The Whiteboard

@MichaelT thanks for heads up (and for second link about randomization)! I threw some meta-poo into draw attention bounty on that "sticky" question

@YannisRizos I lack the rep to vote. poopcicle.

user41796

@Ampt we keep telling you to answer more questions and ask more questions.

@Ampt That's ok, soon you'll have plenty of rep to close vote

7:05 PM

@GlenH7 on SO?

user41796

@Ampt Our admonitions should have been understood to mean "everywhere"

user55340

@Ampt I expect you to run for mod election in seasoned cooking next time it comes up.

user55340

And Beer.

@LarsTech I'm not sure what you mean by honest, but the hot questions list is basically a list of 100 or so questions on the server. All we are doing is randomizing the list of 100 before we pull some off the top instead of pulling the top X every time. — Jeremy T 11 mins ago

aliteralmind

Thanks @MichaelT

user55340

7:08 PM

Beer.SE mod promise: If elected, I promise to sample the beers mentioned on marketplace.org/topics/business/would-you-bid-1200-bottle-beer and write answers about them.

user55340

> And the cost of a single bottle of beer of Midnight Sun M? $1,200-1,800.

user55340

Ok... maybe not.

@aliteralmind My answer almost got more points than yours on that question you asked almost reversed muaha :D

@MichaelT I would make this promise, and follow through with a kickstarter to keep the coffers ready for whatever shows there :)

ArnoldC - Programming language based on the one-liners of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

3

Q: Strategies to be more effective at programming in dynamic languages

0

I have a strong background in Java, which obviously is statically-typed, and type-safe language. I find it that I am able to read through large amounts of code very quickly and easily assuming that the programmer who had written it followed basic conventions and best practices. I am also able to...

7:11 PM

IT'S SHOWTIME
TALK TO THE HAND "hello world"
YOU HAVE BEEN TERMINATED

user55340

Kickstart Beer.SE questions on premium beers. Proposal: I like beer, and am willing to suffer through trying some of the highest price beers and writing reviews on them. That said, I need some startup funding.

Q: Are "hot questions" being moderated too heavily?

1

In fact, in addition to moderation, do we have a problem with people editing these questions? This question is largely provoked by two questions I've seen on StackOverflow: Is a Java string really immutable? What is this operator <=> in MySQL? In the first question, there were some good and u...

discussion moderation hot-questions

^^---- This has a good question buried in it somewhere, but the current answers are not promising.

A: Program that creates larger versions of itself (quine-variant)

@benisuǝqbackwards But those 6.7 million visits are spread out over many millions of questions, leaving the views per question (over the span of a day or so) reasonably low. It's the concentration of so many views in such a short span of time on a single question that causes problems. — Servy Feb 10 at 20:37

BWAHAHAHAHA!

user55340

65

H9+ : 1 char 9 That's right. One character. Outputs the lyrics to 99 bottles of beer, which is a valid program. All the extraneous data does not count, but there are plenty of 9s in there. The output of the outputted program is the lyrics to 99 bottles of beer 59 times. This function gives t...

user41796

7:12 PM

@RobertHarvey Agreed. Not sure how to remove the meh parts of it though

Does Webstorm have better intellisense than the IDE's the OP has already mentioned? This could be a better answer if it didn't include "I feel the same way" and merely repeat information others have already stated. — Robert Harvey 3 mins ago

@MichaelT 1800 for a bottle of beer? You have to be joking. Do they ferment it in the small intestine of the cow princess of planet mars?

user55340

@RobertHarvey actually, webstorm is really nice.

user55340

@Ampt There's only one way to find out...

@RobertHarvey IntelliJ (mentioned in the question) has exactly the same intellisense features as Webstorm (build by the same people). I'm downvoting that answer...

user41796

7:15 PM

@MichaelT Talk to someone who can afford that?

user55340

@GlenH7 I was thinking of getting everyone in chat to pony up $100 and then I'll try it.

@MichaelT how noble of you to sacrifice yourself in such a manner

So it's $1500, then?

user41796

@MichaelT And on most days we'd still be $1k short

user55340

@Ampt If you listen to the article, that's not the most expensive bottle they have.

