Another time travel question: You’ve got one time travel trip and a video camera with 5 minutes left on it (you should have planned better). What do you bring back for 2009-ers to view?
What technology, when first introduced, was your “wow!” moment? Email? CDs? Horseless carriage?
You have $20 (that will be recognized where/whenever you go) and a time machine. How do you maximize your profits for your return to 2009?
What cars/trucks/motorcycles do you own? What was/is your favorite?
AskBBQ: Since the car accident I was in, in which my car horn jammed until some kind Samaritan yanked a wire, I’ve been wondering…
Are car’s horns rigged in some way to sound when the airbags deploy or when there is a severe front-end crash, either as a warning to others or (less likely to me) [...]
I’ve just done a WP update on the site. Things look solid at a glance, but if anything is malfunctioning, let me know.
The deity of your choice (Lucifer, Thor, Jesus, Buddha etc) has come to Earth for a month and be human. They’re asking that you show them around and have brought unlimited money to enable ya’ll to go anywhere. While they’re here, they have no supernatural powers/abilities, they’re completely human.
So who would you take and [...]
You’ve been given the ability to change shape into other living things. What would you do with this power? How do you think this would affect your sense of identity? After all, if you could be literally any living thing, then who are you?
Do you ever dream about making a post to Metafilter, AskMe, or any of the Mefi-related sites? Do you then wake up and go post that topic?
Are your pets cute? How cute? Why?
If Metafilter was a guy or a girl that you went on a first date what would that be like? Bar, concert, restaurant, museum or a pirate ship? What’s metafilter like? Funny, sweet, provocative, an introvert or a romantic? What did you do that made metafilter smile? What did you have to backpedal on? [...]
whats the longest time you’ve ever spent alone, with no (or as close as possible to no) human interaction whatsoever? what was it like? what did you eat? why were you alone for that long? what did you do everyday?
every once in a while i think how awesome it would be to have some real [...]
In movies and books and vindictive post-breakup songs, uppances always seem to come; poetic justice isn’t just a good idea, it’s the law.
In reality, some people get more than they have coming to them, while others manage to get off easy.
So who’s dodged a bullet? Lately? Historically? Personally? And how did that happen?
What kind of person (or organization) would want to attack MetaFilter?
If you had your choice, would you rather be trapped in a sinking ship and running out of air, or be in a drifting spaceship running out of air? And why? The chance that rescue will come in the time you have remaining is slim. Does it make a difference whether water is rushing in [...]
An question shamelessly imported from Dorothy Gambrell’s always-fantastic Cat And Girl.
In my neverending quest to put the world into the terms of the X-Files (just kidding, I’m not really trying to do that) I ask this question: Are you a Mulder or a Scully?
Imagine we had a machine that could convert matter into energy directly. However, with this machine the matter we use would completely disappear.
Is there some abundant resource that our planet could live without? Is there dangerous things we could put into this machine?
What would you put into it?
Well, do tell!
Have you ever had a song that you heard on the radio or wherever, that seemed like it was written just for you?
Do you suppose spam is actually just the God of the Internet’s way of saying “make a new post already, dammit?”
Is there an underlying karmic infrastructure to the internet? If not that, precisely, what other latent metaphysical metaphors do you think could apply to the blogosphere?
The first question went live November 30th, 2007, and we’ve been getting search engine referrer hits about selling kidneys ever since.
229 questions and 2000+ answers later, I’m pleased that y’all have been around to make this place tick.
I’ve talked vaguely about doing some redesign work here in the past; now may be a good time [...]
(this is my first question on the BBQ so forgive me if this is more chatty than it’s supposed to be here)
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I went to my 20th high school reunion last year and caught up with people I hadn’t seen in, well, 20 years. Kids graduating [...]
Why are the colors of the leaves in New England considered more beautiful than the ones elsewhere? It’s not like Massachusetts has a monopoly on deciduous trees. Whence?
For some unknown, magical reason, you will be able to have one hour of alone time with President Elect Obama.
What conversation would you have with him? What would you ask for? What would be the most important thing that you’d want to convey to him?
Well?
In my ideal world, I would have portable phone, music player, GPS, with unlimited storage (stored securely and redundantly online somewhere) that would hold all of data and programs.
I would be able to approach any computer/terminal and that computer would auto-magically (blue tooth or wirelessly) access my data and programs for me so I [...]
When was the last time that you found yourself having to do the equivalent of flipping a coin? How did you get there, and what did it come down to?
How do you break out of a funk? What are your favorite anti-rut tactics? When you feel creatively/emotionally stranded at point A and you know you’ve got to get your ass over to point B, what kind of vehicle do you buckle into?
