Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Tape

Leave The Mask On

The Whelk — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:56:52 -0800

Help me find music about sexin' up Superheroes! I'm running an event based on Yoe's "Secret Identity" and I need background music that references a bunch of things and/.or sounds like something The Silk Specter would enjoy. Ideally these songs should be about any or all of these things:

Superheroes/Masked Avengers

Secret Identity/Double Lives

Sex/Kink/Lust/Etc

Music from the 40s-50s greatly preferred but not necessary. I want to mood to bend more toward "wink wink nudge nudge" kinky rather than darker or more aggro sounds.

My thirds aren't equal; help!

dpcoffin — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:23:14 -0800

Help me divide a sheet of paper equally with tape, please! Ashamed to admit it, but I'm finding it very tricky to divide a sheet of paper into equal thirds using tape. It's easy to divide the overall length into thirds with width-less lines, but centering 3/4-in. tape on these lines doesn't result in equally sized divisions because of the width of the tape; the middle section is always narrower than the end ones. Halves are easy since the tape width bites equally into the divided sections; what would a quick trick be for doing thirds with this tape? The edges of the paper are already taped off when I divide the space inside the edges, btw. TIA!

Getting tape residue off windows, and holding broken ones up?

nmaster64 — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:40:39 -0800

Best way to get duct tape residue off windows, and how to hold broken car windows up? My gf's car is in some real crap shape. I'd love to surprise her one day and clean it up, specifically her windows. Her front driver and back passenger windows don't work and have to be held up. She's been using duct tape for over a year to do it, we still just can't quite afford the fix.

After a year of reapplying duct tape on a regular basis, the windows are covered in baked-on adhesive, it's actual a bit of a safety concern too. What's the best way to get that stuff off and clean them up nice and clear?

And is there a stronger non-permanent solution for holding the windows up? Even w/ tons of duct tape they fall over time or at a big bump. I don't mind the tape solution, I just wish it would hold better and for longer so we didn't have to reapply it every other week.

It's a 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix if that helps. Also, I am completely allergic to working on cars for the record.

Have 125 romance novels. What can I BUILD them into?

Quarter Pincher — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:47:53 -0800

RedGreenShowFilter: I've got a bunch of crisp paperback romance novels I've scavenged from dumpsters around town, and I'd rather turn them into something than read or try selling them. What can I build using them? I'm thinking clear box tape instead of duct, so the corny covers will still be visible. Bonus points for something handy. There's about 125 of them, at 4.25" x 6.25 " x (varying thickness, avg .75"). I can get hundreds more at local used book shops for less than $.50 each.

No idea too crazy, as long as it's feasible with 125 books, or more within reason.

That pretty much eliminates a giant Gundam, alas.

Printing custom ribbon?

Ugh — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:42:52 -0800

What technique and supplies are used to print on cotton tape/ribbon? I'm looking to make some custom ribbon and can't figure out how to print on the twill tape. I've seen tutorials where they show how to do iron-on in small batches for labels, but I am looking for something more like continous printing. Eventually, i'd like to print several hundred yards so something like hand stamping or silkscreening won't work. How is something like this done?

Name that tune

leahwrenn — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:25:30 -0800

My husband found a long-lost mix tape of electronica-y music from high school (c. 1986), and has always wanted to know what one of the (unlabelled) tracks is. He's been able to identify (using Shazam) other tracks as "an Eno/Byrne collaboration, and some unusual David Bowie stuff". Any ideas what this one is?

Why does packing tape smell like vinegar?

rawredmeat — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:47:25 -0800

Why the heck does plastic packing tape smell like vinegar? Has anybody else noticed this? We're talking plain old clear plastic packing tape, which has a VERY distinct vinegar smell when you use it. In roll form, it is apparently odorless, but as soon as you tape a box, WA-BAM! Vinegar smell! Has anyone else noticed this? Any thoughts?

San Francisco Masking Tape Poems?

batgrlHG — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:30:49 -0800

I've become fascinated with Masking Tape Poems found on the streets of San Francisco, and feel sure that there must be more documentation - some alternative weekly article, blog post, art historian musings, etc. - out there that I'm missing through my lame googlefu skills. Looking for links, photos, or "oh yeah I've seen that and heard..." information. Here's what I'm going on so far:
Jeremy Brooks' Zooomr.com set and his
Flickr set
Brooks' photo of man who may be the author

So far I've only found three other photos - but I'm sure there must be something more out there. Randomly I've never actually seen these in person - just found the photos and am liking the idea. Might not have been going on long - but looks like photos have been taken of this (similar font, assuming it's same poet) for at least a year.

