The Awkward Silence - 2020-02-18

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Extroverted Main Man

2:09 AM

0

Q: Ending a conversation after hearing bad news

My wife just told me some terrible news (her cousin died). I expressed my condolences and listened while she told me some things about her cousin. It seems a lot of terrible things had happened to him. I think my last comment was "That's awful." I think the conversation itself went fine; that's...

conversations acceptable-behavior

5 hours later…

6:58 AM

@ExtrovertedMainMan Too bad it's deleted. That sounded like a nice question

Some reading for people here:

Community working group updates: February 2020

The Community Team on February 17, 2020

In this post, we’d like to talk about some of the initiatives that are happening internally at Stack Overflow aimed at addressing and repairing our relationship with our community.

The training module for moderators definitively sounds like a good idea. I'm glad they are indeed working on it

@Ælis We've been for months :)

I (kind of) now (since it has been in the conversation for months). But I am glad that they are still following through with that. I believe that proper moderator training is very important

@Ælis Meh. Words again.

Also, I wonder if some of those moderator courses will be made public. I feel it could be very helpful to me as a community mod and also on "how to be nice" in general

Your expectations are definitely too high.

7:08 AM

@Tinkeringbell I would rather have words than silence. But I understand that this blog post does not fix anything. But still

@Tinkeringbell :(

Also, please don't crush my rainbow spirit :p

Sorry. I wasn't attempting to crush anything, just setting realistic expectations....

Also, apparently they put a whole train in front of my train, so I'm now suddenly sitting somewhere in the middle instead of the front.... Which will mean that once I'm at the station, I'll have to walk a lot further in the crowd :/

I'm as unfit as someone can be, and I still always get annoyed at how slow people walk at the station

@Tinkeringbell I thought this was a metaphor about this blog post x)

@Tinkeringbell Yeah, crowds are annoying. They should really be a "fast walker line", "moderate walker line" and "slow walker line"

@Ælis While important, I also think it's not necessarily the thing that needs fixing :/

@Tinkeringbell walking is healthy though ;)

7:25 AM

@JAD They can work on several things at the same time. That's not an issue

> The only time the word incorrectly isn't spelled incorrectly is when it's spelled incorrectly.

@JAD true

@Ælis Nah, it doesn't deserve one ;)

7:58 AM

@Ælis well yeah, but it means that this isn't a "this solves all the problems of the last 6 months"-blog. Not even a "This is starting to acknowledge any of the problems of the last 6 months"-blog.

but meh, I've mostly detached from SE as a whole. I only really come here for chat anymore.

Chat is the best part, if you have a good room :)

Morning :)

o/

hey :)

8:21 AM

I've read the blog post, looks fancy but there's nothing much to get out of it

user image

lol :p

;P

9:00 AM

lol, look at the rant on TWP moderator election

Morning

@CaldeiraG meh, that's to be expected, and honestly it's a bad attempt at trolling

Kinda amazed they're only looking for 1 more mod :/

There's been quite a few moderators gone. Oh well :)

General Note - We are currently looking for one new moderator but it's possible that we may decide to need an additional pair of hands afterwards. If we believe we should bring on an additional moderator within a few months of the election the results of this election will be rerun as if two slots were available and the second person elected would then be invited to join the moderator team. — Lilienthal ♦ 13 hours ago

@Magisch Good luck, and get well soon!

@JAD Ah, missed that. Thanks! :)

9:10 AM

@Tinkeringbell thanks

was on the questionnaire topic

I should dig through the whole thing tonight, and keep an eye on it this week. Should be interesting :)

Or wear me out. We'll see.

@Magisch Good Luck. And since you have privileges to edit, can you fix the typo in the sentence "they have become more then janitors for advanced tasks" here?

@AJ9 which typo? sorry I'm kind of under the water

@Magisch It should be 'more than' instead of 'more then' :)

9:14 AM

^^

@Magisch And it's probably also 'under the weather', instead of 'under the water' ;)

ok fixed

throws table

You're supposed to laugh at that jab :P It's the best medicine.

@Magisch GLUB! GLUB GLUB GLUB GLUB GLUB!

