Root Access

ChatBot John Cavil

00:14

@Frank Welcome to Root Access chat for Super Users! I am this channel's helpful chat bot. Please don't ask if you can ask or if anyone's around; just ask your question, and if anyone's free and interested they'll help. For bot commands, type !!listcommands

tapped-out

!!help say

ChatBot John Cavil

@tapped-out Command say does not exist.

tapped-out

!!help listen

ChatBot John Cavil

@tapped-out listen: Forwards the message to my ears (as if called without the /)

@NewProgrammerJames Welcome to Root Access chat for Super Users! I am this channel's helpful chat bot. Please don't ask if you can ask or if anyone's around; just ask your question, and if anyone's free and interested they'll help. For bot commands, type !!listcommands

Frank

Hello feuding chatbots! I found a "portable" Windows 7 app that seems to require admin privileges to launch. I'm wondering if I'm mistaken and there's another way to start it? It seems that an app isn't very usefully portable if you have to have admin rights on the comps you use. it says it's autohotkey-based: winsize2.sourceforge.net/en

tapped-out

00:30

@allquixotic think I have a slightly less hacky solution

@Frank you can have "portable" apps that require admin privileges, TrueCrypt being one of them

you're right, these type of "portable" apps aren't terribly useful

Frank

@tapped-out Ok, thanks.

Journeyman Geek

00:52

@tapped-out: truecrypt needs it only in specific situations iirc, when it needs a file system driver

tapped-out

You need administrator privileges in order to be able to run TrueCrypt in portable mode.

(source)

Journeyman Geek

@tapped-out: memory is partially faulty I guess ;p

but I was right about the file system driver

allquixotic

@tapped-out not bad

Journeyman Geek

superuser.com/questions/657765/… on one hand, its easy rep. On the other, it feels off to answer a question thats easily googleable (I did add in more details, but dog, is it that hard to look up your motherboard's support page?)

allquixotic

@tapped-out you can submit a pull request if you want, or i can cherry pick

David

00:59

Nice answer on that question @JourneymanGeek. Even though a lmgtfy would have been completely appropriate there, you did a nice job with the answer. (in regards to the CPU + motherboard question)

Journeyman Geek

@David: it would have been ;p

David

I think that would be a funny question close option. You could paste in an lmgtfy link as a moderator, and it will comment with the link and vote to close the question due to it being obviates that the questioner did not research at all prior to asking the question.

Maybe not practical, but very funny...

Journeyman Geek

or just downvote it ;p

tapped-out

@allquixotic pull request issued (god I hope I did that right)

allquixotic

01:21

@tapped-out merged, thanks... I'll get around to updating Cavil later tonight or tomorrow

I let Zirak know about that pull request also in case he wants to pull it upstream

Shashank Sawant

Hi!

ChatBot John Cavil

@ShashankSawant Welcome to Root Access chat for Super Users! I am this channel's helpful chat bot. Please don't ask if you can ask or if anyone's around; just ask your question, and if anyone's free and interested they'll help. For bot commands, type !!listcommands

tapped-out

alright, cool!

Shashank Sawant

I had a question about this post: superuser.com/questions/55598/…

What kind of a script is the first answer? I mean Python, Basic or what?

allquixotic

@ShashankSawant AutoHotkey

Shashank Sawant

01:24

So how do I execute it? For example if it were a C program I could have compiled it and would have created a .exe

@all

allquixotic

@ShashankSawant using AutoHotkey

Shashank Sawant

@allquixotic Roger that...

Journeyman Geek

AHK lets you compile too

really useful tool in some cases

also, question says what he prefers ;p

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek that guy is a major HV (hundreds of questions and a handful of answers) over on SO, too

Joan Venge, Los Angeles, CA

26k 54 206 407

c# .net wpf winforms python performance xaml

apparently asks "good" (ish) questions, but still, that's a lot of questions

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: well, good-ish isn't too bad

don't forget, good-ish questions add to the collective

allquixotic

01:34

the quality of the questions isn't so great, but it's just enough, because a ton of people seem to have the same question, judging from the upvotes

Journeyman Geek

yup

allquixotic

so, whatever... SU actually is less prone to having questions that everybody else will have

in the world of programming there are a lot more facts that can easily sift to the bottom of your mind and you forget until you google it and the first hit is SO

the subject matter of SU tends to lean towards most questions being highly localized

Bob

@allquixotic exactly!

