4451 Ask MetaFilter answers by paulsc (displaying 1 through 50)
I walk and hike a lot for exercise and to meet my dog's needs. But I'm having trouble going longer distances without some hip pain and tiredness. I just signed up for a 12 mile hike with 2200+ feet elevation gain in early December with friends. I don't want to have to back out. How can I up my mileage?
comment posted at 4:12 PM on Nov-4-13
Trying to buy a classy map for my wife's christmas present. Are there any places online that are a bit more than simply a "poster print shop"?
comment posted at 6:26 AM on Nov-4-13
I lean to the insane side of life when it comes to always trying to change. I have tried three times now to change from an enterprise programmer to SOMETHING! ANYTHING else... Here I am trying again... bound for failure?
comment posted at 8:18 PM on Nov-3-13
I've got loads of inspiration from things like Pinterest and Houzz and blogs, but what I really want to learn are the basic principles of good interior design and lighting. What should I read/watch?
comment posted at 3:14 PM on Nov-3-13
After high school, I pretty much disappeared off the radar of my crowd. I had my reasons, which weren't especially due to anyone I knew then, just my situation led me to make some changes to my locale and I lost touch with them over the years. Now that Facebook has made looking up people so easy, my posse from high school has tracked me down and wants me to attend a party, a reunion of sorts. One of our cohort passed away unexpectedly and they put out all the stops to locate me once they got wind I was still alive and kicking.
comment posted at 2:37 PM on Nov-3-13
I'm about to start a job where I make around a 55k salary. I am wondering how much this will affect my life compared to the approximately 40k salary I've been getting (due to things at my job trying to play with my salary... I can't really comment on this.)
comment posted at 2:17 PM on Nov-3-13
Does anyone have enough experience with these to answer this?: I got a used one off craigslist for $200. Works fine except the vertical adjust isn't working at all. Could this be that the hydraulic cartridge needs to be replaced? I'm assuming it is but thought I'd ask around before I bought one. Thanks in advance.
comment posted at 1:42 PM on Nov-3-13
comment posted at 4:10 PM on Nov-3-13
comment posted at 4:54 PM on Nov-3-13
comment posted at 5:17 PM on Nov-3-13
comment posted at 6:09 PM on Nov-3-13
Hoping I could query the awesomeness of the hive mind for help with referrals to repair an older restaurant model oven/range currently living in a home in north orange county, CA.
comment posted at 5:48 PM on Nov-3-13
Am I likely to get a virus on a laptop that hasn't been updated for a year, while I wait for new updates?
comment posted at 6:53 AM on Nov-3-13
I run an artists’ group which meets monthly. The group is made up of some very talented and creative people and has gone from strength to strength over the two years it’s been running; so much so that we are now working on collaborative projects that take quite some organising and involve finance, tax, insurance etc. Obviously, this is exciting and we want to continue to expand. However, this means that we have to have ‘business’ meetings on a regular basis and it’s become woefully evident to me that I can’t chair / facilitate these meetings for toffee.
comment posted at 6:30 AM on Nov-3-13
comment posted at 4:28 PM on Nov-3-13
I bought this product "Multiple Minerals" because I was trying to follow a particular healthy skin diet. I read that I should take Maganese, Silica and a few other things this product had but I just noticed the amounts are around .2 % of the daily allowance average. I'm confused as to how this would benefit me. Is this product a total rip off?
comment posted at 10:02 PM on Nov-2-13
I'm looking for some really hard, heavy blues rock to listen to because an entire playlist made up only of Led Zeppelin, the Black Keys, and Jimi Hendrix gets kind of repetitive after a while. Can anyone recommend artists along the lines of those three? I'm really looking for stuff that is loud, in-your-face, sexy, maybe psychedelic, and HARD.
