Tavern on the Meta

jcolebrand

5:04 AM

@TimStone you online?

Tim Stone

Hmm, I was notified twice...

But yeah.

jcolebrand

speaking of notifications

how does the system handle talking to the server? once per server or once per tab? I know you looked at it before so I figure you know off the top of your head

Tim Stone

Sorry, tiredly writing documentation, meh. Off the top of my head, I'm fairly certain that the active (usually) tab polls, and the other tabs listen for localStorage change events.

jcolebrand

yeah, I'm doing documentation too ;)

that's what I thought too

how would I test that theory? fiddler?

Tim Stone

You could bribe balpha. I normally just look at the code, but it's probably easy enough just to open up Inspector Tools on more than one tab and set them to the Network panel and see what happens.

Anonymous

5:16 AM

Does anyone know when the social networking fields were added to profiles? They're not listed in the recent changes. I was unaware of them until I saw a relevant bug report a moment ago.

Tim Stone

The other day...sec.

jcolebrand

@TimStone then they won't be active :p

Tim Stone

@jcolebrand noticed it on August 16th, so likely sometime around then.

jcolebrand

@JeremyBanks they aren't technically active

like, you can fill them in, but they don't have anything going yet, I don't think

Tim Stone

Yeah, I think there's a Meta post related to that.

@jcolebrand Yeah? So only the active tab should show network events.

jcolebrand

5:18 AM

@TimStone that's my point, yeah

I could use fiddler to test it

Tim Stone

I don't understand.

balpha

if by "active" you mean "focused" -- no.

Anonymous

12

Q: Use of Twitter, Facebook, Google profile and LinkedIn fields in profile edit?

I've just noticed some new fields when editing my profile. Filling them in doesn't seem to display anything so do they have any use or is this a feature in progress?

Anonymous

@TimStone @jcolebrand Thanks.

jcolebrand

aye

@balpha yeah, that's what he meant

do you run a separate poller per tab back to the server?

or do you sync them via localstorage?

Tim Stone

5:20 AM

I meant more the one that you were creating activity in.

jcolebrand

also @balpha do you get pinged just for us saying your name?

Tim Stone

But that might also be wrong, I never really looked into it.

balpha

it's totally random which tab polls; when one tab sends data, all the others just stop polling

Tim Stone

Ah ha

George Marian

Well, that was different. I went to start Firefox, via a keybind, and apparently gdm crashed.

Tim Stone

5:21 AM

You seem to be having all sorts of stability issues going on over there, heh.

jcolebrand

Aye, that he does

@balpha interesting

so the others sync over localstorage?

balpha

with a few timing tricks, that works excellent as a one-way negotiation

(the localstorage communication is uni-directional)

@jcolebrand yes

jcolebrand

well we're thinking about doing it with websockets

the trick is gonna be if the hosting tab closes

balpha

@jcolebrand no, I entered shortly before you started the topic :)

George Marian

Yeah, I blame the drivers. I upgraded to 11.8, and my lockups went away. However, I may just go back to 11.6.

jcolebrand

5:23 AM

I know you've already solved it, i'm trying to do it without looking at your code and only looking at your UI

@balpha ah but you were on lurk ;)

balpha

@jcolebrand there's two things: a) if, for any reason, a tab doesn't receive any data in a reasonable amount of time, it just starts polling again

an b) the master tab sends a message in the onbeforeunload handler

jcolebrand

@balpha I was thinking more like tab death

balpha

yeah, a) helps with that

jcolebrand

and I was just gonna have localstorage update with when it gets updated. and each tab would slowly poll localstorage

which is what you said

George Marian

Ah, the crap I deal with to try to get my video gaming on.

jcolebrand

5:25 AM

do you have a loop on each tab that checks localstorage intermittently?

Tim Stone

Heheh, but is it worth it? ;)

@jcolebrand There are events you can subscribe to.

balpha

@jcolebrand no, there's onStorage

George Marian

So far, no. Neither of the newer drives have improved performance enough that I would risk a ship in eve-online.

jcolebrand

what I mean is if the localstorage doesn't get updated in a reasonable amount of time

something has to check that time

George Marian

If I really, really, really wanted to play, I could reboot into Windows.

Tim Stone

5:28 AM

@GeorgeMarian Ah, yeah. I could see that being problematic. Also, how is EVE online? I've considered giving it a go, but thought it might end up being a time-drain.

George Marian

@TimStone She can be a harsh mistress.

Tim Stone

I should probably avoid it for the time being, then, hahah.

George Marian

It's a very cool game, but the learning curve is rough. And the game can be quite a timesink.

balpha

@jcolebrand the simplified version is just this:

When data comes in...
a) calculate the time until the next poll should be made
b) if the data came from another tab, double the value from a)
c) clear any previously made timeout, and set a timeout to poll after
   the timeout from a)/b)
d) send the data to the other tabs

jcolebrand

so there is a timeout, which is what I said :p

otherwise you don't know how to know when to get the data from the server

balpha

5:30 AM

oh, there are tons of timeouts

jcolebrand

@balpha there would have to be

balpha

there's even a timeout that checks if the timeouts are working :)

Tim Stone

Yeah, I've been playing a bit of X after buying the whole series on sale from Steam, and it does take a lot of getting used to. I imagine playing that kind of game in a multiplayer environment would be even more complicated.

jcolebrand

@balpha eh whut?

