Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with weirdness

It's a little hard to only use one half of the keyboard.

duckus — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:52:53 -0800

My keyboard has issues. Some letters work .. some do not .. some just Gibber at me. I have a Natural MS Ergonomic 4000 keyboard that has decided not to work.

When I type 'c' and also 'z', I get a right click menu.

These letters don't work at all: i o u x y

When I type '2' and also '4', I get this: -u=56jkl

I've got two keyboards hooked up so I can work, but my elbows and wrists are already hurting .. so this is not really a perm solution .. (hence the ergonomic keyboard) ..

It happened quite suddenly .. reboots/driver reinstall and restarts have all proved fruitless.

I am on Windows XP. Does anyone have any suggestions for troubleshooting or a fix?

Magic, incarcerated

MrVisible — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:34:17 -0800

Help me find real-world magic items. I'm looking for real-life items that have strange histories, weird reputations, or just plain creep people out. One example is the pair of pistols made of meteoric iron that made the news recently. Any object which can be viewed as having a magical nature will do, the weirder the better.

Historical curiosities, medical oddities, anything that incites a sense of weirded-out wonder will be considered. Extra special bonus points if the objects existed in North America in 1914.

I realize that this is a very broad question, but I wanted to tap into the vast reservoir of odd and arcane knowledge that MeFites seem to have.

(This is for a role-playing campaign. Do not be alarmed. The premise is that these items are charged with a magical energy, which can be harvested. Quests ensue.)

Why do my eyes well up with tears when I hear something moving?

onepapertiger — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:01:30 -0800

Why do my eyes well up with tears when I hear something particularly moving? How can I stop it from happening? I didn't used to be like this and then, suddenly, if I heard a story I thought was very sweet or heroic or even totally unfair/frustrating, my eyes just fill up with tears. It could even be one of those very special episodes of Fresh Prince, which I know are totally corny, but somehow, it just does something to me that makes my eyes just well up with tears. I've had depression but I've been successfully treated for it.

This started when I was 20, about 7 years ago, and each year, as I get closer to 30, it is getting worse. I just can't figure out why I suddenly became so sensitive. In normal, everyday life, if I listen to a sad radio story (courtesy of This American Life) or read a touching article, my eyes well up and, sometimes, I actually shed tears.

Why did I get so sensitive at 20? Is it normal for women to become more sensitive in their twenties? Will it get worse? Is it just me? How can I stop this hypersensitivity?

Attention Tivo customers: Mars Needs Women

bondcliff — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:10:48 -0800

What is the purpose of this random noise my electronics are making? I first noticed this on my Tivo. I’d be sitting around, not even watching TV, when I’d hear a short (< 2 second) burst of “morse code.” Not beeps, but sort of a muted dit-dit-doot-doot-dit-dit. This would happen about once or twice a day. I assumed the hard drive was doing some sort of self check.

Then yesterday I was in a meeting at work when I heard the exact same noise (same pattern of dits and doots, as far as I can tell) coming from one of those starfish-type speaker phones. Nobody was talking on the phone. There goes my hard drive theory. Now I’m thinking perhaps it didn’t come from the Tivo, but perhaps a speaker near the Tivo.

Last night, I heard the same thing from one of my Squeezebox players, or rather from the speakers attached to it. The player was not playing music, though both the player and speakers were powered on, or at least in stand-by.

Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard this noise on other electronic devices. It's definitely a digital-type signal, as opposed to static.

What the hell is happening? Is something else causing interference? Is there a common component inside these devices that is doing this? Why is the pattern always the same? Are my electronics communicating back to the mother ship, planning the revolution?

I’d prefer a technical explanation (“These devices all use a THX1138 chip, it’s the hammerflanger module recalibrating the DRADIS.”) over a guess, and I’d love to know I’m not the only one hearing this.

"You're very clever, young man, very clever. But it's turtles all the way down!"

Jezztek — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:54:18 -0800

Dear Hive-Mind, Want to help me brainstorm up a list of strange (pre-existing) theories? Howdy,

I'm working on a new project and I'm just in the brainstorming phase, but I could use a little extra help. I'm trying to think of as many interesting 'theories' that small(ish) clans of people earnestly believe, but pretty much everyone outside these insular groups don't even consider.

What I'm NOT looking for are theories that are still controversial (even if there is a scientific consensus to contradict them, like people that deny global warming or deny evolution).

