The Bridge

8:02 PM

@AshleyNunn That's far more understandable.

Hmm, will Arqade participate in the Winter Bash 2013 or not? Seems like a hard decision as we're such a serious site ;-)

Yuki

@MadScientist Winter? What's winter?

Mad Scientist

@Yuki You weren't here last winter, or?

3ventic

Winter Bash?

Yuki

In Houston, we call it "not-summer".

3ventic

8:06 PM

In here we call it the normal state of weather

Sterno

WTF

Trap street

A trap street is a fictitious entry in the form of a misrepresented street on a map, often outside the area the map nominally covers, for the purpose of "trapping" potential copyright violators of the map who, if caught, would be unable to explain the inclusion of the "trap street" on their map as innocent. On maps that are not of streets, other "copyright trap" features (such as nonexistent towns or mountains with the wrong elevations) may be inserted or altered for the same purpose. Trap streets are often nonexistent streets; but sometimes, rather than actually depicting a street where n...

Mad Scientist

There'll be hats, lots and lots of hats

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno I don't get it.

Mad Scientist

stackexchange.com/promos/12/winter-bash

FEichinger

@Sterno You didn't know about that? They do it with islands, too.

Sterno

8:08 PM

@OrigamiRobot If I make maps for a living, I might purposefully add a fake street to it so that if you make maps too, and I see my fake street turn up on your map, I can sue you.

Yuki

@OrigamiRobot Don't get the premise of "trap streets" or don't get why @Sterno is all, "WTF"?

Sterno

(and for things other than maps)

Unionhawk

@Sterno Ah, yes. I've heard about such things. Dunno where.

Probably Wikipedia.

Sterno

I had not heard of this.

Powerlord

@MadScientist ...again?

OrigamiRobot

8:09 PM

@Sterno I can just say I made the trap street and you copied me.

Sterno

Another example was a trivia book that purposefully had wrong answers to some of the questions.

OrigamiRobot

@MadScientist Ugh, I hate you.

Yuki

We should have scarves for this year's Not-Summer Bash to go with our hats.

Sterno

Which, if I bought and read trivia books, would annoy me to know they put wrong ones in there on purpose

Mad Scientist

@OrigamiRobot You can still ask the mods to opt out ;-)

Yuki

8:10 PM

@OrigamiRobot I think the courts rule in favor of the older map in this case. Maybe.

OrigamiRobot

@MadScientist I hate you for reminding me this exists.

user58869

@Sterno that's an interesting idea

OrigamiRobot

I will be putting everyone who talks about winter bash hats on ignore until it is over.

FEichinger

@OrigamiRobot Awwwwwww.

Mad Scientist

@OrigamiRobot Would it be Mod Abuse if I removed myself from your ignore list?

Sterno

8:12 PM

> A Fred Saberhagen science fiction short story, "The Annihilation of Angkor Apeiron," in which an encyclopedia article for a star system was a fictitious entry included in the encyclopedia to detect plagiarism, which caused a ship to end up in an empty star system where it ran out of fuel and ceased to be a threat to humanity.

They're doing hats again?

I remembered them in 2011 but I guess I blocked them out in 2012

Probably literally. With the ignore option.

RedRiderX

Wal-Mart Asks Workers To Donate Food To Its Needy Employees

FEichinger

@Sterno Yeh. 2012 had a very easily accessible opt-out link.

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno I guess we'll be the only ones talking to one another till it's over.

Unionhawk

I will have little-to-no internet access/time this winter, so I WIN HA YOUR HATS CAN SUCK IT

Sterno

@OrigamiRobot Nah. I'll probably mention them just to annoy you.

Yuki

8:14 PM

@RedRiderX Or they could just pay their needy employees. Which is a novel concept, I know.

Sterno

And then get put on ignore. And then you'll be all alone.

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno Probably

FEichinger

@Yuki Yeh, because that's ever gonna happen.

Powerlord

I swear, StackExchange is second to only Valve in "number of hats added to unrelated things"

Of course, Valve doesn't create its own hats any more.

RedRiderX

> A company spokesman defended the food drive, telling the Plain Dealer that it is evidence that employees care about each other.

badp

8:15 PM

@Sterno what are those sticks of?

Yuki

@RedRiderX Whereas employers don't.

