The Whiteboard

1:31 AM

@MichaelT Oh, God, it's still running...

user55340

1:41 AM

Bob Martin has a unique point of view. He's one of the few folks out there who actually believes that clean code is important, and so do I. If you've ever looked at any of his code, you will understand why. — Robert Harvey yesterday

user55340

I think its more a case of Robert solidarity there @RobertHarvey

Robert Harvey

2:01 AM

Because Roberts are better coderz.

Ampt

@StarPilot Again, please don't recommend sites to users if you don't know the scope. This question doesn't meet their very rigorous standards, and thus would be closed. If a question would be closed on the site you're recommending, it is crap. Please, please, don't migrate crap. — Ampt 1 hour ago

some people just don't get it...

leseulsteve

Hi, I just write a question and they referred me here :) I was wondering if you would like to take a shot at it before I delete it. I'm bagging my head over a probably simple thing in javascript

Ampt

link the question here please :)

leseulsteve

cheers

weird, it's coping a comment

is it?

'I'm fiddling a way to split a string in a variable number of lines. It's working but I would like the lines to be a bit more even in size so that they take less space horizontally.

I've been over it for a while, anyone wanna help? :)

http://jsfiddle.net/leseulsteve/tzhv06gr/2/'

that was my question!

Ampt

0

Q: Line wrapping with variable number of lines... almost there!

I'm fiddling a way to split a string in a variable number of lines. It's working but I would like the lines to be a bit more even in size so that they take less space horizontally. I've been over it for a while, anyone wanna help? :) http://jsfiddle.net/leseulsteve/tzhv06gr/2/ var string = "Fs...

gotta just click the question title :)

leseulsteve

2:14 AM

ohh my.. hehe

Ampt

that said, we're mostly professional programmers here, and this is what's up on the second monitor

so 9-5 is when we're the most active

leseulsteve

good to know, just started has a programmer 3 weeks ago

user55340

@leseulsteve there are currently three votes to migrate the question to Stack overflow. It will likely go there soon-ish.

user55340

One of the things that you should look at, once it is migrated, is the stack snippits.

user55340

Blog - Stack Exchange: Introducing Runnable JavaScript, CSS, and HTML Code Snippets

David Haney on September 16, 2014

On Stack Overflow and our other code-related sites, creating a minimal, complete, and verifiable example is the best way to get an answer to your question. We’ve always loved JSFiddle and sites like it because they let both askers and answerers reference runnable, working code that demonstrates their problem or solution.

Unfortunately, the use of these external sites introduces a few problems:

If the link breaks, the post becomes worthless.

If the code isn’t embedded in the page, visitors are forced to go elsewhere to get the full content of the question or answer. …

user55340

2:18 AM

That way you can have it work on the site without going to jsfiddle.

leseulsteve

cool, I didn't know that, thank you

user55340

As to room activity, if you go to the info page (see link nears between tags and icons at the side) chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/21/the-whiteboard

user55340

user55340

The blue line is now. The top graph shows the average activity by day (1h = 1 bar), the bottom one shows by day of week (6h = 1 bar).

user55340

Most of the activity here is in the 9-5ish range for the western hemisphere... you're seeing the evening booze bump... were we sit back and reflect on the day with a glass of wine, scotch, mead or whatnot.

user55340

2:23 AM

user55340

(what I'm working on currently)

Ampt

2:50 AM

> Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures.

- Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

Loving the book so far and I'm only 10% of the way into it

user55340

@Ampt Mythical Man Month?

Ampt

Yeah

Just got the kindle version (I know, I should have gotten a hard copy)

user55340

Very good book. Bit dated in some places, but overall good.

Ampt

I just couldn't be bothered to wait for shipping

user55340

(says Mr. Amazon Prime)

Ampt

2:52 AM

some times 2 days just isn't fast enough... :)

they dont even sell the hardcover on amazon though

user55340

Hard copies are good for giving to managers.

