Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with split

Prepping for amicable split... Cliff Notes me

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 07:20:17 -0800

Spouse and I calmly decided it's over. Help me prepare. We have no kids together and there will not be any support or alimony involved. We are actually pretty happy about it and relieved that we can now move on.

I am NOT looking for advice or thoughts on staying together. This is definitely what we both want and it 100% in both our best interests.

Essentially now it become just separating out who gets what debt and figuring how to address breakdown of the various shared services (insurance, etc.). There are no co-titled cars or property; some joint credit accounts. There is no animosity and no desire to stick it to the other party.

I have read this thread but it's not really what I am asking. I need to know what should I be doing now to protect my interests, anything I need to be aware of? Should I stop adding to my savings account, etc.?

Who gets paid what in a seminar, workshop or speaking engagement?

sdis — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 02:59:51 -0800

I'm starting to get a few requests for speaking engagements and seminars, and I'm not quite sure what to expect on the business side of things. At the moment, these are private individuals who have a little experience with event planning, and know that I could draw a decent audience to a workshop. I'm a little unsure about how profits should be split between me and the organizer. I don't have a problem with the organizer making some money, but I'm the one providing the content, and I want to be fairly compensated. How does this generally work? Also, is it reasonable to set a minimum? (As in, I'd be willing to do this as long as you can guarantee me $X, or as long as you can guarantee me $X or 75% of the profits, whichever is larger)

How much is equity typically worth for early employees of startups?

tmcw — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:07:29 -0800

There's plenty of thinking around how equity is split in startup companies, as well as projections of how much it's worth when employees cash in. Are there any real-world numbers, like there are for salaries? For instance, what would the 15th hire at twitter have as far as a percentage split and worth? The 20th hire at GitHub? The 10th at Square? Or an early employee at a non-succeeding company like Livingsocial? Or what about an employee that signs on right now with Google - wouldn't their stock options be exhausted to the point of not even being relevant to pay?

How do I get music with a full stereo track?

grimace636 — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 01:22:36 -0800

How can I find song files that are in full stereo? I want to mix two song files together on audacity, mixing the vocals of one onto the music of the other.

I know how to separate vocals from music by splitting the stereo track, but whenever I import a song file into audacity both parts of the stereo track are identical.

How do I find songs that actually have two different parts so that splitting the stereo track actually does something?

Thanks

Two paintings, separated by a common canvas

bookdragoness — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 03:28:29 -0800

After discovering a second painting on the back of a treasured watercolor, how can I display them both? I have a watercolor painting done by one of my husband's family members whose work we really enjoy. The glass in the frame cracked during a move and we discovered, lo-and-behold, a second painting on the backside of the first that was completely unknown for the 30-40 years since it was painted.

The painting is done on some sort of watercolor paper, about 1/16" thick. The artist used the texture of the paper to provide depth and interest to the painting.

Is there any way I can separate them or duplicate one for a separate display without losing too much of the original? Is a double-sided picture frame the best solution?

I'd love to hear any ideas or creative solutions on simultaneously displaying both works, as the artist has since passed away.

Bonus points for a solution that would allow me to send high-res or high-fidelity images or prints to our extended family.

How to handle finances during a separation?

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 07:58:51 -0800

Need advice on handling finances during a separation. I will be seeking the advice of an attorney/mediator in the near future, but want to hear how others have handled similar situations. So, it looks like my husband and I are headed for a separation. We are in our mid-30s, have been married for 3 years and have no kids. We keep separate finances for the most part, with the exception of a joint savings account which isn't substantial. We bought a house 2 years ago. We both make similar salaries, and divide the bills as such: he pays the mortgage and his car note, and I pay the rest (household bills, cell phone, car insurance, my own debt, etc.).

My state requires 6 months of separation before we can file for divorce. I will likely be the one to move out, mainly because I have family in town that I can stay with and he doesn't. He also could probably afford to take over all the household bills, whereas I could not afford to do so (I have additional debt acquired before we got married). In the long run, our plan would most likely be to sell the house and divide any profits/deficit. However, how do we handle the house in the meantime? If he stays in it, can I turn over responsibility of house-related expenses to him? Right now all the bills are in my name, and frankly, I am nervous about letting him handle these due to a track record of financial irresponsibility on his part. However, it will be damned-near impossible for me to get a place of my own if I'm still on the hook for all the house bills. I am not looking to screw him over or burden either of us financially. Is there a typical way this is handled?

