The Water Cooler

8:41 AM

Good morning. So it's still not Friday.

Abi

hi fellow coders, could someone help me with this please

Nofel

9:05 AM

@Snow not even Thursday

@Snow don't remind me :(

9:18 AM

i love coffee. coffee, coffee, coffee.

morning all

morning :)

@motosubatsu - i was just looking at your profile and your top voted answer re: disciplining a new starter for not recognising a senior a manager...

i started a new job last week and nearly took out the CEO on my third day

@Abi This is Python, right? Plenty of questions on this error message on stackoverflow.

@theonlydanever You don't love coffee as much as me. I'm on my fourth cup of the day.

swung the toilet door open, not knowing he was the other side and i sort of went "hey, you alright?" - very British apology! then after, it took me a good five minutes to remember where i'd seen his face before.

so yeah, turns out he's the CEO.

@Snow! you do love coffee more than me. how long have you been up to have had four coffees before 9:30am?!

@theonlydanever oof.. yeah these things happen - sounds like you were suitably polite though

:)

9:32 AM

i'm very careful at opening the door now - haha

@theonlydanever I get to my desk before 7am every morning.

woah. what do you do?

Same as most people here, software analyst. I get here early to beat the commute and get a couple of hours of peace at the start of the day.

IT = drink coffee

London based?

No. I used to work there, and that's where I got the "early" habit. I'm in Berkshire now.

9:45 AM

@Snow yup - I'm the same. In before 7, away by 4. I get empty roads.

Ah right - I think I know where you work then @Snow

Although this morning was crazy with the blizzards

2" of snow on the car

LOL

@theonlydanever Really? Let's see your guess. Not many people I know have heard of my company.

oh, you mean actual snow. not @Snow.

oh, it's not Oracle then?

9:47 AM

Yup. Actual winter precipitation

i say 'oh' a lot, apparently.

@theonlydanever No, we're a bit smaller than them.

If I look east I see a big Oracle sign...

without Googling Berkshire-based CRM firms, i have no idea

what about if you look to the west, @RoryAlsop? do you see Snow?

@theonlydanever lol. Snow is all around.

In 6 weeks I'm moving and Oracle will be to the north of me

9:51 AM

Salesforce? are they based in Berkshire?

@theonlydanever No, I don't work for a CRM firm. Just a company that uses one.

10:05 AM

@theonlydanever As a hint, you might want to look up COBOL.

MOD?

lol. No, nothing so exciting.

damn, i thought i had it then.

Who owns/sells/supports COBOL?

@RoryAlsop had a few heavy hail showers on my way in this morning..luckily no actual snow though

10:12 AM

@Snow I support it... in certain circumstances

MICRO FOCUS

And there you go, on your fourth guess.

Back when I was consulting, my firm needed a COBOL security reviewer, and of 150,000 staff, none knew COBOL. So I learned it - awesome chargeout rate!

and this is why i'm not a detective

4 companies later, it's still relevant

10:16 AM

Yes. COBOL still underpins about 75% of all financial transactions in the world.

10:27 AM

Yup - I have worked with most of the biggest banks in the world. COBOL is almost ubiquitous

is it bad that i've been working in financial tech for 5 years and have never come across it?

though it looks like it's used by banks for moving money, mostly?

No, not really. It has a pretty niche job. I've personally not used it since I learnt it in college. I also learnt FORTRAN/77 and Pascal there, so I guess that ages me.

It underpins everything as other platforms don't scale enough

You're using Visual COBOL?

Heh - current employer may have an older environment than that...

Although I haven't had to delve into it here since 2010-ish

So they may have current environment

Will be interesting to see what new employer has when I go there - much bigger co.

Here we are big enough to have a handful of mainframes

10:37 AM

Nice. Nothing beats a nice warm beige cabinet.

Absolutely! I used to have an RS6000 and a couple of SGI Personal Iris boxes at home as heating...

