The Whiteboard

enderland

00:13

@MichaelT is it possible it's just pushing them away in the private sector? There is a lot of evidence that women leave engineering/tech careers after a relatively short time period. Perhaps those that go into the public sector do not leave at that same rate?

user55340

@enderland Its possible. Public sector also tends to have nice family leave which can be quite important.

enderland

@MichaelT yeah. one really nice advantage of my current private company is it has a very generous vacation schedule, compared to most

user55340

As an aside, I wouldn't mind some up votes if you agree with it:

user55340

-2

Q: Remove 'electorate' badge from meta sites

The 'electorate' badge requires voting on a significant number of questions. This is accomplishable by anyone with 15 reputation. That, in of itself is not a problem. However, on meta sites this behavior can drastically adjust the perception of what the active community on the site believes. While

enderland

@MichaelT I'd already upvoted it :)

A big problem though is when you get towards management positions, you are expected to be available more - at the individual contributor level it's still pretty reasonable but... the higher you get the harder it gets. Be curious to see what that looks like at private vs public

user55340

00:17

@enderland My manager works 40h and has a boat load of vacation that he uses. Takes about a week and a half every 3 months or so.

user55340

Went to machu pichu this past summer. Yosemite for a week in the fall... forget what his spring and winter vacations were.

enderland

@MichaelT I think, while I am relatively bored and not challenged in my job now, it really is a good job from all this perspective (work life balance, team, manager quality, etc). I'm blessed for sure when it comes to this, I think

Lightness Races in Orbit

gods, all this serious talk. what happened to SCOTCH?

(do I get my whiteboard badge, yet?)

user55340

00:35

@LightnessRacesinOrbit programmers.stackexchange.com/help/badges/74/outspoken - not yet.

Lightness Races in Orbit

00:55

@MichaelT as if you muppets will ever star anything I say

user55340

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I'm sure I've stared your comments.

user55340

Oct 20 at 16:48, by Lightness Races in Orbit

Shog hates everything, including hate

user55340

I starred that one.

user55340

Nov 2 at 10:31, by Lightness Races in Orbit

True story: it's George Boole's 200th birthday today.

user55340

That one too.

Lightness Races in Orbit

00:58

@MichaelT I stare at you sometimes, too.

user55340

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I have a cat. I know all about stare downs.

Lightness Races in Orbit

@MichaelT ;p

miaow

Ixrec

my cats were never very good at staring contests

they usually got bored and turned away

user55340

I have a house panther. He wins the staring contents.

Lightness Races in Orbit

Gotta love the chatboard whiteroom

Ixrec

01:08

for some reason it takes me a really long time to notice those words are mixed up

Lightness Races in Orbit

what mixed are words up?

user55340

Have you read the review for that naga chili vodka: masterofmalt.com/vodka/the-hot-enough-vodka-co/…

Lightness Races in Orbit

you mean the vodka naga chili

“liberate tutemae” would make a good room motto

enderland

it really is impressive what our brains are capable of

Lightness Races in Orbit

agree I

enderland

01:22

I'm curious if p.se is having less downvoted questions as a result of the "need only 3 close votes" thing

Ixrec

I make a point of downvoting most the unsalvageable closures so they can leave the front page at -4

and a lot of them are making it to -4

so I'm not sure if the number of downvoted questions has gone up or down

enderland

hard to say, definitely feels like there are fewer

Ixrec

there are definitely fewer visible on the front page, which is good

Lightness Races in Orbit

good, that is

Ixrec

off-topic for this chatroom, Yoda-speak is

Lightness Races in Orbit

01:30

@Ixrec is it

user55340

02:06

@LightnessRacesinOrbit the only one down vote - its because on most sites, that user doesn't have enough rep to down vote. Not that it appears to change anything... but if you've only got 101 reputation all the votes on meta will be up votes.

Lightness Races in Orbit

@MichaelT who what where

user55340

@LightnessRacesinOrbit that post about badge hunting electorate on meta.

user55340

The voter can't down vote on most sites because he lacks 125 rep.

