The Awkward Silence

Q: How to politely get rid of someone soliciting donations at your door?

0

When people come to the door asking for donations how do you politely end the conversation and close the door? Some of the causes are very worthy but I don't have the money. I had jobs before where managements makes sure you try at least 3 times before taking no for an answer so I don't want to t...

FreezePhoenix

"Hi, I'm sorry, but today I can't help you."

Q: Reaching Out to A Scientist

2:52 AM

0

I am currently in the process of applying to graduate school in the US. Earlier this year at a professional conference, I met a research scientist in one of my top choice university labs who told me I should "reach out when I'm applying" and gave me his card, to which I followed up later that day...

conversations email college

3:05 AM

This is... complicated. However, I'm not the best person to answer this question. What I can say is that your last paragraph is worded in a way that will trigger some of the people on this site to vote to close it. I personally don't feel it's a problem, but I've seen this happen many times here. This community isn't about answering the questions you ask, but providing you the skills to answer them yourself. The first question's answer is 'yes', but that's not helpful without the how, and the how is tricky. We can't determine the second. "Should" questions are the trigger you must avoid. — Ed Grimm 2 mins ago

#23647 Ed Grimm (1213 rep) | Q: Reaching Out to A Scientist (score: 0) | posted 15 minutes ago by SqueamishLizard (1 rep) | Toxicity 0.0 | tps/fps: 0/0

Matched regex(es) ["possible-aic"]

6:00 AM

@EmC I am talkative around the right people. ;)

6:25 AM

Morning!

Morning !

What's up?

I have things to do again. The rest was short but very much appreciated :)

you ?

dhein

6:52 AM

Hey all :)

Morning! Noon for AJ? XD

dhein

Noon for president cheer xP

7:34 AM

@Jesse: Not so sure if this improves it. As said I'd rather wait for OP's feedback before doing further editing. I mean in the end it was OP them self changing the bottom line question. so rerolling it might not do them a service. — dhein 59 secs ago

#23647 dhein (2336 rep) | Q: A researcher offered me to reach out when applying in their lab, how much help can I ask/expect from them? (score: 2) | posted 4 hours ago by SqueamishLizard (21 rep) | edited 19 minutes ago by Jesse (6481 rep) | Toxicity 0.0 | tps/fps: 0/0

Matched regex(es) ["possible-aic"]

7:44 AM

Never ever shake an open bottle of orange juice.

Morning...

8:05 AM

@Tinkeringbell Cause it turns a red parrot into an orange one? :P

@AJ There is a slightly yellow spot on my shirt, yeah... (which is a really light grey). But also because shaking it splashes it everywhere, and it takes a whole lot of cleaning...

@Tinkeringbell Well, imagine turning on a mixer with the lid open. :P (It actually happened and my nephew did it)

@avazula Bit busy at work. Got the deadlines coming up and yet no sign of it being completed by then.

@AJ Oof, yeah, that can make a mess too... but in that case there's probably not a laptop and two screens nearby :P

Morning

@Tinkeringbell Yeah, it happened in the kitchen. Getting the kitchen painted was on our list for years and that mess made things move. ;)

8:37 AM

@AJ :/ lots of courage to you

Thanks!

I don't understand why you'd suggest leaving off the "have a nice day" if you're not religious... — Erik 25 secs ago

+1 for this, although it should be used carefully if on behalf of other people - pink-shirt or elephant-man might or might not also see the funny side. — colmde 1 min ago

Matched regex(es) ["+1"]

9:00 AM

You should ask the question on Academia.SE. You would probably get more specific answers over there. — Taladris 48 secs ago

#23647 Taladris (776 rep) | Q: A researcher offered me to reach out when applying in their lab, how much help can I ask/expect from them? (score: 1) | posted 6 hours ago by SqueamishLizard (19 rep) | edited 1 hours ago by Jesse (6481 rep) | Toxicity 0.0 | tps/fps: 0/0

Matched regex(es) ["possible-aic(@Noon)"]

Would it be very rude to go to people that work on the same open office floor, but for a different company, and tell them that while their meeting may be very fun, they should SHUT UP! so other people can work?

