Author Archive

Why is your car reeking of sulfur?  Why does your engine die when you drive uphill?  Whatever your concerns, the Click & Clack brothers are car experts who can help.  Each Sunday on NPR’s Car Talk, Click & Clack (Tom and Ray) take calls from folks with sputtering engines, faulty wiring, or stinky exhaust. The brothers initially joke with callers, offering wildly absurd solutions to their car woes. If you can handle their teasing, they will offer you their expert advice, but only after all of the laughter subsides. 

When Click & Clack are on the air, you can be sure my dad’s finding excuses to drive anywhere he can imagine for the chance to turn on the radio and tune in.  For as long as I can remember, we’ve taken completely useless trips to countless hardware stores and supermarkets, only to end up stuck in a parked car, unable to stop listening! 

Speaking of dads, Click & Clack are asking for some of your expert advice about how to deal with older drivers who may be experiencing changes in their ability to drive safely. Are you comfortable when your grandma or grandpa takes the wheel?  What about road trips with your senior parents? Are there any ways to tell an aging parent or relative that it’s time to stop driving? 

My grandma taught me to drive in her old, loud VW Bug.  She was a sparkplug behind the wheel, and I’m pretty sure she would have left any advice to give up the keys in the dust.

Kelsey

Is there a place you visited that brought out the best in you?  As MaryH_49 puts it, how has one place you’ve traveled to changed your life?

As much as I find this question to be inspirational, I have to admit that it’s going to be a challenge to pick a best answer. Maybe you were completely rejuvenated by a hike around the volcanoes in Hawaii while someone else was transformed by their Hajj to Mecca.  It seems difficult to be humble because just by answering it implies that you believe your experience to be worthy of the best answer.

Despite all this, Mary_H49’s question resonates with me.  Last summer, I explored Spain by myself.  I arrived in Barcelona and biked across the northern mountains, traveling through vineyards, deserts, and some of the smallest towns.  After 500 miles, I arrived in Finistère—what the Spanish consider “The End of the Earth.”  I, of course, was changed.  But was this better than one of your travel experiences?  How could it be?

Tell us about your travel experiences, from the most transformative to the most tiresome.  What I love about our Travel category is that it's full of some of the most strange and specific questions.  I've seen Answerers curious about other cultures, asking why there are signs in Germany that say no hand holding, and others seeking advice about how to baptize a baby in Greece.  Questions like this make me wish there had been a Yahoo! Answers before I went to Spain last year.  In order to bike across a country alone, you need to be prepared!  And on my trip, there were some unusual questions I found myself asking bus drivers, highway patrol, and other locals just to get from one town to the next!

Kelsey

I’m a news junkie, and I devour everything from NPR in the morning to CNN in the afternoon.  Arianna Huffington’s question about the most important underreported story of the year made me wonder how I would approach answering the question.

So many possibilities come to mind: climate change, the deficit, social security privatization, Department of Labor cancellation of environmental whistleblower protections, problems with paperless voting machines, and the Cheney indictment, just to name a few. All of these stories were not very well reported, but taking them into consideration brings a paradox to light. If a story is underreported, or not reported at all, how do we gauge its importance?

Individual perspective weighs heavily in answering a question like this, and personal politics are definitely a factor.  Many would say that the good news coming out of Iraq is underreported, but even if it is, does it qualify as the most important story of the year?  Another possibility is the Robert Kennedy article about the 2004 election, which is both important and underreported.  Although the article is fairly recent, the story is from 2 years ago. Is there a statute of limitations on the subject of the story?

I’m certain that there are plenty of other important and underreported stories worthy of consideration. Can you think of any?

Mike

It looks like we’ve gotten to the bottom of the great "eyebrow debate" started early last week when Bookbabe1960 asked about the evolution and the future fate of eyebrows. Over 3,000 answers later, Bookbabe1960 has chosen MrsDebra1966's response as the best answer to her question. Congratulations, MrsDebra1966!

Granted, nobody in the Answers community has access to a time machine (if we’re wrong here, please let us know ASAP) so determining which answer is “best” is left up to Bookbabe1960’s opinion. Weeding through these answers was no easy task because there were so many different takes on this deceptively complicated question. Eyebrows – fashion statement or protector of the eyeball? Maybe a little bit of both?