comment posted at 7:30 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 7:55 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 7:06 PM on Nov-3-13
...or is it? For the last month or so, my PC (Windows 7, home-built ASUS P8B WS mobo, Xeon E3-1240 v2 Ivy Bridge, AMD FirePro V5900) has been abruptly shutting down (acting like a reset, everything immediately powers off including fans, power LED, etc, then reboots on its own) usually when doing graphically intensive things. I believe the CPU is hitting its thermal max & shutting down, but the evidence is mixed: if I take a look at the CPU temp in the BIOS monitor on restart immediately after one of these events, it's cool (40ish C) and if I continue into Windows and look at CPU temps in SpeedFan, I begin to get puzzled: Core0 through Core 3 temps vary around 30C at idle, but the "CPU" temp is up in the 80-90C range. Why could be causing the elevated temps at idle and why the discrepancy between temps described above?
comment posted at 6:00 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 6:06 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 6:39 PM on Nov-2-13
Every year my boyfriend and I make up a theme for our resolution for the year. 2014 is going to be "I Sing The Body Electric." We then do things along this theme. The idea for 2014 is that we make our bodies feel awesome, inside and out. What fun and transformative things should we do?
comment posted at 5:38 PM on Nov-2-13
I'm struggling to parse something that just happened between my car mechanic and I. What the hell happened? Is this a red flag? Am I being lied to or not told something, here?
comment posted at 3:19 PM on Nov-2-13
My mother's house has these recessed casement windows, and the mystery material the jamb (or maybe jamb extension?) is made of has started to crumble. Whole chunks come out when I put the air conditioners in each spring and take them out every fall, and forget about keeping the window shade hung -- I have yet to find an anchor that won't get pulled out. I'm going to take a stab at fixing it while I'm home for Thanksgiving, so I need help devising a plan of attack that can definitely be completed over a four-day weekend, even if that means it's just a stop-gap band-aid-type repair.
comment posted at 3:06 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 8:19 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 10:31 PM on Nov-2-13
Can you help me figure out which affordable AC adapter would be compatible with a System 76 Bonobo Extreme laptop ?
comment posted at 12:38 PM on Nov-2-13
What is it like owning a home near a *loud* highway or other noisy high-traffic roadway? How do you cope? Will I regret buying this house?
comment posted at 11:18 PM on Nov-2-13
Help papa become a better bedtime storyteller.
comment posted at 1:50 AM on Nov-2-13
What are some famous examples of historic campaign slogans and mottoes?
comment posted at 11:26 PM on Nov-1-13
Can you please help explain to me some techniques and procedures for teaching English to students with whom you don't share a common language? Its private tutoring and the students in this instance are two 10 year olds and they need to be speaking as much as they can in the next couple of months... and I will have them twice a week for an hour. I have an Ipad, a white board, and a copy machine....
comment posted at 2:06 PM on Nov-1-13
I'm seeking a major mid-life career change in the mid term (1 - 3 years) and I'd like to find several online career advice or career change tools that might help me by providing feedback, ideas and and inspiration, because I'm after something entirely new. Questionnaires, that sort of thing, rather than pages of the usual advice. This will supplement my own brainstorming, networking, asking trusted friends etc.
comment posted at 3:43 PM on Nov-1-13
My mom has dementia. For the last 5-6 years, I've helped her fill in her mail-in ballot. We've talked about her choices (to the best of her ability). This is the first election where I feel that she can't participate in choosing who to vote for. I've brought it up with her, but she isn't engaging at all. However, I know how she would want to vote. Voting in every election since she became old enough has been a tremendous point of pride for her. She's always been an engaged and active participant: walking precincts, helping with mailings, going to candidate forums (until the dementia really took hold). Part of me feels like I would be honoring the person she was by casting this ballot (probably the last one), but part of me feels that by casting her ballot without any participation from her, I'm committing fraud. What say you, wise Mefites?
