The Awkward Silence

2:04 PM

vaguely

Cool, my husband is making an alarm clock with the Raspy, he's thinking about doing a SSH setup... that's about as much as I understand :P

FreezePhoenix

that's... overkill.

Imus

@FreezePhoenix Normally I'd agree, but an alarm clock for a deaf person needs a bit more than what's "normal"

FreezePhoenix

Define "alarm clock" in that case

Journeyman Geek

Something that will wake someone up

Personally I think a phone would work, just find one with a violent vibrator

ElizB

2:08 PM

@Imus thank you- it needs to set off the vibrating device that is placed under the pillow to wake lee up

@JourneymanGeek Yup. Violent vibrator under the head will work pretty much every time. My fitbit alta vibrates so that's my alarm clock

FreezePhoenix

Just take apart an existing alarm clock... no wait that's actually harder.

ElizB

@FreezePhoenix Yeah, and especially when the existing alarm clocks are crap.

Clock(S)

FreezePhoenix

And wired in tiny things

Imus

@ElizB Looks like an interesting project :) Although I personally just put my smarphone on my bed which wakes me up from vibrating right before the actual sound alarm. So might not be needed :)

ElizB

@Imus That's a good idea but that's too light for us

plus there's the risk of the phone getting knocked off

Imus

2:11 PM

Hmm, true. Not that much a problem for me if it happens but that's just one more of those things that you never think about except if you're actually in that situation

avazula

@JourneymanGeek I have a problem with binary concepts. Left-right, up-down ... Here I got confused with source-destination. My heart bleeds.

ElizB

@Imus Deaf technology :D

Imus

@ElizB Interesting things to hear about ;)

Journeyman Geek

@ElizB or colin fursts's shaker bed

though I guess you could just use a bigass subwoofer to vibrate the thing

ElizB

@Imus snorts hehehe yeah

Imus

2:24 PM

@JourneymanGeek Doubt the hearing neighbours would agree with that idea though :p

ElizB

@JourneymanGeek hahaha yeah. Well, the subwoofers would probably damage the hearing of the other residents of the house, if any are hearing....

Journeyman Geek

@Imus it would wake em up too!

ElizB

@JourneymanGeek Yeah, maybe some don't want to wake up early in the morning....

Journeyman Geek

The High Voltage Ejector Bed

►

not what I was thinking of

ElizB

I remember accidentally leaving the sound on my alarm clock and my mom and dad were okay with it but my grandparents who were visiting got a bit of a jump

Journeyman Geek

2:26 PM

but that would wake you up

Imus

@JourneymanGeek that would deffinitely get me out of bed in the moring... but you wouldn't want to bump into me that day :p

Journeyman Geek

@Imus details details

Imus

some details are important you know :p
There's also a different kind of vibrating alarm clock that makes you happy to wake you up ... but it's not really safe to post here ;)

ElizB

2:53 PM

@Imus I saw that some time ago when I was looking for a picture of vibrating alarm clocks to show you all.... decided to keep it safe and not tell haha

Yessss finally understand how to work with the layout with MapInfo :D

At least, I think so. That'll probably come back to bite me in the behind later.

Tinkeringbell

@ElizB If you're stuck, there is a GIS stack ;)

ElizB

@Tinkeringbell Yup, already looked there. There's not really much in the way of "Teach me how to do this shit because i was thrown into this without any GIS experience and had only a few hours with my boss and my boss said "just practice, there's no better way to learn!"...."

Tinkeringbell

Ehhh.. What are you trying to do?

(I did some MapInfo looooong ago)

Shush

ElizB

@Tinkeringbell Just make a pretty poster. I'm working with data points and finally am latching on to a good idea- Chemical X has a maximum safe detection level by the federal agency, but that is being encouraged to become safer, stricter. Going from 70 Parts per trillion (PPT) down to 4 to 10 PPT

so I'm comparing the map points that have the concentration that is found at each individual sample (each house/business with a private well)

I just figured out how to play around with the Layout tab, so I'm looking at how to best display the data, maybe draw circles and labels and such

Tinkeringbell

3:08 PM

Ahh

Sorry, didn't do much of the pretty picture making stuff :(

ElizB

So it's not really a specific problem, per se... it's alll the issues that come with it :P

Cashbee

I am trying to read values from an excel sheet into my java application but in one particular excel sheet, one particular cell cannot be parsed as Integer for it reads the value "1533.0" instead of "1533". But in the excel sheet there stands 1533. And it is formatted just the same way as any other cell, and just the same as other excel sheets. FML

avazula

@ElizB Nice tag wiki description!

