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Stack Exchange Podcast is recorded in front of a live, drunk audience

8

Live? Check. Drunk? working on it.

Alex Miller

Vote for us here! fastcompany.com/3042905/…

8:07 PM

Who does Mr. Fullerton's hair?

How do I even vote?

Click on the circle to the right.

If enough of you vote for us, we get real floors in the office.

Tim Stone

@AlexMiller Oh good, you're still alive! I was worried the Twitterverse consumed you.

8:08 PM

Vote fraud detection!

They licensed our tech

JoshVarty

scripts...

I'm pretty sure they're randomizing those numbers.

Q: "What kind of beer are you drinking?"

3

a month ago!

+1, also curious

Alex Miller

8:09 PM

@TimStone Almost!

looks like Blue Moon

Q: "How do you manage to be so prepared and professional for each month's podcast?"

hiya

NAILED IT

Q: What was so special about March 4 meeting?

4

For the first, and last I hope, time I really wish I had some meeting minutes...

Tweeted by kevinmontrose on March 5, 2015 at 1:08 AM

8:11 PM

OH MY GOD

David did ask if he should have coffee or beer for the podcast. I told him beer.

Please

please please please

recount that damn meeting

+1 +1 +1 ^^^

favorite meeting of all time

LOL

Describing that meeting won't be funny. Retelling the actual story will be funny.

8:12 PM

LMAO

that meeting, alternatively titled "A Brief Jaunt Through The History Of Time", was incredible

"This is not the greatest meeting in the world; this is just a tribute"

5

the alternate history of time

can somebody pipe in @GeoffDalgas playing the piano?

I'm not sorry at all.

8:14 PM

and that's the title sorted

Jin lag?

hi

I don't work there!

And me!

Hi

8:15 PM

Yup

something

something

"Something"

o/

I don't work all that much

8:15 PM

If only we had a list of users in the room...

We're used to Joel rambling while we chat. Users aren't. ;)

define "work"

I could quit

"thank you, thank you... we're here all... um.. 15 minutes"

Alexa Scordato

omg

8:16 PM

WE WERE ON A BREAK

this is gonna be good

for once

next podcast, someone get Jay some vodka

guys AND ladies

cool WHip

8:16 PM

@abbyhairboat The producers of Friends are preparing to sue you for use of that phrase :)

Jon Chan

cool hwip

FAIR USE

I can't even make my mouth pronounce it like that

Alex Miller

@LynnCrumbling We'll be there for her

8:17 PM

and marketing people!

At the @StackExchange London office #StackLondon2015 http://t.co/upohz0gw2J

Tweeted by balpha on February 23, 2015 at 8:30 AM

Q: "Which population is smarter: Denver or London?"

Dumke-von der Ehe

I got married over three years ago!

No one who lives in London is from London

"eehee"

Q: Does London or NYC have faster internet in the office?

8:19 PM

or denver!

Alexa Scordato

vahn-duh-eeya < -- is that right @balpha?

fonn-dare-ey-huh

speedof.me

Q: Any new queues released lately?

2

Aren't you supposed to have special software that blocks alerts like these?

8:21 PM

Huggy queue

Artist's rendition of Stack Overflow reviewers in the new Help and Improvement queue:

4

Which one is the reviewer?

Problem is, most of them have to be edited by the OP, not by the community to improve them. It makes the queue really difficult to use.

The one on the left

@JanDvorak the gold one

@Shog9 should have know by the halo

8:25 PM

Name               Tasks MinsToReview PctTotal PctPosScore PctNegScore PctClosedOrDeleted PctAnswered PctError
------------------ ----- ------------ -------- ----------- ----------- ------------------ ----------- --------
Looks Good         9850  15           40.72 %  46.85 %     8.20 %      7.15 %             50.86 %     9.88 %
Should Be Improved 10263 16           42.43 %  9.65 %      39.67 %     23.29 %            25.52 %     20.60 %
Unsalvageable      4074   8           16.84 %  1.77 %      86.67 %     83.65 %            5.15 %      2.23 %