Ampt

haha

well I want to read it first

if it's worth marking up I'll grab a physical copy

user55340

Make sure you read "hatching a catastrophe"

Ampt

Barnes and Nobles didn't sell it though

user55340

►

user55340

2:58 AM

best game company product unboxing ever.

user55340

Note they sold this to 30k people for $6 each.

Ampt

"I don't know what I was expeccting"

I almost hit the floor

"It's just poop"

lmfao

user20683

@Ampt

user20683

barnesandnoble.com/w/mythical-man-month-frederick-p-brooks/…

Ampt

@WorldEngineer they don't sell it in stores

I would have to have them ship it, which at that point, I might as well have amazon ship it to me for 2 days

user20683

3:02 AM

@Ampt not necessarily

Ampt

@WorldEngineer I went to 5 stores and checked

they don't

trust me lol

"We don't carry old text books on the shelf"

user15026

That reminds me, I am pretty much out of things to read

user15026

(again)

user20683

@Ampt I've seen the damned thing on the shelf

Ampt

@WorldEngineer not anywhere around chicago!

user20683

3:03 AM

@Ampt Did you try Depaul?

Ampt

uhhh like the university book store?

user20683

@Ampt exactly

Ampt

Barnes and Nobles has bookstores in colleges?

what?

user20683

@Ampt 700 of them

user20683

depaul.bncollege.com

Ampt

3:06 AM

wow... that's like how many B&N there are perioud

user20683

@Ampt most of the college stores are quite small but a number are massive

Ampt

well, to answer your question, no, I did not check university bookstores :P

I would imagine that they would carry old text books

so... you've got me there

user20683

@Ampt they'd carry current ones at least and people still assign it for business and CS class reading

user20683

bncollege.com/college-partners

user20683

you can plug illinois into there and get phone numbers

Ampt

3:19 AM

Well, I already bought the kindle edition, but if I pick up a physical one I'll keep it in mind!

user20683

@Ampt it has been used at Depaul and IIT

user20683

so they might still keep it in the trade section (regular books)

user20683

I know we did for the longest time

Ampt

Gah... nothing at IU Bloomington

thats the closest one to me now

user20683

iub.bncollege.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/…

user20683

3:22 AM

That one?

Ampt

yep

user20683

looks like their SE class uses GOF atm

Ampt

who doesn't, honestly

user20683

@Ampt mine didn't

Jimmy Hoffa

3:53 PM

@Ampt beware the fate of Phil Katz

2

Q: How do we phrase the clause about illegal activities?

Recently, we got a question asking about How to dispose of dead body quickly?1 I am on the run from the police in my home town of Springhurst, and I need to get rid of the bodies. I only have one, and I won't kill anyone else later on so it doesn't need to be a repeatable method. I don't want...

discussion off-topic

haha just read his "example question"

enderland

4:11 PM

@JimmyHoffa Just delete the dead body

Robert Harvey

30

Q: Saving "Lifehacks" — Can we make this a topic space instead of a vague buzzword?

I've been an outspoken proponent for trying new sites like this since you launched, but so far the actual execution hasn't being coming together too well. This site is built on a buzzword, but there's been little consensus about what "Lifehacks" actually means — and even a bigger disconnect betwe...

discussion featured scope moderation

Great comments from Robert Cartaino about "gerrymandering the scope." We on programmers were probably guilty of this a few times, before our scope finally took shape.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey yeah I felt more than a couple jabs in that post at us when I read it but shrug, our content stands as an edifice to our value regardless of our sometimes debatable approach and the number of problems we have

that's the ultimate justification that wins me over here: P.SE's content is largely of an outstanding quality

psr

4:44 PM

We're trying to develop a future version of a product while maintaining the current, so we need to branch our source control. The product is current in Visual Source Safe, and some of the devs have never used anything else and never really branched except as a kind of archive. The plan is to move them to Mercurial. Anybody here ever do something similar and have any advice?

