Evening @Joe!

does it count as gaming the system if I ask for 4 downvotes on this question and 8 upvotes on my answer to get a gold badge?

(if so, that's totally not what I'm doing)

@jmac they dont care, there is a post on meta saying they dont care about people gaming badges

@RhysW It was actually in jest, but for whatever reason I got an upvote on it, saw that it is semi-close to a reversal badge, and had a devious thought (I don't actually care about the badge, mind)

What does this generic web error mean?

Is it on their side? My side? Proxy settings?

@jmac Their side from the sounds of it

cant say ive seen a tcp_error before though!

@RhysW I get it all the bloody time, and I don't understand why.

@RhysW work-related site, need to research a company, and their site is down.

@RhysW Even google cache doesn't show it right! Frustrating.

@jmac actually, it might be something you can do about

"Open the Configuration Panel, Network connections. Select the network connection that's giving you troubles. Right click on it, select properties. Remove QOS service. Check the TCP/IP settings: if they're setup by DHCP, leave things as they are. If not, write down all information in that screen and change it to DHCP. Reboot and you should be on your way."

Really?!

Was that greek?

I really want to meet the people who created the internet protocols we use

I'd buy them all a beer

and then stomp on their toes for making it incomprehensible

(I have Japanese windows, which makes your above explanation so much more of a challenge)

okay, network, halfway there.

unfortunately not, having had to write a paper on how they all work its a pain in the butt

@jmac ouch

I mean, really, like routers.

They should be simple devices.

Internet comes through wall

wall gives net to wireless router

router exchanges said net connection

hehe, routers are just as complex, wait til yours breaks and you have to sort it out...

this is equivalent to what an extension cord does.

But my extension cords/power strips do not have a bloody configuration screen that cannot be understood by even the geekiest of geeks

its even worse, because none of it is written for general day use, its all written purely for their own support techs

talking about stuff like Mac Addresses, and how to distribute IP addresses or whatever

part of the reason I use a mac is because the first one I bought found my wireless connection painlessly when I first booted it up

but yeah, the biggest wall to IT is the one the IT people themselves put up

and I had spent so bloody long trying to figure out how to do that on my PC

I do not know what DHCP is, or what DNS servers are, or what the difference is between my internal or external IP is, or what the heck all those various connection protocols mean.

I'm sure they are all there for good reasons, but make them idiot-proof!

Make it so that normal humans can read and determine what they need to do

(I think it is a conspiracy to prevent people from being able to download torrents quickly or somesuch)

(or to prevent people from having adequate security on the net)

(the above instructions failed at step 3 -- there is no network displayed in my network settings that I can right click on)

@jmac there must be unless you aren't connected to a network :S

which would explain connection failures...

Hi, I'm here. This is the net.

There is a network, I just can't right-click it

;)

oh

I have "set up a new network"

"connect to a network"

"home group sharing options"

and "troubleshooting"

(has troubleshooting ever worked?)

@jmac ahahahaha

no

(the 'wizards' windows build make me laugh)

(you get through 5 steps and are like, "YEAH! Progress!" and then it says, "please enter your MAC Address" or somesuch)

yeah, i love the idea that the only way they could pass off the IT stuff was to convince people it was all just magic

(and I just start sobbing at my keyboard)

good point, makes no sense to someone who has no idea what it means!

I remember the first time I ran in to a serious trouble on my old macbook pro. I had a CD in the drive but the computer wouldn't boot up unless I put in the OS CD to do a tricky reboot to figure out the problem

but there is no mechanical way to do that on a mac!

problem is, techies see that as something low level, really basic, so they assume its common knowledge, i know that I assume people know how to get their ip address

So I was sitting there thinking, "I can't search the net because my computer is down, boy am I screwed!"

So I looked at the manual.

Checked the index, page 76: "Ejecting CDs". So far so good.

I open to page 76 and it says, "If you cannot eject from the finder, hold down the mouse button when you start up the computer"

hehe

and lo and behold -- IT WORKED! I was so impressed.

(I wrote instruction manuals in my last job)

from the sounds of it you wrote ones that you weren't used to having work?

(my worst experience was going to a customer site, having them show me our product and tell me the instruction manual was wrong, I confidently explained them what they were supposed to do)

they handed me the product and said, "Go ahead, give it a try."

It didn't work.

They said, "Now if you go from the other side, and just push here, it works! Isn't that easier?"

D: bet that was a red faced moment

Nah, not really -- I didn't write that manual.

