Know of any research, books, websites, etc. that look into how people would likely react in various global catastrophe situations? Apocalyptic without the fire and brimstone. Such as: economic collapse, global loss of electronics, plagues and so on. Sociological and psychological realities of how humans this day in age would actually behave.
posted by mrflibble on Sep 22, 2011 - 9 answers

Someone I met once mentioned to me that her name, Judy, meant "catastrophe" in Russian, her mother's native language. Is this true? Do I have the details wrong? What Russian word was she talking about?
posted by i_am_a_fiesta on Feb 21, 2011 - 4 answers

My wife is going to kill me. While "fixing" her computer (g5 Macintosh running Leopard), I managed to move 20,000 of her mp3s to the trash. I actually thought I as moving one genre with "select-all", but apparently I moved the entire frickin' library. She doesn't know yet, but it's only a matter of time. I have not yet deleted these files. All 20,000 (well, 19,868) are sitting in the trash can. There's no "restore to previous location" type option, though. Help! Is there anything I can do? Is my only option to have iTunes re-import the entire lot? [more inside]
posted by jdroth on Nov 13, 2007 - 29 answers

What would be the effects on the earth if the moon exploded? [more inside]
posted by tcobretti on Aug 28, 2006 - 29 answers

Which city is safer: San Francisco or Philadelphia? [more inside]
posted by rorycberger on Aug 10, 2006 - 14 answers

Installing a pre hung door. Or rather filling the hole you put in your new house when you decided to replace the door. [more inside]
posted by iamabot on Jun 25, 2006 - 6 answers

Escaping the Big Apple if disaster struck. Suppose you live a quiet life in the Upper West Side filled with mathematical homework and reading Metafilter. Suppose this life was interrupted with CATASTROPHE! How would you escape the city on foot? [more inside]
posted by onalark on Nov 19, 2005 - 40 answers