comment posted at 3:52 PM on Nov-1-13
I've never thought of myself as being in good shape, but lately I've noticed that I'm not just weak or slow, I'm also pretty uncoordinated. Now that I see it just I keep seeing it everywhere in my life, and it really bothers me. My movements are pretty twitchy and momentum-based, rather than being deliberate, something I could stop in the middle of at any moment. I want to fix this. When I think of activities that could help me develop that kind of control, I think of like martial arts, or yoga, or something, but I don't really know. I'd love to hear some suggestions.
comment posted at 12:52 PM on Nov-1-13
How long will a spider, trapped in a car, take to die?
comment posted at 2:06 AM on Nov-1-13
Hey folks! I am a high school biology teacher in Chicago Public Schools. I am trying to find a small, creative noisemaker I can use as a signal to get the class to quiet down so I can give instructions. Some teachers raise their hands - however, this doesn't really work when they are busy peering through microscopes.
comment posted at 2:29 PM on Oct-29-13
I own this amp. It works fine except for one thing: the sound is tremendously bassy. Currently, I have the bass turned all the way down and the treble all the way up and it is STILL too bassy. I only play distorted/high gain. What are my best options for getting a treblier sound?
comment posted at 2:20 PM on Oct-29-13
comment posted at 5:18 AM on Oct-30-13
I've been wondering about this for years. I have no concept of what it means to be female, apart from the body parts (which, as I've learned, don't, by themselves, mean a lot). All I can think of is a lot of cultural stuff, which doesn't seem to be universal all over the world, so surely that's just what we've learned? I get the impression that there is such a thing as a female or male identity, as inborn gender. If you have one, what does it feel like? How do you know what gender you are?
comment posted at 5:29 AM on Oct-29-13
I'm in the market for a used car, and I've found one that looks great (on paper). I have not seen it in person yet. It's being sold by a new/used car dealership that seems to have positive reviews (or at least, no negative reviews that I can find). The only thing is, the asking price appears to be too low, based on what I'm finding online, by something like $2,000-3,000. Carfax report comes up clean except for a fender bender, and the mileage is kind of high (190k for a 2005 car). I plan to check it out in person and ask questions about it, but (1) what should I be looking for -- especially non-obvious things? and (2) what are some good questions to ask about it? Also: if the car is in decent condition, should I try to haggle, or just take the car at the listed price?
comment posted at 4:56 PM on Oct-28-13
comment posted at 9:43 PM on Oct-28-13
I look very ugly in webcam, but I have a Skype interview tomorrow. I'm frustrated. Id rather go to a face to face interview. At least I look normal in mirror. Can anyone give any practical advice for Skype interview? How can I look better instead of like a criminal? Thanks.
comment posted at 10:30 PM on Oct-27-13
I have become obsessed with New Orleans piano. What CDs are the best place to start for the following: Jelly Roll Morton Professor Longhair Dr. John. Plus, any names I should add to the list? Thanks.
comment posted at 11:22 PM on Oct-27-13
Does anyone have recommendations for a voice teacher in the DC area, preferably Northern Virginia? I'm a 58-year old male lead singer in a band. The band does mostly rock and country, with bluegrass and Great American Songbook stuff thrown in for good measure. I'm interested in extending my baritone range (I don't have a head voice or falsetto at all) and increasing power and volume. A couple of years ago I bought Roger Love's Set Your Voice Free, and I practice the vocal exercises daily, but that's the extent of my formal practice.
comment posted at 1:25 AM on Oct-28-13
My question is how does one go to college full time and make ends meet working part time?
comment posted at 6:19 AM on Oct-27-13
How come? How can I be more comfortable with this?
comment posted at 11:41 PM on Oct-25-13
Where can I find a Moller model 78 rosewood chair or get one mended?
comment posted at 7:35 PM on Oct-25-13
comment posted at 1:40 AM on Oct-27-13
Obviously I can bring my wool coat back to the tailor who originally made alterations to the sleeves. I'm just wondering if I will look like a jerk for doing so. Also wondering what I'll be charged. $0 doesn't seem right, but paying $80 again feels wrong, too.
