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4:00 PM
90% of our traffic from reddit in the past TWO MONTHS came on that ONE DAY.
 
That's insane.
 
And kinda sad.
 
Clearly, we need to start courting Reddit more actively.
 
@Loktar Nope, Jul 5th
The spike was for this post: reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/j25e7/…
 
4:01 PM
@RavenDreamer In the wise words of Cyhi the Prynce, from Kanye West's So Appalled track: "Man this shit is fuckin' ridiculous, fuckin' ridiculous"
 
I hereby move that the mid-july spike be renamed the "Tzenes|Reddit Bump"
 
ah ok
 
Also, lunch time. brbrbrbrbrb
 
@Mana me too.
hangs a sign: Out to Nom. Be back later
 
user30
 
4:06 PM
0
Q: How do you make the most compact rapid redstone pulser that never stops?

DemonicMushyHow do you make the most compact rapid redstone pulser that never stops? And in my friend's server, the rapid redstone pulser stops after some time, and I have no idea why, how do you prevent that from happening?

 
@RavenDreamer ?
 
@RavenDreamer Problem is they really really don't like it if you self-promote
 
my word
that sure was thrilling
 
@Mana what did I do that was good.
 
The part with Malik. I won't say anymore then that, since I don't want to spoil it for anyone who has yet to play
but damn, that was awesome
 
4:15 PM
Grar, I have to play DXHR soon.
But my old iMac probably won't run it well.
 
hi
 
Hello @ProSay. =]
 
hi!!
is there any stackexchange that talk about the android?
 
I think so...
 
4:22 PM
which?
 
thanks!!
 
user30
yay shorthand.
 
Did people notice that we actually had a game developer signup to answer a question about their game?
5
Q: What happens when I connect Tropico 4 with my Facebook and Twitter accounts?

ShaunThere's a setting in the options panel that allows me to connect my Facebook and Twitter accounts with the game. I assume this will allow you to post about your achievements in-game. Is this correct? Does this unlock any other functionality that might be useful to gameplay?

 
4:27 PM
Ooh.
 
The "We" part is what gave it away...
 
0
Q: How many free rune pages are you supposed to have?

StrixVariaI know that you can buy more rune pages in the store for 6300IP each. I have a friend who was awarded Rammus and Corki for free, probably due to some glitch that thought he was signed up for his account longer than he actually was. I know that they were awarded to players early on in the life o...

 
lol
 
user30
> Technical Director of Haemimont Games (The First Templar, Tropico 4)
 
user30
not bad
 
4:31 PM
some publicity for the site
 
@bwarner That makes 2 times, then
 
@badp What was the other one? Was it the "Pokemon with web sites" thing?
 
Aye
Sure, it's perhaps a little lower level than Tropico 4, but
 
url?
 
first I'd have to remember the name of that site
 
4:34 PM
ok sure
 
17
A: What site characteristics generate stronger favimon?

shipshapeI am the creator of Favimon! The answers so far are more or less correct, it's mostly a site's position in the database that determines how high its stats are. The database is loosely organized - really popular websites are at the top, but otherwise it's basically a big list of websites that I a...

(He was already on SO)
 
ok
dead island look very scary
looks*
 
0
Q: Where can I find the manual for a Steam install of Tropico 4?

bwarnerI'm one of those weird people that likes to read the manual for games to see if there are features that I'm missing or don't understand. But I haven't been able to locate the manual for Tropico 4 anywhere on my machine, nor does there seem to be a link to it from the Steam store page. Is there ...

 
5:02 PM
@bwarner Also Nerdook (flash game dev) responded to an Identify-the-game about his flash "Vertical Drop Heroes".
Wikipedia is cute.
 
@RavenDreamer Yes, I linked it to him on Kongregate.
 
heh
 
I'm in the credits of a few of his games.
 
...
gaming answers with 40 upvotes: 3
gaming answers with 41 upvotes: 3
gaming answers with 42 upvotes: 10
gaming answers with 43 upvotes: 3
gaming answers with 44 upvotes: 1
...
 
