What is the coolest thing to do in New York City?

And what is your favourite New York moment?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Avoid the tourist stuff, like Broadway or hip clubs. The best times can be had by soaking up the ambiance, say, in ethnic neighborhoods in outlying boroughs. Try taking the Staten Island Ferry. Watch the other ships go by. Enjoy the subway, especially when it goes over the junctions and the lights flicker off and on and it makes a lot of clickity clack noises. Very sensuous. AP isn’t much of a world traveller (I’m stuck answering these questions), but a good New York moment (I guess you’d call it that) was when I walked into the the 6th floor walkup I was staying in for the weekend (a friend of a friend sort of thing) and saw the bathtub in the middle of the room (living room / dining room / kitchen).

How do I edit a Microsoft Excel Document to kinda flip everything 90 degrees?

I basically want to make all the data from the columns go in to the rows and the rows go into the columns. Is there a way to flip the axes?

I got a lot of data and don’t want to cut and paste it all by hand. Please save me from this nightmare!

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: The feature is called “transpose.” Highlight only the section you want to transpose. Copy (not cut) it (CTRL-C). Put the cursor somewhere blank (you have to paste the transposed table into blank cells, not over the ones you’re copying — you might want to use a new blank sheet). Place cursor in what will be the top left cell. Use Edit…Paste Special (or right-click and choose Paste Special). Click the transpose option at the bottom then click OK.

What is the most dangerous place in the world and what makes it the MOST dangerous?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: There are thousands of individual locations where you’d be guaranteed to die, so all those places tie for the prize. When it comes to countries as a whole, the library has available a database called World Markets Research Centre that ranks countries by “risk” (for the purposes of doing business). There’s political, economic, legal, tax, operational, and security risk, plus an overall combined score. The overall worst is Somalia (best is Luxembourg), and worst for security (i.e., threat to life and limb) is Iraq (14 mostly European countries are tied for first). (AP wonders how much higher on the list Iraq was several years ago.) Of course, danger is where you make it. Niagara Falls isn’t at all dangerous until you try to go over it in a barrel.

Answer person, I know I want to do international relations work in support of public policy. Would a Ph.D allow/encourage me to go in a different direction than a JD? What does someone with a Ph.D in government do?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Treasury Secretary John Snow (Virginia, 1966), former Representative Dick Armey (Oklahoma, 1969), and former Senator Phil Gramm (Georgia, 1967) all have PhD’s in economics. Newt Gingrich has a doctorate in history (Tulane, 1971: “Belgian Education Policy in the Congo: 1945-1960”). So, no, a PhD isn’t necessarily needed or even desirable for government work, and it might encourage you to move off in a dangerous direction. But seriously, academic departments at Duke have undergraduate and graduate advisors who specialize in such guidance, and I recommend consulting one of them.

I am not very good at packing and am going abroad for a year. Any suggestions for how I can take the right stuff?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: For a year? Maybe just take the clothes on your back and buy new stuff over there. At least keep it light and plan to wash often. Start by immediately making a categorized list of what you want and hone it down between now and the time you leave. If you take a laptop or other electronic devices, you need to consider voltage issues. You might want to focus more on personal items that you can’t readily replace than on bulky clothes and replaceable toiletries. (For instance, take enough shampoo to last a week or two, not a big bottle.) My final recommendation: consult with a backpacker who’s done the entire length of the Appalachian Trail. (That’s overdoing it, but it gets you in the right frame of mind.)

What is the quickest way to get to Virginia from Durham?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Are you looking for the quickest way to purchase a lottery ticket? Go straight up US 501 (Duke Street or Roxboro Rd.) due north through Roxboro. You hit the border just south of South Boston, VA. The border is about 40-45 miles, but you do have some stop lights on the way. If there are no convenience stores at the state line on US 501, then at Roxboro you need to veer slightly to the NE onto NC 49 to head to the town of Virgilina, which straddles the border.

My mom knitted me a hat that is too big. Is there a way to shrink it? It is only slightly too big, but enough so that I cannot wear it comfortably.

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: AP checked with a local knitting expert, who said definitely don’t throw a wet wool item in a hot dryer because the shrinkage results would be really dramatic and the hat would be ugly and your mom would disown you. The suggestion was to wash or wet it with warm water and let it air dry while sitting on a table (don’t hang it up to avoid stretching it into a funky shape). It should shrink some (the usual washing rules suggest cold water). If it’s acrylic, you’re probably out of luck, althugh you could cultivate a bushy hair style.

I am moving to Washington DC next year, where is the coolest place I can live?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Like beauty, coolness is in the eyes of the beholder. Are you going to be a congressional intern, work for the World Bank, or work for a K-Street law firm? Georgetown is a little staid. The Dupont Circle or Woodley Park areas along Connecticut Ave. are, I suppose, quite hip, but maybe too much so. There’s a lot of nightlife, restaurants, and shopping, that’s for sure. You can buy books at the same bookstores where Monica L. bought gifts for Bill. A more edgy, and less expensive, area might be on the east side of Capitol Hill, towards the Eastern Market area. Not yet as gentrified (or as lively). At least as a residential location, I’ve heard positive things about Takoma Park, MD, just over the border from the District. Good luck!

Which album has sold more copies, Jay-Z’s “The Black Album” or Lincoln Park’s “Meteora”?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified both of these as “multi-platinum,” but Meteora seems to be more multi-platinum than The Black Album.

The Black Album was giving an M(2) certification, which AP assumes means at least 2 million units (there doesn’t seem to be a key at the RIAA website). Regular “Platinum” is a million units. Linkin Park’s Meteora was given an M(4) certification, which sounds like more to me. (Meteora also had earlier certifications of M(1) and M(3).) The Black Album M(1) and Meteora M(3) certifications date back to February 2004, and they must not have sold an additional million units since then, or the record companies involved haven’t asked for further certification.

Is one zoo commonly accepted as the best in the world? What makes it outshine its counterparts. What are some other great zoos? I was recently at the Ashboro zoo and they had the Savannah animals in for the winter (elephants and rhinos among others)? Is this an every-year thing or were they just renovating this year?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: AP can’t find that there is any acknowledged “best” zoo. Each will have its own specialties (hopefully related to the city’s climate), and there is more than one way to measure quality. According to one website (rankings unconfirmed), the top “animal collection” based on “the number of species and population” (whatever they mean by that) is the Berlin Zoo.
http://www.carousel-press.com/zoo.html
The three in the USA listed in the top ten are Bronx (among 3 tied at #2), San Diego (also tied at #2), and San Antonio (among 6 tied at #5). This is from *The Zoo Book* by Allen W. Nyhuis, available in the Durham County Library, NC State, or via Perkins’ Interlibrary Loan Dept. Specialized exhibits are another facet by which to measure zoos, although this can hardly lead to rankings.

At zoos with cool or cold winters, it’s common practice to shelter warm climate animals during the winter. Inadequacy of such shelter can lead to controversy, such as the elephant in Anchorage who must be cooped up all winter (and that’s long!). Detroit recently relocated their elephants to other zoos. Likewise, Phoenix doesn’t have polar bears, although AP has seen some pretty miserable looking shaggy animals in southern climes.