@Mithical that won't help with the bronchitis at least

9:17 AM

laughing hurts

@Magisch :(

Okay, we'll only have serious conversation then? :D

mhm

@Tinkeringbell hmm, how about that economy

It sucks? :P I saw a Tweet? yesterday mentioning something about a stock market crash when all baby boomers sell their stock .... I wonder how much of that is going to happen.

Though, we can ignore the article there.

9:20 AM

I saw a documentary about how the modern tech boom and urbanization have centralized wage gains from people working to mostly real estate owners

it makes sense if you think about it. If I worked and lived directly in frankfurt I would probably make 50-60% more than right now but the rent increase would absorb most if not more then that extra money

I imagine in other places it's even more extreme

Yeah, the rent markets are pretty horrible right now :/

yep :/

luckily interest rates are low

but real estate prices are so high

literally buying a house or apartment here would mean even at 2% interest you pay more interest / taxes / upkeep then you would renting the place. And sure you can get like 1% mortgages now but how long will that work out before some kind of reckoning is due

not that I'm particularly sympathethic to the woes of banks but when you're giving out long term credit for 1% how much of a sorry state is the rest of the economy in to necessitate that

Most people here are making money by renting out two out of three stories and paying their loan from it.

good luck @Magisch :)

9:24 AM

@Magisch I have a 1.9% mortgage, fixed price for 20 years. Even if nothing changes financially for the better, I should be able to have it payed back in 15.

@CaldeiraG thanks

@Tinkeringbell nice

1.9% is a pretty nice rate if you're young

They pay 20 years loan in less than 5 years that way.

@Magisch the difference is that you're building equity. It's not just money that accumulates at whoever rents you the home, since you "own" it

@JAD no, that is subtracting equity

huh

I guess prices must be different over there

9:25 AM

e.g the owner-only extra costs (interest, council taxes, fees, upkeep) eclipse what it costs to rent a similar place

the only way you come out ahead on that deal is if your house price continues to appreciate

(which has been happening in the past years, but still)

here I would pay 450 euros a month in mortgage instead of the 850 rent I was paying on my 65m2 appartment. Ain't no taxes that are going to offset that

rents are rather capped and renters rights are very strong in germany, so renting out a place costs a lot between bad renters and all that

rather the opposite here, since interest on mortgages is deductible from taxes

my coworker rents an entire house for 800€ a month

in a good spot

It's a kind of duality. In the inner cities both rents, house prices and property taxes skyrocket. Whether you own or rent, living in the inner cities is hella expensive

I recently saw a posting of a 4m2 room (which was literally a 2 person bed wall to wall in Amsterdam for ~700 euros :S

9:30 AM

wot

thats ridiculous

One thing is that bad renters represent a huge part of the cost of renting here

if people don't pay you can't evict them right away, nor effectively go after them for trashing the place.

thats the main reason for instance my landlords commited to not raising the rent for several years, because I pay on time (autopay) and don't cause police calls

this should give a bit of a taste: funda.nl/en/huur/amsterdam/500-2000

I just hope my future neighbours are reasonable people :/

@Tinkeringbell heh, that's always a bit of a gamble

@Magisch But this is a problem in other countries too, I saw a documentary about Britain, where it's the same. Wouldn't surprise me if this was The Netherlands too...

@JAD Apparently one of them has a big dog :/

big dog can be an asset

leonbergers for instance are very nice

9:36 AM

@Magisch Not if it barks too much or covers your garden set in dog hair...

@Magisch my mom has a leonberger x bernersennen. It's huge

is it friendly?

all the super big dogs I know are also super friendly

hmm, she's a bit clumsy

and has a tendency to chase waterfowl

my aunt's big dog has "I'm still a puppy" syndrome

that

9:37 AM

e.g trying to sit on you for pets while being 50+ lb of dog

she's the perfect height and tail length to completely wipe anything from your coffeetable

@Tinkeringbell we're a bit of the odd one out in our street. Most of the households have older kids that are starting to move out and such.

wouldn't surprise me if there's a 10 year gap between us and the next youngest couple

10:21 AM

@Magisch Good luck with the TWP moderation election :)

@Ælis thanks

11:15 AM

@JAD O.o

funda.nl/en/huur/amsterdam/appartement-41607014-welnastraat-25 this is smaller than my student apartment, which I paid 400 for including utilities

Compare with funda.nl/en/huur/biervliet-gem-terneuzen/… near me

I personally pay €800 for 120m2 living area and a 200m2 garden, 15 minute walk from city center

11:37 AM

@Belle "city" ;)

@Belle that's a pretty big student place

also note that it comes furnished, so that's a bit of added value

All I know is that over here, buying is still cheaper than renting. I can't get the 'huursubsidie' (government money to pay rent), I can't get social housing (which have lower rents, and private renting is asking jackpot prizes.

