Tavern on the Meta

7:00 PM

@Fosco That one didn't make much sense to me. When does a developer's (or sysadmin's or super user's, &c.) keyboard ever get dusty?

Fosco

and I can't believe no one liked: The Shaven Lambda

@PopularDemand ok, solid point.

The Best Practice

!

What about oxymorons? i.e. The Intelligent Consultancy

Ok I think I'm done.. /me bows.

Diago

@Fosco I like The Shaven Lambda. Just saw it in the transcript

Popular Demand

@Fosco I don't really get it... is it just a lamb pun?

Josh

@Fosco I liked The Shaven Lambda

Fosco

@PopularDemand yeah that's it...

The Intended Pun

@PopularDemand Please come up with more contests soon.

20 minutes till demo meeting... DUN dun DUNNNNN

Josh

7:08 PM

@Fosco You feel prepared?

Popular Demand

@Fosco Hmm... should I phone it in and make the next contest "come up with the third contest"?

Fosco

@Josh pretty much.. even though I spent all day on here, I was still productive in polishing up the application.

Josh

@Fosco Sounds like me, HA!

@PopularDemand lame!

Fosco

You'll be happy to know that my applications solution for everything is: jQuery.

Josh

So I was thinking of creating a new room specifically for troubleshooting code/bugtesting. Issues which require a lot of back and forth. Thoughts? Any value in that? Too Broad? Too narrow? Will anyone use it? Etc

Diago

7:11 PM

@Josh I have one. Huh?

Josh

oh cool, I must have missed it.

@Diago Where can I join? :-)

Popular Demand

@Diago He wants to make the room Code Review. What's confusing?

Josh

Oh, nvm @Diago. I see

"Huh?" in response to the entire question I asked :-)

Is that what you're asking?

Fosco

I have jQuery Accordions inside of jQuery Accordions inside of jQuery Tabs.

Josh

@Fosco You are a crazy, crazy man

Fosco

7:13 PM

Dynamically generated contents, and each can refresh just its own contents.

It's a live form with changes instantly saved to the database, and options appear/disappear based on business logic or field changes.

Diago

@Josh Yeah it was, but @PopularDemand cleared it up. (note to self, remember when changing rooms the topics change)

Josh

@Diago Cool. @PopularDemand's good at clearing things up :-)

Fosco

I'll be back after my meeting. /wave

Popular Demand

@Diago Now there's a feature request. "Show all the messages from all my rooms in one window, let my brain sort it out."

Piers Myers

@Josh I think this is a great idea as talking about your problems can help you resolve them and see things you may have missed

Josh

7:17 PM

@PiersMyers Thanks.

Diago

@PopularDemand Brilliant. That's worth a six pack at least :)

Popular Demand

Slightly -- but only very slightly -- less ridiculous feature request: create a bot for the Code Review room named Rubber Duck.

Josh

Now taking name ideas. I was thinking Bugtesting but @PopularDemand's suggestion Code Review Is good too

@PopularDemand Gold star for you ;-)

Popular Demand

Woo hoo!

Josh

Are room names fixed once created or can they be changed?

Popular Demand

7:21 PM

Let's see....

Piers Myers

@Josh what about The Roach Motel ?

Josh

@PiersMyers I love it

Popular Demand

@Josh Can be changed.

Note to self; ask @Shog9 if he got a notification, the next time he logs in.

Josh

Thanks @PopularDemand. Give that it can be changed, and I found The Roach Motel both funny and fitting, that was the name. Votes still welcomed though!

It's 20 rep minimum people need to participate in a chat?

Diago

@Josh Unless they are invited into a chat if I recall. @balpha can confirm

Popular Demand

7:29 PM

@Josh Yes. In practice, all you have to do is ask on Meta whether you need 20 rep for chat and you'll get your two upvotes.

Josh

Thanks guys

@PopularDemand LOL. Ok that's also good to know -- it's 20 rep on meta and not on a "main" site like StackOverflow?