We are going to have a meeting about it soon. Already some people have argued for not branching and just having the new branch go into production releases.

Thomas Owens

Are you planning on migrating changes from new version in Mercurial to old version in VSS?

Or just maintaining the version in VSS for critical bug fixes for some length of time?

psr

No, moving from VSS to mercurial. Most likely trying to migrate history to Mercurial too.

Thomas Owens

I forget, can you rewrite history with Mercurial?

psr

Continuing development in 2 branches.

ratchet freak

@ThomasOwens probably during initial import

Thomas Owens

4:50 PM

If so, you can borrow a plan we had talked about to migrate ClearCase -> git.

psr

@ThomasOwens Not out of the box, but you can if you really want to.

Thomas Owens

@psr Oh. Too bad. How much history do you need from VSS? I'd say just migrate everything starting with the oldest version. Check out a version from VSS, copy to Mercurial, check in, repeat. That is your trunk

And then just start branching sanely.

Robert Harvey

Insert Dynamic HTML content for Electronic Catalogue - Magazine

Belongs on Stack Overflow.

psr

@ThomasOwens I picture a 200 page plan with charts and diagrams and compliant with ISO everything. If so it would terrify people into thinking this is too hard.

@ThomasOwens There are apparently tools to migrate history, but none go directly from VSS to Mercurial - you need to hop there via subversion or CSV I think. Possibly nobody will care about history enough to try to migrate it though.

Thomas Owens

@psr I'd only migrate critical events from the history.

enderland

4:54 PM

@MichaelT one of my new coworkers is reading the copy of Slack I got for my company internal library ;)

Thomas Owens

Unless for regulatory or compliance reasons you need more.

Critical events being something like public releases, for example. Don't try to import all history from VSS. If it's feasible, keep a single VSS license available if something that you didn't import is needed.

Robert Harvey

How does one do source code control in Javascript, say, for a SPA application? I've seen someone mention NuGet, but I thought that was a package delivery system.

Thomas Owens

@RobertHarvey I don't understand how it would be different than source code control for anything else...

psr

@ThomasOwens Thanks. That's a good idea. I'm not sure if we are even set up to easily build old releases (this is quite a different world than the one you are in) but it's worth looking into.

Robert Harvey

@ThomasOwens From prasadhonrao.com/…: SINGLE PAGE APP, LIMITATIONS, 5: If you’re using Nuget as a package management tool, then it handles file versioning automatically. If you’re not, then you need to maintain it manually.

Maybe file versioning is something different from source-code control?

Thomas Owens

5:00 PM

@psr The approach we were planning on taking was to only migrate releases and keep a single ClearCase license around to migrate. Git allows you to rewrite history, so we could just insert things that we found we needed in the right place in Git.

If you don't need it and don't need fast access to it, there's no sense in migrating it. Just make sure that you can (with some level of effort) get what you need.

psr

Some old builds weren't even done from source control. So it's an open question if getting an old version would ever be absolutely needed. History would more be a tool for developers.

Thomas Owens

If VSS is licensed per seat, keep a small number of licenses available for that information, then. You could get away with migrating over the latest release and that's it.

If you don't need to and can't build, there's no need to have that in the new environment.

I was thinking about making a Stack Exchange app over my 2 week vacation. I wasn't sure what would be good though. I have a few ideas.

ratchet freak

5:19 PM

@ThomasOwens push button to ban

Thomas Owens

I was thinking some kind of tag analysis.

psr

Tag analysis to ban.

