The Junk Drawer - 2015-01-05

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12:22 AM

@apaul34208 I hadn't heard about that specific experiment, but I did know about epigenetics.

....that probably goes under the "stuff in science-fiction," right? :P

@J.Musser I do also, sort of -- she commented on my only G&L question (the one that you answered) :P

"Bamboo" is a name that sticks out

@Gilles I'm curious: does this question meet your definition of "lifehack"? ....it doesn't meet Zach's because it's about something psych/non-physical, but (if I got your definition straight) it should be fine according to your definition.

@Shokhet There's no psychology in that question. It's about physiology. I've seen a lot of comments and meta discussions that confuse psychology and physiology.

And even if psychology was involved, I don't see why it would automatically make a question off-topic.

However I don't see how this question is about a hack.

12:40 AM

^^

That has nothing to do with its being about physiology. But it isn't asking for something quick-and-dirty, it's asking for a reliable way. By definition, this isn't a hack.

@Gilles That's what I thought you'd say.

@J.Musser What part of that are you agreeing with? All? (just curious)

@Shokhet yeah, both.

@Gilles I see. That's a different problem, but certainly still an important one ;-)

0

A: Is there a psychological aspect of lifehacks?

I haven't seen the question you link to and it's now deleted, but judging by the title, it doesn't seem to be calling for a hack. The title is asking for a list of tricks, and that's not what a hack is. A hack gets you past a hurdle in a quick-and-dirty way. A reproducible, robust technique is by...

I think if this site is really to be about lifehacks, we need to close a lot more questions. As it is this site seems to be everydaylife.SE. If that's what it is we can keep the main site and close most of the meta questions!

12:49 AM

@Gilles If I'm looking for a solution to a problem, of any sort, I expect it to be more or less "reliable" at least as far as it works more often than it doesn't. What do you mean by "a reliable way"?

Unless we use Zach's scope, then it's creativewritingabouteverydaylife.SE

@apaul34208 reliable, as in, works in a wide set of circumstances. That's the opposite of a hack.

A hack has to work for a special case, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't work in different circumstances.

I should perhaps say robust rather than reliable

@Gilles I guess I see your point, but the term seems just as open to interpretation as "creative" or many of the others we've tried.

being less reliable and being less generalizable are two of the possible compromises for a hack

@apaul34208 But see WP's definition, cited by @Gilles here. I think this definition is workable, besides for just plain being intuitive to any new user.

I do like that definition...

1:36 AM

@Gilles lol

@ZachSaucier it's a good thing the sunspotter question got nuked, it appears to now be off topic - knew it would be

2:01 AM

so now that you've changed your minds again about the scope and have a scope... how long would this last? Hopefully for a while.

well, it seems you guys on LH have finally, after changing your minds again, got a new scope

it's a good thing I nuked the sunspotter question, despite Zach encouraging me to post it, as it now is off topic

Now we're 14 days into public beta

← 2 messages moved from The Garden Shed

@J.Musser ?

....I've discussed LH in other chat rooms; what was the problem with having those messages stay where they were?

....unless they're off-topic in the Garden Shed; which I wouldn't know about, having never been in there

They were out of place

I'm the only user in that room that does LH anyway.

@J.Musser Same, in some of the rooms I've discussed LH in, anyway

@J.Musser If that's the case, then by all means

I have no idea why he posted in there xD

but whatever, not hard to fix

2:14 AM

I don't argue that it's not hard to fix; I'm just not sure what needed fixing about it. Anyway, we're not here to argue.

What do you think about Gilles' proposed scope, @J.Musser?

eh?

Is there a compilation of his thoughts somewhere?

Several places; give me a minute

these answers would probably be a good place to start, but you can skim his Meta account and see what's what

hmm.

Well why is it better?

Tell me what you think :)

About which opinion?

2:22 AM

....I think Gilles' has the advantage of being intuitive to new users, as we're not using a definition of "lifehack" that we came up with ourselves, besides for simply making sense as a scope for a site with the name "lifehacks"

@J.Musser Either, both, your own :)

@Shokhet I've seen users come in with greatly variable definitions. I don't think we'll be able to come up with something that will be intuitive to even the majority of users.

@J.Musser I would agree with you if the definition was one that we just invented. Wikipedia's, though, matches very nicely with what the word means. If we adopt this one, I forsee very few new users asking a blatantly off-topic question on their first try.

I can see it happening...

*forsee

?

? what?

what you just said.

2:45 AM

Sorry, Bat-signal flashed.

....I didn't understand what you were saying about my (misspelled) use of the word "foresee"

2:56 AM

@Shokhet Just that I can foresee just what you said you can foresee won't happen

@J.Musser You're allowed to have your own opinion of future events :) .....I'm pretty confident about this one.

We'll see, if that gets implemented

We'll see. I really have to go now (for a while, maybe for the night), so cya, @J.Musser! :)

cya, sleep well

11 hours later…

2:04 PM

11 hours ago...

999 hours ago...

Morning!

good morning

Morning

I didn't go to work yet, cause it's gonna be a short day.

12 days later...

2 hours later…

4:30 PM

@J.Musser why

2 years later...

3 hours later…

7:41 PM

Perfect example of "No, we shouldn't require that you tell us why the common solution won't work, but we'll downvote you if you don't"

0

Q: Any way to handle clogged toilets without calling a plumber?

