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7:00 PM
What, specifically, are the code-golf rules?
@Fosco I completely relate.
the first rule of code-golf is that we don't talk about code-golf.
@LasseVKarlsen That is a spectacular idea
The fizzbin thing
7:01 PM
no it's not
it's useless
@LasseVKarlsen Whatever they are, they should be the domain of the PCGA, not random MSO users.
as soon as non-technical people got the wind that all they had to say was "fizzbin", they would skip the queue
then it would revert back to current state
Well, in real life it's useless because nobody's ever heard of it, but if there were actually a universally known word amongst only tech people it would be highly efficient
It doesn't "skip the queue", it skips having the language un-techified for you. They don't want that
Then we'd have to resort to RSA keyfobs to authenticate our knowledge
ie. no way to distinguish the technical people from those who are, let's say... shoelace-challenged
7:02 PM
@LasseVKarlsen R-word?
@spoulson, "R-word"?
@spoulson I think mentioning RSA keyfobs would be sufficient to authenticate your knowledge
@Fosco The maddening thing about this is that sometimes (well, it only happened once, actually) I'll reconnect my equipment twice, and then when I give up and call them, they tell me to do the exact same thing, and it works.
@LasseVKarlsen Retard. Sorry, bad satirical political humor.
Ok, just didn't recognize the meaning :)
7:04 PM
When a user gets suspended from one of the SE sites, are they given a reason?
@Fosco We generally send emails first
Except if we don't have email addresses
@Fosco who cares? They're suspended.
Obviously we care
Although some have been known to suspend without doing it
Otherwise it wouldn't be temporary
7:06 PM
@devinb I was just thinking back to Frosty complaining here about Michael, getting thrashed around a bit here, and then suspended.
@LasseVKarlsen the "temporary" thing is just a temporary measure until they can be suspended long-term
got it.. thanks
HA!
Suspension doesn't happen without email communication first, right?
@badp 90% of the time. Depending on who does the suspending
7:12 PM
@Fosco There's a huge problem with people not getting the warnings that it's been stated they would receive. I have no problem with suspending people, but there should be a process that is followed.
Why can't they simply get a message when trying to log in?
You don't need an email address for that
@LanceRoberts 2 things 2 be aware of. 1. You guys often get the tail end of the story, and 2. there is a process followed, and almost every case where someone complained, it was followed
So publish the procedures then
@LasseVKarlsen They are. On the blog. A day in the penalty box
I have returned!!
7:15 PM
@LanceRoberts What's the Onion headline? "[Jeff Atwood] is local [website]'s sheriff, judge, jury, prosecutor, defense attorney, bailiff, stenographer, correctional officer and executioner"
@Diago Who is sed fallen comrade?
@Diago 3. We only get one side of the story, and it's always the side we have the least reason to believe...
However, if someone does not have an email address, there is not much we can do, except suspend for 24 hours and wait for them to contact us.
I tried this
27
Q: Suspension Reasons

devinbA recent kerfuffle has made it clear that perhaps there is not enough clarity on why users are being boxed. I know that the guideline is "Don't Be A Jerk" but that still doesn't help because there are so many different... jerk-thresholds. Would it be possible for all the moderators, Jeff, and J...

And that blog-post says: "if a moderator has warned you via email"
If there is no email, obviously there will be no warning
7:15 PM
You should have a chance to change behavior after a warning.
there was unexpected resistance to the idea.
@LanceRoberts There is a chance.
Suspensions start out at one day.
@Diago Yep, it be tough without an email addresss.
@LanceRoberts that was the idea behind graduated suspensions. Start out at several months and increase as behavior fails to improve.
@LasseVKarlsen There's TONS of warning. These people are warn in comments all the time.
7:16 PM
@Diago Yes, I got the hint of the backstory there.
For the record I am not saying the mods are always right. But in most cases, we have done a lot of work beforehand. Suspensions aren't handed out easily.
@devinb I like Shog9's answer on that question.
In new revision,
For betterment of mankind,
Bouncy was put down.
Gah, I can't delete anymore.
@Diago feel free to remove my earlier message.
@PopularDemand Which one? Got it. Done.
7:22 PM
@LanceRoberts All of @Shog answers are well written. But I don't necessarily agree with that one.
@devinb you don't agree out of necessity?
I just noticed that on Jeff's parameters there is only one warning. I think there should be detailed warnings before each suspension so that the user can change behavior.
10
A: What is the point of a 30 day account suspension?

