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5:00 PM
@allquixotic not when they have specifically mentioned:
> But just to make it clear: We can, at any time and with or without any reason, say "We don't want that anymore; turn it off now."
anyway, gots work to do. peace.
Yep. Got a novel to pen and I got no more time for drama. Byee
@allquixotic The lights are out, the leadership has left, and they're not coming back. This place is on auto-pilot under the guise of whomever's still wandering the halls at SE. It was an experiment, it was a success, and now those who made it such have moved on to other experiments. The left-overs are very skilled but over time things will grow more locked down as less-locked down is not possible/reasonable when your job is to maintain and protect the place's legacy. And that's the only job left.
@Sathya I suppose you're right -- but they implicitly have the exact same level of overriding power with regards to any aspect of the site or community at all. In the past, that hasn't been a problem, because they haven't actively used that ability much or at all. Now, all of the sudden, they're using it. Do you see the difference?
I still quite like it, but that's just the facts
@JimmyHoffa I agree, actually. I think Atwood was the motivator for making it a free, community-governed site, and now he's gone, it's going to eventually spiral into a very locked-down place. It's practically inevitable.
5:02 PM
@allquixotic The "all of a sudden" might be caused because they "all of a sudden" found out about something they don't like
Really, this is a small thing. It's just come kind of quickly, and we weren't expecting it.
Maybe that's why Atwood quit? I wonder...
This is going down the spiral real quick.
@allquixotic Like I said, the key is less locked down isn't possible because their literal directive now is to protect and maintain the place, and short of doing nothing at all the only actions they have available are to make it more locked down. Nothing else would fit the directive they have left now.
If they can come out with a good reason for it (or even if they just came out and said, 'hey, sorry guys. We messed up', that would be great.
5:04 PM
They could literally do nothing, but they're motivated skilled engineers, they're not going to sit on their hands
Bob
Bob
@allquixotic He himself has laid down a few ultimatums, actually.
but then I don't know what I'm talking about
so there's always that
:D
:D
Man it's brutal that Microsoft doesn't have COA stickers (product keys) on any new Windows 8 machines. They also aren't coming with a Windows 7 DVD even if you have downgrade rights.
Bob
Bob
@JimmyHoffa And this leads to a lot of things being messed up. "Hey, we have free time! What should we do with it?" "Well, there was that one idea no one liked enough to implement earlier..."
5:05 PM
I'm having a huge pain in the ass trying to activate a copy of Windows 7 on a machine I just downgraded. I am so tempted to just crack WGA
@Bob I'm perfectly fine with ultimatums as a means of codifying a community consensus. For example, if there were some kind of a poll or discussion on this topic, and the "winner" were not totally obvious, but there were a lot of mixed opinions on both sides and a lot of controversy, I'd be totally fine if they just used their "developer's vote" as a tie-breaker and weighed one way or the other.
The thing that rubs me the wrong way is that there was no discussion before this decision was made, and an honest, well-meaning attempt to create that discussion just ended up with one answer by SE saying "it's going to be this way, or else".
Bob
Bob
@allquixotic I distinctly recall one of them being voted into the far negatives. Can't remember what it was now, unfortunately.
Hi All.
Hm, perhaps the burden of convincing lies with you.
We really should just extend them a bit of grace... give them a chance to rectify/justify it.
Bob
Bob
5:07 PM
@jokerdino He's tried to convince them. Their answer was "no", no counter-argument.
@Undo I don't expect any sort of rectification, but perhaps a justification will come.
@boris_you Re Netscape 1.2, How much is relic? --> It comes on floppies, that should be a hint. :)
Bob
Bob
It's very hard to argue against a brick wall... (not to be insulting - figure of speech and a single "no" response isn't very talkative)
@Bob Were any of the points that were primarily, or even tangentially discussed as a problem with the bot in my meta question, ever voted on? Except for my Q about changing the wording of the greeting, which had positive upvotes?
They're probably working on formulating a decent response... Let's just sit back and see what happens.
