Root Access

3:05 PM

@JourneymanGeek Dude, you know a lot about electronics right. I for one don't know a lightbulb for a toothbrush, or whatever else I can say to express my incompetence when it comes to electrical and electronics stuff.

tereško

LIVE STREAM: Oroville Dam Spillway Imminent Failure Live Coverage - earlier footage

►

Bob

@Nick the trick is to see which one lights up brighter when you run 240v through it

Nick

@Bob Ok, the toothbrush is on fire :D yay... lol

That's not what I wanted to talk about.

What I wanted to talk about --> daliborfarny.com

I want to make nixie tube clocks like that man.

djsmiley2k

yikes

that's prob not a good p[lace to start learning

nixies could easily kill you

Nick

@djsmiley2k Really? Are they that dangerous?

Burgi

3:08 PM

@tereško i understood it as the dam isn't failing but it is the overflow slipways that aren't working properly

djsmiley2k

that's all i know @Nick :D

Nick

@djsmiley2k well, thank you for that. That's the first time I saw a warning while researching about this stuff.

allquixotic

@Bob there's certainly a lot more energy devoted into jailbreak on iOS, AFAIK, but I'm very risk-averse with my iPhone because it has MobileIron (google it if you don't know what that is)

I could get another iphone (probably the base model iPhone 7) and jailbreak that, but.... meh

djsmiley2k

instructables.com/id/…

they run on rather high voltages

and while thjat won't directyly kill you, enough amperage will

allquixotic

I'll start to explore these options as soon as Verizon lets me know that they're transitioning me off of the grandfathered UDP

so far they haven't said anything about it

Nick

3:12 PM

@djsmiley2k I have dedicated equipment at my college electrical lab that can supply that kind of voltage safely.

djsmiley2k

running that is fine

touching it while live isn't

Journeyman Geek

@Nick I dropped out of a BSc in EE, and I usually know which end of a soldering iron to hold

Nick

The problem is mainly my lack of technical knowledge regarding this thing. I'm not stupid enough to touch a live nixie tube. Maybe I can do something with neon to make a faux nixie tube. Still, no idea how I'd do that.

Journeyman Geek

Nixies are high voltage and actually kinda simple

they're a style of vacuum tube so you just need to apply voltages on the right pins

I think a lot of people use etching + edge lighting to do faux nixies..

neon is even more complex than nixies ;p

hackaday.com/2012/02/18/edge-lit-nixie-tube-is-sheer-brilliance

Nick

I just want to make a nixie clock that runs efficiently on renewable sources and basically, looks cool. I don't care if it's a faux nixie but I just want that aesthetic on my clock.

Burgi

3:18 PM

May 21 '16 at 8:01, by Boris_yo

@Psycogeek How to not solder when shooting for stock: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/49dayl/shortly_after_these_stock_photos_‌were_taken_all/

Rahul2001

@JourneymanGeek I have literally no proper education in electronics and computers and yet know more than most, if not all, teachers. They use soldering irons from 1990 in our school damnit.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek usually

@Rahul2001 ...nothing wrong with a 1990 iron

@allquixotic eww mdm

Rahul2001

@Bob Except that, maybe, they don't even melt the damn solder? But of course, that's a safety feature...

Bob

@Rahul2001 that's not because of the age. probably just poor temperature control or those shitty conical tips. or poor technique by you.

allquixotic

@Bob it's one of those things that has an explicit privacy policy that says it doesn't collect any personal info... the only thing it lets them do is remote wipe, but company says they won't do that even if you quit / are terminated, they will just need to confirm that you deleted all your MDM apps and data

Bob

3:27 PM

chisel tip ftw

allquixotic

fortunately the MDM data is contained in separate apps from personal data so there's no overlap

the remote wipe is for "oh crap I lost my phone, oh CRAP it has company data on it"

Bob

@allquixotic yeaaaa... I was given the choice between activesync w/ remote wipe permission, or vpn from home desktop

Rahul2001

@Bob I was being sarcastic. These irons don't even have temperature control, they plug in directly to power, and don't work.

