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00:00 - 08:0008:00 - 00:00

8:02 AM
... today I must be sleepier than usual. Balpha avatar looked like FuriousDestroyer/Pat to me....
Maybe they are really the same... maybe he just works on Stack when he isn't busy doing Minecraft videos.
Maybe Grace really is Jen.
...
should ask on skeptics
 
!!/coffee @Derpy
 
@Stijn brews coffee for @Stijn
 
oops
:(
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Pattern-matching website in body: And that's not only me saying that by gondajoss on graphicdesign.SE
 
8:17 AM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, messaging number in answer: Are private pastes on pastebin.com vulnerable? Can you trust pastebin? by Hackitecrob on security.SE
 
@JeremyBanks @AdamLear @Shog9 (since you are the last three with dev access here) can you flush the community bulletin on stack overflow? There was a racist question there which I edited, but the CB is cached.
@Oded ^
 
@Sklivvz flushed. Thanks
 
8:33 AM
lol whut?
 
@JourneymanGeek ?
 
@Sklivvz I'm not sure whether to be offended, amused or ... consider that its potentially true ;p
 
@JourneymanGeek Well, I had those racist feelings too before, so can't blame the OP of that meta post
 
@M.A.R. I'm actually ethnically Indian so...
 
@JourneymanGeek Nice, so take the flack for a thing a couple of stupid users are doing
 
8:36 AM
@M.A.R. naw. I just go NO Y YOU DO THIS!
A lot.
Also, there's upvote rings from elsewhere too
 
Back on Chem, if the name has "Singh" or something similar in it, there's a good chance it's either formatted terribly, tagged terribly, contains a terrible screenshot, is generally just a terrible question, or a combination of the above.
There was even someone on chat confessing they have a lot of socks and use them to upvote people in exchange for money.
 
Oh, I remember someone linking something about that.
That's amusing
Well, there's a lot of good, smart folks from the subcontinent
I suspect the terrible ones are easier to remember ;)
 
Don't forget the stuff that's mainly in blog posts too, — Journeyman Geek 21 secs ago
Don't forget stuff that ends in commas too,
 
NINJA EDIT!
@M.A.R. funny thing is digging this stuff out of meta ends up being something mods are good at
 
Fat chance. The oneboxed message is there FOREVER
HAHA BURN
 
8:45 AM
Curse my lack of godly modly powers here ;p
 
@JourneymanGeek So am I. But imagine trying to find all the cases where flags are automatically handled
 
@M.A.R. If its automatically handled, its typically not my problem, till it is.
 
Nice way of thinking
 
If its my problem, I know what the problem is, and what to look up
If I still have no clue, I ask other mods (sometimes not even my site ones!). If THEY have no clue, I post on meta or waylay a CM.
 
Argh, I'm still not used to icon placements on SO's new header... Every time I want to go to MSO, I type stacko, <enter>, and quickly move my cursor to the upper left, clicking SO's logo :(
 
8:50 AM
@AndrewT. type 'meta' instead :)
unless you browse lots of meta sites, it should be quicker
 
The first four results from meta. are all MSE.. then meta.startups (!?) :S
 
@JourneymanGeek Newer users usually don't have anyone to ask, or are too intimidated/uninterested to participate in chatrooms
 
@M.A.R. New users wouldn't know how to use/find stuff in meta either ;p
 
@JourneymanGeek Well, they can get over that by getting confused about it
 
Or asking on meta. And hoping someone is nice enough to find/link it.
 
8:57 AM
I'm thinking not about new new users, as in 1-200 rep, but someone with 513 rep who's looking around to know about the site more
And even considering they do find meta.SE, they won't find this very relevant question
145
Q: How do I participate in Meta and not die trying?

rlb.usaMeta doesn't like me; I can't seem to keep my points. How can I post better and be well-received?