Bob
Bob
5:08 PM
@allquixotic I was referring to Atwood's answers on MSO
@Undo Preferable would be if they would just reify, generics are great but eventually you need a concrete type... just saying..
Agreed, of course. But even things like this take time.
Bob
Bob
10 stars so far on JS:
in Not JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 8 mins ago, by rlemon
we quite successfully manage ourselves in here (quite a bit moreso than some rooms of notable size) and we have put into place a few systems to fix things in the current system that were causing us headache and that no one was going to fix for us. why now are we being eye balled as doing bad stuff. we are not putting anyone out of a job, we are not abusing the system. we expanded it to our needs. we innovated
in Not JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 7 mins ago, by Benjamin Gruenbaum
Seriously, if community managers want to have real discussion about the chat we'd love to do that. Barging in and just telling us to change things without hanging around and seeing what we put up with comes off as condescending. If you don't like some of what we do and you have reasonable arguments we're willing to listen and comply but please, let's have real discussion about it.
"Not JavaScript"? awesome. :D
They aren't blaming me or Root Access for this decision, are they? :/
Bob
Bob
@allquixotic They don't appear to be.
5:11 PM
I guess it was going to be just a matter of time before they found the bot in the JS room with the exact same behavior as mine, so hopefully they aren't blaming Cavil or me.
as Cavil always said in Battlestar Galactica, "I'm just a copy."
Bob
Bob
One of their points of argument is that they should be treated as their own room, and not based on other rooms. Fair enough.
They're getting a lot more fired up than we are, though.
I completely agree with that sentiment, and maybe my meta question came off as sounding like "if you're going to do it to mine, you should do it to everyone's", which isn't quite what I meant
Bob
Bob
(also, pretty sure that room is bigger, "official" or not - what the hell does that even mean?)
@Bob The go-to place for a niche site like SU.
@Bob official apparently means that, when a new site is created on the SE network (except for SO; they're special), there's one default chatroom that's automatically generated for the site, and AFAIK can't be removed, and that's considered the "official" chatroom
Bob
Bob
5:14 PM
@jokerdino That's pretty crappy, then. So, if I create a new room and we all migrate there, does that become the "official" room?
@Bob no; see my reply above
Bob
Bob
@allquixotic Hmmm.
(hey, anyone want to move next door? ;))
so when they created Super User, they automatically created something like "Super User Chat", and there was probably an early meta Q about the name of the chat, and it was voted to be Root Access, and renamed by diamonds, and the rest is history
(I am not that kind. Sorry.)
I'm still trying to find their argument against the auto-greeter. In the JS room they're using the "we're not giving a reason against it until you give us a reason for it" stance.
5:17 PM
@DarthAndroid that's a pretty common standoffish line of rhetoric when the real reason has something to do with the Legal department, in which case, the decision might even be out of the developers' hands!
Bob
Bob
@DarthAndroid Except we (and they) have given multiple reasons for it!
@allquixotic :/ I sorta expected SE to respect their community well enough to at least say "There are potential legal issues involved, can you give us a concrete argument for the auto-greeter?" if that's the case
Bob
Bob
"It can be done manually" <= horrible argument!
@Bob I know, and they keep ignoring them :/
Bob
Bob
Sure, I could probably send a chat message manually via a telnet prompt, but the login and dealing with cookies alone would be rather annoying, wouldn't it?
5:20 PM
I think Balpha imagines the greeter to annoy a user everytime he joins the chat room, which would be rather spammy.
Bob
Bob
or if we really want to get down to it, it is possible to manually write every packet including TCP and IP headers
@jokerdino It greets any given user once for as long as the bot's memory lasts.
Once only. Never again.
@bob Yeah, we're not user if balpha knows that though.
If you would ask for my 2 cents, I don't really care for the greetings. Other than momentarily distract me about the newly-joined user. I already do enough to hide the user list.