I will feel extremely silly if the answers are all in MeFi and I've missed them somehow.

A sticky situation

mosk — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:10:22 -0800

Removing stubborn masking tape from aluminum? I have a 12' aluminum fishing boat that I recently stripped and repainted. In the process of repainting, I masked off the aluminum rail that runs around the perimeter of the boat. Unfortunately, I inadvertently bought The World's Cheapest Masking Tape, and the stuff has absolutely adhered itself to the surface to which it was stuck. When it comes off at all, it's in blotches, not strips. But mostly, it just remains stuck to the aluminum surface.

In the past I've used Goof Off and a razor blade for this sort of thing, but that's been a less than perfect solution with this particular tape, as the Goof Off breaks down the tape along with the adhesive, leaving me with a bigger mess that still doesn't want to come off, but is now even more likely to breakdown and become thousands of little balls of gummy tape that are still stuck to the %@$#! rail! Also, the surface is a little pitted, so the razor blade can't make a decent pass underneath the tape. Arrrrrrgg!

I can go after the rail with a wire brush and ScotchBrite if I have to, but a) that's likely to be a lot of work, even if I soak the stuff in Goof Off, and b) the dissolving tape clogs up the brush and ScotchBrite, which further slows down the process.

A further complication: the rail itself is grooved along it's length, so there's a lot of detail that needs to be chased down if I go with a method that uses an abrasive to grind away the tape.

So, in light of the above, does anyone have any other ideas on removing stubborn, well-adhered, but flimsy masking tape? I'm sort of hoping someone has a trick for this that's clever instead of relying on brute force and elbow grease, though I'm prepared for the latter if it's the only thing that works.

Tools I have at my disposal: an air compressor and die grinder, a pressure washer (the tape just laughed when i tried this approach, plus I'm worried this will take off the new paint I've just applied), various electric hand drills, and a garage full of tools.

Where can I find Biggie Smalls' secret tape?

herrdoktor — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:31:06 -0800

Biggie Smalls' demo tape info request: link to blog with mp3s from a secret, early demo tape where he's rapping over other artists' early tracks for the purposes of demonstrating flow, and whereby said artists would emulate his delivery? A while ago I came across a blog where someone came into possession of a suepr secret tape. On this tape were early demos of rappers, only Biggie was rapping in place of them. The tapes basically show that he either a) wrote all the music and words for people who would become stars in their own right, or b) that he rapped their parts for them, to show them how they should rap-- what their style should be, etc.

In one case, he was rapping over a demo track for a female rapper, rapping about... female things, and when this is compared to to actual release sans Smalls, said female rapper copied his delivery down to the phrasing.

Anyone? Help! 8D

Stick 'em up

paxton — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 11:31:53 -0800

Can anyone recommend a good adhesive tape for an automobile dashboard? I have a '08 Nissan Versa and I'm trying to affix a small satellite radio antenna to the dash where it meets the windshield. This is one of the magnet mount antennas but I can't find a good place to channel the antenna to the roof of the car, so I'm leaving it inside and it's working great. However I can't find any sort of tape to hold it in place and keep it from sliding around.
The dash seems very slick, like it's coated with a wax of some sort but even cleaning with alcohol is not helping. I've tried everything from double sided foam tapes to duct tape and nothing will stick. I'm sure I could sand the dash down a bit, but would rather not damage the car for a half assed radio installation; this is also the reason I'm avoiding glues. Are they making dashboards out of some sort of anti-stick material now, or have I just not found the right tape to use?

MacBook Pro reassembly help

monkey85 — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:56:35 -0800

Putting a MacBook Pro (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo) back together--what's that black tape? And how to put it back together? I took apart my MacBook Pro to replace the bottom case, and I was quite well prepared overall, including buying Kapton tape to replace the orange transparent tape inside the computer (it tends to lose its stickiness after 1 use).

Unfortunately I was not prepared to replace the black tape that covers the speaker wire, which travels along the top of the computer just below the logic board.

Two questions:

1. What is that black tape? It's way thicker than regular electrical tape. I need to replace the current tape since it's not sticking anymore, and the speaker wire just keeps coming up.

2. Where exactly is the speaker wire supposed to go when the MacBook Pro gets reassembled? The photos on iFixit aren't very clear. Is it along the outside edge or slightly farther into the computer along the bottom case?

So you're listening to what?

heavenstobetsy — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:50:17 -0800

Mixtape Mission: What's your favourite song right now? I've been tasked with the job of putting together a mixtape consisting of "favourite songs". Which is to say that each song should be SOMEONE'S favourite. It does not matter whose favourite it is, so here I am. After polling my available friends, I have 10 songs. I need 10 more. Genre is unimportant and the mix will most likely be played in the background at a meet-up of 20-30 somethings. But may also end up residing in my car cd player. Help?

