Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mad

It's Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Science

chambers — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:17:31 -0800

How would one go about getting (assisted and monitored) access to scientific/medical research equipment in the Chicago area? (fMRI, MRI, electron microscopes, mass spectrometry) I'm looking at shooting some base video footage to work with for an idea for a TV pilot I want to create. It would be a science program, but with a more unusual angle. This post had spurred an existing show idea in a new direction, and I want to try to test out odd and strange ideas with actual equipment. (My reply I posted is not the actual show I have in mind, but 'science for fun' is the idea.)

I would obviously assume it would have to be done in off-peak hours, and scheduled for when the machines would not be in use, and use grad students, for example, to operate the equipment. Anything we would do would definitely not be 'by the book' scientific method, but more along the lines of the amazing things that can be seen by examining ordinary or unusual items or processes. Things that would be entertaining in a very nerdy, geeky way, but scoffed at as a 'waste of time' when compared to 'legitimate science.'

I'm sure things like this get done by students, but no one ever hears about it. I remember when electron microscopes became affordable to many institutions, people were taking photos of everything. That was 20 years ago, and I haven't seen an explosion of publicly available data like that with the newer inventions.

Know any scientists, students, or institutions that would like to help out? Where should I start, and who should I talk to first at the university/hospital/research facility?

Give a Song a Title

bach — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:02:27 -0800

Mad Men TV Commercial Tune The new TV spot for Mad Men has in the background a great tune that is too short for shazam or any tune-finder to latch onto.

It begins with voiceover, "The critics agree..." and then cuts to text cued to a brass hit (bop, bop, bop, [lower]bop). Repeat, add ooh and ahh lyric.

Can anyone help me with the title and artist. I looked at AdBlather and AdTunes without success.

It's been airing quite a bit on the Food Network lately.

Thanks in advance.

Which recording of "Cup of Loneliness" is used in the closing credits of Mad Men 2.12?

teem — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:11:17 -0800

Which recording of "Cup of Loneliness" is used at the end of Mad Men season 2 episode 12, "The Mountain King", and where can I get it? Every source says it's "Cup of Loneliness" by George Jones, but none of the Cup of Loneliness recordings I've found — George Jones or otherwise — sound the same. On the episode the version is faster and higher pitched than this version, but the way the lines are sung (particularly "where the way is dark and dim") sound as though it's not simply the original sped up.

I don't have an online clip of the show, but if you've got it at home it's played as episode 2.12 closes to credits.

Mad Men Indeed

punkfloyd — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:41:56 -0800

I have been watching the AMC series Mad Men (set in NYC office setting around 1960) and it made me wonder. Just how accurately does it portray the professional workplace of the period? (Ubiquitous smoking, drinking, degrading comments to women and overt flirting, etc.). In particular, was it ever considered normal to keep a stocked bar in every office/conference room? I realize things are exaggerated for TV and to contrast with today’s norms... but generally speaking was it really this bad back then? I guess I am looking for responses from those who are familiar with the TV show and worked in an office in this timeframe.

I'm sorry!

wild like kudzu — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:58:10 -0800

How do you deal when you know you've angered someone? I usually analyze our recent exchanges to try to determine whether I've done something nasty to them. If I have, I contact them, pull them aside and apologize for my behavior. This method works well for me most of the time except when the other party doesn't respond to my attempts. I know sometimes people need space, but my little brain keeps on chugging away trying to figure out what I did/what to do until the problem is resolved.

How do you cope with the cold shoulder from someone you've angered? What if you don't know what you've done or if you don't agree that your actions were wrong?

Just curious, thanks in advance.

Melbourne to Brisbane: inland by camper

bookley — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:16:07 -0800

We’re hoping to rent a camper van in Melbourne (approx April 13), drop it off in Brisbane a week later. Any advice? There’s a good discussion about driving through Australia here:
http://ask.metafilter.com/52325/Help-me-cross-Australia-in-March

What we’re looking for are some specific suggestions for going inland from Melbourne to Brisbane. For example, we’d like to get a respectful sense of the bush fire devastation and recovery efforts, maybe have a couple stops in some of the wine valleys, find misc things like the sculpture Nick Cave is supposed to be building, plus whatever outback flavour we might soak up without going too far off track -- anything we wouldn’t find in the guidebook.

Any tips about camper rental and travel in Australia are also appreciated, even if it’s just appropriate driving music. We’re not totally committed to the van either -- as much as anything it’s a case that the camper rental companies seem more flexible on one way drives than companies who rent small cars.