@jokerdino You are highly encouraged to ignore the bot entirely if you find it annoying -- of course, that won't be a problem now, because the auto-greetings are gone, but I think your dislike for them can be trivially handled by the click of a button without impacting other users who do like them.
And it's not like there are infinite bots and they change every day or anything. There's one bot in the channel, ever.
Bob
Bob
@jokerdino As a regular user, I'd honestly value your opinion far more than a SE team member who drops in maybe once a month, if even that.
3
5:25 PM
But yes, I do value your opinion.
Bob
Bob
It doesn't mean they can't provide a good reason, but "I don't like it" isn't a good reason. Not coming from someone who doesn't visit the room much.
Let me realign my stance. I don't feel strongly for or against autogreeting the users. But given a choice, I would rather those messages were shoved to the user privately without distracting whatever conversation we are having in the room.
Bob
Bob
(Not sure if they've come out and said "I don't like it", but there hasn't been any other reason provided, so that's my best guess at the moment.)
@jokerdino Given that there's no private messaging system, and they feel so strongly against it, I doubt they'll implement some sort of one-time alert/display of a message for new users. :(
@Bob They repeat several times that they specifically avoided this particular feature. That's the closest you can find to any reason.
5:29 PM
@jokerdino Yeah, I don't think they're going to allow private messaging, but I think it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to draft some kind of client-side JS that the server pushes to clients that checks if they're a first-time chat user, and if so, posts some kind of helpful message in chat when they first open it up.
Bob
Bob
@jokerdino That hardly explains why they decided to do so, or why one chatroom can't implement something themselves, if they find it necessary/beneficial.
@Bob Well, instead of asking them for a reason, we could continue to be constructive and push them to make the site better by putting in a feature request to ask them to add that little blurb for first-time chatters (as a "private" message so others don't see it), which would make the auto-greeting pointless and not annoy existing users.
Then the onus would be on them to either implement it or explain why our improved feature request (that doesn't involve a bot, but code they directly control) is bad.
Then they'd say "can't do it because of performance reasons" probably XD
Bob
Bob
@allquixotic If they continue the current streak with JS's requests, they won't provide any response. At all.
It could be a banner -- similar to when you get replies in room you are currently not on.
@jokerdino Yes!
5:36 PM
@allquixotic IIRC balpha mentioned that they intentionally aren't doing that and that's why a bot shouldn't either
That's really good.
Bob
Bob
@OliverSalzburg Oh, you mean they don't want to do this?
> Welcome to The Stack Exchange Network chat! You'll need 20 reputation to talk here. This site is moderated by the community, so please be respectful of your fellow The Stack Exchange Network users. And while you're at it, check out the FAQ!
Admittedly, that's only on the login page right now - but it's hardly intrusive.
Also, with this whole banning bots thing... am I at risk of being removed? Am I allowed to greet users?
@Bob The difference being, that sort of banner is controlled entirely by SE, whereas the bot greeter is controlled by third parties. The "controlled by third parties" part may be what scares them the most, because we could change the text to something horrible without even notifying them.
Bob
Bob
in Not JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 2 mins ago, by Tim Post
Please don't get that impression - I am listening to what you're all saying when it comes to why having the greeting helps.
@allquixotic In the same way that I could say something horrible to a new user?
We already have a way of dealing with messages that include "something horrible": that's exactly what the offensive flag is for.
5:40 PM
@Bob Yes. Except that when it's a bot, developers naturally think that's somehow worse. Especially when they don't control the code the bot is running.
I'm playing devil's advocate here; I completely agree with you, but I'm basically trying to get inside balpha's head, and I'm struggling mightily with it, but I'm thinking of what could possibly motivate him to want the auto-greeter gone.
@Bob I'm just saying that it's pretty pointless to argue that they should add a feature to replace the bot functionality when it's the desired non-existence of that feature that was the reason for the removal of the bot.
Bob
Bob
@OliverSalzburg Oh, I'm not saying they should. I was just sarcastically pointing out that they already do something similar.
in Not JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 3 mins ago, by Tim Post
@rlemon It's not your bot specifically at all. It's the idea of bots sending auto greetings in chat in general.
in Not JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 2 mins ago, by rlemon
@TimPost so then can I also ask, why is that an abuse but having a user parked in the room sending them isn't?