Bonus question: any recommendations for family attorneys or divorce mediators in Louisiana?

How would you split the rent?

bluefly — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:32:51 -0800

Asking for a friend: I am considering moving into a two bedroom apartment with a couple. I would have one room (the smaller one), and they would occupy the master bedroom. Their room is very large -- close to twice the size of mine. What would be an equitable split of the rent? All utilities are included in the rent.

Holiday plans with friends?

Anonymous — Tue, 11 May 2010 09:49:12 -0800

My girlfriend and I loved to travel, and for a couple of years we had vague plans that we would go to America. Now we're on a break, and I have the opportunity to go with friends. Should I take it? A couple of months ago, my long-distance girlfriend of four years and I decided that we would take a break from each other. We are both at university, and the relationship was getting in the way of our work, friends etc. It was just too hard to keep up daily contact and make each other happy. So we mutually agreed to split on a temporary basis (as we still love each other and want to be together).The terms were that we should go out, do different things, meet new people (but not date new people!) and then meet up at the end of August (after I've finished university). We specifically said we shouldn't contact each other before then.

We travelled a lot in Europe together, but we'd vaguely said to each other that someday we'd go and do a big tour of America. She's already been when she was about 8, but I've never been. A couple of weeks ago 7 of my guy friends invited me to come on a four-week road trip to America they're planning. The route consists of LA, Las Vegas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Grand Canyon, San Francisco, then down the coast and back to LA. So while this isn't a big, cross-continent tour, it is a big chunk of the sights (some of which my girlfriend has already seen when she was 8).

Would it be wrong of me to go on this trip, knowing that my girlfriend and I planned to do something similar?

(P.S. I know this is anonymous, but I'm planning to email jessamyn with replies, so I will have some chance to answer questions.)

I really would like to pay, but I don't want it to seem gender-based. And I don't want to say that.

jejune — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:30:11 -0800

On early dates, should I pay because I'm more able to afford it (which I usually will be), or should we split it to be equal? For some quick background, I'm newly single and dating again. I generally use dating sites, which I'm very happy with since they've served me pretty well. (Understatement.)

I know there have been past AskMe questions about who should pick up the check. (1, 2, 3, 4.) Those are interesting but not directly responsive to my question.

Here's the deal. For most of my past relationships, we would split the bill. This was when we were both students and/or struggling to get by financially, so it wouldn't have made much sense for one person to do all the paying.

In the past couple years, as I've switched from being a student to being a professional, my income has gone way up, and I make more than most people. Not quite six figures, but close. (This is in the US.)

Based on experience, I rarely end up on a date with someone who makes more money than I do. She is most likely my age or younger, and the odds seem pretty low that she's making a comfortably middle-class salary. (I'm completely open to dating women who are older and/or make as much or more than me, but I'm just generalizing based on experience and for the sake of this question.)

In my last relationship, we went Dutch on the first few dates because I like to establish equality as a basic guiding principle. But after we became official, I always paid unless there was a special occasion like my birthday or something.

Now that I'm back on the market, I'm wondering if I've been using the best strategy or if there's a better way to handle this awkward issue -- particularly on early (first, second, third...) dates.

My thinking is that I should pay when it makes more financial sense from a gender-neutral point of view, which will usually be the case. The upsides of this are pretty obvious: direct financial upside for her; I don't much care about the financial cost for me; and she might be pleased.

But there's a downside to this, which is that she could interpret it as traditional gender stereotyping: "I'm the man so I pay for you." I don't want to present myself that way. Frankly, it makes me cringe. I also don't like the idea of setting a precedent (in the event things do develop into a real relationship) that our interactions are going to be unequal just because I'm the man and she's the woman.

I've never been convinced that I should pay in order to succeed with more women, because here's the thing: even if 90% of women want the man to pay, and 10% prefer things to be equal, then I'm probably most interested in those latter 10% because they share my values.

I know someone is going to say: "The rule is that whoever asks the other person out should pay," but I don't find this to be much guidance. It's often pretty ambiguous who "asked" who. The "let's get together" issue just naturally comes up when you're using dating sites. I also don't like making a big deal about how I asked you out and therefore I'm calling the shots and paying for everything. And realistically, I'd feel foolish letting her to pay for both of us anytime she happened to suggest the date.

