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What kind of bulbs do they currently have in them? What does the socket look like? Also, is there any point in the lamp where there is something which is designed to step the current down from 220?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 4:34 PM on July 1, 2012

Looks like you would at least have to switch out the plug... Also, what is the bubble thing in the cord shown in one of the photos for the first link?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 4:38 PM on July 1, 2012

Tactics I've used when I've found myself in a similar situation:

1) Saying "I don't know what to tell you about that." Sometimes repeating exactly those same words to everything the person says that is a complaint. By the fourth or fifth time I say it, either they get frustrated with not having their complaints validated, or they get the message that I'm not going to participate in their little game.

2) Asking, "Have you spoken… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:44 AM on June 21, 2012

Nthing lettuce. Of all sorts. Planted from seed, you'll have a crop starting in a month or so. There's nothing more awesome than going out into the garden and picking a lot of young lettuce leaves which have been soaking up the sun all day and bringing them in and eating them while they are still nearly glowing with photosynthesis and earthen magic and whatnot.

Blueberry bushes take a lot of prep for the soil, as they are very picky. But it can be done if you do… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:21 PM on June 4, 2012

America's Test Kitchen has pretty good tips on how to get a good batter on chicken for frying. I've used their "extra crunchy fried chicken" recipe several times and always to great success.

They start with 3 3/4 cups of buttermilk and 3 tablespoons of salt mixed until the salt dissolves, and then you soak the chicken in that for an hour. Not longer, or the chicken will get too salty.

The breading is 5 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:18 PM on May 28, 2012

If it doesn't look malformed or off-color more than it would logically be due to lengthy refrigeration, and it doesn't smell funny, then eat it after cooking. Chances are, if there's nothing obviously wrong with it, then anything which might have started within it that isn't immediately obvious isn't big enough to survive cooking.

I've eaten bratwurst that's been in my fridge for 8 weeks or so with no ill effects, as bit of anecdata for comparison.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:38 PM on May 18, 2012 marked best answer

You are entirely reasonable in rejecting the car and insisting on one which has made it to you from the factory in satisfactory condition. You should not have to pay any additional money for delivery of a vehicle in factory-new condition with no flaws.

Expecting the auto dealer to pay for your rental or for your patience may be a bit overboard, IMO.

But don't accept shipped goods which are in unsatisfactory condition. That's a pretty basic… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:06 PM on May 16, 2012

When I was in junior high, I found an emblem from a Cobra automobile in the gutter one day. I picked it up as a curiosity, but not too long after that I drilled a hole in it and put it in my keyring.

I still have that entire set of keys to this day, even if I never carry them and don't know what most of them are for anymore.

The more mystical side of me thinks that snake worked like a guardian for my keys. The more practical part of me… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:03 PM on May 14, 2012

Centurylink isn't their cable company, it's their telephone provider.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:35 PM on May 13, 2012

Gmail is unable to connect to the POP server to import mail.

However, automated mail forwarding from the Centurylink webmail portal does send mail to the Gmail account.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:18 PM on May 13, 2012

Okay, well, I ended up setting up a gmail account for her, forwarding all the mail from the q.com account to that address, and then of course setting up gmail on the iPad is nearly effortless...

I told her that any email she wants to have on the iPad from that q.com address that was received before I set this up, all she has to do it forward that by hand to the gmail address. But that any email she gets from this point on at q.com will be on her iPad automatically.… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 4:37 PM on May 14, 2012

Seconding the fresh tomato soup (although it's a BIT early for fresh tomatoes)...

I find bean soups are generally good any time of year, and green chile chicken enchilada soup is great any time of year. The hotter the chile, the more it cools you down in the summer (because it makes you sweat).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:41 PM on May 12, 2012

(Ǎhk-to͝ong Bāy-Bi) Covered is a recreation of the U2 album Achtung Baby with various artists and with pretty good results. It's available in iTunes and probably all of the tracks can be found on YouTube for listening.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:06 AM on May 11, 2012

Beg off with apologies, take a gift over to your friend's house the day before or after the event, take a bottle of wine or some nice coffee, and have your own "sip and see". 6-7 hours of driving is a lot to demand of someone for an event in which they're only a guest unless it's something really big like a wedding or funeral.

