Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with delay

How to not be a 5 hump chump?

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:22:57 -0800

Questions about male sexual stamina and use of viagra. NSFW more than likely. I am a mid 30s male who still lasts about as long as a teenager in bed. I'm really hoping to change this, but not sure how to go much longer.

I have had a friend recommend that I visit my doctor and look into getting Viagra, but I have no problems getting or maintaining an erection, just problems finishing too soon. Would viagra help this?

I know when I'm starting to get close but once I get close there seems like nothing I can do to back away from it...any suggestions would be appreciated.

How to delay Mac sound output?

i_cola — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:53:45 -0800

I want to delay the sound output from my Mac Mini so I can get it to sync with video from a different source. I've got a radio commentary (available via Safari or iTunes on the MacMini) that is up to a minute ahead of the TV feed I'm watching on my laptop. I want to watch the TV feed with the radio commentary roughly in sync.

Is there a software solution out there that will allow me to adjustably delay the entire audio out from the MacMini?

Even better would be the ability to delay the audio from a particular application & I'd like the option to be able to sync both feeds on a single Mac.

keyboard effects

plexi — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:16:49 -0800

I just got a nice keyboard with no on-board effects. What are some good effects equipment for keyboard? Should I just string along some MXR pedals? Invest in a Roland Space Echo? VST?

Firefox 3 bookmark toolbar pop-up folder DELAY possible?

Ryaske — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:30:51 -0800

Firefox 3. Do you use the bookmark bar? Do you drag and drop bookmarks within it? If so, this Q is for YOU: How do we delay the menu DURING drag+drop operations?? The way firefox is currently setup, i can use this method (http://ask.metafilter.com/40700/Firefox-menu-delay) to delay the menus when browsing my drop-down bookmarks+folders from the bookmark toolbar normally. That was a great help!!!

But unfortunately, when you drag and drop items into or within the bookmark toolbar dropdowns, this delay does not appear to function.

It is soo frustrating to go 3-4 levels deep in a drop down menu, hovering over each subfolder to get it to pop up, and then any slight movement off the menu (even for a nano-second) will close up EVERYTHING and require me to start over. Its like playing a maze game where you can't touch the sides or you lose!

If just I had a 2 second delay in there when im dragging and about to drop, it would greatly improve the user experience.

(I'm aware I can use bookmarking menus, or the big bookmark manager to reorganize, but I prefer not having to take any extra steps.)

Any idea on a D+D delay?

Thanks

Why drag feet on divorce after separation

Penelope — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:18:07 -0800

Why might people wait so long to get divorced, when at least one party definitely wants it. I read that the average time between separation and filing for divorce is 2.8 years. Why might this be? It's idle curiosity on my part, have a friend who is separated but I don't want to ask him, am just curious. Reasons I can think of:

1. Both parties have hopes for reconciliation.
2. They feel it's just a piece of paper, and not important.
3. They are too busy with work, etc to file.
4. The party with money is trying to negotiate lesser payments to future ex-spouse.
5. One party refuses to sign (though from my understanding, this is moot, it only takes one party to file)
6. They think "separation" is less painful to the kids than "divorce" (Ok, i am reaching with this one, I personally think that one would be dumb)

Any other possible reasons I'm missing? I already know you have to be separated a year first, that one is accounted for. : )

how do I make a uk company pay up?

krautland — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:30:06 -0800

how do I make a uk company pay up? I have done some freelance work in the UK recently and one of the clients is late in paying my invoice.

I usually get clients to sign a timesheet, which I fax to a paye umbrella company that invoices them and (once the funds arrive) pays me. (they handle all my taxes without me having to found my own company.)

one of the clients hasn't paid the paye company and during conversations with other freelancers I found out this particular client has a reputation for paying up late. I also learned there is a uk law regulating that freelancers should be paid within thirty days but I'm sketchy on the details. this invoice is more than ninety days past due. I and the paye guys have chased the client numerous times via phone and email and usually have gotten the runaround between departments.

I just spoke to the guys at my paye company and they told me they're sending the client a "pay up or else" letter tomorrow. what exactly is "or else?" does this imply I need to get a solicitor if this letter fails to have the desired effect? how would you handle this situation? what do you recommend I do next (or different the next time around)?

we're talking about a mid-range four-digit number here, if that matters

Why the big price gap in guitar FX pedals?

spiderskull — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:08:41 -0800

What is the essential difference between guitar effect pedals in different prices ranges? Also, are the DIY stompbox kits worth it? I'm in the market for a delay pedal, and the gaps between prices are huge (especially for such a simple effect). Is there anything intrinsically wrong with Danelectro's pedals? Why are they so much cheaper than, say, Boss pedals?