Jeff AtwoodThe general process: stage 1 email warning about specifics of unacceptable behavior1 stage 2 1-7 day suspension2 stage 3 30 day suspension stage 4 120+ day suspension or account now eligible for deletion2 You advance from stage to stage by continuing to engage in the unacceptable behaviors ...

@LanceRoberts It shouldn't matter why someone was suspended. It shouldn't matter that they at one point were suspended. It matters that they are.
47
Q: Avoid the Streisand Effect - be clear about the reason when suspending an account

Shog9This sort of thing has happened a few times now... "Hey, did you see? User X was boxed!" "User X? Why?" "I donno... Maybe he... " (wild speculation ensues. waffles are blamed.) It's generally quite easy to notice when a user gets thrown in The Penalty Box. You see the tell-tale 1 when...

Yeah, I downvoted that.
You and I were on totally opposite sides in that debate.
7:24 PM
I just upvoted it, so we'll call it a draw :)
Nuts.
@devinb no we weren't.
I've seen at least one case of a user being suspended that imho absolutely didn't deserve it, so I tend to side with the "suspensions should be accompanied with a public reason" people now
I upvoted it, reasons should always be clear and transparent.
@LanceRoberts Jeff's point is that the user has been repeatedly drawing flak and bad will for their behaviour. then they get an "official" warning.
then they get suspended for one day.
Most people don't even log on every 24 hours.
@Shog9 true. I exaggerated profusely.
7:26 PM
Yes, but I'm talking about before the longer term suspensions they should get warnings also.
@MichaelMrozek Can you really call something a draw when it ends up with +8 in some objective scoring system?
the problem is, it's the longer-term suspensions that get noticed
and then questions come up, and cryptic explanations are given, and it's all weird
@devinb Yeah? Well, those aren't the sort of people we want hanging out in our neighborhood anyhow.
@PopularDemand It ends up canceling out on the question's score; I think Shog has enough rep to not care about the +8
@MichaelMrozek I know what you meant, but it... feels weird, to me.
7:28 PM
@PopularDemand Well, I didn't upvote it because devin downvoted it, if that makes you feel better; I'd already upvoted it before I switched back to the chat and saw his message
@MichaelMrozek yeah, I'm busy trolling NPR now
I decided with all the whining I do about those types of questions I should probably not commit to the beta
I'm considering nominating myself for a temporary moderator, on the grounds that I'm the worst possible man for the job
(which would make me a shoo-in, if NPR is truly the Bizarro SO it purports to be)
I went there, but couldn't see the FAQ to be sure what the site was about (didn't go through Area51).
0
Q: Let new users of StackExchange sites read the FAQ

Lance RobertsI noticed that when I went to the Programmers Beta that I couldn't even see the FAQ, it kept wanting me to login. How do I know I want to get involved with the site (if not coming from Area51) if I can't see the FAQ to see what the site's about.

