Ask MetaFilter posts by whir

Chuck Taylor durability techniques?

whir — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:46:33 -0800

What can I do to keep my Chuck Taylors from completely disintegrating within a few months of purchase? I've been wearing good old Converse All-Star Chuck Taylor high-tops since high school, and although I like the way they look, they seem to be designed to be increasingly disposable over the years, so that I'm finding the rubber disintegrating and the lining in the bottom of the shoe coming unglued within a matter of a few months.

I still like the shoes, I'm just wondering if anyone has any tips on prolonging their useful life. Does adding inserts help? Is there some kind of treatment I can apply or something? Should I just give up on them in favor of a more durable brand (and if so, any suggestions)? Basically I want to increase the time between when I take them out of the box and when they're dangling from a telephone wire.

(Oh, BTW I've seen this previous question, but I'm looking for specific suggestions as to ways to increase the shoe lifespan.)

Messenger bags versus backbacks?

whir — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:46:55 -0800

Why do you prefer a messenger bag to a backpack / bookbag (or vice versa) for bicycle commuting? Should I get one? My old backback is beginning to show some serious fray, and I'm looking at getting a new one. I see a lot of other bikers wearing messenger bags. They are so common that it seems like there's got to be something going on there, but the bags have always looked impractical to me, so I'm hoping to find out why people like them with an eye to possibly buying one.

In particular, does it tire one's shoulder out to have all the weight on one side? And doesn't the bag tend to slip around when you're biking around? Why do you prefer the bag over a regular two-strap backpack? ("I think it looks cooler" is a perfectly acceptable answer.)

My commute is mostly flat through heavy urban traffic, and I have road-bike style drop handlebars.

Marathon training in SF?

whir — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:41:37 -0800

Can someone recommend a good beginner's marathon training group in San Francisco? So I've dabbled with running for a while now (starting and stopping the couch-to-5K program a few times), but I keep vaguely trailing off. I've decided that running a marathon would be a good concrete goal to have in mind. I also think doing it in a group would be fun; I could meet some folks and I think having an external training regimen / schedule would help me stay focused. I don't have a particular marathon in mind.

I've seen a few running groups on craigslist and various bulletin boards, so I'm basically looking for recommendations here. I'm OK with paying some money for the training, though I'd prefer free or cheap options. I was on the cusp of signing up the the AIDS marathon training, but they seem to have a requirement that you raise $1800 for the marathon, and I'd rather not do that.

Besides that, I'm mostly looking for something that's 1) beginner friendly, 2) located in San Francisco somewhere I can take the bus (or bike) to, and 3) with a fun group of folks.

I'm looking for gift suggestions for a beginning gardener.

whir — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:01:57 -0800

I'm looking for suggestions for good gifts for a beginning gardener. Books? Seeds? Tools? My friend has recently developed an interest in gardening; she is enjoying it but hasn't done much before and is currently meeting with limited success. I'd like to give her some gardening-related stuff for Hannuchristkwanzaa, but I myself have a black thumb and am capable of killing plants just by glancing offhandedly at them.

I'd like to get her something that would be good for a beginning gardener, but all I can really think of is a nice pair of gloves and a spade, and I think she already has those. I was also thinking about some seeds and a good gardening book, but I haven't the expertise to select the right ones.

She lives in San Francisco (in the Western Addition) and has a bunch of patches of somewhat sandy soil in her backyard. Her neighborhood isn't the sunniest in the city but it does get some sun. Her previous experiments have mostly been with vegetables (radishes, carrots) and flowers.

I read this previous question, but I think she's not at the stage of needing hours of massage time yet - I guess I'm sort of aiming to encourage her to get there.

IMAP proxying help needed

whir — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:01:58 -0800

My work's firewall recently began blocking outbound traffic that isn't on ports 22, 80, and 443, and I'd like to use my home router (running openwrt) to proxy my personal IMAP email so I can read it from work. I'm pretty network and linux-savvy, but I haven't really tried this out before, so I thought I'd solicit some advice. What I figure is that I'll point to my home address via dyndns or the like and then, for requests originating from my work subnet, forward the requests on to my ISP's imap server. Here's some k-R4d ascii art to illustrate what I'm going for:

[work PC] ----> [work firewall] ---> [home router] --->      [isp]

pc.work.com     fw.work.com          myrouter.dyndns.org     imap.isp.net

So on my router, I want to forward requests for router.dyndns.org:443 to imap.isp.net:143.

I'm running the latest version of Thunderbird as an email client. At home I have OpenWRT running on a Linksys WRT54G (it's running the release before kamikaze, IIRC, but I can upgrade it easily enough if I need to). I'd like to run whatever software I need to on the router itself, so I don't need to keep a machine in my home network on all the time and poke a hole in my home firewall.

Has anyone had experience with doing this? In particular I'm wondering if the IMAP protocol itself involves my client sending out its own IP address (pc.work.com) and then confusing the IMAP server at imap.isp.net, which should actually be talking to myrouter.dyndns.org.

My iptables skills are a little rusty, so if anyone has specific examples of the commands to use, I'd be grateful.

Also, could someone tell me if there's a better solution than just forwarding the raw TCP traffic? Is this something setting up a SOCKs server on myrouter.dnydns.org could solve? I do have one other IMAP account I'd like to access if I could, and I wouldn't mind getting around my workplace's HTTP content filters if I can do so easily. Neither one of these concerns is a big deal, though - mostly I just want to be able to access my personal email account. And now that I'm thinking about it, I'd like to be able to send SMTP mail from pc.work.com through my ISP if I can, too, without letting spammers use my router for nefarious purposes.

