What would it be like for an American to live in a neighborhood of Berlin like Neukölin and attempt to study Arabic and German at the same time?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Corduroy at 12:45 PM on July 15, 2012 (10 comments)

Please give me your best tips to keep cool while I'm doing long bike rides on my road bike on warm days (and assume I know the basics of hydration, electrolytes, sports drinks, etc).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by bluedaisy at 5:03 PM on July 13, 2012 (13 comments)

Three questions brought up by Richard Posner and his participation in Apple v. Motorola: 1) Do his frequent extrajudicial writings ever cause any questions of partiality or disqualifications in his cases? 2) How would a circuit judge come to be designated to hear such a case? Is it on his initiative or someone at the district court? Is there any risk that the special treatment will seem unfair when compared to the usual random assignment of cases to judges? 3) How does a judge decide how to spend time on cases versus extrajudicial activities? Does Posner's docket ever suffer because he is spending his time writing law review articles?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by grouse at 9:53 AM on July 12, 2012 (14 comments)

How do I wirelessly stream laptop output to TV? No DLNA, no Intel WiDi, but HDMI port available.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by theobserver at 4:45 PM on July 7, 2012 (12 comments)

French language nerd wanted! Help a nerd spell her French-language text tattoo correctly, please.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Jennifer S. at 6:15 PM on July 5, 2012 (10 comments)

Need a suggestion on a protein supplement that tastes good, has the right ingredients, and doesn't cost more than a new car. Complication: I need it to be in packets.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Thistledown at 9:32 AM on July 5, 2012 (3 comments)

Help me identify the animal that makes the horrific sound in this recording.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by tylerkaraszewski at 9:44 AM on July 5, 2012 (16 comments)

Scientists at CERN, using the Large Hadron Collider, may have discovered the Higgs Boson. (previously) and (previously)
posted to MetaFilter by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:45 PM on July 2, 2012 (156 comments)

"If the government is able to learn what we speak about, and know who we're talking to, and know what it is that we're planning, it makes any kind of activism extremely difficult, because secrecy and privacy are prerequisites to effective activism. "

Glenn Greenwald on challenging the surveillance state: (1 - 2 - 3 - 4).
posted to MetaFilter by dunkadunc at 2:21 PM on July 1, 2012 (48 comments)

CALLING ALL THE BASIC BITCHES... Thirteen year-old Lohanthony (Tumblr) is a homophobe's worst nightmare: a flamboyant little diva-obsessed somebody whose Siri is the next Nicole Ritchie, who dances suggestively and does the cinnamon challenge in his religious private school uniform, and seems (so far) unfazed by bullies and haters despite his rapidly growing visibility.
posted to MetaFilter by hermitosis at 2:13 PM on July 1, 2012 (124 comments)

We've discussed developments in the breakaway Azawad region in Northern Mali here before. The two factions which composed the Azawad government, the nationalist MNLA and the Islamist Ansar Dine broke their alliance, with Ansar Dine now controlling all of the major settlements within the recently declared Awazad. Their treatment of the ancient Muslim shrines of Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has not been kind. If this reminds you of another recent act of destruction against our shared cultural heritage, well, you're not alone.
posted to MetaFilter by 1adam12 at 12:57 AM on July 1, 2012 (28 comments)

Signs of cooperation between China and the US on promising new energy technology Beijing-based CAS is a state group overseeing about 100 research institutes. It and the DOE have established what CAS calls the “CAS and DOE Nuclear Energy Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding.”
posted to MetaFilter by daveeza at 4:38 PM on June 28, 2012 (63 comments)

Kensington Secretary Angela McWilliams takes her pet leopard, Michael, on a stroll through 1960s London. (SYTL)
posted to MetaFilter by hot soup girl at 8:52 AM on June 25, 2012 (22 comments)

The prime minister has suggested that people under the age of 25 could lose the right to housing benefit, as part of moves to cut the welfare bill. Scrapping the benefit for that age group would save almost £2bn a year. via BBC News. Comments sortable and worth reading.
posted to MetaFilter by marienbad at 3:13 PM on June 24, 2012 (125 comments)

