The Nineteenth Byte

Sandbox Posts

12:06

0

[KotH] Play a game of Nose Poker Nose Poker is an ogre game played by a group of ogres. Each ogre brings a large nose and a small club. On each hand, all the ogres will declare how many times they will poke their nose with the club. Each time, the lowest bid(s) will be knocked out of the game, th...

lyxal

Completely unrelated, but just a friendly reminder that this was once my profile picture

AJFaraday

@math Fair point. I can't really think of a way to test out the importer without one, tho I know they're annoyng.

Anush

@Neil you are a genius :)

I also didn't know you could actually use 128 bit constants

the default.

that was a 64-bit constant, and I don't think 128-bit constants exist

Anush

12:33

@thedefault. right. It's very odd that this is still the case in 2021

the default.

128-bit integers are not standard

pxeger

128 bit ints are not very commonly used, to be fair

oh yeah, they're also not standarised in C

Anush

Right but normally gcc takes the lead

I would have thought gcc would have extensions for uint128_t

And then C can catch up in 2050 :)

user

@lyxal Did you ever have an amogus pfp?

@lyxal String.valueOf(new Integer((int) Integer.valueOf(10))) :p

lyxal

12:49

@user yes

Let me find it first

May 1 at 0:05, by New Meta Posts

0

Q: Language of the Month for May 2021: Vyxal

In accordance with our meta agreement, since one candidate received more votes than the others, we have a new featured language! Throughout May 2021, our Language of the Month will be: Vyxal What's a Language of the Month? See the meta post for nominations. In short, during May, those who wish ...

See

Sus

caird coinheringaahing

@pxeger I applied to Kings College and 4 others. 3 of the others got back to me in days, with unconditional offers. One took a couple of weeks. You can't accept an unconditional offer until all 5 get back to you. The deadline for accepting was June 1st. By May 29th, King's still hadn't got back to me, and I had already decided to accept Bristol's offer, so I retracted my application to Kings

pxeger

oh that's a lot more complicated than I expected

caird coinheringaahing

Yeah :P

Warwick took a few weeks to get back to me, just to reject me because I haven't taken the Step exam :P

@AJFaraday Can you not reuse them?

pxeger

why didn't you check that before applying lol

caird coinheringaahing

@pxeger I did, but I figured because I was applying late, they might give me a conditional on sitting the exam :P

pxeger

12:58

oh ok

the whole system is so complicated for anyone other than a 6th former doing A-levels applying for the next year, following the exact "normal" path lol

lyxal

laughs in got into uni based on my marks from the year before graduation

because we do that here

pxeger

@lyxal that's what "normal" students in the UK sort of do too

you get conditional offers based on your "predicted" grades (and other requirements like interviews or whatever), and then you accept 2 of those offers, and if you meet the conditions (which are typically "get these grades", then you get in to that uni)

lyxal

@pxeger lol mine was unconditional.

Heck, I got the offer about a week or so after my final exam

No wait, it was the very next day

pxeger

oh yeah, you can also get unconditional offers or sometimes offers like EEE (terrible grades, but on the assumption you will definitely do better than that so it's effectively unconditional)

caird coinheringaahing

@pxeger EE, also known as "the royal grade" :/

pxeger

13:13

lmao

this looks so unbelievably wrong

(aside: I just spelt "unbelievably" right the first time; this is unbelievable)

lyxal

@pxeger That do be how StackExchange works

@cairdcoinheringaahing EE?

Error Error?

Extra Error?

Searching for EE grade on DDG returns stuff about pencils and other stuff

pxeger

I think caird said it because the royal family are so stupid they only get 2 E's (most people do 3 subjects) but then still get in to unis because they're the royals?

lyxal

I still don't know what E is

Is it the least poggers grade?

caird coinheringaahing

Yeah, Charles' offer to Oxbridge was two E's (the lowest passing grade)

AJFaraday

@cairdcoinheringaahing Usually, yes. Although on this occasion there was an answer from someone else (I'd asked them to try out the mechanism), and so I couldn't clear that out to do my testing.

pxeger

13:32

@lyxal well there's also U, which means you missed the exam or you drew a massive cock and balls on the front of the paper or something which means they didn't bother marking it

caird coinheringaahing

The 2021 Community-a-thon has begun

Essentially a 4 week event where staff members at SE are encouraged to "go out into the wild" and engage with other sites on the network

pxeger

"Improve Empathy" is a somewhat clinical way of putting it

Catija

Is it?

