The Awkward Silence

6:31 AM

Morning!

6:46 AM

@Tinkeringbell Morning my dear :)

And good morning everyone else. :D

Afternoon!

I'll just opt for "Good what ever, to everyone not wanting feel treat like an object by me!" In the future x'D

lol

8:08 AM

@dhein @Mithrandir has a funny way of doing that... something with concatenating good morning, afternoon, evening and then capitalizing the part that shows your time? Something like that :P

GaMen

It's confusing, because afternoon comes before morning :P

That's why I couldn't remember it.

Sounds better than GMaen, though

Amen!

@Mithrandir Yeah, I knew it wasn't that because it sounded so bad :P

8:12 AM

@Tinkeringbell Today I read that the Netherlands is now literally a crime-free country and they are shutting down all their prisons.

How much is it true?

@AJ None :P

Really?

We just finished a master trial agains 'the nose' :P

@AJ Really :P

@Tinkeringbell master trial against what?

@AJ A criminal nicknamed 'the nose' :P

8:15 AM

oh

He's on trial for a few executions of the criminal kind.

Bit of a well-known criminal around here. Has been in the news for as long as I can remember

brb. standup first, then we can talk more about prisons and crime ;)

So, he is just one criminal there? :P

8:31 AM

GaMenThen

Hello over-the-pond friends :)

Hello!

Hello people

Jello!

@AJ There's quite a problem with drugs labs in the southern part of the country, but overall there's not a lot of heavy crime I guess. But to say that all prisons could close, no.

8:47 AM

@dhein where's your new profile pic? I'm dying for a smiling rock! :D

@avazula Well, did you draw one? ;P

@Mithrandir My pens are still in a moving-out box :)

ooh, you're moving?

@Mithrandir I just did! Last week :)

Nice! Enjoy your new place ;)

8:57 AM

thank you! I have a pond across the street now, it's nice :)

Feb 18 at 9:22, by avazula

oh, cool

and how are you?

@avazula That's really pretty :)

@avazula "busy"

Argh some stacks really get me bonkers

9:10 AM

@Anilla ?

@Mithrandir I've been getting comments on technical sites that have often been irrelevant and unnecessary for my questions...

@Mithrandir chatting? :P

These comments are confusing (at least for me since I don't frequent these sites) because they don't really delve into improving my question or actually solving the problem I might have.

@AJ *eyeroll*

9:28 AM

@AJ Nah. Part of the rumour you heard is likely true, we are closing prisons just because we don't have enough inmates. But that's more likely to be due to not enough capacity at the law enforcement side than a decrease in criminality.

@avazula Thanks for reminding me. I just went to the Secretariat and successfully obtained the fine liners :P

JAD

@Tinkeringbell hmm, I think that's a bit cynical. Rather, the most noticable parts of criminality are pretty petty offenses. Your bike being stolen, something being vandalised, that sort of stuff. That generally doesn't come with a (long) prison sentence to begin with

@JAD True but we now basically don't even have the police capacity to investigate bike theft or vandalisms properly. You can file a report and that's about where it stops... :/

@Tinkeringbell But shouldn't that already be enough to at least make it taken into account for statistics?

@dhein Yeah, but it's also pretty unhelpful. We had three cars vandalized (at different times, some even multiple times) so let's say there were 6 reports of car vandalism, and 3/4 reports about paint being thrown at our front door and in our backyard... Before police took action and installed a camera. Of course then all activity had ceased.

JAD

9:38 AM

@Tinkeringbell with the silly amount of bikes going on, I'm not sure what can be done to combat bike theft to be honest

@JAD Well, if people never get caught, that's where it ends. There's plenty of stories around of people finding their own bikes on marktplaats and the police not having time to investigate even that... :/ famme.nl/gestolen-fiets < This one for example.

@Mithrandir You said you are busy, so I asked if you're busy chatting.

@Anilla: Oh hey there :)

@Tinkeringbell Installing a camera? Huh interesting measure. People would go shit storm if politicians would even consider such things to be legitimated here in Germany. To be fair, tho.... Here in Germany people start shit storms for anything that constitutes capturing private data, no matter how usefull it would be and how little drawbacks it had '^.^

@dhein It was a 'secret' camera, installed behind my parent's bedroom window. No-one had access to the footage, except the police.

