https://ask.metafilter.com/ The past 24 hours of questions at Ask MetaFilter Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:59:08 GMT Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:59:08 GMT en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60
Dear Mefites, my partner and I have obtained associates degrees in professional fields, but did not take a traditional college routes. Think trade schools.
Our wonderful 18-year-old has been accepted into a great out of state school that she feels would be a perfect fit.
Visited campus last week. We are going to do everything we can to support her in every way possible , but do not know ways to look for scholarships or how to make this more affordable.
The "one on one"we had with the financial aid counselor, I inferred that she was saying there were scholarships out there, but she didn't or couldn't advise us on finding them to apply.
Help - AskMetaFilter was the only trustworthy resource I could think of.]]> https://ask.metafilter.com/389470/How-to-access-financial-support-for-1st-gen-college-student tag:ask.metafilter.com,2026:site.389470 Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:59:08 GMT slothhog College CollegeAdmission Financial parenting Scholarships https://ask.metafilter.com/389470/How-to-access-financial-support-for-1st-gen-college-student/rss
My friend lives in the Bay Area with Kaiser insurance but could pay for something out of pocket and would also be willing to do a virtual program elsewhere if licensure allows.

They are looking at this program they found online but haven't heard anything about it.

Thank you in advance for any feedback, recommendations, or leads!]]> https://ask.metafilter.com/389469/Can-you-recommend-a-substance-use-IOP-in-CA tag:ask.metafilter.com,2026:site.389469 Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:56:23 GMT pgoat california intensiveoutpatient iop substanceusedisorder sud https://ask.metafilter.com/389469/Can-you-recommend-a-substance-use-IOP-in-CA/rss
I was listening to the the mercury episode of This Podcast Will Kill You and wanted more. The Erins focus on Minimata disease, which while infuriating and fascinating, is only one event, which makes sense given that they only have an hour. Searching for non textbooks about the element mercury led me to anti vax books, at which point in time I have up in frustration.

I checked the bibliography for that episode and while the book from 1973 sounds interesting, I'm looking for something a little more recent and electronic.

Searching for lead books leads me to a couple on lead poisoning in the US, but the most interesting one is out of print and only available physically. (I'll be reading on my phone during my commute).

I'm hoping there are some that I just don't know about. I'm focusing on lead and mercury as they are kind of the two best known, but will also happily read about other toxic heavy metals alone or in combination.]]> https://ask.metafilter.com/389468/Looking-for-a-pop-sci-book-on-heavy-metals tag:ask.metafilter.com,2026:site.389468 Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:35:03 GMT Hactar Book HeavyMetals Lead Mercury PopSci https://ask.metafilter.com/389468/Looking-for-a-pop-sci-book-on-heavy-metals/rss Glide Pro-Health Advanced Floss Picks *forever* because the Glide slides easily between my tight teeth & the shape of the pick is somehow more helpful for me than the way other flossers are shaped. But enshitiffication came for my floss picks and now they break at the slightest tension. Tell me what to use instead.

My teeth are tight against one another, and Glide has been the only floss I can wedge in there. The different shape of these picks makes that easier, and I've never had any luck at all using pickless floss. But I need something else -- I've tried a few different bags of these picks over the past year and now must admit I didn't just get a bad batch, they've been ruined by some manufacturing change.

Recommend me a flosser, please, for your hard-to-reach and very tight teeth? I know about water picks and similar; I am specifically asking about floss.]]> https://ask.metafilter.com/389467/Any-un-enshittified-floss tag:ask.metafilter.com,2026:site.389467 Wed, 15 Apr 2026 14:48:32 GMT BlahLaLa DentalFloss floss flosser FlossPick https://ask.metafilter.com/389467/Any-un-enshittified-floss/rss notice more when I lose nouns as opposed to other words?]]> https://ask.metafilter.com/389466/Losing-Nouns-Is-there-a-neurological-reason tag:ask.metafilter.com,2026:site.389466 Wed, 15 Apr 2026 10:52:41 GMT Zumbador aging brain memory neuroscience https://ask.metafilter.com/389466/Losing-Nouns-Is-there-a-neurological-reason/rss
It seems like my best bet would be t-slotted extruded aluminum rails along with a kit of joining materials, but: am I missing anything? Is there a better or easier way to assemble such a thing?

If aluminum rails is the way to go, are there known-good pre-selected all-in-one kits?

Any advice on such a project would be very welcome.]]> https://ask.metafilter.com/389465/Need-to-build-a-button-pressing-rig tag:ask.metafilter.com,2026:site.389465 Wed, 15 Apr 2026 02:10:19 GMT working_objects aluminum fabrication testrig t-slot https://ask.metafilter.com/389465/Need-to-build-a-button-pressing-rig/rss
I posted on here a couple months ago about a conflict I was having with a friend. (I got some good advice on that post - thank you!) If you don't want to go find it, the TL;DR is that my best friend "Lee" abruptly ended our friendship back in January, with zero explanation because, in their words, "it's better for you if you don't know the details." At the time, they were not open to trying to talk things out, although they did say we could talk again at a later date. So far we have not.