^^^ Triage outcome, 2 weeks ago to 4 weeks ago

make your window VERY WIDE

"two decimals of accuracy, so this is obviously very good"

4

"Should be improved," as middle ground, is the easiest to choose without feeling too judg-y

~23% of questions asked

"algorithm"

(number based on my best guess, not any actual data)

8:27 PM

air-quotes algorithm air-quotes

"unsalvageable" should be renamed / repurposed to "needs closure/deletion"

"unsalvageable" should be renamed to "this is bad and you should feel bad"

Q: What's behind the rumor that our annual reviews will be replaced with a "looks good/should be improved/unsalvageable" model?

4

Joel Spolsky

@jan i was referring to the podcast

^ agree

8:28 PM

@balpha pretty sure a subsequent 'hugs queue' would be an HR violation

4

There it is! That's exactly the issue with the queue.

@balpha I heard it would be 1 to 5 with two decimal precision.

@JonEricson therefore obviously very good

we should rename queues to buckets

but "queueueue" is so funny to spell!

New podcast idea: Joel Spolsky reads Stack Overflow questions.

2

Q: How to convert png to windows cursor file with ImageMagick?

8:31 PM

0

I tried convert 1.png 1.cur, but LoadCursor returns NULL. What is the correct command to convert a png file into a windows cursor file?

got it

@AnnaLear Better idea: Drunk History with Joel Spolsky

wait

this is the best podcast ever

this is a different question

8:31 PM

@KevinMontrose Better idea: Sober History with Joel Spolsky

So, how do I move the turtle in logo?

@LynnCrumbling Not this one?

@IsaacMoses that's the one

hey that's me

Yup. That one. Was just edited by Joel. I feel like I'm watching that episode of Colbert where he edits WP.

8:34 PM

we should put the title at the bottom when viewing a question

C# Error

@Undo We should hide the title, and you're only allowed to answer if you can guess the title

Moving tags to the top might help improve dup suggestions

Mad Scientist

The title is very useful because of the suggested duplicates. Putting it last would mean that users are less likely to see the suggested duplicates early

Q: I am getting 2 outputs for extremely long strings

0

I created an account just for this on question. Yay! I have just begun using Java (C++ MASTER RACE!) so, don't get angry at me for a nooby mistake. Getting to the point: When I use a small nucleotide string (basically, a small DNA strand) i.e. 'input' is small enough, I get one output: However...

java string netbeans output

There's a title for you

8:35 PM

All those examples are real

@IsaacMoses Mine is worse ;)

Very bad: "Help urgent!!! problem with C++"

send me teh codez

Is that a real title?

Maybe prompt the user to revisit the title after typing the body?

8:37 PM

@Undo here is a better one

@bluefeet s/n/d

I think Isaac is on to something here. Put the title editor above and below the body.

Also after the tags

And on the page that comes after that

Probably a bad idea, but have the title above body, but after it in the tab order?

@JanDvorak stackoverflow.com/search?q=send+me+teh+codez

2k users should be able to figure it out

8:38 PM

@JanDvorak that's brain-breaking

Implement "slap over the 'net"

Having a good reason for rearranging things doesn't preclude it from being confusing to real users.

then slap editors with the title field

-1

Q: I am getting null

The below query working fine but i am getting " id " Null any one help pls SELECT vtiger_salesorder.salesorder_no, id FROM vtiger_salesorder LEFT JOIN ( select group_concat(id),id FROM ( SELECT concat(productname, ', ', SUM(vtiger_inventor...

mysql

@AnnaLear "you don't deserve to be here if you can't handle a WAT or two"

8:39 PM

... stackoverflow.com/q/28549527/656243

@JanDvorak In that case, let's just put the title in a tooltip somewhere.

MORE TOOLTIPS

Joel but they do think we can answer it. That's why they ask.

@MichaelBerkowski exactly

This question is why we need a "very low quality" flag in the helper queue

8:39 PM

The NULL is coming from inside the data.

