Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with stones

What are these cyllindrical stones?

bjrn — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:01:16 -0800

What kind of stones are these? Perhaps something fossilized? I also took a close up of one piece. And while you don't really see it from the photograph, the pieces are kind of translucent, like quartz.

They were found on a beach in south-east Denmark in case it matters. All spread out too, so while they have broken off something they aren't all part of some huge stone cigar.

The House is a-Rockin'

Tube — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:09:41 -0800

Why are there big rocks on this roof? Though the paint on the building appears to be new, the strange roof texture has been there for years. The pitch of the roof is low, so I can't see what kind of material is under the rocks. I don't see any obvious asphalt or wood shingles, corrugated metal, fiberglass, or tiles.

A great deal of moss has accumulated between the stones. I assume this is unintentional, but I don't know for sure. I've driven by this building for years, and the roof has always been like this.

I wonder if tar paper was put down, then never finished with shingles. Perhaps the rocks were to prevent the tar paper from blowing away. Yet there seems to be an awful lot of rather large rocks; more than enough to simply hold tar paper down, I would think.

For what it's worth, this is a commercial building, not a residence.

This is the only roof like this I've ever seen. Is it simply an unusual style? Do the rocks serve a function I'm unfamiliar with?

Such gall, no bladder

Oriole Adams — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:31:01 -0800

I know YANMMD, but even my mom's various doctors can't seem to answer this question: what causes stones in the pancreatic bile duct? My Mom is 76 years old and had her gall bladder removed back in 1992. However, in the last six years or so she has had recurrent bouts of pancreatitis. She'll get horrendous pain in the upper abdomen and in her upper back, we'll take her to the ER, they'll run the usual tests while they await her regular doctor (I forget which one of her specialists covers the pancreas). He'll suspect stones in the bile duct of the pancreas, they'll take a picture, and sure enough. They insert a stent and after a few days in the hospital she's sent home. After X amount of time, the doctor orders the stent to be removed. She checks into the hospital, they remove it, and every single time she's doubled over in excrutiating pain less than 24 hours later and rushed to the hospital. Turns out she'd gotten an infection from the removal of the stent.

She swore the last time she was hospitalized for this infection that she'd never have another stent inserted, but recently she's been experiencing similar pains to previous stone scenarios. Her doctor ran the usual tests and told her that she was a "stone factory." I told her to ask the doctor what are the possible causes of the stones - is it something dietary? She hates to ask him too many questions because he has a very pronounced Indian accent and she has trouble understanding him. She thinks it's rude to keep asking him to repeat himself. Diet-wise she doesn't seem to eat very much of anything at all, because so many things seem to cause her pain. When I take her out for breakfast or lunch, she'll have either an English muffin or a cup of chicken noodle soup, nothing more. I don't know what she eats at home except from what she occasionally mentions in emails "I made meatloaf and mashed potatoes for Dad, I just had a scoop of potatoes and a little bit of gravy."

Is there truly no rhyme or reason while bile duct stones happen? Or are the doctors just "humoring" my Mom and not bothering to explain "technical" things because she's over 70 and female? I only present this possibility because two days after she'd returned home from her gall bladder surgery she told me on the phone that she was experiencing shortness of breath. I called her surgeon and he told me that it was most likely post-operative stress; that a lot of older patients, particularly females, experience it. But when I visited her the next day and saw that she couldn't walk across the kitchen without grabbing a chair and panting, I took her to the ER of a different hospital, where they discovered blood clots on her lung.

During her last hospital stay for the post-stent removal infection, they ran an additional battery of tests and her doctor announced that there was no cancer in the pancreas (none of us had been told they were checking for such a thing). So any ideas as to what causes this frequency of bile duct stones? It particularly worries me because right now Mom seems to be willing to endure the pain of the stones rather than go in for another stent and the eventual removal, infection, pain, hospital stay, etc.

Otoliths R Us?

buzzv — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:19:22 -0800

Can anyone help me find a source for otoliths, or the tiny stones found in the inner ear? Preferably mammalian, ideally primate or even human (I imagine that last one may be ethically way to far, no offense intended). Searches turned up this AskMe post. Many of the fish ones I find on the web are in museums. I'm just wondering if I have to start opening up my own skulls to get at them.

How do we prevent our driveway from being destroyed by large trucks?

JMOZ — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:43:28 -0800

How can we protect our (crushed stone) driveway at the end of a narrow street from damage from trucks using it as a turnaround? Our crushed stone driveway has been a source of difficulty twice previously. So far, we've managed to do well on these things, and we like the crushed-stone. (Large gravel for those who are unfamiliar). We have another problem, and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions we hadn't considered.

Our house is at the end of a narrow street with ~20 houses on it. Unfortunately, this means that nearly every truck (generally 5-10 per week; it's delivery trucks, garbage trucks, contractors with heavy equipment, etc.) uses our driveway to turn around. I wouldn't mind as much if it didn't rip our driveway to shreds. We're about to add more stone (it erodes away over time), but we'd rather not have it look like crap again in a week.

What options do we have to prevent trucks from using our driveway as a turnaround? Several of our neighbors have ashphalt driveways which would work fine as an alternative, but ours is nice and wide and and therefore very attractive to trucks.