I've looked at rentals and buying and I'm definitely happy I was able to buy :)

The thing I like now is the backlog of ideas we currently have. In rental it doesn't really make sense in investing in the house. Here it does. We already swapped the oven and stovetop to new/better equipment.

:D I'm getting new ones, so.... I'm kinda not looking forward to having to pick out all the things though...

What if it doesn't look the way I imagined?

11:53 AM

Ask others for help. I get a lot of help asking my grandma about kitchen and bathroom design, just because she has the experience of working with a few of them. She knows what works and doesn't work

Yeah, I took mom for the kitchen, and dad once too. It works, but it's not ideal.

12:11 PM

@JAD Zierikzee is a city! :P

12:30 PM

Greetings from the Alps :)

Alps?

I thought you weren't European...

12:57 PM

I thought you were German :p @AlexRobinson

1:14 PM

user image

it's impossible to fail the audit with this xD

1:43 PM

I poked a little fun at someone yesterday, but I accidentally pissed them off XP

They're the type of person who always seem to need to one-up everyone. Yesterday, I was in a chat with them on my new laptop and I happily told the people in chat about that. This person asked what kind of laptop. I said: "a Lenovo". They responded with: "What kind of Lenovo?" I couldn't resist and responded with: "A laptop."

I just went to my favourite website, set a filter for a 128gb+ ssd, 8gb+ ram and 14-15 inch, windows and full hd or better resolution. Then I sorted on price and bought the first laptop in the list.

@Ælis Ooh, nice!

To me it really is just that, a Lenovo laptop. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2:16 PM

After that I told them the model. Then they told me I should've gotten a different, cheaper laptop, because I "wouldn't need more for school anyway". I never actually told them what I wanted to use it for, but they did know I started in uni last week. Then they proceeded to link me their own laptop, which was four times as expensive as mine.

That conversation felt... weird. Slightly upsetting too.

@Belle Oh, I figured Terneuzen, since you linked a funda thing there

hmm, according to wikipedia Ziezikzee is smaller than Terneuzen. Both are smaller than the village I grew up in. :P

@Belle Please, don't make me cry. I pay 700€ for a crappy 17m² :'(

@Belle I don't see anything unreasonable on your filters :P

128 gb storage is a tad low tbh

@JAD It was the minimum I wanted. The laptop I bought has 500gb.

2:28 PM

oh, that's fine

it's just that 128gb is hardly enough for OS and essential tools, let alone any data.

My old laptop had 128gb, which was fine for what I needed. It had MS Office installed and Photoshop and had like 40gb left. I used a lot of cloud storage, though.

Journeyman Geek

@Belle So.. they were totally wrong? :D

@JAD I tend to consider 256 a minimum personally but I have some systems with as little as 32 (which is a pain, cause you need external storage to upgrade)

@JourneymanGeek I guess so :P

Journeyman Geek

@Belle that's a perfectly reasonable set of specs IMO

^^

2:34 PM

I tested it out yesterday. It runs smooth, boots super fast and sounds decent.

good :)

I didn't realize, but it has an M.2 hard drive, so it boots faster than my gaming PC :D

you don't image my happiness when i first booted on an SSD

Journeyman Geek

M.2 is <3

I have a sata one (250gb) :(, looking to upgrade my pc to Ryzen :p

Journeyman Geek

2:36 PM

lol

Trying to decide between a laptop upgrade and a new GPU :D

(in 6-8 units of time)

i would consider laptop first

Journeyman Geek

@CaldeiraG My desktop gets more use :D

Thinking of a surface pro 8 ._.