Popular Demand

@Josh Right. Technically it's whatever site the chat belongs to, but for the beta, all the chatrooms are attached to Meta.

balpha

@Diago confirmed -- the room owner can give explicit access to users with less rep

Josh

Great. Thanks!

Diago

@balpha Room owner + mods or just room owner?

balpha

7:33 PM

yeah, + mods

Diago

@balpha Thanks :)

Josh

is it possible to enable audio notifications for all messages in one particular room?

Enabling it for all messages and being in the tavern defeats the point :-) But for rooms with very low traffic I don't want to miss messages.

Popular Demand

And so began the expansion of the "sound settings" menu into a 256-option behemoth.

Josh

@PopularDemand I see your point!

Piers Myers

I have it set for only when I am mentioned else it gets too distracting

Josh

7:45 PM

@PiersMyers Likewise

Popular Demand

@Josh: It actually would be nice to be able to set sounds individually for each room ("Tavern: only beep when mentioned, use Beep4.wav; Roach Motel: beep for all messages, use Beep2.wav; Chat Feedback: do not beep") but I feel like that would be a pain both for @balpha to implement and for users in more than two or three rooms to keep track of exactly what all the beeping is about.

Shog9

@PopularDemand I didn't.

balpha

6

Q: Default sounds in chat should be "only when mentioned"

The default sound setting in the chat web interface is pretty intrusive, with a bleep for every time anybody says anything. Suggest that the default sound be changed to "only when mentioned" to cut down on the bleeping.

Popular Demand

@Shog9 Thanks. I gave you read/write privileges to the Stack Overflow room, I was wondering if you'd be auto-notified.

Shog9

Nope...

...and, why is there a Stack Overflow room?

balpha

7:46 PM

@PopularDemand The technical implemation would be fairly easy. Making it usable... not so much.

Piers Myers

I would like a Firefox extension that gives some visual display of chat room activity

Popular Demand

@balpha Agreed; I was including usability in implementation there, with the theory that it's not really well-implemented if it's not usable.

@PiersMyers Different than the activity graphs provided on the room info page?

Or you just want constant access to those graphs?

@Shog9 ... for talking about Stack Overflow?

Shog9

meh. That should be the default state of every room here, unless otherwise noted... ;-p

Popular Demand

@Shog9 Negative. The default state of every room here should be "for talking about Meta Stack Overflow."

Also, I just made you an owner of the SO room; I guess you still weren't notified?

Shog9

Meta-meta?

@PopularDemand nope

pull those rights, invite me to the room, and restore them - see if I get notified if i'm in the room at the time.

balpha

7:59 PM

okay, heading to bed -- have a good one, all

Josh

@balpha Sleep Well!

Diago

@balpha Have a restful evening

Josh

* releases version 1.0.0 of a new module for his software *

I love doing that :-)

Diago

@Josh The day I see version 1 of any of my software I will throw a party no one will ever forgot.

Josh

@Diago Normally that's true over here, this was a very small module for one particular client -- like a 12 hour job :-)

We have a major project in 2.0 beta -- we'll have a party when 2.0.0 is released :-D

Piers Myers

8:09 PM

@PopularDemand actually the user General Info page is quite good for keeping an eye on the rooms you are in, however it does not get updated automatically

Popular Demand

0

A: Weask.us cloning stackoverflow content

I just clicked on one of these weakass weask.us URLs http://www.weask.us/entry/submitting-post-data-controller-rails-website and it reloaded google ad URLs several times and then tried to use my local machine name, which just happens to redirect to port 443 (ssl) on my box. and the browser co...

Security FYI

@PiersMyers Mmm, yes.

Fosco

8:29 PM

woo! meeting = success

Josh

@Fosco congrats!

Fosco

Thanks!.. now it's time to go home. Later

Josh

later!

Josh

9:01 PM

I must have a stupid mistake in my code somewhere. Must be close to the end of the day :-)

Piers Myers

something to discuss in The Roach Motel?