7:18 PM

@MichaelT I doubt I would be able to appreciate a beer at 100 dollars a sip

@RobertHarvey Is this good enough for SO? programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/230339/…

@YannisRizos Yeah, you can send it over.

The answer is probably "write an indexer that reflects over the fields and returns the nth one."

It's gonna be damn slow.

found a clone recipe of that belgian M beer. See you suckers later, I'm gonna go be rich

RFC, deleted comments should notify the poster? My comment got deleted (probably fairly, sorry about that) but I wouldn't know about it if I didn't go back to delete it myself..

aliteralmind

7:37 PM

@JimmyHoffa Indeed! I look forward to our next smackdown!

@jozefg well to play devils advocate, if you tell someone that their comment was deleted, you've given them the chance to go back and re-add it right away

@Ampt hmm fair, I just thought of that.. though there's the same risk with closed/deleted questions and that doesn't happen too much

I don't see a lot of reason that you need to know that it was deleted beyond changing your behavior. a follow up comment wouldn't be useful (the original was gone).

@jozefg Lots of comments get deleted, most because they are obsolete. Are you sure you'd want a notification for each one?

That said, if your comments are being deleted for being rude, you will (eventually) get notified.

@YannisRizos yeah and a comment on why it was deleted. "Tequila." would suffice.

7:40 PM

@YannisRizos Oh alright, that's what I was hoping for. Ignore me :)

speaking of we could use a good house cleaning. where do I send donations for the Tequila fund?

@jozefg Now that I think about it, an automated notification when a certain number of your posts or comments get rude/offensive flags wouldn't be a terrible idea...

@YannisRizos Is there a consequence after a certian number of flags? Like "comment banning" or something? Because if so I'd definitely want to know that I'm being annoying before being banned/punished

@jozefg Well, if you manage to get six rude/offensive flags on the same post, you'll definitely notice (there's a -100 rep penalty). But it very rarely comes to that.

@YannisRizos And at that point I can't imagine the community hasn't notified you with some form of "stop trolling".

7:45 PM

-100 rep? daaaang

user55340

@Ampt Don't get any ideas there.

Most times it's up to the moderator handling the flags to check past behaviour and decide if it's a good time to send out a mod message or not.

Seems fair, trolls are annoying/distracting

if I ever reach 3000 rep I know what I'm gonna do...

user55340

The -100 rep will appropriately get someone who only has association bonus unable to add another comment until they are helpful.

7:46 PM

@jozefg Yes, on a mid-sized site like Programmers, the community will let you know you're being annoying long before a moderator needs to step in.

user55340

So, hows Politics.SE?

@YannisRizos So automating is probably just redundant then.

@YannisRizos What are your thoughts on the Euro? Been going over the Euro and it's impacts on the economy of smaller economies for a couple weeks in one of my business classes

@MichaelT Boring, still too US-centric for my taste. But we haven't had any (serious) drama in months, that's a good thing.

one of the guys we read about was convinced that switching away from the Euro now would solve all of greece's problems but that didn't make much sense to me

user20683

7:52 PM

@YannisRizos I suppose I could show up and ask random questions about world politics

@Ampt It wouldn't solve anything. Our issues have very little to do with the Euro.

And on that note, I'll have to leave you. There's a Champion's League match on.

@YannisRizos really? What would be the root cause of the issues if you could sum it up in a sentence then?

user20683

@YannisRizos If I'm not mistaken it has more to do with gross governmental negligence and a German addiction to austerity.

user20683

or so I hear but I can't read (that much) Greek so it's hard to say.

user55340

(as I understand it, and could be completely wrong) There is a historical "avoid taxes" mentality, and much of the pre-euro government was based on that approach. nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/…

user55340

7:56 PM

With the euro and the requirements for it, it would require fixing the tax system which is not popular at all. Its something that needs to be done sometime, but people keep putting it off.

user55340

However, a 'fix the taxes' can also be disastrous to people with a signficant adjustments to lifestyles, wages, and cost of living.