@AJ Oof xD

@IPSCommentBot tp

Marked this comment as caught correctly (tp). Currently marked 1tps/0fps. beep boop My human overlords won't let me flag that, so you'll have to do it yourself.

@IPSCommentBot It's on-topic here so why change XD

@Tinkeringbell they're having meetings on the office floor?

9:15 AM

@JAD Yep... But even if they had a room, the rooms don't have roofs (or, some don't even have proper doors)... so it's noise everywhere.

pbs.twimg.com/media/C0Xu1IFUUAAn-uH.jpg < That's a picture of how most 'offices' look like. There's a load of companies here that each have a piece of 'territory' like that.

@Tinkeringbell ugh

coworker.imgix.net/photos/netherlands/utrecht/… < This is 'meeting cube', most meeting spaces are like that.

coworker.imgix.net/photos/netherlands/utrecht/… < See the roof.

@JAD Yeah, especially since there's also a load of 'corners' that are for meetings that don't have any walls at all... so things like a happy birthday coffee meetup are loud and drive me crazy.

it looks a bit like a half-empty IKEA

Well, it kinda is.

Just as big too, if you'd imagine it without the 'walls' that make the 'labyrinth of temptation' at IKEA ;)

it's not a labyrinth :)

I like those cubes

But they can get noisy tho XD

9:27 AM

Oh, IKEAs are a bit of a labyrinth... That's to make sure people walk the entire store and perhaps are enticed to become greedy and buy more ;)

I like browsing through the IKEA though

The Lancashire Hotpots - I Fear Ikea (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

►

xD

@JAD Only if it's quiet.

Especially the Kitchen department

Ikeas are fine :) The closest one here is 45km away so I don't go there too often

9:29 AM

We have one in the next city over (10 km? perhaps 15..)

But the coffee is free tho :D

Less than 20 minute drive.

Nice then

But it's often busy, and I don't like busy shopping, having to keep a spatial awareness and not turning into people is draining.

Same

Well, I found another tv show I wanna watch :)

9:30 AM

There's one across the A1 here in Amersfoort

> Sam, an 18-year-old on the autism spectrum, decides it's time to find a girlfriend, a journey that sets Sam's mom on her own life-changing path as her son seeks more independence.

There ya go

Chat doesn't like multiline markdown

is that scripted or 'reality' tv?

I don't know, browsing Reddit and found this

because what else can you do while bored at work

Found this

I work really close to an Ikea :)

10:00 AM

@Tinkeringbell did you watch the mandalorian?

@Belle No(t yet)... I have been playing with the thought of getting a Disney+ subscription for christmas vacation to bingewatch some stuff ;)

I found a spoilerish crochet pattern for it. Let me know when you started watching and I'll link it to you :)

@Belle If it's a naked mogwai, I've already seen loads of those :P

Alright then

ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-child-baby-amigurumi

@Tinkeringbell Are ya watchin' that show?

10:13 AM

@Belle I know that one, it's been hot on both Ravelry and Twitter (#crochet)... ;)

It's a very good pattern, I think :)

Ah, I don't twitter. I do ravelry :)

12 mins ago, by Tinkeringbell

@Belle No(t yet)... I have been playing with the thought of getting a Disney+ subscription for christmas vacation to bingewatch some stuff ;)

@Belle I like both, Twitter is a bit easier for still showing off to people that don't also crochet :P

I also sometimes use Facebook groups. But less and less of those, as most are moderated very crappily.

@JAD it's fiction. It has very mitigated critics.

@Tinkeringbell I don't like those. I tried a few, but I've never found one that caters to the "me" audience. They're always full of people who get their yarns from Action. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I treat my hobby like a profession and spend more time/money on it.

(i.e., it's applauded by everyone except NA people)

10:21 AM

If twitter is better, I may look into making an account. I could also make an instagram for yarncrafts. I just produce very slowly xD

Anybody in the mood of hearing a math joke?

I love math jokes

You're in for a treat then. ;)

> A pie without 3.141592653589793 is just a 2.718281828459045

8

Took me a moment, then I laughed

Hehe

10:24 AM

OMG Wikipedia is available in my dialect!