@AnnaLear not mobile-friendly :-(

In SQL questions we see that all the time - enormous query that the OP doesn't really comprehend.

pls and lowercase i

@abbyhairboat tooltips are a two-edged sword

That's quite an existential (and somewhat depressing) statement @Spotify is making there. http://i.imgur.com/WgWySkI.png

Tweeted by balpha on August 17, 2013 at 1:10 PM

@MichaelBerkowski that's the best because they then say like "what one line is wrong?!"

8:40 PM

hahaha

The I in title is capitalised

(That question was triaged as "should be improved", but was not edited in the helper queue)

@MichaelBerkowski and these are always answered

Closing is kindness

The alternatives are much less kind

8:42 PM

Roomba is a great equalizer

New Badge Idea: (Silver).. Almost-Famous: You had a Question closed by Joel Spolsky

(almost)

that answer on it is even worse

Maybe a hat?

really bad excel vba questions

excel vba questions

bronze badge: closed by @jmac

8:44 PM

On a serious note - why is there no Excel VBA Site? I see so many questions.. it really could be a site.

good segue

Bronze: dup-hammered by Jon Skeet

@bluefeet it's tiresome. Will keep trying to help improve them though.

@LynnCrumbling let's ask A51

#SnowOps tag on twitter

Server Fault Blog: How we upgrade a live data center

8:46 PM

Nick Craver on March 05, 2015

A few weeks ago we upgraded a lot of the core infrastructure in our New York (okay, it’s really in New Jersey now – but don’t tell anyone) data center. We love being open with everything we do (including infrastructure), and really consider it one of the best job perks we have. So here’s how and why we upgrade a data center. First, take a moment to look at what Stack Overflow started as. It’s 5 years later and hardware has come a long way.

Up until 2 months ago, we hadn’t replaced any servers since upgrading from the original Stack Overflow web stack. There just hasn’t b …

@JanDvorak Excellent idea.

now we really need @GeoffDalgas music

heh

Matt Sherman

chaises

@JanDvorak The vba chat room is a bot looking for vba questions... I'm well over 50% are Excel vba.

8:47 PM

@MattSherman it's actually pronounce jaises

I edited all 31 pages of that blog post

like reviewed the draft

I think I understood approximately 10% of it

it will be published as a hardbound book

CTRL+H -> s/ i / I /g?

Matt Sherman

as a children's book maybe

@Haney 10% means you can run a data center.

8:48 PM

1% then

DUM DUM DAHHHHHH

Matt Sherman

watching those avatars slowly fade

A BRIEF JAUNT THROUGH THE HISTORY OF TIME

"Please, just end it" -- David Fullerton

that's deep

8:50 PM

dark

really?

JoshVarty

Just get Joel to read the blog post.

Q: Thought experiment: What would happen if we didn't have close votes?

skip the blog post. Just read this:

78

After reading "My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow: Arthur S., Arthur T., and the Soup Nazi" one of our developers wondered what would happen if we didn't have close votes. Disclaimer: I don't know of any actual plans to actually get rid of close votes. Like legalizing marijuana, a chan...

discussion vote-to-close

Jay just nailed it

oh god

JoshVarty

8:53 PM

lol

The meta post is, incredibly, shorter.

@Shog9 Understandable: it's not written by you.

2

On the plus side, it can't go downhill from here

@Woodface it's answered by me though. And even my answer + the question are still half the length of the blog post.

@Shog9 Are you counting image length? Or just words?

8:54 PM

I mean, I can't help but be impressed.

@hichris123 yes

every dimension but depth

We could delete them, that'd fix the finding-it-on-Google problem

stop writing shallow posts, @Shog9

Mad Scientist

Just don't index closed questions in search engines

In a sufficiently-large population, any phenomenon that can happen will "keep happening."

Convince the googlers the closure is correct even though the question is useful

8:57 PM

The artifact is useful, even if preserved in an incorrect state, as compared to deleting it

This reminds me - I've been meaning to see how often Reversal is ever awarded these days.

for example: would we be aware of the issue if we just deleted closed Qs?

there's a distinction between "people complain about it" and "people complain about it, and they're right"

3

stiemannkj1

yes you have

5 years ago, there were answers, often good ones, to crap questions because the closures happened much less quickly.