Thanks in advance, MeFi.

Deprecated Physical Magnetic Media and You

cavalier — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:15:30 -0800

Audio Cassette Tapes. VHS tapes. 1/4" Reel-to-Reel tapes. If it's magnetic and stringy and housed in plastic casing, I have it. Quite a few boxes. A few shrink wrapped, some new in box, many more used. Besides craigslist -> free, does anyone have a use for my deprecated media? Aye, this question was already asked in 2004. I thought I'd ask it again. Just in case there's some hipster revival in Provo that's in desperate need of magnetic media. Anybody out there still need/want tape?

Give me knowledge with a side of head nodding

reenum — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:48:06 -0800

I need intelligent hiphop/rap with good beats. Any recommendations? I was a huge hip hop head back in the day. I love a lot of '90s west coast rap with phat beats. The misogyny and gunplay is a bit much for someone my age though. Some of my favorites in terms of good beat/bad content artists are Snoop, Dre, Nelly, DJ Quik, E-40, Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC.

The problem I have with a lot of underground or intelligent hiphop is the lack of good beats. Some lyricists I love who often have horrible beats are Ras Kass, Saafir, and Aceyalone.

Yesterday, I picked up Talib Kweli's "Eardrum" and it was exactly the sort of thing I love. Intelligent lyrics with slammin' beats. I also liked Hieroglyphics back in the day. Blackalicious and the rest of Quannum are awesome too. I'm not a big Jurassic 5 fan, and I've seen them mentioned a lot in previous threads.

I've checked the other hip hop related threads and none of them seemed to directly ask this question. I'm open to all styles of hip hop as long as it meets the preceding criteria.

Thanks!

Help me hack my car's stereo!

phunniemee — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:53:05 -0800

I need tunes! Please help me hack* my car's stereo. So, some genius broke into my car (technically a '97 RAV4) and stole (only) the faceplate off of my cd player (an Alpine...something...that I got back in 2002). They graciously left the tape player, and since I've got one of those headphone jack-to-cassette mcgees, I'd ideally like to play songs off of my (no-brand, bare bones) mp3 player. However, the tape doesn't want to play (yes, it is a functioning accessory; it works just fine in my boombox). In fact, the whole cassette player itself appears to not work at all. I don't know if it ever worked, but I'd sure like it to now. I don't recall there being an option on my cd player to switch to the tape player, so I don't think it's that. If all else fails, I'll probably just buy a replacement faceplate, but I'd hate to have to upgrade from my sweet mid-nineties technology.

Picture of the offending area.

Is there anything I can do (for under, say, 10 bucks) to fix this thing? Could it be some sort of fuse (??) issue or something? Is there some secret other way for me to make my music come out of my car? I'm quite handy, so if someone tells me what to look for, I have no problem ripping my dash apart and tinkering.

Thanks!

* ...sigh... Yeah, yeah, I know.

how to remove shrink plastic insulation tape

let444 — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:20:59 -0800

does the double sided tape from shrink plastic window insulation kits come off a painted wood window frame all the way without peeling the paint?

Tape Creep

Tube — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:48:48 -0800

Is the vinyl tape on my flashlight exhibiting anomalous rheology? Recently I bought a new flashlight that I decided to keep in the side pocket of my Carhartt trousers. The flashlight was slightly too skinny and too long for the pocket, and kept falling out. Furthermore, the on-off button was not recessed particularly deeply, and would become actuated accidentally.

I decided to wrap a band of vinyl tape around the flashlight, just below the on-off button to help keep the flashlight in my pocket, and to possibly decrease the accidental discharges.

The vinyl tape was some I got from Boeing Surplus years ago, and seemed in every way ordinary, with normally sticky adhesive on one side. The tape was one inch wide, and I wrapped a one inch wide band to a thickness of about 4mm. As much as I could, I kept the wrapping tension constant.

I put the flashlight back in the pocket and went to bed. This morning this is what I found. The top layers of tape had remained annular, but the bottom layers had crept remarkably.

What I find interesting is that I was not wearing the trousers at the time, so as far as I know, the flashlight was more or less flat during the night. Temperature was normal indoor room temperature. Only the head of the flashlight is tapered, the rest of the flashlight is cylindrical.

Is this a commonplace behavior of vinyl tape, or is something more interesting going on? Could this be due to a unique brand of tape that Boeing used? Am I simply a rheology n00b?

