Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with unknown

Who painted this, and what did they write?

CancerMan — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:46:26 -0800

I need help identifying the artist and writing for this ink painting (Japanese). I'll describe more details as well as I can within. My parents came into possession of the original painting. I believe the red mark is the artist and the black text is a poem, but no one can read and translate the characters. The painting appears modern, at least during that time period when artists started to paint "realistically," but when exactly it was created is unknown.

We're primarily interested in translating the text and knowing who the artist is. The person who previously owned the painting did not have any information. Hope you can help!

Why do I freak out if I don't know why?

MultiFaceted — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:03:28 -0800

I need help dealing with "unknown", especially in personal issues. I have an intense desire to know why something is happening, what someone's explanation is and I wind up a big ball of anxiety while overthinking it. I want to know how to be comfortable with just "not knowing", and how to be comfortable with the resulting feeling of not being able to control the situation. This latest bout of stress is based on romantic relationship stuff, but I do this whole worrying/overthinking thing in other situations too. My marriage ended because my husband just didn't love me and didn't want to be married to me anymore. He couldn't tell me why, couldn't give me a reason (literally, he just said "I don't know")...he just didn't want me anymore. I asked him over and over again for any sort of explanation, but I never really got one. So I spent a lot of time trying to analyze and figure it out to no avail. I wanted to know what I did wrong so that I don't repeat the same mistakes again (I'm assuming I have control in this situation...even though I probably don't).

Currently, there's a guy I'm interested in and we've been talking for a while (we live 5 hours apart so don't physically see each other very often). He and I have a lot of history together and he has said he wants a relationship with me but he needs to deal with some issues first (which is true...he does need to get mentally pulled together). I thought things were going pretty well overall, but for the past 3 weeks I haven't heard a word from him. I've sent a couple of texts and left a couple of messages but never got a response. Tonight he did respond to a text saying that he lost his phone a "while back" and wasn't able to afford a replacement until yesterday. I texted back asking him to call me so we could catch up...and there's been no response.

So...I have no explanation for the silence over the past 3 weeks. I understand work gets in the way (he can't always have his phone with him) but I'm not sure I'm buying the whole lost phone explanation. Even though we don't have any official ties to each other, I'm getting closer and closer to just walking away from him, but it seems like I can't let myself go without knowing why. Once again, I keep telling myself that if I know what his explanation is, I would feel better about the whole thing. Maybe he's just not into me, but if I knew why he wasn't into me I could somehow do something to improve for the next time.

This has had me tied up in knots over the past week. Right now my entire life feels out of control, and I'm desperately searching for some way to have control over something meaningful. I don't know what's next for me, I'm still struggling with getting more comfortable with my new "singleness", although I thought things were getting better. I've just been utterly overwhelmed and paralyzed the past few days (again).

So, the question is: What can I do to be able to handle not knowing/the unknown, and what can I do to learn how to be OK with not feeling in control in these types of situations?

(I do have the next two days off with no commitments so I have time to do some intensive thinking/writing/exploring if you want to suggest something specific for me to focus on)

What in the world is this?

Theloupgarou — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:50:17 -0800

Does anyone know what this beige, squarish thing is supposed to be? What's it used for? Anyone know? Very curious thing... Thanks in advance!

Help me find this novel?

malusmoriendumest — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:48:36 -0800

Help me identify this novel of which the details have been lost? Read a novel when I was much, much younger that I'm trying to find again. The (admittedly sketchy) details that I can summon are these:

- Novel may be entitled by a double-figure number, like '53, in burning letters on the cover I remember.

- Involves (presumably future) plague involving blood.

- Protagonist is male, has wife and (unborn?) child who are both killed at some point.

Realise this is fairly unlikely to yield results but hope springs eternal.

Water Polo movie/scene about Communism?!

mnop — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 20:23:10 -0800

What movie did I watch with Water Polo as an allegory for Socialism/Communism? The lovely local WETA station shows foreign films, and I caught the very end of one that had me captivated... it was a climactic scene where a water polo player was contemplating where to aim his penalty shot. It had subtitles that read things like "I should go right..." and "The LEFT! The left is better!" It seemed like some allegory for his decision process about accepting socialism/communism, but I'm not sure. I'd definitely like to give the film a proper viewing, and figure out what it was all about!