Random ban. Ban monkey. Chaos ban monkey. Ban++. Banhammer. Thousand armed ban it. Ban of brothers. Bantastic. Rock ban. proto-Potou-Akanic-Ban too.

user20683

@psr Banned just for pun

user55340

btw, @ThomasOwens @WorldEngineer any thoughts on that faq tag cleanup post I did (since only mods can touch that tag)

user55340

5

Q: Sidebar is FAQ'ed, lets update the FAQ tags

Yes! The sidebar has been FAQed! Our faq has 18 questions in it while faq-proposed has 40 more. What questions should move there for easier access for people unfamiliar with the workings of meta? I'd also mention that the faq has some rather dated material in it that could get a good looking ...

discussion tags

Thomas Owens

5:34 PM

@MichaelT I'll take a look at it in a bit.

user55340

6:30 PM

Offer! Whoot! (waiting a tad on accepting to find out if the other one that I just interviewed for is there)

3

enderland

@MichaelT Congrats!

nice, 9-5ish hours? or do they do a 9 hour day?

user55340

@enderland If you do the 9h day, then you get every other Friday off.

enderland

That could be sweet

user55340

Three day weekend ever other week. Yep. It can be very nice.

user55340

Think also of all those things that can only be done during the day...

enderland

6:35 PM

A coworker of mine is going to convince me to do a local makerspace and get into 3d printing...

Thomas Owens

9-80 schedules are nice.

user41796

@MichaelT Is that one of the state gigs?

user41796

and Congrats!!!

user55340

@GlenH7 Yep.

user41796

@enderland You should; and you should build some printers by hand so I have someone to ask questions from. :-)

gnat

6:39 PM

any 20Kers around to cast last vote on this mess? my VLQ flag was declined, apparently moderators grok deeply hidden meaning of "incomplete overlapping in conflict impossible"

user41796

@MichaelT I can't recall if the other irons you had put into the fire were still there. If so, this is good leverage to call them up and politely prod them along.

user41796

@gnat I don't see what you're talking about. Nothing there anymore.

Thomas Owens

@gnat Bad English isn't necessarily VLQ.

It's not worthy of a mod delete.

user41796

@ThomasOwens bumping a 3 year old question to rehash what was said? VLQ. :-P

enderland

@GlenH7 they've got one of these - seemecnc.com/products/…

user41796

6:40 PM

mod.VLQ != community.VLQ

Thomas Owens

@GlenH7 That's true. Should have pointed out in the flags, though. I don't usually look at timestamps unless something is pointed out.

user41796

@ThomasOwens Normally I miss that too

user41796

@enderland I'm really curious to know how well that one prints

user41796

Supposed to be able to handle some crazier things because of the independent axis movement

durron597

@GlenH7 thanks for your great answer, unfortunately I cannot upvote it because the Java syntax is wrong

enderland

6:43 PM

Yeah it seems awesome, he had printed off a lightsaber which looked AWESOME

user41796

@durron597 ROFL

user41796

C'mon hats!!!

durron597

But it was very helpful so I accepted it

user41796

@enderland how about print resolution? Capable of LEGO tolerances?

durron597

@GlenH7 Any hats you may or may not recieve as a result of this course of events is purely coincidental.

enderland

6:44 PM

@GlenH7 well lego tolerances are pretty crazy I think

user41796

@durron597 I'd like to think I addressed the core question fairly well

user41796

@enderland They are, which is why it's my holy grail of evaluating 3D printers

durron597

@GlenH7 You did, that's why I accepted it :)

somehow I had 1004 PSE rep yesterday but today I'm back under 1k. not sure what's that's about.

user41796

Now I have to wait 12 hours....

user41796

@durron597 Check your rep profile, it should tell you why

durron597

6:46 PM

i did, the problem is it was removed increases, not decreases

almost like someone's upvotes were removed

but the user wasn't.

Do you really have to wait 12 hours for naruto?

user41796

For downvotes, they'll leave a message indicating that serial downvoting was removed.

user41796

I'd think they would do the same with up votes

user41796

And yep, it's 12 hours with no votes for Naruto.

durron597

pfft

i'm waiting for your "on the road" + "selfie" question

user41796

@durron597 This afternoon. Need to make sure the one I'm thinking of isn't really a duplicate

durron597

6:50 PM

@MichaelT Congrats!!