I wrote ones for new products, and we would get silicone replicas of the things with all the parts included

so we could actually do what needed to be done and make sure it worked properly

(the real products are made out of stainless steel, so they were pretty heavy if you didn't make a plastic version)

haha, i have no idea what product this is so im just imagining a huge steel cube with flashy lights

The great thing about going on site with customers is that they are these people who are incredibly mechanically gifted, so they generally ignore the instruction manuals. They can figure it out by looking at it

Let me find a sample from a company that isn't mine ;)

tlv.com/global/articles/cep_1102_understanding-steam-traps.pdf

thats not being a very good salesman, advertising the competition :P (kidding, i just like to get on peoples nerves)

That is the first thing from the wiki article on steam traps.

That does not help

i love that its titled 'back to basics'

google.com/…

there are a bunch of images

probably the most insulting thing you can say to a user

there is a good photo!

so basically, steam turns to water, right?

but having water in steam pipes is bad.

So you want to get the water out, but keep the steam in.

easy enough, steam goes up, water goes down

A steam trap has the water from the pipes flow in, and the ball will left up and open a drain at the bottom. The water flows out through the drain and the ball drops.

So even if there isn't any water, it doesn't leak steam. This is the basic concept of this type (there are other types)

but anyway, big metal thing.

ahh i see

(they vary in sizes from smaller than your hand, to as large as your desk)

i dont use manuals,

i also dont have anything that works properly

im sure its a coincidence

Manuals are miserable.

They get designed for the lowest common denominator

but never get read save when there's a problem

Thing is, like all documentation, they don't need to be, people just choose the most boring way to write it because its cost effective

but the problems people face usually aren't included in the manual

to save money, they want to make it short and condensed, but that also makes it less useful

there was a great seth godin article on this

headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/08/…

very true

Gotta run for a bit, but that should keep you busy

for at least a few minutes.

gah, we have this one guy at work who keeps misusing a big mailing group to try and sell tickets for plays, i just dont care about the plays, but cant be removed from the group because then i wont get the important emails ¬_¬

@RhysW What, you aren't a theatre buff? Poor soul. You don't appreciate the finer things in life?

@jmac Try to drag me to a theatre, opera, musical and i will suddenly learn how to bend the laws of space and time and not occupy that space anymore

@enderland this assumption sounds reasonable. I don't have data to back it up but it feels like SO-kind questions would typically attract less upvotes than Workplace- or Programmers- kind ones. This would also make collider formula bug less painful for them

@jmac already downvoted. hahah

@RhysW how'd the interview go?

@gnat yeah. I think most upvotes are "I sympathize with this" rather than "good question"

@enderland Went very well thankyou! He seemed pleased that the recruiter had deceived neither of us (though she has been their recruiter for years now) Just waiting to hear back to see if they want to take it to the next stage

Your tip to have questions pre-planned was a life saver

Great!

it makes a difference, it's sometimes hard to come up with questions on the fly which are intelligent

I printed a list of them for my last onsite interview...

Most of mine were around the working environment, thankfully they do push for coding standards and reviews, ect. And they are actually ok with using third party tools, ala ReSharper. They have the latest tools, Visual studio 2012 and plenty of clients to get involved with

Nor do they mind my lack of education / experience

:)

which is the main hurdle to overcome

@gnat also I think I'm goign to experiment the next time we get a "likely popular question" here - and write a "yeah!" answer vs a good answer

@enderland why not both? a Yeah answer that incorporates the 'good'. Get the best of both worlds

@enderland Success! They want a second interview

:)

now to try and convince my boss to give me the day off...

hehe!

Success! The universe seems to be on my side today

?

Got the Tuesday off to go to this interview

nice

@JimG. - Regarding the comments on this question - I should have pinged the mods here before sending that question over here, so I'm sorry about that. But don't you think that leaving an attitude-filled comment that links to "don't migrate crap" is going to come off as unfriendly to new users?

Also as a side note, migration candidates can always be mentioned here in chat too, there is usually always a member online who is more than happy to post their thoughts

Cool, thanks. I should have known better than to send this here in this state, but as a mod on another beta site, "keep your crap off our lawn" is distressing to new users.

Definitely distressing, we tend to keep our discussions to here too but sometimes you get the odd comment that gets where it shouldn't

@jmac Its a Trap! the previous should be read with a squid headed voice

@neilfein: If it was a close call, I would've simply cast my close vote and moved on. But that question wasn't even close and I thought that as a moderator, you should've known better.

@JimG. Play nice :P people make mistakes