I saw this many many years ago, so I don't recall any more details. I believe it might have been B&W though.

Any ideas?

Is there a rat in my kitchen?

razzman — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:17:41 -0800

Something strange is going on in the kitchen...What has done this to the label on top of my recycle bin? Went to the recycle bin under the sink. in the picture you can see the lid with the label on it. Is it a mouse, a rat....something else? picture here No human in the house has done this!

Jalapeno-Vodka Induced Hallucination?

The Whelk — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:10:15 -0800

Name That Show Used In That Russian Music Video-Filter: I was at a Russian restaurant in L.A yesterday and saw the strangest music video. I got the name of the artist (Something and Federov?) but the video was chopped up clips from what looked like a British TV show. What TV show or movie was being cut up? Details inside. The video contained a man in a broad-stripped Zoot Suit and a man dressed as a Lady Bracknell /Pepperpot type (Think Monty Python) and what seemed to be WW1-era soldiers and generals. There was lots of broad comedy and falling down drunk and the sets where very white and minimal. There was a lot of green smoke. From the video quality I'd say late 70s-early 80s? What the hell did I just watch?

What is this strange helicopter/fan/pinwheel-like fruit?

buttercup — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:35:13 -0800

A friend of mine made this mobile for my soon-to-be-born baby's nursery from found objects on hiking trips in several states. One of the dangly(sp?) things is this weird pinwheel shaped fruit. Its about 5" across and as you can see the pods dehisced along the one edge--no seeds were found in the fruit. He thinks he found it either in California or Nevada (or the desert SW).
We're both botanists/ecologists who work in the northeastern US and we don't really have anything like it out here. I spent a little bit of time researching it, but I don't have much to go on. Its a little embarrassing when my friends ask 'what's that plant?" and I have no clue. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Out, Out, Damn Spot

EmpressCallipygos — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:25:25 -0800

How do you remove a stain....if you don't know what the stain is? I have a white rayon tunic shirt which long ago developed some mysterious brown stains on the front. It almost looks like I dribbled tea down the front. Except - I didn't. I just pulled it out of the closet one day and noticed all these drips of an unknown stain on them.

All I can think is: I used to live in an apartment where the "closet" was open space under a platform loft bed, leaving all my hanging clothes open to random weird floating gak in the air from inside or outside. So this stain could be ANYTHING.

I've tried stain spray, I've tried diluted bleach, I've tried Oxy-Clean; it's still rather stubborn. I even got desperate and tea-dyed the whole shirt to see if the rest of it would take on the same hue as the stain, but...that just made the stain a little darker too, so you can still see it. Researching all the "stain removal tips" web sites out there require you to know what the stain is first, but....I don't know.

Help?

Alien artifact?

various — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:12:36 -0800

I found something in the road. It's metallic and magnetic. Just curious if anyone can tell me what it might be. Photo here and here. Thanks.

Help me figure out this song

GrubbyUtter — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:49:40 -0800

Song Figuring Out Filter: a classicrock-ish song about some girl being evil. What's the one I'm thinking of? I want to figure out a song I heard several months ago and I only have a couple vague clues to help *you* help me figure it out. I don't have the tune either, sorry.

1. There is a male voice singing (exclusively, no other voices... not even background vocals I don't think, but who knows). I seem to have the impression that it was an older guy. Not some young kid or anything. I remember thinking that the guy singing sounded like he would look like The Dude (Big Lebowski). Not that that is at all helpful.

2. The song was about a woman being evil or of the devil, wicked, something like that.

3 It had sort of a classic rock feel to it. I want to say it reminded me of maybe ZZ Top and Canned Heat? It wasn't them though. Just had that vibe.

