Can I confess that I don't understand the "Helen Keller breaks fingers calling for help" joke? How exactly does she break them? Is it simply that if we yelled for help for a long time we would lose our voice, or is she somehow breaking her fingers by hitting them on the side of the well?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 3:06 PM on September 12, 2008

Mine's a reference to a movie, but I can't tell you the details without spoiling the movie for you.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 5:12 PM on August 28, 2008

Can someone explain why people started talking about port numbers in this thread?

Was it supposed to be a pun on "protocol" ... by someone who doesn't really know what "protocol" means in the other context?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 5:27 PM on June 26, 2008

Apropos of nothing, that particular 2-axis representation appears to be called a Voice Map.

I first came across it in this PDF describing a recent BBC website redesign. I don't know if the wanky design agency made up that term or not.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 9:34 PM on June 12, 2008

That's great. Congratulations, hadjiboy.

But "transatlantic" is wrong because he's in India. And anyway, it's the web. It's not anywhere.

One day we should have a good housecleaning of the US-centric tendencies of MeFi, the way the sexism got highlighted and thrashed out a while back.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 8:04 PM on June 1, 2008

You've got my vote. Yes, preview, both kinds, are completely broken for anyone who wants to post code. I can't believe the kind of wank that gets added to MeFi, when stuff like this is broken and has been for years.

We can have Twitter feeds, AJAX flagging, and the jobs page will tell me that a job in England is 12,347 miles away from where I live, but we can't reliably post a three-line perl script.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 4:58 PM on May 26, 2008

Yes, Kwine, you're mistaken. That document is about how browsers should read HTML and isn't relevant to the discussion we're having.

It's also thirteen years old and concerns a long-dead version of HTML, you might like to note.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 6:59 PM on May 26, 2008

>By the way, if you are having regular sex and condoms are your only method of birth control, and you are a typical person, there is a 14% chance your girlfriend will get pregnant in the next year.

My girlfriend? Not my wife?

Leaving aside your rather strange characterisation of the relationship, the page you linked to says something more interesting and less scary:

>"Typical... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 10:44 PM on May 18, 2008

I'm rather annoyed by the fact that we still don't know the actual scenario we're being asked to consider, fictitious or not.

His wife has found his username on a porn site. How does this even make sense?

Are there porn sites with comments, or something? As in, there's the porn at the top and people posting "that's some good porn right there" in a comment-thread type situation at the bottom?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 5:17 PM on May 15, 2008

Twice in recent memory, I've seen people write to Ask with questions that were pretty much obviously jobs, but it hadn't occurred to them to post to the jobs area. Why is that?

One obvious reason, they were people who didn't know exactly how much they should pay and their question was more like "how much would a web developer charge to do X?". But they had a job for someone and they had money to pay them.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 7:01 PM on May 12, 2008

>It has done this since, like, forever.

I could swear this is the first time I've seen it. Does it happen only on Preview or on Save? It may be that I've relied on Live Preview in the past, and as we all know, it's often completely different to what really happens to your post.

>What problem does it create, besides that you don't like it?

The HTML I put in was... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 5:24 PM on May 8, 2008

>Looks like it's another thread devoted to the unnecessary pursuit of external validation.

I don't know what you mean by "another", "unnecessary" or "external" in that sentence.

But anyway. I see the problem you've solved, and I agree that you've solved it, and I think my misgivings are obvious to anyone who cares about code, so I've had my say.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 6:38 PM on May 8, 2008

I agree with blacklite, there are really huge gaps in quality. Lots of unconscious incompetence on display there.

Hint: classic Tarantino dialogue rendered directly into cod-Shakespeare, with the repetitiveness intact, makes uncomfortable reading.