Bill and Ted have loaned you their phonebooth. You can bring one person from the past to the present to show them around. (Assuming no time-space continuum stuff is messed up,) Who to you grab?
Your (or your kid’s) weirdest Halloween costume?
(hat tip)
Not me, specifically. In fact, I’m not even interested in the answer, just the queries, to wit:
What are some of your favorite musical questions? Why?
Bring that I really only answer to my given name out of habit and not really because I find it terribly appealing or ‘attached’ me who I am, I wonder if others have the same feeling.
Further, if you could, what name would you choose that says ‘you’ in a better way?
Classic chatfilter: who (living or dead, fictional or non-, go crazy) would you like to have over for dinner? Why?
What song(s) are you embarrassed that you listen to (and love)? Could be junk, top 40, misogynistic – it’s the idea that you’re repulsed by the fact that you love it.
Sure, the US financial market is kind of collapsing, but let’s talk about more human debt. Who do you owe, and why? Did someone do you a solid? Is there any IOU in your life that you particularly value?
Language acquisition is an amazing, and amazingly complicated, process. We learn to speak essentially by accident, starting at an age when we’re not competent to feed ourselves or change our own clothes. Which is pretty awesome.
But it’s also a process prone to errors. We pick up phrases incompletely, or incorrectly, and then [...]
Is there a movie you’ve seen recently that left you wanting? A movie that had you wishing you could put in disc 2 and continue to follow the characters?
If you were given a chance to go back in your life with your current knowledge intact, would you? If so, to what age?
(You can take as a given that your current timeline would heal gracefully, that the people you currently know but might not given changes in the past will instead meet other people [...]
Name your critter champion and back up your answer.
Bonus question: given you pick, what constraints would you put on the contest to fix it in your favor?
Even though we all know that the world is not going to end when CERN fires up the Large Hadron Collider on 9/10/08 at 700 GMT, what are your plans for your time between now and then? Is there anything you feel like you need to do before the world ends science begins?
(For the record, [...]
Everybody’s got to eat, every day. If you’re an adult, you’ve had on the order of tens of thousands of meals. So what’s changed for you over time? What about your eating habits has evolved, and when, and why?
For those of you voting for John McCain, what are your reasons for voting for him? How do you feel about Palin, and are you affected by the news stories about her experience and affiliations?
I’m thinking of Yard Darts (aka Lawn Darts, aka Jarts?) personally — though I think we only got away with that because my grandma had an old set sitting around from when they were popular.
If you were in Oregon in the eighties, you’ve got a better than average chance of having seen Goonies and Stand By Me—both shot in our fine state, and extra-famous because of that.
Where are you from, and what movies do locals pretty much Have To See on account of the locale?
Always? Never? Depends on your mood?
Telephones are beyond ubiquitous, but some people spend a lot of time on them (by choice or by necessity) and some hardly use them at all. Which makes me wonder:
Do you remember when you first started using a phone regularly?
Did you like talking on the phone from an early age? Did you dislike [...]
Because you oughta, by god. Mefi’s own Brandon Blatcher has rolled this thing up from scratch as place for folks to just have at mefi-style political discussion free from the generalist-driven constraints of the mefi front page.
In other words, PoliticalFilter : Mefisphere poli discussion :: Big Big Question : Mefisphere hypothetical chatfilter. I [...]
Two epic guys with lots of respective canon. Both interested in peace. Both vilified by their contemporary powers-that-be.
Somewhat different methods and personal philosophies.
So what would the Christ and the Vigilante be able to get together on? What are the irreconcilables?
Did you have any particular boogeyman as a kid? A specific monster in the closet at one point? Any particularly traumatic nightmares? What sort of things left clawed footprints on your young, imaginative psyche?
So everyone (who’s old enough) remembers the JFK shooting, and the Challenger disaster.
What other news events from your childhood really stuck with you?
At BBQ, Inc., we’re house-hunting. And while we’ve been reading the likely resources, I can’t help be feel curious about some of the more personal weirdities folks have encountered in their own housing adventures.
What most surprised/dismayed/thrilled about a new place (house, condo, apartment, hollowed-out tree in the woods, whatever)? What things caught you [...]
Adolescence + funny feelings + music = potent associations between certain songs and the singularly emotionally tumultuous period known as teenagerdom.
What song or songs kick you suddenly back to middle/high school, to that girl or that boy or that dance or that night?
What major or minor errors or faux pas did you make in your early days of using the Internet? Any embarrassing moments or behaviors?
