Tavern on the Meta

12:05 AM

@JourneymanGeek I actually need to get a new Daiso knife (the 2 I got 15 years ago are going strong but a few of my other paring knives not Daiso, are wearing out so better to replace with stuff that lasts :)

.... to be fair I use pairing knives for a lot of work (esp. butchering chickens - best knife for a lot of the work there)

LinkBerest

12:18 AM

^ only Swiss-Army I have and I've never used it (won it as part of a scholarship several years ago before actually joining the Marines)

Journeyman Geek

12:36 AM

@LinkBerest daiso knives are good for the price. 😁

But yanno. As an adult I gotta have nice things

LinkBerest

good things that last are sometimes just worth the price :)

On a Japanese foodie note: My friend made a Miso Caramel which sounds weird but actually had a nice, smokey, salty, & sweet flavor when put on icecream so really surprising and good

Rob

12:53 AM

OTF Knife Buyers' Guide | Knife Banter Ep. 41

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@LinkBerest Given the Florida knife laws, I'd get an OTF knife:

LinkBerest

@Rob shrug I had a bunch of knives when I was younger (I mean I actually used a machete for cutting vines out on the farm) but I've basically given away most of them by now and just don't use them (beyond cooking). Though even when I had a bunch I've always preferred fixed blade to folding or OTF ones

Though when I was true IT (back in the early 90s) I would always have a cheap folding, semi-serrated blade for cutting out drywall (when running cable), opening packages, and other destructive tasks (used to have to buy one each month cause I was so hard on them)

Rob

1:16 AM

Drywall knives are actually fairly intimidating.

Journeyman Geek

@LinkBerest yup.

LinkBerest

@Rob also hard to carry around when your crawling around an office running network cable :)

....might have helped stopped people from asking me 100 random computer questions while I was trying to run that cable though.....dang, missed opportunity there

Rob

1:44 AM

@LinkBerest Florida has generous open carry laws, the auto mag, even tank driving lessons; anything to help a tech overburdened with brain pickers.

LinkBerest

Florida has a lot of things (its a pretty crazy state) ;)

Rob

Only had that happen a couple of times when I was a tech, even triple checked if I had covered everything beginning to end to his complete satisfaction; and I had. But the moment you turn to start work there's just one more thing ...

LinkBerest

Never driven a tank though (look through my WorldBuilding answers if you want to know some of the heavy vehicles I've driven ;)...that actually sounds kinda fun

Rob

Expensive.

LinkBerest

also cramped, hot, and not fun on the other hand

Rob

1:48 AM

Probably pretty loud too.

LinkBerest

@Rob and that "one more thing" is always "just a quick question"

Rob

I explained that I had triple checked if I had covered everything, and that they confirmed that they had. I then explained that I'd escort them to the waiting area, where they could wait. Noooo, they wanted to look over my shoulder while I worked. I explained that wasn't going to happen. I had to explain that one of us was going to be leaving, before they figured out that it would be best if it was them

LinkBerest

depends on the tank: The M1 Abrams had a jet engine or something similar (you couldn't get behind one unless you wanted to be on fire) so was actually very quiet. Can attest to being surprised when a group buzzed by one of our patrols

Definitely 0.0 moments

@Rob never could understand why people wanted to watch - it would basically be "type a few commands" -> wait -> "some more typing" -> wait -> "click a button or two" - wait -> repeat until done

Journeyman Geek

Turbine

In theory it will burn any liquid hydrocarbon but they usually fuel it on avgas

LinkBerest

My favorite was data transfers - I'd just say "sure!" then point at the monitor attached to our mule (or whatever we were using to clone stuff)....they'd leave after a few minutes of watching progress bars

After asking me if I was going to watch it at least six times (I don't watch I listen for the dings - both bad and good ones - I gots way too much work to do to just watch stuff ;P )

Rob

1:58 AM

That guy made his rounds, wearing out his welcome at each place; showing up every few months. He'd buy a minimum amount of stuff, then he's a customer, and important. I explained to the owner that he uses up so much extra unpaid time that any profit was lost. The owner, also a schmoozer (now reformed) protested at first, but relented.

