2/10 developers on standup didn't know what "AFK" stands for hmm...

Humans would not be as exact or as fast so I would say no that is not the case.

There are also problems that can only be solved via computation/simulation that wouldn't be possible to achieve meaningful results with humans doing things manually, or at least in a meaningful amount of time.

May not be gamers...

I would receive an IM, all of the coworkers in my department would receive a hit a few seconds later. I'd be replying and I'd hear: "daveT, the boss sent you an IM." Great, tell him I'm replying, wtf?

If for whatever reason I did not see the IM (I became immune to flashing icons on my computer) and no one else noticed because you know, they were busy, the boss would come into the office 3 minutes later: "Hey, daveT, did you get my IM?"

I remember sitting there completely paralyzed, unable to get started working because I was too frightened that the ****ing IM would start flashing. I'm still getting over my disdain and general phobia of flashing anything.

I think in all the years I've used IM, I could count on one hand how many times it legit helped me better than picking up the phone or standing up and walking a minute to the other side of the building and you know... talking to the person.

The worst was "hey, what's up dave? How's it going?" Hi, I'm nine months behind and completely terrorized by IM, and no, I don't get the same thrill from seeing flashing icons on my screen as everyone else. I was in a great mood until 3 seconds ago.

I have no clue what AFK means. Send me the definition in IM.

I think there certainly needs to be a course on IM etiquette, but used properly it is definitely a force for good.

Away from keyboard = AFK if I remember correctly.

Effectively using a status can help with the IM issues as well. Need time set your status accordingly.

Setting the status to anything but "available" was verboten. In fact, the first thing we did in the morning was turn on our IM. If it wasn't on within 5 minutes of our start time, we received a phone call demanding why it wasn't on.

Jees sounds like a terrible use of a tool.

Maybe IM is like sushi; it's all in how you are introduced to it.

haha, probably true.

still, with what we've been learning about flow lately, seems like IMs popping in at random intervals would be considered a bad thing

IM is a tool like the phone or email. Used correctly it can be a massive productivity boost. Used incorrectly it can be a massive productivity drain.

For sure. I think that depending on the bottom people to prioritize their own work is a bad strategy. Someone somewhere needs to be a filter. It is the endless "tasks," many that simply never need to be done, or will be part and parcel of the work being done regardless, that causes needless disruptions. Should just be one conduit to it all, and it also helps having management that doesn't think they are Steve Jobs at the helm. The more Jobsian the management, the more the filter is needed.

I honestly can't imagine going back to pre-Slack working communication.

How did anyone get anything done before!!!!???

testing out embedding a local video into a local webpage. Both in the same folder on my computer for testing purposes. Using the html5 video tags for an mp4 video.

In chrome, it plays the video, but it's got crazy stutter. No audio.
Firefox doesn't do anything. IE just shows a crash-looking thing where the video should be.

Trying to upload to youtube for now, but the video's like an hour long and processing is taking ages. Would really rather host the content locally, but if I can't get it to play properly with sound, not much choice I can envision.

So I've been using dropbox on ubuntu. A few months ago I set dropbox to sync with an older dropbox account to see what I had in there. When making the switch it had me select a directory to sync with dropbox. I don't remember exactly what happened but I know I somehow selected the same /Dropbox directory I had been using, one of those 'wtf did I just do?' moments. So I noticed it deleted all my files in that directory but assumed I could resync with the old drop box account if needed & didn't have anything especially important in there anyway.

Welp, today after searching for some bitcoin ewallet credentials I reason I must have put a file in the old dropbox account. So I set dropbox to use my other account, this time making a backup beforehand & making sure I don't overwrite the current directory... and go figure the other dropbox account is completely empty.

I guess when switching accounts, as it overwrote the old dropbox directory it was still synced with my 1st account & therefore deleted everything. It seems crazy to me that one click could wipe out not just the files on your computer but all your backups on dropbox, as well as any files on other computers that were online & synced to dropbox.

Thankfully it was only like 30 bucks in btc. I could easily see this be a disaster for someone who keeps a significant amount of data in a dropbox synced directory without other backups.

lol after writing all that I check and realize I somehow have a 3rd dropbox account...

with my btc info safely intact



im dumb

Haha, nice!

Sorry if anyone here works on these things, but...



Absolute POS and nightmare. Everything from the design to the half-assed software is way below par, and surely Coke can do a bit better. They put a massive gash into IOT (yeah, they internet to work, whatever). I'd say the positive is that no one got poisoned from them, but I wouldn't count on it.

All soda fountains are potential human killers. Things breed bacteria like you wouldn't believe.

Meh bacteria are everywhere so pretty much everything breeds it like crazy haha.

But yea just moisture alone would breed bacteria like crazy now add sugar perfect environment haha.

Wait am I missing some context here?

Those things have a clunky UI but in my experience are totally usable and make a great soda.

Who wants to work selling sugar water, when you can change the world.

Vending machines wouldn't be that hard to upgrade, the software for most programmers could easily be made.
I have no idea why they don't launch a global app for all smart devices, to be able to communicate with selling machines and order/purchase seamlessly.
That is not hard to do, specially if the newer machines can hookup to wifi or even have an internet connection (not needed).

The people that are pushing for voice recognition are also consumers. They understand how to add a simple process, of starting and completing a purchase by voice. Not sure why that isn't even default option, no buttons needed to be touched and it wouldn't be bad having to talk to order/pay for something.

Like this discussion could have happened 2 years ago.
I don't know what is taking so long or where the money is going.

There doesn't ever need to be a line by a machine with beautifully designed software that communicates with other machines that consumers own.
Have possibility of 4+ pickups from one machine, should not be in a corner of space but be able to dispense by any angle of the machine.

I might be old but give me buttons over voice commands any day.

It doesn't have to be an experience by voice "commands" and could very much could be like tapping your owned device. Next a flick of your finger towards the device you want to interact with and simply say, "purchase x product" and done.
Everything else, like when to dispense, can be handled by p2p device messaging between devices.

That is an experience that isn't like voice commands or buttons any day.

Gavin Belson: Play John Lennon’s Imagine!
Virtual Assistant: queuing John Wayne in a mansion