Either way, Bookbabe1960 would like to thank everyone who took a stab at answering her question, and would like to send a special shout-out to Gonzo for sharing his funny story.

What’s the secret to living in the moment? That’s what Answerer Norbie is wondering, and I think we’d all like to have some light shed on that question. It’s not a new concept, but aside from listening to the many artists who have pondered the notion, have you really ever taken the time to think about what “living in the moment” means? I haven’t, and had this question not been asked, I probably never would have.

My first instinct was to say that it takes a certain type of person to live in the moment. You know the type – the carefree-you-only-have-one-life-to-live daredevil who makes the most out of each day. And as somebody who is very practical, I don’t really fit that profile. I’m the type of person that plans for the future rather than lives in the moment.

But then I started thinking that maybe living in the moment isn’t synonymous with doing great big astonishing things without caring about what happens tomorrow. I think as long as you appreciate any moment at the time you are living it, then you are living in that moment. Does that make sense?

Lydia

***Double News Flash: There is no "problem" with the badge on IE. Just make sure that when you try to use this badge on 360 as a blog entry, you select either the Vertical or Horizontal version and NOT the default Header version.  The default width of the Header badge is 620, which is longer than what 360 allows (540).  So if you want to use the Header version, you have to change the width from 620 to 540. ****

I’m happy to announce that we’ve made some tweaks to our flash badge to make it work on Myspace and Yahoo! 360.  As you can see above, the badge works great as a 360 blog and also works as part of your Myspace profile, the header on your Myspace blog, or in the blog itself. 

Update:  Unfortunately,  the badge is only supported as part of a 360 blog post.  A more permanent option for placing the badge is forthcoming.  Thanks!

To post to Yahoo! 360:

1. Go to the Badge Page in your profile.
2. Select either the Horizontal or Vertical version of the badge
3. Copy the code by selecting the code and selecting Copy from the Edit menu on your browser
4. Go to 360 and click “Compose Blog Entry”
5. Enter some text here describing your badge.
6. Select “View HTML Source”
7. Paste in the badge code after your text
8. Click “Post This Entry” and you’re done!

To add to your Myspace profile:

1. From your Myspace page, click “Edit Profile”
2. Cut and paste the code from the badge page (pick any size you want) into any of the profile fields.
3. Save and you’re done.

To add to your Myspace blog:

1. You can cut and paste the code and post it as a blog, or you can customize your blog to have the Answers badge as a header, by clicking “Customize Blog” and pasting the badge into the “Your Own Header HTML” field.

If you want to edit the badge code to have a custom height and width, you can edit the height and width fields in the code to anything you want.  FYI: the max width on 360 badges is 540 pixels.

As I said in my previous post, the badge is an awesome way to promote your questions and answers.  Since it’s always showing your latest stuff, visitors to your blogs can see what you’re most curious or knowledgeable about.  Have fun, and definitely let us know how you’re using the badge.

Nick Nguyen
Product Manager, Yahoo! Answers

At the end of his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore challenges the audience to find ways to reduce the size of their Carbon Footprint. When we returned home following the movie, my partner and I immediately set to work at the task.

We started by looking at the household basics.  We recycle, use energy efficient light bulbs, and carpool whenever possible.  What about fuel efficient cars?   Although we both drive fuel efficient vehicles, both get between 33-36 MPG, any car’s impact is not just how much gasoline it burns, but how much Green House Gas (GHG) it spits into the atmosphere in the process.

We did a search on Answers to find how much GHG his car produces, and found a great link to the official government site that keeps those statistics.  That’s when the bomb went off. His 1995 Nissan puts 5.7 tons of GHG into the atmosphere every year.  Needless to say, we were both stunned. His car weighs just over one ton, so it’s tough to imagine how much volume 5.7 tons of gas encompasses.   Curiosity quickly got the best of us, and we looked up the Toyota Prius, which clocks in at 3.4 tons.  We wondered whether switching cars was the best thing we could do, and whether it would be enough.  Today, Al Gore asks a very similar question: “What do you think it will take to reverse the effects of global climate change?”

