MetaTalk posts by AmbroseChapel

Has code been added to "fix" "inval...

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:58:01 -0800

Has code been added to "fix" "invalid" HTML?

Does this post about how wonderful new web technol...

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:20:57 -0800

Does this post about how wonderful new web technologies from Microsoft are, and how easy and quick it is to develop for them, set off anyone's alarm bells?

I can't get to any metafilter.com addresses from m...

AmbroseChapel — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:25:39 -0800

I can't get to any metafilter.com addresses from my home ISP. I can get to it from other places, i.e. work, and I can get to it if I use an open proxy. More details inside.

"part of American culture is to utterly ignor...

AmbroseChapel — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:15:29 -0800

"part of American culture is to utterly ignore people who are outside your circle of personal friends/acquaintances/family" ... "there is a cultural thing re yelling and violence in American domestic relationships" ... we all know what those people are like ...

Bad HTML here needs fixing.

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 15:33:02 -0800

here needs fixing.]]> (closed)

Today's random-deletion gripe: this post was no mo...

AmbroseChapel — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:27:08 -0800

Today's random-deletion gripe: this post was no more worthy of deletion than a bunch of other ones about human relationships.

What's the problem being solved here? Although it was asked in a chatfiltery way, the problem was clearly "The use of the word 'honey' has specific implications about the nature of a relationship for my boyfriend and I don't know why", with a side order of "is he a freak or am I?".

How is that different to some question about "how does dating work", for instance?

AskMe preview is broken when the post contains lis...

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 17:03:30 -0800

AskMe preview is broken when the post contains list tags.

People who enjoy Ask might like to spend a bit of ...

AmbroseChapel — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 15:24:27 -0800

People who enjoy Ask might like to spend a bit of time on the NaNoWriMo forums this month, particularly the ones where they ask for help on making their plots and characters realistic.

This year, How to take Congress hostage, how much of a body would vultures get through in three days, and how to deliver a baby outdoors. In short, lots of interesting questions getting asked and answered. Last year, a (presumably very young) novelist just wanted to know what having sex was like.

Just when I thought I'd figured out how to post co...

AmbroseChapel — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 21:05:27 -0800

Just when I thought I'd figured out how to post code into AskMeFi ... some feature of the back end is changing two single quotes into one single quote?

What's the key difference between "what are some g...

AmbroseChapel — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 22:59:55 -0800

What's the key difference between "what are some great movie scenes involving food?" and "what are some great upbeat 80s songs?" that gets one post deleted and not the other?

Supplementary question -- has anyone ever noticed these help-me-with-my-list posts turning up in articles? I can't help but think that some of the people asking "name some movies for me where happens?" are getting their journalistic homework done via Ask. Is that cool if they are, or do we feel used?

On another forum, someone asked a "name some TV shows where <foo> happens" question, and I not only heard my answer on the radio three days later but heard it word for word. The guy had obviously cut-and-pasted my exact words and read them out on air.

Is there any way of knowing whether a vacancy in J...

AmbroseChapel — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:29:25 -0800

Is there any way of knowing whether a vacancy in Jobs has been filled? Do they disappear if someone gets the job? Is there a flag?

Just in case you were wondering "how often is...

AmbroseChapel — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 18:31:34 -0800

Just in case you were wondering "how often is that AskMe feed really borked, anyway?" [more inside]

Just to keep you up to date, the AskMe RSS feed wa...

AmbroseChapel — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 16:47:27 -0800

Just to keep you up to date, the AskMe RSS feed was invalid at

Wed Jul 19 22:00 EST
Thu Jul 20 08:00 EST
Thu Jul 20 08:30 EST
Thu Jul 20 09:00 EST
Thu Jul 20 10:00 EST
Thu Jul 20 15:00 EST
Fri Jul 21 05:00 EST
Fri Jul 21 05:30 EST
Fri Jul 21 06:00 EST
Fri Jul 21 06:30 EST
Fri Jul 21 07:00 EST
Sat Jul 22 09:30 EST
Sat Jul 22 10:00 EST

Borked last night and Borked the night before/Goin...

AmbroseChapel — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 02:24:01 -0800

Borked last night and Borked the night before/Going to get Borked tonight if we never get Borked any more./When we're Borked we're sick as we can be/'Cos "Syntax Error on line 1" is much too much for me.

RSS Feed Busted Again... See if you can spot th...

AmbroseChapel — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:21:46 -0800

See if you can spot the subtle error in the XML Syntax:

Connection Failure

]]> (closed)

Compare and contrast: How do I deal with a Musli...

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 14:20:52 -0800

Compare and contrast:
How do I deal with a Muslim co-worker who doesn't like me? which is pretty much one uninterrupted chorus of "what does his being Muslim have to do with it?" and How do I keep my [Latino] neighbors from stealing my power? in which someone, i.e. me, asking the same question, was insulted and accused of derailing.

Is it just me, or is the AskMe RSS Feed reported t...

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 19:04:51 -0800

Is it just me, or is the AskMe RSS Feed reported to be broken on BlogLines more often than not?

"The feed URL returns a page that does not look like an RSS feed. This can be caused by the feed URL being incorrect, or it can be caused by a configuration issue with the server hosting the feed. If this error continues, you should check the feed URL and, if it is wrong, subscribe to the correct URL."

Why did baby-stealing across the ages get deleted?...

AmbroseChapel — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 01:11:22 -0800

Why did baby-stealing across the ages get deleted? I can read the reason given, but it isn't fair to the question.

Trouble logging in. Or actually not. I got a co...

AmbroseChapel — Tue, 02 May 2006 16:16:04 -0800

Trouble logging in. Or actually not.

I got a couple of different messages, one saying "error, email Matt" and another saying "error, delete MeFi cookies, if problem persists, email Matt". I gave up, thinking I wasn't logged in, but when I went to Ask, it turns out I was.

Another related thing. Is the CAPTCHA case-sensitive? Because it doesn't say either way. That would have eliminated one possible avenue of enquiry into why login was failing.

Please delete me. And the other guy of course.

AmbroseChapel — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:33:28 -0800

Please delete me. And the other guy of course.