The Awkward Silence

Tinkeringbell

6:32 AM

Morning!

avazula

6:43 AM

Morning!

Mithical

morn'

CaldeiraG

Morning!

@Mithical ooh, I have the same

I'll try on main phone later

A J 9

7:02 AM

Afternoon

Someone had organised Tabliqui Jamat with gathering of over 1800 muslims in the capital city. Now there are more than 60 positive cases and 12 deaths among them and the authority is trying to find those who attended that Jamat all over the country.

Community spread has been started.

avazula

7:43 AM

:(

Tinkeringbell

8:10 AM

@AJ9 :( That's no good. Because the 1800 probably have had contact with a lot of others since then ... :/

Journeyman Geek

8:48 AM

@AJ9 .... Same thing happened in Malaysia

A J 9

8:58 AM

And in Pakistan

I even heard that some of them stabbed a cop when he tried to make them stay in quarantine.

Magisch

130 people died yesterday of the virus

it's just tearing through old folks homes

:,(

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch Yeah :/ Same here.

M.A.R.

The April fools joke this year is so funny it eludes me

Good early afternoon

Tinkeringbell

9:32 AM

@M.A.R. Your shoelace is untied.

M.A.R.

9:43 AM

@Tinkeringbell it's a choice

Extroverted Main Man

10:28 AM

0

Q: How to explain to friends that I can do the technical part of making a website, but they have to come up with the content?

Where I live the economy isn't great for people trying to get into the tech industry, and that was before COVID-19. I would be happy to make websites for free for my friends. This would give me experience and something to show prospective customers. One issue I'm running into is people don't rea...

CaldeiraG

11:05 AM

@ExtrovertedMainMan His friend wants OP to reinvent the wheel (aka Patreon) for free, what a choosing beggar XD

Not sure if it's hypothetical but that example seems very complicated

avazula

It's pretty common, though. I mean the "friends want a website but don't know what they want and expect you to come with a mockup/V1 and change until they're satisfied" thing

CaldeiraG

I agree

same website

2

Q: Helping friend with project, how to tell him I'm not comfortable using my info for registering something?

My friend wants to make a website and I would like to help him do this. He asked me what free hosting to use and I suggested one. Part of the registration process is to upload photo ID. My friend said he filled out the form but was never given an account, no password was ever created. He's now...

friends coworkers trust

OP, drop the website

it's giving too much trouble now xD

Tinkeringbell

11:30 AM

@CaldeiraG It's also lacking what they've tried so far wrt communicating...

CaldeiraG

11:49 AM

True that

CaldeiraG

12:11 PM

Cases: 8,251 (+808) / Dead: 187 (+27) / Hospitalized : 726 (+99) / Intensive care: 230 (+42)

Tinkeringbell

Cases: 13.614 (+1.019) / Hospitalized: 5.159 (+447) / Dead: 1.173 (+134)

The IC numbers are from a different organisation and published at a different time.

CaldeiraG

reports say 7k people were tested and the increase in case was about 10%

not bad

Tinkeringbell

But at least the numbers aren't rising that much, so they're saying it's definitely slowing down.

CaldeiraG

yea

M.A.R.

Cases: 47,593 (+2,988), Dead: 3,036 (+138)

Tinkeringbell

12:22 PM

See, there's always some place that has more depressing numbers...

CaldeiraG

12:41 PM

:(

Rainbacon

In NYC we're up to Cases: 40,900, Dead: 932

Tinkeringbell

Yeah NYC is particularly bad too, are you in there? Stay safe!

Rainbacon

Yeah that's where I live. I'm doing as much to stay safe as I can. We try to only go out for groceries once a week

Unfortunately it's only going to get worse here. Our hospitals have started reaching capacity. The US Navy sent a hospital ship with 1000 extra beds, but those will probably fill up fast

Tinkeringbell

1:06 PM

Yeah I saw some video's... it's looking more like refuge camps with all those tents than a major American city :(

CaldeiraG

1:33 PM

@rain screenshot on Meta :P

31

Q: Closed as a duplicate, but the duplicate list is empty?

Obligatory: This is not a duplicate of this question, which is concerning the much older duplicate closure process. Have a gander at this closed question. Notice anything weird? The Community♦ user was invoked by the question asker to self-close as a duplicate (presumably of the comment below, ...

bug status-planned duplicate-questions community-user

Rainbacon

Oh yeah, I accidentally tripped a very interesting bug. I should probably post on that question though

Oh, actually it looks like Yaakov has as much information already as I could provide

avazula

2:32 PM

@Ælis you around?

