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3:00 AM
Might be interesting if a room could have subrooms. You could watch them all or just one
 
@quartata but how would talking work
would there be n different boxes?
 
It would broadcast to whatever subroom has "focus"
 
An interesting idea, but would require far too much dev work. Chat is pretty much neglected as is. :P
@IGoBest I think those room topics are part of the problem. Who selects them? — xnor 2 mins ago
Discuss: kill the quote in the topic or no?
 
no
See my followup:
@xnor Maybe, but even the name implies (at least some) off-topicness imo. "The Nineteenth Byte" is a clear play on the nineteenth hole, or the bar at the end of a golf course for bullshitting with other players. — I Go Best 48 secs ago
 
I think we're reaching too much. Plenty of rooms have such names and are just fine
 
3:04 AM
yeah
 
Say, I had an interesting idea for an experiment. What if we wrote a program that looks at the transcript, including replies, and gradually builds up some understanding of what words are highly correlated, and then we provided a way to search these little concept groups and/or look at most recent ones?
 
I guess my overall thoughts on this are: Setting strict boundaries on "how much off-topic" will only serve to kill the room. We have one of the more active chatrooms on SE as it is, imo precisely because we're looser with it. If you want to turn it into another dead room where people pop in every few days to see an empty transcript, then go ahead. I'll find something else to do.
2
 
@El'endiaStarman that would be amazing
 
@xnor It might even be good enough to just look for webs/trees of replies, and then provide a little summary of the most common words.
 
@Geobits I think you're imagining too much of an extreme. Roughly a year ago, this room was both active and had significantly higher fraction of discussion directly about that site.
 
3:08 AM
I don't think I am, considering some of the proposals floated have included "move off-topic conversation to a different room".
I agree that we were more on-topic a year ago. I don't necessarily agree that we can rewind the clock on this.
 
@xnor He's not wrong about the potential for that extreme though; plenty of perfectly active sites (el&u, fos, vi...) have rooms that are dead as doornails.
 
@Geobits i see
 
0
A: Full Width Text

Mama Fun Roll𝔼𝕊𝕄𝕚𝕟, 3 chars / 4 bytes ᴉü⬭ Try it here (Firefox only). Short and sweet. Get input split along chars and join with space.

 
@Geobits I'm not convinced we can't do anything about it, but I don't think that other chat's inactivity was caused by over-moderation
 
Yay more 3-char solutions!
 
3:11 AM
@MamaFunRoll I'll have to take your word for it. It'll take more than a full-width-text answer to make me wake the firefox :P
 
@Geobits Agreed. At the same time, I do think some boundaries on things like ಠ[a million underscores]ಠ could serve to help make chat that much more... productive.
 
@Doorknob that seems like a fair compromise
 
@MamaFunRoll ...I looked at the leaderboard and my Minkolang solution isn't on there. D:
Because of that 0.15!
 
I don't think simply nuking will do it, though
 
@El'endiaStarman Huh. Leaderboard does have problems...
 
3:12 AM
0
A: The state of chat

QuillExercise Self Moderation Having a main chat room for everything is okay, but it can get out of control, such as caret denotion turning into a train of noise that only annoying and distracts people. The "solutions" of having a secondary chat room, room owners moving messages to the trash or even...

 
@Doorknob I don't have a real problem asking people to dial back the nonsense some. I don't see how it would be objectively enforced at all, but as a general guideline it's not bad.
 
^
@Quill I'm deleting my answer, everyone who voted for me please vote for Quill
much more eloquent
 
Hmm, maybe it could be objectively enforced... time?
 
lol. Nothing like using a script to detect spam. That always works well :P
 
@Geobits Yeah, pretty much. I will also say that despite whatever my personal views are, I'll try to avoid exercising any mod abilities (that would be deleting/moving-to-trash, etc.) for the time being on messages like this until there's a clear consensus; I hadn't realized how controversial of a subject this was.
 
