The Nineteenth Byte

7:00 PM

I also once wrapped a dry potato in dry paper towel and put it in the microwave on the "Baked Potato" setting. That also caught fire.

mbomb007

@flawr So, like a chicken-apple dumpling?

Geobits

> Velveeta is the brand name of a processed cheese product...

mbomb007

@Geobits Yeah, it's also the name of the product.

flawr

@mbomb007 Never had that=)

mbomb007

Slice up hotdogs and put those in the mac 'n cheese. mmm

Rainbolt

7:02 PM

@flawr Can you link to a recipe? I can't seem to find one

Geobits

I did add bacon to mine last time. It was quite good :)

Rainbolt

Cordon bleu with apple filling sounds awesome, but I'm not an inventor in the kitchen.

Alex A.

I read that as "I'm not the inventor of the kitchen."

Geobits

He's most likely also not that.

Alex A.

Well, yeah...

flawr

7:04 PM

@Rainbolt I've only had it once in a quite fancy restaurant, but let me see whether I can find something.

New Main Posts

0

Q: Escape control characters in a C string

C/C++ use double quotes "" for making string literals. If I want the double-quote itself, or certain other characters, to appear in the string, I have to escape them, like so: char *s2 = "This is not \"good\".\nThis is awesome!\n"; Here, I used \" to represent a double-quote, and \n to represe...

Geobits

The last time I got fancy with chicken, it was stuffed with ricotta/spinach/parmesan mixture and grilled. Highly recommended.

Alex A.

One of the best things I've ever had at a fancy restaurant was this cauliflower "steak." It was a big slice of cauliflower char roasted and served with a light curry sauce. So simple and yet so damn good.

Rainbolt

I made filet mignon over the weekend. Apparently everything I know about cooking New York strips applies to filets. I guess all steaks are the same.

flawr

I did find various receipes, most of them just said that you would fry apple slices in butter and then put it with the ham into the meat.

Rainbolt

7:06 PM

Minus cooking the fat on the side of the strip. Don't have to do that with filet mignon

Geobits

Mmmm.... steak fat...

Not as good as pork chop fat, but still good.

Peter Taylor

@AlexA. But have you ever intentionally made something catch fire in a microwave?

flawr

@PeterTaylor Lightbulbs in microwaves are awesome.

Alex A.

@PeterTaylor Uh, no...

Peter Taylor

@flawr As are sliced grapes.

Rainbolt

7:08 PM

@Geobits I cannot stand pork chops, but I love pork loins. And they are almost as cheap.

Geobits

CDs too.

Alex A.

A friend of mine once put a nail in a microwave, set it to the maximum time, and left the house.

It melted through the turning bit and down into the gears.

I was surprised he had a house to come back to.

Geobits

@Rainbolt A big loin roast is great :)

mbomb007

@AlexA. This looks pretty cool... Microwave SMELTER

El'endia Starman

@AlexA. ...did he think though the possible consequences of that action?

Alex A.

7:10 PM

@El'endiaStarman Knowing him, probably not.

El'endia Starman

Make Plasma With Grapes In The Microwave!

►

Geobits

We took the magnetron out of a microwave at work once and made a makeshift waveguide out of dryer hose. You could point it at electronics from across the room and they'd flip out :D

flawr

OMG I didn't even recognice young Derek without beard=)

Rainbolt

@Geobits What is a big loin roast? Is that the same as this?

Alex A.

@flawr ?

mbomb007

7:11 PM

I was looking for a specific video, but couldn't find it. In the video, a guy took some parts from the MC and made a superconductor. He used it to melt steel.

Geobits

@Rainbolt Yes, "big" is relative.

@AlexA. Bah. Magnetron.

Rainbolt

I want to get a "relatively big" pork loin and roast it now.

2

flawr

@AlexA. The guy in the video is Derek Muller from the youtube channel "Veritasium"

mbomb007

@Rainbolt Did you mean "pork"? lol

Alex A.

@flawr Oh, okay. I'm not familiar with him or that channel.

Geobits

7:12 PM

@mbomb007 Aww, you're supposed to let it hang for two minutes so it's not editable. Then star :D

flawr

@AlexA. You should watch his videos=)

Rainbolt

@mbomb007 Yes... haha thanks

mbomb007

@Geobits I didn't know about the 2 min rule.

Rainbolt

"n" isn't anywhere near "k". I wonder how that happens...

Geobits

Freudian slip, I believe it's called.

mbomb007

7:14 PM

@Geobits I say star it anyway. Edit history is viewable.