Maybe not so good for the electric bill.

My mate acquired a cray at one point. It filled his garage and browned out the neighbourhood when he ran it

@RoryAlsop that's awesome!

It was a swap out when the client wanted new crays. They wanted him to remove the old one - a J series I think.

10:42 AM

@RoryAlsop was it one of the pillar-type ones with the "bench" around it?

Yes

@RoryAlsop sweet.. I think my inner child geek has wanted one of those since watching Sneakers

@motosubatsu we wanted to get it running as a quake 2 server. Totally doable - but latency is the killer

I miss the Reality Centre sgi had at Theale. Quake 2 there was terrifying

Being attacked by a 20ft monster was epic

@RoryAlsop I can imagine!

11:19 AM

In other news, my girlfriend thought that Bladerunner 2049 was a film about Oscar Pistorious.

11:40 AM

@Snow I imagine she was very confused!

She didn't see it. Just saw a mention of it somewhere. She got caught up with an interest in the court case and thought this would be a film about it.

Interesting. So a topic of whether or not to arm a security firm is a "workplace" question.

Did you know: you're more likely to be shot in Berkshire than you are in New York City

that's because you don't live in New York City.

so yes, carrying a weapon increases your likelihood of injury.

12:13 PM

@theonlydanever Hahahahaha

12:26 PM

Good morning all

@IamSoNotListening Afternoon :)

@Snow Hodor

@motosubatsu Congrats on 20k!

@IamSoNotListening thanks :) I'm actually hitting it for the second time - first made it late last week only for a question with a highly voted answer of mine to get deleted pushing me back below 20k

@motosubatsu Very nice. :-)

1:16 PM

I think I need to spike the water in the water-cooler to make things a little more jazzy around here....

@Snow you could try adding some LSD.. that would certainly lead to some entertainment

That would certainly be interesting....

you never know it might even help with my headache!

(hmm.. I predict a research grant application)

Abi

@snow yup it is.. sorted now, thank you so much :D

Wow, this place has life again!

@IamSoNotListening how does it feel to be #1 this year?

@motosubatsu press on my friend!

1:32 PM

Gah. He passed me on the rankings.

@TheSnarkKnight Temporary.

@Snow I had to put on a full-court press to get past people who annoy me. One answer and I dusted them

@Snow will pass me...

@TheSnarkKnight I annoy a lot of people

@IamSoNotListening I have that habit as well. I think it has something to do with giving honest opinions.

"A man about to tell the truth should keep one foot in the stirrup" - Mongolian proverb

@Snow you still are winning where it counts, in GOLD

Hello @Abi

1:38 PM

Who will the next "legendary" one be? Cookies to the one who reaches it next!

@TheSnarkKnight I have 46 more rep caps to go....

Good morning/day abi

hope to have it this year

along with 40K

@IamSoNotListening I have 97 to go.. something tells me I'm not going to beat you to that one!

@IamSoNotListening I had an amusing encounter yesterday, I was told that my nick fits me by someone who named himself after a complete dirt bag of a character from a movie.

1:40 PM

@motosubatsu You might

@motosubatsu Use the force!

@TheSnarkKnight I meant it as a compliment :P

@TheSnarkKnight I saw that. I know of the one you speak. They can be a real asshole sometimes.

Never seen them in ChAT

and they told me my name fit too

No one tells me anything.

@TheSnarkKnight linky?

1:42 PM

@Snow Hodor

Q: Masters in Software Engineering or Renewable Energy?

can we get the final VTC on this:

-1

I have a BEng in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and the option of choosing between an MSc in Software Engineering and one in Renewable Energy. Which one should I choose and why? PS. I like both disciples equally

@IamSoNotListening yes, but every time he comes up against me, he walks right into it. He's also one of my down vote stalkers

Mine was the first VTC already.

Closed

@Snow I thought I was....

1:45 PM

You were second :p

@TheSnarkKnight He may be one of mine too

@Snow Second sucks!

