The Whiteboard

12:00 AM

@JimmyHoffa This is a little odd if you add attributes to the relationship. You need one instance of some new class for each unique Foo/Bar combination. And I suppose a method to get that new instance by passing a Foo and a Bar.

psr

12:10 AM

Maybe just having a list of FooBars and if worthwhile an index of Dictionary<Foo,Foobar> and/or Dictionary<Bar,Foobar> would be cleaner.

Obviously a FooBar has a Foo, a Bar, the FooBar attributes, and works flawlessly.

Jimmy Hoffa

12:38 AM

@psr The link objects would be this way was kind of my point; one for every Foo and Bar combination, except then the Foo owned them.

@psr This makes good sense as well

Doing what you can to keep foo's from knowing bars and vice versa when you have those complex relationships can be good, get's the relationship reconciliation out of the domain of the object itself

gnat

8:35 AM

feel screwed by a slippery review audit? Correct it so that next reviewers won't

0

A: Bring a "human factor" into review audit composition/selection

While there is no officially implemented solution for this, one can use whatever means are at their disposal now in order to bring the "human factor" to audits selection. When you spot a slippery audit, go straight to the "item" it uses and do the action opposite to audit direction. If you fee...

user41796

11:27 AM

@gnat There's a few questions that I've gone back to after failing the audit and starting a real close review process on it.

user41796

And I rep capped for the day about 20 minutes ago. Wow!

user41796

@WorldEngineer - thanks again for removing the protection on the question. MikeS' question is ranked 3rd at the moment. I think it's a good thing that he was given the opportunity to put his answer in.

gnat

11:47 AM

@GlenH7 so did I, with the only difference that I passed these crappy audits :)

> As I typically open the items in queue in separate tab (for more thorough review), it often happens that I spot slippery audit and perform "correction" even before completing review. It feels somewhat weird to click Looks Good at the item you just downvoted but oh well...

thorsten müller

12:07 PM

A view into the StackExchange offices:

google.com/maps/…

gnat

12:24 PM

five crappy answers quickly posted to this fairly average question, made it enter collider, thanks to broken formula. Most of 600 views it got are likely a product of positive feedback loop, more answers - more visits from collider - more answers - more visits from collider etc, over and over and over again and again and again

18

Q: Writing Code on Paper?

I'm a freshman Computer Science student and we just started doing some actual projects in Python. I have found out that by using the pen and paper method my professor suggested in class I'm very efficient. But when I can't write my problem down and work my algorithm's out on paper I am really slo...

Compare these pumped up 600 to over 4K views in the real thing of about the same age. Side note, those interested in maintaining site quality, consider holding your downvotes until tomorrow, when it fades away from collider lemmings

> It was sort of revelation that happened when I observed particular hot question. Among many others, there were 3 answers of different degree of crappiness, each voted accordingly at -1, -2, -3. Few hours later, all 3 answers were upvoted back to zero, and kept staying there, buried in the sea of other mediocre, low score answers.

When you know what is broken in collider formula, it all too predictable and repeatable

15

Q: Why is this question good?

After a week of absence I went to last week hot questions, and found Cannot find symbol hasNextInt for a java.util.Scanner? with 37 upvotes. How come 37 people decided that the question shows research effort, is useful and clear? I am being more and more surprised by Stack Overflow community vo...

discussion stackoverflow specific-question up-votes question-quality

user41796

1:29 PM

eeny-meeny-miny-moe;
500 (worthless) MSO Rep;
where should it go?

enderland

give it to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

14

Q: Is there a way to check what percentage of your close votes are on closed questions?

Let's say I have cast 100 close votes. How can I easily determine how many of those close votes are on questions which are currently closed? This would be useful for understanding how well my personal close voting preference matches a site's overall philosophy on when questions should be closed,...

discussion

I wish this was possible

user41796

@enderland You would need to put an answer in here to be eligible in today's game. Right now, it's just gnat, psr, & jimmy in the running since I can't award it back to myself.

enderland

Hahaha. I can't compete with those answers..

user41796

@gnat - it feels wrong to award the 500 to you given that it's your question to start with. What are your thoughts?

user41796

@enderland I think you just need a more compelling answer than psr's or jimmy's. Props if you were going to take on my answer and the data backing it. :-)

enderland

1:35 PM

yeah, aint no one got time for dat (except you, apparently? ;)

user41796

took quite a while to assemble the information and then put it in a meaningful format. Assembling all that data really turned my opinion on the collider values. And after watching the interview question yesterday, my opinions on the collider formula needing to change were anchored

enderland

I think you can probably get a question to be hot with just a few users

gnat

@GlenH7 yeah that would make it look like a slippery ping-pong between asker and answerer

enderland

UV a question to 5, have everyone post answers and UV the others

then you have... alot

gnat

Two options here...

user41796

1:37 PM

If I were to throw another answer out there, I would point out that the suggested changes make it more fair to other questions to get visibility. Once the ball starts rolling on a hot question, it's hard to knock it off of the charts

gnat

one is to simply let it go away

another to pass to Jimmy, his answer looks all-right to me

2

A: In hotness formula, discard answers when voting evidence indicates that these are not good data points

Personally I think this is a great idea. The collider in my experience clearly habits to attach to a fixed set of questions which all tend to have the same thing in common: Being the sorts of things everybody has an opinion about. If answers that lack distinct quality are not counted in the chanc...

user41796

Jimmy's answer had the lead at the moment.