I've also seen some linux software out there specifically for proxing imap (called "imapproxy" or something?), but I didn't see a version compiled for openwrt specifically - I'm not adverse to setting up a wrt toolchain if I need to, but I'd rather not spend time on that if there's an easier way.

Yoga mat is not grippy

whir — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:36:05 -0800

How do I make my yoga/exercise mat stickier, so my hands and feet don't slip around when I'm sweaty? I did see this earlier question, which makes me suspect that I might have better success just buying a new/different mat, but I'd like to see if there's some way I can improve the one I've got first, mostly out of pure stubbornness. That is actually one of the rental mats from a yoga studio that they sold to me for a dollar, so it's already seen some use. I thought of just spraying scotch guard or something on it, but I don't want subsequently ingest it through my skin.

What is the Latin name of this rhetorical device?

whir — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:18:20 -0800

What is the formal Latin name of this rhetorical device? I've been wracking my brain trying to remember the name of a rhetorical device in which you bring up a subject under the guise of dismissing it. For instance, "of course, we won't mention my opponent's well-publicized drinking problems, as they have no relevance to this debate."

I'm quite certain there is a Latin name for this particular device, but I can't remember it and my Google-fu is failing me. I believe it is usually classified as a form of ad hominem fallacy, but I can't seem to dig it up.

ActionScript book for an experienced programmer?

whir — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:19:18 -0800

Can someone recommend a good ActionScript book for an experienced programmer? I'm designing an ActionScript API that my work will provide to various Flash authors (generally our creative departments or external agencies) to help them integrate their movies into our web sites, and I'd like to get a book on ActionScript that's aimed at experienced programmers.

I did see this earlier AskMe recommendation for a book for non-coders, but I'd like something a little more technical than that. I've done lots of programming in a variety of languages, and I do already know the basics of ActionScript and Flash.

I guess what I'd like is something that'll give me an idea of some "best practices" type things - how to organize my code, weird traps to look out for in ActionScript, vagaries of the various player versions, etc.

What I don't want is something that will spend a lot of time talking about how a for loop works, foundational OOP, etc, or something that mostly focuses on the authoring side of Flash (animation, sound, graphic design, etc).

Oh, for what it's worth, this will be an ActionScript 2.0 API, since we need to support down to Flash 6. And if anyone has some particularly good websites that deal with these kinds of things, I'd welcome those, too (I've had a lot of trouble sorting the wheat from the chaff when it comes to sites about Flash).

Decent windows CD-labelling software?

whir — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:01:15 -0800

Is there any windows software for designing labels for my mix CD's which doesn't completely suck? I'm hoping someone can give me a recommendation for some software that I can run on windows to generate labels for (audio) mix CD's that I burn. For the most part, I'm interested in stuff that I can use to print to those adhesive CD labels packs that one can buy at office supply stores (eg, the ones that stick on the top of the CD itself - I know this is not great for the CD's longevity, but that doesn't worry me much since these are mostly audio CD's coming from mp3 sources, and the mp3's are backed up elsewhere).

I don't need anything incredibly fancy, but I do have some requirements for the software:

* It should be able to import a playlist (probably m3u) and I should then be able to print a track list on the CD itself. I'm OK with writing a script to generate a .txt file from a playlist to feed into the program of need be, but I don't don't don't want to need to copy and paste from Windows Explorer into a track list in the labelling application.

* It should be able to bend text around the axis/center of the CD, so I can write the album title in letters around the diameter of the disc if I want to.

* It should be able to print on most of the CD labels I am able to buy around here (from office supply stores). I don't mind a small offset, but I'd like for there to be no white arcs showing on the CD after I'm done. I'm OK with buying only one specific type of CD label brand to go with the software if need be.

* It should be able to use a jpg/gif/png/etc file as a background to the image.

* It would be nice if it could handle jewel-box type labels as well.

* Open-source would be nice, just on principle.

*The ability to print labels for data CD/DVD's would be a bonus, too.

* It should not be as buggy as bejesus.

Up until now I've mostly been using the CD-label application which comes with Nero to make my labels (I mostly use Nero to burn the CD's themselves). It actually meets most of my requirements, but sadly, it is far buggier than bejesus and I can never get it to match its output to the labels I buy.

I am by no means a Photoshop or Illustrator expert, but I do own both of those programs. I've tried to print some labels based on manufacturer's illustrator templates before, but found it pretty difficult to actually get Illustrator to do what I wanted it to, so I'm hoping for something a little more accessible.

Thunderbrd and inline images

whir — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 19:08:09 -0800

How can I stop thunderbird from automatically rendering inline (attached) images? So Thunderbird is already blocking remote images, but what I want it do is also block images which are included as attachments to the message and displayed inline via HTML (mostly because most of the spam that gets through my filters consists of a big annoying image). I'm sure there's a way I can do this by messing around in the user CSS or XUL files, can anyone help with this, or at least point me in the right direction?

My ideal solution would replace the image with some sort of DHTML widget that I could click on to display the image (similar to how the FlashBlock Firefox extension used to work). Every now and then a friend sends me an actual photo or something that I'd like to look at, and it would be nice to do so within thunderbird instead of looking for the attached image and opening it seperately.