OrigamiRobot

@badp Flavored sugar water.

RedRiderX

Clipboard injectors are evil.

badp

@OrigamiRobot -1e8

Sterno

It's weird to ask customers to chip in for needy employees but I don't think it's weird if it's an internal thing

My work, which pays quite well, even does stuff like that when a particular employee's family hits a hardship.

And I wouldn't expect or want my employer to be like, "Oh, your wife is sick? Here, have 50k".

FEichinger

8:17 PM

@Sterno Sure, that's for extraordinary circumstances. That's what friends tend to do.

user15026

@OrigamiRobot yeah, I dont fault her for that one bit

Sterno

Very odd if they're basically panhandling the customers, though.

The article doesn't make it very clear which it is.

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno My coworker died last week and we collected money for the family with the company matching the final amount.

FEichinger

But with Wal-Mart generally not paying all that well, that just seems like an easy way out for them. "Oh, you're poor because we don't pay you enough? Well, your co-workers can chip in, right?"

Sterno

@OrigamiRobot Awesome.

user58869

8:18 PM

does anyone like world of warcraft?

Sterno

Well, not the dying part.

OrigamiRobot

@Alex What's that?

Unionhawk

@Sterno URL says customers, title says workers. Iunno.

Sterno

@FEichinger Except I doubt some fat-cat exec came up with this. It was probably a local idea at that particular location, and thus had the best intentions

3ventic

Steam discount coupons for free

Unionhawk

8:20 PM

Sounds like workers.

RedRiderX

> The original version of this story stated that Wal-Mart was asking customers to donate food. The food drive is actually among employees.

Eergh

Unionhawk

Oic. Well that's slightly less weird.

user58869

@OrigamiRobot i'm refering to an online game, it's set in a fantasy world with dwarves, elves and other fantasy creatures, there are dragons and griffins

Sterno

@Alex @Kalina used to play it and I think I've heard one or two other people in here mention it, but it's definitely not super popular with the people who tend to be in here.

RedRiderX

5 mins ago, by RedRiderX

Clipboard injectors are evil.

OrigamiRobot

8:21 PM

@Alex I know, I was just being silly.

FEichinger

@Sterno Well, it's apparently pretty "organized" now, so it looks like it's at least adopted by upper levels :/

Sterno

It's kind of like, if I went to my manager and said, "Man, Steve and Alex are having a hard time, we should set up a collection to help them out" and my manager said "Sure, I'll put up a sign and collection point", it would be kind of dicks if people outside my company saw them and then started saying it was evidence my company sucks and just wants other employees to cover the low wages.

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno HQ probably wouldn't pay more so they decided to do things locally. I call that pretty awesome.

user58869

@Sterno i've noticed that world of warcraft is unpopular among certain people

Sterno

Since that's not really what would be happening at all.

Unionhawk

8:22 PM

@FEichinger It looks like a local thing that an upper level spokesman stepped in to defend as "a thing this store has done"

Sterno

It'll be even worse if the public backlash means that Steve and Alex now don't get any help because people have decided that it's wrong for their fellow employees to help them

FEichinger

Either way, they shouldn't need to do this for each other (aside from extraordinary circumstances, obviously) in the first place.

Sterno

And yes, Wal-Mart could throw money at them. But I don't really think it's proper to think that they should, and that anything else is bad.

Unionhawk

FTA:

Sterno

@FEichinger So Wal-Mart should pay every employee based on his needs?

Unionhawk

8:24 PM

> "This store has been doing this for several years and is for associates that have faced an extreme hardship recently," spokesman Kory Lundberg told us.

Lundberg says an example of this would be a recent layoff in the family or some other financial hardship.

FEichinger

@Sterno A reasonable minimum wage would be a great idea, is all.

@Unionhawk And this is exactly how it should be, indeed.

Sterno

Now we're not even talking about the story. We're talking about minimum wage.

Or, at least, we're not talking specifically about Wal-Mart.

Unionhawk

@FEichinger Well the article says that is how it is. So yeah.

Sterno

In a magical awesome world, I agree no one should ever need anything.

user15026

but we have a very unmagical unawesome world

FEichinger

8:27 PM

All I'm saying is that this shouldn't turn into an opportunity for people to organize this from the top so they get to pay even less.