user41796

I think we need a "but think of the poor children (answers) who never get a chance!" answer too. :-)

user41796

Views are still slowing inching up on the question

gnat

"slippery ping-pong between" - because, though I had not yet chance to get in line with my bounty here, it will most definitely be targeted at your answer (and I believe I would be able to prove my choice is fair)

@GlenH7 yup, education effect is just what I am hoping for at the moment. Views matter

user41796

1:42 PM

@gnat you had mentioned that the views tend to increase in the last day of the bounty. Does that include the 24 hour grace period as well? In other words, in order to maximize views should I assign it soon or wait until end of day but before grace expires?

gnat

@enderland it is possible with SEDE, save for that you won't know things about deleted questions (I think I found a dupe to your question sorry:)

@psubsee2003 with some tweaking, SEDE allows to collect user stats on close / reopen votes (as discussed eg here). these stats are kewed though, as there is no way to get it for deleted questions (relatedfeature request here). I think at Programmers I have few thousands CVs that are "invisible" to SEDE due to deletion — gnat Sep 5 at 10:57

@GlenH7 grace period, no. It's only when question is at the top of the featured tab; it goes out of it as soon as grace period starts

enderland

huh I'll have to plook at that

user41796

ok, I'll let it ride a few more minutes. Once it expires I'll award it.

enderland

VBA error handling is going to drive me nuts

:(

user41796

VBA is far easier when you just deny that errors could ever occur

user41796

1:49 PM

makes for clean code too

user41796

10k only link: Beautiful trolling question by Goma, and it earned a reversal: programmers.stackexchange.com/q/106397/53019

enderland

@GlenH7 .... this sounds like a great strategy!

user41796

not so surprising factoid: all 4 of our reversal badges have been awarded on questions that are now deleted

enderland

hah! I have the only one on Workplace

user41796

The title alone on your TW reversal question probably generated all of those downvotes

enderland

1:55 PM

just read the first version of the question...

user41796

the question alone is hilarious

user55340

Given how easy it was to manipulate a P.SE question into getting enough votes... and I suspect its just as easy if not easier on 'small' sites. I wonder how hard/easy it would be to do on SO.

enderland

great our intranet is super slow today, getting off to a great start.... since I'm dealing with files on network drives, nearly exclusively

gnat

urge for self promotion makes some people blind...

"Obviously it's not perfect" -- how does this answer the question asked? "Well designed etc" — gnat 1 min ago

@MichaelT at SO, one would better take care it stays under 2K (better 1K) views when manipulating votes. Per my observations, it looks like SO mods got a habit to pick and track questions at about that amount of views and cut crappy answers outta there (it's easy on no-code basis; we don't have such a luxury at Programmers / Workplace). As a result, there are less SO questions at collider and those with high views appear to have fewer answers (to those under 10K)

they generally are bold on cleaning up high-view questions; I recently noticed that in "croissants" question only because I saw 3 +1 in my rep that were returned as result of removal of 3 answers from it

...and by the way it's not the first cut at Croissants...

> "Croissants" went down from 16 to 14 answers in about an hour, between 1st and 4th revisions of this answer)

user55340

2:11 PM

They've got more 20k+ users patrolling the answers... we've gotta rely upon the mods (it will be interesting when we get active 20k reppers going after poor answers).

gnat

37

A: Dealing with "Find out who's going to buy the croissants"

I wasn't going to go out on a limb but since a follow up question has been asked... More importantly, why is it any of your business? ...I would like to address that. I for one am concerned about answers rather than the question. What I see in "Croissants", look painfully familiar to an is...

oh wait it is currently deleted, can't tell if that was done to answers

business as usual, oh well

Aug 2 at 17:14, by gnat

we're pretty strong community to handle that aren't we. At SO in comparison, they started crying and screaming, calling for mods and refunding bounties at single croissant

Aug 2 at 17:14, by gnat

@gnat: Yes, I saw that you posted the same comment below the question. One of the other SO mods had to lock the question again because of all the attention it is getting. The thing would die gracefully if we just all ignored it. If you want to talk about the collider, ask a new question. — Robert Harvey Jul 30 at 15:56

they even delete their whining comments from MSO

user41796

I wonder who nuked croissants

gnat

@MichaelT agree this could play a role, too

user55340

Side bit - programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/209517/… has 4 undelete votes and -1 more required - is this a glitch somewhere?

gnat

@GlenH7 ask ChrisF, he's got magic powers over there. Or put a bounty at that MSO question as sort of yet another scream test. At the time of MSO discussion, there was rampant close-delete-undelete-reopen war going there, mods even had to content lock it iirc

user41796

2:18 PM

I had hoped to scrape the votes from the timeline and add that to the eventual writeup I'll do on the tri-site question

gnat

@MichaelT someone fairly believes deletion was unfair, business as usual. You will be able to tell if it gets undeleted by looking into revisions history

user41796

@MichaelT I think Community got out of hand for a bit there. It nuked a couple of questions at that point that it shouldn't have. The other one I looked at wasn't worth salvaging so I didn't flag it. I flagged the FP vs. imperative for review, but all I got was "helpful" on the flag

user41796

It's a sad day when I would handle a diamond better than Community does.

user55340

user55340

That mod being Community?