What is going wrong when I record from CD to cassette?

punchdrunkhistory — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:13:13 -0800

What is going wrong when I try to record tapes from CD? Regardless of circumstance, the cassettes go weird near the ends of each side. So I'm making a mixtape. I've done this many times, but it's never turned out quite so horribly. Every track plays perfectly on the CDs, but when I record them to cassette, the cassette changes speed - both speeding up and slowing down - near the end of the tape on each side, which distorts and "warps" the sound. I bought this stereo new a year ago, and it's worked just fine until now. The same thing happens no matter which brand of blank cassette I use or which tape deck I play it back on. What is causing this problem? How do I fix it?

The stereo I'm using to record is this rather ghetto Sony boombox, while I've tried recording to both Sony and Maxell cassettes - the Maxell is much better, but it's better in other areas as well!

I have seen this question, but I'm not sure if I should follow the advice about cleaning out the tape heads and capstan, since it seems to be the recording rather than playing that is the problem. My money is definitely on the stereo as the problem though, as it's been the only constant each time I've tried. Should I try to go in with some isopropyl and a Q-tip to swab out my cassette deck? If it is necessary, what's the best way to go about cleaning it out without ruining the machine?

(For various reasons, mostly aesthetic and all rather pretentious, just making a CD/playlist/etc. instead is not a viable option.)

Thanks so much for all your help.

How do you wire up these tape heads?

godawful — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:04:40 -0800

Audio experimentation: How do I wire up these tape heads? I've been reading this wonderful book and carrying out some of the recommended hacks.

So I've ripped the tape heads out of an old dictaphone and an answering machine and I've got ideas about moving them around in different ways over magnetic tape (and other magnetized objects) to make weird sounds.

Trouble is, I can't work out how to wire them into an amp. The heads I've ended up with both have 4 wires coming out the back, but they're mono heads. Judging by the fact that one pair of wires is shielded, while the other is a black and a red wire, I was assuming that the head was supposed to take some power, and then produce the audio signal on the shielded pair. But a great deal of fiddling with different arrangements has produced no results.

So how should I be doing this? Also, another possibility, might my amp have insufficient gain to actually hear anything? This is the one I'm using.

Thanks a bundle!

Don't read me a bedtime story.

Ambrosia Voyeur — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:24:41 -0800

What are some exceptionally well-performed audiobooks? I enjoy audiobooks, but sometimes the delivery of the readers is too dry. Presently, I've got Foundation, read by Isaac Asimov in the car, and he sounds like Mel Brooks on valium. It's a shame.

Steve Martin reading Shopgirl was very, very good. Rant, by Chuck Palahniuk was exceptional, because there were different, engaging, distinctive actors for each speaker (the book is composed of "interview" material). The Harry Potter books and the Golden Compass were also performed with verve. Perhaps I need to be read to like a child!?

What are some audiobooks, fiction or non-fiction, which entertain with excellent dramatic readings?

ethereal sounding software

MrMisterio — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:35:07 -0800

I have a gear question... what kind of software do ethereal electronic semi-improv bands use? I'm thinking, for instance, of tape... i mean, it's the kind of music that when you go see it live there always has one guy hunched over a laptop producing lots of strange textural sounds... any ideas? also what software can one use to alter the sound of an acoustic instrument in real time?

Books on tape in Sacto?

Ambrosia Voyeur — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:36:35 -0800

Where can I buy books on _tape_ in Sacramento?

Cassette to iPod

dawson — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:19:40 -0800

I'd like to transfer several hours of audio from old cassette tapes to CD for my mom and to iPod for me. Of course if I can get them to CD I can take it from there. I'm sure this can be done, because I called a PC repair shop and was told that while they didn't do it, it was 'easy' and to 'just get a so-and-so cable from Radio Shack and do something-or-other'. But I didn't feel comfortable asking them to explain (guy seemed rushed) and Radio Shack seemed clueless.
So, to transfer audio from a cassette tape, played on a normal cassette player, to compact disc, on computer drive...how?
I would just buy the recordings as disks, but they aren't produced because of a lack of demand.

I chew on staples, paper clips, and scotch tape. Am I going to die?

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:46:49 -0800

I chew on staples, paper clips, and scotch tape. Am I going to die? I have an oral fixation. It's really bad, actually.

I'm always exposed to office supplies both at home and work. Habitually, I release a few staples from the stapler, throw them in my mouth and suck on them for a bit. Or I take some paperclips and do the same. Also, I tend to take about two inches of scotch tape and chew that -- ingesting the adhesive that comes off right away. Similarly, I chew on straws, drink stirrers, toothpicks, and anything else found at a restaurant.

Am I going to get cancer and die?

Are there any really bad health risks associated with my tendencies?

Thanks AskMeFi