Basic religious beliefs aren't going to work for me (So please no 'ha ha, Mormons are dumb'), but if they take it to the next level of strangeness they'll work (for example denying evolution is one thing, but believing the devil literally went around with a shovel planting dinosaur bones to screw with our heads is more along the lines of what I'm looking for).

So basically what I need are theories that have an abundance of evidence to contradict them, but still retain some true believers. Conspiracy theories are fine especially if they have an element of the fantastic, but unusual/fantastic explanations for natural/historical events, or just general cosmological strangeness is even better.

And best of all are theories that aren't seriously considered by pretty much anyone, but your average person on the street may have at least heard of (so super obscure theories are a bit less useful).

Some examples:

UFOs visited ancient Egypt and aliens helped build the pyramids
Flat Earthers
The Devil Planted Dinosaur Bones
The Moon Landing Was Faked
"Turtles all the way down"

Thanks much!

Word 2007 Weirdness: help?

Zinger — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:13:53 -0800

Word/Office 2007 Weirdness: Why is Word 2007 showing a bright blue (cyan?) straight line under sections of text in this received document? We've received a document from a client, and we've discovered, when clicking on certain lines of the text, that a bright blue straight underline appears under the text.

The line extends from margin to margin in the text, and that particular part of a sentence seems to be somehow grouped together as a result. If we make a change in the line of text, say to add an 's' to a word, tracked changes shows that Word also makes formatting changes, expanding or condensing character scale in that line.

This is not Word 2007's contextual spelling marker (which apparently uses a wavy blue line), and there don't appear to be hidden fields or codes in the text where this occurs. It's only in a few places in the document, and I can't spot a common factor here. The font and paragraphing styles seem to be the same in these lines and elsewhere in the text where this line thing doesn't show up.

Anyone else ever have this happen? Google-fu fails me in this case, hence my query to the MeFiHiveMind.

Should I be hiring a patent lawyer?

thebrokedown — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:54:58 -0800

Why did my casserole just shock me? Just got up for some leftovers, and got 2 static shocks from my potato/onion/cheese/bacon casserole.

Details (more if needed): Got up from my computer chair here in Mississippi, where it has been the nicest night in forever--much drier and cooler than it has been. Went to the refrigerator in my linoleum-floored kitchen from a wood floor, bare-footed. Got the (plastic with screw-on plastic top) container of casserole and sniffed it. Got big-time shocked on my nose, then, a few moments later while I was complaining to my SO about it, got shocked on my finger while pointing at the food. I actually saw a spark with the second shock.

I understand static shocks in general, and get them often in the winter. But a shock from what amounts to a potato salad in a plastic container? What gives?

WTF! Ants are in my cable modem!

emptyinside — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:41:58 -0800

OMFGFilter: I was cleaning my living room / bedroom / office and underneath my side-laying cable modem I found HORDES of ants swarming around pale little crumbs. Did I just find a nest? Holy hell. My modem was only there for a couple days...
Was that eggs? Was a vacuum enough to kill the buggers and thier offspring? I knocked em out of the modem, but there's still ants crawling everywhere!

What the hell, I thought we had technology to triumph over nature, not serve as warm spots to breed!

Creepy tourism in Europe?

Bookhouse — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 09:37:54 -0800

What are some creepy things to do in Brussels, Amsterdam and London? I'm getting ready for my first trip to Europe, which will be focused on Belgium with side trips to Amsterdam, London and maybe Paris. My girlfriend and I have macabre tastes and would like to visit some creepy museums and exhibits while we're there. I'm talking medical oddities, true crime stuff, hallways made of bones, you name it. We're hip to the Tower of London and would like recommendations on the best Jack the Ripper walking tours, etc. Nothing is too outre, but the supernatural ranks far lower than anything real.

Why did my Wordpress blog freak out when I wasn't looking?

wayward vagabond — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:01:00 -0800

Wordpress filter: Why did my Wordpress blog freak out when I wasn't looking? What could have caused it to change themes all on its own? So I have a blog running on a Wordpress installation (2.1) with a customised theme, and the other evening as I clicked past, I saw that eeep!! it was showing the Kubrick default theme!! Even though I hadn't touched it/changed it/breathed on it!! Cue panic attack.