Hmmm.

user

14:00

Can we considerably improve the empathy between the two parties by having @Catija make a cake for us? And we'll give stroopwafels ;) — Ollie 7 mins ago

Never eaten a stroopwafel, but I think SE's popularity would rise considerably if they made us all cakes and stroopwafels :P

Catija

14:15

Stroopwafels are amazing.

user

Do they taste pretty much like ordinary waffles? They look pretty similar

Catija

They're like waffle cones with a very light caramel syrup.

And they're best served while warm and still a bit soft.

Here's a video that shows how they're made:

Stroopwafel recipe - How to make stroopwafels

►

4

caird coinheringaahing

@cairdcoinheringaahing Interesting that this seems to be a somewhat contentious issue

user

14:31

Those look really nice, I need to try them sometime

The stroopwafels, not the HTML changes, I mean

Catija

Not sure where you are, but there are companies selling them in groceries in the US, so you can get some rather than having to make them from scratch - I've not tried making them myself but my dad has a pizelle iron so I may see if I can borrow it sometime.

user

@cairdcoinheringaahing I think some people think that userscripts shouldn't be SE's first priority because they're third party hacks, maybe

hyper-neutrino

We're not even asking for it to be a top priority though, just that when they change something just say "hey we changed this" and if anyone needs to they can just fix whatever they must.

Catija

I think rene's answer on the linked question makes a lot of sense - Not sure if you've read it. He's in a similar position but he also knows that asking us to give a heads-up can be really hard.

hyper-neutrino

(link for quicker access)

Catija

14:35

Thanks :D

caird coinheringaahing

Ideally there'd be some way of just posting like an unparented "comment" saying "Hey y'all, we just changed X to Y, check if that breaks anything", where its not even a full post, just something to let those in the know know

user

His answer makes sense, but would it be possible to deprecate or warn users about certain parts of the API before removing/modifying them?

Catija

I don't think we mess with the API very often?

And even when we did recently, the older version still worked - but... I'm not a dev so I may be missing something obvious.

user

Sorry, probably misused the word API, I meant the UI and other stuff people mess with

hyper-neutrino

I don't think SE should really care about what unofficial extensions they might affect when making the changes, but it would save digging through source code and debugging if we just knew "oh yeah they added IDs to the headers so shit's broken". Of course, some scripts won't be mantained anymore like rene mentioned and there's nothing wrong with that.

Granted, I don't know how often SE changes components, but would it be totally infeasible to have some changelog posted somewhere so whenever a change happens it just mentions which part changed and what? Like, for this change, it could literally just be one sentence saying "The HTML in headers within posts now contains an ID", and that's enough for us to figure out what went wrong with OSP.

Catija

14:38

We use GH, but I'm not sure they have a way to make a publicly-viewable changelog that just shows the comments or something like that.

caird coinheringaahing

Having a "recent updates" Q/A that's edited when changes are made might work

user

Perhaps a separate repository used only for a public changelog?

Or an RSS feed?

Catija

... I mean, it all goes back to rene's main point - anything extra that's added reduces the amount of work that devs can do because they're having to remember to create these public artifacts.

caird coinheringaahing

Isn't there already a MSE post for the changes/additions by month for each year?

Catija

Yep. But they're usually much larger changes.

hyper-neutrino

14:41

I have a rather silly idea.

We can create a bot to scrape one of each type of available SE webpage like once a day or so and if any changes are detected it can run a diff on the files and then one of us can figure out what the change is an update a post somewhere.