So anyways @balpha we're gonna go from the meta post that says that OSQA is good and we're gonna try and clean-room reimplement this

balpha

as I said: sounds like fun

jcolebrand

5:33 AM

Also, it'll be node.js

so you can maybe play with it too after we do the nodeknockout

Tim Stone

@jcolebrand If he didn't dispatch the ninjas to kill the people who already made something similar, I'm sure you'll live. :P

jcolebrand

@TimStone that's the idea ;)

Tim Stone

That, or we just didn't hear about it, because the ninjas are just that good.

jcolebrand

They're probably just that good

George Marian

Grrr...looks like it's back to 11.6 for me. shakes a fist in the air

Tim Stone

5:35 AM

I actually thought of a (admittedly silly) project to work on, I should get started on that.

Also, sleepless night followed by an hour drive into the office...sounds like a super fun way to start the week.

jcolebrand

not a good idea Tim

Tim Stone

Yeah well, not a lot of options, heh.

jcolebrand

heh

sleep

night, I'm gonna go sleep now

George Marian

@jcolebrand g'night

Tim Stone

G'night

George Marian

5:53 AM

Well, that's odd. So I have a copy of xorg.conf in my home directory. It seems that installing the drives somehow causes the mod time to be updated on it.

balpha

is it just a link to the real xorg.conf, maybe?

George Marian

Or, maybe the config was being written to that file, instead of the one in /etc/X11. I've had to copy the file in my home directory to the system wide one ever since I first copied the system wide file into my home directory.

@balpha I don't think so. I copied it by hand and the content of the files differed.

It's certainly not a symlink. Though, I don't recall copying it using sudo, but it was owned by root.

balpha

pretty sure xorg.conf is world-readable

George Marian

I don't think it could be a hardlink anyway, /home is on a separate partition.

@balpha Yeah, but it shouldn't be looking for it in the home directory AFAIK.

balpha

x.org/archive/X11R6.8.1/doc/xorg.conf.5.html

George Marian

5:59 AM

Oddly enough, I didn't have trouble configuring the 11.6 drivers for my dual monitors before, but I did just now.

George Marian

6:17 AM

@balpha Oh, now I see it. However, it wasn't applying that config. LOL

Though, that should be root's home, right?

Tim Stone

10:19 AM

yawns It is far too early, meh.

Yi Jiang

@TimStone It is indeed too early to have dinner now

Tim Stone

Hah :P

Yi Jiang

So, the Euro's weak that Singapore is importing cereal from Belgian now...

I'll admit I bought the box not because I thought it was any good, but because I love the design and the fact that I'm carrying around a box with 'Chocolate wheat flakes' printed in 6 different languages

Tim Stone

10:40 AM

Nice, hahah.

Anonymous

2:51 PM

In this question the accepted answer included a related usability suggestion. The asker later decided to un-accept the answer and post a comment asking for the code to implement the suggestion, even though the original question has been unarguably solved. Is there anything that can be done about this behaviour? I think I remember seeing a meta post about this (probably saying "no"), but my searches have failed me.

M'vy

Yeah I think to have see something like this to

Maybe flag it for moderator, ask OP to create a new question. Idk.

Anonymous

I posted an angry comment but that only made me feel a bit better about it. =p

Anonymous

and as far as I know there isn't an actual mod-enforceable rule that's been broken

Anonymous

The answer has now been re-accepted. Hurray. I can rest easy until the user posts their next terrible, unresearched question. Maybe this time I'll be able to resist the urge to provide an answer he/she don't deserve.

genesis-φ

3:09 PM

Hi everyone

Does anybody know some good chrome/firefox extension to make gifs from screen (capturing?)

mootinator

area51 irritates me

M'vy

any grief in particular?

Tim Stone

@mootinator Yeah, I'm annoyed that they won't leave the aliens alone too.

mootinator

@Mvy The whole site definition process.

jcolebrand

3:25 PM

@Fosco you know what else I wanna do?

build a better web-based twitter client that manages multiple accounts ... in node

mootinator

People posting subjective questions then commenting "meant to be off-topic" and getting voted in as an example good off topic question when it's really a bad example altogether.

Fosco

@jcolebrand very cool...

M'vy

@mootinator They should not say "off-topic" at all.

mootinator

Then when you post an actual off topic, but potentially related to the subject question (of which several are necessary), you get chided for it.

Duhh, I know that's a bit off topic or borderline off topic that's why I posted it.

Sheesh.

</rant>

jcolebrand

@Fosco perhaps ;)

mootinator

3:36 PM

goes back to answering real questions from people who pay him rather than worrying about whether people are good at judging what a hypothetical community will think of hypothetical questions being on their hypothetical site.

jcolebrand

3:52 PM

Trying to remember why I have a book called "Version Control By Example" by Eric Sink but I think I signed up to get a free copy on a website. Now ... why did I do that?