Heh.
 
5:16 PM
@badp Er...
 
Ha.
Douglas Adams wins again!
 
@RavenDreamer +1.
 
pardon my SQL but Code Review fails on telling me how to make the query not suck
 
@badp I don't know what half of those things even mean.
 
5:20 PM
@badp I will if you make it a pretty graph!
 
I tried to. Twice.
That was the point.
Then I asked Excel to format the Y axis as fractions
and both times it screwed up and decided to fuck everything up
 
@badp Operator error.
 
oh, 'cause the x axis has gaps?
 
sorry, typo
Scatter graphs made the gaps not really matter, besides my latest revision cut the graphs at 20 upvotes
(log-normal scatter graph showing percentages of question by answer upvote count)
now you know what I was trying to make and you can actually go ahead and make it!
I have an exam to prepare
I'm just in "OH GOD EVERYTHING BUT LR(1) PARSERS" mode right now
 
I've been there.
Stupid question:
What does the M, I, and T, stand for in MIT?
 
5:24 PM
Massachussets (-typo) Institute of Technology?
 
Massachusets Institute of Technology, right?
 
Massachussets: Impossible to Type
6
 
0
Q: Bomberman or Dynablaster clone featuring Dragonball characters, on Amiga?

Jonathan DrainI'm trying to remember a game, with these details: A clone of Bomberman or Dynablaster Was definitely on the Commodore Amiga The two playable characters were Goku and Krillin from Dragonball (a black spiky haired character and a bald character with dots on his forehead), wearing orange outfits;...

 
I have to leave gaming chat. I'm not going to get anything done, otherwise.
 
see ya
 
5:37 PM
0
Q: Steam profile badge on your Gaming profile badge too?

MufasaNow that Steam is an OpenID provider especially, I think it would be cool if it showed some basic Steam profile info alongside your Gaming SE profile badge (if set on your profile page to allow it). It could maybe just be a link to the Steam site profile. Though quick links to favorite games, or ...

 
3
A: Random sorting appears to screw with answer permalinks

Jeff Atwoodrandomization sub-order within votes is removed if there are more than (pagination limit) answers.

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN???
 
oh my, finally
yahtzees DE HR review
 
Dee. Ex.
 
really? sweet
 
Not Dee Ee.
 
5:46 PM
I haven't watched his Deus Ex review yet. Back to back yahtzee!
 
@NickT If there's more than one page of answers, then the order of answers with the same score is no longer random
 
oh boy, low res structures
my favorite
 
@NickT BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN???
 
it means my crystal sucks
and I can't really do much unless there's radical changes
 
and then I stopped
he gave an end game spoiler warning and all
 
5:50 PM
@Wipqozn He didn't really spoil the end.
 
@ArdaXi you mean DE:HR
 
@ArdaXi either way, I'll wait till I finish it
 
@NickT Differential Evolution: Human Revolution?
 
I kept reading HR as Human Evolution for a long time
 
Different Extermination: Human Resources
 
6:03 PM
Douwe Egberts: Human Resources
 
Deuce Evacuation: Highly Rank
 
Dream Evil: Can we get back to our regularly scheduled chatting? Thank you. ... HR
 
:)
 
user30
DE:HR
 
6:12 PM
@ThomasMcDonald No, no, we're not doing that any more.
 
[Window Title]
Save As

[Content]
C:\Users\foo\bar.pdf
The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable.


[OK]
wat.
 
That StackExchange pen is awesome by the way. I need another one.
But $3.24 shipping for a $3 pen is a bit excessive.
 
Oh goodie. There will be a Monster Hunter game for the 3DS.
bah, I need to work on my co -op report :/
 
I would greatly prefer playing Human Revolution instead
 
6:25 PM
@NickT Same shipping no?
 
@ArdaXi Yeah, but you could just as well buy a box, or just get them at Staples/Office Max/etc
 
No I couldn't.
 