I've read this question and its answers (namely, these two), and they were helpful.

I've also got an engineering background and am handy with an iron, so building my own would be no problem. The thing is, the kits aren't any cheaper than just buying a production one. So are they worth the extra effort for sound quality?

How to get my mouse to wake up faster?

Magnakai — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:49:51 -0800

Macfilter: Why does my wired USB mouse take a second to start responding on my Macbook? I'm familiar with the lag one receives when you start using a wireless mouse. My question is, why am I receiving the same thing with wired mice on my Core 2 Duo Macbook?

I'm running OSX 10.4.11, and have both a Logitech Wheel Mouse and my trusty old Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer. When I haven't touched my mouse in a short time, there's a noticeable delay of maybe a second or two before it start responding. After that, it's absolutely fine until you leave it alone for a short period of time. This never, ever, ever happens with the inbuilt trackpad, yet it doesn't matter which of my two (admittedly fairly old but eminently serviceable) mice are plugged in.

It's a real pain for me because I'll be typing for a short period of time, then need to click on something that I either don't know the keyboard shortcut for or for which there isn't one, and then go back to typing. This happens very frequently and it's currently driving me insane, and worse, to use the trackpad. The trackpad inherently annoys me, but that's another story. Help me, hive mind!

J1 Visa stuck at customs, plane tomorrow, now what?

BeaverTerror — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:43:44 -0800

US J1 Visa (DS-2019 form) held up by DHL, plane ticket already booked for tomorrow. Now what? I'm a university student from Canada, and I have a 4 month internship job in San Francisco starting on Jan 2nd.

My J1 internship visa application has been approved, and my sponsor has mailed my DS-2019 form to me via DHL express. I've already booked my plane ticket for tomorrow afternoon (Christmas day).

My package has been held up at Canadian customs. DHL's tracking website displays a "clearance delay" status. I called DHL, and they said it's "missing paperwork". They also told me that since it's Christmas, Canadian customs is not processing shipments until the 27th, which means I'll be missing my flight. The airline charges a large fine for ticket changes.

The normal procedure for J1 applications is to take the DS-2019 form to US customs upon landing, where they will finish processing the paperwork for the applicant.

Since I'm a Canadian citizen, I can travel to the US without a visa (but I can't work). Can I just fly to the US as a tourist, have the DS-2019 mailed back to the US after it arrives at my Canadian address, and then somehow get my visa processed once I receive it?

Please also feel free to comment if you've had any delay experiences with Canadian customs.

Juggling job offers?

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 23:08:40 -0800

Juggling job offers? (wordy, follow-up) I'm this guy. Since posting that question (and thanks so much for the helpful responses), I have indeed been searching for jobs. Two of the resulting leads are coming to a head, and I could use some tips.

The background:

Company A is an extremely prestigious software development firm in NYC (to which I'd love to relocate). It would be a full-time position, and really offer me a fresh start with a highly-visible, interesting project. I've passed two phone interviews, and next week I'm flying up for a final interview in person. I'm optimistic about my chances based on my feedback so far, but of course anything can happen. I would definitely prefer this job, to the point where I would turn down Company B based only on the chance of working with Company A if it came down to it.

Company B is local, sounds like a good job with good people at a good pay rate. However, it's a contract job (which I've never done before) and may end up disappearing or becoming something else entirely in 5-7 months (or, it could turn into a full-time position for all I know). This opportunity was brought to my attention through a headhunter, who told me today that they got positive feedback and expect an offer by close of business.

Which brings me to my inquiries. The first one is obvious: assuming I get an offer from Company B today, what can I tell them that might give me time to wait for a response from Company A? If I don't get the A job, I would certainly accept B, but clearly that would not be a very diplomatic thing to say.

The second question is this: Company A's recruiter told me, a long time ago, to let her know if I started to come close to an offer with another company. I assume that was so they could expedite the screening/interview process, but given the logistics of travel and scheduling, the steps that remain can't really be expedited any further. However, perhaps their response to me following next week's interview would be more prompt if they thought they were going to lose me to another company. This would put me in the ideal situation of hearing from Company A before I have to respond to Company B, if I manage to get some leeway in responding to the latter.

On the other hand, I'm not very savvy at job searching. I don't want to say something to Company A that's going to make them look upon me less favorably, and I wonder if "I'm about to get an offer from another company" so late in the process would sound like I was trying to play them, or whether they'd decide I wasn't worth fighting over.

Certainly, there are worse positions to be in, but any advice you all might have to help me make the most of this conundrum would be greatly appreciated!

