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Mark Mayo

00:14

Looks like @JoErNanO is making an effort with hats as well :D

MeNoTalk

01:39

Go @JoErNanO go, you can make it.

@MarkMayo you are right, didn't notice the other hat.

hippietrail

02:59

yo

Karlson

03:22

@MarkMayo If you're referring to downvoting of noobs I'm not doing it

ummmmmmm/ Yo

WannaBeCoder

04:22

@MarkMayo kathmandu pasupathinath temple. I also want to do some outdoor activity like trekking and so. I would be travelling solo. For that do I need plan before hand?

MeNoTalk

05:15

I hate it when I don't know if the person I am talking to is a male or a female.. Always embarrassing.. Good thing we were talking in bahasa which has no feminine and masculine forms.. Only one form. It would have been a disaster if we were speaking in Arabic or any other language that has forms depending on the gender..

Mark Mayo

10:27

Got my gold, good idea on the air-travel tag @MeNoTalk

and now I have super powers for that tag :D

MeNoTalk

@markmayo I am the lead in hats in travel.se

#6 network wide

@MarkMayo what's with the cheating on the VW rental question? Hahahahahahahaha

@geeo we need you

I summon you

Mark Mayo

10:50

looks like we're the same in travel

both on 23, no? @MeNoTalk

vw question? I even tweeted two rental companies about it :/

in fact, scratch that, I just moved to 24 :D

MeNoTalk

11:12

@MarkMayo damn it, it is like an hour only.. killjoy

Mark Mayo

well I only added one, so we must have been equal before that

been on 23 most of the day

they're getting hard to get now though

MeNoTalk

Well, I will downvote.. that will add me two more hats

And I need an ios

Which one you just got @mark?

Mark Mayo

breaking bad

MeNoTalk

Heisenberg

Mark Mayo

:D

MeNoTalk

11:19

I think the red baron hat is impossible

Unless we fake it

Mark Mayo

very, very hard to get

would require some very unusual circumstances

MeNoTalk

4 people, one ask, the rest downvote and answer, then edit it and upvote..

Rory Alsop

@MeNoTalk It's doable but only as a sneaky trick

:-)

what I mean by that is:

I'm up for it :-)

MeNoTalk

@RoryAlsop you are a good man, I am up for it as well

@MarkMayo ?

U have 90k rep, so don't try to tell me u r not ok with this 😁

Rory Alsop

@MarkMayo I think the most I have on any one site is 17 - ie all the easy ones that come with generally doing normal stuff

MeNoTalk

11:26

@RoryAlsop found a candidate question:

0

Q: Schengen Visa Validity

I have a multiple entry 90 days Schengen visa (category C) from 15 March 2014 till 21 Dec 2014. With this visa I entered in the Netherlands on 4 April 2014 and left the Netherlands on 13 April 2014. I am planning to enter the Netherlands again on 19 Dec 2014 and leave on 21 Dec 2014 in the mornin...

Mark Mayo

what's rep got to do with it? :)

Rory Alsop

@MarkMayo all us high rep folks are fun loving folks

who want hats

and rep

MeNoTalk

Wealth always comes with cold blood..

Rory Alsop

and stuff

Mark Mayo

I do like hats...

MeNoTalk

11:27

I downvote the question...

Waiting for two more downvote

No need to say its u. We can't tell 😁

Mark Mayo

done

Rory Alsop

it appears to now be on -3. Dunno how that happened

:-)

MeNoTalk

Wow magic

Rory Alsop

does everyone need to edit it?

MeNoTalk

Wait 5 minutes just to make sure system does its background processes.. meanwhile will research that

Mark Mayo

11:29

it just says to answer it, not edit

MeNoTalk

To be able to undo the downvote... yes

Mark Mayo

for red baron

oh but yes, edit to undo downvote

so give it 5 first

MeNoTalk

I hope the programmer was sleepy when he did this part..

My answer is ready, but few more minutes to be sure..