Journeyman Geek

if its simple, you'd know it

(that said, I've occationally had simple questions I've talked about on chat, turn into pretty interesting answers. Like the time I got confused about internal audio headers)

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek thing is, there are a lot more "simple" things, in sheer quantity, in the programming space than in the SU space

it might be an easy question/answer that would take you 15 minutes to find in the official docs, or 5 seconds to find googling and getting SO as the first hit

Journeyman Geek

01:37

@allquixotic: precisely

and SU "simple" things can be self evident with some rubber ducking.

allquixotic

there's only so many canonical questions on SU, they are extremely rare

and the non-trivial things on SU tend to be extremely localized

or indeed, troubleshooting sessions

Bob

@JourneymanGeek but that requires some level of technical knowledge

what might be simple to one of us won't necessarily be simple to everyone

allquixotic

I find SU more approachable from an answerer's perspective though, because most of the unanswered questions on SO are either unanswerable (not nearly enough info), or there's plenty of info, but only the library developer / language designer of (usually) a proprietary piece of software would be able to provide the answer :/

on SU, I find that I could actually answer about 98% of the non-closed questions if I put in enough effort

Journeyman Geek

yup

allquixotic

on SO, there are millions of questions that I'd have to learn an entire new language/environment to even begin to approach

Journeyman Geek

01:40

oh dear god

I just got this in an email

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek in an email? where did someone get your email with the intelligence of a fruit fly?

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: classmate from my Computer Forensics major ;p

allquixotic

more importantly, how did a human being with the intelligence of a fruit fly have the mental fortitude to compose an email and send it to you?

oh ok lol

hmm

someone want to give me an opinion of how this meta question applies to this mainsite question?

Journeyman Geek

Dude knows his limitations, its a start.

allquixotic

7

Q: Are diagnostics/troubleshooting issues on-topic and not too localized?

Following on from this question. I made a comment there: By the same token, we shouldn't automatically close any question that says "virus" anywhere in the subject or body, because it may be that the user is mistaken in believing that they have a virus, when in fact, it's just good old fashio...

discussion

2

Q: No sound output or hardware to choose from in gnome sound settings

There is no sound output when I try to play music or videos etc. When I run $ speaker-test I get speaker-test 1.0.25 Playback device is default Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 1 channels Using 16 octaves of pink noise ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0' ALSA ...

audio debian sound-card alsa debian-wheezy

Journeyman Geek

01:43

we did kill off the TL close reason

allquixotic

true, but does that mean that too localized questions are now on-topic?

Oli wrote a very good answer to that MSU question, and now I'm wondering if that advice is still applicable, because if so, the mainsite question I posted looks closeable

Journeyman Geek

good question

I think so

summer of love and all that crap

this could turn into a good, semi-generic "why is my sound not working, and how do i fix it" question tho

Bob

@allquixotic interesting thing - localised troubleshooting questions can help others!

if the troubleshooting steps are available, or someone else has a reasonably similar problem, then they can be useful

I would take localised not to mean configuration, but rather time/location

allquixotic

@Bob possibly, but with the ease of asking new questions, a user is less likely to try and decipher a similar user's situation than just post their exact situation, especially if one or more things doesn't match up

Bob

eh, I've read through a lot of troubleshooting/"localised" forum threads and adapted the steps

and even some SU questions have helped like that

not everything has to be a perfect, exact answer

allquixotic

01:47

@JourneymanGeek honestly? for desktop x86 GNU/Linux, I don't think you can do better than this for a canonical sound troubleshooting guide

Bob

you're always going to have users post questions like that, but then you have other people who actually try to solve it themselves first (and have the technical knowledge to do so with some prodding)

allquixotic

(I'm a bit bias though because I edited a little bit of that page a very long time ago)

at this point though, we know from the OP's responses in this particular case that his problem is the ALSA kernel driver isn't initializing or detecting his card propertly (or at all), which either means his hardware is full-on unsupported, or there's a bug