@ArdaXi They don't sell pens in the Netherlands?
 
@Wipqozn Not Uni-ball.
 
Ah I see
 
6:27 PM
Not this one anyway.
 
My favorite pen is the Sharpie Pen
 
Is it the only pen you will use?
 
@Wipqozn Until it runs out of ink, yeah.
I do have a Parker pen, but I really like the way this one writes.
 
Were the gaming shirts ever made for sale?
 
Doesn't look like it.
 
6:29 PM
Yeah, thought maybe I was just blind or something.
 
We've got an infinite supply of these pens at work. I hate writing, but these certainly make it more tolerable
 
I don't like gel pens.
 
Gah, I screw up that markup every time
 
ball-point pens suck
 
@NickT I like them.
I mean, I like fountain pens too, but they require more finesse.
 
6:33 PM
take too much pressure
 
Nit-pick much?
 
well, depends on ball, but in general
when you spend hours a day writing, it matters
 
These SE pens definitely don't take a lot of pressure.
@NickT I'm a high-school student.
I'm preparing to write for 180 minutes without a break.
 
They are very good, but there are better
 
Fair enough, but I'd prefer not to spend $20 just for a refill.
 
6:38 PM
Sharpie pens are pretty boss though
hope they don't cost that much, the two I have still work fine
 
@ArdaXi Are you not permitted to take notes with a laptop, or do you just not have one? (or prefer not to)
 
You can't exactly use them for paper though.
@Wipqozn Not permitted.
It's high-school, not college.
 
That's the annoying thing about high school. Most teachers still treat you like you're 12.
 
Laptops suck for notes in 90% of the classes I've ever been in
drawing circuits, chemicals, math equations...
 
I've never used a laptop for notes myself, but I know a lot of people that prefer it.
 
6:40 PM
@NickT Your note-taking skills suck.
 
no way you can keep up
 
If you have a tablet, works fine. LyX for math equations.
 
@NickT That may be part of the reason. I used to be a Math student, so obviously math + laptop doesn't work.
 
I actually use LyX to take physics notes.
 
Plus I've never been one to take notes anyways.
 
6:41 PM
what's LyX, some LaTeX thing?
 
LaTeX editor, yes.
WYSIWYM editor.
 
so you can enter an equation faster than you can write it? Then add to or modify it just as quickly?
 
@NickT Not faster, but more readable at least.
 
@Lazers I should note that Steam has an API, however Jeff doesn't appear to be the type to do one-off site changes for anything that isn't part of the original trilogy.
 
@Powerlord cough spoiler markdown cough MathJAX cough
 
6:42 PM
for chemistry stuff, sure there's ChemSketch, but you can't draw nearly as quickly
Plus, there's a ton to be said for writing and committing that to memory
 
Meh. I can't read my own notes.
 
not sure how well it works with typing, but actually having to take notes (vs. notes handouts) helps me recall things much better
 
I mean, I take physical notes
 
Psh, I can't either, that doesn't really matter though
 
I later convert them into LaTeX documents, and print that out for studying.
 
6:45 PM
the act of writing is 100x more engaging than just reading
 
Plus my teacher expects me to hand in my notes.
 
I despise studying
 
Who doesn't.
 
I'll study maybe an hour for exams or something
generally I don't have to
god this structure sucks, not sure how much refining I can actually do
REMARK   3  DATA USED IN REFINEMENT.
REMARK   3   RESOLUTION RANGE HIGH (ANGSTROMS) :   2.75
 
7:01 PM
@NickT same here.
Computer science and Math in particular you don't need to. Either you understand it, or you don't. You might want to go over some syntax before a CS exam, but that's about it.
Even then though, most professors don't care that much about your syntax on an exam. Might take a point off or two, but they are more concerned with the logic then the syntax.
More so in your second and third year I would think. Normally you're working in 2 or 3 different languages, very easy to accidentally use the syntax from another language in that situation.
 