3:15 AM
@Geobits Bayesian filters work pretty well... :P
 
hey smokedetector rocks
and that's just keyword matching
I was kidding though.
 
good job, everyone, having a controversy just before elections, just as we planned
 
It's not election time without a controversy :D
 
@Doorknob neither did I. I was thinking it was getting too heated in here, but it did calm down
 
3:17 AM
And not a single caret chain amidst all that on-topicness. Amazing how that works >_>
 
@NathanMerrill If it had gotten too heated, you can be sure there would have been some butt-kicking. From mods. :P
 
I've been enjoying the civil and respectful debate, actually. Only problem is I still have a bunch of homework to do now :P
 
^ same
 
@Geobits given, the topic may have had something to do with that
 
@Doorknob hah spring break starts tomorrow for me cuz of snow day givebacks
 
3:18 AM
I think we all kept our cool, yeah.
 
@NathanMerrill Maybe, but like I said before: I usually find that the "crap" goes away when there's an actual conversation happening.
Also, what is this "homework" thing people keep referring to?
 
@Geobits hmm, i haven't observed that
 
@Geobits It's what people who don't buy their own fruit do
6
 
@Geobits The time of day and the participants may have something to do with that as well.
 
@Geobits its something that I do when no one's on TNB and I don't have manga to read
 
3:20 AM
Also, with the separate rooms discussions, I'm fairly certain the moderators will be more than willing to unfreeze your room if you want to use that to hold specialised discussions
 
Sure, it may be that I simply chat more when there are like-minded people on.
 
I always unfreeze auto-frozen rooms upon request (as do all the other mods, as I've observed). The chat system is just stupid sometimes :P
 
@Doorknob you should connect an unfreeze script to your account and put a button somewhere on the interwebs
 
Unfreeze all the things.
 
3:21 AM
"What room does this unfreeze?"
"All of them."
"..."
 
It's the end of the Ice Age
The Great Thaw
 
Anything that allows non-mods to perform mod actions is too open to abuse. Soon enough I'd be explaining to the wrath of the entire CM team why every single room is suddenly unfrozen :D
 
"Oh, and it undeletes all the deleted rooms too."
 
I mean, all they have to do is go into the room and hit two buttons
 
@Doorknob Is that your stance on Room Owners, as well?
 
3:22 AM
Oh you mean for other people to access
 
@Quill Hm? If you're referring to this specific room, I've always been under the impression that there's no owners only because the current set of mods covers basically the entirety of UTC.
 
@Doorknob well it would only apply to PPCG. And I don't know why we want anything frozen
but it was just an idea
 
Why do rooms get frozen, anyway? Is it nothing more than an indicator that your message would be lost to time anyway, and that you shouldn't bother?
 
@Doorknob If you had asked me, I might've thought it was because the mods trusted no one with the burden responsibility. :P
 
Or is it more a server load thing?
 
3:24 AM
Auto-freezing is just to reduce clutter, I guess
 
Frozen rooms don't show up on the chat rooms list. (Unless you check that checkbox, of course.)
 
Ah. So really you could just have better filters on the list instead of freezing.
 
freezing rooms might let SE archive/compress the room data in some way too.
 
@Doorknob As a broad question, it would mean little difference, but that makes sense. (On a similar note, I found the hours that you guys aren't active, there's like two people on anyway)
 
@El'endiaStarman Humor aside :P, there are definitely several users I can think of off the top of my head whom I would trust with owner powers. It's just never really been necessary.
 
3:26 AM
Our Room Owners pretty much just pin stuff and move feeds to the trash
 
@Doorknob Yeah, the C.SE main chat actually has a few room owners, but their powers are pretty much never needed.
 
The Bridge gives out ownership like candy it seems
 
@Dennis It's about time :P
 
@Geobits ?
 
3
A: The state of chat

DennisOne chat room cannot be what everybody expects from it The Nineteenth Byte's purpose is labeled as general discussion; the jestful addendum appears to indicate that pretty much everything goes. A good thing about this is that The Nineteenth Byte is usually crowded. If you need input on somethin...

 
3:28 AM
He added a very modlike (imo) answer to the chat question.
 
