[edit] yep, locked. Thanks NullUserException! Now another quick bet with myself that someone will reply to this comment defending S.O.s repeated closure of interesting questions.
The historical lock is an appeasement for those who like to binge on candy all day long and not realise a site built on 90% candy is no place for quality.
You're laying bets all over the place. How about putting forth a cogent argument why these type of questions need to reside on Stack Overflow and not on reddit or Hacker News?
Does the fact that this question is locked diminish its value or the value of Stack Overflow in any way?
Of course, Stack Overflow is not made for interesting questions. Notice that I am not defending this descision, I am merely stating it. You know this, which is why you were accurately able to predict that this question would be closed. Why is this interesting enough to warrant commenting that this is the case also today?
The message that sends to me is "Your question isn't worthy of our site. Go away."
So, yeah, it does make using the site less pleasant, and thus reduces its value to me.
It's a classic example of cart-before-the-horse product thinking. Users aren't there to follow your orders; they're people with actual needs that you're trying to serve. I get that they don't want the site to be overrun with goofy content, because that prevents you from serving other actual needs. But there are better solutions than tasking a large number of people with running around and jerkily stomping out anything that doesn't fit the owners' precise vision.
I think this is the exact mistake that Friendster made. And really, the same one Google Plus made. Neither of those products were built for the users; they were built to serve the owners' desires.
It seems like 9/10 of the useful questions are closed by mods, though the answer is usually there anyway. I'm not sure what to make of that, but the quality there is still high.
Surely you can make a good case for it on meta.stackoverflow.com?
Interestingly, this HN submission is illustrating the original reason Jeff Atwood locked the post in 2009 - nobody can be bothered to even read the first page before posting their own joke.
If they don't get those mods on a leash pretty soon, someone else will come along and drink their milkshake and I won't have to do anything.
Also, if you are betting with yourself, doesn't it mean that you lose when you win?
> Fortunately, it was all closing parentheses.
(I know what you're going to say… but the parent joke predates incremental garbage collection.)
}
});
};
}());> A Chinese spy manages to steal the last 50MB of the program governing U.S. missile launches. Fortunately, it was all closing parentheses.
or
> A Chinese spy manages to steal the last 50MB of the program governing U.S. missile launches. Fortunately, it was Lisp.
Fortunately it was in Lisp, so it was all closing parentheses.
A Chinese spy stole the last 48MB of the Abram's targeting system. To our good fortunes this was only the closing parentheses.
The usual:
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those
that understand binary and those that don't.
There are 11 kinds of people in the world, those
that understand binary and those that don't.
There are 3 kinds of people in the world, those
who can count, and those who can't.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those
that understand binary, those that don't, and
those that didn't expect this joke to be in
ternary.
There are 11 kinds of people in the world, those
who understand binary and those who confuse it with Gray code....or off by 1 error.
OK, I'm confused too :)
Also the proper syntax is 0b10 not 10.
The class system has dissolved and the state controls everything.
And now that I think about it, enterprise systems may be fully realized soviet states. There are long queues for often meager returns, there are a large number of factories that produce mysterious junk, security policies are both incomprehensible and harsh, and to get anything done, you have to know somebody.
You may want to start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm
Of course, to bring this back on topic, as a software guy I'm inclined to think it's a hardware problem.
"Instead, for Coase the main reason to establish a firm is to avoid some of the transaction costs of using the price mechanism. These include discovering relevant prices (which can be reduced but not eliminated by purchasing this information through specialists), as well as the costs of negotiating and writing enforceable contracts for each transaction (which can be large if there is uncertainty). Moreover, contracts in an uncertain world will necessarily be incomplete and have to be frequently re-negotiated. The costs of haggling about division of surplus, particularly if there is asymmetric information and asset specificity, may be considerable."
The license number was "CAR JPG".
I SO wish I had a pic to prove this.
I don't see the '@' anywhere which leads me to believe this may be a fake/photoshop. Still, quite interesting... :)
In your picture it would be covered by the license plate frame.
The barman replies "Hello, you'd like a beer?"
"Yes," replies the TCP packet, "I'd like a beer."
I'd tell you my UDP packet joke, but I'm not sure you'd get it.
A neutrino walks into a bar."
(read on /. years ago IIRC)
"Old MacDonald had a farm,
E-I-E-I-O
And on that farm he had an infinite recursion
E-I-E-I-O
With an
Old MacDonald had a farm,
E-I-E-I-O
And on that farm he had an infinite recursion ..."