Braiam

I'm aware that a question, "I have X problem, how to diagnostic?" were good

allquixotic

it's at that stage that I would advise mailing the ALSA mailing list with the output of alsa-info.sh

because honestly that is the best way to get help

still, if we are actually changing our consensus nowadays to be more in favor of troubleshooting questions, perhaps someone should post a new answer here with a differing opinion from Oli's

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: I think, personally, the best place for troubleshooting is chat

not cause its too localised, but because troubleshooting is a process (and as such noisy by nature), and you can always distill it down to the essentials once you find an answer

allquixotic

01:57

@JourneymanGeek I agree -- chat is the best place -- but there's also a barrier to get into chat, namely, 20 rep... which is there to prevent spammers and other bad apples (ostensibly), but also keeps a significant number of low-rep users from gaining access

Journeyman Geek

yeah

allquixotic

it also just so happens that many first questions on SU are of the troubleshooting variety

so you end up with long comment threads and/or closed questions as "Unclear what you're asking"

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: also, without troubleshooting and software req...

what do we have left?

allquixotic

if I were completely new to SE/SU and people put my question on hold as "Unclear what you're asking", that would make me extremely frustrated

Journeyman Geek

(actually, same issue as with SF, really, there's a conflict between acessibility and scope)

allquixotic

01:58

@JourneymanGeek about 500 questions (TOTAL) of this variety:

127

A: What is the advantage of using 'tar' today?

Part 1: Performance Here is a comparison of two separate workflows and what they do. You have a file on disk blah.tar.gz which is, say, 1 GB of gzip-compressed data which, when uncompressed, occupies 2 GB (so a compression ratio of 50%). The way that you would create this, if you were to do ar...

tapped-out

or things like this:

16

Q: How do I search the Windows 8 Store?

I can't seem to find any search box in the store. Does it exist? How can I access it?

windows-8 windows-store

Journeyman Geek

heh

@tapped-out: that might have been during the windows 8 contest

tapped-out

it wasn't, because it didn't count towards progress for me :(

allquixotic

actually, in retrospect, a lot of the seemingly simple questions that most people can figure out by playing around with the software, which were asked during the windows-8 contest, actually ended up being useful

the same way that a question such as "How do I allocate memory in C++?" could be useful on SO

SE sites don't discriminate against really simple questions

but I feel like SU does

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: site culture I guess

allquixotic

02:01

we really tend to beat users over the head if they ask a question that seems trivial, obvious, or something you can figure out by clicking around

tapped-out

"not enough research"

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: I think my issue with it is not just the quality of questions

its the quality of answers

allquixotic

@tapped-out exactly -- the tooltip on the question downvote begs for you to click it

Journeyman Geek

I can't justify posting a one liner.

(and I hardly ever downvote questions)

allquixotic

that's very true -- a simple question with a comprehensive answer with images and links is extremely useful

Bob

02:02

@JourneymanGeek Eh, I try not to but, sometimes, what can you do?

2

A: How to do exact (diacritic-sensitive) search in Adobe Reader X

Edit > Preferences > Search > Ignore Diacritics and Accents => Uncheck

allquixotic

but with the selectiveness of our community these days, the question might get closed before anyone has a chance to post an answer

Bob

I suppose I could've screenshotted.

(Then again, that must've been, what, my second answer on SU?)

Journeyman Geek

lol

some of my early answers were craptastic too

Bob

Wow, 12th answer o.O

and only 5 days after I joined

tapped-out

my first answer could've been a one liner

3

A: Vertical lines on LCD and all computer text scrambled

The symptoms you describe suggest a RAM or motherboard problem. I would try running Memtest86+ first, to see if the RAM has gone bad. If the RAM comes back clean, or if the computer hangs during the test, your motherboard has probably developed an issue. If you're having power fluctuation issues...

