The Factory Floor

Green

01:47

@dot_Sp0T Somehow I missed that you'd posted. I'll have a look and send an answer your way.

Worldbuilding Meta

02:07

0

Q: How to criticize (on) WB: SE?

Or critique I dunno, anyways no one is perfect and this includes this site, it's moderators and me. Let's assume that I disagree with some of the aspects/practices of the site and to an extent, the community. I want to tell this in a more sophisticated format than "Worldbuilding sucks, I go to b...

discussion

Green

02:40

@dot_Sp0T My answer is up!

James

03:06

Hola.

@Green Yo

Green

@James Yo so Verde! Como est-as?

James

Hey factory floor, am I out of my mind or does this seem on-topic?

4

Q: Can a medieval castle be made today?

Not sure if it fit well this website, history.SE, or if it's off-topic, but I have a simple question: Can we build a medieval castle, with the same methods as they used at that time, in 21 century? Do we have enough knowledge, or are some knowledge lost? is it even legal?

medieval construction modern-age

@Green Eh...evening migration going on so I am sitting at work.

Green

@James On an F-ing weekend too. Why are you at work though? Shouldn't the nerds be handling that migration? What do they need you for?

James

Which bites because maha is in town and Weezer is playing...right now actually.

@Green I know right.

Green

@James This feels like a "I've failed to do enough research" question.

James

03:08

The nerds don't like talking to all the business people that have to do validation...so I'm basically the face man.

Green

@James Well, that's annoying. And...why haven't the nerds developed a super air-tight test suite to make sure that the new thing is working?

(Also, air tight is a relative term in real life. Seems that even something as insignificant as finger print can ruin a high vacuum application).

James

@Green We are replacing our load balancers, like the actual hardware...

Green

@James Which means that it should be extra easy to test.

Isn't this a project you've been working on for a year or so?

James

@Green Let me rephrase, we have the old ones and the new ones running in parallel and we are moving some of the contexts over tonight.

@Green Yeah this was basically the first thing I took over when I got here.

If it weren't for legal we'd be done with this stupid thing already, contract negotiations suuuuuck

Green

@James Why is Legal slowing things down?

Not that they ever don't slow things down.

James

03:19

@Green They aren't anymore, but the process took...6+ months, I forget exactly. Now people are freaking out that things need to be all done before September. Queue eyeroll.

Green

@James I really wish that management would remember that they are in the business of opinions, not much else. Deadlines are opinions. There's nothing real about them.

James

@Green only the asspain they cause is real.

Its amazing how much damage imaginary things can cause

Green

03:43

@James No kidding.

I mean, imaginary numbers in middle school. So much drama over a little i and a little j.

@James Also, thank you for acknowledging the eldritch abominations in your message about the new help page. As an eldritch abomination, I feel more included here.

James

@Green Those letters had it out for me, they deserved what they got.

Green

@James It seems to be really hard to keep management in the loop about what goes on at the lower levels of the organization. I think it's just a computationally hard thing to do.

Green

04:16

And because it's easy to skip, many managers don't bother to ask nor cultivate the trust required for a lower employee to pipe up with critical info.

James

@Green brains only have so much bandwidth...and a lot of the time you dont know what a manager should/needs to know until something explodes...

figuratively.

...although a literal explosion should probably be brought to a managers attention too.

Green

@James I learned about this thing called a safety envelope in a book I read. Every organization has one though the idea is most commonly used in safety critical industries such as airlines, trains, manufacturing plants, etc.

I kind of feel for managers because they have to keep costs down and increase productivity while at the same time preventing blowups/accidents/departures from the safety envelope.

It's a hard thing to do. However, I don't feel sorry for their capitalistic leeching of value from the workers into their own bank accounts.

Often the price of increased efficiency is edging closer to the cliff on the outside of the safety envelope.

James

04:49

@Green I don't think capitalism requires leeching, but the irony of democracy and capitalism is that the system requires the majority to be involved and generally generous.

@Green Makes sense.

Green

@James ...and there not be a huge disparity in power (economic/political/etc) between the wealthiest and the poorest. Concentrating too much power in the hands of a few is not sustainable. It's why there are three branches of government, not one.