Mark Mayo

same

Rory Alsop

looks like each answer needs to be upvoted 5 times to get the badge as well... so we may need to rope in 2 more people once we have posted...

same

Mark Mayo

11:35

seems fine

3 answers might actually get it hot...

Rory Alsop

hah

Mark Mayo

as it's not that old.

MeNoTalk

10 minutes passed.. posting my answer..

Mark Mayo

don't you need to edit?

Rory Alsop

the edit is to chang ethe vote after

Mark Mayo

11:37

ah true

ok all posted

Rory Alsop

upvotes on

Mark Mayo

who's the jerk who didn't upvote? :)

MeNoTalk

Done edit, upvote answers and the question.

Rory Alsop

they need 5 upvotes each

Mark Mayo

yes but you both have two, and I have one

ah there we go

MeNoTalk

11:39

Guys edit the question and upvote it..

Mark Mayo

we did (well I did)

once it's edited I could change my vote, and have

Rory Alsop

the hat page says: answer +5 a -3 question that goes to +3

does this mean it can then go to +5?

Mark Mayo

still waiting on Rory to change his

?

Rory Alsop

changed

the question is now at +3

Mark Mayo

"answer a -3 question; later +3"

MeNoTalk

11:40

Crossing fingers and waiting...

Rory Alsop

but our answers need to get to +5

I like the fact we were all consistent

:-)

MeNoTalk

Yes true.. I missed that part..

Mark Mayo

where does it say it needs to get to +5?

is that on meta.se somewhere?

Rory Alsop

@MarkMayo ahh - but in the drop down it says anser +5

Mark Mayo

ohhh

Rory Alsop

11:41

on the winterbash page

MeNoTalk

We need to lick some .... to get some votes or what?

Mark Mayo

3

Q: Schengen Visa Validity

I have a multiple entry 90 days Schengen visa (category C) from 15 March 2014 till 21 Dec 2014. With this visa I entered in the Netherlands on 4 April 2014 and left the Netherlands on 13 April 2014. I am planning to enter the Netherlands again on 19 Dec 2014 and leave on 21 Dec 2014 in the mornin...

visas schengen netherlands

well if it goes hot that'll be easy

@JoErNanO @Gagravarr @GayotFow @pnuts and others who appear to be going for hats, you've not got the Gelt hat yet, all you need to do is start a bounty :)

Rory Alsop

@MarkMayo I have gelt elsewhere, but I could bounty to add interest as well :-)

Mark Mayo

you bountied a question yesterday

but hey, more is good

you bountied the teletext one, no?

Rory Alsop

@MarkMayo oh - did I? shows how my brain works

Mark Mayo

11:45

7

Q: Teletext Subtitles on Romanian Television

There is a teletext feature on the televisions in the hotel rooms. In England there was a way to get subtitles to appear by going to the teletext interface and entering 888. As far as I know this is no longer available. In Romania, is there a special code you can enter into the teletext interfac...

hotels romania languages accessibility

Rory Alsop

oh yeah, that one

lol

MeNoTalk

We can't add bounty, its new question

Rory Alsop

oh, this one isn't bountiable yet

MeNoTalk

I tried already

Rory Alsop

snap :-)

Mark Mayo

11:46

haha

MeNoTalk

@Dirty-flow you know I love you.

We all love you

If there was a secret hat for cheating, we would get a dozen each..

4

@gagravarr we missed you around here mate 😉

Gagravarr

sorry

was helping my parents move house

and the internet got disconnected

MeNoTalk

You can always make it up

So we can forgive you

3

Q: Schengen Visa Validity

I have a multiple entry 90 days Schengen visa (category C) from 15 March 2014 till 21 Dec 2014. With this visa I entered in the Netherlands on 4 April 2014 and left the Netherlands on 13 April 2014. I am planning to enter the Netherlands again on 19 Dec 2014 and leave on 21 Dec 2014 in the mornin...

visas schengen netherlands

One vote for each answer

Upvote

Please 😍

@gagravarr .... 😍😍😍😍

Gagravarr

was that question asked by your sock puppet account? ;-)

MeNoTalk

no

It was there, do u think we cheat? No way man

😁

Rory Alsop

11:58

@MeNoTalk :-)

Gagravarr

I'd expect you to give it a more comedy name ;-)

MeNoTalk

@markmayo, @rory its your turn now to get one more vote

Each

Mark Mayo

South Africa just passed 500 runs in the first innings! I'm a little distracted by that and The Newsroom ;)

pnuts

@MarkMayo Noted, but I am very content with last year's hat.