Shog9

@jcolebrand 'cause Eric Sink is teh man for explainin' version control (at least, pre-distributed version control)

jcolebrand

But why do I have his book

that I think I got for free

I'm pretty sure it was "building a library, one book at a time" or something similar

I already have four books I need to read in my backpack (kindle? what's that)

I think I'm gonna drop it on my boss' desk and see if he wants a crack at it :p

Shog9

@jcolebrand What version control do you use?

jcolebrand

the only one that people should use. Hg

Shog9

4:09 PM

Then... I'm not sure the book will do you much good.

jcolebrand

I know

Tim Stone

Give it to my boss.

jcolebrand

but I'm curious about veracity (isn't that the name of it) and I don't think I ever really used SVN except as a novice.

so ... it would be a good book to have regardless

@TimStone you should see if they're still giving away copies

Tim Stone

I should just refuse to work until we switch to Hg.

jcolebrand

ericsink.com/entries/vcbe_print_edition_free.html <-- it would appear they are still giving away free copies.

Tim Stone

4:15 PM

Ah, cool. Might as well, thanks.

George Marian

4:41 PM

grumble grumble It's doing that thing again.

jcolebrand

5:05 PM

> Mozilla has created a stir in the Firefox community by suggesting that the version number ought to be eliminated. The version number currently shown in Firefox’s "About" dialog has been filed as a bug. Instead of a version number Mozilla simply wants the box to read something like "Firefox checked for updates 20 minutes ago, you are running the latest version." Mozilla believes that eliminating the version number will reduce user confusion.

in the browser wars this may be the best idea

webmonkey.com/2011/08/firefox-the-emperor-wears-no-versions

Tim Stone

@jcolebrand "What browser are you seeing that bug in?" "Firefox version is not up-to-date"

George Marian

Yes and no. Some version number needs to be accessible somewhere.

jcolebrand

@TimStone true enough

George Marian

@TimStone Exactly.

jcolebrand

however, the question is "are you using the latest one? I can't repro that in the latest one"

Tim Stone

5:12 PM

Or, even better, I'll go to grab an extension, and it'll say "Compatible with the following versions of Firefox: Firefox"

George Marian

heh

jcolebrand

@TimStone hopefully at that point the extensions are no longer version dependent ;)

Tim Stone

I'm sure extension developers long for the day that Mozilla stops changing random crap. :P

Neal

5:40 PM

anyone get the $99 touchpad?

Moshe

@Neal I thought about it but didn't...

Neal

@Moshe i ddnt know abt it today :-( wish i had known yesterday....

jcolebrand

Oh, Amazon UK have just released a bunch more Touchpads - http://t.co/WhI64G2 In stock, 4 new.

Tweeted by blowdart on August 22, 2011 at 5:46 PM

2

Neal

@jcolebrand :-P

Moshe

6:07 PM

Heh.

Ugh, performance optimizations are a drag sometimes.

Raynos

we have a spam flagger in javascript.SO room

:(

Moshe

news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20095520-264/…

@Raynos Saywhat? Didn't look like "flaggable" things to me. ;-)

Neal

@Moshe ?

Moshe

@Neal What?

Raynos

Ok its getting out of hand :(

fffff I've fully used my allowance for today -.-

How am I supposed to gaurd againts people who flag for noreason

Neal

6:21 PM

@Raynos ?? like hwat?

jcolebrand

@Raynos you share the load with everyone else ;)

George Marian

6:41 PM

shakes a fist at gnome power manager

jcolebrand

8:19 PM

moonbotstudios.com/jobs.html <-- these guys made this app: wired.com/geekdad/2011/05/lessmore

jcolebrand

9:39 PM

In case my last comment wasn't obvious, those guys are hiring. I figured the jobs.html would be evident, wanted to make sure

Popular Demand

9:51 PM

@jcolebrand Do you know them, or are you just a fan, or what?

jcolebrand

@PopularDemand know them

They're also local. I can't remember the name of the film that that guy did

William Joyce (writer)

William Joyce (born December 11, 1957) is an American author, illustrator, and filmmaker. Newsweek has called him one of the top 100 people to watch in the new millennium. His illustrations have appeared on numerous New Yorker covers and his paintings are displayed at national museums and art galleries. He lives with his wife and their son in Shreveport, Louisiana. His daughter, Mary Katherine, died at the age of 18 on May 2, 2010. Children's literature Joyce has written and illustrated over fifty children's books. Some of his best known are: George Shrinks, Santa Calls, Dinosaur Bob an...

Found it ... remembered to go looking ;)

Films
Toy Story (1995) - Conceptual and art design
Buddy (1996) - Screen story, screenwriter
A Bug's Life (1998) - Conceptual and art design
Robots (2005) - Producer, production designer
Meet the Robinsons (2007) - Writer, executive producer
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007) - Production designer, main title sequence design

jcolebrand

11:23 PM

> The upcoming iPhone 5 will almost certainly be a single phone that supports multiple networks, namely CDMA (such as the one used by Verizon or Sprint in the United States) as well as GSM (which is used by AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S.).

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