Bob

I took the vpn option. in a vm.

allquixotic

@Bob can't wait until phones start having explicit support for VMs / containers

heavyweight, hardware-assisted isolation that corps will feel comfortable with

Bob

3:29 PM

@allquixotic funnily enough we might see that in Windows Phone first

what with the whole x86 emulation thing

allquixotic

do a little context switch and your home screen is 100% company :D

Bob

Qualcomm was also introducing hardware virt stuff specifically to support said emulation

allquixotic

@Bob hmm, raises the question is anyone working on a standard hw virt instruction set for ARM?

Bob

@allquixotic ^ :P

@allquixotic tomshardware.com/news/… Maybe not general hardware virt, but a step in that direction.

allquixotic

power flickered.... we've had dangerous, powerline-damaging winds here

tereško

3:32 PM

@Burgi the overflow spillway was made as if it was never expected to actually be used

allquixotic

oh well, I have a ~~ups~~ laptop batteries (for all 3 of my laptops) and 4G

Bob

@allquixotic ow.

tereško

it has been eroding away the everything

Bob

@allquixotic funny how fragile electrical infrastructure can be

too hot? transformers catch fire. too windy? powerlines get blown down.

Burgi

@tereško THE EVERYTHING!?! ;)

Bob

3:35 PM

snow? there goes the powerlines

Rahul2001

@Burgi xD

Burgi

@tereško still very concerning

Journeyman Geek

@Rahul2001 I taught myself to solder

also, modern solder has a higher melting point than old solder

Rahul2001

@JourneymanGeek As did I. I made some painful mistakes.

@JourneymanGeek New decent soldering irons cost about USD3 here

Burgi

is there a way to limit the amount of disk space a site uses in IIS?

djsmiley2k

3:41 PM

@Bob it's the same with trains in the uk

Bob

@Rahul2001 you and I have very different definitions of decent...

if it's not got a temp control and feedback, it's not decent

Burgi

the excuse they used in 2012 was "the wrong type of snow..."

Bob

(considering that costs something like 18AUD delivered from hobbyking)

Rahul2001

@Bob Stuff like that is hella cheap here... Decent enough for school use

djsmiley2k

@JourneymanGeek glad I'm not the only one to think 'hmmm lead free'

feedback? as in shows the temp it's at?

Bob

3:42 PM

@Rahul2001 uhh... temp control is even more important for school use

seriously, an iron without temp control is dangerous

@Burgi uhhh... disk quota? technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc875785(v=ws.10).aspx

iis.net/learn/publish/using-the-ftp-service/…

you can do it folder-specific or account-specific (and run iis sites under different accounts)

Rahul2001

@Bob Bleh, school refuses to invest so we buy the ones with the least temp which can melt solder, and turn it off while not using. Not perfect, but works. We learn to work with the bare minimum here.

Bob

@Rahul2001 yea, uh... I've been stuck with uncontrolled irons at school before. seriously, the cheap hakko clone temp-controlled ones are cheap

and probably won't start a fire

djsmiley2k

i've not started any fires with mine

feel like i'm missing out

Rahul2001

@Bob Will see if I can manage to convince teachers

@djsmiley2k ditto :P

Bob

@Rahul2001 there's two ways to make an iron better for cheap: get a chisel tip (much higher heat transfer if used right, ~$1 off ebay) and get a temp-controlled station (<$20)

bwDraco

3:47 PM

videocardz.com/65892/…

Bob

oh it's 18USD

hobbyking.com/en_us/…

bwDraco

...and those HSF designs brought up earlier are in fact fake.

Bob

hobbyking.com/en_us/…

dunno if you can find something like that cheaper over there @Rahul2001

@bwDraco I'm shocked.

bwDraco

Again, though, the processor models and pricing are probably correct.

Rahul2001

@Bob I found some ok ones for like INR 2000... Might be able to convince school.

Bob

3:49 PM

@Rahul2001 linky?

> new technology called Extended Frequency Range (XFR), which basically allows clock speeds to scale with cooling solutions, without a requirement of user intervention

psssssst we've had that for like a decade

Burgi

@Bob thanks!