@MichaelT Is your offer from the food desert place or the culinary delight place?

enderland

@GlenH7 I've wanted to play with stuff like that for a long time, now I have access to a decent 3D printer and a coworker who is super knowledgeable about that sort of stuff...

user41796

@enderland I've been slowly gathering parts to make either a 3D printer or a CNC machine. Not sure which route I'm going to follow. I kinda want both, tbh.

user55340

@durron597 food desert. Culinary location interview was Monday and I expect to hear something back from them soon.

durron597

the culinary one is also the one with more modern development practices too right?

user55340

@GlenH7 have you seen the cardboard cutter version? Useful for kids (as opposed to CNC wood / plastic).

user41796

6:57 PM

@MichaelT No, can't say I have

user55340

@durron597 yes, though thats also the challenge with the other one - that they want to go there.

user41796

Do people actually use the mobile app for asking questions?!

user55340

@GlenH7 There was a program on NPR awhile back about maker type things in grade and high schools. Some company donated wood / plastic CNC machines (one or two) to the school and they said "these are great, but they are expensive to run" - the cost of wood and plastic isn't cheap cheap.

user55340

@GlenH7 On other sites maybe... where you aren't necessarily next to a computer.

user55340

Would be interesting to see ratio of mobile app hats vs active population on the site.

user41796

7:00 PM

@MichaelT I realize I'm old and all that. But this is just painful pecking out a question. Oy! the things I'll suffer through to stay on the leaderboard.

user55340

(... wood / plastic cnc) - so they asked the company for cardboard cutters. Easier for the teachers to work with and repair (change a knife rather than drill bit) and cheaper materials (cardboard is cheap) for doing prototypes. When the kids have something good then they take it to the wood / plastic one to make a final product.

user41796

Hopefully it'll still count if I post the question via app and then edit it from the computer to make it worth asking

enderland

@GlenH7 that's what I was going to suggest

user55340

@durron597 while I'd have to dig, I thought I saw an answer of yours on a question that had delete votes on it.

durron597

@MichaelT you know I bet that's it.

user55340

7:04 PM

Make sure you have 'show removed posts' selected and you can see what went where.

user55340

user41796

@MichaelT I turned that on quite a while ago and have forgotten about it being there.

durron597

yeah that vim question i had an upvote/accepted answer

gnat

8

A: Are the Downvoting police too active?

Some of these questions were valid, though they could have been written better. But is that enough reason to mark them down? Sure. There are other reasons to downvote something, but "hard to read" is legit. This isn't some grade-school essay contest where you get points just for completing t...

user55340

@GlenH7 when you've got 10k, it really helps since you can click through them.

user55340

7:06 PM

programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/242916/… (10k link)

user41796

@MichaelT decent enough answer; horrific question. :-)

durron597

@gnat s/Are the Downvoting police/Is @gnat/

Thomas Owens

@gnat I don't see the relationship between that question and my comment.

user55340

@ThomasOwens I believe it is "down votes on answers can kick something into the Low Post review queue" - and the threshold for community deciding "that is low quality" is different than the threshold for a mod dealing with a VLQ flag.

Thomas Owens

@MichaelT Yeah. I'd agree with that.

gnat

7:08 PM

@ThomasOwens hard to read = vote down. Impossible to understand = VLQ. Unless, of course, one expects "incomplete overlapping in conflict impossible" to be understandable for site visitors...

100

A: Did Google recently update algorithms in a way that's bad for Stack Overflow questions?

Disclaimer - I'm not an SEO person at all. So this is purely based on guessing as to the motives of someone who isn't me. Looking at the information in Search Engine Land, Google is trying to cut back on sites that are spammy. Sites generating lots of crap content - you know the type. You sea...

user55340

down vote (because it is hard to read / understand) -> auto low quality post review -> community delete --- thats a valid sequence of events.

Thomas Owens

@gnat That's true. But not all VLQ need moderator intervention.