Josh

Maybe :-) I'm adding logging statements to determine what the problem is

I love logs :-)

Piers Myers

I am just adding log4net to my code

Josh

I am on a linux server writing a PHP application, and I have the app logging everything to the system log. works great

beats the hell out of echo/print statements :-)

@PiersMyers Found the error: It was me typing $tableInfo['comment'] instead of $tableInfo['Comment'] :-)

Piers Myers

9:21 PM

@Josh those statements are identical aren't they?

Josh

The C is capitalized -- array/hash indexes in PHP are case sensitive :-)

which is why it took me a while to find it

Piers Myers

ah, I see - not familiar with PHP - I missed it totally

Josh

It's for a system which automatically alters a MySQL table if the schema has changed, so I don't have to go to every singel client's database and upgrade them all :-)

Piers Myers

sounds useful but dangerous at the same time - hope there's no possibility of corrupting tables with live data else client's won't be happy

Josh

@PiersMyers useful but dangerous is a good description :-)

it's pretty robust, uses a transaction and notifies the dev team if an error occurs

It's for a SAAS product, so when we releae a new version each customer's site upgrades itself

plus it's still in beta ;-)

LOL, I just ran a test of an integration service with a fulfillment house, and my contact over there emailed me and said "Your test was successful and I've shipped the order, please let me know if you received the shipment confirmation email".

Here I am panicking, * you shipped the order!?!? It was a Test!!! *

he meant "Virtually" shipped, LOL

/me needs a beer

Josh

9:49 PM

Funny how activity in this tavern drops off just when activity in "real" taverns starts to pick up :-)

badp

"real" taverns?

you mean like in "real" life?

I never got that RL fad

Josh

@badp Yeah! That's right! I used to have one of those :-)

I had one before we started v2.0 of our new product that is :-)

How goes @badp?

badp

Straight to bed, @Josh

Have a good night, gentlemen and Jeff

Michael Mrozek

You people and your living in timezones that are different from mine. You should work on that

badp

@MichaelMrozek What? It's UTC land here on StackExchange

and it's 22:00

please adjust your clock accordingly

Josh

10:01 PM

@badp Good night!

Michael Mrozek

I know people who keep their clocks on UTC; I'm incapable of functioning that way

Josh

@MichaelMrozek It's 6:03 PM here -- you?

badp

(I kind of miss beat time, it'd have worked if proposed in say 2030.)

Michael Mrozek

@Josh Same

badp

"We'll meet a @800 then" is just too cheesy :/

Michael Mrozek

10:02 PM

Wait, you edited EST to -5; EST is -4

badp

@Josh Be careful, neither GMT or EST have DST

and both UK and US have DST

I give up :-)

:D

DST is so silly :-)

The editing is getting confusing :). It's 18:03 local here, which is -4 (like badp said, it's 22:00 UTC)

Josh

10:03 PM

same

I propose thusly we must be in the same timezone!

badp

@Josh, my gaming community at alleg.net has to coordinate for a global weekly time to meet up for clan gaming. Taking in account DST isn't pretty indeed :D

@Josh Have you tried China?

Josh

@badp LOL, I have not :-)

badp

Where other countries span six timezones, China only has one.

On the westmost areas, there's a time difference of 2h30 over borders

(iirc)

Michael Mrozek

I continue to be of the opinion time zones should not exist, but I appear to be in the minority

Josh

that's crazy

badp

10:05 PM

What's crazy is Indiana that can't agree on one DST switching rule

Josh

@badp Agreed

@MichaelMrozek I'm not so sure if time zones should not exist... but I completely understand how they're confusing as hell! :-)

badp

I mean, I thought state-specific DST regulations were hell

but then I saw it wasn't even that simple

Michael Mrozek

@badp I think you mean Indiana, but we got over that (I live in Indiana)

badp

Oh, right, Indiana.

Josh

@MichaelMrozek Oh that's no more?

I thought you guys still didn't observe DST

Michael Mrozek

10:07 PM

We started following DST in 2006 I think; it was recent

For a little while there was a rebellion where most towns refused to follow it anyway, but the big cities did. That was fun

badp

Last I checked only parts of Indiana did DST o.O

and it was after 2006

Josh

In one way I was about to say cool, then I remembered I really wanted the rest of the country to stop :-)

mmyers

In Arizona, they are in Pacific time but do not use DST. Except for the Navajo reservations. So when you travel through there in the summer, you never really know what time it is.