 
I've never seen that before ;)
 
noob
 
9:10 AM
I placed a reservation for an airsoft game a few weeks ago, got no reply at all. Made a phone call a week later, left a voicemail, again no reply at all. Just called them again, to find out the reservation was all taken care of and they just forgot to respond to me.
Also pretty sure the person I called was still in bed, he sounded very sleepy :p
 
@Stijn As a general rule, every time someone trying to sell you something tells you he will call back when the items arrives... never expect him to call if you already paid.
 
user202362
@M.A.R. when I was at around 513 reps on meta, I was MsBanned_a_lot
 
user202362
good times
 
@Telkitty You're special
 
user202362
Oo :') ... so touching
 
9:14 AM
You will have to make the call. The "We will call you when items ready" clause is just a polite suffix, but it has no real meaning.
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Tool to recover part of a (Word) document by Toni Weller on softwarerecs.SE
 
user202362
@Derpy unless they are also chasing payment
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Alternative to LastPass by Toni Weller on softwarerecs.SE
 
2 mins ago, by Derpy
@Stijn As a general rule, every time someone trying to sell you something tells you he will call back when the items arrives... never expect him to call if you already paid.
precisely
 
@Derpy well it was pretty important to know for sure everything was taken care off, because it's for a bachelor party, so no way to reschedule :p
 
9:16 AM
@Stijn yep, important. For you to know, not for them to let you know :P
 
9:29 AM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted user: Alternative to LastPass by Toni Weller on softwarerecs.SE
 
10:03 AM
@Sklivvz well, that guy certainly was asking for a suspension . . .
 
 
1 hour later…
11:06 AM
bwhaahahahahaha
 
 
2 hours later…
1:07 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer: How to trace an actual IP of email sender? by gibson smith on superuser.com
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, blacklisted user: Compile VLC from source by gibson smith on superuser.com
 
1:21 PM
@Telkitty 1 invoice down two to go!
@ShadowWizard Sure but it will take some time to download all the transcripts. I'll get it started now.
 
@Sklivvz not that it makes it any better or worse, but that was xenophobia, not racism. english.stackexchange.com/questions/159908/…
 
(removed)
 
@M.A.R. Lol, see? A bunch of br*cks, I tell ya.
 
@Jason shouldn't you be sleeping? :p
 
1:36 PM
Jason's sleep rhythm boils down to staying awake until he starts posting nonsense questions about mysterious users using his account on Meta. Then it's bed time.
 
Psst, he's sleepchatting...
 
1:47 PM
@Bart Pretty much
Anyways it's 9:30 AM. I'm trying to kick myself back into a normal time zone.
 
1:58 PM
@Stijn specifically it would be... indiophobia (?) - xenophobia is quite generic
 
@Sklivvz TIL. Apparently there's a big Wikipedia page about it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Indian_sentiment
 
@Sklivvz @Stijn Oh yeah i saw that question last night and wondered what its ultimate fate would be. It looks like it got deleted, which is actually kind of a shame: If SE pulled voting ring stats and could show that it wasn't biased towards India, it would've been a great opportunity to set the record straight and squash that stereotype.
Ah, edited, locked and closed as dupe.
Maybe not the most effective choice. Nobody ever wants to "take a stand" when it involves actual effort.
 
2:16 PM
@JasonC hi
 
Hi
I'm not always this surly you came in at a funny time, lol.
Well, maybe I am.
 
2:33 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, pattern-matching website in body, pattern-matching website in title, repeated URL at end of long post: GlycoBol XT >> freesupplementrial.com/glycobol-xt/ by Tbby Vend on apple.SE
 
@JasonC I'm indian (originally) and I agree with this ;p
And I think I've had conversations before about indian culture going "wrong"
Well, I vaguely blame the brits ;p
 
user315433
 
user315433
Is Jason C in the top 3% of freelance talent?
 
user315433
At the bottom of their top 3% page there is a world map, which suggests that none of 3% are based in India.
 
2:49 PM
@NormalHuman I am in the top 0.1% of freelance talent, thanks. flex
3%. How insulting.
 
