The Bridge

Ivo Flipse

4:01 PM

Google Wave :P

Mana

Wave is nuts for editing a single document.

kazzamalla

I've found Google Docs to be a great collaboration tool in the past.

Mana

@kazzam and yeah, you're right about it being a shame that Aardvark left, he seemed like a cool guy and I feel as though he was misinterpreting a lot of our debate about game-rec as hostility towards each other.

Grace Note

Wave works great, actually

I know at least one person who uses it to draft all sorts of things, including blog posts.

Mana

@Grace well then, looks like we have a solution!!!!!

Grace Note

4:05 PM

Except, Wave is no longer a supported system.

I'd ideally prefer something I could use more often.

Mana

GDocs would probably be a good alternative. A lot of Wave's editing stuff was based off Docs.

Ivo Flipse

start using Google Docs already

goo.gl/2srfI

oKtosiTe

@GraceNote: for documents that don't require excessive formatting, Google Docs is a pretty decent collaboration tool.

Grace Note

Ooh, the Grace Note.

oKtosiTe

I'd definitely pick it over Wave. More control over revisions and permissions.

Grace Note

4:09 PM

Well, I plopped my draft there.

It's not much, but I couldn't think of much that would be really needed without increasing the size of the post by several orders of magnitude.

Honestly, with how short and simple it is, it baffles me as to why the wars even happened at all.

Mana

Could we get an expansion on the traits/pitfalls of shopping recs?

Either as a link to a separate question or a few notes.

Grace Note

Line from FAQ: Shopping recommendations are considered off-topic for the website. They are too specific, often localized, and are open to a lot of subjectivity.

That's a paraphrase, if not direct quote, from Super User's policy.

The other thing to add might be a link to the blog post.

Mana

hmm

the blog post seems to be mainly be about the localization

Grace Note

Localization is responsible for more than half the problems, directly and indirectly.

Directly, well, it's all the localized problems.

Mana

ja.

Grace Note

4:20 PM

Indirectly, it is the cause of the scale problem - because they can be so personal there are far too many permutations to make it reasonable to handle them.

Mana

It's more just fitting it in there that's slightly problematic. If I just make the hyperlink on the too localized part then it looks kind of out of place

maybe if I swap the placements of subjective and too localized

Grace Note

Explicitly link it, then. Instead of tacking it in the middle, just add a new sentence like "Check out this related blog post"

Steve V.

You could make "too specific" and "open to subjectivity" also hyperlinks to other bad questions

Grace Note

The "open to subjectivity" is a bit of a tough nut (also, hey @Steve! I can't help you in your $5 dilemma)

Mana

@Steve or blog posts/meta questions, that's true.

Grace Note

4:24 PM

The issue is not as much in the question itself, because the question can always be transformed into a technically objective repository. The problem is that the nature of the inquiry invites subjectivity

Mana

Maybe explicitly linking is the best option though, just to keep the reading to a minimum.

Steve V.

@grace that's all right, i did some further research and apparently multiplayer is a ghost town, so I decided to pass

Mana

Minecraft?

Grace Note

Ah, that's good.

Nay, @Mana. It's a ways up in the transcript, but Steve came in here (last night, I believe) with a rec question.

Steve V.

Correct

Mana

4:25 PM

ahh

Grace Note

Unfortunately, no one was online to help, which is, well, as previously stated, unfortunate.

Steve V.

I've used IRC a few times in my life, it was neither surprising nor disappointing

Grace Note

Ahha

Steve V.

@Grace, yell at me if you don't like what I'm about to start doing to your doc

Mana

woah, bullets

bullets, maaaaaan

Grace Note

4:31 PM

Oooh, bullets

Mana

stoner gaze

Steve V.

(:

Grace Note

Formatting, spelling fixes, and word changes are all fine by me. Even content change, really.

I want a public space because I want others to help write this. So I'm very happy to have your help, @Steve

Mana

Although part of the problem with using bullets like that is that we need to go and switch to the Hypermarkuplanguagething syntax later.

Grace Note

That's fine. I have a machine that can do that for me.

Steve V.

4:32 PM

Bugger, that's true.

Oh, alright.

It's called "me"

Oh. Alright.

@Mana HyperSlug Infinite Improbability Markup Language I heard it was called

Steve V.

I'm not sure what else there is to say...seems like you've covered everything

Mana

4:38 PM

@YiJiang Ahh, thanks.