Lightness Races in Orbit

ah

(I didn't actually read it)

oh apparently I kind of did

not really quite sure what's going on right now

enderland

02:47

@MichaelT I think it's completely silly that it's possible to vote on meta with no site contributions, but I guess no one wants my opinion :( hahah

my feature request was apparently a dup to an older request of the same....

user55340

I personaly think that people were too hung up on that I found one person who was badge hunting electoral on multiple metas.

enderland

missing the forest for the trees, I agree

Robert Harvey

07:36

I'm trying to figure out what event happened that suddenly caused "What is the name of this thing so I can go research it myself" to become a thing.

I've been a participant on Stack Overflow for quite some time now. I've seen a number of memes come and go, including The Great Community Wiki Wars, What Stack Overflow is Not (which I unfortunately have the dubious distinction of creating), and What Have You Tried?

But this is the first time I've seen it happen on Programmers.

Hmm, I smell a meta post.

Robert Harvey

07:49

0

Q: When did "Name this thing" become a meme?

I've been racking my brain trying to figure this out. What happened that caused "What is the name of this thing so I can go research it myself" become a meme? I've been a participant on Stack Overflow for quite some time now. I've seen a number of memes come and go, including The Great Communit...

discussion

Duga

Thank you for your help, Mr. Ayoub. I am learning Rails, and definitely I will ask more questions about Rails on this site. Hopefully, experienced Rails programmers like you will help me in the future. Have a great day. — NeverGiveUp1989 just now

Duga

09:40

This question should be better asked on programmers, and you really should explain what is your DSL doing (ie. the 10%). — Basile Starynkevitch 26 secs ago

Lightness Races in Orbit

10:31

@Duga wow

> experienced Rails programmers

Mr Ayoub is a young student!

@Colin So you're confident there is no known reason, because you don't know of any relevant research, because you haven't looked for any. Thanks! — benzado Sep 7 '11 at 18:35

Duga

@IraBaxter If think the message should be changed for whatever reason, go ahead and raise a meta thread about it. And I don't believe there exists any Stack Exchange site where you could ask very broad tool recommendation questions, so how could there be a link? Tool recommendations are off-topic on the Programmers site (pretty much everything programming-related is off-topic there). — Lundin 1 min ago

Lightness Races in Orbit

lolol

Duga

11:24

Questions that ask "where do I start" are typically too broad and are not a good fit for this site. People have their own method for approaching the problem and because of this there cannot be a correct answer. Give a good read over Where to Start, then address your post. — DavidG 57 secs ago

Lightness Races in Orbit

@MichaelT: ^ that post is excellent

Thomas Owens

12:50

Genchi Genbutsu is one of my favorite concepts ever. It translates to "go and see", but I prefer to translate it as "get off your ass, away from your desk, and out of your fantasy-land office and see what's up in the real world".

Jimmy Hoffa

13:30

Happy Coffee Day

Jimmy Hoffa

13:41

@MichaelT He wins the staring contents? So if he stares at your fridge long enough, he gets what's in side? I would avoid staring contests with that creature; the consequences of losing sound dire.

@MichaelT on the gender thing; there's something that I see in the culture of the private sector that seems pretty universal that I've only seen not there in one job which was very much like what I'd expect from public sector: Competitiveness. Even in collaborative shops, there's an edge of competition - trying to do better as an org; as teams; as individuals; it all trickles down from the overarching company goal to an extent. Even if it's not particularly overt, you can see it.

The one job I worked where there wasn't even a hint of that - was the only job I've worked where there were multiple women engineers.

Lightness Races in Orbit

haha you said "overt"

Jimmy Hoffa

That job was highly regulated and process oriented so pace / competitiveness were totally undesired- correctness was tantamount because of the software being healthcare based.

Lightness Races in Orbit

as in "ovaries"

Thomas Owens

13:58

@JimmyHoffa How does an organization survive if they aren't trying to do better?

I don't see a lot of competition on a team or individual level where I work now, it's collaborative. But the organization is always trying to do better. It has to.

Lightness Races in Orbit

I don't see a lot of competition on a team or individual level where I work now; it's collaborative. And the organisation isn't trying to do better, even though it has to.

Thomas Owens

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Perhaps you should find a new job.