Bob

well, "we" as in "not-AMD"

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco I think I'll wait for real news ;p

Bob

clock speeds scaling based off cooling => "What is, turbo boost?"

bwDraco

@Bob This is beyond the specified turbo frequency; see AMD's New Horizon stream

Rahul2001

3:50 PM

@Bob Let me re-open it... I'm on a 512kbps network

bwDraco

AMD Presents New Horizon

►

AMD says it scales arbitrarily high based on the cooling you have. Heck, it'll scale to LN2.

Bob

@bwDraco meh. it's just another name for the same thing, until you hit voltage/power-related instability. which is a different question altogether.

bwDraco

Bob

congrats, more marketing speak

tereško

@Burgi imgur.com/gallery/L0UqZ

kinda fit's the "everything"

Bob

3:54 PM

<== in a rather cynical mood

Journeyman Geek

ah hah!

bwDraco

What I'm curious about is how it'll work in practice. We'll see when the processors actually come out.

Journeyman Geek

Mar 13 '11 at 10:53, by The Journeyman geek

dear me...

Seems oddly appropriate

bwDraco

@Bob By repeatedly posting rumors, am I making myself less trustable?

Journeyman Geek

First thing I have ever said on chat

Bob

3:55 PM

@bwDraco not really, no

djsmiley2k

haven't we had this discussion?

Bob

I just feel particularly skeptical of those particular claims... don't read too much into it

Burgi

@bwDraco they aren't rumours about aliens so you are probably fine

Bob

it could be right for all I know. it just smells off

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco no one's keeping score.

bwDraco

3:56 PM

I think I'm not being skeptical when I should be

djsmiley2k

im secptical of everything

Bob

nbd whether it's right or wrong

this is chat, not a scientific journal

5

bwDraco

This needs to be addressed. It means I'm gullible.

djsmiley2k

^^

Burgi

lol

bwDraco

3:56 PM

lol

djsmiley2k

also it means you trust

trust, but verify

bwDraco

You're right, though. It's not exactly a big deal.

Burgi

@bwDraco if it helps i can threaten to sue you if your rumours turn out to be nonsense

djsmiley2k

ppl presumed they were amd shots

bwDraco

I've starting adding "rumor" tags to links where appropriate.

Journeyman Geek

3:58 PM

also, there's just so much bull around <next generation cool thing> that I'd rather wait for them to hit the shelves.

djsmiley2k

^^ this

and even then i cant afford one :(

bwDraco

@djsmiley2k I think WCCFtech misread the source, mistook it as real, and VideoCardz got it right.

djsmiley2k

they forgot to verify

Journeyman Geek

One last one

Oct 1 '13 at 16:11, by Journeyman Geek

heh, sometimes I have too much fun trolling the mods

2

oops ;p

Burgi

@bwDraco did you know they've removed "gullible" from google to stop people making silly jokes about it?

Journeyman Geek

4:01 PM

@Burgi let me google that to confirm...

Burgi

:P

Bob

anyway, back to the topic

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco its a joke ;p

bwDraco

...let's not spoil the joke.

Bob

yea, they can do fancy frequency scaling... but at some point it's gonna be unstable

bwDraco

4:01 PM

That's why I deleted the messages.

Bob

and unstable is ... hard ... to detect consistently

so... I highly doubt they'll do any such 'infinite' scaling, if only cause it'll crash half the time

@Rahul2001 no soldering stations < $15 :(

bwDraco

yesterday, by bwDraco

The processor has, among other things, hundreds of critical section sensors that can detect whether parts of the pipeline can finish within the clock cycle, so it can push itself to the limit yet remain stable. (Unstable overclocks are typically because transistors aren't able to switch quickly enough to complete some part of the pipeline on time, resulting in erroneous output. Higher voltage increases the switching speed which helps prevent this from happening.)

It'll be voltage-limited.

Journeyman Geek

heh

@Bob my soldering kit is pretty shitty

Bob

@bwDraco if it's voltage-limited then it's not gonna scale endlessly

soooooo. turbo boost by another name.

bwDraco

The question is how high?