gnat

2:28 PM

@GlenH7 the way to avoid cases like this is just to browse cliff questions and upvote worthy posts. I know this because I use it myself; after dropping like 100 first really crappy ones over the cliff I started noticing ones that looked worth moving farther from it. I think I already moved 5-10 questions away from the cliff with upvotes, and there's a couple more waiting in line for that

user41796

@MichaelT yep

user41796

At the next election, I'm going to campaign on being a better mod than Community

user41796

at least one answer has to have a positive score to keep Community from auto-deleting, right?

user55340

@gnat I've done that too.

user55340

@GlenH7 A +1 rep on an answer will prevent it.

user41796

2:32 PM

and likewise, they can get pushed over the cliff with a judicious downvote.... I can make Community do my evil bidding!!!

gnat

@MichaelT +1 score ("rep" is a typo right?). But that's not reliable since others browse it, too - their DV would bring it back to zero. I don't know yet how to deal with this; meanwhile I mostly stick with upvoting posts that are already at +1 / +2

user41796

hee hee. You can vote to reopen a deleted question. Go look at FP vs. imperative

gnat

terrific analysis for monstrous SO CV queue here...

30

A: What can be done about the massive Close Votes queue on Stack Overflow?

The review queue lengths express the community's collective opinion on the work asked from us. Some queues are always near zero: First Posts Late Answers Low Quality Posts Suggested Edits Reopen Votes This has to mean that the community thinks it is all right to chip in a little work to help...

The close vote queue on the other hand, is a proposition that the community is turning down. In the beginning you could say that it was huge because of all the old close votes hanging around in the system. Now, however, we have numerical evidence that it is growing on a daily basis, and can conclude that it is simply not handled in any meaningful way by the community, compared to the other queues.

I can see no other explanation than the community is rejecting the deal on the close vote queue. If we really wanted to go through it, we could. But we don't go through it, so it must mean that w…

user41796

@gnat "honey badger don't care...." :-)

gnat

markdown can do fantastic things!

2

A: Nested quote trolling

That becomes unreadable in the mobile version (screenshot for iOS 6, iPhone 5):

Dude! That's NSFW! — Bart 29 mins ago

user41796

2:43 PM

Answered my own Q by looking at rep after DV'ing. I want the rep cap more than I care to down vote. <sigh>

user55340

@GlenH7 Did you see that graph from my SO rep?

user55340

17 hours ago, by MichaelT

user55340

I downvote bad answers to bad questions, community deletes the question, and I get the rep back.

enderland

I downvote mediocre questions and mediocre answers

user55340

@enderland The thing is, if you downvote closed, negative score questions that have an answer that only has +1, community will activate the roomba and delete the question for you - don't need to involve the manual process of getting a bunch of 10k or mods to clean it up for you.

user41796

2:52 PM

@MichaelT but do I get my rep cap award for that day back. It's all about the rep caps.

user55340

Not sure - you might get it back for the next day to make it easier.

enderland

can you sort backwards on votes?

user55340

@enderland ?

enderland

err. like this: workplace.stackexchange.com/questions?sort=votes

but the opposite way, so you see the most downvoted Qs

user55340

Go to the last page?

user55340

2:56 PM

workplace.stackexchange.com/questions?page=147&sort=votes

enderland

wow. I'm an idiot

user55340

Note that the roomba won't clean up questions that have accepted answers either.

user55340

Thus the cliff question query is the best one to run against if you are after finding those.

user41796

@MichaelT that's what delete votes are for. :-)

enderland

@GlenH7 yeah I'm going to finally run out of votes :P

user55340

2:59 PM

@GlenH7 In my copious free time, I'll write the 'cliff fenced off junk' query.

user41796

@enderland There's a badge for that.... :-)

user55340

And it would take a concerted effort to push workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/13593/… over the cliff.

enderland

wooo shiney badges

I think I got that one by UVs once

should have a "negative nancy" badge if you max out voting JUST with downvotes? lol

user55340

Wait a moment.... ARRRRR!!!

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT Dread Pirate Turner returneth?

user55340

3:02 PM

google.com/…

user41796

@GlenH7 It was difficult to choose an "Accepted Answer" as so many people posted useful (and opposing) opinions on the matter. But I selected yours because of the effort you put into being thorough in your post and responsive in the comments. Thanks — kmote 1 min ago

gnat

inspired by our recent discussion about Low quality posts reviews...

user55340

@JimmyHoffa I go by the name of "Bootstrap" today.

gnat

0

Q: Low quality, but looks salvageable - trying to pick between 'Looks Good' and 'Recommend Deletion'

Doing reviews in low quality queue I often stumble upon weak attempts at answers that nevertheless look like salvageable. As a rule, these are brief opinions / recommendations that could possibly become of reasonable quality if (note: if) their authors explain why they recommend it as answering ...

discussion review low-quality-posts community-standards

user41796

It's wrong to suggest they accept another answer so I can get a Populist badge, right?

user41796

3:04 PM

But I love that rep from accepted answer isn't impacted by rep cap.

gnat

@GlenH7 rule of thumb: when you ask yourself if it's wrong, it's wrong in 99% cases. Just saved me from receiving slippery 500 bounty :)

enderland

hah

gnat

1 hour ago, by gnat

@GlenH7 yeah that would make it look like a slippery ping-pong between asker and answerer

user41796

speaking of which, I'll get that bounty awarded shortly. @enderland - consider this as last call for a shot at 500 MSO rep! :-P

enderland

Hah

user55340

3:08 PM

The 'fun' part of going after SO cliff questions - its like shooting fish in a barrel.

enderland

yeah no kidding

user41796

@gnat - hotness question is eligible for bounty again. :-)

user55340

You need to run the v2 version with the proper params to limit it so it doesn't time out - data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/133171/…

enderland

hit my deletion vote max. only 18? :(

user41796

I thought delete votes were 5 base + 1 more per 1k rep past 10k

user55340

3:12 PM

@GlenH7 I thought so too... might be different on beta-ish sites?

enderland

must be? crap I'm going to really need a lot of rep in the future then

user41796

could be. TW is still Beta, afaik

enderland

For a very long time, in interactions with people in my jobs and at school I always got complaints about arriving at cumbersome solutions and not thinking 'straight', i.e. arriving promptly and at the point to the heart of matters or for not 'just following the orders as told'.

right now I lost a job opportunity that I was looking forward very much to because of that: they said that my code solution (professional programmer here) was too cumbersome and the presentation was suboptimal.