Lightness Races in Orbit

@ThomasOwens Perhaps you're right

Why, are you hiring? :)

Thomas Owens

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Perhaps you should open a competitor to your company that radically improves very quickly.

And we are hiring, but I have no idea what skillsets we're looking for. I think emedded.

You're Europe, yes? Not sure what our growth there is like.

Lightness Races in Orbit

UK, embedded ish yeah

Thomas Owens

14:08

We have an office in Malvern. Not sure what their status is, though.

They...exist.

Jimmy Hoffa

@ThomasOwens this is a common misunderstanding from people who've only worked in rational businesses. Many businesses make more than enough money to avoid being rational; and you can't just jump into a market and compete more rationally to take their market share. For instance; one company I worked with, their software is used for the servicing of 60-70% of all mortgages in the country. They have very harsh contracts with countless big-big banks all over the nation.

They were a model of inefficiency, they had to pay out to multiple states for fraudulent practices from state AG law suits during the big foreclosure stuff (their software was used for the robo-signing junk)

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa So they exist by starving competition.

Jimmy Hoffa

They were expensive as hell and hardly did shit

@ThomasOwens that's one way. To answer your original question "how do you survive" though, goes back to what I was commenting to @MichaelT about - public sector vs private sector.

At the healthcare place it was a matter of we had market dominance in one part - which gave us complete lock-in in the software part. No other software choices for people who bought our devices, so on the software side we could be very slow and methodical and not worry about competing (plus slow+methodical is key for such software..)

Захар Joe

Guys. Help me out on this. I need to (or dream of) create a "superstructure" of sorts to solve a problem of tagging overlapping spans of text. Right now I can't think of any elegant solution to this, but there must be one, right? Consider a string "cart" and two "needles" acting upon it: "car" and "art". I need to generate a HTML that would have "car" and "art" highlighted in different colors and in the middle where they overlap "ar" the colors must overlap accordingly.

Thomas Owens

@JimmyHoffa What would have happened if your customers started demanded openenss?

Jimmy Hoffa

14:14

Though they had a lot of dead weight. Poeple who presume everyone has to compete constantly are missing a lot of what goes on in industries. We had one old guy who worked there earning a huge salary because of his industry tenure I understood; he worked there for over 2 years and left every day around noon-1 and nobody noticed or said anything or whatever.

@ThomasOwens no competitor would provide it so let them ask. Businesses don't care about customers.

user55340

@ЗахарJoe create the css for each match. Create the css for each overlap. Insert span tags as appropriate.

Duga

14:37

This question is better suited for stack exchange Programmers — Eugene 54 secs ago

user55340

0

Q: Pros and cons for pure virtual c++ coding

I'm coming form java background, had a conversation today with one of our C++ developer regarding to convert an existing code to have a pure virtual methods (interface) and to use them as dependency injection all over the code for better decoupling. He tried to convince me that we should use the...

c++ inversion-of-control pure-virtual

Jimmy Hoffa

> Con: C++
> Pro: Only virtually C++

Duga

15:40

Your question is too broad for stack overflow. You need to narrow it down to a specific problem. If you want to talk about design, you should probably take a look at programmers.stackexchange.com or maybe post your code on codereview.stackexchange.com. — roryap 24 secs ago

user55340

0

A: When did "Name this thing" become a meme?

Name that thing is at least as old as Usenet. Part of this goes to the curmudgeon aspect. That if one asks a short, answerable question, they are less likely to have the curmudgeons complaining about the use of a Singleton or that C++ isn't C or some other issue of perceived pedantry. There is ...

Robert Harvey

16:28

@MichaelT There's something I've been meaning to ask you about the Kingdom of Nouns, since you're a Java guy.

Consider this question:

0

Q: Review of a small configuration framework

I want to create a simple configuration framework. Yes I know, there are many frameworks, which make their job very well. But for interesting in architecture, I want to create my own. My framework should notice the principles of SOLID You should be able, to store you configuration in several for...

design-patterns architecture frameworks solid

I've looked at his question, and his architecture seems perfectly reasonable, as an exercise. But I've come to believe that architectures like this are intended for very large programs, and are unnecessary boilerplate that is actually harmful in smaller programs.

Thomas Owens

@RobertHarvey Looks interesting. I want to ponder it.