I can understand devs having better things to do with their time - a lot of us clearly have too much of that anyway though ;)

caird coinheringaahing

@hyper-neutrino But what if SE changes something that breaks the bot? :p

user

The problem with that is that it might notify you even when there's no cause for alarm

hyper-neutrino

True (like if someone edits the post we are scraping lol)

user

(Which isn't necessarily a terrible thing)

hyper-neutrino

but that's why someone would go through and find the exact change to update it, or if there's no change, ignore it

Catija

14:47

If it's not difficult to build, you could certainly try and then see how noisy it is and try to optimize.

If it was beneficial, it might be something others would help improve - like Charcoal or SOBotics.

hyper-neutrino

If there is interest in that I can create a meta post with every single markdown/HTML feature in it and lock it for a reference point ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think this could possibly work

Page content itself changes all the time though so I'll probably want to get an HTML parser and try to see when the structure itself changes

~~time to use some regex~~

user

RIP HN

Catija

What's wrong with HN?

caird coinheringaahing

Parsing HTML with regex :P

hyper-neutrino

I think it was a joke about using regex to parse HTML.

(To be clear, "HN" usually refers to me here, not Hacker News, just in case that was confusing.)

Catija

14:58

HAHAHAHAHA

I went to look and see if something was wrong with the site.

caird coinheringaahing

@hyper-neutrino Clearly you are Hacker News, conspiracy solved :P

hyper-neutrino

:o

caird coinheringaahing

Ugh, I keep getting ads on YT for unis :/

I miss the days when ads were so bad at tracking user data that they'd be completely random

hyper-neutrino

have you heard about the Target targeted ads (lol) that managed to figure out that a teen girl was pregnant before her father even did?

(Forbes article)

pxeger

yes

Redwolf Programs

15:09

All of the YT ads I get are completely random and unrelated to my interests lol

pxeger

@cairdcoinheringaahing ublock origin + sponsorblock = barely even know what an ad is

@RedwolfPrograms ^

Redwolf Programs

The most recent example I remember was an ad for birth control for cows

hyper-neutrino

uh. what

caird coinheringaahing

@pxeger But then how will you know that this chat message was sponsored by NordVPN?

hyper-neutrino

@cairdcoinheringaahing You won't, just like how websites you visit won't know if you're secretly a gay pirate assassin

6

caird coinheringaahing

15:12

Yes, that totally does not describe me in any way 👀

pxeger

lmfao

caird coinheringaahing

@hyper-neutrino If you're a pirate assassin who's in the closest, are you "secretly a gay pirate assassin"?

Redwolf Programs

Well are you secretly a pirate assassin? No, that's obvious. You don't want that ambiguity, so "a pirate assassin who is secretly gay" is better :p

user

Maybe you've come out as gay but you haven't realized/haven't told people you're a pirate assassin :P

hyper-neutrino

No, that would be "if you're a secretly gay pirate assassin" which could also mean "an assassin who is secretly a gay pirate" (although that is not really accurate because "pirate" is not an adjective)

pxeger

15:15

secretly-{gay} pirate assassin or secretly-{gay pirate} assassin

user

It's used as a modifier here, right?

(English people please correct me)

Redwolf Programs

You could replace it with "pirating", but then it could seem you're an assassin who secretly pirates gay people

hyper-neutrino

The only reasonable interpretation is "you are a gay pirate assassin, the entire identity of which is secretive", because it is in the form <subject verb adverb noun> which means the subject (you) is verb-ing (being) the noun (a gay pirate assassin) adverb-ly (secretly)

@pxeger ah, nvm, that does work then

Redwolf Programs

@RedwolfPrograms ...is a sentence which I never thought I'd say lol

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms How do you pirate a gay person?

pxeger

15:17

YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A GAY PERSON

9

user

@cairdcoinheringaahing Afraid? :P

Redwolf Programs

By attacking their naval vessels and stealing their treasure, of course

caird coinheringaahing

@user Slightly :P

@RedwolfPrograms Hey, we earned that treasure!

user

@cairdcoinheringaahing Perhaps they meant videos of gay people?

Redwolf Programs

Probably not

caird coinheringaahing

16:00

Maintenance planned for July 24, 12pm UTC/8am US EDT

pxeger

Jely?