@NormalHuman wow, is that a freelance site that doesn't look like utter shit?
I might apply. But I doubt I'll be in the top 3% as they put it.
Unless they get loads of bad developers
 
Also...
That looks fascinating
I wonder if it would change my attitude re: getting away from freelance
 
How long have you been freelancing @Jason? I've been doing it for almost a year now, after being consultant for ~4 years.
 
11 years
 
that's quite a long time
 
2:54 PM
The realization came to me recently that I've never been the victim of a job interview, ever. It makes applying for a real job scary. Sometimes I browse through the questions on Workplace when Netflix doesn't have anything interesting in the horror category.
 
@JasonC workplace advice, worst advice
 
@JasonC Some of my pre-interviews are funny
One place tried to contact me on whatsapp ._.
 
Yeah... bad advice, and the questions there are like... "How do these people exist?"
 
Job interviews aren't that scary, after a few you stop being nervous. An important part that many forget, is to ask questions yourself and critically evaluate a company.
 
@JasonC also, how are these guys employed?
 
2:55 PM
Only Parenting and Lifehacks have questions with comparably scary implications.
 
I mean, not counting that supertroll.
 
I had one a few weeks ago and they asked me no technical questions at all. So I decided that I wouldn't accept an offer.
 
Oh, Academia, can't forget.
Yeah, the interviews...
 
@Stijn The place that called me last week asked me how much experience I have on various versions of windows (who remembers that?), and how much I'd rate myself on a scale of 5 on desktop support.
 
It's weird because I know how i would handle an interview: I wouldn't think much of it, I'd just... be a normal person. But then I look at all this stuff on Workplace, all these crazy blog articles about interview tips, and wonder what i'm missing.
 
2:57 PM
And that's better than most.
 
@Stijn all that; biggest pro tip, apply to a couple of less scary companies first to build up confidence. Seriously think of avoiding companies that don't ask you to code too.
 
Also my right shift key is broken and from this point out i'm officially not going to put any more effort into it. so pardon the occasional lowercase.
 
@JasonC At the end of the day, if its a terrible place, they just want to know how cheap you want to work ;p
@Sklivvz I don't get interviews at less scary places ;p
I think the last proper interview I had was at AWS
 
@JourneymanGeek that's seems like a weird and vague question
"How much experience do you have with the bottom row of your keyboard?"
 
@JasonC Indian IT outsourcing firm.
@JasonC I can answer that. I'll just see how worn the keys are.
 
2:59 PM
Ohh yeah i guess that makes sense
Ha
Oh fascinating i never looked at that before.
The letters are completely worn off of: asdgcvbnm
 
Also I favour the right side of my spacebar, and I type funny.
 
Oh wow I guess i do too. The right side of my spacebar is polished down to a nice shine
 
@JasonC essentially those places have 0 technical staff.
 
@JasonC heh, mine are ZQSD :) (also known as WASD to you non-AZERTY folks)
 
You guys still type?
 
3:01 PM
They just stuff em fill of recruiters, and they basically try to fill roles based on checklists.
 
@rene Lol
 
@rene I've been known to break every voice recognition software known to man,
 
I do, ever since the USB port in the back of my head wore out
 
@rene you have that brain-to-SO interface don't you?
 
It is 2-way, yes
 
3:01 PM
I once called MS to activate a copy of windows, and they made me repeat the code thrice, then key it in on a keyboard.
 
@rene Oh god, a bidirectional brain-to-so interface sounds horrific.
I hope you at least have a filter for and
 
sure and PHP
 
@JourneymanGeek I HaTE ACtivAting WINDOWS sO Much (reminder: shift key, that was supposed to be shouting)
And they read you that stupid number back with steps between every field. "next, move your mouse to the text box labelled group 2, then click once with the left button"
It's like 1000x longer than it has to be. At least for windows 7.
 
lol
I rarely have to activate manually
there was something wrong with that machine.
 