The Hunt For The Perfect Mattress. 'Technology in bedding is becoming as advanced as that of running shoes or rockets, with an explosion of gels, foams, latex and assorted materials harvested from organic rubber plantations and rare sheep around the globe, being molded, refined and patented by innovators and entrepreneurs to provide night after night of perfect, deep sleep.'
posted to MetaFilter by VikingSword at 2:14 PM on June 23, 2012 (69 comments)

Where to see Kandinsky in the world's museums. Each museum page links to images, including many early works. Eye candy.
posted to MetaFilter by Listener at 1:00 PM on June 22, 2012 (20 comments)

"STOP! This is NOT a DVD! STOP! This is NOT a DVD! STOP! This is NOT a DVD!"
posted to MetaFilter by zardoz at 3:56 PM on June 15, 2012 (54 comments)

Tails of the Unexpected: "Normality has been an accepted wisdom in economics and finance for a century or more. Yet in real-world systems, nothing could be less normal than normality. Tails should not be unexpected, for they are the rule." An eminently human-readable explanation of why normal models fail to describe the uncertainties of our abnormal world.
posted to MetaFilter by ecmendenhall at 3:06 PM on June 9, 2012 (19 comments)

How to drink whisky: "Master Blender Richard Paterson shows David Hayman how to drink blends". Paterson is the master blender who managed to replicate the lost (and then found) 114-year-old Whyte & Mackay whisky from the Shackleton South Pole expedition; also see Shackleton’s Whisky – Mackinlay’s Reborn for a review (previously on MeFi). At his blog, he's currently discussing whisky & food pairings.
posted to MetaFilter by flex at 12:09 PM on June 9, 2012 (18 comments)

With a platform that includes legalization of pot, withdrawal of military support for Israel, forgiveness of all student loan debt and ballot access in all 50 states, Roseanne Barr is seeking the Green Party nomination for the presidency.
posted to MetaFilter by jbickers at 10:14 AM on June 7, 2012 (212 comments)

Professor Brian Cox (previously) wondering about things.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 8:41 PM on June 5, 2012 (31 comments)

"I'm in a nondescript warehouse in Seattle, to which I've traveled so that award-winning science fiction novelists can demonstrate how they could cut me in half if they felt like it." i09 Talks to Neal Stephenson about working on the multi-author IP-experiment *thing* The Mongoliad and sword fighting as a heart-healthy hobby.
posted to MetaFilter by The Whelk at 8:28 AM on June 3, 2012 (29 comments)

Where do flea market vinyl dealers get their records?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Sara C. at 3:18 PM on June 2, 2012 (11 comments)

I'm relearning French and I would like a really good workbook/program that focuses on grammar. I have vocabulary and pronounciation fine (Mindsnacks & Anki, Pimsleur and Michael Thomas) and I'm practicing reading and writing with several texts and Lang8.com. I keep tripping up on half-remembered grammatical rules, and I really want something I can work through at my own pace. I would much prefer an app with built-in drills, but I'll buy a workbook/textbook as well. I want something like Chapter 7: Passive verbs, Chapter 8: Interrogatives with an explanation of the rules, examples and then drills. Not a complete French course, but just grammar.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by viggorlijah at 5:51 AM on June 1, 2012 (12 comments)

Proteus is a beautiful game by Ed Key with no goals except admiring natural features and exploring a procedurally generated island [some spoilers in videos], modeled loosely after the open land near Key's parents' home in Cumbria. The game also features "reactively mixed" ambient electronic music (think 'chiptune Boards of Canada') composed by David Kanaga, which changes and shifts according to your physical context. Though only in v0.1, it has already won critical accolades, as well as an award for The Most Amazing Indie Game at A MAZE 2012.
posted to MetaFilter by p3on at 11:58 AM on May 31, 2012 (50 comments)

What if a deadly epidemic was burgeoning and almost nobody noticed? In the latest issue of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, a distinguished group of virologists, epidemiologists and infectious-disease specialists say that’s not a hypothetical question. They argue that Chagas disease, a parasitic infection transmitted by blood-sucking insects, has become so widespread and serious — while remaining largely unrecognized — that it deserves to be considered a public health emergency.
posted to MetaFilter by Blasdelb at 3:26 PM on May 30, 2012 (31 comments)