Redwolf Programs

Does that need to be pinned? I'd assume it's going to be featured on MM

caird coinheringaahing

19 hours ago, by caird coinheringaahing

@pxeger I can good words :P

@RedwolfPrograms Unlikely, there's already 2 featured things on MM

hyper-neutrino

Oh, up to an hour this time? Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, it's usually 15m right?

caird coinheringaahing

I think it's normally up to an hour (last time for example)), but they say it's likely to take ~15m

hyper-neutrino

16:09

ah okay

caird coinheringaahing

The time is weird tho, they normally happen at 1am UTC IIRC

Catija

16:23

It's a Saturday, so the time is different.

user

I'm back!

hyper-neutrino

\o/

pxeger

@hyper-neutrino damn you, now I can't use \o or o/!

hyper-neutrino

\o/
o o
/o\

Redwolf Programs

q::p
d::b

pxeger

16:35

\o/
oXo
/o\

needs the X in the middle

hyper-neutrino

lol

Redwolf Programs

/o\ is when you're panicking because user's back :p

user

@hyper-neutrino lol, imagine if this were an actual person

hyper-neutrino

it is

user

@RedwolfPrograms Believe me, I'm panicking too :P

pxeger

16:36

@user it is, that's an anatomically accurate portrait of yo momma

user

@hyper-neutrino ...what happened there?

@pxeger bruh

@pxeger Here's an anatomically accurate portrait of yo momma (WARNING: creepy crawly)

Wait, that joke doesn't work because you're the web developer here

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms Pretty sure this is a text form of a biblically accurate angel :P

Neil

17:34

@Catija they gave me tooth decay though :-(

Catija

I just had a root canal last week. I know all about that.

Anush

anyone understand Makefiles ? How can I get it to report if the version of gcc is too low?

user

17:56

53

A: Checking the gcc version in a Makefile?

I wouldn't say its easy, but you can use the shell function of GNU make to execute a shell command like gcc --version and then use the ifeq conditional expression to check the version number and set your CFLAGS variable appropriately. Here's a quick example makefile: CC = gcc GCCVERSION = $(she...

Not the same question, but you can basically use that answer and modify it to error or something depending on the gcc version, I think

Anush

@user thanks! Do you know how to get Makefile to print a message of your choosing?

user

I assume echo should do the job?

Anush

do you have to call that via "shell echo" or something like that?

user

idk, I've never made a Makefile myself, just guessing here

Redwolf Programs

printf is obviously better than echo, because it has 100% fewer es :p

user

18:06

I'd recommend asking on SO, honestly

@RedwolfPrograms Obviously, puts is best because it's smol

Or cat, except cats are evil

Redwolf Programs

Wait does bash have that?

Also does cat print anything? I thought the whole point was its output was on STDOUT

user

idk, I am a complete noob when it comes to Linux :P

You're right, you'd need to do echo "foo" | cat or smth, which defeats the purpose of using cat

Redwolf Programs

TIL you can skip a skippable YT ad even during the 5s countdown; the button will always work, even when it's hidden with CSS.

You need a script to do it though.

hyper-neutrino

wh-

i mean i guess that makes sense, but i would've expected the button to just not exist or be disabled

Adám

Maybe that's how YT adblockers do it?

Redwolf Programs

18:21

@Adám No, because the unskippable ones don't have the button at all

user

@RedwolfPrograms Cool, do you know where to find such a script?

Redwolf Programs

I can give you mine

user

That'd be great, thanks

Redwolf Programs

Link (I gave up halfway through deciding on a name)

It also does a few other ad-related things

user

lol

Redwolf Programs

18:29

You can press x on your keyboard to skip any skippable ad at any time, or dismiss any banner ad

user

~~Doesn't look too sus~~ Actually, it's JS

@RedwolfPrograms Cool

Redwolf Programs

It also makes banner ads with images 1/4 opacity, and makes clicking on them dismiss them instead of opening the ad page

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms I just use the (i) button and report the ads

Redwolf Programs

I guess that's one option lol

user

@cairdcoinheringaahing Do they let you skip them then?