Rory Alsop

@MeNoTalk working on it :-)

Mark Mayo

12:01

@pnuts you can keep last year's hat, but you can have this TOO :D

MeNoTalk

One more run...

Rory Alsop

5's ... let's wait and see

Mark Mayo

woo!

c'mon hat...

2

Gagravarr

did a mystery account upvote you then? ;-)

Rory Alsop

@Gagravarr I asked one of my friends to pop on over from another site :-)

MeNoTalk

12:04

Yes. It must be very good answers we had

Rory Alsop

@MeNoTalk lol

MeNoTalk

I got it

I am officially a red baron owner

Rory Alsop

@MeNoTalk hmmm - not here for me yet

Mark Mayo

neither

Rory Alsop

oh - there it is

update lag maybe

MeNoTalk

12:06

Yup

Mark Mayo

batch processing

MeNoTalk

Or just unlucky...

Mark Mayo

doesn't show it for me yet, but on the ladder I've got 25

including a red baron :D

there it is!

MeNoTalk

@RoryAlsop, @MarkMayo does the sentence"30 minutes or less" ring a bell for you?

Mark Mayo

@MeNoTalk you have a hat somewhere else that you don't have on travel??

25 on travel, 26 overall

MeNoTalk

12:09

Red tshirt

Or is it red shirt..

Mark Mayo

sorry 24 on travel, 26 overall

MeNoTalk

The downvote one

Or two

Mark Mayo

ah

Pizza delivery?

MeNoTalk

Try again... 😉

pnuts

@MarkMayo I find some of the behaviour in response to hats on TSE mildly distasteful (though some just fun). I have seen criticism (eg to a Q of mine) of "artificial" questions, as hats seems to encourage and in years to come some of those asked recently might embarrass the poster, IMO.

MeNoTalk

12:11

@pnuts I am sure you are referring to the drunk question 😊

Mark Mayo

what bugs me is the alignment of hats

there should be more to improve the site

like editing tag wikis

or cleaning up old comments that might be redundant

a hat for downvoting a bad question just sends people to the bottom of the pile to hammer stuff more

I'm glad there's hats for bounties

pnuts

@MeNoTalk Was not but, yes, that is in the general 'category'. The one that first sprung to my mind was "cold towels" (I'm afraid!)

Mark Mayo

and there should be some hats for answering unanswered questions >7 days old

MeNoTalk

Cold towels is not bad. Its true and I asked here and no one knew.

@pnuts I will do a cleanup in a while, to be honest I couldn't agree more with you.. u r totally right.

pnuts

@MeNoTalk IMO would have been "more excusable" had the Q and A not come from the same person.

Mark Mayo

12:16

/psst - he means you ;)

MeNoTalk

Not sure if that's good or bad..

😔

Mark Mayo

Anyone else watching the cricket??? @Gagravarr? It's an incredible innings

MeNoTalk

@pnuts hat lust can do more... the sad truth

Gagravarr

mark - we've not yet unpacked the tv...

Mark Mayo

:/

Gagravarr

12:17

I think I saw the box somewhere...

MeNoTalk

@matk no one watches cricket..

Mark Mayo

you're not still in Brissy around Aussie day are you?

Gagravarr

but I ache too much to get up to look...

Mark Mayo

I'll likely be flying up that weekend

Gagravarr

nope, cairns in 1.5 weeks, back in europe by the 5th jan

Mark Mayo

12:18

I've now met 5 of the top 8 users (by rep) including myself

Gagravarr

who are you still missing?