4. Here is a list of songs I've run into while trying to find it. These are not it obviously.

Cliff Richard - Devil Woman
Skip James - Devil Got My Woman
Cradle Of Filth - Devil Woman
Marty Robbins-Devil Woman
The Doors - Woman is a Devil
E.L.O - Evil Woman
Eagles - Witchy Woman
Ringo Starr - Devil Woman

I haven't listened to, but I'm pretty sure it's also not, the Poison, or Hanoi Rocks, renditions of Devil Woman either. Lots of songs titled that huh?

It's been bugging me for such a long time! Hope somebody can help!

Webmail can get hosed too?

Iosephus — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:35:29 -0800

Is there a nastyware lurking in this computer? Strange Yahoo! Mail contact list kidnapping observed... A friend of mine suffered an odd incident on their Yahoo! Mail account, which they only use through their browser: a spam message from some consumer electronics company (that some googling reveals is a probable fraudster) was sent to all their contacts, and the contacts seem to have been deleted after that. They have changed the password and recovered the contact list, but since they are not really computer knowledgeable and I have no access to their machine (a typical Win XP system), not much else to be done there. Some more googling shows up another cases like theirs, but no identification of the nasty. Besides my willingness to help save their bacon, I'm curious about what kind of thing would this be and how it did its trick, able to sneak into a webmail access and spam around the contact list. I'm not linking to the fraudster so as not to give them traffic, but their site as mentioned also in the spam starts with an e, then a dash, then saloon dot com.

Ack I broke acrobat professional

special-k — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:24:01 -0800

I tried to update my Adobe Acrobat 7.0 and I broke something. Help me make it work again. I usually ignore Adobe update requests but for some unknown reason I clicked ok. It updated, asked for a restart. My spybot search and destroy asked if I would approve some new start up processes and again, being totally distracted, I said ok to some but not others. After the restart my Acrobat Professional 7.0 no longer works.

First I get "An internal error occurred"

Then I get "The instruction at 0x0408185f referenced memory at 0x38bdaac. The memory could not be read"

Googling both those error codes returns nothing. Under Program Files>Adobe>Acrobat 7.0>Setup>Acropro>ENU there is a file called acropro.exe.

I tried to repair my install and that didn't work either. The obvious solution would be to reinstall from a scratch but I don't have installation disks till the IT guy gets here on Monday.

What can I do in the meantime (I need to create and edit a bunch of pdfs this weekend).

Is there a corrupt folder I can delete to make this work?

I am on WinXP. Acrobat 7.0 (I don't know the sub-version)

Lost

hadjiboy — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:32:52 -0800

What tree is this? These are the flowers which grow on it (they usually fall off every night and are strewn across the ground). Here's a close up of one of them. They have a nice and pleasant smell... something like Jasmine perhaps? Not sure, but if anyone can help me out, I'd appreciate it!

Thanks a lot.

What is this song with the sample from "39 Steps"?

churl — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 01:48:20 -0800

I would love to know what song this is. [Direct Link to 4.7 MB mp3] [Caution at work, song gets louder] Google tells me that the words of the lyrics/voiceover narration are from the opening of 39 Steps, but I don't know which version (if any). It doesn't sound exactly like the Hitchcock version, but that's the only version I could find to watch online and compare it against.

It came to me on an unlabeled mix CD from a friend. However, by the time I listened to and asked him to identify this song, he had forgotten it. Pressed, he thought that the song might be called "Oregon Grinder" -- he definitely specified "Oregon" and not "Organ" -- and the band called "Fear of Little Men".

However, the only "Oregon Grinder" I could find was by Hank Jones (obviously wrong), and I listened through both albums by Fear of Little Men and it did not appear on either of them.

He gave me the CD about two years ago, so the song must be pre-2006. That is everything I know.

The vault of imaginary movies?

Iosephus — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:06:55 -0800

Did I imagine that reference? Cloverfield got me thinking. Someone somewhere perhaps mentioned to me many years ago another "fake visual document" movie, this one involving a tv crew, a lake, a monster (or just a vague mystery?), and it might have been shot in black and white (perhaps to fake olden times?). Treat all preceding details as suspect, but feel free to go wild giving it a go. Yes, I've tried IMDB and Google. I suspect some of my recollections are wrong and hence the lack of hits. Unless of course I imagined the whole talk or conflated my memories with assorted mental flotsam, and hence there is no such movie. Or my search-fu is pathetically worse than my proud claims would like to affirm to the contrary, and then you have my permission to pull a Nelson Muntz on me.