I first got online in 1998. At one time I started noticing that a lot of search results I got were from some site called “wikipedia.” Being the naive little [...]
Hunter S. Thompson is done writing books, certainly, but if old Duke was still in the game and working on a book, what would he be writing about right now?
Fear and Loathing on/in/at/under x?
Does anyone really use the “high priority” flag on email other than spammers and jerks?
If you were moving out on your own for the first time, what is the most important (or top five, or top ten) household item(s) you would purchase for your new home?
I am assuming you already have the most basic supplies, such a some food, a first-aid kit, and anything you would pack for vacation [...]
The booger retrieval and storage company is on line one. They have been keeping all those boogers you’ve picked over all these years, and want to know what form you want the mass pressed into for delivery and drop off in your driveway later this afternoon. What shall I tell them?
Everyone always talks about meeting your past self…but what would you warn/remind your future self about, if you were able to travel forward in time a number of years?
To celebrate (and, well, apologize for) the fact that I’ll be out of town for a week on vacation and thus not updating the BBQ front page for a bit, here’s a sprawling thematic wish-fulfillment question:
What kind of vacation do you want? Where, when, why? What would you be doing, if anything? What would you [...]
What recurring dreams do you have? Do you ever have lucid dreams?
If you could ask one question, big or small, of (your preferred, for this exercise, conception of) God, and get a straight, thorough answer, what would it be? Why that question?
Imagine, for the purposes of this question, that you have found yourself elected King (or Queen) of the World. Imagine, too, that power corrupts, at least to a sufficient degree that you are willing and able to declare some world-changing fiat, on whim, purely for your own satisfaction.
It can be big or small. [...]
Taken from Lifehacker: What books have truly changed your life? I’m not talking about books that you thought were mind-blowingly excellent – I mean books that have changed the way you think or made you change your life.
What I wanna know…how will you help others? How widespread will that help be?
Let’s assume a substantial, after all applicable taxes, amount of $30 million. Who will you help and how (with a smattering of ‘why’)? Just family or a multitude of impoverished people?
Imagine some economic/ecological/othertypical disaster strikes before we’re properly able to get out of our current petroleum culture. What might the world look like carless? Who would be worst off? Who would manage best? What unexpected effects might we encounter?
note: other things which likewise run on gas may or may not [...]
I’ve found myself in a few discussions about just how permanent web content is, and how permanent it should be, and what folks expectations on that front are. It’s a big question, and I’m curious what sort of take you folks have on it.
What do you expect to stay around? What do you [...]
Philosophico-semantic cage match GO.
It is the year Eleventy-Billion CE. The last vestiges of humanity have boarded the spaceship that soon will take flight toward what we hope is a habitable star system (Glorb-32, if you’re curious) some 10000 light years away. The ship can only move at half the speed of light, so the journey will take approximately [...]
Automotive paint jobs seem to come in two flavors: high-gloss shiny finish, and then even shinier. But why? Is it market momentum (cars are shiny, so a non-shiny car is weird, so manufacturers don’t want to try selling non-shiny cars, ergo cars are shiny)? Is it just plain dazzle-and-flash? Is shininess inherent in a sufficiently [...]
I read yesterday in the Metro that new cooling fans were being placed at a number of underground stations. Took them long enough! The article also stated that Mayor Boris was looking at ways of implementing Air conditioning onto the underground.Within the article it stated that there were issues getting air con onto underground trains. [...]
Take spammer Stephen Sanchez, iProfile shill, who (round of applause here) is the first person to try sockpuppet spam on the Big Big Question.
Steve-o posted a (bizarrely practical!) question about resumes and then thoughtfully answered it himself under a different account, couched in a fictional happy discovery of a great new resource blah [...]
What life lessons, or even small things, have you found yourself learning the hard way? What were the outcomes?
What superstitions do you have? What little things do you do, or not do, even if you think/know it probably won’t hurt you?
As the world changes around us, we tend to get used to the “new”; this is especially true of those who are younger, and never really knew the “old”. Over time, this leads to a situation where it may be difficult to imagine having to live in a world without the things we today take [...]
One of the unavoidable constants of growing older is looking back and realizing how wrong you were about some things when you were younger. Big things and little things; stances taken on ethics, aesthetics, and so on.
In that spirit, what are you doing now that your younger self was never going to do? [...]
If you’re a newspaper reader, are the obits a part of the paper you read daily? Occassionally? Never?
If you read them, why?
If you don’t read them, why not? Does it simply not occur to you to bother, or do you actively avoid them?
And, given that Netcraft has confirmed the imminent [...]