Shakespeare did not write:
HAMLET: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

HORATIO: More things?... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 5:50 PM on April 21, 2008

As this is apparently the correct thread to post this: annoying; not funny; went on way too long.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 9:22 PM on April 1, 2008

Once again, because this point clearly hasn't been made enough, there are two Meta threads. One is clearly about the annoying background colours and one isn't. The conviction of some people around here that I went to the wrong thread and have only myself to blame is quite baffling.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 11:02 PM on April 1, 2008

Not that this isn't tremendously funny, but, why is it still happening now that April Fool's Day is over?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 5:46 PM on April 1, 2008

Seriously, it's really annoying. Can someone please turn it off now?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 7:45 PM on April 1, 2008

>There is a Make it Stop link at the bottom of each page which we've mentioned many times

Where, exactly, did you mention it?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 8:26 PM on April 1, 2008

You mean the one which doesn't appear to be about changing background colours, rather than this one, which clearly is?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 8:39 PM on April 1, 2008

jessamyn, I haven't the faintest idea why you're explaining to me that the background colours of the site were changing.

Here's my point. Colours are changing.It's annoyingI know enough to come to MeTa to see if there's a thread about itI find a thread about itThe obvious thread doesn't help me turn it offyou tell me you mentioned it "many times"It turns out you did, but not on the obvious thread; obviously I should have gone to the cooler thread where all the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 8:56 PM on April 1, 2008

>that other thread was posted on AFD with the words "nice trick" and accumulated over 200 comments

So it's also my fault for coming to MeTa at the wrong time. I see now. Well it's certainly getting less and less annoying as people explain to me how I should have figured it out but didn't.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 9:15 PM on April 1, 2008

You do know what sarcasm is, right?

What I actually meant was, it's getting more annoying the more you explain how I should have figured it out but didn't.

But, please do go on explaining how the thread about background colours isn't the thread someone interested in background colours should go to.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 9:39 PM on April 1, 2008

Why didn't I email the mods about a thing there was already a MeTa thread about? I'm not sure I get what you mean.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 9:48 PM on April 1, 2008

I don't think you can sneer at me for couching my complaints in carefully-formatted HTML and at the same time call it "yelling". I think you have to pick one.

Because you don't seem to understand my point, I'll make it again for you.
I find something MetaTalk-worthy going on. I come to MetaTalk. I see a thread which is clearly about that thing. I go to that thread and say I don't like it.jessamyn gets snotty with me because the "Make It... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 10:15 PM on April 1, 2008

Strangely enough both Nicole Kidman and Mel Gibson were born in the USA. Want to try again?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 8:15 PM on March 18, 2008

The often-repeated question which fascinates me is "I spend too much time looking at cool online and get no work done, what is a technical solution to this clearly personal problem?", i.e. they want to install software on their computer which will stop them looking at MeFi until 1PM every day, or similar.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 8:01 PM on March 16, 2008

Oops. That should say "cool stuff online".
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 8:01 PM on March 16, 2008

Remember when that guy did the parody of BoingBoing? And instead of "Suicide Girls", he had an ad for a site called "Studious Girls" ...

... do I even have to finish that thought?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 3:27 PM on February 11, 2008

What's all this nonsense about separators?

If you use commas, then any field containing a comma should be in quotes. That's how it's done. Quotes inside those fields get escaped.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 5:52 PM on January 22, 2008

I'd like to tag on a question of my own: what's the best time to ask MetaTalk "what's the best time to Ask MetaFilter?"?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 7:57 PM on January 21, 2008

I've learned my lesson about calling racism around here, so I'll just derail:

>Is there any decent evidence on how Shamus came to mean "detective"?

Not in the least definitive, but Michael Chabon has a lot of fun with this kind of thing in "The Yiddish Policemen's Union". If you're interested in that kind of thing, you'll really enjoy what he does with slang and dialect.

Best.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 6:08 PM on January 17, 2008

I hope this isn't seen as piling on, but seriously. I've come to the conclusion, not angrily or hatefully, quite calmly, that Phil is out of his mind. Really. I Am Not A Doctor, but really do I think he's unbalanced in some way. And, yet again, he's posting, showing that he doesn't get it.

The irony comes now though -- I think Phil may be the Energy Creature of all time which we should strive at all costs Not To Feed. I think pursuing his posts or arguing about his words... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 4:05 PM on January 7, 2008

Why "unsucked"?
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 8:35 PM on January 7, 2008

That's almost a story in itself. Advertisers and shareholders are pressing the NYT to do shorter and shorter stories? Despite the fact that space on the web is effectively infinite and free? I thought they were under pressure to take the same size story and split it into multiple pageviews, not cut down on the actual content.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 2:47 PM on January 8, 2008

>Wait, what? I was just doing a Fixed That for You thing - or is it my snarkmeter that needs tuning?