How can I learn to think straight and avoid these traps?

(one of the questions I cast a vote on)

user55340

If the threshold for delete votes is say... 5k, then you've got that as the base with +1 for every 1k beyond?

enderland

or...

>I want to start selling muffins at the train stop in the mornings. What do I need to do legally to do this?

Jimmy Hoffa

3:13 PM

@enderland Bake the muffins. It is illegal to sell uncooked muffins.

user41796

um, what kind of muffins?

user41796

<bragging> I pulled another guru badge from the interview question. Yay me!

user55340

Q: What do vegetarian zombies say? A1: BRRRAAAAANNNNN. A2: GGGRRRRAAAAIIIINNNSSS.

enderland

I only have 2 of those on workplace? :(

user55340

@GlenH7 Open letter is at +75. A bit more, and I'll have the only great question on M.P.SE

user55340

3:18 PM

As it is, I've got the 3rd highest rep question there (82, 76, 75)

enderland

"rep"

user55340

3:42 PM

@enderland run data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/133171/… with the parameters 1, 300, 1, 1, 100 against SO.

user55340

(the 300 cuts it down to answers that are likely link only or just a code snippit). You can also see the views to see how helpful the answer is to other people - things not likely to be searched for.

enderland

hah

user55340

realize that I'm running through that list right now too... so...

enderland

:)

user55340

4:20 PM

"If you don't plan for things, they tend to happen" --- co-worker of mine

enderland

3 hours ago, by GlenH7

VBA is far easier when you just deny that errors could ever occur

Jimmy Hoffa

@jozefg woot last night I finally saw how to and implemented using applicative functors for type constructor validation. Trying to force myself through really groking applicative functors as I kind of skipped them straight to monads (monads are a little simpler in my mind, not sure why they just seem easier) but now I can do get my Header String Int String from getHeader name age state = Header <$> validateName name <*> validateAge age <*> validateState state

moral of the story: automatic partial application is literally the most amazing thing ever

@jozefg next applicative functor to tackle:
getHeader :: String -> Header
getHeader = Header <$> toString takeDrop 15 <*> toInt takeDrop 2 <*> toString takeDrop 2
test = getHeader "AmazingNameOne!88NY" == Header "AmazingNameOne!" 88 "NY"

the takeDrop bit seems far more monadic than applicative functor, but I think it can be done... implementing the toString / toInt functions will be much easier than the takeDrop

@jozefg should be a good exercise to understand applicative functors better, while making something mildly useful, having a way of separating raw input with takeDrop into fields, converting them, then validating them, all in a nice applicative interface that lines up beautifully with a type constructor to get raw data -> structured data (for the set of raw data that is a fixed-width field protocol)

gnat

4:39 PM

@GlenH7 thanks! I put a regular :) invitation to volunteers...

in The Water Cooler, 1 min ago, by gnat

again looking for volunteers to put "draw attention" bounty on a request about fake hotness score. I plan to do it myself on Monday, but won't mind if someone else does, to make it look even more like a community effort...

in The Water Cooler, 1 min ago, by gnat

For those interested, here's an explanation why I consider this important. And, if you plan a bounty please don't forget to pick the value from dropdown - I'd recommend minimal value

enderland

5:05 PM

in The Water Cooler, 19 secs ago, by enderland

@gnat done. only 50 rep though since I'm rep poor on M.SO :)

for the record, being able to rescind close votes means I don't have to feel bad voting to close a NARQ when asking a clarification question

user55340

5:50 PM

I think that wrapping up everything we do in the role called "Programmer" is like wrapping up the work which architects, construction workers, surveyers, eletricians, plumbers into a role called "Builders". The main difference being that people can understand the differences in construction roles. — Neil 10 hours ago

Ampt

7:03 PM

@MichaelT I was actually explaining that to one of my Architectural Engineering friends. I explained that its a bikeshed problem. Everyone understands the basics of a building. Software, not so much. Project management is a huge part of what I do in my classes.

user55340

When I get home, I'll try poking at this question

user55340

3

Q: Which of these two shuffle algorithms is more random?