Bob

4:04 PM

probably not that high

bwDraco

It'll probably depend on the exact characteristics of each chip.

Bob

if voltage-limited, it's not gonna go anywhere near liquid nitrogen cooling capacity

@bwDraco and that's what factory testing and binning takes care of.

Journeyman Geek

and how many cores are in use

Bob

if there's that much headroom on a given chip (except maybe highest-end), then the factory has failed its binning process.

bwDraco

Yup.

djsmiley2k

4:06 PM

maybe they've got rid of the binning process..

Bob

these all sound fancy, but in practice... dunno. they sound like they'll end up as gimmicks.

@djsmiley2k might as well sell all chips as if they were the poorest-performing while we're at it, yea?

bwDraco

@Bob Binning happens at certain chip voltages and TDP limits. Enthusiast systems can go well past these limits.

djsmiley2k

@Bob unless you can be sure a specific set of chips will reach X ghz ?

Journeyman Geek

@djsmiley2k which is unlikely

bwDraco

It's a matter of the "silicon lottery".

Journeyman Geek

4:07 PM

though they could bin within each "family"

we are unlikely to see say, 5 core processors from hex cores binned as 4 cores ;p

but we could see binning within the 8 core or 4 core versions

bwDraco

You probably already know the degree of sample variation Intel's high-end processors are subject to.

(not necessarily HEDT, but also stuff like the i7-6700K and i7-7700K.)

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek /me says the same things in hopes it'll be prophetic

Let it be known here: I never want to become a SU moderator. (please star this in 2019 or so when I become one)

bwDraco

lol

Bob

@allquixotic think you said that before :P

Journeyman Geek

lol

Bob

4:15 PM

and here I'm pretty sure I'll never be one for lack of main activity if nothing else (...trust me, there's plenty more reasons I won't be)

bwDraco

I've stepped away from mod stuff lately. I've been getting very busy as of lately, and even if I would become qualified at some point in the future, I might not have the time to carry out mod duties.

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic I never ever said I wanted to be a mod ;p

Bob

@bwDraco ya, I'll never bet on overclocking

only the rated clock speeds are guaranteed :P

allquixotic

@Bob you'll probably be one before me :P I'm not active on main either, but I'm pretty active on meta

Journeyman Geek

I said trolling the mods was fun ;p

allquixotic

4:16 PM

highest rep candidate generally wins elections though

Bob

@allquixotic which will likely be @DavidPostill at the point

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic I suspect I'm the most active mod on main in terms of actual answers ;p

(granted, I've been a tiny bit keener cause of the 100K thing ;p)

allquixotic

@Bob nah, harrymc or that extremely abrasive WiFi engineer guy (spiff or something)

bwDraco

Perhaps, as time allows and as my behavior improves, it'll happen. But I don't think I'll be a mod within the next several months.

allquixotic

if they run

Bob

4:17 PM

@allquixotic David has more than Spiff :P

allquixotic

@Bob O_O

wow

bwDraco

Only time will tell. I think DavidPostill is the most qualified.

Bob

Harrymc ... uhh ... pretty sure current mods will speak out against that...

jokerdino

Wait, there is an election?

Journeyman Geek

He's not likely to stand

He's not interested in... well...

Ben N

4:18 PM

@jokerdino No, this is all hypothetical

Journeyman Geek

@jokerdino naw

Bob

@bwDraco Perhaps not fair to discuss until/unless he nominates himself, buuut. I can see both good and bad.

Then again that goes for everyone.

Ben N

If I understand correctly, there are plenty of current mods

Everyone has good and bad <insert speech about wolves here>

jokerdino

is random still around?

Journeyman Geek

I was looking through old chat posts and saw chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/35407481#35407481

Bob

4:19 PM

But yea of current active site users David may well be the best choice, idk. I'm not active enough there to see other users much :P

Journeyman Geek

@jokerdino yeah

jokerdino

Hmm, we must be doing something not right. We have more mods than SU O_o

bwDraco

You probably know me as someone who's always wanted to be a mod, but I don't think I'm ready just yet.

jokerdino

..yeah

bwDraco

My schedules have tightened up dramatically lately, and I don't think I've improved enough yet.