@Geobits Hey, I'm a slow typist. :P
 
You golf complicated answers in mere seconds, yet take an hour for policy questions. I love it; don't change :D
10
 
@Geobits its my favorite answer so far, no diamond needed
 
On Code Review, we use the phrase "Site Business comes first"
 
@Dennis No wonder you love short code :D
 
3:33 AM
oh, I just remembered. We have elections now, but did we ever get that community ads thing?
 
not yet
 
(supposed to be done < one week after initial announcement)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
@AlexA. Oh noes, my secret is out.
 
in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, Feb 20 at 21:56, by Jon Ericson
We've run up a lot of whatever the community version of technical debt might be.
 
Okay guys, I'm seriously going to try and make a tool that picks out reply chains and presents them in a manageable fashion. How should I present them?
 
3:38 AM
@El'endiaStarman for chat or comments?
 
@El'endiaStarman notifications on your pager
 
Send them to my @FaxMachine
 
Modification of this idea:
33 mins ago, by El'endia Starman
Say, I had an interesting idea for an experiment. What if we wrote a program that looks at the transcript, including replies, and gradually builds up some understanding of what words are highly correlated, and then we provided a way to search these little concept groups and/or look at most recent ones?
 
@El'endiaStarman my suggestion is to thread them
 
3:39 AM
message
|> reply

message
 
Maybe you could take some inspiration from this fancy thing
 
@Doorknob clear and concise! I like it
 
Ninja'd but yeah thread them
 
@Doorknob Way too much for a first iteration but that's cool.
Okay, thread them. How many?
 
why is codereview in gaming, and codegolf not in programming
 
3:40 AM
72
Q: Threaded comments

balpha History June 6, 2012: Fixed an issue that can cause major problems with chat. December 17, 2013: Fix an incompatibility with the Winter Bash code. Screenshot Before: After: About Instead of showing comments in chronological order, this user script displays them in a threaded view, ...

@Quill what?
 
@Downgoat the photo
 
@Quill apparently that's how the numbers worked out. Kind of interesting actually
Maybe it's skewed by the fact that SO isn't included
 
Anyone else watching the guy stuck in a tree? komonews.com/live/event
 
why is graphic design in programming and not arts .___.
 
> Seattle
I bet it's @AlexA.
 
3:42 AM
lol
 
bird, tree, it all checks out
 
@Doorknob Alex isn't the only person who lives in Seattle...
and he's a bird so can't he fly out?
 
Hes laying down at the top of an 80ft tree in the middle of Seattle
 
No, is stuck. Halp.
 
@Downgoat Mego might find that offensive.
 
3:43 AM
@Geobits hahahaha
 
Is that a tiny tree or a ridiculously large crane?
 
@Geobits a rediculously large crane (not the animal)
 
Yea, I saw when they backed out some. Very big.
 
@AlexA. huh... I'm sorry for your loss....
 
@GamrCorps 4th & Stewart. I used to work just a couple blocks from there.
 
3:45 AM
 
That's a big crane
 
^^ ridiculously large crane
 
@El'endiaStarman XD
 
Took me a second to get that
 
> Biden tours Seattle cancer center, stops for pizza
I am glad to see only the news of upmost importance is being reported...
 
3:49 AM
they didn't even say what kind of pizza
what a disppointing headline
 
> Workers say Biden ordered three pizzas -- a margherita, a pietro and a salame piccante.
 
@Downgoat did Biden eat all of them himself?
 
I tried to think of a pun that substituted "Biden" for "eating", and gave up because that would've just been too bad/lame.
 
> Biden and his entourage stopped off for pizza at Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria on Westlake Avenue. Employees say Biden took selfies with workers, spoke on the phone with the owner's mom, and left a nice tip when he picked up his pizzas Monday evening
it didn't say...
@El'endiaStarman the lamest puns are the best
 
Biden spoke on the phone with the owner's mom? I'm jealous! I want to talk to the owner's mom.
 
3:52 AM
@El'endiaStarman Off the cuff, I'd say bitin' could work in a pinch.
 
Wait, you say "Biden" with an "ai" sound for the i and not an "ee" sound?
 
the guys climbing down \o/
 
28
Q: What Marvel Superhero or Supervillain Has the Most Secret Identity?

WannabeCoderSecret identities are an important plot point in many-a-comics, and it's usually a big deal when a superhero's secret identity risks exposure. However, many superheroes reveal their identity to friends or allies - and supervillains frequently deduce it on their own. My question is, in the Marvel...