From what I've read/been informed it comes from the extremely low interest rates and high limits that the government was allowed access to upon adopting the euro. they were allowed to borrow far in excess what they should have been because investors figured that stronger economies like germany wouldn't allow a weak one like greece to tank the euro

but I'm far from being perfectly informed

user55340

> Various studies, including one by the Federation of Greek Industries last year, have estimated that the government may be losing as much as $30 billion a year to tax evasion — a figure that would have gone a long way to solving its debt problems.

@MichaelT that seems so... small

@Ampt What @MichaelT said. Also, some amazingly bad decisions in the past. And complete lack of a control mechanism from the EU. No one actually checked where EU's money went for about the first decade Greece was in the union.

7:58 PM

the US collects 60 Trillion/year from taxes

user55340

@Ampt 10% GDP?

(and now I'm really off. bye)

user20683

@Ampt The US is VASTLY larger than Greece

@MichaelT 30 billion is 10% of their GDP?

user20683

@Ampt sounds about right

user55340

7:59 PM

Actually slightly higher... its 249B for 2013.

in 2008 it was 341

thats a huge fall

user20683

well yeah

user55340

Though that number was from 2010... so 292B

user20683

There's a really good explanation as to why that whole mess went down.

user55340

Tax revenue in Greece is 34.9% of GDP. So when something is grabbing 10% of GDB for evasion... thats a a rough 1/3 of the tax revenue.

8:03 PM

@MichaelT did the tax evasion all start around 2009?

user20683

@Ampt Nope

user55340

(France's tax revenue as a percentage of GDB is 45.9%)

user20683

long before

so it just... manifested in 2009?

user20683

@Ampt The financial crisis caused certain things to collapse

user55340

8:04 PM

The euro forced a bit of sunlight into the tax system of the countries, and it became much more evident then.

user20683

@Ampt Giant Pools of Money

@WorldEngineer such as? I'm trying to figure out how the constant loss from taxes would cause that

user55340

If Greece could snap its fingers and get that 30B/year collected, it would likely be as healthy as France is.

user55340

Its not loss from taxes, its never collected

@MichaelT ok, but it's constant. it was 30% before and it's likely 30% now or better. it's not like it all of a sudden was 30%

they didn't go from 100% collection to 70% collection overnight

right?

user55340

8:06 PM

Its more along the lines of "Its always been at 70%"

@MichaelT ok so their collection rate was always at 70%, but up until 2009 they were growing at a phenomenal rate.

user55340

And the government didn't know (acknowledge) that it was at 70% and instead played with it as if it was 100% (not realizing it should have been doing 30B more/year of infrastructure and such)

so they just assumed they would get 30% more than they were used to getting every year?

user55340

Not quite... they just were "we're collecting this much" and not realizing that the rest of it was sitting in people's pockets as tax evasion.

user55340

When the coallapse happened, there was no rainy day fund, and people needed govermenet support much more than the government realized, or had taxes to be able to cover for it.

user55340

8:10 PM

When they started asking for money from the other nations, they wanted Greece to fix its tax system (while it was already hurting).

user55340

Couple this with the austerity measures imposed that really limited government support to the people who needed it.

user55340

And this then leads to businesses closing, unemployment up, lack of social safety nets for these people (supported by taxes), meaning more government expenses...

user55340

and spiral that a few times.

interesting

user55340

And to fix all of this, they really need to fix the taxes, but tax collectors are a bit on the corrupt side... and how many people vote for tax increases on themselves?

user55340

8:14 PM

> In the wealthy, northern suburbs of this city, where summer temperatures often hit the high 90s, just 324 residents checked the box on their tax returns admitting that they owned pools.
So tax investigators studied satellite photos of the area — a sprawling collection of expensive villas tucked behind tall gates — and came back with a decidedly different number: 16,974 pools.

