Useless Conversation

[Yegolev]

Do any of you assholes have solar panels?

[schild]

Do any of you assholes have solar panels?

There's a house down the street from us that has one. It's silly looking because it's not a tall house.

[Polysorbate80]

Sometimes I give our web address with a 'dot orgy'. But not blatantly, just enough that it makes the person pause and consider asking for clarification, then think that I'd never say such a thing and move on. Those brief moments of subversion are so special to me.

A friend of mine used to be a telephone operator.  She tells me if you replace "Thank you very much" with "Fuck you very much", spoken rapidly and cheerfully enough, the phone customer can never be quite sure what it was you said.

[Viin]

Do any of you assholes have solar panels?

My brother-in-law does, and I'm thinking of getting some. He likes them, says he doesn't quite net to $0 in electricity each year, but pretty close. However, he uses a lot of energy to cool/heat his quite large house. Probably not worth it unless you average $150/month+ in electricity usage.

[WayAbvPar]

Ikea has come out with their own electronic Stand Desk. As my Stand Desk had not arrived, though my wife's had, I requested a refund for the desk and all the extra bits. Much to my surprise, they are giving me said refund.

I expected no such behavior from a Kickstarter company. I'm pretty happy with them. Makes me almost wish I'd kept the desk. Almost. But given the total fucking nightmare of their cheap Chinese pieces, I'm glad I'm getting an Ikea one.

They STILL hadn't delivered? Was this a Corey Jacobs side project?

[Sky]

However, he uses a lot of energy to cool/heat his quite large house. Probably not worth it unless you average $150/month+ in electricity usage.

On the other hand, even if you're not currently using that much you could start to!

[Merusk]

Do any of you assholes have solar panels?

Been investigating it which I assume you are as well.  If you don't plan on living in your place for 10 mor years of don't have bills over 150 as Viin said its not totally worth it.  I thought of leasing but there's apparently some shady shit that can happen ther I'd rather avoid.

[Yegolev]

I'll die in this house and my electricity bills are too embarrassing to post here.  Researching vendors now.

[Merusk]

Good call then. Especially in GA, since you get more sun.

There was a reddit thread a while back that included all kinds of resources for those researching. I'll see if I can find it again.

Can't find the thread, but there's a whole subforum for questions, etc. /r/solar

http://energy.gov/eere/energybasics/articles/photovoltaic-technology-basics - Basic info for knowing the terms and types.

http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ - Calculator for estimating the size of the system you need.  You'll need to know about how much you've used over the last year. They show you where to find it on most bills.

[Rasix]

There should be a rule about me having to work with another company's beta software. 

[Chimpy]

Dealing with your company's production software is making me feel a bit like that this week (though probably totally unrelated to your group in said company) 

[Rasix]

Yah, I have to work with that garbage also.    Although typically they don't spring for the expensive stuff for us.  We mostly the bundled/entitled tools.   

[Sky]

I really enjoyed a couple years ago when I got denied for my new license of Fireworks. With no replacement. I've been getting by with GIMP, but I don't have a magic graphics elf that creates the shit people want!

Actually, I still have an old core solo mac mini that just runs legacy stuff I can't get approved for replacement. Some day I'll just recycle it and shrug when asked to do things without the appropriate tools. Maybe scan in a crayon drawing or something.

[Hawkbit]

Odd question:

If a member of an online community is perma-banned from the community, should they expect to receive an email confirming they were banned?  Or should they only find out when they attempt to log into the site?

I've never actually been banned from a site before and we're wondering how other sites with communities might handle these situations.

[Rishathra]

The usual procedure goes something like this.

[Hawkbit]

Ha!  I wish the people I work with understood the joke; it's the perfect answer.

[Trippy]

Odd question:

If a member of an online community is perma-banned from the community, should they expect to receive an email confirming they were banned?  Or should they only find out when they attempt to log into the site?

I've never actually been banned from a site before and we're wondering how other sites with communities might handle these situations.

We don't send emails. People find out when they try to log in. SMF does have a feature that will show a message if the log in fails if they are banned and we (I) sometimes use that.

[Hawkbit]

Thanks, Trippy.  Our lead is trying to argue that we should send ban notices to to people, and I'm trying to tell her that's like pouring gas on a fire.  Why the frak are we making more work for ourselves, especially when they're not users we want to retain?

   Small stuff is being sweated.

[Merusk]

I really enjoyed a couple years ago when I got denied for my new license of Fireworks. With no replacement. I've been getting by with GIMP, but I don't have a magic graphics elf that creates the shit people want!

Actually, I still have an old core solo mac mini that just runs legacy stuff I can't get approved for replacement. Some day I'll just recycle it and shrug when asked to do things without the appropriate tools. Maybe scan in a crayon drawing or something.

I assume you know about techsoup, but do you have no budget space for the $10 a month for Adobe Photograper suite?

It's only Photoshop & Lightroom but it's better than nothing.
https://creative.adobe.com/plans/photography

[Sky]

I've never used photoshop, so really I'm as well off with GIMP as that. It was so easy to crank stuff out in Fireworks!