Here's my hometown in my dialect's wikipedia: zea.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurrikze%C3%AA

@Belle I thought AJ was talking and then I was like "wth this looks like Dutch so much!"

(that's because both your ava are green :p)

@Belle True. I kept a few English ones: The Scheepjes groups are nice (and focus on stuff made with Scheepjes yarn), and I have one called 'My hobby is Crochet'. Of course these people do use other kinds of cheap yarn sometimes, but it's better than some of the Dutch groups I've been in (also in terms of moderation, like keeping 'on topic' and no sales)

@Belle Ehh. I recently had some trouble with TERFs on Twitter, apparently they lurk in the #crochet too, because the Ravelry homepage now has a pride flag...

@avazula There's an article about France too :D

Frankriek

Frankriek is 'n West-Europees land. De oôdstad is Paries. 't Devies van de republiek is Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Vrie'eid, Geliek'eid, Broederschap). Frankriek is ien van de vuuf kernmachten op de waereld. Vroeher bezat ut land een uutgebreid koloniaol riek, mee onger andere vee bezittingen in Afrika. Het lukte Napoleon om in het eêrste decennium van de 19e eêuw een groôt deel van Europa onder Frans gezag te briengen. == Geografie == Frankriek besti uut 26 rehio's, wivan an der 22 in Europa lihhen. Deze rehio's zien wee verdeêld in departement'n. De 4 rehio's buuten Europa eêtn DOM's...

@Tinkeringbell Awh bah

@Belle "Frankriek is ien van de vuuf kernmachten op de waereld." <- that's from where I don't understand anything anymore :p

Here's the article about France in the dialect of the region I grew up in:

Franche

El Franche obin Républike franchoése (in franchoés : France pis République française) ch'est un poaiyis qu'il o s'pus grande partie in Urope ed l'ouèst, mais l'est itou in déhors d'ech continint uropéyin avé chés téritoéres pi chés coléctivités d'oute-mèr. Sin chef-liu pi pus grande vile ch'est Paris, ès lingue ofichièle ch'est ch'franchoés (minme si qu'os parle pus d'77 difrintés lingues régionnales in Franche ). S'monnoée ch'est chl'Uro aprés avoér 'tè ch'Franc (fr) durant des sièkes. Franche a s'o fourmèe durant ches prunmiers sièkes d'ech Moéyin Ache à partir d'el Gaule romainne, el date d…

Any non-Picard French person will tell you it's unintelligible :p

10:46 AM

hmm, here I thought French had a lot of contractions

if there's an e with an accent in french, it could mean that it used to be es - but it became a shorthand notation

I love dialects. People at work can't actually understand me if I decide to talk in my dialect. Ethnologue considers it to be a separate language actually.

Fun fact: we don't have a H. I still have trouble pronouncing the H in proper Dutch and even other languages.

its not really used in french either, they pronounce it "ash"

but its largely silent

Similar to what some english dialects do with 't'

water -> wo eh

@AlexRobinson Actually, it really depends. If it's used with another consonnant it's pronounced "sh". Like in "cheminée" (chimney, pronounced /ʃə.mi.ne/)

10:56 AM

@JAD not really, thats just improper pronunciation lol

@avazula What about hachée? (I hope I spelled that correctly)

@Belle first h is silent, second forms a ʃ sound. It's pronounced aʃe

what character is that? not really seen it before

@AlexRobinson It sounds a lot like "sh" in "wash".

@AlexRobinson It's from the international phonetic alphabet

10:59 AM

ah thank you both

One thing I love about dialects is the alternative town names. I told my colleague I'd get apples from a farm in Bru. They: "Bru?". Me: "Yeah, Bru?". They: "I've never heard of a town named Bru." Me: "......"

@AlexRobinson potato / pota oh.

@Belle Brugge?

@JAD Bruinisse

hmm

@JAD That's what you need to talk like a southener. A hot one.

Q: How to stay as the well-wisher/friend without escalating her feeling for me?