Yesterday it was MUCH worse.
I'd bet feels like DAMN HEEEEELLLL around 47 Celsius
Bob
Bob
@ThatHelpVampireGuy How much is much? :P
I think we peaked around 45 last summer. This one is gonna be a joy...
in Not JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 27 secs ago, by Tim Post
@rlemon That's what we're currently talking about internally (and quite soon externally) - it's just the interim that concerns us, which is why we asked to have the greeting disabled.
Finally, a reason that I can understand.
Bob
Bob
5:43 PM
@DarthAndroid That's even more ridiculous, actually...
Was the greeting that bad that it had to be disabled RIGHT NOW OR THE SERVERS WILL CRASH?
Couldn't it wait for the conclusion of the discussion?
@Bob I don't know, but I can understand "playing it safe" until they figure out if it will "make the servers crash".
Bob
Bob
:\
I predict "no more bots" at the end of it.
Bob
Bob
It really is starting to smell of an action taken in the heat of the moment. They haven't even had the discussion internally yet, and they already demanded that the bots be changed/suspended the bots?
5:46 PM
and we'll all be happy.
Bob
Bob
@jokerdino The discussion is focusing on autogreet, not the bots in general.
@Bob The discussion would have evolved to a larger scale.
Bob
Bob
in Not JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 1 min ago, by Tim Post
That could be the way to go, but that's not going to be decided today, tomorrow, or probably even next week - which is why we're asking everyone using greetings to turn them off for now.
Ah, ok. Extended discussion. Makes a little more sense.
@jokerdino That'd be fine here, but after watching the JS room's arguments, I get the feeling they would not be happy at all, since they actually use the bot to help manage the higher-traffic nature (as opposed to here, where it's primarily used to link cat pictures)
@ThatHelpVampireGuy HA! I've had 47 already :(
Bob
Bob
5:49 PM
in Not JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 1 min ago, by Tim Post
@Dave Yes, from my understanding, it's only the greeting that we're extremely worried about (although, really, /fuckable isn't very appropriate for a 13+ audience, but we're not mandating anything about that at this time)
!!tell 12136270 orlmente
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO‌​OOOOO
4
@Bob was SE family friendly actually?
Bob
Bob
@Braiam They tried try, but ultimately it's rather futile.
Programmers are... well, we aren't generally known for being politically correct.
to be honest, I wouldn't object at all to a community policy of "no profanity or inappropriate images", since that makes it much easier for me to use the site at work without risking it getting blocked
Bob
Bob
5:55 PM
Technically, we aren't supposed to swear at all.
I just want them to be consistent in what they decide, and to involve the community as much as possible
this decision today was neither consistent nor involving the community
Bob
Bob
I will admit to breaking that particular rule quite a bit on chat.
@ThatHelpVampireGuy Do you have air conditioner at home?
@Bob that doesn't bother me, either -- really for me I'm indifferent as to what the rules are, as long as (1) the rules are well-known, published, and adhered to consistently by participants, the moderation, and the staff; and (2) the rules are not arbitrarily changed or reinterpreted without at least a public discussion about it first, even if the ultimate decision to change them is inevitable.
they could make a new rule that requires that every profile picture contains at least 50% of the image occupied by some shade of the color pink, and I wouldn't say a peep in protest
@allquixotic if they say that it should contain the picture you like and a pony, you wouldn't feel bad either?
6:01 PM
I don't care enough about it to fight it any further, though. I'll let the JS guys fight if they feel like fighting. I am exhausted.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they decide, like jokerdino said above, to ban all bots, though.
Next stop, ban all oneboxes, because you can onebox objectionable content :O
Next stop, ban all links outside the SE network, because you can link to objectionable content :O
Next stop, discontinue chat entirely, because you can say objectionable things :O
etc.