(Granted, I didn't know how to program back then and didn't try to hack :P)

Still, people here in Germany go mayhem even if it would be a closed system only an AI would be allowed to evaluate. Citizens always immediately start referring to governmental conspiracy and getting scared of The Big Brother scenario. It is kinda ridiculous, tho. As most people just pick up whats being spread by the media and don't even want to investigate by them self.

9:53 AM

@dhein hello! Been awhile :) how are you?

Like 1.5 years ago, we had an new law, granting the police more freedom in enforcing DNA tests. Media just pushed it up as the Police gonna get the right to store DNA data arbitrary as the like. People picked that statements up and 10s of thousand people went on the streets to demonstrate against that law.
(at one place I think there was actually a demonstration where 35.000 people participated)

I found the claims the media made a bit weird, and actually took the time to read the 82 pages of the new laws proposal my self (something the other 35.000 demonstrants apparently didn't) And in the end, all that new law was saying was summarized, IF the police finds DNA material at the place a serious crime was commited,
and the DNA is likely to be the DNA of the person having commited the crime, the police is now allowed to take the DNA's data of origin, skin colour or etnity being revealed by the material in to consideration by their further investigation. So before, even if the DNA reve…

@Anilla True. I just had an awesome weekend and 2 days off before it. I enjoyed my time :) What about you?

@Anilla: Just wanted to share this code snippet with you I made a few years ago. I am sure you would enjoy seeing it :) codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/55989/31033

10:09 AM

@dhein I’ve been doing HW and looking at cars hehe. And that C post is really neat! Clever tricks ;)

11:00 AM

I'm looking for "wall of text" (A paragraph of text with a lot of word in it. So much that it should probably be several paragraphs instead of one). Anyone know if there is an existing query who can search that? (in questions that are still open and in answers that aren't deleted)

@Anilla sounds trhilling too :)

11:55 AM

Hmmm... To troll or not to troll the people sending me "messages" on Instagram, that is the question...

Troll or just block immediately...?

@Mithrandir block.

Don't waste your effort :P

Well, it'd be the same as emailing vampires.

Pretty modern thing for a vampire to do ;)

Q: Telling parents that it's okay if their child doesn't kiss me

12:14 PM

0

I have cousins who both have children. Whenever we see each other, my cousins always told their children to "go kiss Ælis" but the children are sometimes reluctant to kiss me (which I can understand). Nonetheless, the parents push the kids to kiss me which they ultimately end up doing. (For the p...

family children france greetings

Q: How to reply to complaint "do you think this will brighten my day?"

12:33 PM

0

We have a group chat for the cotenants where I live. I spoke with one and he said he observed too much negativity in the chat and wanted people to use it less for complaining. I agreed with him. Some time past and I message him asking if he had spoke with one person in particular who always compl...

conflicts roommates non-violent-communication

1:13 PM

@ExtrovertedMainMan @Tinkeringbell I thought you didn't like to single-handly close a question, why did you choose to do it this time? (note, I'm not arguing with the fact that this should have been closed, I totally agree with your decision but I must admit that I'm surprise)

Q: How can I apologize to coworker while avoiding another lecture?

1:31 PM

1

My colleague Tom has been making me feel bad over a computer game. He's been insulting me and my ability to play this game, both during the game and at work. More info at my previous question: Colleague making me feel bad over a game Last week, I mustered up the courage to tell Tom a particular ...

work-environment conflicts autism-spectrum netherlands apologies

1:51 PM

I believe I just found a goldmine of "need retagging" and "is this even on-topic???" interpersonal.stackexchange.com/… :p

2:23 PM

@Ælis My guess is that @Tinkeringbell is trying to set a good example based on this recent meta

@Rainbacon I was wondering that too

@Rainbacon Right, and wrong. I mainly closed it quickly because there already was an answer in the comments, and the question invites 'witty one-liners' like that comment. So I wanted to prevent people from doing that.

Also, if someone downvotes all new question (and answer) of mine but it's not on the same day (since the question aren't posted the same day), is that consider serial downvote and will it be caught by the algorithm?

But yeah, also because I feel we could use better questions and I'm seeing that when answered they're not likely to be improved.

@Ælis Nope :(

Serial voting is just votes in rapid succession.

Arf, too bad for my rep then :/

2:30 PM

@Ælis I'll look when I'm home, targeted voting is a thing too. Just don't get your hopes up: More often it seems like 1 person is downvoting everything but in fact it's not.