If/when a real relationship develops, I'm quite comfortable openly talking about the fact that it makes more sense for me to pay for most stuff as this actually levels the playing field. But I'd rather not bring this up explicitly on early dates. I don't want to be all, "Well, since I make a lot more money than you..." And I also don't want to launch into an extemporaneous treatise on gender relations in the middle of a date. (I actually did discuss this on a recent first date and it actually went over well, but I'd also worry that some women could find this offensive.)

Thoughts?

(Since I know that people sometimes research an asker's posting history, I should mention that I'm using a sockpuppet because I'd rather not attach my name to something talking about my salary and dating practices.)

How can I forward a call to two cell phones?

PercussivePaul — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:05:53 -0800

My new apartment's buzzer works by dialing a phone number. My girlfriend and I both live in the apartment. We each have cell phones, no land line, and the buzzer will only accept one number. What should we do? Options:
1. Get a land line for the apartment. Don't want to because it would cost money and we'd have no other use for it.

2. Route to one of our phones. This should work fine under normal circumstances but what if the chosen person is not home, and their phone is dead? We could make it work but it has the potential to be inconvenient.

3. Both our cell phones ring, and whoever picks up first answers the call. I think this is the ideal solution but I have no idea how to implement this since the system apparently can't do it on its own. There must be services out there that would let us do this. Anything reliable, cheap, and available in Vancouver BC? (Both of us have cell service from Telus and have basic simple phones.)

Splitting Comcast Internet to 2 routers

fx3000 — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:25:51 -0800

Can I split internet from one cable modem to 2 routers or is there better approach for what I am trying to achieve? I am trying to set up a Linksys WRT54GL wireless router for a friend, but there is a problem because he already has a ZyXel wireless router in place that is provided by his job. My first thought was to tell him hey you are all set, you have a wireless router already. The problem is anything that he believes anything that goes through that router is monitored by his job (he swears they monitor everything through the router, not through his PC), so he doesn't want his family to pickup wifi from it. The ZyXel router is also password secured and he does not have the password (company IT department saved it on to his computer). He has cable internet provided by Comcast which his job also pays for.

What I would like to do is set up a second router (the Linksys WRT54GL) for the family internet. What is the best way to do this? I would like try to do this without them having to pay Comcast for additional service, but from what I've read they might have to at least buy another IP.

Would I put in a switch and then plug the Linkys and ZyXel routers into that? Or could I daisy-chain the routers with the Linksys first and then the ZyXel? Or is there just some other approach altogether?

European split beds?

anjiro — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:09:11 -0800

Mattress-filter: I recently took a trip to Germany with my wife and was fascinated by some of the hotel beds there. Unlike some other parts of Europe, there were not two single-person beds, but seemed to be two combined. It was like two mattresses stuck together somehow; they had separate sheets (both bottom and top), but didn't shift away from each other in the slightest. You could lie right on the crack and not notice a thing! I noticed that we slept a lot better, possibly since the two halves didn't influence each other as much.

How does it work, and can I get something similar in the US?

Split desktop on two monitors

forwebsites — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:22:17 -0800

Help me setup a dual-monitor XP desktop at work with minimum fuss/cost. We are buying a new Wintel/XP Professional with two monitors at my office (yay for my boss-convincing skills!). It will be assembled (so I can get any specific h/w if required). The two monitors are solely for office use (no heavy graphics/gaming), so VGA inputs are sufficient for me. Mostly I'll have my mail/browser/IM/housekeeping on one monitor and second one for all main work apps.

Obviously, the lesser the cost/freeware the better.

My question is two-part:

On the hardware side:
- can I just use a VGA splitter, like this one, for XP to recognize as two monitors? Or will I need a graphics card with dual monitor support? And even then do I need to make sure that both o/p of that card are VGA or DVI? What is the least costly setup that will work? Because if a graphics card is required I need to know it upfront before our purchase. I will not get budget later to upgrade.

On the software side:
- Since I've previosly never used this kind of setup, I always thought ControlPanel-->Display settings-->"extend my windows onto this monitor" chkbox is the only thing required to support this. But having googled and read some prevs threads, I'm a bit confused with all these ultramon/MMT taskbar/maxivista/citrix and whatnots. Do I need to purchase any of these s/w. I won't mind buying if they are really required. But if they are just fancypants features which I'm never going to use then I'd like not to. Is it ok if I start with XP's barebones support, and use for sometime and see if it matches my expectations and then upgrade to any of these 3rd party desktop managers if reqd later, or is this simply not going to cut it?

Or having a h/w solution like nVidia graphics card (which one?) with nVidia desktop manager, simply eliminates the s/w options?

Thanks.