Rainbolt

Lmao. urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Freudian+slip

2

mbomb007

@Rainbolt LOL

flawr

Here is how to shoot yourself when flying an armed aircraft:

aerofiles.com/tiger-tail.html

2

Rainbolt

I forget if I mentioned this, but my lunch consisted of me changing a tired for 30 minutes and then not getting to actually eat lunch

So I am really into this food discussion

Geobits

Sounds like a good diet plan if nothing else.

Rainbolt

7:18 PM

I already sweat off 7 lbs last week when I was sick for a day and a half

Geobits

I guess we should talk more about chicken, bacon, and cheese then.

Rainbolt

I just had a wonderful idea

mbomb007

@Rainbolt If you took a lunch to work instead you wouldn't have that problem.

Rainbolt

You know how some people like to put a lot of salt on their steak?

What if we take bacon bits and make them smaller, like salt grains

And use bacon as salt

Calvin's Hobbies

It would be too viscous to pour

Also gross

Rainbolt

7:21 PM

Have you ever actually bought bacon bits? They last forever on the shelf.

Geobits

It would certainly be interesting. I'm not sure one way or the other. Let us know the results of your experiment.

Rainbolt

Oh, the bacon bits I buy apparently aren't made of bacon. That explains a lot...

Calvin's Hobbies

Well their crunchiness is one of their good points

Rainbolt

Real bacon bits only last for a week refridgerated, apprently.

mbomb007

@Rainbolt Sounds like a party. Why not just replace everything party-related with bacon? No glitter? USE BACON! Need party-poppers? USE BACON! Balloons? USE BACON! Napkins? BACON! Plates? BACON! Silverware? BACON!

Geobits

7:23 PM

Yea, real bacon bits aren't normally as crunchy. Better though :)

Rainbolt

I could have sworn that the high salt content in bacon made it last for a long time

Geobits

If you dry it out completely it probably would, like jerky.

Calvin's Hobbies

Shredded jerky is a thing after all

flawr

Why do we have 73 to-be-reviewed items?

Alex A.

I don't know!

This is bizarre

Rainbolt

7:27 PM

Should I run through every single one and mark "No Action needed"?

Alex A.

No

You should actually use the review system and take action when necessary.

Rainbolt

Well, this seems like an exceptional case.

The answer I'm staring at is four years old

El'endia Starman

@flawr Just had that happen on C.SE too. 125 "late answers".

Calvin's Hobbies

The mods are too busy with their programminati society

Rainbolt

1

Q: Why did the late answer queue spike on Sep 29, 2015?

The late answer queue just went to 1.2k on Mathematics. On other sites the same happened (EL&U 850, SO 1.5k, TeX-LaTeX 500). Why did this happen? According to a comment on this post, there are no old late answers left over since begin 2013: No, the "minimum creation date" is being automati...

discussion review late-answers

Geobits

7:28 PM

This looks suspiciously like they dumped a bunch of audits on us.

El'endia Starman

@Rainbolt +1 to +6 within a minute.

Rainbolt

Lucky guy

Geobits

Oh, they changed the rep cutoff for "late answers".

Rainbolt

Apparently Arqade has 1.8k review items

That's scary

Alex A.

It makes sense that they'd change it to the rep threshold for commenting but... oh god, the queues

flawr

7:33 PM

math.SE is about 1.2k

Geobits

Funny, SO is only 1.3k.

Rainbolt

That's because SO is crunching through the review queue

Meanwhile, Arqade appaears to be not moving very much

That, or the same guy is doing all of the reviews

El'endia Starman

@yo': Well, we are about to find out. ;-) Just to note, the answers should not be older than a month and the current spike should be temporary. — Jon Ericson ♦ 4 mins ago

I'm betting some SE employees are going ".....oops. Oh crap oh crap oh crap..." right now.

Alex A.

@ChrisJester-Young Can you confirm? ^ :P

Zach Gates

I just got the strangest call..

Does anyone know if this is legit?

Peter Taylor

7:46 PM

It has "marketing" in the name, so it clearly isn't.

Alex A.

^

@flawr What is it with you and aeronautical disasters? XD

Zach Gates

@PeterTaylor What about this?

Alex A.

Nope

Zach Gates

> This company manufactures and markets Cutco Cutlery. Vector Marketing Corporation sells its products via independent contractors who sell Cutco Cutlery on a direct sales basis through personal appointments.

Alex A.

Yeah, it's one of those things where they make people buy tons of knives then try to sell them door to door to pay it off.

Zach Gates

7:49 PM

Oh.

I got the strangest call from them

Alex A.

The company comes out ahead because nobody buys knives from some random guy who shows up at their house.