Bob

02:03

must've been really addicted at the time -_-

tapped-out

(twoish months after i joined)

Journeyman Geek

1

A: SD card mounted as bootable image instead of FAT 32

Generally cameras tend to store photos in a folder called DCIM. See if its there, and the photos are in a subfolder of it.

first answer ;p

Bob

@allquixotic again, the problem with that is what is obvious differs by skill level

tapped-out

0

Q: Google Docs / Exel - need to know how to add formula

I'm using Google Docs / Exel and can't work out how or where to add a 'formula'. I have a column "i" which is the number of items. I have another column "j" which is the cost of those items. Column "i" has various number of items and column "j" has varying prices. So, in short I want column "...

google worksheet-function google-docs

Journeyman Geek

@tapped-out: screenshots turn "oneliners" into better answers

tapped-out

02:06

yup

especially screenshots with annotations (oooh)

Journeyman Geek

yup

at least the SE Approved Red Freehand Circles (TM)

tapped-out

on the one hand, how hard would it've been to google it... but on the other hand, asking (and answering) these "simple" questions helps the site out in search results

Bob

@tapped-out You'd be amazed at how finicky Google can be at times...

Braiam

umm... I seems to find SE answers in google very easy... then again my google-fu helps

Journeyman Geek

lol

tapped-out

02:09

even with the algorithm changes, it still points to freakin' about.com most of the time

Journeyman Geek

SE has serious search engine weight.

tapped-out

@Braiam sure; "site:superuser.com ____"

Braiam

@tapped-out nope

no even that

Journeyman Geek

(hell, these days, the first hit when I search for Journeyman Geek is my SO account o0)

tapped-out

(which is what i end up doing most of the time, because SE search is craptastic)

Braiam

02:10

@JourneymanGeek you have a blog? in blogger?

Journeyman Geek

yeah

nope

thats not me

that USED to be the first hit

tapped-out

tappedout.net

Braiam

mm... now is SO, blogger blog, 2 domains, then SU account...

Journeyman Geek

and this is a SU legend ;p

Braiam

@JourneymanGeek WHAT?

Bob

02:12

@Braiam doesn't mean it's easy to find other results at all times

I sometimes spend upwards of 10 mins screwing around with keywords to find something I know is there

Journeyman Geek

@Braiam: I believe @gowtham used that as an answer for a april fools day question a few years afo

Braiam

@Bob not true... I used another PC (cafe) to look for some answers and found them...

Journeyman Geek

@Braiam: oh, my swiss army knife, and very small crowbar

Braiam

do that crowbar had opened.... something?

Journeyman Geek

lol

@Braiam: I got it from a 2 dollar shop

Braiam

02:15

mm... a dog + crowbar = pet shop's are in danger!

Journeyman Geek

I think i used it when i was replacing the dud switches from the last renovation (we used to have internal wiring, we replaced it with external wiring, but the contractor left the old switches in place), with wooden panels.

@Braiam: LIBERATION!

Bob

@Braiam So, because you've had two positive experiences means it's always good? Nope. Not how it works.

Braiam

@Bob I just set an example, not just two experiences, I don't like large posts in chat :/

Bob

It depends a lot on how obscure the topic might be, yes, but the chosen keywords can affect it a lot (and, fact it, a lot of newbies won't know the "best" keywords).

And I'm not even getting into Google's personalised results.

I'm not sure how you using a different computer is supposed to affect keywords or the obscurity of the topic.

Nor how it is supposed to refute my point that Google isn't always perfect, and how you search has a massive effect.

Braiam

I normally when I ask questions I try to put a "good title" which people might search for

Bob

02:18

...and I'm talking about people who others say should have searched before asking a question

not how easy or not it is to find SU questions

(on that note, I've spent a lot of time looking for specific questions I've seen before, even with exact reproductions of the title - it is far from perfect)

Braiam

@Bob OH DEAR LORD, please don't talk about those :(

Bob

@Braiam But what I'm saying is searching beforehand will not always find what seems to be obvious

Nor will it always find what others can find

also, SU (and SE as a whole) are supposed to be a "library of knowledge", making any request to "research this elsewhere" just plain stupid

if you know the answer or believe it to be obvious, either answer it (with a good, explanatory answer if possible) or move on

Braiam

ok, lets put it this way, what is the question the most dupes has on SU, read the title of those and tell my if the OP really searched a bit

Bob

@Braiam dupes are a different matter from off-site resources, and they can be closed as duplicates

rather than attacking the asker over it!

again, it's a good thing if we can get even the more basic questions here, especially if we can give great answers to them

Braiam

@Bob and what we were talking about again? I'm saying that things that I've found on SE just googling the problem instead of asking the same again...