One of my clients has a frequently deployed system that requires win 7, i've spent a lot of time activating copies.
 
3:07 PM
@JasonC Oh, my condolences.
I wonder if backing up activation token and putting it back would be legal
there's a tool for that.
 
Usually in places with no internet access and spotty cell access because the vendor forgot to activate and nobody realized until, like, the machine was buried in a concrete tower in the middle of a large body of water or something.
 
Joy
Assuming you know ahead of time
and its entirely useless to me since I standardised on windows 10
 
(And nobody followed my instructions in the client's wiki that say "Step 1: Before you do anything else, activate the copy of Windows.")
yeah...
the project i'm working on for that client now (the last minute one i took on in january when i got hit with $13000 in vet bills and had no choice but to go back to freelance) basically involves redoing that entire system to no longer be dependent on win 7
 
@JasonC Step 2. Activate Windows. You might wonder why this is step 2 but based on field studies we learned, that no-one took action on Step 1
 
Ha
 
3:18 PM
ow
"step 3. Check if you activated windows. Cause some people STILL don't do this"
 
Yeah. because having to activate windows in this environment is kind of not ok:
Especially when you have to run up a zillion flights of stares and stand in just the right spot on a tiny little catwalk 300 feet in the air to get like 1 bar on your phone.
 
3:44 PM
@JasonC lol. I was just there in a game today p
 
3:56 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Username similar to website in answer: Philip K. Dick Essay by assignment authors on scifi.SE
 
4:20 PM
@JourneymanGeek Ha
Reality is obsolete
 
4:55 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: Choosing the right condenser by Linda Marie B on chemistry.SE
 
@SmokeDetector fp-
 
user315433
5:10 PM
@JasonC I seriously thought this was a screenshot from some 3d shooter. The lights, the wall textures, cavernous building...
 
@NormalHuman actually we were joking when inside it that it felt that way too
it was very quake 2
See also:
 
5:56 PM
in SO Close Vote Reviewers on Stack Overflow Chat, Jan 3 '16 at 21:06, by Nisse Engström
Odd, but not nearly as bizarre as the user who posted some C code with #pragma's and asked why the compiler complained about #progma, and then proceeded to suggest an edit to the answer to change all instances of #pragma to #progma.
 
 
1 hour later…
7:06 PM
Haha oh man: theconcourse.deadspin.com/… - an absolute joy to read.
 
@JasonC Nothing that comes with a picture of DJT is really a joy to read :-/
Lets just mob together with tar and feather, pitchforks and torches and ban them from this planet!
 
7:37 PM
@TimStone, Consider this long-dead app on Stack Apps.
It hasn't worked for years, but the problem is that it still attracts answers that are off-topic noise for the most part.
There are 19 visible answers, all technically off topic, including a new one today.
So, shouldn't this question be locked? It's of limited historical value only, IMO.
 
user315433
> when a moderator tries to delete a user with a dev story, they're immediately suspended meta.stackoverflow.com/a/346169
 
user315433
Watch out, mods.
 
Anonymous
lol
 
Anonymous
That'll teach 'em.
 
> @JasonC so you are not reasonable. Having seen how many times "awesome" appears in your profile, I can understand why. – Weather Vane 44 mins ago
I ... think that was a compliment?
Lol
I mean it's only there 3 times, and it's pretty applicable.
 
7:53 PM
link?
 
oh. Deleted.
 
Swapping the fields in the last order by produces a similarly uninteresting dataset.
I wonder why dense_rank is so much slower. That might be my research project for the evening.
 
@JasonC I don't appear in that list. My trust in the awesomness parameter is pretty low :-/
 
8:05 PM
@πάνταῥεῖ That's what you get for relying on awesomness. Come, experience the joys of awesomeness instead, lol.
 