XKCD

4:21 PM

You have to be careful doing this. Sometimes, when you push the whisker down, dynamite explodes.

5

Journeyman Geek

0_0

bwDraco

We'll see. I kinda see it as an inevitability, but that's just speculation.

Bob

@jokerdino the woes of being promoted as official support for a largely novice community :P

Journeyman Geek

yup

jokerdino

yup

Journeyman Geek

4:22 PM

and I suspect you guys have a bigger flag queue

besides, you guys have a few folks with mod potential too

bwDraco

I think I need to spend some more time reviewing posts...

jokerdino

Good thing I got some ~~minions~~ fellow mods to ~~do all my work~~ share the load.

bwDraco

I'll just try to behave my best, as always.

jokerdino

@bwDraco Just chillax

@JourneymanGeek I guess so.. Haven't been there since forever.

DavidPostill

@Bob I would be very happy if you can tell me what the bad is so I can address it :)

bwDraco

4:24 PM

It's no biggie.

jokerdino

@JourneymanGeek I am rooting for one myself.

Journeyman Geek

rooting? ;p

bwDraco

It's just that I have a lot to work on at home and a lot of things to do to improve myself.

Bob

@DavidPostill Not much really, think I've said it before: I find you a bit stricter on newbies/*potential* spammers than my personal preference might be.

bwDraco

lol

Bob

4:25 PM

But you've also seen a lot more, so it's natural to be more suspicious :P

bwDraco

@Bob, I'm like that, too.

DavidPostill

@Bob Thanks, I will bear that in mind.

jokerdino

@JourneymanGeek I guess. Autopilot mode heh

Kill first, think later.

Bob

@DavidPostill I think it's a fairly natural thing for long-term mods - it's easier to just lump all "poor" questions together and close them than put in effort to comment/fix/guess.

And there's not necessarily anything wrong with that.

bwDraco

Good luck. I'm very busy so I can't spend much time here. Maybe in a few months...

Journeyman Geek

4:27 PM

@Bob kinda sorta

Bob

It's not optimal, but it's what's gonna happen until we replace all mods with a perfect AI :P

Journeyman Geek

We also have the ability to one shot close

and some questions are just too terrible

allquixotic

@Bob eh, I've always railed against the tendency to gradually shift towards being more restrictive and less open-minded about questions over time, something I've observed on the mainsite

jokerdino

And to avoid most dramas in chat when we are awake.

DavidPostill

@Bob We already have smokey which is pretty good at flagging spammers :)

Journeyman Geek

4:27 PM

I'd rather comment than close if its minor

Bob

@allquixotic Yea, I'm personally against it, but I can see why it might be asking too much of mods to relax too much.

bwDraco

Yeah.

Journeyman Geek

@jokerdino we mostly sorted out chat dramas here ;p

bwDraco

I've written quite a few posts on Meta on being nicer to newcomers.

Bob

@allquixotic Also, part of that is there's a lot of conflicting/unclear rules where a bunch of questions will only be closed by a small subset of people.

jokerdino

4:28 PM

@JourneymanGeek Shame.

allquixotic

!! s/mostly sorted out/for the moment have turned the tide against/

ChatBot John Cavil

@allquixotic @jokerdino we for the moment have turned the tide against chat dramas here ;p (source)

Bob

So the questions that get through this giant net end up being those that pass all those separate subsets.

Journeyman Geek

0_0

bwDraco

Things like the post ban have caught users off-guard in the past; I've played a role in getting a warning system implemented.

Bob

4:29 PM

Eh. At some point it might be worth making a full list of closables and what's borderline/acceptable, in one place.

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic essentially though, its a wee bit of simple management theory.

Bob

Rather than scattered across a hundred meta posts.

Journeyman Geek

I empowered folk to do what's needed, and they have the motivation to ;p

Bob

Actually, a wiki would be great for that.

bwDraco

I'm all for making Super User more beginner-friendly, but we must not forsake our goal of building a high-quality Q&A database.