Sandbox Posts

18:48

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Compare positions of integers code-golf math integer decision-problem A001057 is one way to represent an integer as a natural number. It lists them according to the following pattern: 0, 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3, 4, -4, ... In this challenge, you'll take two distinct integers as input and return whic...

caird coinheringaahing

@user Yeah, it stops showing all the ads for a hit as well

user

Huh, nice

Guys, check out my new website! I discovered a hack that lets you host your own website for free 😱, without buying an expensive domain or getting servers. Very proud of this

pxeger

CMQ: Why can't I set multiple passwords so if I make a typo that I often make when typing it, that's also accepted?

user

Why not just set the typo as your password then?

pxeger

@RedwolfPrograms why the hell wouldn't you just use a god damn ad blocker?

Redwolf Programs

18:57

Because I still want to support the people whose content I'm watching?

user

Redwolf uses JS, do you really want to question their logic?

pxeger

@user because I still mostly type the one without typos, and at the very least I'm always aiming for the right password

Redwolf Programs

@pxeger Increased server load is one reason I'm sure

Hashing is, by design, a very slow operation

user

Guess you just need your own OS then

@RedwolfPrograms Is it?

Redwolf Programs

Password hashes like argon2 are quite slow

hyper-neutrino

18:58

yes because if it weren't you could brute force it

user

That's cause it's inert

Redwolf Programs

I've DOSed myself by using some default settings that were way too strong

pxeger

@user If my password is supposed to be password, then I set it to pqssword because of typos, then I'll aim to type pqssword and end up typing p1ssword or whatever

hyper-neutrino

one thing cryptographically secure hashes prioritize is being algorithmically slow and having no way to optimize it

Redwolf Programs

Plus giving people the option to set multiple passwords makes them more prone to use weaker "backup" passwords or repeat the same few across multiple sites, and adds server load and storage space and nonstandard security practices to worry about, for almost no gain

Although I hear facebook tries a few variations of incorrect passwords, like with case inverted

pxeger

19:00

@RedwolfPrograms "slow enough not to be brute-forceable" and "very slow" are different

Redwolf Programs

Well very slow when you have a large number of users :p

pxeger

@RedwolfPrograms so clearly the increased server load isn't too much of a deal breaker for them

Redwolf Programs

Yeah, so that's probably not the main reason

user

@hyper-neutrino Why?

Redwolf Programs

I think there's just not really any reason companies would want a system like that; it's simpler to just do what everyone else does

user

19:02

@user Are you talking about them having consistent timings for all kinds of passwords so you can't tell what's happening based on the time it takes, or is there something more?

pxeger

@RedwolfPrograms well let's say you allow users to set 3 passwords. Server load includes quite a lot that is not hashing passwords, and even when it is hashing passwords it doesn't take massively long compared to the whole rest of a request's processing (making database queries and waiting for the network for example), so server load isn't tripled

user

Because aiming to be slow sounds like a bad idea

Redwolf Programs

@user You don't want them to be able to be done quickly

hyper-neutrino

well it shouldn't be that slow that it takes like 4 seconds

Redwolf Programs

@RedwolfPrograms Because it makes brute forcing more feasible

hyper-neutrino

19:03

but if it's too fast it's ^

user

Oh

Redwolf Programs

@pxeger Yeah, you're probably right that that's not the main reason

user

Perhaps it's just less secure, then?

Redwolf Programs

It is, yeah, and for no real gain from the site's perspective

People are 100% going to abuse a system like that, and compromise their own security

pxeger

but I could at least set this on my desktop screen locker, which (a) has 0 server load because only I ever use it and I can only type passwords one at a time; and (b) already makes me wait 200ms between password attempts to prevent brute-force

user

19:04

You should do what I do and set all your passwords to qwertyuiop so they're easy to type

3

@pxeger How easy is it to make one, though?

pxeger

@user vbrb going to login with user and qwertyuiop so they're easy to type

Redwolf Programs

@user You joe, but in school I'd see at least one person per day sign in to something by dragging their fingers across the keyboard

pxeger

> You joe

user

@pxeger No, it's just qwertyuiop

Redwolf Programs

Knew it!