I quickly went into the admin panel and changed it back to the custom theme, which seemed fine. I peeked into the server files and everything seemed to still be in its right place, so I backed everything up again (files, database, etc. - just in case) and changed my password (just in case - though I can't imagine anyone wanting to hack in just to change a theme). A reader then emailed and said that when she went to leave a comment the other day (not sure how many days ago), the theme was fine but the popup comment box was in the blue and white default theme, and it wouldn't accept her comment. I never saw any of that.

I *swear* I didn't "accidentally" change the theme. So what gives? All seems to be fine at the moment, but what could have caused this behind-the-scenes freak out? And what else should I be checking for?

(I'm not an idiot, but what I've learned about Wordpress I've mostly learned through lots of trial and error. And I'm not terribly savvy when it comes to server stuff. As far as I can tell it's mySQL version 5, PHP version 5.0.2 )

Attack of the Killer Mutant Beard Hairs

dw — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:36:30 -0800

I have these strange mutant beard hairs. They're thick, black, ropelike, and don't have a white follicle when I pull them out. What's the deal with them? I'm your usual male American Caucasian-majority mutt with dark hair and a beard (goatee). Every couple of months, while I'm trimming said beard, I'll come across half a dozen or so of these weird beard hairs. They look like rope, maybe 5 times the diameter of a normal beard hair. Sometimes they'll have a core of sebum when I yank them, and they'll always have a black follicle that looks a bit like an oily mop or paintbrush rather than the white follicle a normal beard hair will have when pulled. (And they don't hurt when pulled.) Sometimes they are ingrown, but not always. They're always darker than the other beard hairs. They tend to appear on either side of my chin area.

I not concerned about them, just curious. I have gone through Google a few times and have never found anything describing these weird beard hairs. When I describe it to other men, they have no idea what I'm talking about. What are they? What causes them? Is this just my weird genetic mutation, or is this common?

Are vermin eating my underwear?

Anonymous — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 13:41:28 -0800

Mysterious holes are appearing in my dirty underwear where there are, ahem, juices. This is probably not lunch-safe. I have noticed holes appearing in my dirty underwear exactly where my girl-juices dry (I'm a fairly juicy girl). These holes are very specific--if the stains dry on the inner layer around the crotch (women's underwear typically has two layers of cloth in the crotch region), the holes will only be in the inner layer where the protein stains used to be, not the outer layer.

What could be causing this? Am I so acidic that I'm eating holes in my underwear? Or (and this is seriously gross) are bugs/mice supplementing their protein intake? I consider the latter because we do have cockroach/bug/mice problems, and there appears to be direct correlation between the appearance of holes and whether the underwear is on the floor and how long it's been sitting there.

What caused electromagnetic weirdness in my house this morning?

eek — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:22:08 -0800

This morning we go to leave for work (I didn't ride because it was hailing snow, dig?) and the garage door remote didn't work. No worries, the power went off or something, so I go to put some stuff in the car but the car's key remote doesn't work either. Neither does Herself's key. Weirdness indeed... No worries, we crack the car open the old fashioned way (mechanical key), kill the alarm and open the garage door manually. Then, just as we're about to get in the car, the alarm goes off, the house's (wireless) door bell rings, the garage door motor cranks up and all the remotes start working again.

Clearly it's some kind of electromagnetic dealy-o, but what? And why?

Explain this weirdness accessing WordPress with Firefox?

Dreama — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 22:53:04 -0800

Why did Firefox suddenly begin to choke when I try to access /wp-admin/? If I attempt to gain access to WordPress by going to http://again.bluesilver.org/wp-admin/, instead of going directly into the Dashboard, I get this result. The same response occurs when I click the link to logout. (Though it does logout my account just the same.) Everything is fine If I go to http://again.bluesilver.org/wp-admin/index.php, specify any other filename or navigate to any part of the administrative panel via the menu, as usual, everything's fine. This is also happening on another of my blogs.

This glitch only occurs with Firefox (1.5.0.6) and WordPress 2.0.4 and even more oddly, this just started happening in the last 12 hours. I have made no changes to either Firefox nor the WordPress installations in question in weeks.

The problem of getting into WP was solved easily enough but the weirdness is unsettling. Any ideas on a fix for this?