DavidPostill

4:30 PM

@Bob That's because the same set of people are the only one working the queues :/

allquixotic

Q and A bans have been extremely frustrating for users since they were first implemented, but most of the time when I look at the questions and answers made by a user who complains about being Q or A banned, I'm like "haha, yes, I'm really glad you're not on the site; kindly leave"

bwDraco

I'll see if I can head back to the queues soon.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob though, if its the standard questions...

Bob

@DavidPostill Sorry, I meant more that 10% of people might not like questions about A, a partially overlapping 10% don't like questions about B, etc..

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic I've made attempts to help folk get past those

yanno what? It takes a lot of time, isn't always possible, and some of the time, the users are not actually appreciative of it

Bob

4:31 PM

The example I've used in the past is some people will close questions that ask about concepts as "not a practical problem" while others will close the questions going into extensive troubleshooting as "too localised". And each group might accept the other type as good.

Which leaves very few questions in the middle.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob there's no more too localised ;p

and I close homework questions

there's this guy...

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Yea, my 3:30 AM brain can't think of a better example :P

@bwDraco It's a hard one. Made harder by not really having a well-defined purpose.

We take questions about ... computers.

And? How? In what way?

How to use/do something? Half the time it's a comment prompting to go to Google.

How something works? Use Google. Oh, and it's not practical.

Bleh.

Why something is the way it is? Subjective.

DavidPostill

Most of ones I VTC are clearly off-topic - Smartphones/Shopping/Programming or too-broad - Gimme the scriptz - and I pretty much always leave a comment (even if is a canned one).

Journeyman Geek

@Bob hence my question a few days back ;p

"Educate or close?"

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Yea... hard choices :\

I leaned towards educate there, because I honestly thought a good answer was possible. But it also attracted a bunch of poor answers.

Bleh.

DavidPostill

4:36 PM

If it's a valid question and I can gargle the answer I will answer it. I've learnt a lot doing that and can answer questions I'm no expert in ...

Bob

Should we cater towards finding the diamond in the rough, or slowing the torrent of crap?

Journeyman Geek

hm

Ben N

I lean towards leaving questions open if they can be answered with actual facts

Bob

...and that's enough metaphors for one night.

Journeyman Geek

I donno if I can share the exact graphs

but looks like we close/delete somewhere around 25% of questions

(Its n analytics)

Bob

4:38 PM

Oh, actually, to follow from what @allquixotic said. It seems that we find (common) examples of bad questions, and ban the category outright. But of course there's also excellent questions/answers that fall into that category.

Shopping questions? Bad. Banned.

Journeyman Geek

yup

Bob

Shopping-ish question about niche product (...keyboards!)? Oh, it got a good answer. Allowed.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob I guess its about "what to look for" vs "what to buy"

Bob

But what ends up happening is a gradual narrowing of scope, and more and more interesting answerable questions getting closed :(

Journeyman Geek

@Bob and/or workarounds

software 'shopping' questions are banned

Bob

4:39 PM

@JourneymanGeek Yes. Shitty workarounds.

Journeyman Geek

so answers are more process oriented

Bob

s/Give me a program to/How can I/

Journeyman Geek

yup

Bob

There, a whole bunch of questions are now allowed!

It's dumb.

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek which is like saying "You can't ask me, 'Can I have a banana', but you can ask me 'Is there a yellow fruit nearby that might be available?'"

Journeyman Geek

4:40 PM

It does discourage onelines.. in theory.

@allquixotic yup

Bob

And what's dumber is those questions, with such simple fixes, are often closed, when they could be ... easily fixed.

Ben N

There are some (legitimately terrible) questions that cannot be saved with that rewording

Bob

@BenN Some. I've seen enough that can be saved, to know some are unnecessarily closed.

Journeyman Geek

but here's the funny part. The community essentially decided, and mods/high rep users worked around it

@Bob so edit, and flag.

Bob

Though TBH this is mostly from what I saw on main maybe a year ago.

I've gotten even less active since then.