That is, the cow says "Moo", the sheep says "baa", and the infinite recursion says "That is, the cow says "Moo", the sheep says "baa", and the infinite recursion says "That is, the cow says "Moo", the sheep says "baa", and the infinite recursion says "That is, the cow says "Moo", the sheep says "baa", and the infinite recursion says "That is, the cow says "Moo", the sheep says "baa", and the infinite recursion says StackOverflowException was unhandled
An unhandled exception of type
'System.StackOverflowException' occurred in Pxtl.dll
Make sure you do not have an infinite loop or infinite recursion.
An engineer and an accountant are on a train when they pass between two fields of sheep.
"Boy, there are a lot of sheep in those fields." says the engineer.
"There are 1,005" says the accountant.
"How do you know?"
"Well, there are about 1,000 in that field, and there are 5 in the other one."
This is also why, when combining floating-point values of different widths, it is better to say single + double -> double than single + double -> single, and why the concept of "significant figures" as commonly taught in schools is dangerous.
It would help if they allowed open-ended questions that are marked "community wiki" (which means the author doesn't get points for the post). But you'd still end up with a lot of off-topic content getting upvoted on the front page which would be annoying.
And then we'd have quora, which would not be Stack Overflow. The intention of the site from day one was to encourage specific answerable programming questions that do not involve endless open ended discussion.
I truly believe this narrow scope of acceptable question type is why the site is hugely popular.
I don't understand how people don't get this even after five and a half years.
At some point the car malfunctions and comes to a stop. The following discussion ensues:
GE guy: "It's because there are some crossed wires in the electrical system that regulates the engine."
DuPont Guy: "Don't be ridiculous, this is clearly caused by a wrong mix of gasoline and oxygen going into the cylinders."
MS guy: "Why don't we all get out of the car, close the doors, reopen the doors, get back into the car, and try again."
An electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer and a software engineer from Microsoft are riding in a car, when they start down a steep hill. Halfway down the brakes go out and the car crashes into a tree at the bottom of the hill. Luckily, no one is hurt, so they get out and start analyzing what happened.
Electrical engineer: Clearly a short-circuit in the ABS system caused the brakes to go out.
Mechanical engineer: No, no, it was an over-pressure situation that caused a brake line to rupture.
They both turn to the Microsoft guy and ask him for his opinion:
Microsoft guy: I don't know, but let's push the car back to the top of the hill and try it again.
Q: How can you recognize a field circus engineer
with a flat tire?
A: He's changing one tire at a time to see which one
is flat.
Q: How can you recognize a field circus engineer
who is out of gas?
A: He's changing one tire at a time to see which one
is flat.
Q: How can you tell it's *your* field circus engineer?
A: The spare is flat, too. [1]
[1] The Jargon File is full of little gems like this. http://zvon.org/comp/r/ref-Jargon_file.html#Terms~field_circ...
The engineer hops out of the car and begins inspecting the brakes for the source of the failure. The physicist grabs a pad of paper and starts calculating the maximum angular momentum and friction coefficients.
The computer programmer looks at the car, then at the mountain and says, "let's push it up to the top and see if it happens again."
Logn time
The assembly panel is very funny.
>If you're happy and you know it, missing quote
missing quote
>IfYoureHappyAndYouKnowItNotAVerb
Not a verb
>If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it, If you're happy and you know it, syntax error
syntax errorWhen I teach introductory computer science courses, I like to lighten the mood with some humor. Having a sense of fun about the material makes it less frustrating and more memorable, and it's even motivating if the joke requires some technical understanding to 'get it'!
When put in this context, I think the question has some value. Being honest, programming can be very dry at times. The most mirth inducing stuff I have read in relation to programming is when programmers complain about programming languages, I think SO had a question addressing this issue.
Because Oct 31 == Dec 25.
I was hoping that were a joke :(
Architect: Of course God was an architect! Look at the world! It's so beautiful and well composed!
Engineer: Nah, you don't know what you're saying! God was an engineer! Look at the universe and all it contains!
Programmer: Pfft... who do you think created chaos?
- Javascript programmers have no class.
- Psst...did you hear Haskell is stateless? Pass it on.
Because he couldn't C#.
Stolen from the Bad C Pun Contest in the C/C++ User's Journal, in 1992. But I've never forgotten it.
There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who understand binary,
Those who don't,
And those who count from zero.Race condition.
Who is there?