Which of below two shuffle algorithms (shuffle1 and shuffle2) is more random? public final class Shuffle { private static Random random; public static void shuffle1(final Object[] array) { if (random == null) { random = new Random(); } for (int i = a...

java algorithms random

user55340

Compare the ordered data with each algorithm in ent.

user55340

(I'd love having a 'random' tag badge)

user55340

@GlenH7 and yea... I'm out of close votes...

user41796

7:12 PM

@MichaelT You're currently 2nd for all time on that badge. But you do have a ways to go in order to clear 100 votes on the tag.

user41796

@MichaelT I've been refactoring something that was supposed to be throw-away, so I've neglected P.SE today.

user55340

@GlenH7 100 in 20 answers for the bronze. Got a ways to go on it for both sides. Just need more people asking random questions.

user41796

I have always considered it unethical to retag questions I've answered in order to modify my tag counts. But I find it awesome that I'm 16 votes from a badge with C++

user55340

I'm at +26 with 7 answers...

user55340

@GlenH7 I think I've only tweaked tags in questions a few times... wasn't for tag count reasons.

user41796

7:15 PM

there have bee a few licensing questions that weren't tagged with it. And I considered retagging them, but I was pretty close to landing the badge and thought would look murky

user55340

Hmmf... random-numbers and random

user41796

there's a subtle difference between the two

user41796

not sure if appropriate for a synonym

user55340

There is a difference, not a synonym... just a 'hmf'

user55340

because I've got 7 in each with no overlap... oh if it was... I'd be at 14 and +75

user41796

7:19 PM

let the re-tagging begin!

user55340

The right answer is to find open questions without good answers in programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/…

user55340

(that I don't already have an answer in)

user55340

(there is some overlap of the tags)

user41796

Should we have a tag for over-engineering? But it's a short step to asinine from there.

user55340

And I doubt that I'd be able to improve upon

user55340

7:24 PM

53

A: How do functional languages handle random numbers?

You can't create a pure function called random that will give a different result every time it is called. In fact, you can't even "call" pure functions. You apply them. So you aren't missing anything, but this doesn't mean that random numbers are off-limits in functional programming. Allow me to ...

user55340

Hmm... maybe I could contribute to finding out how to randomly decide who buys the croissants...

user41796

I would not mind if Tim Horton's chose to invade the US. Their croissants are tasty

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Pfft croissants nothing. It's still unbelievable to me that the rest of the world completely lacks the american biscuit. What the hell do they eat with their gravy??

user55340

@JimmyHoffa cookies.

user55340

Biscuits and gravy

Biscuits and gravy is a popular breakfast dish in the United States, especially in the South. It consists of soft dough biscuits covered in either sawmill or sausage gravy, made from the drippings of cooked pork sausage, white flour, milk, and often (but not always) bits of sausage, bacon, ground beef, or other meat. The gravy is often flavored with black pepper. History American English and British English use the word "biscuit" to refer to two distinctly different modern foods. Early hard biscuits (North American: cookies) were derived from a twice-baked bread, whereas the North Amer...

user41796

7:30 PM

@JimmyHoffa don't the Brits have tack or similar?

Jimmy Hoffa

cookies and gravy? yeck. No way, some nice rich thick gravy from cooking your pork breakfast sausage over ... cookies? Nah. Not international "biscuits" either

@GlenH7 "biscuits" exist all over the world, they do not mean american biscuits however.

user41796

@JimmyHoffa clearly I know nothing of the matter then

user55340

Its a variation on the european scone.

Jimmy Hoffa

user41796

@MichaelT ?!? American biscuit being a variation on the scone?

Jimmy Hoffa

7:32 PM

There's a tuple right there of (american biscuit, international biscuit)

user55340

Buttermilk scones.

user41796

ah

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT yech. Not the same.

user41796

clearly I'm not the expert on pastries I thought I was. I should consume more.

user55340

7:33 PM

Scone

A scone is a single-serving cake or quick bread. They are usually made of wheat, barley or oatmeal, with baking powder as a leavening agent, and are baked on sheet pans. They are often lightly sweetened and are occasionally glazed. The scone is a basic component of the cream tea or Devonshire tea. It differs from a teacake and other sweet buns, which are made with yeast. A scone is not a type of pastry. Lexicology The pronunciation of the word within the United Kingdom varies. According to one academic study, two-thirds of the British population pronounce it with the preference risi...

user41796

I need to get sent to some dev confs in Europe so I can sample some more

Jimmy Hoffa

and it's not "british biscuit", because all over the world "biscuit" refers to a crunchy semi-sweet or salty thing

user55340

That first bit matches a US biscuit description.

Jimmy Hoffa

the closest approximation to a US biscuit outside of america is a croissant

user55340

And back to the biscuits and gravy page:

user55340

7:34 PM

> American English and British English use the word "biscuit" to refer to two distinctly different modern foods. Early hard biscuits (North American: cookies) were derived from a twice-baked bread, whereas the North American biscuit is similar to a savoury European scone.

user41796

oh, well if it's in Wikipedia, it's gotta be right

user55340

Its more the references to other sites that are useful - foodtimeline.org/foodcookies.html

user55340

> According to the food history reference books, "Ammonia" cookies are not one specific cookie recipe but a whole host of edible treats employing ammonium bicarbonate, an old-fashioned (probably now hard to get?) leavening agent. Ammonium carbonate is a byproduct of hartshorn, a substance extracted from deer antlers [harts horn]. Hartshorn is most commonly referenced in old cookbooks in jelly recipes. It was also known a source for ammonia, which could be used as a leavener.

user55340

o_O

user41796

Science!

user55340

7:37 PM

That must of smelled wonderful.