Mark Mayo

@Doc, which should be simple - Doc, let me know when you're in SYdney next if you'd like to say hi :)

@MeNoTalk but apparently he lives in Antarctica these days..

@KateGregory

MeNoTalk

That chameleon hat made me live in Antarctica...

Gagravarr

kate's in Canada, you not heading back that way any time soon?

MeNoTalk

I am in Jakarta till the end of December.. most welcome

Gagravarr

12:20

maybe via the middle east to see me no talk? ;-)

Mark Mayo

I was in the same city as @VMAtm about 2 weeks before the Travel.SE beta started :(

MeNoTalk

@Gagravarr anytime you are around let me know mate.

Mark Mayo

I'm likely to head back to Portland for WDS in July, maybe I can work something out

Gagravarr

I'm set to be in Dubai or Abu Dhabi in about July, when it's really hot and consequently cheap

was in Doha a few weeks ago

MeNoTalk

Dubai is doable, lets do a skydiver when u r there..

Gagravarr

12:22

only if it's at night

Mark Mayo

I hope you just mean a 'skydive'

Gagravarr

with my ginger hair, in dubai in the summer I'll do a good impression of a vampire..

MeNoTalk

Autocorrect

pnuts

@MarkMayo I'm trying to avoid getting personal, but I happen not to think "list of words" is stellar also.

MeNoTalk

Skydive

Mark Mayo

12:24

@pnuts fair enough. it was something that came up at the airport on Monday, in Sydney. Given the heightened security, I was talking to someone about it on the phone and started saying certain words, and then decided it wasn't the best idea to say those words in the airport. It led to thinking.

MeNoTalk

@Gagravarr in July even a brown Arab like me barely survive in Dubai..

Mark Mayo

and wondering if there was guidelines for on a plane.

Gagravarr

I'll be bringing some people over from south india, I think they'll be fine

the north indians may struggle

Mark Mayo

Also goes to a joke I read a while back about always saying 'hello' to airport employees named Jack, never 'Hi'.

@MeNoTalk @Gagravarr in 2007 I went from a NZ winter in July to 4 days in Dubai. Mistake.

MeNoTalk

Did you melt?

Gagravarr

12:26

I went from a UK winter to a doha winter to brisbane, I really struggled

today was tough :/

MeNoTalk

Winter in Doha, lol

Mark Mayo

i spent the last day just sitting in the ocean. that was the best :D

Gagravarr

you went in the ocean in dubai?

pnuts

@MarkMayo Well, I did appreciate it led me to the "macadamia NUTS" article!

Gagravarr

and didn't come out with 4 arms and a superpower? or dead? ;-)

Mark Mayo

12:27

yeah I liked that too :)

@Gagravarr no, despite my best efforts. Didn't happen when I went to Chernobyl either :(

Rory Alsop

I have only once ever worked in Dubai in the summer, and I couldn't do it again. I did enjoy a wedding anniversary out there one July, but we enjoyed outside after dark more than day time

Gagravarr

most of my team is in india, so rather than me fly out there so much, we're thinking of meeting in the middle

MeNoTalk

winterbash2014.stackexchange.com/30-minutes-or-less

Gagravarr

due to limited budgets, that means the cheapest time of year, which I'm told is late July when glass starts melting...

MeNoTalk

Middle from?

Rory Alsop

12:28

Is the sea in Dubai polluted? We went for a paddle off the beach between the Madinat Jumeirah and the sail

Gagravarr

UK and India

Mark Mayo

I didn't think so. Just really salty.