Well, we've all been there: you're using the toilets, flush the water and... it's still there. Flush again, to no avail. It's utterly clogged. When at home I can simply call a plumber, but: It costs money It might happen outside your home, e.g. friend's house So, are there any hacks to handl...

cleaning bathroom

(please go downvote)

2 hours later…

10:08 PM

On-topic or Off-topic?

1

Q: How to maintain a ToDo list?

What is the best way of maintaining To-do list of everyday tasks. I tried to remember things, but you cannot obviously remember everything. Keeping a notebook with you every time isn't feasible enough. Writing things down in you cell phone notepad or make sticky notes, but every time I forget t...

speed efficiency

10:21 PM

@ZachSaucier Just to mess people up

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, Sep 12 '14 at 5:18, by balpha

@J.Musser curse you for making me think "What kind of bug has caused the pause indicator to appear inside a message" there for a second

I like most edits, even small ones. That's one place where I vary from some people.

@J.Musser Are you referring to James' edit spree?

Yeah.

Some of them seemed very minor, but they were actually improvements.

Hmm... Some of the re-tagging was a bit much. Looks like he added some irrelevant tags and I'm pretty sure he created some new tags that weren't really needed.

I prefer that there are more tags per question. But yeah, only if applicable

10:37 PM

I'm thinking of the stamp collecting question where a stamp was added.

Is that the only change?

If I remember correctly he changed the title a little, but left most of the body unchanged, there were a few minor grammar/translation things there that I tried to fix.

I may be a little harsh when it comes to reviewing edits though, the queues on SO have made me a little jaded...

@apaul34208 Yeah, I come from a bunch of slow beta sites, very diff. culture.

11:03 PM

I was just looking through the tags and found eggs there only2 egg related questions and I'm thinking that food should pretty well cover those. Should we burn eggs?

burn the eggs? turn the stove down...

@apaul34208 Why?

The site is new, were you expecting 30 egg-related questions?

xD

Just seems like a fairly useless tag...

And the tags we start with at this stage will set a tone for tag creation.

11:25 PM

@apaul34208 now three questions ;-)

I'm just saying... Do we want a separate tag for each food item on the site?

hm....I dunno....I don't think the tag does any harm, if we just leave it around.

Alright but if the eggs go bad we'll know who to blame.

My opinion isn't binding, lol. ....if you want to find out what the community thinks, take it to Meta and count votes.

I know, just testing the waters

11:31 PM

There's nothing wrong with raising tags in chat -- I do it all the time. ....in fact, I think we discussed eggs very early on, in this room....

Why did you reject my edit to the medical tag wiki?

@Shokhet @apaul34208 See here: the conversation is a lot shorter than I remembered, but it was discussed!

@apaul34208 Because I'm not so certain that all medical questions are off-topic. I'm pretty sure we agreed that small scrapes etc would remain on-topic.

@Shokhet How were you gonna judge?

....see also nicael's reject reason, which is also a valid reject reason

I figured that letting people know that these questions will likely be closed would be more helpful than burning the tag and having people recreate it down the road.

11:36 PM

@J.Musser judge what?

@Shokhet How bad of a cut is too bad

@apaul34208 I see. D'you have reg editing/VTC privs?

Yes, why?

@J.Musser Small cuts and stuff -- not hemorrhaging or head/spine wounds. Stuff that makes sense that a random internet user would know how to treat.

@Shokhet But you have to have a line.

11:39 PM

@apaul34208 If you think that the tag should be removed, you can do that; if you think med questions need to be closed, then VTC....though I don't think you should remove the tag from all the questions until we get Meta consensus. Clearly, we haven't all agreed to this, so I think I'll put up a new Meta post around now, about medical questions

@J.Musser Do we? Why not judge each question as it comes?

@Shokhet eh, we want something users can see before asking.

@J.Musser Serious medical problems are off-topic. Done.

This is the only medical question at the moment: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/questions/1626/…

@Shokhet But you need to say exactly what's serious.

@J.Musser I think the word "serious" is self-explanatory.

11:42 PM

@Shokhet Different people will see it differently.

@J.Musser So if five users with CV privs can agree that it's too serious to be treated here, then the question will be closed. What's the worry?

@Shokhet Because if the site grows, the five users will vary, and it will be impossible to stay consistent.

@J.Musser We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Why are you so worried about this?

@Shokhet Just sayin, I think we should get into a state now that will still be manageable if the site grows.

@J.Musser We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, I'm sure.

11:48 PM

The earlier the better. Your way won't work if the site gets big.

@Shokhet Where was the conversation about minor-medical vs serious-medical questions?

@apaul34208 still going on...

@J.Musser It'll work for now; I'm sure we'll manage "if" (your word) we get there

@Shokhet That's a bad way to look at it.

@apaul34208 They're mentioned in the "new scope; I'm writing a new post on them now.

11:50 PM

@J.Musser agreed

So you can all DV the Meta post I'm writing now :)

.....just be quiet and let me write it! :P

@Shokhet how quiet?

:)

quiet like this

@Shokhet you mean we shouldn't ping you?

11:53 PM

If we talk like this, he can focus on his wrong meta post.

jk

@apaul34208 Do whatever you want, I'll just keep writing :)

.....I might not post till later, if I run out of time now

<sub>Does sub text work in chat? seems like small text should be quieter</sub>

nope

HTML doesn't work in chat

ya can't use html

Oh, as said

11:55 PM

That's no fun...

....outta time. I might come back later tonight or tomorrow to post that Meta Q. See y'all around!

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