Michael Mrozek

@badp Not as far as I know, but maybe some of the little towns are still fighting it

Josh

@mmyers what a pain! :-)

mmyers

10:09 PM

@MichaelMrozek What would you suggest instead? Each town with its own time?

Josh

@mmyers good to see you by the way! Last time we talked was probably like 2 months ago on meta

badp

@mmyers Make it simple: it's either sleep time, or lunch time, or dinner time.

Michael Mrozek

@mmyers No, the opposite; everyone just follow UTC directly

Josh

@badp I like it :-)

badp

@MichaelMrozek That's only slightly less utopian than Swatch's beat time

mmyers

10:10 PM

@MichaelMrozek It's high 7 PM in Tombstone...

Michael Mrozek

@mmyers I really don't see the problem with that :)

It's not like the sun coming up at ~7am is a constant I'm really concerned with

It can come up at 11am instead, I can roll with that

Josh

@MichaelMrozek See that would weird me out :-)

I'd probably get used to it

maybe :-)

Michael Mrozek

I think people would get used to it pretty easily; it's not as head-exploding radical as 28 hour days

mmyers

@MichaelMrozek I would agree with that as long as the hours are the same length they are now. I need longer days.

Michael Mrozek

@mmyers They are, you just have 6 day weeks instead of 7

mmyers

10:13 PM

@MichaelMrozek head explodes

Michael Mrozek

But it's weird because it means the sun rises at a totally different time each day

mmyers

See, I was just thinking of slowing the earth's rotation down.

Michael Mrozek

Opinion is split; some people think it would be great, and some people think it would cause the human race to have a collective breakdown

mmyers

How many of these 6 days would be weekend?

Michael Mrozek

ALL OF THEM

parties

Josh

10:14 PM

@MichaelMrozek beat me to it!

I've gotta spend less time coding -- it's slowing my reaction time to the chats!

badp

Partyday, Holiday, Gameday, Relaxday, Saturday, Sunday and sigh Monday.

mmyers

@badp Flagged for including Monday. Monday has no place in the week.

:o

s/Monday/SODay/

You heretic!

10:17 PM

And the first person who posts the "Case of the Mondays?" picture will be temp-kicked. Maybe.

badp

I'm going to sleep anyway

Michael Mrozek

I think that ad has permanently ruined Office Space for me

2

badp

opens Meta

Michael Mrozek

@badp I've started subconsciously opening SO sites. I'll stop working to think about something for a minute, and when I look up SO, Meta and Unix are open in my browser, and I don't consciously remember opening them

Josh

@mmyers I need to get more work done, so

There

Michael Mrozek

10:18 PM

Perhaps the chat has immunized itself against the evil graphic?

I'm going to start joining random rooms, pasting the link, and leaving. Guerilla image-pasting

Josh

hides from @mmyers

mmyers

Oh lookie, Josh has left the room.

Michael Mrozek

@Josh Good job on the hiding

@mmyers Of his own volition, I'm sure

mmyers

I doubt it. It's the first chance I've had to try the "kick user" tool.

I'm kicking myself out now. Have fun. But not too much.

Josh

@mmyers ROFLMAO

@mmyers I'm glad I could give you the opportunity :-)

Josh

10:43 PM

So not 3 hours after I released version 1.0.0 of a new module, I need to release 1.0.1 :-p

I hate that!

Popular Demand

10:56 PM

10

Q: How should we respond to persistently low quality question askers?

I saw this question. Stewed over it for a while and posted a comment. But I got cold feet and deleted it again. Do you think it was appropriate? You are so representative for SO's Eternal September. I recognize your question style. You've got basically 100 strips of paper with a soft...

discussion questions

So, what, we start e-mailing usernames to Jeff now?

Josh

hm

that's a tough one

I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate 10,000 emails like that!

