Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with stall

Public Liability Insurance

ninazer0 — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:46:57 -0800

I need public liability insurance for a 1 day stall at a country church fete. Is there any Australian insurer who does this? The shortest term I can find is 3 months at $110 via AAMI. I have been given the run around all day and I'm at the end of my tether. All that I seem to have done today is write complaint letters about being given wrong info.

Any suggestions? $110 to run a jam stall at a tiny Church Fete seems utterly ridiculous. What are they going to do? Put an eye out with an exceptionally sharp marmalade?

Any suggestions? Because at this rate I'm ready to throw in the towel.

How do I stop the stalling?

Seeba — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:11:38 -0800

Allright-- my windows (Vista) is funky: can I fix this without reinstalling? More inside. First, the specs:
Windows Vista, AMD9500 Phenom processor, 4GB RAM, HD2400XT graphics card, and 500GB hard drive, 200GB used (plus an external HD, mouse, keyboard, webcam, monitor, all that jazz)

Now, the problem:

Starting about two weeks ago, whenever I move a file, the "Moving X file(s): Y MB/GB, Z Seconds Remaining" pop-up shows up. As it gets to "0 Seconds Remaining", it just stalls.

Whenever I delete a file, the pop-up "Deleting X file(s): Y MB/GB, Z Seconds Remaining" shows up. As it gets to "0 Seconds Remaining", it stalls.

Anytime I move a file on my internal hard drive, the same thing happens. "Moving X file...." etc.

I haven't touched my registry (to my knowledge), or screwed with my internals any more than changing the "Hibernate/Sleep after X Minutes" or the screen saver in several months.

Whenever this happens, I open the task manager (Ctrl/Alt/Del), hit "End Program" a few times, then the window opens up to let me close and restart windows explorer. So I do. And then life goes on as usual.

Anyone have any idea what's wrong/how I fix this?
(Preferably without reinstalling my op system)

Thank you!

Car CPR

bitteroldman — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:16:15 -0800

So after cleaning my car out of a snowbank and driving it about 100 yards the car just dies. It eventually restarts but a big BOOM seemed to come out of the exhaust as I start moving again. Did I break my car? So we had a big snowstorm this weekend, and I spent the afternoon shovelling my car out of a snowbank. I did a pretty thorough job, even cleaning what I could under the body.

This evening I needed to move the car, and as I was driving down the street, the car just died as I was hitting the brakes. For what it is worth, I was driving pretty slow but I didn't really "warm up" the car although I did spend at least 45 seconds manuvering out of my parking space.

The car would not start for a few minutes. Then finally after turning the key and holding it in the "starting" position for about 15 seconds, the engine finally started. As I started off, a big BOOM came out - it sounded like it was coming from the exhaust (although I can't be too sure), and while I drove back, it seemed like the car sounded louder but weaker than normal.

It is very possible that there still was some snow stuck under the car. Could this have had the reported effect? Did I kill my car? What was that boom? Is it safe to drive?

A few facts:

- Daewoo Lanos 2000
- Parked since Friday night (it is Sunday night now)
- Current temperature is about 15 degrees F
- I did a complete job clearing out the snow. The "exit path" from where I parked to the street was clear of snow. There were no piles of snow to drive through. I cleared everything.
- The car has never been affected by cold weather. It has always started even at temperatures way lower than this
- The only time the car "stalled" was during a flood, where I think some water might have touched the wiring, but it was OK a few minutes later.

chinese food stall at Berkeley BART?

luriete — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 14:50:39 -0800

Can anyone confirm or deny the current existence of that Chinese food stall that used to be parked outside the Downtown Berkeley BART station - it was green and red/pink at one point, earlier than that pink and red - which serves these amazing, incredible dumplings (pork, shrimp or chicken)? Is it still there?

Learn the Toilet Paper Dispenser Tricks of the Professionals for just $19.99!

WCityMike — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:37:23 -0800

You walk into a public toilet stall. There is a metal toilet paper roll holder. One of two annoying situations is happening. Either the bottom toilet roll is used up and the top toilet roll is still in its storage area.

Or the top roll is down and the bottom "roll" (even if it's just the cardboard tube) has not been removed, and the drag the bottom roll puts on the top roll causes the paper to break after one or two squares comes out.