Yeah sorry. I read, cut and pasted in haste.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 4:55 PM on January 8, 2008

Because the audio isn't great and the file is large (and of course, to help with the continuing discussion) I have transcribed the first seven minutes of the GiveWell board meeting on the Wiki, the bit which essentially contains Holden's apology/explanation to the board.

Do we think it's a fair account?

Just on a personal note, Holden's repeated use of the following argument fascinates me:Honesty is very important to me;I did something... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 9:17 PM on January 13, 2008

Among the goodies in the rest of the audio -- who was the mysterious "new employee" whose account Holden used? It was a guy called ... inaudible. Maybe "Alan"? And he's in Thailand. Holden didn't say what he was doing in Thailand but I'm sure it was something charitable.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 9:50 PM on January 13, 2008

Nobody wants to point out how ludicrous it is that even matthowie can't manage to post simple HTML code here?

>You'd have to escape it twice (like this: &>).
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 4:20 PM on January 11, 2008

In the nicest possible way, that's nonsense. Clearly, just like everyone else, he tried to do HTML/escapes, and the unpredictable behaviour of the code turned around and bit him.

From the source, it looks like he was trying to do a double-escape, but the joke was on him because he needed a triple-escape.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 2:01 AM on January 12, 2008

>For those who need more context than languagehat provided, SCDB is renowned for submitting complete made up bullshit as answers in askme.

Not only that, but, almost calloutworthy in its own right, he has a stable of high horses of his own -- in reply to this question, he sneers at the idea that a baseball jersey might ever be considered significant ... somewhat undermining his own position on High versus Low culture later... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 4:55 PM on January 10, 2008

I'll try it later from home. Thanks.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 8:17 PM on January 2, 2008

Yes, <pre> does that.

Also, what on earth was the point of it? Are you having problems connecting, SCDB?

Here's the result of the icmp:

traceroute -P icmp www.metafilter.com
traceroute to metafilter.com (74.53.68.130), 64 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 mygateway1.ar7 (192.168.1.1) 2.180 ms 0.781 ms 0.674 ms
2 149.1.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.1.149) 35.474 ms 19.678 ms... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 2:56 AM on January 3, 2008

...and here's a regular traceroute without the flags:

traceroute to metafilter.com (74.53.68.130), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 mygateway1.ar7 (192.168.1.1) 1.716 ms 0.664 ms 8.567 ms
2 149.1.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.1.149) 19.028 ms 32.612 ms 50.083 ms
3 * * *
4 10.0.1.2 (10.0.1.2) 31.525 ms 18.199 ms 16.969 ms
5 34.2.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.2.34) 22.191 ms 18.214 ms 19.144... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 3:09 AM on January 3, 2008

And for the record, the proxy detection tool detects nothing. And when I try to go to metafilter, the browser (Firefox) just stays on "loading" for a really long time. It's been about twenty minutes so far and it hasn't timed out, in case that means something.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 3:23 AM on January 3, 2008

Thanks again everyone. I'll try those things when I get home.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 2:34 PM on January 3, 2008

OK, doing the ping as suggested gives the following results:

1480 and above:
ping: sendto: Message too long

1470:
PING metafilter.com (74.53.68.130): 1470 data bytes
556 bytes from mygateway1.ar7 (192.168.1.1): frag needed and DF set (MTU 1492)
Vr HL TOS Len ID Flg off TTL Pro cks Src Dst
4 5 00 05da ea82 2 0000 3f 01 fb3e 192.168.1.2 74.53.68.130... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 3:43 AM on January 4, 2008

...having said that, however, changing the MTU size in both the computer and the router still hasn't helped. Same old same old. It just constantly says it's waiting for the server.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 3:59 AM on January 4, 2008

I've now rebooted both the computer and the router, and it works.

Thanks everyone who helped.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 1:49 PM on January 4, 2008

I would suspect the "horny naked" anagram is to blame.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 9:54 PM on January 2, 2008

There wasn't a Wikipedia page for GiveWell, so I created a (very short) one.
posted to MetaTalk by AmbroseChapel at 2:29 PM on January 3, 2008