Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with negative

Hopelessly lost in algebra land

hollygoheavy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:40:28 -0800

I am having the hardest time working with positive and negative integers in elementary algebra. Please hope me. I'm back in college after 20+ years and have gone back in time to elementary algebra. I didn't get it in high school and I'm still having a hard time getting it now. My specific problem is adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers, as well as accurately reading them in an equation. For example:

5(-2) - 4(-2) + 3

this has my eyes crossed. I want to rewrite it as -10 - 8 + 3 which is I'm pretty sure incorrect. I have to get this straight now because otherwise I'll be making sign errors all through the rest of my class, even if my math and rest of the problem solving is correct.

I have made flash cards with the "rules" for addition and subtraction with signed integers and refer to them but sometimes I still come out with the wrong answer.

Does anyone have any other ideas or tips for how to get over this mental block I have with the whole signed integer thing?

Small change embarrassment

bad grammar — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:12:32 -0800

Small change embarrassment: After buying an eBay item I had $4.20 in my Paypal account. Unluckily my eBay seller fees were charged at the same time for $4.35. I now presumably have a negative balance of -$0.15 in my account. I have added $10 from my bank account (which has money in it sufficient to cover all this) to Paypal, but it will not clear for a few days. What will happen to my Paypal account.

NEGATIVE THINKING IS ALL AROUND ME

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:14:24 -0800

How do I ignore negative thoughts without suppressing them? I've been having a hard time focusing lately. Here are a few facts about my life:

I smoke pot at least once a day.
I am 22 years old and still going through my sophomore year of college.
I feel physically shitty most of the time.

Since going home for the holidays, I've been feeling very insecure about myself. I had a lot of tough talks with my mom, my sister, my girlfriend and other such people who have awakened a sense of despair in my soul that I haven't felt for months.

Getting back to my question, how do I ignore negative thoughts without suppressing them? I know that I'm feel crappy because I'm thinking crappy right now. I've been too damn introspective these days and have a lot of trouble expressing myself without letting my demons get in the way. How do I let myself be?

Looking To Make A Positive From Many Negatives

Bobby Bittman — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:12:13 -0800

[PhotographyFilter] Recommendations for an affordable negative scanner? I have hundreds of 35mm film negatives from when I was an avid photographer in the 90s. Most of them are black & white, but many are colour. I'm looking for the shortest, most affordable path to getting high-quality digital images from them.

Am I right in thinking a negative scanner is my solution? Can I get a decent one for under $300?

Bonus: I also have a bunch of really old negatives my grandfather gave me, and they're all kinds of different weird sizes. If your scanner can do those as well, I'm interested. But price trumps flexibility here.

(I know this was discussed previously, but I'm assuming that things have changed in the four years since it was posted.)

Best way to deal fairly with non-spam, malicious comments on a personal blog?

gemmy — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:09:05 -0800

Best way to deal fairly with non-spam, malicious comments on a personal blog? Deleting them straight away, or allowing such comments but following up with an answer/reply? I have a pretty boring personal blog (website in profile), where I post occasionally. One old blog post (with my thoughts on the Obama assassination fears) has seen consistent traffic and a few comments over the last few months - some comments to date have been on the "internet crazy" side, but fairly benign. Then today, someone added a comment stating their intention to commit a murder/suicide, should Obama become president. This comment is currently in my moderation queue.

Now, my first instinct was to just delete it. But if I delete this comment, I should probably go back and delete some of the others too - even though they were not quite as bad. I originally decided to post them since it's always fun to get comments, and because I think some of the crazies out there are interesting. Also, what's the point of allowing comments at all if I'm going to uber-moderate them?

The other option would be to allow this comment, and then make a very strong statement against it. A friend suggested that I should say that I have forwarded the commenter's IP address to the appropriate authorities, then address the inappropriate nature of the comment. I don't know, though, maybe that's overkill.

The only substantive discussions I've seen online on allowing/not allowing negative/malicious blog comments have been about business-related blogs. I am very interested to hear about how others deal fairly with this sort of thing. Thanks!

Positive, "universal" Yeats poems?

lorimer — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:01:58 -0800

I'm seeking a W.B. Yeats poem that's as "positive" and as "universal" as possible -- specifically, that doesn't talk about death, or aging, or romantic love -- and that isn't spoken by, or addressed to, one individual who's clearly female or male. For example, a positive or hopeful, third-person poem that's about nature or beauty or something abstract?

The fixed requirements for this are that it has to be by Yeats but it shouldn't be "romantic/sexual or morbid/negative" -- which seems to knock out most of Yeats, right!?

I started checking out his poems that are explicitly about youth or about nature but, not surprisingly, those seem to often be really about aging.