It's a small annoyance, but a small annoyance I've had with these things for most of my life. Somewhere in the great Mefi User Database, there must be someone who just happened to somewhere along the line figure out the way to make these public metal toilet paper dispensers sing.

(Well, not literally.)

Any takers?

Bonus question: anyone develop a surefire way of preserving one's privacy when in a toilet stall where the door closes but won't lock?

Go ahead and fire all snark cannons for asking the question — but fess up, the answers'd be handy to you, too.

Does my car know something I don't?

knave — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 20:52:19 -0800

Shouldn't my car run without an air filter? I replaced the stock airbox on my 2001 Maxima with a K&N cone filter, using a cheap plastic ebay adapter to mount it to the MAF. Not too surprisingly, 6 months later, the cheap plastic adapter breaks and the cone filter falls off. No other components appear to be affected, and no wiring harnesses got knocked loose.

However, now my car won't run. I'd like to limp to the house where my factory parts are, so I can get the car running again. But as soon as I start it, it revs up normally and sounds fine, then immediately stalls out. No amount of throttle can stop it.

Why would my car need an air filter to run? Does it depend on the partial vacuum on the intake? (that doesn't make any sense to me) If I can't get it running, I'll have to get someone to bring the parts to me instead. (Not the end of the world, but this is annoying.)

There is a steel mesh on the intake side of the MAF, so it looks like I didn't accidentally suck in a pebble or a chunk of that plastic adapter.

Why does my motorcycle keep dying

jclovebrew — Mon, 28 May 2007 10:40:39 -0800

Help me diagnose my motorcycle problem. (fairly lengthy explanation follows) Soon after posting this question, I ended up with a 1982 Yamaha XV750 Virago. It had only 5200 miles on it and was impressively clean for a 25 year old bike, so I bit the bullet and got it. One problem the previous owner told me about was the choke -- the bike needed the choke to be on all the time or else it stalls. He told me that it didn't really bother him and he just lived with it. Since it was my first bike, I really wanted it to be perfect, so following the advice of a coworker, I added some Sea Foam to the tank (around 1-2 fluid ounces). The theory was that there was some kind of clog somewhere in the fuel line and this would clean it out. That's when the real problems started.

The day after adding Sea Foam, the bike would not even start any more. The engine would turn over but it wouldn't stay running more than about 5 seconds. The spark plugs were badly fouled (carbon). I replaced those and it ran again, for about 5 miles, then it stranded me. Same problem - it would crank but not stay running. I duck-walked it to a nearby parking lot and it sat there for a week until I towed it to a cycle shop.

The shop rebuilt the carburetors and replaced the rubber intake manifold boots which were badly dried out, worn, and brittle. I got it back Saturday morning and it was running beautifully.

I put about 30 miles or so on it. Toward the end of those miles, it was starting to backfire (? not sure if I'm using the term correctly - basically it was making occasional "pop" sounds). Soon after that I started heading home. It was getting less and less responsive to throttle. And then finally, in the middle of an intersection, it just died and would not start again. So I walked it to a nearby gas station, got a ride home, and came back and cleaned the spark plugs as best I could with a toothbrush, rag, and WD-40. After some struggling, it started up again, and I nervously rode it home.

This has been a nerve wracking and frustrating experience so far. At least I'd like to make a learning experience out of it. What the hell is going on with this bike?

I am of course going to follow up with the shop when they open tomorrow. But I'm looking for the metafilter second opinion.

Do you make a noise when someone enters if you're alone in a public bathroom?

spiderskull — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 20:49:11 -0800

Do you announce your presence in a public bathroom if you're in a stall by making subtle sounds? A friend and I were discussing how if we're alone in a stall in a public bathroom, and someone walks in, we clear our throats or rustle the toilet paper to make sure they know we're there.

I was trying to figure out why we do it, and I think it's three reasons: the first is that we don't want them attempting to open the stall door, hence exposing us; the second is that we don't want them to start doing something weird or awkward, such as having sex or dancing on the sinks; the third is that we don't want to startle them when we exit the stall.

Does anyone else do this? Is it a quality of introverts? None of my extraverted friends seem to do it, although that may be entirely arbitrary.