comment posted at 10:05 PM on Oct-25-13
comment posted at 4:12 PM on Nov-4-13
Trying to buy a classy map for my wife's christmas present. Are there any places online that are a bit more than simply a "poster print shop"?
comment posted at 6:26 AM on Nov-4-13
I lean to the insane side of life when it comes to always trying to change. I have tried three times now to change from an enterprise programmer to SOMETHING! ANYTHING else... Here I am trying again... bound for failure?
comment posted at 8:18 PM on Nov-3-13
I've got loads of inspiration from things like Pinterest and Houzz and blogs, but what I really want to learn are the basic principles of good interior design and lighting. What should I read/watch?
comment posted at 3:14 PM on Nov-3-13
After high school, I pretty much disappeared off the radar of my crowd. I had my reasons, which weren't especially due to anyone I knew then, just my situation led me to make some changes to my locale and I lost touch with them over the years. Now that Facebook has made looking up people so easy, my posse from high school has tracked me down and wants me to attend a party, a reunion of sorts. One of our cohort passed away unexpectedly and they put out all the stops to locate me once they got wind I was still alive and kicking.
comment posted at 2:37 PM on Nov-3-13
I'm about to start a job where I make around a 55k salary. I am wondering how much this will affect my life compared to the approximately 40k salary I've been getting (due to things at my job trying to play with my salary... I can't really comment on this.)
comment posted at 2:17 PM on Nov-3-13
Does anyone have enough experience with these to answer this?: I got a used one off craigslist for $200. Works fine except the vertical adjust isn't working at all. Could this be that the hydraulic cartridge needs to be replaced? I'm assuming it is but thought I'd ask around before I bought one. Thanks in advance.
comment posted at 1:42 PM on Nov-3-13
comment posted at 4:10 PM on Nov-3-13
comment posted at 4:54 PM on Nov-3-13
comment posted at 5:17 PM on Nov-3-13
comment posted at 6:09 PM on Nov-3-13
Hoping I could query the awesomeness of the hive mind for help with referrals to repair an older restaurant model oven/range currently living in a home in north orange county, CA.
comment posted at 5:48 PM on Nov-3-13
Am I likely to get a virus on a laptop that hasn't been updated for a year, while I wait for new updates?
comment posted at 6:53 AM on Nov-3-13
I run an artists’ group which meets monthly. The group is made up of some very talented and creative people and has gone from strength to strength over the two years it’s been running; so much so that we are now working on collaborative projects that take quite some organising and involve finance, tax, insurance etc. Obviously, this is exciting and we want to continue to expand. However, this means that we have to have ‘business’ meetings on a regular basis and it’s become woefully evident to me that I can’t chair / facilitate these meetings for toffee.
comment posted at 6:30 AM on Nov-3-13
comment posted at 4:28 PM on Nov-3-13
I bought this product "Multiple Minerals" because I was trying to follow a particular healthy skin diet. I read that I should take Maganese, Silica and a few other things this product had but I just noticed the amounts are around .2 % of the daily allowance average. I'm confused as to how this would benefit me. Is this product a total rip off?
comment posted at 10:02 PM on Nov-2-13
I'm looking for some really hard, heavy blues rock to listen to because an entire playlist made up only of Led Zeppelin, the Black Keys, and Jimi Hendrix gets kind of repetitive after a while. Can anyone recommend artists along the lines of those three? I'm really looking for stuff that is loud, in-your-face, sexy, maybe psychedelic, and HARD.