@RobertHarvey What if your smaller program is designed to be used by a larger program? Like an extensible library where people write plugins? Anyway, I'm going to grab food and ponder this.

Robert Harvey

@ThomasOwens If the nature of the problem being solved (i.e. a plugin architecture) demands it, then certainly such a program justifies the weight of the additional complexity introduced by the architecture.

user55340

The op is trying to make it complex and a framework for the sake of making their own.

user55340

While the initial version is "simple" you start out with that foundation if you forsee growing beyond simple.

user55340

Because it is a pain to redo that foundation later.

user55340

16:38

If you are going to have simple and always be simple - yep. Too much.

user55340

Again, if you are building a simple framework on the complex foundation because you want experience with building that foundation and on top if it... Well, that's a reason to do it that way.

user55340

One more delete vote?

user55340

6

Q: What to do with old programming books?

I have about 1000 or so programming books, but a good selection are on languages/frameworks that are dated, like Django 1.1, Symfony 1.3, or HTML 4 and CSS 2. I just got them all back from storage and was sorting through what ones are of no use to me. So, I was wondering. Dated programming books...

programming-languages career-development

Ampt

@RobertHarvey Are you admitting to knowing a time before the beatles were around?

@MichaelT Except for Ringo, that is.

user55340

ringo starr new shining time station clips

►

Ampt

16:55

I'm sorry... I'm not sure if that's meant to be proof for or against my statement...

Lightness Races in Orbit

you're ampt up today aren't you

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit well I'm Ampt every day, but yes, today is looking up

user55340

@LightnessRacesinOrbit accordion to a recent study, most people don't realize the substitution of a word with a musical instrument.

Захар Joe

@MichaelT isn't there a more elegant way with those spans? Something akin to Photoshop layers in HTML/XML/anything at all?

user55340

@ЗахарJoe dunno. Just giving the way I'd do it.

Lightness Races in Orbit

16:59

@MichaelT heh

Захар Joe

If I could do something like <layer1>So<layer2>me</layer>thing</layer2> that would mean the problem half solved. But where can I do that?

user55340

Nope. Overlapping is a problem.

Захар Joe

A problem for technology or a problem of logic?

user55340

Fo<blue>o<red>ba</blue>r</red> --- invalid html.

Lightness Races in Orbit

what's the problem?

Ampt

17:02

yeah, but can you parse it with regex?

Захар Joe

Indeed, and XML too. In HTML it's easier, you can only do s and the first closes the nearest opened one.

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit tags must completely be enclosed in another tag

Захар Joe

Guys, so the problem is that we have this "cart" string for example. And I have two needles, "car" and "art". And in HTML I want to highlight both needles with different color and the overlapping part is going to be an overlay of two colors.

This is for a linguistics project.

Ampt

@ЗахарJoe we understand the problem

Захар Joe

Someone does a search for overlapping lexemes and gets that kind of output.

Ampt

17:04

we're just saying that it's not easily solveable, nor very interesting

Захар Joe

Ah.

user55340

It's kind of interesting, but painful in html.

Захар Joe

Well for me it is interesting because it's the first time that I can visualize an elegant solution but there's no actual way to make it happen.

Ampt

the problem is always interesting to the person asking it :) that's a given.

user55340

If you need to do it there, you need to follow strict html for you to have a chance of it working on multiple browsers.

user55340

17:05

That means proper spans.

Захар Joe

Yeah... I guess I was just trying to close my eyes and think I can trick HTML somehow.

user55340

cart

user55340

That is what you need to be writing.

Lightness Races in Orbit

@Ampt that's a fact. I'm asking what the problem is

Захар Joe

The other part of this painful thing is that I need to write some code that's going to produce all those spans based on all the needles. That's a nightmare.

Lightness Races in Orbit

17:07

sounds like fun

work or pleasure?

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit ahhh I apologize. I thought you were asking why we couldn't have overlapping tags, and assumed that @ЗахарJoe was reiterating the question to keep us on point. My mistake, all around.

Захар Joe

Middle actually. It's a non-profit project, saving a language.

Ampt

saving?

Захар Joe

From dying a slow death.