Gymnast: In Motion — The elegant movements and athletic prowess of five twirling trampolinists are captured in photographer Steve Harries’ new short film. Performing up to 7.5 meters in the air—shot from a tall camera tower beneath a rig suspending the set, mirrors and lights from the ceiling—bodies were broken up into fragmented forms and motions by a bank of six mirrors. Contrast that with No Church in the Wild, the Jay Z & Kanye West collaboration filmed by Romain Gavras. A message of hope to anyone who feels society needs to change direction, or a furious extended urban battle scene?
posted to MetaFilter by netbros at 3:40 PM on May 30, 2012 (8 comments)

As part of Crooked Timber's Seminar on Francis Spufford's work of speculative fiction "Red Plenty." Cosma Shalizi has posted "7800 words about optimal planning for a socialist economy and its intersection with computational complexity theory."
posted to MetaFilter by JPD at 2:24 PM on May 30, 2012 (21 comments)

To Profile or Not to Profile? A Debate between Sam Harris and Bruce Schneier.
posted to MetaFilter by brundlefly at 12:56 PM on May 29, 2012 (138 comments)

You may have seen Replacements, Ltd.'s print ads in the back of PARADE magazine (of Howard Huge fame). Replacements, both a seller and a resource for china and glassware owners, was one of the few North Carolina businesses to publicly take a stand [NYT] against the state's vote to ban gay marriage. As an employer, Replacements is one of only nine companies in the country to receive a perfect score for ten years straight in the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. But the company is also known for another surprisingly liberal policy: encouraging its 450 employees to bring their pets to work amidst millions of pieces of china and glassware. How many? A whole lot.
posted to MetaFilter by Madamina at 11:29 AM on May 29, 2012 (28 comments)

Free online graph paper generators: variations of squares, triangle, rhombus, and hexagonal, circular and polar, for drawing, gaming, writing, note-taking and much more. Blank Sheet Music (Flash) for all arrangements (PDF). Create and edit your own grids, probability and logarithmic graphs, petri-dish inserts and storyboards. Also, multilingual  monthly and yearly calendars. Plus, more than you ever wanted to know about ISO paper dimensions and printable paper models of polyhedra. Prev-ious-ly.
posted to MetaFilter by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 3:50 PM on May 28, 2012 (36 comments)

Roy Buchanan - ♪ Hey Joe ♪, a grandmaster of the Telecaster lays bare the instrument's unique spectrum of tone.
posted to MetaFilter by Ardiril at 11:59 AM on May 25, 2012 (55 comments)

MeFi's Own™ nasreddin has won the Rossica Young Translators Award for his daring and inventive rendering of a passage from the new Viktor Pelevin novel. An excerpt of his entry starts on page 34 of this PDF.
posted to MetaTalk by Nomyte at 1:36 PM on May 24, 2012 (75 comments)

Double-cat-penis-question: About 2 weeks ago my 6-9 month old neutered male cat started humping his favorite stuffed turtle. Now he's humping everything but sometimes farting too and having, um, anal squeezing. Is there a medical issue? Should I have him double-checked for neuterage? This gets a little gross.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by MonsieurBon at 9:20 PM on May 21, 2012 (153 comments)

Day Z is the best thing I’ve played so far this year. On my first go, I bled to death in the dark, alone on a forest trail.
posted to MetaFilter by Sebmojo at 2:59 PM on May 21, 2012 (58 comments)

What sort of meditation would be appropriate to aid in attaining a deep sleep? Something to do in bed immediately before you doze off?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by parallax7d at 7:49 PM on May 19, 2012 (15 comments)

What are some good movies about Berlin?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by chasing at 6:28 PM on May 19, 2012 (27 comments)