Although Jeff says:

>Bear in mind that new users like this will generally be blocked by the heuristics discussed in ...

http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/56817/can-we-prevent-some-of-the-low-quality-questions-from-entering-our-system

... so really it's the "grandfathered" users, who have asked hundreds of low quality questions, that have to be handled manually like this.

Popular Demand

Oh, I have grandfathered users in mind.

Josh

@PopularDemand Oh, OK :-)

@PopularDemand Yes I suppose emailing Jeff is best then...

Popular Demand

A 6.3k user; a 7.5k user; a 1.8k user who's inactive and someone who's already been suspended.

It would feel weird to actually e-mail Jeff, though.

There's a pretty strong anti-ratting-people-out-even-if-they-deserve-it culture here in the US.

Josh

@PopularDemand I agree, but, you could look at it like helping the community...

Popular Demand

11:08 PM

And a 3.6k-er, too.

Josh

@PopularDemand As far as "actually emailing Jeff", could be worse... you could call him. Brings to mind one (former) user who actually did get a call from Jeff. Ironic that such an honor got wasted on such a poster :-)

Popular Demand

@Josh I used to be like that but have been beaten down by too many "that's not cool"s.

Ha, I posted a comment on that Meta question (before it got closed) along the lines of "wait, all I have to do to earn a phone call with Jeff Atwood is be a troll?"

Josh

@PopularDemand I know what you mean...

@PopularDemand I remember that! :-)

Popular Demand

A 1.7k-er....

@Josh Hurrah, I'm Internet famous! Or, like, an Internet C-minus-list celebrity, anyways.

It's a small step to Internet-career-in-shambles-needing-rehab....

Josh

roflol

Does that mean you get paid in internet dollars? :-)

Popular Demand

11:14 PM

I've always been impressed with you "ROFL"ers. How do you keep typing whilst rolling around on the floor? Are you all outfitted with voice recognition software?

Josh

(avoids posting link to south park vid because he's been kicked once today already)

@PopularDemand PCMCIA bluetooth card in my brain ;-)

Popular Demand

@Josh Yes. I have accrued I$7510 so far.

@Josh No need, I know the one you're thinking of.

Josh

beats my $1818 in Unicorn Dollars

Popular Demand

@Josh Who issues Unicorn Dollars?

Josh

meta.stackoverflow.com :-)

Popular Demand

11:17 PM

Ah.

Josh

Not to self: Don't use open code files as a scratchpad for text to paste in to SO chats. You might forget to remove the scratch before committing to vc

Popular Demand

D'oh!

Josh

thus creating a permanent record of my slacking :-) Fortunately I reviewed the diff... I don't remember needing to change that file... oh, HA!

Michael Mrozek

There's a more permanent record of my slacking on SO; my coworkers recently found my profile, so now they can see exactly when I'm answering questions instead of working

Popular Demand

@Josh Yeah, +1 for diff-debugging.

Josh

11:23 PM

@MichaelMrozek I'm scared of that :-) with good reason as my openID is my first.last.name

@PopularDemand Oh using diffs and svn has changed my life :-) I've been doing it for years and years but before I was, it was a dark period in my life XD

George Marian

Does closing a question as duplicate notify the owner by email, like an answer does?

2

Josh

@GeorgeMarian Good question!

Popular Demand

@GeorgeMarian I don't know, because I don't use this feature, but I'm guessing no because it doesn't show up in a notification bar like getting an answer or edit does.

George Marian

Thanks, I try. :)

Popular Demand

And yes, it was a good question.

Josh

11:35 PM

@PopularDemand I don't know either because I'm not a mod, and I've never had a question closed (at least not in recent memory) so I don't know about the notification bar

George Marian

It came up on meta.money.se today and I figured I'd do what I'm supposed to and try to find out. :)

I guess we could test it on MSO.

Josh

@GeorgeMarian Good idea

@PopularDemand you can close on meta right?

George Marian

@Josh We would need a moderator or 5? 3k users.

Popular Demand

@GeorgeMarian Correct.

Josh

@PopularDemand That's right. I forgot :-)