Ampt

oh?

which language?

how does this keep it from dying?

Захар Joe

17:09

Qumuq.

psr

@ЗахарJoe Write it out using canvas?

Захар Joe

It's a long story... There's a cohort of old professors who continue to generate new work and once they're dead, and it won't take long there's literally nobody who's going to pick up the work they're doing right now. So I need to maximize their efficiency so that they could do more with less effort and time.

@psr what's canvas?

psr

@ЗахарJoe The canvas element

Or just make the spans with the multiiple styles. It's ugly to think about but not all that hard to code.

Захар Joe

How would I overlap the spans?

psr

@ЗахарJoe Logically. I mean generate the multiple styles.

Захар Joe

17:12

Ah.

But it is hard to code. There are not only background colors, there are also borders that show whether the lexeme appears in the beginning, middle or end of the word...

The easiest thing I could think of is to generate some code that wraps each letter from a needle into a separate span.

psr

@ЗахарJoe Have a data structure showing begin and end of all styles - color, border, whatever. Use that to write out HTML with new span each time any style starts or ends.

Захар Joe

The canvas may be good, but not for scientific work. We still need it to look like a book, being able to copy and paste and avoid Javascript where possible too.

psr

@ЗахарJoe You might want the visualization and the data structure to be a little decoupled. Something like XML to capture data, ugly HTML or canvas to display.

Or an actual database to hold data.

user55340

You need to study Css for a bit. What you are going to do is going to get into its nuances.

user55340

Sibling selectors, boxes, order of definition and all that.

Захар Joe

17:17

@MichaelT yes, I know I could save on styles and make them more "overlapping", at least where CSS is concerned.

user55340

If you are going with html, this is the easiest way. It's also rather hard.

user55340

I don't even want to think of how to do it for writing a word document.

Захар Joe

@psr I do have the actual database, but in the end the result I need to analyze is a simple string of text. I'm doing a search for a lexeme in a database and I get a sentence as a result. I should've probably broken the sentences into words I guess.

So so inelegant. Why can't I have <tag1>con<tag2>ten</tag1>ts</tag2> structure. Can't believe it's not possible anywhere.

user55340

It isn't valid html.

Захар Joe

Not necessarily HTML, just any other language, anywhere.

user55340

17:22

You might dig into Tex, but I don't know for sure.

psr

91

Q: Are nested span tags OK in XHTML?

Will this validate in XHTML? helloworld

html xhtml

Is that what we're talking about? (Maybe I didn't read back far enough?)

user55340

Nested span - not a problem. But they won't close like desired. They close in exactly stack order.

Захар Joe

@psr not quite, nested are okay to an extent, but we're talking about overlapping spans. It's definitely not possible in HTML. But maybe it is possible somewhere else... I'm just curious at this point.

enderland

@Ampt :)

Захар Joe

Perhaps it's time to open stackoverlay site here, a darker cousin to stackoverflow.

In the future, I believe we will have something like that. It'll be to HTML what virtual reality is to 2D displays today.

user55340

17:30

vrml! It's the future!

user55340

VRML

VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language, pronounced vermal or by its initials, originally—before 1995—known as the Virtual Reality Markup Language) is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional (3D) interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind. It has been superseded by X3D. == WRL File FormatEdit == VRML is a text file format where, e.g., vertices and edges for a 3D polygon can be specified along with the surface color, UV mapped textures, shininess, transparency, and so on. URLs can be associated with graphical components so that a web browser...

user55340

Wow. 20 years. I feel old.

Захар Joe

Oh I remember that.

It existed before DirectX.

user55340

@RobertHarvey say something to make me feel younger.

Захар Joe

Do you remember 3dfx? Matrox Mystique 220?

Chat rooms fully written in Java?

user55340

17:35

the first computer I wrote code on had a 6502. I have a punch card and paper tape from my fathers office that has my name on it.

Захар Joe

That is... old.

user55340

The first computer that I bought with my own money was a 486 dx 4 running clock quadrupled at 100 MHz.

Захар Joe

486s were nice. And they had a long age.

user55340

There is a difference between the 486 sitting in the back of a school lab... And the 486 because it was new and the pentium wasn't out yet.