@MichaelT that is a systematic level of tax evasion

user55340

> Some of the most aggressive tax evaders, experts say, are the self-employed, a huge pool of people in this country of small businesses. It includes not just taxi drivers, restaurant owners and electricians, but engineers, architects, lawyers and doctors.

user55340

> The cheating is often quite bold. When tax authorities recently surveyed the returns of 150 doctors with offices in the trendy Athens neighborhood of Kolonaki, where Prada and Chanel stores can be found, more than half had claimed an income of less than $40,000. Thirty-four of them claimed less than $13,300, a figure that exempted them from paying any taxes at all.

maybe they need to give their version of the IRS more teeth

user55340

Would you vote for a politician who promises to give the IRS more teeth here?

8:16 PM

@MichaelT which politician would run with that campaign?'

user55340

> Whether the country’s tax collectors are up to the task is also unclear. Many Greeks say tax collectors have a reputation for being among the easiest officials to bribe. Some say tax troubles are usually solved in a three way split: You pay a third of what you owe to the government, a third to the collector and a third remains in your pocket.

Froso Stavraki, who has been a tax collector for 27 years and is now a high-ranking official in the union, readily concedes that there is some corruption in the ranks. But she contends that the politicians never wanted toughness.

i had heard of the 3 way split

user55340

(all these quotes are from nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/… - a quite good article)

and it may not come down to voting to give their version of the IRS more teeth. Germany may make that decision for them.

user55340

And then you get riots with the impression that Germany (remember the '40s?) is imposing their will on another country and then taking the money back to the EU (to pay off the loans... but taking the money nonetheless)

8:20 PM

@MichaelT yeah the Nazi Symbolism was heavily referenced in the stuff we read/watched.

user55340

Thats what gave some power to the extreme nationalistic parties in Greece in recent elections.

user55340

Which certainly isn't the proper solution either.

user55340

Its a big mess.

well they're definitely biting the bullet on the current austerity measures... still... very interesting

There's something to be said when a new party pops up with effectively your countries version of conan o'brien as the front-runner basically saying "The other guys are a bunch of amateur clowns, vote for me instead, at least I'm a professional comedian." and actually win some votes

8:27 PM

@JimmyHoffa pretty sure robin williams made a movie about that

1337

Five Star Movement

|seats2_title = Senate |seats2 = |seats3_title = European Parliament |seats3 = |website = [http://www.movimentocinquestelle.it/ www.movimentocinquestelle.it] |colorcode = |country = Italy |flag = }} The Five Star Movement (MoVimento Cinque Stelle, M5S) is an Italian political party launched by Beppe Grillo, a popular activist, comedian and blogger, and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web strategist, on 4 October 2009. The M5S is considered populist, anti-corruption, environmentalist, and Eurosceptic. On October 30, 2013, Grillo himse...

> launched by Beppe Grillo, a popular activist, comedian and blogger, and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web strategist, on 4 October 2009.

Got italy and greece mixed up. Whatever.

I'm far enough away, they can't bitch too much about it

TIL Wisconsin's GDP is actually pretty close to Greece

user55340

8:44 PM

@Ampt But they don't have snowplows there. You'd be out of a job.

@MichaelT psh, I could probably bribe someone to buy some snow plows they wouldn't need

TIAL Vermont has the lowest GDP out of all the states

user55340

I'm tempted to get some of the snow spray paint things and mark where the curb is for the snow plow so they'd be more confident with plowing closer to my curb.

List of U.S. states by GDP

This is a list of U.S. states sorted by their gross state product (GSP). GSP is the state counterpart to a country's gross domestic product (GDP), the most comprehensive measure of national economic activity. The United States Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) derives GSP for a state as the sum of the GSP originating in all the industries in the state. The BEA defines an industry's GSP, or its value added, as equal to its gross output (sales or receipts and other operating income, commodity taxes, and inventory change) minus its intermediate inputs (consumption of goods and services purc...

@jozefg you know the fundamentals of clojure much/at all?

user55340

Currently they're about 2' away and with the last snow I wasn't able to clear all the way to the mailbox, which is making the mailman unhappy

8:47 PM

@jozefg it kills me that they have lists, but prefer vectors throughout all of the examples and literature on Clojure I find. I just don't understand what they would prefer vectors for if lists are lazy and vectors are not. Is there more in the distinction between the two in Clojure than just laziness vs. constant-time access?