James

@Green yeah...that hasn't been working out great lately.

Green

@James If you believe Thomas Picketty (which I do) the growth in the disparity of power and wealth is inevitable.

James

@Green I agree, I think it can be reset without catastrophe...maybe.

You make your move yet?

Green

@James Nah, still working on paperwork. Our lawyer who has been excellent in most regards is absolute garbage in editing text documents. There's not much excuse for multiple spelling errors in the modern world. You have to work against it to make Word not correct those kinds of errors.

@James I'm not sure. How do you convince the richest and most powerful people in the country/world that they should really loosen up their grip and not be as rich as they are. Historically, this kind of wealth and power are taken from them, not surrendered.

James

04:57

@Green You're not wrong...

@Green People that misspell things via digital medium infuriate me.

Green

@James In the US we've been lucky a few times where the Government acted in everyone's interests to break up monopolies. That hasn't happened in a few decades and that's a shame.

@James Samesy.

Breaking up Standard Oil, AT&T and others was wonderful.

There's any number of cartels that I'd love to see broken up. Like, require the big incumbant ISPs to sell access to their last-mile lines to anyone competent enough to run a service.

The big ISPs won't ever directly compete with each other so the competition will have to come from below. The capital costs to build out infrastructure slow down giants like Google. The cables are already in the ground; they're just monoplized by the big ISPs.

Break that access monopoly and magically speeds go up and so does customer satisfaction.

It'll be like the explosion of dial-up ISPs in the early 90's. Someone said Ma Bell had to sell access to the copper phone lines. And lo, there was cheap internet for all.

I hope someone says something soon. Seeing a huge block of only my text is Awe-kward.

James

@Green It was easy when you were dealing with physical infrastructure...or it was easier at least. For example the Bell break-up. I think we are going to be due for a digital version of that in the next...5 - 10?

Green

@James I think there are good arguments that the breakup should start now. Building the court cases to do that should start now. Amazon should be first on the chopping block. Maybe Walmart too.

Google, FB and Apple too.

Basically, I'm of the opinion that any company that delivers services that everyone needs could be nationalized and run for the public good. Investors get their payout when the government buys all their shares.

And since the government can print money to their hearts content, not having enough money to make the stock purchase(s) isn't possible.

James

05:14

@Green I disagree with you there...break-up yes, government ownership no.

Green

@James can you elaborate?

James

05:44

@Green I agree that capitalism can get out of hand, in fact it is often likely to happen. And I generally approve of the idea of a government intervening, though execution is important and its pretty situational. I don't think the outcome of government action should be government owned businesses though.

Green

@James I see a long history of private enterprise being turned into a government run service, and the government does an acceptable job at it.

James

@Green You talking about utilities?

Green

I agree with you that execution is important. And some businesses shouldn't ever be nationalized.

@James yes, utilities are a great example.

I'm headed out. I'd really like to continue this topic when I'm not about to fall asleep.

James

@Green Later man.

dot_Sp0T

06:33

yoyoyo

dot_Sp0T

06:50

@Green thanks for typing it out! Do you think a small bounty will increase attention and get, overall, more judging on answers?

Secret

11:43

in The h Bar, 19 mins ago, by Loong

@Secret https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a

predictor machines

Worldbuilding Meta

12:10

-1

Q: What's off-limits?

At my own expense, I learned not to make any questions involving Viktor Orbán, George Soros or the immigration crisis. Some topics are very dangerous to ask here, and I would like to play safely in the foreseeable future. So, what are those circumstances when we consider a topic gratuitous/ just...

discussion asking-questions

Green

13:14

@dot_Sp0T I think it would.

@James what time did the migration finish?

dot_Sp0T

13:25

hello :D

@Green doobedy-done. I need to start answering Qs again

Hello @Bellerophon how's things?

Bellerophon

@dot_Sp0T Pretty well.

dot_Sp0T

@Bellerophon still on hiatus or coming back for some time again?

Bellerophon

@dot_Sp0T I should be around for a while.

dot_Sp0T

nice having you back :D

Bellerophon

Thanks.

FoxElemental