Sock it to me

913 — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:04:23 -0800

Let's say I was selling really cool handmade and individually numbered socks. They would be organic and would have 3% of their sales donated to a charity. Now, let's say I set a cap at 400 pairs a month. Would you be intrigued to purchase them? For example:

It's December 15th and 400 pairs of socks have already been sold, you would have to wait to January 1st to be able to purchase a pair of the socks.

Would this annoy you? Intrigue you?

Oh, the delay wouldn't be fully intentional but more of a clearance time to allow more socks to be produced. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this.

Is an hour enough for US Customs at the port of entry before a connecting flight?

Listener — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 04:26:51 -0800

If US Customs makes you miss a connecting flight, does the airline take responsibility and get you on another flight, or are you out of luck for not scheduling a longer connection time? An hour is usually plenty for a connecting flight, I find, but what if someone has a visa to enter the US? My friend has to book a connecting flight before heading off to Hawaii, and although I have seen some people commenting that you should leave at least three hours, my friend is very organized with solid English skills and so on, and should be no trouble. On the other hand, I hear US Customs can be rather nasty these days. The cheap flights are giving us just one hour to make the connection. If the airline bounces him to a later flight, that won't be a big problem for us, but if we had to book and pay another flight from the mainland to Hawaii, of course that would be a grim start to the vacation.

The internet says my flight is delayed. What do I do?

unknowncommand — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 05:30:04 -0800

According to aa.com, my flight departure this morning is delayed by an hour. I haven't left the house yet. How big a risk is it, though, to show up to the airport an hour later than I had planned? Do they ever "move up" a delay, thinking that it is convenient to the people already waiting? If so, what is the point of showing me that it is delayed?

For a multi-leg transatlantic flight, what can I do to minimize the likelihood of connection problems, involuntary bumping, etc.?

allterrainbrain — Wed, 30 May 2007 06:07:19 -0800

For a multi-leg transatlantic flight, what can I do to minimize the likelihood of connection problems, involuntary bumping, etc.? First leg (on US Air) is LGA to PHL to LGW, and I'm hearing a lot of anecdotal reports that both USAir and PHL are worse-than-average for connection problems. On a Friday and Saturday in August (i.e., near the height of the U.S. summer travel season), here's what I'm doing:

FRIDAY:
• midday flight LGA to PHL, on USAir (then 6-hour layover in PHL)
• overnight flight PHL to LGW, on USAir (then 4.5 hrs between LGW arrival and LHR departure)

SATURDAY:
• afternoon flight LHR to Belgrade, on JAT / Yugoslav Airlines
• evening ground travel from Belgrade to Sombor, my destination city in Serbia.

I'm scheduled to start my responsibilities in Sombor (teaching) on Monday morning, about 36 hours after my arrival. So there's not much room for error here, especially since the LGW-to-LHR transfer time is fairly tight and there's only one London-to-Belgrade flight a day on JAT.

Beyond hearing that PHL is especially bad for delays and connection problems, today I saw the NY Times story titled "Overbooking, Bumped Fliers and No Plan B" (saying this summer is expected to have a high percentage of involuntarily bumped passengers with little recourse since all flights will be fuller than usual).

So, solutions:
• I'll be getting to LGA plenty early;
• I'll be bringing only carry-on luggage;
• I have no special travel or security issues and I'm an experienced flier & transatlantic traveler.

What else, if anything, should I be doing? Is there any way, other than being early, to make oneself less likely to get bumped from an overbooked flight?

This teaching is something I am co-organizing and basically volunteering for (i.e., there's no deep-pocketed org that could step in with any extraordinary measures if something went really wrong with the travel). My co-organizers can adapt if I'm delayed, but obviously I want to do everything I can to make this work as planned.

Why is my flight delayed?

dhanlon — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 11:50:35 -0800

Why is my American Airlines flight (Sun Feb 25 at 7:50p) from Atlanta to NY-Laguardia cancelled? And why is the next available flight Tuesday morning at 6:50a? Now I know there's weather hitting New England, and it might be icy for a while. But a 36-hour gap between the originally scheduled flight and the next available one? Obivously this question could be perceived as a sarcastic or a place to complain about the general ailments of the US airline industry. But I really want to know the logistics of this situation. Somehow I feel it will help me not scratch my eyes out.

if it breaks again i'll never fix it

skjønn — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:47:47 -0800

Help me not to fall in love with this man (yet). There's a little bit... Background: I am a single girl looking to get married (eventually). I have a good amount of dating experience, but have only ever loved one man. As in truly, madly, deeply desired wanted to be together forever love. That relationship ended badly, for various reasons. Towards the end, I grew progressively more attached and he grew more and more distant, which maddeningly seemed to deepen my want for him... we've all been there in one way or another, you get the idea. The most painful experience of my life (so far).