I declined that flag because it didn't need moderator intervention. Although if I had noticed the timestamps, I would have deleted.

gnat

@ThomasOwens VLQ doesn't ask for mod intervention, it pushes post into review queue...

28

Q: Hide "not an answer" and "very low quality" flags in the moderator flag queue

At present, when something is flagged as "not an answer" or "very low quality", that flagged post appears alongside all other flags that moderators have to handle. However, a little while ago these started being fed into the "Low Quality Posts" review queue and the community gained the ability to...

feature-request flags moderator-tools

Thomas Owens

I thought they actually made that change.

durron597

@ThomasOwens can has status-completed?

user55340

7:14 PM

Anyways... time for another trip to Minnesota for some Christmas shopping (now that I know my financial future is much more secure I can get some of the more frivolous items)

Thomas Owens

@durron597 Maybe they didn't.

user41796

@MichaelT frivolity FTW

durron597

@MichaelT Where do you live again? Western wisconsin?

gnat

@ThomasOwens somewhere at MSO someone mentioned that they are merely testing at SO one-hour delay for pushing NAA/VLQ flags into mod queue

user41796

@durron597 Eau Claire, IIRC Also in his profile (or was... runs off to double check - yep, still there)

durron597

7:19 PM

@MichaelT I ask because my good friend was a post-doc fellow at UoW-Stout for a year. He said his whole social life was in the twin cities

user41796

@durron597 From my time up there, there is some truth in that. The bigger towns definitely get the draw that way, and there's a regular amount of influx for social activities.

Robert Harvey

Learning programming via Google is like learning how to swim in a box of rocks... You can do it, but it's not going to be pretty or painless. — Robert Harvey ♦ 27 secs ago

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey ...you can learn to swim in a box of rocks? My respectometer for you just went up a notch...

Robert Harvey

An apt metaphor for how difficult and inefficient the process is going to be.

(Demonstrating absurdity by being absurd)

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey iduno, I didn't learn from books...

Not completely certain I agree with you

Depending on what you mean by "google" ?

tutorials?

Robert Harvey

7:27 PM

There are a few really good resources like "Learn C the Hard Way." The remainder of material is a vast sea of blog posts and forum posts on very specific subjects. The signal to noise ratio and quality of the material varies tremendously.

Jimmy Hoffa

@RobertHarvey absolutely true, but I wouldn't say it's utterly absurd, so much as inefficient

Robert Harvey

Beginners are better off with a book, or even a MOOC.

Jimmy Hoffa

and it depends on what level you mean. Learning the absolute basics? Yeah it wouldn't be pretty, unless you qualify that people can read tutorials/books that are free online... beyond the absolute basic logic...google's as good a resource as any for learning more advanced topics.

I'm a fan of many sources of information over one or two "trusted"/comprehensive sources. The more variance in your source of information the better quality your overall understanding of the topic will be. Yes increasing volume increases your noise, and you'll likely make your overall signal to noise ratio worse by adding in sources that are crappy, but increasing noise helps you identify bad information and increases your ability to parse info on the topic

Robert Harvey

Absolutely, if you have a lot of time to learn something.

whatsisname

I do wonder how different things would be if I had google/the internet back when I was learning

a lot of times when I was trying to debug something I had no choice but to attempt every possible solution to figure it out

and I wonder how much of a contribution that made to my debugging skills

Jimmy Hoffa

7:36 PM

@whatsisname yeah, I remember putting endless reams of printing messages throughout code...

enderland

I wonder if my fiance would be excited about 3D printing as a hobby of mine...