Wipqozn

If the minimum wage was increased the prices would just increase to balance it out.

Sterno

I don't think that's what's happening and the fact that you jump to that conclusion fascinates me.

But I do agree with your sentiment.

Wipqozn

By design capitalism is always going to have people in poverty.

FEichinger

@Sterno I see three ways this can play out: 1. It gets stopped dead in the tracks because of the publicity it gains. 2. It gets exploited like that. 3. It keeps on going just like before.

Wipqozn

Government programs to provide essentials (Food, water, shelter, et cetera) is the only thing you can do to help people meet the essentials.

Mad Scientist

8:28 PM

We might have a 8.50 EUR minimum wage in Germany very soon, let's see how that plays out

Sterno

@FEichinger It's hard for me to envision a scenario where they say, "Oh, these employees are helping out the less fortunate ones? Awesome! Let's cut wages (or not give raises when we otherwise would) to balance that out."

Unionhawk

I know ohio's minimum is $0.60 above federal minimum. For which I am grateful. Also, high hours helps too.

Sterno

If for no other reason than employee needs are rarely a metric in determining such things.

FEichinger

@Sterno No, but people facing poverty in the future may be encouraged to rely on their coworkers instead.

Sterno

As opposed to?

FEichinger

8:31 PM

It's another argument to downplay the "low wages cause poverty" part when thinking about wages.

Sterno

So you're talking about at the macro scale, when minimum-wage is being argued about, an argument against raising it will be "fellow employees will help them out, therefore there is no need"?

I don't see that ever playing out since it's a ridiculous argument and basically PR for the other side, but maybe I'll be proven wrong.

Lazers

0

Q: How can I tell what elevation level I am at?

I am playing survival in Minecraft Pocket edition ( v 0.7.6). I started digging a hole straight down (don't worry, I have ladders with me) and I am curious to what elevation I am at. Is there anyway to do this or do I need to make craft something to get that information? I see there is a cha...

minecraft-pocket-edition

FEichinger

@Sterno Here's the thing, though: "it's a ridiculous argument" hasn't stopped decision-making for a while already.

Sterno

I guess my issue is I see (if it's internal, and not public) a fundamentally nice thing going on at that Wal-Mart that is basically being twisted into a "Wal-Mart sucks!" statement. It's not even about Wal-Mart. It's just about nice people helping each other.

I rescind all that if it is public though. Because that's super skeezy.

FEichinger

As I said, I don't have anything against the drive itself, but the implications it can - and in my opinion rather likely will - have.

OrigamiRobot

8:36 PM

@Sterno Why rescind it then? It's still not a corporate thing and a case of an entire community helping as opposed to just the store.

Sterno

I can't see the argument of "Minimum Wage Earner A will get by fine in hard times because Minimum Wage Earner B will help him! Look at this one specific example!" ever being actually used. I guess time will tell!

@OrigamiRobot Not necessarily Wal-Mart skeeziness, but general skeeziness. It's weird to go outside your group for donations that will only be used by yourselves

boo

Oh dear, not minimum wage arguments again

Sterno

If they had a general purpose food drive that would go to a local food pantry, not skeezy. To just Steve and Adam who work there though... Skeezy.

@boo This is only minimum wage adjacent!

boo

@Sterno wat

Sterno

@boo We're not really arguing about minimum wage.

OrigamiRobot

8:38 PM

@Sterno I don't think so. Plenty of places raise money for themselves.

Sterno

@OrigamiRobot Example?

boo

@Sterno why not

Sterno

@boo We're arguing about how this could affect minimum wage arguments. :)

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno Girls scouts

boo

@Sterno meta

Sterno

8:39 PM

@OrigamiRobot Hrm, that's true. But you also don't go down to the Girl Scouts store for your groceries.

OrigamiRobot

School fundraisers.

Sterno

They also tend to sell you things (albeit at a premium) for said donations

As opposed to "by the way, give us some extra cash"

RedRiderX

@OrigamiRobot Fundraisers period.

OrigamiRobot

Why does it matter if the people collecting the money/goods/whatever are the recipients if they need it?

Sterno

It doesn't always. It depends on context. If my daughter gets cancer and I set up a website for donations, that's normal.

If I put up a collection box at work, that's probably normal too.

If my work starts pestering clients about it, that's not normal.