My friend’s couch is cursed, but only one side of it. The first time I laid with my head on the right side of the couch, a spider crawled along the back of the couch. The second time I laid there, a 2-inch-long moth was hanging out from behind the mirror above the [...]
If you’ll allow an overwrought metaphor, the gap between idealism and pragmatism is often wide and littered with the broken, sun-bleached bones of righteous convictions.
What are the things that you feel like you should be doing but which you just aren’t, for whatever reasons? What’s the thing that bugs you most? What’s the [...]
Election-as-human-nature-barometer: Imagine a two-party system where, during the primaries, you had to vote for the party that you were NOT a registered member of. So, if you’re a republican, you get to pick the democratic candidate.
Assume that people are actually registered in the party that most closely aligns with their values. Now, would this cross-party [...]
If not, did you used to get enough sleep? What do you do instead of getting enough sleep?
Or are you getting too much sleep?
And where does your sense of what’s enough and whether you’re getting it come from? Your doctor? Folk wisdom? Self-assessment?
To answer this question, it shouldn’t matter if you actually believe in free will or not. This is a counter-factual (though, personally, I don’t believe in free will).
Let’s say an entire world of people didn’t believe in free will (and that they were right). What would such a world be like?
Let’s say the world [...]
You discover you have a disease which will eventually kill you if it is left untreated. It could take weeks or years. There are a few treatment options available.
The cost of the treatment is not a factor – you have great health insurance.
The treatments offered to you may have serious side effects, but they [...]
Would you spend a year locked in Wal*Mart for $2 million? Condition: you are alone, with no contact with outside world (including news), but you do get electricity and full reign over all the goods in the store.
It occurred to me that if we do find some kind of life on another planet, our first instinct is probably going to be try and communicate with it.
What if it is an animal with the intelligence equivalent of a dolphin, horse, or a cat?
It seems to me we have an extremely long way [...]
What’s the worst Earworm you’ve ever heard? Which one can’t you get out of your head? How long did it stick with you?
How do you handle panhandlers? Do you give cash? Do you feel guilty about it, either way? Are you actually helping, or just enabling, and is that a bad thing?
It’s a common ice-breaker question: what’s your earliest memory?
I was thinking about this today, and I realized that I don’t have one. The question stymies me. I mean, I have tons of memories going way back to early childhood, but I can’t even come close to pinpointing one as the earliest. I can’t even narrow [...]
tabula rasa?
If you are aghast at or strongly dislike our current President, what fictional undisclosed set of facts would it take for you to completely and utterly reverse your stance on George W. Bush’s actions during his Presidency?
I was reading a rather scary Radar article and came across “Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20 (also known as [...]
Broad-brush topic — this could spawn a dozen future (big big) questions:
What’s not fair? Locally or globally, personally or systemically, emotionally or economically: what are some big and small things in the world that are unfair?
Bonus questions: why isn’t it fair? And if it isn’t fair, why does it persist? And who [...]
OK, you’re a mad scientist…scorned by your peers, theories discredited, a disgrace to your field.
Time to take revenge! How do you destroy your enemies, threaten the world, and generally inflict terror in the masses?
What are some really short phrases that you find deeply meaningful, moving or powerful?
On a lighter note than “This too shall pass”, I’ve always thought this was a brilliantly funny entry into the Five-Word-Acceptance-Speech contest:
“Fools! Release the giant robot!”
Well?
If I offered you a million dollars (two million? three million? five thousand?) would you let me have sex with your wife? (Or husband?). Don’t answer that. That’s not my question. (Well, you can answer in email if you want, but I can actually only spare about sixty bucks right now.)
My question is the opposite. [...]
Yesterday and this morning, I’ve been involved in the zillionth argument of my life about words. I have these arguments (not generally the angry kind) all the time. They generally take this form:
Someone: Word X means Y.
Me: I guess it does to you. That’s not what it means to me. To me, it means Z.
Someone: [...]
Contact with E.T.’s? An Old Testament sign from God? A woman president? Proof of what created the universe? Something else? What what you like to see happen before you discard your mortal coil?
Taking a break from questions this morning — it feels like about time for a How Y’all Doin’ post. So? How, exactly?
Wait, those are questions. Dammit.
So, fun facts: we’ve just hit 1,500 comments. Zounds! And 132 questions so far. Which is not a round number but I’m still [...]
I’ve noticed a big difference between people: some people (most people?) think of themselves and others as part of a team; others don’t. For me, it’s been very tough to bridge this difference. The two frameworks seem incompatible.
By teams, I mean categories like male, female, black, white, American and so on.
I don’t identify with any [...]
Who is your current cell phone carrier, and what do you like and dislike about them?