I don't think I've seen a Reversal-worthy post in quite a long time because the closure rapidity prevents it. I'm not against this, but have observed it.

8:59 PM

Availability Heuristic*

> It's nice to know that your work is appreciated - for the past 9 months, the median time-to-close has been under 2 hours, which was very much a goal - it's hard to argue that closing even has a purpose if it happens days or months after the fact.

@Shog9 Wow, I didn't realize it was that quick. It's hard to see that due to the length of the Close queue. +1

@Shog9 The median answer comes in 20 minutes after asking, so we still don't close fast enough.

I finally understand what a "key stakeholder" is

Key steakholder

9:03 PM

steakholder

it holds your steak for you

Jon Chan

kobe beef steakholder

And now I'm hungry

now I want steak

Not a pike?

I get mad at places that claim to have wagyu. Ate a "wagyu ribeye" Feb 15th, was good but def. not legit

9:03 PM

@Oded that'll be dessert

after having eaten three ~~stakes~~ steaks for dinner today already

Q: Age close votes after 14 days, regardless of views, allowing recasting

@MichaelBerkowski more stats:

58

I've been putting this off for a long time... Close vote aging - the deactivation of votes that haven't resulted in a question being closed - is a critical part of the vote-to-close system, but has something of a troubled history: all too often, it has been more annoying than useful, capricious...

feature-request status-completed vote-to-close

@JanDvorak teach me your ways

Can we ban @Jaydles from ever doing a british accent again?

@Shog9 thanks, I didn't see this last week.

9:05 PM

@Haney I'm trying to not over-eat, but genetics disagree

tell me more re: genetics being applicable to overeating?

The Spolsky rules of safe driving

Mad Scientist

The rules also tend to get simplified too far when passed along. You start with "questions that allow for an unlimited list of answers where every answer is equally valid are bad" and you get "list questions bad" after a while.

@MadScientist Like the telephone game.

@JonEricson ideally, any question that would eventually get closed would be closed instantly, but... We've improved a lot. ~70-80% do get closed in < 20 minutes.

9:07 PM

The amount one wants to eat is mostly given by one's genes

Bad questions that get great answers and then become popular become signposts pointing future users in the wrong direction

Am I too late?

If you converted them to protected, someone would just find them and complain on meta, then mob close them again.

@Shog9 What's the mean time until a crappy drive-by answer?

I kinda tuned out of this podcast for a while; are they still talking about signposts?

9:08 PM

@JanDvorak I would disagree; I have read that it's mostly psychological

(and a product of your current weight/maintenance caloric intake)

[tag:boat-programming]

the best beer is not Blue Moon.

anectodal experience: false

"What is the best beer if you're a programmer?" The one that numbs the pain.

..what?

9:08 PM

room topic changed to SE Podcast: Livestream: s.tk/livestream. It hath returned like tinnitus. Steaks are off-topic. (no tags)

at that point we should delete them

we don't get an infinite number of GTKY questions because we closed them. This wasn't always the case.

Maybe I'm just under-moving rather than over-eating?

David was on vacation during this discussion. I was waiting at physical therapy. Clearly, the key to getting things done is to not actually be at work.

@JanDvorak some great reads and resources: reddit.com/r/fitness

9:10 PM

Anectodal evidence from a czech person: Czech beers are the best

Everything not by Jon Skeet should be deleted.

Skeet Overflow

@Haney fitness.stackexchange.com FOR SHAME

Harder to close and really hard to delete. We are deleting too many highly upvoted questions on SO

...that wasn't the original frustration. The original pain-point was that if you weren't voting to close something on the front page, it just wouldn't get closed.

9:11 PM

@Haney Sure. I'll hand my physical health into the hands of Reddit

imma stick with Fitness subreddit: some really great guides in it ;)

@JanDvorak I definitely don't recommend that. There are some very credible reads on the sidebar that aren't by Redditors. :)

@Haney Infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters also give out some really great advice

I never got invited to parties in college.

and when you have questions about it, head over to fitness.stackexchange.com :)

I don't like asking :-/

9:13 PM

If off-topic questions that are lucky enough to win the answer/popularity lottery are deliberately left open, that could create an intermittent reinforcement incentive to post off-topic questions on the hopes of winning the lottery.