What use is the FAQ when the site is still in private beta? Chances are, everything is still in flux...
7:32 PM
@MichaelMrozek Oh, no, I didn't think you did; I'm just having a spot of cognitive dissonance over your use of the word "draw."
yesterday, by Popular Demand
@Diago Shog9 for SU mod!
irredeemable bastard
I cannot wait for this site to go live!
I'm skeptical of your enthusiasm
Odd.
I just wrote an answer to @Lance's question that didn't provide me with a real-time preview. Seems to have posted just fine, though.
Just reproed with an edit.
i get a real-time preview when editing your answer...
7:38 PM
@Shog9 ... is this the first step before a mod invites me to an intervention?
Where does Stack Exchange Users Anonymous meet, anyhow?
on anonymous.stackexchange.com... Oh NO!
BTW: did you put the entities in there?
@Shog9 You mean the em dashes?
yeah - but they're not —, they're the decimal #
–—
@Shog9 I would think that the FAQ would be the first thing implemented on the new site.
7:42 PM
well, what would you think is on-topic for NPR?
@Shog9 Yeah, I type them out by hand.
@Shog9 No idea, I never even looked at it on Area51, I chased it down through a question that @Pop was talking about.
@LanceRoberts Wait, are you referring to the sitename/faq page, or the community-generated, red-tagged FAQ list?
@LanceRoberts Kop apparently thinks it's serious, I absolutely do not, and yet one of my proposed questions was in the top 5 and has already been asked by someone else on the site... So I rather doubt we're anywhere close to nailing down the real boundaries for the site yet.
When you hit the FAQ link it just refreshes the page.
7:45 PM
FWIW:
What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!
guess what sort of questions have been asked so far...
@Shog9 Are you really surprised that they use a generic template to put these sites into beta?
No, that's my point
the template hasn't really been customized to the site yet
so what's the use in letting anyone external view it? The only "custom" bit is the same tag line you can already see on A51...
... I just tried to visit the site, and got the login page.
Except my "Welcome to Programmers! Your account has automatically been associated..." banner is right there on the page.
As is my new-badges banner, and my "+100 reputation" banner.
if you clicked lance's link, it's a link to the login page...
Why does that even display if you're already logged in?
7:54 PM
maybe you want to double-log-in, just for extra protection against inadvertent log-outs?
And in future news, a troll has been suspended for having multiple sockpuppets across several SE sites. Before being suspended, he protested that he was invited to maintain multiple accounts by the sites' login pages themselves. Film at 11. Back to you in the studio, @Shog9.
2
:-D
that would not surprise me at all
but of course, on Meta it would need to be linked to a long anti-OpenID rant somehow
I was blindly anti-OpenID before joining the sites here at SE.
@Fosco many people were / are
@Fosco Why?
7:59 PM
@Josh I have no idea. that's where the 'blindly' comes in. :)
@Fosco LOL Ok :-)
@Shog9 "BADGE-REQUST: "Multiuser] badge for many accts; could have bronze for two accts, silver for four accts and gold level seven accts. to encorage mor votng & particip'n!!!"
I guess I was thinking blind-in-one-eye-ly
I has 13 accounts (10 with moar dan 101 rep) I can has win?
badge-request: [freehand-circles] badge for exceptional use.
8:01 PM
@badp No. You have gone too far.
But it iz teh unfairs!
I din' knows!
WOO HOO, local (to me) restaurant has $2.50 Spaten Lager and Optimator All Weekend, plus the best German Food in town. I know where I'm eating this weekend!
Spaten Lager and Optimator?
nummy
I still don't like OpenID, but I'm pretty used to it now.
8:04 PM
@Josh WHERE?
NC
OT, but... @Josh does the job market suck down there?
we had an oddly high number of NC applicants on our last job posting
oh, right, I thought it was some kind of food.
@Shog9 Yeah, kinda :-/
8:06 PM
@Josh Ugh, 3 hr 45 min drive.
(this was a job in Wisconsin mind you - not exactly a short drive. And the posting made it clear there was no paid relocation )
Why must you tempt me?
I just discovered a German place in my new city, but it can't match those prices.
The Premature Optimization
3
@PopularDemand Normally J. Betski's is not this cheap. :-/
I am guessing you're near Charlotte :-)
if so, check out... oh, what's it called, there's a great German restaurant there....
@Josh Wrong way. Norfolk.
Thank you, though.
8:14 PM
ah, damn
We -- or, our neighbors in Portsmouth, but it's only 10 mins away -- have The Bier Garden
The only place I've been to in America that serves Augustiner.
was anyone in DC last saturday?
There was a place serving Optimator near where I went to college.
@Fosco Yes.
Been a while but finally we have one of these questions again
0
Q: What's the best response to a post that can be answered really easily with a quick Google search?

mattalexxHere's an example of what I mean: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3630614/xpath-php-query Googling "XPath Query" returns a plethora of resources. What's the best way to respond to this question? Everything I can think of is flippant.