LessPop_MoreFizz

@GraceNote And here I was about to say that a machine like that would be pretty damned handy... :(

Grace Note

Hey, I work and I'm guaranteed to never break down.

The only thing you as a client would have to worry about is incoming artillery shells. That's all.

Yi Jiang

The infinite improbability part refers to the probability of it coming out just the way you want it

Mana

Heh.

Steve V.

@Grace, should this post include questions of the "Which game is better, X or Y" variety?

Mana

4:40 PM

@Steve Questions like that are purely subjective, I think

Grace Note

@Steve Those are more bad because of their subjective nature in "what is better" than because of being a rec.

Gimmeh a moment, as I have a relevant link to this.

Mana

ooh, relevant link!

Also hey @Fabian.

Grace Note

Here we go, @Steve

3

Q: Difference between 9800 GT 1GB graphics cards

I am going to buy an Nvidia 9800 GT 1GB and this is my first Graphics Card purchase. I searched 9800 Gt and found many different 9800 GT from different companies. Is there any difference between Inno3D 9800 GT, Palit 9800 GT, Nvidia 9800 GT, EVGA 9800 GT? Also will it fit on my DG35EC motherboa...

graphics-card

Mana

hmm

Grace Note

This is an example of a fine comparison question, it's not a shopping recommendation

Ivo Flipse

4:42 PM

it's still crap @GraceNote, far too localized

Grace Note

What makes it fine is that it is objective and asking for information that we can provide equally objectively.

@IvoFlipse Eh, the closing point of whether it fits for the user is not too useful but stat comparisons are otherwise not bad. It's not much different than a weapons comparison in Lethal Crisis.

Ivo Flipse

How do I pick a specific GPU out all the different brands? would be a question that should answer his question, but also related ones

Grace Note

Broad helps but sometimes specifics also help.

Aye, @Ivo, but until we get that question with a good answer, we don't have that question.

Ivo Flipse

then we edit his question into that form, because if it didn't have that form it would get closed

Grace Note

Note that comparisons for video games can barely be permitted even with this example

Ivo Flipse

4:45 PM

the answer is: check benchmarks or try them all for yourself

the problem with these questions is that often the answer is the same every time

Grace Note

It's not asking for which is better or how to pick. It's asking for differences. It's like comparing sorting algorithms on Stack Overflow.

Ivo Flipse

and there are literally thousands of forums flooded with such questions, hence I don't want this to become a place to start asking them too

Grace Note

14

Q: Can a C# method chain be "too long"?

Not in terms of readability, naturally, since you can always arrange the separate methods into separate lines. Rather, is it dangerous, for any reason, to chain an excessively large number of methods together? I use method chaining primarily to save space on declaring individual one-use variables...

c# method-chaining

Ivo Flipse

then the question should be: Do OEMs add improvements to their GPUs compared to a reference model GPU?

where the question body uses a specific model as an example

then you would get a list of things they add/change and what not

but they are very specific to any point in time

this year EVGA adds a custom cooler, then it's a water cooler, then it's more RAM, then it's dual GPU models, then it's extra HDMI

the answer should teach him how to find out what is different between these models by himself

Grace Note

The above question could equally be boiled down to a question of "How can I tell when performance is suffering", if we want to go the whole "teach a man to fish"

Ivo Flipse

4:51 PM

your absolutely right, we wouldn't do the same for comparing weapons in a specific game. But I feel that's because this site should revolve more about helping someone in gaming and less about the things around gaming

so we try to generalize hardware questions, while allowing in-game related questions to be more specific

Grace Note

I'm not sure why that should be the case.

Hardware is at times not very different from different accessory programs that one runs along gaming.

Steve V.

True, but SuperUser might be a more appropriate place for general hardware questions like that in the first place

Ivo Flipse

because of the mess that's connected to those questions, a game is far less updated than hardware

Grace Note

@SteveV Super User needs to reject Gaming. Allowing the wrong questions would make a serious broken window.

Ivo Flipse

not every game is like WoW or Fifa, getting little tweaks every year, so at some point those questions run dry

hardware questions keep coming back

Yi Jiang

4:54 PM

@GraceNote SO doesn't reject SEO, Wordpress or Game Dev questions though

Grace Note

@YiJiang SU does explicitly reject Gaming, though. And that's why they need to keep doing it.

Ivo Flipse

but SU does reject anything related to gaming, exactly for the mess they represent

troubleshooting hardware + games is a nightmare

Yi Jiang

@GraceNote It does, yes. Huh.

