LISTS :: METAFILTER ODDS AND ENDS

You know it's bad when you wake up in the morning, groan as you attempt to sit up in bed, and think to yourself, "Ugh, this will not wendell."


⋅ ⋅ ⋅

I once had a dream in which Jessamyn had a massive pool set up that had several different kinds of water and sand included. One small square of the pool was devoted to a swirling kind of water, alternately cloudy and completely clear; the one next to it held warm ocean saltwater; the one next to that held dark but clarified swamp water. The rest of the pool was devoted to normal pool water, clear and blue and chlorinated, for those not feeling particularly adventurous.

The whole thing was set up to answer an AskMe query from a landlocked MeFite about what various types of water and sand were like. The thread had spawned enough interest that it was posted on the front page sidebar, and ultimately Jessamyn called for a MeFi meetup to address the topic.

When I arrived, people of a range of ages, dressed in normal clothes—brown leather jackets, jeans, T-shirts, whatever was normal for them—were standing around in the water, leaning on the barriers between pools, talking to each other about this completely cool thing Jessamyn had created. One girl I was talking to about the shifting water part of the pool said she'd thought about bringing in a six-pack of Schlafly, but she didn't know if they allowed alcohol there, so she'd left it in the car. "Hey, I'm all for it, I'd bring it if I had some," I said, and she left to go get it...

Then I woke up.


⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Questions I've meant to AskMe:

1. If I were to spray eyeglass cleaner directly into an electrical socket (or surge protector socket), what would happen? Would it short out? Start a fire? Do nothing? Obviously quantity sprayed would probably be a factor...

2. What happens if I let my car roll backwards when in gear?

3. Are TTF fonts portable across Mac and Windows, or do I need different versions? —Answered by decagon!

4. Why does one ear make a drum-like sound in time with sound from a single headphone or phone speaker in the other ear? —Answered by decagon!

5. When parked under a tree, in the event of a golf-ball-sized-hail–producing thunderstorm, which is greater: the likelihood that hail will damage the car or the likelihood that a tree branch will damage the car? —Unanswered, but another couple I met also had an ongoing debate about this.

6. How can a single blood clot in a lung kill a person? —Answered by decagon!

7. I love the prog rock-meets-disco interstices on Jefferson Starship's "Jane." Where can I find more music like this?

8. Is there still caffeine left in day-old, refrigerated Dr Pepper, or do the molecules degrade? —Answered by decagon!

9. MacBook: Any way to enable page up/page down and numlock on the newer hardware? —Answered by decagon!

10. This article mentions a publicly traded microlending company in the U.S. What is it? I can't find much information...

11. Is there a way to define different hr elements for different divs in a site's CSS file? —Answered by decagon!

12. Does Obama play an instrument? —Answered by decagon!

13. People can now pay parking meters via RFID in some places—but can the authorities also check to see the status of parking meters by RFID? Seems like it'd be potentially lucrative, albeit kinda wrong.

14. Why do some rechargeable Energizer batteries have black tops and others have green tops? —Answered by rokusan!

15. Does anyone have a list of industries broken up during Prohibition that were never put back together?

16. Milwaukee, New Jersey...what other parts of the U.S. (and/or world) never left the '80s?

17. What's the difference between (mineral) heavy metals and regular metals?

18. Anyone have long-term stats on morbidity from menthol ingestion in the form of cough drops?

19. Is there a purpose to staying within, rather than driving over, the exaggeratedly curved lines leading up to turn lanes?

20. At the Petsmart near me, they leave the door to the cricket cage in the fish department open. The sales associate there assured me that it was supposed to be like that. How come the crickets don't try to escape?

21. When I copy and paste a phone number from Word into Firefox in OS X, the last digit frequently gets cut off, despite the fact that it's definitely selected in Word when I hit Command-C. Why does this happen?

22. Do moths ever eat wool off live sheep? —Inspired by a conversation w/turtlegirl at a meetup

23. Controlling for factors such as socioeconomic status and whatnot, have any studies shown there to be a significant difference in rates of infection and disease between those who wipe using their nondominant hand and those who wipe using their dominant hand?

24. They make recyclable lotion tubes; why can't they make recyclable toothpaste tubes?

25. Is there such a thing as organic, all-natural hairspray or gel?

26. When there are fish on ice in an Asian market in the U.S., are those fish normally already gutted?

27. What's the most efficient blow-drying pattern for shoulder-length hair according to SCIENCE?

28. At what point is a building unsalvageable due to insect infestation? When do you let nature take its course?

29. Do animals have a sense of what's machine and what's not?



::