ElizB

@avazula blushes thanks!! :D

avazula

@Cashbee :/ strength and courage.

ElizB

3:10 PM

I just pulled stuff from websites that seemed to fit the bill

Cashbee

@avazula i am experiencing none of those

more like rage and hate

ElizB

@Cashbee I've experienced that with MapInfo.... much of the data had to be entered manually.

Cashbee

and disgust regarding MS excel

ElizB

MS Excel and MapInfo are glitchy at best when I try to communicate between the two....

@Cashbee I get your pain. Don't forget to breathe :)

avazula

@Cashbee Visualize a short, backed-up, well-formatted answer

Cashbee

3:13 PM

@avazula mmmmmh, aaaaah. yess

what a great answer

so simple

yet logical and thought through

avazula

Does it feel better now? :)

Arrr! Here comes @M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Jeez, no way to sneak in anywhere these days

What happened to the days of trolls and stalkers . . . erm, goblins?

avazula

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Sorry, you can't. How are you?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Doing fine, you?

avazula

I'm great :)

You weren't there yet but I deleted a part of my OS today. That was fun

Not so fun to reinstall though

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

3:25 PM

Huh, the OS is a zombie now?

avazula

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ More of a boundless void

Black

Black everywhere

Just a tiny blinking dash

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@avazula That is highly entertaining

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: How to let go of a relationship without offending the other person?

I've been casually dating a guy (let's call him Tom) for a couple of months. At the beginning, I thought things were great but I wasn't looking for anything too serious. The last few weeks, I've felt nothing more than friendship towards him but he feels very strongly about me. In addition, I've b...

Extroverted Main Man

3:44 PM

0

Q: How should I deal with this person?

I am a PhD student who gave a talk in a conference three weeks ago. The conference had this condition that only three names will appear in their "synthetic program" with the speaker's name as the first author. The names of other authors will appear only in the book of abstracts. So when submittin...

friends professionalism acceptable-behavior

Sandman

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

How can I interact with friend that needs to work on their photography to succeed in business My friend is asking for help to get their amateur photography business off the ground, but they have only a little experience and many pictures up on social media that seem not to be on par with semi-pr...

Tinkeringbell

@Cashbee look! ^ feed :P

ElizB

@Tinkeringbell :D Cool. Glad to see that's working

Imus

4:07 PM

Mr Sandman ... bring me a feed *dum dum dum dum*
make it the cutest that I've ever seen

scohe001

*dum dum dum dum* Give him 10 rep, with upvotes and edits...

doppelgreener

It has come to mind I have a site question to ask. But I am not sure what to ask yet. O_O

So I have Schrödinger's question

scohe001

@doppelgreener Did you maybe kill a cat?

doppelgreener

One of my neighbours seems to be a couple I feel like I'd like to have a closer relationship with, but then I'm not sure what kind of relationship that would be. But I'd have a question about how to start building it for here, probably.

scohe001

Hey @ElizB why are you worried your friend would be on IPS? Is she an active member on the network?

Imus

4:21 PM

@doppelgreener have you tried sayin "hello"?

:p

doppelgreener

yes. :)

well, i haven't knocked on their door to say hello yet

But I have been living there for several months already beside them and not done that and at this point I'm not sure how I should do that and feel like I should have some kind of excuse or reason to do that

You see why I'd be asking here first, right?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Yell hello from behind the door

ElizB

@scohe001 She is not active, but I have told her enough about it that she may look around and be curious

Imus

@doppelgreener Just find a reason to invite them over. Can be something like tee or bake a cake and tell them you've tried out making something new and made too much so they should do you a favor by comming over.

scohe001

@ElizB Ahh I see. I was wondering why you suddenly brought that up. If you're worried about that, you may want to check out this question on posting "anonymously"

Imus

4:25 PM

If you really feel like you need an excuse you can go with something like "Took some time settling in and thought it was time to finally get to know my neighbours"

ElizB

@scohe001 yeah, i saw that too. still, i think the general term "friends" should be okay

Imus

if it makes you feel any better, it took me like 8 months before I had spoken to one of my new neighbours here, didn't make any excuses, just met at the street, said hi and had a little chit chat

nothing really awkward about that at all :)

ElizB

@doppelgreener I haven't spoken to any except one that seemed to be a chatterbox. Nice guy, he helped clean off my car once.