11:26 AM

0

I used to have a friend who is a transwoman and waiting to become financially strong before thinking about the transition. I was going through some stressful time and we used to discuss our issues. She was a very pessimist about the future and I used to try uplifting her mood with mixed outputs. ...

friends conversations lgbt+

11:37 AM

after two edits, i think its a pretty good question

12:31 PM

I found a jar of really sticky toffees. Time to feed some loudly talking coworkers and gain some quiet.

i am a hungry co-worker :)

I'm sorry... The internet cable is too small to send that package :P

aw nuts

I'm sorry. It was a great sticky toffee though :)

Blegh. I've been working all day on what should've been a adding an extra parameter to a method, and calling it...

encounter a: Apparently another method other code calls has mysteriously disappeared, so that needs another call too (there's another method to use, luckily).

encounter b: mapping broke. Apparently something was merged increasing the number of params from 7 to 9, so I needed a new config file.

encounter c: mapping still doesn't work. There's a difference between writing ABCD and ABDC, fixed a type.

Test finally seems to indicate that all works on dev now. But the weird thing is our tester didn't find any of these problems, and I worry that if I make a new patch he'll have other troubles... Oh well.

12:53 PM

Sounds like you're on the "I hate programming"-phase

I'm at the 'can I go home and sleep' phase :P

Journeyman Geek

lol

So I want to still be there for her as a well-wisher without hurting her feelings. How could I have dealt with the situation better?

do you want to salvage the situation and get back to good terms with her? Or do you want to know how you could have handled the situation better for future encounters? Though it doesn't sound like should would want future encounters — XtremeBaumer 2 mins ago

Matched regex(es) ["possible-aic(@Noon)"]

1:13 PM

@JourneymanGeek I just had another coffee and toffee, hope it helps ;)

1:42 PM

@IPSCommentBot wrongo

Marked this comment as caught incorrectly (fp). Currently marked 0tps/1fps

1:56 PM

My latest commit broke my colleague's functionality he commited seconds after me. But I commited first, so he can fix it. Not sure if I feel relieved or bad or both.

I'd pick relieved... perhaps you can get rid of the bad by explaining your changes to him, so he can easily fix?

@Belle I'd go with relieved

2:09 PM

@IPSCommentBot huh?

Matched reason "possible-aic(@Noon)" for regex ^(?!.*(what\W)).*should

@IPSCommentBot wth so basically any comment with should in it is a catch?

HAHA

thats incredible interpretation, gg IPS bot

...

2:15 PM

catch

I know ^^

i nearly burst out laughing

Journeyman Geek

awww

awww x2

reddit.com/r/JusticeServed/comments/e5bg8x/…

Steals a car but doesn't know how to drive

shrugs

2:38 PM

@avazula well you have the "what" with a negative lookahead. So it's more like any comment with "should" without a what somewhere before it...I think?

This sounds like a question for @user58

@scohe001 That's correct

Though I'm a bit confused by the start of line anchor

Yea I don't think that actually does anything here

(it might be needed for the negative lookahead, I'm not super up to date on that)

Oh to give it a place to start looking I guess? Huh. Perhaps

According to this regex tester removing the start of line causes it to match the string "what should I do", when it doesn't match that string with the start of line

2:43 PM

Did you make sure you were in PCRE?

Yep

Oh, I see what's happening

the .*should matches 'hat should' in that string, the start of line makes sure that it can only match if there's actually not a 'what' in there

regex is fun

Oh wth. I wouldn't have noticed that

I only noticed it because of the visual debugger

It popped out the match as 'hat should'

I need a vacation so badly. During my last job, I used nearly all my vacation hours for mental health, so I basically only had a week off over two years.

@Belle Oof, that's very little. Do you have anything planned for christmas?

2:55 PM

@Belle Hold tight, Christmas is near <3

I haven't had vacation for the last two years either

I'm visiting family during Christmas. That's exhausting, so is probably not going to help much. I can take the day after Christmas off though, I've got 2 days of PTO and will get 2 more by then.

:( that ain't much ...

@Belle That sounds downright American

The accountant at work told me I should get my overtime paid because I won't be able to use all of it as rest days until the next semester ... aaaand that I do so much overtime they think they should put me on a contract where I don't get those hours to be acknowledged

So basically, I think they expect me to continue working that much but I don't get paid for it ... capitalism, yay!

3:11 PM

We all love capitalism, don't we?

gahh I hate it.

