Tavern on the Meta

Journeyman Geek

12:35 AM

@AskQuestionWizard ironically that's exactly the sort of people who need their questions closed

user302202

1:17 AM

@Feeds s/party/meta discussion/

user302202

2:39 AM

> Engagement is a toxic metric. Products which optimize for it become worse. People who optimize for it become less happy. It also seems to generate runaway feedback loops where most engagable people have a) worst individual experiences and then b) end up driving the product bus. -- Patrick McKenzie at 6:46 PM - 8 Apr 2019

Shog9

If you wanna really experience the effects of engagement optimization, go to a casino.

One of those places built like a pole barn, with penny slot machines stretching off into the distance as far as you can see

Where old folks sit with their oxygen tanks and chain-smoke to a cacophony of bells, and looking down one can never be sure if the garish pattern on the carpet is real, or a hallucination brought on by the inevitable nicotine poisoning that drawing a breath must bring.

This is Engagement Incarnate, stripped of pretense and laid bare as the onion of artifice that it is. There is no substance, no noble end-goal, just empty stimulation upon empty stimulation until death.

Journeyman Geek

3:05 AM

Yup

Even the ones not designed like an ikea

(I worked in one a bit)

Rob

3:49 AM

Gotta love those carpets, as long as there's no matching wallpaper, it keeps you oriented upright.

Get Answer Wizard

4:07 AM

Carpet morning...

(Ugh, recently I only slept for 2 hours...)

Magisch

4:52 AM

i've always found casions to be my natural anathema. Between the overwhelming smell, the music, the lights, and the pure intensity of the place, I can be there maybe 5 minutes before migraines start.

Get Answer Wizard

Try digital casion

Get Answer Wizard

5:18 AM

:7652412 -15 before deleted... 6 from flags, and the rest... 9 downvotes???

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

5:33 AM

@GetAnswerWizard That phone number has been spammed 11 times

Journeyman Geek

5:57 AM

→ 40 messages moved to Chimney

@Magisch heh.

Local casinos are the only place where smoking is allowed indoors

They have a great ventilation system so it only smells mildly of cigarettes and desperation

Hm, that was fun

One of the higher level support folks asks for logs daily. Previous shift forgot. I went 'Oh, might be the last shift - I'll take a look". Another location asks me to help, and while I'm doing it, my manager is huffing at us for saying "oh, it might be the last shift"

Apparently that's not being a team player...

Rob

Here it's illegal to smoke inside in any public place. Of course, though, our casino somehow obtained a permit (the only one such establishment I know of) to allow smoking. Not suss at all

Journeyman Geek

While he's doing that, the guy who asks me is running interference with my manager while I'm doing it. Then we write up a process for others to do it.

@Rob likewise.

For a slightly dysfunctional workplace, we do ok ;p

Rob

~~Bribes~~ donations sure are effective, huh

Journeyman Geek

@Rob oh just the massive investment and halo effect

Its not about the casinos though, its also about the additional non gaming stuff

One of our casinos brought in universal studios

the other has vegas style shows

Magisch

sounds like everything I hate

Get Answer Wizard

6:14 AM

@JourneymanGeek I like your casino. And also Genting.

not that I play though, only laughing at my friends losing money...

Journeyman Geek

@GetAnswerWizard oh the one I didn't work for is run by Genting

I worked at the sands for 3 months

Magisch

6:28 AM

I actually know someone who was at one point trying to become a shaolin monk

Mithrandir

6:41 AM

@Magisch Aside from @Mithrandir24601? ;)

Tinkeringbell

@AskQuestionWizard Ugh. :( Wish there were other questions there :(

@Magisch You're not the only one. I don't find casinos very engaging either :/

Magisch

A casino just sounds like the thrill of paying money to play what is essentially a worse video game

in an environment I hate

John Dvorak

Worse, it's a pay-to-win

Get Answer Wizard

6:57 AM

Actually, pay-to-lose

Mithrandir24601

@Magisch Only one? Honestly, people these days - they meet one person thinking of becoming a Shaolin monk and they consider that a big deal. (◔_◔) :P

John Dvorak

Magisch

@Mithrandir24601 I mean, it's an intriguing lifestyle

Mithrandir24601

7:32 AM

@Magisch Yeah, it's a very different way of doing things

Bat Cat

Good Noon Peeps..I am geekdroid…Nice to meet you all

Get Answer Wizard

!!/welcome BatCat

SmokeDetector

@GetAnswerWizard Welcome to Tavern on the Meta @BatCat! I'm SmokeDetector, a bot that detects spam and offensive posts on the network, and posts alerts to chat. You can find more about me on the Charcoal website.

