Ask MetaFilter posts by Ryvar

The Future of War?

Ryvar — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:48:36 -0800

Help me find a series of illustrated children's hardcover books from the 70s/80s about the upcoming technologies of "The Future" When I was 7 or 8 ('87-'88) I remember my grade school library had a whole series of illustrated hardcover books - big and thin (30-60 pages, say) covering the future of various topics. Future of flight, future of space travel, future of robotics, etc. The future of war was a particular standout as it had a very vivid illustration of two robotic hovertanks in combat - I believe it was on the front cover as well. That's the specific one I'm looking for but I'm after the whole series if possible.

Things I'm less sure about, some of these may be red herrings: I seem to recall all the books generally had a white cover (fairly sure of this) with a blue seriffed font for the title (not as sure about this), and all the titles ran along a basic theme that was literally like "The Future of War" "The Future of Robotics", etc. etc.

The art was particularly well-rendered, and generally didn't fall into the category of cheesy 50s-60s space art. Anybody have any ideas?

Help me leverage my ability to pick failing companies.

Ryvar — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:52:46 -0800

Help me leverage my ability to pick failing companies. I've been playing fantasy stock market games lately, and have been doing pretty well at it (325% returns in two and a half months). Out of fifty picks, I've made money on 80% of my long positions and 93% of my short positions. By FAR my biggest gains have been on short positions (multiple instances of +70% returns in under two weeks). I have a few thousand in a brokerage account on ETrade that I use for short-term high-risk experiments with real money, but brokerage restrictions involving short positions prevent me from mirroring my fantasy gains in real life.

I seem to be extremely good at picking out when a company is about to implode, just before it does so. There's a new forthcoming implosion on my radar today. How can a market dabbler like myself effectively leverage this ability to consistently spot good shorts, given brokerage restrictions on shorting stocks?

How to get a gasoline smell out of my sneakers?

Ryvar — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 19:37:01 -0800

How do I get the smell of gasoline out of my shoes? Basically, some twit left a giant puddle of gas in front of a pump at a gas station two nights ago. It was night, didn't see it, stepped right out of the car into it.

Tried soaking them in a sink full of soapy water, and just leaving them there. Twice. They still reek. So does the floormat on the car, but whatever. Ordinarily I'm not the type to get upset about this sort of thing, but my feet are incredibly finicky and these are brand new. Suggestions?

Have you seen my gerbil?

Ryvar — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 06:09:05 -0800

Soliciting suggestions for recapturing a pet gerbil. We've a three-year-old gerbil with a variety of health problems (one leg that broke and permanently set wrong, no front teeth so he must eat babyfood we prepare daily) that managed to get himself wedged into the walls today. Whenever we've taken him out in the past his first act has always been to dive onto the floor (regardless of how high up he is) so that he can run around on it.

For the past month we've indulged him by fencing off the sections of the apartment we knew were dangerous (the kitchen has the fridge and a hole into the walls through one of the cabinets) with boxes and letting him run around to his heart's content.

Today he was playing in the radiators, but then something odd happened. He walked out and started giving the danger signal (thumping his good foot loudly) and so I went to pick him up. He dove back into the radiator and then completely vanished. I knew immediately he must've found a hole into the walls there that we had somehow missed. Sure enough, a flashlight revealed a *very* small hole that he had somehow squeezed into. While the hole appears to open into an internal wall, I'm worried he's not coming back out. Rather significant emotional considerations aside, this does not bode well for our relationship with the apartment complex administration when he dies in about three days and his unreachable corpse smells up the place. Having them tear up the walls now to find him will cost thousands we simply can't spare.

I've put some organic peas babyfood (his favorite) by the hole, but I have a feeling it's a maze in there and he isn't coming out. Any suggestions from fellow pet owners?

Have you seen this logo?

Ryvar — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 02:20:32 -0800

Logofilter: Yesterday I was making a website/business card logo for a friend - but I kept getting this nagging feeling that part of the logo was familiar somehow, and it's driving me crazy . . . A ten-second mockup with name changed:

The part that concerns me is the house bit on the right side - something in the back of my brain swears I've seen it before somewhere and this being a friend's newfound pride and joy the very last thing I want is to get him screwed with a trademark or logo dispute.

My first thought as to what it might be was Century 21, but their logo doesn't look like the mockup. Google Image Search on "house logo" and "roof logo" turns up this generi-logo and not much else.

Has anyone seen something similar to the mockup?

Buying a high end CRT monitor with DVI

Ryvar — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 02:57:07 -0800

I'm trying to find a decent 21" CRT with a DVI input, and am having little success. The green gun on my IBM P260 is giving up the ghost, and it's time for a new monitor. My first thought was to make the jump to LCD and pick up one of those new 8ms response time 19" LCDs everybody is raving about. So I purchased a Hyundai L90D+ from newegg.com. They shipped me one with a bright red stuck pixel in the center. Shipped it back for replacement, got another one with a red stuck pixel slightly further from the center. Sent it back for refund, only to find out they were just going to restock it which pretty much explains my bad luck thus far. I did try using the second one for a few days, but the fixed resolution and color inaccuracy were just as problematic for me as the distracting red pixel.

Lesson learned: I am not cut out for LCDs.

My current monitor has some features I like, namely that it is 21", can display 1600x1200 at 85Hz, has a native DVI input (also a second 15-pin D-sub input, but I don't need dual inputs), and is a flatscreen aperture-grille.

What I'm looking for is another monitor with those same features, but unfortunately the P260 stopped being sold about five years back, and there don't appear to be any available except refurbs from highly questionable vendors. For the life of me, I cannot find another CRT at all - let alone with those specifications - that has a DVI input. There is noticeable image improvement when I use the DVI input, so I can only assume that with LCDs rapidly replacing all CRTs that CRT manufacturers have simply stopped trying. Hours spent with Pricegrabber and Google have yielded nothing, so does anyone here know of anything that meets my requirements?

Binaural sound generation.

Ryvar — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 01:48:31 -0800

I'm looking for some algorithms for generating binaural sounds. I'm attempting to create binaural sounds for people who use headphones, read: sounds that allow stereo headphones users to exactly position where the sound is coming from (up/down/front/back in addition to left/right). The environment of these sounds is a hypothetical infinite empty space with sea-level air pressure so the traditional surface modeling issues can be completely ignored. While some parts of the exercise are obvious (delaying sound playback in either ear based on the position of the source, distance between the virtual ears, and the speed of sound), other parts are not (modelling frequency shifts from ear shape and the auditory canal).

I see no method of distingushing front from back nor up from down without acoustic modelling of the ear itself. Google has failed me completely, so any algorithms for this would be greatly appreciated. Bonus points for any algorithms that can be kludged into a close-enough approximation for realtime.

Trying to recall the title of a sci-fi book I read

Ryvar — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:09:16 -0800

Trying to recall the title of a sci-fi book I read [mi]

A friend and I are looking to mail Bill O'Reilly

Ryvar — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 23:53:29 -0800

A friend and I are looking to mail Bill O'Reilly some falafel. [more inside]

Could anyone provide links or cite specific

Ryvar — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:40:52 -0800

Could anyone provide links or cite specific examples of ways in which President Bush is kept insulated from his detractors?