TIAAL California almost has the same GDP as the entirety of Russia. WTF

I understand constant-time access is preferable in imperative code, but in declarative code the value of laziness really shines

user55340

@Ampt At one time it was a "If California was its own country it would have the 6th largest economy in the world" or something like that.

@Ampt Russia is that poor. (California is that rich)

user55340

Related: Proposal to split California into 6 states launches signature drive

8:48 PM

@MichaelT this does not surprise me. If you planted california in europe it would be on par with france

user55340

@MichaelT ... why?

user55340

Those parts are fundamentally different economies and demographics.

You know what, scratch that. I'm OK with splitting the US up.

user55340

8:52 PM

(full article fakeisthenewreal.org/reform )

user20683

Northern part = Hippie Libertarian, Purple Liberalish farming, Yellow is Bay Area, Red is conservative farming, Green is wealthy and libertarian, Yellow is desert and conservative

user20683

as I recall anyway

wait are milwaukee and chicago now a part of the same state?

GTFO

user55340

@Ampt The state of Gary.

@MichaelT Name sucks, being stuck with chicago sucks. Nope.

A: In Clojure, when should I use a vector over a list, and the other way around?

9:00 PM

50

Once again, it seems I've answered my own question by getting impatient and asking it in #clojure on Freenode. Good thing answering your own questions is encouraged on Stackoverflow.com :D I had a quick discussion with Rich Hickey, and here is the gist of it. [12:21] <Raynes> Vectors aren't seq...

Q: February 2014 Stack Overflow Community Moderator Election RESULTS

80

Stack Overflow's February 2014 moderator election has come to a close, sacrifices have been made at the altar of STV, and the 3 new moderators are: They'll be joining the existing crew shortly — please thank them for volunteering, and share your assistance and advice with them as they learn...

discussion featured election

user55340

@Ampt As much as the bears suck, consider that it would mean a much more consistent integration between Milwakuee and Chicago (no WI governor killing train routes), consistent taxes (cross state taxes suckorz), and the state of Gary being able to pay attention to manufacturing and business that those two cities have quite a bit of.

Just flagged as VLQ

It's +51 and now -1, but fuck that. Flagged as VLQ.

Loaded with upvotes just because it includes a conversation with the language developer, even though it lacks any explanation of the context or reasoning that should make me believe it's the right answer

@MichaelT imagine the tolls on the interstate though

user55340

@gnat I'm suprised at the first round, I thought it would have gone the other way.

user55340

9:05 PM

Round 12 showed some significant exhaustion. I wonder what those ballots looked like.

user55340

(about 1/2 of the votes that Siddharth received were exhausted when he was eliminated)

im sad that Undo didn't get it

guy is a cleaning machine

user55340

@Ampt Yep. The SO/SR synergy would have been a good one.

2

user55340

At the end, the diffrence between 0x7f and meagar was 4316 vs 4288 - that was close.

user55340

@ENDERLAND this is a test. This is only a test.

user55340

9:10 PM

(context)

user55340

You know you just wanted to yell at me. YOU KNOW IT. — enderland 4 mins ago

@Ampt he had almost no chance. As far as I can tell, he looks typical 2-year candidate, first year to "test the water", second to dive in. Like bluefeet. Same to meagar, I would be very disappointed if they won't nominate next year. And I would be quite surprised if neither of them gets elected

@gnat do they elect 3 every year?

@JimmyHoffa To my understanding it seems that they actually do prefer lists. Seqs are lists :) So map filter etc are all operating on lists, it's just htat if you're doing access by index or whatever, vector is way more efficient

@MichaelT CONDUCTING A TEST OF THE EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM. THIS IS ONLY A TEST.

user55340

9:12 PM

@Ampt They are losing 2... so...

user55340

@enderland So it does work. Still... Personally I would have liked to see small caps.

user55340

It would have fit well with the rest of the layout (there is a reason all upper was chosen) without impacting cut and paste.