LinkBerest

@JourneymanGeek I wasn't specific because I don't really know (just know they were scary quiet) but yeah, probably

@Rob ah, I was corporate IT - messing with corp IT in the early 90s was not a good idea

... now I want to read some BOFH stories for some strange reason :)

Rob

ROTFL

LinkBerest

2:17 AM

hmmm....you know we should make anyone who complains about "unfriendliness" have to answer helpdesk calls for a day

That's just what we used to do with the PFY back in the day (or had done to us) - never failed to teach someone exactly how a technician should view users :P ;)

LinkBerest

2:31 AM

"The monkey just keeps peeling the banana" will always be my favorite helpdesk call because it broke our head of operations. The user had used their manager privileges to change the Windows theme to a "jungle" theme - among other things - on a computer meant to process and transmit 20k+ daily jewelry sales. Lead to about 100k missing sales data which finally caused them to call (or us to call them). We locked down admin privileges hard after that and nobody argued with us.

Rob

2:43 AM

The worst thing our users did was make their own upgrades while under warranty, then bringing things in not working; hoping they'd be covered. Sadly (for us) we usually ended up doing the tweak that got it working for free; because if they didn't fry anything we kinda liked to be nice. That was for the average customer, not the nuisance described earlier.

Ann Zen

Which is your favorite review queue?

LinkBerest

@Rob we always got people who would get malware or viruses (usually from browsing sites you shouldn't browse on a corporate laptop); we'd remove them; then they would complain because they would go out and get them again (which must mean we didn't do our job not they went to sites we didn't allow)

Rob

SO "Close Votes" queue is pretty good:

Spevacus

If I could review close votes on SO, I'd say that. The community around that ever-massive queue is awesome.

Rob

Because I don't have access to it!

Spevacus

2:47 AM

I hear Help and Improvement is awful

LinkBerest

We'd force the laptop into "safe mode" only for those people until they either realized they didn't need the company laptop or actually agreed to follow the agreements they had signed

if they did it again - we'd turn on clippy

Ann Zen

@Spevacus I'm starting to enjoy them, but it's always empty.

Rob

@LinkBerest We have the other similarly bad problem; "Why did you format my HD?" - we didn't, we don't do that unless asked; it erases everything.

LinkBerest

best thing was when these people would complain and we'd just open their browser history (I can't believe you spy on me! O.-)

I should try the review queues again (haven't used them since the boycott started but I heard there was improvements made - its been a while so you'd think they'd have to by this point)

Rob

3:05 AM

Why is any user allowed to add the featured-question tag to any question: meta.stackexchange.com/q/351302/282094 - the Wiki makes it sound like it's a tag automatically added to bountied questions; which that is not.

Spevacus

That tag sounds like it needs destroyed tbh, but I haven't looked at the questions tagged with it.

NobodyNada

@Rob It looks like the tag is used for questions about the featured tag/featured questions

That tag wiki's not great though

Rob

I was reluctant to remove the tag, bumping and associating my name with an odd question. Probably time better spent fixing the Wiki. :)

Spevacus

Yeah, the really old questions refer to bountied questions as featured questions, while newer questions (barring that super weird one you linked) refer to the featured tag.

Rob

I was thinking that maybe it was unsynonymized, then someone created the Wiki excerpt for it: meta.stackexchange.com/tags/featured-question/info

Spevacus

3:21 AM

8 years ago, eh?

Rob

Closer to *11 years old, and the first usage (definitive) seems fair: meta.stackexchange.com/q/19224/282094

The oldest created synonym was back in 2010, not sure how (if) I can see erased / resynonymized ones: meta.stackexchange.com/tags/…