So they get the revenue from the door-to-door salespeople purchasing knives to sell but the salespeople can't recover the cost from actual sales.

Zach Gates

Bet I go down to Orange Mound and sell some knives..

That company has called me 4 times in a week (I picked up the fourth time).

Alex A.

Better yet, go to this orange mound and cut up some oranges. Sell those door-to-door.

Zach Gates

They claimed that a friend of mine (from two+ years ago) went through his phone and gave them my name.

@AlexA. Orange Mound is an extremely violent area in Memphis. Cops beat people in the streets (no, seriously). If you live there, at night you can here weapons going off all through the night (not necessarily shooting at anyone).

Alex A.

Hm.

Sounds like the kind of area where you wouldn't want to sell cutlery for fear that it would actually get purchased.

Zach Gates

7:54 PM

Well, at least it would get purchased.

Alex A.

You'd basically be an arms dealer at that point.

Zach Gates

Looks like I won't be attending the interview I set up, haha

Alex A.

Oh, you set up an interview to sell knives?

Zach Gates

I didn't know thats what the company did >.>

And she didn't say the job was door-to-door salesman..

Peter Taylor

Of course not.

Zach Gates

7:56 PM

Blindsided me with this, tbh

4 mins ago, by Zach Gates

They claimed that a friend of mine (from two+ years ago) went through his phone and gave them my name.

Peter Taylor

She probably said it was something more respectable-sounding, like playing piano in a brothel.

2

Alex A.

You'd at least make more doing that than selling knives.

Zach Gates

$18/hour she said

Made it sound like it was an over-the-phone marketing job

At first she assumed I was 17, which I thought was strange since they'd never spoke to me

Alex A.

Could be phone-to-phone knife sales rather than door-to-door.

Zach Gates

This was helpful:

Vector Marketing

Vector Marketing is the domestic sales arm of Cutco Corporation, an Olean, New York based cutlery manufacturer. Vector Marketing Corporation is the company’s sales division. ALCAS Corporation is the parent company. == HistoryEdit == Vector Marketing Corporation and Cutco Cutlery Corporation are wholly owned subsidiaries of Cutco Corporation. Formerly known as Alcas Corporation, the company was created as a joint venture between Alcoa and Case Cutlery. The factory in Olean, New York was completed in 1947, and the first set of Cutco Cutlery was shipped to New Kensington, Pennsylvania that same year...

Alex A.

8:00 PM

Ah yes, lawsuits with enough publicity to make it to the Wikipedia page.

Zach Gates

> They recruit sales representatives from high schools and college campuses in the United States and Canada, sometimes through misrepresentation of affiliation with the school.[6] Students are employed as independent contractors to sell Cutco products (mainly kitchen knives) to customers, typically their friends and family members via one-on-one demonstrations.

@AlexA. They set up my interview for one of the shadiest office buildings I know of, haha. Talk about lawsuits..

Alex A.

@ZachGates Called it

PhiNotPi

sketchiness level: very high

Zach Gates

^

Alex A.

"Hella sketch," one might say.

Though one shouldn't.

Since this isn't 2002.

5

Zach Gates

8:02 PM

I don't think I've ever seen someone actually come or go from that building..

But there's always cars there.

Daniel M.

QQ: how do you convert an character to an ascii codepoint in CJam?

Zach Gates

It's in a very strange location, too. Right on the side of the interstate.

Alex A.

@DanielM. Ask politely

PhiNotPi

People who were born in 2002 are now teenagers and have created their own, new teenage slang.

Alex A.

That's terrifying to me.

ETHproductions

8:03 PM

I've got another question about reviewing something...

Alex A.

Okay

Daniel M.

Wow, that notification was loud.
Can you please tell me how to convert a character to an ascii codepoint?

ETHproductions

What would be the best thing to do with this?

El'endia Starman

@PhiNotPi They were also born after 9/11, so they've never known a time when the USA was not at war.

ETHproductions

None of the "Recommend Deletion" options fit the problem.

Alex A.

8:04 PM

@DanielM. Haha I don't mean ask us, I mean ask CJam politely. It was a failed attempt at a joke.

@ETHproductions I deleted without comment. The comment on the post describes the issue to a tee.

ETHproductions

OK, thanks

We should probably add a "Not an answer to the question at hand" option.

Zach Gates

I'm technically a 90s kid :P

ETHproductions

Same here

Alex A.

@ETHproductions Or you could just add a comment to the post saying "this doesn't do what the question is asking" then vote to delete without a reason.

ETHproductions

@AlexA. Makes sense. I'll do that in the future.