@JourneymanGeek Ah i see :D

I also want an M.2 for my PC, but I promised my hubby we'd upgrade his PC first. He has a 120gb ssd that we recycled from a random laptop and a Haswell processor, so I think that's only fair.

Journeyman Geek

(If I'm not working, I'm mostly at home, and the desktop basically covers most of my needs)

2:39 PM

If I eventually get an laptop I would probably remote access to my PC for games :p

Journeyman Geek

@Belle prebuilt or DIY?

@JourneymanGeek DIY

Journeyman Geek

Ah fun 😁

Mine's a prebuilt with everything modified expect the MB, CPU

it's a DIY from the prebuilt lol

@CaldeiraG That's what I'm planning to do as well. I considered if I wanted a desktop or a laptop for the study room. When I did a little price comparison, laptops with my requirements weren't that more expensive and allowed me to work in the garden too.

Journeyman Geek

2:43 PM

@CaldeiraG funny that...

My last PC was an old dell I picked up from a dumpster

Then I slowly replaced everything

@Belle Yep, if outdoor is your main purpose a laptop will always be better

Comes at a cost of upgradeability

Journeyman Geek

Well most laptops are appliances

You use em 5-8 years then replace em

8 years already seems a lot :o

tbf my cousin still uses a laptop with a i7-750 in it

When I first bought my desktop, I always got told that laptops are much much more expensive then desktops. I'm not sure if it's because of my desired specs, but I found that the laptop was cheaper.

Maybe I could've built it a bit cheaper, but this is what I got to desktop-wise: nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/ZCXRwh

Downside to laptop is upgrade-ability indeed. But can't watch Netflix in bed on that :P and still need a screen and keyboard and mouse.

@CaldeiraG since when am i german???

2:58 PM

IIRC you're British :p

sure am

and atleast until the end of the year, an EU citizen ;)

hahaha :sad:

I thought you buys already brexited?

@JAD There's a transition period till the end of the year

ah

Extroverted Main Man

3:04 PM

0

Q: How can I have a conversation with my fiancé about a subject he doesn't want to talk about?

My fiancé has a bit of a troubled history. I knew that when we got together. He has some mental issues, which I attributed to years of being bullied. Only recently I managed to figure out the main cause. He experienced something extremely traumatizing. I had completely underestimated the severity...

relationships approach netherlands mental-health

@AlexRobinson ah, didn't remember it :p

@AlexRobinson Ah, so on the other side of the water, but the small water, not the big one ;)

the small water

3:19 PM

well, across the pond is generally a term for USA-UK

so what's smaller than a pond

a ditch?

@JAD puddle

On the other side of the channel ;)

Extroverted Main Man

3:44 PM

0

Q: Give a personal loan to an acquaintance

After a burnout I have had an increasing need to do something good for others. I have been disappointed with the charities I have donated to in the past, as it always turns out that only a fraction of the donation ends up with those in need and the rest is spent on operational costs etc. One of ...

friends money loans

4:28 PM

@ExtrovertedMainMan hmm. I have all sorts of curious, prying questions... Like why this person isn't involved with schuldhulpverlening (Dutch organization that helps people with debts) or getting welfare :/

Seems very odd

@Tinkeringbell They said they're unhappy with the amount of fundings that directly go to finance the operational costs

Maybe that's the case here too?

@ExtrovertedMainMan I'll never forget the quote: "The two easiest ways to ruin a relationship are by borrowing and lending money"

@avazula Nah, state welfare doesn't rely on charity... Honestly, before your house is foreclosed here, you'd be on someone's radar and helped... Which makes this weird.

Schuldhulpverlening is government agency too

@scohe001 Oh, that too ;)

I'm just really wondering what kind of issues make you drop through the cracks like that!

1 hour later…

5:47 PM

Well, that was a long and difficult post to write ^^ I hope it will be helpful to you @Belle

@Ælis Great answer! I'm gonna bother you though, could you add an excerpt of the takeaway you'd like people to have from the link you gave in the "further reading" section? :)

@avazula I made a small edit. I'm too tired to do more and I'm not sure it would be really useful

1 hour later…

6:55 PM

just saw a good rant thread about stackoverflow on reddit

reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/f5lxl4/…

while searching for it, saw many more smh

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