comment posted at 7:30 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 7:55 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 7:06 PM on Nov-3-13
...or is it? For the last month or so, my PC (Windows 7, home-built ASUS P8B WS mobo, Xeon E3-1240 v2 Ivy Bridge, AMD FirePro V5900) has been abruptly shutting down (acting like a reset, everything immediately powers off including fans, power LED, etc, then reboots on its own) usually when doing graphically intensive things. I believe the CPU is hitting its thermal max & shutting down, but the evidence is mixed: if I take a look at the CPU temp in the BIOS monitor on restart immediately after one of these events, it's cool (40ish C) and if I continue into Windows and look at CPU temps in SpeedFan, I begin to get puzzled: Core0 through Core 3 temps vary around 30C at idle, but the "CPU" temp is up in the 80-90C range. Why could be causing the elevated temps at idle and why the discrepancy between temps described above?
comment posted at 6:00 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 6:06 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 6:39 PM on Nov-2-13
Every year my boyfriend and I make up a theme for our resolution for the year. 2014 is going to be "I Sing The Body Electric." We then do things along this theme. The idea for 2014 is that we make our bodies feel awesome, inside and out. What fun and transformative things should we do?
comment posted at 5:38 PM on Nov-2-13
I'm struggling to parse something that just happened between my car mechanic and I. What the hell happened? Is this a red flag? Am I being lied to or not told something, here?
comment posted at 3:19 PM on Nov-2-13
My mother's house has these recessed casement windows, and the mystery material the jamb (or maybe jamb extension?) is made of has started to crumble. Whole chunks come out when I put the air conditioners in each spring and take them out every fall, and forget about keeping the window shade hung -- I have yet to find an anchor that won't get pulled out. I'm going to take a stab at fixing it while I'm home for Thanksgiving, so I need help devising a plan of attack that can definitely be completed over a four-day weekend, even if that means it's just a stop-gap band-aid-type repair.
comment posted at 3:06 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 8:19 PM on Nov-2-13
comment posted at 10:31 PM on Nov-2-13
Can you help me figure out which affordable AC adapter would be compatible with a System 76 Bonobo Extreme laptop ?
comment posted at 12:38 PM on Nov-2-13
What is it like owning a home near a *loud* highway or other noisy high-traffic roadway? How do you cope? Will I regret buying this house?
comment posted at 11:18 PM on Nov-2-13
Help papa become a better bedtime storyteller.
comment posted at 1:50 AM on Nov-2-13
What are some famous examples of historic campaign slogans and mottoes?
comment posted at 11:26 PM on Nov-1-13
Can you please help explain to me some techniques and procedures for teaching English to students with whom you don't share a common language? Its private tutoring and the students in this instance are two 10 year olds and they need to be speaking as much as they can in the next couple of months... and I will have them twice a week for an hour. I have an Ipad, a white board, and a copy machine....
comment posted at 2:06 PM on Nov-1-13
I'm seeking a major mid-life career change in the mid term (1 - 3 years) and I'd like to find several online career advice or career change tools that might help me by providing feedback, ideas and and inspiration, because I'm after something entirely new. Questionnaires, that sort of thing, rather than pages of the usual advice. This will supplement my own brainstorming, networking, asking trusted friends etc.
comment posted at 3:43 PM on Nov-1-13
My mom has dementia. For the last 5-6 years, I've helped her fill in her mail-in ballot. We've talked about her choices (to the best of her ability). This is the first election where I feel that she can't participate in choosing who to vote for. I've brought it up with her, but she isn't engaging at all. However, I know how she would want to vote. Voting in every election since she became old enough has been a tremendous point of pride for her. She's always been an engaged and active participant: walking precincts, helping with mailings, going to candidate forums (until the dementia really took hold). Part of me feels like I would be honoring the person she was by casting this ballot (probably the last one), but part of me feels that by casting her ballot without any participation from her, I'm committing fraud. What say you, wise Mefites?
comment posted at 3:52 PM on Nov-1-13
I've never thought of myself as being in good shape, but lately I've noticed that I'm not just weak or slow, I'm also pretty uncoordinated. Now that I see it just I keep seeing it everywhere in my life, and it really bothers me. My movements are pretty twitchy and momentum-based, rather than being deliberate, something I could stop in the middle of at any moment. I want to fix this. When I think of activities that could help me develop that kind of control, I think of like martial arts, or yoga, or something, but I don't really know. I'd love to hear some suggestions.