El'endia Starman

8:07 PM

@ZachGates 1992 here, so I'm definitely a 90s kid, but I remember more of the 2000s. :P

Alex A.

I'm also a 90s kid but I'm on the other side of the 90s from you two.

1990.

Zach Gates

mid-1999 :D

Alex A.

@ETHproductions Wait, isn't there a delete vote reason that says "Not an answer"? IIRC the description of it says "should have been a comment maybe or whatever idk" but that aside, "Not an answer" is technically true in cases such as the one you linked.

Peter Taylor

@DanielM. i

Daniel M.

@PeterTaylor Thanks, that seems to work.

New Main Posts

8:20 PM

Hello I am a bot and this question is off topic

ETHproductions

^ voted to close

Alex A.

Closed

Chris Jester-Young

@AlexA. I don't really follow the goings-on in the community team at this stage, so I can't really say anything more than, yes, that thread has been talked about quite a bit today.

Alex A.

Haha

ETHproductions

I was wondering why we had three late answers in our queue, I've only ever seen one in the past.

Did we originally have more?

Alex A.

8:26 PM

We had 96 earlier.

ETHproductions

Wow.

Alex A.

I reviewed 66 late answers.

Some sites had over a thousand!

ETHproductions

At least it wasn't 1.8k xD

Alex A.

Yes!

Btw, thanks to the folks who went through the unusually large late answer queue today!

ETHproductions

I expect we'll run into them more often from now on, right?

But not 100 a day

Alex A.

8:30 PM

Perhaps, yeah. IIRC the threshold is now 50 rep, the same as to comment.

So if you're a new user and you answer something old, we'll take a close look at it.

We'll either let you pass or blast you into hell.

ETHproductions

LOL

Does "deleting" an answer revoke the rep you had earned off of it?

Alex A.

Yes

ETHproductions

Ah

Alex A.

But it comes back if you undelete

(IIRC)

ETHproductions

It should

IMO

Alex A.

8:33 PM

I could delete one of your high-voted answers. You know, for science.

ETHproductions

Gee, thanks for the offer, but I'd really rather you not ;)

Alex A.

Haha

Tempting, I know.

ETHproductions

It's awfully hard to resist a mod's suggestion.

Alex A.

Especially when you could contribute to The Greater Good™.

Geobits

Well what the hell. Apparently my license plate was expired. And apparently instead of giving you a ticket or something similar, they just tow your fucking car to the impound lot around here.

Alex A.

8:39 PM

What the hell indeed.

Geobits

This is going to be a fun day.

Alex A.

Sorry about your car. Hopefully your kid wasn't still in it.

Geobits

Ha, no. I just now paid it up over the phone anyway. Now I'm just waiting on my ride, because I do still need to pick the kid up from day care :)

ETHproductions

As my dad would say, "Back in my day, we didn't even have tow trucks, so they would just smash the car with rocks!"

Beta Decay

@Optimizer grab your saddle, Geobits needs help!

Alex A.

8:41 PM

@Geobits He can get a cab.

Geobits

I'm not sure he's got that kind of pocket money. Cabs around here aren't cheap. He'd prefer a llama ride anyway, I'm sure.

31 4

What on earth?

What? It's just some generic user.

Who just happens to be called Generic User

ETHproductions

I thought it was some sort of alternative to the userXXXXX accounts

Geobits

Generic User 1

Alex A.

8:44 PM

Genetic User

ETHproductions

Oh look, a challenge with 15 answers, but none in JS! Better get on it!

Alex A.

I'm tantalizingly close to 10k rep. Three more answer upvotes.

ETHproductions

I'm on it!

Geobits

>_>

Alex A.

Haha no, don't serial upvote me

ETHproductions

8:50 PM

jk

Geobits

What about serial downvoting?

ETHproductions

I'll let it happen naturally, it's more rewarding that way :)

Alex A.

@Geobits Tempting offer, but I'll pass. :P

Geobits

Awww... and here was my chance to get back to 50% :(

Alex A.

50% of what?

ETHproductions

8:51 PM

@Alex Hey, you have 199 answers, too, why not post one more?

Geobits

Right now I'm 768 up, 759 down.

Alex A.

@ETHproductions Who has 199?

I have 210

Geobits

Your profile does say 199.

Do you have some deleted?

Alex A.

Yeah, that must be it

I've deleted all sorts of my own crap, even today.

Geobits

Make sure you flush() after you delete() your crap.

Alex A.

8:54 PM

Wouldn't flushing be the metaphor for deleting feces though?

Geobits

Depends on what you're deleting it from, I guess.

Alex A.

Oh I see.