If your friend gets pissed at you, that tells you more about your friend than it does your own self.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:20 AM on May 4, 2012

What don't you like about modern rap?

Not that it's particularly relevant to my question...

I was in high school during the 80s, and really liked two styles of rap which were out at that time: the fun-loving party rap stuff, and the socially conscious stuff.

Today, the rap I'm most often exposed to seems to fall into two categories: gansta rap telling tales of guns and drugs and the street, or… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 1:23 PM on April 22, 2012

Well, I don't really like Girl Talk. It's an act which is coming to town which I've heard enough of to know that I might enjoy the show, but I don't have any real drive toward the act in general. I know he does dance-oriented shows, which I'm pretty much in favor of, but haven't really steeped myself in the world of Girl Talk. (I don't have any of his stuff in my iTunes library, for example, but have listened to all his albums as they've been released.)

If I really… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 1:42 PM on April 22, 2012

I didn't say that I don't like Girl Talk. I said that I don't really like Girl Talk. Meaning, I'm not listening to his work regularly and don't have a good working knowledge of it, but am not repulsed by it. If I'd said "I really don't like Girl Talk", that would be something else altogether.

So, I'm currently inclined to go to the show. It's not a lot of money, it sounds like it might be a fun dance party, and I do find what he does appealing without… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 9:40 PM on April 23, 2012

Budweiser is famously aged with beechwood chips.

spruce tips are used as an additive in some traditional/historical beer recipes

Not just historical. Alaskan Brewing Company's Winter Ale is brewed with spruce tips. (And it's oh so yummy and one of the things I love about Winter.)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:19 PM on April 23, 2012

Any good custom design jeweler should be able to create a ring and pendant which go together. The real question about design will be whether what you want can be fabricated out of preexisting parts or will have to be carved in wax and cast. The price difference between the two may be significant.

My suggestion is that you try to sketch out exactly what you want for both the ring and the pendant as well as you can, and then try to find a designer who will work with you… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:10 PM on April 21, 2012

I'd be surprised if using a food processor is the best way to make butter. The old way was to churn it, which wasn't a quick beating but rather a kind of slow pounding/mixing.

When I was a kid, we used to make butter by putting heavy cream in a jar about 3x the size of the quantity of cream, and then shaking it. You didn't have to shake it hard, just holding it in your hand and twisting your forearm back and forth so the liquid sloshed from one end of the jar to the… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:13 AM on April 21, 2012

Eddie Vedder regularly has a guitar on stage during all the shows I've seen in the past while. Not all the time, but several songs a show, he's there with an instrument.

Anyway, Pearl Jam has been doing songs written by all the band members for several albums now, probably more than a decade, with any song perhaps being written by a single member or created by any combination of those in the band.

Vedder is better known because he's the front… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:37 PM on April 20, 2012

if you like the idea of the beach and walking distance to the Sony Centre is negotiable...

Lesson one: don't make bad jokes in your post titles. The "beach" to which I was referring is Einstein On The Beach, the opera we are coming into town to see, which will be performed at Sony Centre.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:10 AM on April 14, 2012

Yeah, iPads are not laptops. They are, at best, satellite devices. Useful, but not really worthy of the central place a real computer can take in one's life.

Then again, I wonder if the MBAir is really a worthy laptop. It doesn't have a lot of the kinds of input opportunities that other MacBooks might have (no plastic media slot, for example).

If you're high on Teh Apple, then go with an iPhone and a MacBook, and if you have the money to spare,… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:54 PM on April 4, 2012

Yeah. Windows only. I already looked at that and had some approaches already planned out until I saw that I'd have to buy a copy of Windows and dual-boot my Mac before I could get it to work.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:10 AM on April 4, 2012

WikiHow has several methods for removing such stains. You might find one of them works for you.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:42 AM on April 1, 2012

Seconding Big Bend, suggest he take in Carlsbad Caverns if he's going to be in the El Paso area. And White Sands, if he's going to be "in that area", again.