It will be very interesting to hear what the Answers community thinks, but I know we have our answer.  If the two of us can reduce greenhouse gasses by over two tons a year, just by our choice of car, imagine what would happen if others took up the challenge as well.  If we took the 137 million cars in the U.S. as a baseline, then action by just 10% of us could save nearly 340 million tons of GHG over the next 10 years.  It won’t reverse climate change, but it’s a 340 million ton start.

Mike

When I found out that Stephen Hawking was going to be asking the Answers community a question, I could hardly contain my excitement. Our weekly meetings sometimes derail into “wouldn’t it be cool if?” sessions, and Stephen Hawking is one name that consistently surfaces during these discussions. 

Aside from being one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, Stephen Hawking has also made some popular guest appearances on television – as a member of the Vice Presidential Action Rangers on Futurama, and as Lisa’s savior on The Simpsons. Now he’s joined the Answers community to ask, “How can the human race survive the next hundred years?”

Already popular amongst Answerers, some ponder why he has yet to win a Nobel Prize, while others question his religious beliefs. I’m certain Professor Hawking will be pleased to see that his own ideas about black holes and the survival of the human race are being discussed on Answers. 

Who knows, maybe Stephen Hawking will pen a new book based on his experiences in the Answers-verse entitled, “A Brief History of Yahoo! Answers.” In it, he could compare the range of Answers’ gravitational pull to that of a black hole.

Mario

Romance won’t help stop the spread of malaria or reduce the effects of Global Climate Change, yet it’s important enough to make millions of people search for that special someone everyday. 

Krazy_gal04’s question about finding one’s soul mate resides in the hearts of many Answerers out there wondering when true love will happen to them, and why it’s so hard to find in the first place.

A few years ago I was a part of that crowd. Then a friend told me that the more you look, the less you find what you’re looking for. They suggested that when you stop searching so hard, you sometimes accidentally find exactly what you were looking for. This may not work for everyone, but it definitely worked for me. 

I don’t read into things too much, and I definitely try to avoid overanalyzing my relationship. I’m not looking for that unattainable Mr. Perfect that can never be found. Finding a not-so-perfect someone that I can learn from and grow with is enough for me. This may not mean much on a global scale and while it isn’t going to change the world for the better, it has made my world a little easier to live in.

Lydia

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when thinking about something as big as ending global poverty. It’s hard to even understand the scope of this problem, let alone think of ways to solve it, and it’s difficult to imagine how one person could make a difference.

Bono’s question about finding ways to make poverty history raises several issues, some of which coincide with Isaiah Washington’s question about fighting the spread of a disease like malaria. These goals may feel massive, but as many of you pointed out in response to Isaiah’s question, discussing them is the first step to making change become a reality.

Ending poverty on a global level is not going to be easy, but that doesn’t mean the effort shouldn’t be made at all. Bono and groups like One.org are urging people to find ways to get the ball rolling in their own little corners of the world. Sometimes keeping the conversation going makes all the difference.

Identifying the sources of the problem may be the first step. Many cite trade regulations and corruption as key contributors to global poverty, and say that the duty to rectify these issues falls on the shoulders of established nations. The scarcity of natural resources, loss of ambition, and limited opportunity for growth also help contribute. Some believe that monetary assistance grants only help perpetuate the problem, while others examine biological and psychological theories behind the subculture of poverty.

So what can ordinary people do?

Well, nurses4evr suggests investing in third and fourth world countries as a solution, and thylawyer’s ideas for poverty relief in Africa are intriguing. Some Answerers mirror auntb’s views, believing that alleviation may be possible, but elimination is too daunting a task to achieve. Some Americans want to start by addressing the poverty at home, while others debate whether U.S. poverty still exists. I really like sandcatsle’s ideas for realistic solutions to poverty because they stress the importance of keeping informed and give examples of ways to get involved on both a smaller and larger scale. As sandcastle put it, “every little bit helps.”

So now I’ll turn it over to you. Can Answers help make history by finding ways to end global poverty?

Mario