 
@El'endiaStarman Yes, like in bidin' my time.
 
good job @AlexA.
 
3:53 AM
@Maltysen ಠ_ಠ
man climbs up a tree
> This is a developing news story
 
@Maltysen I had to come down at some point
 
? oh is Alex stuck in a tree again?
 
Not any more. He fluttered down just now.
 
@AlexA. if you were really stuck on the tree, why were you "flipping the bird" at spectators ¬_¬
 
I'm so glad to see there's at least one republican candidate who can understand that radical Islam is the problem, not Islam.
 
3:56 AM
Unfortunately, that's the sort of thing that will keep him from getting the Republican nomination :/
 
@HelkaHomba Kasich also isn't anti-immigration, which is refreshing.
 
He is less-bad than the others imo, but I still disagree with him on several key issues.
 
Oh definitely ^
 
Treeman just trolled them all.
 
@HelkaHomba I actually really like the headline in a way for one reason: Bush said the exact same thing.
 
3:58 AM
> less-bad
"please Bloomberg run please run Bloomberg please run please"
 
@Downgoat Well, I am a bird, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
@Dennis I'm iffy on giving discussion about the site special status. Say someone posts a pop-con and it gets downvoted. If they complain about in chat, does that take precedence over ongoing discussion?
 
Expert troll in tree. I love it.
@xnor I'd like to hope it takes precedence over off-topic chatter, at least for long enough to explain it. If someone's unwilling to listen (as happens from time to time), go about business as usual or move it into a dedicated room.
 
ok, that sounds better than the current state, but I find it strange to give site meta-discussions this privilege but not discussions about golfing itself
 
@Geobits It's so crazy that to be a "republican" (or democrat) you must subscribe to some predefined set of social values, as well as the fiscal ones. I can respect, even if I don't agree with, the desire for small government and fewer taxes, but I can't respect intolerance towards Muslims.
 
4:04 AM
@xnor Well, I meant more as a general courtesy. I usually do the same (answer golfing questions if I can), regardless of whatever else is going on. Again, though, that's going to be hard to "enforce" for either golfing or meta chat.
@HelkaHomba Yep. Ideally there'd be at least several "major" parties, but our delegate system makes that impractical at the very least.
 
@xnor I had something a bit more general in mind when I wrote affects the site. I don't think that user should get ignored, but it's not more important than other, on topic discussions that are taking place.
 
The whole votes-to-election system needs to be overhauled in the USA.
 
s/USA/everywhere/
 
Well, yeah, that too.
 
votes-to-election?
 
4:08 AM
Like how votes determine who gets elected.
There are better representational systems.
 
Personally, I think the USA in particular could be better served split into three, maybe four countries.
aaaaaand now I'm on a watchlist
 
@Geobits NSA is in east coast, so they should be sleeping right now. You'll be on the watchlist next morning
 
Their massive data centers/servers don't sleep.
 
@Downgoat I'm also east coast, so I'm not confident about that.
 
4:13 AM
What the heck.
 
@Geobits Yep: New New England, Nebraskalaska, Texas 2.0, and Westifornia
 
Cascadia is a bioregion and proposed country located within the western region of North America. Potential boundaries differ, with some drawn along existing political state and provincial lines, and others drawn along larger ecological, cultural, and economic boundaries. The country would consist of Washington, Oregon, portions of other U.S. states and British Columbia, Canada. At its maximum extent, Cascadia would extend from coastal Southeast Alaska in the north, extending into Northern California in the south, and inland to include parts of Idaho, Western Montana, Wyoming, and Yukon. Mor...
 
@HelkaHomba Of course, I'd have to leave Florida, since I assume they'd be bunched in with the rest of the south. Probably head out west.
 
Republic of Cascadia for life, son!
 
^ electrical grids
 
4:17 AM
Yea... Cascadia, Texas, Alaska... hell, let all the secessionists have it their way if they get the votes. Isn't that the main idea of self-government as enshrined in the holy doctrine of the good ol' USA?
@El'endiaStarman This is an issue, but not an unsolvable one ;)
 
Well, we had a pretty bad experience last time some states tried to secede...
@Geobits Just saying, this would be a convenient way to divide up the country into three.
I really don't want that to happen though.
 
