted to Ask Metafilter by trinarian
at 10:35 AM on September 16, 2006
(24 comments)
I've been listening to the Black Kids' "Wizard of Ahhhs" EP for about the past four hours, and I'm loving it for all the same reasons I love The Go! Team. I guess I just love a catchy, groupy, poppy-but-will-also-rock-your-socks-off sound. Does anyone have suggestions for other similar acts I should check out?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Hello, Revelers! I am Captain Lavender!
at 6:21 PM on February 19, 2008
(14 comments)