Imus

anyway, that's my 2 cents :p I'm gonne force myself to make dinner first or my SO will get mad when she gets home :p (I kinda promissed I would do so)

@ElizB Start or near end of your vacation days can be good moments. That way you can us that as an excuse that you finally got some time to meet your neighbours now :)

ah woops, didn't look at who said that, should've just went and go make dinner XD

ElizB

@Imus Yeah, good point. Alright, get going. :)

doppelgreener

4:35 PM

@Imus That's something like what I was thinking. :)

Extroverted Main Man

4:47 PM

2

Q: How do I reject helping my neighbour who constantly asks me for little favours?

My neighbour is super obnoxious. She regularly asks me to maintain her smartphone as she has no clue what to do with a smartphone and keeps downloading useless crap. While I'm fixing her phone, she commands me. Literally commands me, not even a request. To do some other things like downloading h...

conversations boundaries

Cashbee

@Tinkeringbell great! :)

Imus

@ExtrovertedMainMan you say "No :)"?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

5:09 PM

@Imus If you say "nein" it has more effect

Tinkeringbell

If you want to be really clear, shouting could help too

that also is a nice way of expressing any present frustration

Extroverted Main Man

-1

Q: How do I tactfully ask for my hotel room to be cleaned more thoroughly?

I am doing some temporary work for a few months and the company is paying for my housing in a nearby hotel. The room comes with typical housekeeping service to clean the sheets, bathroom, etc. I have been noticing that the walls of the shower are starting to turn pink, and when housekeeping comes...

etiquette service-personnel

Extroverted Main Man

5:35 PM

0

Q: How can I encouragingly critique my budding photography friend?

My friend is asking for help with promoting their photography to get their amateur photography business off the ground, but they have only a little experience and many pictures up on social media that seem not to be on par with semi-professional photography businesses. My friend also recently h...

friends criticism business

scohe001

@ElizB I saw you posted your question on main and edited your sandbox answer. I added the link to the accepted answer there but can you delete your answer?

Also, for the future, you'll probably have more luck with the Sandbox if you give it 24+hrs to get a few more eyes on it ;)

ElizB

@scohe001 Okay, yeah. I know I probably rushed that but then again I'm eager to ask. :)

scohe001

Haha I know exactly that feeling from asking on the Worldbuilding Sandbox. After you've formulated it and everything it's hard to resist just putting it out there!

Extroverted Main Man

5:51 PM

0

Q: How do I distance myself from a coworker/friend?

I've been at an internship for the past 9 weeks. At the beginning of the period, I became close with two other interns, Alex and Sue, as we all started on the same day. However, as the internship has progressed both Alex and I have realized that we don't enjoy hanging out with Sue. She has a toxi...

friends united-states difficult-people

ElizB

@scohe001 Plus it's recent. been talking with that very close friend and i'm torn between telling her that she needs to work on her photography skill and take classes, but because she's sincerely trying to get by and have fun, i won't stop her from doing that.

ElizB

6:04 PM

It's cool when I can simply turn my hearing off. ^_^ sigh Tired. Headachy. Hopefully nobody wants to talk to me soon. :P

Extroverted Main Man

0

Q: I offered to help neighbor, how to discuss compensation?

I saw my neighbor post on social media that they wanted help with some computer related tasks. We have never met or had any interaction before. I offered to come help them for no compensation. They insisted that they'd be uncomfortable accepting my help without payment. On one hand, I don't f...

united-states neighbors negotiation

HDE 226868

Hey, @ElizB, thanks for working on the tag wiki. Unfortunately, we usually discourage copying-and-pasting from Wikipedia; it doesn't give any guidance on how to use the tag, which is what's important.

(By the way, I'm one of the IPS mods; not sure we've interacted before. Hi there!)

Mithrandir

(That's a mistake we all make, I think. I definitely did that a few years ago.)

HDE 226868

I did that a lot, too. :P Thank goodness Robert Cartaino rejected a couple of my suggestions there.

ElizB

@HDE226868 Hi! okay, I wasn't sure what was encouraged or discouraged and such. So, to make it better, do I add something at the top about how to use it? What kinds of answers are we looking for in "How to use this tag?"?

Mithrandir

6:11 PM

@ElizB More what kind of questions the tag is applicable to, IMO.

HDE 226868

There's some excellent guidance at meta.stackexchange.com/q/214337/274942.