It's a slippery slope, and they've enthusiastically started skiing down it.
They can take my !!fuckable, but they can never take my freedom!!!
@allquixotic We don't ski down slippery slopes, we dip flying saucers in teflon and soar down slippery slopes. No slope is slippery enough. That said, we're only concerned about users confusing a snarky bot with being something that we made and that is a valid concern now that we're aware of them greeting. We have to address this in general and not individually. Let's not make this bigger than it is.
3
@TimPost I LOVE that imagery; you get a star for having a good sense of humor :)
6:07 PM
@OliverSalzburg What is this
@allquixotic Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase came to mind as I was typing that :)
@TimPost In all seriousness though, thanks for approaching the community and helping us understand why you guys are making this decision. I'll keep an open mind and trust that you guys are going to continue to be responsible stewards of the site (including, importantly, maintaining the values and principles upon which it was founded), until/unless I find that my faith was misplaced.
There's really no point in my extrapolating from this one event to what might happen in the future. I'll just have to wait and see like the rest of us mortals. :)
@allquixotic I wish I had more to tell you than I do, actually. But I am going to chase this down diligently as it's obviously something that people really care about.
@TimPost Good on you, then! I'm completely satisfied with your efforts at this point. Thank you.
Somethings make you feel old:
Me: You sound like a broken record. 3-year-old: What’s that? M: It’s an old type of CD. 3: What’s a CD? Me: *moves into a nursing home*
5
6:18 PM
Older than a 3-year-old anyway
@Hennes What is a CD? I could identify one if you put it next to an ox, a vial of mercury and a Boeing 787, but all I know about them is that I put them in my CD drive a long time ago to install games before I could download 600 MB in a reasonable time.
I don't know how they work, though; not really. You put a laser on it and somehow you get 600 MB of data in a few square inches? oooookay
Bob
Bob
@allquixotic I'm honestly not sure if you're being serious.
Can you please not cause any more issues for our bot? Pretty please :(?
@Bob No, I'm seriously ignorant about the physical principles behind optical media. I know there are little tiny notches or grooves that you can't see that somehow store the data, but I don't understand how shining a laser over it can read them so accurately and reliably, much less write them with the same principle o_O
@BenjaminGruenbaum Umm... our bot is an exact copy of yours, with a slightly tweaked greeting message (which is now gone). If they hadn't spotted the bot here, they would've spotted it over in the JS room and had the same reaction. There is nothing special about our deployment of our bot that would have "caused issues", except that more bots increases the potential for someone from SE to notice one of them and not like it.
You can see my tiny, trivial commit log for my friendly fork here.
Most of it is "merge in Zirak's master.js rebuild"; the rest was tweaking our welcome.js message, and adapting the bot to work with (earlier; no longer used) PhantomJS, and chat.stackexchange (a few things were SO-specific).
@allquixotic The "pits" the in the surface of the CD cause the laser to be deflected; a light-sensing diode reads whether the laser is hitting it or is deflected away. This creates a binary stream of data from the diode.
6:23 PM
@allquixotic I'm sorry if that came off as negative - I was not implying it's your fault.
@allquixotic Rewritable disks (CD-R, DVD-R) instead of pits use a laser to burn the medium and turn it darker, which similarly disrupts the reading-laser as a pit does.
The bot has been created for the JavaScript chat room. Most if not all commands were added after a long debate among room regulars. We can send people who misbehave to mindjail, or ban people from the room - those are really big decisions to make as a community.
Bob
Bob
And there, folks, is also the answer to why banning doesn't work here :P
I know nothing about the community you run here, what you consider accepted and so on. I'm just frustrated with the situation.
76
Q: Flags in chat are defective by design

Benjamin GruenbaumYes, I know the topic has been discussed before. I know that Meta already has threads that complain about how flagging doesn't work. I wanted to give a practical example. Today, a user came in to the JavaScript chat and asked the following question: Hey guys, as soon as I embed javascript,...