@MichaelT how? Do we take them out to pasture after a year?

user55340

@Ampt They're like lightbulbs... they burn out.

make em into CFLs!

user55340

9:13 PM

needs more CFL

user55340

Hmm... need to go grab a data dump of relationships and dating - to see what was there.

Relationships and Dating – relationships.stackexchange.com

@enderland LEDs!

user15026

@MichaelT I never even though about doing that....

user55340

Q&A site for people seeking answers to questions about dating and long-term relationships.

Closed after 12 days in beta.

9:15 PM

closed after only 12 days?

holy cow

oh yeah made the top 1k beta users list first page

more like gunned down after 12 days

@enderland Awww that's kinda adorable. I would put that on your dating CV

> users also committed to
10.2% Software Recommen...
7.5% Mental Fitness
6.2% Beer
4.9% Pets

Not helping the stereotype guys...

user55340

Beer & Pets!

wtf is mental fitness

@enderland fecal meatness

user55340

9:21 PM

Ha

user55340

(@Ampt that comic artist lives just outside of Madison)

@MichaelT Not that you know exactly what house he lives in or anything.... right?

user55340

Could probably find it without too much trouble.

@WorldEngineer Holy crap! This American Life has an available radio archive? That's fantastic.

user55340

9:23 PM

dorktower.com/2010/05/25/muskrat-ramblings-here-there-be-baaars

wait @MichaelT lives outside madison. conclusion: artist is @MichaelT

user55340

@enderland I live 3h from Madison. He lives 3m from Madison.

rounding errors

user55340

> What does it say about you people that more than one of you have responded, giving me a bear’s HIT POINTS…? #notreassuring

user55340

> Department of Natural Resources’ advice on dealing with bears, summarized: “Don’t be so tasty.”

9:25 PM

is it bad that after programming in python all summer that I find it oddly amusing that this:

    GetLongVarObject




(


                            BACKLIGHT_DUTY_CYCLE)





    ;

is valid C code

I kinda wanna leave a trailing semicolon somewhere at the end of the function...

"Where's the semicolon to end this line? Oh, there it is, 15 lines down."

user55340

Throw in a couple of spare ones, just in case they can't find it.

user55340

code


;


; /* did you miss that last one? this is a spare */

make sure to put one after the */ too

/* take these.. it's dangerous to go alone */
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

/* alternatively, leave the first one missing and then start each new line with a semicolon: */
    a += 2
    ; b--
    ; c^b*a
    ;

user55340

Pretend you're still writing python and put the ';' flush right?

user55340

9:31 PM

code                                          ;
more code                                     ;

or you could put your braces so far out that you may as well not have them

user55340

Put the opening brace after the ';' in the previous example.

void init()                                                                                                                {
     code
     ;more code
     ;
                                                                                                                           }

user55340

code                                 ;
more code                            ;
for(stuff)                           {
    code                             ; }

can you semi-colon there after for(stuff)?

9:34 PM

@jozefg Yeah, I understand that... Perhaps I'm just finding the wrong literature for Clojure where everything I read has people suggesting don't use lists at all, only use vectors

user55340

You could but it wouldn't work the way I was trying to make it look like it was.

user55340

for(stuff) ;
{
    code;
}

user55340

Classic noob C bug.

did you just call yourself a noob?

@MichaelT is noob C like objective C?

user55340

9:36 PM

My C is quite rusty... all that salt water.

aha, you could just start every line with a semi colon.

void init()                                                                                                                {
     ;code
     ;more code
     ;
                                                                                                                           }

Just be thankful you don't have questions which anyone and their mother can post an "answer" to -- wish I could upvote this twice. SO guys just don't value how lucky they are to have concrete implementation questions; once hot list hits more subjective sites like Workplace or Programmers, brainless meh answers from passers by turn into nightmare — gnat 5 mins ago

I think if I wrote code like that they would fire me.

@gnat As a science experiment, should I see how much programmers rep my mom can get? She often has issues she can't solve when trying to send an email, so this would be a stringent test. And as far as ground rules - will we count anonymous rep if she can't manage to create an account?

We need a regex.SE

9:45 PM

@psr haha. well I was referring to Workplace :D

user55340

@psr Only a horrible son would subject their mother to that. Sheesh...