Yuki

8:41 PM

@Sterno My problem here is that Wal-Mart is asking its employees to donate food to its own employees. That smacks too much of "We don't want to raise wages so can you guys chip in so we don't have to?"

OrigamiRobot

@Yuki It's not Wal-Mart (corporate), it's Wal-Mart (local branch)

Sterno

@Yuki You just cycled back to the beginning of the argument. I don't think I can add anything to that which I haven't said in the last 20 minutes.

Yuki

@Sterno That's something I had sent while I closed my laptop a couple of minutes ago and then just edited.

Sterno

Here'd be my closest valid response

21 mins ago, by Sterno

It's kind of like, if I went to my manager and said, "Man, Steve and Alex are having a hard time, we should set up a collection to help them out" and my manager said "Sure, I'll put up a sign and collection point", it would be kind of dicks if people outside my company saw them and then started saying it was evidence my company sucks and just wants other employees to cover the low wages.

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno If you work in a place where customers can walk past the collection box, can they donate? Is it weird if they do?

Sterno

8:44 PM

@OrigamiRobot They can if they want. Ideally you don't put it somewhere it attracts attention, but if for whatever reason they happened to see it and ask, sure

RedRiderX

I got hauled off to prison!

Sterno

@origamirobot Like, if the guy at Gamestop, which you'd never shop at but say you do, is handing you your change from your latest purchase of Pokemon XXYYYZZZZ12 and says, "Yeah, man, I'm really having a hard time right now... think you could donate a fiver?" it's weird.

user15026

@RedRiderX what did you do?

OrigamiRobot

If Wal-Mart (or whatevr store you wanna use) put up a collection box for a needy family which has no members working there, is that skeezy?

Sterno

Putting a box on the counter next to him which is specifically just for him is one step away from that.

@OrigamiRobot It'd be a little weird they singled out one family, but in a small community, it might make perfect sense.

Wipqozn

8:45 PM

I don't understand why wal-mart is getting all this hate. If people can't afford food or other things it's not wal-marts fault. It means there's something wrong with the economy and/or government.

Tim Stone

@Sterno I would throw the coins at him because how dare he give me something that won't go in my wallet.

Sterno

Once it covers a few employees, and JUST employees, it gets weird

RedRiderX

@AshleyNunn Well I might have burned down a couple buildings...

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno I just don't see why that person working there makes it skeezy.

user15026

@RedRiderX very nice. :)

Wipqozn

8:46 PM

Assuming the people are actually working and aren't stupid with their money.

RedRiderX

It was kind of spectacular how many constables they sent after me.

OrigamiRobot

As long as it's going to the right place, who cares about anything else?

Sterno

@OrigamiRobot I don't know. Ask one of those etiquette advice columnists. Maybe I'm wrong.

RedRiderX

They did all but turn the Flit upside down and shake it out to find me.

Sterno

Often it comes down to just having a layer in there that eliminates perception of wrongdoing or greediness

user15026

8:47 PM

@RedRiderX After all of that I don't exactly blame them

Sterno

Or the perception of "Why do you only care about your employees? What about the other hungry people? Why should I give a crap about YOUR people specifically?"

Context matters.

Tim Stone

What was skeezy was the homeless person in Baltimore who got mad at me one year because I didn't happen to be carrying around paper money. Yes, I have money. It is in the bank. Otherwise, no, sparing a dollar or few wouldn't have killed me.

RedRiderX

@AshleyNunn It's a rare thing to see more then three constables at once up in the Flit.

Even the Topsy King had to stay low for a while.

user15026

@RedRiderX yeah but I think you are a special case.

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno Because if you have needy people working for you and you collect for not-them, that's kind of a dick move.

user15026

8:48 PM

Were you helping the revolutionaries?

RedRiderX

@AshleyNunn Kind-of-sort-of.

user15026

@RedRiderX It sounds like you made a grand mess of things :D

OrigamiRobot

They're not asking anyone to enter into a contract saying they can only donate to their employees.

Sterno

@OrigamiRobot Well, that's pretty common. McDonald's has those Ronald McDonald House collection things. In the winter, Salvation army sets up outside stores that let them and rings the bell. The movie theater often sells those $1 stars you write your name on that go to I-don't-even-know-what-charity

@OrigamiRobot Are you arguing about me with what should be okay, or what is popularly held as okay?