@BenjaminGruenbaum I'm sorry that using the bot in an "official" chatroom context (I disagree with that very notion, which is why I'm putting it in quotes) might have caused SE to make sweeping changes to bot policy that negatively impact the JS room, but none of us could've known that SE would crack down this way, until they did.
6:26 PM
@Bob Also worth mentioning we're really against banning. We don't like singling people out. We don't like people not participating and we like constructive behavior. !!mute is a result of abuse :/ We want SE to fix the problem that resulted in it.
@allquixotic Check out the new JavaScript room description :P
@DarthAndroid Very interesting information; thanks!
@BenjaminGruenbaum Sadly, I can't, unless you onebox it or link or quote it here, because chat.SO is not available on the current computer I'm using (I don't own it). I'll look at it at home. I'd hang out in the JS room myself a lot more if I were able to.
@allquixotic Unavailable? Why?
@BenjaminGruenbaum Because. It's blocked.
Speaking of arbitrary decisions that we have no control over. Heh.
holy mother of all that is good. I just noticed your gravatar @allquixotic
+1
6:29 PM
@rlemon Vamoose, ya little varmin'!
:D
@Braiam Getting there. Possibly today
You must feed him. And tell him he is a pretty cat. And a good cat.
Data: And --
Worf: I will FEED him.
Data: ...That will be sufficient.
lololol
:puts on best Klingon voice: you are a good cat.
@rlemon hahahaha
I regularly tell my cat she's "a pretty cat. and a good cat." :D
and my first cat, ${DEITY} bless his soul, was named Spot. orange tabby.
> "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably." -- Judge Aaron Satie, Star Trek: The Next Generation
that's what this whole debacle brought to mind
so yeah, Trek has been on my mind
They added Dr. Who on Netflix in Canada.
I've been so unproductive at home the last week and a half.
6:52 PM
@rlemon that exchange between Data and Worf: one of the best comedic moments in Star Trek. another was in The Voyage Home (there are many, many gems in Star Trek IV) was Kirk and Spock talking about Italian food: "Yes." "No." "Yes." "No." "Yes." "No." .... Kirk: I love Italian, and so do you. Spock: Yes.
@rlemon Which part are you watching? I am still stuck at the 30th show, 3rd episode (power of the Daleks)
yea I love TNG. Original series and the movies are a one watch for me (which is to say i've seen them... once)
@Hennes we had 'classic dr who' before in Canada - now the new stuff
I'm almost done season 4
but, I am kinda rushing through it
skipped an episode here and there
Donna pisses me off. Bring back Rose, or rush me to pond
I started at episode 1 and I am watching it sequentially
what year
like 1963 episode 1? or 2005
1963 William Hartnell - 001 - 1st Dr. - An unearthly child - part 1 - An unearthly child
6:56 PM
Cool room.
The Doctor is also on Hulu now.
@Neal Who Lu?
@Hennes ohh you poor bastard. the 70's were painful.
@allquixotic HULU
I hope that someday it is going to be visible via the Internet (and not just for a few people in a specific country)
Hulu-hoop?
6:59 PM
oh, bad me. No dinner yet. But crips (we call them chips) in a dip with creme fresh, some curry sauce, salt, thyme and half a spoon of dried, ground scotch bonnet.
@Hennes You mean "crisps" (not crips), right?
nods.
we call them chips in the US, too
crisps is a very UK term
No idea how they are called outside NL/BE/DE/UK.
hmm... Nlbedeuk sounds almost like a word
7:03 PM
So does FeNiCo. ;-)
iron, nickel and cobalt?
7:15 PM
Yes. The tree traditionally magnetic materials.
@Hennes @allquixotic Is this real? ebay.com/sch/…
@Neal Sorry, I can't see chat.SO from over here.
I'd have to check it when I get home, unless you can quote it here.
chat.SO is blocked at the network level on this box.