@JasonC As mentioned my trust is quite low ;-)
 
Lol
 
both are frivolous rankings; Possumness is the critical factor here
2
 
@Shog9 Plays possum ;-)
 
8:09 PM
> Carnival haves fatigue elegant bask mobilise opossum insurrection ad lib incantation imperturbably excremental two resilient
Apparently Australia has a bit of a problem with possums
 
kristianp is killin' it.
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Username similar to website in answer: What should I know about Staffing Agencies? by Cloud Consulting Services Inc on mathoverflow.net
 
@Shog9 No, Australia has a primary problem with glasses
;-)
 
that... may not be the biggest issue there.
 
That was weird; I momentarily got a vanilla 404 error on mso. Not even the proper SO 404 page.
 
8:18 PM
@Shog9 But a serious one, you have to admit. US will get in serious troubles about toupet styles, so they're lucky people?!?
Not to mention rest of the world :-P
@JasonC Problemz!
 
8:34 PM
Humour makes life easier at all (well, sarcasm doubles that)
 
8:47 PM
As I' in The Tavern: Waiter another beer please!
 
9:18 PM
@JasonC thanks!
@πάνταῥεῖ is this you? ;)
 
@ShadowWizard Nope! I'm not an austrailian celebrity B-)
 
in Charcoal HQ on The Stack Exchange Network Chat, 18 secs ago, by M.A.R.
BTW, dunno if y'all have seen Animuson's answer to this. It's freaking awesome.
 
@ShadowWizard The relation is possums ;-)
 
user202362
9:42 PM
there is a group/family of possums living in the neighbourhood, and they live in neighbours garage (speculation, but have seen possums in and out of the garage multiple times)
 
@Telkitty C'mon don't play possum kitty ;-)
 
user202362
the same possums were caught stealing chicken feed before
 
@Telkitty I'd expect them stealing cat food ...
 
user202362
It is mainly a folivore
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer: Why do flies try to get in my eyes all the time? by Dennis Ende on outdoors.SE
 
9:55 PM
@Telkitty You meant herbivore actually?
 
@JasonC That explains arachnophobia that many people have well
 
10:13 PM
Oh man, this spam:
-3
A: How to deal with little flies flying into the eyes?

Dennis EndeI have to tell you a story about the problem I was having with eye flies or eye gnats for the past couple of years with no apparent relief in the future. It was the most excruciating situation I believe I had ever had in my seventy-six years of life! I visited eye specialists, my family M.D., l...

For posterity:
 
Gotta give 'im props for that @juno address
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, blacklisted user: How to deal with little flies flying into the eyes? by Dennis Ende on outdoors.SE
 
Was it spam, or just a loss of sanity?
Maybe we should text him and ask
 
@Shog9 Haha, nice, I didn't even notice that. What I want to know is if that was an automated system picking out keywords to drop into the answer or if somebody manually customized it for that question.
Because if that was automated, it's kind of impressive.
 
You think that was an ad for tamsulosin?
 
10:21 PM
Or it was a classy troll.
I have no idea what that was.
 
searching for that email address turns up nothing but a couple of posts on sex forums, so... I'm leaning a bit toward "troll"
Also, I suspect the author may not actually be an Admiral
 
The address is a creepy little house out in michigan
 
10:37 PM
I couldn't find any rear admirals by that name, although I did come across Rear Admiral Mike E. Butt.
 
user202362
is it safe to say that if it's not for money, all hacking started from stalking?
 
I think trespassing might be a better word?
Hacking tends to be about getting information or into places you are not authorized for.
 
user202362
illegal stalking
 
Although it is a common use now. I hear people say they "hacked their password" sometimes when resetting it. smh... Apparently you can type twice as fast with two people and one keyboard as well.
 
@M.A.R. I've got a present for you — you're gonna like it.
 
10:47 PM
@Shog9 - Any plans on making chat https?
 
:shrug:
 
user202362
10:58 PM
@JasonC are you going to send your cat over?
 
@JasonC heh. Watchdogs 2. Its rediculously large, and I think a SF native would either go OOH, or EEEEW at its simulated San Francisco.
"juno.com" Oldschool yo.
 
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