Name that tune?

ooklala — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:55:29 -0800

Can you help me identify a freakishly old (I think) song that I recently found? I know nothing about it other than it is old, and has been used for many years in a Maypole dance. *link to song* (mp3)
Note: Song is very catchy.

Why can't I get the movie "Quiet man" from Netflix?

fx3000 — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:49:07 -0800

Why can't I get the movie "Quiet man" from Netflix? For a while now it has shown availability "Unknown" and just shows up in the "Saved" section. A couple of months ago, it was in my queue but it always had "Very Long Wait".

What is this song?

jules1651 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:44:00 -0800

Can someone please tell me what song is in the playing in the background here? You will make my day.

What is this giant red and orange cone-shaped thing?

0xFCAF — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 12:44:15 -0800

What is this large red and orange checkerboarded cone I saw on I-5 somewhere around Olympia, WA?

Does anyone know this piano song?

Bill Shinji — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:01:30 -0800

Does anyone know about this piano song? Maybe it's George Winston's. I've been searching for this unknown song listening sample music from George Winston's Albums on Amazon. So far I got nothing. Maybe I am wrong about the auther in the first place. The bottom line is that it is a piano song.

Since there is no lyric in the song it is extremely hard to find what the song is.

Anyone who has any information about this song or possible authers please let me know.

Here is a youtube link to the song in question:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mx-WN-T_Uw0

who-the-heck-sings-this-song filter. Help me identify an obscure piece?

jwhowa — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:14:39 -0800

I've got this MP3 I'm trying to identify, and many attempts at googling the lyrics have left me wanting. The lyrics to the chorus are "you're feeling sorry, feeling sorry, alright... (snip) for nobody but yourself" It's a lady singing, very catty, chacha beat. Link to a snippet of the song is inside, if anyone could provide me artist/title/album or any of the above that would be fantastic! Thanks for considering it! Snippet is located here:

http://technodaddy.com/feelinsorry.mp3

What kind of lighter is this and where can I find one?

blackout — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:36:21 -0800

What kind of lighter is this and where can I find one? Here are a couple of pictures. My brother got this lighter as a gift years ago and I've always wanted one. Anyone know where I might be able to find one. My brother always refers to it as a "miners lighter" and on the bottom it says; IMCO TRIPLEX SUPER austria 6700

Weird phone numbers showing up on my cell phone caller ID

parilous — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:04:49 -0800

There are weird phone numbers showing up on my caller ID - what's going on? What should I do about it? (I've already called Verizon about this, but they had no information.) The past two days I have received:
* 7 calls from: 233-242-248101
* 6 calls from: 01

The phone rings/vibrates only once, as if I had received a txt message. They take place between 1-2 minutes apart. I have received three "sets" of these calls -- 9am (MST) yesterday, 11am (MST) yesterday, and 1pm (MST) today. My cell is an LG, but I doubt that makes any difference.

I have googled the number and it looks like it may be an international call, possibly coming from Ghana, and likely connected to a calling scam. I don't know how to stop these calls, but have been assured that no minutes are being deducted if I don't answer. I guess what I'm worried about is whether or not my phone is being hacked (or something similarly nefarious). What's going on, should I worry about it, and how should I take care of it?

Unknown fantasy book title

tjbarrett — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 09:55:04 -0800

I'd appreciate some help trying to remember a fantasy book I read when I was younger, but I can't remember the name of it. Don't remember if it was a single book or a series, the only details I recall are: 1. The bad guys rode horses/monsters with six legs 2. There was a culminating end battle where a prince, formerly capricious and care-free, sacrificed himself on the main bad guy's sword to kill him 3. And somehow King Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere were involved, and their part in the story ended with a resolution of the love triangle involved between them. Sorry about the vagueness of this question, but it's all I remember, and it's been bugging me for a while, as I've been walking down memory lane lately and reading old books, thanks for any help. :)