Disassembling a large file, moving it, and reassembling it on another machine

not_on_display — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:06:06 -0800

I have a large .iso file to transport. If I split the file and burn it onto two DVDs, can I combine them again once they're on the target machine? How? I have a large (8.55 GB) .iso of program files which I'd like to burn for transport and installation onto another computer. I gather this requires splitting the file into two parts so it will fit onto two DVDs. I'm in the process of splitting and burning it now (using winrar), but I am not sure what to do with the data to make it installable once I get it onto the target machine. Is there a way to recombine the two parts into the original huge .iso file? If so, I could probably mount it with daemon tools or something and install it this way... Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!

[side note: I am asking this question on behalf of a friend. Not that I'd be embarrassed to ask the same question myself!]

How do I generate meaningful results from split tests?

gi_wrighty — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:13:34 -0800

Having run split tests on the e-commerce website at work, how do I extract meaningful conclusions from the raw data? At work we occasionally run split tests on our website to try out new functionality, content and layouts. Visitors to the site see one of the available options and when orders are placed we record which option they saw.

This means we have order totals for each option but how do we work out if one is statistically better than the other? From past experience different tests take different amounts of time to settle in the general trend (i.e. conversions increase by x%).

Is there anyway of knowing if a trend we're seeing at the moment is just a side effect of randomly assigning people to the different options or it's actually a genuine improvement?

Or is there a way of calculating the minimum number of results before having confidence that the trend is actually trend and not just noise?

Lowering the rent for a roommate, but then deciding it wasn't a good idea.

wuMeFi — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:45:24 -0800

My roommate asked for me to lower his rent. I said OK. But now I'm not so sure I should have. What should I do? My friend and I are sharing a 1-br apartment in San Diego. He is living in the bedroom, I am living in the living room. The rent division has been 60 / 40, bedroom / living room (it used to be like 65/35, but he felt that was unreasonable, so after the first year I changed it to 60/40. I occupied the apartment first and I do the bills. Our current lease ends in November).

Recently his whole department at work got a pay cut of 8%. He asked me whether I could reduce his rent by 8%. I felt bad for him, and my first thoughts were that in difficult times, friends help each other. So I said yes, and that he'd see the adjustment in next month's bill. I asked him whether his work would undo the pay cut in the future, and he said that it wouldn't, as a cut happened before in the past and was not undone.

So that was a few days ago. But now that I've thought about it, I'm not sure I should've been so quick to say yes. I'm living in the living room, and I'd be paying almost as much as he is, since the rent division would be 52/48. I suppose in an absolute sense, the additional amount I'd be paying per month is not A LOT, but it's not insignificant in the long run. I basically just gave myself ~8% rent increase. It's kind of a lot for me to take on suddenly.

I do want to help him out since we are friends. What is the best way I can do that, while getting myself out of this situation I got myself into? I was thinking of talking to him and maybe saying that "8% is a lot for me to take on, on second thought.. how about 4%?" or something (would it be too late to do that?).

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

Soul mates splitting

Direwolf — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:17:42 -0800

How to say goodbye to someone you love? I am coming to the end of a relationship with a woman that I love more than I have ever cared for anyone. She is in a divorce, has two little kids, going to college, has a job, etc... and claims that she can't be in a relationship with me now. She also says that she wants me to go out and have kids, get married, etc... but still says that she cares for me the same way I care for her. Its pretty confusing to me...So she really won't talk to me much anymore, just when she feels like she is losing things. It is hard for me to say goodbye because of my attachment to her, although I am trying...But when it seems like I am moving on she will send messages about still wanting to be together. Well to make a long story short and confusing, she loves me, won't be in a relationship with me, wants me to move on, but keeps contacting me. Whats the best way to handle things? To me, the only option that looks like it is going to work is to end our contact/relationship and move on with our lives. This minimal contact is very stressful, sad, and causing too much anxiety. The only hard part is I really do love her, never felt like this for anyone, ever, don't want to give up, and to have her in my life fully would be amazing...
Any suggestions?

To split or not to split?

bluefrog — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:31:31 -0800

Is a split term mortgage a good idea? I currently have 3.5 years left on my current mortgage (200K+) from bank B. My regular bank (bank A) has offered me a much lower rate split 50/50 between a 1 year and a 4 year mortgage, rather than a single fixed term mortgage. Conditions are such that the penalty to bank B for early repayment is not an issue at the moment.