Zion is amazing (I worked there for a summer), and it's very close to Bryce Canyon and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (the side most people don't visit, it being basically only approachable from the north -- not sure of Greyhound will even get him there).

Northern NM is also… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 1:51 PM on March 18, 2012 marked best answer

Again, not sure if Greyhound would get him there, but just south of Dallas (and easily en route to someplace else) is Scarborough Faire, one of the better Renaissance Fairs in the country. It starts running in early April and goes through the end of May.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 4:14 PM on March 18, 2012 marked best answer

A ha! Here's a useful thing -- a .pdf route map which actually shows the roads Greyhound travels and I believe the places they stop.

This chart of travel times between major cities may also be helpful during his planning.

(And yes, the passes are good in Canada.)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 4:49 PM on March 18, 2012 marked best answer

He visited Juarez? He's a fearless traveler indeed!

(It's probably not as dangerous as portrayed in the media, although it's certainly not the place it was when I was growing up just north of El Paso and used to go to Juarez for cheap booze and dancing regularly.)

Glad to hear he's out and about. Wishing him continued safe travels.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:57 AM on March 28, 2012 marked best answer

As a bit of side reading for this group, may I suggest The Unauthorized Version: Truth And Fiction In The Bible by Robin Lane Fox? It's a really interesting examination of the Bible and how we got it from a historian, and may help to provide context as well as untangle some of the weight of millennia of religious baggage the text can often carry.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:41 AM on March 28, 2012

Wikipanion is a nice iPad app that interfaces with Wikipedia better than using a web browser. Available in free and paid versions, the paid version includes offline reading and personal bookmarking.

Alternately, Discover For iPad turns Wikipedia articles into a nicely readable magazine. It features the article of the day and picture of the day, but also can be used to search for content (without inline links, however).

Free Books is a really… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 4:37 PM on March 18, 2012

Buying tip: iTunes gift cards sometimes go on sale from various retailers like Best Buy, OfficeMax, or Mejier.

They're also regularly discounted at Costco, if you have a membership there or know someone who does.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 5:48 PM on March 26, 2012

The only thing I can think of to check is to make sure the bottom isn't warped. It's a sign that the material is either too thin or the core is not working well with the outer metal.

Well, whether it's a sign of that or not, what it IS a sign of is that the entire bottom will not be making contact with the burner (if you cook with anything other than gas this matters). Even the heaviest cast iron will warp if it has cold water run into it while it… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:54 PM on March 25, 2012

Ah, also drive was formatted Mac OS Extended Journaled, if that matters.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:54 AM on March 23, 2012

Yeah, the drive was unplugged shortly after I discovered my error, with the only access to it being one viewing of the Finder window for it to discover that it was, indeed, all gone.

Interesting to know about needing another drive. That's good advice.

And yes, I do have a Time Machine drive already, but I haven't been using it to backup my external drives (I have four) because 1) they're huge, and 2) they're external, and 3) they aren't really… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:34 AM on March 23, 2012

I've been running a box fan in my room pointed at the wall at night for a few months now. It's loud enough to soften even the really noisy trains that run through town all night long blowing their whistles at the crossings, helps the passive heater unit keep the room warm by circulating the air nicely, and was only about $15-20 dollars. I don't like direct breezes, which is why I blow it toward the wall -- that way the airflow dissipates and isn't an actual breeze.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 5:42 PM on February 22, 2012

Stephen R Donaldson has been doing incredibly detailed and involving action scenes in his past few series. One of the Gap novels has several hundred pages describing a very short amount of time in the storyline, all action. His newest Thomas Covenant series also has some very intense, well-described and involving action sequences.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 2:31 PM on February 8, 2012

It all depends on what service you're using and such. For instance, Dropbox doesn't seem to encrypt anything. Other services say they encrypt things, but it's not clear whether they mean only encrypt things in transit or whether the cloud-stored stuff is also encrypted.

If the services you name do, in fact, encrypt data that they store, then yes, it would be true that all they are storing is encrypted data without any clue as to what the contents are. Whether they are or not, I cannot say.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:59 PM on February 5, 2012

Does your new place have any yard at all, and are your cats willing to wear harnesses?