@IamSoNotListening Yeah, strange thing, I tend to accumulate down-votes every time we have a run-in

@IamSoNotListening Well that put an image in my head that I can't put into words....

@Snow Why do you think I said it.

@TheSnarkKnight It gave me great pleasure to pass up that ass clown rep wise.

@TheSnarkKnight too far sir....

I was just about to eat a banana. I think I'll just throw it away now.

1:49 PM

@Snow its fine as long as you peel it first.

@IamSoNotListening I deleted it to save the mods the trouble. And yes, it gave me great pleasure to blow by him as well. Nothing irritates me more than someone who can dish it out but can't take it.

@TheSnarkKnight yep. that one is either his way or your an idiot

@Snow I was trolling a page on facebook, and the thread became one of the funniest ones that page had ever seen. We had a fine time on it.

@IamSoNotListening true, and if you give him back some of his own medicine, he has a tizzy.

@TheSnarkKnight he was on my ignore list, now he is on my irritate where possible list

@IamSoNotListening I seem to do that merely by continuing to exist. Therefore, I have been seeing a number of health professionals to make sure I continue to do so.

1:58 PM

@TheSnarkKnight He is on a lot. Plenty of opportunities will present themselves.

Gotta split, everyone have a good rest of your day!!

@IamSoNotListening laters

2:16 PM

@IamSoNotListening have fun

2:41 PM

The unfair French boss question. It might be easier to answer if we took away the "asking for a friend" aspect and made this about him (whether it is or not). Answer will be the same.

someone else used the "asking for a friend" opener on another question this morning

It just makes things more complicated. I'm thinking that many questions here are hypothetical anyway.

@Snow a friend of mine noticed the same thing.

@Snow I'm used to it from other forums where it's usually "my friend (who is totally not me honest) did something really stupid that they will probably get a flaming/mocking for"

"My friend has a really embarrassing problem and my doctors aren't sure how to fix it"

"I mean his doctors!"

2:59 PM

I'm asking for a friend

3:13 PM

it's my girlfriend's 30th birthday today - i want to leave 15 minutes early to catch an earlier train home

however, i've only been at this company for a week...

do you think it's too soon to ask / would reflect badly on me?

@theonlydanever VERY

Tough one. Personally, I wouldn't. It would make me uncomfortable, and I'd pass that anxiety onto my girlfriend and spoil the evening.

And then she'd blame it on me.

And I'd feel doubly bad.

@TheSnarkKnight - i was hoping you'd finish that with "VERY GOOD IDEA"

okay, i'll hang about - thanks guys

maybe next year!

@theonlydanever I think @Snow speaks the truth

@theonlydanever it's sad. I had to go one better, I had to cancel my honeymoon because I just started a new job

3:21 PM

is that cancel, or postpone?

did that improve your relationship with the company?

@theonlydanever depends if your contract said anything about flex time. If no, then maybe too soon. If it did, then maybe ok to ask

you've got me worried now - i'm going on holiday for two weeks on sunday

would have been at the company for 10 working days, then am taking 11 working days off

Does your girlfriend expect you to leave early today?

@theonlydanever if they've approved the holiday you have nothing to worry about

3:24 PM

it's not worth potentially compromising your position at the new job - and as Snow says if you end up worrying about it then it's only going to negatively impact your evening with you GF anyway

@RhysW they are pretty flexible here. i'm in at 8:20am, take a 30 minute lunch, and leave at 5:20pm so i'm doing more than required

@Snow, i said i'd ask but didn't promise anything

i'll tell her that it's too early for me to be leaving the office early - it's the truth, and she's really reasonable

@theonlydanever To be honest I personally think it's fine to ask your boss if that kind of agreement is already in place. Under normal working circumstances the worst that they can say is 'no'. Any place that was then hassling me for asking a question would cause me to seriously consider how much of my life i wanted to spend there

Sounds good. And she'll hopefully respect you for being concientious with your new job.