@PopularDemand at the National Mall with a lot of other people? :)
8:16 PM
@PopularDemand Feel like beating a user into submission?
@Fosco I wasn't there personally; I just know that a lot of people were in DC last Saturday.
@Shog9 You perhaps?
@PopularDemand lol, douche..
@Diago Yes, but I also have to leave and run to the store on my way home.
@PopularDemand The beating can wait.
8:17 PM
@PopularDemand There's two of those in toronto too. I love the Jamaican Dragon Stout
@devinb Something tells me they're not run by the same people.
@Diago I'll try not to tarry too much.
@PopularDemand Awesome, I suspect @devinb might beat you to it :)
@Diago not today.
To much work for a tirade
I am seeing double again. Time for bed. Up way to late.
@devinb I know those days. Haven't had one in a while
@Diago I hope you sleep well!!
8:22 PM
@Josh I hope so too. Just realized I can't go sleep for another hour.
@Diago Ug :-/
That meta question just got a close vote and an answer out of me.
err, I messed that up.
The meta question got an answer, the referenced SO question got a close vote.
It's tagged wiki, is all of 20 words, and specifically says no php manual or google answers.
I think it's still a real question.
Just highly constrained.
@devinb (Delayed Reply due to software bug distractions) That place looks great, wish I lived nearby!
night guys
8:34 PM
@PopularDemand Nevermind. I decided to answer myself. Not that it will help much since everyone seems to be missing the point.
8:47 PM
Is anyone in here a developer for Pandora?
They've created an amazing system
but they have a major design flaw which I craftily exploit <g>
9:38 PM
@Josh Ugh, Pandora.
I could never get it to play stuff I liked consistently.
@PopularDemand Not a fan?
Switched to Slacker as a result.
@PopularDemand It's okay, I could never get it to play at all =)
@PopularDemand Hm, I will check that out!
@PopularDemand Kinda like:
From IRC:
> [01:14] <@tommost> Pandora doesn't care about genres. All it cares about is the difference between the current song and Coldplay. It seeks to reduce this difference until you finally are listening to Coldplay. Then you kill yourself.
4
9:40 PM
@MichaelMrozek ROFLMAO
Pandora's design flaw is that it streams all ads from a different server from the music
Meaning with a properly configured outgoing firewall it's advertising free!
Wow, that means I can get the ads without the music?
@badp Finally!
@badp HA! Yes.
Hey, I'm sure the ads aren't US-only.
I'm still trying to configure my tivo to filter-out the shows so I can just watch commercials; it's a pain
9:42 PM
@MichaelMrozek You need the inverse of 30-second skip
That would be "2 minutes skip", from the little US news channels I've seen.
Exactly; they apparently didn't consider that use case when they developed it
Given a Mac OS X application called PandoraJam, I'm able to block ads, skip songs, and switch stations enough to keep music I enjoy flowing. Plus it can record to an mp3 any song I like
but I have to say, I just switched to slacker and I may stick here :-)
You slacker.
Thanks for the recommendation @PopularDemand!
9:45 PM
@Josh You're quite welcome.
@badp I am a slacker -- rather than visiting SOFU every day I wrote a script to do so for me, so I can get my badge
This is unusual, I came into an empty room seven minutes ago and it immediately filled up. Usually it's the opposite.
@PopularDemand You must've showered this morning ;-)
@Josh I've just pinned the page in Chrome
@badp Uhhh.... yeah, let's pretend that's true.
9:46 PM
@badp What if you go away for a few days and don't launch Chrome?
That was during August.
does it automatically refresh?
I'm covered till Christmas.
(I prefer showering at night; doesn't feel comfortable to go to sleep otherwise.)
(Hey, there's a question for Programmers SE!)
I shower during mornings.
9:48 PM
I have an LCD and waterproof keyboard embedded in the wall and stay in the shower all day long. The rushing water helps me think
@PopularDemand OK that's 5 songs I like in a row with no need to switch stations. I'm hooked :-)
you have just changed my musical world xD
@Josh My work here is done. Good night.
@PopularDemand LOL. Thanks again! :-)
People that use scripts to get Fanatic confuse me; I would think that would just be depressing to look at every time you're on your profile. "Oh look, I cheated to get Fanatic"
@MichaelMrozek I have no morals, so... ;-)
0
Q: What time of day do you prefer to shower?

Shog9Well, I'm sure we all know the stereotype: as a programmer, you sit near-motionless at a desk for 23 hours a day, covered in cheetos dust and bed sores, until exhaustion overtakes you and you fall to the floor and briefly sleep (wherein "sleep" consists of convulsing while sweating out Mountain D...