Mainly because we fought it, though. I'm not arguing for slavery here, let me make that perfectly clear. But we could have just let the south go. There would have been some severe economic impact for a while, but it wouldn't last forever.
For a country wholly devoted to the idea of self-government (on paper), it was a hypocritical move, if not unexpected.
 
Hmm. I remember the Revolutionary War being precipitated by issues like "taxation without representation". I think the colonies would've been just fine with remaining colonies of Great Britain if she had treated them fairly. The distance didn't help though.
 
0
Q: Printing a Paradox

SkyPharaohThis is my first challenge post, and I'm especially interested to see how some high level languages might be able to do this. Your challenge is to code a full program that simply outputs it's own code. The output must include every line or character that's in the source code itself. The main ru...

 
FDITW
 
4:23 AM
For a while, maybe. I think that was also a convenient rallying cry as well, though. If it hadn't been that issue, I believe something else would have come up soon enough. It wasn't the only revolution going on in that general time frame, after all.
 
yeah, true
@Dennis I really wish oneboxes included stuff like that...
 
Doorknob closed that as dupe faster than I could actually find that original quine challenge :P
 
Coulda saved myself a click. :P
 
27 seconds, not bad :D
 
@El'endiaStarman Yeah, that would be useful. We might need to write out own feed.
 
4:26 AM
Speaking of treating colonies fairly, though, we (the USA) don't do so well on that front, either. How many territories have voting members in the Senate, for instance?
 
If that's a question for the moderator candidates, I'm screwed.
 
@Geobits Weeelllllll they're not colonies, they're territories...
@Dennis Martin too.
 
@Dennis Uh, I can make it one, but I don't think it'll help me choose :P
@El'endiaStarman Yep, and that's a fine way to screw them :/
Even the citizens of DC don't have a voting member in Congress IIRC.
 
Which kinda makes sense, since you may not want the seat of power to have an undue effect on that power.
Maybe kinda like how Vatican City is its own country, despite being in Italy.
Incidentally, I wonder when Puerto Rico will become part of the States.
 
A problem arises when it's Congress that sets the taxes within DC, though. I think they call it taxation without representation.
 
4:31 AM
Hah, point.
 
> Although DC has a larger population than some states, the District is not one of the fifty states and so has no senators or representatives in Congress. Instead, the District of Columbia sends a delegate to the House of Representatives with essentially no voting privileges.
Sweet.
 
Puerto Rico is in a weird spot.
In 2014, resolutions were introduced in both houses of the United States Congress (H.R. 2000; S. 2020) to hold a yes-or-no referendum among Puerto Rican residents on statehood, with a "yes" majority compelling the President to submit legislation enacting Puerto Rican statehood. Both resolutions died in committee.
So apparently Congress won't even bother voting on whether they can even try to become a state or not.
 
Huh, I thought there had been a vote among Puerto Ricans.
 
I think there have been some, but nothing binding.
 
A referendum on the political status of Puerto Rico was held in Puerto Rico on November 6, 2012. It was the fourth referendum on status to be held in Puerto Rico and the first in which a majority voted for statehood. Puerto Rico has been an unincorporated territory of the United States since the Spanish–American War in 1898. Puerto Rican voters were asked two questions: (1) whether they agreed to continue with Puerto Rico's territorial status and (2) to indicate the political status they preferred from three possibilities: statehood, independence, or a sovereign nation in free association with...
 
4:40 AM
What's funny is that both major parties "support Puerto Rican statehood", and so do the citizens there. Yet... nothing's actually happening.
Ah... the key might lie in the national political shift. It seems PR leans democratic. So a majority republican congress (which it has been since 2010) has no real incentive to move on this.
 
Hopefully that'll change this November.
 
Trump might just be the man to make that happen.
 
I hate how plausible that is.
 