pxeger

19:06

@user well I could just write a custom PAM module, which wouldn't be entirely infeasible

:58672812 @lyxal we have finally found the answer (edit: it was deleted, but trust me 100%, user is Joe)

Redwolf Programs

CMQ: What is the US president's first name, shortened into a convenient three letter form?

pxeger

usr

hyper-neutrino

sph

Redwolf Programs

@hyper-neutrino sph mama!

user

@RedwolfPrograms JOE LOL!!!!!!!1111 😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆

Redwolf Programs

19:08

Hey, it's not emoji day anymore

user

I am addicted to them now

Redwolf Programs

It starts with emoji, but wait a few years and you'll be on the streets doing combining diacritics or Latin Extended

3

You need to get help before it's too late

user

It started when a guy offered me some Extended Ascii

Been on a downward spiral since, but don't worry, I'm getting into rehab now

Redwolf Programs

Remember, kids: If anyone offers you unicode, just say no.

4

pxeger

@RedwolfPrograms you realise you're typing in Unicode right now?

Redwolf Programs

19:12

Maybe I'm using Windows 1252 :p

hyper-neutrino

i am using the jelly code page

Redwolf Programs

I'm using the Risky code page :p

user

Іt wаs оnlу wһеn I sаw a friеnԁ ονеrԁοѕe οn homoglyphs that I started working on getting better

That took way too long to make

pxeger

@user what did?

hyper-neutrino

1030 116 32 119 1072 115 32 1086 110 108 1091 32 119 1211 1077 110 32 73 32 115 1072 119 32 97 32 102 114 105 1077 110 1281 32 959 957 1077 114 1281 959 1109 101 32 959 110 32 104 111 109 111 103 108 121 112 104 115 32 116 104 97 116 32 73 32 115 116 97 114 116 101 100 32 119 111 114 107 105 110 103 32 111 110 32 103 101 116 116 105 110 103 32 98 101 116 116 101 114

that's the codepoints of user's message

user

19:17

That sentence (I gave up near the end, and a lot of letters are normal, but it's got a bunch of homoglyphs)

Redwolf Programs

Should I make a homoglyphier?

user

There's tons already

Redwolf Programs

Aw :(

user

I was dumb enough to use one that makes you manually choose from a list of possible matches

Like this one

Redwolf Programs

I'm designing a language right now that involves homoglyphs, actually

user

19:20

Oh dear

Is it write-only?

Redwolf Programs

Somewhat

pxeger

I was gonna make a language with the codepage being all different versions of the letter A, but I got distracted lol

Redwolf Programs

That's somewhat similar to mine, actually

hyper-neutrino

20:12

...

nicely done SE?

the orange is cool :p but like... what

Redwolf Programs

Oh no, CGCC does not look good like that

Catija

We're reverting. Give it a bit and it'll be back to normal.

Aaron Miller

@cairdcoinheringaahing In yggdrasil, how do you use the ? command? It seems to just error since "tree" is not defined. I assume I'm missing something.

Same thing with #

Redwolf Programs

MM does look pretty neat with the orange though :p

> Funnily enough, all the themes we happened to test via smoke tests already had orange buttons so we didn't catch it.

I don't know why I find this so funny :p

caird coinheringaahing

20:49

I, for one, welcome our new Dutch overlords. — Bryan Krause 26 mins ago

@AaronMiller Um

I might need to check the source code

user

Forgot a global tree? :P

hyper-neutrino

the colors are back to normal :p

caird coinheringaahing

21:13

Orange you glad you caught this? — Kyle Pollard ♦ 45 mins ago

Bad puns are grounds for firing at SE, right? :P

Or is it grounds for promotions?

hyper-neutrino

it's a requirement :P

caird coinheringaahing

@AaronMiller I see the problem, I'll fix it tomorrow :)

Redwolf Programs

21:59

AP score release for administrations 1 and 2 is tomorrow at 0700 ET (1100 UTC, 0600 CT)

I'm excited

hyper-neutrino

wait, can I not flag posts from the transcript?

Redwolf Programs

Making a userscript to ping me when there're chat flags.

Anyone else interested?

Transcript for