@Belle hmm expressing love for capitalism will earn you the most money/best jobs in today's economy. So loving capitalism is actually capitalistic :philosoraptor:

I was entitled to calling in sick for the hours I took for my mental health, but I didn't really want to go through the hassle of that.

@scohe001 I thought expressing love for capitalism painted a target on your back as highly exploitable.

capitalism is a religion. change my mind

3:14 PM

be careful people! Or else internet will turn us in for betrayal of the great capital ...

@AlexRobinson capitalism is a form of exploitation of the masses

"Howdy people ooh I sure love to spend my money"

@AGirlHasNoName This. And hating capitalism makes you a stalin-lover.

@AGirlHasNoName soooo a religion ;)

@scohe001 Roaarrr!

3:15 PM

@AGirlHasNoName hey if they think you're highly exploitable, they're sure to give you the job thinking they can exploit you

@AlexRobinson yes. I was agreeing with you

@avazula I see you're practicing for when you visit Texas. If you continue like that, you'll fit in in no time :p

@scohe001 yup. Then they offer you salary. Then they give you 60 hour weeks and complain when you take a day off.

@AGirlHasNoName How dare you take a break!

60 hour weeks wtf lol

3:17 PM

hah that was my old schedule

That is common for chefs

@AGirlHasNoName was that legal? I mean from your contract

yes

Or was it more of an implicit requirement for the role

i cannot imagine working more than 40 a week at my current job

I had a 55 hour minimum in my contract. I almost never worked that few of hours though.

3:18 PM

dang you must've been making hella overtime then, yea?

I rarely went over 65 hrs though

I was salary

...

@AGirlHasNoName what does that mean?

hourly workers weren't allowed OT

@avazula salary employees are exempt from OT

Are salaried workers legally allowed to work >40hrs a week without OT compensation in the US? O_O

3:19 PM

I got the same pay no matter how much I worked

My sister was an intern chef, she went to school 20 hours a week and worked another 40, even though she was 16. Her first 16 work hours were unpaid and after that she got €2 an hour. Definitely illegal, but what was she going to do, fail her internship? Screw capitalism.

@AGirlHasNoName oh, so you're not paid by the amount of hours and it's basically "work until your goals are met" right?

@scohe001 as long as the breakdown of $/hr is still above minimum wage

@avazula correct.

@scohe001 Yes

@Belle and i thought my pay was bad...

3:21 PM

Unpaid internships are the absolute worst. I mean, if they actually teach you something, sure, but you're just a free employee most of the time.

Damn.

@AGirlHasNoName ugh. That's what they want me to have soon, but in France you have to earn a certain amount of money for that and it's like €8,000 more than what I currently make

pfft, internships can only ever be unpaid if you don't take enough office supplies ;)

I don't think they'll give me such a raise haha

@avazula So they are just going to break the law?

3:23 PM

@AGirlHasNoName I can't say for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised, as about 90% of companies don't respect it

I didn't mean to say that with such shock considering how frequently I see it here.

in the UK that really does not happen

Well, what dazzles me is employers that offer job contracts that break the law

like we have zeo hours contracts which are kinds bs but thats another point entirely

@AlexRobinson omg 0-hour contracts seem like a nightmare ...

3:24 PM

@avazula that part doesn't happen in the US. We are far too litigious for that.

what is a 0-hr contract?

a contract where you need to be available full time, but might not get work on any given day

e.g. fast food - you might have to be available mon-fri but only get work wednesday and thursday in a given week

or no work at all - hence zero hours

ughh thats gross

fortunately i'm just well below living wage and i net a negative amount each month :')

We don't have that here, however, if your job is highly expendable then it might as well be. If you get a phone call and don't come in you can kiss your job goodbye

0-hour contracts are a great thing in theory. They're aimed at students etc, who have flexible availability and for companies that need that flexible availability. Think Amazon on Black Friday. In practice, they get used to dispose of practically fulltime employees at will.

3:37 PM

before i intermitted from uni, my availability was still shot lol

3:49 PM

Well then... I spent the whole day trying to understand a particular part of the software so I can work on a feature, only to ask help just a moment ago from a senior colleague and have him tell me that we're not doing that ticket just now as the area the feature is in needs a rewrite ._.