Oh, I meant that having him as the nominee might flip Congress to the democrats.
 
right, yeah
 
4:48 AM
That would make up for the last year or so I guess :P
 
0
A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Washington GuedesOld game: load, defend and shoot code-golf array-manipulation When child I used to play this game a lot. Rules There must have two players (let's say A and B) and each player uses his hands as guns. There are three possible moves to do: Hands up to load one more ammunition to your gun. Han...

 
@NewSandboxedPosts That actually seems a bit fun.
 
5:05 AM
@NewSandboxedPosts we used to play with a rule of 10 ammo = 1 shotgun which was able to penetrate the shield
 
5:39 AM
1
Q: Scoring Java lambdas with imports

CAD97In this answer, I used a java.util.List as a parameter to an anonymous function (lambda) answer. So, my question is, Should this import be counted to the byte total? I know, it feels like the obvious answer should be YES - if you don't import java.util.*, my example usage won't compile. Howeve...

 
5:52 AM
That satisfaction when you golf off a couple of bytes from an old answer...
 
@HelkaHomba Is your face France or do I have my flags wrong?
 
So very wrong.
 
You have your flags wrong
 
@AlexA. Belgium
 
France under bad lighting? Kinda. But otherwise no :P
 
5:54 AM
^ France
 
Oh, I was seeing as blue, white, red overlaid onto other colors, rather than simulating black, yellow, red.
Don't mind me.
 
When in doubt, consult the Wiki
 
I knew that Belgium is black/yellow/red, I was just color confused.
 
tbh, I can't actually tell whether the left one's black :P
 
@AlexA. No worries. We know that birds see colors differently.
 
5:59 AM
lel
 
If anyone ever wanted a tactile Rubik's cube, a mirror cube is a cheap alternative. I've learned to solve mine blindfolded :D
 
> Recently active: 16883d ago, Dennis
wat
 
@Dennis Wow, 46 years
Long time, no see
 
You were last seen before you were born
 
Probably caching.
 
6:03 AM
Maybe's it's deciseconds
 
6:38 AM
 
is that a support avocad or avocad support for your support avocad?
@Dennis you were cached before you were born ? :O
@HelkaHomba or deca
 
@Dennis this guy shows up after 46 years of inactivity and nominates himself for moderator
typical
;)
 
wait
that's January 1 1970, the start of the epoch
 
oh, that makes sense
@HelkaHomba my friend got a mirror cube recently, i can solve a 3x3 but i absolutely cannot solve that haha
 
7:14 AM
@Optimizer avocad's are delicious
 
Hello!
 
ven
hi
 
7:37 AM
Hello!
 
..world?
 
@Lynn @ProgramFOX (and all other Belgian users): Please tell me you're doing okay!
 
@AlexA. I answered my first question!
 
I couldn't sleep, I'm really worried about you two ;-;
@Solver That's great! I'll have a look tomorrow. :)
 
I'll put a link here...
 
7:39 AM
Sounds good
In the meantime, goodnight all.
 
0
A: Halloween Golf: The 2spooky4me Challenge!

SolverCookie, 16 bytes Note that the recent changes to the Github page were not made for this challenge, Cookie is still in development. wŕspooky[r+2]me" Explanation: wŕspooky[r+2]me" w start write command ŕ take input spooky write spooky [r+2] ...

 
@EasterlyIrk yes
@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ OOP procedural lang that I've been working on for a few months.
Should be releasing it pretty soon.
 
I've also been working on a language.
Cookie
 
I saw, looks pretty nice.
 
@CoolestVeto Thanks.
 
7:49 AM
Lots o' langs written in JS - is it easier for some reason?
 
8:25 AM
Hi everyone !
 
@Katenkyo o/
 
@zyabin101 sup? How are you? :D
 
@Katenkyo I'm good, thanks for asking!
 
looks like we now have a new catalog question
 
@Katenkyo inb4 an answer gets accepted
 
8:41 AM
@zyabin101 Same here, but beaten by brainfuck...
 
8:53 AM
Can't look in other answers via the leaderboard on mobile... Ò_Ó
Says "framing is not allowed, press OK to suspend snippet" and forces me to close the snippet.
At least I know the location of answers in the leaderboard.
 
Do you use the mobile app' or the mobile version of the site?
 
Mobile version of the site.
 

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