[RhyssaFireheart]

Sky - have you tried Pixlr.com?  It's a browser based editing tool, has a few quirks that are easy to get used to (mostly with saving a file from what I've seen) but it's pretty much Photoshop with its tools and such.  I've used it here at work when I need to edit a graphic on the fly and it works pretty well, IMO.

[Ingmar]

Thanks, Trippy.  Our lead is trying to argue that we should send ban notices to to people, and I'm trying to tell her that's like pouring gas on a fire.  Why the frak are we making more work for ourselves, especially when they're not users we want to retain?

   Small stuff is being sweated.

Could you automate it? Assuming this is a business or school related forum with a code of conduct, the most important thing is probably to get across to the people who haven't been banned (yet) what the specific things that will get them in trouble are. Like maybe just a viewable log of bannings with a comment field or something.

I've always liked SA's "USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST" notation, as one option.

[schild]

Odd question:

If a member of an online community is perma-banned from the community, should they expect to receive an email confirming they were banned?  Or should they only find out when they attempt to log into the site?

I've never actually been banned from a site before and we're wondering how other sites with communities might handle these situations.

We don't send emails. People find out when they try to log in. SMF does have a feature that will show a message if the log in fails if they are banned and we (I) sometimes use that.

I used to use it. Now I just nuke accounts from orbit and sometimes remember to ban the IP. :fun:

[lamaros]

I'm mostly safe from temptation because most of the women in engineering aren't particularly heart-stopping, but when the exchange students from Sweden, Iceland and Finland come over, each one looking like a better version of Reese Witherspoon, I giggle hysterically watching the faculty fall over themselves to offer their advice.

That can't be very hard, at all.

[Hawkbit]

Thanks, Trippy.  Our lead is trying to argue that we should send ban notices to to people, and I'm trying to tell her that's like pouring gas on a fire.  Why the frak are we making more work for ourselves, especially when they're not users we want to retain?

   Small stuff is being sweated.

Could you automate it? Assuming this is a business or school related forum with a code of conduct, the most important thing is probably to get across to the people who haven't been banned (yet) what the specific things that will get them in trouble are. Like maybe just a viewable log of bannings with a comment field or something.

I've always liked SA's "USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST" notation, as one option.

We have a three strikes rule and the users are manually emailed on the first two major infractions.  On the third, we've been just banning people and then let them complain to us if they can't access.  Usually, if someone gets banned they don't actually fight it and most never complain.  For the first time in three years we had a user call us and flip on one of our leads, which caused her to decide to start manually emailing each banned user. 

In my experience, if we don't email people, most of the time they don't ask and just go away.  When we email people, they want to communicate back, which takes up our time explaining what they did wrong.  Which no longer matters, because on ban, it purges their data and we actively don't want them as a user anymore. 

If they can't follow the rules and we have to intervene three times, we don't really want the person anyways.  I'm a pretty big fan of not making more work for us than we need to, so her decision wasn't thought out, imo.

[Paelos]

Yeah you're inviting bullshit in my mind.

[Maven]

Pretend a defendant was able to argue with the judge after sentencing. It's rare that anything good comes from engaging a banned user. Exceptions certainly exist, I wouldn't ignore someone who engages in civil discussion with you as a customer. But if they take to the forums and start screaming bloody murder or evade IP bans to pretend he's the noble rebel against an unjust system... yeah.

[Selby]

I assume you know about techsoup, but do you have no budget space for the $10 a month for Adobe Photograper suite?

I've been using MS Paint for 10+ years because no one wants to shell any bucks out for anything that isn't for the art or marketing department.

[Merusk]

I assume you know about techsoup, but do you have no budget space for the $10 a month for Adobe Photograper suite?

I've been using MS Paint for 10+ years because no one wants to shell any bucks out for anything that isn't for the art or marketing department.

Good lord. At the least use GIMP.

[Rendakor]

4chan bans by IP, and when you try to post it tells you why you were banned and for how long. They've got an appeal process too if you're permabanned, but I don't think that gets reversed very often since you've got to really cross a line to earn that. I'm not sure if they email you if you're a 4chan pass user; I haven't been banned since that was a thing and they didn't have email addresses on file before.

[Sky]

I've been using MS Paint for 10+ years because no one wants to shell any bucks out for anything that isn't for the art or marketing department.

Good lord. At the least use GIMP.

This. It's primitive, but it gets the job done.

[Samwise]

I'm a big fan of Paint .NET.  It's got a lot of the basic stuff missing from Paint but it doesn't have a completely overwhelming interface if you're an art noob.

[Rendakor]

What features could they possibly have removed from MSPaint. Or is there another Paint I'm not familiar with?

[Yegolev]

He means that layers are a basic feature in 2014, and that these are missing from Paint.  I assume.  I don't use Paint.  I do use Paint.NET.

[Samwise]

He means that layers are a basic feature in 2014, and that these are missing from Paint.  I assume.  I don't use Paint.  I do use Paint.NET.

Yegolev is correct.  I meant it's not overwhelming as compared with Gimp or Photoshop (I've attempted to use both of those and find them equally baffling).