I should clarify that even after 10 days my working relationship with my boss was very good, and the relationship allowed me to feel that way. So that may be biasing me a little, and only you can decide if you think your boss would be ok with you asking

yeah, he awesome - i'm pretty sure he'd say yes if i asked and then not think any further of it... but for the sake of an extra 15 minutes, it's really not worth finding out

i'll try and get through probation first, at least!

3:37 PM

A lot of boss interactions can be answered by, "how do you think your boss would react?" answered correctly (not optimistically)

@Snow it was cancel. What I should have done was cancel the wedding

@enderland yeah, definitely. though my question was how it'd reflect on me professionally (with it being my seventh day at this place) - so whether he said yes or no, would it have a negative impact on me? consensus says yes.

Without knowing your boss? probably. but my boss would probably have been slightly annoyed had I not asked something like that

would his reaction have been different if you asked to leave early within your first week?

There's so much culture issues at play both company and individual

@theonlydanever I doubt it, 15 minutes is... not that much (you can also say something like "I'll come in a bit earlier" sometimes too, though not if you're already there ;-)

3:48 PM

well, i did beat him in today... he has no idea what time i arrived - haha

"Uhh, yeah. I got in a 6am today. Honest!"

Q: Have any studies shown a relation between armed security and casualties of people working in security?

Am I nutts or is this off topic?

0

I am working for a private security company. We currently have a debate about whether carrying firearms would improve our safety or make our job even more dangerous. Is anyone aware of any studies showing a correlation between security being armed with firearms and being injured more often?

security safety

might be both

@theonlydanever Hey, how do you know me so well already?

Anyone heard from @IDrinkandIKnowThings?

@IamSoNotListening Last seen Jan 10 at 20:02

@motosubatsu I wonder who ticked him off....

3:55 PM

He said he was getting bored of the place, so I guess he moved on.

@Snow More like he took a break

we will see

@IamSoNotListening no sign of him across the SE network since the 10th so he could just be on holiday or something

4:11 PM

@motosubatsu agreed.

I enjoyed his humor.

@IamSoNotListening same here.. on more than one occasion he would say something that I wished I could if you know what I mean

@motosubatsu I do.

he'll be back, he always comes back... :P

@enderland SE is an addiction..once you're hooked you never truly escape

even MaskedMan has popped in a couple of times since he "retired"

yeah..... I'd argue but... here I am :P

I've taken breaks though

4:22 PM

@enderland I took a break...for a day

I only got a few hats this year

and all by accidnet

I got a few while I was trying..then was barely on for most of Winterfest (only logged in to keep my count up for Fanatic) and then when I came back "properly" I discovered I had about 5 more

not sure what they were for tbh

I still love hats though

4:35 PM

Ooii

6:03 PM

@enderland ditto that by the accidental hats. I was trying to avoid them myself.

6:15 PM

@enderland it's even funnier cause you typed accidnet

@DarkCygnus want another funny one? !False it's funny because it's true

LOL

Hey guys I was wondering

Is it really cold over where you live?

Here at home we had a sudden temperature drop this weekend

a cold wind wave

@DarkCygnus not really

6:40 PM

@DarkCygnus I live in the midwest. It's always cold in winter :P

Q: Thanks a million, Jon Skeet

8:57 PM

172

Yesterday, Jon Skeet hit 1,000,000 reputation on Stack Overflow. A million rep. The achievement quite frankly boggles the mind. I've been thinking about this meta post for days, trying to figure out how to describe the significance of this accomplishment. I can't really find the words, but fo...

discussion reputation

2

Feeds

9:14 PM

0

Q: Editing question to correct incorrect terminology

Post in question: Job offer changed by company after acceptance? Person asking question uses "right to work" where he really means "employment at will", a common mistake. Is editing the question to replace "right to work" with "employment at will" the right thing to do?

discussion