@IPSCommentBot can I have a kitty to cheer me up please?

4:02 PM

Nvm, we're doing it after all!

Oh, @Ælis my IPS rep is at 8275. Such a nice sounding number

@Rainbacon ooh, right!

4:23 PM

oof I just posted an answer about autism on TWP, let's see how it goes haha

Oh boy. As long as it's not HNQ, you're probably fine

@scohe001 ... it is ...

:p

Ruh roh

link?

Q: How can an employer better accommodate workers on the autism-spectrum to reduce absence from work?

28

Question: What are measures an employer or colleagues can take to better accommodate workers who are on the autism-spectrum? The goal of the better accommodation/changed behavior would be to improve the wellbeing of colleagues on the spectrum to reduce absence from work. Ideas: introduction ...

autism-spectrum absenteeism accommodation

4:25 PM

@Rainbacon The "2" is bugging me but otherwise, it's a nice number indeed :)

Interesting. When you earn a badge, the badge icon you see is the icon for whatever site you are on rather than the site you earned the badge on

That's a nice answer, @avazula. A lot better than the accepted one.

I find ths one very good too: workplace.stackexchange.com/a/149056/91443

Why is "safe space" insulting?

Especially the part about "Templates and scripts". When I was still a student, some teacher of mine asked me to give them a report every 3 months. I asked for examples of what previous students had done. The teacher refused to give it to me. In three years, I never managed to understand what they wanted...

@Belle ?

4:37 PM

@Ælis The accepted answer of the question ava linked says it is

@Belle some people think "safe space" means "place for weak people to be coddled instead of growing up and dealing with the big scary world", roughly

oh sry, didn't see it was in a specific post..hm

@Belle I haven't read it yet, I went straight for the ava one :p

@Ælis That sounds familiar. Someone showing what they did can be such a great help.

Ooh speaking of nice rep's, I just hit 9,666 on SO @Ælis @Rain

@EmC but it doesn't mean that, though! As an aspie myself, I have a need for a "safe place", which is home. It's a place where I can set the rules and boundaries with confidence and no one will judge or laugh because I tried. Perhaps my fiancé will kick my butt if I didn't try, but never when I try.

4:46 PM

@scohe001 ooh nice. only 334 to go? :P

Ugh I know. 6.5yrs after making the account I'll finally hit 10k soon

@Belle oh I'm with you on that :) now that I've read that answer.. it doesn't sound quite that extreme, but more about not giving it a name that might imply autistic people aren't capable of handling the work environment?

@scohe001 I'm 5.5 years in and approaching 1k

@scohe001 haha my SO account is 8.5 yrs old and I am 22 rep away from 3k ;__;

I should just write a couple answers, but all my SE time is on IPS now :p

Q: How to tell a researcher in a position I am asking information about that I want to hear from other groups before taking a decision?

0

I am currently in the process of trying to figure out what to do after finishing my studies. There is a particular topic in research that interests me a lot, and I am writing to various research groups to ask for information, learn about their work in more detail, introduce myself, tell them why ...

conversations college

4:52 PM

@Rainbacon ooh seeing up/down votes is a big deal on SO. Especially when browsing Meta.SO. That'll be a big achievement

@avazula I deleted my TWP account so you only get a shadow vote from me =[

@EmC lol I've slowly been slipping back to SO from IPS lately. I love IPS, but writing an answer here takes soooo long. Much easier to use my 10-15 min breaks during work to knockout a few SO answers :p

@scohe001 fair ;)

I had more spare time at my last job to tinker with SO answers, I used it as a way to keep up with web dev and python stuff when my entire job was just Java..

I don't know enough to answer questions on SO

=[

IPS does take a long time to write a good answer.

@EmC that's the excuse I use with myself. I'm just trying to keep my C++ sharp

4:54 PM

also it's a lot of fun to answer regex questions but they don't actually like most of those (too "give me the codez")

I should probably learn regex

@AGirlHasNoName have you programmed before?