@Tinkeringbell I know I'm might just be paranoïd here ^^ But knowing what systems are in place to counter that is always nice (even if, in this case, the only system is a human ^^)

Just didn't want to raise your expectations too high ;)

I've felt the same way before I became a mod too, and it wasn't anything back then either ;)

Yeah, it's just is so frustrating when people downvote without leaving comments that you start thinking about all the possible reasons for the downvotes and, without realizing it, you start chasing shadows ^^

The usual excuse is that Tim lost his keys ;)

32

A: The Many Memes of Meta

Meme: Tim Post lost his keys Originator: Tim Post Cultural Height: TBD Background: In his answer to Should 'drive by' downvoting be more effectively caught?, Tim Post describes a long chain of events, starting with him losing his keys, to explain why an answer was downvoted. Since then, "Tim P...

Ahah x)

3:05 PM

argh my fingers are hurting xD

You typed up quite the post :P

:D

I think thats my most cited answer I have ever given in the network x)

Which is good! We need more of those. Perhaps your post could use some syntax highlighting as well (bold text)? I'll take some time to read it tonight when I'm home.

List so far:
- Check votes for Ælis
- Check answer from dhein
:P

I didn't read it yet, but when/if I do, I will probably add some line breaker (especially for the last part!)

Would you say that a tag named "request" and one named "asking-for-help" would be the same thing? The tag "request" already exist but I'm not sure if asking for help and making a request are absolutely the same thing ("request" sounds really hard for my French hear, like a requirement)

Alex

@Tinkeringbell Is this give Tinkeringbell homework day?

3:13 PM

@Alex It's keep Tinkeringbell busy day, yeah :P

Yeah, the last paragraph my brain started to work properly hence also might have some grammatical errors. Will do a reread and first fixes myself as soon I had a smoke :) But yeah for syntax highlighting I would appreciate some help, as I usually lack the skill to see where it might be of help.

One major thing would be if you could highlight the part that points out how to apologize in this case. You can use bold for that, or use quotes from parts of the question to show which part you're addressing where :)

@Ælis well Id say it isn't the same, as you noted a request somewhat implies that one is expecting the other person feeling inclined to do so, while asking for help is more of a favor.... if that makes sense.

@Tinkeringbell Weeeeeell. Its more like the whole second paragraph is answering the question (all of it in bold? :x) and everythign after that being more of a frame challange ^^

@dhein Then put > what techniques can I use to apologize while avoiding another lecture? above that second paragraph... and perhaps you've written the rest in response to specific parts as well?

I will check. :P

For now I am gonna smoke :D brb

4:04 PM

ARGH!!!!

Alex :x

:(

@dhein ?

You didn't like the edit?

Was just gonna ask "Did I do well momma? :)" And now I see I didnt...

I think you did a great job. The content of your answer is excellent.

Well I did.... but I was just doing an edit my self.... and now there are 2 very large edits where mine outruled Alex's :x

Oh no!

4:05 PM

feature request: git merges for edits x'D

Yes please

MOMMA TINKI! We need your git skillz! x'D

Is she 'momma Tinki' now? xD xD

git momma-tink -plz /path/to/file.txt

Definitely a real command^

x'D

@TheTinyMan Well in my opinion TAS is clearly some sort of special kindergarden where everyone accepts tinkis authority. So yeah, I won't stop considering her being the momma x)

4:09 PM

Aaaagh! I never wanted any kids!

Steven Universe has ruined me on the word "Kindergarten." :-P

@Tinkeringbell Right? xD Well now you have quite a few!

@Tinkeringbell haha, yeah... I am sure you didn't think thats what they meant when they said "You just need to not be cautious a single time, and you won't belive how quickly you have a whole gang of little rascals." xP

→ 13 messages moved to Trash

@dhein Yeah... :P

Hey @Ælis, I noticed you dropped a comment asking for clarification on this post. Just thought you might want to know that the OP is suspended for the next 4.5 years, so you probably won't get an answer any time soon

4:19 PM

@Rainbacon Wow, that's a long suspension Oo Good thing I just ask to justify my close vote :p

How would that be handled? VTC for lack of informations? I mean technically the reason why OP can't provide the info is irrelevant for it, isn't it?

@Alex: if you are up for the 2 rep, feel free to just merge your edit one more time >.< Otherwise later at some point I am gonna do it :) Really sorry for having overrolled your edit.