RedRiderX

@AshleyNunn Yeah maybe. :P

But having seen a glimpse of my Destiny I feel compelled to see it through to the dark end.

Sterno

8:50 PM

Because I'm not really trying to make the case it should be the way it is. It's just what I perceive to be the truth of the situation.

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno Well, I don't know what is popularly held as ok.

Sterno

@OrigamiRobot I'm not the authority, obviously, but I have my guesses.

user15026

@RedRiderX Fair enough

Lazers

0

Q: What gaming laptop should I get?

For Christmas this year I would like a laptop , a fast laptop that runs smoothly on games like world of Warcraft , one under £300 because I would like some other thing as well as a laptop so what should I get , I want one with at least 4gb of ram , 2.3 ghz and amd 4 graphics

world-of-warcraft

Sterno

We close so fast.

If there were a StackExchange Olympics, we'd win.

John

9:04 PM

@RavenDreamer Okie dokes. I really don't care, one way or the other, just wanted to give my reasoning.

Yuki

@Sterno Coming in 2014, the Stack Exchange Summer Olympics.

OrigamiRobot

@Sterno A whole 4 minutes. Hardly impressive.

Yuki

With such events as the 5-minute Question Close and 100 First Answer Review Queue.

Sterno

@OrigamiRobot Yeah, but that question would stay open on SciFi.SE for years. With upvotes!

Yuki

Which Stack Exchange site will take home the gold (badge)?

OrigamiRobot

9:10 PM

@Sterno Using SFF as a baseline for performance is playing on easy mode.

Sterno

9:21 PM

@OrigamiRobot Special Olympics.

OrigamiRobot

ouch

OBDuino

OBDuino is an open source trip computer design based on the Arduino platform. An OBDuino may be assembled and customised by an electronics hobbyist, it displays information such as instantaneous fuel economy (e.g. miles per gallon or kilometrers per litre), engine tuning parameters etc. on an LCD. OBDuino utilises the On-Board Diagnostics interface found in most modern cars. Features * Most OBD-II PIDs or derived values may be displayed. Common values include ** Fuel consumption, measured in mpg or l/100 km ** Fuel used or remaining ** Fuel cost ** Fuel wasted while idling ** Distan...

This is neat and I want to do it.

user15026

That does sound pretty awesome

Lazers

9:39 PM

0

Q: Can Cubeworld Alpha be played offline like Minecraft Alpha

When i got Minecraft when it was in Alpha i was glad that apart from having to connect to the internet to get the majority of the game and update it i could just copy the files to my gaming pc and play it offline (since i don't have her connect to the internet) so i am wondering, can Cubeworld b...

cube-world

Ben Brocka

Just how much blood, fire, and death is there in Ryse’s [M] single-player campaign? We’re glad you asked. http://t.co/8tVzRyKv1z

Tweeted by Xbox on November 14, 2013 at 12:06 AM

user15026

:12237977 Me? yes, theoretically, if I had access to a vehicle?

Ben Brocka

Surprisingly not from @TheXbone

user58869

@AshleyNunn I'd like to do that too

RedRiderX

Hey, I have a new Benefactor!

user15026

9:45 PM

@RedRiderX Well aren't you special ;)

RedRiderX

@AshleyNunn I mucked mine up the first time around, so I'm interested in what might happen this time.

user58869

i love the elwynn forest music

Yuki

Is everyone's Benefactor always the Mendicant?

Or at least their first one?

SaintWacko

Not mine

Mine was a couple of little orphans

user58869

and the silvermoon music too

user15026

9:54 PM

Where can I look that up?

OrigamiRobot

> Right now we are still in the process in figuring out what trading means for Diablo. There is a social component that we still but want to retain, but at the end of the day it’s kind of fundamental to our loot 2.0 philosophy. We feel that finding items in-game by killing monsters should be the most rewarding, most satisfying and the best way to gets your hands on those items.

cc @StrixVaria

This does not sound good for trading :(

SaintWacko

Wait, so are they getting rid of the Auction House completely?

Not just the RMAH?

OrigamiRobot

@SaintWacko Yes.

SaintWacko

@OrigamiRobot Oh, good!

OrigamiRobot

Which I'm fine with, as long as they improve trading.

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