Well, for maths there are stuff you need to memorise.
 
@Wipqozn I had a company tell me they wanted me to write a sorting algorithm with pen and paper at a career fair and that syntax counted. I promptly decided I didn't care enough about their company if that's how they judged candidates
 
@NickT ax + b = 0 \implies x = a/b
 
Posted by Alex Miller on September 7th, 2011

Jeff & Joel are back with guests this week – joining them are Kyle Brandt and George Beech, our very own sysadmins/ops guys/[insert your own term here]

After a brief test of the emergency broadcast system, we plunge right into the podcast, including:

Joel is late because he had to go up to AOL HQ to pick up some more floppy disks for the office

We recently launched Blog Overflow - which was actually a pretty substantial engineering and technical background to making it happen.

A huge discussion of the the SE infrastructure setup and why we host our own instead of relying on Amazon or another outside provider.  Hint: not only can we roll our own better, but its a lot cheaper too. …

 
That's like a company saying that you'll only ever be able to write code in notepad and if you don't compile the first time, you clearly aren't competent
 
7:11 PM
or, more refined, ax + b = 0 \implies x = \over{a}{b}
 
@ArdaXi There are some formulas, yes, but any decent professor will give you a formula sheet.
 
@badp Don't you mean \frac?
@Wipqozn Not here.
 
Most exams here let you bring your own notes
 
Although we're allowed to keep notes in our calculator... for now.
 
@ArdaXi \over tipically works too
 
7:12 PM
@ArdaXi You're in high school though. You probably only have a handful of them to remember.
 
However, yesterday's professor was a dick. He even checked my palm.
 
and you probably use them a lot more as well.
@DaveMcClelland Yeah, that's really stupid.
 
@Wipqozn They're a pain though.
 
Learning things by heart sucks
 
@ArdaXi Which ones ?
 
7:14 PM
I mean, if we're given a week to learn differentiation...
 
That said, no notes were ever allowed during my high school studies. That didn't mean we wouldn't use them anyway
 
My teacher gave us notes to keep on our calculators during tests.
 
While everybody was busy making notes as small as possible, or (those darn youngens these days!) conceal the iPhone as much as possible, I made them as large as possible
(on a A4 sheet)
 
Whenever I see a math teacher expect you to memorize formula,s I see a person that doesn't understand Math. Math is about understanding, logic. Not memorizing a bunch of formulas. I know some professors that won't give formula sheets, since they think it makes tests easy. I laugh at that, because it means your tests are too easy.
 
so that peeking momentarily in my bag would be enough for me to get what I need to know
 
7:16 PM
If giving your students a lists of formulas means they will all pass with flying colours, it means your tests are not testing their understanding.
 
@Wipqozn I mean stuff like \left[\frac{a}{b}\right]^{'}=\frac{ba'-ab'}{b^{2}} et cetera. (I mean, it's relatively easy once you understand it, but if you're only given a short time to learn like 5 of these for a test...)
 
Oh man, so much walking.
SO MUCH WALKING. But I got a power cord for my monitor.
 
@badp Same for my high school studies I believe. High school is a joke anyways though, at least in Canada. The school board is the one who regulates nearly everything, but most of them have no idea what they are doing.
 
And chilled with a true choice bro.
 
7:20 PM
Oh calculus. I was never a huge fan of it. IT's an enjoyable course, but it's too application and not enough theory for my liking.
 
Mind you, we learnt that together with this.
Memorising all of that together and applying it can be a tad difficult.
 
My favorite type of Math is pure theoretical. you know, the kind of Math which has no purpose outside of doing more Math.
@ArdaXi Yeah, it can be. Which is why decent professors will give you formulas. They don't care about the memorization, you'll memorize them naturally in time.
 
@Wipqozn And what kind of purpose does the above have?
@Wipqozn That's what my teacher does.
 
@ArdaXi calculus is used a lot in science.
 