Grace Note

They have a policy against gaming. It's in both of our interests that we maintain that system.

Ivo Flipse

Full disclosure: I'm a Super User moderator

Grace Note

4:56 PM

@IvoFlipse Problem is that we can't really address console peripheral questions while not being able to do the same for computer gaming peripherals.

Ivo Flipse

are there so many console peripheral questions then?

Grace Note

Not that much fewer than we have PC peripherals

Crepes, my first question on Gaming was asking the differences between the models of the PS3.

Mana

I believe you mean

crêpes

Grace Note

Which... if I think about it, weren't you the one whose Area 51 example I ninja posted?

Feeds

1

Q: Are achievements available for PC version of LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga?

I am looking to find out if there are Xbox Live (or Games for Windows Live) achievements for the PC version of LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga. Specifically, I'm interested in buying a copy of this game on Steam, but I can't find out if the achievements available for the XBox 360 version are a...

xbox-live games-for-windows-live lego-star-wars

Ivo Flipse

4:59 PM

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/1338?phase=definition

Grace Note

No, I don't, @Mana. The only things I do are acutes and umlauts. None of that... mountain... schnierel.

Ivo Flipse

> How many versions of the PlayStation 3 are there, and what is the difference between them?
added by Ivo Flipse

Mana

:*( But I love that mountain schnierel

Grace Note

Hah, yeah, I totally did ninja your question. I hope you don't hold a grudge for that.

Ivo Flipse

absolutely not

Grace Note

5:01 PM

But in my defense, since I had preordered Trinity Universe, I really did need an answer.

Ivo Flipse

I probably ninjaed it from another site

and there is only one PS3, while there are dozens of GPUs

Mana

what does schnierel even mean? Google's telling me nothing.

Grace Note

It's a nonce, @Mana

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nonce_word

...oh, what? We onebox Wikipedia but not Wiktionary? That's silly.

Yi Jiang

I think the proper name is 'circumflex'

Grace Note

"A word invented for the occasion."

Mana

5:03 PM

Cool.

I should look into trying that sometime.

Grace Note

In this case, the occasion was I needed a word to express the fact that I'm sneering at that letter decoration with an air of superiority.

"mountain" was actually the word to describe what it looks like

Mana

Awesome.

Grace Note

It drives Popular Demand crazy. Who I haven't seen him for a while, actually.

Mana

Probably because you drove him crazy.

Yi Jiang

Let's take some "letter decoration" from the regex question:

ZA̡͊͠͝LGΌ ISͮ̂҉̯͈͕̹̘̱ TO͇̹̺ͅƝ̴ȳ̳ TH̘Ë͖́̉ ͠P̯͍̭O̚N̐Y̡ H̸̡̪̯ͨ͊̽̅̾̎Ȩ̬̩̾͛ͪ̈́̀́͘ ̶̧̨̱̹̭̯ͧ̾ͬC̷̙̲̝͖ͭ̏ͥͮ͟Oͮ͏̮̪̝͍M̲̖͊̒ͪͩͬ̚̚͜Ȇ̴̟̟͙̞ͩ͌͝S̨̥̫͎̭ͯ̿̔̀ͅ

Grace Note

5:05 PM

He did propose quitting Meta Stack Overflow thanks to me.

Yi Jiang

Not bad

Who's Zalgo anyway

Grace Note

In the comments to here: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/65565/…

Mana

@YiJiang fictional dark one based off of Cthulhu

mainly employed in meme-images

Yo @Kyle.

Yi Jiang

I wonder what the people here think of kittenBot

Grace Note

@Ivo I don't want to open our doors to being personal tech support for gamers - if anything, our horrible track record proves problems in them.

@YiJiang I will destroy it if it comes in here.

Mana

5:08 PM

kitten...Bot?

Yi Jiang

Coding Kitten, Kitten valley.

96 3

javascript flash html5

It's a bot that's running in the JavaScript SO room

Grace Note

From what I've heard, it's an absolutely infuriating bot.

Yi Jiang

It's similar to traditional IRC bots in that it can be given the remember stuff, and recall them when needed

@GraceNote I'm afraid I have to be the honor for that part, actually

I've written an addition to the bot which allows it to 'talk' based on the Dissociated Press algo

Mana

needs to meow more

Feeds

0

Q: StarCraft2: is it possible to build planetary fortress and orbital command in one command center?