Should it stay or should it go?

mochapickle — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 22:51:26 -0800

Is it weird to keep your married name after you split? When I married a few years ago, I took my husband's name, which happens to be somewhat distinctive -- I'd always liked his last name, and I was born with a very common one (think Smith or Johnson). Now that we're divorced, I'm rather at odds on whether to keep his last name or revert to my original name. We've no children, neither of us are famous (although his line of work makes that entirely possible eventually), and I currently use my married name professionally. We're by no means enemies, but my relationship with my ex currently ranges from warm to tenuous. My relationship with my parents is great. Future work internationally prevents me from taking a new name altogether -- it adds a prohibitive amount of time to the already lengthly clearance/visa process.

If you changed your name, did you change it back? Keep it? Feel weird if either of you remarried? Wear it like a glory badge, or like an albatross?

(I already understand most of the legal procedures / credit card processes / feminist implications involved with both keeping the name and swapping it back.)

How do I interpret statistics from an ESP test?

storybored — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 18:41:30 -0800

How do I interpret the statistical results of an ESP test? At this ESP testing site there's a tabulation of the daily results of people from across the world attempting to guess which of 5 cards is a target card. In the results for 12/20/2005 the top scorer had 13 hits in 25 trials for a hit rate of 52%, random chance would be 0.20. Now the website says the odds against this are 2708 to 1. First question: is this correct? Second question: if it is correct, then how weird is this statistically speaking given that there were a total of 19,886 trials by 189 users. Incidentally in 19,886 trials there were 4008 hits for a hit rate of .202 which is not far from random. But for some reason the website states that this is "overall odds of 2.4 to 1" . Shouldn't the overall odds be about 1 to 1?

I've taken an undergrad course in Stats and another in Probability but I'm rusty (to let you know what expertise level you're addressing your answer to).

Thanks for any help!

seriously frivolous but nagging question

evariste — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 21:52:25 -0800

In a picture of me in first grade, I have loosely-curly red hair and freckles. Now, in my twenties, I have dark brown, medium-curly hair and a mostly-clear complexion. I can grow quite the fierce afro if I want to (and I have), but my hair laid down and flowed when I was a kid. I don't remember when the change happened (it was probably gradual, I guess), but I do remember that I had brown hair already when I was 12. Is this common? Or am I a freak? Is there a scientific explanation? My mom was a fair freckled redhead with and my dad had black tight-curly (nappy) hair and a dark (but not black) complexion. My hair is still really soft, just a different, darker color and with somewhat tighter curls. Has your hair changed as dramatically as mine since childhood?

The after effects of a day at the theme park on the brain

TheDonF — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 11:29:21 -0800

Brain weirdness: I, with some colleagues, spent the day at Thorpe Park last week and spent the day getting hurled around rides such as Nemesis and more. When I went to bed that evening, as I was trying to get to get to sleep, my brain kept doing strange things; I kept feeling as though I was still being flung left, right, up, down and all over the place - almost like I was still on the rides. I didn't think too much of it until a couple of my colleagues said they experienced the same thing. So, is this after effect common? If so, does it have a name? What triggers it and why?

What are humans best at?

stoneegg21 — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 06:48:14 -0800

How are humans different physically from other creatures? What are we best at? What sort of things are humans best at? I've always heard that while humans can't hear very high or very low, we've got the largest hearing range. As well, I don't think many other creatures have the same range of color vision that we do. I think that humans aren't good at sprinting, but that we're pretty good at endurance activities. Finally, I've been told that humans have pretty huge penises considering their bodysize, along with the weird fact humans don't have penis bones of any kind. Which of these are wrong, and what else are there?

Radio station synchronicity.

lazaruslong — Sat, 26 Mar 2005 22:01:00 -0800

Why do two different radio stations sometimes have the exact same song playing, often in complete sync, or only a measure off? It seems like the chances of this happening randomly would be very small. Yet, sometimes the "rock alternative" station and the "top 40 pop" station will have the same (usually bad) genre-blending song on at almost the same exact time. Anyone with experiece in radio know how this happens?

What Movie or TV Show is This From?

Sticherbeast — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 15:50:19 -0800

What Movie or TV Show Is This From? A man plays catch with a kid. Then HALF A KID riding on a skateboard rolls by. He passes by a Doberman, who breaks from his leash and chases after the half a kid. The dog starts attacking the half a kid, who cries for help. The man playing catch hears his cries, and beats the Doberman, saving the half a kid. Then we see the Doberman...and now it's a man! And he's been beaten! (No, I didn't hallucinate this. It's from a TV Carnage tape.)