We'd like a solution which is visually pleasing and (ideally) not unfriendly; we'd rather not gate our driveway, for example. Something which allows a normal car to pass without having to remove a chain or post would be nice if possible. There is, of course, a preference for reasonable cost, but feel free to throw out suggestions that might seem a bit out there...

Thanks!

"Let's bury the hatchet like the Beatles and the Stones..."

TheOnlyCoolTim — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:29:14 -0800

If you weren't dead in the 60s or know more than me, help me understand this "Beatles-Stones rivalry." Hopefully this isn't too much chatfilter: The best I can find on Google is a lot of passing references to it and a vague idea that it wasn't a rivalry between the bands like East Coast vs. West Coast hip hop, but a rivalry in the sense that people would argue that one band or the other was better and wouldn't listen to both. Also a little bit of wanking about how each band embodied a different social ethos something or other.

Importantly, from my born in 1985 hindsight it seems incredible to me that anyone would be on the side of the Stones, though I freely admit that I have no idea if the lasting greatness of the Beatles was as apparent when they were still active.

Kernels of doom!

glip — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:39:15 -0800

Culinary uses for apricot kernels... is it worth the trouble of saving my pits? So, I've been saving my apricot pits and now have quite a few I've been shelling them, and from some googling it seems they are quite healthy but also contain some cyanide... so, I'm wondering if I can use some of these for baking purposes, I've heard they're added to marzipan. A co-worker told me her mother used to grind one or two and add it to pastries and cookies.

If anyone has any recipes that use them, I'd give it a go.

john lennon in the rolling stones video?

bukvich — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 23:30:38 -0800

In the sympathy for the devil video posted by stavros... does anybody else see John Lennon in there? Is it my imagination? http://youtube.com/watch?v=waFOyhezIPA

I need some rocks. Where do I go?

agropyron — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 07:53:20 -0800

How can I find places where it's legal to gather rocks? I'd like to build a stone circle in my back yard, and I think it would be fun to go out somewhere and gather the rocks myself. I just don't know where to go. A riverbed, a park, a quarry?

I've done some Googling around, and I've found a lot of places where it's illegal: State parks, city parks, along the side of the highway, and so on.

I've read some of the local rock hound groups' web sites, and they all seem horribly designed and uninformative. A few of them listed places they went, but they didn't really have directions, and they seemed focused on hiking for hours to find geodes and things. I just want a short walk and some decent chunks of stone.

How can I find a place to gather rocks?

Selling our grandmother's jewelry

killerinsideme — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:54:17 -0800

Please help my sister and me liberate ourselves (in a wise way) from a bitter, albeit shiny, inheritance Our grandmother died years ago and we've finally admitted to ourselves and each other that we will never want to wear any of her jewelry. The memories it brings up aren't pleasant and, in the intervening years, my sister has had to factor its value into her homeowner's insurance, which totally sucks.

I'm moving out of Brooklyn in the next couple weeks and she is coming to help me. We plan that she'll bring the jewelry and we'll sell it here in NY somewhere (a friend of hers did that and was happy with the result).

It's mostly 18-24k yellow gold bangles and necklaces. There are also a couple of cocktail rings. The only advice we've had so far is to remove the gems from the rings, sell the metal by itself, keep the stones and get them reset. As my sister says, "No one in our family is ever going to buy a diamond again, right?" Right. Might as well keep these, then?

So...

Do you have some advice in a general way about selling old jewelry, or specific recommendations about where to take it in New York City? I should warn you that we are not at all hardnosed people and we're not good at bargaining. In addition, this grandmother was our beloved mother's mother, our mother died well before her time (and before her own mother) 15 years ago AND their relationship was.... tense. As you've no doubt gathered by now, these objects are extremely emotionally loaded. Both of us are quite fragile when dealing with them and I'd like this to be as painless as possible. We want to rid ourselves of these things, but we also want to be smart. There's not a lot of precious metal floating around in our family.

Dye on.. rocks?

cmyk — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 22:44:56 -0800

How are semiprecious stones dyed? Not heat-treating, dye. Like this. In the case of that rock, loads of pink color washed off after my friend put it under running water. But not all - I'm guessing the dye in the front of it was sealed in by the.. polish?

How do they get it in there? What kind of pigment is it? Is there any way to get it out of a rock, once it's in?

Rolling Stones Airline Commercial

matimer — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:23:49 -0800

TV Commercial Filter: I swear that "You can't always get what you want" by the Rolling Stones was in an Airline Commercial a couple years ago, but I can't seem to validate this claim using my Google skillz.

Narcotic (legal) advice.

filmgeek — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 19:34:08 -0800

Psst. Been on a Narcotic long? I could use your advice. Legally, for horrible health reasons (kidney stones), I've been on percocets for 16 weeks. Quite a number of them. (6-8/day). Prescription is 5/325 oxycodone... take 1-2 every 4 hours for pain. that could be upwards of 10+ a day.

Medically - the large stones I have are sitting in a diverticulum - a small pouch near the top of my kidney. I'm seeing two urologists...and have a course of action - it's just I'm in a very grey space. Just had my 2nd extra corporeal lithotrypsy on tues.

Bextra and vioxx were taking off the market. Vicodin doesn't do much for the week I took it.

So, while I'm taking all these drugs, I wanna know...your experiences? Hard to get off of them? My life is either foggy and more comfortable....or painful and sharper. Any advice would we welcome.