Ben N

4:41 PM

And yeah, in the Close Votes queue, it only takes a minute or so to edit answerable questions with the magic rewording (and thereby boot them out of the queue)

DavidPostill

@Bob That change also often provides more interesting answers

Journeyman Geek

post on meta mayne

Bob

@JourneymanGeek That's the other one... it starts as a meta post with decent reasoning. Once that becomes accepted, it gets embedded in the hive mind of users as a general rule while missing all the nuances of the original argument.

Why are shopping questions banned? Because they lead to outdated and/or listy answers.

Journeyman Geek

Yup - because it was an actual issue we faced early on

Bob

So that goes back to your "what do I look for" questions being a good alternative. But that's not obvious to most people.

Journeyman Geek

4:45 PM

yup

Bob

@JourneymanGeek We've gotten to the point where most people forget the why, and only apply the what.

Journeyman Geek

but I've done those fixes a fair bit

Bob

Shoppign questions are banned because they're banned. Well, now they are anyway.

Occasionally, things get revisited when someone can be bothered to write up a full coherent argument (hackintoshes, tablet questions)

Burgi

my sinuses are aching

DavidPostill

To be fair a lot of the shopping questions on the Review Close Votes queue are 4/5 years old and not worth fixing up ...

Bob

4:46 PM

actually, speaking of which, I'm not even sure what the current status of tablet questions is.

IIRC allowed by meta but still VtC'd by users.

Burgi

was a decision made on hackintosh?

Journeyman Geek

@Burgi status quo

Bob

@Burgi Think that one was modhammered into "follow SE rules/ToS"

Journeyman Geek

@Bob I was debating revisiting those.

@Bob and no one seems to want to post an answer supporting it

Burgi

@JourneymanGeek thanks, i was following the meta question but closed the tab forest in a fit of madness

Bob

4:48 PM

@JourneymanGeek the most voted answer (quix) supports lifting the outright ban

and doesn't make any mention of ToS/law

it's only status quo by virtue of your SE ToS answer - which is fine, but that's what it is, not for a lack of support

Journeyman Geek

@Bob he's also essentially saying most questions where hackintoshiness would matter would be unanswerable.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek true. but that's not a reason to have a ban on them

Burgi

has anyone ever challenged a shared host on their guaranteed uptime?

Ben N

"It's impossible" is an answer, per the help center IIRC, as long as it's actually supported and not a personal speculation

Bob

@BenN or even "it's very difficult and currently not done by anyone, but if you wanted to do it yourself you'd need to <high level overview>"

of course, it's a moot point - if the SE ToS prohibits it, then it's not allowed, period.

Ben N

4:52 PM

Yep

Journeyman Geek

yup

heh. I've mentioned doing hackintoshes before here

Ben N

Have we figured out whether it's actually against the TOS? That seems like something we should ask someone

Bob

@BenN eh... a lawyer trying to be safe would probably say yes

Journeyman Geek

Pretty much that.

And I know for a fact CMs do trawl the site metas so...

Bob

@JourneymanGeek think I did that before, when I was a tad more active. But I've never been a user particularly active in editing - I don't feel confident in my ability to reword others' posts :\

Journeyman Geek

4:54 PM

lol

It doesn't need to be perfect, just better

Bob

I have a habit of writing things in weirdly long-winded ways

Journeyman Geek

and well, that's really the solution to the "new user closure problem"

Bob

(to the point where I'm amazed half my answers are readable enough to get upvotes! let alone the abnormally high number of highly-scored answers...)

Journeyman Geek

Apparently so do I!

DavidPostill

Long Path Tool spammer superuser.com/a/1178353/337631

Journeyman Geek

4:55 PM

IMHO, this answer should get neither an upvote nor a downvote. It is chatty and wanders off topic. On the other hand, a lot of effort has gone into it. — Fleet Command yesterday

Bob

@DavidPostill lol. BBCode.

DavidPostill

@JourneymanGeek Mod trolling ;p

Journeyman Geek

@DavidPostill cut the spammer... short...

DavidPostill

@JourneymanGeek thx

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