Ask MetaFilter posts by Mr. Justice

Sunglass brand question

Mr. Justice — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:16:47 -0800

In the 1st season of Heroes, what kind of sunglasses is the character Nathan Petrelli (played by Adrian Pasdar) wearing? (He is the congressional candidate.) And where can I buy them

Do pheromone colognes really work?

Mr. Justice — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:27:05 -0800

Do pheromone colognes really work? I have seen pheromone colognes, which supposedly make one more sexually attractive, advertised regularly -- e.g., in the pages of Maxim. Do they work?

Good answers would either contain theoretical or empirical discussions of how pheromone colognes would or wouldn't work, or (less interesting) anecdotes of your personal experience with same. I tend to think personal anecdotes would not be very reliable as evidence because there is no good way to set up a control group for comparison.

For what it is worth, I have no interest in using this stuff, but it is something I have long been curious about. My gorgeous and beloved wife said she actually tried some of the stuff once some years ago and said it seemed to have some effect. But (a) no control group and (b) she's gorgeous anyway.

Please help me understand this obscure science fiction story

Mr. Justice — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:56:54 -0800

Question about obscure science fiction short story, "Allegory," by William T. Powers, which was reprinted in Groff Conklin's 13 GREAT STORIES OF SCIENCE FICTION. The question is: what is this story an allegory of? To put it another way, is there some real-world or historical event that this story is a comment on? I am not quite so naive as not to understand that the story is *generally* an allegory about someone whose religion or ideology is resistant to scientific/technological progress, and as a consequence finds their continuing adjustment to reality to be quite painful. Nonetheless I wonder if there is some more concrete allegorical correspondence. The conclusion of the story is particularly puzzling (in my opinion societies do not generally involuntarily confine their smartest citizens, although I am open to the possibility that I am just misunderstanding the story).

This story has haunted me ever since I first read it as a teenager. I have pondered over it and I am still haunted by the title.

Help me get my dial tone back!

Mr. Justice — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:50:59 -0800

Weird phone behavior filter: I can't get a dial tone for hours. How to fix this? It often happens that whenever someone calls us, after the call is over we can't get a dial tone. Sometimes we are without a dial tone for hours. We want to stop this.

I have no idea which of any of these are relevant facts:

I have an AT&T answering machine with three cordless phones attached to it on the home line. We have call waiting. Sometimes, after we receive calls and they end, we can't get a dial tone. I pick up all three phones and turn them off, and I also make sure the speaker phone is turned off. When I turn them on and listen, I get a dead silence. When I use another line (eg, my cell phone) to call my home phone, I get a busy signal (which presumably shouldn't happen with call waiting anyway), so perhaps this means that my phone setup thinks that a call is in process somewhere. After a couple of hours, this process resolves itself.

Perhaps the most relevant fact is the special behavior of the "in use" light on my answering machine. Usually the light is off; when I make or receive a call, it's on. During the weird and unsavory behavior when the phone line is unusable, the light BLINKS ON AND OFF. Barring demonic possession, what is your theory, diagnosis, and recommended cure for this problem?

Name that tune!

Mr. Justice — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 09:32:38 -0800

Name that tune. 1. This song was probably on a multi-CD box set that came out a decade or so ago like the "Fire/Fury Records Story". I think it's from the 60s or 70s.

2. The narrative of the song is basically a set of instructions and observations from an older man (a father?) to a little boy about how extremely cruel the world is.

3. This song is by Jackie Wilson, Brook Benton, or someone with this sound.

4. The song is composed mostly of rhymed couplets and verses, but at the end there is an interlude with the observation "Nobody cares for you" or "Nobody cares about you."

5. At some point, the song rhymes "walk" and "talk". The lyrics very generally have the sense of something like "The world will knock you down before you can walk, the world will tell you to shut up before you can talk."

I know this sounds awfully depressing, but it's actually a very interesting song of which I haven't been able to shake the memory of for years now.

Help me find a tutor/teacher/therapist for a high-functioning autistic child.

Mr. Justice — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:08:26 -0800

Help me find a tutor/teacher/therapist for a high-functioning autistic child. (This question posted for a friend.)

We are looking to hire someone who can provide tutoring and therapy for our high-functioning autistic son, who is nearly 5 years old and was recently diagnosed. Our son has many strengths, but his difficulty in relating to people and his failure in understanding the rules and conventions of social interaction is causing him significant anxiety. We are looking for someone with strong credentials and references who might want to move near Little Rock, Arkansas for a part or full-time job working one-on-one with a little boy from a very financially stable family. We are willing to make a good offer if we can find the right person. We and our friends find our son delightful, and there is research suggesting that early intervention of this kind is very effective.

Surely there is some kind of listserv or other electronic bulletin board that we could post this on? Craigslist just doesn’t seem to be the right way to go (perhaps I am wrong about this). We obviously are looking for someone with education, experience, and/or empathy for special needs kids.

Please note that I am not actually posting this in an attempt to hire you, the reader (although if you're interested, let me know). Rather, I am posting this in an attempt to figure out how I most efficiently publicize that I am hiring for a quite specialized job.

Really basic MS Access question

Mr. Justice — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 17:50:23 -0800

Forgive me for asking such an embarrassingly basic MS Access question. I have two voter lists. Each one has a list of voters, and each voter has a unique identifying number as well as some other fields. There are some voters who appear on both lists (having identical voter numbers on both lists) and some voters who appear on only one. I am only concerned with the voters who appear on both lists: how do I import some fields from one list to the other so that the unique identifying number for each voter is matched by that voter's data from the other list?

Idaho tourism filter: what to do in Sun Valley?

Mr. Justice — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:08:05 -0800

Idaho tourism filter: Interesting things to do in Sun Valley/Ketchum? We will be there for a day before we start a bike trip. Relatedly, are there any things we can do that will assist us in getting used to a higher (more airless) altitude?

Basic MS Excel question.

Mr. Justice — Wed, 09 May 2007 05:11:49 -0800

Basic MS Excel questions. How do I ask for the numeric value of the Nth cell to the right of the cell with this (requested) function in it? Relatedly, is there a way to write a function in some cell that places a numeric value in a cell N cells to the right of that cell?

What law would be really good for a state legislature to pass or repeal?

Mr. Justice — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 07:31:13 -0800

What law would be really good for a state legislature to pass or repeal? This is a practical question, seeking practical answers: I have a friend who is a good-government, reform-minded state legislator who is looking for suggestions, but the deadline for filing in this part-time legislature is one week away for the biennium (two-year period).