Shadow Wizard

7:48 AM

@BatCat so you are the Geek version of @DroidDev?! ;)

@Rob here it's illegal but nobody is enforcing the law.

@GetAnswerWizard no coffee?!

Get Answer Wizard

!!/tea

SmokeDetector

@GetAnswerWizard brews a cup of jasmine tea for @GetAnswerWizard

Get Answer Wizard

(guess who needs coffee...)

Tinkeringbell

@GetAnswerWizard Pick me! Pick me!

Get Answer Wizard

!!/green @Tinkeringbell

ran away

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

8:04 AM

Rate limited.

Tinkeringbell

@GetAnswerWizard Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Bat Cat

@ShadowWizard LOL... maybe

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

A recent configuration change prevents it from responding with "invalid command", to avoid hitting rate limits.

@Tinkeringbell Heh, there's a toy button being sold in stores here that simply says different forms of "no" when you push it.

Mithrandir

@ShadowWizard Although I hear there were lawsuits starting about it.

Tinkeringbell

@Mithrandir We have similar rules here, and I wished people enforced them better :/

Shadow Wizard

8:20 AM

@Mithrandir nah, best anyone can do is call פקחים who arrive hours later and do nothing.

Too lazy to look, wonder if "supervisors" is proper translation?

!!/foobar

SmokeDetector

@ShadowWizard No such command 'foobar'.

Shadow Wizard

@SonictheWizardWerehog wrong ^

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

Thought that happened...it didn't work in CHQ for a while, so I assumed it was a configuration change

Shadow Wizard

!!/foo bar

SmokeDetector

@ShadowWizard No such command 'foo'.

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

8:23 AM

Over here, at least in So. California and Austin, Texas, smoking in public places laws are heavily enforced, with major fines. However, in Vegas casinos, it's legal.

Shadow Wizard

Maybe per room setting

@SonictheWizardWerehog yeah, makes total sense about Vegas

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

@ShadowWizard Smokey posts significantly more often in CHQ, so it makes sense there

@Aibobot Noticed you're lurking in here with your alt account

Shadow Wizard

8:36 AM

@SonictheWizardWerehog the alt account of @Aibo is @Journeyman ;)

Sonic the Wizard Werehog

hehe

Aibobot

@ShadowWizard @SonictheWizardWerehog busyish day

so I keep chat on a sidebar

Tinkeringbell

@Aibobot nice busy, or stressful busy, or both? :P

Aibobot

hmm

Busy Busy

Shadow Wizard

Barkfully Busy

Aibobot

8:51 AM

How do I put it....

None of the work is actually my problem, but we help

Magisch

I'm implementing recursive email forward checking logic

Tinkeringbell

@Aibobot Ah, so you'll be moderating the whole day? :P

Shadow Wizard

status-making-real-espresso

Aibobot

lol

points at mod stats ;p

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch GAH, recursion. I just killed that yesterday :P

@Aibobot I know, I'm the slowest ;) I just like chatting better than moderating! :P

Shadow Wizard

8:53 AM

I had a recursiophob at college. Really.

Aibobot

@Tinkeringbell well chatting is moderating ;p

Shadow Wizard

He was panicked whenever we had to use recursion.

Magisch

@Tinkeringbell to avoid long forward chains

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch Does it have to be recursive though?

Magisch

It's not just recursion, it's branching recursion that sprawls out

Tinkeringbell

8:55 AM

@Magisch cries

Magisch

Well I want to avoid scenarios like a@b.com -> b@b.com -> a@b.com

and of course, also a@b.com -> b@b.com -> c@b.com, f@b.com -> a@b.com

Tinkeringbell

I kinda really dislike recursion. It makes for bugs that are stupidly hard to track (at least over here).

Magisch

depends on how you implement it but yeah

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch Inside a run_something() method, with a load of booleans to check whether run_something() should be called again... While the easy thing to do was to have the run() loop over something.children, calling run_something() for each child :/

Rob

The fix for bad carpeting: Ibiza Foam Dance Club

Get Answer Wizard

9:06 AM

How to fix recursive carpet?