I'm self-taught

Mostly in C++

@EmC ooh yea, I remember stalking that tag for awhile to try to contribute, but it's all a mess there lol

@AGirlHasNoName you could test by adding to the comment bot :D

4:56 PM

@AGirlHasNoName ooh you could probably answer on the C++ tag then. Like 25% of those questions are usually basic "Why isn't this if statement working? if (x = 5)"

@scohe001 yeah that tag is very crowded though and I'm far from expert level.

I really ought to look more seriously at my company's OSS policies.. they seem kind of restrictive so I've avoided it, but now I'm starting to get ideas of things to contribute to. and they might not like if I started answering SO questions related to stuff I work on without identifying myself :/

ElizB

Hello :) Exhausted after cleaning off my car again this morning

I'm trying to come back here more regularly

@scohe001 Oh, that's very nice indeed!

Q: Should I answer a question that already has an answer but apparently with little backing?

@ElizB fun... :p how much snow did you get? it's still coming down here..

Introverted Meta Man

5:08 PM

0

So, there is a question that has 1 answer, which the user has already accepted. For me the answer is not bad. It is similar to what I would answer but has no Backing. Funny enough, it has several upvotes, I always fail to understand the logic behind that. In any case, originally I was going to a...

discussion

ElizB

The airport which is about a mile from here recorded 22.5 inches- just under 2 feet of snow. = ~1/2 meter of snow

wow :o

i'm stuck here for 5 mins whilst i wait for my macro to run so how are people :)

@IntrovertedMetaMan i wanna tell this person to come in here and chat about it

Today's insult to injury moment of the week brought to you by the company that emailed me to reject an application that I submitted 6 months ago

I think we got around ~8-9" snow here so far.. I'm supposed to fly to TX tomorrow morning so really hoping it doesn't get delayed :/

@Rainbacon ugh, why do they even bother at that point..

5:15 PM

It snowed all day yesterday, but none of it stuck in the city

I'm not sure, but I definitely didn't appreciate the out of the blue "hey, you aren't good enough for us"

damn, someone went really out of their way to say that...

ElizB

ugh @Rainbacon i really feel you on that. If I haven't heard back from someplace for ~2 months it's kinda obvious

In other news, I have 10 gold, 45 silver and 100 bronze badge on IPS main. Those are really nice numbers :D (@Rainbacon, @scohe001)

Ooh those are indeed nice

@Ælis I'm getting close to my 3rd and 4th gold badges. I have 29 silver and 71 bronze

5:24 PM

@Rainbacon You'll probably have another silver badge and maybe gold one soon (if you haven't already) thanks to your newest HNQ question (that I should read now that I'm back from my prolonged weekend ^^)

I just got the silver badge for it

nice! i'm slowly approaching a silver badge for flags

And we'll see about the gold one. I haven't gotten a gold badge for answer views since we went back on HNQ. I'm approaching both Electorate and Marshal though

i might get marshal on Physics SE in january

How soon I get it depends a lot on how often people try to answer in comments (most of my helpful flags are for comments)

5:29 PM

@Rainbacon I'm still a bit far from Electorate but I will have "Copy editor" soon. Apparently, I edit more than I vote x)

i love doing edits, i get to be a pedant and get rewarded from it

I've been very deliberate about making sure I remember to vote on things

You've also voted 300 more times than me

SE constantly tells me "hey! vote on questions"

i think proportionally there are more vote-worthy answers than quesitons, but thats just me

@Rainbacon I have been active here longer than you ^^ The thing is, I will often edit a poor question/answer because the formatting is awful, but I probably won't vote on it because it's bad but still isn't that bad for me to downvote

i love finding a huge question with wording issues that i can just spend a solid 5-10 mins improving before getting back to work

5:40 PM

@Ælis Are you sure about that?

@Rainbacon Well, if I recall correctly, you had an account longer but you haven't been posting questions/answers from the beginning. I tend to think that people who post stuff are more likely to vote (because they read more things?). But I might just be totally wrong here ^^

My first post was in January of 2018. I was a bit less active during that summer, but I was posting periodically the rest of the year.

Well then, never mind me ^^'

wait, you guys make posts?

@AlexRobinson nope, we manipulate bits in a datacenter somewhere :p

Fun fact, the IPS user who has cast the most votes all time has made exactly 0 posts. And number 3 has only had one post.