Magisch

2:54 PM

@Rainbacon I saw a twitter thread this morning that @avazula retweeted

apparently disabled people who need ongoing care are just going to be ... sentenced to die by rationing of care? thats really heartbreaking

these triage guidelines sound like straight up eugenics

avazula

@Magisch In many countries they're putting covid patients first and dismiss the disabled needs and rights

Magisch

not gonna lie reading that gave me quite a shock this morning. What if you're disabled and need a ventilator and they're just going to withdraw it from you to give to someone who is otherwise healthy but caught covid? I mean I get the rationale but

damn

that being a distinct possibility or already happening makes me angrier at the idiots who gleefully did not delay their vacations and brought corona back into all their communities and hastened the spread

avazula

@Magisch I'm sorry it made you feel that way. Maybe I should've put a CN :/

Magisch

it's not your fault, just my worst fears coming true

2 of my friends are already scared to death they could be denied their medication or care when they get sick

they have to constantly take immunosuppressants to manage autoimmune diseases

avazula

3:10 PM

Have you heard of chloroquine already? It's the drug Pr Raoult said it could be useful to cure Covid (it's used for malaria already), in a Youtube video, to the eyes and ears of everyone. In France, the labs that produce it decided to gather all their stocks in case it'll be used against coronavirus eventually.
The issue is that the main purpose of this drug is to treat patients with lupus. And they need it to survive. And now drugstores are out of it, because the labs retain them.

Magisch

wow

how are we a month away from just doing eugenics as a supposedly enlightened society

there's nothing any of us can do besides endeavour not to catch it but jesus christ

and people here still congregate in large groups and don't take distancing seriously

I just ... I can do absolutely nothing, and if it comes to it we can all do nothing while our society just ... chooses to sacrifice people

motosubatsu

@avazula yup, even more annoying is that Dr Raoult is doing all this grandstanding off the back of two laughably shonky trials.

avazula

@motosubatsu Yeah ...

motosubatsu

Or it would be laughable.. if his desperate bid for herodom/fame weren't y'know killing people

:(

Magisch

reality is really ***** depressing right now

screw all those people who minimized this and keep arguing that it's not bad because healthy people have nothing to worry about

avazula

3:25 PM

@motosubatsu Thinking of another usage for an existing drug isn't that stupid ... Sharing your unproven thoughts on YouTube, OTOH, that's incredibly dangerous and careless.

Tinkeringbell

:53961785 Sounds like it's time for notepad

avazula

@avazula especially if these shaky theories led labs to stock up drugs.

Magisch

it is

it's time for crying into a pillow

except I'm stuck at work

avazula

@Magisch have some love pal <3

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch I'd send you a hug... are virtual ones okay?

Rainbacon

3:26 PM

@avazula Yeah, the POTUS has been talking that up as well. So far at least 2 people in the US (a married couple) died after they ingested fish tank cleaner that happened to have chlorquine phosphate as an ingredient because they thought it would prevent them from getting covid

avazula

o_o

CaldeiraG

@Rainbacon what even

motosubatsu

@avazula indeed.. there's enough evidence from in-vitro work to make it worth investigating (and the WHO is doing just that), as you say though it's his ridiculous grandstanding without any real evidence (yet) to back it up that's the problem :(

Ælis

@avazula I am now. What's up? :)

Tinkeringbell

@Rainbacon And now there's a lawsuit because the bottle didn't explicitly warn against that?

avazula

3:32 PM

@Ælis 'was wondering if you would recommend Cucumber?

Ælis

@avazula Most definitively!

It's really is great. I even manage to make someone who isn't a programmer to write some cucumber tests!

avazula

mmh, I need to check it more throughly then. Thanks! :)

Ælis

You're welcome ^^ And don't hesitate if you have any questions. I really love Cucumber (and cucumbers :p )

Rainbacon

@Tinkeringbell Haven't heard of that yet

@avazula I also recommend it

avazula

Oh, good to hear :) is it free?

Rainbacon

3:40 PM

Yes

Ælis

And you can use it with a lot of different languages

(I use it with Java, but you can also use JavaScript or Ruby or ...)

avazula

yay

Ælis

Also, I use it for end to end testing, but I know some people who use it for unit test (it's less useful IMO but they seem to appreciate it)

Tinkeringbell

4:20 PM

@Rainbacon It's a joke... because that sounded like the thing Europeans make fun of Americans for.

M.A.R.

4:40 PM

@Tinkeringbell It's funny 'cause it's true

Tinkeringbell

Of course it is!