Had to write some new code today for a new module. Ended up basing it off of code I wrote exactly a year ago to date haha

only had to change the created string by 1 digit

user55340

@Ampt Make sure the next guy knows the code to increment.

@MichaelT oh I had to write new code, but I was implementing the same interfaces so all my function declarations and comment strings were largely unchanged

9:58 PM

The only thing worse than Jeopardy reruns on YouTube is jeopardy reruns on YouTube filmed with a handheld camera.

0

A: Non-Deterministic TDD

TDD is not a design technique. While it can aid at producing an effective design (and validating the veracity of that design, and verifying that your software still works after refactoring), you still need to think about the structure of your programs and come up with some sort of algorithmic ...

user55340

@RobertHarvey Did you ever see that crazy british math game show?

Ehm, briefly, I think.

user55340

Q: Name of the Countdown Numbers round problem - and algorithmic solutions?

Oh. No, not that one. Some other one, with a host having a droll factor of 11.

user55340

Watch that one.

user55340

10:03 PM

(related P.SE question)

user55340

6

For the non-Brits in the audience, there's a segment of a daytime game-show where contestants have a set of 6 numbers and a randomly generated target number. They have to reach the target number using any (but not necessarily all) of the 6 numbers using only arithmetic operators. All calculations...

algorithms arithmetic

@MichaelT That's pretty great.

@MichaelT Yeah, that's amazing. The guy has a real grasp of math. It's also completely uninteresting to most Americans. There are a lot of folks where I work that are into Sudoku, but I suspect that our work force is not representative of the general population.

user55340

@RobertHarvey I sent an email to some former co-workers comparing game show cultures from different countries.

@RobertHarvey I'm always surprised at how interested so much of the population is in sudoku and crosswords and all those varying puzzle games, I really don't believe there is any correlation whatsoever with people liking those things also liking actual math or logic of any nature

10:13 PM

+1 for forcing Jimmy to learn PHP.

$this = $that;

See I know PHP already

user55340

So yea, there's countdown... but have you ever seen Killer Karaoke?

@MichaelT I once saw a game show called Killer Crocodiles. Wait maybe it was Crocodile Killer, or some variation, fun show. Dude got bit by a snake.

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10:14 PM

@MichaelT Wow, this looks like the same show, except without being outside

That is jacked. Honestly.

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But then... go to the Japanese ones... and... thats another world entirely.

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Do not watch this one at work (see edit history)

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(do NOT watch that one at work)

10:20 PM

@JimmyHoffa When you get nerd-sniped into figuring out how to write PHP using only immutable values and higher order functions, maybe implement a monad, only then will you know PHP. Then you can write "PHP, the Haskell Parts".

@psr Alternatively then I might write "PHP, a compendium of lesser known plant-based orthogenous computable helicozyfrogs" because at that point, I would have gone stark-raving mad.

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@JimmyHoffa amazon.com/Stray-Shopping-Carts-Eastern-America/dp/0810955202

@JimmyHoffa And then you will have achieved the enlightenment necessary to be a programmer's mod.

@MichaelT Honestly, after reading the description - and perhaps it's the Haskeller in me - but that sounds like a genuinely very good book...

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@JimmyHoffa But what good would it do you in the Rockies?

10:30 PM

@psr Helico-Zyfrogs have nothing to do with being a programmers mod, I just need to grab a bottle of jose, go to the beach and start trying to lasso a jetskier, I think then I'm qualified to be a Programmers mod

@MichaelT Somebody's gotta document the stray shopping carts of western north america

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(the next mod election will feature a contest of naming the off topic reasons and such akin to the gameshow with the colored outfits above)

Q: I want to experience the early days of computing

0

Long ago when you bought a pc there was nothing on it. You had to write your own software. While we have it good in this day and age, we lack the understanding of computer systems that computer enthusiasts had in the early days. I want relive those early days so I can learn hardware and low-level...

assembly compiler systems-programming

^-- Find a ball peen hammer, and put a football helmet on. Hit the helmet until it breaks; find a new helmet and repeat.