We have two cats which we never let run free around the neighborhood, but we put them out on leashes and leads which run across the backyard. They're both quite happy wearing the harnesses, and they seem quite content with the roaming distance they do have, even if it is restricted to the length of the lead and the leash.

It might be a good compromise for you,… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 9:20 AM on January 29, 2012

satiating? fulfilling?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 4:19 PM on January 22, 2012

I don't know much about KRS-One beyond what was popular years ago and haven't followed his career, but there are VERY FEW events which I'm curious about attending which, if I go with an attitude of interest and not cynical judgement, I don't find worth my time and money.

I'd say, if you want to go, then go. What do you have to lose other than a tiny amount of money and a few hours?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:24 PM on January 19, 2012

I'll just say right now, music that lifts me up comes in a lot of forms. So this list is pretty varied, but a quick look through my music library, these are tunes which pop out at me immediately as containing joy:

Drum Trip/Ecstasy - Rusted Root
Food And Creative Love - Rusted Root
A Thousand Beautiful Things - Annie Lennox
Love Shack - The B-52s (Well, okay, just about ANY B-52s)
Philadelphia Freedom - Elton… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:59 PM on January 11, 2012

Tutoring does seem to be more effective than sending someone off on their own with a book.

Well, he lives in AZ, I live in WA.

But even taking out the distance factor, my history with this man is such that I've been burned more than a dozen times with his schemes of dreams about wanting to accomplish X or Y, me investing a huge amount of time and effort in helping put together the beginning steps for him, and then him… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:51 AM on December 17, 2011

I do this kind of thing all the time. Using Audacity to create .wav files which I then burn to CD using a program like Toast or convert to mp3s using iTunes.

Some pointers:

Feed the whole tape in at once and then chop up the long tracks into single songs or units or whatever afterwards.

SAVE FREQUENTLY AND OFTEN. Audacity is great software, but sometimes it loses its mind. More than once I've discovered that my 30-45… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 5:12 PM on December 15, 2011

If you're making carnitas, you actually WANT the shoulder meat. Other cuts will dry out and get tough during long cooking. The shoulder thrives in the slow cooker or slow roasting. It's kind of a tough bit of meat to begin with, because of the connective tissue. The slow cooking will break down that tissue during cooking and it will end up contributing flavor and the toughness will be gone.

There's a good recipe at America's Test Kitchen (email signup required).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:44 PM on December 10, 2011

How old is your MacBook Pro? I think you might be limited in the resolution for your external display through your graphics chip.

If you go to the Apple Menu and select "About This Mac" and then click on "More Info" (or if you run System Profiler), you should be able to see what kind of graphics chip you have. That will be useful information for knowing how many pixels it can drive at once (the MacBook screen plus the external screen).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:32 PM on December 10, 2011

There's plenty of new christmas music being written all the time. The trick is, it's really REALLY hard to write a new song which becomes a classic and gets played as part of the canon.

But there's plenty being written all the time:

George Michael - December Song
Indigo Girls - Your Holiday Song
Sheryl Crow - There Is A Star That Shines Tonight
Stephen Colbert & Elvis Costello - There Are Much Worse… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:06 PM on December 9, 2011

Grrr. "the three I cannot recommend too strongly"

I can recommend anything to strongly... is his account still active?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:02 PM on December 9, 2011

I was a chronic nail biter (and still have hand-to-mouth issues) up into my 30s.

While not trying to diagnose anyone I have never met, I can say from my own experience that what cured me of nail biting was reaching an emotional state with my life where I didn't have certain anxiety-laden mental paths being triggered for me constantly.

Exactly what those were and how they stopped, I can't easily relate or even quantify. I do know that I reached a… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:06 PM on December 8, 2011

If you're going to enter into a physically intimate relationship with this other couple, then you shouldn't fear a new level of emotional intimacy either.

To wit: get together with that couple for a drink or two and lay out your concerns about this encounter. Communicate clearly that you're interested, but that you have these fears. Try to negotiate a space where you can play with them, but still be able to back out if it turns out to be something which is truly… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:52 PM on December 8, 2011