Brian L

Thinking of brushing off my resume.

Well, "crash" is a strong term. It just locks up. For like, hours.

Not for damage that can occur in normal operation, but to cover the cost of nicks and dings in transport, stuff falling over, fires in buildings, whatever?

Or this balloon which fell down go boom:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100429/sc_space/hu...

I doubt it, but just wondering.

My wife and I purchased a home in 2006, that was listed at 1427 square feet (this was calculated by the seller's appraiser). This is the square footage listed on our mortgage documents, the MLS listing, all of that. When I attempted to contact my bank to see about a ReFi a few weeks ago, they stated, and the local assessor's office verified, that the local assessor's office had the property listed at 977.

The reason behind the discrepancy is that the appraiser counted the partially-finished basement as part of the living space, which is a "non-standard and invalid" (words of the city assessor, not mine) practice.

Do I have grounds for redress, either through a professional standards board or the courts?

This home is in St. Louis, Missouri - if you have specific informaton on the practices within the state of missouri, your advice is six steps past welcome.

This is getting maddening. My inbox is currently set to connect to the server and search for mail every 5 seconds - each time, I click over to it, and get caught in an email loop of send, check, receive. How do I reset that search for new mail timer to, say, every 10 minutes?

Much appreciated.

I am considering transitioning into a career in insurance, and there is a mosque in my neighborhood (normally I would consider asking to speak with the imam on this, but I want to avoid embarrasing or offending him or myself). I know that commercial life insurance is forbidden for Muslims, because it contains aspects of gharar, masir, and riba. I also know that in Europe there are some companies that sell or underwrite community-funded defined life insurance plans that meet the definition of takaful.

But I'm curious whether a) there are any such companies or policies in the US, and

b) there are any life insurance policies available in the US that meet this guideline?

Serious answers from those with specific knowledge is much appreciated.

I'm looking for a website that tracks spam and pump-and-dump stocks. Is anyone aware of one that is actually still current? (http://spamstocktracker.com/ hasn't done anything since 2007).

I'm curious as to whether there's any way to tell, for a given year, what percentage of federal government programs or offices ended the year over budget. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

The day I anticipate more than any other will be December 22nd, 2012, so all this "end of the world" nonsense will stop.

Who's with me?

I recognize that without an OBD reader, this is just a question with no actual way to find the answer, but being pointed in a narrower field of direction might help.

I have a 2000 4-cylinder Camry that has 90000 miles. This afternoon, I was pulling up to a stoplight when the engine began shuddering - not badly, but it was obvious. As soon as this happened, the check engine light flashed 8 or 9 times, then stopped. I had to slow down twice more on the way to my parking garage, with no problems until I made a right-hand turn into the garage - no shuddering, but light came on again. Then, moving through the garage, another shudder and the light again, then it stopped.

From my limited experience, I'm going to guess it's an ignition coil, though I don't know (thus, I'm here).

Any other theories? And should i try to drive it home, or leave it at work until the shop can take it on Friday?

I'm having a little trouble with my home's wireless network.

I'm using a D-Link wireless router running off of a DSL modem. I have a desktop that is wired directly into the router, which connects to the internet okely-dokely.

My wife had a Dell laptop running Vista that connected without problems as well.

Now we have switched to a MacBook laptop that has occasional hiccups:

It connects to the router just fine - detects the signal, logs on, and can browse shared files on the desktop (so, intranet works).

However, internet connectivity is an issue - she cannot reliably browse.

I have a Gateway laptop with the same problem.

I'm using WEP encryption (nothing has changed since we switched from the Dell to the Mac), firewall is active (but that's external, so shouldn't be a problem), and the PS3 and Wii connect just fine.

What's the deal?

For example, I have a Dell Dimension 2350, running a P4 2.2ghz with a 400 MHz FSB. If I wanted to get a Radeon X1300 (which has a 533 MHz bus speed), would I be an idiot for doing so?

I know until recently QTrax was using a proprietary format (.mpq) to encode their music. However, it's gone all crazybig with their new deals with EMI and Sony-BMG. What format will they be using? Will it be MP3? WMA? OGG?

I like the idea of it, but I don't want to have to have a big clunky memory-hog browser/player running in the background to listen to music. I happen to LIKE winamp - it's what I grew up with. I'd rather not use QTrax if I can't use my old-school MP3 players.

I think the question title pretty much covers it.

For some reason, despite the fact that a goodly portion of my clothing says "Hand wash only," whenever I use woolite detergent the colors still run, and I have to drain my sink after every clothing item.

I'm using FAR less than the recommended amount of detergent, I'm very gentle, I'm washing clothes that I've washed dozens of times before (all handwash), and I'm using nothing but cold water. What's the deal? This even happens with clothing that doesn't specifically recommend handwashing, but instead recommends machine washing.

Is there another/better handwashing detergent than woolite out there? Is it the water? Do I just suck at cleaning laundry? Should I invest in a loincloth, a spear, and a one-way ticket to the rainforest?

For some reason, all of my Y!Answers emails come from Yahoo! India. When I click on them, I get taken to http://in.answers.yahoo.com/whatever.

My Yahoo! profile says I'm in the United States, and that my preferred content is Yahoo! US.

My cache is not an issue, I clear it daily.

My cookies are not an issue, I clear them daily.

I created my yahoo! account in the US.

I created my Yahoo! Answers account in the US.

All of my Yahoo! Information puts me in the US. Why do these emails for everything keep coming from yahoo! answers india?!

I know that the regions of the planet with highest NPP are swamps and marshes on land, and regions of the ocean prone to algal blooms. So that'd be deltas and the like, I guess.

But is there any one particular plant with the highest NPP? Is it even really measurable on a species-by-species basis?

And I can't remember either the name of the hot dog (some sort of interesting title) or the condiments on it...can anyone familiar with one or both of these movies help me out?

Or am I thinking an entirely different movie altogether?

This is not for me, but for my mother. She was using her laptop computer this morning (Dell, maybe 2 years old, running WinXP SP1), and it worked just fine. She went to the office and plugged in, and opened up her user profile - and all of her settings had been reset to default. This occured with two other profiles on the machine as well. All of them have the same default settings, all have lost access to user-specific software packages that had previously been installed.

Does this happen often? Is there a solution? What's up with that?

If I recall correctly, he laced a ball to second field, and was thrown out trying to reach second (centerfielder threw to second baseman to tag him sliding into second). So how was this hit scored under official scoring standards? Would it have been a 1B, 8-4?