Захар Joe

I had a fetish for SGI hardware at the time. It was insanely expensive and extremely drool-inducing.

user55340

17:40

I worked there. Had an indigo on my desk.

user55340

Tech support from 96 to 98 in two stints 9 months apart.

Захар Joe

Couldn't they give you a workstation at a discount?

user55340

Nope. Reputable.com was the reseller if you wanted.

Захар Joe

Indigos were the cheapest though. O2 looked much sexier.

user55340

This was in the final days of Ed McCraken. Stock was not a nice thing to look at.

user55340

17:43

The O2 didn't exist in '96.

Захар Joe

Yeah... they've been pretty much dead for quite some time already, the SGI.

When did it appear?

user55340

Indigo, indy (without the go), and indigo 2 (if you really needed it)

Захар Joe

I think I found it btw... something, thanks to you @MichaelT. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlapping_markup

user55340

SGI O2

The O2 was an entry-level Unix workstation introduced in 1996 by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) to replace their earlier Indy series. Like the Indy, the O2 used a single MIPS microprocessor and was intended to be used mainly for multimedia. Its larger counterpart was the SGI Octane. The O2 was SGI's last attempt at a low-end workstation. == HardwareEdit == === System architectureEdit === Originally known as the "Moosehead" project, the O2 architecture featured a proprietary high-bandwidth Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) to connect system components. A PCI bus is bridged onto the UMA with one slot...

Ampt

@MichaelT I remember having a facebook account in highschool.

am I doing this right?

Захар Joe

17:46

So it did exist in 96 then. Kinda.

user55340

Nope. Geocities.

user55340

Announced. But again I was in tech support. There was a few of everything in the lab. Our desks though were cheap.

Захар Joe

Yeah! I had a page (now defunct) at sunsetstrip

user55340

Did some real time ray tracing on an Onyx and later O2000 for fun.

Захар Joe

They had this aura of creativity, didn't they? It just felt fresh.

Everybody was excited. Not like nowadays.

user55340

17:50

If you were doing high end graphics, that was the system.

user55340

And there wasn't a bust on the boom yet... Though some companies were on the way down already.

Ampt

I don't remember owning a computer with less than a 1ghz clock speed

user55340

6502. 1.023 MHz.

Thomas Owens

Do you guys think that I should put my old laptops (ThinkPads - T400 and T60p) on Craigslist after dban-ning the HDDs? The T60p was from 2006/2007 and the T400 was from 2009/2010. They are still complete and functioning, but need work.

Ampt

@ThomasOwens is it worth the time you're going to spend to make 20 bucks?

user55340

17:56

Check how much you expect to get and the time taken to sell it.

Ampt

ebay.com/sch/…

That's for the newer one

I expect the older one to fare even worse.

Захар Joe

CHEAP!!

Thomas Owens

@Ampt I think I'd throw it up on Craigslist. If I don't hear anything when the ad expires, I'll junk them.

I'd also make anyone who wants them pick them up.

It doesn't take that much time to answer emails.

@Ampt Ebay filtered at work. Can you post the value?

Ampt

30-100 dollars, shipping included

Thomas Owens

I'd post on CL for $50.

Ampt

17:57

probably get that, yeah

Thomas Owens

I figure it's better than just throwing away without trying and guaranteeing $0, yeah?

Ampt

absolutely

$$ is $$

true

Захар Joe

What about giving those to your friends, or a charity?

Ampt

@ЗахарJoe costs money to ship it to someone

Thomas Owens

@ЗахарJoe I've asked my friends. Most have a healthy collection of old laptops and don't want them.

Захар Joe

17:58

For a good cause... why not?

Thomas Owens

Not sure of a charity that would take them.

Ampt

besides, why let a little thing like friendship get in the way of profit

Захар Joe

I gave away my Mac Mini G4, it's been working for several more years for them.

Robert Harvey

@Ampt I was circa second Beatles phase in my younger years. But I admit to having listened to popular music prior to their first phase.

@MichaelT I remember the live TV broadcasts of the moon landing.

Захар Joe

What did you feel then?

How did it feel?

Robert Harvey

18:07

The moon landing? Reverent. Like we were accomplishing something extraordinary.