@ElizB ^^

ElizB

@Mithrandir Yup, that makes sense. Thanks. Hmm.

@HDE226868 Oh, thanks! I'll take a look at that when I can. Do I take out all the wikipedia? What about the mayo clinic link?

HDE 226868

I rolled it back to the beginning, so you can take a fresh start.

By the way, thanks for editing the tag wikis. Not a lot of people do, and I appreciate it.

Just make sure to keep the advice in the Meta post in mind, as well as what @Mithrandir said. :-)

ElizB

@HDE226868 Okay, so the Mayo clinic is a good site to take the definition of narcissist people from, but I define what it means to the site and how site users should use it?

@HDE226868 I don't mind, because i asked two questions related to my narcissist dad.... It seemed appropriate to increase knowledge about the tag because they are indeed difficult people to deal with.

HDE 226868

@ElizB Essentially, yes.

ElizB

6:18 PM

@HDE226868 Okay, thanks! I've really enjoyed participating here so far :)

Mithrandir

*whew* that's good; I've heard whispers that we're too unwelcoming :P

ElizB

@Mithrandir Hmm, I wonder why... it's pretty strict here, yeah? ;) Gotta tell everyone to back it up :)

Mithrandir

Exactly, yeah.

Tinkeringbell

@ElizB Don't tell... ask and encourage ;)

ElizB

@Tinkeringbell Yup, that's right. Sometimes, encouraging firmly. ;)

Tinkeringbell

6:32 PM

→ 44 messages moved to Trash

Tinkeringbell

7:03 PM

@doppelgreener if I were you, I'd try and stay away from the neighbours :P I'm already stuck taking care of two different pets this summer :P

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Tinkeringbell Tom and Jerry?

Tinkeringbell

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Rabbits. But from two different neighbours

And one needs a lot of attention

ElizB

@Tinkeringbell Rabbits? That's cool. What do you mean a lot of attention?

Tinkeringbell

@ElizB Well... it's a very huggable bunny. And it claims hugs, not asks politely :P

It's used to being petted by three kids all day

So holidays are hard for it, I guess

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Whoa attention vampire

Tinkeringbell

7:06 PM

Yeah

ElizB

@Tinkeringbell Ahhh, hahaha gotcha I had to take care of a parrot like that. It wanted to climb inside my shirt....

Tinkeringbell

Last summer, it almost escaped, when I dropped of its food

So eager was it to be petted

Anoplexian

Deleted my answer to scohe. :<

ElizB

@Tinkeringbell Yikes! glad it didn't get too far. it tried to get outside or outside the cage?

scohe001

@Anoplexian Eh?

Anoplexian

7:08 PM

Someone deleted my comment to you.

Tinkeringbell

@ElizB It got out of the enclosure, I was lucky it wanted to be petted

Anoplexian

cough Tinker maybe cough

ElizB

@Tinkeringbell Ahh, gotcha.

Mithrandir

@Anoplexian That was me, actually

Anoplexian

Darn.

And I was so sure.

May I ask why?

Tinkeringbell

7:08 PM

Huh? Someone complaining about me?

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

He's Gandalf dude

Tinkeringbell

I never get complaints ;P

Anoplexian

Always Tink.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

You can't understand his actions, but they seem wise because of the beard

scohe001

It probably would've devolved into a conversation about whether or not it was a suitable dupe, which that wasn't the right place for

I wasn't planning to respond for that exact reason

Now that you're here we can have that discussion if you wanted though :)

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

7:09 PM

And he has a beard at 16

Anoplexian

I came to chat to avoid that.

But the comment should stand as you're questioning the legitimacy of the close vote.

scohe001

I think your comment was

No, what they boil down to is it won't stop, and they will keep doing so anyway, so continue to say no, and accept it as it is. They answer the question, even though the answer isn't really one that's satisfactory to either OP. ;)

Mithrandir

meta-discussion doesn't belong in the comments

Anoplexian

That's the one.

It's hardly a meta discussion.

Mithrandir

it automatically deleted itself after a single flag

scohe001

7:11 PM

I don't see any of the answers saying that explicitly in the other one though...the top two at least seem to just say "give them a hard no and change the subject" which might be enough for acquaintances, but I think the fact that this involves family (who have a large stake in your life) makes things different.

Anoplexian

Is the system perfect to determine that though Mith?

I specifically put family in my question as well.

Doesn't change the answer, and so it would be already answered.