I've been randomly clicking on a lot of the poems in those books in my first link, and I haven't found even one yet that's ideal. Closest I've found are The Cat and the Moon (which is interesting and non-negative and third-person but still not quite the positive "daytime" sort of poem I'm hoping to find).

Defining the Japanese Concept of 'Ma'

0bvious — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 07:36:20 -0800

What do you know about the Japanese word/concept of 'Ma'? I know it denotes the negative space between objects and it relates closely to the similarly used Japanese word 'Mu'. Since there is no Wikipedia entry for 'Ma' I have started it myself. Feel free to add to it. I will eventually compile any information I find and add it to the page. I would ideally love to find the Kanji for the word and any references defining it (whether on the internet or in books etc).

Thanks

Dust spots? Water marks? Crud on film?

Geckwoistmeinauto — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:59:57 -0800

Why am I getting blotches on my black and white negatives? What are the marks? Are they dust? Water spots? How do I fix this? I'm a relative newbie when it comes to film photograhpy, but I've been doing digital photography for a few years. I develop my own black and white film at home, and I've been less than pleased with the results when I scan my film. I have the dreaded 'crap on the negative' issue. It's started off so bad that I couldn't even print my negatives using an enlarger due to the amount of junk on the negs. Exhibit A - a crop at 100% of a corner of a negative.

Here's how I develop, and what I've done so far to fix this:

I mix all my chemicals using tap water. I'm using the standard Sprint developer and quick fixer, and stop my film using plain ol' tap water. I do a first rinse using tap water. This is all deemed fine by general consensus of photography dorks everywhere. I am using a plastic 2 135 roll development tank, capacity for two rolls of film 650ml.

I dry my film hanging from the shower bar, after the hot water was run to make the room nice and steamy and left to clear. The bathroom isn't dusty, and there hasn't been any dust on any surfaces, really, since we moved in. I make sure no one cleans the bathroom at least I24 hours before I hang film to dry. I determine dryness by curl (towards emulsion), and if the curl is correct, I test a 'spare' area of film for tackiness. Once I deem the film dry, I cut and place the negs in new archival sheet holders.

The first few rolls I developed came out disgusting, with obvious spots, water marks around the sprockets, and other disgustingness.

After much discussion with the guys at the darkroom I use to print my photos, they felt I should try a squeegee for my film. I also decided to use distilled water for a final rinse, about half a gallon of water. When I asked about a wetting agent, they claimed that it will cause more problems than it solves with regards to spots.

My negs were slightly cleaner, but still spotty and I could see a few nasty, large water spots here and there. Also, I have noticed some gnarly scratches that may have been caused by the squeegee OR the archival sleeves I put my negatives into once dry.

So, please, take a look at that shot, and let me know if you think those are dust spots or (more likely) water spots. Should I look into photoflo, or another wetting agent? Is the squeegee the cause of the scratches, or could it be more likely my negative holder sheets? I'm starting to get sick of fixing dust scratches in the gimp, and I'd like to make some nice analog enlargements of some of my negatives!

Thanks!

How to find a quality film and negative scanner?

tangyraspberry — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:26:49 -0800

Scanning slides and negatives. What level of scanner must I consider to get high res. files from which I can produce sharp, digital prints up to 8" x 10"? Canon offers the CanoScan LiDE 600F for around $140.00 but I'm concerned about the quality of it's scans.

How can I become much less of a pessimist and negative thinker?

damn dirty ape — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 16:50:01 -0800

How can I become less of a pessimist and less of a negative thinker? Ive recently realized that my attitude in life is somewhat pessimistic. Not to the point of hurting my life, but I cant imagine it is helping it. I sometimes do a lot of internal whining, develop anger, think of things being unfair, etc. This passes with time and in retrospect I'm always surprised how easily things turned out compared to how difficult I think they are.

This isnt a problem to the point of seeing a therapist, but I'd rather have a more optimistic inner outlook. I get this way over small things, like picking someone up at the airport and also over big things like a new project at work. It doesnt happen 100% of the time, but it happens often enough.

Unfortunately, the negative thinking is sometimes validated when something goes wrong and I think "Aha! I knew this would exact thing would happen. If only other people were as careful and negative as me."

I don't feel depressed so I dont think this is related to typical mental health issues like depression and anxiety. It seems to be more of an outlook on life thing and the big assumption that things are much harder/PITA than they truly are.

Has anyone ever gotten over this? What are some good strategies to overcome this kind of thinking? Am I just lazy? Thanks.

How can I get a handle on the negative thoughts running through my mind constantly

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 10:11:55 -0800

To those who have successfully treated their depression using CBT or are in the process of doing so: How did you/ do you handle the constant barrage of negative thoughts and self evaluations? I am always comparing myself to others, ruminating on the past and on 'could have been's, beating my self up about missed opportunities and so on. All this not only makes me feel quite depressed but also leaves me feeling very discouraged about my future. I want to change this. For good.