Bob

02:25

if an answer is available outside the site, then go read it yourself, and adapt it into a great answer

don't tell people to "search"

Braiam

I'm not telling them to search elsewhere, I'm telling them to do a darn search...

Bob

26 mins ago, by allquixotic

actually, in retrospect, a lot of the seemingly simple questions that most people can figure out by playing around with the software, which were asked during the windows-8 contest, actually ended up being useful

start there

@Braiam if it's a duplicate on-site, close it as such and move on

telling people to search on-site accomplishes nothing

if the answer is available off-site, make it available on-site too

telling people to search off-site also accomplishes very little or nothing

we're here to give good answers

telling people to go read the forum thread with 80% noise and an answer somewhere is worse than useless

Braiam

1 hour ago, by David

I think that would be a funny question close option. You could paste in an lmgtfy link as a moderator, and it will comment with the link and vote to close the question due to it being obviates that the questioner did not research at all prior to asking the question.

I'm starting from there... you are out of context

Bob

telling people (who may not be very experienced with choosing the keywords, or may just be unlucky enough to not hit the right combination, or may even have country-localised results) to "search" is useless

Braiam

@Bob and again, I'm not telling people to search I'm asking them if they did a darn search!

I ask for them if they did any effort!

Bob

02:30

@Braiam and what the hell is the difference?

Why does it matter?

It doesn't.

Braiam

because I won't waste my effort in something they already tried!

@Bob It does

Journeyman Geek

@Braiam: but in many cases, you can improve on a basic, googled answer

do beyond the "what" to the "why"

Bob

@Braiam That's "what have you tried already", not "have you done any research"

I can try dozens of troubleshooting steps without touching a web browser!

And I can spend half an hour searching with no useful troubleshooting steps!

Journeyman Geek

I'm beginning to wish I favourited that epic troubleshooting question

Bob

"searching" is just that - looking around

not everyone will find the same things while searching, anyway

tapped-out

02:33

@JourneymanGeek ...?

Journeyman Geek

there was this question where the guy basically kept editing in EVERYTHING he had tried so far and the result

that, to me, was a good example of how troubleshooting, should be done

he'd already tried and documented the obvious too

Braiam

@Bob but still is doing "something"

Bob

in your specific example - it's useful to ask them what they have tried already, if anything (though that's more 'troubleshooting' than the 'simple question' I was talking about), but it's useless to ask them 'have you searched', and likewise counterproductive to refuse help on the grounds that they haven't tried anything yet

@Braiam And why must someone try "something" before asking a question?

Why does "searching" help?

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: cause it means you've already made attempts.

Braiam

11 hours ago, by Braiam

@EinsteinsGrandson look, when you got a problem you first try to solve it, if it don't work then try again once you run out of ideas, you search for people that had your problem, if still with the problem or somewhere you didn't understood how to solve it then you experiment, if all experiment fails then you ask a question

Journeyman Geek

02:35

I think trying, and looking is what seperate a help vampire from a wicked problem solver.

Braiam

@Bob shows any effort

no effort, why should I bother?

Bob

Again, one of the stated goals is to build up SE into a database of knowledge. So, someone asked a basic question? Answer it if you can (or move on if you don't want to) and hope it will be helpful to others in the future!

An answer is already available on another site by searching? Chances are it's not as good as it can get, and you never know if the other site will be going down/deleting the thing/etc. - adapt the answer into a better one and put it on-site (with attribution, and if the licence allows).

Braiam

wait, are there simple questions still not asked?

Bob

Of course!

Braiam

*starts doing several selfanswered questions*

Bob

02:39

There's always going to be more basic questions that haven't been asked.