user55340

"Ammonia Cookies
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup lard
1/2 cup butter (or substitute vegetables shortening for lard and butter)
3 egg yolks
1 cups flour
1 tsp. dry ammonia
pinch of salt
Cream sugar and shortening: add yolks and stir well. Add flour and ammonia; roll dough in hands to size of walnut; bake in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) oven."
---"Mrs. Bert Vium: Presented as 'Original' Cook of the Week,' Racine Sunday Bulletin [Racine WI], May 22, 1955 (p. 29)

user55340

> Take one pound of butter, one pound of sugar, yolks of six eggs, hard-boiled, and flour enough to make a dough that is not too stiff. Dissolve three cents worth of ammonia (hartshorn) in scalded milk. Place the ammonia in a large bowl and pour one cup of scalding milk over it. After this has cooled add it to the dough with one-half cup of cold milk. Flavor to taste. Flour the pans and the cookie dough. Roll and proceed as with sugar cookies."

user55340

telegraph.co.uk/expat/4184879/…

user55340

> Biscuits: These are similar to savoury scones, and biscuits and gravy are a favourite meal here in Arkansas.

user55340

(its from a UK view going to the US)

user55340

7:45 PM

> Diaper: The American word for nappies. My youngest child was so disappointed when she delightedly told her preschool teacher that she didn't use a nappy anymore and was promptly told she'd still need to have one at school - the teacher thought she had been talking about naps.

user41796

not sure that I'd want to move from the UK to Arkansas.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT This is just making me hungry; I've been sucked in since I sat down this morning cranking away, no morning breakfast or lunch yet..

user55340

> My family and I moved to Arkansas from England two years ago as part of a company move. We were given all sorts of relocation assistance: someone to help find a house, to show us the schools, the athletic clubs etc. We were even sent a book called Hello! USA - Everyday Living for International Residents and Visitors. I dutifully read this from cover to cover and found out that Americans also shake hands, appreciate eye contact, and value personal hygiene and personal space.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I did know a fella from there, one thing he said was great about it is apparently a vast amount of hot springs (according to him)

user55340

> Pants: This word refers to the outer-garments that cover your legs in the US. In the UK, pants are the undergarments worn beneath your trousers.

user55340

7:48 PM

That could cause some hilarity.

user41796

it's a very pretty place too. But the indigenous population can leave a bit to be desired, IMO. I've met a few of the natives and I've been underwhelmed.

user55340

> My son learned this the hard way when, at two-and-a-half-years-old, he was playing in the park and my neighbour asked to see his pants - he was wearing some Disney-embroidered jeans. He promptly dropped his trousers and was startled by everybody's laughter.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Yeah, ironically the fellow I knew from there, his name was Homer, and I kid you not; he looked exactly like homer simpson. the sprig of hair up top with the wrap around under it, same exact body shape and hygiene habits. acted like him to (dopey as all get out but very friendly). Was an altogether weird experience to know the guy

I was actually brought in to replace him (but subsequently fled for a better oppotunity before my second month ended)

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I suspect you've never looked back either...

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 Nope. Just one of those strange footnotes everybody has a few of: I was at one point hired to replace homer simpson.

user41796

7:52 PM

Never knew you were NRC certified as an operator

stevetronix

Hi all, would you happen to know if it is it possible for a user to take advantage of a certain serious loophole in the computer's protection mechanism, by which the user could run his/her own program in the monitor mode or kernel mode?

user41796

True fact, friend of mine was cert'd in a previous life

user41796

@stevetronix that's a bit vague, but privilege escalation exploits are pretty dang common

user41796

In part, it depends upon OS, if the user has an account on the system, and what else is installed

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix You're dancing around something here (or perhaps new to software?) but what you refer to is excruciatingly common. The entirety of security is based around the fact that it's possible to elevate your privileges and execute arbitrary code if things aren't properly secured

user41796

7:55 PM

Injection attacks and buffer overflows are pretty common routes to those types of attack vectors

user55340

@stevetronix One place I worked allowed home directories to be mounted on nfs without squashing uid 0. I had a linux box for dev that I had root on (IT didn't want to admin it) - I mounted my home directory, and set a copy of /bin/sh to be setuid 0. I had root everywhere my home directory was (which was further a problem of not mounting the home directories remapping root to nobody). Broken privileges are everywhere.

user41796

@MichaelT That's brilliant.

user55340

@GlenH7 The operations group glared at me occasionally, but then when they couldn't get sudo access for things they needed from IT, copies of that program found its way to other directories and I didn't get any more glares.

user55340

Realize that the production external facing areas didn't mount home directories.

user41796

I have a similar story, but can't share it as I'm pretty the exploitable environment is still in place.

stevetronix

8:00 PM

hmm, how can a user make their program run in kernel mode? Would they have to hack the admin account? Can they also have their application make a system call with certain parameters to trigger an interrupt that the user wants in order to gain control of the system?

user41796

@MichaelT I wish I could claim that the production environment had been better sheltered than the test environment

user41796

@stevetronix yes to all of the above

user41796

Are you trying to hunt something down?

user41796

or figure out how to hack the system yourself?

stevetronix

no hacker here, just trying to answer a theory question

user55340

8:02 PM

5

Q: Difference between processes running in kernel mode and running as root?