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My parents found an old 4 bit computer kit when cleaning up around the basement...

@MichaelT I presume they burned it as a ritual offering to the ghosts of pac-man

Couldn't convince the powers that be that merging hundreds of inactive customer accounts in our accounting system into a single account wasn't a good idea. Even better, part of their reasoning is that they will be able to re-use the "old" customer IDs for new customers...

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10:33 PM

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@JimmyHoffa Still in its box, debating ebay.

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Digi-Comp I

The Digi-Comp I was a functioning, mechanical digital computer sold in kit form. It was originally manufactured from polystyrene parts by E.S.R., Inc. starting in 1963 and sold as an educational toy for US$4.99. Operation In essence, the Digi-Comp I contained three mechanical flip-flops, providing an ability to connect them together in a programmable way using thin vertical wires that are either pushed, or blocked from moving, by a number of cylindrical pegs. The whole arrangement was 'clocked' by moving a lever back and forth. Different configurations of these cylinders caused the Digi...

ebay? pssht, reddit. Ebay it'll go to a collector, post on reddit you'll ship it to someone who will actually do something with it

You'll probably get people with all kinds of ideas of what they'd actually do with it

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(doing some work in IDEA... I am loving it more every time I use it)

might find somebody that would do something fun with it on hackaday.com too (haven't been active in the community lately so I'm not sure if it is still the place it once was)

10:36 PM

@MichaelT This is the only Java IDE I've touched anytime recently - coming from Visual Studio I found it quite solid

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@Mike The thing to do now would be to create the instructions for it to be printed on a 3d printer...

Another fun work story. Noticed there was water dripping into a fluorescent light fixture the other day. Reported it and went on about my day. Went into the same bathroom the next day and found the solution. They drilled a small hold in the plastic cover for the fixture to let the water drain into a bucket on the ground.

Oh it's mechanical?? Ok that's hilarious - they put "digi" in the name of a mechanical computer, talk about overcompensating... That's like a station wagon being called a sports wagon...

@Mike Remind me not to look for work in Flint Michigan...

@JimmyHoffa Just avoid Flint Michigan all together.

(ok I suspect that's probably common quality of facilities throughout Flint)

@Mike Yeah, I lived in Pittsburgh, PA for 3 years; I've done the rust-belt thing already. Done with that...

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10:42 PM

@JimmyHoffa Ebay says $50-$100 for the price.

"The homebuilt computers webring." -- Anyone else see the irony?

@JimmyHoffa Yeah I was born and raised in Michigan. Warmer climates call my name but I don't think the wife would want to leave her family.

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Let me just scroll down and check behind that rock. Annnnd ... nope, page copyright year starts with '19'. Oh God, is this a WEBRING?

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(read the mouseover)

lol

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10:44 PM

@JimmyHoffa Btw, ever play with Resharper?

@MichaelT Shutup!

rofl

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Just checking

For awhile I had all of the Telerik stuff installed in VS. It got so slow I decided to uninstall it all and go commando.

Resharper does the same, to a lesser extent.

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@RobertHarvey Don't tell that to HR.

10:46 PM

Well... not at the same time, anyway.

People fall in two places on resharper, either it won't stop getting in their way, or they love it. I find the ladder comes from the Java world where there's been a lot less standardization to IDEs over years. For me I've had the same hot keys and tools embedded in my workflow for so many years, resharper just plays hell with them - and hasn't offered anything VS doesn't already have for years

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That makes a fair bit of sense... Eclipse went a ways to standardization, but it still sucks.

Folks who don't have years and years of visual studio experience already get less bothered by resharper because they don't know what the behaviour of visual studio is supposed to be, so they don't even notice the difference

@RobertHarvey Resharper actually isn't so bad performance wise anymore, years ago that was a bigger issue. For me I think it's just people playing with toys at this point because since visual studio 2008 added the refactor functionality, there's been absolutely zero facilities resharper has of value that aren't already default in visual studio

but some people just can't get enough of their cool toys

I like my cool toys

and I was one that started with resharper more or less when I started working with visual studio