Every few weeks we get one and everyone thinks "how has that not been asked yet?"...

Journeyman Geek

lol

Braiam

@techie007 He's asking almost at the end if he needs to make a configuration to his current clients (W7 and OSX) to accept this option specified in the DHCP implementation, or if he needs another client to get this functionality, which is not software recommendation and a very valid question that I'm surprised that it hasn't be asked somewhere else. — Braiam 2 days ago

Bob

@JourneymanGeek I think the bigger problem is the scope of a question.

If it's nice and specific, good. Doesn't matter if they've tried anything before.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: I did ask once, which audio interface cable to use internally, remember? ;p

Bob

The problem is if a question gets too broad...

Braiam

02:41

I think that one thing is "help me to do X" which is different to "please do X for me"

Bob

@Braiam You should bother if it can help future visitors, and/or it is useful to have in a database of knowledge.

Again, good questions are specific, regardless of prior effort put in.

They focus on a specific problem, preferably with enough context to not be an XY problem.

On that note, it's also bad to consider questions based on who the asker is :\

(Though, too specific and I guess you run into "too localised" - mostly, time/location-specific, or apparently too much troubleshooting.)

Braiam

isn't there questions about the basic information you need to identify where there is a problem?

I normally guide people there with a comment, and then vote to close them as unclear so if the user isn't interested enough into solving the problem the question doesn't sit there

Journeyman Geek

lol

canonical questions?

we have one

as far as I know

tapped-out

community-faq

Journeyman Geek

ok

so I don't know that well.

tapped-out

02:53

there's also community-faq-proposed

but the point is, there aren't a whole lot of canonical questions, and certainly we don't have 100% coverage

Journeyman Geek

0

Q: LibreOffice Writer: How to apply strikethrough text formatting?

Version: LibreOffice 4.0.2.2 Is it possible to apply strikethrough text formatting in LibreOffice Writer?

libreoffice libreoffice-writer

whut?

tapped-out

Shameless Self-Promotion: please go read my plea on Meta regarding AHCI questions

Journeyman Geek

and... posted a better oneline answer.

(all rep from that goes into the pool ;p)

tapped-out

@JourneymanGeek what tool did you use to create that screencast?

Journeyman Geek

@tapped-out: licecap

hmm

Should I post that as a self answered question?

tapped-out

03:08

xD "how do I create a screencast and share it as a GIF?"

let me ask it and you can get the 15 extra rep from accepting it ;P

Journeyman Geek

XD

ok

gif-ception!

tapped-out

17

Q: Screen recording in animated .gif format (no sound needed)

I need a free and portable tool to record desktop activities in an animated .gif format. Here's an example: I need .gif videos so that they can run from a web page without requiring any plugins. My OS is Windows XP and I need a portable tool only. I want to record and save directly in .gif fo...

windows-xp freeware portable gif animated-gif

damn!

Journeyman Geek

let me add that as an answer

posted

tapped-out

also edited to be less software reccy --> better

0

Q: jquery-ui tabs works but I cannot get any event binding to work, what am I doing wrong?

It does not respond to any action I have tried, onclick onchange and select. I have googled and read many answers but I am unable to see what I am doing wrong. I have tried on firefox and chrome (latest versions) < input name="form_date" id="form_date" type="date" value = < ?php echo date("Y-m-d...

tabs jquery

one last thing before i'm off to bed :P 'night SUs/@JourneymanGeek

Journeyman Geek

03:23

and lol, it shows how badly I type

Bob

04:11

@JourneymanGeek quite well for a dog

o.o

the first Thunderbird major release in more than a year

from 17.0.8 to 24.0

Braiam

04:34

@Bob they were syncing versions with FF

ChatBot John Cavil

08:14

@hek2mgl Welcome to Root Access chat for Super Users! I am this channel's helpful chat bot. Please don't ask if you can ask or if anyone's around; just ask your question, and if anyone's free and interested they'll help. For bot commands, type !!listcommands

hek2mgl

!!help

ChatBot John Cavil

@hek2mgl help, listen, eval, coffee, live, die, refresh, forget, ban, unban, info, jquery, choose, user, listcommands, norris, urban, parse, tell, mdn, afk, awsm, color, convert, define, findcommand, forgetseen, fuckable, get, github, google, hang, inhistory, learn, test, mustache, nudge, spec, stat, timer, todo, undo, weather, welcome, wiki, xkcd, youtube (page 0/0)