I am aware of the difference between a process running in user mode and one running in kernel mode (based on access restrictions, access to hardware etc.). But just out of curiosity, what is the difference between a process running in kernel mode and one running as root?

security process operating-system kernel usermode

user41796

there are multiple answers in this case

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix What's the theory? Have you written much software? Or for very long?

user55340

10

A: Difference between processes running in kernel mode and running as root?

kernel mode and root are two separate ideas that aren't really related to each other. The concept of running a process as root is a unix/linux term that means you're logged in as the administrator of the system. Any process you run, whether as root or a normal user, generally runs in both user ...

stevetronix

@J

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix not to pry but I could answer in many different ways, most of which would probably not be very helpful to you based on what your understanding is on the topic at hand

stevetronix

8:03 PM

@JimmyHoffa it's for a course

user55340

codinghorror.com/blog/2008/01/…

Jimmy Hoffa

Homework or some such? Happy to help, perhaps you could give us a fuller detail of the homework problem you're dealing with?

stevetronix

@MichaelT thanks for the links. I'll be checking them out

user41796

Metasploit Project

The Metasploit Project is a computer security project that provides information about security vulnerabilities and aids in penetration testing and IDS signature development. Its best-known sub-project is the open source Metasploit Framework, a tool for developing and executing exploit code against a remote target machine. Other important sub-projects include the Opcode Database, shellcode archive and related research. The Metasploit Project is well known for its anti-forensic and evasion tools, some of which are built into the Metasploit Framework. History Metasploit was created by ...

user41796

That's the deep dive off of the cliff though

stevetronix

8:05 PM

@JimmyHoffa unfortunately the question itself is quite vague

Consider a computer running in the user mode. It switches to the monitor mode (also known as
kernel mode) whenever an interrupt or trap occurs, jumping to the address determined from the
interrupt vector. A malicious user took advantage of a certain serious loophole in the computer's
protection mechanism, by which the user could run his/her own program in the monitor mode! This
can have disastrous consequences.
a) What could have the user possibly done to achieve this?

Jimmy Hoffa

What piece of information you're exactly looking for isn't clear; your questions ask about an entire field of information rather than any given piece, we could point you to books but other than saying your answers are in those books we can't give you much else

user41796

@stevetronix - part of the problem is we could each rattle off a half-dozen answers or potential attack vectors based upon the peculiars of the environment

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix Ah this is much more clear!

You're in some lower level coding course then

user41796

I'd vote for buffer overflow. Common attack vector, good for escalation

Jimmy Hoffa

something about operating systems

stevetronix

8:06 PM

@JimmyHoffa right on

user55340

I vaguely recall some of this from my MIPS programming class.... LONG ago.

user41796

unchecked parameter variables are the key culprit.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 I think it's hiding in the words; the user caused an interrupt vector that pointed to a space in memory where they placed a program

user55340

kernel mode could have access to all memory.

user41796

Another option would be to insert the program name at a point to where you know there will be a System.exec() call with that program name. It's an older way of launching privileged sessions

user41796

8:07 PM

@JimmyHoffa soooo many easier vectors though... :-)

user41796

Interrupts generally force execution to a particular area of memory. If the hacker found a way to overwrite one of those areas, that would do the trick

user41796

depending upon how the stack was composed, you could still use a buffer overflow to make that work

user55340

b) - you're at the device driver level. What do you want to do? Scramble a disk? Launch another process with this user's permission? Tweak the process table?

user41796

insert a function to randomly twiddle every hundred-thousandth bit. Far more insidious.

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 yeah, I'm just basing it off the idea that in a course they give the information in the question they want you to base your approach off of

76

Q: Open letter to students with homework problems

It is September once again (today is the 7316th day of September), and once again students are asking their homework problems on Stack Overflow and Programmers.SE. We start seeing questions like: A car dealer has 10 salespersons. Each salesperson keeps track of the number of cars sold each m...

discussion featured questions

@GlenH7 you and I wouldn't do it that way, but the teacher may want them to think about doing it that way

user41796

8:15 PM

@JimmyHoffa you're right - and I forgot the rules of academia there. The prof will provide a hint to the answers they want to see.

stevetronix

@JimmyHoffa @GlenH7 yes, that makes sense, the vector points to a place in memory where they placed a program, so the user is forcing execution to an area of memory. How would a user place a program in memory though?

user41796

buffer overflow

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix Just run a program and the kernel gives you memory for your program

user55340

@stevetronix All the code is in memory - its just at different places in memory.

Jimmy Hoffa

you get the address of the start of an array that holds another program (you could read it in from file) and cause the interrupt to point there. Kernels can access all memory, including the memory in the middle of your usermode programs memory

user41796

8:17 PM

the application stack has to live in memory somewhere. Find a trusted application running at the right, low address point. Find an overflow attack on that application and you'll get the trusted application to do your writing for you.

user55340

Address space layout randomization

Address space layout randomization (ASLR) is a computer security technique involved in protection from buffer overflow attacks. In order to prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to a particular exploited function in memory (for example), ASLR involves randomly arranging the positions of key data areas of a program, including the base of the executable and the positions of the stack, heap, and libraries, in a process's address space. History In 1997 Memco Software implemented a limited form of stack randomization as part of it SeOS Access Control product. The PaX project first coin...

user41796

props to the google fu!

stevetronix

just looked at the open letter to students link, sorry guys

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix Don't be!

user41796

@stevetronix - no, you're fine

Jimmy Hoffa

8:19 PM

You gave us a detailed question, you showed you were thinking about it

user41796

MUCH better to ask here in chat. It's a fun exercise for us

user41796

It wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for main though.

stevetronix

I really appreciate all the help from everyone

user55340

@stevetronix Chat is quite reasonable... and yea, not a good question for the main site, it would be 'too broad'

user41796

although at this point, you could pose a hypothetical attack vector once you layout more details