Extroverted Main Man

6:06 PM

0

Q: How can I assert my domain knowledge, while signalling openness to useful information, over email?

My current project at work is part of a product that many people use internally, with an active email list for user feedback. I recently pushed out a rather visible change and unsurprisingly someone started a thread on the list with some feedback. I replied to answer questions, and mentioned we ...

coworkers email professionalism written-interaction

Em C

@ExtrovertedMainMan took you a few minutes :p

Tinkeringbell

@EmC Isn't giving him a call an option?

Em C

@Tinkeringbell oh yeah. I did think about that briefly but forgot to mention.. downsides - seems aggressive, not sure it is actually worth the time (like I figure he's not API team if he told me to go talk to them)

Tinkeringbell

Mkay!

Em C

also.. he said that publicly on a big email list so I also kinda feel like I need to "defend" myself publicly (.. but am open to that just being an ego thing :p)

Tinkeringbell

6:27 PM

I'd go with a the sentence you said about funny laugh, add a smiley... :P

I think the big question for me is... (and this is probably totally off-topic)... how much do you trust your team to know you know what you're doing?

Em C

6:39 PM

@Tinkeringbell I think my engineering coworkers generally do. I am not quite as sure about the PM for this project. and this particular part of the project has been taking a lot longer than I originally expected :/

I was kind of worried that the next meeting after this exchange someone would ask me about it, but nobody did. could be for any number of reasons though

Tinkeringbell

Hmm. I'm writing something up now.

Hope it helps ;)

Em C

:D

Tinkeringbell

7:06 PM

@EmC Is there a person on that e-mail list whose job it is to talk with the API team if you need them to make changes to the API? ;)

Em C

@Tinkeringbell well in this case, that would be me

Tinkeringbell

Any problems with putting 'I'll talk to the API team to ask whether this change is possible' in your e-mail?

Em C

I don't know who on the API team to talk to? :p otherwise nah

Tinkeringbell

Prolly their team lead :P

Em C

... same problem haha

but more seriously I could ask around and I'm sure someone will know who to ping

Tinkeringbell

7:26 PM

@EmC Put that in the e-mail then. It'll also avoid it turning into a 1-on-1 with him :)

Posted, hope it helps.

Magisch

There's a special place in hell for people who respond with demeaning criticism to reply-all email chains

Em C

@Tinkeringbell thanks :D I like the theory background, I might need to re-read that part a couple times :)

@Magisch sometimes people post stuff to the list like - barely paraphrasing here - "[new feature] is terrible, how I can turn it off" and I feel so bad for the people on the team that are working on it

you know that's your coworkers you're talking to, right?? even if you don't personally know which ones? ugh

Tinkeringbell

Let me know if you'd like me to send you more on it from the book (there isn't much, but there's a little) and keep in mind it's only 1 of many theories! :)

Magisch

I subscribe to "Praise in public, criticise in private"

private criticism is much more likely to serve its purpose

Tinkeringbell

@Magisch Depends on the purpose ;)

Magisch

7:33 PM

well, I assume if you're critiquing, you're either trying to make the coworker do the next project better or to make them make changes

otherwise you're not critiquing, you're attacking

more or less

Tinkeringbell

Hmm. Maybe. I was thinking more of "sometimes you have to make things public so others become aware just how big the problem is". And that's not meant in an attacking way because if it gets too that, you've been keeping silent too long.

Magisch

that should usually come after giving private feedback

even if nothing the coworker can do will prevent you from making it public, it is a kindness to give them a heads up in private first, imo

Tinkeringbell

True, but it is an exception to the rule of 'praise in public, criticise in private' ;)

@Magisch Hmm. Standard mod advice says 'Don't make threats. If someone needs a time-out, give the time-out, don't threaten with a time-out'. There's something to say for 'you're getting a time-out'... but I'm not going to give a heads-up if someone is making the same mistake three times a week, I'm just going to say out loud 'again, this is the third time this week something like this happens, what can we do to prevent this'.

Magisch

well, you don't threaten the measure you will take

standard mod advice also says you don't air dirty laundry, so in that analogy you never go to the public criticism

you just take action

Tinkeringbell

Okay, what's an example of public criticism to you? I think we're thinking different things here.

Magisch

8:43 PM

@Tinkeringbell say someone is commenting in a way that upsets other people and is unconstructive

you don't go "user X was making inappropriate comments" in public

you warn/suspend and then tell user X what they did wrong and why

you might publicly say something if someone questions it, but you minimize the embarassment of user X, so to speak

that is a good policy for all walks of life. If you must critique in public, the kindest way to critique is most often the most effective

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