@hek2mgl github.com/Zirak/SO-ChatBot/wiki/Interacting-with-the-bot

hek2mgl

!!/xkcd

ChatBot John Cavil

@hek2mgl No items on your todo

@hek2mgl listen: Forwards the message to my ears (as if called without the /)

@hek2mgl info: Grabs some stats on my current instance or a command. /info [cmdName]

@hek2mgl I awoke on Fri, 11 Oct 2013 03:47:57 GMT (that's about 1 day ago), got invoked 32 times, learned 1 commands

I once worked on a friend's dad's computer. He had the hard drive divided into six partitions, C: through J:, with a 'Documents' directory tree on each one. Each new file appeared to be saved to a partition at random. I knew enough not to ask.

hek2mgl

!!/norris

ChatBot John Cavil

08:27

@hek2mgl github.com/Zirak/SO-ChatBot/wiki/Interacting-with-the-bot

@hek2mgl That didn't make much sense. Use the help command to learn more.

@hek2mgl github.com/Zirak/SO-ChatBot/wiki/Interacting-with-the-bot

@hek2mgl help, listen, eval, coffee, live, die, refresh, forget, ban, unban, info, jquery, choose, user, listcommands, norris, urban, parse, tell, mdn, afk, awsm, color, convert, define, findcommand, forgetseen, fuckable, get, github, google, hang, inhistory, learn, test, mustache, nudge, spec, stat, timer, todo, undo, weather, welcome, wiki, xkcd, youtube (page 0/0)

@hek2mgl A man once taunted Chuck Norris with a bag of Lay's potato chips, saying "Betcha can't eat just one!" Chuck Norris proceeded to eat the chips, the bag, and the man in one deft move.

hek2mgl

!!/norris

ChatBot John Cavil

@hek2mgl There is no such thing as global warming. Chuck Norris was cold, so he turned the sun up.

@hek2mgl Chuck Norris doesn't see dead people. He makes people dead.

@hek2mgl When Chuck Norris is web surfing websites get the message "Warning: Internet Explorer has deemed this user to be malicious or dangerous. Proceed?".

hek2mgl

!!/help timer

ChatBot John Cavil

@hek2mgl developer.mozilla.org

@hek2mgl Action undefined not recognized, see /help timer

@hek2mgl timer: Starts/stops a timer. /timer start [name] starts a timer, /timer stop name stops a timer.

hek2mgl

!!/fuckable 36

ChatBot John Cavil

08:33

@hek2mgl Registered timer hek

@hek2mgl fuckable: Calculates the lower boundary according to age/2+7 rule. /fuckable age

@hek2mgl This is srs bsns, please treat it as such (see /help fuckable).

@hek2mgl A person that age can shag down to 22, and is the lower limit of a person of 46 years.

@hek2mgl A person that age can shag down to 25, and is the lower limit of a person of 58 years.

hek2mgl

!!/google test

ChatBot John Cavil

@hek2mgl My Google Fu has failed.

@hek2mgl test.com ; speedtest.net ; speakeasy.net/speedtest

Journeyman Geek

09:19

@tapped-out: heh, the guy who asked the gif question changed his selected answer to mine XD

Einsteins Grandson

09:32

anybody here?

If I don't use my MacBook on a battery, does it mean that it will last longer? I heard that when you have normal notebook from HP, Asus, Dell, Acer.... no matter if you use the notebook on battery or not... after 2 or 3 years it will be dead... lasting only like 30 minutes or maybe only 5 minutes... Is it the same with MacBook? I have a MacBook which is 6 years old and it still lasts 4-5 hours.... The Macbook has not been used on battery in those 6 years. ;o)

Journeyman Geek

@EinsteinsGrandson: I think there's a lot of literature out on it, even on SU

why not check?