I finally left this man some time ago with what remained of my dignity and sanity. I revived old friendships, rediscovered a few things, had quite a few girls nights out, and spent quite a few nights at home alone crying and writing bad poetry.

After (a long) time and a bit of rebound dating, the pain began to subside noticeably. A small part of me will always miss how good it was when it was good, but trustme when I say I am over this man and am ready to move on.

--------------

Now here's where the problem begins. I met a man. The problem is, he's perfect. We met for a brief moment and exchanged numbers a week before thanksgiving. He started calling me twice a day. Since we were both travelling out of state for Thanksgiving, we had a lot of time to talk and get to know eachother over the phone. We've had two dates since we got back.

The chemistry, conversation, # of things we have in common, and everything else so far is incredible. He says things to me like "I have a confession to make...I have an enormous crush on you." Or when I asked him what he had done that day, he told me he had spent the day dreaming of ways to get me to fall in love with him....

All of this leads to the fact that I AM quite surely falling in love, I can feel it. And I'm scared as hell. And he's making it hard not to. I just feel like I need to be much safer feeling before it would be wise to let myself fallin love.

I need concrete ways and suggestions to protect myself and delay the onset of serious feelings. I feel as if I have to go through what I went through with my last relationship again, I'll just crumble. Things are too good to be true at the moment and I don't want it to explode in my face.

I want to continue with him but how can I delay falling for him until I've had some serious time? Psychological tricks, etc..

Looking for plans for building a studio echo chamber

lukeomalley — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 21:59:25 -0800

I am looking for instructions on how to build an echo chamber for a recording studio. Does anybody have any resources? I am specifically trying to emulate the one used in the MoTown Recordings.. Thank you in advance.

EU delayed flights

biffa — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 17:44:38 -0800

UK/EU flight. My friend's plane was 3 hours late, flying Southampton to Edinburgh, making her miss a wedding. I have an inkling that this means she is likely to be able to make her airline pay out under recent EU law. Is this the case and if so what's the best way to make them pay?

Damned DCOM delay

phearlez — Tue, 09 May 2006 08:56:23 -0800

When my Windows XP laptop starts up it gets to a point where there's a few minutes of delay before the network or other critical stuff starts. I've tracked it down in the log to a specific app's starting but the "did not register with DCOM within the required timeout" error is eluding my efforts at resolution. Turns out that an app related to my Nokia phone's PC Suite is having some sort of problem starting and it's holding up other things after it. The exact message in the system log is this:

The server {F3F8262D-99B5-4851-A2B2-55383E2CE392} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Once it gets past this point everything continues normally and the app in question, MPAPI3s.exe, is running in the process list. If it's hung it's non-critical since my phone syncs and even operates as a bluetooth modem without a problem.

I came across this page which advised running Dcomcnfg.exe and letting it find some unlinked modules. Which it did, but none of them were the troublemaker in question and it hasn't helped matters.

In the scope of things it's not a horrible problem but it does impede my ability to turn the laptop on and get to work out in the field. I'm about at the end of my rope with dealing with it and any suggestions would be appreciated.

Are all mugshots in the public domain?

thewittyname — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 18:46:15 -0800

Does everyone who gets arrested have a mugshot taken of them, and must all mugshots be released to the public? Are there any restrictions on their use? It seems to be "common knowledge" that mugshots are public records (that's what Wikipedia says) but can anyone give me some more detail on the laws that might govern this sort of thing? Are there restrictions on obtaining or using mugshots that don't apply to police reports, or vice versa?

[Yes, this is partially related to DeLay's pending arrest, but I've wondered about the specifics behind this stuff for a while now]

Musssick

Mach3avelli — Sun, 10 Apr 2005 18:26:08 -0800

For the musicians out there (guitar)....what exactly is reverb? Distortion? Dissonance? Delay? And what are some marquee songs where I can hear them distinctly?

Please DeLay my death

sharksandwich — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 10:55:25 -0800

I would like to name to DeLay as my "Enduring Power of Attorney" in the event that I somehow reach the same state as Terri Schiavo. Would this hold any ground in court? Could he legally refuse the EPA?

Buffer Problems

Juicylicious — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:39:25 -0800

Why is it impossible for me to watch/listen to streaming video without the program stopping every few seconds to buffer? I tried to watch this video on both RealPlayer & Windows Media the same thing happened with both.

Sex Filter

bonaldi — Sun, 04 Jul 2004 17:09:48 -0800

SexFilter: Chaps, how do you postpone the little death? An intriguing office discussion (sparked by a picture of Margaret Thatcher) has brought out the most amazing answers to this...

(Ladies you can play too, although I guess the question is how do you hurry it along?)