9:57 PM
@Josh It's not so much morals, I would just think there'd be no satisfaction in getting it if you don't actually have to do anything to get it
Damn that private beta :(
@MichaelMrozek I did actually have to do something -- I wrote an AppleScript! :-)
I'll never get it otherwise I'm afraid. Well actually recently I could have, I've been working so much. But I am really hoping to have my life back soon, and take a vacation. It's been way, way, way too long since I've had time off
and I would cry if I had like 5 days left and went out of town :-)
@Shog9: Neat, so I can browse private betas I'm not subscribed to just by linking site.com/questions/random-number?
@Josh True story: The power went out to my whole neighborhood about 2 hours before midnight UTC my 100th day, and didn't come on till the next morning
5
Q: "Comments are a code smell"

FishtoasterA coworker of mine believes that there any use of in-code comments (ie, not javadoc style method or class comments) is a code smell. What do you think?

@mmyers looks like it...
10:00 PM
I was starting to panic and considering calling a friend and getting him to login for me
Besides it was Über-Easy:
tell application "Safari" to close all windows
tell application "Finder" to open every item from folder "SOFU Bookmarks 1"
and put that in crontab
6
Q: Most used programming language

LorenzoWhich is the currently most used programming language? In new and existing projects.

I assume you could also use whatever API chat uses to just pull the full text
@MichaelMrozek That's hysterical
My next vacation will be to the Blue Ridge Mountains where I will hopefully have no cell reception :-)
Be right back, going to make myself a private chat room just to browse programmers.SE
10:02 PM
Thanks to @GeorgeEdison for that link
@Josh Oh, nice. I was trying to use stackapi.com to do the same thing, but it only works on the main sites
You can do it directly with api.programmers.stackexchange.com/1.0/questions/2/answers, but that's a bit unfun
@MichaelMrozek Yeah @Diago sent me the JSON feed for one question, and I was actually reading that for a few minutes, LOL
And some of my users whine about making our UIs more "user friendly". Pffft
One day I'll show them "user friendly" and replace our purdy UI with JSON or XML ;-)
10:19 PM
Slacker does NOT like being outgoing-firewalled off, LOL
-4
Q: [Java] Writing files, text, stuff, etc. to container called "cache"?

sdkgflkgldfsgfdSo, I'm writing this thing, a big one, and I want to load crapload of images, files, text, etc. from already existing cache, I believe its zipped .dat container. Lets say I have filestoregifs.dat and I wanted to write a new file to it (already contains around 14000 files) how would that go? The ...

I need to end more questions with "Don't offer me any C++ answers or I'm going to kill someone."
2
LOL
"So, I'm writing this thing, a big one[...]"
WHat a question
I vote for a new reason to close: Closed as threatening and really scary
@MichaelMrozek oh, how I wish I'd caught that question before it was closed... There are so many people I'd like killed, and I have the perfect C++ answer for him.
@Shog9 hahaha
Would you use subliminal messages in the C++ code to tell him whom to kill?
Sure. That's pretty much the whole point of templates.
10:28 PM
sdkgflkgldfsgfd: Try this solution:
char** dog = ["Shog9's Neighbor","Shog9's Mortal Enemy","..."
10:40 PM
Sigh, is today over yet?
:-)
just about...
if this next test passes, I'm off to get peaches
I'd be thrilled if I could get my tests to run before going home today; I gave up on them actually passing ages ago
@Shog9 *Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches... Movin' to the country, I'm gonna eat a lot of peaches... Peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man, in a factory downtown... if I had my little way, I'd eat peaches every day, sun soaken bulges in the shade... *
and that's what I'll be singing along to while I blanch, cut, and otherwise abuse the peaches
(it's traditional: buy peaches, start drinking, cook tasty things with peaches, singing along loudly to "Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy" all the while)
@Shog9 LOL awesome! When should we all come over? ;-)
10:47 PM
Drinking starts in two hours...
Feature request: Add countdown to drinking somewhere in the right panel
2
@MichaelMrozek YES
This is The Tavern after all!
I set 3AM UTC to Happy Hour
Hopefully my calculations are correct and it will be in 9 min
@Chacha102 That's when I am quitting for the day! :-)
10:53 PM
there we gi
go*
6 min
Okiedokie, I am outta here! I'll catch you crazy coders later...
@Chacha102 Bad news on that front :)

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