Two important parameters:

1) We’ll have already spent a week in and around Sydney and don’t need to head that direction.

2) Quite a few years ago I drove from Melbourne to Tibooburra via the Great Ocean Road, Bendigo, Mildura, Broken Hill, popping up to White Cliffs. One of the most amazing drives of my life, but I’d like to see as much new terrain as possible on this trip.

We certainly don’t need to go in the straightest fastest line either, and I don’t mind under or overshooting Brisbane by a day’s drive, if it means a more interesting route. (Would be quite keen, for instance, to spend time in the rainforest area between Byron Bay and Nimbin.)

Thanks for any suggestions.

Mad Magazine, pure brilliance.

DolorousEdd — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:14:05 -0800

I know many magazine questions have already been asked, but I believe this one needs its own thread. What do I do with the MAD magazines I have from about 2000 to now? Specific ideas would be preferred, as I know I can toss them on Freecycle or Craig's List any time. I tried to donate them to the military once, as I had read a letter from an Army librarian in Iraq to the magazine thanking them, but there is no real way to give it to them.

"Mad Men" house in Palm Springs?

badkarmaboy — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:27:22 -0800

In Mad men episode 11 (the jet set) in season 2...what house is that in Palm Springs? I'm an architecture geek and desperately need to know. The best I can figure is that its the Kaufman House...but it's not quite right. I'm resigned to the fact that its some backlot set.

Not Rushing Madly Enough

wittgenstein — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:11:49 -0800

Piano-Playing-filter: I am having trouble playing a double rhythm against a triple rhythm. I am trying to learn Philip Glass' Mad Rush. It requires me to play 8 eighth notes per measure in my left hand against 4 eight note triplets in my right hand. I have never really played anything like this before and I am not having a lot of success. I have tried slowing it way down; I have tried playing the left hand and just counting triplets against it but even that seems tricky.

Any advice on how to "get" this, or even how to fake it pretty well?
Thanks.

Reckless Birthday Fun: The Mad Hatter

CheeseburgerBrown — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:10:15 -0800

Does anyone remember the mind-blowingly dangerous fly-by-night birthday event management company that brought us THE MAD HATTER parties in the mid-1980s? Males of a certain age who lived in Toronto during the eighties may remember this outfit. It worked like this: a Mad Hatter location would have a "parent-friendly" storefront in a plaza or strip-mall where the hosting family would get their credit card ka-chunged, then the kids would be led (sans parental escort) into the basement of the mall. There, "supervised" by a bored teenager, you would be invited to have food fights, whip-cream battles, and to careen around in the dark with shopping carts while assaulted by strobe lights, crashing into concrete walls covered in old mattresses. There were often strange objects on the floor, like moldy hot dogs or unidentifiable spills. If your parents were big spenders, you might even get picked up and dropped off in a ramshackle limousine with old condoms and garbage on the floor. So, I guess my question is, does anybody know WHICH lawsuit blew these guys out of the water once and for all?

The world, it is mad.

misozaki — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:39:27 -0800

Does the phrase "It's a mad, mad world" have an origin? Googling "It's a mad mad world" or "mad world" only gets me the Stanley Kramer movie and a bunch of songs.

So who said it (or wrote it) first? Thanks.

Thought I'd know who he was by now

brujita — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:52:48 -0800

Who is the guy wearing the "To know me is to love me" button on page 36 of MAD magazine issue #119 (Bonnie and Clyde cover) and why was that slogan picked? I didn't know who he was when I was 11 and still don't recognize him 28 years later on the DVD-ROM--though I can identify Nasser and the Duke of Windsor.

Yes, but how many seconds to midnight?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 14:59:06 -0800

So how close exactly were we to nuclear war? It's often said that at some point during the past fifty years the world was "on the brink" of nuclear war - in hindsight, I wonder how close to the brink?

Who was Reagan's theologian of apocalypse?

washburn — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 22:54:34 -0800

A tough one: I remember reading that during the Reagan years, as part of the campaign to convince the Russians that the US really would launch a second strike if faced with a preemptive Russian attack, Reagan turned to a religious figure or theologian who explained that a retaliatory attack, even if it resulted in the extinction of the human species, would be morally approvable and even required by God, and that it would serve the glory of God, despite the unfortunate consequences it might have for human beings. I don't think I just imagined all this, so I wonder: who was the religious person that articulated this position? What source can tell me about this stuff? Many thanks for any clues.