@dhein Well yes, it would be handled like any other question with the same problem.

Honestly, I think we could do some minor edits to get it into a good question. The OP asked for "How to properly respond when the other person assumes you recognize them, but you don't?" To me, that sounds an awful lot like "how can I politely ask someone to remind me who they are when I don't recognize them"

@Rainbacon Yeah, but that sounds like a phrasing request and, if we don't know what was wrong with their approach how are we suppose to not suggest a wrong approach yourself?

I'd stick with the question as it is now. It could use some clarification of why it 'didn't feel right' (was it too forward? Too awkward?) But on the other hand it doesn't really matter that much.

4:32 PM

I am off for today. Have a nice evening my fellow rascals and Tinki x)

Or a nice what ever

@dhein Have a nice whatever to you too :p

Hello

@Tinkeringbell Would you prefer the term "Aunt"?

@Mithrandir Hahaha. Just Tink is fine with me ;) or perhaps 'supreme ruler'?

@bruglesco Hi!

What did I just walk into...

Supreme Ruler Aunt Tink?

4:37 PM

@bruglesco The awkward Kindergarden ^^

@bruglesco Hey, sometimes you just need to flatter the mod :P

@Tinkeringbell I agree.

I would try really hard to become a mod, just for all the flattery except...

A.) All the work

B.) There isn't any flattery.

The workload is lighter than it seems. And there is flattery, if you ask for it XD

@Tinkeringbell I really like "Supreme Ruler" :p But now I want to observe your supreme powers but I know I'm not worthy :p "Please, forgive me Supreme Ruler cause I have sinned. I left a chatty comment under a post"

(okay I should stop talking now) :p

Haha. Maybe here. But that just means you are running a good community. I couldn't do that. If I were a leader everyone would be angry and sarcastic.

4:43 PM

Oh, wouldn't that be awful.

;)

@Mithrandir I think it would just be SO

4:55 PM

Didn't we have a cult worshipping her once upon a time?

@TheTinyMan did y'all have a name for it?

@TheTinyMan Oh , you mean the 'Great Goddess of Nice' thingy ? :P

@scohe001 I'm not sure that we did

@Tinkeringbell "Nice?" Is that what we told you? :o

@TheTinyMan I thought you were referencing that chat we had on names and meanings ;)

@Tinkeringbell rubs his eyes sleepily and confusedly

4:58 PM

Guess it wasn't that one then :P

5:41 PM

→ 6 messages moved to Trash

Q: How can I tell an acquaintance that I'd prefer to go to a concert without him?

6:57 PM

2

I have a work friend who's really into the same kind of music I am, and we meet up sometimes to record and play music together, it's very fun. He and I were planning to attend a concert together until he got invited to a conference that week, so I'm planning to go alone, which I'm totally comfort...

saying-no coworkers harassment

Introverted Meta Man.

7:45 PM

The end of my watch on IPS

7

@IntrovertedMetaMan. And now his watch is over

That needs to be pinned :)

:(

Thanks. Oh, @Tinkeringbell, would you mind featuring the meta post, if you think it would be appropriate?

Of course that is appropriate. :)

7:56 PM

@Rainbacon . . . and thank goodness he isn't following Catija and joining the Community Team. :P

One featured tag for you :)

@Tinkeringbell Thanks.

@HDE226868 You're not? :(

Dang... now I still don't know any people that applied and got through..

Goodness, I don't think I could do that job any time soon.

@HDE226868 For what it's worth, I think you'd be good at the job

8:00 PM

@Rainbacon I've noticed that most of the CMs have a pretty common skillset: An ability to boil down a problem to its key points, a knack for writing clearly, very strong communication skills, and the ability to make judgments on the fly. Those are all areas I think I could improve in.

@HDE226868 it sounds to me like you've boiled down the essential CM requirements to their key points, you've written and communicated it clearly, and you've made a huge (but in my opinion correct) judgement call to step down as moderator :P

@scohe001 I doubt that judgment call was made on the fly though :)

Psh I tried :P

@scohe001 :D That made me chuckle.

@Rainbacon This was definitely one of those think-about-it/write-the-email/leave-in-drafts-folder/wait-week/look-at-draft/th‌ink-about-it-again/rewrite-email/etc. decisions. :P

Magisch

8:25 PM

@HDE226868 Thanks a lot for your service