Einsteins Grandson

alright

Journeyman Geek

heh, kinda hoping I can find another question to answer. I am painfully close to a repcap

Hennes

09:59

Here is one for you:

0

Q: Alert when a wifi network is detected

Is there any way to play a sound and give a notification in Windows (7 or 8) to alert me when a wifi (wireless) network is detected ?Can I do it with the task scheduler?

windows wireless-networking notification-area

And the answer can be build from:

19

Q: How to launch a command on network connection/disconnection?

I have a wifi connection that requires to authenticate using a web form once the wireless link is established. I know how to automate the authentication with a script that uses curl/curlIE. But how can I ask Windows to call my script every time I connect to a particular network connection? I wo...

windows networking wireless-networking script hook

@EinsteinsGrandson No, it will not be 'dead'. But it has limited recharge cycles (assuming Li-Ion) and it will degrade over time.

Worst case behaviour (drain and recharge once or twice per day) and it will be dead.

Normal behaviour (e.g. plug in, use with netpower except when in a train) and it should last a few years with gradually degrading performance (e.g. half battery time after 3 years)

Actually, that was not worst case. Evenb worser: use it for 30 minutes, then recharge it just to 'top the battery off'. Repeat 10 times per day.

Journeyman Geek

@Hennes: heh, rather answer something I know XD

I'll probably hack at that later tho, looks fun

and I was under the impression that you had to manually trigger off a ssid scan

Einsteins Grandson

what is combo drive .... the optical disc drive?

CD burner and DVD player?

not able to burn DVDs right?

Journeyman Geek

10:14

lmgtfy.com/?q=combo+drive

Einsteins Grandson

:-)

OK,OK

Combo drive

A combo drive is a type of optical drive that combines CD-R/CD-RW recording capability with the an ability to read (but not write) DVD media. The term is used almost exclusively by Apple Inc. as a name for the low-end substitute for their high-end SuperDrive, as the latter was designed to both read and write CD and DVD recordable media. The device was created as a mid-range option between a CD burner and a DVD burner, which at the time the combo drive was introduced was generally an expensive option costing in excess of US$300 a unit. Combo drives are becoming less and less common on new s...

what if it can burn dvd, cd but only play Blu Ray discs ?

It is called Combo combo drive or what?

:-)

Journeyman Geek

its a marketing term

Hennes

10:37

If it uses optical media then the correct term is archaic ;-)

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_archaic_terms

For alternative descriptions of archaic; see floppy drive or windows XP.

Grr, I can not VTC as duplicate of

... duplicate of superuser.com/questions/607958/cannot-find-ecs-945gct-drivers

Ah well, opens own old answer. edit. Copy. Switch to new question. Paste. Post

Bob

11:07

@JourneymanGeek mind if I take it then? :P

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: go ahead

I found something to answer.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek ya know, I was half joking

I really can't be bothered right now :(

Journeyman Geek

XD

Bob

it just... doesn't really rouse my interest

...

4

Q: How to get back the black bar on Google search/mail/translator/etc/ page?

I was always just one click away from the translator, image search etc.. Here is how it was: Now I need to click on the small icon on the right and scroll down, because the translator is for some reason hidden at the end of the popup window and you need to scroll. It's very unergonomic. It'...

firefox google-chrome search-engines google-search

@Sathya Migrate to Web Applications?

Journeyman Geek

its got a bounty

Bob

11:10

@JourneymanGeek But he's a mod ;)

Journeyman Geek

(tho, do those get migrated too? )

true

Bob

Grace period ends in 2 hrs anyway, so.. ya.

612 consecutive days on SU :D

Journeyman Geek

I only have 268 ;p

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Also, 612 days total :P

Journeyman Geek

1432 days total

That Brazilian Guy

12:01

I have 48...

tapped-out

506 days, 51 consecutive

i can pretty much look through my days missed and say "yeah, that was when i went on vacation," etc.

That Brazilian Guy

@Bob Wait, that's almost TWO YEARS!

tapped-out

12:17

off to reimage some laptops with... ominous thunder XP

That Brazilian Guy

12:30

What's the better moment to have heavy machinery operating under your window?9AM after a niight out, of course

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