Question: what are the benefits or drawbacks of such a split term mortgage? A mortgage broker (with no direct interest in the case) has told me that it's a bad idea, since I will lose a lot of bargaining power when time comes to renew these smaller mortgages. Is she right?

I live in Canada, BTW, if this makes any difference, and the property is a duplex (one rental income)

Getting Google Spreadsheets to interpret string as formula

Akeem — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:53:28 -0800

I have hundreds of text strings entered through a form in a Google Spreadsheets which look like 4*3 9*2 17*3 22 37*4 52. I can easily substitute " " for "+" and concatenate a "=" in front =4*3+9*2+17*3+22+37*4+52. Now I have a text string which looks like a formula but isn't one. How can I make Google Spreadsheets interpret this string as a formula? These Excel solution don't apply because I'm not always around when someone makes a new form entry.

With =sum(split(A1,"+")) it's possible to interpret a string like 4+9+17+22 and get a correct result.

However =multiply(split(A1,"*")) does not work for 17*3 ("Wrong number of arguments", even though split should create 2 arguments here). So a combination of splits, multiply and sum also fail.

Is there another solution?

Split pane text editor for a Mac?

electric_counterpoint — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:34:40 -0800

Looking for a Mac text editor that can do a horizontal split pane (i.e. two panes showing the same document, side by side) I don't need much from my text editor — I'm just reading guitar tabs on a widescreen monitor, which can mean about six inches of text in on the left side of the screen, a tremendous scroll length, and the other foot of horizontal screen space doing nothing but projecting the hell out of some white pixels. This is not ideal — I'd prefer less scrolling and more real estate used.

Because this is such a small problem, I'm only really interested if I can find some free-as-in-beer software to do this. But if nothing is out there but paid apps, well, I've been talked into sillier purchases...

How do you split stuff up when one person's not around?

bluefly — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:47:26 -0800

Should I ask my roommate to pay her share of the utilities when she was gone all month? My roommate is in China for the entire month. We usually split the bills 50/50 (electricity, internet, cable). She paid her rent for January, so that's not a problem. On the one hand, I can see that she shouldn't have to pay utilities because she's not around. On the other hand, neither of us is around very much some months, and I feel like in the end, it's all a wash. The internet and cable bills are a flat rate every month anyway no matter how much we use. What do other people do? Thanks.

Porkless and Pea Green

oflinkey — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:25:58 -0800

Looking at the earlier soup post, I thought I might make a nice split pea soup. Alas, I have no ham bone. I then thought I might like to try a good vegetarian version, but one of my favorite parts of the split pea experience is the salty smokey part of the soup-- which it gets from the ham. Does anyone have a good meatlovers vegetarian split pea soup recipe (if that makes sense)?

Everyone wants to give the money to the other person - what is fair?

true — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 06:32:17 -0800

14 years ago I was given a baby grand piano for Christmas, where it lived at my mother's house until now. She recently remodeled and sold it (with my full agreement) since I have no room for it and interstate moving would cost as much as a new piano. She wants to give me the proceeds since it was my present, but I think we should at least split it since it was a really expensive gift and it has remained at her house. What do you think? Both parties could make good use of the money but neither one really needs it more than the other. Everyone is amicable here and we'd like to here what other people think, so please favorite any answers you like.

How can I get From Venice to Dubrovnik to Athens?

the duck by the oboe — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:58:04 -0800

How can I get from Venice to Dubrovnik to Athens on a backpacker budget? I'll be in Venice soon and want to go from there to Dubrovnik/Split and thence to Athens (if I can go via Ljubljana I'll be a happy camper too). Staring at budget airline webpages and train timetables is less illuminating than I'd hoped. Any tips?

I'd like to spend about ten days on the way from Venice to Athens.

Obama/Palin or McCain/Biden

birdsquared — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:01:15 -0800

Is Obama/Palin (or for that matter McCain/Biden) possible? Given what happened in 1836, and my understanding of the electoral college system it would appear hypothetically possible.

However, each state controls the voting system for their electors, and while Delaware has a slate voting law (see (9) at the bottom of the page), and Wisconsin has a ban on write-ins for VP standing alone (see bottom of page 5), it would still appear possible to write-in the VP from the other party with a presidential vote for a specific candidate (at least in those two states). I am not a student of US state voting laws (I found these two examples from Google), but I am wondering if there are any voting wonks who are familiar with the whole panoply of the 50 states who could advise if Obama/Palin or McCain/Biden are possible in 2008. (i.e. do enough states with enough electors have enabling legislation?)