Is it possible to build planetary fortress and orbital command in one command center? I didn't think is possible, but I saw some threads that tell build OC and then PF... Am I correctly understand that it is possible to build both of them?

starcraft-2 terran command-center orbital-command planetary-fortress

Steve V.

5:12 PM

@YiJiang - I'm always interested in clever or annoying bots. Do you have a link to source?

Grace Note

@Ivo So, I agree fully with your concerns on making sure we don't turn into the dump that is possible if we allow too much localized content.

Yi Jiang

@SteveV No, but you can ask it's creator for it

Grace Note

@Ivo I just ponder where the line should be drawn. People need to be taught to fish to feed themselves, but we don't teach fishing in the fish market. I'm not sure what divides the open sea from the goods we've already harvested.

Mana

THE LINE MUST BE DRAWN HERE ----------------------------------------------------------

5

Grace Note

...one of these days I'll stop drawing out metaphors to the point where it makes no sense.

Yi Jiang

5:15 PM

The bot might actually run a bit better here than in the js room - code is constantly polluting the output there, so hmmm...

Mana

Hey man, River King was my favorite game too

tm1rbrt

this is exactly how i envisioned IRC 2.0 ... scary

Grace Note

No, no bot in here.

Yi Jiang

Fair enough

Grace Note

Perhaps you can harvest from here, but I don't want to see it outputting in here.

Steve V.

5:16 PM

P.S. I'm a bot.

Yi Jiang

@GraceNote Meh, the bot should be topical.

Grace Note

Well, my vote is no. Try clearing it with @badp and @tzenes and @Less, as well as @Oak and @Juan.

Steve V.

/me watches that joke fall flat on its face. G'night everybody.

Grace Note

G'nite, @Steve

Ivo Flipse

what should the bot do?

Grace Note

5:18 PM

@Ivo The bot I've seen does... really stupid stuff. Like, even self-admittedly stupid stuff.

Ivo Flipse

what bot?

Grace Note

Lounge, 12/17, @Ivo. Should be the middle time slot. Some discussion on it.

Mana

eh, Steve.

Grace Note

Don't get confused reading the logs, as most references of Ivo are referring to Ivo Wetzel, who runs/owns/wrote the bot, rather than you, Flipse.

Ivo Flipse

I've had enough of all those other Ivo's :@

Feeds

5:23 PM

0

Q: In Just Cause 2, when does Autosaving occur?

When you die or load your game in Just Cause 2, you have to continue from the last autosave. But it's not quite clear what exactly causes the autosave to occur other than checkpoints and completing areas. Does autosaving occur after you clear part of a town, or can that progress be lost if you ...

just-cause-2 autosave checkpoint

Grace Note

Alright, lunch and I'm off. Later all ♪

Mana

Cheers

Ivo Flipse

8

Q: Proposal to clean up the scope of the site: Is your question about using a specific web application?

The line between on-topic and off-topic questions has always been on the soft side here. As time goes on, we seem to get further and further away from a concrete line or simple definition of what is on-topic. As a result, I feel like the quality of questions might be slipping. I think that by ...

discussion on-topic-definition scope

woops wrong room :P

Mana

@Ivo (,,#ﾟДﾟ):∴;'･,;`:ｺﾞﾙｧ!!

2

Feeds

6:24 PM

0

Q: Half-Life 2 Installation Error without a message

After a very long time I wanted to install half-life 2 again, but when I tried to do so it gives me an error without a message. When I select the games I want to install (original version so only CSS / HL2), and push next the error pops up. I have tried to install it with and without CSS but both...

steam game-installation half-life-2 error

Feeds

6:42 PM

0

Q: Fixing scrambled graphics on SNES console

Whenever I try playing a game on my old SNES console, the graphics come out either scrambled or completely black, but the audio plays correctly, and the controls seem to work just fine. I initially thought the problem was a dirty connector on the game cartridge, but even though cleaning it did r...

hardware snes

Brant

With a review like that, how can you not buy the game?

Tim Stone

@Brant The actual review was the truth, and consequently was the first causality of the war.

LessPop_MoreFizz

Ooh GameDevStory is 75% off

might have to finally pick that up

Brant

7:08 PM

I played the crap out of it for a couple of days and then basically never touched it again, once I had the underlying game systems figured out

if it's cheap, I recommend picking it up

Ivo Flipse

that's what happens with most games

LessPop_MoreFizz

@Brant 99 cents

sjohnston

7:28 PM

yeah, GameDevStory kind of suffered from Roller Coaster Tycoon syndrome, where it was lots of fun as you were unlocking stuff, but grew pretty stale once you figured out the tricks.