Bob
Bob
in JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 5 mins ago, by Neal
I just flagged the post on super user meta:
in JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 5 mins ago, by Neal
> Some issues with a recent action that was taken regarding the Root Access chat bot 1
asked 4 hours ago by allquixotic
Shouldn't this be moved to the main meta site? This affects all chat bots that may exist throughout the SE. – Neal 34 mins ago declined - it's fine to ask questions on per-site metas, especially in that case, as the action happened here, on Super User. if the OP wants they can ask a separate question / start a discussion though
in JavaScript on Stack Overflow Chat, 4 mins ago, by Neal
So does someone with clout on the bot want to "reask" on meta?
Ah.
@Boris_yo if you have to ask, the answer is probably "no" -- although I didn't click the link to check... it's very easy to sell fake stuff on ebay
someone sold "XBox box" several years ago for like $30 -- and many people got fooled by the redundant "box" and didn't realize that it meant just the box and not the actual game console :P
Bob
Bob
7:22 PM
@allquixotic It's a Nvidia BGA GPU
not sure what you'd expect to do with it without a reflow soldering oven
even then...
@Bob ahh..
Bob
Bob
@allquixotic Laptop chip.
@allquixotic that's people stupidity... asking what you are getting before you get it is a basic buyer rule...
Bob
Bob
@Boris_yo I'll say it again - don't even think about de/re/soldering BGA chips. Not gonna happen.
that's why gramps wants to go to the shop instead of using amazon :(
7:25 PM
Not just a laptop chip. I chip without pins (or the other ways around) to mount it.
Instead you put it on little dots of soldering material, turn on the oven and wait for the chip and the motherboard to become on part.
personally, I'm fine ordering stuff that "Ships and sold by Amazon.com" because I know it won't be a scam, and that the advertising material is pretty much all the information I could need to decide whether it's what I'm looking for or not
If you have heat sensitive components, add them later
but I'm very cautious about, and very rarely order, stuff sold on ebay or by third parties on amazon
So could it be real: Yes
Is it likely anything useful: no
I did get a legitimately new video card on ebay once, it was unopened in the retail box and cheaper/faster than waiting for Amazon/Newegg to have stock and probably jack up the price
7:27 PM
/scrolls down and finds this:
I actually got one of those. For 1 euro, including batteries.
I got it since I wanted the batteries
Bob
Bob
@allquixotic Personally, I hate doing that because it's either a. not shipping here or b. charging far too much for the shipping here.
eBay is my go-to place for cheap crap that I don't expect much from. mainly because it's probably the only major site with any real Au presence
Ugh, I'm sitting here trying to figure out what "gold presence" is and why ebay would have it. Curse you science class.
Bob
Bob
lol
In this case, Au => Australian
perhaps I should use Aus instead. meh.
still could be confused with Austria
Actually, probably not... they might have some other preffered abbreviation? dunno
the ccTLD is "at"
Yeah, I connected it to Australia as soon as I realized you were talking about a location
@Bob There's local computer repair lab with specialized people and equipment that offers replacing chip with working. They ask $225 for everything. However if this chip on eBay costs $25-$35 then that keeps me wondering if they labor indeed costs $200.
7:39 PM
oh, tempted to get this one:
Bob
Bob
@Boris_yo They probably just replace the mobo.
@Neal We'd end up just talking to the same SE employees and getting the same answer, so I really don't think there's any value in bringing it up on meta.SO. What do you hope to accomplish? Rouse the rabble? Start a virtual riot? Really, most people who aren't regular chat users won't even give a shit. I'm sorry but that's just the sad truth.
@Bob They said replacing mobo is not their business but replace on component level.
Bob
Bob
> CPU has 4 missing elements on the bottom. I am not able to test or repair these.
wtf how
Too damn small I think.
Shipping (20x the CPU price ) is holding me off
Bob
Bob
7:41 PM
I mean, how does a CPU have missing components??
E.g. Broken pins
Bob
Bob
Pretty sure that's a LGA, and it looks like it's missing some SMT parts... wtf
@Bob You are asking me? They replace components of things like motherboards. They don't replace on micro components level i.e CPU
Bob
Bob
you'd have to, I dunno, scrape them off
@Boris_yo Was talking to Hennes.