My old maths teacher was like "memorise them, but if you ever forget them, look them up here"
 
7:23 PM
@Wipqozn oh, it wasn't a joke for me at all. I like university so much better though
 
Dutch education is actually pretty decent. One of the best, afaik.
 
@Wipqozn You should've taken Engineering of Computer Systems here in Milan, so you'd complain about there not being enough practice
 
@badp It could be different in Italy. The Canadian education system is lacking.
 
I dunno, I guess my notes from today don't look that complex, but when doing more of the actual math they can be
 
Thanks for putting them online on the wrong orientation
otherwise I'd be reading them
(no irony intended)
 
7:25 PM
 
Now that I think about it, I don't think my current university allows any formula sheets for Math. When I was a Math student elsewhere we were allowed them. I know a few students who have taken Math elsewhere, like me, then went to my current university and said the exams were a complete joke.
 
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
 
The reason being they seem more concerned with testing your memorization then your understanding, so most of the questions were plug in this formula.
 
The thing is, we have all the reference sheets we could ever want to have in RL
Next up, they'll just have to realize that in RL we also get all the collaboration we could ever want and then 200× as much
 
@badp Exactly.
 
7:27 PM
Yeah, Calc II is basically the last time you should have to know how to do all those integrals
 
@NickT yeah, it really is. Unless you're doing high level science, there isn't much need for it.
Like I said before, it's too much application and not much theory, so it's not used as much in pure math.
 
in my Signals class, DSP class, and now in P-Chem, just use a friggin table
it's just a waste of time
 
1
Q: Can you kill people by dropping things on their heads?

yx_I know that throwing things cause damage, but if I were to pick up a metal box or a dumpster and drop it from a few stories up onto someone, will it do any damage? And if it does, does that count against a pacifist play-through?

 
@Lazers If you throw an unconscious person off a building, will they die?
 
7:34 PM
@NickT Yes
I've never tried it, but it's a quest objective.
One of the possible options to finishing. Knock him out, throw him off building.
Unless that was intended as a special case.
my word
> Answer: The most simultaneous games of chess played by an individual was 135 by Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iran) at the Shahid Beheshti University sports stadium in Tehran, Iran, on 8-9 February 2011. Maghami is a chess Grand Master and a 9-time Iranian national champion. All qualified opponents were required to possess an Elo rating of at least 1,200 before the attempt.
 
yeah, but how many of those did he win
 
Well, that is very efficient.
 
And isn't 1200 like really low compared to a GM?
 
@Wipqozn Well, I could certainly play against more people than that
I'd just get brutally murdered while trying
Murdered in chess, not real life. At least I hope so
 
also this:
@NickT Good point, on both counts.
 
user30
7:40 PM
@TheStackExchangeBlog Ooh, a podcast involving my baby. Might have to listen to that one.
 
@Wipqozn what's the problem, they can both get it just fine
 
@NickT The bishop can't, but the rook can in 2 turns
 
what, are outfielders supposed to only take one step to catch a ball?
 
@NickT Not in one move.
 
Oh, wait
 
7:41 PM
That's....a knight...unless I'm really out of it
 
There aren't any bishops. That would have been ideal
 
@NickT you are correct. Dave has simply lost his mind.
 
I guess even looking at pictures isn't something I can competently do anymore
 
It'd take the knight 3 moves to get the ball, the rook two.
 
God, I can't even proofread my own sentences
 
user30
7:47 PM
yay blogs
 
user30
wait, it survived slashdot?
 
that reminds me
pre-emptive happy Birthday @ThomasMcDonald
This way if I forget on your birthday, I'm still covered.
 
OMFG
WE HAVE BROKEN THE 1 MBPS BARRIER
 
user30
heh, cheers.
 
Do I even need to do it?
 
7:57 PM
@ArdaXi Are you in a hotel? Because if not, no you don't.
 
What the hell? The meter was stuck around 70-80 mbps for a minute, and the result is 30.
Ahh, better than ever.
 

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