Rob

More foam

Shadow Wizard

9:21 AM

@GetAnswerWizard bring a cat

Magisch

9:49 AM

@Tinkeringbell butwhy.avi

The only way I see recursive functions as necessary is when you programatically traverse a path or tree in doing something

e.g calcing 40! or something with the same logical train

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch Because they could :/

Magisch

That wasn't "the easy thing though" that was more "it that pleases the dread god nyalathothep"

Tinkeringbell

Someone coded something in such a way that there's a main 'check', that should always have :child as a return, in order to run all the other checks that are in some kind of xml config.

There are a few cases where 1 check has a child too, so that if the check goes wrong, the child determines how wrong (how low the score will be). That's the only place where the recursion is valid.

For the first, just get rid of a 'useless' main check and get all checks from the config xml :)

Magisch

what is your use case and product and why is it a tribute to the eldritch horrors

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch because what is code, if not a tribute to eldritch horrors? :P

Magisch

9:58 AM

most of my code is clean

and I try really hard to keep it readable and maintainable, because I have to

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch Yeah, but sometimes co-workers get to it too... and in that sense it's a bit like moderating: You can only do your best to keep your site's quality up, but if others don't do the same :/

Magisch

12:11 PM

I wish they'd sort out the metasmoke api problems

spam lives significantly longer now

Mithrandir

12:25 PM

@ShadowWizard I'll be waiting for that name change

Feeds

1:38 PM

The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are In

Julia Silge on April 09, 2019

Python, the fastest-growing major programming language, has risen in the ranks of programming languages in our survey yet again, edging out Java this year and standing as the second most loved language (behind Rust).

Over half of respondents had written their first line of code by the time they were sixteen, although this experience varies by country and by gender.

We asked respondents to think about the last time they solved coding problems with and without our site. The data indicates that Stack Overflow saves a developer 30 to 90 minutes of time per week! …

2

Journeyman Geek

1:55 PM

→ 29 messages moved to Chimney

user302202

2:07 PM

As usual, classification by race/ethnicity goes like... White, Black, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian, Native American, Other Pacific Islander, Does Not Have a Green Card or U.S. Passport.

user302202

(This is from today's student newspaper, but SO classification is similar.)

Journeyman Geek

@AskQuestionWizard well - one would assume similar cultural backgrounds for the two.

John Dvorak

Let me Guess. Mr. T personally visits those who pick the last option?

Journeyman Geek

Here it would be "Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian (sometimes), Others"

Magisch

here, eurasian is usually split in categories of the various cultures on europe

e.g. differentiating italian from spanish from german from english from french

Journeyman Geek

2:10 PM

@Magisch oh, eurasian is something specific

Its a subcommunity of well, mixed asian and european decent from waaaayyyy back

Magisch

is it? I've known it as a term for "european or asian"

Journeyman Geek

so there's a few partially portugese families, and there's a few folks who have very dutch names...

Eurasians in Singapore

Eurasians in Singapore are persons of mixed European and Asian descent. They form one of the identifiable communities in Singapore. Eurasians have been viewed with mixed fascination and disdain by the European and Asian communities. Their European ancestry traces to emigrants of countries that span the length and breadth of Europe, although Eurasian migrants to Singapore in the 19th century came largely from other European colonies in Asia, such as British Malaya in particular Malacca and Penang, India including Goa, the former Portuguese colony in India, and Chittagong (today in Bangladesh), the...

@Magisch precisely how your background affects how you see things ;)

Magisch

Interesting weighting method:

> Survey weighting is an approach used to analyze survey data when the survey sample doesn't match the underlying population well. For example, in our survey this year, 11% of US respondents identify as women, but data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that women's participation in the software developer workforce is about twice that, more like 20%.

Means they're going for a full sample representative mode of the developer community, rather then the SO community.

user302202

A self-selected sample of SO users. 2x to the female part of it does not make it representative of anything.

user302202

> A few participants perceive the community or site mechanics as too strict or toxic for them to feel safe interacting here. insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/…

user302202

2:18 PM

But not enough to even appear on the chart in that section.

user302202

The most common reason: questions already asked/answered.

Magisch

22% of developers hold master's degrees o_O

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch Yeah, in Archaeology XD

Magisch

doesn't even have a bachelor's

Journeyman Geek