I'm doing a research and policy project on DC prisoners. I'm looking for information and personal stories on what the situation is like for DC prisoners serving time in the federal system. I'm also interested in information on conditions in the former DC Prison at Lorton. I'd like to compare conditions before and after the closure of Lorton and make some recommendations for how to improve outcomes for DC inmates, both during their sentences and after release.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Amy Phillips at 4:04 PM on May 19, 2012 (4 comments)

Blowing Hot Air About Cold Air: Reviews of portable air conditioning units are rather vague about how loud they are. There are a few that advertise "library quiet", but I'm not so sure. Does anyone have experience with one of these machines? I need a QUIET one. If I could get down to half the volume of a window unit, I'd be very happy.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by ecorrocio at 12:58 PM on May 18, 2012 (5 comments)

Lowering carbs as a vegetarian with many diet limitations – this seems impossible and I'd love to hear how you navigate it.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by carbide at 12:30 PM on May 17, 2012 (31 comments)

Can an elderly person who has lost their will to live actually induce a physiological problem solely with the power of their mind?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by JoannaC at 11:27 AM on May 16, 2012 (20 comments)

Clayton Christensen is the most influential business thinker on the planet. He's been everywhere lately: On Charlie Rose, in the New Yorker (pay-walled), in the Steve Jobs biography (as the author of the only business book to have influenced Jobs). He has applied his ideas of Disruptive Innovation and Jobs-to-be-Done (pdf) to industries such as healthcare and higher education. Recently he has been trying to apply them to personal and career development. He's also a devout Mormon (and a generous Romney campaign contributor) and a cancer, stroke, and heart attack survivor.
posted to MetaFilter by AceRock at 10:31 AM on May 15, 2012 (10 comments)

I like to keep my home office incredibly devoid of machine noise. To that end, other than my sound system (where I choose the noise), my workstation consists of 1.) A Mac mini running Lion Server on Raid 0 3.5" drives (2 x 500GB) and 2.)A Lacie quadra 1TB drive doing Firewire 800 Time Machine backups every hour (I put up with the Tsk, Tsk, Tsk, every hour without being annoyed). I need more storage, but don't want to increase the (lack of) noise factor...
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Rafaelloello at 3:55 PM on May 14, 2012 (12 comments)

10 years ago it was considered impossible to build a prosthetic for an elephant.
What do you do when an endangered elephant steps on a land mine? If you’re the Friends of the Asian Elephant Hospital, you make a prosthetic leg that can support 2000 pounds of moving pachyderm.
posted to MetaFilter by endless_forms at 1:26 PM on May 14, 2012 (23 comments)

In Russian roulette, is it best to go first? | The Mathematics of Tetris | What is the result of infinity minus infinity?
posted to MetaFilter by Foci for Analysis at 9:27 AM on May 14, 2012 (30 comments)

Lazy Harp Seal Has No Job
posted to MetaFilter by fearfulsymmetry at 10:29 AM on May 13, 2012 (63 comments)

Walt Disney's Taxi Driver.
posted to MetaFilter by griphus at 6:36 AM on May 10, 2012 (11 comments)

In the final episode of James Burke's "Connections", he describes a secret experiment mixing CuSO4 and NaOH, and the potential uses for the result. That was the late 1970s--I am curious what actually happened since then.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by This_Will_Be_Good at 6:49 PM on May 9, 2012 (8 comments)

Is there anything comparable in quality to, but cheaper than, Brooks Brothers shirts? I usually buy the no-iron, slim-fit BB shirts, but I'm trying not to drop too much cash, as I need to replace all my shirts (WTF deodorant stains?!). I don't like the ginormous blousey shirts that typically pass for men's dress shirts, so recommendations for something along the lines of BB's slim-line shirts, qualitatively comparable but cheap enough that I'd switch brands would be appreciated.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by the sobsister at 6:42 PM on May 8, 2012 (32 comments)

I defaulted on my student loan and entered into an agreement with a third-party debt collector to repay. That loan has now been "transferred" to another agency that seems to be pretty sleazy, although I've been assured by my original lender that this new company will honor the terms of the agreement I had with the first collection agency. Is this my best option, or should I be doing something else?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 7:55 PM on May 8, 2012 (4 comments)