This podcast episode should be required listening to all power users, and particularly to the CLOSEALLTHETHINGS meta crowd.

Just move the podcast room to the Tavern :-)

@SomeKittens me either

did we ever send him spiders?

that's like a party in a box

/nick SomeSpiders

9:15 PM

@Shog9 then you can have a spider hunt to kill them all

Did that one guy ever get his dollar?

thanks everybody. Have a good weekend.

@Undo That one guy was me, and yes.

Have a good weekend all!

.@StackExchange is amazing! Just got my dollar. http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2015/02/podcast-62-delete-this-whole-episode/ http://t.co/MHU3xvmW3x

Tweeted by rkoutnik on February 14, 2015 at 6:13 PM

9:16 PM

jmac, aka "the only Excel user"

@SomeKittens You came that close to getting $2.

DANG

LOL

it was better not to know

That's a fantastic story, you guys are fantastic. fantastic, fantastic, fantastic

@abbyhairboat was your package better?

asking GTKY questions is not much work

asking cookie-cutter questions is not much work

asking good questions is a ton of work

buuuut...

9:18 PM

Yeah. I fell into both traps.

@Shog9 there's a few users with WAAAAAY too much rep that only ask generic questions (and lots of them)

I mean, questions need to be asked

The 1st answer is fun. The 39th answer three years later is not.

SELECT * FROM AIs WHERE name = 'Spolsky'

(0 results)

SELECT * FROM AIs

9:20 PM

(3568 results)

Why does everyone at SE use Macbooks?

I've been to Jamaica.

That was not Jamaican.

I use a Dell

nuts to Apple

because they don't know any better

they don't know what a good keyboard feels like

LIES

David, why do you lie so willingly?

9:21 PM

SELECT * FROM AIs WHERE textToSpeech AND SpeechToText

Alexa Scordato

spoken like a true apple fanboy

This sounds exactly like an advertisement.

X1 CARBON

@Shog9 a bunch of people have external keyboards

LIES

9:22 PM

I dropped my Lenovo. On the corner.

The worst part about laptop market is bloatware...

I've dev'd on all three major OSes (and also ChromeOS). OSX is pretty good, 8/10 on a curve where Linux is 10/10

dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd <-- my current laptop

@Laura as do I. But I don't need it.

Dell Precision M4800 currently, would not recommend. However, my next thing will be the ThinkPad X1 Carbon - that thing rules

9:22 PM

@balpha is your laptop your primary dev machine? or do you have a desktop that you use for work?

Windows is something like 5/10. There's a lot to be said for running in an Unix-based environment

my personal machine has been a macbook running windows for forever now

@Laura no, that's just for travel

is it "an Unix"? That sounds weird, but U is a vowel...

If you don't compile, how do you know when to ship?

@SomeKittens it's based on pronounciation, not spelling

9:23 PM

I boot OS X basically never, so much so that when my last SSD failed the blocks OS X was on were still readable but 10% of the windows ones weren't

so it's "a unix" because "yoonix"

@SomeKittens Usually unix is an adjective...

Can I sponsor a podcast? I have a dollar.

11

lol

awwww no more stream

9:24 PM

@SomeKittens when your cargo pending reaches the capacity of your lorry

way to cut David off in the middle of a sentence @AlexMiller

@SomeKittens I guess @abbyhairboat can just keep her dollar then.

Achievement unlocked: be the last word on the podcast.

Achievement unlocked: Further Unto Holyland - preach the good book of Apple to unwitting podcast listeners from high atop your rounded-corner tower.

Achievement unlocked: running overtime - be the third one to make an "achievement unlocked" joke

I better go

9:28 PM

later all, gotta prep for the SO 5pm meeting

yes, we have a meeting at 5pm on Fridays

@Haney And you deploy right after that!