CBT makes a lot of sense to me but I'm finding it very hard to constantly monitor and counter very single thought that I have (It doesn't help that most of my feelings and thoughts about myself at this point are pretty negative).

Solutions like distracting one's self, trying to rationally challenge them work but only temporarily.

What can I do to make the changes in my thinking long lasting? How did you do it?

eBay retaliatory negative feedback retaliation

tipthepizzaguy — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:15:51 -0800

I won an eBay auction, but the seller didn't have the item in stock at the time of the auction's completion. Two weeks later I was given a full refund via PayPal. I left neutral feedback (pretty neutral experience, wouldn't you say?), and got retaliatory negative feedback from the seller, along with a request to have the feedback mutually withdrawn. How can I stick it to him? The guy has 100% positive feedback, so I'm assuming he achieved it through similarly scumbagish means. He now has the item in stock, and when I demanded the item at a discount he offered $2 off. It was a $56 item--fat freaking chance.

Did he break eBay's policies enough (by not actually HAVING the item he was selling) that I could file a claim against him? Does it matter that he now has the item in stock and is offering it to me at a similar price? It's my understanding that I'm not obligated to accept any alternate deals from a seller.

He's obviously a vindictive prick (though I suppose one could argue that I am as well), so I have no desire to continue doing business with this guy. Should I just put my tail between my legs, withdraw the feedback, and be done with it? Or is there a specific eBay policy that he's broken that could justify a claim against him?

Bonus points: If he hasn't technically broken eBay policy, is there anything more nefarious (and legal and within eBay policy) that I could do to "get back" at him?

Can Neteller Impact a US Credit Report?

crewshell — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:16:38 -0800

Can offshore companies such as neteller, firepay, various online gambling sites and other such companies that operate outside of the US, but have us based customers, tarnish or submitt negative information to US credit reporting agencies (trans union, Equixfax, etc) ?

sorry about this

hayeled — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:43:13 -0800

what is a (left-to-right) mirror image of the standard logarithmic graph called? mirror image is a pretty poor description, but, on the x/y axis, going to the right and down. something, say, starting at (0,10), passing through (10,7) and heading down into the negative y axis as it progresses into the positive x. is there a name for this?

Experience with 35mm negative scanning services?

jimw — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 15:38:55 -0800

I have negatives from ten rolls of 35mm color film (about 240 pictures total) that I'd like to get scanned. Has anyone had any experience with companies that do this sort of scanning? Any to recommend or avoid? Two that I'm looking at are Memories Renewed and BritePix, but all I have to think well of them is their reasonably designed websites and reasonable-looking prices.

printing/cross-processing in nyc

provolot — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:34:43 -0800

I'm looking for a good photo lab in Manhattan... I went to my local lab one day and found them mishandling negatives and generally not caring about the quality of the print itself, so I'm looking for a photo lab somewhere in NYC -- specifically Manhattan -- preferably around the Upper West side, but anywhere else including the East and West Villages is fine.

I'm trying to 1) print/enlarge a 35mm negative, and 2) get a few of my 35mm slide rolls cross-processed. I've searched for previous threads, and people have recommended Spectra, Flat Iron, Adorama, Ben Ness, etc.. but will these places do crossprocessing as well?

Scanning negatives

Scoo — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 13:06:32 -0800

I have a Canon CanoScan 9950F and I'm attempting to use it to scan 126-format negatives. Technically, this film fits into the scanner's 35mm film guide, but
since 35mm film has a top border and 126-format film does not, this
causes me to lose the top of my photos. Sometimes this loss is
unimportant, but more often than not, I end up missing peoples' heads
or the tops of Christmas trees, etcetera. I really need a way
(preferrably some kind of easily-loadable caddy) to scan these so that
I get the entire photograph.

Wiring a Dishwasher

yerfatma — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 10:04:13 -0800

Electricity: I'm wiring up a new dishwasher with the power cord from the old dishwasher. Just to make things interesting, the power cord has absolutely no indication of which side is positive and which side is negative. Is this because it's AC and it doesn't matter? I'm in the US on 110.

Negative calorie foods ?

twine42 — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 11:32:24 -0800

Three vaguely questions on negative calorie foods and dried fruits.[MI] 1] I read recently about negative calorie foods - ones which release less energy than it takes to digest them. Is this a genuine claim (in your opinion)? Accepting that all diets should be ballanced, a food with negligable calorific impact would be good for my diet.

2] Dried fruits are often labeled as bad on diets mainly, it seems, because you can eat more of them than fresh fruits. Is this the only realistic difference?

3] Implied by the above, would dried negative calorie fruits still be negative calorie?