Brant

7:39 PM

Fun while it lasted, though.

Feeds

7:54 PM

0

Q: Can't add specific tags to tag sets

I'm trying to add tags in a new tag set (or even in existing tag sets) but the browser keeps loading the add button forever. See screenshot: I'm using Firefox 3.6.13 (Mac OS). Just tested with Chrome 8.0.552.231 and Mobile Safari. I'm getting the same behavior. When I click on Popular Tag Se...

bug tags stackexchange tag-sets

badp

oh hai

I heard you had a fun argument while I was away :(

badp

8:16 PM

aaand I'm not logged out

yay for Ubuntu!

Tim Stone

Hoorah! \o/

badp

Maybe I won't get to race against the time as I do on Windows

Tim Stone

It's all the server's fault. Let's poke it with a stick.

badp

I tried poking Marc instead.

Tim Stone

@badp This is probably more effective, yes..

TomWij

10:08 PM

gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/starcraft-2

This makes me wonder... Do we want StarCraft 2 in each title?

Fabian

@TomWij I don't mind SEO of titles here, it might attract some more people.

TomWij

Don't the tags take care of that?

Look at the browser title from this question:

2

Q: StarCraft2: is it possible to build planetary fortress and orbital command in one command center?

Is it possible to build planetary fortress and orbital command in one command center? I didn't think is possible, but I saw some threads that tell build OC and then PF... Am I correctly understand that it is possible to build both of them?

starcraft-2 terran command-center orbital-command planetary-fortress

Fabian

Only the most popular tag is put in the title, this is sometimes some useless thing like pc, spoiler, ...

TomWij

It shows StarCraft 2 twice in the browser title.

Fabian

It shouldn't, if the most popular tag is contained in the title it shouldn't be added to it

There's a space missing there

Else it wouldn't be added

TomWij

10:16 PM

I would suggest removing it from the subject, it results in inconsistency everywhere.

Ivo Flipse

you don't need Starcraft 2 in the titles

badp

s/StarCraft2/Starcraft 2/g please (@ somebody who won't edit them all at once, that probably only means Grace.)

Ivo Flipse

the tag is starcraft-2 the title uses a space, would that matter?

Brant

shouldn't matter

Also, what @badp said

Tim Stone

Hrm, yes...the title analyzer thingadongdong should likely ignore the trailing number for the purposes of finding a reasonable match for the tag, or consider the - as an optional space..

TomWij

10:20 PM

Still... There are a lot of existing questions that don't include this tag.

Or just look at the frontpage of the site, how many of them (exclude StarCraft 2) do include the game name?

Tim Stone

Well, I'd agree it's redundant too, beyond the matching issue.

Feeds

10:43 PM

0

Q: Are there any other StackExchange web site?

Hi All; Are there any other StackExchange web site that will be use next and is there anywhere that I can learn it or see the list of that web sites?

discussion stackexchange

Feeds

10:55 PM

0

Q: What are the possible alternate title sequences?

I recently got gold in every Grand Prix race in Mario Kart Wii, and now there are various opening title sequences. Some of the alternate sequences are Mario saying something slightly different, and some feature different characters. What are all of the possible openings?

spoiler wii mario-kart-wii

Mana

11:06 PM

Tron Legacy was awesome.

Awesomely cheesy and stupid but awesome.

Arda Xi

Hmm, somewhere at 2nd of January my Steam account will be worth like €1200 or something

well, more

it's at €1100 now

Mana

Sell it

Arda Xi

I should sell it at the end of the December sale

Then rebuy the couple dozen games I actually like

and have a €900 profit.

badp

BAN!

badp

11:31 PM

btw I posted some emo shit full of links that establishes once and for all Gaming's incredible unparalleled obvious glaring superiority.

2

Mana

d'awwww

badp

Rep whoring is a tough job. Somebody's gotta do it.

@ArdaXi 97

nite gents.

Feeds

11:47 PM

0

Q: Hide Xbox 360 Tiles

Is there any way to hide the tiles in the new XBOX 360S? The ones like Spotlight, Music Market Place etc. I dug through the settings but counldnt find any. I remember I could hide tiles on the old xbox, I am not sure. There are too many tiles and its too much scrolling and too much confusion.

xbox-360 customize xbox-dashboard

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