El'endia Starman

Welcome to the PPCG main chat room, where you can see two high-rep users talking crap.

Alex A.

Correction: talking about crap.

There's a difference.

Geobits

I wish. 10k used to be high-rep around here, but Martin had to go and spoil it.

Alex A.

8:57 PM

Dennis too.

3/4 of the other mods have significantly higher rep than I do, by a factor of 2 or more.

(gnibbler is closer to me in rep but still higher)

El'endia Starman

@Geobits My thought process: "Ha, what're you talking about? 10k is high rep." -> [looks at all-time rep page] ".....oh."

By way of comparison, C.SE has 14 10k+ users, whereas PPCG has 30.

ETHproductions

Funny how we have exactly 30 10k'ers ATM. Fills up the first page perfectly.

Geobits

Well, at least I'm still on the first page. That's something, right? Right?

Alex A.

RIGHT!

You're even a tier above me, senpai.

ETHproductions

@Alex I notice you have dropped 110 rep...

Alex A.

9:01 PM

Uh what

ETHproductions

Oh, maybe that's a cache glitch

Alex A.

I think so

Should I blame caching? Perhaps. Better blame Geobits instead to be safe though.

ETHproductions

You're at #32 on this page for me

Alex A.

That's a little behind.

I've passed steveverrill now, but just a bit ago.

ETHproductions

At this moment, there are 8138 10k'ers on SO.

Alex A.

9:03 PM

:O

ETHproductions

And 312 100k'ers.

El'endia Starman

Infinitely many more than either of us.

Or rather, undefinedly many more, depending on how you approach it.

Well, actually, if you do approach it, then it would be infinitely.

ETHproductions

On the other hand, Computer Graphics has 0.

Alex A.

They're pretty new.

I'm sure Martin and trichoplax will be there in no time.

Doorknob

@El'endiaStarman hahaha :D

ETHproductions

9:18 PM

I have this weird piece of JS that doesn't return anything, but Firefox apparently thinks it returns 4. I guess 4 is cosmic.

Alex A.

Maybe it really does return 4.

ETHproductions

It's just for loops, if statements and console.log()s.

No clue how that could happen.

El'endia Starman

Exit code, perhaps?

ETHproductions

If anyone wants to look through it, here you go:

for(i=0;i<1e3;i++){l=[k=0];for(j of[...`${i}`]){(l.indexOf(+j)>-1||i%j)&&k++;l.push(+j)}k||console.log(i);}

It generates the Monday numbers up to 1000.

And now it returns 2.

New Main Posts

9:38 PM

0

Q: Solve equations with true and false

If you add true and false in many programming languages it returns 1, for example in c++ #include <iostream.h> int main() { cout << true+false; return 0; } 1 Your challenge is to make a program or function that can solve basic mathematical equations using only true and false as numbers: A...

code-golf

ETHproductions

9:48 PM

Important lesson of the day: never loop over every digit of every integer from 1 to 1e7.

Alex A.

Doesn't take that long in Julia on my computer.

ETHproductions

JS on Firefox took 10 full minutes. The 10 longest minutes of my life.

Alex A.

Haha

Doorknob

Rust can do it in 19.93 seconds on my (slowish) machine:

fn main() {
    for i in 0..10_000_000 {
        for d in i.to_string().chars() {
            ();
        }
    }
}

ETHproductions

Well, I was also adding each digit to a list, checking against that list, and outputting the ones that worked.

Doorknob

9:55 PM

@ETHproductions Is it this, with the 1e3 replaced with a 1e7? I bet I could rewrite that in Rust and take less than a fifth of the time running it :P

Alex A.

Pffft. Rust, am I right?

ETHproductions

@Doorknob Yes, pretty much.

I can rewrite it to be more efficient, but then it wouldn't be nearly as short ;)

Chris Jester-Young

10:19 PM

@Calvin'sHobbies Just to show how small of a world it is, the online Minesweeper you linked to was written by a former SE employee. ;-)

Alex A.

10:33 PM

Jeff Atwood?

Chris Jester-Young

@AlexA. Why don't you go on the site and find out? It's prominently mentioned. ;-)

Alex A.

Laziness

haha

Emmett Nicholas, founding engineer at Stack Exchange.

Very cool :)

New Main Posts

10:59 PM

0

Q: Crack a Vigenère Cipher

A Vigenère Cipher is encrypted by repeating a keyword to be the length of the plaintext, and summing each character in that text with the corresponding letter in the plaintext modulo 26. (using A=0,B=1 etc.) For example, if the keyword is LEMON and the plaintext is ATTACKATDAWN, then the key is ...

code-golf cryptography

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