Gagravarr

@RoryAlsop According to people I know who've lived there a bit, huge quantities or raw sewage get dumped straight into it

MeNoTalk

The middle would be Venice, be nice to your team

2

Gagravarr

visas are a pain there

uk visas are hard

schengen really hard

so dubai looks good as vaguely middle, easy for them to get a visa, and somewhere several of them fancy going

Mark Mayo

12:32

answered a question on Dubai :)

6

Q: Hostels in Dubai

I'm searching for hostels in Dubai. And I only can find one hostel: “EasyFlat 12 Dubai Hostel“. Are there any other hostels in Dubai? I will travel solo so I don't want to stay in a hotel.

hostels dubai

Gagravarr

for subjective stuff, I just use flyertalk, eg flyertalk.com/forum/middle-east/…

Mark Mayo

well this isn't subjective, he's just asking if there are any others

any thoughts on the WDS code questions? Are they travel questions, or software questions?

Rory Alsop

@Gagravarr ah

nice

(note to self - wash feet more often)

Mark Mayo

Nice question @Gagravarr

answered :D

hi @jAce

up to 5 hats, I see

Gagravarr

thanks mark! I can get to the airport after all then :)

Mark Mayo

12:46

no worries

Gagravarr

I was just going to get the airport train, then my parents inconventiently moved north...

Mark Mayo

feel free to accept the latest one too, if it helps ;)

man, why couldn't this be Saturday, I've answered like 7 today

I'd have the Bill Lumbergh hat

Gagravarr

I'm sure we can come up with some good ones on Saturday too

I'm bound to have more sunshine coast questions by then!

Mark Mayo

hopefully I'll tackle some of the unanswered legacy ones

I'd like to see them under 100 by New Years

I'd almost like a review team of a few people to go through them (it'd only take 30 min) and vote to put on hold any that, say, the OP hasn't come back to clarify, so can't be answered properly

Mark Mayo

13:25

4

Q: Cheap and convenient way to travel with kids around US

I'm planning a family trip to US (from Europe) and although we're going to stay in NY most of the time, I'd like to go to Washington DC and around for couple of days for example. I assume renting a car is the most suitable option here, but when I sum up all the costs (car, gps, 2x child safety se...

usa transportation car-rental

MeNoTalk

13:48

@MarkMayo someone just upvote the VW answers, I was planning on talking to @geeo to accept both answers with 10 minutes apart.. for that naruto hat

Gayot Fow

14:33

LOL I was surprised to see sniping on such a give away...

0

A: Schengen Visa Validity

The Schengen visa expires at midnight, 23:59, on the expiration date. In your case this would be 21 Dec 2014. The precise definition for this regulation is Regulation (EU) No 610/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 amending Regulation (EC) No 562/2006 of ...

Hats work in mysterious ways! LOL

pnuts

14:57

@GayotFow Multiple answers (all saying much the same) is no mystery however in that case. Not a hat intention I suspect.

MeNoTalk

15:54

It was pure luck...

😁

Gayot Fow

Was it rep whoring? Awwww.... I thought it was hat delirium... Aw.....

MeNoTalk

Rep whore.. A nice hat name.. I'll suggest it in MSE

@GayotFow may I suggest something? More like an advice?

Gayot Fow

of course

MeNoTalk

Don't ever put links the way you did, just wrap it in a sentence.. It makes the answer looks better, out of personal experience people like that, thus more votes..

And not sure I used "thus" correctly, never got to know when to use it.

Gayot Fow

Fine, let me go edit...

ok, cleaned up the link

MeNoTalk

16:04

Man, its worse now...

Gayot Fow

why?

MeNoTalk

It's too long

Gayot Fow

ok, just a moment

MeNoTalk

Can you make it something like "which can be found on xyz site" and the link in xyz only

Just an,opinion mate.. You don't have to listen to me.

Gayot Fow

try it now

MeNoTalk

16:11

Nice, I also suggested a small edit, feel free to reject it.

Gayot Fow

excellent, looks much more professional now... :)

MeNoTalk

😊

Gayot Fow

And everybody got 5 votes just from random coincidence and not to do with hat delirium?

MeNoTalk

16:24

Not at all...

Man, this post made me believe in magic.

Gayot Fow

16:37

Just found another one where somebody found a comment and cobbled it together. I think it's a great idea for anybody less than about 1k rep.

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