Jimmy Hoffa

8:20 PM

@stevetronix I was actually pointing out to @GlenH7 that his approach is likely not what the teacher meant (just as that letter says, we think about various ways the teacher may not be intending for you to think about as he hasn't taught you about them)

user55340

And we're not giving you "skip to the end" but rather "other directions of investigation"

user55340

The way the Q&A side works, it needs an answer which may be skip to the end. We don't need to give answers in chat...

user41796

@JimmyHoffa I think I'd target a trusted / kernel mode driver such as keyboard or some other peripheral

user41796

mouse driver would be insidious to tap into

user41796

no expectation of poorly formatted input from there. "It's just a mouse!"

stevetronix

8:22 PM

In terms of question b), my thinking was that once a user is in kernel mode they can pretty much do anything, so the disastrous consequences could be attacking data, attacking other programs, or crashing the system

user55340

prank from old days - redirect /dev/random into /tty/mouse on an x windows session someone is using.

user41796

@stevetronix correct. Once you've got kernel access then you've p0wn'd the system

user41796

@MichaelT that may actually be the exploit the prof is looking for then

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 As would I, but the question speaks about a user 'violating the computers protection mechanism' this sounds like a user mode program violating the kernels memory protections to change the interrupt vector for the next interrupt, "violating the computers protection mechanism' doesn't sound to me like exploiting a driver or kernel mode process

user41796

that's fair.

user41796

8:25 PM

I'll assume we're not allowed to crack the case and alter the BIOS or MBR via hardware attack, right?

user41796

<sighs heavily> (taking away all the fun attack vectors)

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix Yeah you have it, a user who can execute code in kernel mode may do absolutely anything. This also includes them faking users on the system which may have access to other systems, potentially giving them full-privileged access to an entire network of systems

user55340

some fun reading from the Jargon file on priv escalations in the OLD days catb.org/jargon/html/os-and-jedgar.html

user55340

And then there's the second part of catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html

user55340

> Through a simple programming strategy, it was possible for a user program to trick the system into running a portion of the program in ‘master mode’ (supervisor state), in which memory protection does not apply. The program could then poke a large value into its ‘privilege level’ byte (normally write-protected) and could then proceed to bypass all levels of security within the file-management system, patch the system monitor, and do numerous other interesting things.

user55340

8:29 PM

One fine day, the system operator on the main CP-V software development system in El Segundo was surprised by a number of unusual phenomena. These included the following:

Tape drives would rewind and dismount their tapes in the middle of a job.

Disk drives would seek back and forth so rapidly that they would attempt to walk across the floor (see walking drives).

The card-punch output device would occasionally start up of itself and punch a ‘lace card’ (card with all positions punched). These would usually jam in the punch.

user55340

And a really fun one for those days...

user55340

> The Xerox card reader had two output stackers; it could be instructed to stack into A, stack into B, or stack into A (unless a card was unreadable, in which case the bad card was placed into stacker B). One of the patches installed by the ghosts added some code to the card-reader driver... after reading a card, it would flip over to the opposite stacker. As a result, card decks would divide themselves in half when they were read, leaving the operator to recollate them manually.

stevetronix

@JimmyHoffa true, the whole network aspect as well!

for c) could a possible solution to correct the loophole be to check the parameters being passed in system calls as well as some sort of memory protection

user41796

That's a good start, yes

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix Yeah sure. Think about the first part of what you just said; what would you check the parameters being passed in system calls for, specifically?

user55340

8:32 PM

MIPS (IIRC) had a different memory segment that was only writeable by kernel...

user55340

3

A: Why in MIPS Architecture program Space divided into 4 areas?

There are logical reasons for the existence of the memory segments: Caches in MIPS need to be initialized by boot code, (unlike x86 caches which are initialized by the hardware). The memory management unit (MMU) in embedded systems is optional, so it is useful to have explicit physical memory r...

stevetronix

@JimmyHoffa perhaps for what part of the Interrupt Vector Table the user is trying to trigger

user55340

> When bits 31:30 are 11, access is to kernel virtual memory. Only code that is part of the kernel can access this space. References to this space are translated through the TLB. The kernel uses the TLB to map kernel pages in memory as required, possibly in noncontiguous locations. Although pages in kernel space are mapped, they are always associated with real memory. Kernel memory is never paged to secondary storage.

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix Good thoughts. Keep digging around those holes, you have a solid answer for C, but you can improve it with more details about what you might look for and how you might know the request is bunk vs. safe

stevetronix

8:38 PM

@JimmyHoffa is there any way to check if the Interrupt Vector is pointing to an area in memory that has been allocated via user mode (by the user) and then impede it from being accessed

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix There could be if the kernel made such memory identifiable. How might the kernel do that?

@stevetronix though another thought is: Ask your teacher. He could be looking for totally different information, stuff based on early class topics we don't know about. I'm self taught so about as far removed from knowing what details your course goes over as can be

Based on the questions you posed, the information and answers you're presenting seem totally rational and correct to me, but maybe your teacher was looking for answers like "I would form a security team of members to assess the risks and plan mitigation processes, documented in our disaster recovery ordinance"

stevetronix

ok, I'll try that. So far some of the suggestions are in line with course topics, so that's been helpful

Jimmy Hoffa

(@ThomasOwens disaster recovery "ordinance". Yeah, I thought you'd like that, you can use it.)

stevetronix

Thanks for your time guys!

Jimmy Hoffa

@stevetronix Sure thing

user55340

8:48 PM

@stevetronix I'll point out that if the high bits of MIPS are '11', its kernel - not user. This is architecture dependent.

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