I speculated a lot on my original post about what could have caused this, but I've changed my thinking about it over time. I'm pretty sure that this was more about Lee's mental health than anything I did or didn't do - there were some warning signs in the months leading up, and I also recently learned that they stopped talking to at least one of our mutual friends around the same time that this incident happened. (There was no big friendship-ending conversation with the mutual friend like there was in my case, but he says he hasn't heard from them since January.) I guess it ultimately doesn't matter what the reason was, but it has been helpful to be able to tell myself that this likely had very little to do with me as a person.

When I made my original post, my plan was to reach out to them at some point. So far, I have not. I still might at some point down the road, but for now...I don't know. I know pretty much exactly what I'd say if I did reach out, but I haven't been able to bring myself to send the message.

So for the time being, I need to focus on getting over this - but it's been about two and a half months, and although I don't feel as awful as I did during the first couple weeks, I'm not over it by any means. I think about them constantly. The thought of never seeing or hearing from them again makes me feel devastated. At this point I'm not angry or resentful, just sad that this happened.

Before anybody asks - I do have a therapist, and she's great. Unfortunately, though, she's leaving the practice at the end of this month and it may be several months before there will be another opening in the schedule. I've been actively looking at other options, but most places in my area have waitlists. It's looking like I may have to go without a therapist for a bit.

I have been making an effort to connect with other friends, which does help, but I find myself missing Lee every time I do something fun and they're not there. Same with hobbies - I have many, but most of them are things I used to do with Lee. I work full-time and take evening classes, so I'm definitely staying busy. I like the idea of signing up for a book club or getting involved with a local community theatre or something, but I have very little free time as it is.

I've been through friend breakups in the past, and I've always gotten to a point (usually around this time) where I've come to realize that it was ultimately for the best, and I don't even want to fix things anymore. (And in most cases the other person did eventually attempt to repair the friendship, and I was happy to resolve any remaining hard feelings but also had no desire to be close friends again.) This time, though, I don't feel like I'm anywhere near that point. If Lee texted me tomorrow, I'd be happy and relieved.

Talking to our aforementioned mutual friend helps - he's the only person who knows both of us well enough to understand why this was so upsetting for me, and he's also just a genuinely kind person who I enjoy spending time with. Unfortunately, though, he lives in another country with a substantial time difference, and we're both quite busy, so it's hard to find times when we're both free to chat. I also get the sense that he's a bit tired of hearing about this situation, which is fair. (We do talk about lots of other topics, not just Lee, but most of our conversations were pretty Lee-focused for awhile there. I'm trying not to do that as much.) He's also sad that Lee seems to have cut off contact with him, but his attitude is much more "ehh, they'll come around."

The one thing that has always helped me get over these kinds of things in the past is having some kind of low-stakes interaction with the person, ideally in a group setting. (Like at a party or in a group chat.) Somehow that helps convince my brain that Everything Is Fine, the world is not ending, we can both exist on the same planet and it does not have to occupy this much of my brain space. That's unlikely to happen organically in this case, though: none of our mutual friends are local, and we don't live close enough to each other to run into each other at the grocery store or something. (Very slight possibility I'll run into them at a local event this weekend, but it's unlikely.) It could happen but I'm not going to count on it.

Anyway, thank you for reading this and I apologize for the length. I would appreciate any and all suggestions for things I can do to help get over this: distractions, coping thoughts, resources, anything really. I would love to move past this, but my brain does not appear to be convinced.]]> https://ask.metafilter.com/389464/Getting-over-a-friendship-breakup tag:ask.metafilter.com,2026:site.389464 Tue, 14 Apr 2026 21:27:32 GMT tired and gay conflict Friends friendship MentalHealth https://ask.metafilter.com/389464/Getting-over-a-friendship-breakup/rss
My deep dive into family genealogy might turn out to actually have a concrete benefit in our lives. This is exciting, since I have a 4Greats Grandfather who was a loyalist during the U.S. Revolutionary War and moved to Canada in the late 18th century.

But it all counts on what Canada now trusts as the proper proof. Most of the sources I've found on-line aren't as specific as I'd like about this. At least one source I read referred to birth certificates, but I seriously doubt that I'll be able to find these beyond my grandfather's generation.

I have a digital image of my Canadian ancestor's will that names his son, as well as an scan of the document that announces that he has been forced to move to 'Upper Canada.' I have all the names written in the ledger of the New Amsterdam Dutch Reformed Church in what is now upstate NY, as well as in the relevant census records. Does anyone out there know the specific threshold I need to cross to make a strong case?]]> https://ask.metafilter.com/389463/What-constitutes-sufficient-evidence-of-Canadian-ancestry tag:ask.metafilter.com,2026:site.389463 Tue, 14 Apr 2026 20:56:20 GMT umbú canada citizenship genealogy https://ask.metafilter.com/389463/What-constitutes-sufficient-evidence-of-Canadian-ancestry/rss