@Hennes Those are most definitely not pins.
7:42 PM
Not sure how you would dammage those 4 (SMDs?)
Bob
Bob
They also should have no contact with anything (except air, for pedants) when properly mounted.
Aye.
Bob
Bob
Again: how the hell did they become "missing"?
Did someone try to pry a CPU off with a screwdriver??
The only sane reaon I can come up with it "Lets test what happens if ..."
Nah, not on socket 1366
The way that holds the CPU you could damage the outside, But not those 4 items
@Hennes lol Its from south of my city.
7:45 PM
@Bob Hah, imagine Chewie from Star Wars going "GRAAAAH!" and grabbing the CPU and brute-forcing it out of the socket, with the socket in the closed position :D
Two more fun one (both dual Xeon). But only 2GHz/4 core.
I got a i7 920 (2.6GHz 4 core)
Bob
Bob
@Hennes Forced it on upside down, screwdrivered it off?
BUT I'M IN ISRAEL!
7:46 PM
@Braiam You are not. You are in Dominican Republic
Bob
Bob
@Braiam USPS from Israel to Israel. Makes sense.
@Bob USPS? Isn't it US postal service?
@Boris_yo that's to confuse my enemies >:D
Bob
Bob
@Boris_yo Yes, it is.
@allquixotic and you gotta be kidding me...
7:47 PM
@Braiam Who are your enemies on SuperUser?
Bob
Bob
@Boris_yo You know too much...
@Boris_yo the NSA...
CIA...
@Braiam so that's why you're wearing glasses
@Bob What do I know? How much would that be?
*DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING*
Bob
Bob
7:49 PM
@Boris_yo It was a joke, don't worry about it.
ARGH IT'S NOT DOS
@Bob I was about to internationally call 911 and reporting you...
Bob
Bob
@Boris_yo What would that do? o.O
@Bob I wonder... Do you have 911 in Australia?
@Bob just edit it (tm)
Bob
Bob
Cause we don't use 911 here. Which country would you attempt to report me in?
7:50 PM
911 is 211 IIRC
@Hennes you mean 112 :/
@Bob Australia
Bob
Bob
112 is the EU number. Also used on GSM mobiles worldwide.
@Boris_yo Have fun.
(Though they might actually redirect 911... hmm...)
Why do geeks use Arctic Silver 5 with Ceramique 2?
!!listcommands
7:53 PM
Server error (status 500) occured (message probably too long)
@allquixotic Command fuckable does not exist.
mods plz delete banned speech ^ I was just testing that it is gone to comply with the executive order
Arctic Silver 5 used to be among the best a few years back
@allquixotic wants me to flag it ;)
@Braiam sure, lol
nah don't
@Hennes It still has 5-stars on Amazon and most of highly regarded reviews.
7:56 PM
@Boris_yo because we didn't have ceramic crafting courses in High/Uni... and we love ceramic
Damn. Earworming song:
I assume refurbished motherboards are motherboards that had somew of their components replaced?
Bob
Bob
!!info
@Bob I awoke on Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:53:39 GMT (that's about 4 minutes ago), got invoked 2 times, learned 21 commands
Bob
Bob
!!help
Bob
Bob
!!listcommands
@Bob 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, get, github, google, hang, inhistory, learn, test, fixit, why, ok, no, hello, yes, orlmente, hv, lol, maybe, gates, facepalm, friday, after5, theanswer, caution, nicethings, europe, potato, goaway, mustache, nudge, spec, stat, timer, todo, undo, weather, wiki, xkcd, youtube (page 0/0)
Bob
Bob
@allquixotic Did you strip out welcome entirely? :\
They said the !!welcome manual command was acceptable.
(It's simple enough to comment out the block that registers the event handler...)
!!welcome Bob
@Bob That didn't make much sense. Use the !!/help command to learn more.
Bob
Bob
:(

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