comment posted at 12:52 PM on Nov-1-13
How long will a spider, trapped in a car, take to die?
comment posted at 2:06 AM on Nov-1-13
Hey folks! I am a high school biology teacher in Chicago Public Schools. I am trying to find a small, creative noisemaker I can use as a signal to get the class to quiet down so I can give instructions. Some teachers raise their hands - however, this doesn't really work when they are busy peering through microscopes.
comment posted at 2:29 PM on Oct-29-13
I own this amp. It works fine except for one thing: the sound is tremendously bassy. Currently, I have the bass turned all the way down and the treble all the way up and it is STILL too bassy. I only play distorted/high gain. What are my best options for getting a treblier sound?
comment posted at 2:20 PM on Oct-29-13
comment posted at 5:18 AM on Oct-30-13
I've been wondering about this for years. I have no concept of what it means to be female, apart from the body parts (which, as I've learned, don't, by themselves, mean a lot). All I can think of is a lot of cultural stuff, which doesn't seem to be universal all over the world, so surely that's just what we've learned? I get the impression that there is such a thing as a female or male identity, as inborn gender. If you have one, what does it feel like? How do you know what gender you are?
comment posted at 5:29 AM on Oct-29-13
I'm in the market for a used car, and I've found one that looks great (on paper). I have not seen it in person yet. It's being sold by a new/used car dealership that seems to have positive reviews (or at least, no negative reviews that I can find). The only thing is, the asking price appears to be too low, based on what I'm finding online, by something like $2,000-3,000. Carfax report comes up clean except for a fender bender, and the mileage is kind of high (190k for a 2005 car). I plan to check it out in person and ask questions about it, but (1) what should I be looking for -- especially non-obvious things? and (2) what are some good questions to ask about it? Also: if the car is in decent condition, should I try to haggle, or just take the car at the listed price?
comment posted at 4:56 PM on Oct-28-13
comment posted at 9:43 PM on Oct-28-13
I look very ugly in webcam, but I have a Skype interview tomorrow. I'm frustrated. Id rather go to a face to face interview. At least I look normal in mirror. Can anyone give any practical advice for Skype interview? How can I look better instead of like a criminal? Thanks.
comment posted at 10:30 PM on Oct-27-13
I have become obsessed with New Orleans piano. What CDs are the best place to start for the following: Jelly Roll Morton Professor Longhair Dr. John. Plus, any names I should add to the list? Thanks.
comment posted at 11:22 PM on Oct-27-13
Does anyone have recommendations for a voice teacher in the DC area, preferably Northern Virginia? I'm a 58-year old male lead singer in a band. The band does mostly rock and country, with bluegrass and Great American Songbook stuff thrown in for good measure. I'm interested in extending my baritone range (I don't have a head voice or falsetto at all) and increasing power and volume. A couple of years ago I bought Roger Love's Set Your Voice Free, and I practice the vocal exercises daily, but that's the extent of my formal practice.
comment posted at 1:25 AM on Oct-28-13
My question is how does one go to college full time and make ends meet working part time?
comment posted at 6:19 AM on Oct-27-13
How come? How can I be more comfortable with this?
comment posted at 11:41 PM on Oct-25-13
Where can I find a Moller model 78 rosewood chair or get one mended?
comment posted at 7:35 PM on Oct-25-13
comment posted at 1:40 AM on Oct-27-13
Obviously I can bring my wool coat back to the tailor who originally made alterations to the sleeves. I'm just wondering if I will look like a jerk for doing so. Also wondering what I'll be charged. $0 doesn't seem right, but paying $80 again feels wrong, too.
comment posted at 10:05 PM on Oct-25-13