Lightness Races in Orbit

18:45

the Beatles are wildly overrated

I read someone bash the shit out of Spotify and refuse to use it, proclaiming that it was completely useless purely because "they don't even have the Beatles"

weird

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Can you name a band that has changed music as much as the beatles? Whether you like them or not, the fact is that they were transformative to the entire industry

Lightness Races in Orbit

18:57

OP completely ignores everything going on around him and just spurts out some random information nobody asked for in a half-complete sentence

@Ampt they are hardly unique in their influence on music

and, even if they were, that does not have any bearing whatsoever on their aesthetic quality

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit who would you list as some of their contemporaries?

whatsisname

The beatles weren't an especially influential band in that they created a new style or anything like that

they were just very good songwriters and immensely popular

Lightness Races in Orbit

whatsisname is correct

@Ampt um, the Rolling Stones? the Animals? the Kinks? Fats Domino? Chubby Checker? Elvis Presley? Eric Clapton? Fleetwood Mac? Led Zeppelin? The Who? Pink Floyd? Cream? ....

Bob Dylan for goodness's sakes!

you have to remember that the Beatles were wildly popular in exactly the same way that One Direction are popular now

puts things into context a bit

popularity does not mean genius, novelty, quality, talent, ability ... influence to some degree of course, yes, due to reach

-1

Q: How to draw stars

How can i draw star like this fileexe file and here is the cpp filecpp file need to complete. Please help with function. thanks in advance.

c++ visual-studio opengl

-.-

Ampt

19:20

@LightnessRacesinOrbit popularity doesn't preclude any of those things though.

Lightness Races in Orbit

@Ampt no, it doesn't

but I am suggesting that those things are not found in great measure in the Beatles, to which your rebuttal seemed to centre on their popularity (I assume you were trying to prod me into not being able to think of any bands from the 50s, 60s other than the Beatles), which is not causally related

anyway, I stand by what I said: overrated!

Ampt

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I wasn't trying to prod you into anything :) I was curious as to who you thought was more influential than the beatles.

Lightness Races in Orbit

@Ampt still not sure how influence is relevant, anyway

SO mods are hugely influential, but I reckon they're a wee bit over-rated too

(j/k ;P)

Ixrec

the Beatles are cool, though I haven't listened to them in a while

that is all I have to say on this topic

Lightness Races in Orbit

we should start a conversation about gun control or abortion or something

Ampt

19:29

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I think that's the only thing listed above that's actually measureable is all :)

Lightness Races in Orbit

@Ampt I think we can agree on that

Ampt

not that I'm disagreeing with your assessment at all - it's just that everything but popularity or sales or whatever you want to call it is mostly opinion.

Lightness Races in Orbit

and mine is that the Beatles are overrated!

whatsisname

I wouldn't call them overrated, they were very good, just not game-changers

Lightness Races in Orbit

they weren't that good

oh my god dog next door has been barking for HOURS SHUT UP

Ampt

20:03

ugh... so apparently if I want to provide a new feature for authoring content, I still have to provide the old way as well. Nothing like punishing me for trying to use the up to date stuff

I guess I'll only provide the old dialogue since that's the minimum necessary.

Thomas Owens

The SO mod primary thing is open.

Ampt

Thomas Owens for SO mod?

Lightness Races in Orbit

just been reading

meh

cba

Ampt

@ThomasOwens Oh crap you're actually running

Thomas Owens

@Ampt Yes, I am.

Ampt

20:10

@ThomasOwens I'm sorry to hear that.

Are the symptoms at least manageable?

;)

Lightness Races in Orbit

heh

Thomas Owens

20:32

This question is proof that engaging a user to help them improve their question goes a long way. Unfortunately, I don't know what the answer is.

user55340

20:51

When we have a user who cares about the question, answer, and respects the community providing answers; it is possible for someone to work with them and improve it.

user55340

If any of those are lacking at the time, it doesn't happen.

ratchet freak

a helpful first reaction from the community also is needed

Ampt

nah, we just leave snarky comments and hope for the best.

Thomas Owens

@ratchetfreak Yep. The first reaction should be to comment.

Don't vote to close or down vote immediately, unless it's just terribad.

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