Jimmy Hoffa

trying to divine what was actually happening

@enderland just as long as you don't try to print another fiance O_O

whatsisname

though it could be my memory fooling me, but it seems like my debugging skills never really got better, and that I sort of always had them, but was just unfamiliar with the language/math/platform itself

and all that time spent debugging random stuff taught me those quircks

or somethign

3d printing what

Robert Harvey

Given that the entire way people write programs changes every five years, I wonder how valuable such in-depth knowledge is anymore.

whatsisname

eh, I don't think things change every 5 years for everyone

just for stuff that is posted in stupid tech-zines

Robert Harvey

7:41 PM

Maybe every ten years or so. Look at web programming. CGI -> Server-Side HTML -> jQuery -> HTML5 -> MVC -> Javascript Frameworks -> SPA. And I've probably only touched the surface.

whatsisname

a lot of web programming is still little more than CGI. Not every shop has crazy dynamic content and goofy animations and whatnot

Robert Harvey

Employer^^ is a Microsoft shop, looking for someone to translate his desktop applications to the web. Four years ago, I would have recommended ASP.NET MVC, and some jQuery. Today, I would recommend SPA, probably using Angular and Web API.

No goofy animations, but interactivity is extremely important to him. Basically, he'd want it to look and feel just like the desktop application.

It gets worse if you're looking for a job, because employers want you to already be fluent in the technologies they're working in.

They don't want you learning on their dime, but they also don't accept hobbyist work as experience.

So now I need a portfolio.

whatsisname

yeah

user41796

@whatsisname but every exec wants goofy animations...

whatsisname

they always want you to have 15 years experience with Server 2012

@GlenH7: right up until they realize how much they cost

user41796

7:54 PM

@whatsisname Ulp!

Robert Harvey

The only justification for learning mad debugging skills is to be a better overall programmer (not a bad thing). I'll never use all the quirks I learned about Microsoft Access Enterprise Programming again (I don't really remember many of them, having been away from it for so long).

user41796

@RobertHarvey I try to black those things out too

user41796

@whatsisname - I need some electronics advice

user41796

I'm building a pinewood derby car (parents division) and I want to trim it with lit up optical cable of some sort. What's the right term to be searching for on digi-key?

user41796

basically, I'm looking for some sort of flexible-ish fiber that will glow when an LED is lit up into an end of it.

user41796

8:01 PM

I tried fiber cable, but that seemed like there were too many categories within that realm.

whatsisname

sup

hmm

you'd have to find some sort of low power miniature rope light

user41796

@whatsisname exactly what I was thinking of

user41796

My initial thought was that it would be cheaper to buy components, but I'm wondering if I shouldn't just find a little holiday LED tree at Target and scavenge it for the parts.

whatsisname

im not sure if anyone makes such a thing outside of custom builds

user41796

And FWIW, I'm laughing at the comment thread I sparked with my magic number question. This is what I get for trying to get hats...

whatsisname

8:04 PM

scavenging for parts is usually cheaper than digikey if you have the time to spare

user41796

@whatsisname yeah, there are a couple of things I saw the other day that would do the trick. I may just head down that route then

whatsisname

I knew it would spawn discussions

user41796

is fiber cable the right term then? Or is there a more precise term?

user41796

@whatsisname I was hoping for a flood of answers too so I could get the 5 in 30 hat.

whatsisname

well, fiber optics don't emit light along their length

for the most part

user41796

8:05 PM

I was afraid of that. Makes sense - it's meant to transfer the light, not radiate it

whatsisname

if your lighting source can be a straight line, you could potentially use a cold cathode lamp

user41796

Current vision is to recreate the lightrunner from tron if that helps paint a more clear picture of what I'm trying to do

whatsisname

yeah

user41796

whatsisname

I know strips of LEDs can be obtained from a variety of manufacturers

would could try to rig those up with copius amounts of hot glue or something to get the effect

and time for me to go to the dentist

laterz

user41796

8:08 PM

That's a good idea. I'll have to scout that idea out too

enderland

8:54 PM

Ugh Google voice is again sending copies of my texts to wrong people because of their intermediate numbers

user20683

@GlenH7 streetglow.com/Catalog/LED-Strips

user41796

@WorldEngineer ty!

user41796

@enderland That could get ... awkward

enderland

@GlenH7 I am sick of google voice I think

there are too many stupid quirks

user41796

@enderland I looked at using it for home, but that was about the time they were swapping protocols

enderland

8:57 PM

I just have too many quirks with it

I love being able to easily check my texts from my computer

but I'm sick of things like this happening

user41796

@enderland technology shouldn't create more headaches than it resolves

enderland

@GlenH7 Right

Especially in 2014.99

Robert Harvey

Well, I guess I'll be starting a blog, since that's the Thing To Do™.

