Ask MetaFilter posts by yoga

NASCAR and Earth

yoga — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:50:53 -0800

Why are "NASCAR", "peak oil", "global warming" and "gas prices" never mentioned in the same sentence? Are there statistics on how much gas / oil / petroleum products that are used for a typical race? What about practice races?

Domain-tor? [realtor + domain]

yoga — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:41:46 -0800

Is there such a thing as a domain name agent? Like a real estate agent, but for .com (or other) domains instead of chunks of land? I have a handful of domain names I'd like to sell, but I don't want to bother with the hairsplitting exercise of looking at traffic & whatever else supposedly predicts popularity / marketability. I'm familiar with sites like www.domaintools.com, but I'm willing to pay someone a small percentage of actual sales price to do the selling / auctioning for me.

Hope?

Earth's water vs land volume (shown in spheres) image?

yoga — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:09:33 -0800

ISO: Photo-like diagram of the ratio of total volume of water to total volume of land on Earth. NOT the surface area - the TOTAL respective volumes of the planet. I knew I should've saved it when it made the rounds the first time, now I can't find it.

It's a picture of two spheres comparing Earth's water vs. land composition. One sphere represents the total land mass, the other smaller blue one represents the total water mass.

Hope me?

I want to get an external DVD burner for my new Windows laptop. Suggestions?

yoga — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:57:34 -0800

I want to get an external DVD burner for my new Windows laptop. Suggestions? [posted for grouse] I have a ThinkPad X61 with no internal optical drive so this will be my primary CD/DVD reader as well.

Should I try to get a FireWire drive or does it not matter? Any particular brands or models I should seek or avoid? It would be really nice if there were one that would play DVDs from any region or could be programmed to do the same.

Any U.S. vendors I could order from and get in the next week? Or should I just go out to Fry's and get something there? I'm in Austin, TX, for the rest of 2007.

Also, I'd like to install Windows XP from the drive (Vista is awful); will I have any problem booting from an external CD drive?

Wireless Monitor: does it exist?

yoga — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:31:52 -0800

HowTo Filter: add a second monitor that is wireless? I found this device, but the post is a year old and I was hoping for a solution that doesn't cost as much. this is even older and more expensive. There is also this, from DisplayLink, but I don't understand how it works - it is actually wireless? It looks like the monitors they make have a sub chip built in, but I don't get how it all connects back to the pc. I want to add a second lcd monitor to a winxp desktop machine, but I want it to be wireless. It's going into a showroom down the hall, which is about 75 linear feet away. We have a clearwire router that my laptop finds just fine in the showroom. I'd rather do a wireless thing so we're not crawling around above the ceiling fishing cable around.

We'll be displaying a looped video and/or our website on the second monitor when we have open houses to show our products and design. So I was thinking just add a second monitor to our existing machine, set up what we want while at the machine and just have it display the same thing in the showroom.

I also don't completely understand how to set up two monitors from a single machine. I'm assuming I go to control panel and add a monitor, but how will we tell it to display the same thing as what's on the monitor at the machine?

Any suggestions?

Cheese knives? Blades? Cleavers? Slicers?

yoga — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 06:42:41 -0800

Cheese knives? Blades? Cleavers? Slicers? Cutters? We had dinner at some friends' the other week. They had these cool cheese cutting tools that were a cross between a flat blade like you apply spackle with, and a nubby handle like on a short screwdriver. They were only about 3" or 4" from cutting edge to tip of handle. They were much easier to use - pressing down through the cheese with the end of the handle in your palm instead of trying to lever & rock the blade through it with a traditional horizontal knife. And you could use a corner of the blade to stab & serve or use it like a mini spatula.

I asked the hostess where she got them & she said she'd had them for years and thought they were OXO's, but the OXO site doesn't have anything like them.

I've searched the intertubes high & low with all the combos of terminology above, and haven't had any luck. Maybe there is something else they're called that I don't know about?

Do black earrings exist?

yoga — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:59:16 -0800

In search of simple black earrings (pierced). They can be small hoops, studs or wires. Not necessarily onyx or obsidian - could be rubber, for all I care, but definitely not pearls. I'd like something kind of like just the hoop part on these. If combined with metal, preferred color is silver.

How to make an informational cd to sell?

yoga — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:02:57 -0800

How to make an informational cd to sell? We're in the process of making a cd to sell that instructs the buyers how to set up a dosimetry program at their own vet clinic. The pieces include instructions on the process of setup, form letters (.docs), & state & federal regulations applicable to the buyer's locale.

How do we put all that on a cd that has a dressier interface than windows explorer? Do we create a local website on the cd? If so, what if the cd drive of the buyer isn't C or D? Since it isn't really software, it's really dragging & dropping files, how do we handle this? Do we make some kind of autorun.exe file? If so, how? And how do we address the mac/pc thing, if at all?

One reason we opted for the cd and not a web tool is that many potential buyers may be on dialup and not terribly tech savvy.

I'll try to answer any additional questions to help figure out the next steps. Apologies for my ignorance - this is a first time thing for us, if that's not already obvious.

This is the last mystery piece before we submit to a print-on-demand house.

somewhere other than the hot & muggy mid atlantic.

yoga — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 06:44:14 -0800

RelocationFilter: Where are there progressive, under-the-radar & off-the-beaten path places to live in CA (or other places worldwide near water) that don't cost arms/legs/90% of waking life to afford living? Apologies for the vagueness of the question - we're having trouble putting our finger on what we want. My partner and I currently live in central NC, in a pocket of highly educated and tolerant population, with good arts & music scenes. The problem? Mainly, unbearable heat & humidity in the summers, and largely conservative [unimaginative] govt leaders both at state and federal levels.

Workwise, we have extensive experience & skills in CAD and veterinary medical equipment management, so we can pretty much find work anywhere.

We've both been to parts of CA and loved it, especially northern. But we're also open to other countries, not just US. We love to be outside, especially with our dogs, & would love a garden (even if container in an urban setting).

What about Sweden? or Switzerland? Someplace that isn't completely paved and commercialized?!

How might we stop one of our cats from yanking out great clumps of her hair?

yoga — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:59:52 -0800

Neurotic cat filter: How might we stop one of our cats from yanking out great clumps of her hair? It started last summer, after we got rid of our living room furniture, which had slipcovers under which she frequently tented herself. Thinking maybe she missed tenting, we created other tenting places for her: blanket draped across chair arms, bed under a desk, clearing under a nightstand. The yanking continues.

We tried this stuff to de-stress her, which semi-works on & off. She's always been people-shy and skittish - she was feral, and adopted very young. But the hair yanking thing is new. Her much older (by about a decade) companion cat who was already present when Queen Neurotic came to roost died about 2 months ago. We also acquired a new cat last summer, which she was fine with for the first month he was here. They don't fight or hiss, they're just not close.

No food or litter changes, no laundry detergent changes, no carpet cleaners or other deodorant-ish substances have been introduced to our house.

So short of shaving her so she *has* no hair to yank, paying out the yingyang for a behavioral consultant, or putting her on freaking valium, WTF can we do?

Signed, also balding from trying to figure out the feline neurosis.