5:50 PM

i'll be darned

@Rainbacon Some people just like "gosting". I was like that before. But I find it a bit sad that those users don't feel safe/valuable enough to contribute :(

i don't """"""contribute"""""" because i often don't have backing. i have advice, i used to do a lot of work with mental health and support so i know how to give good advice - but its not often enough to make a good answer for the site

yeah, unless you are good at finding external sources, it can take a while for a question to come around that fits with your own experience enough to answer

but its ok, i flag comments and make good edits and make my voice heard here :)

my answer yesterday was the first one I'd posted since September :o

5:56 PM

@Ælis I wouldn't assume that they don't feel safe or valuable enough to contribute. I'm mostly a ghost user on SO because most questions I have were already asked and answered. Now, IPS isn't nearly as big as SO, so it's unlikely that all of the questions they have are already asked and answered, but there are certainly reasons outside of not feeling like they are able to participate

@AlexRobinson those are all appreciated too :D

@AlexRobinson It's true that finding backing can be hard. When I have an advice, I often know why I think the way I do, so I can draw back up from that. But I know not everyone is like me and they can have trouble finding back up. But still, I think if you are the person who voted the most on IPS, you would have had the opportunity to post a good answer from experience at some point.

thats a good point

@Darren - All I said is that if I am having a bad day, etc. I may reflexively be offended. At that time I have the choice or remaining offended or reverting to my current active decision to not be offended. At that point I can do something like say - "I'm sorry I acted that way" and can not only hopefully reverse the consequences of my silliness and perhaps even model the way to accept responsibility for my poor behavior. In any event my life will be better for that choice, and hopefully so with the life of those with whom I interact. And since I am a senior, thanks for the seat! :-) — Jon Spencer 2 mins ago

@Ælis FWIW, the user with most votes here does that on more stacks than just IPS, so I wouldn't read too much into it

6:00 PM

@IPSCommentBot tp

Marked this comment as caught correctly (tp). Currently marked 1tps/0fps. beep boop My human overlords won't let me flag that, so you'll have to do it yourself.

eugh that whole answer needs a clearup of the comments... a derailed argument is there

@Rainbacon Maybe, but having low self-confidence is probably a big reason for not participating (I have been active on SO for less than a year, and I still managed to write a good, upvoted, answer on a question who already had 46 Answers ^^)

also, oof, comments by monica on that old thread that now just show as User

I try not to proscribe reasoning to someone's actions unless they've said something that would indicate their reasoning

6:04 PM

@AlexRobinson It's not the "real" Monica ^^ interpersonal.stackexchange.com/users/106/monica-cellio

@IPSCommentBot this is a follow-up to a comment ping from two years ago ... wat

@EmC Humans, amirite?

@Rainbacon Fair enough

@IPSCommentBot for realio

@Ælis thats kinda funny tbh

@EmC thats why it was flagged lol. its not a good comment and no one is gonna see it... but i need my badge progress :D

6:08 PM

I very strongly disagree with this answer. Sure, you won't be able to fix all the world problems. But if you can make the situation just slightly better for someone (and you have the spoon for it), then why not do it???

@AJ Okay, someone needs to explain this one to me ><

@Ælis same here lol

@Ælis the first number is the value of "pi", and the second is "e" ;)

@EmC Oh, I didn't had the "e" thing (no offense :p )

if I guess reasons for my inability to understand it, would it count as excuse ?

I assumed that pi was 22/7, thus 3.142857.. so I went in another direction..

@Ælis I agree, bad answer.

El'endia Starman

6:14 PM

e is super easy to memorize. Well, the first dozen digits anyway...

@El'endiaStarman but why

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_that_22/7_exceeds_π#CITEREFLucas2005 .

El'endia Starman

@ankii Look at it! 2.7 18 28 18 28 45 90 45

Thats similer to how I chose my phone number among ~7 that I was offered.

I am going home tomorrow!

7:28 PM

I'm surprised that I've had a question in HNQ for almost an entire day and it hasn't gotten any new answers. I guess everyone sees the quality of the one that @EmC wrote and knows they can't match it.