ElizB

@Tinkeringbell I'm just imagining the bunny throwing itself at you saying "PET ME NOW!" heh

Anoplexian

Also does the OP need a different title?

Tinkeringbell

That last question needs to go?

scohe001

@Anoplexian Just reread your question...I don't see anything about family? To me it reads like friends and acquaintances are asking you these questions

Tinkeringbell

7:13 PM

Managed to make family accept it is meh... you can't make people do stuff...

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Tinkeringbell Yes I can

@Mith make me a sandwich or I'll insult LOTR

Wait, no, lasagna is better

Ugh, deciding is hard. Lasagna has less protein

scohe001

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Haha I thought you were going to add sudo

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Mith make me a sandwich or sudo I'll insult LOTR

scohe001

*facepalm*

Close enough

Tinkeringbell

@Anoplexian interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/16861/…

Without more details, it's really not possible to know if this is repeated behavior, if this is the same/very similar problem

If this is just about 'how to tell' it might well be (to me, it still reads a little like OP wants us to provide the arguments they can tell)... but if people are really pushy, and this is causing conflict, I'd say, leave it open ;)

ElizB

7:33 PM

my apartment keys are attached to my id I forgot this morning. Which means I have no way of getting back in my apartment unless my hubby is there. bwah. Mondays.

Tinkeringbell

@ElizB Kick in the door!

Karate-style :P

ElizB

And funny thing is that it took me this long to realize my keys were forgotten too.

@Tinkeringbell hahaha yeah... I don't think the landlord will appreciate it. plus the neighbors would be terrified

Heading home. super lethargic at work and my boss is not in.... so gonna use that time to rest and think about what to do. Still did quite a bit of work, which is good.

o/

Extroverted Main Man

8:15 PM

-2

Q: How important is physical attraction when choosing your life partner?

I am in a quite tricky situation and forced to make a difficult decision that I hope some of you wise people could help me with. First some background: For half a year I have been in a committed relationship with this girl. Due to studies, however, I am going to move to a different country (in...

relationships life-partner

Anoplexian

8:26 PM

@scohe001 It's implicit, but the word "people" generally encompasses family. Even if I wasn't implicit, there's not a difference between what you tell family versus friends and acquaintances. It's not as if the answer is different between them (the answer still being not having children), and there's no different approach one needs to take when saying "no".

Whether I'm telling my mom or my boss that I'm not having kids, the answer is still that I'm not having kids. The approach is no different between them; a firm no said with respect towards the party encroaching.

I even addressed the pestering in the comments to clarify.

This leads to the constant pestering of "did you change your mind yet? (Was I right?)". I don't want kids personally because I don't like most children, and enjoy my free time and sleep. My girlfriend is apathetic, and could take or leave having children. If I change my mind however, we've both agreed that the way to go is adoption, so adding "never" is necessary to avoid future pestering.

The answer is *still* the same, *So, a solution that is a compromise between your opinion and theirs, which avoids having to be rude is responding with:*

*We've discussed it and neither of us are interested in having children. Who knows if that'll change as we get older, but none of our plans involve children.*

Fail markdown. v.v

scohe001

9:06 PM

@Anoplexian Hmm I agree with this--that the initial response will probably be the same--but the difference is that while you may not owe your boss an explanation, many people probably feel they owe their mother one (and the mother definitely feels she's owed one), which I think makes this a little different. You'll have to find a way to deal with the constant follow-ups until the mother is happy with the answer. And interestingly enough, the accepted answer isn't a "stick to your guns and say no"

All that being said, you and I don't really have a lot of say whether or not this'll get closed. Guess we'll just have to see which way the votes land :)

Extroverted Main Man

10:54 PM

0

Q: Should I try to react to behind-the-back insults in my partner's minority outreach program?

Relevant identity context, I'm white, my partner can be reasonably seen to a stranger as white, and both of us are genderqueer and LGBTQ+ identifying. I work at a college in Boston, and my partner (they/them pronouns) is participating in a summer research program which focuses on improving diver...

politeness lgbt+ college racial-issues

Extroverted Main Man

11:42 PM

0

Q: Making brand new friends without coming across as needy

I live in a large city on the west coast of North America. There is a reputation for people here to be unfriendly. I'm trying to make new friends or even a new group of friends. The reason I am doing this is because I want to A lot of my old friends I had since high school haven't grown up or m...

friends friend-groups making-friends

Transcript for