Candidates for my first blog posts:

Why Dependency Injection is Overrated.

The Abstract Factory is a form of Late Binding.

user41796

@RobertHarvey perfect for fanning the flames of the fanatics

Robert Harvey

Can't remember the third one...

Jimmy Hoffa

9:07 PM

@GlenH7 fanning the fanatic fans, symmetry...

Robert Harvey

Where does your cheese go? (A study in basic software architecture)

user41796

alliteration

Noun: alliteration (plural alliterations)

The repetition of consonants at the beginning of two or more words immediately succeeding each other, or at short intervals.

enderland

@GlenH7 forbes.com/sites/sethporges/2013/07/31/…

this is a dumb situation to have. But yay google voice...

Robert Harvey

The best practice is the one that solves your problem.

Jimmy Hoffa

> Dynamic types- or, who are you and what are you doing in my heap?

user41796

9:12 PM

@enderland Is that what's going on in your case?

enderland

@GlenH7 Yeah, I forgot about another phone I had...

user41796

Once again, tight coupling takes down the world.

durron597

@GlenH7 Top 10. Boss.

user41796

@WorldEngineer - are you nearby?

user20683

@GlenH7 for some definition of nearby

user41796

9:16 PM

If so - can you burn this question please?

user41796

look at the variable names

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 this is the internet, everyone is always nearby- because it's everywhere O_O

user20683

@GlenH7 already done

user41796

@JimmyHoffa yeah, but sometimes you want a mod to nuke crap from the internet because it's pretty offensive

user41796

@WorldEngineer TY. My cached copy hadn't updated then

durron597

9:18 PM

@JimmyHoffa what-if.xkcd.com/72

user41796

@durron597 Loving it. That magic number question is on the hot questions list. I'm hoping it draws enough to get me the +7 answer hat too

durron597

@GlenH7 too bad there's a +15 vote answer to make yours invisible

@GlenH7 you should go post a really really easy Java question on stackoverflow

"Recently, I posted a code sample on Programmers with the syntax public class Bar() { but when I put it in my IDE it doesn't compile. What am I doing wrong?"

user41796

@durron597 I try to focus on the Progs leaderboard for the majority of my hats. But I think SO is the only place where you can get 5 answers in 30 minutes on SE

durron597

@GlenH7 The 28 hat guy got his on mathematics

user41796

@durron597 yeah, but I don't want five "HINT: we can't tell you the answer" non-answers. :-)

durron597

9:23 PM

5

Q: What are some applications of elementary linear algebra outside of math?

I'm TAing linear algebra next quarter, and it strikes me that I only know one example of an application I can present to my students. I'm looking for applications of elementary linear algebra outside of mathematics that I might talk about in discussion section. In our class, we cover the basics ...

linear-algebra matrices big-list applications

some pretty amazing answers there within 20 minutes.

Robert Harvey

9:43 PM

The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.

user41796

@RobertHarvey might be more apt if he used a half-moon instead of a full circle

Jimmy Hoffa

3

Q: How do I give street directions to a blind person?

Sometimes folks who are blind appear to be lost but I'm at a complete loss as to how to give them street directions. The directions from corner to corner are fairly easy but how do I direct them to an address between streets? If I have time I can accompany them to their destination but is there ...

disabled

^-- close your eyes and get lost. If the blind person is around you two better find your way together otherwise they're not around and you don't have to worry about it, problem solved.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa That site seems like a screaming train wreck in the middle of a derailment.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I know, it's hilarious.

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